There s always this pattern that the creatives start out at the bottom of the food chain and are exploited… I see the exact same trend emerging with the tech industry. A lot of things can go wrong when a person just signs on the dotted line.
— Michael Solomon, music and entertainment manager and now an agent for tech talent. So how does the company he founded a couple of years ago, 10x Management, help stop the exploitation ? Why, by negotiating rates such as $150 to $250 an hour for computer programmers. As the New Yorker notes, Solomon describes himself as an equalizer. He wants companies to — and we re channeling Jerry Maguire at the moment — show programmers the money.
So is it time to board the agents-for-programmers train? (10x Management represents almost 80 clients.) David Autor, an economist at M.I.T., said few programmers are so special that they need representation. It might be a good model only for people with unique talents, which most people do not have.
Photo of Jerry Maguire star Tom Cruise from BANG archives
