Facebook is gaslighting the web. We can fix it. - <AUTHOR> http://dashes.com/anil/2011/11/facebook-is-gaslighting-the-web.html <comment><USER2> I work on the team that generated the warning that seems to be the crux of this post. I am pretty convinced that it is a bug.

His central theme, though, is a bit misguided. I don't understand why 1) using opengraph, or 2) using a like button implies facebook should trust your link and whitelist it. Even pages with those integrations can be malicious.

In this actual case though, the notification link (generated from the commenting widget) seems to malformed and causing it to trip a security check. I've pinged a bunch of people about figuring out what is happening and getting it fixed. The guy sitting next to me is currently trying to repro.

As for convincing Google/Microsoft to warn users when visiting facebook.com because of security false-positives, I'll leave that discussion for you guys.

<comment><USER3> Let's argue Reductio ad absurdum.

Why does not Google pop-up similar warnings when you click on its search results?

-Because Google is dependent on the richness and abundance of third-party websites, for its search to be meaningful.

What is the objective of Facebook?

\- To suck users into facebook.com, and sandbox them there. Similarly, the smaller objective of Facebook Social plugins is to lift the userbase from third party websites and move it into Facebook.

<comment><USER2> You seem to be under a collection of interesting misapprehensions...

1\. Google does warn in various ways when it detects possible badness. As it should.

2\. We don't gate ALL links through such warnings. This can be verified by going to your news feed and clicking just about anything.

3\. This is about a specific issue with notifications generated from comment widgets (a very common spam vector).

4\. Detecting all badness via the domain name at "write-time" is not a sufficient solution to the malicious link problem.

5\. Whatever that was, it wasn't reductio ad absurdum.

<comment><USER3> >4\. Detecting all badness via the domain name at "write-time" is not a sufficient solution to the malicious link problem.

Doesn't Google has this problem too, that detecting badness at the "indexing time" is not a sufficient solution? The content of a site may change between their checks. No pop-ups are shown in between indexing times nevertheless.

With your abuse reporting volume, you should be able to almost instantly detect statistically significant malicious links, and remove them from your news feeds, should the content change to malicious after "write-time".

<comment><USER4> I can't believe I'm posting something that might be taken as defending Facebook but...

If a site appears to contain malicious content at time X but not at time Y than I would PREFER to be notified that it is a dubious site until the site has earned back trust in some way. Continuing to warn users about a site that historically contained badness seems to me to be a FEATURE.

<comment><USER5> That's actually exactly Google's solution: they give you a set of reports and an indication of when the malware or malicious link was last detected on the site.

But I don't think that's the issue here. That facebook warning does _not_ , as far as I know, get generated from a positive malware/spam/badness metric. It's just thrown up as a default action when someone links to an unblessed site on the web. That's what the poster doesn't like: it goes against the whole idea of hyperlinking.

<comment><USER6> But as lbrandy mentioned, this is in one rare case and appears to be the result of a bug. If this happened when most links were clicked leaving Facebook, you can rest assured that all publishers would be up in arms.

<comment><USER5> Hopefully it's a bug. But I see it routinely. It's definitely not a "rare case" by any metric I can think of.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Cache link is essential, of course the term 'gaslighting' [1] may be common in some groups, it was new to me. The general theme is that Facebook is making changes which make the service benefit Facebook more and is less user friendly. I'm not sure it rises to the level of abuse implied by the term but that is clearly subjective. The 'answer' of course is to leave.

I know, I know, "But all my friends are there!" or "Nothing else has the reach of Facebook!" or "I've invested thousands of hours in Facebook!". At the end of the day, Facebook is on the road to becoming a 'public' company, and they are making choices which are in Facebook's interest (mostly about the whole Open Graph stuff which they will sell for money to advertisers for revenue.

The 'good' Facebook you are looking for has to charge its users for accounts because that is the only way to pay the bills without selling you off to less purient interests.

[1] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting> (warning Wikipedia link)

<comment><USER8> >(warning Wikipedia link)

What's the warning for? If it's warning against being confronted with Jimbo's piercing gaze, that seems a bit snarky.

<comment><USER9> I took it as a warning that you're about to click a link that has a high potential of sending you down a rat hole that eventually ends up on the Philosophy article.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm usually pretty tolerant of Facebook's more aggressive initiatives, but I've started blocking all of the "frictionless sharing" apps. The user interface they present is ridiculous.

1\. I see a friend read an article that looks interesting. I click it.

2\. Every time I click one of these I'm asked to _add the application_ before I'm allowed to view the link.

3\. My options are "ok" and "cancel". The first few times I assumed I couldn't read the article without clicking ok so I just hit the back button. It turns out "cancel" really means "don't add the app, just take me to the link".

Without that confirmation dialog (which most people probably blindly click through) this is exactly how social media worms work.

Perhaps alert users will click "cancel" the first 5 or 10 times, but eventually they're going to accidentally click "ok" or just give in. Not cool.

Plus, why would I want to see articles that friends read, but didn't think were worthy of manually posting about in the first place?

<comment><USER11> Yes, you should block apps that you don't want to see. They are (per your reasonable definition) badly behaved, and you should exclude them from your stream. I think that's exactly the behaviour that FB would want, because it ties the utility/economics of those apps to the quality of their user- experience.

(Disclosure: I start at FB next week, though I don't have any inside info on this.)

<comment><USER10> It's an ok solution for me, but unfortunately I think most users will just click "ok" so they can see their friend's link without realizing what they're actually agreeing to.

I think that's what Facebook wants: "making the world more open and connected"... at all costs. They're constantly pushing the limit of what level of openness users will accept. It's going to backfire.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If you believe FB is out-there trying to conquer and destroy the web then please don't use FB comments on your website.

<comment><USER13> Or just don't use FB.

Everything I read about it just makes me happier that I don't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Regarding "Web sites are deemed unsafe, even if Facebook monitors them", wouldn't it be worse if Facebook deemed websites that it monitored 'safe'? Then Facebook would be saying: "use Facebook services on your site, or we'll scare all of your users with an interstitial message"

<comment><USER15> This is true. I presume a preferred option would be dumping the warnings altogether, but this would be a big boon for phishers.

What I don't like about the article is the suggestion that the best way of combating Facebook's excessively paranoid and usually unwarranted warnings about offsite content is to show excessively paranoid warnings to people trying to get into Facebook. Particularly when one of the principal gateways to Facebook is the browsers and websites operated by Google - not exactly a disinterested third party.

<comment><USER5> Why would it be a boon to phishers? Existing solutions for phishing/malware blacklisting are mature and quite well supported. There's lost of competition in the market, and they work quite well overall. It's not like Facebook couldn't just buy one of these for decent coverage.

The point is that putting up what amounts to a false negative malware warning on basically every "minor" link on facebook (I know it's not really a false negative, but that's how it's perceived) is just terrible overkill for the problem, and a terrible experience for the users.

That it survives _at all_ leads one to wonder seriously about facebook's intentions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> People who use Facebook are silly people. No this is not a flame, it's AOL all over again. The walled garden, except the garden is a dystopian big brother state.

I don't mind people being in the dystopia of their own choosing at all. I enjoy going for walks outside the cyberdome. It's quiet and peaceful out here and people are not monitoring and trying to manipulate and control me.

Those who enjoy being a cog in a machine I am sure lead happy fulfilling lives inside The Facebook.

<comment><USER17> You know, the dystopia in which I'm forced to share pictures of my newborn son with my family, and talk to friends on the other side of the country that I haven't seen for months, is better than pretty much any other dystopia I can imagine.

<comment><USER18> >the dystopia in which I'm forced to share pictures of my newborn son with my family, and talk to friends on the other side of the country that I haven't seen for months

the things impossible without Facebook :)

The main thing that Facebbok does isn't [technically] enabling some specific communications in some specific space, the main thing is that Facebook puts people into that space, bumps them one into another and thus forcing/making/nudging/tempting to perform act of communication that otherwise may not have happened. Facebook makes [helps to unleash] one a social beast.

Vs. the force in dystopias, in the Facebook case we have dopamine generating activities grounded in the Facebook environment. While they can be replaced by dopamine generating activities in other environments [ i enjoy mine here on HN for example ], why would a social dopamine addicted beast that gets it fix on- schedule bother?

<comment><USER17> I guess I just haven't met these Facebook victims - vegetables chained to their computers, grinning and drooling as they click reflexively on adverts all day, unaware that they could be outside, surrounded by swarms of butterflies and running with wild horses in the warmth of the Summer sun.

Mostly it's just a website.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Point 3 ("WEB SITES ARE DEEMED UNSAFE, EVEN IF FACEBOOK MONITORS THEM") has been addressed. Here are the other two.

 _"YOU CANNOT BRING YOUR CONTENT IN TO FACEBOOK"_

False. Facebook's API allows all sorts of external content to enter Facebook. They're just shutting down their app that does that automatically. There are plenty of third party apps that already solve this problem.

 _"PUBLISHERS WHOSE CONTENT IS CAPTIVE ARE PRIVILEGED"_

False. The Washington Post has chosen to embed their stories within the Facebook canvas pages, but that's not a requirement. The other popular news sites on Facebook, The Guardian and Yahoo, do not do this.

This entire post is woefully misinformed.

<comment><USER20> Thanks Dewey.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The only thing that will "fix" facebook is the next thing to popup to diminish their influence.

Of course shooting themselves in the foot wouldn't hurt either.

Remember MySpace? How about Digg?

<comment><USER22> Exactly.

It is only when the annoyance levels reach a breaking point that the FB alternatives will be made as user-friendly as FB and brought to the attention of the masses. One will emerge as dominant. And the cycle begins again.

Every itch gets properly scratched, eventually.

<comment><USER21> There's also the "fad" and "uncool" factor.

When everyone's mom and dad (and their mom and dad) is also on facebook, it's going to slowly start losing it's edginess.

Then the next "cool" site will emerge.

<comment><USER23> I put more hope to the "uncoolness" factor rather than the privacy and security concerns to drive FB's demise.

<comment><USER24> I see them as the same. It may take some years for non-nerds to see the "uncoolness" of FB, but I believe they will see it, in time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I am no great fan of facebook. The timeline sucks.

I think the warnings fb use are necessary, there's so many worms and spam wall postings. You can debate the wording and motive. Many users need paternalism.

You can AUTOMATICALLY have posterous post a link on your wall every time you write a blog post. It doesn't use the notes system at all. It sounds like fb are stopping people using notes for something they weren't designed for.

If he's saying every dumb aol/xp/ie6 user will be too scared to ever leave fb for the rest of the web, wouldn't that be the end of the Eternal September, which some would welcome?

</comment><comment><USER26> Apologies for the server flakiness; Trying to address it now. Please feel free to repost/share -- everything is CC licensed.

</comment><comment><USER27> Google cache: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Adashe...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Adashes.com%2Fanil%2F2011%2F11%2Ffacebook- is-gaslighting-the-web.html)

<comment><USER28> If that doesn't come up, the text-only link works for me:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:dashes....](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:dashes.com/anil/2011/11/facebook- is-gaslighting-the-web.html&hl=en&strip=1)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> This sounds pretty similar to the complaints from SEO gamers whenever Google changes their algorithms and removes them from the top ranks for a search. I don't agree that any of the examples used by the author is anything particularly harmful.

</comment><comment><USER30> I applaud the author's use of detailed documentation and the ability and willingness to dig deeper into the technical side of what he believes to be the problem. As soon as I had installed the Firefox addon Noscript I began to notice the facebook scripts put in place on many sites having nothing to do with Facebook. Their real interest is not in being nice by providing you with a free service, but in using data aggregated by its large user base in order to find patterns - and to sell that information to the highest bidder. Pretty soon advertisers and governments will know more about you than you do yourself.

<comment><USER31> The Ghostery plus RequestPolicy addins. Don't leave home without 'em.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I agree completely.

Well thought out and sound reasoning.

And the effort is probably hopeless, but maybe it will at least draw some attention to facebook's abhorrent practices. But they get plenty of negative press already, doesn't seem to slow them down.

I figure it's going to take a lot more efforts like this, to stop the abuses when portals gain monopoly power on user's attention.

User's will put up with it, (and probably put up with much worse), there is no alternative to facebook for what facebook does and is. Chickens and eggs ...

</comment><comment><USER33> Good luck with that. Imagine all the YouTube-quality comments that would flood crbug:

        PLZ FIX TEH FACEBOOK LOGIN SCREEN!!

We can have discussions all we like about whether or not Facebook is a net- positive or a net-negative for the Web, but there's no way Google, Microsoft, or Apple is going to blacklist them.

<comment><USER34> Exactly! I hate to say this because it makes me sound like a tech elitist, but some people really do need those warnings because they can't tell what website they're on.

See the ReadWriteWeb article that had to put a big "this is not Facebook" notice on it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I like to login to FB for several minutes once or twice a week - a quick way to see what some friends are doing. However, I logout as soon as I am done. I also went through and disabled all FB apps, except for my own test app.

Given these simple precautions, is there really anything wrong with FB? Am I missing something?

<comment><USER36> _If_ you think that people less prudent than you should be "protected" from Facebook, then your participation may be harmful to them because it's part of what encourages them to participate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> The only way to stop Facebook is to protest and boycott it. It worked in 2006 and 2007 (News Feed and Beacon, but Beacon might have been 2008) and it'll work again.

<comment><USER38> I agree with your first sentence. Whether it worked in the past is arguable, since they continue to do slimy things. But one thing is sure: they can't abuse your data if you don't give it to them.

<comment><USER39> .. and that it's not "abuse" if you know what they're doing with it and expect it.

Don't share anything on Facebook that you wouldn't want to see on the news the next morning. Simple and easy.

<comment><USER37> That sounds simple and easy but for today's teens there's no limit. I know people who have gotten expelled from private schools for posting stupid things on Facebook. It's a disturbingly common occurrence. It's not Facebook's fault obviously, but for kids, dangers about "oversharing" go in one ear and out the other.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Aside: I really like the typography of your title/subheads. I mistook the font for Gill Sans Light initially, though.

</comment><comment><USER41> Disappointing. "We can beg other powers to intervene" is not "we can fix it".

</comment><comment><USER42> How ironic that this blog's own comment system relies on Facebook.

<comment><USER26> It's not ironic, it's deliberate. I want to make sure I'm making informed criticisms of Facebook based on actual usage of the service as both an individual user and as a publisher.

<comment><USER43> Been a reader of your blog for a while now, and enjoy your insight. I do feel that chimeracoder's criticism is valid, regardless of your argument of establishing objectivity through participation. As a reader, the inclusion of Facebook Connect and Comments really detracts from the credibility, err. sincerity, of your article.

"toolbar that helps you shop online more effectively but neglects to mention that it will send a list of everything you buy online to the company that provides the toolbar."

What about a website that injects its content on every website you visit, regardless of your willingness to participate as a user? Or tracks every visit regardless of your willingness to participate?

Exhibit A: [http://mashable.com/2011/11/17/facebook-reveals-its-user- tra...](http://mashable.com/2011/11/17/facebook-reveals-its-user-tracking- secrets/)

There is no terms of service or privacy statement on your site disclosing that you are effectively sharing my activity with Facebook. By the way, I opt-out through the disconnect and Ghostery Chrome extensions, so your site has no comment system... just a Comments heading.

"Facebook has moved from merely being a walled garden into openly attacking its users' ability and willingness to navigate the rest of the web."

As the website operator that uses Facebook Connect, you are signaling to Facebook that you are OK with their current strategy to exist on every page on the internet and dictate the way content should be shared. You cannot complain that they are getting rid of the ability to automatically share your blog content in facebook when they have given you the ability to incorporate all the same functionality directly on your page. It is a genius move on their part. They no longer have to worry about users visiting facebook less over time if they are on every other page the user might visit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> The walls are closing in on Facebook. It's only a matter of time for it's business model. People eventually wake up. Better squeeze that IPO for all it's worth.</comment>


Gridcoin - <AUTHOR> http://gridcoin.us/ <comment><USER2> This appears to use email addresses as part of how it works? That surprises me.

Is that a good thing?</comment>


Ask HN: Is it normal for founders of startups to not sleep? - <AUTHOR> Hi HN, I left a job at a respectable corporation to join a YC startup that had raised capital to build out the team and execute their vision.  The lead founder of the company sends emails at all hours of the night, even 3 or 4AM and talks about how little sleep he is getting like it is a badge of honor.  I have worked at several other companies with extremely effective coworkers, and have never seen this type of behavior before.
I am concerned that he is too tired to make decisions effectively and may be making cognitive errors.  I have no evidence that this is taking place so far, except some small errors here and there, but where there is smoke there is fire right?  I'm usually a pretty direct guy, but I have ruled out talking to him about it because I do not think there is a way to make the conversation productive.
What I am asking is:
Is it normal for founders to send emails at random times all night to the team (most nights)?  If it is not normal, have others experience founders that did that and am I overreacting?  Are there any examples of people who are successful who exhibit this behavior and are those simply antidotes?  Is anyone aware of whether this is a good or bad sign? <comment><USER2> Ignoring the "bragging" part, yeah it's normal.

You are joining a startup. To you it's just a great opportunity at a job that seemed interesting to you. To the founder, it's his life. At 2:30am you might be leaving the bar thinking about whether to call an Uber or a Lyft. Your founders are probably awake thinking about how they're going to get that new feature out the door.

I started my own startup a little over 2 years ago. It's pretty normal every night between 2 and 5am for one of the three founders to send a message to another about something they're freaking out about.

He's not thinking "Oh it's 3am, I shouldn't email my employee this late". He's thinking "There's something on my mind about my company and I need to get it off my chest".

If you start your own company and get a few employees it makes a lot more sense VERY quickly.

Don't worry, he/she's just very invested.

<comment><USER3> Even if one is generous and assumes this kind of behavior is typically well- intentioned, it's foolish to believe that it won't become a detriment as you grow your business.

A lot of startup founders don't think much about management principles and the importance of perception in an organization, but these things matter. When founders are emailing around the clock, many employees will come away with the perception that they're expected to be available at all hours of the day and night too. Your employees are never going to be as invested as you, so this typically creates stress and dissatisfaction for employees more than it motivates and impresses them.

As this Ask HN post demonstrates, a workaholic warrior complex is also a great way to convince your employees that you're an "i" word (insane, insensitive, imbalanced, incompetent, etc.).

<comment><USER4> One of the biggest mistakes I made while working on a past startup was listening to an advice like this. What you say is totally valid if your company is a fortune 500 company, but the type of people who _start_ companies shouldn't strive to become those types of managers covered in business case studies. I made this mistake after reading too many business books.

It simply doesn't work. From my experience it fucks up the company culture when a founder tries to "tone it down", because that's not the quality required to make stuff happen when it's in the beginning stage.

A competent founder should be able to adapt as the company grows, but shouldn't behave like a fortune 500 CEO from the beginning.

<comment><USER3> Here's the biggest problem with your approach: in today's market, it's a lot harder for startups to recruit and retain good employees than it is for good employees to find new employers.

Just look at the OP: he left an ostensibly good job to join a YC startup and he's already questioning the founder's behavior and competence. When he starts feeling pressured to work insane hours, or completely loses faith in the founder's sanity and competence, how long do you think it will take him to find a new employer that promises something better?

At the risk of being overly harsh, if you feel you're incapable of making "stuff happen" without sending random emails at 3 am in the morning or acting like you don't have control over your schedule and business or terrorizing your employees into believing that they need to be online at all hours, you're probably out of your depth and should be honest with yourself about your readiness to run a business with employees.

A lot of people in the startup community have deluded themselves into believing that "hard work" is the one and only key to success but by and large, successful businesses are built by doing the right things, not by running around for 18 hours a day like a chicken with its head cut off. Thanks to the funding boom, a lot of chickens with their heads cut off are running companies. Folks like the OP work for them at their own peril.

<comment><USER5> Not all, but almost all of the successful founders I know are obsessively focused on their startups and they don't put much time into other areas of their lives (family, social life, etc).

Humans need sleep and whether they sleep 4 or 8 hours doesn't really matter. The work is just always on their minds, 24/7\. They are always on call. They are always reachable. They never say no. The passion, focus, and obsession for the business oozes out of them, even when they are ''out of the office''. There is not even a question of work-life balance because work is their life.

Personally I like to invest in and work with people like this because they tend to succeed, make disruption happen at scale, and make lots of money upon exits. A lot of recruits burn out and don't like it, but the ones who survive learn a ton and make a lot of money too.

<comment><USER3> You're missing a key point: it is possible for a founder to be obsessively focused on a business without engaging in behavior that causes employees severe agita.

Without starting a debate about the benefits or perils of work-life balance, most startup employees should recognize the following facts:

1\. Startup founders are not created equal. In today's hot market, there are a lot of inexperienced and incompetent people running startups. These people can work as hard as they want and ooze passion from every pore in their bodies but at the end of the day, they're incapable of building successful businesses.

2\. Statistically, most startups won't achieve an exit. At those that do, most employees don't "make lots of money."

3\. Many startups offer far fewer learning experiences than employees would like to believe because misdirected hustle and hard work are encouraged and rewarded even though they are not correlated with competence and outcomes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think that people greatly overestimate the productivity gained by sacrificing sleep. For intellectually taxing work I think it is probably detrimental overall, particularly if chronically sleep derived. Lots of high profile successful people say the don't sleep, but this may largely reflect their exceptional drive and dedication, rather than any real benefits.

The second thing to consider is the use of stimulants like modafinil, apparently quite common in the startup community.

<comment><USER7> don't take that shit.

<comment><USER8> I've used modafinil for personal 96 hour sprints, and while it works, I can't even describe the nightmares I had during the 18 hours I'd then sleep.

Would not use again unless my life depended on it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Not getting enough sleep is very unhealthy. Additionally, there is no evidence that all of the micromanagement going on in the wee hours leads to business success.

</comment><comment><USER10> Not normal, not effective, probably leads to paranoia (so watch your back).

</comment><comment><USER11> When someone brags about how little sleep they get, I've found it difficult to convince them that extreme sleep deprivation impacts performance. It's not too dissimilar to a drunk friend trying to negotiate back their car keys -- introducing ludicrous levels of denial seem to be part of the mentally- impaired package.

Perhaps a bigger warning sign is when / if a founder like that ends up using and abusing amphetamines. I used to work at a startup where the VCs did a clawback due to the founders erratic, amphetamine-induced behavior.

Either way, a simple observation: you will be most effective when you trust the judgment of the person you work for. I highly recommend optimizing for how effective you are when considering where you work.

</comment><comment><USER12> My personal experience (started 5 companies, 20+ years in tech, 15 of those in SF) is that you are right to worry, but only modestly so unless things get worse.

The best people I've worked with take care of themselves. The worst let the pressure of the situation get to them and burn themselves out. I saw one company totally destroyed by a CEO who sent out a poorly considered "let's reorg the company" email at 2 am after the company Christmas party. Many times I've seen whole teams working stupid hours and ending up making stupid mistakes, or doing the startup equivalent of "controlled flight into terrain"[1]. The worst gig I ever had was at a company where people celebrated "heroic" efforts, because it created a strong incentive to let problems pile up until they could only be resolved through heroic efforts. Macho bullshit is certainly fun and entertaining for a while, but it's a terrible foundation for a serious company.

I know a lot of people who are second- or third-time founders, and a common conversational theme is that the biggest thing they're doing differently is aiming for a sustainable pace. The common line is "it's not a sprint, it's a marathon", but I think even that comparison falls short. A lot of people run exactly one marathon because they train too hard and burn out. Median time-to- exit is something like 6 years, so we aren't talking one race, we're talking about marathon after marathon after marathon. It's not a sprint, it's a running career.

Hopefully this guy can pull it together, so in your shoes I'd call this a yellow flag. But I would work hard to make sure the behavior doesn't spread to the engineering team. Tired programmers make dumb mistakes and then preserve them forever in source control. They will lurk there and spring upon you at the worst possible times, eating up far more time than was ever apparently created by working late.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_flight_into_terrain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_flight_into_terrain)

</comment><comment><USER13> I work late and send emails at whatever hour it happens to be. If I email a client or employee at 3am, I don't expect them to reply then, but that they'll get to it when they are the office in the morning. I am just trying to get that item out of my queue right then so I can move onto the next thing.

Every recipient is in control of the notifications on their phone and can switch them off overnight.

It sounds like you have a different issue with this individual, assuming they're making sleep-deprived errors and reading too much into this? If they were calling you at that hour repeatedly, then that would be a different story but email is more akin to snail mail - the recipient opens it when they choose to open it.

<comment><USER14> Exactly.

I'm surprised that many commentators here imply that email sent at 3am demands immediate reply.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's not "normal", but it's quite common among startup founders. I think this says more about VC backed startup culture and the personality types that it attracts, than anything inherently wrong with an individual.

The personal sacrifices and risks that founders take on likely changes their personalities and behavior. Once they enter this feedback loop of sleep deprivation, extreme work ethic, and dedication to their startup above all else, it's quite difficult for them to get out of it. And the longer they stay in it, the more likely that things will end badly for them.

The worst part is that these individuals are the least likely to listen to reason and get help.

</comment><comment><USER3> > Is it normal for founders to send emails at random times all night to the > team (most nights)?

In my opinion, this question is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is how the founder's behavior makes _you_ feel.

You say that you have worked with people who are extremely effective but never seen similar behavior. You say you are concerned that the founder is too tired and may be exhibiting poor decision-making. And, perhaps most importantly, you don't feel comfortable broaching the subject with him.

It appears your gut is telling you that something is off here. When it comes to where you invest your time professionally, you can usually do far worse than to follow your intuition.

</comment><comment><USER16> Something I haven't seen anyone ask yet... are you expected to _answer_? It's one thing for some bits to flip in a mail server at 3am... it's quite another if your phone is buzzing and your job is (cumulatively) on the line if you're not responding.

There's a non-zero chance that the person sending these emails will read this message. There's a _very_ high chance that someone matching the description will read this message, since there's definitely not enough info in the Ask HN here to uniquely identify anyone :)

So, as not a startup founder and likely never will be one, I implore you founders to remember that we are not founders, and you can't expect the rest of us to act like founders without the possible upside. Further, I'd suggest that you should _want_ your first few employees to sleep well, so that they can provide a well-rested analysis of whatever crazy thoughts you had at 3am when you've had 10 hours of sleep in the last four days. That's actually a good thing, something you should seek out, cherish, and listen to.

</comment><comment><USER17> 1\. Just cause he can send an email at 3AM doesn't mean he wants a response at 3AM

2\. Just cause he can stay up for a long time cause he's young and have no other responsibilities doesn't make him any better than anyone else.

3\. Playing at tech startups is just playing a video game. Some people get obsessive over it and some people do it casually and most everyone else is in between those two extremes.

</comment><comment><USER18> Them sending emails at random times might be just their sleeping/working schedule as well as habit to send emails instantly when they see an issue when working on something.

I have this habit and my sleeping schedule sometimes gets shaky. I am also a founder of a small start-up so all this sounds like me (expect maybe badge of honor thing as I see messed up sleeping schedule as a problem not a thing to brag about). I think that as along is it's understood that those emails are not urgent to respond (or even read) and are there as just "things to look at once you have time" it's all good.

I think it's good to clarify their position on it and what their expectations are for you reacting to those emails.

</comment><comment><USER19> Don't worry about it.

He's trying to motivate his employees by showing his dedication. If he wants to work in the middle of the night, let him do so. It's normal for startup founders to work late or wake up in the middle of the night with random thoughts.

I highly doubt you're expected to respond to it immediately anyway.

Also, it's not really your job to worry about his cognitive capabilities. That's his responsibility, and some people can get away with less sleep than others.

If you don't trust in his ability and the future of the startup, then you should simply leave the company.

</comment><comment><USER20> I'd cut and run while you can. Sure, some people love this shit, but leave that to them, there's likely other opportunities out there for you.

</comment><comment><USER21> Is he expecting you to answer at 3am?

If he expects you to answer at 3am, it's time to find a new job.

If he's willing to wait to get an answer, then don't worry about it.

I turn of the sound and vibrate on my phone, so I don't get interrupted while I'm sleeping.

He's probably just trying to show off about how dedicated he is. Don't get tricked into overworking yourself to match him.

<comment><USER14> > trying to show off about how dedicated

No.

It's just asynchronous communication in the most speedy way: email as soon as you come up with an idea/solution.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Staying up until 3 doesn't mean never sleeping. Plenty of people operate on a delayed sleep phase because they are more comfortable doing certain types of work at night. At some stages in a company's growth, hacking is more important that taking 9am meetings. That's not true at all stages, but changing gears takes time.

</comment><comment><USER23> I wouldn't worry about it too much.

I find myself up at 4 am some mornings working, putting together emails, especially if it's something exciting or on my mind. If he only requires 6 hours of sleep he might be turning in at 10pm and up at 4am.

Or sometimes I find myself up for an hour or two around 3 or 4 am and then go back to bed after clearing my mind, finishing up some code, sending some emails, making notes about an idea.

So I wouldn't worry too much about when he's up emailing thinking about his business.

But you definitely are only productive 8-12 hours per day tops, maybe less. But being excited about something can result in getting an early start or being up an hour or two in the middle of the night.

If you notice he's exhausted, making lots of mistakes then think about asking him if he's getting enough sleep or wants to take the afternoon off.

</comment><comment><USER24> First you have to define normal, it certainly isn't normal by the standards of the rest of society. Many of the successful startup founders are along the bipolar spectrum, some without even realizing it, and most productive when in a hypomanic state. This allows them to sleep very little and be especially creative. Hypomania has produced some of the greatest creative works in human history so this is not necessarily a bad thing. However, the danger arises when hypomania becomes mania and the person becomes delusional and actions start to not make sense anymore. The problem for an outsider is recognizing when the line to irrational is crossed and getting the person help. Also, every positive feedback loop, like little sleep, is eventually followed by hysteresis and a crash.

</comment><comment><USER25> While not "normal" by the true definition, it can be somewhat normal in the startup world. Healthy is a different story and being productive is another question. What you don't know on the flip side is his exact sleep habits which you could be missing altogether. There are some people that nap and work in spurts of time. I have horrible sleep habits sometimes and if I am stressed I can have insomnia at times. But as an example, I used to get up at 3am work until 5 or 6am, take an hour nap, go to the gym for an hour, and then off to work. I would stop working around 5pm come home eat, relax, do housework, whatever else and take a nap until about 10pm. Then get up work till midnight and back to sleep. I found I was much more relaxed and had a ton more energy sleeping in small cycles like that. I also found myself sleeping in cycles on weekends even more. I would work 3-4 hours, nap an hour or two, work 3-4 hours, nap again, and over and over. What works sleep wise for one person may not work for the next, so it is hard to answer your question precisely.

As a side story, the first startup I worked for back in the late 90s during the first bubble the CEO was older and well respected among Internet companies. He had just come off the CEO position at one of the biggest data center companies of the time and was well connected. One day not long after I started I had an idea for the company and randomly emailed him at like 10pm. He responded around 3 or 4am. I was working night shift in the data center and emailed him right back (part with a sense of surprise that he answered me and part with a sense of surprise that it was that early in the morning). Long story short, it ended up becoming an open line of communication between us that if I had a question or needed something I would just email him at 3am and usually have an answer within minutes.

As for the other part regarding the bragging, I would just take that in strides. That's just part immaturity and part probably trying to make co- workers feel guilty for only working 10 hours instead of 11 each day. I think it also comes from the accelerator mentality of grind, grind, grind to have a demo product in a short period of time.

Regardless I wouldn't worry about it too much unless you start seeing problems such as him demanding employees do the same (i.e. expecting you to respond to emails at 3am) or having short temper with employees. I wouldn't worry about the little errors either. It is a startup there are going to be missteps along the way. Most likely his sleep habits will change over time as the company gets it feet well planted.

</comment><comment><USER26> To me it's normal. When I obsess over things I get very little sleep. But to brag about it, to me, is immature. It reminds me of college kids who would brag about waiting last minute to study and pulling all nighters for their tests the day before and being proud of it. Well... if you were more responsible with your time maybe you wouldn't have to cram like that?

To answer your question, yeah it's normal to send things at odd hours, but immature to constantly talk about it as if you deserve some sort of special treatment for it.

</comment><comment><USER27> Nope it's not normal. This is the behavior of a socialpath/psychopath. I highly recommend reading this:

[http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais- principle-o...](http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or- the-office-according-to-the-office/)

</comment><comment><USER28> Some people can go on very little sleep. Bragging about it is immature, but it isn't a sign that something is wrong by itself.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sometimes it comes up and he talks about getting no sleep like everyone should be doing it. It is not aggressive, but maybe passive aggressive? I'm not even really sure, but it definitely makes me uncomfortable. Maybe this is my real concern with it?

<comment><USER7> Yes, this seems like the most important, and most detrimental part of this behavior. I'd recommend getting a new job -- it'll only get worse as the company gets older and more stress is added.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Not getting is never good a good sign. But the assumption that you can send emails only while awake is wrong as well.

<comment><USER30> I've sent emails half asleep.

Mistake. _Big_ mistake.

Anyway - there is rock-solid scientific evidence to suggest that sleep deprivation damages cognitive abilities and decision making.

See e.g.

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2656292/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2656292/)

Depriving yourself of sleep is false heroism. You do not "get more done." All you're doing is increasing internal friction, decreasing personal effectiveness, and making yourself cranky and stupid.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Being unable to sleep is terrible especially when it happens over a longer period of time. I've had this during years when ww.com was going through the .com boom and subsequent bust and only since I finally sold it has this changed and I sleep like a baby now. The stress has to go somewhere I guess.

</comment><comment><USER32> Does anyone know of an email client or plugin that acts like Buffer? Something that would allow you to add these midnight missives to a queue for dispatch at a sane hour? You should be able to skip the queue for emergencies but those should really be handled with phone calls or texts.

<comment><USER33> Email scheduling with Boomerang (gmail plugin) or something similar

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Not normal. Not healthy. Not effective.

I wouldn't be surprised if it was this guy's first venture.

</comment><comment><USER35> Show me a founder who sends emails regularly at 3am, and I'll show you someone who is scared and as result focused exclusively on short term. If your competitive advantage is working 20 hour days, you don't have much of an advantage.

</comment><comment><USER4> I just want to say here, if you are a founder (or THE founder mentioned here) who works hard to the point where other people thinks you're crazy, you are NOT crazy and you are NOT wrong. I am not saying you should completely get rid of rest from your life (because otherwise you will burn out), but working hard on something you believe in and being abnormally passionate about it is nothing to be ashamed of.

To OP: It's not a question of whether it is normal or not. Every startup is different. Sure, there are some mildly successful companies with founders who have "work-life balance", but the ones that are unusually successful normally have founders who are unusually obsessive.

<comment><USER36> The richest man in history, John D. Rockefeller, kept to a strict schedule including 7.5 hours of sleep a night and ample personal time in the morning and evening.

Somehow he still managed to accrue $660 billion (inflation-adjusted).

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> If your sleeping well your startup is doing something wrong. This behaviour is to be expected when competing as a startup

</comment><comment><USER38> to accomplish more, you need to work smarter not just harder. I suggest one of my favorite books: "Rework" to your friend.

</comment><comment><USER39> Just because you are now working on an idea that bunch of people with the sole intention of maximizing their returns on their investment shouldn't change the way you function as a normal human being although I'm more worried about this excerpt:

> "The lead founder of the company sends emails at all hours of the night, > even 3 or 4AM and talks about how little sleep he is getting like it is a > badge of honor."

and seeing how it connected to your original posting:

        "Hi HN, I left a job at a respectable corporation to
        join a YC startup "

I don't get it. YC doesn't guarantee success. From what I read, YC gets the pick of the litter, the rejects either raise money from others or bootstrap or just go back to the workforce. The same thing happens even if you are in YC...

You made a decision to leave a stable job to join a YC startup. You realize the founder is not letting you sleep or has some weird ego about being poorly productive (no sleep means you aren't performing 100%), and now you are questioning if you made the right choice, and it seems like you have every right to question your decision based on the environment you are currently in.

A normal and healthy working environment (YC or being a startup is no excuse) doesn't have people sending emails at 4AM and expecting people to read their bragging rights on how shitty their work output will be throughout tomorrow because they didn't sleep. IF I WAS AN INVESTOR AND THIS IS HOW PEOPLE WERE BURNING MY MONEY I WOULD BE FUCKING LIVID AND IMMEDIATELY FIRE WHOEVER IS RUNNING YOUR COMPANY.

</comment><comment><USER40> I have been operating at 3-4 hours sleep for over 2 years. Its not normal, it's obsessive and ridiculous. With that said, you know the person is self- motivated, and disciplined to get the shit done.

Surround yourself with these guys. You'll get far.</comment>


Bitterness, Anger And Betrayal At MySpace - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/11/bitterness-anger-and-betrayal-at-myspace/ <comment><USER2> _As it turns out, Mr. Jones and his lieutenants knowingly used their employees, working them hard, making them give up time with their friends and families, knowing all along that no matter how hard they worked, and how successful their efforts, many of them would be rewarded with layoffs._

Pardon me for being cynical, but just a little personal experience:

      BOSS:    "There will NOT be a layoff."
      REALITY:  There was a layoff.

      BOSS:    "There will be no more layoffs."
      REALITY: There were more layoffs.

      BOSS:    "This will be the last layoff."
      REALITY: There were more layoffs.

      BOSS:    "I will be the next person laid off."
      REALITY: He wasn't.  Someone else was.

      BOSS:    "I am instituting 35 hrs. pay for 40 hrs. work."
      REALITY: It lasted one pay period before the layoff.

      BOSS:    "The corporate jet will be the next thing to go."
      REALITY: The corporate jet was still in place after the layoff.

      BOSS:    "Customer XYZ will pay their bill next week."
      REALITY: Customer XYZ never paid their bill.  Layoff instead.

      BOSS:    "Finish this project and we're in the clear."
      REALITY: The project was finished.  Then came the layoff.

      BOSS:    "Indispensable employees will be spared."
      REALITY: No one was indispensable.

      BOSS:    "We made our numbers.  We'll be OK."
      REALITY: The SEC and IRS disagreed.  We went out of business.

      BOSS:    "U.S. manufacturing is solid and protected."
      REALITY: 400 jobs shipped to Haiti within 90 days.

      BOSS:    "A layoff will be the last resort."
      REALITY: Layoff + executive auto leases still in place.

      BOSS:    "I will promote you next week."
      REALITY: The company newsletter reported his girlfriend getting my job.

      BOSS:    "Just help me get through this and I will reward you."
      REALITY: I helped him get through it.  He didn't reward me.

Sorry to say, moral of the story:

      Q:  How can you tell if the boss is lying?
      A:  His mouth is moving.

<comment><USER3> I've been a consultant most all of my life -- mainly because I don't trust stock-price-driven companies to be honorable or to know what the heck they are doing. I love all the people I've worked with: it's just the organizations and business models they create that's so crazy.

The nice thing about being a consultant is that you do something they like, they pay you. Repeat and rinse. Pretty soon you're out on the street looking for a new gig. If they don't like you, you don't get paid (and you're on the street quicker).

It's a very simple and easily understandable deal. And being on the street is not the end of something or a failure -- it's a chance to go on an even greater adventure.

I even had one government employee who had a high level job at a place we all know tell me "Look. This is easy. You do all the work. Solve all the hard problems. I'll take credit for it."

Sounded good to me. Finished the job early and went on to something else. He's still there doing the same thing.

There are a lot of implied or assumed promises in corporate full-time jobs. It's been my experience that you shouldn't trust any of them -- even from people who are trying really hard to do the right thing. IT is just a business where everything is always changing. It's not like any other business I've ever seen

<comment><USER4> Consulting is like running though: the minute you get tired and stop a minute or two, your velocity is gone - no more money coming in. A functioning business is more like a bicycle - it's not like you're just along for the ride, you have to work, but you can coast a little bit now and then. For instance, vacations. That's true for both bosses and employees.

I enjoy consulting too, but it leaves me with the feeling of not building or being part of something for the future... if that makes sense.

<comment><USER3> Worst part about consulting (for me) was having to be gone from my family so much -- and the lack of permanent friendships at work.

The part about not being able to slow down or you die? I actually like that part. Technology is always changing, and I like the fact that I'm constantly challenged to find real, solid value in what I'm learning or doing. Keeps me on my toes. Although I freely admit it's not for everybody.

I coast by taking as much time as I want between gigs.

I have family members who are "normal" -- they want a 9-5 job, long-term responsibilities and friendships, and they want to forget all about work when they punch out. The don't want things to change, and they want promises they can rely on for the future. They want somebody else to worry about things changing. I respect that. I'm just not that way. I tell folks that consulting has probably ruined me for life as far as ever being a useful company man.

<comment><USER4> I really get not wanting to do a 9-5, but on the other hand, the more I get long-term responsibilities of my own, like a child, the more I think trying to build a business of some kind is, long term, better than consulting, in terms of doing stuff on your own terms.

As you age, you get more experience, but are less able to pound out tons of code, and spend tons of time keeping up with the latest thing.

<comment><USER3> I think you've just accurately described why I'm on HN so much and why I've spent the last several years learning about startups instead of .NET 7.0

And also why I now help teams out instead of being the 18-hour code monkey. Still love coding, but you reach the natural limits of these things and have to move on. You also reach the point where you have to start thinking long- term instead of short-term.

EDIT: I'd add that I'd much rather be the guy who knows a dozen different languages and databases, has had experience in a lot of industries, and is used to working hard and saving, yadda yadda -- I'd rather be that guy looking to get into startups than the guy who took the 4-year degree, punched the clock everyday for years, trusted his company to take care of him, and is now wondering where his future went and whom to blame.

<comment><USER4> I think we pretty much agree: I think my writing is mostly to encourage younger people to think about building something rather than just going off into consulting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _He and his executive team had just somehow driven hundreds of people to work hard for months, giving 20 hour days, even 48 hour sleepless stints..._

If put in more work than what your cash salary is worth, then you are investing. And sometimes investors get no return. Invest with caution.

<comment><USER6> Maybe, but this is in stark contrast to the courage of Pixar's bosses in saving their employees that recently was on the front page. Easy to be cynical about life in BigCorp and the vicissitudes of your bosses, but doesn't make it any less wrong to treat people who trust you this way.

<comment><USER7> I think it's a telling contrast when compared against the success of the respective companies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _And the hard working, loyal employees that worked their butts off...will be looking for jobs._

If you're a MySpace engineer that was laid off, hit me up: email@example.com. I'm a software engineer at a .NET startup in El Segundo, CA that's hiring.

<comment><USER9> Hahaha .NET /jk

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Three things:

1) I really feel for those guys. Technology is like that: one day you're on top and the next day you're on the street

2) Work as hard as you can at something and never regret it. The only person that can make you feel tricked into working 20-hour days is yourself. Don't do that to yourself.

3) Bitterness isn't going to make it any better. Sucks to hear that, yes, but what you need now most of all is a positive attitude and motivation to go out and kick ass. Might take some time to get that back, but work on that instead of chewing on what some C-level jerk is planning on doing or has done to a company you're no longer with.

Thinking about my comments some, there's probably a very good reason I never had a job as a counselor. Sometimes what folks really need is a beer and somebody to complain to. Sadly, I'm probably not that guy.

</comment><comment><USER10> If anyone's interested, an engineer at Myspace who thought they were being laid off (but turned out not to be) is doing an IAmA on Reddit: [http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/f09rk/iama_myspace_emp...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/f09rk/iama_myspace_employee_about_to_be_laid_off_today/)

</comment><comment><USER11> I know an engineer who was working in a failing company in post-communist Eastern Europe. The decline of the company took more than a year, in which time salaries were cut, sometimes pay was delayed for months or not given at all, the owners were visibly transferring their personal wealth abroad (as well as moving their family members). This engineer stayed at the company, despite some good offers from elsewhere, to the point when heating was cut off from the company and he had to sit in office in winter jacket, and in the last weeks he brought printing paper from home. Finally the company went bankrupt and he took the earlier job offer at a salary lower than what was offered before.

Morale: watch out for signs of Stockholm syndrome, because it can be real.

</comment><comment><USER12> These are some of the tamest allegations of corporate wrong doing ever made. The worst of them is that Mike Jones waited to fire people as long as possible instead of firing them in time for Christmas.

<comment><USER13> I hope the author of this 'email from a reader' gets a cut of the ad revenue from its publication in whole, or they'll have two reasons to feel bitter.

TC--

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> It saddens me to reflect that every time I felt like a company was with was failing, and that we might recover, ultimately, we failed. So, the most rational advice I could give any employee would be: if you're invested in the success of your employer, and they seem to be failing, leave. And the CEO giving locker room inspirational speeches is the surest sign that it's time to stroll on.

But, how does that square with the idea of pulling together and making any endeavor work? Is the lesson to only be a founder? Morally, doesn't that mean: never employ anyone?

I don't know, I just feel for those laid off this week. 'Cause is really sucks.

</comment><comment><USER15> A living example of the MacLeod hierarchy and the Gervais Principle at play. Psychopathic executives managed to groom their whole staff into clueless lemmings to better abuse them.

The Gervais principle was defined by Venkat (Venkatesh Rao) in a series of articles published in his blog. They should be well known around here, but here they are for those who missed them. The insight of these essays is amazing, and worth much more than the time it'll take you to read them.

.

__________

The Gervais Principle, Or The Office According to "The Office" --- [http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais- principle-o...](http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or- the-office-according-to-the-office/)

The Gervais Principle II: Posturetalk, Powertalk, Babytalk and Gametalk --- [http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/11/11/the-gervais- principle-i...](http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/11/11/the-gervais-principle-ii- posturetalk-powertalk-babytalk-and-gametalk/)

The Gervais Principle III: The Curse of Development --- [http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/04/14/the-gervais- principle-i...](http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/04/14/the-gervais-principle- iii-the-curse-of-development/)

The Gervais Principle IV: Wonderful Human Beings --- [http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/10/14/the-gervais- principle-i...](http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/10/14/the-gervais-principle-iv- wonderful-human-beings/)

.

_________

Related considerations by the same author.

.

The Genealogy of the Gervais Principle --- [http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/02/04/the-genealogy-of-the- ge...](http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/02/04/the-genealogy-of-the-gervais- principle/)

Random Promotions and the Gervais Principle --- [http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/12/13/random-promotions- and-t...](http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/12/13/random-promotions-and-the- gervais-principle/)

Conceptual Metaphors (Mashable), Gervais Principle (Fugitive Philosophy) --- [http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/01/13/conceptual-metaphors- ma...](http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/01/13/conceptual-metaphors-mashable- gervais-principle-fugitive-philosophy/)

Two Interesting Gervais Principle Follow-Ups -- [http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/05/06/two-interesting- gervais...](http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/05/06/two-interesting-gervais- principle-follow-ups/)

</comment><comment><USER16> Something I learned early in my career, "never be any more loyal to your company than your company can be loyal to you".

</comment><comment><USER17> People need to look out for themselves. You need to have your own thoughts on the future of your company and your own thoughts on what is and isn't worth doing.

<comment><USER18> Exactly. And who didn't see the demise of Myspace for the last couple of years? Surely from the inside you'd be acutely aware of the situation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Further proof of MySpace as a failed company is that one cannot delete one's profile from the site without jumping through an exhaustive series of hoops which culminates in adding the words "Delete my profile" to your profile.

<comment><USER20> Yes they should do what Facebook does, where you just click the big red delete button on your profile and it's done!

<comment><USER19> I know this is sarcasm, but the point is not so much the profile deletion itself. It's the user experience of the process. Normal user goes to remove their Facebook profile, heck even I go to delete my Facebook profile, and sure I haven't deleted it, but I'm left more or less neutral. Try deleting a MySpace profile and see how you feel after the process.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> [http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/11/bitterness-anger-and- betray...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/11/bitterness-anger-and-betrayal-at- myspace/#comment-128121827) \-- there's a comment there which describes myspace's acquisition as, well, a failure.

</comment><comment><USER22> I've never worked for MySpace or Fox, but I've worked for folks who had just come from MySpace / Fox and I have to say it was really apparent how ingrained into the culture pulling all-nighters, working through weekends and holidays etc was.

<comment><USER23> And yet the rate of innovation was glacial. Hours aren't always the answer, they might be the problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> These guys knew they were working for Rupert Murdoch, right?

<comment><USER25> because General Electric or Disney would never do such a thing!

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> This is MySpace's dot com moment. To me it seems highly unlikely, short of pulling a rabbit out of a hat, that MySpace will survive for very much longer. The niche which they occupied has been successfully colonised by Facebook, and there are plenty of other sites where you can go to listen to and buy music, or watch music videos.

</comment><comment><USER27> >Bitterness, Anger And Betrayal At MySpace

Sometimes you can just tell a Michael Arrington headline before you even click.

</comment><comment><USER28> Really sounds strikingly similar to some of the management practices and employee abuse that went down during the decline of TechCrunch's parent company, AOL.

</comment><comment><USER29> Wow, this really made me feel terrible. I had no idea that that's how the deal with the layoffs went down, but it all makes sense now after reading that.

</comment><comment><USER30> And the website myspace looks down to me. Is it?</comment>


All Software is Legacy - <AUTHOR> https://leejo.github.io/2016/02/22/all_software_is_legacy/ <comment><USER2> I recently had to maintain some new perl code. I didn't think it would be a big deal, but found a number of things I take for granted today that perl hasn't kept up with:

1) The perl cpan module doesn't resolve dependencies

2) The cpan module has parsing errors when passing in a list of CPAN packages

3) You have to manually grep your perl code to see what modules it depends on

4) Module installs take a long time since they can compile and unit test the code, unit tests can even make connections to the internet or try to access databases and fail, so you just have for force them to install

5) Non-interactive installs of CPAN modules requires digging in the docs and learning you need to set an env var to enable

6) CPAN modules aren't used that heavily and can have bugs that would be caught in wider used modules. (e.g. the AWS EC2::* modules don't page results from AWS so results sets can be incomplete, whereas the wider used boto lib works correctly and is better maintained.)

7) Perl devs don't think twice about shelling out to an external binary (that may or may not be installed)

8) Even if regexs are not needed, inevitably the perl dev will use them since that's the perl hammer, and it's hard to know what the intention is with regexes or what the source data even looks like

9) You have to manually include the DataDumper package to debug data structs

10) You have to manually enable warnings and strict check, it's not on by default.

Anyhow, I think we've made a lot of progress since the 1990s. :)

<comment><USER3> > Perl devs don't think twice about shelling out to an external binary

No, most of them do. Perl ecosystem has a killer feature called cpantesters, that allows everyone to see which modules work on which systems out of the box. You should always check cpantesters matrix before choosing a particular dependency.

> Even if regexs are not needed

They got overly complicated over the years, but they are needed. They are DSLs to make things easier when working with strings. I.e. so you wouldn't have to write 20 lines of hard to grasp code with bytes.Index(), bytes.HasSuffix(), bytes.TrimRight(), etc., like people do in Go, but a single nice regexp and therefore reduce your chances to make a mistake in that code.

<comment><USER4> > so you wouldn't have to write 20 lines of hard to grasp code with > bytes.Index(), bytes.HasSuffix(), bytes.TrimRight(), etc., like people do in > Go

Go has regexps, and a very good implementation at it.

Depending on what you do and on the specific code-path, compiling and/or executing a regexp might be slower than manually parsing the string. Go standard library is pretty concerned with performance (much more than Python's or Ruby's, for instance), so it tends to avoid regexps.

<comment><USER3> It shouldn't be like that, that's the problem. Regular expressions should be compiled into a native code and be even faster than a bunch of hand written bytes.HasSuffix() combinations.

<comment><USER4> Your previous post said that they are a very useful DSL for Perl so that "people don't have to do like they do in Go".

Both Perl and Go implement regexps, and neither or them compile them to native code. So I don't get your previous comment at all.

The main difference is that, in Perl, if you ever had to write manual string parsing, it would be much much slower than using regexps as Perl is an interpreted language. So regexps are needed to perform fast string parsing. In Go, you have regexps if you want, or you can go even faster if you feel it's required.

<comment><USER3> > Both Perl and Go implement regexps, and neither or them compile them to > native code. So I don't get your previous comment at all.

Ok, I'll try to explain.

People feel discouraged to use regexps in Go, because they are very slow for many typical parsing and validating cases and require extra step of compilation and all of the additional code complexity associated with that. So, people do parsing manually instead, with all of its problems. It's not that they need that performance, almost no one does, but the whole idea behind regular expressions is not working, parsing code is still bad most of the time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In my opinion the biggest problem with legacy code is understanding its implementation as someone who hasn't worked on it before. In a lot of cases it's not documented well and the original authors have already left, so there's no one to ask. You are left with reading code written by someone else, which takes a lot of time.

This is not Perl related, but I'm currently working on a developer tool that makes this part of the job easier. It's a source explorer for C/C++ named Coati that simplifies navigation within source code and thereby makes understanding the implementation faster and easier. [https://www.coati.io/](https://www.coati.io/)

<comment><USER6> Your first paragraph _totally_ resonated. I've been thinking about this problem for several years. However, my approach is diametrically opposed to yours. I think our problems in software all stem from focussing on the code as the tangible artifact to maintain control over. We should instead be focusing on the _space of possible inputs_ that the code is intended to work for. This is something you can't deduce from the code (and automatically using the computer to deduce it, well forget about it), it requires cooperation with the original author to present things in a way that makes the state space more explicit. This is why I love projects with lots of tests. I can't be bothered to analyze static code structure, either manually (what people call 'reading'[1]) or automatically. Just show me how the program is supposed to run in all the different situations that you've considered. Let me change it and rerun the tests to find out if I broke something.

Modern programming practice emphasizes tests, which is great. However, not all kinds of tests can be written so far. So we end up doing manual certification work everytime we release or publish a new version of software, for performance, fault tolerance, etc. I want to make it all automatic. Some links about my project in case you'd like to learn more: [http://akkartik.name/about;](http://akkartik.name/about;) [http://github.com/akkartik/mu#readme](http://github.com/akkartik/mu#readme). I'd love to hear your thoughts, either here or over email (address in profile).

[1] [http://akkartik.name/post/readable- bad](http://akkartik.name/post/readable-bad)

<comment><USER7> Tests significantly help with understanding a codebase and safely making modifications.

Unit tests describe the behavior and usage of the individual systems, while integration tests describe business use cases in core workflows (usually just the happy paths). Integration tests should ideally be written in a gherkin style with feature description and acceptance criteria clearly outlined.

Tests should be optimized for readability foremost. For example, most people try and make their tests DRY (which is an abuse of DRY because it should only apply to concepts, not code, but I digress) while they should instead be making them DAMP. Each test should be able tell a story without jumping up and down around the file and outside the file. It's a lot more dangerous to misunderstand a test than it is to have a little bit of code duplication in your tests.

When I come across a project that has no documentation, I look at the tests. This isn't an excuse not to write proper documentation of course.

<comment><USER8> >Tests should be optimized for readability foremost. For example, most people try and make their tests DRY (which is an abuse of DRY because it should only apply to concepts, not code, but I digress)

That's wrong on so many levels. DRY applies to code.

>while they should instead be making them DAMP. Each test should be able tell a story without jumping up and down around the file and outside the file. It's a lot more dangerous to misunderstand a test than it is to have a little bit of code duplication in your tests.

This is a problem with Gherkin. Gherkin is not particularly well suited to making tests that are both DRY and readable due to its syntax.

<comment><USER6> > which is an abuse of DRY because it should only apply to concepts, not code

As a 'copyista', I would change this to "DRY should only apply to production code, not tests." It wasn't clear from your reply if you agree or disagree.

A couple of great recent links about this IMO under-discussed topic:

[http://www.sandimetz.com/blog/2016/1/20/the-wrong- abstractio...](http://www.sandimetz.com/blog/2016/1/20/the-wrong-abstraction)

[http://programmingisterrible.com/post/139222674273/write- cod...](http://programmingisterrible.com/post/139222674273/write-code-that-is- easy-to-delete-not-easy-to)

[http://bravenewgeek.com/abstraction-considered- harmful](http://bravenewgeek.com/abstraction-considered-harmful)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I share a similar sentiment with a different phrase: "code is a living history of past ideas, good and bad."

<comment><USER10> Code is a liability. The best code is code that doesn't need to be written.

<comment><USER11> If it doesn't need to be rewritten, if it is that good, then it is an _asset_ because you can depend on it.

<comment><USER12> Problem is... that code is an asset, until it's not. As most cases, it depends on the project, but changes in requirements have insidious effects on code, which might turn your asset in a liability before you realise it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> A softer phrase that might work better is "All Software is Experimental". It has less pejorative connotations, and could be a shibboleth among seasoned developers.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, exactly. But what does it mean if even seasoned developers rely on interfaces in all this experimental software staying fixed for all time? The article falls for this disconnect as well, with its great enumeration of the problems contrasting with the repeated references to interfaces as a solution. Interfaces are part of the _problem_. (Or more precisely, our propensity to freeze interfaces, and our reluctance to rethink interfaces at will.)

My favorite bit of the article is something I've been thinking about for years:

 _..paradoxically the cleaner and saner your interface the more likely it is to succeed and thus more likely to become constrained by its users, to solidify._

I've been idly dreaming of a future where we decouple modules not by their interfaces but by their behavior. The major failure mode of our age is premature freezing of interfaces, and it happens because it's hard to judge how done the interface is from the outside. An interface that looks really clean can be exposed by a detailed look at the implementation that covers a corner case that hasn't been addressed yet. I'm trying instead to think about the input space of a function. I'd like in future to be able to make guarantees like this:

> The behavior of this function is fixed when argument _foo_ is less than 5. > However, for larger values we're still nailing down some details.

The argument _foo_ might shift from being the first to the third, or its type may change in some subtle way (that still preserves previous guarantees). So upgrading will often cause some pain. However, the upside is that the pain is bounded. You never end up in some 1% situation where upgrading your OS borks up your Rails app and takes days to fix, or breaks things in subtle ways that you don't notice for months.

You know that the upgrade effort will be bounded because you know that as long as you pass in the right value into the right slot, and as long as it's less than 5, behavior won't change and all your tests will pass. That seems like it might be superior to an interface, even if it adds a little extra work up- front.

More details, in case you have any thoughts: [http://akkartik.name/about](http://akkartik.name/about) [http://akkartik.name/post/libraries2](http://akkartik.name/post/libraries2)

<comment><USER6> I've been chatting with the author over email about my no-freezing-interfaces idea, and the discussion helped uncover two situations I haven't considered sufficiently:

a) Security issues. We need some way to allow people to quickly apply certain tiny changes without having to worry about the possibility of an interface change, while ignoring all the others.

b) Clients sometimes end up in situations where they can't control when upgrades happen. That would break things even worse with my approach than it already does. My proposal really relies on people being able to control when they upgrade.

Back to the drawing board..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Legacy software is successful software. What's the point of building a program that will be discarded after a few months because its users fled to the next big thing? That just means more lines of code being written overall, needlessly.

<comment><USER15> Legacy software is software that served a purpose but no longer meets the business objectives. Some common factors that influence the decision to replace a legacy system with a new one include: maintenance cost, scalability, flexibility. The usual approach in startups is to build something at minimal cost, then replace it later if the business requires it. Everyone has a different opinion regarding the importance of these factors at various stages of software life.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I used to fantasize about having a code base I'd maintain for the next X0 years. Something like Dwarf Fortress, or hell, even TempleOS. Then I slap myself and come to my senses. Who knows how different coding will be 10 years from now? Do I really want to get married to something that's bound to be obsolete sooner rather than later?

<comment><USER17> If you aim to create great software that is flexible and powerful from the beginning, you'll be fine. Many businesses are still running very well on my 10 year old code and will be 10 or even 20 years from now I'm sure.

Let this inspire you: [http://www.bricklin.com/200yearsoftware.htm](http://www.bricklin.com/200yearsoftware.htm)

<comment><USER18> if this is who I think it is, Dan Bricklin, I want to chime in to say thank you for VisiCalc, sir! I was a user and big fan of your work.

for the kids/newbs: effectively the (co)inventor of The Spreadsheet. and consider that spreadsheets were easily _the_ killer app for the first PC's, thus giving them much more business value, in turn causing more money to flow in, helping to create many more paying jobs, etc, in a happy snowball effect which leads to Linux, Google, AWS...

here's where you might say, "sorry, different Bricklin." oops

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Legacy means "in production, making us money".

</comment><comment><USER20> We should all be so lucky as to write legacy code because the alternative is worse: code that is never deployed, or deployed only for a short time. A project and website I worked on for about 10 years was recently shuttered, and I am extremely proud of what that code did for the business which paid me.</comment>


Amazon Lobbied More Government Entities Than Any Other US Company Last Year - <AUTHOR> https://www.axios.com/amazon-lobbying-washington-wide-reach-0f7253e4-234e-462a-aca1-ca19705b9c39.html <comment><USER2> Isn't this the point of politicians pressuring corporations? I remember back, way back, when Apple was caught off guard and "appropriately" stepped up with lobbying and political contributions.

It is hard for me to find fault with any company which lobbies the government because they have no choice. If they don't play the game someone else will and use their influence to get the power of government applied to their competitors directly or indirectly.

One way to fix it is not to prevent anyone from spending money on campaigns but to instead prohibit politicians, their immediate family, and relatives, from participating in any position that may have influence over a regulating body. It is very common to have family of politicians benefit by either getting jobs directly with a lobbying company or lobbying firm but the other method is through PACs which pay them huge salaries for part time work.

I could care less what they do before they are in office but once in it needs to be clamped down. congress and their relatives are more likely to increase their wealth by magnitudes than lose it, the reason is simple, they structured the rules to benefit them and make it nigh impossible to unseat them

<comment><USER3> I'm of the opinion that the effect of lobbying is tiny. Lobbyists are communicating with representatives about policy...something that every organization should attempt to do. Politicians rely on lobbyists to inform their decisions.

The real culprit in the pervasive corporatism in the US is campaign finance. Quid pro quo is the name of the game here. Politicians know that if corporations aren't helping them get elected that they will be helping their opponents get elected. It's a hell of a lot easier to say no to a lobbyist than it is to a campaign donor that could easily turn on you. If we banned corporate lobbying, Congress would simply make more uninformed decisions, but banning corporate campaign finance would eliminate an incentive for deliberately bad decisions.

<comment><USER4> It looks to me like your opinion is based on drawing an artificial distinction between "real lobbyists" and what real lobbyists actually _do_.

It is the job of lobbyists to get politicians to do what the lobbyist wants. Campaign finance, job offers, favors for people the politician cares about, status symbols such as honorary degrees - all are normal stock in trade for a lobbyist.

That said, I agree. Lobbyists who do none of the things that are known to be effective, are ineffective and do not have an impact. They also do not deliver results and do not tend to get happy clients.

<comment><USER5> Lobbying has a real and narrow legal definition, and it does not include the other things you list there. It sounds like you're agreeing with GP and that you don't think that lobbying is that effective.

<comment><USER4> Given sites like [https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/lobby_contribs.php](https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/lobby_contribs.php) that document the campaign contributions of lobbyists, I'm going to want a reference to the legal definition of lobbying that excludes campaign contributions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I honestly don't know who is worse these days - wall street firms or big tech companies. These (Google, Amazon ... ) were the same companies that we looked up to, just a few years ago. How much things can change in such a short time :(

<comment><USER7> I, for one, still look up to them. I don't completely understand where the negative views started, but I suspect it was with Facebook, fake news, and the election or maybe the Amazon HQ2 disaster.

Now, for some reason, they are being demonized for being large and participating in a system that has existed for centuries. They got large because they built things people wanted. What's wrong with that? I just don't get it. It's like a mob with pitchforks is forming to break-up "big tech" and they won't be satisfied until they've slayed the giants whether it's justified or not.

<comment><USER8> > Now, for some reason, they are being demonized for being large and > participating in a system that has existed for centuries.

I think for a lot of people, myself included, it's because we weren't supposed to just "participate" in that system. We meant to improve it, to make it more fair, and more useful for all people. To improve lives and do no evil, as it were.

Instead, we've wound up with the exact same robber barons of old. This time, instead of trains or oil or telegraph poles, we've created behemoths that actively try to spy on, categorize, and monetize people to extents never before dreamed possible.

Worse, lots of the people around us--people who claimed to be interested in the same things we were--are now demonizing us for our long-held views, "privacy obviously isn't that important because people so willingly give it up just read the terms of service" and "steady jobs with benefits stifle innovation being paid by the piece as a transient worker with no employment protections is the new hotness because people so willingly sign up for it just read the terms of service."

Lots of people lined up to take hatchets to Microsoft twenty years ago but now Google and Amazon get away with much worse far more often and they're deemed untouchable. That baffles me. I can't "look up" to those companies who came after and trampled over the imperfect vision of people who came before, especially when they started out trying to build the vision we thought we said we wanted but then turned to the path that makes the most money in bulk even though it compromises almost all of those beliefs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> You either allow lobbying or ban it. Amazon used a legal process to tip the balance in their favour. The entire lobbying thing does sound to me like a hack in the entire democratic process.

People should vote not companies.

<comment><USER10> Lobbying in some form is explicitly protected by the 1st amendment. The question is: If you form a contract for someone else to petition for a redress of greivances on you behalf, is that contract void?

<comment><USER11> 1st amendment rights apply to people. They should not apply to corporations.

<comment><USER12> And what about NGOs? What's the difference between NGOs and corporations?

<comment><USER13> NGOs _are_ corporations, legally.

<comment><USER12> Yes, they are :-) And forbidding them from lobbying will prevent people from organizing groups protecting their interests.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Remember when internet companies were supposed to be disrupting the system, not co-opting it and making regulatory capture favor themselves?

<comment><USER15> Lobbying itself isn't bad & is needed to help disrupt things. Politicians require lobbyists & experts to explain different sides to them.

<comment><USER16> You make it sound like they're lining up to have a moment with their local representative like the rest of us. As if there's not thousands in campaign contributions and in-kind gifts hinging on the politician swinging their way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> If you think they are lobbying now, wait till their Virginia HQ opens up.

<comment><USER18> I am really worried that once it becomes a major employer in Virginia area Amazon will actually stop spending money on lobbying and start using layoffs and other muscle moves on their VA area workforce to pressure public officials into caving in to their demands. It probably was the main reason why they 'decided to split' the HQ2 between NY and Virginia. Virginia was in play all along because of its proximity to DC and New York was their main choice because of many reasons that dont need explanation. The whole casting cities and states was a shitshow put on to get New York and Virginia states/cities to give as big tax breaks as possible. So glad New Yorkers didnt play into Amazon's greedy game.

<comment> stone-monkey Even if they flexed their employer muscles, that would only affect local officials. Why would a republican senator from Kansas care if they're going to cut jobs in Virginia?

<comment><USER18> because he doesn't want local families protesting in front of his local residence embarrassing him in front of all his other big shot neighbors?

<comment> stone-monkey I'm sure politicians get as embarrassed as the next person by public shaming, but forgive me if I'm inclined to believe they won't act much on complaints by non constituents.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Amazon's reach into the FAA is particularly hysterical. Given that Amazon would like to do drone deliveries and has pissed off the FAA in some regards in the past - specific regulatory language confirms this - they have a huge footprint and open door policy in the DC offices. Companies competing in the delivery space like WalMart, UPS, etc should be very nervous about the drafting that goes on now at Amazon's becking.

</comment><comment><USER20> I think sometimes people assume that x amount of lobbying dollars = y influence, but it's not a linear equation at all. At the end of the day, it is still people you are dealing with, and sometimes people can happily take your money, make you believe they are going to do what they said, and then not do it.

Source: family members are lobbyists.

<comment><USER18> so what you are saying is its possible that poor Amazon wasn't able to get all the political influence it paid for and we are should not be angry at it for trying to buy itsel support that it otherwise would not have

<comment><USER20> I think it's not as black and white. Amazon has all of that money because we as a society supported it's growth. We like Amazon, and we gave them our money. If the tables were turned, and you were a billionaire altruistic philanthropist, would you not attempt to do the same thing with your money? It's the same concept, just different side of the coin.

Lobbying is not an exclusive concept. I could right now pay someone to go lobby the government for me. Obviously I wouldn't get very far, but what if my neighbors and I pooled our money together? And their neighbors? And so on and so forth and indeed that is how many lobbying arms are formed outside of industry.

Ultimately at the end of the day, Lobbying is viewed with contempt because we have corrupt officials that weigh the opinions of certain lobbyist who are looking to corrupt the law for their own interests more than what is good for the general public. If you took out lobbying right now, you would still be left with corrupt officials that weigh the opinions of people with money more than the general public. But here is the kicker: you would do more harm than good, because now advocacy groups do not have a way to influence officials. Lobbying, however contemptible it seems to most people, exists because it does serve a purpose. Your elected officials cannot possibly keep up with the sea of issues in their constituencies. Lobbying provides a sort of self-selecting way for the more important issues to "bubble up to the top"

What is always missing from conversations on lobbying is the hundreds of other lobbying groups that have as their mission to serve to improve the general good or public and how eliminating it would impact the good that is done by them (as evidenced by sibling comment by mtgx).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Jeff sure does love operating at scale.

</comment><comment><USER22> They have the most diverse set of businesses of any company, so this makes sense.

<comment><USER23> Why is product diversity a driver of lobbying? Does Amazon have to lobby anyone at all?

There are institutional investors who have stakes in a much wider variety of companies than Amazon. Why aren't they at the top of the list?

<comment><USER10> The headline says "more government entities", implying diversity of regulations-they-care-about.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Interested in learning how to count how many times each company lobbied...

</comment><comment><USER25> Amazon is also larger and more diversified than most other American companies. Is suspect their lobbying dollars per revenue hasn't hanged all that much over the years.

</comment><comment><USER26> Maybe they are diversifying into government now.

</comment><comment><USER27> And they also own a major national publication.

</comment><comment><USER28> I wonder if this has anything to do with Jeff Bezos being from Wall Street?

</comment><comment><USER29> Break-it-up

</comment><comment><USER30> Url changed from [http://fortune.com/2019/03/13/amazon-lobbying- washington/](http://fortune.com/2019/03/13/amazon-lobbying-washington/), which points to this.

</comment><comment><USER31> It's also bigger than any other US company, isn't it? (Head to head with Apple)

</comment><comment><USER32> Thats because every Govt entity uses compute, and every govt entity needs a office goods supplier.</comment>