(This is only a partially developed thought. I'm sure some of my reasoning isn't sound. Please help me to develop it more fully.)
This is an extremely misguided essay. It conflates two types of programmers. There are two classes (as in labor classes) of programmers. It's like confusing the difference between an electrician and an electrical engineer. Many businesses already recognize this fact, but the author doesn't seem to have a clue.
The first, "programmers," do routine things to implement features, which it sounds like the author is advocating everyone turn into.
The second, "software engineers," are a new class of workers, knowledge workers. Creativity and collaboration are core job functions for this class of workers. Is implementation a piece of it, yes, but it is decidedly not the point of the job.
Software engineers ARE "the machine that makes money". Trust is the mechanism that keeps a technology company viable. Apple and Microsoft are great examples. They are ascendent when there is trust in the motives of the company, but when they were headed for rent-seeking or "lost their soul" (for lack of a better description) they quickly started declining and were on the path to bankruptcy or at best irrelevance.
For a software engineer leaving is like leaving a half completed painting. You leave behind the artifacts, but they were never the (most) important part.
When leaving the company is sufficient to change its prospects (taking your ball with you) elaborate strike behavior is unnecessary. Without creative engineers, tech companies will die and creativity requires psychological safety.
This is an extremely misguided essay. It conflates two types of programmers. There are two classes (as in labor classes) of programmers. It's like confusing the difference between an electrician and an electrical engineer. Many businesses already recognize this fact, but the author doesn't seem to have a clue.
The first, "programmers," do routine things to implement features, which it sounds like the author is advocating everyone turn into.
The second, "software engineers," are a new class of workers, knowledge workers. Creativity and collaboration are core job functions for this class of workers. Is implementation a piece of it, yes, but it is decidedly not the point of the job.
Software engineers ARE "the machine that makes money". Trust is the mechanism that keeps a technology company viable. Apple and Microsoft are great examples. They are ascendent when there is trust in the motives of the company, but when they were headed for rent-seeking or "lost their soul" (for lack of a better description) they quickly started declining and were on the path to bankruptcy or at best irrelevance.
For a software engineer leaving is like leaving a half completed painting. You leave behind the artifacts, but they were never the (most) important part.
When leaving the company is sufficient to change its prospects (taking your ball with you) elaborate strike behavior is unnecessary. Without creative engineers, tech companies will die and creativity requires psychological safety.