[hammmatt]

It seemed like he had an incredible product he could have sold for more in my opinion.

For contractual projects wouldn't it make sense to know the value of what is going to be produced (more or less) and then negotiate the percentage of it.

Is there anything akin to an agent for a programmer in this situation? In all seriousness, it might not be a bad idea for a business.

Assuming that you can add value to the talent by increasing contractual payoffs, and/or your organization could develop a reputation for excellence and potentially be sought out to find talent for certain jobs.

I'm picturing a mixture of a consultant, and a technical programming.

Any thoughts?

[dedward]

Keep in mind what the market looked like at the time - it was nothing whatsoever like today. The field was so new there were no ground rules. It was the wild west.

Either party could have also paid him nothing, hired someone else to do it, and been done with it.