Hi John,

I just finished reading your post regarding not signing NDAs and I was wondering if you might be willing to share your insight as to how I might want to proceed in something similar (in other words, what is the appropriate way to develop an idea when one does not have the programming skills)?  Everyone wants to protect their ideas, but how do we do so and see them through to fruition rather than be a simple pipe dream?

 

Just like in your post, I have an idea which I can not implement and it is rooted in a couple of ideas/websites.  I do not necessarily consider it original, but I do see an opportunity for it as it has not been executed yet.  I actually want to approach a specific website with this idea as I believe they would be the best fit for this project/expansion.  I believe I fit into your A category; I know they would blow me out of the water if I were to develop my idea independently of them.  My problem is that I am not really sure how to get my foot in the door and be taken seriously, while at the same time protect myself from them just saying “thanks for the idea, the door is over there.”

 

I did appreciate your point on the “90/10″ split.  I have always thought that I would love to get 10% for my idea, but my assumption has been even that would be extremely high considering the web site would be putting up the money and doing all the work (and “the door is over there”).

 

I would greatly appreciate it if you might be able to give me some feedback and pointers as to what I should actually do.

 

Thank you for your time,

…

After meticulously detailing the ins and outs of NDAs for developers, it’s super interesting to consider things from the other side of the table.  What is a good way for someone in that position to see their idea become something?

I mulled it over a while, and this was my reply:

Hi ______,

Your situation is a tricky one to make work in the way that I think I’m hearing you want it to: getting 10% for putting up the idea and little else.  To folks like me and people running already off-the-ground companies, there is virtually zero appeal to what you are describing, and as you surmise they are apt to indicate to you where the door is.

 

Why?  It’s not that a good idea might not be a net win to execute fully for 90% of the market reward, that could happen.  Though a long shot, it conceivably might make economic sense to do.  The thing is that that premise is predicated upon “they’re all out of ideas, and would love to jump on the chance to do something new”.  That is almost NEVER the case: most businesses, (especially in the web world with its ever evolving and innovating nature), have no shortage whatsoever of ideas and initiatives that they could be pursuing to further and better their business.  Everything they do is a trade off against other conceivably great things they could do, which makes picking something that entails a dormant idea partner highly unattractive.

 

I think the thing is for you then that you’ve gotta bring something more to the table than the idea.  Something about how you are the best person in the world to lead its execution and willing to come on board as part of the team to make you baby fly, or how much secret sauce and tangible development you’ve already done and our willing to share, or the resources or connections you can bring to the party.  Any of these constitute a tremendous boost to the desirability of your offer.

 

If you’re not prepared to do so, there may be to confront the bitter truth that the idea, though great, might not fetch by itself what you think it should fetch in the market.  At which point you can either offer it up gratis and see what happens (and perhaps see what credit and esteem as an innovator it fetches you), or keep it to yourself (either forever and let it die with you, or until the someone else thinks of it independently, or until things shift where you have an stronger opportunity to get it going either solo or in partnership).

 

Whew, I think I just wrote out a flow chart in that last paragraph!  I hope this, while probably not an ideal assessment of your situation, is useful food for thought, and of course it’s just my opinion–certainly not the final say on how things will necessarily go in the real world.

 

Thanks for the shout out, and good luck!

John

Like I said to her, this probably isn’t an ideal assessment: it’s kind of a downer, and I’m stumped to offer up a more constructive take¹.

I’m also completely open to being wrong on this one: I’m just one dude, and come from a vantage point that is certainly sensitive to and biased against overvaluation of ideas.

Can anyone help me with this?  What would you offer up as advice to this situation?

Notes:

“I saw what you did with Spotlight Denver, and I’ve got an idea that could revolutionize the whole deal-of-the-day industry.” is how she broached the subject.

It’s always a treat to chat with folks who have taken a shine to me from my online persona alone, and taking 20 minutes to offer up whatever perspective and insight I can is a welcome break from programming.  I was happy to lend an ear and wax entrepreneurial.

It wasn’t long into the conversation when she mentioned she would soon have a lawyer draw up a Non-Disclosure Agreement regarding the project, at which point I had to interject.

“Ah, let me stop you right there for a sec and let you know this up front: I will almost never sign an NDA.”

She was curious as to why.  This is the explanation I gave her, spread over a couple of distinct but interrelated concepts.

There’s Nothing New Under the Sun

Between a first-time web entrepreneur and one who’s been for years working on many ventures, there is a huge gap in perspective regarding the importance, rarity, and uniqueness of ideas.  Namely if you have this one great idea and that’s your ticket into entrepreneurship, you’re apt to overlook (or simply be unaware of) how interconnected and overlapping innovations are, and correspondingly unable (or unwilling) to see traces of your idea in and around stuff that’s already out there.

This perspective gap is most easy to recognize when someone alludes to their confidential idea as being like [existing web thing] for [some other niche].

“It’s like twitter, but for construction field workers”, “It’s like Yelp, but you only see reviews of people you know, like your Facebook friends”¹, “It’s like AirBNB, but for wife-swapping.”

Even a revolutionary take on the deal-of-the-day industry as alluded to by my new friend has, by virtue of being rooted in an established business model, an upper bound on its originality (to say nothing of the likelihood that the million-dollar marketing or biz-dev teams of Groupon, Living Social, etc. have already had and/or explored similar ones).

Ideas are Plentiful, Good Execution is Scarce

It’s a well documented phenomenon how idea-havin’ first timers just need a programmer to bring their vision to life, as though the idea is somehow half the battle (or 90%, as folks like me often get offered sweat equity deals–10% seems to be a popular number).  But if you’ve ever tried to bring even one venture to market, you know perhaps all too well that ideas are just the starting point, and take by far the least work, time, and capital.

Gary Vaynerchuk said it perhaps best in his talk at the 2011 Big Omaha: “ideas are shit, execution’s the game”.  Watch it².

It’s Not a Good Sign

Say I’m just first meeting you to discuss your idea.  If you prize your idea so much (in relation to everything else it will take in order to make it succeed) that you feel the need to put in legal protections from me, it’s a tell that you don’t have much going for you in this endeavor.

How do I know this?  Because if confidentiality matters to you when talking high-level particulars (meaning anything shy of at least a 10 page business plan), either one of two scenarios apply.

Either (A) you’ll be blown out of the water in the open market soon after you release (this is the case in which the idea really is all it takes, which implies stronger incumbents will easily be able to catch up), or (B) you are vastly underestimating what it takes to execute successfully.

Scenario A rarely ever happens (if ever), but is understandably often feared by those with the newcomer’s perspective described above.  Scenario B is much more common, and should make the thought of tethering oneself to broad and vague legal obligations even less desirable.

Your NDA Treads Heavily Upon My Right to Work

Overlap in innovations and concepts found among disparate parts of the web is ubiquitous.  Any agreement that I sign to not disclose or use information shared with me in a casual engagement opens up a whole world of potentially contentious confusion about what is or isn’t okay for me to do in the future.

In an ecosystem where ideas are borrowed and remixed constantly, an NDA is a poor man’s patent that can be levied only against the signer.  Never mind the existence of clear competitors: the confusion of whether or not any “secret sauce” information was shared is enough to entertain lengthy and costly litigation.

I had a fellow make a bid to buy my CoachAccountable business not long ago.  Great guy, but when I ultimately decided to decline his offer he resorted to legal threats that I better not use any of the ideas we talked about, and expressed regret that he hadn’t had me sign an NDA.

In reality, if had he offered one up I simply would’ve declined.³  Signing one could have compromised my ability to build upon my business or sell it to the next suitor, and by corollary, compromised my negotiating position in the sale.  It would have been the poor man’s patent in action.

NDAs Have Their Place

Are there some situations where NDAs are appropriate?  You betcha.  They are appropriate when there exists something both significant and tangible to disclose, representing more than just whatever popped into your head in the shower.  The 10 page business plan alluded to above makes a reasonable cutoff, necessary but probably not sufficient.

The importance of having something significant and tangible is that it’s something you can point to and say “there, THAT’S what is confidential”.  Without it, the reach of an NDA is too vague and undefinable. An NDA that is not highly specific nor describes boundaries to what it applies is not worth signing: sloppy legalese at best, a malicious trap at worst.

An NDA should also be dependent upon the signer being compensated in some non-trivial way, as in a condition of being hired or part of terms of a sale.  Requiring one prior to that is highly suspect, and signing one, I say, is highly inappropriate.

So that’s why I won’t sign your NDA.  It’s not because I don’t like you, it’s not because I want to steal your ideas, it’s not because what you’re up to isn’t important.

It’s because the ideas you are likely to share with me over coffee or in a phone conversation are otherwise plentiful, worthless in isolation, and, to some degree, completely unoriginal and already known to the world.

View the discussion on Hacker News

Notes:

Two months ago I released trueDAT, a web-based GUI for MySQL databases and the first real project I’ve ever taken the time to open source.  While I always figured good things eventually came to open source contributors¹, I didn’t have expectations for myself while showing off trueDAT for the first time at a Meetup group back in mid-January.

While demoing my baby, I made the acquaintance of two folks eagerly looking to birth their web vision: a user generated content site focused on promoting the best with prize-laden contests.  They were then working on learning PHP and MySQL, and so trueDAT, a tool which makes a really novice-friendly way to interact with databases, made a nice topic of conversation.  (They were also a bit displeased with the progress on their site with their current provider, so we had plenty to talk about.)

The instant good karma of open sourcing trueDAT is summed up in the following 2 snippets from emails from them to me over the two days that followed:

…  I’d like to talk over potentially hiring you to build Masspire. I’m not that enthused about my current menu of options, and I’d like to explore a bit more. …

and

… Basically, if we can think up a mutually agreeable version of the site that you’d be willing to build for $… I’d be happy to work with you. I’ve got a bit more faith in someone who makes something like trueDAT for fun than an Indian firm.  …

These words simply tickle me:

I’ve got a bit more faith in someone who makes something like trueDAT for fun than an Indian firm.

I share them not to brag on what a great open source guy I am (I’m not, I’m new to this game–trueDAT hasn’t even been downloaded 100 times since I released it two months ago), nor to revive the notion that I’m anti-India (I’m just anti-cheap slop).  Rather I wish to share that experience with my fellow programmer: that open sourcing can make such a powerful and immediate impression on the type of person who could/would/should hire you.

In hindsight?  Makes total sense.

Beforehand, I only knew open sourcing as more of an ideologically good thing.

Today, about 2 months later, we have high fived over the successful build of their site, which can be seen now at www.masspire.com.  I had a solid February as a contractor, and they’re pleased with the value and end result of their work.

Our connecting professionally was a tidy win-win, and a direct result of chops effectively demonstrated through an open source project.

Doing well by doing good, illustrated.  Viva open source.

Notes:

The way I am most often engaged professionally is like this: a client needs me to build a web application, we sketch out the relevant particulars, I write up the resultant scope of work contact (which details features, price, and payment schedule).  It’s signed and we’re off to the races.

Once that contact has been fulfilled, all the money has been paid and everything outlined has been built and delivered to my client’s satisfaction (and I’m not done until they love it).  By this point we’ve invariably established a really good rapport: we know how we work together, trust is there, quality, value and workability have been demonstrated.

This situation makes possible Drive-Thru Programming.

What is it?  It’s a style of handling requests for development work on a rolling basis that is tuned for speed and ease.

It’s quite common for clients to want to evolve and expand upon the applications I have built them.  After the first contract, the formalities of said contract are far less important.  So I’m free to operate as a fluid, on-demand programmer for needs as they arise.  So we get to have email volleys that look like this:

9:41am, Client: Hey John, can you add to the system this, that, and the other thing, and how much would it cost?
9:48am, Me:  Sure thing, can do this for $A, that for $B, and the other thing for $C, so $X total.  Can have it done by then end of tomorrow if you want me to proceed.
9:57am, Client:  Sounds good, please proceed.
9:59am, Me:  On it, will drop you an email when it’s done.  Please pull through!

The analogy is crude, but the feeling is dead on: I get the experience of being a drive-thru coding house, ready to take your order and deliver ultra-quick turnaround times.  Of course I request a phone call to clarify in case this, that, or the other thing aren’t entirely clear, and I maintain my promise that I’m not done until they love it.  These two practices ensure that with speed we are not sacrificing clarity and quality of the end result.

For clients with whom I’ve completed a major contract, I have no problem putting on-demand programming tasks and mini-projects on a tab, and billing whenever it makes sense to do so.  My trust is their convenience.  In return, my clients get ultra-responsive service which helps them mold and evolve the application that runs critical (or all) aspects of their business without the hassle of formalities.

I wrote about programming at the speed of trust over a year ago, and Drive-Thru Programming is yet another gem that arises from it.

I’m an independent web application developer (see www.jpl-consulting.com plus my blog to learn everything about me).

Bottom line: I want someone able to handle my client’s typical 0-10 maintenance issues for $300+/month.

Here’s the setup: I have several active web application projects out there which I built and am responsible for supporting and maintaining. Starting in May my wife and I are going on World Tour: three months road tripping about in the US, and then we leave the country for about a year. From experience I know how much it sucks to land in another country with a technical problem to fix, having to frantically search for an internet cafe, and hop online to save the day.

What I’m looking for is an apprentice: someone reliable whom I can trust, get up to speed on the projects I am responsible for, and have them be able and competent to handle any issues as they arise when I’m offline and unreachable. For all the projects I have out there with clients, I generally see between 0 to 3 issues that crop up in a given week. Questions, general tweaks, bugs to fix.

If you are able to handle that sort of thing and be my first line of support while I’m off in the world it’s a huge win for me: my clients get great service and support, and I don’t have to stress over things trying to fix a problem on some internet cafe machine which only has IE6 installed.

Paying someone $300 a month to handle something between 0-3 hours of work/0-12 brain farts is so very worth it to me. If more things come up than the norm in a given month, I’ll pay you more. If less things come up, awesome: enjoy the $300 and I thank you for the peace of mind.

My preference is a fellow freelancer, someone who can respond to the occasional email or phone call that comes up quickly. The applications are in PHP (vanilla, no heavy framework), MySQL, CSS, HTML, and MooTools JavaScript (if you know JQuery, you should be fine). Ah, and a few fringe projects are in WordPress.

Other perk: I don’t know how much you care to learn and grow as a freelancer, but if it’s important/interesting to you, this will entail learning how I do large scale/highly paid projects as a one man team, and I’ll be happy to teach you whatever I know to get you up to snuff to support my projects.

To determine if you’re experienced enough to be fit what I’m looking for, check out www.truedat.us, it’s an open source project of mine. If you can comfortably read through and follow that code base, you should be fine. (If you want to make a bang up impression, add a feature to it that you think is cool and show it to me!)

I’m excited to meet whomever I’ll meet who replies to this ad, fellow hackers are so cool. If you feel good about your understanding of the trueDAT code and would like to be my support apprentice and earn some extra cash for the next year, please give me a shout out!

Update

Talk about “ask and ye shall receive”: the day I posted this I had lunch with a friend with whom I’ve done some work before. I told him of the ad and he, to my surprise and delight, said casually “I’ll take on your people for you.” Though I am bummed to have the opportunity to meet other hackers, how nice to have this handled!

“Would love to,” I said to Jen upon her request, “just give me whatever text, images, and design elements from your invitations and I’ll put it together.”

She did a bang-up job in giving me the site pages + content–it was one of the easiest copy-and-paste jobs I’ve ever done.

In the visuals department I got a shot of the wedding venue, a vector art graphic of a monochrome tree which adorns the invites (in a lovely shade of blue, #315683), and photo of the happy couple in Italy, taken in the proud tradition of heads tilted together smiling at an outstretched arm.

In total, this is not a whole lot of guidance, design-wise: a single motif in a single color.  I generally love (and prefer) collaboration with a designer who supplies me with pretty pixels that I get to bring to life in web form.  But in this instance, no such luxury.  I’m not a designer myself, but I can pass for one in a pinch–this makes another occasion in which my experience with and lessons from the exceptional design talent at Playground comes in handy.

Turns out a single color and a single image can go along way to create a comprehensive aesthetic.

By picking a suitable matting color (in this case white to serve as the background for blue text) and picking a darker shade of the same hue for low-lights (in this case #0D2B4C, picked fairly willy-nilly from the ColorZilla color picker), you’ve got a nice base for a unified look of text, image borders, backgrounds, drop shadows, and gradients.  The monochrome motif can be employed in a few places tastefully as ornamentation (in this case, part of the header image and a large content background, muted by a partially opaque white mask).

The result?  Not too shabby, methinks.  From a single graphic and one color, the whole design comes out as an extrapolation: resizing the graphic twice, deriving two other colors and some CSS3 goodness were all design prowess it took to take the WordPress 2011 theme to the end result,  www.jen-and-jason.com.

I was using the word “we” when the word “I” was far more appropriate, as if the fact that it was just me was some dirty little secret to be guarded.  I had it in my head that, in order to be taken seriously, I better project the air that my company was bigger than it was.

In other words, I was in the “We” trap.

Nowadays, I’m super content and proud to be the product of JPL Consulting: I’m it, it’s just me.  I’m not trying to sell an ethos, a corporate culture, a team backed by a method for finding/growing/retaining talent, or anything else that larger development shops pride themselves on.

It’s just me.  You either dig me as a partner who can do your project or you don’t.

The other week a prospective client was hitting me with all kinds of great questions about how I work, and one of them was “Do you have anyone else that would be working on our project?”  Despite the intuition that they might like to hear that their baby would be in more pairs of capable hands than just mine, I replied proudly that it’s just me, that I’m able to handle elaborate projects from start to finish all by myself, and that things go massively faster for it.

To my surprise she was distinctly happy to learn as much, and cited how she and her partner have worked with consulting firms where they liked their initial contact, but once they signed a contract their project was handed off someone else who, in their estimation, wasn’t nearly as good.

That I was their agent for the project, period, was good news.

This makes sense: with any consulting firm that’s organized sensibly, the person you talk with up front to get your project rolling is going to be the strongest person that the firm can offer you.  They are the closer.  If, when you’ve signed on the dotted line (effectively saying yes to that company with confidence that they can handle your project), it’s someone else who actually executes your project, chances are good you won’t be as impressed.

By contrast, in a one-man shop, the one who sells you on their ability is the one you get.

If you have a good impression of me as I take you through the upfront consulting/sales process, then it’s good news that I’m the one who will be actually living up to my words¹.  Accountability is in a nice tidy little package, and there’s no one else that the buck can get passed to.  Sure it sucks if I get hit by a bus, but even that has a workable plan to it.

To solo operations everywhere, I say this: you can either put on the facade of being bigger than you are, ashamed to have not yet built your empire with hoards of underlings, or you can grow yourself to the specific reason people are excited to work with you, and proudly tout as much in your conversations and prose.

Your call.

Notes:

By now I think folks who are cognizant of it at all pretty much know and agree that it makes the world a better place.  I think there is no better way to experience this than by taking stock of the open source contributions which have helped you while making one of your own.

trueDAT is the home-brewed database GUI tool that I’ve been using for over 8 years now.  The original tool to go by that name was conceived by Charles Guthrie back in ’03, in Classic ASP.  It was then a roguish way to get development work done on a network of servers where the admin overlords expressly forbid the installation of a more conventional and heavyweight solution like myLittleAdmin, and I loved the spirit of taking matters into one’s own hands and crafting the tools necessary when other solutions were unavailable.

In early ’05 as I was getting my own chops at web development I took a crack at writing a version 2.  I wanted to add a few useful features which I knew would be useful after months of working with the original.  The notion of creating things to scratch your own itch (as brilliantly articulated by 37 Signals) is a powerful premise indeed.

Three years later, with the sexy possibilities AJAX and MooTools well under my belt, I created trueDAT3.  Lee Robinson, one of my design peeps at Playground Creative, provided me pretty pixels so that my database tool would be a little zen garden of a workspace.  I don’t know if you know this, but a lot of developer tools are ugly, spartan, rough on the eyes (trueDAT1 and 2 were no exception!).  I realized then that developer tools should be sexy.  They make the work that much more enjoyable.

Now, three and a half years later still, we are at the current day.  I’ve matured a bit as a web craftsmen, enough to take real stock of all the contributions which have been made to me by complete strangers who thought well enough of the world to share their teachings, code, and skill.  Doing so makes me desire deeply to give something back, and thus I figure perhaps some good will come of sharing trueDAT with the world.

Version 4 adds in the features which I’ve come to recognize as useful after years of enjoying the last one, and opens things up drastically to be a bit more openly applicable for folks.

The result can be found at trueDAT’s own little website, truedat.us.  There you can tour the features, download the source, demo it out on a database filled with data that you don’t care about, and even go fork it on GitHub.

I have no idea how many people will ever use this, or even if it will ever catch on in any significant way.  Before any of that happens or doesn’t happen, though, I sit here now super satisfied to have put this all together as a gesture of following in the footsteps of my heroes of this trade.

Here’s to the great contributors of open source, who by their generosity have taught and given us all so much.

If all of the maxims of self promotion (the vital importance of networking, having strong references, keeping clients happy so they’ll continue to hire you, etc.) are true (they pretty much are), it is of course in my best interest to say yes to any project that (a) I’m qualified to do, (b) I’m available to do in the called-for time frame, and (c) my price is acceptable for.

Saying “no” based on any of these criteria isn’t terribly interesting as most everyone holds to those three prerequisites for accepting work (though based on the regularity of client horror stories with their past vendors, it would appear that a lot of folks in my profession relax a little on point (a), but that’s for another essay).

What’s more interesting is saying “no” to a project when, by all conventional measures, it amounts to good, gainful employment while providing a client with what they know they want.  I do this now and then, and I do it specifically when deep down I don’t believe in the project.  When yes, they’ve got the money and yes, they’ve got the drive and vision enough to pull the trigger, yet I can’t wrap my mind around how this is ever going to work in the envisioned capacity.  This is when my conscience pipes in, objecting to thought of taking money for a project that I don’t believe will ever bear fruit for the individual or organization willing to pay me.

Am I fallible in my estimations?  Absolutely.  I don’t pretend to know for certain how things will turn out.  But I have done enough projects that had a lot of heart and a compelling vision which turned out to be ultimately a poor idea (and in hindsight could have been recognized as such with knowledge available at the start).  For it I can recognize hints of blind optimism when I see them.  Red flags of assumptions or impending obstacles that are unaccounted for jump right out and insist upon careful consideration before I can dismiss them.

This, while perhaps annoying as rain on someone’s parade, I believe is to everyone’s benefit.  My being unwilling to take a client’s money and diligently complete the work when I can’t get behind a project might be the most generous bit of consulting I can give when confronted with a flop¹  If I send you back to the drawing board because I think the project has major weaknesses², I might well be viewed as insolent and unworthy of hiring in the first place.  But deeper than that, I might well be doing you a huge favor, helping you to either (or both) save a lot of money & time, and refine your ideas so that they do ultimately succeed once a guy like me is brought in to bring it to life.

Though it breaks my heart to turn down good gainful employment, I do not hesitate to render this favor when appropriate.

By corollary, if I’m excited by your project and think it has legs, I’ll tell you as much and (if you care to hear it, most people do) explain exactly what specific merits I see it having and why.

There’s probably a good litmus test in all of this.  Useless flattery to lobby for getting a contract is bankrupt.  If you wanna sense for how much your success matters to your developer, throw a deliberately terrible idea their way and see what they think.  Whether they they greet it enthusiastically or balk at it, ask follow up questions and you’ll really learn something about who you’re talking to as a service provider.

If I say “no” to your project, take it as a sincere gesture of commitment to its success.  My doing so might either help you dodge a bullet, or prompt you to retool your vision in a massively useful way.

Notes:

There are a number of themes that kept coming up in the threads, and from them I see a few ideas worth exploring.

A number of comments were to the tune of “What did they expect at $12/hour?  This is not news.”  I take it as a positive sign that disaster in cheap outsourcing of software is self-evident for some, yet based on the multitude of folks weighing in with similar stories of cleaning up outsourced messes, it’s clear not everyone has gotten the memo (most programmers I reckon have, hiring managers less so).

A number of comparisons were made comparing the attitude of the essay to the hubris of the US auto industry back in the 60s and 70s: the local talent giving themselves a pat on the back, celebrating their infallibility, while competitors abroad were gaining ground, the implication being that local talent would one day eat their words and regret their complacency.

I think this quite insightful, but it misses the alternate dynamic which I think is at play.  Back when I was in grad school for computer science (2001-2003), the talk among our soon-to-be-graduating ranks was that the job market is tough, and usually close behind was that the US programmer was a dying breed, fast losing jobs to overseas markets.  This we heard peddled without apology or qualification, it was just a sort of accepted reality as described by the “experts”.

So in regards to the 60s/70s auto industry comparison, I say the scenario more resembles this: the local talent has been told “you’re fucked, don’t even try”, and after a decade of experience we are now witnessing that it ain’t necessarily so.

This is not so much a tale of complacency so much as reclaiming a sense of relevance in industry.

As many commentators rightly pointed out, my limited experiences do not constitute any statistically valid conclusions.  Quite true, but those experiences (and the many similar stories shared) are enough to counter the sweeping narrative of the impending death of the US programmer from years back.  The death of the US based programmer was like the sensational story that breaks on page one in huge type face, only to eventually be followed up by a redaction tucked away on page 13 in a much smaller font.

(Tangentially, I suspect the talk of US programmers being unable to compete on a global market caused an untold number of students to veer away from computer science degrees, and by corollary a counter narrative might serve to veer students towards computer science.  A useful re-balancing, I think.)

In the end I think the most well-reasoned comments came in the flavor that is well summarized by @dylanized‘s words:

I’ve got programmers and designers I work with in India, Pakistan, the Philippines. The guys I’ve found are badasses, very professional and teaching me stuff all the time. If and when I become successful, it will be due in large part to my overseas team.

I’ve also attempted to recruit horrible programmers and designers before. Sometimes they come from these non-western places, other times they come from America or even from my hometown.

There’s jokers everywhere. It’s up to us as technical project managers to screen them out and only hire good contractors and firms.

To me, that is really at the heart of it: it takes real talent to do this work efficiently and economically, good talent can be found anywhere (as can terrible talent), and that good talent should be sought after and prized above all else for businesses with projects that matter.  Though it runs counter to hopes of scoring a real bargain at $12/hour, programmer types can probably all agree there is a lot of depth to the art of being a great on-demand programmer.  The notion that it’s grunt work which can be given without care to the lowest bidder is a farce.

Long live the truly talented programmer: this conversation reveals perhaps above all else that they are in short supply the world over.  To those who choose to continuously deepen their mastery over the craft, I say let us take to filling that need.