One software metric is that the bottom programmers are half as productive as the average programmers, yet a whopping 1/10th as productive as the top programmers.

So given that range, as an employer, why would you hire even the average programmers? Or, if you’re a top progammer, why would you accept less than double the average programmer’s salary?

This begs the question…who did ERE better than you?

I followed the link for the person who did ERE better than you.

I enjoy the idea that the best people do things 10x better than the worst people. It really emphasizes that we all need to focus on our strengths and that our place in a global world is doing what we do best. Enjoyment is a huge factor in productivity.

I was way surprised to hover over your “This guy” link and see our site! I totally appreciate the shout-out, but you’re the guru for extreme early retirement. (Perhaps even in the ‘following’ sense, as we’ll probably find ourselves in your ‘hood when we pick up the RV.)

We may be younger than you, but it’s not quite accurate to say that we ‘did ERE better than you.’ We did it very differently, and the huge thing you have going for you is that your method would work for most people while ours wouldn’t. (Our ‘method’ was a combination of early marriage, relatively high earnings, somewhat controlled expenses, and inspiration and ideas from this site.)

Like Andy said, this also relates to the careerism post (the post two previous to this): might as well accept that even if you’re at your best, there will still always be that person who has more “star” status or recognition, etc. etc. – or even who is actually better.

I was just about to relate it to careerism, but realized you already had done so.

Perhaps rather than going into business for myself and dealing with all those headaches, I should just find my sweet spot – although I work on an hourly basis – and challenge myself in other areas. Gives me something to ponder.

@JohnnyH

We’re not retired now in the traditional sense, but if we adopted Jacob-style spending habits we could easily be. Alternately, if we decided to supplement our investment income in a relatively minor amount we could retire today on a very low withdrawal rate without changing our spending habits. (A very weird thing to write, honestly – although it’s something we’re strongly considering.)

We’re certainly privileged in many senses, but we don’t come from old money, haven’t been given our wealth, and worked hard to get where we are.

Of the things you mentioned, those that apply to us are: working moderate wage jobs since our early teens (more my wife), college paid for (full scholarship), working well-paying jobs in New York City for a couple of years out of college, and not getting sucked into the materialistic and spending-focused world of NYC young professional life.

Thinking about my previous sentence, it’s amazing to me how those few things resulted in our current position.

I wouldn’t mind sharing a bit more, and expect to post about the details sometime in the future. (We haven’t yet decided how much to share, but I think we’re pretty open.)

Hope that helped a bit. Cheers.

@JohnnyH
Saving 50% of earnings (in one way or another) since my first job (12), through college (scholarship-paid), and into career life. My lifestyle has escalated to match raises in income. However, saving is a way of life.

I’m not super-keen on the ‘quit my job’ mentality, but becoming self-sufficient and depending on no others is a very similar goal. Besides, I like what I do, and it makes me happy.

“For age and want, save while you may; no morning sun lasts the whole day”.

Excellent post Jacob. Short and Sweet. I’ve never considered my achievements as routine to someone more talented, this post has really expanded my mind and will surely help me to achieve more.

@George –> That might depend on the programmer. I took over from a very, very productive programmer. I rewrote his 80,000 lines of code into just over 25,000. So, it’s way smaller (which suggests I’m lazy?) but does the exact same thing (this time without bugs) but runs 10 faster? I suggest you sometimes hire the efficient programmer over the extremely productive one. Good programming isn’t about writing a Dickens novel. 🙂