[pnathan]

What this particular farcical drama boils down to is the tension between the creative and the business. It is identical in spirit to the musician's dilemma.

Usually it comes out to something like this, "Do we take pleasure in our art and pursue the art, or do we take pleasure in selling our art in pursuing that?"

It's painfully obvious that good businesses pay people to create a positive value proposition for them. Therefore, if you are running your career like a business, you need to be seeking to maximize your value proposition. Part of that is passing yourself off as a maximal value creator. That is one half of the essence of patio11's point.

A lot of the artists I've dealt with are content to seek their art and to work in badly paid jobs to maximize their pursuit of their art. As someone who can program computers, we can draw value from our art. We do not need to hack at night and work as a barista during the day. That is the other half of the essence of patio11's point.

No one has to take patio11's advice, and their priorities may not align with his priorities.

But if you're maximizing wealth creation through being a programmer, you need to stop 'being a programmer/hacker/ninja/rock star/operator' and start 'being a person who creates wealth for other people via technology'.