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The New Kingmakers: How Developers Conquered the World

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As analysts, pundits and researchers alike seek to understand what turned Apple from a technology afterthought into the largest company in the world, they would do well to listen to the man most responsible for that recovery. In a 1995 interview, the late Steve Jobs claimed that the secret to his and Apple’s success was talent. “We’ve gone to exceptional lengths to hire the best people,” he said, believing that the talented resource was twenty-five times more valuable than an average alternative. For Microsoft founder Bill Gates, the multiple was even higher:

A great lathe operator commands several times the wage of an average lathe operator, but a great writer of software code is worth 10,000 times the price of an average software writer.

While the actual number might be up for debate, the importance of technical talent is not. The most successful companies today are those that understand the strategic role that developers will play in their success or failure. Not just successful technology companies – virtually every company today needs a developer strategy. There’s a reason that ESPN and Sears have rolled out API programs, that companies are being bought not for their products but their people. The reason is that developers are the most valuable resource in business.

How did we get here? How did developers become the most important constituency in business seemingly overnight? The New Kingmakers explores the rise of the developer class, its implications and provides suggestions for navigating the new developer-centric landscape.

50 pages, ebook

First published January 9, 2013

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About the author

Stephen O’Grady

2 books16 followers
Stephen O’Grady is a co-founder of the developer-focused technology analyst firm, RedMonk. Regularly cited in publications such as the New York Times, BusinessWeek, and the Wall Street Journal, Stephen’s work revolves around understanding developer needs and trends and working with businesses to help them work more effectively with the New Kingmakers. Although his birth certificate says New York City, Stephen is a Red Sox fan, born and raised. A graduate of Williams College, Stephen lives in Midcoast Maine with his wife.

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5 stars
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144 (40%)
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105 (29%)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews
Profile Image for David.
402 reviews5 followers
November 7, 2013
If you work in the software industry, there's nothing in here you haven't observed yourself over the past several years, but it's nice to see it said out loud in one place. I read this with my eyes on my phone. A quick read.
Profile Image for Robert Bach.
9 reviews
May 11, 2017
quick and easy read about how software vendors and developers work in our current business world
Profile Image for Brian Wilson.
7 reviews2 followers
August 13, 2013
Software engineers, in general, are a misunderstood part of the workforce. They're a smart, capable, and in demand group of people who need a unique leadership approach some companies either can't or won't provide. Arbitrary technology restrictions or forced software adoption won't work when the developers are consistently ahead of the curve and the larger the organization, the more this holds true. So you can try and fight the tide, or you can embrace and empower these people in a way that produces better results for everyone. "The New Kingmakers" examines how this came to be, discusses how developers, and not leadership, are shaping technology decisions, and offers a handful of suggestions if your company or team needs to depend on fostering this relationship.

Overall, I found the book solid and consider this a must read for anyone who is, or works with, software engineers/developers. A good deal of the book is spent beating the idea that developers are much like water and will find ways around anything they consider a block to their productivity. So you can either work with that fact and follow their lead, or you can try to block them as the use the tools they want anyhow, or simply leave for better environments. Once you've come to accept this, the book makes several straight forward recommendations, based on successful strategies in use at developer Meccas like Apple or Google (known for treating their skilled workers like the talent they are, not simply grunts) on how to attract top developers and, more importantly, keep them around and working to their full potential.
Profile Image for Jin.
54 reviews1 follower
June 30, 2014
Short read, to-the-point. The author makes some good points and uses great examples, especially around Amazon AWS and Netflix. I also liked the "CIO is the last to know" chapter... I work for a company that's still using a traditional sales model and it is true that we always sell to the decision makers. In most Fortune 500 enterprises those decision makers are still the C-level executives. But in start-ups and smaller companies the technologists are the new Kingmakers. The shift is happening ... enterprises need to adopt more of a start-up mentality in order to stay ahead of the competition. Organizationally this will be challenging.
On the flip side, I felt like the author could have talked more about the challenges that face this "devops" model. What about security, privacy, and infrastructure? The developers may not care, but customers and compliance agencies sure do.
Profile Image for Sean.
19 reviews
January 23, 2015
Cluetrain extended

I would have given it a perfect rating except for a couple subjects missing I wanted to see: how to handle the "high priesthood" phenomenon with devs who overestimate their own importance, and more on how this movement is impacting mainstream businesses who are not technology-driven. In particular, issues of access and security have to be resolved. Are we destined to live in an insecure world because of the need for low barriers? Is the whole idea of IP going away? And what of automation, which will eventually threaten the developers themselves?
Profile Image for Rob Warner.
256 reviews3 followers
December 20, 2014
Perhaps it's a case of confirmation bias, but I nodded my head often as I read (and yes, I'm a developer). Sure, most corporate developers aren't part of the conquest, but clock-punching developers are increasingly being marginalized by passionate, talented developers. This book is a must-read for management in any technology-dependent company.
Profile Image for Sebastian Gebski.
1,036 reviews996 followers
March 26, 2013
Read it. It takes about an hour or so, but I really liked the observation and I tend to agree with 95% of what was written. I just wonder when some executives in large corps will get the basic idea author speaks about.
551 reviews9 followers
April 28, 2014
The New Kingmakers is a great summary of the last 15 years in the IT industry. It shows how cheap hardware and Open Source software fundamentally changed the dynamic of software driven companies – what by now are nearly all companies.
Profile Image for Mario.
1 review
September 7, 2014
Good book to open the eyes to non developers. Describes how developers are working right now, their objectives and desires.
Profile Image for Prasanna.
231 reviews10 followers
December 14, 2014
Quick read, not as pandering as I'd originally thought. I can imagine this being useful for non-tech managers, leaders to quickly grasp the impact developers are having.
Profile Image for Gul.
18 reviews
April 6, 2019
Short and to the point recount of how open source and developers changed the technology landscape and how the companies are adopting to these changes. I enjoyed reading it and recommend it.
Profile Image for Bartosz Pranczke.
32 reviews48 followers
February 7, 2020
I wish I had read the book when it was published in 2013. Nowadays, a lot of the book's content is obvious for developers, but still worth reading for people without coding experience.
Profile Image for PW.
32 reviews
March 17, 2014
A must-read for all devs and anyone who has devs working for them.
Profile Image for Christopher Boudreau.
26 reviews1 follower
April 22, 2018
A good white paper

As a developer myself, I read this book to be inspired - but then I found this book was not really written for me. It is Stephen O’Grady’s white paper to convince high-level executives they need to listen to their developers more - and learn how to better recruit developers - to keep their organizations competitive. Everything O’Grady says is true, and it’s a powerful recounting of how our technical approaches have evolved over the past 30 years, but I found it an over-simplification to sell you on his company’s services.
Profile Image for Sean.
2 reviews
December 29, 2018
Good summary review of the modern IT landscape

For many technical people and developers who work in the tech industry most of the content will be familiar. A short read, you can finish it on a plane ride. Buy it for your boss or any other executive who doesn't understand the cloud.
Profile Image for Jim P.
18 reviews
June 12, 2021
Bottom Up? Part of the Elastic strategy in the early days
Profile Image for Paul Waring.
159 reviews5 followers
October 8, 2022
A very short book with little to add to the subject, this could have been half a dozen blog posts.
Profile Image for Tony.
99 reviews
March 30, 2013
The basic premise behind this book is that all businesses need developers. Because there is tremendous demand, and limited supply, a lot of decisions are going to be made by the developers. A lot of the success, or failure, of a company will be because of the quality of it's developers. Ergo, if you want your company to be successful, you need to start being good to the developers. You need to eliminate some of the layers of old bureaucracy; after all, developers don't like that. And after all, you'll be better off if you let the developers make the technical decisions.

In some respects, this book sounds like a major sales job. I'm a developer. I can make you, or break you, so you need to be good to me. While I agree with some of the reasons he draws his conclusions, I think he goes WAY overboard. As such, I'm not sure if the author is merely naive or is shooting for some kind of parody.

Yes, open source has allowed developers to become more visible and to create more with less money being spent. For the vast majority, though, life as a developer consists of commuting to work, sitting in a cubicle, using Windows (which the company paid for), using Microsoft or Oracle development tools (which the company also paid for) to develop code for Microsoft-, Oracle- or IBM-based servers (for which the company paid, for hardware and software). Then, at the end of the day, they go home and think as little as possible about their job. It isn't a passion; it's a paycheck. There's too much going on in their lives to devote their energy to learning the latest open-source tools or languages, much less deploying something to deploy to an Amazon cloud-based server. Sure the means for all of that is there, but most companies are NOT embracing it and most developers don't have time/energy to play with it. So, two of the greatest enablers of the rise of the developers might as well not exist.

They may exist for the younger punks who don't have families to support and mortgages to pay. But they are the minority.

Fortune 500 companies, many of whom use technology but aren't technology companies per se, are more interested in the aforementioned drones. They aren't looking for developers of the mold the author is describing. Such developers would hate to work in those types of jobs. And, like it or not, the bored drone-type jobs account for at least 90% of the development jobs out there.

When these factors start playing a greater role in a larger number of companies, what he describes may come to pass in a greater degree. In the meantime, he's given the managers and corporate beancounters some good ideas of what they need to avoid. Lest they find themselves with less clout.
Profile Image for Kasia Mrowca.
18 reviews38 followers
September 11, 2015
Inspiring ideas but poor quality. Few graphs that are included are not readable (too small font) or without description/reference in the text. No reference to the research or any source of data.

I like the ideas from the book, but not the book itself. I agree with the comments I noticed below - this could be a blog post and not the book.
Profile Image for Dave Bolton.
192 reviews85 followers
May 27, 2014
Panders a little to us as developers, but has some interesting, if reasonably well known in the tech community, arguments about the importance of software and software developers. It's only 48 pages, so very quick to read.
Profile Image for Dave Fordice.
29 reviews
June 18, 2016
Do developers rule?

O'Grady makes a good case for the answer to this question. It would be fun to get some more recent case studies similar to the ones he cites in this book. Excellent read, especially for someone like me who comes from the enterprise world.
October 11, 2023
Amazing read. Stephen O Grady created this book way ahead of the current software engineer demands and covid-19 impact on modern workforces. A must read for technologist and people leaders

Way ahead of its time, prior to LeetCode mafias, Stack Ranking and Levels.fyi
Profile Image for Christoph Kappel.
361 reviews4 followers
December 11, 2023
A rather short read, but still totally worth it the time.

One of the few things that really took a hold in my mind is the change, that software doesn't have to appeal to management only, but to developers.

I really hope this reaches my company as well at some point in time. ;)
41 reviews5 followers
January 18, 2015
like a blog post

Zero insight other than developers are important and should be kept happy in the world today which strikes me as lame.
Profile Image for Manuel Martín-Vivaldi.
126 reviews2 followers
July 21, 2020
Interesting, and a few years ago it surely was a great read, but now is known history. It could be resumed in a few pages.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews

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