You Are Not a Commodity [audio]
I really enjoyed this entire podcast. One of the best parts (starting at about 21 minutes in), are the counterarguments. So many of these arguments are what I hear out of a lot of engineers. Compensation, loyalty, stability, leverage, and mentorship. He really explains what these arguments are, why people psychologically hang on to these arguments, and why they are fallacies. At the same time, he is very careful to show why it&#x27;s ok to work for corporations. But if you are going to work at a corporation, at least understand that there are other ways to not be in a situation where you are a commodity, this is so worth listening to.<p>The one thing that seems to be missing from his podcast is that he never really talks about the downside of breaking off on your own. There are many counterarguments to breaking off on your own, and honestly they follow well with the counterargument for why you SHOULD leave your corporate job.<p>For example, one of the counterarguments he gives it the compensation counter argument. Yet it is true, corporate engineers DO make a very high level of compensation per working unit compared to, well, just about every other job in the world (by percentage anyway). Stability is another counterargument. Going out on your own is not actually all that stable. He argues that going on your own isn&#x27;t nearly as unstable as people think. I argue it is not nearly as stable is big corporate engineering life.<p>Now this isn&#x27;t to stay you shouldn&#x27;t go out on your own. I honestly think you should. Listen to the podcast, stop being a commodity.