I know some people who've come as far as "Be Mark Zuckerberg or die trying", completely rejecting any business model that isn't two guys coding in a garage.
I believe the idea behind that perspective is that the aggressive startup model will lead to either failure or fabulous success, whereas a more traditional career will lead to only incremental improvements to your lot in life. Some people are attracted to that.
For someone to get out of the way, he first has to be in the way. You make the general assumption that a manager is bad unless he actively changes his style. I cannot challenge this assumption for I have no data or ideas on where to find some concerning if managers are universally good or bad. And even then employee satisfaction might not be the only metric to measure success. Although I do think that having fun at work is one of the most, if not the most important metric. Many things would be better if everyone enjoyed their work.
No no, that was merely short-hand. To say "they should get out of the way" is to say the manager should create a good working environment for the programmers, while not micro-managing. So yes on the nice office with few distractions, yes on the manager being the sole gateway between the team and the rest of the company, no on the manager dictating what sorting algorithm to use. See for instance this article by Joel Spolsky: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2009/03/09.html
I believe the idea behind that perspective is that the aggressive startup model will lead to either failure or fabulous success, whereas a more traditional career will lead to only incremental improvements to your lot in life. Some people are attracted to that.
For someone to get out of the way, he first has to be in the way. You make the general assumption that a manager is bad unless he actively changes his style. I cannot challenge this assumption for I have no data or ideas on where to find some concerning if managers are universally good or bad. And even then employee satisfaction might not be the only metric to measure success. Although I do think that having fun at work is one of the most, if not the most important metric. Many things would be better if everyone enjoyed their work.
No no, that was merely short-hand. To say "they should get out of the way" is to say the manager should create a good working environment for the programmers, while not micro-managing. So yes on the nice office with few distractions, yes on the manager being the sole gateway between the team and the rest of the company, no on the manager dictating what sorting algorithm to use. See for instance this article by Joel Spolsky: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2009/03/09.html