Can you fundraise in Silicon Valley while pregnant? - <AUTHOR> https://spice.getsourcery.com/can-you-fundraise-in-silicon-valley-while-pregnant-ca0118aa959d <comment><USER2> I thought that money raising is for people who put all their effort into making a fast-growing company and need money to make the growth even faster. It's about choosing not having a life in return for the possibility for creating a big company.

I have no problem with that person being a male or female. But I can't imagine any person (mom or dad) being able to put 15 hours a day to a company with the baby _after_ the baby is born. That's the first thing the article should deal with.

<comment><USER3> A man can conceal the fact of his expecting a child soon. A woman, usually, is unable to do so. Both will be affected by the child, but the investor may be more likely to favour the man, which is unfair.

<comment><USER4> Would I invest in a startup with the founder about to have a baby? No. Either they will be dedicating a big part of their life in the near future to raising that baby correctly, or they will be ignoring that baby and leaving someone else to raise it. I find the second outcome even worse than the first, but I'm not going to invest in either.

Now a man might be able to deceive me by simply not disclosing this while a woman is going to have a very difficult time. But I wouldn't say this is unfair: the man is simply easier able to pass off his awfulness than the woman.

It's like saying a woman is more likely to be able to shoplift and get away with it than a man and this is unfair. I don't know if that is true, but if it is, it's certainly not 'unfair'.

<comment><USER5> How much time does it take to "raise a baby correctly?" Parenting is heavily driven by cargo culting, old wives' tales, and conventional wisdom; but very little by actual data.

<comment><USER6> A metric major fuck ton.

If you truly want to be present and have an active role in your child's life, growth, development et al it's going to force your priorities to shuffle around.

If your "startup" is still a priority (but not above your child) you aren't going to be in the office from sun up to sun down. Period.

You'll have to make up those hours later (when the child is sleeping) however, in months 0-24, that's really tough as most children (at least not mine) didn't sleep well during that phase.

During those years, and for me it spanned 5 calendar years given multiple children, working late at night was a luxury, not an option I could plan on.

I however, disclosed that when taking a CTO position at a company that just wrapped up a ~$20 dollar round. It was transparent to them and set the right expectations.

I do acknowledge that a company in that stage albeit not out of the woods, is not in the same position in the seed, Series-A phase.

If you look in my comment history I gave a "day in the life of" for my schedule on how I manage running a startup and keeping my family, health, self priority #1, #2, and #3. It's buried in there somewhere.

<comment><USER7> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7779598](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7779598)

<comment><USER6> Other things I've added is putting my phone on a shelf when I come home and only answering emails after my kids have gone to bed and my wife and I have had some time to hang out.

I also take two lunches a week where I hit the gym and go two additional times (in the evening and once in the morning on the weekends).

My point being, the business I help run is thriving, dates/goals are being met, people are happy, and the world kept turning.

Making my career priority #4 has ultimately made me better at my career. No burnout, better focus and creativity, etc.

I honestly wish I did this when I got into the startup space back in 2004 where if you didn't work ~80 hours a week you were a freak.

<comment><USER8> Good for you. I think more people should embrace this kind of adaptability and prioritization as startup employees as well as founders (at least founders beyond the early stage).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> In my experience, people tend to seriously underestimate the amount of work a baby takes, and the strain it adds to relationships, work life, and emotional health. I certainly did.

I think it's reasonable for investors to wonder if a person's commitment won't change when they have a baby. I would advise the authors that they really can't forsee what their priorities will be like when the baby comes. It sounds trite, but a baby changes your whole life. It will add an incredible amount of stress that will probably make you reevaluate your priorities.

If I were an investor, I would hold off until they had the baby, and it was at least a few months old. Then both the founders could really know how committed they still were to the company.

[edit: grammar]

<comment><USER10> Purely for the purposes of clarity:

Is that you'd hold any founder expecting a baby to the same standard, male or female? (though it is normally easier to recognize a pregnant woman than someone with a pregnant partner)

Or do you see the load you describe falling primarily upon women?

<comment><USER11> Females have to face the physical/mental side effects of pregnancy in addition to the complications of child care. Females become the primary care taker at higher rates than males. Primary care takers are less productive and less devoted.

This isn't just a coincidence. Females have the choice of having a child while males do not. Males only have the choice to give a female the choice of having a child with the male. Naturally, the person who makes the choice of having a child most likely values children more, which leads to a higher chance of becoming the primary care taker. There are also benefits that are exclusive to female primary care takers.

If a female and a male have the same profile and they both are expecting children, the male will have a higher expected value because of the physical/emotional complications of a pregnancy and a lower chance of being the primary care taker.

People are investing real money here. It is what it is.

<comment><USER12> Then change "it". "It" is a problem, and "it" is wrong.

By your logic, before any investment is made a complete health scan of all founders should be completed, including a mental health assay.

If a founder gets cancer, should they be fired? They're going to have to take time off to get it removed, followed by months if not years of time lost to chemotherapy.

If you replace tumor with baby, and chemotherapy with pediatric appointments, is there any difference?

Anecdote: When I was 13, my father, CEO of a subsidiary of a large Japanese conglomerate, was treated for and cleared of prostate cancer. It runs in my family and killed his father and grandfather. When he returned to work about 4 weeks later, he was fired as the larger corporation had decided that it was too risky to have someone that could get sick be a C level employee. It is what it is?

<comment><USER13> It is a false comparison because having a baby is a choice and largely avoidable.

Maybe it'd be more comparable to a chain smoker who smoked since ten and it's in his fifties.

Getting fired for health related issues is also another false comparison. Here we're talking getting a private investment. Difference is that the first case is already covered by law (and those also cover hiring, as difficult to prove discrimination can be)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Can you fundraise if you openly say that you have a time-intensive hobby that you will under no circumstances give up for working on your company?

Thanks to modern contraceptive methods getting pregnant is a choice. The same as doing a time-intense hobby. If you would not finance someone who openly says that he/she will not give up his/her time-intense hobby for the company, isn't this the same as not financing people who are pregnant?

<comment><USER15> So similarly, potential investors should screen all men to make sure they and their partner aren't expecting children anytime soon? This would maybe be a defensible* position if it were applied equally, but it's not.

*But actually it's not really. In today's world, with varying family types and options for care, it is possible for people to have children and give their all to a company. For many (most?) people that isn't the best option, but it is possible.

<comment><USER3> Not to mention that one has to wonder what the point of all this is if we're going to deny people one of the most basic aspects of the human experience. I'm all for family planning, smaller families for the sake of the planet, etc. but c'mon, are we going to tell ambitious people they can pretty much _never_ have kids? Aren't these the sort of folks we should be hoping _do_ make copies of themselves?

<comment><USER14> Who says that you have to found a company and found a family at the same time? Why can't one do that at different times (e.g. some years between) when these goals won't be in hard conflict?

<comment><USER3> Nobody says you have to. I am proposing an alternate value system that says we don't need to claim these things are always absolutely mutually exclusive. I think it depends on the company, the parent(s), the child, the culture, the legal framework around parenting and work, and a zillion other things. Maybe you live with your extended family and it's understood that a grandparent will take on a lot of the work. Or an uncle. Or maybe your government provides extensive day care and education options. Or maybe you have an office where a child can be present.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > But just because they aren't asking, it doesn't mean the pregnancy isn't > foremost in their minds. It is almost worse left unaddressed.

> On a call last month, a male investor finally raised the issue of pregnancy

> After the call with the investor who questioned whether her pregnancy would > affect her ability to close the round, Na'ama was stirred. She told me that > this is the first time she felt what it is like to be a woman, rather than a > person, in her interactions with investors.

This feels like it might be a reason (although I'm sure there are others) that investors don't bring it up. You talk about being uncomfortable with people not bringing it up, then someone does (in a way that didn't _seem_ inappropriate based on what you wrote, but I could be misreading), and then it makes you uncomfortable that they asked. It feels like there's really no way to win from the investor side.

Na'ama sounds like she handled the question really well, which seems like a big win for her in an investor's eyes (at least the good ones). From your perspective, if she's got a great answer to the question, wouldn't you _want_ an investor that asks you how this major, life changing event is going to affect your team? For the sake of conversation (since this is being had in other threads) let's assume that said investor would also ask a man that question if they knew his partner was about to have a child.

</comment><comment><USER17> As someone who has personally been pregnant (several times!) let me assure you that when you see a pregnant woman, you have no idea whatsoever whether she is feeling

\- well

\- ill

\- overwhelmed

\- confident

\- anything else

because every pregnancy is different, and every woman is different, and every family is different. You cannot safely assume anything about a pregnant woman. So her pregnancy can't help you reliably judge whether she can handle being CEO.

For that matter, you can't safely assume a woman is pregnant even if it seems obvious. I knew a woman with an abdominal tumor who kept getting asked when the baby was due.

<comment><USER18> >because every pregnancy is different, and every woman is different, and every family is different. You cannot safely assume anything about a pregnant woman. So her pregnancy can't help you reliably judge whether she can handle being CEO.

Couldn't this logic be applied to almost anything about any person and thus leave one saying that nothing can reliably be used to judge whether someone can handle being a CEO?

<comment><USER17> No, I'm simply saying that pregnancy is a less reliable guide than you might assume if you have a fixed idea of what it means to be a pregnant woman.

<comment><USER19> Man here, wife went through hell in her pregnancy so I might be biased, but talking with other pregnant women in our lives, in general, they are happy to be pregnant, but from that, the feeling is more skewed to the complaining/problems than the I can do this mentality. More 'I want to lay in bed all day' vs 'things to do, lets hush hush hush, do things, build stuff'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Really people? Remove the fact that she's pregnant from the picture, instead focus on the fact that she's unlikely to be highly involved in the company for approximately 6 to nine months regardless of the reason. Sometimes that happens to founders. Then evaluate the investment opportunity conditioned on this.

That could be fine. Or not. I may evaluate the company as simply having a temporarily inactive co-founder. That's hardly uncommon. Not ideal, but if everything else is in place (remaining team can meet or exceed expectations) then, sure I'd invest.

And no, I don't expect founders to put in 15 hours days as a rule. That means you're hardly getting adequate sleep and will end up making moronic decisions. That's frankly idiotic. I don't care how much you work. Focus on the metrics that matter. Some startups require 10+ days, some don't. Some require greater time commitments in some periods and less in other periods.

There's so much rigid thinking in the comments about this story.

Learn to focus on the most relevant aspects of the problem. Namely, a major life event is coming up - is there a reasonable plan in place to handle it? If yes, then proceed to follow your usual path of analyzing an investment.

It's funny how men get so irrational when faced with a woman's pregnancy.

I would say this though. It's incumbent on the founders to initiate this discussion. Just like it's important for an employee who is expecting to take significant time off to put in a request well in advance.

tldr; I don't care if you're planning to take two months off to go surfing or to have a kid. Just let me know how you plan to handle that and I'll evaluate your company on its merits.

</comment><comment><USER21> This is a serious question as a woman who has never been pregnant and perhaps not that knowledgable about pregnancies. Doesn't giving birth render you incapacitated for a certain period of time even if everything goes well and there's no guarantee after giving birth things will return to normal. Even in cases where one's life isn't at risk, there's a high risk of postpartum depression, etc. It seems very unfair to me that women have to deal with such things. I hope one day women won't need to have periods without taking any additional health risks and also that it will be easier for women to have surrogate baby carriers.

Another serious question is wouldn't a nursery at work be disruptive if there is a lot of crying, etc. or how will it be set up so as not to bother people who are working.

<comment><USER17> It depends on the pregnancy and on the birth. Some women jump right up and get back into the swing of things. Most of us need recovery time. There is no safe assumption.

Speaking of assumptions, there is no reason to assume a CEO mother would have a nursery at work. She might well have a stay-at-home spouse (I do) or a parent or nanny or any number of things.

<comment><USER21> How long is the recovery time usually, I mean typically for the average woman? Also, I mentioned the nursery because in the post it said she would have a nursery at work.

<comment><USER17> It's a pretty wide distribution, which is my whole point. Also, "recovery" can be defined in a lot of different ways. A lot of people feel pretty decent at their six-week checkup, if they're not too sleep-deprived.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I asked this question of the Boston VC community as a soon-to-be father, and the resounding advice was: "wait until the baby is at least a few months old"

There are a lot of logical reasons for this that you already know, so I'll just vouch for the emotional one, which is a style of thinking that's going to become more prominent in you as soon as you hold your child. I'm really glad I waited. Unless fundraising now is life-or-death for your company, I think you'll both be really glad if you wait, too.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I wrote an article about how my co-founder is pregnant and raising funding for our company, Sourcery. Investors are hesitant to bring up the issue in conversation for fear of coming off as an insensitive brute who questions a women's commitment to her company, but this is an important issue to address upfront. I try to lay out how we are preparing for this moment together.

<comment><USER23> Do you bring up the pregnancy when you meet with investors? I wonder if that would help or hurt compared to not mentioning it at all.

<comment><AUTHOR> Some have tried to hide this, and there are links to such accounts. But, "Na'ama is direct. She's not the kind of person to pretend about anything. In the third trimester, her condition is nearly impossible to hide anyway. And yet surprisingly, most investors have scrupulously avoided discussing the fact."

<comment><USER24> They may have avoided any mention for legal reasons.

Pregnancy is one of the protected classes. If they talk about it and then don't give you funding, there are potential repercussions, just as if they discussed religion, race, etc.

<comment><USER25> > Pregnancy is one of the protected classes.

AFAIK protected classes don't apply to investors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This is a great question. It forces the greater question: Can you "Be Dedicated" and be more than one thing. Silicon valley seems to believe:

You can't be a CEO and pregnant.

You can't be a lead programmer and old (> 30).

You can't love both Linux and Windows.

You can't be Democrat and vote for a Republican.

How did we become so decided.

<comment><USER27> I've seen counter examples- plenty- for all of these- in Silicon Valley. Marissa was a pregnant CEO as was Anne Wojicicki. There are plenty more, as well. I'm > 30 and most of the lead programmers at my company are > 30 (I was a lead, then stepped down to IC role) with families. I love Linux and Windows and love both; I know other people who are happy with both OSes. And while democrats can't vote in republican primaries, they can vote in elections for members of either party.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> The better question is: should you?

It's bad from the child: stress on the mother can be transferred to the development of the child.

It's bad for the investor: this founder won't be able to dedicate the requisite amount of time to the venture as another unpregnant founder would.

</comment><comment><USER29> Any stress the mother suffers will be passed down to the baby...

"There are some data to show that higher chronic stressors in women and poor coping skills to deal with those stressors may be associated with lower birth weight and with delivering earlier," says Ann Borders, MD, MPH, MSc. She is an OB/GYN in the obstetrics and gynecology department, Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine, at Evanston Hospital, NorthShore University HealthSystem. (source [http://www.webmd.com/baby/features/stress- marks](http://www.webmd.com/baby/features/stress-marks))

<comment><USER5> What's the actual long-term impact on the child?

<comment><USER29> I suggest you should do some research. I wouldn't take risks/ try any experiments though :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> If you have the "balls" to fundraise despite the fact that it shows you're pregnant, isn't that a good sign?

</comment><comment><USER31> This is a thread of generalizations heaped upon already heavily beleaguered minorities, given that most people who suffer from these generalizations are women and trans men.

Here are some links, to pieces regarding people who have had kids and startups, really the _only_ people who're qualified to comment on the subject, and you can choose to educate yourselves (or, you know, not):

[http://www.californiababy.com/meet- jessica.html](http://www.californiababy.com/meet-jessica.html)

[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/10/business/nurturing-a- baby-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/10/business/nurturing-a-baby-and-a- start-up-business.html)

[http://mamalode.com/story/detail/an-interview-with- michelle-...](http://mamalode.com/story/detail/an-interview-with-michelle- vick-co-founder-of-the-baby-box-co)

[http://fortune.com/2015/06/22/founder-startup-hidden- pregnan...](http://fortune.com/2015/06/22/founder-startup-hidden-pregnancy/)

[http://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/02/05/tinsel-founder- aniy...](http://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/02/05/tinsel-founder-aniyia- williams-on-building-a-hardware-startup-from-scratch-while-pregnant/#gref)

This is your bonus piece: [http://madamenoire.com/599068/pregnant-woman- finishes-psych-...](http://madamenoire.com/599068/pregnant-woman-finishes- psych-exam-during-active-labor/)

Finally, I'm going share a story about my friend from grad school who wrote her thesis while 7-9 months pregnant, landed a tenure track faculty position in the physics department of the university where she teaches straight out of grad school, gave birth, returned to successfully defend her thesis, and she currently has 2 incredible children and a 25-person lab. Her partner is a very talented chef. So, you know, two demanding careers.

I honestly don't even know what else to say, other than suggest that a better more fruitful question would be, "What can be done to help technical founders who are pregnant and/or have families?"

</comment><comment><USER32> I recently discussed this with my girlfriend. I can only conclude that there are 2 sides to the story, let's call them 2 truths:

Truth 1: No individual (regardless of sex) can run a startup as a CEO if they are incapacitated somehow

Truth 2: Individuals (regardless of sex) need to prioritize. NOBODY can have it all.

With that in mind, women need to understand that: 1\. They will be incapacitated if they get pregnant 2\. They need to choose if they want to be CEO or a nurturing mother. Both cannot happen concurrently because the woman will be overwhelmed and do worse in both roles.

It is also unfair on both the child and investors to give only half of yourself. So choose one.

This also applies to men. A man cannot go become a CEO if he's broke and needs to feed his family. Go get a job and get rid of immediate concerns first so that you can give your best to both your family and investors.

<comment><USER33> > A man cannot go become a CEO if he's broke and needs to feed his family

Your biases are showing. But really, I'm not sure what you're saying here. People living in partnership with others can raise children AND do other things. This is not "having it all", this is working hard to make your life what you want it to be.

<comment><USER32> > Your biases are showing.

\- As much as we want it, a man can never become pregnant. The woman will have to do the pregnancy part.

\- As much as we want it, a pregnant woman can never work at her optimal. The man will have to do the optimal working part.

So, if the partnership desires a kid, it means pregnancy for the woman and for the man to provide stability in those times.

Is this a personal bias or reality?

<comment><USER34> What is "Optimal Working" and why should we believe that anyone is doing it at the moment? I think you're chasing some fantasy perfection state that isn't really achievable

<comment><USER32> Here's an experiment:

Person A: A 6 ft man

Person B: A 5 ft man

In basketball, even if person B trains for 23 hours/day more than person A, he is impeded because of his height.

Is there a guarantee that person A will do better JUST because of his height? No

Is there a guarantee that person B will do better JUST because of more hours invested in training? No

But person A can train and become better whereas person B cannot change anything.

Such is the nature of physical differences.

Person B would be better served playing a sport that doesn't require height...aka, Basketball is not "Optimal" for person B.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Kudos to Naama! Would love to see some data eventually for interactions, to at least try to have a quantitative side to this too. Would be really interesting and could help guide other founders in a similar position.

</comment><comment><USER36> This thinking in this thread is the reason women are leaving tech in droves.

</comment><comment><USER37> The question is not whether you can fundraise, the question is whether you are physically and mentally fit during and after the birth to run a company with the level of stress, anxiety, etc. it will mean and the huge amount of time you will have to dedicate to it.

</comment><comment><USER38> This thread is what it would be like if "The Vagina Monologues" were performed by an all-male cast in front of an all-male audience.</comment>


Create tables with paragraph-like content in Org mode - <AUTHOR> https://emacsnotes.wordpress.com/2020/04/26/create-tables-with-paragraph-like-content-in-org-mode-with-the-least-amount-of-hassle/ <comment><AUTHOR> H/t: Sacha Chua [0]

[0] [https://sachachua.com/blog/2020/04/2020-04-27-emacs- news/](https://sachachua.com/blog/2020/04/2020-04-27-emacs-news/)</comment>


We need more shitty work - <AUTHOR> http://femke.co.nz/articles/shitty <comment><USER2> This makes me think of the games industry. I wish the B or C-tier "6.5/10" games could keep game studios afloat long enough to show us what they've really got to offer.

This phenomenon also reminds me of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. You need security and a minimum degree of comfort in order to be creative and productive. If throughout the development process you're on the verge of shutting down, it shouldn't come as a shock when you produce 6.5/10 "bad" game.

Back in the 80s and 90s, many series now regarded as classics started out with mediocre entries, which were built upon in subsequent years. I feel we've lost this for the most part nowadays. I think Early Access games on Steam are an effort to get something like this going again, but they're on the opposite end of the scale in terms of the pressure to deliver, in that they tend to be too lax.</comment>


Ask HN: How much are you earning as a freelance app developer? - <AUTHOR> What are you averaging per year, as a freelance app developer? <comment><USER2> I make $7 US dollars an hour designing and developing apps as a full-time employee. I'm paying off a new car, pay rent, and live quite a good life compared to others in my country (third-world country).

Compared to other countries salaries, mine is awful. Compared to local salaries, it's actually about 4x the minimum wage. The cost of living here is quite low (I pay 150$ per month for a single bedroom with bathroom). Where this kind of salary hurts is when:

\- traveling

\- buying online

\- saving for the future (maybe I will want to move overseas, and I also need savings for emergencies)

\- paying for study (courses, uni overseas)

\- buying work computers or phones

\- buying software or services (e.g. Photoshop, Sketch)

<comment><USER3> My friend Jay El-Kaake and I wrote two books on freelance consulting. We would be happy to send you both copies for free. It is a shame, for a variety of reasons, that someone intelligent and competent is earning $7 USD hourly. Email firstname.lastname@example.com

<comment><USER4> I'm so much interested in that book to improve my business skills. Any reference?

<comment><USER3> If you're interested in my book, the link is in my profile; it has practical tips specifically for freelance programmers/developers/consultants/coders/software engineering people. But if you are purely interested in improving your business skills, then I recommend reading "The Personal MBA" by Josh Kaufman.

Also, I'm a developer but my father is a Silicon Valley business lawyer. He wrote a chapter of "The Software Engineer's Guide to Freelance Consulting" that is available for free. [https://codefor.cash/legalideas](https://codefor.cash/legalideas)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't want to share my exact rate, but I easily make a month what a Silicon Valley engineer at a seed startup can.. and since I live in a developing country it's an order of magnitude more than most people my age.

If you're a brilliant engineer and are looking to work for a freelance app developer, I recommend Toptal[1].

While I now work at Toptal, I first joined the company through their freelance network, got a project with one of their clients, and eventually was onboarded onto the company itself. My experience with them started as someone that "wanted to work for international clients out of Pakistan" and it was brilliant. I whole-heartedly recommend joining Toptal for freelancers looking to get something going on the side. You can choose your own rate, so you can go as low as $10, or go as crazy as, jeez, I dunno, $500.. although the higher you are, the more difficult it is to land a client.

[1]: Toptal Referral link: [https://www.toptal.com/#contract-just-respected- software-arc...](https://www.toptal.com/#contract-just-respected-software- architects)

<comment><USER6> From their website[1]:

The Top 3%

"Everyone at Toptal has a proven track record and elite industry experience. There are Toptalers from Wharton, MIT, CERN, and Google, as well as Django committers, Top 100 Rails contributors, leading global designers and art directors, professors, founders and more."

Holy crap man I'm not even going to bother, I'm none of that.

 _Impostor syndrome intesifies_

[1] [https://www.toptal.com/top-3-percent](https://www.toptal.com/top-3-percent)

<comment><USER5> Don't let that get to you, they have an intense screening process but after you pass it, that's just it.

I'm 25, I have a degree in Economics and Finance, and no formal computer education. All I have is my self-taught experience.

The first time I tried, for all my confidence, I flunked it really bad, which came as a shock to me. I mean, I _knew_ I was good. The recruiter gave me a timeout and said I could reapply later. The next time I'd studied my butt off, solved advanced level coding exercises and reached 4 Kyu on codewars.com

At that point, I breezed through the exercises, and when I was asked to build a live project, I had fun learning and creating my first React web app.. I'd been meaning to learn React, but never had time before.

Of the dozens (dozens!) of people I've referred to Toptal none have passed the screening process. However, I strongly believe it's because they didn't push through it. I know the screening process itself can be beat if you take the time to improve yourself.

Besides, on the other side of the screening process is the greatest community of Ninja developers I've ever seen in my life! Anything I have trouble with, I can discuss on our community chat. I've never been part of a community like this before. And the clients are absolutely brilliant, since Toptal screens clients too!

<comment><USER6> Thanks a lot for sharing your experience. You are working purely remote, I assume? I'd be curious to see how I'd fare in their screening process.

Can you tell me roughly how many hours in total the screening process takes? (excluding the time you took to study) And how many hours did you spend on the live project? Was it an actual project, or just a dummy one?

I'm asking because I'm working full time, and the whole screening process sounds very time intensive. Not sure if all of this could be done after work hours, or if I'd have to take a couple of days of vacation.

<comment><USER5> Yes, I work purely remotely.

The screening process shouldn't be that tough. It's broken into multiple stages. The first three are short sessions. The longest of which was around (I think, don't hold me to it) an hour.

The project is a confidential project you make according to specifications, but they give you enough time to pull it off, even with a full-time job.

<comment><USER6> Thanks! Maybe I'll give it a shot...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Hey all, Matt from Bonsai (YC W16) here. We provide contracts, proposals, invoices, and other tools to freelancers, mostly developers and designers.

We used our anonymized data to break out what freelancers earn with different experience levels, skill sets, locations, etc: [https://www.hellobonsai.com/rates](https://www.hellobonsai.com/rates)

<comment><USER8> Why is Europe excluded ?

<comment><USER7> When we first launched we didn't have enough data for Europe, but we do now and will update it soon with rates for most European countries and a few others.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I know a guy making $10-15k a month from his apps. He's a full time employee now, but when he had kids, he stayed home, taught himself android, and made apps for 5 years while his wife worked full time. Now they are in maintenance mode and print cash.

<comment><USER10> What apps did he make? How did he make money off of them?

<comment><USER9> I don't want to reveal anything that might jeopardize his apps with competition (and therefore hurt his family's income). He made games (more like word games and puzzles than real-time) and monetized them with ads. One trick he did was to rebrand his existing games with different titles, graphics, etc. to create his own competition, so sometimes he owns multiple apps in the top results for the same game category. Very impressive.

<comment><USER11> Re-branding has always been an interesting thing to me, and the companies I work at (imho) underutilize it. I have friends who work in manufacturing, and all of their "competition" is made by their company, it's just branded towards different market segments.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm 1/3 of a three person dev. shop — does that count? We charge 250/person/hr and have been doing 40+ hr weeks for the last few years. We'll also make some margin if we need to sub out occasionally as client needs increase. This stability is really shaky though as all this work was from a single client.

<comment><USER13> How do consulting shops charge so much?

I mean, yes they got higher overhead than a single dev, but that's their own problem and not the problem of the client, so what's the difference fro a single dev here?

<comment><USER14> You're asking a few questions here. I can answer from my experience working at a consulting shop that charged a lot of money...

> Are they charging more because of overhead?

Partially. There's overhead you wouldn't get with a single developer like office space and administrative overhead. A big overlooked piece of overhead is sales overhead. It's much easier to find 40 hours of consulting work a week than 120 hours of work. If its a premium development shop, the developer salaries are probably higher as well. This all may cut into the margins, but it doesn't really explain why they charge so much.

> Why do they charge so much?

Because they have clients who are willing to pay that much. Plain and simple.

> What does the client get that they wouldn't with a single developer?

Some companies are bad at finding and retaining talent. This includes contractors. They also might not know how to manage a project. For a lot of companies, they need something done, but this simply isn't their area of expertise. Some single developers can manage their own projects, but sometimes they need more than just a single developer. The workload may be much higher than what a single person could manage, and hiring 3 individual developers can be much less efficient than hiring a team of 3 developers who already work well together. Perhaps they need a designer as well, or they're looking for a project manager who is really good at communicating business needs with them.

<comment><USER13> So you're saying it's a team factor and a single dev can't get into that 200€/person/hour range?

<comment><USER14> I'd never attach a number to anything I said because its all relative, and I'd just be asking to be proven wrong. Like all things its pretty relative. There's teams that can charge more than developers and developers that can charge more as teams.

The number you threw out doesn't seem unreasonable though.

<comment><USER13> I don't want to question your knowledge :)

I'm just trying to understand what is needed to get ahead of the game :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm an Android and Ruby on Rails dev and I've been working as a freelance for a couple of years now.

I am making quadruple the amount my peers are making in Eastern Europe while working less hours and remotely.

Most clients I get is through networks such as Toptal, which I would wholeheartedly recommend. I'm also a member of Gigster, which I can't quite recommend at the moment, and there is CodeControl and Povio labs which I would also recommend.

I think the best approach is to sign up for a number of these networks. It will definitely kickstart your freelance career and will help you have a constant stream of potential projects and offers.

However, do avoid websites such as Upwork or other networks which don't have a technical interview process as these are very likely flooded with extremely low-wage and/or low-quality workers. It is much harder to land a good client on these websites.

Here's my Toptal referral link: [https://www.toptal.com/#work-with-the-best- programmers-today](https://www.toptal.com/#work-with-the-best-programmers- today)

But again, don't just apply there :)

<comment><USER16> Just asked someone else this question: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14795245](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14795245). Maybe you could also give your perspectives on the same.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> For the last few years I've made a little over $100K/year. This is mostly from doing staff-aug-style Ruby on Rails programming at $100/hr.

This year I've transitioned into a mix of coding and training. From training I've earned between $5,000/week and $13,000/week.

<comment><AUTHOR> How does 'training' look like. You give in-person workshops? Sell online courses?

<comment><USER17> In-person workshops, usually 3-day or 5-day classes for big companies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I make about 0-300k/year fixing apps that others either weren't able to finish or where they architected themselves into scaling issues. Aside from that, I am a part time programming consultant who makes about 80k a year (I have a chronic illness so I spend a lot of time not working, and it's helpful for me to work in intense bursts with rests in between. It's difficult for me to have normal full time employment in the US because of the chronic illness.)

It averages out to about $250k/year on 30/h/week

<comment><USER19> This sounds cool. Two questions:

1\. Without giving away secrets, how do you find such clients?

2\. You must have some great stories. Would you care to share any?

<comment><USER18> 1\. I found my first few clients literally through happenstance -- people were describing problems they were having with enough clarity that my 20 years of dev experience made it fairly clear that the problems were recoverable. Now, I mostly find customers through referrals and by attending networking events and talking to people who sound like they have both money and problems.

2\. My customers have the expectation of confidentiality. I will make these generalizable statements though: understanding ORMs and understanding SQL are related but not identical; CAP is hard; picking keys is hard; confounding your data model and your interface is painful for users; sharding is hard; pick UX libraries based on how consistent they are not on how new they are; developers that are producing 10x the code may not be producing 10x the value; if week on week, your project is consistently n/n+1 * 100% done, you have a estimation problem and just the fact that you're agile doesn't help with this; the whole point of tags was that not everyone agrees on categories; queuing theory is real; your spreadsheets aren't as consistent as you think; the fact that an engineer can figure out the bigO of a sort doesn't mean they understand efficiency in real life.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I have 3 API services, 2 desktop apps & 3 iOS+Android apps that I have developed over the course of 7 years after my CS engineering degree in a third world country, pretty much like the @throwawaytree here. My earnings are at average rounded converted to 6000 USD/month less server/misc. costs. I live with my parents(no rent) in a village in this state in India [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerala](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerala) . I am 29. I think I have enough savings for a lifetime and most of the revenues are on auto pilot.

<comment><USER21> How are your apps and services monetised?

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I am a a web (app) developer - not sure if that counts :)

Right now I am working as a frontend lead for react apps and make 75-80€ / hour. I am living in Frankfurt, Germany.

There is a huge shortage of experienced javascript developers here.

<comment><USER13> Are you doing this full-time (20days * 8hours * 75€ / month)?

Are you charging per hour?

<comment><USER22> Yes and yes - I am working at my clients office mostly - around 1.5 days/week is homeoffice via remote desktop.

<comment><USER13> Ah, nice.

I read charging per hour is bad. I charge per month, but I don't make 80€ per hour (also React stuff), haha.

<comment><USER22> My client wanted it that way. And they also pre-booked hours until mid of december. I guess they try what they can to keep talent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The site Codementor just did a survey of 5,000+ freelance app developers to see how much they made in different countries across the world.

The U.S., New Zealand and Australia had the highest average hourly rates at $70/hr, and Northern Africa had the lowest at $41/hr

Here's the full article: [https://www.codementor.io/blog/how-much-do- freelance-develop...](https://www.codementor.io/blog/how-much-do-freelance- developers-cost-around-the-world-2626eu0rzy)

</comment><comment><USER24> App freelancing (in the US) has been killed by cheap hourly rates thanks to globalization. As a client, why would I pay $100/h for a local Dev versus $10/h for a dev located in India or anywhere else where the cost of living is much lower?

As a full time "app" developer I make $200K/y in the US. I tried freelancing on the side but it's pretty worthless. We're talking pennies by hour spent coding.

<comment><USER25> I know many people who are doing very well in the mobile development freelancing space, at least in the NYC area. Many gigs are still onsite or at least benefit from some kind of physical presence, so if that's a factor, then it's a much more level playing field.

I'm a full-time mobile developer as well. Haven't taken a crack at contracting yet myself, but I think that the key to success is a tried and true one: connections, connections, connections. If you're going on these freelance-farm type job sites, you're in a race to the bottom for poor quality gigs.

Also, I've heard that it's pretty hard to 'get started on the side' because many decent contracts want more of your time than you can reasonably offer when you have a full-time gig. Kind of a chicken-or-the-egg problem with that, but I figure that's the risk of it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I see not many people want to associate their usernames with income info. I am a web app and mobile app developer and I make around $25K a year. This excludes any extra and side projects or gigs from other areas (marketing). I plan to increase this to $60K by starting doing niche projects soon and entirely focusing on development, but for now, I am focusing more on my side projects.

</comment><comment><USER27> Varies from 5 to 6-figures/y, working mainly for large companies, mostly in the edtech space. ([http://jibly.com](http://jibly.com))

</comment><comment><USER28> From 120-180k over the last 5 years or so, typically doing prototypes and MVPs for startups across platforms.

Almost every project involves web servers, web clients and mobile clients.

Mostly self taught but also studied cognitive engineering which has helped a lot in understanding how to create systems and work with AI.

<comment><USER29> If you don't mind answering the usual questions, how'd you get your start, and how do you pick up clients?

<comment><USER28> There are a lot of start up hubs in big cities, I recently started working with some of the people involved in creating these in Ohio and they are becoming my primary resource for work.

Instead of considering projects as clients, I look for collaboration efforts where there is a path to equity. Regardless it almost always begins as some sort of contract for an initial trial collaboration.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I'm charging $75/hr for web app programming work, as a freelance front end developer, in a lead dev role. I'm working in Angular, Node.js, and using an Electron wrapper to adapt our web app to the desktop. The project is a sales tool for a big tech brand. I work from home, my coworkers are rad, and my boss is an angel.

This is the best contract dev position I've ever had, possibly the best I ever will have.

</comment><comment><USER31> I work a full time iOS gig and do freelancing on the side. Typically I bring in an extra 10-20k per year at around $100 per hour depending on the job.

<comment><USER32> Sounds awesome. I'm an iOS developer and hoping to go the same route. Where are you based out of?

<comment><USER31> Good old NYC.

<comment><USER33> Should I learn swift if I want to go this route? Or should I focus on something like ReactNative or something else entirely?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> In the UK (not in london) as a freelancer in Ruby on Rails I charge £40 / hr. For contract jobs (you basically work exactly like a permanent employee but get paid as a freelancer - so no job security or benefits and contracts usually last 3 months - 1 year at most) i was paid between £300-350 / day. In London it seems the same type of jobs usually pay £400-450.

<comment><USER35> How is the market for Rails outside London? I've seen a few comments that said it's hard to find work outside the capital.

<comment><USER34> In Manchester there are plenty of opportunities for rails work. Also companies around here seem a lot more flexible about semi remote working i.e. you commute from Manchester to Liverpool/Sheffield/Leeds etc. once a week but work from home the rest of the time. In London remote working seems to be frowned upon and will at most be one day a week from home.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm not freelancing, but I'd love to hear advice from other freelancers.

I have 11 years working experience as a full stack web developer and I think I'm pretty good at it by now. I'm currently employed and underpaid, and I live in Germany. I have no idea how I'd go about freelancing. What would be your advice to get me started?

<comment><USER15> I actually wrote a comment which may help you: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14791665](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14791665)

<comment><USER6> Thanks a lot!

I saw toptal mentioned in another comment, and their "Why 3%" page is quite unnerving. I don't work at Wharton, MIT, CERN, or Google, and I'm not a Top 100 Django or Rails contributor. Or is this just the 3% of the 3%, and the remaining 97% are more mortal?

<comment><USER15> Don't worry about that number. If you have ever passed a typical technical interview then I believe you can also get into Toptal.

<comment><USER6> Thanks, I'll take a closer look into those freelancer networks you mentioned, it looks quite interesting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I live in France. Beside my work, I take 4 weeks a year o teach software development (AngularJS, Spring, Struts, Apache CXF,...). The rates in France start at 300€/day (7hours).

Additionally, I develop apps (APIs, AngularJS apps, etc.) 10 to 20 hours a week (evenings + weekends) with rates starting at 35€/hour.

</comment><comment><USER37> Last year ~115k. If I was actively seeking clients all year, I could get that number up much higher. I want to work on side projects though. That was with a 40/hour a month retainer and one big job that lasted ~5 months.

<comment><USER38> Retainer, that sounds like an awesome setup. How many years have you been freelancing?

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> The rates vary a lot depending of where the freelancer is located.

From the most expensive to the more cheapest (in general):

\- US & UK

\- West Europe

\- Est Europe & Latin America

\- Middle Est & Asia

In Latin America the rates normally go from 20 to 40 USD per hour depending of experience.

</comment><comment><USER4> This threads make me mad. In a theorically developed country making about 10€/h from freelancing as a side job. Mostly web with Python/Django and frontend.

<comment><USER34> Damn! Not sure exactly which country you're in but the minimum wage of most western european countries is between €8-10 / hr. There are cleaners who make the same money as you!

Seems like you've got to up your game. Don't get mad though, take this as a lesson and learn from it. If anything this should be good news because now you know you can earn way more than you are currently for the same exact work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I do Web and API for apps. while my rate is 20$/hour i most often end up with a per-project price.

</comment><comment><USER41> I had one client, he paid me 65-70$ for scraping escort sites.. He had it coded from some one in portugese, it was pho scraper.. So i added 7 more sites .. and finally i quit becoz i was not getting private time .. every time there were people arround me Btw i am from india.. ne1 looking for freelancer (php, nodejs, go, etc..) can get in touch..

<comment><USER34> lol what do you mean by "not getting private time"?

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> As database consultant/developer I can go from 60$/h to 170$/h.

</comment><comment><USER43> College student, doing Android + light backend work.

~80/90/hr.

Caveat is that I've only had 1 client so far.

<comment><USER33> How did you end up getting that rate?

<comment><USER43> I had a previous relation with him and knew that they were getting quotes from other mobile agencies in the area. Given that info, I knew I could comfortably name <$100/hr and still be the cheapest.

Of course it also helped to have the relevant experience/portfolio. I also prototyped a few wireframes (1 user flow) for free which gave me a leg up because he knew what I had in mind regarding the project.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> I'll tell you once I get any clients :(</comment>


Show HN: GramGram – Send Instagram photos to your Grandma through the mail - <AUTHOR> https://www.gramgram.app/ <comment><USER2> I will say that I appreciate the nomenclature, if nothing else.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi Hacker News!

I'm Evan! Like so many of you, my grandparents are currently stuck at home. With all the shelter-in-place orders, it has been really hard to see people over 65, and grandparents are extra lonely right now. I wanted to build something that could put a smile on their faces, and hopefully some of your loved ones as well.

I've been working on a little side project called GramGram. With GramGram, you can send Instagram photos to your Grandma through the mail.

All the proceeds from this project go to San Franciso-Marin Food Bank. Check it out and let me know what you think!</comment>


FOIA Lawsuits Have Their Own Rules, and We Deserve Better - <AUTHOR> https://www.justsecurity.org/29974/foia-litigation-rules-deserve/ <comment><USER2> Great writeup. The courts need to get on them more. I think the way to do that is compile a list of examples going back years showing they didn't act in good faith. These have to show it clearly and preferably damaging activities. This could be used at the start of these requests or provided as an appendix.

<comment><AUTHOR> Just Security produces a lot of great writeups on these issues; I highly recommend it.

<comment><USER2> I'll be sure to check it out.</comment></comment></comment>


Circles Fatigue: The Dark Side Of Google+ - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/1767807/running-in-circles-on-google <comment><USER2> If a user wants G+ to be like Facebook's friend system they can just make one circle called "Everyone."

</comment><comment><USER3> His main complaint about Circles is that it's too hard to have all that freedom.

Wah wah wah.

You can make yourself crazy making circles, until you realize it's all about levels of sharing.

There's stuff I want to share with my family, there's stuff I want to share with my coworkers, and there's stuff I want to share with my friends/coworkers who are "geeky". I don't really care if George is from Fast Company or fastcompany.com. I just know he likes Jazz and would appreciate this John Coltrane video I found.

</comment><comment><USER4> Duplicate : <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2788273>

</comment><comment><USER5> This is not only a dupe, it's linkbait.

</comment><comment><USER6> Tech writers need to do one of two things:

1\. Stop pontificating about the details of a service when it's in a very early adoption phase

or, since they can't stop pontificating about the newest thing to come out:

2\. label their articles as info "For Early Adopters" or "For Normals". In big, bold letters.

That will save them a lot of embarrassment.</comment>


Colin Kroll, Vine and HQ Trivia founder, dies aged 35 - <AUTHOR> https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/colin-droll-dead-death-vine-founder-hq-trivia-ceo-cause-age-35-a8685901.html <comment><USER2> The New York Times is also reporting that it was due to a drug overdose.

If you, or anyone you know, needs help, know that today is a great day to get sober. There's a meeting near you with other addicts who can help you start a journey to recovery.

For AA meetings: [https://www.aa.org/](https://www.aa.org/)

For NA meetings: [https://www.na.org/](https://www.na.org/)

Don't leave your loved ones like two of my parents left me! The journey is hard, but your family will love having you around for a full and happier life.</comment>


The Hedge Fund and the Despot - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-08-21/mugabes-bailout-och-ziff-investment-linked-to-zimbabwe-despot

<comment><USER2> This is disgusting, in so many ways. Investing in Africa often has its own set of moral qualms, but doing business with Mugabe lacks even the pretense that you're doing any good to offset dealing with a bastard. Sadly, I think mercurial is right - nothing will end up happening, because that's the lay of the land.

</comment><comment><USER3> > In July, Och-Ziff hired David Becker, the SEC's former general counsel, as > its chief legal officer.

Right. I'm betting for a quiet settlement, a few millions changing hands and everybody retiring to their hard-won country estate and living happily ever after.

<comment><USER4> They may need more than one settlement, as they are already being investigated for bribery in Gaddaffi's Libya, and they might be prosecuted by both the US and the UK.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I hope they go to jail for this. I also hope they have trouble sleeping at night, but I doubt it. They have blood on their hands purely for greed.

</comment><comment><USER6> I remember this deal from when I was a hedge fund manager at a similar company, seemed very off indeed so refused to be a part.

Some very odd African mineral companies on AIM, very few I felt comfortable investing in (did turn down joining OZ a bit after too for a lower paying role elsewhere, Michael was an interesting chap).

Doubt anyone will go to jail, seen much worse than this somehow slide (from institutional asset managers as well as hedge funds)

</comment><comment><USER7> _Mugabe had led one of two guerrilla groups that liberated the former Rhodesia from a white-minority regime_

Liberated in the same sense that Stalin liberated Eastern Europe.

The hedge fund (Och-Ziff) sounds like it was ripped from pages of a movie script. Young protege, cross-Atlantic deals with African dictators, corrupt soviet oligarchs, lavish estate in British countryside... no happy end though.

<comment><USER8> Sounds like something out of Richard K Morgan's "Market Forces" actually.

But that's assuming life imitates art. Clearly it's the opposite - as books like John Perkins' "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" seem to indicate.</comment></comment>


SpaceX faces daunting challenges if it's going to win the internet space race - <AUTHOR> https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-spacex-starlink-constellation-20190628-story.html <comment><USER3> It appears the potential market in the US is based on Federal broadband coverage figures. From the story:

        "In 2017, more than 26% of people who lived in rural
         areas in the U.S. were not covered by terrestrial
         broadband internet service, according to a May report
         from the Federal Communications Commission."

FCC numbers are pure fiction. It is well known that providers are GREATLY exaggerating their coverage and available capacity to rural and semi rural areas. Much of the coverage that actually exists is also garbage; fixed wireless suffering absurd contention and unreliable, low performance cable system or DSL systems.

There are well-heeled communities adjacent to large urban areas that can get nothing worthwhile; they're inflicting substantial new property taxes on themselves to fund FTTH build-outs. I suspect the actual market for rural broadband is many times larger than whatever is assumed in this story. I also know for fact that there is a cohort of people that will go further out into the hinterlands the instant they can solve the bandwidth problem at a reasonable cost. I'm one of them.

<comment><USER4> > FCC numbers are pure fiction. It is well known that providers are GREATLY > exaggerating their coverage and available capacity to rural and semi rural > areas.

Thank you.

At risk of piling on a "+1" comment, I will add a little bit of context.

My parents live about 35 miles from a "midwest urban core", they are served by Frontier. Supposedly they can get "1.5Mbps DSL" which qualifies as broadband. On a good day they can get 64k. This has degraded from about 768k ~10 years ago, to ~64k today. Absolute _no_ maintenance other than "electrons kinda flowish" has been done on these lines.

But, my parents and their neighbors of ~150 households totally count for "broadband" stats.

The fraud going on here is absolutely mind boggingly in scope. The "lie big if you're going to lie" thing comes into mind here. Billions evaporated due to nothing other than absolutely in-your-face fraud.

<comment><USER5> That's slower than ISDN :( To stream Netflix at 10 frames per second, they'd have to watch a show in something like 28 px by 21 px. That'd be like playing Minecraft on a 1970s LED calculator.

<comment><USER4> Indeed. They have since canceled as of about 4-5 months ago. Now they use a T-Mobile re-seller (via walmart, iirc) that gives them 25GB/mo for less than their "broadband DSL" cost. So far they have been happy - watching shows at 480p.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If the constellation costs $10 billion to launch as estimated and has a operating cost of $1 billion/year and a lifetime of 5 years, Spacex will need only $3 billion/year to break even. If they sell subscriptions at $50/month they will only need 5 million subscribers to break even. They only have to be better than current offerings in poorly served markets to get that. I think it will be a cash cow.

<comment><USER7> Did you see the part about competition? It can end up like airlines - <USER2> ending price war. Surely good for consumers, but a measly, possibly negative, total return on investment for the whole sector.

<comment><USER8> SpaceX has a gargantuan advantage when it comes to the cost to get stuff to space, though. And it doesn't seem like anybody will catch up with them any time soon.

<comment><USER9> And then you'll vote (purchase) based on which government you trust the most for whom the company will be under the umbrella of - US, China, India, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think a lot of discussion I have seen online has overlooked the importance of the phased array antennas, which are too large to make Starlink practical for someone using a phone or laptop on the go. However, it would be very convenient for people needing Internet service at home.

I have also heard people (not in this thread) talk about Starlink as a way to bypass censorship in places like China, but this is almost certainly not possible. What authoritarian regime would allow the sale of the Starlink antennas in their country and the local downlinks needed to have good latency?

This is a fascinating project, but I hope we don't end up treating it as a panacea to all issues of information freedom.

<comment><USER11> There are no technical means needed to bypass internet censorship in China. People are using the free internet there perfectly, using obfs4. Problem is that there is no way to express their opinion freely on the internet because:

\- Expression of opinion almost always lets you being identified even if your IP address can't be seen.

\- Most people won't support your opinion - because they are paid trolls (a large fraction of app posts, because a comparatively small - 'only' hundreds of thousands - trolls post in insane quantities) and because many online spaces are shaped by trolls and by people who are too afraid of expressing their opinion freely. Internet is simply not seen as a place appropriate for sensitive discussions in China and this will not change if people will be able to access all blocked resources, or reliably hide their locations.

<comment><USER12> > There are no technical means needed to bypass internet censorship in China.

Individuals bypassing technical restrictions is very different from having a commercial operation. Without the mandated censorship and monitoring, Starlink's entire business is completely illegal in China, so the entire thing (from setup to service to support) would have to be run underground, they'd have to accept payment in Bitcoin, no SpaceX executive could ever travel to China, and Tesla would probably have to get out too.

It's not gonna happen. There is no chance, none whatsoever, that Starlink ever does business in China unless it goes through the same filters as everyone else, even though from a purely technical perspective it theoretically could.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Perhaps a viable business model could be hybrid solution where mobile carriers partner to create LTE and 5G towers with Starlink uplinks. This would make it easier for carriers to deploy towers in remote locations. It's my understanding that the primary challenge for deploying towers in underserved areas is lack of existing infrastructure for uplink. Call me crazy, but if you could solar power the ground station you could plop them anywhere on earth.

<comment><USER14> Perhaps if you know a guy who does solar and batteries, you could avoid the carrier partnership altogether... ;)

<comment><USER15> Put the transceivers on the roofs of cars. Then make the cars rolling supercomputers -- oh, already done! Then start selling a part of the compute power of the cars as a cloud with no search warrantable address. All of the virtual servers will be ephemeral and will migrate such that they're only ever running on moving cars.

<comment><USER16> Elon said the receivers are too big to put in the roof of a car. But that it might be possible to engineer one small enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> These articles ignore a vast number of global web users who are living in or around major cities and towns just to have connectivity, who will likely be early adopters seeking the freedom to live in more affordable rural locations. The potential size of this group is hard to judge, so it seems there's some reluctance to even speculate on a figure.

<comment><USER18> I mean... satellite internet exists. North America in particular has full satellite internet coverage.

<comment><USER19> Satellite internet with high latency exists. The stuff SpaceX is putting out will have significantly lower latency, which is huge difference.

<comment><USER20> For reference GEO is something like 250ms and in LEO you can get sub 50ms.

I did the math a year ago and so numbers may be a little off due to memory, but they should be in the ball park. Also these would be optimal numbers, so realistic would be worse.

<comment><USER7> And, honestly, who needs less than 250ms? Gamers? How many websites open in under a second anyhow?

<comment><USER21> The existing Internet satelite are incredible expensive and not only the latency is really bad, but the bandwidth is also very limited, you can not consider it as a broadband ISP. Starlink will be a true alternative to the fiber optic ISPs, and for world-wide will be even faster thanks to the direct lasser link among the constellation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Worth noting here that SpaceX is currently raising another round: pi hundred million dollars at a valuation of $35 billion. And it is possible to participate as an individual accredited investor on [https://fundnel.com](https://fundnel.com)

</comment><comment><USER23> I think people need to realize spacex has a primary goal of developng rockets.

I see all this as analogous to the problem of beginning pilots: the cost of getting hours in a plane is expensive.

Offering <x> where x requires the pilot to fly a plane will get the pilot discount hours in the air. x could be flight lessons, flying packages around, aerial photo services, etc.

<comment><USER24> Indeed. If Starlink merely breaks even, it'll massively increase the demand for launch services which allows them to justify the development of large, fully reusable rockets like Starship. From SpaceX's perspective, besides the straight up revenue they provide, the main point of megaconstellations like Starlink is fodder for reusable rockets.

...and having multiple megaconstellations competing thus isn't necessarily a bad thing even from SpaceX's perspective. More mass to launch to orbit.

...that's one thing about reusable rockets that is key to understand. There's no fundamental physics that says reusable rockets can't be done. Shuttle proved upper stages can be reused and SpaceX showed first stages can be reused. The main question is demand: reusable rockets make sense IFF there's more than sufficient demand to pay back the R&D and the keep the factory busy.

To over-simplify things a bit: Rocket factories for even expendable rockets seem to struggle to be affordable unless you're building at least 10 airframes per year, so if you want to get 10-100 reuses out of your rocket, you'd best be launching at least 100-1000 times per year...

<comment><USER23> chickens are the way eggs make more eggs

(where eggs = rockets and chickens = starlink)

:)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> As far as a race goes there's only one other runner currently and they are 1/10th as far along (6 vs 60 satelites) and without a plan to launch as cheaply as SpaceX. Spacex will be the first to have a system and unless it is too expensive or has other operational issues they are going to be hard to catch.

<comment><USER26> Those "unless"'s are _kind_ of the point of the article.

<comment><USER27> SpaceX has a huge price advantage on launches so a competitor would have to be able to significantly undercut them on the cost of the hardware just to become competetive.

<comment><USER28> Satellite costs, not launch costs, dominate. And then there is Vulcan and other cheap launch competitors coming online.

<comment><USER29> > Satellite costs, not launch costs, dominate.

Starlink is promising well under a million per satellite, and OneWeb is reportedly already at a million. Satellite costs might end up lower than launch costs, and even if they're higher that doesn't seem like they'll dominate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> They already raised over $1 billion this year. [https://spacenews.com/spacex- raises-over-1-billion-through-t...](https://spacenews.com/spacex-raises- over-1-billion-through-two-funding-rounds/)

</comment><comment><USER31> No mention of the legal problems. SpaceX is pitching to become a worldwide last-mile intenet provider. Each country, the US included, will have issue with that. They will each set regulatory burdens, censorship limitations, that will make SpaceX's life difficult.

I have yet to see any real plans for downlink locations, the places where the satellite network will integrate with the fiber backbone that is 'the internet'. The system cannot be funneled through a handful of locations in the US. For the mega constellation concept to work you need hundreds of local downlinks so that connections don't have to hop across too many sats before exiting the network.

<comment><USER32> Possibly. Current hellholes put burden on to user - sat phones are required to be registered in China, Russia, India, etc.

<comment><USER33> Only sat-phones or any satellite communicator like my Garmin InReach Explorer+?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> My prediction:

The latency will be top-notch, but _only_ if they strictly limit total traffic. So, streaming will probably cost way too much for normal people, unless they can contrive to cache copies of the absolutely most popular stuff on all the birds. Then, everything big but _not_ cached will be super expensive, throttled, or actually forbidden.

Of course they will charge the publishers for caching, by spot auction, and the publishers will use a good chunk of their allotment to cache ads.

<comment><USER35> Honestly this could be true, however I dont think musk would risk most of his wealth on non-viable tech. The dude does a lot of really dumb stuff with his money, but in terms of investments and new products, his largest tech investments have a remarkable track record.

<comment><USER34> The lowest-latency long-distance communication in the world, by several milliseconds, will be worth far more, to just the right people, than any number of streamed sitcoms and whodunits. I do not doubt Musk will make a fortune on it. I just don't think it will be of much immediate use to you, me, or Disney.

But first he has to launch it, and, before that, raise money to launch it. Investors' tiny minds need to believe in massive disruption, just long enough. They will get paid, just not the way they might guess.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> If this goes according to plan, there will be more satellites in orbit than visible stars in the night sky.

[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/may/28/spacex- sa...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/may/28/spacex-satellites- could-blight-the-night-sky-warn-astronomers)

<comment><USER37> But you won't be able to see more than a few hundred satellites at the same time because they're so low. Whereas you can see at least 1000 stars in the sky from any location.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> [http://archive.is/Ix3rO](http://archive.is/Ix3rO)

</comment><comment><USER39> Here's a radical idea. Do you think SpaceX launching 1,000+ satellites for internet is part of a larger experiment for creating an earth shield as a last ditch effort to fend off climate change? How much surface area would these satellites need to cover to have a discernible impact on the amount of sunlight reaching earth?

<comment><USER40> Here's a good place to start on that topic: [https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0136648)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> For most rural users I'm more bullish on AT&T's AirGig technology than satellite.

<comment><USER41> There's a lot of rural places that barely have 3G. The problem is if only 20 people benefit from a tower being stood up, they won't do it. This is the advantage of satellite internet, connecting the sparsely populated. Towers are the future of cities and outlying areas, low-orbit sat-internet is the future of rural areas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Apparently SpaceX has some experience facing daunting challenges.

</comment><comment><USER43> Have they discussed whether there will be firewalls in China or Russia?

</comment><comment><USER44> Wouldn't it be fair to say everyone entering the internet space race is going to be facing daunting challenges?</comment>


Paul Singh (snailpad fame ) interview on Mixergy  - <AUTHOR> http://mixergy.com/mailfinch-paul-singh-interview/

<comment><AUTHOR> For those of you who remember his postings on HN about setting up a real "mail" app. Well he has been interviewed.

Google "site:<http://news.ycombinator.com/> snailpad" for more on his app. It was easier than listing all the links.

I have to say its one of the better interviews of recent times. There are some real gems of information in there.

<comment><USER2> Paul is a great guy, genuine and whip smart.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> By the way, the name has been changed to MailFinch -- I explain why in the interview.</comment>


Ask HN: Late career changer looking for resume and job advice - <AUTHOR> Hello! I'm a self-taught web developer who switched careers from architecture and construction management a bit over 2 years ago when I finally decided to follow my call. Since then I've been learning to code and building some projects, the main one being a blogging platform (https://blogme.space), which design is inspired on Medium's.
I'm now looking for a full-time job and would really appreciate any advice on how I wrote my resume, which includes some of my projects and previous experience as well as transferable skills. Also much appreciated is any advice/suggestions you may have regarding job search for a late career changer.
Resume: https://www.dropbox.com/s/a88655lepkgba26/Regen_Resume_2018.pdf?dl=0 <comment><USER2> Hey Pablo,

In your about me section, rather than saying "experienced in all stages of web development", use industry terms such as "full stack development" as you do on your Linkedin Profile. What sort of jobs are you applying for?

If I were you I'd be trying to highlight project management experience that you have from your architecture career. Talk about the number of people you supervised, budgets you managed, etc. While this may not be relevant to a junior web development role, if you want to move up later on it will show you are able to manage effectively.

The only other suggestion I have would be to start blogging. You've built a blogging web app but you aren't using your own product.

Hope this helps.

\- Jaye

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey Jaye,

Although I wrote Full-Stack Web Developer right under my name I will add it to the about me section. I haven't applied for any jobs yet. Updating my resume and LinkedIn profile for the first time in years to start the process this week.

I didn't think anybody would pay much attention to what I did on my previous career so I abbreviated it. However it seems a good idea to provide these kind of details.

And I do plan to start blogging ;)

Good points. Thanks a lot for your help.

Pablo

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I made a similar career switch about 6 years ago. Profile is a bit different (got an online M.S. degree) so take all with a grain of salt.

1\. Focus on your LinkedIn profile. Update constantly so the notifications percolate. Recruiter approached me for the first job and all subsequent jobs not through my network. Github is also an avenue but not nearly as popular.

2\. React, react, react. Got my first job because the company was switching to Angular from Flex and I'd built two projects with Angular. It was new and popular at the time. Currently react is the hot thing (and I personally love it). I don't say this as just opinion, it came from a recruiter I respect. She is seeing enormous demand for React, to the point where Angular devs are getting passed over since they have no react experience, which is a bit silly since good devs will pick up the tool, but nonetheless what she is seeing. She's the one who said react, react, react, and has told me to steer away from anything else except maybe python and computer vision.

3\. Algorithms and code puzzles. You may be able to find the dream shop that doesn't require this, but I've yet to interview there. It will also open up the number of companies you can apply to. Many places don't care if you have a CS degree or any degree, but they do care if you can play the depth first search, dynamic programming game. Friend prepped for 3-4 months and is on the interview circuit with his first $300k offer in hand. He's senior with a big co name on his resume so not apples to apples, but he still spent the time to prep. The whiteboard pissing contests are going strong. This may be tougher without the academic background but worth doing as much of as you can.

4\. Try to get in at a lot of places and don't get discourage by rejections. There is so much randomness. One place will say you are awesome and the next won't return your call after a phone screen. You aren't broken, the process is.

So linkedin, react projects, study, and perseverance. My two cents. Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> LinkedIn up to date ;)

I just started checking job posts and can confirm that several are requesting React, so you are right on point. I'll add a React project.

Started checking algos a while back, and yours is a good reminder to keep going.

I really appreciate your input. Pablo

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> helooo let me help. it is well known that big data is the latest trend setter in the fast growing technology. My personal advice to you is to take bigdata and shine in it. grab your opportunity. [https://www.besanttechnologies.com/training-courses/data- war...](https://www.besanttechnologies.com/training-courses/data-warehousing- training/big-data-analytics-training-institute-in-chennai)</comment>


The clusterfuck hidden in the Kubernetes code base - <AUTHOR> https://fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/kubernetesclusterfuck/ <comment><AUTHOR> Was surprised this wasn't a dupe when I submitted it. I had no idea K8S was originally written in Java.

I'm also a little surprised at the tone. It's one Google team being pretty over-the-top snarky to another. The criticism could be warranted, but the wording is pretty harsh, starting with the title.

<comment><USER2> It wasn't harsh at all. It deserves some harsh criticism though. The quality of the project is so low it's amazing people even bother picking it up.</comment></comment>