people only get backed into corners (i.e., exclusivity, compelled actions, or some kind of limitation on funding, bad pricing) when they're desperate.

protip: never be desperate.

easier said than done, sort of like "eliminate refined carbs from your diet" or "save enough for retirement" or "stop looking for love in all the wrong places"

The post didn't say this directly, but it could be that they had no other options. He said that they had started fundraising efforts and were resistant to an acquisition - reading between the lines, their attempts for another round of funding were shot down cold.

we're a small managed private+public cloud services provider and we only have 2 full time operations engineers to support 30+ client companies. we also have a handful of consultants that do specialized work, working a handful of hours each month. they seem to be serving a small cluster of customers each also.

we could support 40, our existing 2 engineers are basically under-worked - we have 2 because it would be insanely irresponsible to have just 1, aside from company ownership (which is able to do the work also, if needed). if we absolutely had to, we could cut that down to 1 full time guy. let that sink in; 1 full time guy to manage 40 customers.

having said that, we're still growing as a business, because we've embraced the new reality, but it hasn't been without turnover and pain. we're also putting money into developing products.

the kicker is, even with the R+D, we're more profitable now than 5 years ago, with LESS ops folks (ostensibly less people to do the actual work, though we all know that's not what's really happening). i imagine the same exact thing is playing out with larger in-house staff, as you describe.

this is the new model. WAY more output from less but higher paid full time people, small networks of high-$ specialized consultants, and smaller firms and IT groups working in mercenary fashion. embrace it, or you will bleed yourself dry in less time than you think.

How do you want to do 24/7 with 1 full-time ops eng? Even 2 is small, do they take any time off?

Reads to me like "We've significantly reduced the quality of life for our employees, but greatly increased profits!"

More part-time contractors who don't have steady work and fewer FTEs who are on constant call.

the same goes for real life stuff that you don't use on a daily or weekly basis. just get rid of it if you haven't used it in a year.

> The problem is the paycheck. Do I want to risk it all, throw away my savings, all for a chance at success?

here's something nobody seems to mention.

most people don't risk everything once, then exit with a set-for-life payday a few short years later. that's the rare minority of entrepreneurs. most are moderately successful for many years on end, and may finally do a $multi-million exit after a decade or more of hard work and risk.

after that initial success, you have to risk it all, multiple times, to either keep succeeding, or reach the next level of success. at any point, if you stop risking the status quo you are likely to fail.

in other words it's a self-selecting process. if you are having doubts about risking your meager savings which you can likely earn back within a few years of frugal living while working a high paying programming job, there's your answer.

that's a management consultant, and the reason they're hired is to provide cover and credibility for both management and your technology team.

i.e., "the expensive consultant said it was okay, so don't fire anyone in management, or our technology team, if it goes sideways."

in other words, they're actually helping you do your job because they can compare your recommendation to other companies and teams in the industry and make sure everyone is doing things sanely. in your case, you were smart, and made the right recommendation, so they agreed with you. good job, you're competent, and aren't putting an established company into a risky situation like you would at a startup, which generally does not hire consultants, because they have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

you probably didn't see it that way, i'm guessing.

The issue you're overlooking is that these management consultants are being paid large fees for information that a company can get for free just by listening to their existing employees. However, that's not a slight on the management consultants themselves (nice work if you can get it), but is a slight on companies that don't trust that their employees can give them sound advice. Problems at the ground level are going to become apparent earliest to those working at that level, if you ignore that feedback you're potentially throwing away valuable information.

As GP stated, this is not about (not) believing your employees, this is about risk management. In many cases it is justified - do you really want to run your company based on everything your employees come up with? Sometimes you need to check if their instincts are right, especially for decisions that have huge impact on your business. Price for consultants, while it might seem high to you, is actually pretty low compared to business values. Look at it as a kind of insurance.

How do the companies know that they can trust their employees?

How do they know they can trust the consultant?

(More seriously, being unable to trust your employees to give useful feedback is a sign that your culture is a disaster)

They diff the output of the consultant against that of the employee. Trust, but verify.

They must trust them enough to employ them. Even if they don't think any single person they employ has "all the answers", if you listen to feedback from your employees you can get a sense of trends. Furthermore, these observations should be something verifiable. You're asking for concrete feedback on issues, not vague comments about what's wrong.

Does something like that exist for software consulting?

I have done similar work.

I was hired to come in and assess the software that they were developing - they were working with some contractors, some vendors, and a smattering of other people, and wanted to know if their current method was working, how to address some concerns they had, and whether their current vendor was doing a good job.

I discussed it extensively with them, looked over the code and repositories, their current deployment, their backlog, looked at their priorities and basically told them "They seem like they are doing a good job, with the caveat that using contractors and vendors means you will never develop those skills in house, so I would hire at least one competent programmer internally to work with the vendors/contractors you hire, in order to develop that expertise, if you intend to use custom software as a core part of your business on a continuing basis".

This was conveyed via a written report with citations and via a meeting with the C-level executives of the company.

For this review and strategic suggestions they paid me about $1200 for an afternoon's work. That doesn't count time that went into acquiring the gig, scheduling, following up, or billing, just billable hours.

It's the sanity check that some managers/ higher up people want... Expert = someone who doesn't work here (from a non dev upper management perspective)

Yes, I am not sure how common are those gigs, but I did quite a few projects in development agency. It was usually in situations when projects went bad, I had to examine code structure and timelines to see why it went this way.

look dude.

in america, if you aren't white, living in a place where it's 90% white is really, really, really unpleasant. people basically treat you like human garbage on a daily basis. this has a massive effect on your well-being and psychology, triple so if you are a child growing up in that environment.

i wish you would at least try to attempt to understand this instead of using the 'lynching' hyperbole which is obviously just you using the extreme opposite end of the experiential spectrum to invalidate the real life experiences of people who have to deal with racism constantly.

and honestly, i think by using a word like that you at least know, deep down, what the deal is.

As a brown immigrant with family living in places like Dallas, Houston and st Louis I vouch for this. Even though I'm filthy rich compared to the poor woman the article talks about even I could instantly increase my quality of life by moving to st. Louis. I would consider this a huge downgrade from the bay area primarily since it's simply unsafe and hostile for someone with my "color". My family members who grew up in the Midwest grow up living in lowkey constant fear. So yeah moving might be a terrible downgrade for many non whites.

> their worst experiences of in-your-face, constant racial/ethnic discrimination and tension in the US are almost always in the Midwest

i'm asian american.

here's what life is like somewhere other than maybe 3 or 4 cities in the US:

1. constantly explaining to people why i am not white (where i'm from, where my parents are from, why my last name is what it is [it's anglo])

2. children are constantly getting the 'eyes pulled back' and other racist names/gestures at school, and all the adults (teachers/admins) think its hilarious too (it's just a joke! don't you love being the butt of jokes? why can't you just let everyone make fun of you all day and take it silently?)

3. name-calling 'chink', 'gook', etc are normal occurrences, not exceptional events.

4. the general feeling that nobody thinks you're really american. i.e. when discussing whichever asian country is in the news today they'll say "no offense".

5. oftentimes being ignored by people, even when you walk right up to them and ask them a question. for example when shopping in a store.

6. hyperawarneness of the hollywood situation (in tv and movies white people = gods, everyone else = a literal joke)

7. limited cuisine that you grew up with (although this one is changing)

basically it's just non-stop suffering. that's why everything is cheap in the midwest. it fucking sucks unless you are the 25% of the population that its designed for.

quite frankly if i had kids, i'd rather be STRUGGLING in california than outright RICH in the midwest, because i don't think you can be rich enough to actually buy your kids a good enough life to make up for racism. it's borderline child abuse.

the kicker of course is not only do i experience this kind of stuff in i.e. michigan, people visiting from the midwest do this to me in my own home city.

I am also Asian American. I spent the first 20 years of my life in an area of the US where I was the only Asian in the entire school.

2. I can count the times this happened in 20 years on one hand. 3. Same as #2. 5. Never experienced this at all.

Oh my god yes. I grew up in a mixed race household in Michigan (still happy in my little corner here), but the absurdity of how non-white people are treated in the more rural areas of the state, and even the more conservative urban areas, is just shameful.

That's not to say you can't find good places in the Midwest, you just have to shop around to find an educated cosmopolitan community. But the racism here is out of hand and I don't think white people are generally attuned to just how bad it is.

"no offense" doesn't mean that they think you're not american, even though it could mean that, similar to "where are you from". I'll grant you tv/movies, though that is undeniably getting better. I grew up in a town literally called "white settlement", conservative suburban but semi rural texas, most of my friends were asian and while I don't think they NEVER heard the word chink, it was never in a threatening or even (as far as I observed) bullying (i.e. directed at them) way - alot of the kids in public school have an EXTREMELY rough way of speaking (they're barely able to communicate without expletives). All that said, there's some things you didn't mention - a lot (but not all) of my asian dude friends had a bad time with dating for instance, and sometimes some of the teachers would be unable to tell them apart, etc..

For my family it's not so much racial slurs as the constant question "what are you" because rural white people aren't used to seeing mixed race Asians. The question is dehumanizing, especially when you hear it your whole damn life.

White Settlement is definitely not semi-rural IMO compared to how many towns in TX are rural and semi-rural. However, having also grown up in a similar style area just west of there, I concur with not hearing anything like GP mentioned. It's unfortunate that GP had bad stereotyping/racist experiences, but it's fortunate that they visited every single city and are able to make these claims about all but 3 or 4 without doing their own stereotyping.

the town itself is definitely suburban, there were horses outside the high school tho, and the way UIL lines were drawn we were grouped with a bunch of actually rural districts.

> a lot (but not all) of my asian dude friends had a bad time with dating for instance

i was mainly talking about raising existing families, but yeah, this is true also. basically if you're not in the top 5-10% financially and physically as an asian guy, just forget about having a romantic life.