One of my problems with being a part of the construction end of making software for a long time has been the deep knowledge of my ultimate replaceablility. Write code? Someone else can write it cheaper somewhere else. Think you're fast? Someone else is faster still. As one gets older and more "senior" one's value to an organization gets harder and harder to justify.
Never mind that coding may be what you love, unless you are a maker of ideas -- either as a product generator or as a central repository of some difficult to assemble expertise, in the end, you will be fighting to protect your existence as a more and more expensive cog in someone else's wheel until you retire.
Seth Godin takes a swipe at defining a cog's life problems here saying "The end result is that it's essentially impossible to become successful or well off doing a job that is described and measured by someone else." He's riffing off the idea that all work becomes as codified and automated as the innovator -- the person who is raking in the profits -- can make it.
For each of us in the modern era, the message is clear. That innovator needs to be you.
Posted by karen at March 4, 2005 01:25 PM