Stephen Donahue
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title, date, layout, tags, permalink
| title | date | layout | tags | permalink | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Manufactured Value | 2026-05-21 | column.njk |
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/columns/2026/manufactured-value/ |
This feels more like the same cautionary tale that I keep thinking: besides the fact that I've never heard of this company, or any of these engineers, it's that despite (probably) being capable at their jobs, their work was lost to obscurity, and not for lack of talent, but due to political pressures.
So anyone bitter that their talents aren't recognized, or seen by the world, unable to placate their egos, you invested too much on the wrong skills. You tinkered, you entertained yourself. You neglected the people. You see them as adversarial, failures for not recognizing your amazing talent. But at the end of the day, they had the influence to scuttle your work, so... are you just jerking yourself off, or are you actually building something valuable? Is something valued purely for its technical merit, or does it have to be bought (or sold) first? What's the intrinsic value of something that no one buys?
Value has to be manufactured. If we're just talking dollars, it's more impactful than the thing itself: marketing the thing, getting a buyer to agree to the terms and pay.
To be fair, a sales pitch might get your foot in the door, but securing the value (claimed) has to be supported by some of the intrinsic value of the thing itself. If the value was over-hyped, the thing will inevitably fall short and fail to deliver.
Try to make the other guys on your team look bad - what could go wrong? These guys have way too much to prove.