Space Aging - <AUTHOR> http://geroscience.com/space-aging/ <comment><USER2> This is one of the places that in-situ materials change the game. Having a metallic (or even iceball) asteroid in earth orbit really changes the formula on the availability of shielding and fuel for a mission anywhere. Honestly I am in the "skip Mars" camp and I think we should go straight to the asteroids.

<comment><USER3> Shielding mass = inertial mass. How do we give it enough delta-V?

Bringing from Earth a few tons of nuclear-powered jet engine to use water as propellant would take building such an engine first. We're not even close.

Chemical engines are lightweight and well-understood. Lifting kilotons of chemical fuel is not feasible, though. So we need to build an orbital chemical / cryo facility to produce at least something as simple as liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, again by the kiloton.

This is on top of building an orbital shipyard to construct the actual spaceship, with all that heavy shielding around it, and the skeleton to carry it, the fuel, and the habitable compartment. It's going to be a spectacular feat of space-borne metallurgy, mechanical processing, including precise machining, quite some chemistry to support that all and produce necessary plastic parts, saying nothing about the power plant to feed this all.

Here we assume that we have an asteroid that has enough metals, carbon, and water neatly parked on Earth orbit. How do we achieve that, and how many decades would it take to bring it here, is not even considered.

This all would be great to have! But getting straight to Mars seems simple in comparison.

<comment><USER4> > Bringing from Earth a few tons of nuclear-powered jet engine to use water as > propellant would take building such an engine first. We're not even close.

That's not true. NASA built and tested designs for a nuclear engine in the 80s, human rated even, and the results were spectacular.

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The scoop: radiation damage during space travel is similar to aging damage. Known anti-aging drugs help. More is needed to make interplanetary travel feasible.

<comment><USER5> > Known anti-aging drugs help.

Anti-aging drugs?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> As we move into space we're going to notice just how sensitive we are to our environment. It's like the higher rate of skin cancer among people with less melanin - not noticed until people moved far away from where their ancestors lived.

Gravity is more pervasive. It affects everything in biology and why shouldn't it? It's been a constant in the background that every direction evolution took transitively depends on.</comment>


How to make $100k in Open Source by working hard - <AUTHOR> http://www.mikeperham.com/2013/10/01/how-to-make-100k-in-oss-by-working-hard <comment><USER2> I think there are likely a variety of contractual options other than "24/7 phone support" which businesses would be happy to pay for, on an ongoing basis. For example, you could charge $500 plus $100 per year for "maintenance", and not be any more specific than "the software will be maintained in an ongoing fashion", and now you won't be starting from $0 next January 1st. As someone who has started from $0 every January 1st for the last 7 -- don't do it! It sucks!

Congrats, though -- Sidekiq is one of the few commercial OSS offerings that I know of doing well in the Ruby/Rails ecosystem. Most of the others just act as friendcatchers for consulting, too.

<comment><USER3> > charge $500 plus $100 per year for "maintenance", and not be any more > specific than "the software will be maintained in an ongoing fashion"

I work at a mega corp, and I cannot echo this enough, we have tons of "maintenance" agreements for hardware and software of all sorts, $100 is not even in the noise level for some of these agreements! Software needs to be maintained, get this done upfront, it is a total pain in the but to have something fail, and then try and push through a purchase for "maintenance" after the fact. This means that I have to get a quote, get my boss to sign off, get purchasing in the loop, etc, etc. Just have this as an annual agreement and it will get processed like everything else. 10 years later, someone will ask, who uses this, and no one will know, and it will get renewed, just because they don't want something to fail ;)

<comment><USER4> And since the bureaucratic overhead is so high, you better ask for enough money to make it worthwhile.

<comment><USER5> Remember the often quoted advice from Joel Spolsky:

[http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckie...](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckies.html)

Enterprise sales cycle is EXPENSIVE, so, while the actual cost of your service may be much less, you have to pay for the ten airplane flights and meetings and hotel rooms before you close your sale (and add a few one afterwards for good measure).

also

[http://cdixon.org/2010/02/06/selling-to- enterprises/](http://cdixon.org/2010/02/06/selling-to-enterprises/)

"Enterprise-focused VC's sometimes refer to products priced between (roughly) $5k and $100K as falling in the "valley of death." Above $100K, you might be able to make a profit given the cost of sales. Below $5k you might be able to market your product, hence have a very low cost of sales"

I'm not sure if all of that advice applies to a Ruby gem... big freaking enterprises don't use Ruby that much.

That said, it's a great success story :)

<comment><USER6> Does that point stands when people can freely start using the software, and enterprises decide to buy support because they are already using the product?

Somehow all that process must work for buying paper clips and pencils. Yeah, they buy those in huge amounts, but I can not conceive that they pay much of a premium. I know that governments have streamlined process for those situations. Don't corportations also have shorter procedures?

<comment><USER5> I think many sane ones do have a corporate credit card for small purchases.

But others don't, the one I work for has a generic process for software/development tools, which must be budgeted for one year in advance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The title of this article is the opposite of what the article says.

He made almost no money with open source. He made tons of money by withholding features from the open source library and instead only offering them under a commercial license as an add-on. Since this is itself a violation of the LGPL, anyone using the Pro version isn't even using open source at all, as both the original and Pro enhancements are at that point licensed with a commercial license.

An accurate title would be: "How to make $100K by writing an open source library, waiting for a lot of people to build a product using it, then holding back essential features until they pay you money, which they will do because they are suffering lock-in and it's way cheaper to pay you than pay a developer for dozens of hours of work to adopt an open source solution."

<comment><USER8> Violation of the LGPL? By the author?

<comment><USER9> The GPL licenses do not prevent the owner of the copyright to release other copies under another license.

<comment><USER10> Technically, Sidekiq Pro isn't a copy. It's a set of plugins designed to integrate with the open source project.

<comment><USER11> In which case, maybe it's classified as a derivative work of the original OS project? This is how WordPress tries to classify third-party themes and plugins, meaning they should "thus inherit the GPL license". See: [http://www.wordpress.org/about/license/](http://www.wordpress.org/about/license/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> First, the title is simply wrong. The OP did not make 100k with Open Source, he made 100k selling something that's an addon to his LGPL based offering. Another part of the package is a commercial license bundled with his software. Of course there is nothing wrong with that, but saying that he made money in os is just plain wrong, IMVHO.

>>In nine months of selling commercial licenses, I sold 33 for $1,650. If you figure I spent 300 hours building Sidekiq, that's less than minimum wage. Result: failure.

Second, If the money was only reason why the OP build the software then I have to agree that this is a failure. If on the other hand sidekiq was used in some of this own projects, he should also calculate how much time/money he saved by creating it.

<comment><USER13> Why do you object to calling this 'making money with Open Source'? I agree that "making money by developing and selling closed source extensions to open source products" is 'making money with Open Source'. Especially considering he also developed and maintains the OS product.

<comment><USER14> Because it seems similar to claiming prostitutes make money by greeting people and chatting. Although they do greet and chat for free, what they actually do for money is different.

Note: I believe prostitution is a morally acceptable profession for consenting adults. Therefore I'm not choosing that analogy to be pejorative to the OP; I'm choosing it to be blunt. IMHO the OP is doing nothing wrong, and more power to him. I just agree with GP that the characterization of it as making money "from" open source is confusing.

<comment><USER15> Well for legal reasons, many of them do claim to charge money for the greeting and chatting, and whatever two consenting adults happen to do after that is their own business.

It's true that they probably couldn't charge for the greet and chat if it weren't for what they do for "free." It's also true that Mike Perham probably couldn't charge for his commercial work, if not for what he did for free.

Admittedly this is a rather loose analogy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Charging a flat rate ($500) per company is leaving a lot of cash on the table. Have you considered a tiered model based on number of servers in use?

As well as increasing fees from Megacorps, the flipside is you could also offer discounts to non-profits, early startups, and so on, and in exchange for links on their homepage.

<comment><USER17> The authors article is good although it misses a tiny little detail when calculating hourly costs. Its not just his $100K/700 hours = pretty good, its also his customers thinking, hmm, it took a specialist 700 hours, so it going to take our busy guys 1000 hours part time, and our guys are already busy, and he's only asking $500, thats a bargain at 50 cents per hour to replicate...

Now if you start demanding $5/hr from each customer then the outsources in India are going to start eating into your sales when they take the work inside or just figure out a work around that doesn't take 1000 or 700 hours.

Another interesting issue is signing budgets. I have no use for this particular example but my boss can sign off on $500 at pretty much any mega corp I've worked at, but if you demand annual auto-renewal ongoing charges or get into the mid 4 figures suddenly you have to convince a heck of a lot more people than me and my boss. If you're charging more than a conference or a training class, or you're demanding annual payment, its going to be a harder sell for megacorps. Sure the code monkey and his boss might love it, but now you need to convince additional bean counters who think ruby is a precious stone and its all downhill from there. You could try to corporate speak market it to get past the bean counters with lots of babble about proactively leveraging the synergy of the enterprise cloud platform but that risks repelling the code monkey and his boss, a fine line to walk.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Really impressed by how customer-friendly the licensing is:

> How many licenses do I need to buy?

> Every organization that runs Sidekiq Pro for their own benefit must purchase > a license.

> GitHub runs *.github.com. They need one license for their entire site.

> GitHub sells GitHub Enterprise to various customers. They need one license > per customer because the product is installed and run locally by the > customer.

> Pivotal Labs builds websites on behalf of customers. They need one license > per customer because the customer is the one getting the benefit of Sidekiq.

</comment><comment><USER19> If your story is true, then stop talking about it already!

First,

Since you're in the U.S.A., you'll be getting into the 40-50% marginal tax bracket with federal, state, and Self-Employment Taxes. If you incorporated in an off-shore jurisdiction, you'll keep all your money. In your situation, it's completely invisible to your corporate customers where you are located. If they're willing to pay random guy in Portland, Oregon, they'll pay random company in Singapore (for example). You could even disclose the existence of the foreign company to the tax authorities. In that case, don't draw a salary or a dividend from the foreign company, and you'll still pay no U.S. tax. Let the company pay for your "business travel", "business expenses", etc. And otherwise just let the cash pile up in the foreign account.

Second,

I highly doubt you'll gain additional customers through your blog. It sounds like you get customers because they are already using the open source component, and discover they could benefit from the paid component. Your article about the $100k gets you hacker cred, but also draws competition. Blog about the open source component, and keep mum about the dough.

Good luck.

<comment><USER5> I upvoted you because it's an interesting dissenting opinion, and I've always wondered about whether the upside of being open beats the downside of additional competition.

We also don't know whether he paid taxes on the income (I also guess not), and, most importantly, whether his blog post will bring him additional revenue.

Do you have many examples where blogging about success brought about competition? Are there big barriers of entry to building what he built? It looks like you'd need at least 700 of developer hours, I wouldn't do it lightly.

OTOH if I had found an easy way to beat the lottery I wouldn't blog about it :P

<comment><USER20> >> We also don't know whether he paid taxes on the income (I also guess not)

Mike is an upstanding citizen and member of the open source community. There's absolutely no reason to make unfounded claims like this against his integrity.

<comment><USER5> I'm sorry, you're right. I should not have assumed otherwise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Author here, thanks for the kind words. Always nice to wake up to a DDoS of my site at 2AM. :-)

Recurring revenue is a pricing change I'm seriously considering, I just don't have a payment system in place that can manage my customer list and handle the annual CC charge.

<comment><USER22> Just have to say, Sidekiq and Dalli are two gems that I view as essential in the Rails toolkit. Thanks for your work in those areas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> "How to make $100k in Open core" would be a better title imho. After all, he makes his earnings from the pro additions, not the open part.

</comment><comment><USER24> "Making Money in Open Source" can have several meanings. Selling software is just what most people think of when reading the title. I myself can say I made about $150k in Open Source this year. But it wasn't by selling software, it was by doing freelance jobs and consulting that involved free software only. Money wasn't coming in on autopilot, I had to get up every day and go to work at several places. But for me, free software is the reason I live a very comfortable life, doing things I love to do. It just isn't selling software, but everything else around it. I always tell my friends that I am the perfect example that Open Source brings in more than enough money.

<comment><USER25> I can't figure out how the license on the software is relevant to this story. It seems like you could just as easily tell this story to relate how well a lucky money-making charm works. The charm did not make you money; the hours you put in consulting did. I mean, this doesn't give me any reason to open- source any software I write outside of a specific contract to do so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> He made that money with proprietary software based on the open source software.

No scarcity, no money, it seems: [http://journal.dedasys.com/2007/02/03/in- thrall-to-scarcity](http://journal.dedasys.com/2007/02/03/in-thrall-to- scarcity)

</comment><comment><USER27> Having a large picture of someone's face staring at me next to the text distracts me, creeps me out, and makes it very difficult for me to read. Lots of tech blogs have this anti-feature but this one is particularly egregious.

</comment><comment><USER3> For anyone that is interested, Sidekiq was featured in a RailsCasts episode #366 [1].

[1] [http://railscasts.com/episodes/366-sidekiq](http://railscasts.com/episodes/366-sidekiq)

</comment><comment><USER28> Loading very slow. Mirror: [http://i.imgur.com/5eq7rZk.png](http://i.imgur.com/5eq7rZk.png)

</comment><comment><USER29> So how do I make $100k in Open Source now?

<comment><USER30> That's a $100k question ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Is there a good data source of open source-based jobs and how to get them?

Clearly there is a massive open source economy. I would like to understand that better.

<comment><USER32> I'm also interested on this!

<comment><USER31> I really wish someone would do a PhD dissertation on it, or write a book on it, or something. I guess it's likely that there's something somewhat like what I'm looking for out there already.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> So who provides support for the base product? My concern with the free and 'enterprise' version of products, is support for the free.

You could say just community support, but then if things aren't getting fixed either you end up fixing them or your product gets a bad name. If you provide email support, you're tying a lot of your time to the free product.

Just curious how others handle this.

<comment><USER25> I'm sure that he'd be willing to offer support if you wanted to pay for the support.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I'm a big fan of Sidekiq, and the model he's chosen. Some of the features implemented in the free version (retries with logarithmic logic as to timing, scheduled tasks) could possibly in a paid version, and the price point for the Pro version ($500) is a bit bold.

<comment><USER35> $500 for an entire corporation is very low - that's one day's worth of developer time. How much developer time would you need to replicated Sidekiq?

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Big thanks to the author for posting this, and for including some actual numbers!

This is also exciting because it shows that you can make money directly with an open source product, instead of making money with services surrounding a product.

</comment><comment><USER37> Can someone help me understand whether he's the only one allowed to build a paid service over the open source code, or could anyone technically take away all his open source code and build the same service he provides in the pro. Because if he doesn't have that control, then this is really not making money with open source but rather relying on existing open source to make money

<comment><USER9> As a non owner of the copyright, but beneficiary of a GPL license, you would be allowed to make a derived work (your own "pro" version), and to distribute it (to sell it), but it would have to be under the GPL.

In this case, since it is a library under the LGPL, you could make a client product using this library, instead of a derived work, and you could distribute this product under your own terms, but if you provide the library along, you must of course keep this library under the LGPL (and provide the sources of the library).

So with the LGPL, you are free to make competiting proprietary products.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> It's encouraging to hear this can work. Of course that guy was extremely fortunate to be making something everyone was interested in, so it's still a risk (but then again: what isn't?).

<comment><USER39> You say fortunate, I say foresighted. In any event. I imagine that he started building it to meet his own needs and the growth of revenue now is a happy side-effect.

<comment><USER38> It's probably always a bit of both, but I'd say that level of success doesn't come without the necessary context (several things have to conspire for it to happen). Anyway, it's an inspiring story!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> is it me or the link is broken?

<comment><USER41> It's loading very slowly. Try:

[http://www.mikeperham.com.nyud.net/2013/10/01/how-to- make-10...](http://www.mikeperham.com.nyud.net/2013/10/01/how-to-make-100k-in- oss-by-working-hard/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Or you can join Google and make close to 250k a year as a new grad...

<comment><USER43> Cite?</comment></comment>


The launchd on Free/Net/OpenBSD train is never coming - vezzy-fnord http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jonathan.deboynepollard/FGA/launchd-on-bsd.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting, I'd never heard of nosh before despite following the launchd porting effort.</comment>


More nginx/stunnel ssl testing - <AUTHOR> http://nginx.org/pipermail/nginx/2011-July/027960.html

<comment><USER2> I'd just like to go on the record to say, chances are that what we're all benchmarking here (stunnel/stud/nginx) is essentially openssl--and that, unsurprisingly, when we use whatever contortions are necessary to get OpenSSL set up in identical configurations within each daemon, the results are roughly on par.

tl;dr -- we can probably all stop doing these benchmarks since we're largely benchmarking the same thing.

<comment><USER3> If that's the case ... then it's a real problem.

The mainstream argument lately has been that SSL is so minimally computationally intensive that it doesn't hurt to just use it by default for all of your traffic. If piping your traffic through SSL is _so_ computationally intensive that it dominates your entire cross-webserver benchmark ... then the mainstream argument can't possibly be true.

<comment><USER4> _SSL is so minimally computationally intensive that it doesn't hurt to just use it by default for all of your traffic_

May I ask where you got that from ?

SSL, or to be more accurate RSA, IS computationally intensive, but mostly at the establishment of the session (you cannot do millions of multiplications on a consumer grade CPU without expecting some delay and heat).

Once the connection is established, and can be reused/resumed, it's relatively cheap.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Real SSL clients are supposed to use SSL session resumption. Benchmarking with a client that only negotiates new sessions hardly reflects real-life usage.</comment>


Hoping to avert "collision" with disaster, Microsoft retires SHA1 - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/11/hoping-to-avert-collision-with-disaster-microsoft-retires-sha1/

<comment><USER2> It's about time. Here's what NIST said in 2006:

 _" NIST encourages a rapid adoption of the SHA-2 hash functions for digital signatures, and, in any event, Federal agencies must stop relying on digital signatures that are generated using SHA-1 by the end of 2010."_

</comment><comment><USER3> Internet Explorer is the first browser to implement SSL/TLS 1.2? What about Firefox and Chrome - anyone know their status?

<comment> nezza-_- I think they mean that they're the first to retire the cipher suits, not the first who implemented TLS1.2.

Quote from here: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_Layer_Security#Dealin...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_Layer_Security#Dealing_with_RC4_and_BEAST)

      Chrome 30 and Opera 17 support TLS 1.1 and 1.2 enabled by default. Firefox 25 and 24
      ESR, and Internet Explorer 6-10 have support for TLS 1.1 and 1.2 but disabled by default
      (Firefox 28 Nightly and IE 11 supports TLS 1.1 and 1.2 enabled by default).
      Safari 6 for Mac OS X 10.8 and 10.7, and Safari 5 for Windows and support only
      TLS 1.0 (Safari for iOS, and Safari 7 for Mac OS X 10.9 support TLS 1.1 and 1.2
      enabled by default).

<comment><USER4> I just made a correction to the part on Internet Explorer on Wikipedia.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It is nice and all that Microsoft is pushing TLS 1.2 and AES-GCM, but they still don't have support in schannel (used by IIS and IE??) for ECDHE_RSA_AES_GCM cipher suites.

<comment><USER4> Or any AES-GCM RSA cipher suites for that matter. I complained to Marsh Ray of MS about this.

<comment><USER6> Your request has not been forgotten :-)

But it might be really helpful if you were to explain a specific customer scenario where the security would be meaningfully increased by adding support for this particular cipher suite. I might be able to come up with something, but it would mean more coming from a customer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7>
      Microsoft officials went on to recommend that customers
      stop using SHA1 now and begin using certificates based on
      SHA2, which is much more resistant to collision attacks.

If SHA1 is broken at the algorithm level, one must _not_ use SHA2, which is the just a bigger SHA1.

<comment><USER8> "Just bigger" can buy 10-20 more years. The details do matter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Are any other major OSs using SHA1?

<comment><USER8> git does, pervasively.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> git uses sha1 for ... everything. git's cryptography guarantees is based on signing sha1 commit ids. Perhaps it's time to move on?

</comment><comment><USER10> ... after seeking approval from the NSA.</comment>


How much money would you want to quit Facebook for a year? Most people say $1000 - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612645/how-much-money-would-you-want-to-quit-facebook-for-a-year-most-people-say-1000/ <comment><USER3> Is this type of question really that relevant? It's almost like the kind of survey Facebook would want to do itself, because it knows the outcome could be quite misleading.

If I remember correctly, there was another question like this a few years ago in regards to how much they'd like to be paid to quit the internet for life. Most people responded with "a billion dollars". Let's be real here - <USER2> people would be content with much less than that if they think that will set them for life.

</comment><comment><USER4> I barely even use facebook right now? Mainly have used because other people in my past hace used it as a point of contact. A thousand dollars that's insane that most people value it that much. Funny thing is most those people I have not heard from in years. So I have no reason to even check on it.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'd want at least $20. To get it, I'd first have to _create_ a Facebook account, which feels kind of icky - hence the $20.

</comment><comment><USER6> I quit (delete not deactivate) 8 years ago for free it's been great.</comment>


Our Newfound Fear of Risk - <AUTHOR> http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/09/our_newfound_fe.html <comment><USER2> I think it's become a cultural thing, unfortunately. I've spent the last few years seeing the world, and the difference in attitudes between the people of many other countries and Americans at home is striking. We've become a fear- based culture.

I have an anecdote from a month or two ago. My girlfriend--she's German--and I were in Boston's central park, where there's a wading pool for children. The place was extremely busy with families and children everywhere--and also crawling with police. As the mother next to us ushered their 9-year-old into the pool, the mother loudly told her, "If anyone touches you, you scream!" My girlfriend laughed out loud at the silliness of it (the child was within eyeshot, in a pool filled with other children and families, in broad daylight, and surrounded by police) and commented to me about how afraid Americans are of everything.

Now that's just an anecdote. But we're seeing bits and pieces of this everywhere. Parents fearful of pedophiles around every corner. TV commercials about new drugs, scaring us into thinking we have some painful disease. ("If you've had chicken pox, the shingles virus is _already inside you_..."). People like the Free-Range Parenting blogger getting harassed and hounded. The ballooning security and surveillance apparatus. The militarization of our police, and draconian and unfathomable laws and sentencing requirements. The TSA, which is pure theater in service of fear. Bits and pieces.

I find myself increasingly thinking that the fear-based environment in the US is not a place I would want my children to grow up in. It breeds a dangerous us-vs-them (the brown people, the druggies, your neighbor) mentality and leads to suspicion and hatred.

Unfortunately I don't know what to do about it other than move to a different, more emotionally stable country. Culture is hard to change and takes a generation.

<comment><USER3> Which leads to a culture where everyone is afraid of touching kids that are not their own. It's really sad.

<comment><USER4> When my own kid was very young I was paranoid about touching him in public. It didn't stop me, but I was mindful of it, and I would occasionally feel I was getting extra scrutiny by some parent; a man not at work in the daytime, holding a young boy's hand.

Feh.

<comment><USER5> This strikes me as odd. As a parent (dad) of two, I wouldn't ever dream of feeling odd about holding either of my kids' hands - or even for that matter chasing them down when they run away screaming (which happens often).

Just a counter data point here.

<comment><USER4> I didn't feel odd for the act, I felt uncomfortable with the assumptions or speculation implied by the scrutiny. No one likes to be distrusted, regardless of the context.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Related: at the PARK this weekend, and heard all the following utterances in the span of ten minutes from some parents: "NO RUNNING!" "IT'S DANGEROUS HERE" "YOU'RE GONNA GET HURT" "NO RUNNING!"

Talk about instilling fear and creating risk aversion. Sometimes you just have to let a child find out for themselves what's safe and what isn't. What you can get up and dust yourself off from and what you can't.

It's hard to do (I say this as a parent of 5 year old boy), but you have to resist the urge to hover over them and caution or approve their every move.

<comment><USER7> I'd bet that much of the issue stems from the decline in birth rates among middle/upper middle class parents relative to the days of yore. When you only manage to pop out one or two kids, at great career sacrifice and monetary expense, each one seems to matter more than they did back in the day.

Also, paradoxically, the safer things get the more people worry about the dangers that remain. This is rational. Say doing this or that during pregnancy results in 1 in 10,000 women dying during child birth. If 1 in 100 women die during child birth anyway, it's not a big deal. But if improvements in medical technology gets the base rate down to 1 in 10,000, then suddenly you're talking about doubling your risk.

<comment><USER8> I would say it's got less to do with the perceived (even subconsciously) value of the children, and more the experience of the parents. For the first child, you're often hyper-conscious of threats and problems. With later children you've better assessed what's important to pay attention to and what isn't.

<comment><USER9> In case anyone didn't notice the implied point here: a far greater percentage of children are now the first child.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> When you treat adults like children, and children like babies, you get exactly that. And that's why a hundred years ago 14-year olds were captaining their own ships, and today you have 40-year olds who can't do their own laundry or balance a checkbook.

<comment><USER11> I also wonder if it's related to decreased birth rates in modern times - parents have fewer children than a century or two ago, so losing a single child to an accident of some sort is much more costly to the family, hence the increased risk aversion.

<comment> mark-r I doubt that losing a child has ever been less than awful no matter how many you have.

<comment><USER11> Certainly no less emotionally awful, but less economically consequential to the family. Incentives matter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I found this article trite. It's merging 3 disparate concepts which have complex explanations, and deciding instead it's to do with risk.

Militarization of the police force is a big one for example - that has practically nothing to do with risk and everything to do with politics and budgeting. It's "tough on crime" writ large, with people then demanding to see the results of all the money being spent which isn't needed - so enter military surplus and suddenly every small town has an APC and a SWAT team but absolutely no need for one (and usually insufficient training). And once you have those things, every problem starts to look like it needs a SWAT response since you've got to justify having them.

Of course that's just one facet of it, there are others but it's totally disingenuous to pretend its some irrational fear of risk driving any of this.

<comment><USER13> Militarization of the police force is a big one for example - that has practically nothing to do with risk and everything to do with politics and budgeting. It's "tough on crime" writ large,

This seems like a contradiction. It has nothing to do with risk, yet the people who want it are the "tough on crime" type. Don't you think that those people see NOT being tough on crime as a risk?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> It was a lot easier to tolerate risk when people had a common Big Picture. This could be provided by religion, ideology etc. Such attitudes still hold in some places, e.g. Amish communities seem more resilient after school shootings [1].

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amish_school_shooting#Amish_com...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amish_school_shooting#Amish_community_response)

<comment><USER15> And when the Big Picture is fractured, trust disappears.

I see the anti-vax craze as primarily an issue of trust and control. "I don't trust Those People (the doctors)" or along the lines of "I need to control everything, including my vaccine schedule".

<comment><USER16> Or perhaps, "I can't control nearly _anything_ anymore, so I'm going to get super focused on those few things I still _can_ control, like my child's vaccine schedule."

People have spent decades now having their lives turned upside down by forces they're told they can't control: market movements, giant corporations, unresponsive political systems. Rather than pushing back and trying to assert some control over those things, which would require collective action, they focus inward instead on those things in their lives that they know they _can_ control. It almost doesn't matter if their interventions there make things better or worse; it's more about giving the feeling of being In Charge.

It's like the CEO of the failing company who spends all his time micromanaging the colors on the company Web site home page. He can't give an order that will turn the business around, but he _can_ give an order to change those colors. Which makes him feel like he still has some control over the future, even though he really doesn't.

<comment><USER15> I like your version better.

After all, in modern society we delegate an awful lot of stuff. Shoe making to shoe makers, security to police and military, health care to doctors, teaching to teachers, etc. etc. etc. The stuff we delegate is so close to 100% of our lives, the actual difference is lost in the noise.

On top of that, the little that most people do control is meaningless to their own lives. You do customer support at Big Widget Factory Inc. How is that relevant to _you_?

Probably home schooling is also an offshoot of this phenomenon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'd wager that our increasing reliance on technology in all walks of life - education, anti-terrorism, policing, medicine, health etc. - also plays a role in fanning our fear of risk.

I _think_ technology tends to offer us two things: (a) an illusion of meaning, as risks are reduced to a discrete set of numbers in excel sheets or databases, and (b) a false sense of control, because we try all sorts of actions (like the ones Schneier mentions) to reduce some of those risks.

Then of course there is the cultural angle.

> Risk tolerance is both cultural and dependent on the environment around us.

I'm from India and our willingness to tolerate or overlook risk is fairly high (I don't mean that in a good way, because most of the times we are fairly blasé about our personal/collective safety or about taking preventive actions almost to the extent of devaluing individual lives). But, for what it's worth, we are therefore more willing to tolerate violent risks like the ones Schneier mentions for longer.

Note: 2011 Schneier reference to a research study analysing risk and culture - [https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2011/09/risk_toleranc...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2011/09/risk_tolerance.html)

</comment><comment><USER18> Sorry, but there is no remotely possible U.S. political world in which Afghanistan is not invaded after September 11. If avoiding military action after an attack on that scale is your standard for a "smart about risk" society, you'll be waiting a long, long time.

<comment><USER19> The U.S. could have participated only in targeted strikes against Al Qaeda, leaving the rest to local forces as a local matter that isn't our business, and not tried to occupy the country and engage in nation-building.

If they had done just a targeted strike against Al Qaeda, larger in scope but similar to what they did against Bin Laden's compound in Pakistan, we probably could have gotten Bin Laden years earlier and not spent more than a decade trying in the morass that is Afghanistan.

Our mistake was deciding that we needed to get rid of the Taliban and build a democratic nation from what was left after they were gone. There was never any hope of that; the Taliban just fled to the hills, to Pakistan, or just blend in with the local population because many of them are the local population. We have failed at building a nation that can take care of itself after we leave; within a year or two, the Taliban will be in power again.

<comment><USER20> Overthrowing the Taliban was almost a prerequisite for those types of strikes. The initial strikes and action in Afghanistan by special forces and CIA were almost completely reliant on assistance from the Northern Alliance - for which over throwing the Taliban was always the goal.

The initial air strikes (unguided from the ground) were totally useless. It wasn't until they got SF/CIA on the ground working with the Northern Alliance that they could get it working.

In any case, it would never have been as simple as 'leave it to the local forces'.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm currently sitting in JFK. I found this article interesting (as I do most of Schneier's writing) and almost read parts of it aloud to my wife who is sitting across from me. It then occurred to me that discussing rational responses to terrorism while sitting in an airport would likely be ill- advised...

<comment><USER22> It's probably the ideal forum.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself -- Nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance." \- FDR

</comment><comment><USER24> I recently started a job in the aerospace industry, and it's still taking me a little bit of time to get used to the concept of risk, simply because it:

      1) is rarely addressed in education (nowhere in sciences nor humanitites)
      2) is an extremely "scary" word
      3) is difficult to visualize.

The combination of all three of these factors means that people don't realize that risk is an _everyday_ thing: there are probabilities and outcomes that you need to weigh in order to make the decisions properly. Risk management is big if you're managing multi-million dollar contracts or huge rockets, but it seems to never filter down into the common psyche, which is disturbing. Humans have successfully managed risk to fly planes and go into space, so we have the models to make these decisions, yet we don't seem to be able to properly apply it on the ground.

Is the solution more education? I think so, but in a different light: people need to accept that bad things happen, and that you can model the probabilities and work out for yourself what tradeoffs you're making. Rarely is it all good and bad, and by estimating the expected value, you get the opportunity to say "no, this costs too much" in response to all-out "safety" measures.

</comment><comment><USER25> This new trend of a kinderocracy is troubling to say the least. If we are not able to accurately assess risk, how will society at large manage social norms and not turn into a police state?

One of the main things that parents fail to realize is that most of the child abusers are actually __not __pedos in the park with slr cameras. "about 60% of perpetrators are non-relative acquaintances, such as a friend of the family, babysitter, or neighbor. About 30% of those who sexually abuse children are relatives of the child, such as fathers, uncles, or cousins. Strangers are perpetrators in only about 10% of child sexual abuse cases." -VA.gov [http://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/pages/child_sexual_abuse...](http://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/pages/child_sexual_abuse.asp)

My guess why society at large has actively been ignoring the reality of child is abuse is that we as humans and families obviously want to be able to "do something" to protect their children. Saying that non-relative acquaintances are the most likely to be abusers is not going to go over well, but hell I could be wrong.

</comment><comment><USER26> I've been talking about risk for a couple years now.

Kids today have no idea what a reasonable risk is because most of them have not be allowed to make any life choices (or for that matter, any choices at all), so when they hit adulthood, they have no real idea whats a reasonable risk or not. I think we will see this effect odd parts of our society more and more as time goes on.

</comment><comment><USER27> Bruce is always the voice of reason. Too bad the people in charge are the voices of insanity.

<comment><USER28> As Bruce points out, people who are personally responsible for things when they fail are not insane in being risk averse. From their perspective, they are just playing it safe. Maybe we should be finding a way to make no one personally responsible for failures. But this sounds counter-intuitive, as personal responsibility is acknowledged as an effective mechanism to make people do their work right.

<comment><USER29> > Maybe we should be finding a way to make no one personally responsible for > failures. But this sounds counter-intuitive, as personal responsibility is > acknowledged as an effective mechanism to make people do their work right.

I think that a good middle-ground is what happens with judges in most of EU. In most systems you cannot directly sue a single judge for some misconduct that happened during a process. What you have to do is to sue "the state". Another judge will then judge the matter but then it is you vs the state, not against a single person; it is the state that takes care of all the legal things and legal costs. This gives the judges the freedom they need to be severe but just. Without this protection they will always be afraid of being sued by the losing party, especially when the losing party is a big, rich corporation.

Obviously, to counterbalance this exceptionally high degree of defence enjoyed by the judges, the state usually punish the judge with a fine or a suspension. But the intermediation of the state is able to rebalance the risks: if you do something wrong you risk a big fine, but you will not be dragged personally in a 10-year process that will destroy your career and your finances.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Our fear of risk associated with exploration comes to mind. Why haven't we sent someone to the Moon (again) or Mars?

Compared to early sailors, mountaineers, and polar explorers we seem to have lost the tolerance for dangerous exploration. Otherwise we should have by now sent a person on a (potentially) one-way trip to Mars.

</comment><comment><USER31> My greatest fear is that it will _never_ get better.

<comment><USER32> I think it can get better, but it's going to require a collapse of the whole system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Maybe people drove after 9/11 to avoid the TSA -- not because they thought planes were riskier.

<comment><USER34> The TSA is an aberration of risk aversion, so Schneider's point still stands.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> The pussification of America is not new.

</comment><comment><USER36> If risk-aversion is the central issue here, there should be a higher risk involved with a) shooting or otherwise harming civilians when you're law enforcement, and b) taking away liberties when you're the lawmaker. But with a dysfunctional justice system and a voting system that cements the broken 2-party regime, this won't ever be the case.

</comment><comment><USER37> Anyone else read this as "Our newfound fear of Riak"?

I got half way through the article until I re-read the title...

</comment><comment><USER38> Hmm. Read this as "newfound fear of RIAK" \- either spent too much time on datastores lately, or need my eyes tested.</comment>


I own you, and you're easily replaceable. - <AUTHOR> http://www.chemistry-blog.com/2010/06/22/something-deeply-wrong-with-chemistry/ <comment><USER2> _In addition to the usual work-day schedule, I expect all of the members of the group to work evenings and weekends. You will find that this is the norm here at Caltech._

Then you're doing it wrong at Caltech.

We are often quick to assume that MoreHoursWorked = MoreWorkGettingDone. This is true up to a point, but false beyond that point. Personally, I believe that evenings and weekends are usually beyond that point.

I used to work 90 hours per week. But when I decided that I needed to get more done, I started working 60 hours per week. Results per hour and quality of results have both improved dramatically, so I'll never go back. And I would never work for anyone who doesn't understand this.

<comment> loup-vaillant I recall that some studies showed that long term productivity is maximized at around 40 hours a week (at least on average) [citation needed, please]. When we go from 40 hours to 60, productivity rises temporarily, then falls. The fifth crunch time week is even less productive than a standard 40 hour week. After 2 months, the benefits of the first week are cancelled out. Finally, when we go back to 40 hours a week, productivity plummets, then rises to it's standard level.

But the most interesting thing is that long term _perceived_ productivity is higher at 60 hours a week than at 40. Because of that, it is very difficult to realize that overtime is a mistake (emergencies aside).

I would also understand that not all people are alike. Some may be most productive at 35 hours a week. Some may be most productive at 50. But 60 hours sound like much. Maybe you could try to work even less for a month and see the results? (And of course try to measure your productivity reliably. Going from 60 hours to 50 or 40 may be beneficial, but less so than going from 90 hours to 60.)

<comment><USER3> I know the same numbers, but they are for programmers. There are jobs where number of hours worked is by far the best predictor of output. OP's work may or may not be among them - sometimes science is a lot more like picking cotton then creative design.

<comment><USER4> Then they need to change the way they operate their labs, because they don't need someone with 25 years of education picking cotton.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The writer of this letter now has a research group _named after himself_ (<http://www.carreira.ethz.ch/>) so lets go with uncurable egomania combined with dangerous levels of political skill and charisma, all co-presenting with a callous disregard for one's fellows, justified by the argument that "people want to work for me." Frankly, we're lucky he's only a scientist and didn't study economics, politics or law instead of chemistry.

\--- edit ---

If naming groups after yourself is normal, then it's not a bad apple, it's a bad barrel! It sounds like academia could only be more feudal if you had to call your professor "my liege."

<comment><USER6> Lots of research groups are named after the PI, this is nothing unusual. For example:

<http://dft.uci.edu/>

<http://www.princeton.edu/~cargroup/>

<comment><USER7> At my university, it's more common to give your research group a grandiose name that implies it's got a bunch of profs in it, when it's actually just you. Not sure if that's better or worse...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Non-scientists love to talk about how important science is and how we need more scientists, but the reality is that smart kids with some worldly knowledge practically couldn't do worse than to go into science.

<comment><USER9> That seems to be a rather sweeping claim to make on the basis of one asshole.

<comment><USER10> It's probably on the basis of that one asshole, and the experiences of other people he knows.

I personally know several people who have been taken advantage of by their professors, so I'm inclined to believe him.

Also, "taken advantage of" is exactly the right term in my friends' cases. Both are classic Aspergers cases (actual Aspergers, not just an excuse for bad behavior), and their professors seem to be taking advantage of the trouble they have mounting an effective resistance.

<comment><USER11> >Also, "taken advantage of" is exactly the right term in my friends' cases. Both are classic Aspergers cases (actual Aspergers, not just an excuse for bad behavior), and their professors seem to be taking advantage of the trouble they have mounting an effective resistance.

That's just the real world calling, and their refusal or inability to answer. If they were in corporate america, a co-worker or middle manager would steal their work and take credit, or capitalize on their inability to resist additional assignments.

If they were in a start-up, they'd be overburdened and then forced out, probably receiving the lowest equity of anyone and getting even less than out of the deal, because they didn't make any decisions.

Its just a dog eat dog world out there, and if you can't say "No" or take credit for your achievements, you're going to get taken advantage of.

<comment><USER12> >That's just the real world calling, and their refusal or inability to answer. If they were in corporate america, a co-worker or middle manager would steal their work and take credit, or capitalize on their inability to resist additional assignments.

I've worked in corporate America for a while now, and I haven't seen managers steal credit for their workers work before. Generally, if you're a manager and you have someone you manage who is doing a great job and getting lots of stuff done, that reflects well on you as a manager too.

<comment><USER11> It all depends on the corporate culture. When I worked in the nuclear industry, the culture was very sociopathic. New engineers were 4 to a cubicle. It was "your fault" if a 40- or 80-hour task was not completed on time because your manager let it sit on his desk for two weeks and gave it to you on the day of the deadline.

I've also worked in places where engineers get the offices with windows, there are lunchtime tech talks, and managers try their best to prioritize work and then "get out of your way".

So it all depends. The people who email Scott Adams (of Dilbert) their workplace horror stories are not [all] making them up. A "good" corporate culture in America is still atypical, IMHO.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> My wife is currently a grad student at a top 10 chemistry university studying under a fairly well-known and respected female PhD (relevant because "respected female chemistry PhD" is rare enough to really be "what's wrong with chemistry now"...not the subject of this article...). This PhD does an excellent job in motivating her students by pushing them for timely results, but I don't think anyone in the lab feels like they are expected to work evenings and weekends (indeed, some of them have brand new kids and a healthy work/life balance).

Of course, most weekends the lab has least a couple people in it, but I don't think it reflects the attitude presented in this memo. To be clearer, the motivation to come in on weekends and stay late are not coming from a harshly- worded memo, but from their desire to push their career forward.

The plural of anecdote is not data, but I thought I'd throw that perspective in.

<comment><USER14> _The plural of "anecdote" is not "data"._

That's brilliant. Can I steal that from you?

<comment><USER15> According to this [1] you can steal it from Frank Kotsonis who in turn stole (and inverted) it from Raymond Wolfinger

[1] [http://askville.amazon.com/original-source-quote-plural- anec...](http://askville.amazon.com/original-source-quote-plural-anecdote- data/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=1415780)

<comment><USER16> Fascinating - according to that link, the Wolfinger quote stated the opposite, that the plural of anecdote _is_ data. I guess I could see it going either way depending on what you were arguing, which kind of makes the statement lose its punch.

<comment><USER17> That has been my point several times. Anecdotes _are_ data, they just aren't very good quality data, but sometimes they are all that is really available. Their biggest problem are lack of controls, but then many statistical analyses lack controls; and lack of consistent baselines and alternatives between anecdotes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is almost a perfect example of "sick system" (or how to keep people in abusive work/personal relationships):

      Rule 1: Keep them too busy to think.
      Rule 2: Keep them tired.
      Rule 3: Keep them emotionally involved.
      Rule 4: Reward intermittently.

<http://issendai.livejournal.com/572510.html>

<comment><USER19> Interestingly, if you add:

        Rule 5: Allow them to quit or pause at any time
        Rule 6: Allow them to set their own input costs (to "place their own bets")

you have the basic tenets of _game design_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> We'd never be so gauche as to send _a memo_ about it. There are much more efficient methods of getting employees to work every night and weekend, and if you do it right, it won't even occur to them that that isn't normal.

I forget whether I'm talking about salaryman "we" or tech industry "we"...

<comment><USER21> Presumably this is why Google is buying everyone breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

<comment><USER22> Probably not coincidentally, the end of breakfast and the beginning of dinner are 9 hours apart.

<comment><USER23> Isn't that because you also have an 1 hours lunch break ? Seems logic to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I always find it amusing how stunningly naive most people who work over 60 hours a week in salaried positions are. Your 100k job may seem swank but if you're working 60-80 hours a week you're making effectively 30-20 dollars an hour. You'd be better off working 2 separate jobs at $40 an hour at 50 hours a week (or a single hourly job at $36/hr that pays regular overtime) than killing yourself in the death march.

</comment><comment><USER25> I have a PhD from Caltech in Applied Physics/Engineering. I worked for a physics prof when I felt like it. He didn't even KNOW when I was working for the most part, and I took great vacations.

You payz your money and you takez your choice. Different profs, different groups, had different cultures. I was in a group where the cultural values were being really smart and having a great time. This letter is clearly from a group where the cultural value is devoting your life to climbing the ladder.

Rejecting the work your butt off model is the wiener way out. Maybe it works better, maybe not. Maybe it works well for some people, and that's why many of them are represented among the full professor faculty at Caltech. I don't care if it works that well, it is not my choice, and I had no problem finding full professors at Caltech who asked for nothing of that kind.

R:

<comment><USER26> In the OP's case, it was an assistant Prof trying to move up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Reminds me of a memo that got leaked from my previous employer back in '03. Tanked the stock 20% in a day.

<http://technocrat.net/d/2006/8/28/7262/>

<comment><USER28> Ah, but the company rebounded and is still doing pretty well, Neal Patterson is still CEO -- and most likely, the parking lot is half full on Saturdays.

Guys like this win @ life. By doing this kind of shit.

<comment><USER29> _Guys like this win @ life. By doing this kind of shit._

It's likely that, no matter what else he does with his life, this memo will always be the one thing he's most well known for, and just about everyone who reads it will judge him for writing it.

That just doesn't sound like "winning" to me.

<comment><USER30> Ah, but it's not bad to work for someone who has the guts to take action.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> This attitude was the norm when I was in chem grad school in the 90s. Slacking was working anything less than 70 hours a week and with 5-7 years of that kind of work undoable in a word from your advisor you were powerless to do anything about it.

Needless to say, I've never regretted my decision to drop out and write software instead.

</comment><comment><USER32> "This lab is what is known as a '40 hour lab'. You are not permitted to work here for more than 40 hours each week. Sign ins and sign outs will be rigorously monitored as well as periodic spot checks to make sure no research tasks associated with this lab have taken place outside official hours.

As you well know there are many, many qualified applicants who would gladly take your place if you feel that you are unable to follow these rules. The simple truth is that if you are unable to get results in the 40 hours provided each week, you will probably be unable to get results period and should look for different employment."

Go ahead, professor, post it. I dare you.

</comment><comment><USER33> I hate this kind of ethic; our competitors have it almost exclusively (from my observation).

We are a much smaller company all round with a _very_ relaxed work schedule (like today, our busiest day, we finished early to watch the football) and yet we consistently outperform, outmanoeuvre and beat those competitors into the dust.

It's _all_ about work ethic and the ability of a "team" to Get Things Done.

I think the leanest and most productive type of companies/groups/teams today tend to:

\- work flexible hours

\- work relatively few hours

\- and most importantly works hard to reduce the hours you need to be productive (this does wonders IMO)

</comment><comment><USER34> When choosing a field of work, it's important to look at the pay. I want to work at something I love, but I also want to get paid well for it, and no matter how much I love a field, I don't like being abused. If a field is money-poor, it just is. Some industries are awash in money, some aren't.

Next thing is how many people are eager to be in the field, no matter the cost. Don't enter a field overcrowded with good people. Sports, acting, anything glamorous. For reasons that escape me, science fits in this category. Find an area where you're genuinely appreciated. If there is no money involved, the appreciation is fake.

<comment><USER35> I check the "many people" rule too. But sports, acting and science is big enough to find good places to stay. In my experience in the electronics sector, everybody wants to do "robots" and "lasers", so you really have to compete with a lot of people for the limited job supply, but you could do great things that are required but not so demanded.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> If this ever happens to IT, I think I'd rather go work in fast food and write code on the side. I'm passionate about the work but not passionate about being worked to death.

I guess some may argue it has happened in some tech circles (startups: at least you usually give us a reason to work hard), but it's never been the norm anywhere I've been employeed.

<comment><USER37> Consider yourself lucky. These kinds of employers _do_ exist in the software world. Generally speaking, they may even be correct to think that way (if you twist your logic a bit). Poor to mediocre programmers are very easy to find, and will usually be happy to get a job even if it's underpaid. This creates an environment where you just hire tons of these kinds of programmers that are underpaid and overworked. This can actually even get the job done, albeit not very well.

<comment><USER38> Unless you own the company or are a partner, never imagine you're anything other than work for hire. The worst part is if you're a good soldier and do your (unpaid) OT, there's no guarantee you'll see any kind of reward. Employers who mandate 40+ weeks are ususally the kind who are looking to screw their employees any way they can. It is, however, a perfect sign that you need to be looking for a new job immediately.

<comment><USER39> I would loath to work for a place where I were just "work for hire". Case in point: I was laid off at the last place I worked. My direct manager explained the situation personally, apologized profusely. And then acted as a reference for my next job. Sure, I lost my job, but I wasn't just dropped like a used tool.

Employees can (and should) be people too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> "Our culture celebrates the idea of the workaholic. We hear about people burning the midnight oil. They pull all-nighters and sleep at the office. It's considered a badge of honor to kill yourself over a project. Workaholics wind up creating more problems than they solve. Workaholics miss the point, too. They try to fix problems by throwing sheer hours at them. They try to make up for intellectual laziness with brute force."

\- Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson, "Rework"

</comment><comment><USER41> I deal with this scenario everyday in a company I work with, where the founder expects everyone to work on weekends and late night (most days). Since it is an advertising agency, he accepts every work that comes his way from clients. He comes from Sales background and somehow believes that more work is equal to more money, which is not true. When it comes to any work where some amount of thinking is involved, Less work (Quality) == more money.

Most of the people in the team are stressed and are complaining that they don't have a personal life. They would quit the company, the day they get an opportunity to apply leave, so that they can attend other interviews.

Very soon, I am going to buy him a book called "Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams". It's an amazing book, and is a must read for people who are or want to manage teams.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peopleware_%28book%29>

<comment><USER42> I second that, "Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams" is an awesome book and I really encourage anyone who hasn't read it to pick it up some time. I think it is an important read for both developers and managers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Is this a US thing? a CalTech thing? or just one crazy professor? I know several research scientists in various places in Europe and they have nothing like this. Sure, when deadlines need to met they work longer or they get swept up in their work they end up sitting until 3 am and sometimes you have to drop by the lab on a weekend to check on an experiment, but all that is an exception rather than a rule.

<comment><USER44> It depends entirely on the professor and the department. My adviser once said that he expected forty hours a week, but if we really wanted to be successful we should put in sixty.

I know plenty of other people with ridiculous horror stories though. Things like professors demanding to know why a postdoc was taking so much time in the bathroom, or confiscating a graduate student's plane ticket back to China until an assignment was completed.

Academics desperately need a ratemyprofessor.com for advisers and lab environments.

<comment><USER45> "confiscating a graduate student's plane ticket back to China" -- Theft. Possibly grand theft, depending on the state and how much the ticket cost. And possibly false imprisonment, if the student had no other reasonable way of leaving the country (e.g., if they were a starving grad student who didn't have the money for a second ticket).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Organic chemistry - particularly total synthesis - is the Marines only without the warm and fuzzy personal development. It's full of the bad crazy.

(My background's theoretical solid-state which is a lot less savage.)

</comment><comment><USER47> I don't know any chem PhD/Grad students to ask this question, but I'm curious: is this work schedule specific to Chemistry researchers? From my experience in college chem classes (I was premed before CS) their research involves lots of experimentation and waiting on reactions to run; a lot of butt-in-seat time might be necessary for them to do their research.

<comment><USER6> Academic math/CS is not remotely this bad, at least in my experience. I've never heard of anyone being told to work more hours. I've heard of people being told to _get more done_ , but that's a different issue.

In general, a bad supervisor will neglect you rather than force you to do ridiculous amounts of work, and will fail to put in the requisite effort to get you a job.

<comment><USER7> Same here. I think part of it is that in CS, at least in my area (AI), there's a sort of "producing research progeny" mentality rather than "having a bunch of low-paid staff" mentality. The way you ultimately put your stamp on the field is that, in addition to your own work, you produce a bunch of brilliant researchers who go on to basically found a "school" of AI strongly influenced by your work/views.

It feels the profs who care that much about hours/wk are ones who really just have a whole lot of gruntwork they want done, and want grad students to do it. That's not really a good way to produce brilliant research progeny (grad students whose PhD consists entirely of doing gruntwork for you aren't the kind you want for that), but maybe in some areas it's the path to fame--- especially areas where hitting on a Big Result is the way you make your career.

<comment><USER48> Interesting. I always had a hard time squaring Dave Patterson's "grad students are the coin of the realm" comment with my friends' experiences in other disciplines, which were a lot more along the lines of what went on with this Carreira jerk.

My impression regarding this divide is that major discoveries in math, physics, CS etc. tend to be the result of very original, creative thinking-- ah-ha! moments--and that is not the sort of thing that can be stimulated by simply doubling the amount of time you spend working. Whereas big papers in chem and bio appear to result, in large part, from a tremendous amount of trial-and-error gruntwork spent on the bench. Certainly, somebody's inspiration (the PI's) is driving the overall research program, but you need a huge amount of manual labor to bring it to fruition. Whereas, in the theory fields, you can just sort of stare off into space until it comes to you.

My experience is definitely on the theory side, so I would love to hear what the other sides's thoughts are...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Bad idea. Reward people for "putting in hours" and suddenly they'll figure out ways to be present in the office without doing actual work.

Some employers avoid falling into this trap by refusing to make a record of how long employees work, only their results.

</comment><comment><USER50> Currently wrong? The letter is dated 1996.

<comment><USER51> And yet it's all too current.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> I'm actually surprised that HN-ers aren't more sympathetic to the professor.

Let's suppose the prof is, himself, so passionate about his work that he's devoting all of his time to it. He's made an effort to recruit people who are equally dedicated, because when the colleagues he depends on go home before him, that puts a bottleneck on his output. Furthermore, if most of his grad students are content sacrificing their personal lives for this work, doesn't it sour morale to have one guy who's always last to arrive and first to leave, yet who expects equal status?

Plus, while other commenters have suggested that this professor is mainly motivated by ego, it's also plausible that he's doing life-saving research, thst he decided long ago that he has a moral responsibility to sacrifice every waking hour to his work to save others from years of pain and sadness.

Again, I don't know if any of the above is true, but it's easy for me to imagine circumstances under which this memo would be totally reasonable. Surely anyone who's worked at a startup knows how important it is for everyone's workload expectations to be aligned?

</comment><comment><USER53> Do associate professors really have that much clout over there that they can do this? Maybe I'd expect something like that from a department head. Is that what this is?

<comment><USER6> Over people in their research group, yes.

<comment><USER53> I guess what I really mean then is: did this guy get his ass chewed by a higher-up (who was smart enough not to put it in so many words) because it's how the institution operates?

It's a little over the top. Trollish even.

<comment><USER7> Usually tenured profs who're producing good research don't get hassled much; heck, same with untenured profs who are producing good research to some extent.

It does vary a little by school, if the school's administration wants to cultivate a particular image. For example, CMU was getting a reputation for taking 9-10 years for a PhD. It was for a variety of reasons not all the profs' fault, but it did include some aspects of profs wanting to keep their senior/productive students around producing more papers by dragging out their PhDs. The administration decided they didn't want that reputation, so started putting strong pressure to get people out within 6-7 years typically, 8 years max, which reduced that considerably.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Professors who treat their grad students like slave labor almost always create their own comeuppance.

See, one day, that grad student will be a PhD. And because you abused him like slave labor, instead of being a peer you can collaborate with, he becomes your competitor.

You find yourself getting less funding and less people willing to go in on grants with you because some young, hotshot upstart took own of his PhD level ideas you don't own and turned it into something valuable. And you're scrambling to catch up.

</comment><comment><USER54> Yikes. It's amazing how unenlightened people can be in such a time of supposed enlightenment, and in such a field of rigor.

<comment><USER55> In a time of supposed enlightenment? At least now we have free markets instead of feudalism and puppet monarchies run by Great Pirates.

Last year, my neighbor was a PhD working in a lab at an institution in the same equivalence class, and he told me that he made it clear that he expected people to work nights and weekends. The attitude in the email linked above is strict but the point is that the guy probably _had_ been slacking and if he wanted to do something else then he should do something else instead of slowing down the pace of important research and taking up a spot that could be easily filled by somebody else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> The thing that's being missed here is that it's a chemistry total synthesis group. Organic chemistry's pretty bad, but total synthesis is evil.

Total synthesis (designing programs to build molecules from scratch) is a global never-ending footrace - first to make the molecule wins. That's almost uniquely startuppy/pressure-cookery among science; even among chemistry. I was a postdoc in one of the world's leading chemistry departments, but that was in chemoinformatics, which was less crazy. Before that I did my PhD in a prestigious earth sciences department, working on problems in mineral physics, and that was fine.

Total synthesis is unique.

</comment><comment><USER56> In the end, it is irrelevant whether the bureaucrat is right or wrong about the work week and productivity.

The bottom line is that the market dictates whether it's a buyer's market or a seller's market. In the case of the letter in question, it's clearly a -perceived- buyer's market at the time the letter was written.

No point in being outraged by the letter. The quick and easy solution is to quit - why would any sane person want to continue to work in such a toxic environment?

</comment><comment><USER57> Trying to find some sense in this, I guess the chemistry work was focus on developing new types of drugs, which should have make him so rich, that he got mad thinking about the money's about to earn.

Otherwise, I see no reason for a person to be that nasty.

</comment><comment><USER58> I'm fairly certain that this is illegal in CA. This letter would certainly be very useful in a lawsuit demanding retroactive payment for overtime hours worked.

</comment><comment><USER59> <http://www.carreira.ethz.ch/people/emc>

<comment><USER57> nice googling job!

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> article says currently wrong yet the letter shown is dated 14 years ago

disconnect?

</comment><comment><USER61> well its not like GLaDOS is going to build itself.

</comment><comment><USER62> It is amusing, if anything.

</comment><comment><USER63> My startup is working really closely with comp sci grad students in a lab at a local university. I wish I could get their advisor to encourage this behavior. ;)</comment>


My 30 Years at PCMag, Part One - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcmag.com/commentary/346679/my-30-years-at-pcmag-part-one <comment><USER2> Got to meet Mr. Dvorak a few times, very classy guy. Used to read his stuff regularly since the eighties but once PC mag became a web publication I lost track of him.

He used to have a radio show in SF that at one time was syndicated nationwide, wonder if he still does it?

</comment><comment><USER3> Thank you for your courage John C Dvorak. I'm sure it took a lot of time and effort to put this piece together, and it was great to see it first thing in the morning.

</comment><comment><USER4> Seeing the name reminds me of the OS/2 2.0 fiasco that is now one of my favorite topics.</comment>


How to get an internship? - <AUTHOR>

I'm a high school student in the Baltimore/DC area and I'm interested in getting an internship and I'm interested in getting an internship at a web company or related field next September when I can get a driver's license.
What strategies should I use to increase my changes of getting an internship, since most internships in these fields officially state that they are limited to college students.
How should I get my name out there, which skills should I advertise? I'm unwilling to accept a dead-end unpaid internship, but I'm fine taking that will either provide me with good connections or other opportunities. <comment><USER2> I'm a high school student as well (NYC area) and am faced with the same question!

<comment><USER3> HN often has job postings for full time positions and internships. You can also visit startuply and startupers - good resources. Incidentally, MoviePass is looking for interns in NYC to start in Customer Support.</comment></comment>


Unorthodox Methods of Choosing the Right Startup - <AUTHOR> http://vicyeh.com/unorthodox-methods-of-choosing-the-right-startup <comment><USER2> This is bad advice and confirmation bias. It is written by a new grad barely a year out of college at their first job, with no frame of reference to compare to. From illiquid stock options, overexposure to corporate politics, poor pay, opportunity cost of lost BigCo wages, network and career expansion opportunities and career minting potential, there are objectively more downsides than up to working at a startup. That's not to dissuade folks from working at one. But it is to say that the incentives are heavily biased towards those who are more senior and who can come in early as a senior IC, or later on as an executive.

It is easy to discount risk until it's too late. You will have growth opportunities at large companies -- whether you do at a startup is not necessarily the case, no matter what you are sold. You will have to fight for that high visibility work, to get illiquid options, and in all likelihood, a stunted career track compared to if you had just done your early years at a good BigCo.

<comment><USER3> Presumably written by someone grinding away at a BigCo. First of all, the purpose of this article isn't to dissuade someone from working at a big company - it's advice about how to select the right startup. Second, nearly all of your arguments are actually in favor of smaller companies rather than BigCo's:

1\. You'll always have to fight for high-visibility work, but it is far easier to get high-visibility work at a startup compared to a BigCo. Most non-senior engineers at large companies are treated as liabilities and won't work on impactful or mission-critical software.

2\. Growth opportunities are much more limited at a bigger company compared to a startup. Obviously, the best engineers can succeed in either environment. But there's many developers grinding away at large companies, making marginal contributions, with no advancement in sight. Engineers such as these don't survive very long at startups. Same goes for corporate politics - there's often 7+ layers of middle management at large companies who's only goal is to make themselves look good (at the cost of the company's overall mission). On the other hand, at smaller companies, new engineers often work directly with upper management.

3\. The illiquid stock options and (potentially) reduced compensation are clearly mentioned in the post. It's no secret that the upside and the downside are both magnified for a startup. People care about more than just their annual compensation, especially when you're young, don't have many obligations, and have the rare opportunity to take risks.

<comment><USER4> 100% agree. I graduated last year and my colleagues who went to BigCo have been tossed into non-essential teams at the bottom the ladder. It'll take them another year or two before they'll have a significant impact on the tiny feature/product they're on.

In contrast, I joined a decacorn as a technical lead and shipped multiple products already. All which get huge press coverage on tech sites and impact company revenue on the order of billions/yr.

The only real difference is in compensation (~20%), but since this is the most fun I've had in ages, I'd much rather pay a "fun tax" here at the startup.

<comment><USER2> Not sure I'd call a decacorn a startup anymore. Is that 20% difference in total compensation or liquid compensation? Unless the company goes public anytime soon, the difference might be quite a bit more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There are unorthodox ways to test a future company, but none of them are listed. My favourite include: asking the most senior person that you talk to:

\- What's the biggest mistake that you made in the last six months? (Covering their asses, citing minor infraction, laughing at the question, saying they have not thought about it: bad; a sincere admission of a really bad call that sounds like something that will inform their management style: forwarning; either way: they'll talk about the topic that they care about: financing, recruiting, growth, clients, etc.)

\- What's the biggest mistake that you will in the _next_ six months? Why is it OK for you to expect that from happening? (Same as before, harder to answer; we can learn a lot from others but for some things, no one was here, and this is how we are going to make it OK if we have to: better. Same, will cover the topic that they _worry_ the most about)

\- What's the most important thing that you won't be able to make if I say no right now? Keep in mind, you have other candidates in the pipe, and I hope that they are good too.

\- What's the biggest problem for people in [your team, or another one that you interviewed with]? (If their answer does not match what you've heard from that team: bad; if it does, preferably with one level of abstraction above and a fix.)

Call customer service, and ask them how they feel about the company, preferably before your last interview. "Overworked" is good, "excited" is great. "I'm not sure why I'm here" or "There's a list of 74 problems that I have, I wanted to raise to the CEO…" good material for your interview. "Not sure, but if you know, tell me: I _am_ the CEO. Talk to yo on Thursday.": presumably good.

Ask to talk to a client if it's B2B. They might refuse: "Why?" is a good question then.

I like to ask the investor but that's because I always go for the same investor… I know, that's lame. I don't ask for a name, I just mention one (other) company and ask if they are more, and then respond asking if they could _rank_ them. Depending on the investor, I know that means technical maturity, or business potential, or management. It's not for everyone, but it helps. You can also ask _competing_ investor and they might let you know why they _didn't_ invest. Not sure about the ethics of that one though.

<comment><USER6> These seem like great questions to ask any employer, not just a startup.

<comment><USER5> Those are great questions to ask any employer, but I'm not sure if you want to work for a larger company, those are good questions to ask. Let's just say: I don't have evidence you can ask and get an offer.</comment></comment></comment>


Cisco memo: We can't build anything - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/cloud/cisco-memo-we-cant-build-anything/ <comment><USER2> "The SDN memo, at least from my perspective, sends the wrong message to Cisco's engineering corps: you are worth more outside than you are inside Cisco."

As a former Cisco employee, that sounds about right. Cisco does have an entire business unit dedicated to developing products that enter new markets, but it looked like a horrible place to be.

It was pitched as a "startup environment" (apparently code for "work 60-hour weeks" and "you can get laid off if the project falls through") but came with the same normal paycheck and crushing bureaucracy as any other place in Cisco.

</comment><comment><USER3> This isn't new. Cisco hasn't really had a lot of success with their own products, but has had a lot of success buying other companies and re-labling them into the Cisco ecosystem. I've been a customer of some of those companies and it's always a bumpy, but also amusing ride.

The first one I remember them buying was Crescendo, who made some of the better FDDI gear at the time. Cisco bought them around 1993 because their own gear was worthless. You can see a list of all the companies they've bought here: [http://www.cisco.com/web/about/doing_business/corporate_deve...](http://www.cisco.com/web/about/doing_business/corporate_development/acquisitions/ac_name/about_cisco_acquisition_names_list.html)

<comment><USER4> IIRC, the increasing hit and miss, "dodginess" nature of Linksys consumer level products has been noted as coinciding with Linksys' acquisition by Cisco.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is probably the only way Cisco can build a genuinely innovative team that is remunerated well and is not bogged down by Cisco corp-BS and actually ship something awesome. The downside for Cisco is that they will all leave once they max out their earn out. I've been there, I've seen it.</comment>


Ask HN: How do I encourage our open-source users to make donations? - <AUTHOR> I released an app on HN about 45 days ago:
https://getpolarized.io/
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18219960
It's basically a offline browser with caching support, annotations, supports PDF and note taking.
I can't live without it which is why I started developing it and will continue to do so.
The user base is really passionate too. We have about 2000 active users so far and they're continuing to use the product.  Very little churn.
They're also pretty active submitting issues, recommending product features.
They're also VERY engaged.  40% of our user base says they would be "very disappointed" if they could no longer use Polar.
We've setup an Open Collective to receive donations and have only received $88 so far.
https://opencollective.com/polar-bookshelf
Now I'm absolutely thankful for the donations but this really isn't sustainable.
There are two things I would like to purchase - continuous integration as well as a discourse.org account.
These would be about $200 per month.  These would dramatically improve my performance and contribute back to the community.
Here's what I've tried so far to encourage community as well as donations:
- Twitter, discord groups are setup
- Links to these are in the product.
- We have a small 'banner' message at the top of the app that displays messages and one of them is about donations.
- One of the "What's New" message has a banner app asking for donations.
- Asked for donations on our Twitter and Discord groups.
Here's what I'm thinking about doing in the future to help resolve this:
- Make Polar evergreen so it constantly updates in the background and put a "please donate" message every time the app starts.  This way I can experiment to see what works.
- Maybe put a 'state' of the donations in the app and that we've only received $88 and what our TARGET is... I don't want to be insanely aggressive with these ads though.
Thoughts? <comment><USER2> It's just human nature. In general, we humans greatly enjoy outsmarting other humans and by not paying, your users feel they are outsmarting you.

A "beggar value proposition" does not work so well because we do not see pictures of you starving to death so we are less compelled to help.

It does not mean that no one will ever donate, but if they do so, it is because they are fools or because they want to influence you to prioritize some feature.

If donations do not work, remove them from everywhere asap (they make you and your product look cheap because of the "beggar value proposition").

Since you have low churn (this is the most important thing), try to continue to grow your user base a couple orders of magnitude first (2000 free users is a number too low to plan for any kind of meaningful conversion) and then work it from there to either advertising or freemium.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Since you have low churn (this is the most important thing), try to continue > to grow your user base a couple orders of magnitude first (2000 free users > is a number too low to plan for any kind of meaningful conversion) and then > work it from there to either advertising or freemium.

Yes. Already agree with you on 99% of these issues.

It's just somewhat shocking that the user base is constantly saying that they love the app but not actually showing that they love it...

<comment><USER2> When something is useful (even tangentially useful) and free, people tend to claim they love it, often with overly excited statements.

Add a price and then the relationship changes.

Let me put an example:

It is like you go to a restaurant, you like a lot the food, which costed you $20 each for dinner. The value/price ratio is so outstanding and you recommend it to all your friends. Each time you see them.

Now go to the same cozy restaurant and have the exact same food, same service. But this time it costs $60 each. Your value/price ratio worsens a lot, and although the food is still as good, you do not see it the same way. Perhaps the service should be better at this price. Perhaps the food could be better presented. You start questioning. You do not recommend it to all your friends even when everything is equal except price.

With donations you are asking people to willingly change their value/price ratio just for the sake of it, without any kind of coercion such as impending interruption of service (such as an end of trial).

It does not work. It will never work.

Remove donations from your site asap, grow your users and once grown toa sizeable level think about which monetization model makes most sense for your users (i.e. consumers->advertising, businesses->paid subscriptions).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I don't think donations are workable as a way of funding open source projects. The most successful companies in this space have either a freemium model or they charge for documentation, customization, and support. Is there something in your product that users can't live without that you can charge for? The rest of it could be free minus that one feature.

It's also perfectly acceptable to offer a free version as source only for those folks who want to compile and update it on their own -- then charge for the compiled version with automatic updates.

<comment><AUTHOR> You might be right... the successful models seem to revolve around:

1\. Open Source projects that are used by big companies that can't live without them.

[https://opencollective.com/webpack](https://opencollective.com/webpack)

Webpack is a good example and received $500k per year in donations.

2\. Open Source projects that are sponsored by big companies from the start (Kubernettes is an example).

3\. OSS projects that are successful and receive contributions from bit companies like Amazon and other companies develop around the ecosystem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> In regards to needing CI, it appears your project is open sourced. Both Travis [1] and CircleCI [2] both have free tiers for open source projects, worth a look!

[1]: [https://travis-ci.com/plans](https://travis-ci.com/plans)

[2]: [https://circleci.com/pricing/](https://circleci.com/pricing/)

Edit: Add in links

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Yes. I had looked at this and since we're an Electron project we have specific requirements and one of those is a MacOS host as well as Windows. I think it's easier to find Windows + Linux for free but not Mac.

Additionally, I think we might not scale on the free tier but not sure yet. I tend to use a lot of CI resources. At work I spend about $500 per month on our CI boxes.

<comment><USER5> One of the two linked offers MacOS.

<comment><AUTHOR> Just re-checked and the MacOS containers cost $39 per month for one...

<comment><USER5> Check more thoroughly:

> _We also offer the Seed plan free (at 1x concurrency) for OS X open source > projects._

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Did you consider setting up a system where the users would pledge to make regular donations? I know about:

\- liberapay

\- [https://salt.bountysource.com](https://salt.bountysource.com)

\- patreon

\- [https://github.com/ddevault/fosspay](https://github.com/ddevault/fosspay)

They usually allow seeing how much other popular developers make, to get an idea of what can be expected.

EDIT: I just realized opencollective is what you used for recurring donations.

</comment><comment><USER7> I took a quick look and I'm not readily seeing it, so either you aren't doing it or you are doing it badly, but this here is your value position that you need to promote:

 _There are two things I would like to purchase - continuous integration as well as a discourse.org account.

These would be about $200 per month. These would dramatically improve my performance and contribute back to the community._

Also, stop using the terminology "donations." You need to frame it as you are providing something of value and you need to be compensated for it. "Donations" are gifts, not compensation for a service you value.

Then add up the hours you spend on the project, multiply by some hourly rate you think is reasonable or would be willing to accept and set your goals at that amount to cover "tech support", plus the amount listed above for the things you need to pay for to enhance the product.

<comment><AUTHOR> You might be right but it would be far far far too expensive to look at things this way.

The hope was that the community would at _least_ contribute back enough funds so that I wouldn't have to go out of pocket.

I mean I've literally LOST money open sourcing this even excluding my time to build it.

I'm -$1250 or so at this point.

<comment><USER7> You know, if you are willing to work for free, that's your call. You can ignore that piece if that is not your cup of tea.

I'm just trying to tell you that if you want the community to cough up money, the thing you need to communicate is "Hey, I need X amount of money to do this thing to make this product better." That is much more likely to get you money than begging for "donations."

But, honestly, $88/mo at this early stage is quite good. And if you only need another $112/mo to meet your goal, to my mind, that's an easy sell. You just need to spell that out to people "Hey, cool, thanks for all the love. We have $88/mo though we are brand spanking new. But what I would really like is $200/mo so I can add this other thing. Only $112 to go! Woot!"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Have you tried advertising on your website? Something like adsense pays decent. How many pageviews does your site get per month?

Is there a way you can build a viral mechanic into your product? Where people using it encourage others to use it? One way to leverage this might be to put functionality that is currently in react embedded in electron into a web app.

One other thing - what about removing some features, or for new features, only putting them in a paid version? So people could try it, then when they like it plunk down $10/mo.

Edit: To add a little inspiration... Let's say you removed a few key features from the open source ( free ) version. Yes, people could go back to previous commits but honestly no one will do that. Then you get rid of all the donate buttons and start selling the product for $10/mo. Let's say you can convert 50% of your 40% most highly engaged users. Even with no growth you'd be making about $4k/mo.

Edit 2: What about charging for cloud sync for the data? You could have a very small amount for free, then after that they pay. You'd have huge margins, and could explain that this is how the project will survive. This is a common business model used by dropbox, gmail, notion, etc.

</comment><comment><USER9> Very few people donate because they feel benevolent. Most Patreon type donations come because companies either want to sponsor further development or need a maintainer for the critical OSS components in their stack or both.

If you are only looking for couple of hundred $ per month then you can probably still find it via benevolent donations. But if you're serious and want to spend more time on the project then move to freemium model. See RescueTime for motivation.

Best is to keep all existing features as free and think of one solid new feature you could build that can be sold as premium. In your case that could be "sync reading progress across devices". If I'm super user of Polar, I would want to access progress on my phone and get some reading done while commuting. Just saying.

Lastly, if you only convert 5% of current users to premium then it's 100 paying users right out of the gate. Not a bad start eh. So stop relying on donations & think of capturing the value you are creating.

</comment><comment><USER10> Do you have any kind of geographic information on your users? Assuming they are mostly consumer oriented but are there business applications that can be leveraged? Make roadmap fundraiser goals? Switch to paying for binary distribution with option to compile from source? Could also try selling on Steam in an environment where people are accustomed to buying software, even if the only added value is having it in their library or auto updates through Steam.

<comment><USER10> Krita, for instance, is on Steam. They actually went a step further and put it on the Windows Store, which also enables auto updates. Whether their efforts have been successful I can't say but these are audiences more likely to spend.

That doesn't solve long term sustainability without long term growth but it's something.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> If you want a sustainable business, you need to charge money for it. Unless you have a huge user base, donations just won't work. It's as simple as that. The majority of your users aren't going to be feeling charitable enough to give you money when they don't have to, but I'm sure a portion of them would give you money if they had to in order to continue using it.

</comment><comment><USER12> If you have an active online community, can you sell coloured names in your forum, or little stars next to their name or something?

Have a way for them to pay you money regularly in order to get a visual indicator that they're a big deal and clearly in to your thing more than the regular forum user. Maybe hint at their purchase giving their suggestions more weight in your eyes.

</comment><comment><USER13> I just wanted to add in another data point. When Heartbleed was found, OpenSSL was surviving off of $2,000 in donations a year.

I'm sure that your browser is amazing, but when OpenSSL was getting around $2k a year in donations, do you really think that donations is a sustainable business model for you?

</comment><comment><USER14> Use a pay what you want model. Check elementary.io IMO they are the most successful using that model.

</comment><comment><USER15> Aren't those free for open source?</comment>