@Hersatz
He talks about people not being interested by his company because it doesn't have a big name or because good devs are doing something for themselves, but there is also the opposite side of the coin. The people doing the hiring diminish the accomplishments of applicants to their bare minimum while also seeking highly specific knowledge that very little people even have a decent mastery over.
@DudeWatIsThis
"It's so hard hiring foreigners!" Me, a freelance programmer from Europe, basically printing money by working with American clients: "Hire freelance people, and you don't have to hire them. Like me, for example."
@spyfoxguy
Lot of truth but also tons of cope in this particular rant. Jon always takes the path of most resistance. My only solution for hiring difficulties: offer generous equity. But yeah, Meta el al are already doing that.
@BeardedBaldy
Something that should also be considered, it's hard to have passion in an interview when the interview consists of having to memorize a bunch of shit that's completely irrelevant to the job and the company
@RuslanKovtun
14:26- Tsoding mentioned
@aetherandabyss
The problem is that he complains about uninterested workers but from what i've seen of him online, it's mostly: >Hire workers thinking they have boss-level care >Make them learn a bunch of bespoke tooling, language, etc >Get angry at them that they aren't learning it fast enough, especially when there's no system as startups tend not to >They leave
@mav45678
Those H1B mainly go to banks and other non-tech corporation to work on their giant, horrible internal systems. That is, Indian service companies import the H1-Bs and then rent them out to banks etc.
@PauloConstantino167
and by the way, we need more Jonathan Blow videos
@chronicallychill9979
Can someone please explain how to be a jackass who doesn't write code and gets hired for $1mil a year. I am desperate. I can actually code FWIW.
@eutiger4789
when elon is talking about h1b he is talking about people he wants to get as cheap as possible that he can threaten to stay as cheap as possible, not quality people
@julkiewitz
As a small company you have to hire generalists very early and be prepared to do a lot of on the job training sadly. It requires a lot of patience. It's a huge risk for someone to go work for a niche company working on a niche tech, with no prospect of actually commercializing the tech in a way that would at least make stock options compensation attractive. Like what if they get fired - they have very little in the way of transferable skills that they can put on their CV. Purely in terms of building a career in software engineering it's like taking a leap year.
@danielwalley6554
I get the impression a lot of the comments don't understand the distinction between a games programmer and a run of the mill programmer. It's a pretty unique skill set with a lot of domain specific knowledge, especially if you've reached any kind of competency in it. And that's doubly so if you're going to be working with a hand built engine, and triply so when it's also in a unique programming language. I'm not surprised at all that he finds it hard to find good people for affordable prices for that kind of role.
@Seacle14
I don't know. I find it hard to believe that people are not interested in working for, like, the most famous indie developer. Even if he only wants the best programmers, picking 3x salary at Meta over working on something you love seems strange to me, especially when Jon is already paying you 200K. Maybe I'm just not cynical enough.
@snippyboons
I think the cost of an engineer is whatever an employer is willing to pay.
@Steak514
I feel like you have to ask, why does Jon even need so much help. Why does he need Space X quality minds to make a puzzle game. What the heck is he doing? Why can't he hire like 2 guys to program something, 2 guys to draw, while he makes puzzles all day. I do not understand. It's like he's trying to climb a hill and demanding his employees be Mt Everest Sherpas and asks them to climb Mountains to prepare for the hill in his backyard. Why not just hire 2 programmers to work as a team, pay they all 80k instead 200k or whatever, and just have them knocking out tools and and editor systems. Idk, maybe I'm missing something. I respect him a lot, I just really question if this complexity is needed. It reminds me of a story in ancient Greece where an austere man was talking to a Spartan and said "They say I am a friend to the Spartans in my village, because I'm so austere and simple in my desires." The Spartan responded, “It would be better if you were known in your village as a friend of your own people.” I feel like Jon is trying to be like Apple or Space X, and he should instead be more like the indie game that had a 5000 long switch statement that handled all dialog. Just get err done. And maybe instead of focusing on what they can't do, they can't have the passion he has, they can't have the mind he has, well what can they do? Let's start finding solutions here. Alexanders military rebelled none stop and all he did was hand them the world and unlimited riches and titles. Sometimes it be like that, keep moving forward.
@PopsNBangs031
"I’m busy delivering value to the people"—value in this case being yet another esoteric puzzle game. Let’s be real: this guy unironically peaked with his first hit, Braid, and has been on a steady downward trend ever since. That said, he’s not wrong here—great engineers are incredibly rare, especially among younger generations. I think the reason boils down to this: the path of least resistance today has no resistance at all. Take a trip back to the early ’90s for a sec. You’ve just played Super Mario World, you’ve blasted through DOOM, and the natural question hits you: "Who made this, and how can I create games like it?" Back then, there were no creature comforts like today’s fully loaded, plug-and-play game engines—Unreal, Unity, Godot, you name it. Your only option was the hard way: hunt down a compiler, wrestle with code, and build everything from scratch, physics included. That grind forged great engineers. Nowadays, the tools are so polished and accessible that the struggle—the part that actually builds skill and grit—has all but vanished.
@SirLightHouse-n8g
The term used "you must have passion" is a code word for "You must continue working for me outside of work hours when your shift has ended for the day to keep your job here", it's basically half-slavery. Whenever the word passion is used by a company, that is a MAJOR red flag that this is basically a fraudulent business. Prove me wrong. If you want passion, you need passion money(million $$$ salary per employee per year, that's what John Carmack costs to hire). CEOs should be in prison for fraud lying about a "tech worker shortage". I'm so tired how you a-hole are doing this nonchalantly without any repercussions, people waste years on education and trying to get hired without barely any success because lying parasites said there was a "tech worker shortage" and then being told "you're not passionate enough, it's your own fault you didn't get hired anywhere", what a freaking joke of an industry.
@seinfan9
Are people mad at his observation? He says the established development companies can outpay the indie dev studios, and they also benefit from the perceived cachet. Finding even a decent designer is a challenge for his company.
@rafaelcordoba13
Passionate people doesn’t have to mean John Carmac. You can find medium good passionate developers.
@artie5913