jackpot

Site is down, here is the text:Every now and then someone hits the jackpot.

Casinos, since they own the place, will err on their side and send you home without the jackpot. That's just the way it is.

Even those that hit the jackpot at a Netscape don't really hit the jackpot.

But just $2 once every couple of months when the jackpot is some insane number?

But unless you win the lottery or hit the jackpot then you have to keep re-tooling every 3-4 years.

This means that investors aren't getting many large returns and, when somebody smells "jackpot", there is a frenzy.

We are the programmers, system/network/database admins etc. creating this wealth of all the people in the world, and as jwz points out, even when we hit the jackpot we get screwed.

Obviously, all the Kenan employees had understood from the time they were hired that they were not getting stock options, but there was still some grumbling about how they didnt share in the jackpot.

I'm not saying Nick D'Aloisio isn't doing what he does out of genuine passion - I don't know anything about him, I expect he's very driven and geniune - but I would rather focus on the work than the jackpot.

Contingency recruiters don't get paid unless they find you a hire, which sounds great in theory but turns it into a lottery for them: spam as many developers and companies as you can, hoping for a big jackpot.

Your friend, though, knows that correlation is not causation and the relationship between our self-sacrifice and our economic well being is as tenuous as the relationship between uncle Ernie's lucky Elvis shirt and that time hit the jackpot on the penny slots.

In a sense, the heartbeat code got unlucky and hit the mega-anti-jackpot, disproportional to its "actual" risk... but there was risk in adding it, and even before we know the outcome it would have, somebody really should have been asking hard questions about whether the reward justified the risk.