Map the Banks - <AUTHOR> http://mapthebanks.com/ <comment><USER2> I'd love to contribute to this project, especially since I wasted years of my life mining and forecasting data on financial institutions - it would be nice to put that skill to a good cause. But if the goal is really to make financial institutions more accountable, my years of experience working in the industry tell me this will be a largely fruitless exercise. I expect the yield on mining public data for that nugget of information to nail a financial institution is going to be extremely low if not nil.

Financial institutions only have to disclose the highest, most superficial levels of information to the public when it comes to the breakdown/allocation of their assets and liabilities. If you open up central bank data or the notes to a FI's financial statements, you will not find a meaningful delineation of where a banks assets are or what risk profiles they have.

Having worked in a very large commercial/investment bank and directly with the CFO, I know first hand that although banks avoid doing anything illegal, they will have no qualms with bending the rules in their favour. Most well run banks know exactly which rules are being bent and they will know exactly how to classify it in any public submission to prevent any smell. They have large finance and investor relations teams who pore over every decimal point in any report and have prepared answers to virtually all regulator questions.

The information you need to properly regulate banks are not in the public domain.

Take the last financial crisis for example. I don't think any publicly available financial statement or report would have told you that banks were holding onto a tremendous volume subprime mortgages classed as 'AAA'. This only emerged when huge holes appeared in balance sheets when the US economy slowed and a whole bunch of assets had to be written off.

The kind of remedy required to mitigate the chance of another crisis is a systemic overhaul of how banks are allowed to operate and how they are regulated. I'm sorry, but holding them to account with data provided by banks themselves will not yield much result.

EDIT: Sorry for being a jerk/cynic about this effort. I'm actually a big fan of OpenCorporates. But I'm still a bit disillusioned having quit in 2011.

<comment><USER3> _although banks avoid doing anything illegal_

And how many billions of dollars in fines and settlements have all those big banks paid in the past year for all those legal acts they've committed?

At the end, many of the "AAA" mortgage-backed securities were fraudulent: backed by "liars' loans" backed by fraudulently inflated appraisals, and fraudulent statements of buyers' ability to pay.

<comment><USER2> Contrary to media perception, the FI I worked with did put a huge amount of resources into preventing illegal activity. Of course trying to avoid legal trouble doesn't necessarily prevent it.

In my brief and painful experience, FIs genuinely do avoid breaking the law. But they don't mind breaking the spirit of the law by finding a way around it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Any entities that earn undeserved profits (and some will argue many financial institutions fall under this umbrella) want to stay invisible and opaque to maximize these earnings. I think a case can be made that a substantial percentage of profits earned by the financial industry derive from economic "rent seeking" and are not materially contributing to productivity in society.

I like this attempt to disinfect this mess with some sunlight, though at the end of the day the only way to truly solve these problems (as they may exist) will be for all of us to stop being willing participants in the system. I believe strongly that technology will offer solutions for this in the near future.

<comment><USER5> _I think a case can be made that a substantial percentage of profits earned by the financial industry derive from economic "rent seeking" and are not materially contributing to productivity in society._

This is a hugely popular sentiment in the wake of the financial crisis, but do you actually have some examples of rent seeking activity by banks in 2014 that is emblematic of this? Your modern megabank takes in billions of dollars in profits per quarter and I'm just curious where the rent seeking shakes out in all of that.

<comment><USER6> > This is a hugely popular sentiment in the wake of the financial crisis, but > do you actually have some examples of rent seeking activity by banks in 2014 > that is emblematic of this?

The Goldman LME aluminium warehousing, where they paid people to deposit aluminium with them to inflate the length of the queue to get aluminium out, so that the queue was longer and they could charge more (literal!) rent before people eventually got their aluminium out.

> Your modern megabank takes in billions of dollars in profits per quarter and > I'm just curious where the rent seeking shakes out in all of that.

I have a thesis that every megacorp turns to rent seeking, because they're too rigid to innovate. But yeah, I suspect it's a small proportion of the profit of the financial industry as a whole. A lot of people want to buy and sell stuff, so there's a lot of money to be made in even a slim margin there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The cynic in me thinks that despite the tone of the presentation, this dataset and the way it's structured is _vastly_ more useful for creating marketing plans to sell services to the financial sector than for encouraging responsibility in the financial sector.

<comment><USER8> In all honesty, I can't think of how this data can be used for anything else.

<comment><USER9> I am skeptical too about the relevance of this effort. But there is one thing it can be useful for, is to track the size of the shadow banking sector which is growing on the back of tougher regulations that force banks out of many activities.

But the shadow banking sector is already on the regulators radars so I am not sure what this is going to achieve.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > We believe there is a social contract between citizens (represented by the > state) and companies. The state permits companies to carry out activities > like banking or debt collection; in return, these companies agree to meet > certain standards of behaviour: for example, only lending to people who can > afford the debt, or backing their promises with a certain amount of assets.

This is a bizarre statement that simply isn't true. Historically, the state has just as frequently _encouraged_ lenders to lend to people who couldn't otherwise afford what they were purchasing. This has been done through legislation like the Community Reinvestment Act, as well as government- sponsored entities such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And the state is still doing it[1].

[1] [http://www.marketwatch.com/story/feds-hope-3-down- mortgages-...](http://www.marketwatch.com/story/feds-hope-3-down-mortgages- will-boost-struggling-housing-market-2014-12-09)

<comment><USER11> > Historically, the state has just as frequently encouraged lenders to lend to > people who couldn't otherwise afford what they were purchasing.

Most often that person was the state itself . . .

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Hi HN,

I work for OpenCorporates, the team behind this, and we were planning to do a "Show HN" in the next couple of days, once we'd got a few wrinkles sorted out.

In the meantime, I'll be around for a bit and try to answer any questions.

<comment><USER13> One of those wrinkles is the mobile experience of your site, which is currently almost unusable - a big chunk of navigation always taking up the top 3/4 of the screen, and then a tiny fraction of scrollable content.

<comment><USER12> Yep, we know!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> From another comment:

>>It's transparency, it all helps

Sorta pedantic and not picking on that comment so much as the CA Prop 65/label GMOs/Citizens United world that we live in: transparency might not be a real solution or means of achieving some goal. Increasing transparency and generating more data when there is already a very low signal to noise ratio and an even lower impetus to act on actual signal feels like a waste of time and energy. For example, we don't need any more data about NSA privacy invasions or CIA torture or effective criminal wrongdoing on the part of the financial industry; we know there is willing, flagrant illegal activity, yet modern society (not just American society, mind you) is unwilling or incapable of doing anything about it.

So what will more data get us? Seems like a waste of time if the desired outcome is change.

<comment><AUTHOR> So the rationale is that if you want change the first thing is to identify what needs changing. If you want changing in the world of international banking, you should understand the world of international banking, right?

Now, that does depends on the level of "change" as revolution can simply ignore the current state and wipe the slate clean, but I would imagine that understanding how the system operates is not a waste of time if you want to change the system (and not remove it).

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Unless I'm not seeing some other visualization of the data, I don't really see how correlating companies to physical locations helps a whole lot, and was not what I expected to be the goal when I started reading. The pain point that needs to be addressed is "too big to fail", but mapping to physical location does nothing to help that.

A more conceptual map showing, for instance, the players in the mortgage space, their relative size, and how they generally interact would actually be a step towards solving the problem. Now how to gather information like THAT is a whole other question.

As a concrete example: Most of the major home insurers have offices in Florida, but don't actually write policies. Who is actually writing these policies? If we have everything tracing back to a single policy writer, then we have a major problem.

<comment><USER16> This is apparently only the first step.

> Governments and regulators are releasing huge amounts of data. Collecting, > publishing & linking it to company data will give us the global picture of > the finance sector.

> OpenCorporates' mission is to bring this data into the open. This is a > gargantuan task, so we thought we'd start with a single step: gather data > about which companies are permitted to carry out what financial activities, > where.

<comment><USER15> Ah, thanks. I did miss that indicator that this is only the first step.

<comment><USER17> It really is the starting point. I work at OpenCorporates and have worked on this campaign! We don't know what the data will tell us unless we scrape all of it though one of my colleagues took a look at the financial licenses from US and found some interesting insights. For instance, if you think about which companies have debt collection operations in other jurisdictions? There are 178 financial services companies from India that operate in the US. Many are presumably outsourced - he have found some controlled by Ocwen and by Bank of America. This may be useful information for various reasons but we can't get there if we don't do the step 1 which is to have all the data scraped and published as open data so we can have many eyes examining it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This site is from OpenCorporates - have a look at their mission here: [https://opencorporates.com/info/principles](https://opencorporates.com/info/principles)

Edits: Here is the blog post announcing the project:

[http://blog.opencorporates.com/2014/12/10/launching-map- the-...](http://blog.opencorporates.com/2014/12/10/launching-map-the-banks- campaign-to-map-the-global-financial-industry/)

From the post:

* Which companies have debt collection operations in other jurisdictions? Even with the small amount of data already collected, we know there are at least 178 financial services companies from India that operate in the US.

* Which countries have the most financial services outsourced to them?

* What companies are licenced to operate in the largest number of countries worldwide?

* Which US bank has the most consumer credit licences in Asia?

* Which organisations appear to operate like financial services companies, yet aren't regulated as such?

* Where are credit unions being dissolved or created the fastest?

</comment><comment><USER18> This is a laudable effort to bring more facts to light concerning banks & other financial institutions.

Just don't expect it make a whit of difference to the "Social Contract" that is mentioned.

As long as "Too-Big-to-Fail" and the like exists, Banks & other financial institutions have incredible (almost unimaginable) power & influence over the state [1] at least in the USA. There is revolving door between Federal officials in Treasury and the Federal Reserve etc and big banks such as Citigroup & Goldman Sachs.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJpTxONxvoo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJpTxONxvoo)

</comment><comment><USER19> Some of the css is sorta wonky, and moving the map causes it to be cut-off at weird places.

My recommendation is to use calc along with vh:

.map-application { height: 100vh; }

#map { height: calc(100% - 13em); //100% - height of .info-bar }

</comment><comment><USER20> This seems like a good idea, but when I look for source data for the United States I'm seeing state-level groups and no "missions" to parse additional U.S data.

Anybody know if there's a plan to use the more available Federal regulatory data for places such as the United States? Example: [https://www2.fdic.gov/idasp/warp_download_all.asp](https://www2.fdic.gov/idasp/warp_download_all.asp)

<comment><USER21> [Chris from OpenCorporates] This mission is specifically about bank and financial licences, as opposed to physical bank branch locations, which is slightly different (though related). We think this dataset is an essential foundation for such datasets, and others. It also links the banks to company records, and from that to potentially other data, from political contributions/lobbying to corporate networks (see [https://opencorporates.com/viz/financial/index.html](https://opencorporates.com/viz/financial/index.html) \-- some of this data came from the National Information Center, which is a joint project of the US banking regulators).

However, if you think there's a company-related government dataset that should be scraped, please do go ahead and use turbot.opencorporates.com for that -- it's already been used for everything from civil aircraft registrations to mining licences to NHS Providers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> A really good place to start (before scraping various data sources) would be to explain how the output will be organized.

For example, it looks from the bottom of the map that they're classifying institutions as:

* Consumer Credit

* Other

* Mortgage

* Debt Collection

* Bank/Trust

* Insurer

* Authorized Agent

* Mutual/Co-op/Credit Union

What is the rationale for this classification scheme? Are there going to be second level classifications? For example, most large commercial bank/trusts have mortgage arms, consumer credit arms (credit cards and other lines of credit), consumer debt, wealth management, etc.

Hell, take just one sub-industry: wealth management. A large bank will have a trust department ("private wealth" or "private banking"), a Registered Investment Advisor (RIA), and a Broker/Dealer. They're sometimes completely separately managed. They're different legal entities and regulated by different government organs (FINRA for the broker/dealer and the OCC/SEC for the other two). And that's just wealth management.

Just getting a zoology of financial institutions would be a great start.

<comment><USER21> Hi, Chris from OpenCorporates. We're also getting the native classifications, i.e. those given by each regulators, and in a sense these are mappings. When researching this, the are many, many different classifications (particularly in the consumer finance and shadow banking area), and one of the side benefits this will surface those classifications, laying one of the foundations for a more formal ontology.

<comment><USER22> Cool- thanks for the response.

The only thing I'll add is that there are very useful classifications beyond how the regulators see it. That data are much harder to get, but very useful. For example, RIAs are a world unto themselves, but they can be reasonably segmented in a few different ways: subadvisors vs direct advisors, asset gatherers vs. asset managers, use open architecture vs. not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> To all the naysayers, I say this: Think of this as a data forensics effort rather than just some kind of look up table. When you have massive amounts of data, you can do simple checkpoints like amount of money flowing into any point in the circuit is the amount of money flowing out of it, that kind of stupid validation system alone will uncover a ton of stuff, and imagine doing a little bit more machine learning, you can discover all sorts of stuff, at least a probable cause to alert a govt agency who are both understaffed and clueless at the same time. This is very hard problem and complicated enough that it cannot be trusted to the government alone. I welcome this open source effort to data forensics.

</comment><comment><USER24> [http://mapthebanks.com/#section-why-does-this- matter](http://mapthebanks.com/#section-why-does-this-matter)

first time I've seen CSS3 columns in the wild, pretty neat.

</comment><comment><USER25> I'm not clear on how this helps. I mean, the corrupt machinations would happen on the level of mouth-to-mouth conversations, I would guess, and not reported on a website. Won't this just show a massive blob of datapoints near Wall St and anywhere Goldman Sachs et al have metastasized? Not sure how, or what, connections will be shown/determined. I suspect they're pretty good at hiding things by now and have regulated away any glaring holes that might've been in the public domain.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's transparency, it all helps (especially when the data is there but no one has made the connections before).

In other words: "Follow the money"

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> It seems odd that the source for the completed bots is not available. I would think many of the solutions would be substantially similar. Is there any plan to open source these?

<comment><USER27> They're selling API access and the data:

[https://opencorporates.com/products](https://opencorporates.com/products)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Is SIRCA-Tech [1] relevant here? SIRCA is (was?) an Australian university organisation, that collects financial data for research purposes. I gather that it has outgrown its humble beginnings to be come one of the world's largest collections of international financial data. Perhaps Map the Banks could access this data by hitching up with a local university?

[1] [http://www.sirca.org.au/](http://www.sirca.org.au/)

</comment><comment><USER29> The Builderberg Group, CFR, TC, RIIA, Club of Rome and the Round Table care 0% if banks are documented. This is nice in theory but there's a reason why no one has been able to do much of anything about this for years now.

The banking industry won't be "disrupted" until the financial system collapses.

<comment><USER8> First of all it's "Bilderberg". Secondly, did aliens really shoot Kennedy?

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I believe the best contribution I can make is to never do business with a bank that is also a primary dealer (US Treasuries). The list is available at:

[http://www.ny.frb.org/markets/pridealers_current.html](http://www.ny.frb.org/markets/pridealers_current.html)

</comment><comment><USER31> What on Earth is the map supposed to do? I click on it and data appear along the bottom? Am I missing something? Why is it all red? My eyes burn. How useful is this data without quality control? How sustainable is the project? Did it come out of a hackathon, or is it part of an organisation?

</comment><comment><USER32> OpenStreetMap has ~165,000 banks mapped and tagged. [http://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/tags/amenity=bank](http://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/tags/amenity=bank)

This might be another data source (thought I think the OP knows ;) )

</comment><comment><USER33> * I missed my mission for Czech Republic

* even when I found the data to be scraped, I did not what/where to scrape

* if you are Czech, I just submitted a mission: [https://www.cnb.cz/cnb/jerrs_en](https://www.cnb.cz/cnb/jerrs_en)

<comment><USER12> I don't see your submitted mission in the system, and the link in your post seems broken. Do let me know if you're having any problems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> when I click the "sign up for a mission button" it sends me to an unsecured page to create a profile. should be

[https://missions.opencorporates.com/](https://missions.opencorporates.com/)

<comment><USER12> Thanks for reporting this -- we'll get this fixed soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> > The financial crisis cost society 4 trillion dollars

is there any source for this?

<comment><USER17> We found lots of different estimates ranging from 4 trillion to 12.8 trillion dollars and chose to use the conservative figure.

Better Market estimated at 12.8 trillion: [http://bettermarkets.com/sites/default/files/Cost%20Of%20The...](http://bettermarkets.com/sites/default/files/Cost%20Of%20The%20Crisis_2.pdf)

IMF said $4 trillion dollar: [http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2009/01/pdf/text.pdf](http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2009/01/pdf/text.pdf)

On reflection, Perhps we should perhaps have gone with a higher figure, but chose the conservative figure'. So, we are thinking of increasing the "4 trillion" to "over 10 trillion" to reflect a mid-point between the variation in estimates. Thanks for pointing it out!

<comment><USER11> Yeah, but the bulk $12 trillion number is unrealized GDP, due to the recession. If your going to count that, you need to count the excess GDP generated in the years leading up to the crisis by free and easy credit as the bubble inflated.

Here's the irony, banks needed to be bailed out because they were sitting on bad assets. The bad assets typically were mortgages which were not being paid. But the loans had been made -- that money was sloshing around the economy all though 2004-2007. That isn't to say people who took vacations on cash-out mortgage refi's are the bad guy. I don't think they are.

My take is the large financial crisis, that is the giant asset bubble which burst in 2008 was ultimate caused by many players, both small and large, making (in retrospect) imprudent decisions in good faith.

I am all for outing fraud and market rigging, and all sorts of other illicit shenanigans, but the crisis itself was brought on by credit and leverage, like every other crisis before it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I wasn't familiar with [https://opencorporates.com/](https://opencorporates.com/) \- It looks like a great resource.

</comment><comment><USER37> [https://www.google.com/maps/search/bank](https://www.google.com/maps/search/bank)

</comment><comment><USER38> This seems a little misguided, seeing as how the financial crisis had many actors including regulators, home loan originators, academics which attributed far too much strength to certain portfolio management methodologies and models. Certainly there were actors within banks who were also corrupting the financial system, but in no way were they alone in the destruction of wealth.

<comment><USER39> And the rating industry, and geopolitical actors, and the World Bank, and hedge funds, etc, etc. I absolutely agree. But I'm afraid this could get into perfect being the enemy of the good territory. Unfortunately no model is going to be complete - even including these primary actors you would need to eventually model entire populations to capture macro-scale effects of the markets at play.

I don't think they need to be so perfect, however. Teasing out this sort of information ('mapping it') is not going to be a panacea that can detect all fraud. But it will probably be a useful tool to human experts who can combine knowledge from a partial map with information from other sources and a generally mature understanding of the industry.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> So, I have to write scrapers for someone who would try to "disrupt" banks for free?

<comment><USER40> You don't have to.

I am thinking about it, as a lot of job ads want to see some examples of your work, and my stuff is all in house. If the code is going to a good cause, why not.

<comment><USER41> This is still closed in-house code - as much as I looked on the site, the code of completed missions isn't actually available to anyone other than the "opencorporates.com" company (Chrinon Ltd - [https://opencorporates.com/info/licence](https://opencorporates.com/info/licence)), so this wouldn't be useful as 'examples of your work' at all.

They do claim on the legal page that "we agree to make it available via the world wide web or analogous means under a licence with at most share-alike and attribution restrictions" but I haven't actually managed to find any of the code for the completed missions.

Am I missing something?

<comment><USER21> [Chris from OpenCorporates here]: Any code you write is your code... and we'd be happy for you to share it by whatever means you want, e.g. by pushing to a public github/gitlab repo. We did originally plan to do this by default, but in an earlier version of this work some contributors said that they didn't mind OpenCorporates having the benefit, but didn't want proprietary business information companies to have it.

We've got a ticket to add to the manifest and option public_repo field, so that the location of the public repo is easily discoverable, and hope to implement in the next week or so.

The share-alike refers to the underlying data, but again, if you want to make it available to the world under a CC0 licence we have no problem with that.

Hope this clears things up. C

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> ...with boughs of holly?

</comment><comment><USER43> Brilliant site

</comment><comment><USER44> naive nonsense</comment>


Kera Releases Step by Step Walkthroughs! - <AUTHOR> http://blog.kera.io/post/42530429848/step-by-step-product-walkthroughs-have-arrived

<comment><AUTHOR> Protip: go to <http://kera.io>, find "maintain", click on it. Be taken on a product trip.</comment>


Technology and the Family (2007) - <AUTHOR> https://youtube.com/watch?v=37OLJPjoews <comment><AUTHOR> This was initially released in Spanish: [https://youtube.com/watch?v=d2Sil23wp9E](https://youtube.com/watch?v=d2Sil23wp9E)</comment>


Humans, not AIs, will save us from the endless slurry of fake news - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.co.uk/article/artificial-intelligence-fake-news <comment><USER2> "Up to 30%" might flip a close election but won't move the needle when it comes to the tough problems that we are not facing today.

The other part is that the dangerous part of "Fake News" is the "News" and not the "Fake".

Listening to talking heads blab about politics, plane crashes, and school shootings all day is going to harm your mental health no matter what.</comment>


ReactOS 0.4.0 released - <AUTHOR> https://sourceforge.net/projects/reactos/files/latest/download <comment><USER2> The link points directly to the auto-download page. A link to release notes or main project page would be more approachable.</comment>


Erlang style programming in PLT Scheme - <AUTHOR> http://weblambda.blogspot.com/2009/09/erlang-style-programming-in-plt.html

<comment><USER2> Here is a little check-list for people to follow before they write a blog post about how one can do Erlang style concurrency in another programming language:

[http://ulf.wiger.net/weblog/2008/02/06/what-is-erlang- style-...](http://ulf.wiger.net/weblog/2008/02/06/what-is-erlang-style- concurrency/)

<comment><USER3> brilliant! The linked article should probably have its own HN submission. Thank You!</comment></comment>


Recovering from Burnout and Depression - <AUTHOR> https://kierantie.com/a/burnout/ <comment><USER2> I think a big factor in burnout is that most work is ultimately meaningless, or even morally wrong, and on a deep level, we're aware of that. Why is it so hard to make yourself work? Probably because you actually should be doing something else with your life.

If someone paid you money to kick a dog, you'd feel a strong urge to do something else. That's because you shouldn't kick dogs. But when we feel the same urge to not work, we read articles (not this one so much) that are essentially lists of ways to trick ourselves into doing things that don't matter or which will make the world a worse place.

You may have an idea that you know will make you a millionaire and which you could build, but you just can't force yourself to because fundamentally money won't make you happy and the idea is meaningless at best.

At least this is often the case for me.

<comment><USER3> I think this is more true than many would like to admit. Maybe 'most work' as meaningless isn't the way I would phrase it, but I know many including myself that are often creatively and technically challenged, work an average number of hours, but feel the mental stress of burnout purely because of the guilt and resentment of spending so much time on the specific job function, itself.

To put it a little more abstract than 'kicking the dog', much of the work we do is in service purely of the bottom line - for products no one demands or needs, that solve no real human needs (of which there are MANY unmet needs), but generate maximum profit often at the expense of others or our collective future. Some work that centers purely around controlling capital serves virtually no real human function and has no actual output except profit (think banking, real estate, etc). Maybe I'm in the minority but these thoughts weigh heavily on me and make it much hard to make myself 'work', regardless of compensation. We keep at it because it's not feasible or enjoyable to be low- income in the world we live in, but we feel the urge that we should be doing something else. I call that a form of burnout.

<comment><USER4> This is one of my big problems with the idea of money being so separated from actual good these days. It also creates huge wealth gaps, and I have no idea what could be done to re-align it. Basically, I believe that the concept of money as it exists today is deeply broken and should be aligned with something which benefits humans vs something which is required in small to moderate quantities to not suffer yet which people obsess over, collect, and seek to increase with an unrelenting fervor, despite any damage it does to society or individuals.

<comment><USER5> Money is very broken currently.

"By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method, they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some. The sight of this arbitrary rearrangement of riches strikes not only at security, but at confidence in the equity of the existing distribution of wealth. Those to whom the system brings windfalls . . . become 'profiteers', who are the object of the hatred of the bourgeoisie, whom the inflationism has impoverished not less than the proletariat."

Doesn't that sound familiar? The quote is, ironically, by John Maynard Keynes, the very person policymakers cite to justify stealing from the poor and giving to the rich via inflation, in the name of "stability".

<comment><USER6> > stealing from the poor and giving to the rich via inflation

Inflation is a tax on assets. Isn't that the exact opposite of taking from the poor?

<comment><USER7> Inflation is a tax on money, not on all assets. It costs those who have their assets located in money. The big fish don't and beggars neither. Lower-middle would be my guess.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I want to highlight something that the article touched on, which for me, was a big source of burnout.

"Breakdown of community"

This can happen if you work remotely, or work in-office with a team that isn't collaborating effectively. If the work you do is isolating and you rarely collaborate with others, you may suffer burnout.

At our core we all want to feel like we're part of something bigger than ourselves. Being part of a team, even if it's as contrived as an office team is, can still be surprisingly important for ones mental health.

If you're feeling burned out consider if a lack of engagement with your peers could be a contributor.

That's my 0.02 at least.

<comment><USER9> Poor collaboration within a small team is something I'm experiencing now, and it's devastating.

Would be curious to hear if you found a way out, or a way to improve collaboration within a currently flawed group.

<comment><USER8> That's a tough question to provide a meaningful answer to without understanding the source of the problem. Conflicts and lack of collaboration on teams can be the result of a number of factors each requiring a unique approach.

In general it's the responsibility of the manager to monitor the health of the team as a unit. If you have a manager it may be worth bringing this issue to their attention and working with them to find a solution. The manager has the authority, and should have the respect, to make the necessary changes to your team dynamics to improve collaboration. What this means for your team, depends entirely on what the source of the problem is.

For as much as managers get a bad rap in the tech community, they really do have an important job. Steering the ship and ensuring the wellbeing of the team is their number one priority. A good manager should be open to your comments and appreciate the opportunity to work with you to increase valuable collaboration.

If you don't have a manager then you may need to wear the manager hat. My recommendation in this case - not knowing you or your team - would be to identify the source of the collaboration breakdown, and then reach out to your colleagues to see if they feel the same way. Assuming everyone on your team is cordial, they should be open to a discussion on how to promote a collaborative environment. If your teammates are NOT cordial, well, you've got an entirely different problem on your hands...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> My recovery included a regimented sleeping, eating, and exercise plan that I introduced in stages. If you have to pick just one to start with, it is a toss up between going to sleep at the same time every night or going for a walk every day.

I also never work overtime anymore.

Still not totally okay, but not completely burnt out anymore.

<comment><USER11> Can you expand on some of the details of your regimen? I'm having trouble getting myself to go to bed at a reasonable hour and I think it is strongly contributing to a growing sense of fatigue at work. Would be particularly interested in how you got started with it.

<comment><USER10> Yes, it is a simple regimen: At least a half hour before bed, turn down all lights and light-emitting objects. This means no computers or television. Do not do anything in your bed other than sleeping or sex. If you want to read until bedtime, move yourself to a different location, like a comfortable couch. If you are having trouble sleeping at a given time, you may try melatonin. I don't have to follow all of these rules now that I've developed the habit, but I find my sleep is significantly improved when I do. Oh, and don't go to sleep drunk, either.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> For me the cause for burnout was having to deal with a combination of politics, the fact that those determined my lack of technical input, that I wasn't allowed to perform at my best because I lacked input, and then getting beaten with the underperformer stick while the project was going down the tubes.

<comment><AUTHOR> I hear that - it sounds VERY similar to what I dealt with. I also had the additional problem of working to help an audience and a customer base that deep down, I didn't care about.

So many people seem to believe it's only about overwork - but that's only a small part of it. It's a myth I tried to dispel as best I could in the article.

<comment><USER13> Very true about overwork. I would be less burned out if I worked more, or was allowed to be more productive. For me burnout is about powerlessness in work, the feeling that no matter what I do I won't be able to make a positive impact.

<comment><USER14> "burnout is about powerlessness" I think is a succinct but adequate way to put it, at least from my perspective.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey everyone - thanks so much for reading! Burnout and depression is a topic that not enough of us talk about, even though that's often the best solution.

If you know anyone struggling with burnout or depression, or you just enjoyed my article, I'd be forever grateful if you'd share it with them on Twitter or Facebook, to help spread the word. Thanks so much!

<comment><USER15> > Burnout and depression is a topic that not enough of us talk about

You know, I get what you're saying, but I actually need to stop you here. Because honestly, we can't go two weeks without a post hitting the front page about someone's personal come-to-Jesus moment about burnout. We _do_ talk about burnout and depression, a _lot_. And nobody learns.

Nobody learns and I don't think anyone will learn. In the 20 years I've been working in the tech industry, I've only seen things get worse. Workers get treated more like cattle every day. Creatives who become founders self- flagellate themselves even more. It's a sick, disgusting cycle, all built on a lie of "just work hard--never mind on what--and you will get your due", and it's one I think companies like Facebook and funds like Andreeson are encouraging so that they can have a constant churn of Jr Devs desperate to get started and Sr Devs desperate to put their lives back together after their own failed startups.

<comment><USER16> Maybe its not so much that nobody learns, but that its something that is generally best learned through experience. Its hard to self assess and self deception is easy. So society keeps repeating the same mistakes, even though those who have experienced and learned from it are actually talking about it.

To me it seems much more like a societal/systemic problem - one that will not be easy to fix, especially with the increasing inequality and rise of automation. The demand for achievement and lifestyle upheld by society as something worthwhile to strive for (for happiness, fulfilment, recognition etc), just perpetuates the cycle and will be become harder to attain.

What are those to think/do who did not reach what society taught them they should want and have to be happy and fulfilled? These people put the effort in, but get nothing back. They get burnt out and depressed and even though they later talk about it, others cant understand as they don't have perspective and/or don't think it will happen to them. They are too busy burning themselves out chasing the goal.

I don't think there is a solution that doesn't involve a radical shift in society and work/life balance.

<comment><USER17> What you're describing is the norm in capitalist Western countries. Other societies have different "things to chase", basically the values of their cultures.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I burned out three times in salaried jobs. Mostly due to chaotic leadership. Hard work isn't the problem. Chaos and bad leadership is the problem. Moved to contracting, and have been fine since.

<comment><USER19> how is that? i find that chaos and bad leadership still has a huge impact on my perception of my job and my ability to make progress as a contractor.

its just alot easier to shrug and cash the check. and spend as much of the rest of your time doing things you think are worthwhile.

ideally as a contractor i could choose to apply myself at places which were better organized and more engaging, its just they aren't as interested in contractors and its hard enough keeping yourself in jobs without firing all* the lousy customers.

<comment><USER20> A bit off topic, but I'm curious - how did you get started in contracting and how do you go about finding clients? Is it through people you've worked with in the past, or do you somehow advertise yourself? This is something I've considered moving toward but I don't know where to begin. Thanks!

<comment><USER19> its pretty hard. alot of reaching out. contracts dry up for a wide variety of reasons. so you have to keep the pipe full.

body shops will reach out to you - thats usually suboptimal for alot of reasons, but its work

sadly, alot of my contracts come from interviews for full time positions where the customer is hiring for some special skill, but its clear there isn't a long term role for me there. that can lead to work

old contacts are the best way, but you have to stay on people's radar.

sofar I've found gig sites to be pretty useless. the site wants to constrain communication so that you cant have the normal design discussion up front - they just say 'microcontroller work <$250', bid yes or no

my impression is that the mvp webapp space is still pretty easy to make money in. not really in systems - decent employers know that its hard to make a contract work well and would rather have you as a resource ongoing. and everyone is just doing staple jobs these days, so 'kernel' and 'test' and 'embedded', and all the old specialties dont get you anywhere.

i would try to leverage someone you've worked with before who is now in a position to influence a contract decision. someone with whom you have a level of mutual respect. once you have something ongoing, always spend time trying to open up new opportunities.

the thing that i find hard is that as a hired gun, you can present your opinion for consideration - once. its not your role to pursue and agenda, you're there to provide hourly services at the discretion of the customer and you need to demonstrate concrete value.

to circle around, its this carefully negotiated per-task relationship that both removes the pain of trying to work around useless colleagues and eliminates any reward you might feel for shaping a product. this is not your party, you're just serving canapes.

<comment><USER20> Thanks for the detailed response. You point out some interesting challenges that I hadn't fully considered. Overall, do you still prefer to contracting process and role to a traditional position?

<comment><USER19> for me personally i dont really have a choice...to continue the analogy, its nice to have friends and go to parties. but instead of throwing hysterics when married lisa makes a drunken pass at married brad...i get to chide the bartender for overserving and wait until midnight.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> One of my favourite quotes from Edward Sapir (known for Sapir-Whorf hypothesis):

The major activities of the individual must directly satisfy his own creative and emotional impulses, must always be something more than means to an end. The great cultural fallacy of industrialism, as developed up to the present time, is that in harnessing machines to our uses it has not known how to avoid the harnessing of the majority of mankind to its machines. The telephone girl who lends her capacities, during the greater part of the living day, to the manipulation of a technical routine that has an eventually high efficiency value but that answers to no spiritual needs of her own is an appalling sacrifice to civilisation. As a solution of the problem of culture she is a failure — the more dismal the greater her natural endowment. As with the telephone girl, so, it is to be feared, with the great majority of us, slave- stokers to fires that burn for demons we would destroy, were it not that they appear in the guise of our benefactors. The American Indian who solves the economic problem with salmon-spear and rabbit-snare operates on a relatively low level of civilisation, but he represents an incomparably higher solution than our telephone girl of the questions that culture has to ask of economics. There is here no question of the immediate utility, of the effective directness, of economic effort, nor of any sentimentalizing regrets as to the passing of the "natural man." The Indian's salmon-spearing is a culturally higher type of activity than that of the telephone girl or mill hand simply because there is normally no sense of spiritual frustration during its prosecution, no feeling of subservience to tyrannous yet largely inchoate demands, because it works in naturally with all the rest of the Indian's activities instead of standing out as a desert patch of merely economic effort in the whole of life. A genuine culture cannot be defined as a sum of abstractly desirable ends, as a mechanism. It must be looked upon as a sturdy plant growth, each remotest leaf and twig of which is organically fed by the sap at the core. And this growth is not here meant as a metaphor for the group only; it is meant to apply as well to the individual. A culture that does not build itself out of the central interests and desires of its bearers, that works from general ends to the individual, is an external culture. The word "external," which is so often instinctively chosen to describe such a culture, is well chosen. The genuine culture is internal, it works from the individual to ends.

<comment><USER22> Yet this is one of the central business models of Silicon Valley: build a software apparatus, hire "interchangeable" women to take care of the human side of it, pay them "market rates" which for women's work means "the lowest acceptable wage for at least one woman in the social class your customers expect" (they're interchangeable, any woman could follow the script. The hard part is building The Apparatus that tells them what to do. So we pay men big bucks to build The Apparatus).

It's all built on the fundamental belief that the work these ladies are doing is interchangeable while the men's work is not.

Is that really true though?

And of course sometimes you find a pool of men who will let you treat them interchangeably too...

<comment><USER23> What is this SV software company role that is filled exclusively by underpaid women? I'm trying to think of what you might be referring to, but honestly have no idea.

<comment><USER22> Customer support and office manager are the big ones. I wouldn't use the word exclusively.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I burned out in 1999 and never really recovered. I miss some of the work, but not the stress, not the politics nor gamesmanship. Instead of creating capital value for faceless shareholders I've spent the past nearly 20 years creating financial and personal value for myself.

<comment><USER25> If you don't mind me asking, what steps did you take?

<comment><USER24> I taught myself how to invest for reasonable returns, so a mix of stocks, bonds, and real companies. I learned how to read and critique financial statements, business plans, LLC / LP organization documents.

I learned how to say "no" to outrageous demands on my time, to companies which asked that I give it all in return for some meager equity grant that could be worth millions but more likely not worth the paper it was written on.

Fairly boring, really, but not covered in my CS or liberal arts studies in college.

You get so caught up in the moment: get a job, make money, pay your debts, you don't get a chance to step back and ask what you want out of life.

I've tried working with startups again since I left that world, and I always end up leaving after a few months to a year. Most startups are managed as though everything is a crisis, your hair is on fire all the time (and if it's not, then clearly you're doing something wrong). Firms, capital back companies are not new. Digital technology and communications remove a lot of the friction, but a lot of the corporate politics you find in today's hot startup existed in the 1990s, 1980s, 1970s and so on. It's not just a failure to learn from the past, it's an outright refusal, the constant "it'll be different this time" mantra.

Surprise: it's pretty much the same shit, different logos and domain names (and apps).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I think the most striking thing about burnout is that, in my experience, it actually takes time to recover from it. Like a wound that requires healing.

It wasn't a situation where you simply remove a stressor and everything automatically gets better. A problem was created in my brain and it took a long time before I was functioning properly again.

<comment><USER27> Good point. And this is the thing I noticed most in the article. Have read a few other articles here in the past. But here the author stressed this point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I was working for the software giant based in Seattle. I experienced all the emotions mentioned in this post. Lucky that you had an option to take a break for 6 months. I cannot quit my job and take a big break as my visa does not permit this but I did quit my job and spent a month looking for another job which was even more stressful. Currently, I am lucky that I work for a company which truly values employees. I am currently recuperating and it is gonna take some time. The important learning is never to allow this in the first phase, when you have a inception of a thought that something is not going right, get on it and fix it and never ever think about it again.

<comment><USER29> If you're on H1, and have the money to pull it off, you can take a break with an approved leave of absence[0]. When it's renewal time, you can add these dates in as time not spent on H1 if the time was spent outside the US.

I hope you get better soon!

[0]: [http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/how-taking- approved-l...](http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/how-taking-approved- leave-affects-your-h-1b-employment.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> This struck pretty close to home. I quit my job because of burnout, and I'm currently on month five of what I expected to be a two or three month break before finding another job. I still don't feel ready to go back into the real world.

Like the author, work overload was not the problem - I almost never worked more than 40 hours per week. Finding support from family/friends has been difficult; I've been desperately trying to avoid the stigma attached to the word depression, and as a result I don't think many people realise what I've been going through, and assume I've just decided to bum around for a bit.

</comment><comment><USER31> I've burnt out on several occasions. I'm currently battling with it right now. Part of it is my career has regressed in pay and challenge year over year. I can barely accept doing something relatively pointless. But I need to grow or challenge myself to some extent. In the long run, I work to pay the bills. I have a million other things I want to do.

But what do you do when both your personal and professional life collapse at the same time. That's the boat I'm in right now. As soon as I'm done with work. I practically start working on salvaging what I can of my personal life. I forcefully have dragged myself to the doctors. But am not getting much help as of yet from that field.

</comment><comment><USER32> A nurse once told me "burnout is actually heartache in disguise". While I don't complete agree with that statement, I think there's some truth in it.

</comment><comment><USER33> This article really resonates with me. I burned out badly around 2 years ago and have still not recovered. 2 years. Although it's probably exacerbated by pre-existing chronic depression in my case.

It's cost me so much. My friends, who I've all alienated. My general physical health, which is the worst it's ever been in my adult life. Strained family relationships. Gaining a reputation for being 'unreliable'.

If you notice that feeling of exhaustion/frustration creeping up on you, even though objectively what you're doing shouldn't be that strenuous, stop. Stop right there and take a long break. Don't tell yourself "I'll just close out this project and then take a break". Just stop. The extra couple of months of work you might be able to force out of yourself are not worth the years of hell that may follow.

</comment><comment><USER34> Recently I was feeling very frustrated about my work, about what I do in my life. This was lasting for about 1 month. I've noticed that in such periods I compare myself to others and intentionally think that I'm worse. Like literally the most useless person in the world. Usually I find any particular metric (even meaningless) and compare. This is very self-destructing activity.

What helps me in fight with burnout is realising what my strong sides are. I just try to do what I'm good at, and I stop comparing myself to others because of obvious evidence that I'm not. And of course I get more rest, more sleep and switch to creative hobby activities more often. Like an author, I reevaluate my goals and priorities and become in sync with my life again.

<comment><USER35> I've heard about this thought process often and I feel that the root cause is that tying your self-worth to your "usefulness" to others or to society at large is ultimately self-defeating.

<comment><USER36> see this recent discussion:

"Self-Compassion Works Better Than Self-Esteem"

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14314958](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14314958)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> This hit spot on for me. I believe I'm currently dealing with and realized not long ago that Burnout was real and not an arbitrary term that people through around.

<comment><AUTHOR> Glad it helped! I've heard from so many people that have been struggling with the same thing, but didn't even know that's what was going on. It took me months to realize what was happening, and one of the biggest things that helped was reading about others' accounts of their experiences - which is what prompted me to write about it also.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I can totally relate to this. I experienced this after working steadily 4 years and then having a close friend pass unexpectedly. Suddenly everything I was spending all my time on felt like a waste of time. Now, almost two years later I'm doing better and even looking to work in a non-remote scenario. I think it's great to be on the lookout for signs of burnout, but on the other hand it's equally important to use our time wisely and do the things we love.

<comment><USER39> Your situation is eerily similar to mine. I lost my best friend in 2015. I was already pretty overworked and stressed out at my job, but after his death my brain was just broken. I had no drive, ambition, or focus. My shrink has been instrumental in the recovery process.

Having said that, rebuilding your life post-burnout/depression can be an overwhelming at times. It's helped me to just focus on making one thing better each day, no matter how small the task. Forward momentum is the key ingredient to a come back. Good luck and Godspeed!

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> TL;DR: Don't try so hard. Like Queen's song. [1]

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7kUc5RcMqc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7kUc5RcMqc)

</comment><comment><USER41> Are there any studies on how long engineers take to recover from burnout? 6 months sounds about right from what I've heard anecdotally.

<comment><USER42> I suspect there's considerable variance.

<comment><USER36> I believe the anecdotes in this thread range from about 1 month to 2 years, iirc. I've been feeling a little burnt out lately. But reading this thread reminded me of how much I have to be grateful for, and there were many good tips. Like focus on the positives. So for me, like 1 hour or so :)

There are many factors at play here.

How bad is it? What is the cause? How long does it take to address the cause? Ie if the cause is not having meaning, how long does it take to find something meaningful? If it is a bad community, how long does it take to find people you like?

<comment><USER42> Not my field, but:

* Suicide is one terminal option.

* There's a fair history of people who've suffered burnout, or equivalent earlier terms (nervous breakdown, nervous exhaustion, possibly also PTSD and its antecedants -- combat fatigue and shell shock), for the rest of their natural lives.

* Others who've taken multi-year / multi-decadal breaks, or transitioned to other careers or professions.

Again: I suspect considerable variance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> This is also a huge problem for social workers, especially working with high risk clients. A lot of times the departments are unfunded so the workers also do not get the treatment/counseling they really need.

<comment><USER44> Social workers all the way down?

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Very interesting and very nicely written! I was thinking about this myself lately ([https://medium.com/@yansh/who-do-you-want-to-be-in-life- ca8f...](https://medium.com/@yansh/who-do-you-want-to-be-in-life- ca8ffa3d72e7))..

I think the advice to slow down, take a break, refocus is key to figuring things out, however, not everyone can afford to do so. It's a risk, and there is always a trade off. So I wouldn't frame the article as a guide, because it's different for everyone.

<comment><USER46> > however, not everyone can afford to do so

So start saving. This was actually my biggest takeaway from the article. The couple had more than 6 months of living costs stashed away, which I think is a very good idea.

<comment><USER45> yes, a great advice but might not be a viable option for everyone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> It has already been said that burnout can stem from a "bad boss", i.e. abusive, or your work is not appreciated. I think it can also stem from not having a (perceived) choice. If your worldview forces you to do this exact job ("I'm only good at this particular job", "I would lose my/our home for lack of money", "My parents would not approve me quitting"), then this can kill your enthusiasm, and also result in a burnout. And it will spread, and infect other areas of your life, and you might wonder why you are actually here. Just building up a choice can help a lot. This could be an alternative career that earns less, but you realize that you can actually get by on less. Or you make the decision that your parents' approval is not something you need anymore. Given a choice, the fun might or might not return. I'm pivoting to design for this very reason. I love building things, and I'm good (maybe great) at software, but programming is just not an activity I feel comfortable doing all day.

</comment><comment><USER48> Software engineer here. I've been working on meaningless and emotionally unrewarding project for the last 2 years. Running burnout self-tests this morning yielded me the second most critical level, but still worthy of "act immediately" or "seek medical attention". I feel pretty down and my dayjob is meaningless to me.

I'm considering taking a sick leave till the end of my contract next month, and am wondering this:

If burnout is caused by lack of emotional reward and lack of giving a f*ck, should i pick up a sideproject I've committed to that i kind of care about instead, and think is interesting? Or ditch that as well and just take rest/go travel? Can i still work while recovering? What's a good workload?

<comment><USER36> "I feel pretty down and my dayjob is meaningless to me"

Do you have hobbies? There's many to choose from :) Ask yourself, what does have meaning to you? There is more to life than a job.

"should i pick up a sideproject I've committed to that i kind of care about instead, and think is interesting?"

This might be a good idea. If you would find it meaningful and emotionally rewarding.

"Or ditch that as well and just take rest/go travel?"

Is there someplace you have always wanted to go? Rest is good, but it sounds like you aren't overworked, as much as just not being stimulated. As far as I can tell.

"Can i still work while recovering? What's a good workload?"

If you have the savings, I wouldn't.

"I'm considering taking a sick leave till the end of my contract next month"

If you absolutely need to. But it might mean not getting a good reference. Can you stick it out(assuming you dont already have another lined up)?

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Why do I never read articles targeted at other high-stress jobs (lawyer, med student, etc etc)? Do software engineers have a unique culture that identifies this danger? Or are we the only ones that get burned out, maybe because of some self-selection into the field?

<comment><USER50> Probably just confirmation bias given the fact that a) you mostly read articles/blogs targeted at SWE professionals, and b) software engineers are far more likely to blog about their career experience than any other profession.

I'm sure if you read some trade magazines targeted at lawyers, etc you'd find similar sentiments.

Another, slightly more cynical interpretation is that software engineers are "special snowflakes" who are much more likely than legal/financial/medical professionals to complain about long hours and/or burnout. Interestingly those three professions all have gruelingly long hours and require you to "pay your dues" early in you career. Yet those professionals seem to complain far less, perhaps because the long hours are an expected part of their culture. After all, in finance people typically _brag_ about how long they stayed at the office. So there is clearly some difference in work culture between the professions.

<comment><USER51> I somewhat agree with your cynical interpretation, but I might tweak it a little bit to be more forgiving: It's a matter of expectations. SWE work, for the most part over the last 20-30 years, (until very recently, at least to my eyes) has been perceived as "creative", almost "artistic" work, whereas the day to day is much much more in line with some weird combination of banking (often high stress, shifting goals, high impact of externalities, one small cog in a giant machine) and blue collar production work. This not even counting the drastic shifts I've seen in the last 5-10 years to commoditize SWE work. (not a value judgement, just an observation)

Most of my friends and family who went into finance did so knowing what they were getting into, some even _wanting_ that. It definitely cultivates a different culture and set of expectations. (There are definitely some CSers I knew who love the grind, but I don't think I'm making a stretch to assert they were the minority, and often were within a specific slice of CS that requires that more similar culture)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> As someone recently diagnosed with depression and anxiety, this stuck a chord. For me the hardest step was to prioritize my health over my job and force myself to get help.

Fortunately, have some savings like the author and am taking a break for a while. Thanks for this timely post!

</comment><comment><USER53> How timely; last night I typed 'how to recover from burnout' into google. Thank you.

</comment><comment><USER54> This is very interesting. The site is nice but I miss the opportunity to provide feedback to the author. It's frustrating.

To recover from a burnout I have seen that it can be helpful to keep track of achievements. In depression or burnout very simple things become very exhausting. Keeping track of the little things we manage to achieve are like small victories. When we measure and display in a graphic all the things we achieved, we objectivate things and see progress which give back trust and power. It's a vertuous circle. Objectivation is important because we tend to see only the negative side of things, and especially ourselves.

</comment><comment><USER55> I feel that this is a over simplified version of a much deeper problem and cannot be concluded based on the experience of the Author alone. There are many things that cause burnout and many different reasons that cause depression. In the case of author the Work did it but there are people in this world who get burnt out because of sickness of their loved ones or even because of ambition & their vision. Interestingly the word depression is not even mentioned in the article.

</comment><comment><USER56> This has certainly been eye-opening read for me. I believe a lot of us can relate to the traits mentioned in the blog, this will lead us to take necessary steps at the right time.

>Burnout offers a hidden silver lining.

In the end this is what leads to satisfaction in life.

</comment><comment><USER57> the author of the post really grabbed my attention for his slick copy to get my to sign up for his mailing list. as soon as you get on the list he has a link to a tweet he wants you to RT. excellent copy, very good marketing and product skills. I'm going to be following this author because he could be onto something.

</comment><comment><USER58> The reason you are suffering is because you aren't living your life based on an understanding of your predicament.

Fool me once shame on you and fool me twice shame on me. So don't get fooled again. And don't forget to remind yourself it's all just a stupid game. Just like musical chairs.

</comment><comment><USER59> Everything in that list is happening for me right now, with perhaps the exception of the mismatch between my values and my company's. I tell my manager about it and he has been trying to rearrange things to try to help me, but I feel like there is probably a reason things got to be this shitty, and that reason will probably keep on happening. I don't know what to do. My last workplace was bad in many of the same ways, and I don't feel like I have the energy to enter into yet another employment situation brimming with optimism, only to have it turn into the suck once again.

<comment><USER60> Same. I guess my only option is to take months off, but can't really afford to...

<comment><AUTHOR> Taking months off isn't the only option. It's just one way of buying you enough headspace to begin to see what the true problem is. Identifying the cause is the first step - then you can start to take small steps towards fixing that specific problem/s. Even small things, like turning off your phone when you leave work for the day, or taking a walk outside on your lunch break, can help a lot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> Take a vacation / break, refocus on personal priorities. Learn what makes you happy, and do that - at least outside of work.

</comment><comment><USER62> If any of you are suffering from depression, you should seriously try microdosing LSD.

<comment><USER63> While I'm sure there are a few causes of depression and contextual life events and personalities for which LSD might be useful, it's downright irresponsible to suggest that "if _any_ reader" suffers from depression he should turn to narcotics.

<comment><USER62> I'm not saying I have the study to show that LSD can help with any depression, but do you have any evidence that it only helps with certain kinds? (I know, burden of proof is on me)

The reason my advice isn't irresponsible is because microdosing LSD has no downsides. If it doesn't work, nothing breaks. Try something else then.

Depression is a real life-killer, and if 10 people tried my advice, and this worked for only 1 of them (although I think at least 5 would), then this advice has essentially saved 1 life, while not harming the others.

<comment><USER63> Even if it _could_ help them, there are risks[0], and in most jurisdictions, LSD is a highly restricted drug which doctors cannot prescribe therapeutically, so there is no guarantee of dose or purity. People with severe depression who would entertain this seriously are already prone to impulsive behavior and cognitive difficulties. The suggestion is irresponsible.

[0] [https://medlineplus.gov/ency/patientinstructions/000795.htm](https://medlineplus.gov/ency/patientinstructions/000795.htm)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Vodafone chucks €150k at European mobile Internet startups - <AUTHOR> http://uk.techcrunch.com/2009/08/13/vodafone-chucks-e150k-at-european-mobile-internet-startups/

<comment><AUTHOR> The point made near the end of the article is really interesting. Is it better to go for grants/prizes or to try to raise traditional funding? Both are risky activities, both take time, but one of them costs you equity and the other one doesn't.

PS: Oh, and for what it's worth, we (woobius) are competing in this... if you want to help you can vote for us at <http://www.vodafonemobileclicks.com/vote> :-) Cheers! The mobile app we're building is described at [http://woobius.com/scribbles/posts/0021-woobius-eye- beta.htm...](http://woobius.com/scribbles/posts/0021-woobius-eye-beta.html)

</comment><comment><USER2> Sounds like a good profit scheme - invest money so companies create apps so people have a use for 3G so people pay for 3G.

<comment><USER3> Quite surprising that other companies do not utilize this observation too much, investing in the ecosystem of their own products and, thus, increasing their value.

€150k sounds like a pocket money for Vodafone</comment></comment>


Chips and Geopolitics - <AUTHOR> https://stratechery.com/2020/chips-and-geopolitics/ <comment><USER2> _"As the world is no longer peaceful, TSMC is gaining vital importance in geostrategic terms,"_

-Morris Chang, former chairman and CEO of the world's largest semiconductor foundry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) in 2019.

And he said something similar in 2017 as well. Turns out he foresee all sort of problems when TSMC became the leading Fab for the world.

The 2013 piece [1] on Intel is also interesting. That was when Intel were about to launch their delayed 14nm. It is rather unfortunate Intel decide not to follow through their Custom Foundry.

[1] [https://stratechery.com/2013/the-intel- opportunity/](https://stratechery.com/2013/the-intel-opportunity/)

<comment><USER3> The long interview [1] with Morris Chang is interesting. When asked why he went to Taiwan to found TSMC (at a reduced level of compensation) he replied: _it was the newness that appealed to me, the difference from what I had been doing for several decades!_

[1] [https://www.semi.org/en/Oral-History-Interview-Morris- Chang](https://www.semi.org/en/Oral-History-Interview-Morris-Chang)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> >> the lesson in 2020 should be that technology is inseparable from geopolitics.

I cannot agree more. If we learn one thing this year this is it.

<comment><USER5> The thing is this used to be a _well known_ truism, for a long time. Not sure when we forgot it ... maybe after the USSR collapsed and everyone read "The End of History" and actually believed what Fukuyama wrote.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It wasn't only Intel making microprocessors in the US. Samsung has one of their largest fabs in Texas. Global Foundries has their best fab in New York. As I understand they're both equipped to make 14nm-class processors. Not that it detracts from the general point of the article.

</comment><comment><USER7> I assume that multi-chip packages will soon develop as a new source of modularity within chip fabrication itself. There will be common standards for how multiple chiplets can be wired inside of a package, and the OEM will no longer be restricted to having a single supplier like TSMC for the entire "package" component but be free to choose among multiple, freely-competing suppliers ala TSMC, Intel, Samsung, SMIC etc. Then the "geopolitical" need for an advanced, billion-dollar "fab" will essentially be disintermediated away - only a few tiny, perhaps optional components will ever be manufactured at anything like a 7nm or 5nm process. Everything else will simply end up as a basic commodity.

<comment><USER8> IANoWayAFabExpert but I don't think so. I understand the cost of transferring signals between chiplets is high, so I don't see this as a way forward except for when the cost of such a transfer can be amortised by handing over a smallish packet of work (in terms of data size) that needs a large quantity of CPU, and a smallish amount of data to transfer back. So coarse grained only. Not suitable for general computation anyway.

IMO only. Not my area. Pinch of salt etc.

<comment><USER9> Perhaps I'm misunderstanding your point, but hasn't AMD proven this wrong at this point? With a correctly architected interconnect you can absolutely do chiplet based general computation processors.

Again, I may be misunderstanding your point...but I think the chiplet future is here on some level.

<comment><USER8> And I may be wrong, and for sure chiplets are proven (for now) to be a very good way of doing things, but those chiplets in AMD chips are relatively decoupled[0]. They're very large and connected within themselves already. They can be expected to operate substantially independently[0]. While they do have to talk to each other to get memory, probably a lot, DRAM access is so slow that it swamps the overhead of inter-chiplet communication[0]. Shared L3 cache, that's another matter I dunno.

I took it you meant like much smaller components, like ALU from this supplier, DRAM controller from that supplier, cache from another supplier etc, all on separate chiplets, each having to go off-chiplet to speak to the others. I am sure[0] that would cost much power and performance.

[0] serious risk of n00b arse-speak happening here, beware.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Typo: 80286 (not 80826), and 80386 (80836), in the opening paragraphs.

<comment><USER11> I gotta say my brain auto-correct those kind of things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I would love to see Intel get into contract manufacturing. We need more competition in that space and Intel's position no longer makes sense in the current environment.

<comment><USER2> They did, It is called Intel Custom Foundry and had customers from Nokia to Ericsson. In the end they failed. And it is no longer a path they want to follow.

<comment><USER8> Why did they fail?

<comment><USER13> They are extremely secretive:

 _One of the funniest stories I heard was about the first copy of the Intel 14nm design rules Altera got from Intel. They were heavily redacted, which is something I had never seen in the foundry business._

[https://semiwiki.com/semiconductor- manufacturers/intel/7912-...](https://semiwiki.com/semiconductor- manufacturers/intel/7912-intel-discontinues-the-custom-foundry-business/)

Additionally, a contract fab tries to be flexible, easier to design for. They make their libraries & design rules work well with commercial design software. A private fab on the other hand can boost yield & performance by pushing increasingly complex design rules on the design team, and the design team can use customized or internally developed software to make it all work.

So in short, they had the best fab tech in the business but they weren't used to servicing anyone other than themselves.

<comment><USER8> Surely 'themselves' is a huge enough market, and 'boost[ing] yield & performance' is exactly what they want to do, as the world's largest CPU maker? It sounds perfect. I guess maybe financially the extra perf etc. just wasn't worth it.

(thanks for answer though)

<comment><USER2> There is no reason why you cant optimise for both. To simply put they wasn't ready to be a contract manufacture, and TSMC set the standard of what is expected to be a contract manufacture in the Fabs industry and Intel failed miserably to meet even the pass mark.

Yes, it make perfect sense to optimise for you own yield and performance until TSMC overtake you and you no longer has the volume advantage. In manufacturing volume is _everything_.

It is also worth pointing out Altera is actually a Subsidiary of Intel. If that is what they were going through you can imagine about the others.

<comment><USER14> Maybe they do know how to optimize, but not exactly why anymore?

I've seen a tv-documentary about 15 years ago about their fabs. Therein some reporter asked why there was a bend in some bundle of pipes for no apparent reason. They answered that was there because in another factory there was a column there which they had to route around, which didn't exist at this factory. They explained further to not wanting to risk process variation, by building that bundle of pipes straight again. Since then i have been unimpressed by all that high-tech, being so complex, having to cargo-cult around, instead of being able to understand it from first principles and build according to the situation. _Not_ blindly copying something which worked at another place but doesn't apply anymore, because the place and its conditions changed.

<comment><USER15> I used to work in R&D for developing the machines used in the fabs. Sometimes the trivial details make a difference in the results and you don't always have to time to isolate and analyze each little thing. If you have a proven recipe, don't change it unless you have a reason.

<comment><USER14> I understand what you mean, time to market, pressure, deadline, and so on...

But see where it got them?

<comment><USER8> I think your criticism is cheap and unwarranted. Where you see stupidity I see wisdom, though we can both agree it's ugly, but let's ask a straight question.

If it were _your_ $$$billions being spent on a fab, what would you do?

<comment><USER14> Probably going broke because of unwarranted perfectionism.

/me lifts hat and bows.

<comment><USER8> Consider the compliment well and truly returned for your honesty - thanks!

<comment><USER14> While sleeping and cuddling with my cats, they whispered into my dreams: _Stoopid hooman, alwayz so slooow! If yooo 'd got Billionz to burn, yoo'd push forward minimal.fab of Yokogwawa and BiZEN from Searchforthenext/Wafertrain! Rrrr Rrrr Rrrr!_

Courtesy of Lilly, Mieze, and Mimi.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Amazing read, but I disagree with this simplistic political conclusion:

> Second, at some point every tech company is going to have to make a choice > between the U.S. and China. It is tempting to blame the tension between the > two countries on Trump, but the truth is that China, particularly under Xi > Jinping, has been significantly hardening its rhetoric and actions since > before Trump was elected, and has been committed to not just catching but > surpassing the U.S. in technology for years. There is a fundamental clash of > values between the West and China, and it is clear that China is interested > in exporting theirs. At some point everyone will be stuck in the middle, > like TSMC, and Switzerland won't be an option.

If Cold War has taught us anything, it's that display of force didn't yield anything. Dialogue and exporting values did. So yes, absolutely: the escalation is Trump's fault, because of the insufferable rhetoric of his warmongering hawks. Xi Jinping is a way more tactical and dialogue oriented leader (not a positive judgement on official PRC values, of course) that is being defeated by the proverbial pigeon shitting on the board during a game of chess. Decoupling from China is easily sellable as the anti-communist propaganda in the 50s, but the harsh reality is that in today's world it means recklessly hammering pieces off of the global economy jenga tower, and hoping it will stay up. Dialogue and severely regulated exchange with the potential enemy is the real weapon that could weaken China. Putting human rights on the table when it comes to trade treaties, for example. Instead, there's a resurgence of scary nationalism that is exactly what brought the world on the brink of collapse 75 years ago. If I had to choose two words, right now, I would go with "brace brace".

<comment><USER17> > Putting human rights on the table when it comes to trade treaties, for > example.

Hasn't this been tried before? What happens if they refuse? We do nothing and just keep talking? The absence of any nationalist impulse is even scarier than your 'scary nationalism'. I would note that China has none of this sort of self doubt.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Any recommendations on a pcb assembly house in Taiwan?

<comment><USER19> To get something made or to work at?

<comment><USER18> To get the electronics made</comment></comment></comment>


On your marks, get set, release - <AUTHOR> http://blog.circuits.io/post/34757264038/on-your-marks-get-set-release

<comment><USER2> This is amazing. I'm definetly telling all the guys at my university about this. I really hope it catches and we end up having something like the "github" for us, hardware freaks.

Also, by enabling people to share design techniques, neat circuit ideas, inventive and creative use of components, this site has the potential to really "teach" people electronics, and to get the good practices out there.

Kudos!

</comment><comment><USER3> Looks very nice, impressive features. I should look more into this, and see if you're competetive with "local" (=manufactured in Asia but through a local distributor, typically) alternatives.

Btw, a typo: the PCB validation says "too close to the boarder of the board" when it, of course, means "border".

<comment><USER4> We refer the orders from circuits.io to oshpark. That's why our boards are purple ;) I thing they produce the boards in the US.

<comment><USER5> I just tried out OSH Park with an existing circuit board that I had made elsewhere earlier this year. Their quality is excellent and the purple soldermask is cool. Prices are just unbelievable. My board originally cost me about $40 with shipping for two units of an approximately 1"x1" board (no silkscreen or mask) with 3 day turnaround using a vendor I've used many times before. This was the cheapest of my usual vendors.

The OSHPark boards were 3 units for $5, shipping included! The only drawback is that I had to wait about 3 weeks, but there are a lot of small boards that I don't need quick turnaround on. I'm definitely using them again!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> That looks great, I love the editor. So far it works great in Firefox (the site mentions it's only tested in Chrome).

You know what I'd love? A Codecademy for electronics. There are online courses and such but none seem to be as casual and easy to get into as sites like Codecademy and TryRuby.

<comment><USER4> Hey,

It could work in firefox. Its just that we only test it in Chrome, because we have limited resources.

We love Codeacademy and have been thinking about building such a thing on circuits.io instead of tutorials. It's a lot more fun! We will have it one of these days.

<comment><USER6> I'm very much looking forward to it! Good luck with the site.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I absolutely love the idea of this, but the editors are so frustratingly buggy I keep giving up. I've submitted several reports.

Also the user-contributed part library so far has been pretty mixed in quality. Mostly it's junk. I hope this improves over time; I'm attempting to do my part.

</comment><comment><USER8> For anybody who likes electronics this is a blessing. Userfriendly to work with and efficient.

</comment><comment><USER9> Awesome, but apparently the sign up page is broken.

<comment><USER4> Sorry about that. It should be fixed now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Awesome job Karel. This looks awesome!</comment>


How Kayak got traction; my interview with Paul English [video/mp3] - <AUTHOR> http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/03/paul-english-on-early-kayak-and-recruiting-relates-to-getting-traction.html

<comment><USER2> He makes a point of mentioning that he doesn't always recommend that start ups get venture capital funding. Sometimes the pressure to grow from having so much money causes the company to collapse.

I tend to agree with him here. A little funding is good, because it can allow you and your team to work full time. I know that my projects would get done faster and with better detail if I didn't have to work a day job to accomplish it.

Having tread carefully usually leads to better decisions in my experience.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm not sure this is the best example for young startup founders: Paul English started out with a shitload of cash to burn on hiring and his cofounder was one of the former heads of Orbitz. Makes me wonder how I can compete with that on my shoestring budget. Maybe this is the level that Gabriel Weinberg is starting from given that he has already launched and sold a company before. But I'm not there yet so this feels a little discouraging.</comment>