Ask HN: What do you think about my agency's new website and how can I improve it - <AUTHOR> We had to retire our old website, and move to something more modern and simplistic. However i feel that i spent a lot of time over thinking this project, so i wanted to show it to you guys at its current form to get your opinion on whether or not its ready to be used, and if there are any issues that i need to take a look at!
This is the link: https://www.eliteware.co/testing <comment><USER2> With js allowed there's a page which displays that looks browser window sized, yet if you scroll down slightly there's "";}}?>" at the bottom of the page. I was expecting more content below, so was confused a little. Also I mistook your logo on the left red column as the menu icon, and took a little time to find the actual burger menu at top right(ish). I love the font, colors, and floaty dots to far right though!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback! And i fixed the small text on the bottom. I'll definitely keep in mind making the menu icon bigger, and maybe the logo would also open the menu!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> When I noticed that you linked to a subdirectory, I immediately went to the root and noticed you're serving a raw directory listing at [https://www.eliteware.co](https://www.eliteware.co) . I don't expect I'll be the only person to check this.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for that! Completely skipped my mind

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not ready. Have you looked at it on mobile? It barely functions, not just slow but not mobile responsive.

"; } } ?> At the bottom of home page.

Text is often covered by images, particularly on the projects page.

I also question some design decisions:

Why a wall of text popup for About instead of a page?

Why is the Close button sometimes on the top-left, sometimes top-middle, but never top-right where everyone expects it to be?

Because of the visiual similarity to a hamburger menu, it took me long time to realise your logo was a logo and not a menu icon. Edit: I see a couple other comments also made this mistake.

Why is there a non-scrolling bar telling me to scroll? Edit: I figured it out, it's scroll buttons. Why? Is this an accessibility thing?

Anyway I don't mean to be an ass, but you badly need to sort out the mobile experience. It's not encouraging that a web agency has failed to do so on their own website.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for taking the time to go over the website! And i forgot to mention this in the OP, but the mobile version is not uploaded yet. But i'll keep everything else you mentioned in mind

<comment><USER4> Ohh haha ok

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Do not break the user expectations. When I use the scroll wheel on my mouse the page screws up. As soon as I get close to the bottom it automatically flips back to the top. You may want the user to use your scroll buttons but most people won't because scrolling has been around from the beginning and people already do it a certain way. Expecting them to change for your site will make them leave. You can add your own little nuances like you have but always make sure it meshes with the current way of doing things.

</comment><comment><USER6> You've got a lovely `"; } } ?> ` right at the bottom of you page ;) I mostly noticed it because somehow the page was scrolling when it shouldn't be.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for that! Fixed!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'll give UX feedback: Don't use a burger menu, especially for a desktop version where you only have 4-5 pages that could easily fit horizontally. Disable the link of your logo on the homepage as it is redundant and can lead to confusion. The subtitle font is so thin I cannot read it. (I have bad eyes and a reading problem) You don't keep any navigation consistency between your pages. "About" simply opens an overlay while "Projects" is a separate page. You serve mixed content (my browser warned me I haven't checked what the content is)

And lastly, if your point is to make people discover who and what you are, this design is pretty useless. A quick google search returns 20K results for "we Create digital experiences". I, for example, haven't got a clue about what kind of work you do.

</comment><comment><USER8> \- Load times for the case studies are loooong.

\- Took a bit of getting used to the scroll thing. Didn't know if I was at the top/bottom, so just had to guess

\- Text is small. Can't zoom/enlarge text on [https://www.eliteware.co/testing/projects.html](https://www.eliteware.co/testing/projects.html)

\- You have some weird characters at the bottom of the page ("; } } ?>).

\- Does the left menu work? I can't get it to.

Overall, seems like a professionally designed site, but you need to be clear on who you are trying to appeal to. Are you showing what you guys can do, or are you trying to give them information about your services/past clients? It seems like you're trying to do both, and expecting the user to click through quite a few times.

I'd love to see it all on one page, but that's just me.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot for taking the time to go over the website!

-I agree about the loading time, working on a fix right now -I'll make sure i change the font size -Fixed the weird characters thingy -What left menu? Didn't get this point, there's a menu on the top right

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Fellow consultant here. These are the top 3 things you should fix:

1\. The site loads very slowly. This is largely static content, it should not take this long to load. Adding in all of the whiz-bang animations and transitions detracts from your overall message.

2\. It's not very accessible. Small fonts, poor contrast, it's very difficult to read. If you have a 50-year old CEO with money to burn, do you really want him/her to pass on your firm because they can't read your case studies?

3\. It's a bit confusing. The logo kind of looks like a hamburger menu. The hamburger menu dropdown is really in your face, and you take over scrolling when going through the list of projects. So many things that make me cringe, please don't take over my scrolling! Make the information intuitive and easy to access.

</comment><comment><USER10> Hijacking the scrollbar is a big pet peeve of mine. Designers keep trying to bring this fad back. I wish they'd not. I get the allure, but I've never seen it be a value add. Browsers handle that for you, don't get in its way!

</comment><comment><USER11> With no javascript allowed, I get a large red dot in the center of my browser window.

If I turn off stylesheets, I can see that there was html text delivered to my browser, so that text should have appeared, instead of just a single red spot.

</comment><comment><USER12> Pretty broken on mobile. (Android 7.1.1, Chrome)

Menu animation is too slow on mobile.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for going over the site bud. The mobile version is not uploaded yet!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Why am I stuck looking at a red ring type animation on iOS? Very fast connection on very fast hardware.

</comment><comment><USER14> Doesn't work on iPhone SE. Get horizontal scrolling and layout is all out of whack.

</comment><comment><USER15> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_least_astonishmen...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_least_astonishment)</comment>


Male status and performance moderates female-directed behaviours (2015) - <AUTHOR> http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0131613 <comment><USER2> All: we've turned off a few of the flags on this article because the discussion so far has not reached the 7th circle of hell. If you're going to comment here, please do so slowly, thoughtfully and make it civil and substantive.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> I assume the game they were testing was "Overwatch".

I recently saw some compilations posted by female streamers of the abuse they receive. It was pretty scary, and the community is uniquely aggressive for some reason.

I am a particularly bad player myself. I actually quit playing with strangers because the abuse made the game not fun, and I am a male.

In my experience low skill players receive an equal amount of harassment, but where I was being called The "N" Word, homosexual slurs, and just told to kill myself, women were given extremely detailed descriptions of how they would be raped, murdered and even cannibalized.

The stuff children think it is acceptable to say to a women anonymously is INSANE. And we have no way of reporting someone for being the next Harvey Weinstien or even Ted Bundy and getting them reliably removed from the game.

<comment><USER4> They are words. Not bullets, not fists, not gropes. And the fact that there is such a movement to sensationalize what should be harmless to any well adjusted person only encourages the trolls.

This is fundamentally different from in person harassment or bullying. These things dont happen in every round, far from it, and there is nothing stopping people from muting microphones and/or leaving toxic games.

There is no line to be drawn here. Offense is taken, not given. The first line of defense should be to teach people to ignore trolls, as this is the only realistic way to get rid of them. You can't go around arresting 10 year olds for whatever you happen to consider offensive.

>next Harvey Weinstien or even Ted Bundy

That is some extreme paranoia. People online say these things fundamentally because they _know_ that others will find them unacceptable. By crying out over something so innocuous, you encourage the behavior.

Edit: I'd also like to add, we are complaining about bad words in games that simulate killing, murder, and war. Is that consistent, or rational?

<comment><USER5> Sorry, what?

Even the supreme court of the United States of 'but muh free speech' America has struck down the notion of threats of violence being a form of protected speech.

Also, where in sweet jesus do you come from that threats of horrific violence --anything short of aggravated assault--is COMPLETELY above-board?

If you use this language with your coworkers, you are liable to be fired. If you use this language with your subordinates, you are liable to be fired and charged with harassment. If you use this language to a server at a restaurant, you are liable to be expelled from the property.

Notably, if you use this language on Hacker News, your account will get thrown directly into the Sun.

This language is not tolerable, and it is absolutely not harmless (want citations?).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In my experience playing Halo (maybe it was Halo 2) 15 or so years ago was that there's a subset of teenagers who shit talk for the sake of it and they'll use whatever language is most likely to offend. Sex (and race) didn't have much to due with it other than to expand the offensive word bank. That being said, the analysis done in the paper is very intriguing.

<comment><USER7> If you believe there's not a gendered component, and that it's just generic bullying by some "subset" of "teenagers", then I invite you to just read the replies on Twitter to women who speak out about, say, diversity in tech.

Or start moderating a forum. I mod a couple of subreddits, and from _that_ experience it is literally impossible for me to believe that you are correct.

<comment><USER8> Occasionally you'll see online harassment shift once they have something they perceive as more damaging to use. Example I saw in the past was all the harassment shifted to mockery about dead child after son died.

I'm afraid that, at least some of the time, people are just trying to be as hurtful as possible. The sexism and rape comments are often just what they think is most hurtful.

<comment><USER7> Again, it's not an "everybody gets bullied, it's just a choice of what words". It's a "women definitely and measurably get targeted more often, and subjected to far harsher treatment, than men".

If you can't work this out from publicly-available evidence on social media, I'm not really sure what to say to you.

<comment><USER9> This kind of rhetoric is why we can't have civil discussions on this topic and why articles like this get flagged. Just concluding that "I think X is obvious and if you disagree then we have nothing further to discuss" will just result lose-lose situation for everyone.

There has been games built on the idea of trolling. I have personally been in a guild where the distinction between "just a choice of what words" and "they really mean it" resulted in a person being expelled from the group. The concept is fairly well established, but the effect isn't. This article gives additional data but the interpretation is up for discussion.

For example, do the data say that female players are treated worse by poor performing males, or do poor performing males act more submissive towards high performing males? The article do take a very biological view of the problem, so maybe we should compare the findings with studies done in nature on how animal use displaced aggression. About 80% of aggression in Baboons are are displaced aggression, normally done by a high ranking male having a setback and then go and attacking a low ranking male as form of stress management. If I recall right, the lowest ranking males don't have anyone else to displace the aggression so go after low ranking females instead.

<comment><USER7> _This kind of rhetoric is why we can 't have civil discussions on this topic and why articles like this get flagged._

No, the reason why we can't have civil discussions is mostly that the same sorts of people who _commit_ disgusting gendered harassment also feel a need to deny that they do so (and that anyone else does so), and attempt to nit- pick apart anyone who asserts a patently obvious fact about our society.

There's not really room for debate on "is gendered harassment of women, as a qualitatively distinct thing from generic bullying, a real thing that exists".

<comment><USER9> You will then continue to see articles like this getting flagged. Either one accept that other people may have a different views, or civil discussions breaks down and you get a polarized society such as current political climate.

Also, don't accuse people of _committing_ gendered harassment with nothing to support it. This is exactly the 7th circle of hell comments that sctb mentions above. Just because some disagree with you it don't mean they are racist, sexist, or spawn of Satan. Name calling is just an other form of harassment.

Just because homophobic comments are mostly directed at male players don't make homophobia a "gendered harassment of men, as a qualitatively distinct thing from generic bullying". People are allowed to a different view if something is a gendered harassment of women, gendered harassment of men, and what the cause of it. The use of facts and supportive statements is how civil discussion handles it.

<comment><USER7> _Either one accept that other people may have a different views_

People are entitled to their own views, but not to their own facts. Denial of facts that can be openly verified by any person is clear and convincing evidence of bad faith, and I have no rhetorical obligation to be charitable to someone who does so.

When you can acknowledge verifiable reality, though, perhaps we can discuss it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> There's something that doesn't sound convincing to me. The study proposes that

> Low-status males that have the most to lose due to a hierarchical > reconfiguration are responding to the threat female competitors pose.

This seems to imply that females are seen as competitors in a male hierarchy. But competitors for what, exactly? Male hierarchies establish a dominance scale, and as the study recalls:

> Even in modern day society, dominance and not attractiveness is associated > with college _male_ mating success

(italics mine)

So the position in a male hierarchy largely influences male mating success. What does the position of women in the same hierarchy influence? Even if it improved mating success (and this is debatable), it would improve mating success _with men_ , that is, partners the other males are not interested in. In other words, for a male only the position in the _male_ hierarchy should be relevant, not the position in a global hierarchy.

On the other end, competition should be fierce _among males_ as it's strictly the male hierarchy that determines mating opportunities. But this is at odds one of the results of the study, that women are the target of most abuse while interactions among males are much more guarded.

<comment><USER11> I believe it's because if a low status male is below in the hierarchy to someone they're trying to impress by being high in the hierarchy it makes them look bad.

I don't believe the point the researchers are trying to make is that low- status men could be lashing out because they're afraid women could beat them in the mating arena, but because women higher in the hierarchy could make them lose.

<comment><USER12> Is that what has happened in polygamist groups?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why does HN allow articles like this to be posted if it suppresses any arguments against their validity or premise?

This entire topic is flamebait, except only critical arguments are punished.

This is dangerous, because it creates a false appearance of consensus. Further, without allowing for healthy skepticism, we practice something more akin to religion than science.

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure I understand who you're referring to as "HN" or what you're referring to as suppression? If you'd like to discuss further, we'd be happy if you emailed us at email@example.com.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've seen it hypothesized elsewhere that lower-class racism is largely a product of fear of displacement in the social hierarchy by minorities. I wonder if the same mechanisms are at work.

</comment><comment><USER14> >To test this hypothesis, we used an online first-person shooter video game that removes signals of dominance but provides information on gender, individual performance, and skill.

What are "signals of dominance"

<comment><USER11> I suggest you read the study, that is explained under the 'Videogame Used' section. The second paragraph.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Be interesting to reverse the scenario - what happens when a man enters an all female arena and threatens the hierarchy? In my experience women are just as capable of banding together to ostracise an outsider.

<comment><USER16> What do you mean by "just as capable"? This research studied a case where men did not band together, but that low status men behaved differently from high status men.

<comment><USER15> Fair enough, my language was a little careless.

The finding is interesting, but wouldn't it be more interesting still if they had performed the same study with the sexes reversed also? We would then know for definite if there is a sex difference in behaviour. As it is we don't know. Women are just as capable of bad behaviour as men, and to think otherwise is to subscribe to the sugar and spice and all things nice school of sexism.

Also, imagine substituting men and women for black and white, or jew/non-jew, etc. I suspect the ethics board might be asking questions.

<comment><USER16> What I took from this study is not that men are bad, but that bad behavior towards women is ultimately caused by male dominance hierarchies. It suggests that the best way to reduce hostility to women is by eliminating those hierarchies rather than just stigmatizing men in general.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I know it isn't supposed to be, but this is the funniest thing I've read all week

<comment><USER18> Please don't post unsubstantive dismissals to HN, especially not on known flamewar territory. Comments like this one degrade the site and add to the risk of serious damage.</comment></comment>


My Whole Channel Got Copyright Claimed Again? - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-ROZ1Hb8Ic <comment><AUTHOR> Youtube's copyright system doesn't seem to work at all. This guys Channel got copyright claimed for a second time and he pretty clearly shows that it was done in a way, where SONY (who claimed the copyright) get to keep an arbitrary part of his revenue, effectively demonetising him.</comment>


A YC for world-changers - <AUTHOR> http://www.heekya.com/blog/?p=28

<comment><USER2> I don't know if this idea is going to work out or not. One of the reasons that YCombinator works is that web based startups generally need very little initial investment. You can build a social website for well under $5,000/person for three months. Generally these world changing, end all hunger type ideas take a lot more to get going than that. It certainly seems like it's going to take a very large amount of capital and connections to make it actually work.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't even get what the site is for. Folks, if you are designing a site, make it obvious in 3 seconds what the point is.

This is the greatest failing in 95% of the sites I visit.

<comment><AUTHOR> well, this particular page is a blog.

<comment><USER4> That wasn't obvious to me at first either. I checked the url and saw it. Presentation is HUGE.

On top of this, your service, so far, consists of me entering my email address. I think I'm doing YOU a service if I comply. Not sure why I should care yet though... Like I said, presentation is huge.

Work on making me (and everyone else) excited about what you're doing. And, since we're on the topic, the blog is arranged oddly. It wasn't obvious to me that the huge black text saying 'A Y COMBINATOR TO CHANGE THE WORLD' was merely a blog entry title and not the title of the page.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, my bad... but this isn't my web app. I saw it was a blog from the link url, when I read it originally, so I didn't have that confusion.

<comment><USER3> Nobody is blaming you dude. Just making a general observation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> World-changers? A very noble ambition amidst the saturation of self-obsessed meandering web 2.0 circle-jerking that usually graces random blogs like this. But let me <rant> for a just a second oh so typically...

I'm so tired of the ___-changing or -changers meme! It's the worst kind of empty meaningless dribble that you'll find in bad technology articles.

A new Ruby VM? It's a gamechanger! Startup X integrated feature Y! This is unbelievable, gamechanging, news!

<comment><USER6> lol.. dude you really hate yourself.

<comment><USER7> You could go so far as to call it ... gamechanging.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Someone needs to learn basic page layout and design.

A Flash text headline? This couldn't be achieved with a simple .png? The lead sentence is jumbled next to it but then gets a quote box to follow all that? All these quotations and call out boxes just jumbles everything together.

It's a jumbled mess. Which makes me sad. Because it contains so much enthusiasm and hope. But it's way too much information all presented in one long page.

EDIT: I now understand why these design elements are on the page. This is just WP theme. I see. I think you guys need to pick another one because this design doesn't match with what you guys are doing at all. And those Flash banners need to go. Seriously.

RE-EDIT: So I thought this was the blog for a YC-like funding venture but it's not. It's just a blog by another company talking about the potential for one. Ignore my previous request to change the WP theme.

RE-RE-EDIT: Interesting idea.</comment>


Amazon isn't one of the 2,575 companies to pull ads from Breitbart - <AUTHOR> https://thenextweb.com/insider/2017/08/22/amazon-isnt-one-of-the-2575-companies-to-pull-ads-from-breitbart/?utm_source=t.co&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=Amazon%20isn%27t%20one%20of%20the%202,575%20companies%20to%20pull%20ads%20from%20Breitbart&utm_campaign=share%2Bbutton#.tnw_fo2U7Mab <comment><USER2> So what?

There's no 'obligation' for companies to pull ads from sites and services you don't like or consider 'offensive'. If Amazon feels Breitbart delivers them traffic and hence wants to keep advertising there, so be it.

<comment><USER3> It causes problems for those who call (signal) for a boycott of all companies who advertise on Breitbart but don't want to have to stop using Amazon.

<comment><USER4> Nobody says activism has to be easy or profitable :)</comment></comment></comment>


"Old" Food Reduces Lifespan - <AUTHOR> http://harvardmagazine.com/2017/02/old-food-reduces-lifespan <comment><USER2> A first guess would be that these diets are passing over aggregate compounds and compatible metabolic waste: misfolded proteins, lipfuscin, oxidized lipids, and so forth, and enough of those escape the stomach to be incorporated into tissues to do harm.

That said, 10% for mice is well within the "try it again in a different lab, get a different result" margin of error for this sort of study.

</comment><comment><USER3> If I'm reading this correctly, the only "food" involved is cannibalism, although they didn't end up doing so with the mice due to supply issues. It doesn't explain why eating another organism's "accumulated damage" reduces the eater's own lifespan but says they expected it to have even more effect than it did.

Clearly, eating works differently than I thought it did, because I'm at a complete loss.

<comment><USER4> Not really a specialist or anything, but I surmised that aging creates what you could call "bad chemicals" in your body.

> unavoidable byproducts of enzyme function, for example, or of protein-to- > protein interactions, errors in DNA transcription or translation.

One would surmise that aging adds "bad chemicals" to your body at some set rate. If you ALSO eat old things, that are already full of these "bad chemicals", your body will acquire these bad chemicals faster (because of the extra source).

In short, this research shows that there is some byproduct of the aging process that can be transferred from one organism to another and cause aging in the second organism.

<comment><USER5> Ageing and death are the accumulation of errors; is my take from this study.

<comment><USER6> How is that your take? It seems that would completely contradict it. If it's just accumulation of errors how would that be impacted at all by what you eat? Especially the age of what you eat!

<comment><USER5> Think of errors as a toxin or heavy metal. Not all aging will be like that, time is merely correlated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm gonna wait for the replication before I believe it.

</comment><comment><USER8> Older organisms have added time to ingest toxins like heavy metals (especially prevalent in carnivorous fish like tuna). I suspect this plays some role here.

<comment><USER9> Of the three experimental groups in the article, it sounds like two, the yeast and fruit flies, were all lab grown grown. Where would the toxins have come from.

In the third, the Deer meat fed to mice was 25 years old and clearly had fewer controls, despite this room for toxins, the mice had the smallest effect of any of three groups.

<comment><USER10> Off the top of my head, here are some guesses for possible toxins that could accumulate:

1) Advanced Glycation End-productions (AGE) from normal metabolism

2) Trace levels of heavy metals, dioxins, etc. from the growth media

3) Reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation increasing with age-related damage

4) BPA, phthalates, or other potentially nasty things leaching from the plastic growth containers

5) Lipofuscin

6) Misc age-related inflammatory cytokines

7) ????

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Maybe they should have had another set that had their usual diet for comparison just to ensure that they are not making their observations on cannibalism. As one can take the study to mean if cannibals chose young for their dietory needs they would survive 10% longer except in the case of mice however.

</comment><comment><USER12> >The effect of consuming an old versus a young diet, he says, was "statistically significant, but it wasn't huge. Honestly, I thought it would have a much larger effect on lifespan, but it was on the order of about 10 percent."

There is an effect that works in the opposite direction that might explain why the effect was smaller than expected:

Younger organisms (presumably) have a higher percentage of inflammatory amino acids than older organisms and restriction of some of these is known to extend life. Methionine restriction has been established I think.

In the other direction, Ray Peat claims that a higher percentage of older organisms is collagen. The consumption of collagen (bone broth for example) is possibly life extending.

</comment><comment><USER13> I wonder if the results extend to normal (non-cannibalistic) diets.

For example, does feeding a mouse young plant parts result in a longer lifespan than using seeds that have taken many months to ripen?

</comment><comment><USER14> Maybe old food has more chance to accumulate crap in their system, thus eating it will be worse

</comment><comment><USER15> Does this explain our natural predilection for lamb over mutton?

</comment><comment><USER16> This indirectly confirms the benefits of a caloric restriction diet (since less fewer means less "old" food being consumed.)

<comment><USER17> Possibly, but they weren't really testing to learn about the effects of old vs new foods in general. It's more a test of whether "metabolic junk" is significant to aging, so they used food sources that would have more or less of those factors present. The relevant compounds are different and not precisely known for the different organisms, thus the cannibalistic diets.</comment></comment>


Scientists have synthesized a new compound that 'mimics' exercise - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2015/07/27/scientists-have-synthesized-new-compound-that-mimics-exercise-could-a-workout-pill-be-far-behind/?wprss=rss_homepage <comment><USER2> The real takeaway from this research is that AMPK manipulation in the manner demonstrated here is categorically not an exercise mimetic because it does nothing in healthy individuals. A real exercise mimetic would extend median life span, since that's what exercise does in mice.

Other strategies that end up showing altered AMPK levels along the way have been shown to extend life and improve health in laboratory species. It is very complex, and researchers are very far from understanding how even very reliable and straightforward ways of slowing aging work. E.g. calorie restriction. Studied for a century, no comprehensive explanation of how it works yet.

This, along with tiny beneficial effects, is the reason we should largely ignore all of these efforts to throw drugs at metabolism in the hopes of lengthening healthspan. It is a grand waste of time, because even if wondrously successful the best you could hope for in the next few decades is something that is outperformed by actually exercising or practicing calorie restriction.

What a waste of billions of dollars that will be. Yet that's what is going to happen, judging by the willingness to fund this sort of work. It is like the research and development community has learned nothing from the outcome of fifteen years of sirtuin research.

If we want to see radical life extension in our lifetimes, it is going to come from SENS and the like, deliberate targeted efforts to repair specific aspects of biochemical damage that cause cell and tissue dysfunction. Not random drugs mined from the natural world, but elegantly engineered biotechnologies that do exactly what they are intended to do. You might look at allotopic expression of mitochondrial DNA for example, as developed by Gensight at the moment ( [http://www.gensight-biologics.com/](http://www.gensight-biologics.com/) ). The problem is identified, and a precise fix applied to cells via gene therapy to make exactly the problem and only the problem go away.

That is the future of medicine. Yet the regulations and inertia behind the old drug development pipeline is very resistant to change. We'd better hope that the disruption represented by Gensight and other similar efforts takes hold, because we're going to age and suffer just like our parents and on pretty much the same schedule if it doesn't.

<comment><USER3> "by actually exercising or practicing calorie restriction"

Ever study I've read about has shown that while calorie restriction works in mice, it has no effect in humans.

<comment><USER4> >has no effect in humans This is true in practice for most people. "Calorie restriction" is a misnomer. It should be called "calorie unavailability". Research has show that if the food is there in your fridge but you choose not to eat it, you don't get any benefits. The body and mind have to believe it is starving.

<comment><USER5> That's very interesting actually. Do you have any links/references for this research?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Don't have much to say about how the compound affects your metabolism, but I'm weary of any kind of 'workout pill'. For years I too hoped that were would be some machine or pill that would automatically get me ripped without having to put in the conscious effort. However, once I finally got into the habit of exercising, I think what was more valuable than the results on my body was the habit of pushing myself to the limit every time and going beyond my comfort zone. It's something that touches everything you do.

</comment><comment><USER7> If y'awl exercised, you'd know that meat heads have been fiddling with things which do this for ... decades. Almost a century if you count DNP.

[http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=146743673&pag...](http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=146743673&pagenumber=1)

<comment><USER8> It's "y'all" thank you.

<comment><USER9> If there are more than five readers, shouldn't it be "All y'all"?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It talks more about losing weight than gaining muscle mass, not sure if it's purported to help with that side of things.

</comment><comment><USER11> Mice again. Maybe someone can answer my naive but serious question: How many cures that were tested on mice turn out to work in humans?

<comment><USER12> > Among the many advantages to using the mouse as a model organism, the most > important is their striking similarity to humans in anatomy, physiology, and > genetics. Over 95% of the mouse genome is similar to our own, making mouse > genetic research particularly applicable to human disease.

[http://research.jax.org/mousegenetics/advantages/advantages-...](http://research.jax.org/mousegenetics/advantages/advantages- of-mouse.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I failed to get my hands on the actual research paper so I'm relying completely on the article's description of the study. To my unscientific eye it seems that the only thing altered between the control group and the test group was diet. Both were given "Compound 14". The test group that was fed a high fat diet showed better results. Claiming that it's thanks to "Compound 14" seems a little bit unscientific. What I would like to know is: 1) What did the normal diet look like? 2) What would the results be like if both the control and the test group were fed the exact same diet from birth? 3) What are the researchers' biases? 4) Who is funding the research?

</comment><comment><USER14> This sounds like a great enabler drug! You can eat more junk food and not gain more weight, even if you don't exercise, as long as you take this pill! If this does ever get sold as a pill, it may make billions for the people selling it, the junk food companies, and other drug companies that will benefit from the side effects this does not completely eliminate from your poor diet and lack of exercise, not to mention the side effects the pill itself will have. I can't wait!

<comment><USER15> Not sure why this comment is being down-voted. It is an easy out for obese people to continue on their over-consumption of food which could lead to other problems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Even though this compound has a lot of potential to help those in need, I can see this being marketed as the new Hydroxycut.

<comment><USER17> If this compound truly does "mimic exercise" it would change the world. The average lifespan would skyrocket and we could be so much more efficient due to overall health and almost no time wasted for exercise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Bravely we move towards the day where we can just eat, eat and eat all day while staying alive to eat more!

But why not start working on an implant that stimulates our pleasure centers directly, at the push of a button and omit the eating part altogether! We'd not even have to lift our arm to our mouths! Just get a Soylent drip feed!

The future looks bright!

</comment><comment><USER19> Full text of the paper is here:

[http://www.cell.com/chemistry- biology/fulltext/S1074-5521%28...](http://www.cell.com/chemistry- biology/fulltext/S1074-5521%2815%2900234-3)

</comment><comment><USER20> Why do we need a substitute to a healthy, balanced life? I'm sure its an amazing piece of science, but how is this better than being physically active? As a person who exercises, am I supposed to be considering this instead of my current lifestyle? And if not - if it wouldn't be a better option for me - then how could it be a better option for anyone else?

I'm genuinely bewildered. What is this for?

<comment> david-given Because there are only 24 hours in a day?

Exercising takes a _really long time_. If I wanted to be physically active, I need to allocate a big chunk of my day towards exercising, which means I need to give up something else --- something I actually enjoy.

One thing that physically active people tend not to realise is that not everybody finds exercise enjoyable.

I am not particularly unfit; I do various physically active things; but for me, regular exercise is _horrible_. I find it an utterly miserable experience; uncomfortable in every possible way, and worst of all, incredibly boring. And it never gets better. A while ago I made myself train up and enter a 10km race, and completed in a reasonable time. As I progressed, the only thing that changed was that I was capable of prolonging the discomfort for longer. That's a negative feedback loop! I was so glad when I actually completed the race and could finally _stop_.

I am so, so jealous of people who actually _enjoy_ doing this crap.

So if there's a side-effect free way of getting the health benefits of exercise without having to put up with an hour a day of tedium and lactic acid reaction, that would be _amazing_.

</vent>

<comment><USER9> Maybe you haven't found the right exercise? I'd rather stick needles under my fingernails than go for a jog, but happily spend 90 mins+ 4 times a week strength training.

Or maybe a sport might be more fun? Tennis, ulimate frisbee etc.

<comment> david-given Competition sports I find a complete turnoff --- as soon as I find myself facing off against anyone else I instantly lose interest. (It comes from very bad experiences of mandatory exercise at school which basically taught me that I always lose.) I've tried weight training --- spent six weeks doing ~45 a day when my local gym had a special offer. That was even more ghastly; I'd find myself watching the clock desperately wanting it to be over.

The point I'm making is that exercise _is not fun for me_ , and while I appreciate the effort, attempts to persuade me otherwise are doomed to failure. (The endless, banal music the gym played didn't help.) What was worse was that there was no objective way to measure progress so I didn't even know if it was doing anything.

(That said, I _do_ enjoy hill walking (== hiking), but that's even more of a time sink and not something I can do on a daily basis. It's also strictly low- output aerobic.)

<comment><USER21> > What was worse was that there was no objective way to measure progress so I > didn't even know if it was doing anything.

I agree that not being able to measure progress is horribly demotivating. But I find the opposite, that exercise is one of the few areas in my life where I can objectively measure progress. For example:

      Body weight
      Resting heart rate
      5k run time
      Longest distance run without stopping
      Max weight / number of repetitions / duration for strength exercises

These are all objective measurements which can be tracked over long periods of time and directly correlate with the amount and quality of training that one does. I have found that this is the best long-term way to motivate myself.

<comment> david-given Well, only the first two are objective --- the others are all way too subjective, as they depend horribly on how motivated I am. Even the objective measures are hugely variable, so in order to get any actual data, I have to measure trends over months, rather than weeks.

Being told that I need six months' work before anything measurable happens is not really something I find motivating!

<comment><USER22> One of the things you get to track improvement on with exercise is the ability to motivate yourself. It is part of you improving your physical and mental health, not unwanted noise.

For me when I started exercising seriously I started noticing I was consistently beating my personal bests [1] after about 2 weeks. It doesn't take 6 months. I even started feeling great from the cardio on Day 1.

[1] Running times over a set distance, and amount of pushups/pullups/situps in a row. If I actually recovered properly it would probably take even less time to beat the initial records.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> anti-shill do they deliver?

<comment> anti-shill yes, and then you tip them and say "thank you...come again..."

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> 80% of people with type 2 diabetes are that way by choice. They chose to be obese. (Only 20% of type-2 diabetes isn't caused by obesity.)

99% of obese people are obese by choice. (The 1% that aren't are people who lack the mental ability to control their food intake.)

I hope we never spend the public's money on this.

<comment><USER24> > 99% of obese people are obese by choice.

Are you willing to make the same claim about other addicts, smokers, alcoholics, drug users, sex addicts, and so on and so forth?

In all cases when you perform a behaviour your brain releases chemicals which make a person feel better, these chemicals which should be associated with behaviours which improve survival prospects can become addictive (in particular in a world where we have unnaturally high access to things which were scarce during our evolution, like rich foods).

Now in the cases of illegal drugs this is the intended effect, and without argument they're some of the most addictive substances we know of.

But it is utterly absurd to simply dismiss the mental health aspect (addiction, depression, etc) of obesity and call it a straightforward choice. It might be a choice to you and I, but by definition we aren't addicts. Just like with alcohol or sex, we can do it without the need or drive to OVER do it, addicts cannot...

I do find in recent years and completely against all evidence, bigotry has come out strongly against people struggling with food addiction. I legitimately feel like it is nothing more than attacking the mentally ill, nothing more.

<comment><USER23> You are correct in noting that obese people are "mentally ill." They are not "diet resistant" nor do they have "slow metabolisms", PCOS, or thyroid problems.

<comment><USER25> Massively obese people have "slow metabolisms" after losing large amounts of weight. This change in their metabolism is independent of changes in lean mass or body composition[0]. This makes reaching a normal weight much much harder for them than for people who are a normal weight to stay at a normal weight.

Do you really think that 1/3 of the population is "weak-willed" or has other moral failings that means that their problem is not worthy of spending public money on? Solving the obesity epidemic is much harder than people simply becoming "better" or "choosing" to stop being obese. If this were the case less than 5% of the population would be obese.

[0][http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3387402/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3387402/)

<comment><USER26> >Do you really think that 1/3 of the population is "weak-willed"

_American_ population -- also extendable to Britain, Scottland, Germany. Not the world.

If you really think it's an epidemic, then it's a selectively first world epidemic. Like the 10 plagues. And just as ridiculous.

Calling this a "disease" or "addiction" is moronic. You want to not be fat? It's not a fucking secret how to not be fat.

[http://pmj.bmj.com/content/49/569/203.short](http://pmj.bmj.com/content/49/569/203.short)

<comment><USER27> Next time you do something you enjoy. I want you to not do it. Yeah you heard me, don't do it. Then continue to not do it for six months. After that time continue to never do it again. That's right never, even if the corporations market it right into your waiting arms or someone hands it to you with no effort on your part. I want you to never do it again, oh and by the way we will all hate you for it and nobody will help you get through this.

Now your probably thinking "Fuck this guy". Guess what, your addicted to whatever that was. An addiction is an addiction no matter how much your religiously deny it. To call it a disease is debatable, but unimportant.

Finally, anything that Quacks like a duck and looks like a duck is a duck right? Well then if lots of people die from a thing, and it is easily linkable to obesity, than clearly treating it like a plague is justified.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I'll take four please.

</comment><comment><USER29> This is obviously going to be a hot topic as we understand more and more of the mechanisms behind our biology.

Another to look into is BAIBA, which we recently covered on our blog. [https://blog.priceplow.com/baiba](https://blog.priceplow.com/baiba)

The social implications of this get very scary when you look at it down the road. If we crack the code and really don't need to work out to stay fit some day, it would change a LOT in terms of mate selection, to say the least. Not sure how soon it will actually happen though.</comment>


Show HN: konfd – Manage Kubernetes secrets and configmaps with Go templates - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/kelseyhightower/konfd <comment><USER2> More great stuff from Kelsey...

My tldr; konfd writes out k8s configmaps based on other k8s resources like secrets, configmaps, etc. Really useful for writing out complete config files into a pod namespace without relying on external config backends.

Question: While looping on a syncInterval is certainly clean and understandable, it feels suboptimal when all the templates sources are themselves watchable with a k8s client. Benefits of switching to a watch model:

1\. Speed: It'd be nice to have the template rendering fire immediately after a source secret changed versus waiting for syncInterval.

2\. Resource Utilization: Switching from syncInterval to a watch should save significant cycles by avoiding reprocessing templates when config hasn't changed.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is great feedback. I'm still on the fence about a watch mode for the following reasons:

1\. The template configmap will not change as often as the secrets and configmap key/value pairs they reference. This means you'll always need a sync loop to regenerate the template and compare it with the current generated version. This is how most configuration management systems work. Maybe we can watch the data and uses changes as triggers?

2\. Watch is a bit racy when a template references multiple secrets and configmaps. It's really hard to prevent a partial config. One idea is to scale the konfd replicaset to 0 before making changing a bunch of secrets and configmaps, then scaling konfd back to 1 to trigger the processing of the templates to pick up the new values. The other option is to wait the "sync- interval", but you'll run the risk of partial configs or needing multiple runs to generate the complete config.

One possible solution to prevent 1 and 2 is to only reference one external configmap or secret for each template resource. I'm still testing these patterns in real life and will update the docs on which patterns work best for each situation. With that said, I think I'll still add a watch mode so others can test and provide feedback.

<comment><USER3> The second one has plagued me with a couple kubernetes clients I've written, but something about your restatement of the problem struck me with (IMO, of course) a nice idiomatic solution: a "debounce" fan-in (ish) channel between the ResultChan() and consumer that bundles up watch notifications after some configurable wait period. And actually, it's a common enough use case (I'd definitely use it too) that I'll bet it would be useful to have in client-go itself.

And secondly, I would _love_ to see this kind of concept upgraded to a first- class citizen in kubernetes. Essentially, I think an equivalent of `/etc/environment` for your cluster would be a powerful way of generalizing app components. It would be great if just placing resources in your cluster allows them to pick up at least some of their required configuration, much like customizing `/etc/environment` does for *nix machines.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Kelsey, I (and others) would kindly appreciate it if you'd stop calling anything in Kubernetes as it exists today a "secret" and writing new code to further encourage its use. People should be aware in no uncertain terms that the "secrets" store in etcd is totally unencrypted and insecure.

If you'd like to find a place to help, I'd suggest focusing your efforts on connecting Kubernetes to Hashicorp Vault, which is truly secure, and deprecating the old unencrypted etcd-backed implementation.

<comment><AUTHOR> First, thanks for taking the time to offer feedback regarding what we call "secrets" in Kubernetes. As you've rightfully pointed out the current implementation of "secrets" are stored unencrypted in etcd; something like Hashicorp's Vault [1] would be a much better choice for the given use-case.

I've already began exploring how an integration between Vault and Kubernetes would work [2]. There are some things to work out, but those discussions are under way [3]. The current prototype/example demonstrates one way of leveraging Vault from applications deployed on Kubernetes, without changes to the Kubernetes core.

While the vault-controller [2] works, we can do better. One idea is to consider what a deeper Vault integration looks like. Ideally we can modify parts of Kubernetes, mainly the kubelet agent that runs on every node, to handled the secure generation and renewal of unique Vault tokens for each Pod during the Pod creation phase.

Another idea would be to rethink "secrets" altogether and rebuild the entire feature on top of the Vault API. We can "hide" Vault under the current "secrets" API, which would let us remain backwards compatible. That would be phase one. Phase two could introduce new Secret extensions, which would enable users to declaratively manage Vault tokens, backends, and secret renewals through the Kubernetes API.

[1] [https://www.vaultproject.io](https://www.vaultproject.io)

[2] [https://github.com/kelseyhightower/vault- controller](https://github.com/kelseyhightower/vault-controller)

[3] [https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/issues/10439#issuec...](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/issues/10439#issuecomment-263954184)

<comment><USER4> I appreciate your efforts here, Kelsey. What I'm looking for (and I realize I'm not your manager; this is just my opinion borne of a year of experience with K8S) is a focus on strengthening the core first, then going back to the veneer. Great edifices start with a strong foundation.

Also, the engineering teams need to do a better job of integrating community PRs that address implementor demands. For example, Consul K/V support has been asked for since 2014 [1], yet nobody seems to be in a hurry to integrate the (generously-provided) functionality [2].

Finally, I'd like to see deadlines and decision-makers appointed for making decisions such as the one you discuss, so we can avoid endless debates and make forward progress quickly.

[1] [https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/issues/1957](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/issues/1957)

[2] [https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/31622](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/31622)

<comment><AUTHOR> We all want a strong foundation and will continue to work to create one. In parallel, many of us like building and sharing things, and given that most things in Kubernetes are just abstractions, the things we are building today will continue to work tomorrow, even if the "secrets" backend is reimplemented on top of something like Vault.

I'm hopeful people find things like konfd useful, even if you only use configmaps and avoid secrets entirely -- a use case supported by konfd.

<comment><USER5> Also consider Consul/Vault so you can leverage the remarkably uncoupled portability of __envconsul __:[https://github.com/hashicorp/envconsul](https://github.com/hashicorp/envconsul)

// PS. To help avoid confusion, I wish K8s (not really) secrets examples didn't use the word "vault" unless using, you know, "vault".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Hi kelsey, this is pretty nice ! Is there any way to bribe you into slowing down on the awesome sauce delivery pipeline so people can catch up !? asking for a friend.

If you find the time can you elaborate on why you elected to use ConfigMaps for the templates too instead of building a 3rd party ressource ? This way you wouldn't have to use annotations and the definition might be a little more terse (or not)

Is there something about configmaps that make implementation easier ? or provides additional behavior wrt to pod lifecycle or something like that ?

<comment><AUTHOR> ConfigMaps offer everything I need for a tool like konfd, and ConfigMaps work with the majority of clusters deployed today. While I could have used a ThirdPartyResource, that would require me to design a custom scheme and write a little more code up front.

Also, there are a few issues [1] with ThirdPartyResource objects including the lack of validation and inconsistencies when interacting with ThirdPartyResource objects through the Kubernetes API [2]. That's not to say ThirdPartyResource's should not be used, but it's not a decision take lightly.

Now, if konfd were to grow or add more features, then I think a ThirdPartyResource would be the way to go -- mainly because ConfigMaps require the use of "reserved" keys and annotations to configure behavior.

[1] [https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/issues/22768](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/issues/22768)

[2] [https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/issues/29542](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/issues/29542)

<comment><USER6> That answers my question. Thank you for taking the time. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I propose an alternative to templates: Use go objects to define your config. Better dynamicity, readability and typesafety. See my post [https://kozikow.com/2016/09/02/using-go-to-autogenerate- kube...](https://kozikow.com/2016/09/02/using-go-to-autogenerate-kubernetes- configs/) .

</comment><comment><USER8> Aren't secrets stored unecrypted in kube? I'd hesitate to call them secrets, though config looks good.</comment>


Ask HN: Not feeling it from the CEO. What can I do? (equity split) - <AUTHOR> I joined a startup as CTO that is 9 months old (5 months with me) and has VC funding. I now have equal equity to the CEO. Now that I know how much I will continue to contribute that is core to my expertise & experience, I think I should have more like 3:2 or 2:1 (CTO:CEO), and that the CEO is really CMO/COO material. Is there something like an Equity-Split Consultancy I can use for help?
The startup is complex VR software that I have 19 years experience in. I'm formerly a tenured academic leading a research group in this area. I've also worked on big-name projects as a SWEng in this area. I have won awards for my work and know the tech & product very well. I've also iterated similar "products" with customers. I have taught project management, founded a successful online business, a PhD in exactly what we are doing, and 10 years of building toward breaking away from uni to do this. So even though joining this startup seemed ideal, I'm finding that the CEO is out of his depth and I can't follow him. The startup has excellent potential, but relies heavily on new tech coming together meaningfully to meet the customers' needs.
I have raised the issue and presented a strong case for change. In the subsequent meeting about it the CEO was aggressive, so I asked for a detailed response in writing. It's really taking the shine off of the journey. I'd love to do this with the CEO in a lesser role.
I'm torn between; 1. suck it up and keep going, and 2. this is only going to hurt more and more so why empower them (it doesn't feel like this is mine enough to warrant the massive contribs I'm making to the vision and the product day to day). Part of why it doesn't feel like mine enough is that the vesting schedule means the massive contribs will only help me if I see it through.
I've used https://cofounders.gust.com to get some numbers. Even when I over-state his measures, and under-state mine, I come out with 2:1 in my favor.
Can this work out? <comment><USER3> Wow. What I can suggest is that perhaps you have misperceived the purpose and nature of equity.

When your venture was 0 months old, it needed a CEO to get it funding. Even if he played golf the whole time and lent only his name to the venture while you beat the streets to scare that funding up, he delivered on his job.

A CEO's job for a startup is not to be CMO or COO. It's to scare up money, and that money done got scared up. And now you want to move the goalposts.

Even if he's still out playing golf and you're still putting in 20-hour days, that doesn't mean a 50/50 split is unfair. It's what you agreed to, on the off chance you'd be anywhere near as successful as you are today.

Hate the game if you must, but your failure to understand the game has probably put you on the outs with your cofounder, and that has destroyed a lot of the value in the company, both yours and his. The whole purpose of a 50/50 split is to avoid this petty squabbling.

The correct advice is thus: Quit rocking the boat, roll back your hours to 8 or less (the company is not "yours" and never was), limp toward your first half-decent exit (either the company itself or just you), and focus on a new solo startup where you can be the CEO and CTO.

<comment><USER4> I think at this point it might be too late as the boat has been rocked and by the sound of it, and OP response to another comment on this thread, I say it's tilting. If I was the CEO, and the person I hired and gave a very generous 50% comes to me with that kind of demand, I'd be realising I've made a mistake. It doesn't matter how good someone is. Everyone is replaceable, and sometimes one's perceived "incompetence" is only that - perceived. We have one side of a story and if I learned one thing from the internet is that every story is like a coin - with 3 sides.

<comment><USER5> He can try fix it by giving an apology, having thought over it and missed the value his colleagues contributed, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> <blunt>:

You have an over-inflated view of your own contributions, because, well, you're human, and we tend to view our own contributions as much more valuable (because we understand how complex and impactful they are, and we don't usually do so for other people's contributions).

My perspective, as a technical person who started doing startups in 2007 (as CTO in my first 2 startups), is running a successful company now (as CEO), and has advised a bunch of companies over the last 10 years, is that a 50/50 deal is extremely generous and if anything I would advise the CEO that he was too generous with you and probably set up this problem of your overinflated ego by doing that. Possibly this problem has sunk the company unless you're able to pop your inflated head balloon and get back down to earth.

Ideas aren't everything, but recruiting great people to work on your idea is part of execution. You got recruited 4 months in. You're an employee who somehow miraculously has as much equity as the founder. That is an insanely good deal and you are foolish and extremely greedy to be questioning it, especially at this point.

Now, about who wears the pants, which you mention in another comment - <USER2> need to clarify who wears the pants in what context. You're not an expert on everything, and neither is he. Obviously you have expertise in technical matters, and so it is reasonable that you will want to own technical decisions and have a strong say in product/vision decisions. But based on your post you sound blissfully unaware of all it takes to build a larger company (I notice you didn't specify how "successful" your online business was) so you should defer to the CEO on most of what it will take to get this to actually become a company. That's his job. And if you think he can't do it, quit.

</comment><comment><USER7> People who have never started companies undervalue how hard that is. CEO's job is literally using sales and recruiting to get outcome. He closed the funding and recruited you. If you think you can do that, then you should have done it, and you've already screwed up that outcome by touching this.

\--

I just did the gust survey, it says 100%/0% in my favor. He builds, I do everything else in addition to build, including building v1 by myself. He is also theoretically fungible, like you are. I made him a 50/50 partner for good reasons: the product is worth $0 until its not, and morale/loyalty/not making posts like this is more valuable to my outcome than a larger % of zero. The survey is bullshit.

\--

I have a great therapist (ex-biglaw) to help me overcome personal psychological barriers. We all face our ego and great leadership stems from overcoming this.

</comment><comment><USER8> You are confusing 2 different things:

1) The choices that need to be made for the company to succeed

2) How much equity you have or should get.

"The vesting schedule means the massive contributions will only help me if I see it through" ...errm, yes, that's the point of a vesting schedule.

As noted by others, the way to succeed is to make the whole pie bigger (and therefore your slice also becomes more valuable, even though it's the same percentage). You should assume that your equity slice will _never_ get bigger in percentage terms, the investors want you busting a gut to make the pie bigger, not fighting over percentages.

Now, if you really think the CEO is destroying value I.e. making the pie smaller, and you can't resolve it between you, then both of you need to talk to your board investors. The likely result is that one of you will be leaving the firm, and that person's equity will return to the company since neither of you has hit your 12 month anniversary, assuming you have a standard vesting schedule.

I feel like some of this is due to cultural differences between academia where it sounds like you were clearly successful, and vc-backed startup world.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. This is all good to hear and something I'm struggling to reconcile. In academia I was always keen to show and develop a real capability, as opposed to being the comfortable academic. I wrote a lot of code and some decent engines for the different techs relevant to my field... but that's not exactly the point. I've been increasingly keen to learn about startups/entrepreneurship and have engaged with mentors and local startups and incubators for years in prep of making the leap. A large part of my value is taking away the risk and showing investors and potential recruits that we can get it done. My academic job wasn't handed to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've been in VC for ~10 years, and we see a lot of founder squabbles.

A lot of what makes for great companies is simple: a smart team in a great market, just plowing through things for 3-5 years.

That 3-5 years part is the one that trips up (a) startup newcomers and (b) people who were very successful in school. You get way beyond the "theory" of what you're building very quickly, and there is a LOT of dull blocking & tackling work.

To my ear it sounds like you are frustrated with the slow pace of the work and want to do things that are more intellectually interesting. This is more or less an anti-pattern at the ~1 year mark, and you might consider that your CEO knows more than you think, just not about the technical side.

I can't see a scenario where pointing to an online equity calculator is going to help, so don't go there. If you're convinced that the CEO is damaging the company, you should want them gone, not still around with a little bit less incentive to succeed. Mostly though, you should consider very seriously whether, for all your VR chops and accolades, you are even correct in assuming the CEO is not able, vs whether you are experiencing Dunning-Kruger or simply don't like them.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm going to share here my friend's insight which I think is applicable.

He said: New startups that have one brilliant individual often fail because these people often think it's all about them.

EDIT: After reading OPs responses on this thread, I have reinforced my previous impression, and in addition I now think OP is dishonest.

OP has made it clear that this is in part about power and thrills, not just equity, and that he was looking to leave the academia in search of such power and thrills.

In other words, when OP shook hands with the CEO already knew that he wasn't happy with 50/50 and CTO title, but at the time he thought that was the most he could get, and now OP thinks he can get more.

Completely dishonest, OP is just considering how to execute the power grab he had planned.

</comment><comment><USER11> This might be an unpopular opinion, but are you sure you deserve twice as much equity? You're both going to be working equally hard on this startup for years. The CEO took the risk of starting the company, came up with the idea, and raised VC funding - not trivial things to do.

<comment><USER12> I think this is the right popular opinion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I have been a founder of three companies that led to successful (>$100M) acquisition over the last 20 years. Always in tech / CTO role.

Reading your post and comments, it seems to me that your ego and reality are somewhat disconnected. Not to say that you aren't good at what you do, but you have no idea what it takes to actually build a company. It doesn't matter how good the tech is, you don't have a company without all the other parts.

I would also like to call out your suggestion that equity balance can solve the problem. This really makes me question the sophistication of your thinking, and casts serious doubt on your abilities as a leader and team builder - a key skill for a successful CTO.

From what I've read here, my assessment of you is a low (leadership) potential, very high-performance employee. Not CTO material without a lot of growth quickly.

The fault I would see in the CEO is if he doesn't recognize his mistake soon enough and fire you before your stock vests. I see no way for the company to be successful with you as CTO and the huge schism in the leadership team that already exists.

</comment><comment><USER14> If you feel this way, you should quit and start your own company, raise money, recruit a team, and be CEO yourself. You'll never be happy in your current position, and you'll never understand what your current CEO did and does until you do it yourself. Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER15> No, I don't think it can - you are being completely unrealistic about equity. The time for negotiating equity is before you incorporate or before you take funding; not 9 months down the line.

Frankly, if you pursue this equity issue - it is very unlikely to end well - you are likely going to destroy value in your business based on what? Some online calculator, put out as lead-gen?

I think you are confusing two issues - equity and leadership. Leadership is a perfectly reasonable conversation to be having; yesterdays CEO might not be the correct CEO today. This is probably 9 months too late, but maybe something like 'Founders Dilemmas' could help you.

</comment><comment><USER16> You were asked as a CTO to a very young (yet VC backed!) company. You knew very well that a large part of the success of the startup would depend on your expertise. You agreed to 50% equity.

What has changed that you feel you are owed more now?

</comment><comment><USER17> You sound like a talented person with a lot to contribute to the company. You're going to help build a great product, and if you combine that with the talents of other people you'll build a great company.

That last part is the important part. A company is MORE than a product. Do a google search for Steven Blank business canvas. Product is just one column in the whole thing. It takes a lot of work to build a good product, and you'll want to best person you can get for it (sounds like you're him!) but at the end of the day, you will also need someone who is going to help get it sold. You'll need a sales team, a marketing team, relationships with partners, you'll need all sorts of non-product related things. They're necessary. Products don't sell themselves. They just don't.

It doesn't sound like you have any experience building a sales pipeline, marketing, or business in general. Your CEO is going to work on those things so you can put your effort on a great product. If you don't think he's up to the task, maybe you need a new guy... but don't diminish his equity. He has an important job, he deserves as much.

</comment><comment><USER18> > So even though joining this startup seemed ideal, I'm finding that the CEO > is out of his depth and I can't follow him.

> I'd love to do this with the CEO in a lesser role.

Is this about equity or about who wears the pants?

<comment><AUTHOR> pants. Is it bad to address this with equity. Our handshake was based on equal equity and standing (I asked for a lot more than 50/50 initially and took the leap-of-faith to join forces), and that the job-titles were secondary... that's not really working out.

<comment><USER19> I've never heard of a CTO having more equity than the CEO. Do you think you're being slightly unreasonable in your expectations? 50/50 feels quite generous after they raised the round of funding.

<comment><AUTHOR> CTO isn't the right title for my actual role. I've got the "map to the customer", many options for pivots with detail, I understand the customer from another side too (it's teaching tech... and as a former teacher that's also part of "not just a CTO"). It's tough tech. I've already done key tricky bits. Another part of what hurt was rolling in more tech after the fact (after the 50/50 handshake). I've taken that out, we have clearer focus without it (and I feel better). Part of the problem is my hunger to take the CEO trail myself... from the beginning.

<comment><USER18> > Part of the problem is my hunger to take the CEO trail myself... from the > beginning.

In signing up for a 50/50 split, you made your decision about this already. If you don't feel like your co-founder is pulling their weight, maybe figure out a way to change the division of responsibilities so that he is instead of approaching this like a zero sum situation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The chaos coming out of an equity battle will make the 2 of 2:1 worth less than making the thing successful. You have no power here, as you should know as a c-suite guy, so suck it up, work hard and wait.

</comment><comment><USER21> There is no good outcome here.

You clearly don't have mutual respect for the CEO (not that you should or shouldn't necessarily) and in less than half a year find yourself in pretty fundamental conflict. In what amounts to a founder level role at a startup, if you aren't on the same page about almost everything, then it will blow up.

My suggestion is to find someone to take over your role and go do something else. The VR space requires too much grinding and grit right now to succeed while not having a great working relationship between founders/C-Level people.

</comment><comment><USER22> Honestly as a technical founder in VR too I understand where you come from but you are wrong on this.

You don't get equity for having a good background, you get equity for being important to the business and damn you got the same amount that a guy that most likely handled a fundraising by himself.

At this stage _they are investing in you more than you are investing in them_ yet you absolutely did not talk about what you actually achieved for them.

Worse only 5 month after signing you are talking about the demotion of your partner who from an exterior standpoint already contributed more than you both in time and in money gained.

I think that :

1) You are not the guy they need. I am sure that you are great but you are just too high maintenance at a stage that is too early for that.

2) You need to run your own show, you sound like the type of guy who have an hard time following others.

If you think that either doing it by yourself or associating with someone who is "CEO material" would be hard, then it can very well be an indicator that you currently are pushing your luck.

</comment><comment><USER23> The CEOs job is to sell the vision. To investors, employees/recruits, and early customers. That's the job. Not to code or do sprints or stay up 3 straight days testing a release.

</comment><comment><USER24> Sounds like the stereotypical clueless academic ego quite honestly. Asked for a response in writing? Using online equity calculators 5 months post facto? What planet are you living on? Maybe you are undercompensated and deserve more but the way you're approaching this shows you are definitely not 2:1 CEO material. Reality check time.

</comment><comment><USER12> I suggest reading the book E-Myth. It's superbly relevant to your case.

Technicians who start a company think that they are everything. Yes, you have the technical prowess but that means squat if you want to participate in market economy. If you want to be appreciated purely as a technician, academia is a better fit.

Entrepreneurs who start a company know that the product is not a company.

And a manager knows how to deliver results for the company not create the product.

Really good book...

</comment><comment><USER25> I think a professional mediator may help resolve this situation. Everyone should feel they are fairly compensated. From a technical person's perspetive they are doing all the work. A business person often looks at a chief technical person as a key component of the overall business model. In my opinion, the most important question is will both of you do whatever is necessary to make this startup successful? A healthy cofounder relationship is essential to this. Could you have done this startup all by yourself? Remember half of a billion dollar company is better than a 100% of a broken startup. I would also encourage you to look at several Harvard business cases where there was tension between a CTO and non technical CEO. Many times a technical CEO would be moved to a CTO role. Once they sold that company, investors would be confident in them being the CEO a next time. In short, I would suggest thinking of this from a lot of perspectives before jumping to a decision. In general, a healthy cofounder relationship is critical to a startup and please resolve this now rather than later. Best of luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> No, I can't do this startup by myself. He's done some great things already getting the company funded and finding me. (Hard words to say.) I left my academic job to experience the thrills and spills of founding+leading, that's something I feel like I've lost that is part of this. I'm striving to keep this real and face all the truths. I don't want to kill this venture, but know what I've felt growing over the past few months. Perhaps it's transient and I need a better focus on the bigger picture. (CTO vs non-technical CEO readings sound like a great move.)

<comment><USER15> > (Hard words to say.)

I would encourage you to reflect hard on this.

Personally, I would worry that you're finding it difficult to give your CEO/co-founder credit. I don't know you, so it is not for me to judge the reasons - but I think you should try and understand why you find it hard, and if that is a problem with you, a problem with the CEO or something else.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> It seems like you are in the product phase. So right now, yes you probably are more valuable. However, there is so much more to building a business than just building a product. When it's sales and business development time the CEO will be the most important.

If you are saying he will not be able to do this job well, that is a tough problem to have. However, changing the equity is certainly not the answer.

You need to ask yourself what is the best way for the business to succeed. Not for you to obtain the most equity.

</comment><comment><USER27> > Can this work out?

You've pretty much set yourself and your company on fire with your public "negotiating strategy" here.

People have certainly been forwarding this thread to your investors all morning, it's not like you tried to obfuscate anything here. This is not how a board wants to learn about problems.

If it's not already toast, shut up and take notes because whichever investor helps you two work through this is a rockstar. You personally have more to learn from them than from anyone else you'll ever meet.

</comment><comment><USER28> Why did you join if the CEO is so-so? I think it can work out, if one of you leaves. Why are you so worried about his compensation compared to yours? If you feel you are undercompensated then demand more. If you feel like he is overcompensated, then question the board's judgement. It sounds more like sour grapes than anything the way you want to structure your equity with respect to the CEO.

</comment><comment><USER29> If a share vesting schedule makes you feel like it's not your company, why not get rid of that?

Have both of you own equal 50/50 stock directly and without conditions — that's the only way to really feel like you're the entrepreneur. If he doesn't want to do that, it's a sign that you're not being trusted either.

<comment><USER6> Generally VCs won't let you do that and will occasionally make you re-vest shares you'd previously vested as part of a new round of investment.

<comment><USER29> Right — I actually missed the "has VC funding" part in the original question.

I don't think most VCs would feel great about one founder going behind their backs to get an absolute majority of equity after the funding is already executed. Since the OP is effectively looking to demote his co-founder from the CEO position, he should make sure the VC partner and company board understand what's going on if he takes any action.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> You have a point on the amount of effort you are putting in.

But, there is a larger point here - People come up with ideas left and right. It is often said "Ideas are dime a dozen". Not many people put in effort to take a risk and start something.

So, when someone joins a startup they have to understand what they are getting into. Is the founder good enough or he is just hot air? People take a huge risk in joining a non-technical CEO on tech-oriented/facing projects. The founder/CEO might not be up to speed on tech methodology. They might even be reading stuff off magazine covers. And then demanding that their software work exactly like what they have read. This can be frustrating.

Unfortunately, not much can be done about it.

</comment><comment><USER31> You agreed on 50/50 when you joined, there is no way CEO will give his equity to you. Would you do it?

</comment><comment><USER32> Asking a forum filled with aspirational CEOs whether the CEOs should give up 2/3s of her equity to an employee doesn't sound like a promising idea.

</comment><comment><USER33> a lot of the comments are about the validity/tenability of your position, and while I overall agree with a lot of what is being said (unfortunately, the fact that an adversarial dynamic has been introduced strikes me as the hardest thing to overcome here, though still entirely possible to overcome) here's a few other things to consider:

1\. you can lead without being CEO. early on in the life of a company, co- founders often share CEO-like responsibilities on strategy matters and each will separately own / be responsible for their own domain (so in this case, it sounds like you should own the technical part, and your co-founder may own sales, marketing, fundraising, etc.). i think at this early stage the concern regarding leadership can be managed without explicitly changing title - as CTO and co-founder you should have significant influence and decision-making, regardless of title or equity split. if the problem is that the CEO is trying to steer / control things that they don't have an understanding of that you DO have a much better understanding of, regardless of position / equity you should view your job as helping both your cofounder (and any other people on the team) to understand and get behind the strategy that your expertise and experience tell you is right - this is a big part of leadership, getting people to believe in your vision, and the substantive act of succeeding at that should be more important than title, especially at this early stage. don't think to yourself "I'm not the CEO so therefore I can't lead" \- you can! especially if you have good logic / basis for your positions. now, if the CEO is intractable, doesn't understand and doesn't want to understand and you can't convince them or the team, I'd say it's not a good match regardless of position (and truthfully, while you may have good reason to consider your cofounder at fault, I'd also argue that the inability to communicate the strategy / expertise is a at a minimum a joint failure in communication, again, good reason to just call it, as understanding each other is key, esp. at this early stage). this is all to say: you should be able to position yourself as the leader on the things you want to lead, regardless of title, esp. at this stage.

2\. the board decides who the CEO is, so they should be making the decision (but proceed with MAJOR caution). the board decides who the CEO is, so i hate to suggest this as it will get very messy, but if you really have deep conviction then you may also want to go to the board (which presumably you are part of, so that's good access). since you are VC-backed, there's a good chance you have a VC on your board, and they can act as tie-breaker - if not, you can still rely on investors who own a controlling interest of the investor's class of shares - even if you did a note, whoever is the "lead" or "leads" and have the most sway can help be a tie-breaker here. the board and investors should have the best interest of the company at heart, and if you can really make the case that the best thing is for you to lead, they can arguably help. the problem here may be that if the CEO led the fundraising efforts, their relationship will investors may be stronger (though I could be wrong here), and there's a good chance that going to the board / investors will only accelerate your getting pushed out. of course if you did the fundraising and own those relationships, it should be easier to make a change. the key thing here is to recognize that this is a big escalation, things will move quickly one way or the other (boards are trained to resolve founder disputes with total urgency), so only proceed if you have total conviction and are not afraid to be pushed out entirely over it. I've seen this go many different ways, and while most of the time this blows up the company, it seems like the company would have blown up inevitably because the board maneuverings were just a symptom of deeper underlying issues that could not be resolved. in a small minority of cases, I've seen this work out, usually because one of the founders gets pushed out and the company is able to recover - of course, works out means from the company's perspective, you could of course be the one who is asked to leave. a secondary effect is that if you lose at that level, those VCs will view you as a trouble-maker, and getting funding may be tough for your future projects (from those VCs, but also others as its a small world). again, this is really the highest escalation you can make, proceed with loads of caution and take into account the very serious risks, and view it as a last resort.

3\. cofounders need to trust each other. overall, the key issue here seems to be trust: you don't trust that the CEO can lead, and I would assume at this point the CEO may not trust you to accept their position. while the adversarial dynamic may be impossible to reverse at this point, I think more than anything the only way for this to succeed with both of you involved will be if you can both learn to trust each other, cheesy as it sounds this is probably the most important things to have between cofounders, esp. at this early stage (you are both risking a lot betting on the other, trust and good faith is required). again, might be irreparable at this point, but I think now that you've aired your concerns, you can try to guide that into a productive dialogue that establishing trust of the other, acknowledges both your and the cofounders strengths/limitations, and perhaps you can both begin learning to trust eachother more - that being said, at this early stage where you may need to move fast, the process of developing trust will slow the company down and unless you have some serious financial padding (which you may), that time spent on building trust will be what allow your more already aligned competitors' teams (if any) to outrun you. that all being said, if you just don't trust them and you don't think you ever will, then I'd say either leave or think about option 2 above.

sources: worked with execs and boards of many early stage companies around these kinds of issues, as an outside attorney, general counsel and as a business exec.

<comment><USER33> also - all of the above applies to the CEO as well, so if you're not already talking to the non-founder board / investors, then I'd guess the CEO is (or should be).

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Do this simple thought exercise: what happens if you leave the company?

You lose a funded company.

They lose (I'm inventing now) the only chance to get the product to work.

A VC would probably want to help you settle this dispute, to avoid wasting a) the money and b) the opportunity to have funded a successful company.

<comment><AUTHOR> All true. I've shared a large report that I wrote with a consultant to help unpick some of the detail. Superficially, the CEO is right. Scratch the surface, and I'm right. Who's right or wrong is moot(?). I like the thought that I can reduce my engagement with the CEO and focus on the work/relationships that I enjoy. At least for a bit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Fire the CEO if you can. It seems like this CEO is one of the "who you know" ones.

When you do hire talented engineers they won't want a leader who exists out of nepotism, it has the potential to rot the whole company from the head(seen it more than once).

<comment><USER36> "Who you know" can be really valuable. It can be based on past work relationships and reputation. And it can make raising money a lot easier.

That has a lot of value.

If the OP thinks he can do better than he should leave and start his own company, including raising funding. Problem solved.

<comment><USER35> From what I've seen it's mostly just incompetent people who were born rich or friends/family of board members.

<comment><USER36> Does it matter? Connections are connections.

Again, if you think you can do it without them, go for it!

<comment><USER35> After thinking about this I agree</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>