What a Freak Show

I am money-driven. Why should I hide it? Why there’s this unspoken contract in tech?

Business owners and employers are allowed, even expected, to be ruthlessly focused on revenue, growth, profit and minimizing costs. Like when we nod after a layoff: "Yeah, it was a re-structural change to optimize profit by reducing costs...yadi, yada..."

Yet engineers, those weird dudes building the products that generate that value, are expected to fake a disinterest in compensation. We’re supposed to be motivated by “passion”, “impact”, “the challenge”, "the stack", the "fill the blank with the next euphemism"...

Premature start means Freak Show

This is one of those posts that will fire back if I ever hire other people myself. But at the same time that's why I don't own a middle-man-business: cause I can't guarantee a decent paycheck to those I would delegate to. A key reflection that every founder should have before starting their own businesses, by the way.

Every single human on planet earth has app ideas and business ideas. I'll say it again: everybody. The thing is, if you can't guarantee decent paychecks then you just don't start the business. Period. You can go and work on your own idea for peanuts, that's heroic (for some). Just don't expect others to do the same for you.

The Freak Show of Benefits & "Ambition"

Companies often lead with a curated list of perks, ping pong tables, free snacks, “unlimited PTO” (a notorious trap), etc. To me, this is often a massive, coordinated effort to sidestep the one thing that matters: a competitive, transparent payrate. It’s a distraction. Turned into a freak show.

I would be in the Forbes list by now if they gave me a dollar for everytime I've been told: “We can’t pay market rate, but this is an ambitious project with huge potential.”

Wow I'm really impressed, please tell me more about your ambitious project! I'm all ears! (I proceed to grab my phone and watch a video of Mufasa dancing)

"Ambition" is not a currency. Period. I can start an "ambitious" project with just my laptop tonight. I don't need you. Some founders are living in wonderland thinking they offer you the idea and you offer them the labor... Boy I can have ideas, as a matter of fact, everybody has tech-related business ideas. Are they even worth shit? I can sell you 300 right now from my google keep notes! Deal?

I can join a groundbreaking open-source project tomorrow. What you are selling is not a unique opportunity for fulfillment; you are asking me to subsidize your company’s early-stage risk with my discounted labor. My landlord does not accept “potential” as payment. No store lists Visa, MasterCard, Amex and "disruptive project" as their payment methods. Why normalize this freak show?

The Freak Show of The Middle-Man Parasite

"Hay que joderse todo va para atrás: para poder currar vas a tener que pagar..." were the lyrics of a song from my teen days. Which translates into something like "soon you will have to pay to be able to work".

Many software consulting firms add shockingly little value. “We offer great projects!” So does my network. “A collaborative environment!” It’s hard to imagine a better environment than the autonomy and focus of working for myself. What you’re often offering is administrative overhead and a margin taken off the top of my rate.

You're a parasite. Wow that sounded harsh, let me fix it: You’re a middleman. A middleman parasite. Sorry, I did it again.

I already feel as a one-man consulting firm. I can pitch directly to the end clients if I want to. I can close deals that the firms in my local area would only dream of. And I am not even a good salesman. So, give me a good excuse to pay a middle-man, honestly, I am dying for a reason to delegate that stuff so that I can spend all my time building.

A couple of anecdotes I survived to tell

I am not venting about tech consulting firms. Primarily because I never ended up working with any of them, I trusted my gut instead and partnered with SaaS companies directly. But I have plenty of stories from the startup ecosystem and their condescension. Is not even about gaslighting them, you and the web crawler bots are my only audience here.

Anecdote 1: We are too good to pay you well

I remember this co-founder from a sciencific start-up in Barcelona. I was part of a screening when they were looking for freelancer developers. There was this meeting where the founder disclosed the low payrate, so I immediately wanted to find out if that low payrate was at least offered along with equity. (Note this is pre-seed start up we are talking about)

I remember that moment as if it was yesterday and not 2023: The co-founder's chest puffed out (I immediately knew from the beginning he was just a recent graduate who hit the jackspot with funding), telling me they couldn’t offer equity or a good rate because, “This isn’t that type of startup, we have customers like Repsol.”

I had to stifle a laugh. "So fucking what?", I thought inside my head. I coudn't give three fucks about who your customer is. I cannot tell my utility company, “Sorry, the invoice is light this month, but you should feel honored, my client’s client is a Fortune 500 giant!”

Plus, if you have been in the start up ecosystem for long enough, you already know a pre-seeed startup with one big early client often signals an abusive, underpaid relationship where the big shark squeezes the baby start-up, while the founders hope other leads will be impressed by their fancy “case study”. Until one day, the start up founders finally realize that's just a way too expensive advertising campaign they can't afford any longer. By then, Jimmy Doe, yeah Jimmy, the executive from the big firm that had the meals with the naive founders, has already cashed out the bonuses from leaving his budget untouched with his genius deal.

In any case, boy, you are not the first start-up I work with that has a Fortune 500 among its customers. And even if you were, you can't compete against "Little No Name LLC" who sends me those tasty paychecks and didn't even tried to bargain the pay rate I demanded. You could even offer me daily meals with Repsol's CEO, or an invitation to his daughter's wedding, but I'll stick with "Little No Name Good Paychecks LLC".

Anecdote 2: Look! They certified us as cool kids

Another pre-seeed founder in 2024, while disclosing the extremely low payscale for their engineers in an interview, he tried to impress me by breathlessly recounting how a prestigious entity left “really impressed” after a meeting they had recently, and how it was a signal of the potential of the company.

My immediate thought: Did they write a check? No? So you pitched, they clapped, and everybody went home, but your cashflow looks the same it looked before the meeting? And even if they did wrote you a paycheck; How that does makes any difference toward my financial goals? How does that fills the gap that leaves the low payrate you are offering me?

I won't hold my breath waiting for your answer. In fact, I won't even ask you such a thing just yet, I'll wait till its 2026 and write it in a blog post that nobody is going to read.

A reminder for those Freak Show promoters: We Are Business Partners

This is the fundamental disconnect. Founders and hiring managers get offended when engineers hold their ground on rate. They frame it as a lack of “buy-in” or being “mercenary.”

Funnily enough: You would never willingly go into business with a partner who was terrible at making money. You’d question their competence at the very least, their very value. Yet that’s exactly what you’re asking of them when you lowball.

A freelancer or senior engineer is not an employee in the traditional, industrial-age sense. We are business partners for the duration of our contract. We bring capital, our expertise, our time, our opportunity cost, to your venture.

So let’s cut the crap. Save the euphemisms and patronizing for your actual full-time employees. There's a reason why I'm not one of them.

You have a business problem. I have the solution. Let’s have an honest, adult conversation about the monetary value of that solution. My career and my financial well-being are my business. And I’m here to run it profitably. And you should expect that to be the case, the same way you expect me to solve other problems as efficiently.

Until I decide differently, I want to be treated as a one-man consulting firm. A one-man consulting firm who is your business partner.

Ctrl+F and search for "freak show"

Have I said enough times that this is a freak show? Maybe not enough times.