Bullshit Startup Experiences - <AUTHOR> http://totalgarb.tumblr.com/tagged/startupbullshit <comment><USER2> Feel free to steal mine:

#1

me: the candidate seemed pretty good, even if he made some mistakes.

CEO: a false negative is better than a false positive! Better to reject and err on the side of caution!

...later

CEO: we can't find people! There's a shortage! It's a crisis!

#2

CEO: we only hire the best, smartest people in the world!

me: OK I found one! He wants a high salary.

CEO: welllll, average market salary is only $, but since "we're a startup" we can't even do that....

<comment><USER3> CEO: We need X done Manager: That's too short of a timeframe CEO: Buy the Devs pizza every night if you need to, just get it done.

<comment><USER4> I mean, they may need something delivered by a date. It may be impossible, but that doesn't change the fact they need it. This is where you step up and say it's impossible.

<comment><USER5> Anything that is important enough in business can have its deadline extended. I think strict deadlines are more about managers trying to save face than an actual need.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think sometimes strict deadlines are sometimes about coordinated efforts, as in the case of a Superbowl ad. If you're the company responsible for producing the ad, then submitting it a week after the game is unacceptable. I feel like where software is concerned, it's most often like you've said.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is a great and depressing read, and as the CTO of a soon-out-of-cash startup I can only say that we receive this bullshit on a founder <-> investor level day in and out.

I've actively thought about creating something like this where you could anonymously tie those stories to the real names of VCs because some of these guys are totally out of their mind.

As a EU-based startup raising a moderate seed round I could tell you two hours about the incestuous and unprofessional VC scene here. People lie into your face, VCs forward confidential information directly to competitors' management, suddenly 5 emails into a conversation people stop from replying for three weeks, etc.

I can tell you that Greg from Boxgroup, New York, has done by far more leads and intros for our shitty EU-based startup than any of those Mr. fancypants German mega-VCs (or so they see themselves).

We have had several cases where we sent the phone # of a very rich business angel to our VCs after they asked for an intro to him in order to take part in (his, kind of) round. They not once called him.

So depressing, but yet so absurd that you can't keep from laughing manically for what kind of high-paid job people are doing there sometimes.

<comment><USER7> The reason your comment is so highly rated is that your description of European VCs pretty much matches those of US and Asian VCs as well. Many VCs got where they were by being sociopaths that threw a lot of social convention out the window.

<comment><USER6> This thought is often voiced, but I think on a partner level most of them are somehow nice and clever guys.

What I don't understand is that salarymen "Investment Managers" have the mind of Donald Trump and seem to really enjoy having a gatekeeper function towards their partners / managers.

Another point is that so many people say "we want to fund innovative stuff", but once you show them something innovative they rather prefer the next amazon or IoT US-to-EU rip-off.

Very anecdotal of course!

<comment><USER8> >Another point is that so many people say "we want to fund innovative stuff", but once you show them something innovative they rather prefer the next amazon or IoT US-to-EU rip-off.

Actually worse, they end up investing in some low risk company doing CRM for government contract management or even better some kind of non-scalable thing that was their friend's company.

Oh and they are all "early stage" but tell you that you are "too early."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Been thinking about doing the customer version of this.

[after a long indepth technical discussion with a qualified opportunity, quoting, resources allocated, ready to pull the trigger on a large project]

me: So we are ready to go, waiting on the PO

them: Sure, just working through our process

(falls off internets, doesn't respond to phone calls/emails/rejects visits)

Months go by

them: We set up an RFP and bought from someone else.

me: Er ... you used our confidential material (marked as such) to set up a public RFP, that you didn't even invite us to, or respond to our queries? Seriously?

them: Yes.

[bangs head on table, but it gets better ... no ... the other thing]

them: the system we bought (not yours), isn't performing nearly as well as your system that we POCed on.

me: So? Why not call your vendor and have them help you?

them: they aren't able to. They don't know this stuff as well as you do.

me: So, let me get this right ... you want me to provide consulting services to help a competitor of ours ... compete ... with us?

them: Not so much consulting, as free advice and guidance. Like you did during the POC.

[resumes banging head on table]

them: hello? whats that noise?

[years pass]

them: we need to rethink our strategy, it was an order of magnitude slower than your unit at about 2-3x the cost.

me: no kidding Sherlock

them: we want to start this process again ....

me: (fits of laughter) uh ... no.

<comment><USER10> uhm, this is your fault. why were you working for free?

a quote is one thing and as a sales professional you should expect to waste a huge amount of time on quotes that never go anywhere, but a proof of concept is supposed to be something you charge for. it's engineering work!!!

if they don't want to pay for a poc, that's a _real good sign_ that they're not worth working for.

<comment><USER9> We've limit "working for free", to things that should help us close business against existing quotes with a commitment from the customer to execute on the quote in question. Our work is hard enough to replicate elsewhere that there is a natural incentive to work with us if we meet their objectives. More formally, we had at least an agreement to work together if we met their objectives. We blew them out (way better than they anticipated), which worked strongly in our favor.

Unfortunately, while you are correct it is our, and specifically my (the buck stops with me) fault, I've run into variations on this from very small "free advice" requests, through what amounted to fake RFPs, where the 'customer' loved our design, and in one case specifically asked us to train our competitors and share our IP (with no compensation) to have them deliver it.

This POC was piggy backed atop another project that had ended, and it amounted to getting some run-time in for them, after they indicated a strong preference for us (given our recent domination of an industry benchmark at the time). The 'customer' swore they would buy, and I worked to get an operational quote in front of them that they agreed to push through if the POC was in fact viable.

So much for that.

One thing I've learned over the years (no, decades) of startup life is, you don't have the deal until the check clears. Curious how similar this is to raising capital.

The cost of this POC for us was power/cooling, some of my time, and the opportunity cost of not using the machine for other engineering work. But the long term cost to the customer for their poor behavior and poor choices can't be easily measured, other than them not hitting their KPOs.

I do take full blame for this failure though. It was mine. But it is still annoying. All teachable moments leave marks.

<comment><USER11> > Curious how similar this is to raising capital.

 __Exactly __the same.

<comment><USER10> interestingly, a lot of our sales woes went away when we started asking for some money up front. we're all first-time sales people at my outfit.

people who are willing to pay a small fee up front are the only people you can work with as a services startup, the rest are worthless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> My favourite:

Founder Institute

\- run by international group of millionaire magazine-cover entrepreneurs

\- doesn't invest a penny in its companies

\- charges founders thousands of dollars for mentorship

\- well-regarded startup accelerator

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-

I was once offered the position to head the local chapter, after having a private phonecall with Adeo, I declined as I couldn't see the value offered. The next person took it, and as expected, the local chapter failed spectacularly and the people founding it were out of a lot of work and didn't get anything in return.

It's still a mistery to me why that organization has credibility.

<comment><USER13> In their limited defense, they do position themselves more as an educational program than as an incubator.

<comment><USER14> In marketing material they use the word "accelerator" constantly. Poke around Twitter, you'll see it. Not cool IMO.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > me: hi i'm here about the lead developer position

> CEO: cool man lets grab a couple beers

> me: (over beers) hi i'm here for the lead developer position

> CEO: yeah dude but are you any good at foosball?

> me: (over foosball) i'm here for the lead developer position

This is surprisingly common and not just for hiring technical roles. I find it especially odd when founders do it in the process of hiring their first few employees....it's like dude, you don't even have a culture yet, why do you care about culture fit?

It would be impossible to quantify but I wonder how many good ideas tackled by good founders never got off the ground because they were overly fixated on getting the first 10 hires EXACTLY right.

<comment><USER16> I don't know that grabbing beers and playing foosball necessarily equates to getting the hires "EXACTLY right". I feel like it's the litmus test for "Can I hang out with this person casually and for very extended periods of time?"

Edit: Not sure why the down votes. For anyone that's worked in a seed/pre-seed startup, this is absolutely an essential thing.

<comment><USER17> You're filtering out people who don't drink alcohol.

That probably doesn't have much to do with whether they're any good at the job or whether you like working with them.

<comment><USER18> Actually, wouldn't you expect drinking to correlate negatively with a programmer's output? Whatever bullshit people say about drugs enhancing their output, I've never heard similar bullshit about alcohol/hangover being a stimulant and if someone drinks a lot there's a decent chance they'd program when drunk or hungover.

(Personally I've tried once to program when drunk - I ate nothing the whole morning and drank half a bottle of wine, which is more than enough for me given my very little drinking experience; I couldn't stop laughing at any joke by the guy we drank with - or at pretty much anything he said, really. I did write pretty decent code in the couple of hours it took me to become sober again, in retrospect, and I think it actually gave me courage to tackle the shit I had to at that moment, but then I thought about it all a lot before getting drunk and it was almost done and all I had to do was finish it. It didn't feel like I'd do very well in general in that condition.)

<comment><USER16> Even in a startup environment with a keg in the office, I wouldn't typically drink and code, besides perhaps a Friday afternoon beer.

That said, for personal projects in the evenings, I find having 1-2 drinks helpful for removing barriers to perfectionism when you have simple coding tasks to solve.

<comment><USER19> Bingo. Implementing features doesn't usually require it, but keeping an entire system in your head with all its complexity and chain reactions from making something work another way keeps me from moving ahead sometimes -- especially when it isn't clear what the best option is. A beer or two helps me pick one and keep moving, to discover the answer as I go.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Startup: We need an experienced Foo programmer.

Me: Those are easy to find.

Startup: Our lead developer keeps shooting them down because they don't know (obscure keyword).

Me: How long would it take an experienced programmer to learn (obscure keyword)?

Startup: I don't know, maybe an hour?

Me: How long have you been hiring for this position?

Startup: About six months.

Me: Would it help if I sent you a transcript of this call?

Startup: What?

Me: Never mind...

<comment><USER21> I might have down voted you by accident. Was trying to up vote you, little arrows/big thumbs/mobile. Sorry.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> \-- me: sits through yet another mandatory hours-long meeting where the loudest two developers one-up each other to find the best hypothetical solution to the most convoluted problem they can imagine as it relates to the urgent, critical problem we currently face whose simple, plain solution goes entirely ignored and where no decision is made. \--

I have trouble laughing at what I know is supposed to be humor, because of how tragically true this is and how much this affects me on a regular basis.

But I don't work for a startup! I thought it was supposed to be different in that world.

Perhaps some problems are just universal.

<comment><USER23> How about the meeting where the non-problems and false concerns are beaten like a dead horse by people without the knowledge or skill to be in the discussion. But you have to just sit there with your face in your palm because if you say anything to try and correct the misdirection, you will be considered not a "team player".

<comment><USER24> This is the default for Fortune 500 work.

Case in point, grossly expensive COTS implemtation requiring 80 consultants to build ETL pipeline to handle roughly 5,000-10,000 transactions A DAY simple XML files to DB rows.

Told client a few smart devs could build this in a few months. Got the ಠ_ಠ

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Hi, so this is all happening at the startup I work at:

#1

CEO: We just closed a XX million dollar Series C funding round!

\-- later at an a company wide meeting ---

CEO: we have zero revenue. if we asked our customers to pay us, they would drop our product in a second... so, uh, we really don't have product market fit yet.

me: ...

CEO: no worries. we are attacking such a large market. surely we'll find something. and when we do it will be HUGE... it'll be... it'll be... it's so huge I'm having trouble even describing it!

#2

\-- at an important weekly product meeting --

CEO: okay it's been ten minutes. where is [cofounder]

CTO: oh he's in china for the week.

CEO: ...

CTO: On vacation.

everyone else: ... (your cofounder didn't tell you that?)

#3

me: your company name "cadabra" sounds like cadaver.

ceo: nah, dude.

me: you had to spell it out when I asked you to pronounce it.

ceo: nah, we just need to hire more marketing people.

#4

wannabe designer: so tell me how you approach design.

me: well I really like being apart of the process from start to finish, since I've also done UX wor--

designer: great, let me tell you how we do design here. i draw up the stuff and you do it, unless there's a technical problem. you can argue and you will be wrong, ha ha.

me: you're joking right?

designer: * proceeds to create barely passable UIs *

And the list goes on. I have plenty of more stories to share but I am currently busy seeking employment elsewhere.

Shameless plug: If you're looking for an American android developer (10,000+ install base on play store), or a front end web developer ( Tech Giant), a back python/java developer ( past startups ), let's talk shop at firstname.lastname@example.com.

<comment><USER26> It's honestly baffling to me how much #2 resonates with a company I'm working for.

I just don't get it. There typically aren't that many co-founders in a company. How hard is it to keep one another on the same page. Sometimes it's about vacation times. Sometimes it's about resourcing. Sometimes it's about projects being worked on.

<comment><USER25> It's not a question of "how much effort" but more "what kind" of effort. In my situation, I'm getting a firm impression one of the cofounder is "checking out"[1] so the kind of effort needed to notify his fellow cofounder is probably not something he can summon at the time.

I find it particularly distressing because, in my view, your cofounder is like your lifelong partner. Imagine going to another country without telling your husband or wife for a week. Maybe it'll be fine if you apologize afterwards... but what would you tell your kids? Metaphorically, the "kids" are everyone who sat in on that meeting and were amazed at the lack of communication between the two.

[1] He doesn't really seem to have a huge role in the company anymore. He does not seem anywhere near as stressed as his cofounder. He kept silent when there was a "we don't have product market fit, oh shit" situation when it was revealed to the company.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> A lot of these anecdotes are the frustration with dealing with people that waste your time. I guess it's not limited to just the startup space but one thing I've learned is that there is an unlimited number of people that are willing to waste your time and boy is it frustrating.

<comment><USER28> On the bright side, at least you get a free latte or cappuccino while having your time wasted.

<comment><USER29> I don't do coffee or alcohol.

<comment><USER30> I just want to talk over Thai iced tea damn it! Screw this coffee and/or beer! Thai iced tea!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> > married hetero male founders: we're thinking of getting an intern

> me: okay but I don't see what we could offer. You know we're on a really > tight

> married hetero male founders: we're getting an intern.

> intern: (beautiful 18yo girl)

Young male intern --> Everyone assumes you're a Wunderkind.

Young female intern --> Everyone assumes that the CEO is having sex with you.

Startupbullshit

<comment><USER32> Hells to the no. In my experience, if you see a useless young male intern, he's probably the nephew of the dumbest investor.

But the pattern holds in one way, because to keep up appearances, we're supposed to put the useless male intern on coding projects. So he's more of a net negative.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> So many... so many.

me: (up all night fixing bugs in production due to technical debt and mistakes from overworked and tired devs. Sleep from 5am to 9am, show up to office at 10am)

CEO (sales background), walking by as he sees me enter the office: "Hey tone, I want butts in seats, including yours. We have a culture of hard work here. Set an example."

...

CTO: "We don't need to hire expensive devs. Just hire from overseas and promise them an H1B. They'll work for the minimum."

me: "That's not only unsustainable, it's unethical. H1B is a lottery, we can't promise that!"

CTO: "I don't expect them to know that, and you're not going to tell them! Get them on-boarded and working a.s.a.p."

me: (goes home, writes resignation email)

</comment><comment><USER34> Interviewer: We need someone with [describes soft skill set for my dream job]

Me: Great career opportunity, I'd certainly be willing to move across country for this

Interviewer, day 1: Here's your desk, now I'm going to assign you a ticket off the backlog. Let me know when you're done and I'll assign you another one. [pats me on the head and walks away]

Bait'n'switch, and I fell for it. I think it's the only way they can get people to come to this no-good podunk town, with not a sushi bar for miles, and 19th century development practices. And yes, I am preparing my awesome flameout exit. I hope to hear the lamentation of their womenfolk.

<comment><USER35> Not sure what your dream job is. But pulling a few tickets off the backlog is a pretty normal way to ramp up new hires.

<comment><USER34> I take your point, and I do that with new hires myself.

I'm compressing things for comic effect, but I promise you the core of the story is true - I got suckered in by wonderful promises, and interviewing in the industry hot spot I _was_ in is going to involve significant time and cash outlay.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> A lot of these appear to stem from inexperience -- the founder/CEO/CTO doing and saying what they think they're supposed to do or because "that's what successful people do."

I'm going to be slightly reverse-ageist for a moment: I'm at a startup where the average age is over 40, the founder is deeply experienced as both an engineer and a manager, and I can honestly say that NONE of this stuff happens. I took my reading these anecdotes to appreciate how nice (and apparently rare?) this is.

<comment><USER37> The anecdotes show inexperience on both sides. If you are taking interviews with so many bad startup founders that you are able to compile a list like this, maybe you should work on your own filtering mechanism to stop talking to people who will waste your time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I loved these! I certainly have been through some of that nonsense.

i would add:

job offer: salary range $100-$130k

interviewer: the max for this position is $80K

interviewer: hello?

<comment><USER39> I see this a lot with startups hiring on Angel List. Angel List makes them specify a salary range so they do, but always offer well below the minimum.

At best they are blatantly insulting the candidate, at worst they are liars. Probably both.

<comment><USER38> wow, they've all been from angel list for me too! i didn't realize the connection till now.

<comment><USER40> Sorry to hear about your experience. We take abuse like this seriously. If possible, could you email me the names of the companies at email@example.com?

<comment><USER39> I think it's awesome that you take this so seriously. I also think it's great that you ask companies to be upfront about compensation (I say this as an founder). It irks me when companies aren't forthright with potential hires.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Based on my experience, there doesn't seem to be much overlap between the type of charismatic pitch founder capable of raising money and getting people to work for less than their market rate, and the bean counter-oversight founder capable of running an efficient business. But it's the former type that is able to raise money, so they find themselves in a position to have conversations like these.

<comment><USER42> That's fine, but if you're that kind of founder you have to know your limitations and hire a top-flight COO to handle that side of things. If you can't, or won't, you're just another shitty founder-CEO whose company is going to fail.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Problems are not just limited to startups. Here's some of the shenanigans which went on in the last company I worked for:

Company is constantly on credit hold. Engineers receive calls from suppliers stating that they haven't been paid and no one in accounts payable is returning their calls.

Company does layoffs on a recurring basis, and then hires different people for a new project. In one case they hired back the same people they laid off a year ago and paid them signing bonuses.

CEO shows gross indifference when someone leaves the company. Just shrugs it off.

CEO walks into VP of HR's office with someone and states that you're fired, and this is your replacement.

CEO constantly worrying about getting delisted from NASDAQ.

CEO and VP Engineering "chum" thinking they know the price of components and stating that that should cost $5, when everyone supplying stated item is asking $15.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I've worked for startups as a full-stack dev for about 5 years, and spent the last year trying to land a position in as a technical manager. This specific pursuit has lead to some of the most bullshit encounters I've had with startups. What are some of your bullshit experiences?

<comment><USER44> In the phrase "technical manager", technical is an adjective; the noun is manager.

What would lead you to expect a smooth path to being hired as a tech manager without tech management experience?

It's a different job and the skills required to succeed have less overlap than many devs think.

<comment><USER45> Every single manager I have had in the SF Bay Area is at least one position up from where they would be anywhere else in the country. This area has a reputation for being the best place to start a career. Well it also should have the reputation for being the best place to jump into management.

Unfortunately, all of these managers also got in through networking not demonstrated ability. So to the person that wants to jump into management, you need to focus much more on networking and less on applying to open positions.

If you can't get in through networking, you need to put in the long slog to get in through working at the same employer (and likely suffering on the pay front until you make it into management and have enough experience there to jump).

<comment><AUTHOR> Good advice. Thanks :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> Jean-Philipe I had this:

young male intern: talks a lot but is not working young female intern: does all the work of the male intern, gets half the pay

me: why? ceo: because the male intern is from some important school!

<comment><USER46> Not trying to start a flame, but what difference does it make that they're male or female? The difference is as you said "some important school".

<comment> Jean-Philipe Okay, I actually consider that a valid question. The thing was: all the female employees in that team got half (!) the pay of the guys. The guys of that team didn't work, but the women were _much_ more productive.

The fact that he's "from some important school" wich in this case didn't provide any value at all, was just a lame excuse for "he has a p*nis".

Another excuse I heard from that CEO, when one of the underpaid team members asked him about the difference in pay, was this: "It's your market value!" which reads quite clearly as "You earn less because you're a woman"

PS: Had a lot of these cases in that company and the gender was the only common denominator. I'm glad I left. Meanwhile they have a new CEO, and things have improved.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> The "less than half for cash" one is something I used to see from customers all the time when working in a bar. You'd say "£10.50, please" and they'd reply "£10 for cash?" as if I'd happily chip in 50p myself (till shortages need covered somehow) instead of having to accept a card payment. I never understood the mentality - it costs £x, so pay £x or go away

<comment><USER48> They assumed that you'd simply pocket the 10 quid rather than book it officially so 'everybody would come out ahead'. Never mind that you'd be committing fraud.

<comment><USER16> On a recent trip to Greece, I found this being asked by businesses, especially restaurants and bars, but down to my hotel that I reserved with a CC: "Could you please pay in cash instead?"

<comment><USER49> It's not unheard of in Europe to get 2-3% discounts if paying by cash (particularly in computer stores). The reason is that in some countries, merchants pay that percentage of Visa/MC commission (and in case of Amex even more) plus a fixed fee per transaction. For that same reason bars usually accept cards only over a threshold of 5-10€ or so. Though if that happens in hotels indeed it is strange then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> It's probably unfair to pin all the sexism stuff on startups. If you've ever been to a big company, you'd know that the pink collar workforce idea is way worse. There are a lot of women in junior or administrative positions who can only really interact with their bosses and immediate peers professionally but whom the entire organization, from CEO to lowly PA, tries to hit on.

</comment><comment><USER51> Three of mine:

Recruiting company: Someone needs a php developer for work in X industry.

I work on the industry, take the test they give me, get a perfect score, never hear a word, no interview.

Big company : I travel across the mountains to an interview, 15 minutes before arriving I get a call, "we can't meet you today, we will come back with another time".

Startup: we need someone with strong cognitive skills and php and javascript experience (8 y ago, before everyone had 10 y javascript experience). In interview: you are one of two qualified, the otherone is from <other country, more than two hours away, by plane>, -goes on to advertise the position again, then after realizing there are no other goes on to offer me below market rates. I go on to learn Java in a better paid job with better well - everything.

</comment><comment><USER33> Here's one (not solely experienced in startups, however):

manager: "Since you're single, can you work through the holidays and cover the systems/push this feature/go the extra mile so that the people with families can spend time with them?"

<comment><USER52> Being that guy before, and with family an 8-hour drive away, I've volunteered to do that more than once.

Earns goodwill from the people with families, the boss has one less thing to worry about at end of year, and the holidays are usually "dead time" so I got a lot of slack time in.

<comment><USER33> Volunteering is one thing, and very cool to do to take some of the stress off of people with children. But asking an employee is quite another (IMO). It's a form of soft discrimination, though not intended as such I'm sure.

(Though, thinking about it, I was told once "Yeah, well, you don't have kids, so this [the holiday] isn't that important for you." that wasn't a startup, however, that was a F100)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> After a round of interviews/ in person with a public software company in Boston (who just acquired last pass):

Company recruiting lead: The team enjoyed meeting you. They felt you are very smart and personable. [VP of engineering] liked your work with machine learning. At this time, they feel you are a bit junior for the team.

I had to laugh, glad I dogged a bullet.

</comment><comment><USER54> CEO: We gonna need to do some crunch time the next 2/3 weeks. Unfortunately, we fell behind schedule and we can't let this next delivery be late. We can't pay any of you overtime because we are already on a tight budget, as you know, but to raise moral after we deliver the company is going to take everyone out to this great restaurant + drinks to raise our morale and toast of the future of this great and promising business!

The team: Ok. Not what we expected, but we have some equity, its a tough market, and we have been working on this for a while. Let's hope it pays off in the future.

Three weeks - working from Sunday to Sunday - later...

The Team: Yes! I can't believe we delivered! We are more motivated than ever! Now let's celebrate!

CEO: Yeah, sorry, no time for that. Here's a $40 dollar check for each of you to go out and grab a bite. Oh, and by the look of our roadmap we might need to crunch some more next month.

The Team: [starts quitting one by one]

</comment><comment><USER55> Am I the only one who would have really appreciated a trigger warning?

</comment><comment><USER56> YC helps young founders because of stereotypes against them. I wouldn't imply that someone lacks merit because she is 18 and attractive. There needs to be more context for that post.

<comment><USER57> Who says this has anything to do with YC?

<comment><USER56> Hi. Thank you for asking. I should have clarified. The tumblr post is not related to YC. I cited YC's philosophy as an example of why we shouldn't judge people by their age.

<comment><AUTHOR> Funny thing is, this happened at a YC company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> My first startup's CEO practiced "The Game" and used to bring the dev team out in SF to practice peacocking, negging and other ridiculous seduction techniques on unsuspecting women. I'm in an ltr and dreaded having to go, but didn't want to be left out so I would tag along. It was horrible.

<comment><USER59> How many sexual harassment lawsuits were there? Why would anyone think this is OK?

<comment><USER58> Ugh I don't know. I've since gotten a new job but he's still there as a figurehead CEO... the COO makes all the decisions/runs the show from what I've heard. Glad I got out. It was just one of many many juvenile actions from that boss.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> happened to be recently:

Manager: Hey you're here for the xx position right? You know, you sound like you'd be a really good fit for this new job that opened up, I just fired this guy, millennials amirite, so let's talk about that for the next hour.

</comment><comment><USER61> me: I'm here for the engineering manager position

them: great, can you come in for a front-end developer interview at 2?

me: I'm here for the engineering manager position

them: here's an offer for a front-end position making below-average $

me: thanks for your time

them: ???????

CEO: Why won't anyone work for us?

them: we offered them a job!

</comment><comment><USER62> one from the devops/sre trenches...

> (devops guy) hi, im here for the lead devops role > (CTO) awesome, you'd be > a great fit here. can you write a sudoku solver in ruby real quick? > > (devops guy) [writes solver in ruby] > (CTO) wow looks great... when can you > start? do you have any questions for me? > (devops guy) I do have a > question: how do you shard your bigdata installations and what is it built > on? > (CTO) oh I wrote my own, we call it redisbigtable -- its the worlds > first CAP compliant data store. oh, and we shard by customer. > (devops guy) > thank you for your time.

<comment><USER63> > (CTO) Look, we're a startup; we don't have time for the perfect solution > here. You should consider being more pragmatic...

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> >Would you sign something saying you'll give me $250k in cash one year from now if I work for the company?

this is classic ! :)

</comment><comment><USER65> I've had 2 of these exact interactions, in the London local startup scene, and that was just last week.

</comment><comment><USER66> Are these just made up or are they coming from somewhere?

<comment><USER67> The examples ring very true, unfortunately. If you pop in on the Startups Stack Exchange (or the Work Life Stack Exchange), you'll periodically find concrete examples.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> \---

During interview with founder:

me : I believe 'honesty is the best policy'

founder: Great! we need like-minded people like you.

(after few months)

founder: He creates negative environment within the team!

<comment><USER68> Honesty is in general the best way to foster trust, but extreme honesty and off-the-cuff opinion-giving is a good way to make everyone afraid of giving honest assessments.

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> Many/most seem more an indictment on engineer lack of understanding what it takes to get a startup off the ground.

<comment><USER70> You're getting downvoted, but I have to agree to an extent. To be fair, many business/founder types also have a total lack of understanding of what it takes to get a startup off the ground.

The irony is, I guess, that most people involved in a startup don't know what it takes to actually get it off the ground, because the formula they've been sold doesn't really actually work, and they don't have the business (or technical!) savvy to correct course.

<comment><USER69> "business/founder types also have a total lack of understanding of what it takes to get a startup off the ground"

I would not totally disagree with this. But here's the thing: no-one really does. It's extremely difficult. If many people did know, it wouldn't be as lucrative. Being the boss is by far the hardest position in the whole endeavor.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Reminds me a lot of

[http://clientsfromhell.net/](http://clientsfromhell.net/)

</comment><comment><USER71> COO: We need to crush the MVP, so unfortunately we'll be working weekends now.

Designer: ...

COO: Don't worry everything will cool down after Thanksgiving!

Designer: Fine...

(Week before Thanksgiving)

COO: Finish everything? Like is X, Y, Z all good to go?

Designer: Yep, everything's finished!

COO: Awesome! Unfortunately, we're going to have to let you go...

</comment><comment><USER72> Has anyone done the math to show if your odds are better at the typical startup vs the typical craps table?

Equivalents of time and money, and the odds of wasting it all on chance?

<comment><USER73> craps is expected value of ~0.96 of what you put in. i don't know how you want to quantify 'startup odds'

<comment><USER72> > i don't know how you want to quantify 'startup odds'

Perhaps, a sampling of people who took the option to work for equity, and the ratio of those whose investment in time made the equity valuable, over those who would have had a better income with a typical salary.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> We are working in a coworking space, but the CTO doesn't seems to like this idea at all, he keeps asking people in the common area to shut up.

</comment><comment><USER75> It's quite scary how many startups treat Lean Startup as the gospel and follow it word for word.

</comment><comment><USER76> It's beyond me why would anyone would want to give away part of his/her company just because of some shitty development work, and most of developers do just that - write shitty code because they don't give a crap about quality

As a founder you are better of paying some random developer do have viable product and then if it works - hire someone.

NEVER GIVE AWAY EQUITY FOR JOB.

<comment><USER77> It seems like your "developers only produce crap" and "don't make offers that are favorable to developers" philosophies may be more related than you think.

</comment></comment><comment><USER78> This is so true! Awesome (and sad)!

</comment><comment><USER79> this is amazing.

</comment><comment><USER80> love the equity one. imagine asking "what is the expected value of the equity?", getting a number, and then saying "ok, pay me that when it vests instead of giving me the equity".

</comment><comment><USER81> Somebody who dedicates his time to publicly spew this toxic attitude will likely not archive success that is pleasant for him.

<comment><USER34> This sentence sounds like an Evil Fortune Cookie.

<comment><USER82> I like it!</comment></comment></comment>


Sourcemaps v3 in Stylus - <AUTHOR> http://learnboost.github.io/stylus/docs/sourcemaps.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Great news because source maps were the one disadvantage of Stylus, so it was eagerly awaited: [https://github.com/LearnBoost/stylus/issues/1072](https://github.com/LearnBoost/stylus/issues/1072) :)</comment>


Ancient whales were predators not gentle giants - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2017-08-ancient-whales-predators-gentle-giants.html <comment><USER2> Here's the paper link (kudos to the journalists for at least giving us the title of the paper, if not a link we could follow; sometimes the article in the popular press looks nothing like what the scientists published). [http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/roybiolett/13...](http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/roybiolett/13/8/20170348.full.pdf)

If I read this correctly, the discovery is not that the early whales were predators, but that filter-feeding evolved separately from their teeth; that is, the baleen - which is not homologous to teeth - is the first filter mechanism that the whales acquired, while previously, some people thought that the whales developed filter-feeding with their teeth before developing the baleen.

This is an exciting discovery, I suppose, for scientists studying whale evolution, but probably for nobody else. The popular press treatment turned it into "they discovered that whales were predators", which makes little sense, since a) everybody knew the whales did not have baleen when they were land- dwelling, I mean, how would that work; and b) all whales obviously had teeth at some point in their evolution, before the baleen whales lost them.

<comment><USER3> The article also talks about "killer whales" and their teeth, but Orcas aren't whales. They're dolphins (or more specifically, they belong to the porpoise group of mammals).

<comment><USER4> While Orcas _are_ members of dolphin family (Delphinidae), they _are not_ members of the porpoise family (Phocoenidae) and the whole Orcas are not whales distinction is kind of silly anyway because they're all cetaceans.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> And modern sperm whales hunt giant squid. They have found giant squid beaks in the stomachs of sperm whales. And the whales will have scars from the battles. But it happens at such depths that it hasn't been seen, to my knowledge.

edit: whale, with calf, eating a giant squid: [http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/10/photogalleri...](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/10/photogalleries/giant- squid-sperm-whale-pictures/)

<comment><USER6> And?

I don't understand what the logical connection is to the article. Sperms whales are not the only example of odontocetes (toothed whales). Orcas hunt seals, bottlenose dolphins hunt fish...

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> A Blue whale can consume as many as 40 million krill per day, if that's not a predator, not sure what one is.

<comment><USER8> A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.

A billion just a foot note?

<comment><USER9> Do you want to write a song for the dead krills? Go ahead, write one.

On a more serious, less timely paraphrase, the shear amount of death at the bottom of the food chain both on land and at sea is mind boggling.

<comment><USER10> Yup, all food is death. Vegetarians and vegans are just picking their ethical battles, really.

I sometimes idly wonder things like how far we are from sci-fi synthesis of a complete diet from entirely inorganic materials that have never been in a living thing. It might even become a necessity as a spacefaring species. Although, humans separated by interstellar distances would almost certainly diverge to the point where maintaining a single "species" becomes dubious, even if you had constant interbreeding, so you might have humans eating local plants & animals on other planets that are nutritionally useless or hazardous to Earthlings.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Didn't we know that already?

I mean, the evolution of Cetacea is fairly well understood by now. We know they all derive from a terrestrial small carnivorous artiodactyle. And all descendants had sharp teeth until relatively recently. Even today quite many of them are still active predators.

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

<comment><USER12> Yes, cetacean evolution is one of the most well-studied areas, with decades of research behind it.

This particular finding seems to be about early baleen whales, back when they still had teeth (not just baleen). Seems like early baleen wales had very sharp teeth that were likely used for cutting, not for some sort of early type of filtration.

You might be interested in the actual paper: [http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/13/8/20170348](http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/13/8/20170348)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Whether or not something is a predator is a lot more important to us than to biology. The distinction between eating small krill and eating large fish, even less so.

Lots of mammals seem to evolve back and forward between various food sources. Look at our branch. Most/many primates have a mixed diet, in many of the families. There are some specialists like gorillas and bleeding heart baboons, and they're not necessarily related.

So, our ancestors were probably all over the predator-prey spectrum.

<comment><USER14> Not to mention, krill are animals. Only at the scale of a whale could filter feeding be considered _gentle giant_ behaviour. At our scale it's probably more like _genocidal giant_ if you consider the thousands of little animals which dissolve alive inside the whale.

<comment><USER11> It's not so much what whales eat that matters, rather than how they eat it. The size difference between a whale and a krill is so big that for all intents and purposes, whales feed much more like a cow than a lion. They're _browsing_ , except they don't browse vegetals, but small animals.

To say they are not predators makes sense in the behavioral sense.

<comment><USER15> They do actually hunt for denser populations of krill. So, IMO it's closer to predator behavior than pure browsing.

<comment><USER16> Cows also seek out denser grass, so that hardly destroys the analogy.

<comment><USER15> Bubble netting is a little more complex than just walking to a new area. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubble_net_feeding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubble_net_feeding)

Also, baleen whales are not limited to krill and do eat a lot of larger fish.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Just to be clear - when I eat Jell-o I use my toungue to force it out between my teeth and pretend I'm a whale.

Am I in danger of developing baleen?

</comment><comment><USER18> When I visited the whales exhibit at the Museum of Natural History in New York, 3 years ago or so, they showed that early whales were kind of like alligators, so I'm not sure why this is a new discovery. Perhaps it just firms up the timeline for when their feeding mechanism changed, or maybe there's some other detail that's escaping me here.

</comment><comment><USER19> Just to add a little to the discussion, after reading the article I was curious to know and understand what the ancient land-dwelling ancestors to modern day whales looked like, and found this:

[http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evograms_03](http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evograms_03)

It's very fascinating and clearly shows the evolution of whales in great detail; apparently whales and hippos are related, but are two branches from a common ancestor (which I took from this that we don't yet know what ancestor?).

Regardless, after looking at that page, I clicked around the site - and found the whole thing really intriguing and detailed.

</comment><comment><USER20> All whales are predators. And there are plenty that still have teeth and are rather ruthless hunters (sperm whales, orcas, etc...).

</comment><comment><USER21> Hey, you don't suppose multiple competitive threads of evolution were occuring at the same time do you?

</comment><comment><USER22> Curious choice of words. Are we too predators or gentle giants (from smaller animals' perspective)?

<comment><USER23> It's just a dumb headline. _All_ whales are predators. Some just evolved to filter crustaceans out of the water intead of tearing flesh off off fish. Krill are still animals. Gray whales are still carnivores.

But yes: early whales had a lifestyle that looked more like a dolphin's than a humpback's, which isn't surprising since a humpback skull works very poorly for hunting animals on land, which is where their common ancestor came from.

What's actually more interesting is that the only other living descendant of that common ancestor isn't a predator at all, nor does it look like one. It's the Hippo.

<comment><USER24> Gray whales and sperm whales are carnivores.

So are Humpback whales, which switch off between krill and small fish (like sardines), depending on what's available.

Also, hippos have been observed killing and eating other animals, so they've been moved into the "mostly herbivorous but enjoy a meaty snack on occasion" category.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> They are still predators, they just pivoted to a different diet.

<comment><USER26> I guess when you become so large you don't have any direct predator you have options. Monopolistic Whales.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Wow, fascinating! Wondering what happened, that such a huge predator stopped hunting - convenience, and that's why their teeth fell out? His skull looks like a dragon skull from Game of Thrones though...</comment>


Pinterest confused me - <AUTHOR> http://franklinchen.com/blog/2012/02/15/pinterest-confuses-me/

<comment><USER2> I still don't understand how it confuses you. More like you don't use Pintrest like many others (including me)

I too registered on to it, used it to see what the hype is all about, but now I hardly open the site. I don't even have the notifications enabled.

But there are loads of people who do want to look at the trends in the fashion world. Probably they find the concept to be very powerful and thats why they are using it.</comment>


Ask HN: Career advice for a 23 year-old - <AUTHOR> Hi HN,
I'm 23 years old, living in Belgium, and about to graduate with a master's degree in electrical engineering. It's a difficult time with lots of choices to make, and I'm not sure which path to take next. Some considerations:
- I feel like I'm too young to leave the student life and its freedoms completely behind.
- I'm ambitious and have good grades, but don't want to pursue a PhD.
- A year of travelling would be great, but my mother would get a heart attack when I tell her. And I guess it will make me look lazy on my resume.
- My ultimate day-dream is to launch a start-up and work and live on-campus for the next five years. Alas, it's not Stanford here.
- More realistically, a job in consulting would maybe be a good idea as a start. It would keep my options open. But should I look into management consulting or technology consulting? I think the latter will be a better fit with my studies and personality, but it's not as prestigious or ambitious as the first. Any advice here?
Oh, the choices! Thanks for your advice.
Bert <comment><USER3> Do the travel thing, possible while doing some small projects for yourself or others.

The real world can wait. (and you have to step up against your parents at some point anyway)

(I'm 28 and wish I would have done it, although I am very happy with my current life (=flexible consulting startup) too)

</comment><comment><USER4> Can I recommend Brennan Dunn's monthly classes on Freelancing and consulting - mostly because there is a brilliant and active mailing list , with at least one Belgium on the list who has taken the path you are considering. Drop me your email and I will put you in touch

More generally, take the rest of your twenties to explore and push. You have (I assume) no child care responsibilities and its a good guess you wont till thirty-ish (if it changes - great !) - so can I recommend the following plan:

0\. Unemployment is rife across Europe, especially at your age - so if in two years you have not had a "proper" job, it will look no different than 50% of the rest of the continent. But if you have run a startup, consulted, travelled... well...

1\. With a degree in electrical engineering you have a massive advantage over most startup entrpreneurs - hardware.

2\. Go look at the hardware hackday running with ycombinator (cannot find the link - on iPhone - anyone?). It might give you some ideas.

3\. Market yourself as a prototype maker - join some maker groups, get some experience with arduino's etc. Maybe the local fashion college has people wanting to experiment with wearable fashion (plus point here - <USER2> students throw much better parties than EE departments)

4\. Start talking about this - in English on a blog. Include youtube videos of the wearable stuff.

5\. Want to travel - then stick to the hardware theme. DO the young backpacker thing, but ask on HN for contacts in Shenzhen and Mumbai. Go meet some folks and make contacts / friends. Be the Belgium hardware consultant with contacts in the hottest hardware and development hubs globally. Blog on your travels, and if you can, do some arduino prototyping and consulting - getting paid to develop a startups new wearable toy whilst actually in Shenzhen. Better than paying yourself. And stop off in Goa and dive in Thailand - just because you need to relax.

In the end you are young - enjoy yourself. But be smart - enjoy yourself and at the same time build valueable skills. You already have a massive edge - increase that edge.

Remember you are a rare commoditity and investment money is dirt cheap globally - so if you need to raise cash later on you are the prize for them to compete for.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your motivating words! The travel idea sounds so exciting but it would be a big step out of my comfort zone.

Is <http://freelancersweekly.com/> the newsletter you were talking about? My email is hndbert at gmail.

<comment><USER4> Yes, he has a few all tied up. sign up and you will get the list - it was about 600 quid - worth it IMO

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Bert, I am doing consulting in Belgium, in general as a consultant you are selling a service , that service is yourself , you need to define what are the unique skills, experience you have that makes you special , the more special you are, the higher your day rate will be.

so the key is to develop your skills.

if you want to do startups i would advise you this belgian startup coaching program [http://www.iminds.be/en/entrepreneurship/training- coaching/b...](http://www.iminds.be/en/entrepreneurship/training- coaching/boot-camp)

Fil

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Fil. What kind of consulting do you do? Do/did you work for one of the big three? I hadn't heard of the iMinds program yet, it looks interesting.

<comment><USER5> I never worked for the big three , i once did an interview, with my long hair back in the days and refusing to wear a suit, it did not feel like a match ...

There are agencies that specialize in brokering freelance consultants , but it all depends on your CV , so the best thing to do is to fill it with some nice projects like the <http://www.hixup.com/> you made ... , if you want to discuss in detail , mail me at HN firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Sick it up and join the real world. I've been working since I was 14 years old due to the economic realities of my family.

Don't want a real office job? Go volunteer or join something like the peace corps. You'll get to travel, feel good about yourself, and help the world.

</comment><comment><USER7> Wanna come to India. I am looking for a co-founder. The living expenses will be cheaper here for you and lots of learning for sure. I am 31 and have some experience building web apps.

Contact me: firstname.lastname@example.com if interested.

</comment><comment><USER8> Always place your health foremost. A chronic/permanent injury or illness changes things dramatically and irrevocably.

Good health is the foundation of functioning well, in whatever you choose to do.

</comment><comment><USER9> If you want to come to Vancouver, I can meet you up and bring you around. You can find my contact info in my profile.

</comment><comment><USER10> Hi Bert,

I felt like I had to respond to this, because our backgrounds are so similar and I was facing the same questions years ago. here's my advice:

Travel while you can. You'll learn more valuable life lessons in a year of travelling than you will in 10 years of, well, doing almost anything else. I am Dutch, studied Electrical Engineering too, and left Holland when I was 24. I left for a 1 year working holiday in Australia, but I ended up spending 8 months in New Zealand as well, so was away for 20 months. It turned out it's pretty easy to get a temporary work permit in NZ as well if you have some technical skills, and I was able to fund a much longer trip by doing some consulting for the bank of New Zealand. After 6 months back in Holland, I left again, this time on a one way ticket to Indonesia. After exploring South East Asia for another 10 months, I ended flying to San Francisco to visit the US for the first time, in hopes of being able to find a job in Silicon Valley, make some money there and then move on with my travels. I never moved on.

Almost 14 years later, I'm still in the SF bay area, and I am now founder and CEO of my own bootstrapped startup, and an independent software consultant. I'm married, have 2 kids, live in a great place, and have always felt that that decision to go traveling was the best decision I've made in my life. Without those travels, I don't know where I'd be right now, but highly unlikely that it would be here.

I think the things you learn by traveling to an unknown place, with unspecified plans, prepare you better for entrepreneurship than pretty much anything you would learn in an office. On the road, you'll learn to be comfortable with the unknown, you'll be forced to look for creative solutions, to pivot when necessary. You'll widen your horizon and expose yourself to new places, other cultures, new ideas. You'll learn valuable social skills, you'll learn to get along with people that you have almost nothing in common with. You'll experience all the benefits of having to venture outside of the fairly small demographic that you are in at home. You'll learn to appreciate and make the best of what you have, however little that may be. Maybe I was just lucky, being able to find jobs on the way, and making it to San Francisco at the height of the dot-com boom, when developers were treated like gods and immigrant work visas were easier to come by. But you may be surprised by the random opportunities you will end up walking into if you just go out on a whim, like I did at the time.

Some people may have thought of me as a lazy bum as I was roaming around the world, but I always knew that it was the right thing to do for me, and that it would make me a better person, a better dad and a more successful entrepreneur down the line. If you need any more convincing: I've never talked to anyone who regretted going traveling. I've spoken to hundreds of people who regret not having done it before they were tied down by careers, families, mortgages and other adult responsibilities.

My advice for you, save up some money, do some consulting and get a little bit of working experience, and then venture out into the unknown. Try to find some work abroad, even if it's unskilled work. (I also picked kiwis in New Zealand and worked in a small factory in Sydney). And then, while you are away, you'll have plenty of time to think about what you want to do with the rest of your life. Or somehow you'll find that those questions will be answered for you.</comment>


Turtle (Submersible) - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtle_(submersible) <comment><USER2> > _The shape of the hull, Gale informed Silas Deane, "has the nearest > resemblance to the two upper shells of a Tortoise joined together."_

> _Named for its shape, Turtle resembled a large clam as much as a turtle_

Come on, it looks like a goddamn acorn. It's even made of oak.</comment>


FBI Arrests Man For Allegedly Sending Journalist Seizure-Causing GIF - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/fbi-arrests-man-for-allegedly-sending-journalist-seizur-1793375081 <comment><USER2> I think on the face of it these types of things sound ridiculous. For example everyone knows that murder is murder. And everyone knows that an accident is an accident. But what might seem like an accident, but was actually perpetrated on purpose because of knowledge of a condition, that's murder.

Going back to reality: Someone severely allergic to peanuts is killed with peanuts in their food by a mistake: accident. Someone severely allergic to peanuts is killed with peanuts in their food because someone added them on purpose with knowledge of the condition? Murder.

Luckily, seizures don't always result in death.

Now to confound the issue here? The internet is already filled with blinking gifs, so this case is much more complicated.

<comment><USER3> Not really. Message board nerds may not care much about intent, but intent is _most_ of what the law cares about. If it's really the GIF this person is being charged for, then the prosecution will simply present evidence to prove to a jury that the accused deliberately attempted to trigger a Eichenwald's seizure.

The mechanics of how they tried to do that will be of secondary importance, except to the extent that the law will likely care that whatever mechanism was used did in fact stand a good chance of causing a seizure.

<comment><USER4> You've mischaracterized it as a strawman of "message board nerds", but it's actually a respectable philosophical distinction between purely executable semantics and ambient authority.

Executable semantics are more scalable, being a core innovation that allowed the Internet to flourish - eg a router doesn't care about the intent of a packet, but only its destination address. (ISPs are doing their best to undermine the e2e principle, attempting to infer intent to extract more value than can be gotten from commodity service, but I digress).

If we want to follow the implications of executable semantics, then an epileptic should have software which prevents harmful signals from being shown on their screen. This seems onerous, except for the ultimate alternative being a single world jurisdiction to enable post-facto prosecution of cross-border "intent", and destruction of Internet anonymity to effect this.

A signal filter also seems to be a more practical device than say a content filter to block scams for a cognitively-impaired older person, which is the accepted state of affairs even for intranational snail mail (eg Publishers' Clearinghouse).

(note: I've said nothing condoning the actual act of attempting to give a person a seizure, but only how we should analyze the systems that have given rise to this capability. The simplistic reaction of focusing blame on the (essentially stochastic) perpetrator is helping to push us down the path of unsustainable centralization)

<comment><USER3> If it will spare us a long and unproductive debate can we just stipulate that I'm speaking positively and not normatively? Whatever your philosophical leanings might be, intent is basically the fulcrum for most of US criminal law as it exists in the real world.

As a result, we don't have to reach far to see how inducing a seizure over the Internet could result in criminal liability. It isn't a stretch. The laws we had 40 years ago adequately capture the event.

<comment><USER4> In a sense that's following my point - describing the _executable semantics_ of the legal system, sure. On the other hand, there is no such thing as a _purely positive_ statement, as simply explaining how something works _also promulgates it_. This is a basic tenet of how the legal system bootstraps its own justification - notice, publication, etc.

We can argue about it or not, but normatively I know that I would indeed like some sort of purely-executable-semantics environment, as the Internet was originally perceived as. Twitster's walled garden likely isn't a workable place to push for this for (being a mass-marketed proprietary service that merely _delivers_ over the Internet). But as I don't see a boundary for where the legal system will _ever_ stop attempting to apply its ambient authority, it is worthwhile to point out that there are alternative philosophies at every one of these occurrences.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Anyone have a link to good GIFs? I couldn't find any. I'm very curious to see what these look like.

[edit] Found this based on suggestion below. Obviously, don't click if you're seizure-prone: [http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb217/powercrazy13/you- de...](http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb217/powercrazy13/you-deserve-a- seizure.gif)

I guess I'm not epileptic. It's pretty uncomfortable to look at for a long stretch though. Anyone know what happens if a non-epileptic stares at an image like this, say, for an hour?

<comment><USER6> Weird how mind works. I clicked the link ONLY to see if the gifs are there. Didn't read a single line in the article, closed and came to comments to see if it's here.

<comment><USER7> its more efficient, many times

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Obligatory _Snow Crash_ reference along with the increasingly redundant observation that we really are living in a cyberpunk dystopia.

</comment><comment><USER9> You know, if the man had fallen and died, this would be an open-and-shut case of 2nd degree murder via "depraved indifference".

</comment><comment><USER10> How technically difficult would it be to make a browser extension that detects and pauses videos and gifs that might cause a seizure? Are the conditions that cause seizures pretty well known so that something specific can be detected?

<comment><USER11> Videos - disable autoplay.

GIFs - adblock them? as far as detection goes - you could detect vast color shifts at high frequencies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> If random gifs can trigger your seizures then maybe you need to browse the internet with gifs disabled.

<comment><USER9> Right. If I can break into your house, I should get your stuff. You should have had better locks and thicker doors. /s

<comment><USER13> My knee jerk reaction was to respond "Well hold on now, that doesn't sound right..." but I'm now guessing you're trying to point out some absurdity in OPs comment?

<comment><USER9> That's absolutely correct, and I added a "/s" to clarify that. I should never forget Poe's Law after all.

Thanks for giving me the benefit of the doubt.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Maybe I'm missing it but what, precisely, is this guy charged with?

<comment><USER15> There's a PDF of an incident report linked: assault.

<comment><USER14> Assault ....via the Internet‽ That's a new one. I can't wait to see this played out in court.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> On the one hand, those are awful horrible people who sent him the gifs, on the other hand I feel like sending someone a gif is protected free speech? I'm very torn.

Also I don't know what app he is using but they don't autoplay for me… So it seems… avoidable.

<comment><USER17> Just like yelling "fire" in a crowded theater (where there is no fire), sending someone a gif in the hopes that it causes a seizure is not protected speech. It's assult.

<comment><USER18> Slippery slope. If I tell someone on the internet to kill themselves and it turns out they're actually suicidally depressed, should I be charged with a crime?

What if I post something that's just really offensive? I feel like we've entered a time where people would gladly see the First Amendment trodden over if it means seeing "justice" doled out to nasty people.

<comment><USER19> Eichenwald didn't "turn out" to have epilepsy – he had written about it before. This was someone intentionally attempting to harm someone by triggering a seizure.

And your hypothetical situation _isn 't_ hypothetical – people who cyberbully others into committing suicide are certainly charged for their crimes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Imagine if the man viewed this while driving, crashed and died or killed others.

<comment><USER21> Then I'd have no sympathy for him and if he survived he should be put in jail for manslaughter, possibly even murder. The guy knows these devices do this to him yet continues to use them. If he's using these devices behind the wheel (or IMO at all) he's being irresponsible. He needs to take responsibility for his actions and stop blaming others. In other words, he's responsible for his own actions (using devices that can cause seizures) and their consequences (getting a seizure) like everyone else at all times.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Yikes. While I feel bad for the journalist, this has some serious implications

<comment><USER23> It really doesn't. This is assault and battery, and will be punished like any other assault and battery case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> [Deleted]

<comment><USER23> The victim not taking the appropriate steps to avoid something harmful to them is never, ever a defense in assault cases. It's not as if we punish muggers less severely if they mugged someone in a bad neighborhood where the victim shouldn't have been walking.

Even if the person here _hadn 't_ known that Eichenwald had epilepsy, they could still be charged, see [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggshell_skull](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggshell_skull). So the fact that they did know and intentionally caused an attack is certainly punishable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Slippery slope? What if I post a seizure gif to twitter, not addressed to anyone in particular? Can I be charged if some random person sees it?

<comment><USER26> You can swing your arms around as much as you like, but if you swing them into someone's face, that's illegal. As someone posted above, you can make food with peanuts as much as you'd like, but if you sneak peanuts into someone's meal who you know is allergic to peanuts, that's illegal.

Tweeting gifs? Fine. Tweeting gifs at someone with the intent to cause harm? Illegal

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Eichenwald has made many enemies and intentionally became part of his own reporting. He is his own victim. That a reporter like that would challenge the first amendment with a naive emotionally charged approach should give anyone pause.

[http://nymag.com/guides/money/2007/39957/](http://nymag.com/guides/money/2007/39957/)

<comment><USER28> > "challenge the first amendment"

sorry, what? i don't think assault is protected by the first amendment. at the risk of sounding naive i have to ask why Manson wasn't protected under the first amendment?

<comment><USER27> Perhaps Muslims are owed justice for the imagery assaulting their prophet?

Is assault possible with only words and images? If it entices someone to commit acts of violence, yes. If it is the words themselves that cause injury, the reader has the option to not engage in risky behavior.

<comment><USER28> my point is simply that many types of expression and speech are not protected by the first amendment. period. there is nothing contradictory or ironic of a journalist challenging the first amendment in court.

break it down this way: some guy literally tried to give another guy a seizure. are the means by which he tried to induce the seizure even relevant? would anyone really suggest taking action with this intent should not be punishable?

a lot of people want to say "oh but free speech...?"\-- as if to imply you're free to kill someone as long as you only use words to do it.

<comment><USER27> It's not reasonable to introduce additional first amendment restrictions or award damages in response to targeted prank tweets by internet trolls.

How do we know Eichenwald actually had a seizure? Why wouldn't he take precautions if he knew using a computer could cause a seizure? He appears to have motive to lie, an opportunity to get away with it, and a proven desire to be the "hero" in his own reporting. He is his own victim.

<comment><USER28> to get this out of the way: if he lied, that is a completely different subject. nor is it for us to judge. nor am i interested in speculating.

> It's not reasonable to introduce additional first amendment restrictions or > award damages in response to targeted prank tweets by internet trolls.

the medium is irrelevant. the first amendment does not cover all forms of expression and speech. period, man.

> Why wouldn't he take precautions if he knew using a computer could cause a > seizure?

it's like saying, why cross the street if you know you can get hit by a car? obviously there is a statistical difference, but that would suggest a slippery slope. other posters in this thread have given less extreme examples of this spectrum.

you have to look at it from the perspective of intent.

honest question: if yesterday i'd asked you "some guy maliciously and willfully gave another guy a seizure, should he be punished?". would you respond, "depends, how'd he do it?"

<comment><USER27> "Who in their right mind goes around serving up seizures..."

I agree violence should be met with appropriate justice.

Circumstances and context are rarely as cut and dried as your honest question. For example, there are some people alive that I'd rather they not be. Without context only a psychopath would think that. But if I add "9/11 victim" as context? Then you not only get it, you're on board.

It's the same here. On the surface it's shocking and offensive, but when you learn of prior behavior it becomes reasonable to doubt a reporter that hid his direct participation in news stories he was reporting. It seems more likely to me the victim seeks fame and fortune rather than justice.

The medium is relevant due to state lines. This is a Federal offense, where the guilty party goes to big boy prison and never gets a good job interview again. For what is widely viewed as an Internet prank. Pretty sure there's a Simpson episode with a similar prank too.

Disabled people have many precautions they take just to get thru each day. Many are required by law to report their medical status on a regular basis. It's not a stretch to ask if any precautions were taken in this case because if none were and a doctor had advised the victim differently there is less merit here.

<comment><USER28> hm. i think we're seeing eye to eye. you seem more willing to speculate but that is not an offense. the only points i wanted to make are:

1\. first amendment does not mean you can say or do whatever you wish 2\. if the we can assume the facts are correct, the guy should be punished accordingly

which, if i understand correctly, are two points you'd not even disagree with, barring any new evidence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> What's next?

Sending pictures of hamburgers, porn, candy and alcohol will be illegal because it can cause people to become obese, suffer stroke, and disease, and an erection.

In other news, the proprietors of hundreds of optical illusion sites have had their homes raided and being kept in prison cells for inciting physical distress on the public.

Soon there will be takedown requests to remove search results for sites that discuss optical illusions or link to sites that link to sites that -may- cause some physical distress

<comment><USER30> Nah, what's next is that you will see a friend of yours die because of their allergies to a product that wasn't indicated on the package. Will you spit on the grave, or will you realize that you aren't alone in this world and your apparent absence of triggers doesn't prevent you from being a shithead?

Cheers, and happy St. Patrick.

<comment><USER29> Nice ad-hominem.

This is a philosophical debate and we are on a very interesting line that is worthy of passionate discussion.

It is not as clear cut as many people say.

We aggressively advertise harmful substances to people, KNOWING full well that MILLIONS of people will be imprinted at a young age and result in disastrous consequences for their health (Seizures! And more).

Giving kids sugar at a young age and making them addicted to sugary cereals with "prizes" in the box should result in a much greater pumishment than what these chumps did.

I know they are on a different scale. But your reaction is a pre-reflective one and likely due to the novelty of this "assault".

We will see if these writings are vindicated or not based on a guilty/not- guilty. Then we can read the Judge's PDF and see what philosophical consideratioms were at play.

<comment><USER30> >Nice ad-hominem.

Poor snowflake. You're so special people can't call you out when you're throwing up shit on a website.

<comment><USER5> Your reply right there was pure ad hominem :-)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Weight-loss robot. - <AUTHOR> https://www.weightlossrobot.com <comment><USER2> I know I need to eat less and exercise more...this should be true of most people interested in losing weight.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you prepare for interviews? - <AUTHOR> How do you prepare for technical interviews, especially those that you know will involve whiteboard coding? How much time do you invest in reviewing algorithms that you haven't used in a while? What are the best prep resources? <comment><USER2> As someone with horrible social anxiety that can barely talk without stuttering when under pressure I typically have a few shots of whiskey.

<comment><USER3> Just make sure it's not on your breath.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > How much time do you invest in reviewing algorithms that you haven't used in > a while?

None. I don't want to work at companies that only hire people who memorized Red-Black trees.

If you don't remember, just say so. Try to reason about it, stating what you do know and can calculate on the back of an envelope. (I know quicksort is faster than N^2). You don't even need a google search to look up the details on an algorithm. Knowing when to use what algorithm is far more important.

In other words, it's just like they said in school: Show your work. Tell us how you arrived at your answer. Tell us how confident you are in the answer.

If you do want to practice, open a (non-highlighting) text editor and code something trivial. See if you can get it to compile on the first time. Repeat with other small problems. (This is how we did it in the old days.)

> What are the best prep resources?

Your stories. Passion projects you've completed. Interesting debugging techniques. What you did when the answer was not in the documentation.

<comment><USER5> >None. I don't want to work at companies that only hire people who memorized Red-Black trees.

Actually, RedBlack trees shouldn't be memorized. You can infer them from scratch, if you really understand motivation behind them. They can be modeled as a way to represent 2-3-4 trees in binary tree form. In this way, it's very easy to implement both inserts and removes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Note: This is all just from personal experience in interviews. I'm not an interviewer, I'm an interviewee.

The fact you have an interview in the first place is a good sign - your résumé showed that you have the skills they need. A lot of the time, an interview is used to determine if you're a good fit socially. As for whiteboard coding, it's just used to show your thinking. Even if you screw it up, as long as you can explain what your thought process was they won't mind.

Anyways, I find the best thing you can do is research the company, come up with a few good questions, and tell the interviewer how it would be great to work with them. If they hit you with a curveball during the interview code test, you probably wouldn't want to work there anyways.

</comment><comment><USER7> They have to like you, focus on that. I've been on interviews where I am very technically qualified, but the interviewers didn't care for my personality. This is one area that I am working on. Someone posted the following article which explains a lot of this: [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/31/opinion/sunday/guess- who-d...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/31/opinion/sunday/guess-who-doesnt- fit-in-at-work.html?_r=0)

</comment><comment><USER8> What I tell people is not to worry about their specific tech knowledge -- that should be something that you have more naturally.

The biggest issue I see is not being able to be coherent in explaining a tech project or concept. I would practice succint answers to technical questions.

In addition, if you are not comfortable coding in front of someone and explaining as you go, practice it with friends in mock interviews.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> So no one feels that stuff like "Cracking the Coding Interview" is really that helpful?

</comment><comment><USER9> Practice by interviewing with a few companies you don't really care about getting an offer from.

Disassemble their products and research whatever tech they used to build them for strengths & weaknesses.

Dig up whatever background info you can on the people who will be interviewing you.

</comment><comment><USER10> They vary so much by company there's nothing really in common that you can focus on to prep. I've been on a few interviews where I actually wrote code.</comment>


We Want to Bring Cheap AF Parking to the World (Looking for CTO) - <AUTHOR> We just launched our Company, On Air Parking, on Product Hunt and our goal is to give the world cheap AF parking.  Truly.  30% of traffic is due to people searching for parking.  The extra emissions from this is also terrible.  We're currently raising a round and are going to donate 1 tree for every parking purchase (we've already done 30k transactions-- will do millions/ year). We think cheap AF parking will cut down emissions so people can do what's right, and just park for cheap instead of circling the block 20 times.  We also know it as a fact that people like cheap parking.  We want to keep giving it to them.  If you're a dope ass senior engineer we'd love to chat, we need a CTO and are raising $2M by 7/15 for our next build and to scale :).  Thanks for being an awesome community Hacker News!! <comment><USER2> What role are you looking for the CTO to fulfill? What tech infrastructure do you have currently, Any? Why are you raising money? Are you hoping Tech problem + money = business? Where should we go for more info? Where should we contact you if we're interested? Oh and WHAT IS YOUR PLAN TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM?

Already seeing some Red-Flags that you aren't well prepared. No Offense.</comment>


A smart news reader built for productivity, powered by integrations - <AUTHOR> http://usepanda.com/ <comment><USER2> [https://usepanda.com/app](https://usepanda.com/app) gives SSL certificates errors so will hold off investigating until it's fixed...

do people not check this stuff?</comment>


Why nobody pays for Sublime? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I paid for it because it's valuable and deserves payment. I get paid for doing work in which I use it. I want its maker to continue to thrive and sustain it (a wish, I admit, that has not panned out as expected; development on Sublime Text is incredibly slow). All ethical logic says I should pay and so I did.

What makes you think that "nobody" pays for Sublime? Perhaps you mean, "I'm using this essential tool without paying for and I'd like to believe that lots of other people are also cheating its maker and would they please give me some rationalizations I can use to make myself feel better?" What's the question exactly?

<comment><USER3> Sublime text is purposefully "winrar free" (free to use but asks accepts payment for a license). I do agree that the developer has made a product of worth and I myself will be purchasing a license shortly to support him/her. However, it is not "morally" better to pay for the software or not as the developer has chosen to make it freely available to all with an internet connection.

Oh and to answer the original question (why do so many use sublime text without purchasing it), its because they don't want to spend the money and don't have to in order to use the editor

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I paid for Sublime Text 2. Still use it all the time. Worth the money.

The "why nobody pays for" line reminds me that at one point, a comedy site announced "first person pays for mIrc IRC client!" because really, who would pay for that program? And yet, if you looked at the occasional charity sessions the author held, it appears mIrc was pulling in $40K-$50K per month. Not going to attract VCs, but good coin.

</comment><comment><USER5> Because apart from the popup you eventually unconsciously dismiss every x number of saves, there's no reason to pay up.

I've been using it for 4 years unpaid, sublime has helped me get my first home. If I was forced to tomorrow because I could no longer use it I'd pay for it immediately, but right now there's nothing pushing me to part with my cash.

<comment><USER6> I would like to hire you for your honesty

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Because I already got burned once paying for TextMate and having the development basically die. The same pattern seems to be happening with Sublime Text.

So I finally just started using Emacs instead. Setup my keybindings so they're Mac/Sublime Text like and wrote a little custom frame/window manager in elisp to make the application behave the way I want, and I'm free from having to worry about one of my core tools turning into abandonware.

<comment><USER8> I felt the same way. Bought a license for 2, then for 3. Then immediately watched a lack of updates for nearly a year (or any of substance). But the 3 "dev" channel is pretty active currently: [http://www.sublimetext.com/3dev](http://www.sublimetext.com/3dev)

None of that changes your point, that you're still at the mercy / whim of a developer.

<comment><USER9> > you're still at the mercy / whim of a developer

Well, aren't we all?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I paid; while I'm not a power user, and it's a bit finicky to code for, I don't see why I _shouldn 't_ pay.

If I released a "pay if you want" product I'd want people to feel like it's worth it and give me money. It'd be hypocritical for me _not_ to pay.

</comment><comment><USER11> I paid for it because I've found it superior than all the other text editors I've used (those that are comparable e.g. Atom / MS Code just seemed to steal all it's ideas). Plus it's a business expense so you save on the taxes.

It's:

* Cross-platform

* A small scale team

* One license and I can install it on all my machines

* Excellent plugins [1]

* Fast

* Low memory usage / leaks

* Lovely UI - tabs, distraction free, removal of dividers, scroll bars, text rendering

* Great syntax highlighting (I'm a solarized fan and it's implemented very faithfully)

* Originator of some very good and well implemented ideas (AFAIK) - Crtl+Shift+P, Distraction Free, Document Map

* F12 to go to the definition of the function / method

[1]: [http://txfx.net/2014/11/08/my-sublime- text-3-packages/](http://txfx.net/2014/11/08/my-sublime-text-3-packages/)

</comment><comment><USER12> Software developers are such a bunch of minging cheapskates. Giving the potential for high earnings it is a wonder why so many developers are so stingy. Paying $5000 - $10000 for a set of tools which their living depends on seems to be so much why?

How much do builders, cab drivers for instance, pay for their tools? Why does a group of people who consider themselves to be a profession have so much problem paying for tools? How much does a doctor, a lawyer, or dentist need to shell out in order to start practising?

This attitude among software developers needs to change. It is no wonder so many software tools are of such poor quality.

I am sure a lot of Sublime and Textmate users easily pay $100 for a night out on the town, so why should paying such an amount for a tool their living depends on be such a big issue.?

<comment><USER13> It might be the same for other professions if the tools were able to be obtained without payment. You'd think that people who make their living producing software that must be paid for to pay them that they wouldn't begrudge someone who makes their professional life all that much easier. (I paid for Sublime Text)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I paid for it. It's incredibly useful and I use it every day, and since I expect to get paid for apps I release, why would someone else's work be different?

</comment><comment><USER15> I paid, since I use it professionally. Just like I would donate to useful open source software if they have an option for this. They do the same to my apps...

</comment><comment><USER16> I did pay. It's a great product and nag screens annoy the hell out of me too.

</comment><comment><USER17> I paid for it. Because I want to support the developer. Same as I do with music.

</comment><comment><USER18> I paid since it's a tool I'm using on more or less on a daily basis.

</comment><comment><USER19> Honestly, I perceive the price as too high, even though I use it day in and day out.

The price is also above my imaginary software impulse buy level. If it were $19, I would have already impulse bought a copy.

If it turned into trialware that disabled features after a certain amount of time, I'd ditch it and use another editor. Lame, but I'm being honest.

<comment><USER20> I bought it because I use it. Every. Single. Day. So, almost any price is worth a tool that is used constantly and delivers untold benefit. It might not be the same for you; you might not get as much value out of it as I do. But if its something you truly use "day in and day out" how can you not purchase it? It just makes good sense.

Listen, good tools are hard to come by and supporting those tools helps to ensure that they are there when you need them. Not supporting something that helps you make money endangers your ability to continue to make money. That's my $.02

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I was always intending to pay for Sublime but I no longer use it, now using vim for all of my editing needs.

Opinions on nagware aside, Sublime is a good tool and I did feel bad about using it to make a living and not contributing.. but I was also afraid to get too attached to a closed source editor. I think maybe sublime is kind of in a deadzone of being a nagware text editor that is free to use, but not an IDE with a huge feature set for an ecosystem that requires it, or an IDE that accesses some kind of propeitary vender-locked tech stack. For everything that's good about it, ultimately it's just a text editor and there are a lot of text editors of similar power out there if you're not looking for a sexy GUI.

So, I have no idea.

</comment><comment><USER22> My guess is that Jon Skinner was more interested in capturing users to help him make a great editor than in maximizing the capture of money from fewer customers.

If he wanted to maximize the capture of money, instead of nagware it should be a exploding trial, perhaps for days of use instead of calendar days.

Probably the right price for Sublime Text is $49/year with upgrades included or, if not tecnically feasible, $99 permanent with no upgrade discounts. It might seem counterintuititive not to offer upgrade discounts, but Someone who has paid you once the full price is a lot more likely to pay you again the full price for a new version, especially at sub-$100 price point.

</comment><comment><USER23> most developers hate paying for development tools. thats just how it is.

I payed for Sublime a long time ago for 2 reasons: 1) if I'm publishing plugins for it, I should probably have a legit license for it. 2) It's the best text editor out there for me, period. I use it enough I owe it to Jon to buy a license.

That said, I doubt I'll pay for any future versions licenses. I don't want to rely on closed source tools, and the editor/IDE arena has always been one of the areas I can't seem to go totally FOSS. Hopefully atom continues to improve; I might switch over when 1.0 comes out.

</comment><comment><USER24> When I started using Sublime it seemed that the new version was just around the corner, and I thought there would probably be some sort of release (or near release) discount just around the corner as well.

Then the project went silent, came back, but had this weird we're back but we are mostly telling it to paying customers, so it was a bit confusing what was going on. I'm kinda still waiting to see if I should switch editor or if the release of sublime3 will reawaken the plugin ecosystem.

tl;dr: bad excuses.

</comment><comment><USER25> If they collect stats on this (and I'm sure they do!) the data will be skewed. I've purchased it twice over the last few years and feel entitled to download the free version everytime because I'll be on a new/formatted computer. It's just faster, but I've still technically paid.

</comment><comment><USER26> I have it but I don't use it much.. if at all.. I use Atom.. If the license was around half of what is it or if I can find an license on a discount I probably would and start using it regularly. It is not part of my daily routine.. For example I have IntelliJ license because this is what I use

</comment><comment><USER27> Because it's free and not that different? To clarify, I use and I don't pay; but am seriously considering; probably will pay once beta's over (I'm using the beta for version 3); definitely appreciate the tool; I really enjoying using Sublime tool.

</comment><comment><USER28> Im a casual coder and love the built in features, but never paid because I never identified as a full time developer. I always thought I would pay for it once I needed all the time, but that never happened.

Now I use Atom, not the same hot keys but good enough for a few docs a month.

</comment><comment><USER29> I haven't paid for it yet, but have used for a couple of years. The reasoning was simply that v3 was about to drop, so I figured I'd wait for that before buying.

At this point though, I'm ready to move onto a more serious IDE.

</comment><comment><USER30> Great product I use everyday. If you like and use a tool support it. I paid.

</comment><comment><USER31> Is the premise of this question valid? I've noticed about a 50/50 split anecdotally. Does anybody know the real #s? (What % of users pay?)

</comment><comment><USER32> Because it's OSS, and there are at least 10 variation products also on the market, namely Brackets, Visual Studio Code, ATOM, etc.

<comment><USER33> no its not?

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I paid, and I use it daily, but I have noticed the drop-off in support lately.

</comment><comment><USER11> Please could someone correct the grammar in the question?

</comment><comment><USER35> why would i pay $70 when i can get 75% of the features for free (textmate, textwrangler)

<comment><USER36> Depends how much you value the other features - if my professional time is worth $100k/year and sublime makes me more than 0.07% more efficient compared to using another editor than spending $70 yearly or less might make sense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Why use Sublime at all if you have vim and emacs?

<comment><USER38> Why use emacs or vim if you have ed?

<comment><USER39> Why use ed if you have cat?

<comment><USER40> Why use cat if you have a magnetized needle and a steady hand?

<comment><USER41> Why use a magnetized needle and a steady hand when you have an IBM 029 keypunch station?

<comment><USER42> Abacus. Fingers of two hands. Sand or clay to write on. ...

<comment><USER43> Don't write at all.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


VICE's "Shop a SOPA" Copyright Hypocrite Hunt - <AUTHOR> http://www.vice.com/read/find-sopa-cosigners-copyright-violation

<comment><USER2> This is a great way to expose the danger of these bills. By recasting the sponsors as victims of their own folly, the fundamental problem is neatly and clearly illustrated.</comment>


Europe is not an entrepreneurial desert. The UK is an oasis. - <AUTHOR> http://thebln.com/2010/05/europe-is-not-an-entrepreneurial-desert-the-uk-is-an-oasis/

<comment><USER2> This article is not wort reading strictly by the title alone. If Europe is not a desert, how can the UK be an oasis? Pretty much by definition the UK being the oasis extends and strengthens the desert metaphor.

<comment><AUTHOR> My bad. I meant it to read that Europe is not a desert but the UK is definitely an oasis. It was a sort of paradoxical play on words that went a but wrong... Oops.

<comment><USER3> maybe...

While Europe is not an entrepreneurial desert, UK is still an oasis.

I dunno it strikes me as too clever by half, why not just go trollin' with the UK is an entrepreneurial oasis in the European desert (or something). Probably gets more clicks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Angel investment in the US: 16 billion Euro

Angel investment in the EU: 200 million Euro

50% of that was in the UK

<comment><USER5> Maybe the culture in Europe is to avoid building a business structure that requires angel investment?

<comment><USER6> Fair enough. Let's look at the number of employed people in the EU and the US over time. IIRC, the US has a better first derivative. (The US has fewer people, so the total number workers in the EU may be larger.)

Of course, one can have biz that don't require employees. And maybe one or both can't find employees for the biz that they have/want.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Also read: Still best to be in North America. I lived in Toronto for a year, I live close to London now, I know where I'd rather be.

</comment><comment><USER8> it's shouting: "English speaking people understanding english speaking people only" in my head ...</comment>


Ask HN: Best tips for finding a cofounder? - <AUTHOR>

I currently work for Google, which is a nice enough company, but there are enough signs of change that I'm beginning to plan my next move. I've wanted to work for myself and build something awesome for quite a while now, and after saving my Google bonuses, I think I have the runway I need to do it.
Just one problem: I don't know anyone interested in being my partner on this. I know from my own experience that I work better with someone to work with and bounce ideas off of, someone who's just as invested in the project as I am. I've read pg's essays; they tend to suggest finding someone while you're in grad school. I went to a crappy state college and dropped out before I got my bachelor's. I don't regret that -- heck, look where I am right now -- but it does mean grad school isn't in the cards.
So what would you suggest for finding like-minded people? I live in San Francisco and work in Mountain View. I've gone to a few "cofounder meetups" but typically just find your stereotypical "idea guys". I don't need to find someone right now; I'm just trying to set things up so by the winter 2013 cycle, I'll know who my cofounder is. <comment><USER2> Didn't see contact info in your profile. Shoot me a message: firstname.lastname@example.com</comment>