Entrepreneurs and Engineers Was Re: Not "Satanism;" realism.

[Steve Cohen <stevecoh@mcs.com>]

Mark Hinds wrote:

> Brett Glass wrote:
>
> > Cygnus is a group that has, since its inception, accepted the notion
> > that programmers should be day laborers rather than creators of
> > intellectual capital. They're willing to run on the consulting
> > "treadmill." Most programmers, however, dream of being more
> > entrepreneurial.
> >
> > --Brett
>
> Most dream of this? Possibly, but dream only. The people I know
> in software, myself included, expect only to work and be paid for it.
> For most (all that I know), intellectual property is something that
> their employer owns and always will. I accept this 'day laborer'
> notion.
>
> Intellectual property will end up in the hands of those with money.
> I personally do no like or accept this. This does not make me a
> communist.
> I simply have drawn a line beyond which capitalism must not go.
>
> Your idea of us foolishly relinquishing our right to knowledge to
> support
> the entrepreneurial fantasies a few is not acceptable. Our only defense
> against the eventual hoarding of knowedge by those who can afford it
> is something like the GPL.
>
> Mark Hinds
> Software day and night laborer

Mark, I applaud your realism.  I'm not sure from where comes this notion
that in order to be a success you must be an entrepreneur above all else.
In what other field is this the case?  Is a doctor an entrepreneur?  A
lawyer need not be an entrepreneur to be successful.

In reality there are several reasons one might choose NOT to be an
entrepreneur.  First, one might want to expend effort on making a better
product rather than promoting one that was not as good.  Oftentimes this
is a real choice that must be made.  Secondly, one might prefer not to
become engaged in the administrivia that goes with running your own
business.  Thirdly, as the "open source" community seems to have
appreciated, by adopting this stance they have made themselves harder for
Microsoft to attack.  I like to think that virtue is its own reward: if
I am decently paid and able to enjoy the creative side of my work - what
more do I need?  Most people would be thrilled with such a life.

My own experience with software entrepreneurs has been decidedly mixed at
best.  As a self-taught programmer with no credentials, my options when
getting into this field were limited.  I found an entrepreneur who
promised in his want ad to "overwork and underpay" me but that I would
have fun.  He hired me because I passed his test proving that I did know
assembly language and was willing, given my circumstances, to work cheap.
But this guy was seriously delusional; his assembly-language application
was a business app for small mail-order businesses.
Someone had told him that to get real speed on a PC one had to use
assembly language.  So he learned the basics of AL (I came to realize that
he only understood the basics and refused to learn anything more -
"structs - what for") and began plinking away in his attic.

He had a lot of fun in the first two years taking phone calls from
customers.
"Oh, you want that feature, no problem, I'll put it in right now".
Eventually his sloppiness and lack of documentation made maintenance a
problem even for himself and he had to hire others.  His code was a
nightmare and the proprietary data formats he used were unreadable outside
his program.  It wasn't fun anymore.

He used to spin before his employees fantasies of the great software
empire he was building.  It was funny.  HIs company was going nowhere but
these fantasies kept him going.  We started to design a Windows version in
about 1992.  It was impossible to get him to abandon any potential market
for his product in spite of the fact that this lack of focus made design
impossible.  Mail-order, his niche, was "too confining."  The new product
would have to be suitable for ANY business.  Amazingly, he's still in
business.  The Windows version is still promised "real soon now."  That's
right, they've been selling a DOS version all these years.  If he hadn't
inherited wealth and his wife were not a doctor, his business would have
folded long ago.

Yet I cannot be TOTALLY negative about the guy.  You do need entrepreneurs
in this world.  If Bruce had been as level-headed and reasonable as I, his
business would never have gotten off the ground - and I still might not
have been able to find a job.

But I reject the notion that without entrepreneurial fire in your belly,
you're somehow less than fully alive.  In many ways the professions of
engineering and entrepreneurship are not an ideal fit.  The engineer must
by definition, be careful and painstaking.  He must anticipate how things
could go wrong and take steps to prevent them.  He must be a skeptic, if
not a pessimist.  The entrepreneur on the other hand must be at least an
optimist (many cross the lines into charlatanism, but we won't get into
that here) in order to convey to his customers reasons to buy his
product.  Doubt and insecurity must be banished from his mind-set as it
was for my delusional employer.

I would say that the combination of these two traits in a single
individual is exceedingly rare.  It is not the norm.
And I will insist on respect for the non-entrepreneurial engineer.