I like lighttable (and donated, too), but this is getting ridiculous.
$300k is one hell of a runway. Neither Vim nor Emacs had any kind of runway. Hardly any bootstrapped startup has that kind of money lying around.
The onus is now on him to deliver something worthwhile. $300k can comfortably carry an individual for 4+ years, no frugality needed at all. I sure hope we'll see results sooner than that.
Naw, your parent is right. When you have a legit business running, there's lots of expenses that come along with it. State, local, county taxes, accountant to keep the rest out of trouble. If you have an employee, there's yet more taxes, business insurance, liability insurance the expenses really go on and on. That 300K is more like 200k, and if he wants to have help (mediocre help), it's more like 130K (50K+employment taxes, benefits?) that is unless he wants 2 helpers then it's more like 85k and that's if he doesn't pay himself... It really isn't much money. Heaven forbid he needs to buy licensing for some IP along the way.
While I consider myself to be pretty frugal and basically agree with you, if he lives in the bay area 300k is certainly not able to support him 4 years without being seriously frugal. Like, having several roommates and no social life.
An entry level engineer here is easily making 75k plus. Somebody mid level is probably looking at a median income around 125k. That doesn't mean you need that much to live, but as a supporter I don't expect him to live on ramen in the tenderloin.
I want skilled and talented engineers to build OSS products like this. I don't mind paying for that. If all goes well i'll use his product to support my career and make a lot of money. There's enough to go around to properly compensate him for his experience, labor, and vision.
Neither Emacs nor Vim had to ship within a year and have had the luxury of development spanning decades. Lighttable has to ship in 2013 to meet promises made. Every penny of that $300k is going to be going toward making that time table feasible. Have you completely forgotten this?
I like lighttable (and donated, too), but this is getting ridiculous.
$300k is one hell of a runway. Neither Vim nor Emacs had any kind of runway. Hardly any bootstrapped startup has that kind of money lying around.
The onus is now on him to deliver something worthwhile. $300k can comfortably carry an individual for 4+ years, no frugality needed at all. I sure hope we'll see results sooner than that.