Oh, an article about global warming, let me get my checklist

☑ no useful set of data presented (anecdotal evidence, selection bias)

☑ failure to understand nonlinear, chaotic systems

☑ logical fallacies (we have other issues that have people more worried, so climate change is solved)

☑ sweeping generalisations

☑ a bit of conspiracy theory thrown in for good measure

I think I'll pass, and go for a walk outside, where unusually for the season, there is no snow!

Every computer I've ever had has failed. Even the ones that are working now, I expect to fail sometime relatively soon.

Some statistically small time after that, I'll fail as well. Bummer.

Every bias I've owned has failed me.

I wish I could upvote this a hundred times. It's been a couple of years since I've consulted, but almost every piece of advice in this article is good.

I take some issue with his finance section, but it looks like he's a set up as a Sole Proprietorship (it's a bad idea if you're consulting by the way; set up an LLC or a Corporation, and spend a few bucks on a CPA). It's risky to run all your personal accounts in line with your business accounts; I think most people here understand why (in case you don't, this is where "piercing the corporate veil" occurs).

Otherwise, there are tons of great pointers in here, including more than a few that I wished I had thought about when I was consulting.

If you're thinking about consulting I would seriously print this out and read it multiple times; I know it would have saved me some heartache when I was getting things figured out.

That's so wrong in every way. A proper work-life balance makes you more effective at both. Hours worked is shown very strongly in studies to follow the law of diminishing returns, to the point of even turning negative.

If you're sacrificing friendships and family, you're not doing it right. And not only that, even if you succeed you'll end up wishing you didn't. I've seen this happen.

For every Mark Cuban there are 1,000 entrepreneurs who succeed without working 90 hours a week.

5 paragraphs about country doctors notwithstanding, it costs more to constantly acquire new clients than it does to continue servicing a steady client. It also makes your pipeline more predictable, and it generates word-of-mouth business. Companies continue to do business with people they like doing business with. Customer service is a win.

Haha yes. And in 37signals land, they're somehow still a startup, you only have to work 32 hours per week to be successful, multiple anecdotes = data, and feelings trump reality.

Awesome, now somebody go back in time 3 months and release this so I could have not spent that time writing the same thing (okay, not exactly the same, mine isn't nearly as pluggable).

Steve Jobs:

"When you're young, you look at television and think, There's a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that's not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That's a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the bastards! We can have a revolution! But the networks are really in business to give people what they want. It's the truth."

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.02/jobs_pr.html

This really doesn't make any sense at all.

There are some horrid logos in there, and some very well done ones as well. My favorite: http://media.nokrev.com/junk/haskell-logos/logo9.png

Wow. That was really excessive. I can't imagine why Joel felt the question merited that kind of response.

My feelings mirror one of the other comments in the thread: most software jobs suck. Not everyone can work at Google or Fog Creek, and outside of the protected bubbles of the major tech centers, software work tends to be a tedious grind. (Even in the protected bubbles, I know a lot of dissatisfied techies -- free soda remains charming for only so long when you're working insane hours in a cube, on death-march projects, taking all of your creative orders from the MBA with the corner office.)

The sad thing is, I think that Joel and the guy posing the question are both partly correct: the software industry does pay really well for new grads, and yet it does discriminate against older techies. Programming is a questionable long-term career choice. Instead of insulting the guy for asking a question, why not have a discussion about the problems he perceives? Software may be better than ditch digging, but that doesn't mean that programmers should be eternally complacent and unquestioning minions of code.

Considering one of the first rounds of money that a startup takes is usually friends & family, I would suggest not sacrificing them.

You can maintain a healthy social life, or marriage, or keeping in touch with family, and still succeed. Read Balsamiq's story: http://www.balsamiq.com/blog/?p=79 - It's not the largest sample size, but he's not the only one doing it.

Your family and friends should support you. My wife understands the life, she understands that when I'm in "the zone" to put my dinner in the fridge and I'll reheat it later. I gave my wife 12 hours notice that 3 other rails hackers would be in our house for a weekend for RailsRumble - she went out and bought groceries and cooked for us. When the internet went down that weekend, her father came to our rescue and opened his lawfirm's office for us to work from - the end result, we won RailsRumble 2008 - and we did it with the support of our families.

The fact that I have obligations (Mortgage, Student Loans, Car Payment) keeps me focused.