An agent traditionally represents someone that has a unique talent -- say an actor, director or a high profile fashion model. These are situations where the name of the person (i.e. their brand) brings actual financial value to a project. So for example if Tom Hanks stars in a film you produce the value of the film just increased.
In stark contrast developers are engineers, i.e. they make something that's a result of a specification. Now yes some developers are better than others, but that work is "under the hood".
Now an exception to the above might be a "rock star CTO" or founder who is really more of an architect or a product person. But at that point their actual code is besides the point if you know what I mean. In fact the actual code from this sort of rock star might even be below average, but that's not why they're getting funding.
Side note: In the case of an entertainment artist who has an agent it's the artist with the best track record that will do do well. An unknown artist with an agent is still at the bottom.
This isn't exactly true. Virtually every actor and actress has an agent as it scales better than negotiating every gig independently. The big difference I see is that the gigs are mostly very short and numerous. Very few are more than a few
days work.
But let's think about it: The actors you're talking about who have the agent on the lowest rung are still professional actors, i.e. they do acting to earn a living and nothing else.
However that set of actors is a small sub-set of those actors who get a role every now and then but don't earn a full time living. So there is an entire class of actors who get an industrial spot, do summer stock, play an extra or do voice overs who don't have an agent.
I know this because I've hired those actors for various projects. However if those actors had a name that you could recognize they'd have an agent.
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An agent traditionally represents someone that has a unique talent -- say an actor, director or a high profile fashion model. These are situations where the name of the person (i.e. their brand) brings actual financial value to a project. So for example if Tom Hanks stars in a film you produce the value of the film just increased.
In stark contrast developers are engineers, i.e. they make something that's a result of a specification. Now yes some developers are better than others, but that work is "under the hood".
Now an exception to the above might be a "rock star CTO" or founder who is really more of an architect or a product person. But at that point their actual code is besides the point if you know what I mean. In fact the actual code from this sort of rock star might even be below average, but that's not why they're getting funding.
Side note: In the case of an entertainment artist who has an agent it's the artist with the best track record that will do do well. An unknown artist with an agent is still at the bottom.
This isn't exactly true. Virtually every actor and actress has an agent as it scales better than negotiating every gig independently. The big difference I see is that the gigs are mostly very short and numerous. Very few are more than a few days work.
But let's think about it: The actors you're talking about who have the agent on the lowest rung are still professional actors, i.e. they do acting to earn a living and nothing else.
However that set of actors is a small sub-set of those actors who get a role every now and then but don't earn a full time living. So there is an entire class of actors who get an industrial spot, do summer stock, play an extra or do voice overs who don't have an agent.
I know this because I've hired those actors for various projects. However if those actors had a name that you could recognize they'd have an agent.
They are probably doing themselves a disservice in that industry then.
Not really — an agent who doesn't get you gigs still gets a cut. Having an agent doesn't always open doors or get you more money.