Tech Companies Still Aren't Hiring Black Workers - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-08/tech-companies-still-aren-t-hiring-black-workers <comment><USER2> I'm not originally from America, so I seem to be missing something in articles like this. Why does no one talk about the "pipeline problem," that is, encouraging many more people from "minority" groups (black, women, and so on) to pursue coding from young age? (Edit: or encouraging these groups to enter the field at any age, such as through the community college system/Coursera/etc.)

It seems like examining the end of the funnel (and placing blame squarely on tech companies) is all too easy, and is much easier than addressing a root cause (not enough people of these groups studying CS to begin with.)

<comment><USER3> Because addressing the pipeline problem means admitting that racism is still alive and embedded in the foundations of our education and work force system.

You can't expect there to be more workers if there's no applicants. There are no applicants because there is a severe lack of Black people (among other groups) represented in Engineering/STEM degree programs. That stems from a lack of good public school education.

But like you said, it generates more clicks-per-article to blame the Big Bad Tech Companies for not being diverse enough, when really we as a national don't honestly want to see marginalized groups succeed. Americans operate by and large on a zero-sum assumption. Many believe that if one group of people succeeds, it somehow will undermine their own success.

<comment><USER4> > when really we as a national don't honestly want to see marginalized groups > succeed

How does that explain the success of Asian Americans?

<comment><USER3> I think that depends on how you measure success.

Strictly in business terms, sure they have more success than other groups, but I don't think (assuming here, no facts) they have over taken White people as the predominant group in leadership roles, high paying positions, or otherwise 'stakeholders'.

If that's not true, feel free to correct.

<comment><USER5> See [1] and [2]. For example, 2015 median household income for Indian Asians is $100K while the same statistic for white non-hispanics appears to be $63K.

[1] [http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/fact-sheet/asian-americans- in...](http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/fact-sheet/asian-americans-indians-in- the-u-s/)

[2] [https://www2.census.gov/programs- surveys/demo/visualizations...](https://www2.census.gov/programs- surveys/demo/visualizations/p60/256/figure1.pdf)

<comment><USER6> They also have much lower crime rates, much higher entrepreneurship, and higher educational attainment.

Skilled immigration is _awesome_ for the US.

<comment><USER7> This tends to be true for all recent immigrants, 1st and 2nd generation immigrants have much higher acheivement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I hired about 10 junior dev/qa/pm positions over 3 years as a manager in a SaaS tech company of 50-100.

We posted on every job site and received 1,000+ resumes which I reviewed, in a city with ~30% african american population.

Maybe 3 out of 1,000+ resumes were submitted by african americans, and none met most basic requirements for the position (either a relevant degree, or at least 1 year of related experience, or at least 1 relevant side project).

It's hard to think that I was part of the problem, or could possibly be part of any solution, as the hiring manager.

<comment><USER9> How do you know whether someone was African American based on their resume?

<comment><USER8> Someone's name + linkedin profile (almost always included) tends to give it away 90% of the time. Sometimes you don't know, sure, but usually you do. Just like gender.

We didn't ask, of course.

<comment><USER9> You looked up 1000+ people on LinkedIn?

<comment><USER10> Thats literally his job ...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Im gonna be the antagonist here and say, black people still aren't getting the degrees required for such work.

Now, ONLY if these tech companies would drop their requirements for university and college, they might see more applicants.

Tech companies should sponsor universities or even create their own. I can see some of the major companies saying "hey, we have this university, which you can attend for FREE only if you work for us for 6 years." Sign up?

Until either black people start taking more classes for tech work, OR tech companies start a university theirself, I don't see this happening anytime soon.

I work with 80% foreigners. 20% Americans. Its only because the Americans aren't going into Tech. Sad, but true.

<comment><USER12> > Tech companies should sponsor universities or even create their own. I can > see some of the major companies saying "hey, we have this university, which > you can attend for FREE only if you work for us for 6 years." Sign up?

Who do you think would the tech companies recruit for these positions? I think you just described a large scholarship with strings attached. I don't think a company would be willing to foot the bill unless they think the investment is really going to pay off for them.

<comment><USER13> Such programs exist already. The SMART program for instance, which links college scholarship to a job. Companies do it all the time.

<comment><USER11> They do it for black kids? Do they go into the inner cities and ask around?

<comment><USER13> Lets talk money instead of 'race' e.g. the Latino problem is similar, so money is probably the more important factor. Other programs like QuestBridge work hard to recruit folks who are underrepresented, either by family income or kids who are first in their family to attend college.

<comment><USER11> Um, the article explicitly describes race. Just staying on topic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Does the number of black workers that have the technical knowledge/experience account for more than 2-3% of the total pool of hirable workers? Or do black workers only account for 2-3% of tech employees because that's the number that knows how to code?

<comment><USER15> It's less than that in a lot of places. It's a massive societal problem and it needs to be fixed from elementary schools up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Oh wow, that chart titled 'Little Has Changed' with the X axis pushed out to 100%.

Looks like, if you squint hard enough, Facebook has at least tripled their number of black coders.

<comment><USER17> If you scroll over, it shows that the share increased from 1% to 3% from 2014 to 2017. And the total number of employees has almost certainly gone up in that same time frame.

<comment><USER16> So their fastest growing demographic then!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The entire premise of the article is false. The article states that "tech companies aren't hiring black workers."

The truth is that black workers aren't applying to tech companies. In the last decade I have never once had a black person interview with me, not a single time. Yet, the black person who is on my team (hired before I joined this team) is one of the most skilled and knowledgeable people I know. He is rewarded for his knowledge and work.

Articles like this are poisonous.

</comment><comment><USER19> I don't think this applies to dark-skinned Indians, so it must be more than simply skin color.

</comment><comment><USER20> _He said the party reminded him of a scene in the film, "Get Out.'' Like the movie, the new employees looked like props that were conveniently staged to showcase a more welcoming environment than he felt actually existed._

It's amazing to behold how absolutely toxic tech journalism and our industry is becoming. Divisive clickbait full of finger pointing, anecdotal evidence and a clear steerage away from causation... yet sitting pretty on the front page of Hacker News. What a shame.

</comment><comment><USER21> I have noticed a similar trend at engineering campuses. So universities aren't recruiting black students?

<comment><USER22> Why would people of color take engineering courses if there aren't any jobs for them afterwards?

<comment><USER23> Tech companies are being actively leaned on to lower their standards to hire more black workers. Saying there aren't jobs for them is nonsense.

<comment><USER21> "lower their standards to hire more black workers." do you hear yourself? You have linked color with standard. Companies hire based on skill, experience and culture fit.

<comment><USER6> Let's assume (correctly imo) that every subgroup (race, gender, origin, sexuality, etc.) is equally skilled. If you apply a technical standard equally, you end up with a market distribution of hires.

Companies are being leaned on to over represent certain groups relative to their market distribution. That's not possible industry wide unless you lower your technical standards for that subgroup.

<comment><USER21> First of all, in the technical field you can not lower standards by much. A person either has a degree or necessary experience or they don't. The fact that they are underrepresented is because the talent isn't there.

Now, OP's statement, no matter how much justified it is logically is propagating a nasty stigma associated with black workers -- that they are here to meet a quota or are less intelligent and experienced.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I try to avoid conversations like this rather than engage directly because I'm likely to question results until things are more proven. However, I'm seeing things like this more often and want to become more informed.

When looking at the percentage population of Americans with bachelor's degree (general req for software company), should we see a reflection of that pool in tech companies? I found some census information which shows that the pool of black or African American workers might only be about 5% compared to white. Should the industry reflect this or do we somehow expect to have an unnaturally high diversity?

Someone else pointed out here, but putting the chart at 100% makes me feel like this is a piece for views and not information. It doesn't make sense when showing relative improvement.

[https://www.census.gov/prod/2012pubs/acsbr10-19.pdf](https://www.census.gov/prod/2012pubs/acsbr10-19.pdf)

<comment><USER25> 5% isn't great, but it's still higher than the 2-3% actually employed by these companies, suggesting improvement is possible.

I think one major problem that's in the companies' power to solve is that they don't have offices where black people live (e.g. Atlanta). Coming to work for these companies means being isolated from the black community both at and outside of work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Being black is correlation not causation just like being a woman. This nonsense has to stop

</comment><comment><USER27> And as usual with these articles it's always the fault of the evil universites and terrible companies while the people in question are always devoid of any responsibility of getting the right education, having initiative and obtaining the right skills needed for the job.

</comment><comment><USER28> If tech companies hire globally, shouldn't their racial demographics mirror the world demographic stats?

In my 15+ years of experience in SV, majority of my colleagues were from Asia, which accounts for 60% of world population. Rest were evenly divided between Europe and North America, and some very tiny fraction coming from Africa and South America. In that case, isn't it expected that blacks[1] would account for 1-3% of workforce, since USA itself accounted for 10-15% of the workforce? If Democrats are open to immigration, then a consequence of that is going to be an under representation of blacks and Latinos.

[1] black is hard to define in many places. Eg. Who is "black" in Asia?

</comment><comment><USER29> This problem starts from early childhood and is reflective of the utter failure of public schools in lower income districts.

For too long we have used the band-aid of lowering standards and affirmative action at every stage after, in college and hiring, to kick the can down the road and the result has been quite the opposite, leading to more bias and resentment.

If you are a highly skilled engineer and black, you have to constantly deal with the stigma that maybe you got to where you are not based on your outstanding abilities but only to fill some arbitrary racial quota.

There is nothing worse than that for ruining someone's self-esteem.

</comment><comment><USER30> Most of us here support and appreciate diversity. The lack of diversity in tech companies represents a lost opportunity. It's not just black people, but women as well. The mono-cultures can encourage some troubling attitudes and restricts creative multi-cultural ideas.

Forcing companies to maintain racial/gender quotas is not the solution. I'm not sure what the solution is. The causes for the situation are multifaceted, a reflection of our country.

</comment><comment><USER31> For all of those who claim it might be a pipeline problem, I looked it up and it looks like 4% of engineering degrees are granted (earned? Awarded?) to African Americans

[https://www.aps.org/programs/education/statistics/aamajors.c...](https://www.aps.org/programs/education/statistics/aamajors.cfm)

Ill leave the interpretation up to you

<comment><USER32> but isn't this inline with the original article?

> Blacks made up 7 percent of U.S. high-tech workforce, and just 3 percent of > the total Silicon Valley workforce.

4% of the degrees are granted to members of the AA community, 3% of the jobs in SV are given to them.

i guess SV companies recruit from the top graduates. it would be interesting to know the percentage of AA of say the top 10% graduates in the STEM fields.

as others have pointed out, this doesn't mean that things are OK. it just shifts the focus from the hiring companies to the education system

<comment><USER31> Yes, so your line of questioning is the one I would follow.

I agree the next question is what is the percentage of AA grads from top schools where they recruit before one makes a call on the prevalence of the pipeline problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Uber took some initiatives to address this issue.

[https://www.uber.com/en-MX/diversity/uberhue](https://www.uber.com/en- MX/diversity/uberhue)

[https://eng.uber.com/uncovering-genius](https://eng.uber.com/uncovering- genius)

</comment><comment><USER34> I'm willing to accept there is racism in the tech industry, but I'm not willing to accept that it is the ONLY variable keeping black folks from tech jobs.

This problem needs a real, statistical, multivariate study. Any publication casting judgement on the tech industry while remaining unwilling to pony up the dough for such a study should be properly criticized for playing the race card and inventing false narratives to gain readership.

Telling me there aren't many black folks in tech is not enough. I need a data- driven explanation of WHY before I accept it's mostly racism, or it's mostly a pipeline problem, or it's mostly a primary education problem, or it's mostly a cultural problem, or it's not a problem at all because black folks don't want tech jobs in the first place.

</comment><comment><USER35> Please forgive me if I am missing something here. Is a company to make a chart of color distribution of their employees and base their hiring on that? There has to be a better way to figure out if a company is hiring based on skill or not than just this.

</comment><comment><USER36> In Poland where I happen to live there are almost no black people at all, I'd guesstimate it's much less than 0,1% of the whole population but we have similar problem with women in tech.

There is only one solution in my opinion - ignore the problem at all, because there is no "problem".

If you're a good candidate no one here will question your beliefs, skin colour or sex.

Focusing on the issue on the other hand creates bunch of other, in my opinion more serious threats - I've been recruiting for a medium* Polish startup a few years ago and one day our CEO decided there is not enough "diversity" so HRs started recruiting women left and right.

Long story short, for 8 out of 10 positions we'd have two or three resumes from very strong male candidates and tens of resumes from much less experienced females. Within 3 years we hired so many women the men became the minority, about 6 months after that the place went bankrupt and everyone ended up jobless.

*medium in this world means up to 40 folks

TL;DR every sane company hires the best workforce they could afford. If there are not enough people of colour it's usually problem with these people, not the employer.

</comment><comment><USER37> Someone recently had tweeted the concentration of Black population in the US. Tech companies are no where in those concentrated areas.

Porbably a way for Tech companies to build diverse teams, is to setup research facilities and programs that encourage better pipelines, in states with higher black population (not SF, LA, NYC/Austin)

</comment><comment><USER38> well, how dare they!?!?</comment>


Spritz-powered speed reading app for iPhone and iPad - <AUTHOR> http://rushapp.co

<comment><USER2> Please do not put "Show HN" in the title unless the work is ready for everybody to try out. Email signups don't count.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)</comment>


Regarding EU cookie law: understanding its implications - <AUTHOR> http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/split-testing-blog/eu-cookie-law-implications/

<comment><USER2> I'm gonna ignore this law until some big dogs fight it out in court or implement compliance.</comment>


Show HN: a small weekendish project - JSON Blob - <AUTHOR> http://jsonblob.com/ <comment><USER2> I'm a touch confused -- <http://www.jsoneditoronline.org/>

Is this your site as well?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not, but it uses that editor. The difference between the two is that with JSON Blob, you can collaboratively edit/share your JSON and use it programmatically via the JSON Blob API.

<comment><USER2> I don't know why it didn't even occur to me that the editor could be a third- party library. Duh :)

Thanks for clarifying, and great work!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Very awesome. I use <http://jsonviewer.stack.hu/> often but this looks much cleaner.

Do you plan to keep it up indefinitely or open-source it?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's open sourced - <https://github.com/tburch/jsonblob>.

It's running on a single Heroku dyno with the free MongoHq service, so at some point I'll have to figure out what to do when there's more than 512MB of documents stored, but for now it's running indefinitely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nice job. I love these kinds of small helper/utility sites, it's big part of why I follow HN.

Is there a directory of sites like this somewhere, by the way?

<comment><USER5> I found three such directory sites which have different approaches.

<http://hnshowcase.com> : visual preview, filtering, social integration, etc.

<http://showinghn.com> : minimalist list based on /newest polling

<https://twitter.com/JustShowHN> : Twitter feed based on main RSS

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Could be useful if one was writing an DB Admin backend for MongoDB.

<comment><USER7> I'm working on one right now and will definitely be integrating this into it. It's a perfect fit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Nicely done, sir. Wasn't exactly sure what the true power was for a minute. I really like the json editor, but what really sells it is being able to have mock urls that actually function. Perfect for setting up a data source via the api for use among multiple engineers. You should somehow make that bit of info more prominent in the demo.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I definitely didn't do a good job at that based on the feedback I've received. I'll try to make it more prominent because that was the sole purpose of the project.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> "This page is asking you to confirm that you want to leave - data you have entered may not be saved."

... far to sensitive. You can press "clear" in the toolbar then try to close the browser tab and it'll pop up on a empty document.

Personally, I wouldn't have that at all.

Apart from that, it looks very nice. Many options for manipulating the JSON object, cool!

</comment><comment><USER10> Nice! I have to use things like this all the time when debugging writes to mongo, so this is really neat. I like the design, although being able to resize the windows would be nice. On my 17" Macbook, there's more unused space that I really need.

It's also really cool that you can save/restore - I could see this being used like jsFiddle.

GL!

</comment><comment><USER11> I like the idea bu... When adding new key/value pairs, the text 'field' and 'value' should either be placeholders or selected on focus so a user's first keypress wipes those strings from the field. Having to manually select all is not intuitive and forces the user to do work easily done by the computer.

</comment><comment><USER12> Regarding the presentation part of this, even if you don't use it for exchanging data, serializing JSON to YAML can output a nicely readable and terse structure. The example JSON ends up looking like this: <http://pastebin.com/gw6SGz4U>

</comment><comment><USER13> This is awesome :) I'm looking for a way to interactively build something like this into our documentation at <https://balancedpayments.com/docs/api>

<comment><AUTHOR> Have you seen Swagger? <https://github.com/wordnik/swagger-core/>

I'm going to try to get this working for JSON Blob API's documentation over the weekend.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Very nice. This is one of those things where I don't need it right now, but in 2 weeks I'll be thinking "where the hell is that bookmark..." :)

</comment><comment><USER15> Nice, an upgrade from <http://json.parser.online.fr/> for quick looks at json.

</comment><comment><USER16> When I try to upload json it never seems to finish. Chrome/Linux

Other than that, I like it a lot. Very cool side project

</comment><comment><USER17> Very clean. FYI, when saving I get a URL like undefined/api/jsonBlob/50e46e66e4b006ece99dff64.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Fixed that... [https://github.com/tburch/jsonblob/commit/00cba8c54692f7690d...](https://github.com/tburch/jsonblob/commit/00cba8c54692f7690d09e4b645d6e84adfd871b8)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Cool. FYI, the items within the drop downs are not usable on my idevice

</comment><comment><USER19> The link to jsoneditoronline.org on the About page is incorrect.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Fixed - [https://github.com/tburch/jsonblob/commit/a4e6f145f5166c26e2...](https://github.com/tburch/jsonblob/commit/a4e6f145f5166c26e230b785a39fa9bb3e792032)

<comment><USER19> cool, but you could have stayed in the g namespace just by adding <http://> to the beginning.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This would be great to tie into CouchDBs admin interface!

</comment><comment><USER21> it would be nice if I could give it a jsonp URL and a callback function name</comment>


Google Outsells, but Apple Cultivates Loyalty of App Developers - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/11/technology/companies/apple-keeps-loyalty-of-mobile-app-developers.html?src=twrhp

<comment><USER2> It seems that the hard facts continue to rain on the parade for the writers of this NYT piece, to the point where they cite some tech writers blog on Schmidts failures and have a bunch of unnamed "sources" attest to Apples "eyecatching new 3-d map service".

Only to top it all off with a paragraph on one developers tough love relationship with Apples "hands-on approach to approving software" (read: anticompetitive, arbitrariness).

<comment><USER3> It's common knowledge that all of the NY Times' tech bloggers have meaningful stakes in Apple stock. They claim that it does not affect their reviews, but I've seen yesmen who are less obsequiously fawning than "writers" like Pogue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Apple's store is terrible too, a couple random thoughts as to why:

The only way to find apps is the top-selling charts. Which means there is extremely strong downward pressure on pricing(since the charts are sorted by volume not gross), and any app which is not mass-market and cheap enough to hit the charts is going to have trouble.

There is no way to demo apps, seriously what the fuck.

The market is essentially a free-for-all, apple does a little bit of quality control, but essentially you have no idea what to expect when you download an app.

Apple is extremely restrictive and ambiguous about the types of apps it allows, if something is borderline it's not worth developing because apple could reject you depending on what kind of mood the reviewers are in.

If apple is serious about selling app's it needs to be more proactive and do things like a publisher would.

Take notes from Steam: -Much more and better curation -Much better communication with developers -Sanity in pricing -Sales/bundles and assistance with marketing -More exposure and ways to discover niche apps

</comment><comment><USER5> "It is difficult to say whether Apple's position with developers will remain strong if Android continues to gobble market share. But various surveys have tried to gauge which smartphones developers plan to write apps for in the near future, and the iPhone often scores very high."

I don't know what surveys the authors are referring to, as they don't list sources, but I doubt multiple surveys are needed to deduce mobile developers are interested in the iPhone.</comment>


Microsoft backtracks on Partner Network changes that sparked uproar - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.partner.microsoft.com/mpn/updates-program-change-announcements/ <comment><USER2> This is so strange to observe from the outside. The statements of Gavriella Schuster, when that whole debacle started, provided some insight into the partner program:

"We can't afford to run every single partner's organisation for free anymore, because it's not free"

"Put it this way, when customers are paying for services they turn them off very quickly. When we give it away for free the partners leave these services on. While my budget has to pay internally for this."

"We have given partners a year to figure this out. I just can't make it free anymore."

"If we hadn't had such an influx of new partners and everyone's usage hadn't been this high, then we may not have been in this situation"

The article, where these quotes are from, talks of 7000 new partners each month [1]. So, on one hand, Microsoft clearly has a communication problem. The proposed changes slipped in without a clear, official statement and wasn't the backlash obvious? Why didn't anyone stop Schuster from doing this? On the other hand, how can they continue like this? They lose huge amounts of money because partners get a ton of licenses for free. So what's their plan? Unfortunately the announcement is as shallow as possible. Hard to regain trust this way.

But many development shops, as the one I'm in, are so dependent on Microsoft and the partner program, that switching is nearly impossible...

[1] [https://www.dailytimes.live/business/microsoft-cuts- partner-...](https://www.dailytimes.live/business/microsoft-cuts-partner- benefit-surprise-move-88246844)

<comment><USER3> I work for a software dev company that uses and advocates for Microsoft's platform. Many of the solutions we've sold and/or suggested to our customers have been based on our internal use of the same platforms and feature levels which we use to dogfood and demo the product we develop.

Some features or solutions we've developed for our customers are reliant on our exposure to Microsoft products we would not be able to justify or afford outside the partner program. If the partner program had not been available those solutions would have been based off alternative products, most likely open source.

The most likely jump we would have made already is from SQL Server to Postgres. In that instance alone, the SQL Server licenses our product/solution has led our customers to make far exceeds our IUR usage.

I can't imagine we're alone in the scenario. There is no way our small company could justify purchasing the enterprise licenses we routinely suggest our customers purchase.

<comment><USER4> >Some features or solutions we've developed for our customers are reliant on our exposure to Microsoft products we would not be able to justify or afford outside the partner program. If the partner program had not been available those solutions would have been based off alternative products, most likely open source.

Just a question- what exactly are you developing within the Microsoft ecosphere that's so expensive? Prototyping new solutions with Azure these days is definitely pretty cheap, even without being an MSFT Partner.

<comment><USER3> This is partially true, Azure has made some of these options available in a more affordable format. Additionally some features have been made available in lower level licenses.

One example is any solution utilizing encryption at rest, a feature that was previously only available in enterprise level SQL Server. That feature is now available in lower license levels and Azure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> My previous employer did a lot of cloud migration/integration work for clients. They erred in their sales strategy where cloud became 'the only thing we'll talk to clients about'. In doing so, they not only dried up their sales pipeline, but lost most of their existing customer base as well.

This (attempted) change to the partner internal-use licensing feels like it's cut from the same cloth - The existence of IUR didn't seem to be an issue previously and the need to change it now doesn't pass the sniff test.

Probably a better play here would be to give partners a choice - Each year you can have the IUR OR equivalent entitlements in Azure/0365\. That gives partners a transition path, within a construct where the deal can be sweetened/tweaked as necessary, and doesn't make the mistake of brow-beating anyone towards cloud adoption (which tends to have the opposite effect).

</comment><comment><USER6> Relevant bit here:

> Given your feedback, we have made the decision to roll back all planned > changes related to internal use rights and competency timelines that were > announced earlier this month. This means you will experience no material > changes this coming fiscal year, and you will not be subject to reduced IUR > licenses or increased costs related to those licenses next July as > previously announced.

<comment><USER7> > ... this coming fiscal year ...

No mention of the _next_ fiscal year, or the one after that.

Microsoft already decided they want to push these changes through -- and they will. It might just take them a little longer than originally planned but Microsoft will continue to "extinguish" anyone or anything standing in their way.

(I know this isn't a popular opinion with some of the developers here on HN -- who seem to think they are Microsoft's BFFs -- but some of us don't forget so quickly.)

<comment><USER8> They're withdrawing subsidies for resellers of their products. It's pretty hard to see how that is them extinguishing competition...

Isn't subsiding by a major market power generally seen as an anticompetitive action?

<comment><USER7> > _They 're withdrawing subsidies for resellers of their products. It's pretty > hard to see how that is them extinguishing competition..._

Microsoft was going to yank internal use rights from the "partners". For many (most?) of them, this is the primary reason they remain partners. Without this benefit, lots of them will choose not to remain partners.

Many companies will _only_ work with Microsoft partners. Lots of them would work directly with Microsoft if that were an option (as some are speculating it will soon be).

So there will be a lot less "partners" standing in between Microsoft and their customers. Then, at some point, Microsoft will start working directly with these customers, cutting out the middleman, sucking them into their subscription models (which will be expanding), have more insight into their operations, and will be better able to track (and enforce) licensing.

To put it a simpler way, Microsoft is simply going to cut out the middleman -- the partners -- and take their customers -- and revenue -- away from them.

<comment><USER2> There are many partners which are not simple resellers. Dev shops and integration businesses which do a lot of customer oriented work, which Microsoft itself could never reliably take over. Those partners profit from the MPN licenses by using them internally and on the other hand get in touch with new tech from Microsoft, which they could maybe use in one or another way.

Losing them would be really bad for Microsoft, because they are at the forefront installing, integrating and extending the Microsoft stack into their customer base. Think of deals in the government or education sector.

Microsoft should not put those businesses and resellers into the same basket. But they are right now and every change affects them both. Hard to get out of that program which has been running since decades...

<comment><USER7> > _Losing them would be really bad for Microsoft, ..._

It would be, but they won't lose them.

Those folks aren't going to just all of a sudden stop using or recommending or integrating/deploying Microsoft products. With regard to licenses for development / test / demo machines and such, the 180-day evals (which can be "renewed" for 30 months, IIRC) aren't going away and will work just fine for them in the majority of these cases. Besides, the dev shops and integration businesses aren't who Microsoft is targeting right now -- they provide value to Microsoft and will continue to do so.

There's a lot of "partners" that are _only_ partners because of the money they save in licensing costs. Why would Microsoft really care if they remain partners or cost? Their value to Microsoft is very little (and probably a net negative in many cases) so why not force them to pay "full price" for their licenses too? Microsoft has been effectively giving them away like candy for years and years and now that's going to change. They may have backtracked, _for now_ , but I fully expect them to continue limiting, restricting, or totally phasing out internal use rights -- except, perhaps, for the higher/highest partner levels. To Microsoft, the smaller "partners" just aren't worth dealing with at this point and this is an easy way to get rid of many of them without simply "kicking them out" of the partner program.

I've thought about this a lot deeper than I care to write about here at the moment but I think their long-term goal here is to continue to push as much as they can into Azure for that sweet, sweet (monthly recurring) "subscription" revenue (plus licensing!) month after month. For anything else -- whatever they can't push into Azure (where they can track it much better) -- they're gonna make sure that _everything_ is fully licensed and that they're extracting every penny that they can. They simply don't need the majority of the partners in order to do this.

Microsoft, of course, is after the large enterprise customers -- the ones they can extract the most revenue from. (By the way, they can already work directly with Microsoft Professional Services and "skip over" the partners.) Once Microsoft has gotten them to move everything into Azure, Microsoft will be able to work with them more directly and provide more services to them that would traditionally be provided by partners.

(In the interest of full disclosure, I should perhaps mention that I once owned a company that was a Microsoft partner. That's been so long ago that it really isn't even relevant to the discussion, though. More recently, I worked for another such "partner" \-- in name only.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The earlier thread: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20389077](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20389077)</comment>


Another Crowdfunded Gadget Company Collapses - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/11/07/another-1-million-crowdfunded-gadget-company-collapses/?ncid=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29 <comment><USER2> Eh. It's not called Kickpurchase, it's called Kickfund. (Okay, this one was actually on Indiegogo.)

You want something guaranteed to ship perfectly? That's what Amazon is for. The point of Kickstarter and its ilk is that it _is_ a risk – that's why it usually comes with lower prices and the ability to have it first.

When you buy on Kickstarter, you aren't preordering. You're crowdfunding something that doesn't exist yet. On the Diffusion of Innovation chart, you aren't an Early Adopter... you're an Innovator [1]. The creators put in time; you're putting in money. As long as there's no fraud, I think failures like this should be treated as an acceptable part of this new method of funding.

(That being said, two caveats: first is that failures like this might be acceptable but they're still bad for Kickstarter+Indiegogo, and second is that I'd be a lot less rational and forgiving if I had lost money on this)

[1] [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/45/DiffusionOfIn...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/45/DiffusionOfInnovation.png)

<comment><USER3> > When you buy on Kickstarter, you aren't preordering.

Its a really big elephant being felt by blind men. So... no.

One very specific example of a kickstarter that I participated in was a board gaming project by DVG which is roughly their thousandth product shipped and specifically was the 6th expansion to their warfighter game series. In that line of business they have extreme front end expenses for printing and shipping, and in exchange for what boils down to preordering, you get a modest, fair discount.

Sure it as a product didn't exist other than in the minds of the producer and the artist team, but the odds of them failing were approximately zero assuming the economy doesn't implode or DVG himself get hit by a meteor. And there are risks, they have had massive shipping delays. However as you'd expect everything eventually showed up and looked as good as the last five expansions and the base set.

No one in the traditional gaming community found this saga terribly interesting or unusual... Given the lack of surprise, its highly likely that in areas outside this and the area in the article, there are other fields of endeavour that are running a boring pre-order operation.

Seriously, does anyone think anything can stop Jason Scott from directing tech documentaries? It takes forever, but aside from getting hit by a truck, its as sure as anything that "something" will be released sooner or later. I have some money in for the 6502 documentary and I'm just not worried.

Interestingly Amazon offers preorders. I've already pre-ordered cstross's new Laundry Files book which won't be released until mid next year. Nobody talks about amazon pre-orders, but I've done it before with no problem and I've never even heard rumors of a logistical fail. Perhaps the lack of failure makes them too boring to discuss in public. What can you say about Amazon preorders other than they work, which isn't good clickbait, compared to "many or most kickstarter projects crash n burn" which gets the clicks.

<comment><USER4> For an Amazon pre-order, you risk nothing. You aren't charged until/unless it ships and you get price-protection. Neither of those is true for the crowd- funding world.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I never see the articles about how investors need to be more careful, because _some of the companies they 're investing in are failing_. That's sort of the point of the platform - I give you money for something that currently does not exist, and I get the chance to get that impossible thing if you're able to make it exist. Stop telling me to "be more careful", and acting like I'd be better served shopping at stores that don't fail to deliver. Stores don't sell maybe-dragonfly-robots.

</comment><comment><USER6> Crowdfunded pre-order campaigns generally can't afford to cover any R&D work, and it's a miracle if they even cover actual one-time manufacturing setup costs plus the cost of the rewards -- let alone funding the engineering team through all this time.

The incentives are almost backwards: the earliest pre-order customers have come to expect the biggest discounts at a time when the per-unit costs are highest and the up-front investment is yet to be done. If product survival is really the goal, the price curve should probably go in the other direction: from high to low over the product lifecycle.

Manufacturing hardware is really, really hard, even for teams with experience. Super hard if your past experience was in shipping software, because you don't realize how easy you've had it!

(Disclosure: after a successful Kickstarter campaign, we shipped [https://www.pantelligent.com/](https://www.pantelligent.com/) to all our backers and were only a few weeks late from our original delivery estimate. Even for a team that's shipped HW and SW before, it was still very challenging. Most importantly, our backers are telling us that the product really delivers on the benefits of what we promised in the campaign -- and apparently that's a rare and noteworthy occurrence!)

</comment><comment><USER7> _This is just the latest example of how consumers need to be more careful with crowdfunding._

You know, while I've only contributed to one such, and only because I thought it ought to be done, I view these as _wagers_. If the project works out, great! If not, my monetary loss is calculated to not grieve me.

</comment><comment><USER8> Meh. They definitely gave the appearance of having a working prototype with the crowd-funding for a more refined model. If you look at 3:15 in their video there's some footage of a prototype looking dragonfly actually flying. There are also several photos of the same on the page.

Most backers assumed smoothing those prototypes out for production was a reasonable endeavor. Unfortunately as the project's unfolded it became more and more clear that the group of people running it didn't really have the experience to deal with production even though they clearly had a product. I think a combination of wanting the product to be significantly better than their initial prototypes and a poor idea of how to deal with Indiegogo/Paypal/Factories/Production kind of doomed things. Likewise, they haven't been very smooth or fluent in terms of their communications with backers.

All that said, as a backer, I'm mostly disappointed they didn't have someone with more communications fluency and experience with manufacturing to run things, as I think that alone would have enabled the product to be a success. I'm not in a position where the money makes or breaks me and I tossed it away several years ago. Pointless to get too emotional about a sunk cost unless it comes out that there really has been some kind of gross mismanagement/negligence and not just some random grad-student types getting in way over their heads.

</comment><comment><USER9> I think criminals need to be prosecuted (e.g. the atrociously blatant Bleen project: [https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/bleen-3d-without- glasses#...](https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/bleen-3d-without-glasses#/)). Nay, I think criminals need to have their hands cut off in town square.

But incompetence is a risk when you throw money into a Kickstarter/Indiegogo- shaped hole that smells like interesting technology. If it's obsequious and insidious incompetence, lump them in with the hand-less criminals. If they gave it a good long try, had consistent updates, release project IP and open source software, well... That's what we're here for. To try and get ideas off the ground. You're going to lose money at some point in the process. I regularly throw money into all kinds of electronics-shaped holes on Kickstarter and Indiegogo. It happens when the stars don't align that I lose my money. But if they aren't criminals about it, well, shit happens.

</comment><comment><USER10> _shrug_ this is kind of in the same category as glowing plant - didn't really expect a usable end product but sounded like a cool longshot. I don't feel bad about my "lost" hundred bucks. It's the projects that fritter away the money that I feel bad about, but as long as a serious shot at it is taken it seems like the platform is working as intended.

</comment><comment><USER11> Stories like this are going to kill the crowdfunded gadget market, and it's going to go the way of GroupOn as another mid-2010's Internet fad.

I would much rather pay 2x the price for a real product that has been shipped to stores and has a review, as opposed to a pre-order Kickstarter campaign. It's really interesting to me that based on a video, people are willing to drop hundreds of dollars on gadgets simply on trust.

Kickstarter or Indiegogo need to take more responsibility for these campaigns, otherwise they will find themselves dead in 5 years.

They need to:

1) Have the creators set the number of funders to a reasonable level. If you know how to build 100 devices, you don't know how to build 100,000 devices, it's an entirely skillset and price point.

2) Have the creators set an execution plan, where they need to his milestones with firm dates before money is released. Once it has been determined it hit a milestones, then the next round of funding gets sent to them. IF they miss a milestone, funders get the option of refunding the rest of their money back.

<comment><USER12> I think 2 would result in worse outcomes. The people getting partial refunds probably won't be happy. The people remaining will probably be disappointed as well as a run on refunds will probably kill any chance there was of delivery.

<comment><USER11> You're assuming that campaigns that can't hit their deadlines still result in products that please their customers. I'm assuming that if the campaigns can't hit their own deadlines that the end result will lead to disappointed end users anyway, either in no product, or a really crappy product. Better for them to give up and get their money back than lose everything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I lost a bunch of money on this.

The thing that galls me is that they massively exceeded their funding target, but still couldn't do anything.

What was their plan if they only hit their target?? They didn't have a product --- they had to do all this development. So if they only took in like 100k of the kickstarter, what were they going to do?

They totally misrepresented the status of the project. It's right and proper that Paypal and Indiegogo didn't immediately release all the funds to them. The project didn't say they needed those funds for development. Otherwise, how could the funding target have been 100k?

</comment><comment><USER14> $99 for a robotic dragonfly is / was definitely a punt -- what gets me are people who price their campaign rewards effectively at the targeted retail price of the product, then don't deliver. That's not a wager, because you don't "win" if you get the product -- assuming it materialises, you could just buy it then, for the same "price". You can only come out even or lose.

<comment><USER15> Kickstarter is not a casino. The TOS requires companies to deliver. Those that don't open themselves to lawsuits. My recommendation to anybody who does a kickstarter is to price it at the retail price or even more if you're talking about limited or first run sales.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, but that's what Kickstarter decided to become at some point, they weren't always that way. I'm hoping that other crowdfunding platforms don't go this direction, and allow me to choose my risk without opening the creators up to lawsuits (which feels like the most un-Kickstarter thing ever).

<comment><USER16> Why shouldn't they be open to legal action?

I went to a special screening of Iron Sky. Some of the production of that was done in Australia. During the Q&A they were saying that due to Australian laws they can't do something like Kickstarter in Australia. If they took money to finance the film, the people giving the money would have been investors with rights. Basically a legal and logistical nightmare.

This doesn't sound unreasonable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Did this thing ever fly? I was never really clear whether they had flown untethered prototypes.

<comment><USER8> It looks like they had a functioning prototype at the 3:15 mark of their pitch video. (Obviously who knows - flight time might have been < 1 minute, impossible to land, etc., but it does look like they had something that flew.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> As the adage goes: a fool and his money are soon parted.</comment>


Electric Dump Truck Produces More Energy Than It Uses - <AUTHOR> https://hackaday.com/2019/08/22/electric-dump-truck-produces-more-energy-than-it-uses/ <comment><USER2> It generates power (useful work) but it certainly does NOT produce more energy.</comment>


Ask HN: How do people become experts? - non-entity I've know a number of people who were really good at one thing or a handful of interrelated things. That might be a programming language or specific technology, some business domain or something else, but I've never quite figured out how they did it.
I've tried the deep dive thing a few times and always come out frustrated. It seems like the important stuff that differentiates the expert from someone with casual knowledge isn't documented. Sometimes it's explained by the knowledge being locked behind a paywall or IP protection of some sort. Sometimes its not, but the knowledge seems to be locked in the brains of a few individuals or organizations and can only be unlocked if your'e lucky enough for them to take you in (employment at a company that specializes in something, or having a mentor type relationship with another expert). On the other hand, a minority of the experts I know are nearly completely self taught and I'm struggling to figure out how to manage. Generally as a hobbysit Like I said every time I've tried to deep dive I reach a point where I'm not sure what I'm missing, where to find it. <comment><USER2> They don't. They just gain expertise on subjects through trial-and-error and first-hand experience.

Anyone who tries to convince you that your should pay for advice on "how to become an expert" has expertise at only one thing: lying.

PS: I can teach you how to be an expert at spotting liars. For 5 dollars I'll tell you the secret.

Behind paywall 1: First lesson - don't pay for lessons on expertise. For 5 more dollars, I'll let you read chapter 2

Behind paywall 2: You are almost there! So close! You should be getting familiar with the trick by now. There was a secret lesson in part one. I'll tell the secret behind the trick for just 5 more dollars.

Behind paywall 3: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times, and now we are here! Wanna know how I fooled you _three_ times? Only 5 more dollars!

Now you are 15 dollars into spending 5 dollars on how to spot a liar. Just 5 more dollars!

Once you figure out the trick, you can consider yourself an expert.

<comment><USER3> Following that method will make you a Scientologist, not an expert.

<comment><USER2> I am not familiar with Scientology, but you sound like an expert on the matter so I'll take your word for it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Niels Bohr, widely regarded as an expert, has said that an expert is someone who has made all the mistakes which can be made, in a narrow field. If you want to become an expert, you should presumably pick a suitable narrow field and start making mistakes.

<comment><USER4> Don't forget to also learn from those mistakes! :)

I agree though, expertise comes from trying all the configurations in a space and learning which work and which don't. After a while you start to see the patterns.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Many good answers here, but I want to emphasize one particular facet: other experts help you become an expert.

A thousand years ago, anyone could have invented relatively basic math - <AUTHOR> they didn't. The reason is that they didn't have other people to inspire and motivate and teach them.

Very little knowledge comes ab initio or from a vacuum. Expertise is not created by working in isolation for decades. To build expertise, you need to be interacting with other experts. This doesn't mean they need to teach you, nor does it mean they need to be be in person. But you have to be at least reading what they write.

It's much easier to reach the clouds if you stand on the shoulders of giants.

<comment><USER6> That's why Stackoverflow or this very site exists.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> > It seems like the important stuff that differentiates the expert from > someone with casual knowledge isn't documented.

It isn't documented because it can't. The difference between an expert and a novice is that an expert has been exposed to and working with a particular subject for so long that there are higher level abstractions that have become "chunked" or "codified" in their mind such that they look at the problem differently than novice people.

Example

`for(int i = 0; i <= list.length; i++) { ... }`

A novice will see this and after parsing the pieces can tell you that this takes a counter i and does an action until i is the length of the list.

A more experienced person will see this as a for loop iterating through a list.

An even more experienced person may intuitively map this to the need of the program to operate on a list data structure and begin to immediately start asking why we didn't use a more functional approach, what effect will this have on the program when my list has 0 items, is there a way I can simplfy this code? Etc

The expert knows this not because he has read it in a book or because he followed design docs, he knows because he has practiced 10,000 hours, which includes doing something evaluating what went well, what did not, what could be improved, looking for new knowledge and new ways to do things.

In contrast too the man who has practiced 1 hours 10,000 times that has mindlessly written this block of code and continues to repeat this abstraction because this is his go to and familiar tool.

<comment><USER8> What about the one who shall notice an off-by-one error?

<comment><USER9> First thing I noticed too. I'm afraid you're now the security expert.. ;)

<comment><USER10> Or just that senior engineer who knows better than to allow a for loop to pass code review!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The biggest factor is Time. It takes a lot of time (in years) and different types of experience (which again mostly comes with time) to become an expert at one thing. You cannot deep dive into something within a short span of time and become an expert.

I would use the analogy that just because a woman can have a baby in 9 months, 9 women cannot have a baby in 1 month. You must spend 9 months to have a baby. So to be an expert at anything, it takes years of practice, errors, lessons learned, experiences to fully grasp a topic as an expert.

<comment><USER12> I _mostly_ agree. I suppose there's a question of "How much time." There are certainly younger people who are experts in narrow areas. That said, in many of the most obvious cases, they've gotten doctorates or otherwise have really devoted themselves to drilling down into some technology area (and working with other people in that area). So you're still talking years, even if "only" single digit years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> > I've tried the deep dive thing a few times and always come out frustrated. > It seems like the important stuff that differentiates the expert from > someone with casual knowledge isn't documented.

What the experts know is the things that aren't documented. Some of those are things that are hard to document, because the right thing to do requires situational knowledge, others are things that experts don't realize aren't obvious.

The way to become an expert isn't solely by reading documentation, it's by trying to do the thing, and figuring out what works (and hopefully why). For software, that often means diving into the source code, as well as the source code of the environment the code runs in (and sometimes that environment, etc --- prefer less layers and simpler systems, because it's easy to dive down to the bottom)

</comment><comment><USER14> You become an expert by leveling up in knowledge, let's take a poker game for example:

       0: learn the rules
       1: what do I have
       2: what might the others have
       3: what might the others think I have
       4: what might the others think that I think they have...

You have to evolve through each level step by step, and develop an intuition before you can go to the next level... There are different levels of abstractions in thinking, and experts tend to have been at all levels. To have the best odds of winning, you need to determine the level of your opponent, and pay exactly one level higher.

You can find more info on a similar school of thought by googling for "dreyfus levels of skill acquisition", which explains the 5 levels you have to go through to master something:

       0: What are the rules
       1: I know the rules
       2: I understand how the rules work
       3: I understand how the rules work together
       4: I see patterns and develop an instinct
       5: I understand why the rules are there, and would know when to deviate

If your mind is no longer preoccupied with thinking about the rules, you can start doing other things with your brain, which is why practice is so important.

I actually had a talk a decade ago about this: [https://www.slideshare.net/mobile/TomJanssens1/getting- bette...](https://www.slideshare.net/mobile/TomJanssens1/getting-better)

Edit: updated my last poker rule; it has been a while, and I am typing this on my mobile..

<comment><USER14> FYI the frustration usually happens between phase 2 & 3 of the dreyfus model... When you realize that you assumed you were an expert, but you were wrong... So keep practicing/learning at that tipping point, afterwards it starts to get interesting... (Similar to the hype curve, "the dip" by Seth Godin etc..) Edit: typo

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> In my experience, it happens gradually.

1) You have a few successes when a few people (who know each other) ask you to solve a problem in a particular area. You may have to study and stretch in order to accomplish those successes, but if the people asking you have far less previous knowledge of the problems that you solved than you do, solving the types of questions that they could formulate might be easy.

2) They start calling you an expert between each other, and referring other people who are solving the same types of problems to you. You study hard to protect this reputation, to avoid failures that will reflect on the people talking you up.

3) They make up myths about your genius and spread them, which also fluffs up their own reputation for knowing you and referring others to you.

4) You start to believe the myths.

So extensive practice motivated by fear of failures which would result in rejection and looking like a fraud (and possible commensurate loss of income.) I think you can only get this as a hobbyist if you belong to a hobbyist community that could also provide that social pressure. That community would also have to have an element of material output; i.e. something to differentiate talk from skill, and something that allows you to collaborate with and advise others.

I think you can become pretty adequate at something by yourself, without social elements, but not an expert. I don't even think there's such a thing as an unrecognized expert; that's like an unrecognized genius. Being called an expert or a genius is just code for being respected.

</comment><comment><USER16> The internal grokking of knowledge is a side effect of forging a path through life. Can't make expertise an explicit end goal, there's too much to know.

The sharply refined ability to learn, internalize and execute knowledge work looks like expertise to everyone.

</comment><comment><USER17> It might be useful if you say what you're trying to become an expert in. Ask a vague question, get a vague answer.

> always come out frustrated

You can't stop there.

Yes, a lot of expert knowledge is locked up in the heads of experts. It is very hard (if not impossible) to write down all the implicit and explicit knowledge that experts have, so it doesn't always happen. It's very hard to become an expert alone. I think this also says something about the nature of expertise: it is something that is constructed by experts themselves in their minds. There was a story that a famous mathematician would tell is grad students, holding up an important book, "You should know everything in this book ... but don't read it!"

</comment><comment><USER18> For me it's all about experience. Finding chances to do something interesting related to a project. That's basically how I learn anything -- find a useful project that uses the new thing I want to learn. If I'm lucky, the project is at work and there are a lot of resources to go big.

In my mind there are two types of expertise: learning something that exists or making something new.

I've always done the second: find an opportunity to do something new, deep dive on it and figure it out, and then you are the expert by default. Then it's just a matter of keeping up on the state of the art while everyone else starts doing what you're doing but does it better than you.

</comment><comment><USER19> > I've tried the deep dive thing a few times and always come out frustrated.

> Generally as a [hobbyist] ...

It sounds as though you expect that reading or doing something once will confer expert status. Instead, try to think of it more like a lifestyle.

If you study something every day for ten years — constantly trying out new ideas to test the limits of the field and your understanding, and teaching others how to get started to develop a deeper intuition and understanding of the basics — you will most definitely be an expert at the end of those ten years.

At no point will you necessarily _feel_ like an expert; that's just a label people give to those who live/breathe/dream a topic deeply for many years.

</comment><comment><USER20> For me this has meant, that you start seeing patterns in things. You almost develop a strong gut instinct for things, and sometimes it cannot be rationalized or explained succinctly. This is as it related to traditional software. In sports ( racquetball), which I've played for 20 yrs now, I'll make shots where obviously there is no conscious decision making, it's muscle memory combined with pattern recognition happening in the milli-second range. It's beautiful and a zen state.

</comment><comment><USER21> Hmm. I wonder if this is more of a perception issue than a skill issue.

At least one person on my work team thinks I'm really smart and amazing, but I don't feel like I'm an expert in anything I do.

I would say that an expert knows how to put together knowledge in a certain area of expertise and can quickly judge whether something is plausible and implausible. An expert can identify problems and potential solutions.

I don't think being frustrated or feeling some level of imposter syndrome makes you not an expert.

</comment><comment><USER22> I recommend give this a read it's quite interesting: [https://commoncog.com/blog/tacit-knowledge-is-a-real- thing/](https://commoncog.com/blog/tacit-knowledge-is-a-real-thing/)

You need to do the thing to gain expertise but also learn it inside out. Academic + school of life = expert.

Academic can mean formal education, can also mean self taught from books, papers or talking to other people.

</comment><comment><USER23> Some people do not know that they are subject matter 'experts'; as they typically have to have respected colleagues state this. My wife and myself are examples - I have told her for years that there is almost no one else at her level, but she dismissed my claims until well known (in their fields) professors started to call her frequently for advice and ideas.

I considered myself competent in some stuff, but never an 'expert'. About 10 years past, peoples in various IEEE societies prodded me to publish stuff and do talks at some of the respective annual symposiums. I still do not consider myself an expert - because I do know some actual experts in some of my professional fields and endeavors, but there are other engineers that do rank me as such, which I have accepted because it gets me more work.

My wife became an expert by solving some difficult problems. She solved these seemingly intractable problems by deep observations, knowing what questions to ask, and knowing whom to ask questions.

I have increased my professional competence by education (both formal and self-taught) and carefully choosing companies and problems to solve. But I am too general of a practitioner to be considered an 'expert'.

</comment><comment><USER24> I became an expert in a very niche technology and the only thing I did is do the same for 6 years. For the first project, there was just no one else to do it, so my company hired an extremely expensive contractor and I collaborated with him. After that I supported the product and implemented solutions with the same tool for other lines of business in my company.

After 4 years of doing it, I became probably one of the 10 or even less best experts in the world with this product but I was really tired of it. The technology was already outdated but still alive, so before giving up for more interesting things I became freelance during 2 years and got paid 4 times my previous salary. It was painful and boring to keep doing the same but it helped me to pay my house.

I could have extended it for 2 or 3 more years before the technology died for good, but I was so tired of it that I decided the money was not worth it anymore and I started again to be an apprentice of the technologies I missed during the 6 years period of being an expert in a very single thing.

Now I still struggling every day because I've been learning too many things but I still didn't have the chance of a long term project that helps me become an expert.

</comment><comment><USER25> Two thoughts beyond what's already been mentioned. Experts tend to have strong networks of people with similar interests and high intelligence. When they don't know how to approach something they know who to ask.

Experts historically tended to write prolifically. They're known as experts because others are familiar with their work. The modern equivalent of writing is more broad but the part about communication of ideas broadly still applies.

<comment><USER26> > high intelligence.

Hard work, many hours of trial and error, reading a lot, ... anyone can become an expert with enough hours.

Sorry, I have meet too many developers that though that they had "High intelligence" and they were just arrogant incompetents with a little knowledge. Intelligence is worthless if one does not put the time and effort to learn and, as you notice, to learn you need to ask question and to listen to others.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> A lot of it is passion. The subject areas I think I am best at are ones that I care about so much that I can't help but seek out all the information I can on them. When I talk to others about said subjects, I usually find that they don't care about them nearly as much as I do. There are some things I wish I were better at but don't feel motivated in the same way.

<comment><USER28> I think you mean enthusiasm.

Passion is something different. The latter term is often mis-used for the first, but what you are describing is enduring enthusiasm.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> What's interesting is that many people who are considered "experts" are not. There are places where expertise is challenging/impossible to build up because there is no quick feedback loop.

A parole officer will not learn much if 4 years after their decision (one of thousands of decisions they made) they are told it was wrong.

One of my favorite papers: _In Praise Of Epistemic Irresponsibility: How Lazy And Ignorant Can You Be?_ by Michael A. Bishop

[https://philosophy.fsu.edu/sites/g/files/imported/storage/or...](https://philosophy.fsu.edu/sites/g/files/imported/storage/original/application/b2a33324114ffa3c4d27a09b5fc59ae2.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER30> > How do people become experts?

Marketing. Most "experts" are also very good at marketing themselves as such. They may not know much more than their peers in that area - but they are the go-to because they are visible: either on social media, through their writings, etc...

I recognize this is a somewhat alternative view point from many of the responses provided here. I am certainly not downplaying the time and dedication required to a particular subject matter as a pre-requisite to becoming an expert. An additional viewpoint that positioning yourself as an expert in the public eye may also improve your communication and teaching skills when conveying ideas in that subject matter, thus further reinforcing your expertise.

</comment><comment><USER31> [https://www.carnegiehall.org/Explore/Articles/2020/04/10/The...](https://www.carnegiehall.org/Explore/Articles/2020/04/10/The- Joke)

</comment><comment><USER32> Hubert L. Dreyfus's "On Internet" contains, amongst many things, one of the most succinct overviews about how one goes from novice to expert. I highly recommend reading this short book, especially in this time of online learning:

[https://cryptome.org/2013/01/aaron-swartz/On-the- Internet.pd...](https://cryptome.org/2013/01/aaron-swartz/On-the-Internet.pdf) (PDF)

The later chapters on virtual worlds in the second edition have dated a bit, but before that, it's almost entirely gold, even though it was written so long ago.

</comment><comment><USER33> They do it a lot. That's how they learn. Whether it's fixing cars, writing programs or installing electrical wires. When you do something a lot. You quickly become an expert at it.

When you do something a lot and you also study the subject (whether at university or self-taught) you'll really understand why how you do stuff matters. Whether it's picking the correct data structure for your program or deciding what material to use to repair a damaged wall. You'll be a true expert that people rely on and trust. And, they'll pay for that expertise.

</comment><comment><USER34> When you're learning something you don't know what you don't know, which is why teaching the thing is often said to be a great way to learn more about it. You need to understand it well enough to be able to simplify it, and you get asked questions by the person you're teaching that will test your knowledge.

Find Q&A sites that talk about the think you're trying to become expert in and try to answer as many questions as you can. You don't have to actually answer the questions -- those sites are often hellscapes.

</comment><comment><USER35> How do you become an expert? Pick a thing and focus on it intensely. Keep coming up with questions. The harder it is to find an answer, the closer you come to being an expert. At the end of your journey, you will still have questions. When you are one of the few people who can find the answers, you're the expert.

 _> It seems like the important stuff that differentiates the expert from someone with casual knowledge isn't documented._

Experience is the biggest driver of expertise, and most people just don't document the things they find out unless they have to. But often the information does exist, if it's been around for a while. Ask yourself how the expert became an expert. What other fields might they have studied? What jobs might they have had? What similar subjects might reveal some of the details?

 _> Sometimes its not, but the knowledge seems to be locked in the brains of a few individuals or organizations and can only be unlocked if your'e lucky enough for them to take you in_

Yep. Working with others is an important part of building expertise. Building relationships opens up new pathways to find information.

 _> On the other hand, a minority of the experts I know are nearly completely self taught and I'm struggling to figure out how to manage._

Relax. Expertise is not something you can force, it comes with time. Some things are easier than others, but if you continue to slowly work at it, you'll get better.

 _> Generally as a hobbysit Like I said every time I've tried to deep dive I reach a point where I'm not sure what I'm missing, where to find it._

Not every fish can be found by diving deep. Searching for knowledge is a normal part of building expertise; don't stress if you're not immediately sure where to look. If you get stuck, start again from the basics and question your assumptions. Try thinking about it from both a low-level and high-level view. Try to change your perspective. You will invariably come up with new places to search.

As you search, write down questions. If you get stuck on one, start looking into another. Remember to take breaks and get enough sleep, exercise, good diet. We learn best when we are stress-free, healthy and happy.

</comment><comment><USER36> First, remember the cliche - "There is a difference between 10 years of experience and one year of experience repeated 10 times."

Becoming an expert is not a one-time effort of studying. It takes time. I like the cliche above because it not only explains a trap many people fall into of thinking that doing the same thing multiple times is equivalent to learning, it also sets an expectation that true expertise takes years, not months.

</comment><comment><USER37> Sticking with something long enough to learn the difference between how it seems it should work & how it actually works.

</comment><comment><USER38> I've heard before that anyone can become an expert at something as long as the field is suitably narrow enough for them. Pick a topic, deep dive, and get used to that process. One needn't start by becoming an expert on World War 2, one can start by becoming an expert of a specific part of a specific battle and expand.

</comment><comment><USER39> The process of finding what your missing is what will make you an expert. PhD is finding novel information that impacts a field. Try to think of something at the level that no one else already knows and consider how you might learn that novel info - read research papers and see how others approach it.

</comment><comment><USER40> Experts begin with and stick with a process that builds expertise: reconsidering assumptions, asking questions and examining the answers, keeping notes and reviewing them, explaining what they learn and teaching others, etc.

Though I do not have the citations, I am sure others here could relate many examples.

</comment><comment><USER6> There's a direct correlation between learning theoretically (a.k.a. old fashion reading) and the eureka moment when you KNOW you are an expert in something. Yes, the experience is crucial, but as Pasteur said "chance favours the prepared mind".

</comment><comment><USER41> Read Mastery by Robert Greene. For a shorter version, watch the video on it by Talks at Google

</comment><comment><USER42> Passion + Time = Become an expert!

</comment><comment><USER43> Apply your motivated attention to any subject daily for many years and you'll be an expert. It's not enough to go through motions, either, you need to seek improvement and growth and overcome your weaknesses and challenges.

</comment><comment><USER44> Practice. Passion. Stubbornness. Patience. (And a bit of innate skill and luck.)

Everyone I've known who has mastered something simply has done it a million times, observed what they did right and wrong, corrected it, and leveled up each time.

</comment><comment><USER45> Are you getting enough "hands on" practice? Don't just read about X, but actually build an X so you can see it, touch it, observe it in operation. Makes a world of difference.

</comment><comment><USER46> Malcolm Gladwell's book _Outliers_ explores this topic and concludes that lots of deliberate practice — which includes making mistakes and recognizing them — leads to expertise and mastery. He says 10,000 hours, but the amount of practice required varies by person and skill. I don't think there's any way around lots of deliberate practice, though. That much work requires interest, passion, introspection, diligence, and feedback from mentors.

I don't think anyone can read their way to expertise. There's no secret technique or knowledge hidden behind paywalls.

Rather than thinking about "becoming an expert" reframe it as "mastering a skill or domain." No on _is_ an expert, that's a shorthand to describe someone who achieved mastery or deep understanding through deliberate practice.

</comment><comment><USER47> >> How do people become experts?

By leveraging your academic credentials, legal authority and social connections to promote an agenda (e.g. corporate agenda) through carefully crafted lies which intelligent people in your field cannot easily disprove but which the masses will openly embrace because it aligns with their primal incentives.

It's about being able to bypass people's logic and reasoning skills and appealing to their underlying primal instincts; namely their need to feel safe, to feel accepted, to acquire resources, etc...

The main role of experts is to give people a false sense of certainty and safety.

</comment><comment><USER48> IMHO, an expert is someone who not only is good at something, but truly enjoys doing it.

</comment><comment> benji-york You might be interested in The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance.

</comment><comment><USER49> 1\. Find a thing you are interested in.

2\. Start learning about it and doing stuff with this knowledge. Intermittently look for new information about this thing.

3\. Keep on working with this thing. Find ways to use it whenever possible, even if it is not perhaps the most efficient tool for the job at hand.

4\. Make mistakes with this thing. Make some little ones, make big ones. Whenever you make mistakes try to ask yourself how to make sure you never make this mistake again. ("Making mistakes" is not a thing you try to do; it is a thing you _will_ do. They can be small. Or they can be stressful and complicated and expensive and scarring. An expert will probably have a few of the latter under their belt, unless they were _very_ lucky and only had a few really, really close calls.)

5\. Keep working with the thing. Can you figure out a way to get a multi-year project with the thing going? Do you still fundamentally enjoy working with the thing when you are at the stage when you can do this - and when you are finished with that multi-year project, as well? Can you find a way to work under or with someone who is great with the thing? They'll teach you a lot of stuff that doesn't make it into books, as well as call your attention to really fundamental stuff that you've been blowing off like "kid, the way you hold your tool is gonna fuck your hands up in five years, start doing it _this_ way if you want to be able to keep doing this for the rest of your life, here's some exercises to get used to it". (Seriously: I am an artist and I did not get instructed in How To Properly Hold A Drawing Tool until I was in the animation industry.)

6\. Hang out somewhere people ask questions about the thing. Answer them. Answer the heck out of the questions you see allllll the time and are tired of answering and make key expansion shortcuts for them. Play around with the rare, interesting questions and answer them in the most novice-friendly way you can. If you know five ways to solve a novice's question about the thing, then go into some detail on _all_ of these ways and talk about which one you would probably reach for if it came up in practice, and about why that's your choice.

7\. Keep on doing the thing. Lots of little projects? Big long projects? Maybe both. It's easier to experiment in the little projects but the big ones are important too.

\----

There is a character in Zelazny's _Chronicles of Amber_ who is The Absolute Best General And Swordsman In The Entirety Of Reality. He wasn't born that way. Nobody is. But over many centuries of life, _he studied and practiced every day_. Every day, for hundreds of years, he spent _some_ time studying the great battles of old, practicing his swordsmanship, playing wargames, engaging in actual military campaigns from every level from top to bottom. He has been doing this longer than _everyone else alive_ , and thus, he is an expert.

You do not need to go to this extreme. You probably can't unless you turn out to be an immortal who can hop between alternate realities to see how various changes effect the ultimate outcome of a huge project over multiple trials. But _you need to keep coming back to the thing you will become an expert in_.

You can't just do one "deep dive" and become an expert. You have to _live_ with the thing, you have to spend time working with it, time just kicking back _thinking_ about the thing, you have to spend time catching up on the latest news about the thing, you have to _internalize_ some of the thing so that the back of your mind just prompts you with little warnings based on something you fucked up ten years ago. You have to dive to the bottom and _stay_ there.

And you will need to sacrifice some other shit on the altar of this expertise. There's only so many hours in the day, and only so many days in your life.

</comment><comment><USER50> An expert is someone who knows everything about a subject and can look at it from beyond the borders of its context. Knowing everything can be read as: made every possible mistake, or perhaps: re-created the entire concept. Or maybe even: did an exhaustive search of all the possible avenues of thinking/applying/using the subject at hand.

It also depends on who you ask. Some people have a different mental model of the meaning of words or the values attached to them. It can be as simple as: "the person that I ask stuff from and always has the answer" or as complex as "this person doesn't just read, repeat or know the theory or know the abstract theory but is even beyond that".

How do _you_ become an expert? It depends. What do you think an expert should be? Find that, then find where you are and the gap between that and where you need to be and start working on it. An expert at walking your own dog has a different route than say, an expert at silicon substrate doping.

Since we are on Hacker News, we could take being an expert at Linux Device Drivers as a subject. You'd be able to read and test and expand as much as you'd like until you become the expert you desire to be. Examples, documents and sources are all available. It does require base knowledge to build on; i.e. building software, writing and reading C, the specifics of the kernel, the specifics of the kernel build system. At some point if you know how to create and build a module that is a driver, you'd be a beginner and you can start becoming advanced by perhaps expanding on your knowledge by nibbling at the borders of the subject; the build system itself, the configuration system, the hardware underpinnings for drivers. Next you might become interested in memory maps and CPU architectures. At some point you can understand end-to-end how a click of a button translates into an event. You'd be advanced. Now take all of those concepts and things you're reading and the parts you've designed. That is a single subjects within borders. When you go beyond that, i.e. design the theories that define it you're an expert. Not only can you build and work with it, understand its context and modify it at will, but you can re-define and create it based on your own expert knowledge and abstract theory behind the concepts and implementations.

You can also make it much smaller than that. I.e. become an expert at folding t-shirts. Still means you need to know about folding, fabrics, speed vs. quality, quantity vs. quality (are you folding t-shirts for yourself or for a warehouse? is it manual or automated?). Once you know how to define what folding means and how it is affected and how it affects its context (i.e. what happens to the fibers? and what if it's dirty, or new? or when it has been washed 10 times? what about 100?) you could pretty much call yourself a t-shirt folding expert. This is still big, but a lot smaller than a software example.</comment>


Widespread tissue hypoxia dysregulates cell and metabolic pathways in SMA - <AUTHOR> https://padiracinnovation.org/News/2020/08/widespread-tissue-hypoxia-dysregulates-cell-and-metabolic-pathways <comment><AUTHOR> Neurodegenerative diseases are often also vascular diseases. This has long been observe in Alzheimer, but it is also true for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or multiple sclerosis. The purpose of this study was to determine the extent and role of systemic hypoxia in the pathogenesis of spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). SMA is a disease that strikes infants.</comment>