America's Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/02/21/magazine/elite-professionals-jobs-happiness.html <comment><USER3> I just don't understand this at all. If you can earn a million a year, do it for 3-5 years, never have to work again, and pursue your passions in life.

I think the problem for most workers is the lifetime of toil, not the meaninglessness of the work.

I'd happily dig ditches for 8-12 hours a day for 3 years if I knew I was completely financially independent with millions in the bank that. Actually, I'd rather do that than write code. At least I'd be getting a workout.

As it is now, I write proprietary software for much less than those featured in the article, work is miserable, and I've still got maybe 10-15 years to go.

Am I in the minority here?

<comment><USER4> Have you actually dug ditches for a few weeks? It's a popular rhetorical device but I wonder how many engineers have actually done stints of hard labor.

<comment><USER5> I have, yes. I've also framed homes, roofed homes, and water proofed basements. I spent some time landscaping. I've held a variety of manual labor jobs, from working fields to construction to warehouses and factory floors to the military. Today, I'm a team lead and senior software engineer.

I'd also rather be outside again all day, working with and alongside people, physically and towards goals we can visualize, doing tasks that we all understand well and can articulate in an accurate way, and cultivating a genuine sense of camaraderie. Not the sort of weird brogrammer nonsense that is frequently encountered in our industry and which is oftentimes confused with camaraderie.

I pull a lot of my previous lives experience in to my work today and I spend a lot of time working very closely with my colleagues, but it's not the same. I don't end a day with the same sense of purpose or belonging that I experienced with physically demanding jobs. I got close, once, but it was a shared experience between myself and one colleague, as opposed to a team, and it was because of circumstances that aren't exactly repeatable in a meaningful way.

edit/ Of course, the above is making some assumptions that probably don't hold. There is genuinely something that I miss from physically demanding work that can't be found or replicated with the work that I do today (or, perhaps it's just that I have failed to find or replicate it). But, I'm also dramatically better compensated and live a nearly fully autonomous life today, too. These are just the trade-offs that we make, I suppose.

<comment><USER6> Almost in the -exact- same boat, as if I could have written this comment myself. My favorite job, by far, was landscaping. Being outside all day, getting sun and exercise, and seeing your completed project were all very rewarding/valuable. I was in great shape, left work at work, and had no problem sleeping at night. It just doesn't pay well. I find working at computers all day rather depressing, at times pointless, and I can watch my health slipping. I really wish there was some kind of middle ground.

<comment><USER7> >> I really wish there was some kind of middle ground.

I think there is a market for a large, physically demanding computer keyboard. The keyboard 'keys' would require pressure from a full hand to activate, and the return and backspace keys could have a different type of lever action (pull to the side maybe). The operator would have to stand, which seems like a trend these days, and the PRO-version could come with a large inverted water bottle. Not joking about the keyboard, only half-joking about the bottle.

<comment><USER8> Repetative strain injury is already a common hazard of typing heavy proffesions. I'm not sure adding keyboard resistance is a good health move

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think we're focusing on the wrong thing here (broadly), which is mocking the guy making $1.2m a year. Yes, that's a lot of money, and almost all of us (myself included) struggle to see how to spend that money. But at the same time, I feel some empathy for that guy - he's increased his expenses proportionally and he feels trapped doing something he doesn't enjoy with no end in sight. I know I've moved my expenses up and to the right since graduating college and starting a professional job.

But all of this is a distraction - at the end of the article, the author speaks about the people who are happy and satisfied in their careers - <USER2> broadly it seems like people who have autonomy and a sense of purpose in what they do. I run a small business and broadly enjoy working, so things like the Financial Independence movement don't really make sense to me. More money, less money - this is not the crux of the issue. Engagement and autonomy are some of the keys to a fulfilling work life.

<comment><USER10> "Lifestyle inflation" doesn't necessarily just mean nice vacations and fancy cars - education expenses for children are often a _huge_ part of it.

In the major coastal metros, living in a great school district or paying for an equivalent-quality private school is a tremendous expense. Parents also feel pressure to save enough to send their children to the best college or university that they can get into, which can be a $300,000+ expense.

For many parents, these expenses are non-negotiable - "downsizing" in this area is off the table.

I think there's a fair case that these parents are locked in a society-wide arms race: everyone would be better off if the kids were under less pressure to get the "best" education credentials possible, but almost everyone thinks they would be worse off if they unilaterally "disarmed".

<comment><USER11> Granted I don't have kids - but that parents act like this seems utterly delusional to me.

Frankly, I think you're getting a below-average education if you're spending tens of thousands a year on it (before college). Private school, getting a seat at a public school in an expensive suburb - fuuuuuuuuck that. Those experiences are nowhere close to worth all that money, and honestly prevent the students involved from learning about the real world in important ways that they'll pay dearly for later.

Honestly, this is insane. Those parents are spending tens, hundreds of thousands of dollars on making their children worse-off. I know they'd probably disagree with me.

<comment><USER12> yes, the marginal utility of the "better" education is not generally worth the tens of thousands of extra dollars, whether it be novel instructional methods, extra time/attention, better credentials, or nicer, more advanced facilities.

but like most such situations, i suspect wealthy families are not simply buying better instruction, but rather exclusivity and esteem. the treadmill they're on is an attempt to maintain and improve their (apparent) social status.

money doesn't buy you a ticket off the treadmill. even the richest people jockey with each other for status. jumping off the treadmill means _social isolation_ and most folks can't stand that.

<comment><USER13> It is more that they're buying their kids a social circle that includes the kids of other elite families. They're not buying better math instruction, they're buying access.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> \- He had received an offer at a start-up, and he would have loved to take it, but it paid half as much, and he felt locked into a lifestyle that made this pay cut impossible. "My wife laughed when I told her about it," he said. Sounds like a good wife to me, and this "pay cut" is making 500k-600k instead of 1.2 million, what world are these people living in that you can't give up a job that you hate because you can't afford to live on 500-600k.

<comment><USER15> >what world are these people living in that you can't give up a job that you hate because you can't afford to live on 500-600k.

The one where you lock into a mortgage and a car that assumes a $1.2M salary to keep ahead of.

It's really easy to let your lifestyle expenses balloon, especially in a high- COL city where minor increases in living space/amenities can end up costing large amounts of money.

<comment><USER16> To consume $100k a month we need a $10-20 million dollar mortgage (50-100k/mo depending on years and rate). I have to assume a few cars, dining, etc would probably end up being $10-20k/mo so the mortgage is probably around $15 mil. So in NY or SF you are looking at something like a 1-2k sq/ft 2 bed 1 bathroom shithole apartment. Not so luxurious after all really.

<comment><USER17> I assume you're being sarcastic... a $15M shithole apartment! X^D

<comment><USER16> Yeah looks like I obviously touched a nerve with some people here I guess?

<comment><USER18> You didn't touch a nerve. You're out in bizzaro-land. $15MM in Manhattan will get you a brownstone on the Upper West Side.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The rich are depressed, the middle-class is shrinking and fearful, the poor are hopeless. I'm gonna take a leap here and say maybe people need some religion in their lives to give direction and meaning.

I found it interesting that a person in the article who made $1.2M a year was still depressed in thinking they were wasting their lives and it was all meaningless. I ask myself, does this person have children? a family to leave wealth to? or children to teach values to? I'm sorry but we have become so weak in our desire to satisfy only our own goals. That person's duty is to his family, and children (if he has any). His duty to society is to raise children with values that are compatible with the society. Religion instills this virtue and gives framework of how our actions on earth and our ability to reason and create is an imitation of "god" aka creation of existence.

<comment><USER20> > maybe people need some religion in their lives to give direction and meaning

I can't just accept dogma because I'm miserable. I can't just say 2+2=5 even if it would make me feel better. Religion isn't something you can just pick up like pilates. If life is inherently without meaning or direction, I'd rather go with that and be true to myself than refract the universe through some doctrine I understand to be false.

Self-knowledge, mindfulness, wisdom, spirituality, reflectiveness - I can make my peace with these. But I think it is bordering on unfair to proffer a deity as a solution to depression and anxiety.

<comment><USER21> Practicing regularly to increase self-knowledge, thinking spiritually, reflecting on your relation to the world – do you not consider that a religion? Organized Christianity is just one flavor.

<comment><USER22> > Practicing regularly to increase self-knowledge, thinking spiritually, > reflecting on your relation to the world – do you not consider that a > religion?

I'd call that mindfulness not religion.

<comment><USER23> Religion has been the guiding force for this kind of internal reflection and family/community thought. As religion has declined in many west societies, we haven't replaced them effectively.

We may not need more religion, but it sure seems like we need _something_. Building our society so heavily on economic expediency can't be healthy long term.

<comment> munk-a I'm in favor of more prolific philosophy circles. There is probably a group in your area that gets together regularly to discuss the works of different philosophers, join in and study up on some Kierkegaard and I think you'll find it gives you a lot of the same pay off.

<comment><USER23> I'm familiar with those kinds of meetings and family members that attend. I'm fortunate in that I work in a field that is very much service oriented (from a humanism point of view) that offers a lot of fulfillment and the opportunity to consider & and demonstrate my personal values.

My comments - I guess - are more generally focused. I feel similarly about male identify. We've walked back many aspects of traditional masculinity (often for good reason and for positive social benefits) but haven't - as a society - replaces them with alternatives. I think it leaves many young men without a positive vision for "what it means to be a man". These are opportunities, but I don't know how we can work through them without a distinct shared cultural vision for what we all want to be. Individualism has its downsides too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> So there are a few things to unpack here.

Some questioned how the guy couldn't live on 500-600k. There is some foundation for this. People do tend to spend up to their means. It can be easy to fall into the trap of thinking you "need" that $5m house, $150k/year in private schools, save up $1m/child to pay for 4+ years at an Ivy League school and so on when hardly any of that is true and trying to make it true is really what's making you miserable.

Fact is, if you'd be much happier in your job this will reflect on your family life and your children's lives much more than being able to go to Yale with no debt ever will.

The second thing is though, depending your career, you have to realize that you won't be earning $1m+ a year for 30-40 years. This isn't even necessarily about early retirement either. Think of pro athletes. Your earning window may be very small. You may also have to factor in luck. If you're a corporate lawyer, for example, you may not make it to partner or your firm may go under and that was really your one shot.

So having worked for now two big tech companies, I see these kinds of complaints about not being happy or not being paid enough or the like primarily from people who live in the Bay Area who have decided they need a 5 bedroom house in Palo Alto and all the aforementioned education expenses.

The fact of the matter is that the Bay Area is (IMHO) a pretty terrible place to live. The way I like to put it is people choice to live in the Bay Area to work for company X. Everywhere else pretty much they're working for company X because they live in city Y. The Bay Area probably has a high number of temporary residents. I've met more than a few people in tech who intend to "move home" in N years (where N is typically <7). To be fair, NYC probably has a fairly high number of temporary residents too (although my guess is less than the Bay Area).

Lastly, this article was written about MBAs. Honestly, if corporate politics isn't your thing it seems like they've picked the wrong career track. Or they've done it for the money and don't really enjoy it and that's a pretty stupid reason to do anything. I know some of my worst decisions have been made "because money".

</comment><comment><USER25> I have a lot of friends who originally went into finance in college to "save up" and then pursue their dreams. But once they started living the good life, things changed.

Before you know it, they have a gf/wife who expects the best. An expensive apartment in NYC with a great view they don't have the time to enjoy. And a job that's really a cage because they are addicted to the pay and they know if they leave, they won't be able to make the same amount of money.

It seems the longer you're in the system, the harder it is to leave and be willing to let go of that 5th avenue penthouse with stunning views and the "girlfriend who is hotter than the wildest dreams" or "dream artist boyfriend about to make his break". Sad but true

</comment><comment><USER26> I think a lot of people tend to see the issue from a lower-middle class perspective (economically speaking), this makes it very difficult to understand some of the different issues that can occur at that level. It is similar to someone living in a less developed nation looking at the things most people in the developed world sees as a necessity.

People make trade-offs, in some cases the perceived cost of making less money is: * Later retirement * Longer commute * Smaller house * Lower quality of life for the kids (no/limited private school, extracurricular, etc) * Limited network (which can mean power) * Decreased prestige in society (yes, society still see money as prestige) * Lower quality vacation * Less 'mating' options * Ability to provide to extend family & friends * Exchanging a stable income

People are afraid of change, "what if the lower wage means losing my wife?" "what if I realize that my new job wasn't what I hyped it to be and I can't get back to what I used to do?" The more you have (money in this case), the more you stand to lose.

</comment><comment><USER27> Statistics about income not making people happy are common. I wonder how wealth/savings affects it. If the $1.2 million worker hadn't inflated his lifestyle, he'd be free to take any job he wanted, or even perform his own job the way he thought best, safe in the knowledge that he would be financially fine if let go.

It seems that a lot of people who reach high incomes never maintain slack in their lives. As much as possible I've tried to keep expenses lower as my income grew. And to watch in advance what the big possible causes of such lifestyle inflation are: expensive real estate, expensive car, private school, large vacations or purchases made on debt with no plan to fund them, etc

The janitor study cited here is interesting, but I wonder if they controlled for disposition. Cheery people may simply be good at finding meaning in what they do, no matter what they do. And the opposite.

For instance, the fund manager could think "if I do my job well, I am allocating capital well and helping companies succeed and helping the economy grow faster than it otherwise would." I am sure that some content fund managers _do_ think that. But is it merely dispositional, in the same way that not keeping your expenses low may be dispositional?

<comment><USER28> Most things I have read previously showed that more money generally only makes people happier up to a certain point, somewhere around $80K. At this level it is possible (in most places) to not live paycheck to paycheck and have some savings and financial security. Above this level, nothing really changes except how expensive our things are.

Find meaning in your hobby or in your volunteering or your exploration of nature, not your work or your income bracket.

<comment><USER27> Yeah that's what I'm referencing. I'm just wondering if there'd be any difference if they measured wealth/surplus income. Like, is someone with a $40,000/year lifestyle happier with $150,000 salary than $80,000?

If you have that kind of surplus you experience a great freedom. You can seek a better job, you can retire early, etc

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> The article seems to be omitting an important piece of data: Are people who make more money less happy/equally happy/more happy than people who make less?

It _implies_ by its framing that they're less happy, but that's not actually supported by any actual data in the piece (though to be fair, on cursory googling I wasn't able to find any evidence one way or another).

<comment><USER30> > Are people who make more money less happy/equally happy/more happy than > people who make less?

This has been studied comprehensively over the years, that the results seem very clear: there is an ideal income level in terms of happiness. If you earn below or above that, you're probably sacrificing happiness.

The ideal income level depends on cost of living, but on average, in the US, that income level seems to be a bit north of $100,000/yr.

<comment><USER31> I saw right around $200k in then current dollars around 1990ish, and you weren't sacrificing above that, on average, it's just that increasing income above that point had no further correlation with happiness/satisfaction measures.

<comment><USER32> Per www.usinflationcalculator.com, that would be ~$385k in today's dollars.

<comment><USER33> $200k for a happier life, and more realistically $385k, make a lot more sense to me than the $70k that I saw floating around a few years ago.

The more you make, the better you can handle the 3 versions of yourself. The debt from the past, Food, clothes, shelter, and fun in the present, and savings for the future.

When I rented a cheap single bedroom and made 70k in the midwest I was living a "better life" than I do now making much more, saving much less due to a kid, house, safer (but modest) car, more insurance(s), etc.

Sneak attack lifestyle inflation!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Bullshit Jobs, a 2018 book by David Graeber, discusses this phenomenon pretty extensively and calls for more research. His rudimentary theory is that people who aren't contributing to society know that they aren't, and it makes them miserable. People have an inherent desire to change the world around them, and most professional jobs are actually mostly nonsense. This results in professionals being depressed and feeling hopeless.

There was one study the book cited, "Taxation and the Allocation of Talent", which was particularly interesting. As it's abstract says: "Estimates from the literature suggest that high-paying professions have negative externalities, whereas low-paying professions have positive externalities."[1]

As a successful lawyer who quit that profession and became a software engineer, writer, and startup founder, all of this really resonates with me.

The book is an outgrowth of a 2013 essay that got re-printed 100s of times and spurred some polling.[2] I recommend at least reading the essay. It has a lot of implications for economics, business management, and various other fields.

[1][https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/693393](https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/693393)

[2] "On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs: A Work Rant" [http://www.strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/](http://www.strikemag.org/bullshit- jobs/)

<comment><USER35> This article is like a watery, inoffensive version of Graeber for the author and his MBA classmates in the managerial class.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> > We want to feel that we're making the world better, even if it's as small a > matter as helping a shopper find the right product at the grocery store.

My question for HN is do you feel that the content you are working on makes a difference in your career satisfaction? Or do you just need to know that _someone_ out there is being benefited?

Is it just as fulfilling to work on a video game that flops (but maybe a few people still enjoy it) as it is to work on Fortnite where your code changes are used by millions?

Is it more satisfying to work on consumer facing iPhone apps like Apple Fitness where you are enabling millions of people to be healthier compared to working on a high frequency trading algorithm that makes a few people lots of money?

<comment><USER37> Speaking personally, the things that give me the greatest satisfaction are those where I feel I've done a good job from a perspective of craft. Even if the code itself doesn't do very much or will never really be seen, I get the greatest contentment from feeling I designed and put it together well. If I worked on a video game that didn't get traction but that I loved, was beautifully built and designed, I think I'd be happier than say, an online poker game.

I'd be lying if I didn't care at all, obviously I'd rather the app be used. There's a special feeling of showing something to someone completely outside tech, saying "I built this" and having them "get" it. Hence why I think consumer apps are also more satisfying than a high frequency trading algo.

EDIT: minor grammar/missing words

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> At least in my country (Argentina) I think that at a personal level (indoor) we are all OK, the problem is at a social level (outdoor).

I can think of several projects that would make me happy and 100% sure that they would improve my community as well. But I don't have time or wealth or mechanisms to deal with it. We are lacking community level organization, because it is really hard to do it well, without messing with corruption or ineptitude.

<comment><USER39> Interesting, what projects for example and how can you be so sure people would be interested ?

I tend to think that one kinda needs to exchange (i.e. not just give everything away) with others in order for the "improvements" one is looking for gets validated / get real time feedback.

<comment><USER38> As a clear example, We lack green areas in our cities by any measure. That's something that already have been done in many places and have 100% positive impact. You don't really need to innovate, just copy what have worked in other places.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I'd just like to add a thought - maybe happiness isn't all it's cracked up to be? I mean sure, we should strive to achieve a certain standard of living for everyone. But once you get to a certain point of "happiness", maybe it's the happiness itself which makes you miserable?

<comment><USER30> > I find I am at my best when things are not going perfectly and I am backed > against a corner.

I would suggest that such a situation makes you happy. Happiness does not imply the lack of struggle or difficulty. In fact, I think most people need struggle and difficulty in the mix in order to be happy.

<comment><USER40> That's fair and I do not disagree. But put another way - there is a large set of emotions out there of which happy is just a single member. But for some reason it is put on this pedestal as the holy grail. Maybe it's not? But I am getting pretty OT from the article so I apologize.

<comment><USER30> I agree. I think that generally when people are using the term "happy", they really mean "lack of misery".

I think a better term in the context of this discussion is "satisfaction" over "happiness".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I don't have much sympathy for someone who earns 1.2 million a year. No matter how bad it is, all you have to do is get your spending down to an absolute minimum and save up for 2 years, then you'll have over 1 million in the bank. Then move out to a nice midwestern town and live happily ever after.

I know it's really rough leaving all your friends and family and everything you know, but it's not as rough as being poor/homeless your entire life.

The meaning of life is to live (not work). The meaning of work is to make money. Money lets you live.

<comment><USER42> > Then move out to a nice midwestern town and live happily ever after.

That would be hell to most living in the 1%

<comment><USER43> But he's miserable in his current life, too. Maybe the problem is him, not his circumstances?

As long as he keeps wanting what he wants and doing what he's been doing, he's going to keep getting what he's been getting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> The richest people I know are definitely also some of the most miserable.

We've been sold a story that careers are a path to fulfillment, self actualization and empowerment. When in reality they are a soul sucking, near pointless burden that enriches investors, founders, execs and few others.

I love what I do for a living and I make a very healthy amount doing it. That being said, I see stay at home parents and think _they_ are the people actually living life to the fullest. It's extremely difficult being a parent but the rewards trump all the accolades and money in the world (imo).

I think the 20th century screwed up our value system via marketing and mass media. People lost sight of where true fulfillment comes from and lost the ability to think in the long term and work hard to get there. Focusing on your career so you can travel internationally and buy mid-century modern furniture for your Brooklyn 1bd is pure hedonism and I think people are starting to wake up to that fact.

It's worth watching the documentary The Century of the Self to see how some of this played out and was orchestrated by the media and marketers. It's very interesting and really shows you how developments in psychology and technology lead to corporations triggering hedonistic instincts to sell more product. It's a great watch:

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

<comment><USER45> Century of the Self was a mind-blowing tour de force. Highly recommend. Completely transformed my views on capitalism and consumerism.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> I think there was a Blind post a few weeks ago where 40% said they were depressed despite most making $300k-$600k/year

<comment><USER47> I think this is a quintessentially American slash Protestant-work-ethicy sentence. Why is anyone surprised that people who work so much that they don't have a life, meaningful relationships to other people or a vibrant social circle are depressed?

If you optimize for making lots of money, that's (hopefully? probably?) what you will achieve. But it's very misguided to think that having a lot of money is how you become happy. If you want to be happy, make time for your friends, family, people important to you, and spend time on yourself and what you like doing. It's not complicated.

<comment><USER46> The thing is I don't think a lot of these people actually work that much. If you're in a mid level engineering role at a FAANG you're not usually working 50-60+ hour weeks. You're actually probably underutilized and working on uninteresting tasks.

<comment><USER48> > But it's very misguided to think that having a lot of money is how you > become happy.

still applies

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Someone I know makes money at this level and the thing he worries about is that he doesn't have much control over it and if his marriage ends while he's still working, he's going to be on the hook for maintaining that lifestyle whether he wants to or not.

It's not what you make, it's how you make it, and whether it's ever really yours.

</comment><comment><USER50> The trick is to not fall into the trap of spending all the money you're making. Make a budget of how much you spend on rent, bills, and fun things, and don't bump it up each time you get a raise or a new job. Eventually, you'll find you're saving a lot of money. That gives you freedom and flexibility.

<comment><USER51> A big problem with lifestyle creep - IMO - is that the environment you're in, will/can influence you a great deal.

If you're a millionaire hanging around with avg. Joe's making $50k a year, then there's really no external forces to influence your habits. Your buddies aren't going to come around with their $300k sports cars, or invite you to their million dollar homes, and you won't be going to diners or clubs, spending thousands of dollars.

The more you see, and hang around those above things, the more normal they become. Peer pressure, even if not intentional, can be quite powerful.

If you're a $1.2MM fund manager / senior banker / law partner / management consultant / etc., then I'm gonna go ahead and assume that you:

A) Live in a very expensive city (NYC as stated in the article)

B) Mostly hang around with peers of your own socio-economic class. (Co-workers / business partners, clients, friends - friends of friends, social activities / clubs, etc.)

C) Are regularly exposed to expensive lifestyle events (expensive client diners, first class business trips, expensive homes, etc.)

All that stuff becomes so normal - it's easy to get sucked in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> "...an underlying sense that their work isn't worth the grueling effort they're putting into it."

Just because you've become wealthy doesn't mean that you find meaning in your work. Or, conversely, non-wealthy people can also fall into this syndrome.

There is certainly another population of people who started out and continued doing what they love and in the process became wealthy. It'd be interesting to identify and interview both groups and look for what makes the difference. For example, what about the Harvard MBAs who took control of a struggling company, turned it around and grew the workforce, putting more people to work and winning the allegiance of their customers. I'd guess that group would find much more meaning in that result than the bulk of the hedge fund group.

<comment><USER53> I think this is probably the biggest reason why people found startups: not money, but to actually work a fulfilling job they find real meaning in. Even if it fails, it's a lot more fun and interesting than being a cog in a machine trying to react to the fickle whims of 3-12 layers of managers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> I sometimes wonder if the problem is that we don't believe in anything in this country. Religion is on the decline, but we as a society haven't replaced it with anything meaningful. Nationalism is a swear word, jobs are performed with no loyalty (not to blame workers, we're treated pretty expendably), marriage is no longer sacred (don't like your partner? Just divorce and move on to the next!)...

What meaning can someone find in such a life? Good times create weak men, and weak men live in existential crisis. Perhaps we need hard times to grant the cure of purpose for our collective depression.

<comment><USER30> > we don't believe in anything in this country.

I haven't seen any indication that this is true.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> What matters more than income is wealth. When you become a high earner especially in cities like NYC and SF, you learn about the power of inter- generational wealth and the opportunities it affords. You see it every day. You become acutely aware about how unfair the world is, and how it will only become increasingly unfair as the truly wealthy entrench their power. Forget about lifestyle creep, if you are self aware parent who wants an easy life for their kids, you start having wealth creep. You don't just want to hit a number where you can retire in a low cost area. You want enough wealth to buy your kids access. Access you didn't have when you were clawing yourself up to a high income and would have made things alot easier. Access that eliminates the need for luck.

Inter-generational wealth could require you to leave behind 10M+ for 2-3 kids. A property each.

For those of you who scoff and say that is ridiculous, you probably don't share the paradigm that the world is unfair and becoming increasingly unfair to overly benefit the wealthy. Or you are fine with letting your kids fight for themselves in this world. I wish I didn't have the above paradigm, but I have seen TOO much and that is the worldview I have.

</comment><comment><USER56> I was just thinking about this in the bus.

Most of the time, it's not really the fault of politics making us sway one way or another. It's also the routine and the whole we-ve-always-done-things-this- way. Society is not always really competent and organized in a way that brings improvement, but it's not really the fault of anyone, it's just civilization being too rigid by definition. It's a communication problem.

</comment><comment><USER57> I wonder if the problem is simply exaggerated. Is this really only the case with white-collar Americans? I'd imagine that throughout the human history the vast majority of human beings have always been working like this, or even much worse, e.g. actual slaves who constituted a huge percentage of the population. Maybe it's just that there isn't that much of a tradition to talk about the problem that often, and now that our material comfort is quite advanced, we think about such issues more and more, which is a good thing. We're not quite there yet but at least we're rethinking our lives and trying to find solutions, instead of just passively accepting whatever is thrown at us.

</comment><comment><USER58> I have little sympathy for someone making $1.2m/year and complaining that they're depressed because of their job. If you hate your job so much on that income, just work for a year or two and leave! At that income there's no reason why he shouldn't have enough saved up to retire in a lower cost of living area (assuming this isn't his first job out of uni and he's not spending like a maniac). If not (or at least if he's not on track), then he's just being financially irresponsible and needs to cut down his expenses. You don't need that $4m penthouse or Lamborghini.

On another note, how does one land these $1.2m/yr jobs? That's over $3k/day, I couldn't even spend that kind of money if I tried.

</comment><comment><USER59> >> _He had received an offer at a start-up, and he would have loved to take it, but it paid half as much, and he felt locked into a lifestyle that made this pay cut impossible. "My wife laughed when I told her about it," he said._

Sounds like it's the wife that he needs to cut. Or he needs to do a better job of communicating his happiness to her. This is the type of marriage that ends up in divorce.

I just finished re-reading Drive by Daniel Pink. My book notes here: [https://parveenkaler.com/posts/drive-daniel- pink](https://parveenkaler.com/posts/drive-daniel-pink)

Using Daniel Pink's model, the characters in this story seem to be lacking 1) Mastery 2) Autonomy 3) Purpose in their work.

</comment><comment><USER60> I grew up on less than $10 per month for all expenses, including food, clothing and shelter. Now I'm worth $2MM+ at age 40 and an executive at Silicon Valley. I also have an Ivy League MBA. Money doesn't buy happiness, but it does solve for basic anxiety that arises when you don't know where your next meal is going to come from. There are things in life that money can't solve for, such as genuine love of a person, mental health, kid's health, family ego clashes.

</comment><comment><USER61> >> If you spend 12 hours a day doing work you hate, at some point it doesn't matter what your paycheck says

Bullshit. If someone earns $1.2 million per year, they can retire after 2 or 3 years. They have no right to complain. They're weak.

$1.2 million is the definition of eternal happiness. If you earn that, whatever emotion you feel in your life is called happiness. This emotion which their greedy brains interpret as sadness, my brain would interpret as euphoria.

<comment><USER42> > Bullshit. If someone earns $1.2 million per year, they can retire after 2 or > 3 years. They have no right to complain. They're weak.

that's the point, lifestyle creep means you hang out only with people that earn that too. it becomes normal, average even. and you can't dare step away

<comment><USER61> If it costs so much happiness to be around such people, I would stop seeing them because no human relationship could possibly be worth even a tiny fraction of that kind of happiness. That is some serious happiness.

How could a relationship with a person deplete the kind of profound, intrinsic, highly quantifiable joy that this kind of money brings? I can't imagine any kind of relationship which could do that for me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> 1\. There will always be unhappy people regardless of their income. 2\. Extreme population density is not for everyone. Just the sheer frequency of daily subconscious eye contact in a megapolis must be extreme by e.g. 50-100 years ago standard. There should be some self-limiting mechanism in human population. Maybe that's the factor provoking the unhappiness and decline.

</comment><comment><USER63> > Rather, they had learned from their own setbacks. And often they wound up > richer, more powerful and more content than everyone else.

This seems like wish fulfillment to me. Either things change a lot more than I think over 15 years but the so-called "gunners" that I know in their 30's are exceptionally more happy, well adjusted and wealthy than the non-gunners.

</comment><comment><USER64> I think the struggle to find meaning in jobs is correlated with just how abstract the jobs have become nowadays. Most people don't directly interact with their customers or they don't see any tangible effect of their work. Their work is so specialized and niche that they cannot figure out why the economic machine needs them doing this.

</comment><comment><USER65> It makes me smile that the janitorial staff at some large hospital can be so satisfied with their job.

</comment><comment><USER66> I often encounter this "wealth doesn't make you happy" sentiment... and I find it to be ridiculous. Of course wealth doesn't make you happy. Poverty however has a tendancy to wreak havoc on the mental health and well being of those who live under its oppression.

</comment><comment><USER67> Interesting that this article and the one below, about living a good enough life, were posted on the same day:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19218947](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19218947)

</comment><comment><USER68> Relevant: [https://www.cnbc.com/2015/12/14/money-can-buy-happiness- but-...](https://www.cnbc.com/2015/12/14/money-can-buy-happiness-but-only-to- a-point.html)

</comment><comment><USER69> I think the article dances around the point a bit, with its discussion of the greater satisfaction that comes from meaningful work. The implication is that finance is fundamentally meaningless, and it makes people miserable.

</comment><comment><USER70> How does the design of that page do anything but detract from the content and the reading experience? The NYTimes has a pretty decent boilerplate article template, they should just stick to it.

</comment><comment><USER71> This title seems to amply describe most of the people I met while living in the Bay Area - both around the Peninsula (MTV ~ Los Altos) where I lived and in SF.

</comment><comment><USER72> > The upper echelon is hoarding money and privilege to a degree not seen in > decades.

Is this another way of saying they're being offered high salaries and taking them?

</comment><comment><USER73> On a side note, I thought I stumbled on to Financial Times. This was the first article I read in NY Times in pink canvas.

</comment><comment><USER74> One of the best nuggets in this article, IMHO.

"There's no magic salary at which a bad job becomes good."

</comment><comment><USER75> [https://outline.com/hS54Lp](https://outline.com/hS54Lp)

</comment><comment><USER76> "he felt locked into a lifestyle that made this pay cut impossible"

That's all there is to it.

</comment><comment><USER77> This just in: "Money doesn't buy happiness"

Is this truly new or even newsworthy information?

</comment><comment> throwaway-1283 Everything is much easier if you decide not to have kids.

</comment><comment><USER78> if you can control your urges: make the $1.2Mil, live as you're making $150K and do it for x years. After that find a job you love.

</comment><comment><USER30> If the entire point of your work is to make money, your work is ultimately pointless.

(Not saying making money isn't important, but that it's not good for you if that's the primary goal.)

</comment><comment><USER79> People lost their spines. If your wife laughs if you want to take a hit in salary, consider a divorce, and so on.

</comment><comment><USER80> So just imagine their kids...

</comment><comment><USER81> This kind of thing blows my mind. If I were making that much money I'd work for 5 years and retire.

I sometimes wonder if that's why I don't make that much? Has anyone here done this and retired?

<comment><USER82> There are online communities and websites based on this idea. They call it FIRE, Financial Independence, Retire Early.

</comment></comment><comment><USER83> >"I feel like I'm wasting my life," he told me. "When I die, is anyone going to care that I earned an extra percentage point of return? My work feels totally meaningless."

Capitalists are realizing the fundamental emptiness of capitalism. It's hard to have a sense of purpose when your entire life is spent making a number on a spreadsheet into a slightly larger number for the benefit of someone even more elite than you.

<comment><USER84> If this is your thesis you'll have to explain how e.g. Communism totally did not have this problem.

<comment><USER83> I don't see how that follows but I'll answer anyway. One main difference is that the economic gains in a hypothetical alternate economic system could be distributed to you, your peers, and the needy in a more humane fashion instead of the majority of the gains concentrating to the elite.

<comment><USER84> What is this hypothetical system like, and how is it different from the ones that have been tried, whose proponents would describe in a way similar to what you just said, but have been shown to have the same emptiness problem you attribute to capitalism (as well as some others, like mass murder and economic collapse)?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER85> So just now the NYTimes is finding out that money can't outright buy happiness?

<comment><USER86> It can most certainly buy happiness if money was the only issues. Many other issues are usually introduced such as being a workaholic and making yourself miserable, love issues, lack of wholesome friendships, etc.

<comment><USER87> "Money can buy happiness if money could buy happiness"</comment></comment></comment>


HUI.js – JavaScript Front End UI Library in 657 Bytes - <AUTHOR> http://github.com/Horlahcoded/HUI.js <comment><USER2> Why would anyone prefer this over Handlebars or any other templating language loaded in via separate files over Ajax, which is much nicer on the eyes? This just seems to me like it can get very complex and spaghetti-like very easily.

<comment><AUTHOR> have you checked HyperScript?

<comment><USER2> I haven't, but just did. It's pretty much the same in that you create inline HTML in Javascript. I'm not saying this is wrong. I'm just wondering why would someone prefer this method to a file-based templates (like Handlebars).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for pointing that out, you can write your code in separate file then include in the HTML. i have updated the docs to note that.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Spain Gets its Own SOPA-Style Anti-Piracy Law For Shutting Down Websites - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/spain_sopa_law_shut_down_websites.php#.TwH0EtZRzfg.hackernews <comment><USER3> I've been saying this for a while now and it's only getting truer: the SOPA war is being lost because the people fighting against it have let hatred for their intellectual opponents compromise their case.

Rather than treat the other side as misguided everyone insists on treating them as evil. Using force as the only tool rather than trying to convince people.

Look at all the people who are STILL attacking GoDaddy! The point of a boycott is to give the company a chance to be in good standing again if they do what you want. If you then continue to attack after they've given in you remove any incentive for other companies to bend to your demands. This is very basic logic.

While on the other side the Media Companies are offering nothing but incentives. Read the last couple of paragraphs of the article. The Media Companies are rewarding Spain with all kinds of investments that they were holding up until the law gets passed.

I honestly think the media companies are going to give up on SOPA but only for PR reasons. They'll then slip each individual component into other legislation so it goes virtually unnoticed. That's what they did in Spain in that the SEL was a general law aimed at stimulus to maintain the economy not specifically about media (translate the "critics" section of this page: <http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ley_de_Econom%C3%ADa_Sostenible>).

But that's the problem with forcing people rather than convincing them. Eventually you have to look away and that's when they go back to doing exactly what you tried to stop.

<comment><USER4> Yes, as a long term strategy, that's definitely needed. And I also think we should write something like the Bill of Rights for the Internet.

But, for now, with so little time left, I think it's much more important to send the message that _any_ politician who supports SOPA can kiss goodbye to their political career. The same goes for companies supporting it - <USER2> short term and long term boycotts.

<comment><USER3> I don't see how this strategy could work. The reality is most people don't care about SOPA or even understand the consequences of it. No politician is going to get thrown out because of it (especially not with Media Companies money behind them allowing them to run ads on Abortion, Gay Marriage, and a bunch of other hedge issues that large portions of people actually do care about)

I mean, lets be honest here. The media companies can pump way more money into the system then SOPA opposers can take out with a boycott. If that weren't the case this battle would have been won long ago.

The only way you win this fight is by getting enough normal people to care about SOPA and that isn't accomplished through boycotts. It's accomplished by talking to people outside the insular tech community.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The article contains numerous inaccuracies.

Statistics that Spain has a special problem of piracy are known to be fabricated by RIAA's cousin.

BTW, the formed head of that organization is on trial for massive corruption.

The complain is not about a judge closing a website. That was always possible. Instead the law allows an _administrative_ comission to close a web without a judge approving it, thus the outrage.

P2P as such, without profit, is simply legal. On the other hand, in Spain until today, an illegal "tax" (forbidden by EU Supreme Court recently) was applied to any hardware with the excuse that it can store protected works.

<comment><USER6> _Statistics that Spain has a special problem of piracy are known to be fabricated by RIAA's cousin._

But are also supported by a 15 minute conversation with anyone who lives here - piracy is utterly rampant to a degree I've never seen anywhere else. I was shocked when I came here.

<comment><USER5> Oh, please, if you accept that stats are fabricated, how can you defend such an anecdotic "evidence"? That's been a lie that everybody has come to believe after mass media has been uncritically funneling SGAE's propaganda.

<comment><USER6> I didn't say I accept that the stats are fabricated - I don't know. I'm quite sure that the SGAE are totally corrupt, but equally I'm sure that piracy is rampant here to a degree I have never seen anywhere else (I've lived in Spain for 6 years BTW). My friends never buy any music and generally joke about how much they pirate. I know a lot of people from different walks of life and this is totally widespread in my experience. You can write it off as anecdotal if you like (or you could provide some stats to the contrary) but I'm sure it's true.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


It's Google's world, we just live in it - <AUTHOR> http://www.techradar.com/us/news/internet/its-googles-world-we-just-live-in-it-1137408 <comment><USER2> Submitter looks a lot like a spammer for Future, owners of TechRadar.com and MaximumPC.com. They love spamming HN, and aside from this submitter they also use:

<https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=justinbkerr>

<https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=fanze100>

<https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=MadMaxx></comment>


Katran: A high-performance layer 4 load balancer - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/facebookincubator/katran <comment><USER2> So before anyone gets excited about using this, XDP has to be enabled at the driver level to work, because basically is allows you to write your own program to handle incoming packets from the driver, taking the kernel out as the middle man. The list of supported drivers is small:

[http://prototype- kernel.readthedocs.io/en/latest/networking/...](http://prototype- kernel.readthedocs.io/en/latest/networking/XDP/implementation/drivers.html)

I'm actually working on porting XDP into the Xen net front end driver to see if I can't get something like this working in AWS. If I do it, I'll likely post an example about it here:

[https://github.com/newtools/ebpf](https://github.com/newtools/ebpf)

As an aside cloudflare is using that repo for an XDP load balancer as well.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is where Facebook actually does some good... their open source efforts are really good...

[https://github.com/facebookincubator](https://github.com/facebookincubator) And... [https://github.com/facebook](https://github.com/facebook)

<comment><USER4> Their papers[1] are also quite good.

[1] - [https://research.fb.com/publications/](https://research.fb.com/publications/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> An interesting idea to load balance at L4 so as not to terminate the TCP sessions (for speed). Normally this constrains the network rather as you can't route the output packets normally after that (they need to be routed to a vLAN) but encapsulating with IPIP means the load balancer output can go straight back into the normal routing layer.

Not constraining the output of the load balancer to a single vLAN really helps for larger networks.

Reading the readme I see they've made every effort to process the packets as little as possible to it seems likely that this will run at line speed.

For L4 the main competitor is LVS which scales pretty well in my experience but probably not as well as this.

</comment><comment><USER6> They talk about being compatible with RSS.

What is RSS in this context, ? My guess is that it's not this RSS [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS) because I do not see how/why you should need any rule at L4 to maintain compatibility with an XML based protocol.

Is it possible they talk about : [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_interface_controller#R...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_interface_controller#RSS) ?

<comment><USER7> Receive Side Scaling, not the syndication format :)

There's more info at [https://code.facebook.com/posts/1906146702752923/open- sourci...](https://code.facebook.com/posts/1906146702752923/open-sourcing- katran-a-scalable-network-load-balancer/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> What is the difference with IPVS kernel module in Linux? Both are layer 4 load balancers and IPVS has come a long time and is proven to be good. Any performance comparisons available?

<comment><USER2> IPVS cannot be dynamic like XDP can, which can be powered by a reactive bpf program. XDP bypasses every kernel function and basically takes over packet processing at the driver level, so the performance tends to be pretty good. Julia Evans wrote a blog post and has some performance numbers at the bottom of her post: [https://jvns.ca/blog/2017/04/07/xdp-bpf- tutorial/](https://jvns.ca/blog/2017/04/07/xdp-bpf-tutorial/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Fun project. Would anyone actually ever run something like this in production over something like HAProxy?

<comment><USER10> Congrats, you won HN humor of the day award.

FYI, Facebook runs Katran in production: [https://code.facebook.com/posts/1906146702752923/open- sourci...](https://code.facebook.com/posts/1906146702752923/open-sourcing- katran-a-scalable-network-load-balancer/)

<comment><USER11> Yeah, but will it scale to the 9 billion users my growth chart has me at by year 3?</comment></comment></comment>


Inside Coinbase's Executive Turmoil: Conflicting Visions - <AUTHOR> https://www.theinformation.com/articles/inside-coinbases-executive-turmoil-conflicting-visions?pu=hackernews4fm0af&utm_source=hackernews&utm_medium=unlock <comment><USER2> The article doesn't take sides but I will. They're better off without Balaji Srinivasan. His startup Earn.com was a pivot of an earlier startup 21.co which was transparently stupid. Earn.com was also bad and didn't deserve an exit. I suspect shenanigans orchestrated by Andreesen Horowitz there.

Coinbase's expansion into regulatory gray areas threatens their main competitive advantage as the safest and most stable large regulated crypto business. If they keep chasing that sweet ICO scam money instead of focusing on compliance and institutional investment it will destroy them in the end.

<comment><USER3> > His startup Earn.com was a pivot of an earlier startup 21.co which was > transparently stupid. Earn.com was also bad and didn't deserve an exit.

Would you mind elaborating? Genuinely asking, I can't find much about this from Googling, most of the coverage is around the acquisition.

<comment><AUTHOR> Might be regional differences in Google results. Quick googling from North America yields the following results about 21.co's initial bitcoin chip design & mining operations[1], and then the pivot to Earn.com "social network tokens"[2][3]; also in Balaji Srinivasan's own words[4].

[1] [https://techcrunch.com/2015/05/18/what-is-21-co-really- doing...](https://techcrunch.com/2015/05/18/what-is-21-co-really-doing-an- excerpt-from-digital-gold/)

[2] [https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/20/21-co-announces-a-token- sy...](https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/20/21-co-announces-a-token-system-to- get-people-to-join-its-paid-messaging-network/)

[3] [https://www.coindesk.com/meet-earn-com-21-rebrands-social- ne...](https://www.coindesk.com/meet-earn-com-21-rebrands-social-network- shift-away-bitcoin)

[4] [https://medium.com/@balajis/the- turnaround-2d145589d814](https://medium.com/@balajis/the- turnaround-2d145589d814)

<comment><USER3> I found articles about _what_ the companies were, but didn't see much on why they were so bad that they don't deserve an exit and that their badness is enough to declare that Coinbase is better without the founder. Plenty of companies fail, but do something interesting enough to justify an acquisition solely focused on ensuring the founder works for you.

<comment><USER4> 21 spent years talking about their secret revolutionary new mining chips, which ended up being a lot worse than the chips made by smaller scrappier companies. They raised over 100 million dollars, and probably lost most of it mining unprofitably.

There's nothing wrong with a failed startup, but this was a poor copy of miners and mining chip producers with much less funding and in some cases bootstrapped to profitability. The only thing that set 21 apart was an amazing ability to razzle-dazzle VCs.

After failing to mine Bitcoin profitably themselves, 21 came out of stealth mode with a staggeringly stupid product: mining chips for toasters. The idea was that you would buy a toaster (or lightbulb or something) with one of 21's mining chips and it would waste energy while mining miniscule amounts of Bitcoin. This was ridiculous on its face, since the amount of Bitcoin that could be mined on these chips was far less than you could simply buy for the cost of the electricity (not to mention the chip itself). Also, this amount was too small to even be transferred, given Bitcoin's transaction fees!

I'm not exaggerating, this product was never, and could never be viable. Still Balaji was able to razzle-dazzle the tech press into trumpeting it as some sort of innovation.

Once this failed, they re-branded as Earn.com and started making a grab-bag of Bitcoin hackathon projects, such as paying you Bitcoins for reading spam, or answering quizzes. This was always an extremely uninspiring and ultimately non-viable product, but at least it wasn't complete vaporware.

Then Coinbase, a very successful and competent company, threw away $100 million to help 21's VCs recoup their failed investment. The only explanation that seems rational is that Balaji had some very compromising footage of Brian Armstrong at the a16z holiday party.

I'm not sure about his past career (some biotech thing), but Balaji's legacy in crypto is to waste enormous amounts of money on blatantly ridiculous boondoggles. It's unfortunate that Coinbase wasted so much time and money perpetuating this.

<comment><USER5> I followed these guys pretty closely back then and this is close to my recollection as well.

One addition I had to check on, which confused me at the tilt was how Balaji was so closely involved in 21 yet also a partner at Andreesen Horowitz, which I had read about their daily and weekly routine and was clearly a full time job.

Balaji went from founder to "advisor" of 21 pretty quickly, becoming a partner of a16z in the interim. After things went to shit at 21 he went back as full time CEO. Reasons for how that went down are speculative. The results are not though. The exit is real but wow is it questionable. Conflicts of interest seemingly all over the place. I don't know who else is on Coinbase's cap table but I'd love to hear their takes on the acquisition.

You can read Balaji's congratulatory take in his own words on what he did here. [0]

I also recall Balaji positioning himself for a position in the Trump administration which saw him scrub his entire twitter history. If anyone recalls more details from that episode feel free to add them.

[0] [https://medium.com/@balajis/the- turnaround-2d145589d814](https://medium.com/@balajis/the- turnaround-2d145589d814)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It sounds like this is a great example of how 1 bad hire can destroy an entire company. It sounds like Brian Armstrong is not suited to be a CEO. If you don't have your own clear vision for the company, and instead leave it to your subordinates it's only natural that you'll end up with multiple people pulling in different directions.

<comment><USER7> > It sounds like this is a great example of how 1 bad hire can destroy an > entire company.

It sounds like this is a very myopic view. My favorite quote is quite apt here "Assigning single factor causation to the output of complex adaptive system is a triumph of hope over experience."

Here's my theory - Coinbase had explosive growth largely due to tailwind effects of the BTC craze several years ago. Since crypto trading has basically flattened coupled with competitors entering the market, then Coinbase is likely no longer growing and may in fact be doing less revenue than it was previously. Company's start to scramble when they cease to grow. Stakeholders double down. Employees start looking elsewhere. Executives make brash decisions based on emotions. etc etc.

<comment><USER8> > Company's start to scramble when they cease to grow. Stakeholders double > down. Employees start looking elsewhere. Executives make brash decisions > based on emotions. etc etc.

However also similar stuff is happening in growing companies because of other factors. Also companies often survive quite well even if they don't grow that much.

To me it seems like coinbase is still in a very sweet spot. Crypto markets are not going away, and coinbase helds massive first-mover advantage. No matter how much they will fuck up on exec level, they will probably still make good revenues if they just can keep their current service running.

<comment><USER9> > However also similar stuff is happening in growing companies because of > other factors. Also companies often survive quite well even if they don't > grow that much.

That is true but in the crypto scene there were many [extreme] layoffs and closings connected to the last "crypto winter". We can mention big names like ConsenSys, Bitmain, Steemit, SpankChain, and ShapeShift so it is not difficult to think that Coinbase was also impacted.

<comment><USER8> SpankChain, wtf is that?

Anyway, I don't think crypto winter should be a problem for most exchanges. Unless you predicted future way off and hired too much on 2017 rally. Before 2017 volumes were minisculous compared to 2018 still - business should be good unless the company spent money like crazy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Every crypto company is trying to find the right balance is between innovation and (perceived) compliance, so it's less that there's "conflicting" visions as to where to draw the line, per se, and more that Coinbase hired way too many extreme type A C-level executive types in a short period of time in 2018. When you add a bunch of new leaders all at once you're going to get conflict.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm surprised to hear there was a conflict. It seemed to me like they were going with the corporate finance direction.

I left Coinbase when they gated basic payments behind an additional level of verification. They blocked you from sending crypto in Coinbase, but either forgot or ignored that you can transfer to GDAX and send it off anyway.

</comment><comment><USER12> "Why not both?"

The problem seems more like that those executives had little people skills (empathy, negotiation, non-violent communication, etc.), or no incentives to apply them, rather than a fundamental issue with pursuing multiple goals at once.

</comment><comment><USER13> OT: Recently quite a few really great articles by The Information have surfaced at HN. Probably because of the generous "unlocking" of otherwise pay- walled content. Per [0] they are apparently self-financed:

> Unlike most other news sites, we don't have venture capital or corporate > owners. I own the publication.

Although their stories provide high value information to high value individuals / decision makers [1], I feel genuinely happy to see an example of a new good quality original journalistic platform surviving. Or perhaps even thriving.

[0]: [https://www.theinformation.com/about](https://www.theinformation.com/about) [1]: Compared to stuff like investigative local news where the monetary value of a single story is so much lower, but perhaps requiring similar amounts of journalistic effort.

<comment><USER14> This is a well-written article, and I do love good journalism. But I am personally skeptical of The Information, because the person who owns it is literally in bed with a founder/VC: [https://www.theinformation.com/reporters/sam- lessin](https://www.theinformation.com/reporters/sam-lessin)

My skepticism is compounded by the fact that his startup repeatedly spammed me at an address I give only to friends, and I definitely never gave to him. I presume he pulled it out some mutual friend's address book when they signed up for his startup. But despite many rounds of discussion, they'd never tell me how they got that address. And after all that discussion, he then started spamming it from his VC fund.

<comment><USER15> Just file a GDPR request

<comment><USER14> Can I do that as an American?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> <kraken-first-employee>Contingencies' capitalist pizza rule: For any group of humans larger than one pizza can feed, greed will eventually trump idealism.</kraken-first-employee>

Now, who's for robotic noodles? :)

<comment><USER17> what so two people?

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> My view:

The entire cryptocurrency ecosystem is fundamentally a grift, so it's not surprise that we see lots of unsavory behavior: power grabs, people cashing out early, an unwillingness to work together, a lack of coherent vision. And that's not even getting into the outright fraud and massive theft we've seen at other crypto exchanges.

When there is no long term, because it's all just a scam, you do whatever you've got to do to make your money in the short time available to you.

<comment><USER8> Oh, please tell me how that kind of activity is nonexistant in non-crypto companies. Come on, this same stuff happens everywhere where money is involved.

<comment><USER19> > _Oh, please tell me how that kind of activity is nonexistant in non-crypto > companies._

It's not that unethical and illegal activities don't happen at non- cryptocurrency companies, but you don't have to be paying a lot of attention to see that it's happening at a very different scale among cryptocurrency companies.

<comment><USER8> If you look for example at this story, it is not about being unethical. More like leadership problems with coinbase.

What would you consider vastly unethical that coinbase has done? And vastly different scale than traditional finance companies?

To me as their customer their have been always simple and transparent, the fees have been simple to understand and visible, etc. Can't say same about traditional finance companies I have been using.

<comment><USER19> > _What would you consider vastly unethical that coinbase has done?_

I was responding to harryh's thread about the cryptocurrency ecosystem in general rather than Coinbase specifically, which I perceive to be about as trustworthy as cryptocurrency exchanges get.

That may not be a _super_ high bar :^) so I appreciate you sharing your experience.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Technology to the Endangered Language Rescue? - <AUTHOR> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alissa-stern/technology-to-the-endange_b_6225900.html

<comment><USER2> I would add cartoons to the list. As a Kyrgyz native (and a Kyrgyz speaker living in Kyrgyzstan), I want my son to use our language in everyday life. But the cartoons he loves are all in Russian. Plus, almost all of his classmates use Russian as their primary language (though they are taught in Kyrgyz). It's amazing (and at the same time, quite depressing) that he's learned Russian himself, though we never use Russian at home. It's also depressing when he asks "how to say X in Kyrgyz"? (X = a_russian_word). This is the power of cartoons. There are some enthusiasts, dubbing russian-dubbed cartoons into Kyrgyz in a "pirate-way", since it costs ~150K[1] to professionally dub a film. I would also add to the article that film studios (Disney etc.) would greatly support minor languages by launching "special program" for endangered and/or minor languages. Like, "hey, here are source files and style guides, quality audio files/recording environment [light] requirements, please, feel free to send us dub files and we'll launch the cartoon in your language for you".

1\. [http://www.altynkyran.kz/rus/novosti/?cid=0&rid=63](http://www.altynkyran.kz/rus/novosti/?cid=0&rid=63)

PS Interesting articles

Disney Character Voices International (these guys are the ones who choose what languages to dub into) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney_Character_Voices_Interna...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney_Character_Voices_International)

Language Issues and Disney's Frozen "Let It Go" Multilanguage Video [http://nataliejonckheere.com/language-issues-and-disneys- fro...](http://nataliejonckheere.com/language-issues-and-disneys-frozen-let- it-go-multilanguage-video/)

How dubbing works. [http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/20...](http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2010/01/avatar_in_spanish_or_french_or_german.html)</comment>


Ask HN: Does type safety matter for a web app? - <AUTHOR> Is it worth using a web framework written in a type safe language? <comment><USER2> I don't think web vs non-web makes a difference for whether or not you should choose a type-safe language. IMO, you should err toward type safety whenever possible. It's way nicer for your toolchain to catch errors before a user does.

Even PHP is moving in that direction. If the PHP community can embrace type safety, I'm certain that you can :)

</comment><comment><USER3> Type safety matters insofar as it (arguably) makes development a lot easier.

So I guess that _indirectly_ has an effect on the webapp, but your users will not care what tech stack you use.

</comment><comment> a-saleh Way I think of it is more of a design-decision.

If I am comfortable with a more powerful typed language, it can do so much of the heavy-lifting for me, i.e: I used PureScript for a toy project and using type-directed search and type-safe routing and json deserialization was awesome.

I would put Elm and ReasonML/Ocaml into simmilar bucket (maybe even haskell with ghcjs and its reflex-frp library :)

On the other hand I would rather write pure javascript than try to compile golang to wasm (even though I know of people that are happy with that :)

I have no strong opinion on typescript.

Disclaimer: I have never had to maintain any web-page I wrote, all of them were toy project and I writhe python and go backend-services at work :D

</comment><comment><USER4> You want to use TypeScript? Does it run natively in the browser?</comment>


Choosing the Wrong Lane in the Race to 5G - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/choosing-the-wrong-lane-in-the-race-to-5g/ <comment><USER2> High band internet just isn't very practical as a replacement for wired internet in most of the country, but everyone wants ignore our broadband infrastructure issues because 5g will save us.

<comment><USER3> Using smaller cells is great for servicing more people on the same frequency. When signals don't go as far, you have fewer other people to contend with for space to send. In the real high-density places, this makes a lot of sense. If you can stick with bigger cells, that is obviously cheaper.

<comment><USER2> In the majority of the country that isn't high density, high band doesn't make sense and point of the article is that there isn't enough mid band frequencies being auctioned off.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Did anyone else think there was a race?

How about just 4G? Can we get consistent nationwide 4G? I'd be pretty happy with that.

<comment><USER5> In my tiny EU country, 4G already covers 99% of the population and unlimited data plans for homes are available from 19 EUR / month. Yet, nobody is talking about 5G or the urgent need for it.

<comment><USER6> > In my tiny EU country, 4G already covers 99% of the population and unlimited > data plans for homes are available from 19 EUR / month.

Mine as well - in peak hours you're lucky to get close to 1MB/s in two bigger cities I've lived in. Also latency spikes even when the bandwidth is OK. Don't know how much 5G will help with all of this but 4G is not a good option as a primary internet connection if you work online and any upgrades would be very welcome.

<comment><USER7> That sounds like the backhaul is congested, which 5G won't do anything about at all. The good news is, it's likely much easier to upgrade the backhaul than it is to change up all the radio hardware - it's simply a decision your mobile provider/ISP has taken to _not_ do it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The military owns that part of the wireless spectrum. The DoD did a study which said the military should cede control of it for that reason. This is one of the main reasons the US hasn't adopted 5G in the "sub-6" space (3 and 4 GHz bands primarily).

The strategic problem is that the US will be fundamentally different from the rest of the world, basically ceding 5G ownership to China. No one will want to go along with our broken 5g spectrum adoption and the US will find it hard to get cheap components. Along with a host of other issues like national security, integration with other nations etc.

[https://media.defense.gov/2019/Apr/04/2002109654/-1/-1/0/DIB...](https://media.defense.gov/2019/Apr/04/2002109654/-1/-1/0/DIB_5G_STUDY_04.04.19.PDF)

One thing this opinion article got wrong is the US govt is trying to make more spectrum available via a plan called 5G FAST. So it's not like the problem is being entirely ignored. There are plans to open up huge blocks of the spectrum to companies.

[https://www.fcc.gov/5G](https://www.fcc.gov/5G)

It is likely that the future of 5G in the US is a mix of spectrum, some providing the ultra fast connections for urban areas and mid range spectrum for more spread out areas. But it's looking like we will surely lose the race to become a leader in that space.

</comment><comment><USER9> > The United States, however, has made zero mid-band spectrum available at > auction for the 5G economy.

This is simply not true. Being an employee of Dish at the time, I happen to know that Dish spent over a billion dollars buying spectrum in the 600 Mhz (low-mid) range in 2018 and they were told they must monetize the spectrum by 2020 if they wish to keep it. Dish has a strong hold on rural America and is definitely keeping them in mind when it comes to 5G.

</comment><comment><USER10> >They are also not penetrating walls or windows, making indoor coverage difficult.

Not even windows? That's just straight up bizarre. I foresee a frustrating future of a billion small blind spots ahead for our American friends. Sorry guys.

Fast internet is cool. Fast patchy internet is not.

<comment><USER11> Modern windows can greatly interfere with wireless signals. I believe many make use of a very small (barely noticeable) metal mesh which can break havoc with wireless signals.

Manufacturers are likely aware of the issue and test for it but still, I get better wifi through the wall to my house rather than through a large window with line of sight to the accesspoint.

<comment><USER12> Curious about the mesh, what purpose does it achieve? Strength, insulation, shatter resistance, shatter size control? Are there any documented examples of the technology that I could read about?

<comment><USER11> All info I've read has been in swedish and don't remember where. But unless my memory fails me the purpose is heat insolation.

A quick google suggested that it can also used for fire safety, to increase strength and resist large temperature differences. But that's not the type of mesh I'm thinking of (it seemed those meshes were quite noticeable).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm actually quite happy with 4G. I can't watch 4k streaming videos on my phone... Which I don't want to do anyways. I don't think we actually need another iteration.

</comment><comment><USER14> Going with millimeter wavelength in cell signals could result in some interesting ancillary uses. Reminded me of this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQm_7aPjBUM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQm_7aPjBUM)

<comment><USER15> It would be great for deploying thousands of cheap surveillance devices. A camera on every street lamp?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This article is strange enough that I suspect astroturfing.

The reason 5G is being deployed in 24GHz is because we don't have wide enough blocks elsewhere. The 800MHz and 1.9 GHz spectrums have existing services cellular services, and putting 5G there would have to block off spectrum that would otherwise be used by older technologies. This would increase congestion for existing users while very few people would be on 5G.

Unlike other countries, US govt does not force phase out of services—we still have 2G service in many parts of the rural us, and cell companies aren't going to upgrade them voluntarily.

Eventually most of the handsets would be compatible with 5G, then 800MHz-2GHz bands will be converted over to 5G. This happened with LTE and 3G before that.

Maybe this article is being pushed by telcos, who wants the current TV frequency reallocated to them. Of course the broadcasters want to hang on to those to provide 4K TV over the air service.

<comment><USER17> According to this:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2G](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2G)

2G is already decommissioned for AT&T, and Verizon is this year. Next year is T-Mobile.

My experience is that 2G is nowhere to be found anywhere, and 3G also seems to be being phased out. Places I would get 3G signals last year are now all 4G.

<comment><USER18> I still occasionally get 2G signal. Mostly EDGE when I am in suburban GA, and occasionally GPRS. I'm on T-Mobile.

It would be awesome if I instead got 3G or 4G signal, but I'm worried if 2G is shut off I'll be left with no signal at all.

<comment><USER19> I strongly suspect that they won't let new coverage holes happen. They already have the stations anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> There is no 'G' after the 5 in the title (I only clicked the link because I had no idea what the title meant).

<comment><USER21> It's basically a joke in Canada: our providers charge so much per gb that nobody compares or complains about speeds.

So much wasted capacity...

<comment><USER22> I'm guessing that people in the city are effectively subsidizing access for Canada's many far flung remote areas. Unless the carriers offer separate plans that only work in the city, this is what's going on.</comment></comment></comment>


Amazon Workmail vs. Google-Apps-Mail vs. Zoho? - <AUTHOR> https://aws.amazon.com/workmail/faqs/ <comment><AUTHOR> This was submitted to HN before, however I just noticed it today, I moved away from google-apps-email to zoho these days and am wondering if Amazon workmail could be a better option?

</comment><comment><USER2> Title: Amazon WorkMail FAQs</comment>