John: Hey, John Sonmez from simpleprogrammer.com.
It looks like I am getting ready for some kind of midnight operation here but I’m
just coming back from a meet up here.
I’m still in Iceland.
I’m actually leaving tomorrow morning and I just came back from a meet up the Simple
Programmer Meet Up in Iceland.
I did actually do one here in Iceland.
We did have 2 people come out so thanks for coming out, pretty cool to meet some Icelanders
and to get to meet with them.
The reason I'm recording this video now, a couple of reasons, one is because I'm getting
on a plane tomorrow morning to get to New York City and I'm going to need 2 videos for
next week so I figured I might as well do one now.
Then also, when we were at this meet up an interesting discussion came up and I thought
this would be kind of an interesting topic to talk about which is this idea of basically
making things complicated.
I talked about how sort of I created Simple Programmer, the blog originally because what
I saw was a lot of software developers in the industry making things more complicated
than they were.
They were actually trying to make things more complicated so that they seemed smarter and
basically for job security.
If this thing is so hard and only I can do it or it’s really hard to do and I make
it seem more complicated, to make it seem like what I'm doing is that much more complex
then it makes me more valuable and it makes you less valuable and it makes me less threatened
by you.
I saw a lot of that in the industry and I still see a lot of that unfortunately.
I want to talk about why that’s a bad idea just in general why this is just not a good
thing, and why it’s personally a bad thing.
In general I created Simple Programmer so that I could basically try to make things
that people are making super complicated simple because it should be simple.
It’s also kind of the purpose of these YouTube videos to simplify some things in life because
it’s not that complicated.
Nothing that we do as programmers, software developers is all that complicated.
All of it can be broken down and understood.
I'm not saying that it’s easy.
There’s a difference between simple and easy.
In fact, simple is usually more difficult than complicated, complicated is usually easier.
It’s more difficult to create a simple solution that’s actually usually the case.
In general like I said I created Simple Programmer in order to basically say, “Hey look, a
lot of these things that people are making super complicated they’re not that complicated.
They’re simple and here’s what it is.
Anyone can understand this.
Anyone can do this.”
Hopefully that’s what you get from the entrepreneurship things that I talk about as well.
Anyone can build a business.
Anyone can create a blog and have an income and build a business around that and be a
“famous developer” or build a reputation and brand online.
You can do that.
It doesn’t matter who you are.
It doesn’t matter what you know.
You have some value to add.
Now, I don’t want to go too far off track because really what I really want to talk
about with this topic is in the work environment, the idea of making things complex.
A lot of people think okay, what I'm going to do is—you might not even do this consciously
but a lot of developers I know of think that I'm going to make this seem a little bit more
complicated.
I'm going to try and make myself more valuable by being the only one who understands this
or not teaching other people, not sharing this information so that they can’t fire
me, I'm more valuable because people have to come to me to understand this part of the
system or to get this thing done.
At a surface level right or wrong, morally right or wrong that might seem like a good
idea, job security, right?
Hey, no one is going to be able to fire me.
They’re going to depend on me because I'm the only one who can make this work.
I’ve made it appear a little bit more difficult than maybe it really is.
Now that might be true.
I think you will get some amount of job security from doing that but here’s what’s going
to happen to you, you’re going to stuck where you are.
You’re not going to advance.
You’re not going to grow.
A much, much more valuable person—before I get to that actually, you’ll be limited
to the capacity of what one person can do.
You can never exceed your—if you are basically controlling all the information and worried
about job security you’re never going to be more effective than one program.
I'm sure you might be a super effective programmer but you’re never going to be more effective
than that.
You’re always going to be limited.
Now contrast this with someone who shares information openly, who doesn’t try to make
things more complicated, who tries to make things more simple, who tries to help, be
as helpful as possible to their fellow developers, to try to—who actually tries to make it
so they’re unnecessary in their job so that other people can do what they’re doing and
trains them and helps them and encourages them.
Now this person you might say, “Oh well, they’re going to make themselves obsolete.
They’re not going to have job security.”
That’s true.
This is why.
Because they’re not going to be as useful in the position that they’re at, they’re
going to be much more useful in the higher position.
They’re building a bridge, a ladder to climb higher.
That’s really the key is that if you—if you make things more complicated you’re
going to be stuck where you’re at.
If you make things more simple you’re going to be able to be way more effective.
Think about this person who’s making things more simple, who’s helping their co-workers
who’s just a helpful person who makes other people better.
When you make other people better you’re more effective than one person.
You could be 100 times more effective if you have 30 people on your team and you make them
all better because of what you do.
You’re now 30 times more effective perhaps than what you could be by yourself and that
can expand exponentially out as those people help other people and you encourage an environment
of helping and fostering the idea of helping others and mentoring.
If you create a blog and you reach thousands of people or hundreds of thousands of people
you can be even more effective.
Think about it this way.
The more people that you reach the more valuable you’re going to be.
You’re never going to work yourself out of a job by helping people, by being useful.
By helping other people to do their jobs better and making things simple you are not going
to work yourself out of the job, I promise.
If you do, if you’re in such a toxic environment, if you have such a stupid boss that by doing
that it cost you your job, well, you don’t want to be there anyway.
In most places you’re going to become an extremely valuable asset.
Believe me, having been on both sides of it, having been a programmer and having—oh,
I lost the lights here.
Having been a programmer—I got to turn back on the light.
I'm sitting inside of a car in case you didn’t notice.
Anyway, I’ll turn the engine on, but anyway, having been a programmer and having been a
business owner now and hiring people and having been working for someone else and being a
team lead and hiring people, I can tell you that the most valuable person that I would
ever hire is someone who makes everyone else better, who maybe their skill level doesn’t
necessarily have to be as high but can they help other people?
That’s the most valuable person that you could ever have on your team.
If you think about it that’s your number one best, best choice.
Anyway, a little bit longwinded here but it’s all to say this: Don’t make things complicated.
Make things simple.
Help people.
Do the right thing.
Choose to lift other people up, to make things seem simpler, not more complicated and you
are going to benefit from that.
It’s not only the right thing to do, but it’s going to benefit you personally, trust
me on this one.
You’re going to go a lot further in your career.
You can choose one of 2 paths.
You can choose the path where you try to hold on so hard to what you have and sure, maybe
you’ll be successful in doing that or you can choose a path that’s maybe a little
bit riskier where you give away what you have, where you freely give knowledge and you try
to help other people and if you choose that path the sky is the limit.
You can go way further than you might have ever imagined by choosing that path.
Don’t be a douchbag.
That’s it.
Just don’t be a douchbag that’s what I have to say.
People who make things more complicated are douchbags and don’t be one.
Thanks.
I’ll talk to you next time.
Don’t forget to subscribe to the YouTube channel or subscribe to iTunes.
Next time I talk to you I will be in the United States back from my 3-month trip.
Take care.