Stack Overflow: How we upgrade a live data center - Nick-Craver http://blog.serverfault.com/2015/03/05/how-we-upgrade-a-live-data-center <comment><AUTHOR> I love reading about StackOverflow, particularly their infrastructure.

The site has been a useful resource for so many years, and it works so well. It was a joy to discover that it all ran on like two racks worth of servers, and still does. Having seen corporate intranet portals, with maybe a thousand daily active users, running on excessive* hardware (needlessly, of course), it's like a breath of fresh air.

*EDIT: Removed hyperbole. Not more hardware, but too much nonetheless.

<comment><USER2> We take a lot of pride in how much we get out of each piece of hardware. You don't need to have 1000 servers to run a large site, just the mindset of performance first.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Perhaps off topic, but this post just reminds me so much of why I love AWS EC2, etc. Not ever having to think about hardware again is wonderful.

<comment><USER4> I agree. I read this post and was shocked at the amount of planning, process, man-hours, hardware issues and other problems that come with hardware. I've worked at places with ~500 EC2 machines in a dozen autoscaling groups across 3 AZs with many ELBs, databases, SQS queues and other AWS infrastructure and never had to deal with anything like this when upgrading.

Upgrading hardware in EC2 is as simple as changing a launch configuration and updating an auto-scaling group. Maybe an hour of my time to update configs, verify and deploy. Updating something like a database or caching servers is more work for sure, but with 0 time needed to get to the DC, unpack, rack and configure servers you do save time with 'the cloud'.

I get that you do pay more for EC2 instances, especially if you keep hardware for 4 years. But AWS prices drop every year or two along with (generally) faster versions of software so your overall costs do drop.

How many ops employees would you need for a fleet of 500 servers in a datacenter? We managed it all with 4 people with AWS.

<comment><USER5> The Stack Exchange philosophy is that because they can buy truly mega hardware (each one of those two blade chassis they bought has 72 cores and 1.4TB of RAM, remember!), they don't need those 500 servers to start with. Plus the hardware is an asset and you get to depreciate it.

Everywhere I've ever worked we've had the "big spreadsheet" of projected cloud costs, projected ops costs, and hardware costs. In general the "scale horizontally" philosophy will favor the cloud while the "scale vertical" philosophy still seems to favor owned hardware in local datacenters. Which is superior is a crazy, long-standing debate with no clear answer.

<comment><USER6> Can you elaborate? I thought the answer to that question was to scale up if you can, because its much simpler and therefore cheaper. Similar to how you don't give up ACID unless the scale you're working at doesn't permit it anymore.

<comment><USER5> There's never really a "one size fits all" answer, which is why it's a long- running debate and depends heavily on the product.

Scaling horizontally _can_ let you use smaller, cheaper hardware on average and burst to higher capacity more easily if you need to, at the expense of a lot of complexity. It also (done right, which is rare) tends to gain you a greater degree of fault tolerance, since hardware instances become rapidly- replaceable commodities.

Most web apps have spiky but relatively predictable load. For example, a typical enterprise SaaS startup gets more traffic during work hours than on weekends. For these companies the complexity of developing a horizontally scaled architecture can be offset by the decreased cost of buying really big machines for peak load and then scaling back to a couple small instances for periods of below-average load.

That's (ostensibly) why AWS exists in the first place: Amazon had to buy a lot of peak capacity for Black Friday and Christmas and found it going unused the rest of the year. They never meant to sell their excess capacity, but they realized the tools that they built to dynamically scale their infrastructure were valuable to others.

Plus, a lot of work is offline data analytics, ETL, and so on. It's very cost effective to scale these workloads horizontally on-demand - spin up extra workers to run your reporting each hour/night and keep costs down the rest of the time when you don't need the capacity.

On the flip side, companies like Stack Exchange and Basecamp have high, relatively stable traffic worldwide. For companies like this it makes more sense to scale vertically - if they were in the cloud, they would never scale down or shut down their instances anyway.

Personally, I agree that horizontal scalability is oversold and most people can, indeed, scale up instead of out. However, a lot of plenty smart people disagree with me and have valid reasons to scale horizontally, too.

<comment><USER7> > a typical enterprise SaaS startup gets more traffic during work hours than > on weekends.

You still need to budget what you can get if renting dedicated hardware vs. renting virtual machines. For eg. a Dual Xeon X5670 machine w/ 96GB RAM and 4x480GB SSD can be had for $249 per month (just something random I found for demo purposes). Even if you do a reserved instance for a year on EC2, you can get a m3.2xlarge for this kind of money, and that's only 30GB RAM and 2x80GB SSD.

It might worth it to rent this sort of iron instead of spinning up and down EC2 instances especially if you can reasonably buy a large enough machine to cut a lot of headaches arising from distributed computing. The right tool for the job.

Owning hardware is again a different bag of hurt.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Woah, the datacenter you guys moved to is across the street from my apartment. Just a heads up, I considered it for a project myself but ruled it out because... well this is the back corner of that building: [http://40.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lqnh988WRS1qzpdb2o4_1280.j...](http://40.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lqnh988WRS1qzpdb2o4_1280.jpg)

<comment><USER2> That's nothing: [https://gigaom.com/2012/10/31/how-good-prep-and-a-bucket- bri...](https://gigaom.com/2012/10/31/how-good-prep-and-a-bucket-brigade-kept- peer-1-online-during-hurricane-sandy/)

We where hosted at that Peer 1 facility during Sandy. Also, if the water makes it up to the 16th floor it's time to give up anyway ... no one will care at that point :-D

<comment><USER8> yea we got hit hard by it too (33 whitehall), thats why we went shopping for a second location in jersey. we wound up in newark at 165halsey.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm really wondering how SO uses Redis.

For example, how failure scenarios handled and what is the role of slaves.

<comment> Nick-Craver We have a hot slave at all times for all instances. In the event of a failure the second slave will kick in. All applications are already connected to both servers via the StackExchange.Redis ([https://github.com/StackExchange/StackExchange.Redis](https://github.com/StackExchange/StackExchange.Redis)) library. The mechanisms for failover, etc. are built in there. We use this library via the dashboard (pictured at the bottom of the post) in Opserver ([https://github.com/opserver/Opserver](https://github.com/opserver/Opserver)) to do quick swapping of master/slave, etc. We can do this during the day without anyone noticing.

Slaves are not just for backups - they also serve as pub/sub mechanisms. Every publish propagates to slaves. Since we use pub/sub for things like web sockets, we can easily move that entire concurrent connection load to another data center with a simple DNS change. Yep, we've tested this - it worked well.

It is of course noting: redis just doesn't fail. We had one out of memory fail for the Q&A web sites when forking and that's it. It has been rock solid here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> That's a really nice cabling job. I've inherited 2 DC's with just-awful-enough cabling that I'd be exceptionally happy to set up new racks again and migrate, just to _sort the bloody cables out_

Sigh, don't think it's gonna happen.

As a customer of Dell, it was interesting to see someone elses insight on managing a dell farm.

So neat! I am mildly envious! ;)

<comment> Nick-Craver Thanks! We honestly do this for us and my mild cabling OCD, but if we can help _anyone_ by sharing the details then it's worth it.

<comment><USER10> I'm curious to know what your perceptions of the FX2's are, since it had been racked up.

(EDIT: Over and above what's in the article.. Because they look quite nice, is why I'm asking - we haven't got any.. yet! Still performing well?)

<comment><USER2> They are nice, we honestly haven't had to do much with them after we got them setup since they are VM hosts.

The most annoying part was that the Force10 OS that the IOA's run is slightly annoying to work with when you are used to working on Cisco gear. I'd almost rather people stopped doing "it's close to Cicso" and did their own thing because the connotative dissonance is jarring when something is close but not quite what you expect.

<comment><USER10> We've got 2 M1000e's, but they're slowly being retired and TBH they're in a 'do-less not do-more' situation (mostly!), so I haven't honestly had much experience past run-of-the-mill blade config, so that particular issue happily hasn't really bitten me :)

But thanks (to both you and Nick) for responding, the FX2s look interesting enough that I might have to see about an eval unit :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > We learned that accidentally sticking a server with nothing but naked IIS > into rotation is really bad. Sorry about that one.

Wait, does that mean what I think it means? Did someone get an IIS splash page when visiting SO?

I was going to say they should live-blog during their next upgrade but it they did it on twitter which is awesome.

<comment><USER12> Basically, yes. This happened: [https://twitter.com/atimmer10/status/560568418945236995](https://twitter.com/atimmer10/status/560568418945236995).

<comment><USER11> How long did it take to figure out it occurred? Do you have any stats on how many people hit that machine?

Would be hilarious if someone who went to SO to figure out why the IIS splash was showing instead of his app happened to hit that page.

<comment><USER2> It took about 20 minutes to notice and fix. The Twitter alerting system let us know really quick.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think what impressed me most was the power density that data center is supporting. That looks like nearly 10kW of power in a single rack! Many providers top out at 4kW and HE2 in Fremont was just 1.8kW per rack when I was there.

</comment><comment><USER14> _Most companies depreciate hardware across 3 years_

Can somebody explain why exactly? Was there ever some large scale research with the outcome this was somehow the cheapest? Or is it a mere byproduct of the consumption-based society? I'm asking because I'ved used lots of different types of hardware (both computing and non-computing) and >90% lasted _well_ over 3 years. It seems a waste of time/money to get rid of ot after 3 years? Which matches with SE's findings: they choose 4 years. Still not that much, but already 'better'

<comment><USER15> Most leasing contracts are on a 3 year basis.

<comment><USER14> Ok yes, but why 3?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Reading this brought back fond memories. Or nightmares. Sometimes it's difficult to distinguish between the two.

</comment><comment><USER17> If anything you can see the enthusiasm and passion they have for their job. It's inspiring!

</comment><comment><USER18> Thanks for sharing! Happy to see some of my past work in action.</comment>


Zip Phone (YC S14): Free, encrypted phone calls without launching an app - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/05/zip-phone-lets-you-make-free-calls-over-the-internet-without-launching-its-app/

<comment><AUTHOR> Hello, I'm Anuj, founder of Zip Phone and I'll be here all day to answer any questions that you might have. Zip Phone started as a small personal project, but has quickly grown into much more than that. I hope you enjoy using it as much as I do :-)

<comment><USER2> Pretty neat project. I love seeing the base integration with the Android OS. And I think it's a wise move to have some sort of app on iOS. I'm an iOS user myself, however I can't run your app since I'm still on iOS6. I hope Apple allows this type of integration in the future (but I'm sure the carriers will take some type to get used to the idea of making money off Data instead of voice.) Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> In my opinion Apple will never let a third party develop something like Zip Phone (for android) that has the ability to automatically route phone calls away from the cellular network. Not just because of their carrier relationships, but also because it goes against their philosophy of tightly controlling all aspects of the user experience.

<comment><USER2> I thought that about their keyboard too but they just opened it up in iOS8. I believe things are changing.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to plan your career for an Architect role? - <AUTHOR> Hi HN,
I work in a company, where I do Javascript and Java dev works. The work is challenging and I'm loving it. Its been almost 3 years, I have been in dev role.
I want to became an Software Architect; thats my ultimate goal. But I'm not sure, what all consideration, I need to keep in mind, while I work as dev role so that I can became an efficient software architect in the future.
Currently, what ever technical problems that occur in my work, I could able to debug and solve most of them. I do read every year atleast an technical book.
With all these in mind, I want to ask few question to HN: 1. How should I plan my career path from dev to architect? 2. Should I measure myself, say every year, how I have grown in my knowledge? If so how? 3. What all best qualities an dev should have to became to an good architect? 4. Other plans if any, kindly let me know.
Thanks HN. <comment><USER2> I'd echo some of the other answers here, what do you think "architect" means? And then ask what could you do as an architect that you can't do as a developer?

There are places like IBM and Oracle where they have specific job functions defined for the architect role (and training to get you there) so if their idea meets your idea you would do well to just work for a company that trains for that role.

There are also people who have a lot of experience who are sometimes called "architect" but that is a function of how much experience they have, which really you can't push faster than the passage of time. You spend all your days working on the technology and encounter many different situations and then 10 to 15 years later people start thinking of you as an expert/architect.

There are developers who have better design sense. I don't know if that is a talent thing or just that they pay attention to not only what their code is doing but the structure of it and the underlying problems it solves. People will experience their code not only solving the problem but anticipating future problems and either handling them or having a clear evolutionary path to handle them. They start being called architects at some point in their career.

So why do you want to be an architect?

</comment><comment><USER3> I think you should just start to act like one. The following are things you could do for example:

\- Try to look at the bigger picture during your work

\- Engage in discussions about the whole system

\- Document the bigger thing

\- Maybe build some test solution with important designs that are being used in your project so that new devs can learn with it.

I am not a big fan of measurements because in my opinion measurements are never really objective.

</comment><comment><USER4> Architect is a not-standard role in tech. Sometimes mean a thing, others a different one.

That said, normally it's referred to people dealing with architecture problems, not so involved with the specifics on a single system, but on the interaction of different ones.

\- If you want to plan to career to be architect, either ask for it if your company has this role or keep an eye on openings in other companies.

\- It's a work which involves a lot of communication. Create good design docs, convince people of your design and solve their doubts, get requirements of different parties to have a design that covers everything...

\- Learn about different languages and systems. Be able to see common structures (e.g. design patterns) and when to apply and when not...

\- Learn about "the support parts" of software. Logging, HA, scalability, deployment... Everything that makes a production system truly "production"

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm new to it myself, in my first role with the title "Architect" after a decade of being individual contributor and lead for R&D teams. So take these from someone very early in the position, but I think the important things are:

Know your shit and be able to have high level conversations about nearly anything technical. You don't have to know the inner workings of everything, but you should have a good idea and high level understanding of it. For instance, you don't have to know every message queue system on the market, but you should know a few, their relative strengths and weaknesses, how specific ones are often used and how message queues play a role in overall system design.

Learn a new language every year or two and keep an eye on the horizon for new technologies that can make you and your teams faster and more efficient.

Live and breathe failure. Understand the conditions that the systems you build and work in break down and learn to compensate for that and explain that to others.

Be able to talk to others, on their terms, whether thats your top flight engineer or the guys on the business side.

Its a bit corporate and soft, but I found the IBM article on it fairly insightful [http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/rational/library/mar06/eel...](http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/rational/library/mar06/eeles/)

</comment><comment><USER6> So far I have not come across an architect role that made any sense. You just can't effectively design a dynamic technical system from a high horse looking down without being involved in the implementation.

The reasons for this: you need tight feedback loops in engineering. If you accomplish that then you are iterating and constantly refining requirements, design, tests, implementation, even platform selection for various parts of the system. All of the feedback loops need to be observed and responded to in detail. Someone who is not doing coding is just not going to be able to contribute positively. They will not be able to see what is going on in terms of requirements changes, implementation challenges, technology changes, etc.

So a company with anything like a traditional software architect role is suspect of not understanding software engineering.

</comment><comment><USER7> There are defined Architect roles when you work at large companies where the division of labor requires more specific roles.

Like others have said, the focus should be on the bigger picture of the overall system(s) and how they inter-relate.

As you move around in your career, look for roles where you have more say in how the system is designed in the beginning. Take on more responsibility in how different modules/components interact.

Also read up on design patterns - including the book Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture by Martin Fowler (and read his blog/site too).

Much of architecture is focusing on the parts of the system that have high risk and making them less risky, usually these are the parts where the systems interact with each other.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your response. So its all about designing the system and reduce the riskness involved in system interactions?

<comment><USER7> System interactions tend to be where there are mis-communications or bugs in API and cause issues during development. Especially if you are building on another companies service.

That isn't it though, there are the non-functional aspects of the system that the design will need to take into account. Things like scalability, performance, etc.

For example, think of a SaaS application that handles taxes. How would you design the interactions with government systems & banks, how would security work and how would you handle performance? That's what I meant by risky areas - risk to the project success, areas that may not be well known in the solution yet and may be "moving targets". Writing out the software that implements the tax law is probably a daunting task but should be very well known (probably a giant if/else tree with basic math).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The fastest way is to be mentored by other architects. To me, these are the tools architects should know.

UML

1) Sequence diagrams

2) Domain diagrams

3) Sitemap diagrams

Other 1) Ability to do domain to data model conversions

2) Ability to create diagrams defining data flows

3) Ability to define interfaces and data exchanges in between systems.

If you have any qs, also feel free to pm me.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your response. Interesting to see how a tool knowledge is mandate for an architect!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I would be glad to discuss it with you over email. My address is in my profile.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your response. I couldn't able to see your email id in your profile. Anyways this is my email id email@example.com give a ping, have several questions for you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've recently done a survey of job listings, titles, and the skills and experience levels associated with the term "architect" for the North America corporate IT marketplace. I drew the general definition of an IT architect's roles and responsibilities partly from major Enterprise Architecture frameworks (e.g., TOGAF, FEAF, and DODAF) and partly from the survey of architect job postings on popular employment websites (e.g., Monster, Dice).

This material is "enterprise"-y and may not describe some of the more advanced IT businesses out there, like Google or Facebook. But before I did the research and write-up, I was quite ignorant about some of the wider uses of the term, and I did not have much clarity on what separated an architect from (say) a project manager or product representative.

Seeing hundreds of job descriptions and trying to map out what companies and recruiters were looking for was quite eye-opening. These descriptions may contribute some useful knowledge or terminology to others in their career planning or job hunting. I would like to think they represent current IT best practices, organized, simplified, and given consistent terminology and definitions. But the title "architect" in IT is not yet usefully standardized, and there's lots of room for alternative viewpoints.

 _IT architect roles, skills, and experience_

The title of "architect" identifies someone with extensive experience in one or more IT knowledge and practice domains (as I define them below). The most junior architect role builds on at least ten years of progressive, non- management design and delivery experience in a basic IT domain. A more senior architect shows similar progressive experience but more of it, and in more than one IT domain.

Note: Title inflation may be weakening the concepts of seniority and specialization we used to associate with the IT architect role. Just as a startup with a few dozen employees may end up with numerous staff titled "Vice President", some smaller IT environments give the title "architect" to several of the IT team without necessarily requiring lengthy experience or depth of knowledge. For example, in many job listings the title "Solution Architect" describes a (junior, three-year) technical sales-support role, not a senior IT architect role as it might be generally understood.

 _The IT domains_

For our purposes, there are five core domains of enterprise IT practice and knowledge. Each domain has an equivalent architect role:

 _1\. Business._ A business can be described as processes and groups of processes. Business architects analyze and document these processes and relationships to help optimize them for flexibility, efficiency, and performance.

 _2\. Data._ The data architect deals with the stable, long-term structure of data of interest to the enterprise, and with the technologies that deliver value in data storage and retrieval.

 _3\. Technology._ Applications and data reside on a complex and evolving technical infrastructure, which the technology architects design and implement.

 _4\. Application._ Application architects are the senior representatives of the programming trade, experienced enough to support successful application design, development, integration, and delivery.

 _5\. Security._ A newer entry to enterprise architecture, the security architect designs and oversees the implementation of corporate information security.

 _Apprenticeship roles_

Every domain has one or more apprenticeship roles for individuals likely to become architects. For example:

1\. Business: business analyst --> business architect 2\. Data: database administrator --> data analyst --> data architect 3\. Technology: system admin --> infrastructure analyst --> technology architect 4\. Application: software developer --> developer-analyst --> application architect 5\. Security: network security analyst --> security architect

There are many more paths than these, and some of these may become uncommon or obsolete as the roles continue to evolve. Future architects often follow paths in two or more domains, for example, both the data and the application domains for n-tier client-server developers, or application and technology domains for web developers.

 _Senior architect roles_

The most senior architects are not tied to specific IT domains. For their work to be valuable, they must have a strong knowledge of all IT domains, and extensive, progressive working experience in two or more domains. The most common titles for these roles are:

 _A. Solution Architect:_ expert in two or more domains, and senior to single- domain architects

 _B. Enterprise Architect:_ senior to all other IT architects in the enterprise

Note that the terminology for architects at this level of seniority is not very consistent at present in the industry. In particular, "solution architect" is a synonym for "application architect" in some markets. As well, the term "enterprise architect" is sometimes applied to any IT designer above a certain level of seniority, even if their experience has been in a single domain and they have no claim to senior-level knowledge or skills across the full collection of enterprise IT domains.

 _Nature of IT architecture practice_

We don't use "architecture" in the world of information technology as we do in the design and construction of buildings or other structures, where the term originated. In building physical structures, architecture is the initial step that elicits user (owner) requirements and attempts to meet them with one or more initial designs. A design will contain enough information to support project risk analysis, costing, and local zoning or equivalent review. When the design has been accepted, the architect is generally finished and other professions or trades come to the forefront of project decision-making.

IT systems and technology architecture works with extremely malleable but less predictable materials, processes, and staff roles. As a result, IT architects have far more freedom in design, but less certainty in the costs and risks of the resulting product.

As a result, the IT architect tends to be involved in a greater number of decisions for an IT project, may have made important decisions even before the project started (e.g., regarding corporate IT standards, development methodology, infrastructure technologies, etc.), and may influence IT development or delivery processes as well as detailed product and service design. The IT architect's role is broader in scope and longer in duration than common for the architect role in construction.

In general, IT architects work with corporate business requirements and major project requirements as input, producing general enterprise IT standards and custom IT designs as output. Good architects are familiar with multiple means of achieving IT goals, including multiple basic computing platforms, multiple development methodologies, multiple product delivery architectures, IT design patterns, design and delivery tools, academic resources, and other contributors to flexible, intelligent decision-making and design.

Rather than producing architectural models and sketches to be implemented and then walking away to leave development and project handover to a subsequent team of engineers, IT architects define the overall IT delivery environment, do initial designs, select or define technical standards, and may even take lead engineer roles in one or phases of a delivery project. In short, the IT architect role overlaps with detailed systems engineering. This attention to both concept and detail helps overcome the problems of working with an insubstantial construction material like software, keeping the experienced designers in touch with a project and its technologies until all significant technical risks have been recognized and overcome.

 _Differences from other IT roles_

The IT architect roles do not imply supervision or management responsibilities. Like the corporate lawyers or financial investment team, the architects are valued for their knowledge and resulting contributions to corporate goals. They typically do not take supervisory or management roles, as these do not require the specialized technical knowledge and skills for which the architects are retained.

Within IT departments, therefore, there exists a line of seniority for management that is separate from the line containing architects. Staff development for IT management generally follows a path from team lead on technical projects, to project management, to portfolio management (overseeing multiple projects, each with its own project manager) for a business unit or other organizational group.

IT managers generally keep up with the broad march of progress in the technology domains for which they are responsible, but do not remain active practitioners once they reach middle or senior management. IT architects, by contrast, remain active practitioners to develop and maintain the deep knowledge and skills associated with the title of "architect".

I hope I haven't muddied the water too much with these thoughts. I don't claim any special insight here, and I think there is space (which is actively under exploration and colonization) for much deeper thought and more rigorous conclusions about the IT architect role, title, and qualifications. I'd be particularly interested to hear the current state of the art in Europe and Asia, if anyone has knowledge from these areas.</comment>


Metrix Create:Space celebrates five years of DIY tech in Seattle - <AUTHOR> http://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2014/10/metrix-create-space-celebrates-five-years-of-diy-tech-on-the-hill/ <comment><USER2> Wow, 5 years! I still recall my first laser cut I did there and the joy of popping out the pieces and seeing if all of my finger joints fit together as I had planned. I think a fan wasn't working because it got pretty smokey in the laser room.

Really a nurturing place for people to just try something. Kits and servos in the vending machine, old free junk in the corner.</comment>


What Is Your Definition of Startup Founder(s)? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Among the people who are around to make the first prototype, founders are the ones who, if everybody else had walked away, would still have made the venture happen.

Someone can be a significant contributor but still not be a founder. My wife and I agreed not to list her as a founder on my YC app even though her contribution has been significant. If I walked away from ourdoings.com, she probably wouldn't find another coder to make it happen. If she stopped contributing I would still make it happen.

<comment><USER3> Why not? I don't think Paul was asking for a mathematical breakdown of who has contributed to your idea so far. (You: 60%, Her: 28%, Neighbor: 10%, Former Roomate: 1%, inspirational Paul Graham article, 0.5%, etc.)

You could have said that she's a founder as well. I think that could have even increased your chances of being accepted. And if you say she contributed enough for it to count, and you know that both of you would quit your jobs to work on the idea if you received a lot of funding, how does that not make her a founder? You as a family would also keep more of a company as two founders than as one, if you had to give stock to your first or second employees who join later on (I could be wrong.)

<comment><USER2> She's a full-time mom, and I don't want her to quit that job. Yes, it could have increased our chances of being accepted, but we thought it was important to be perfectly honest in terms of commitment level. I wanted to involve YC only if we and they were a match. They may not know how to help us anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Context: Aaron called himself a founder of reddit, and then there was a brawl about it on the Reddit thread about his PR fiasco of an interview. Personally, I think no one would have objected to him calling himself a founder if it had been evident that he had done actual work in proportion to the volume and pomposity with which he talks.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Does it mean the person or the group of people who conceived the idea?

The initial team who implemented it and brought the idea to reality/first prototype?

First X 'employees'?

</comment><comment><USER5> I'd say it's everyone who was involved in it before the 1st employee was hired.</comment>


New Pocket is here - <AUTHOR> https://getpocket.com/blog/2018/10/introducing-the-new-pocket/ <comment><USER2> I've been playing with the new text-to-speech features, and they are SO much better than before (at least on Android). The new podcast-like audio interface is smooth enough that you could use this safely while driving, walking, or otherwise commuting. I am a heavy audiobook listener, and this is finally a viable option for catching up on articles that I want to read passively.

I thought the old voices were fine, both on Android and iOS. The new ones are from the Amazon Polly API (according to [https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/11/17961564/pocket- redesign...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/11/17961564/pocket-redesign- listening-amazon-polly)). Between the two schemes, I think you trade off performance/battery (old TTS system) life with data usage (new version).

The new voices are maybe a little more natural sounding, but the pauses between sentences were better with the old Android voices, IMO. It looks like it will still use the system TTS engine when there's no data connection. This is cool, and I hope they make further improvements in the TTS area!

Seeking forward and backward left a lot to be desired on the old version. It skipped by paragraph, which worked but was not great since different articles have different paragraph lengths. In the app, you can now skip back and forward 15 seconds, which is more natural.

Unfortunately, on my Bluetooth headphones, skipping backward goes to the previous article, not back 15 seconds. They really need to have this as an option, because even with ANC headphones (Sony WH-1000XM2) sometimes you miss things due to loud noises or inattention, and you just want to listen to the last sentence or so. Audible and Google Play Books have this little feature that makes a huge difference.

Funny enough, I had a side project that was supposed to be a TTS-focused reading app, because I wasn't satisfied with the options from Pocket and Instapaper at the time. I built out the backend using a couple AWS Lambda Functions written in Node.js:

\- One to strip an article to unformatted text only using the Mercury Web Parser API ([https://mercury.postlight.com/web- parser/](https://mercury.postlight.com/web-parser/)) and to do some additional cleanup. Text was saved in DynamoDB

\- One to synthesize the text with Amazon Polly and save to S3. This was to be done when the user wanted to listen, not when the user saved the text article, to reduce costs

\- One for streaming the article. This was where I left off. The idea would have been to get it to stream and sync up across your life, such as being able to pause on your phone then pick up on your Google Home or Amazon Echo. I never got around to writing any of the apps for the individual platforms, as I was focused on another project.

It's great to see Pocket create an almost-perfect listening app, so now I can focus on other stuff I want to do.</comment>


State of the Computer Book Market - Programming Languages - <AUTHOR> http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/oreilly/radar/atom/~3/117292190/state_of_the_co_10.html <comment><USER2> Interesting, although I have to say that I never felt the need to buy a Java book (not even Hibernate or Spring books), because the online documentation available is so good. I bought two Ruby books and a Groovy book because the online documentation available seems rather unsatisfactory. Perhaps that is just me, but if not, it would shed a different light on the book sales numbers.

<comment><AUTHOR> Tim O'Reilly says that himself - he basically built his business around bad documentation. That reminds me, his Alpha Geek talk is exceptionally good.</comment></comment>


Dementia through the lens of epidemiology - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/blog/why-dementia-is-a-population_level-problem <comment><USER2> This is an example of the strange idea that there is "normal aging" that is fine because it is normal and is somehow completely different from whatever parts of aging that we call age-related disease and have decided are not "normal aging". Semantics, all of it.

All of this is "normal aging". Dementia is "normal aging." Normal aging is terrible and creates a varying distribution of disease states in people. Those disease states are the end of a random walk of primary aging (i.e. unavoidable molecular damage caused by the normal operation of metabolism) and secondary aging (i.e. being fat, smoking, etc, things that add extra molecular damage or extra consequences that are similar to the consequences of the unavoidable molecular damage), and everyone ends up somewhere different in that state space. All completely normal.

The only way to prevent and cure the parts of normal aging that we have defined to be age-related disease is to fix the causes of aging, because age- related diseases ARE aging. It is all the consequence of exactly the same processes at root. The three current views of what those causes are:

SENS: [http://www.sens.org/research/introduction-to-sens- research](http://www.sens.org/research/introduction-to-sens-research)

Hallmarks of Aging: [http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2013.05.039](http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2013.05.039)

Seven Pillars: [http://buckinstitute.org/CellCommentary](http://buckinstitute.org/CellCommentary)

</comment><comment><USER3> One of my passengers pointed out that old people have a tendency to drink a lot of alcohol. Future passengers confirmed this again and again... One woman told of how old people get away from the care facility (for lunch with family, etc) she worked at and came back smashed.

Edit: many people have a problematic relationship with alcohol. I know some people who aren't at all truthful with their doctors about their alcohol use. Any effort to figure out dementia needs to figure out how alcohol fits into the patients' conditions.

<comment><USER4> At that point, why not? Your health is failing and you've only got a few years left at most, and probably much less time until you're put on some medication that precludes alcohol. Might as well enjoy yourself while you can.

<comment><USER5> I hate how alcohol is somehow synonymous with enjoyment. If your health is failing and you want to enjoy your last years then how about not _literally poisoning yourself_ and instead spending some time with family or something.

<comment><USER4> Different people experience alcohol differently. Maybe a couple of drinks just makes you feel cruddy but it makes some people feel great, enough so that it's worth taking a small hit to their health.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Whatever Happened to the Polymath? - <AUTHOR> https://unherd.com/2020/05/whatever-happened-to-the-polymath/ <comment><USER2> >The decline of polymathy, then, suggests a broader crisis. For Burke, it is a crisis of too much information. The seventeenth century was a "golden age of polymaths", as explorers found new regions, the scientific method flourished, and the postal service and the proliferation of journals allowed scholars to trade ideas. But those same forces led to "information overload".

I believe it's not just information overload, it's also the amount of entertainment in conjunction with incentives and overall people's education. I also venture to say there may be other variables at play like eating habits, some of which are known to provoke (mental) illnesses, etc.

It's a tough problem to solve.</comment>


Apple Patent Could Make iPhone Cases Obsolete - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2013/03/21/apple-patent-iphone-case/

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a reaction wheel[1]. 10 ten years ago during my studies I did a presentation of how they're used by spacecraft for attitude control[2].

Never thought I could have one in my pocket someday! ^^

      [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaction_wheel
      [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attitude_control</comment>


Ask HN: Have you used all of the SOLID design principles in your day to day job? - <AUTHOR> I've just been going over the SOLID design principles again and it occurred to me that I've maybe only ever used 3/5 of the principles.
Those being Single Responsibility, Interface segregation and dependency injection.
I can't think of a time were I've broken the Liskov substitution principle or Open / Close principle, or had to worry about them.
Interested to hear from others and their experiences using SOLID <comment><USER2> Generally, I've found that if you follow SRP, the rest of them happen organically.</comment>


Apple's New Ad Conversion Tracking Will Benefit User Privacy - <AUTHOR> https://robmaceachern.com/2018/03/31/apples-new-ad-conversion-tracking-will-benefit-user-privacy/ <comment><USER2> >I can't see Google and Facebook being thrilled about implementing support for this, but given the recent scandal involving Cambridge Analytica, Apple should have extra leverage to push them in this direction.

If Apple makes it an App Store policy, what choice do they have?

<comment><USER3> PR wars I imagine. "We can't do requested feature X because Apple blocks Y".

<comment><USER2> I think Apple would care about the trials and tribulations of the ad-tech industry about as much they did when they added Intelligent Tracking Prevention to Safari (or blocked third-party cookies by default).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This new SDK doesn't help advertisers or users. Being able to assess the quality of users coming from different ad networks is crucial for any advertiser to assess the quality of their spend. Some ad networks might generate high quality legitimate users, while others are fraught with click fraud, or low quality users. Since an advertiser isn't able to tell which users came from an ad, no advertiser will adopt it.

If Apple really wanted to protect user privacy, they would provide something similar to the iAd Framework they provide for their own Apple App Store Ads, where the app can ping the iAd Framework to tell if the user installed the app from an Apple App Store ad and monitor the users long term engagement, while Apple handles all the attribution on their end. If Apple took the same approach they use for their own App Store Ads it would be a big step forward in helping protect user privacy and eliminate the need for all the fingerprinting, etc that some ad networks do.

The fact they didn't, I feel this is nothing more than a fluff PR move by Apple and does not seem genuine.

<comment><USER5> I see why advertisers wouldn't like it, but how the heck isn't it good for users? You don't even have an explicit argument for that point, just the implicit "it might not be adopted." You're a bit disingenuous with your claim.

As for your proposed system, it could work, but the advertiser might be able to deduce a bit as they track them through engagement. A black box seems like the best system for users, and if Apple can force that on to developers more power to them.

<comment><USER6> Look at the OP's profile. Manager at Pinterest. Theres no doubt the attack is disgenuous because said individual have skin in the game.

I usually don't mind if they disclose it upfront. But to hide it and present an argument as neutral is dishonest.

<comment><USER7> What attack? The Adtech Ecosystem is incestuous, corrupt and penultimately complicated. jwegan is technically correct and savvy enough to understand one of many problems with this kind of fluff announcement. The least of these problems is a strawman reaction that anyone who dismissed it, is a bad actor. New SDKs are born every day. Apple CANNOT PRESENT a new technology that isn't a variant of what already survives in the ecosystem (i.e. insufficient other than to add another paid product that doesn't work any better). If Apple wants to go outside the IAB standards, it's another attempt to "take over" or can only be used as an Apple "internal" tool.

Here's a disclaimer: I worked at multiple Adtech companies in senior engineering positions.

<comment><USER8> Still not seeing any reason as to why it's bad for users.

<comment><USER7> Adding another lie to the stack has the same consequences as before. More bloat in the sites and higher costs across the board.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> >The new APIs are part of the StoreKit framework and include a new class called SKAdNetwork.

>With the new set of APIs, Apple will become the intermediary between the app and advertising network for conversion tracking, eliminating the need for apps to install third-party ad SDKs which potentially expose sensitive user data.

Am I missing something or is this not really any different than the 3rd party ad SDK problem the author portends? Whether the app uses a 3rd party sdk from Google/FB or built-in lib functionality via the class SKAdNetwork - it doesn't seem any different.

<comment><USER10> You can't track users from advertising click through opening the app after downloading the app from the App Store. So networks have to do all kinds of tricks like try to fingerprint the user to associate the advertising click and the app open.

This should make it much cleaner.

<comment><USER11> Plus after this has been around for a while Apple can add a policy banning other ad networks from using other means to track users.

<comment><USER12> Apple can just change Safari so it doesn't automatically open the App Store on redirects or from javascript. That way you'd have to direct the user to a tracking page and then he'd have to click another link to open the App Store. I doubt their tracking would be worth enough to put up hoops like that for the user to jump through.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Apples fake privacy concerns.

They allow apps like gas buddy to wholesale sell your real time location to governments by using vague language in their privacy policies (which I cannot even find a link to on their homepage).

<comment><USER14> > _They allow apps like gas buddy to wholesale sell your real time location…_

You control this. I don't recall whether this app supports "Never" as a Privacy > Location Services choice, but you can choose "While Using" instead of "Always".

<comment><USER15> "Never" is always an option from my experience. I have never seen an app that doesn't allow to completely deny location access.

<comment><USER16> > I have never seen an app that doesn't allow to completely deny location > access.

That's because Apple explicitly tests for that during app review, and will reject apps which crash or refuse to work if they're denied access to Location Services or other APIs (photos, contacts, microphone, etc).

<comment><USER15> So this is a non-issue. But technically, even if an app slips through the cracks and only allows "Always" and "While using the app" as options, you can force-quit the app without pressing either of the buttons on the modal and then deleting the app, thus not giving it any location information.

<comment><USER16> > ...even if an app slips through the cracks and only allows "Always" and > "While using the app" as options...

It can't. The permissions UI is rendered by the OS, not by the application. There's no way to hide the option to deny permissions.

<comment><USER15> Based on your previous reply I thought that the lack of apps that _require_ location was due to Apple's review process and not the fact that the "Never" button can't be disabled.

<comment><USER16> It's both. If your app doesn't work properly when a user taps the "Never" button (which you can't get rid of), Apple rejects it.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Program Goals achieved - <AUTHOR> http://hop.perl.plover.com/cover.html

<comment><USER2> Very nicely done, but I think the set of "potential girlfriends who are impressed by perl tricks" is a fairly limited pool.</comment>


If Apple can disable third party apps remotely, who's iPhone is it, anyway? - <AUTHOR> http://www.coolest-gadgets.com/20080806/if-apple-can-disable-third-party-apps-remotely-who%e2%80%99s-iphone-is-it-anyway/ <comment><USER2> Seriously people, with Apple having the history it has, is anyone surprised by this? Honestly, anyone? This is like someone writing a blog post complaining that there are no clones for Apple hardware, or getting a cease and desist after posting a picture of some theoretical apple hardware product...

<comment><USER3> I agree. Apple = evil.

And metaphorically speaking, the devil can look good, it doesn't have to ugly and have horns.

Talking about evil, I bought a Mac Mini, and iPod touch, which was suposed to be free, with student discount, and never recived it (the voucher). I emailed customer support, nothing yet.

The only thing I have is going back to one of their stores, and start complaining until somebody resolves the issue.

$300.00 they owe me back, is a lot of money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If used responsibly, I don't understand why this is a big deal. In my opinion it's a pretty smart thing to have in place (Though I would hope they would put some verification into the process in the future as not to be spoofed). Imagine if a malicious app did get out of hand. Every trash blog is drooling to write that very article. Apple's already had a perfect opportunity to use it in the very way we're all worried about (Netshare) and they haven't. If just makes me think that it's only purpose is to block applications that are malicious to the enduser and nothing else. I guess only time will really tell.

</comment><comment><USER5> It's your iPhone, but until you disconnect it from AT&T's network and stop running Apple's software, Apple owns the runtime.

</comment><comment><USER6> whose (I'm surprised that's the actual title of the article!)

</comment><comment><USER7> If Mozilla can disable third-party extensions remotely, whose browser is it, anyway?

[Anyone care to explain the difference between FireFox and the iPhone regarding how each product deals with rogue extensions?]

</comment><comment><USER8> Is "Apple bashing" the new "Why twitter doesn't scale"?

<comment><USER9> "Apple bashing" isn't the new anything. Semi-informed yay/boo-{apple,commodore,ibm} thing has been going on since at least the mid '80s when you could buy software on floppy disks at your local Wal- Mart/K-Mart, and probably before that but I wasn't old enough to witness it.

The most notable thing about the article in question is that the author seems surprised and concerned that this functionality is there and that there isn't a huge banner on apple.com about it.

RIM has access to the SSL keys used to encrypt traffic between Blackberry handsets and the BES (I don't recall if they do Handset-RIM and RIM-BES crypto or the keys are just escrowed). There are allegedly Nokia handset firmwares that allow silent keying of the microphone, and OnStar has been used by the US government in the same way allegedly, as well.

For science sake people, know what decade you're living in. Network providers aren't going to sell you a device that they can't remotely manage. Unless you're bringing a device to the network yourself it's definitely "owned" in at least the script kiddie sense by the carriers.

<comment> a-priori About RIM's security: if you run a BES, you alone control the keys used to encrypt data between the Blackberries and your BES. Even though the messages pass through RIM's servers, all they know is the routing information to get it to your BES.

I remember something recently where (I believe) the Indian government demanded RIM hand over the keys to the BESes run by private Indian corporations. RIM said they could not, because they did not have them.

Edit: Here's an article describing their security in more detail: <http://seclists.org/isn/2008/May/0119.html> (apparently, the encryption I'm talking about is an add-on feature -- news to me)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Almost any device that connect to a network these days is really just something you are renting.</comment>


YC at Columbia, Harvard, MIT, Stanford, UPenn - <AUTHOR> https://blog.ycombinator.com/yc-at-columbia-harvard-mit-stanford-upenn/ <comment><USER3> Does YC ever visit non-top-tier schools?

<comment><USER4> I was just going to ask this.

Silicon valley would be better served (and better serve others) when they stop giving hand service to the same schools they they went to and the people who think and act exactly like them.

<comment><USER5> Top schools attract a disproportionate of intelligent young people. Ignoring that would be stupid.

<comment><USER6> Columbia has 8,410 undergraduates

University of Illinois has 32,878 undergraduates

the 75% SAT score for the college of engineering at University of Illinois was 1530 (no writing, so out of 1600)

[https://admissions.illinois.edu/Apply/Freshman/profile](https://admissions.illinois.edu/Apply/Freshman/profile)

the 75% SAT score at Columbia was 2330 (including writing so 2330 * 2/3 = 1553.33333333

[https://undergrad.admissions.columbia.edu/classprofile/2019](https://undergrad.admissions.columbia.edu/classprofile/2019)

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

the top 25% of a place like university of Illinois (and a lot of other big state schools like it), probably represents a critical mass of intelligent young people that would be pretty competitive with ivy league schools

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

also, while ivy league school give out generous amounts of aid, Illinois students aren't filtered by exactly how generous a discount the financial aid office wants to give on at 55k a year tuition (I suspect the top 25% does pretty well scholarship money wise at Illinois too)

<comment><USER5> > University of Illinois has 32,878 undergraduates

That's a fair point. It'd be interesting if YC could do some sort of data analysis on attendance for their events at a big state school vs. an elite school.

> Illinois students aren't filtered by exactly how generous a discount the > financial aid office

Most elite universities are need-blind.

Spreading these myths does a disservice to smart, poor kids. Thinking they can't possibly get in, or afford it if they do, dissuades many of the underrepresented students from applying. That's part of why I push back so hard when people try to spread bullshit or the notion that you can only go to Harvard if you're rich.

> I suspect the top 25% does pretty well scholarship money wise at Illinois > too

I can tell you that elite universities were a lot more generous with scholarships for me (smart, poor kid) than any lower tier schools.

<comment><USER7> > need-blind

Only goes so far. They don't offer aid to students wishing to take SAT prep courses. Admissions criteria include vague things like oddball extracurriculars. It's an interesting coincidence that wealthy people tend to engage in the same activities that top schools consider signals of a "well- rounded" applicant.

<comment><USER5> Oh please. You can do plenty of SAT prep at the library. My parents certainly couldn't afford an SAT prep course for me. The effect of such courses is vastly overblown—they mostly just sit you down with the same books you can get for free at the library (or for $20 on Amazon).

There are plenty of "oddball" extracurriculars that rural poor students can engage in. My admissions essay was literally about hiking with an ancient backpack covered in duct tape.

<comment><USER7> Your personal experience is contradicted by some systematic studies. Unfortunately I don't have the citations nearby, but I'm sure if you search Google Scholar you'll find that you are an unusual person.

<comment><USER8> I think you're overestimating the extent that SAT prep courses play in college admissions compared to, say, personal tutors or involved parents who have knowledge about the particular rituals needed to get into good schools.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is there a way to request that a school be considered for a visit? I'm sure you'll get a ton of requests, but with ~ 2,500 4-year schools, it would be a "voting" exercise.

It, should, give YC a more diverse exposure as well?

</comment><comment><USER10> What about the other 99% of talented students that couldn't afford these schools?

<comment><USER5> These schools are actually some of the most affordable in the country due to their extremely generous financial aid. Poor families pay nothing and even middle class families have minimal contributions. (For example, all of the elite universities I was accepted to cost _less_ than my state school would have.)

<comment><USER11> Now if only poor people could get educational equality in the 13 years prior to college :-/

<comment><USER5> Eh, it's hardly impossible. My parents have qualified for food stamps at times yet I still had a pretty decent education.

<comment><USER12> Being the exception doesn't exclude the fact that poor kids are at disadvantage of gaining admissions to Ivies. A student from Phillips Exeter Academy has a much higher chance of being accepted vs a very smart but poor kid from a rural America high school.

<comment><USER13> As an example of this comment's point, one of the problems where I grew up is that when you told the guidance counselor you wanted to go to MIT she said, basically, don't bother.

<comment><USER5> She probably said that because of all the people pushing the narrative that elite schools are only for rich kids. Spreading this myth dissuades thousands of qualified students from applying to top schools where they would get a great education for free.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Kat Manalac, (Kate), I tried to sign up for Columbia (alum here in NYC) and it said all sold out. Other universities have spots. I'm on Columbia Entrepreneur email list and didn't see notification of the event.

(Tried to pm katm but could not).

Columbia University closed for snowstorm today.

Any way I can sign up?

</comment><comment><USER15> The Penn link links to MIT, bug or feature?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hah, thanks for catching. Fixed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Wall Street is also known for visiting and doing on-campus recruiting at only a very small list of target schools. Right or wrong every year we pick which schools to give this extra attention to and every year we debate if we are doing this right and if we should target schools at all.

Entirely anecdotal, maybe obvious to some, but here's what I have experienced (I'll focus on STEM students):

 _TL; DR I have had to visit and do on-campus recruiting. The top of top talented, skilled, smart student could be at any school. Every school has dumb as fuck kids too. But there is higher % chance the valedictorian at Stanford is smarter than the valedictorian at San Jose State. But who cares, when a cream of the crop student ends up at non-target school for whatever, they know how to work with those circumstances and get to where they want to go. I think if you know how to "disrupt" or "hack" or whatever stupid word we are using these days, it is easier to stand out as applicant from a no-name school. Good luck_

1\. The practical stuff: The "budget" of time and people and money to do recruiting and campus outreach is not unlimited. There are only so many hours in a day, you can't visit every school and meet every kid.

2\. School visits are worth doing, for the students to learn about a company and for a company to get to know a few of the students better. Companies that do visit schools can attract more applicants and higher quality applicants.

3\. The school someone went to tells you _ZERO_ about how talented or skilled that individual is as an engineer or potential founder or employee. Zero. The best person for a job or to fund could have studied at Stanford or San Jose State or Joe Bummwarts University. There are plenty of kids at no-name schools that crush the skills of kids at top-ranked schools. (Also the whole "but the department's reputation is good" doesn't matter nor do grades tell you very much either - I don't even care if someone has a degree to be honest - <USER2> that's another story).

4\. If a top company or VC or Grad school is looking for those best of the best young people; they often seem to be the type of student that can self- teach and have done so. They are frequently miles ahead of their classmates at their school and any school in terms of knowledge. They know things the schools don't even teach.

5\. Unfortunately where someone went to school still matters for several reasons. I'm sorry if this offends. There are many reasons your schools makes a difference. I won't go into things like PR pedigree and friendships and alumni networks. And just to be clear there are a shitload of dumb people at every school, tons and tons of dumb people at the top ranked-schools. Spot them a mile away. _But: when you are looking for the one or two or three students who are miles ahead of other people their same age, the % chance that person is going to be at a top-ranked school is slightly higher. i.e. if you are looking for the smartest kid in the sandbox, the odds the valedictorian at Stanford is smarter than the valedictorian at San Jose State is higher on average, not guarantee, but enough to say it 's more likely._

6\. Lastly, I'll just say in my experience when legit talented students ends up at a non-target school for whatever reason (family, cost, bad luck, whatever) they are mature and they know why they are there and they know what it means and they know what they need to do to succeed at their goal under these circumstances - these are not the students you see complaining about school recruiting being unfair. It's the idiots and the average people who complain the loudest about this :( Those talented students at no-name school are aware of how the world works and that life's not fair. They know how much better they are than their peers and they know the school they went to will not matter. They also know they will have to take a couple different steps to get where they want to go vs. target-schools kids. (it's a known secret it's actually much easier for a no-name school students to stand out). They seem to know what to do: they just keep quiet about it, they network with the people who get it and they find the other doors. Sorry. Look around. Students from no-name non-target schools get top jobs right out of school and they get funded and they get into a top grad schools all the time, every year. If you don't understand how they did what they did, that's the point. Seriously, no offense some people are more skilled and talented than others. But if you are so smart and happened to have gone to a crap school, but want to get in somewhere difficult, then figure it out, many others have before you. If you feel you need someone to come visit your school to get something you are missing the point of how this works. Good luck YC SUMMA CLASS</comment>


Snapchat CEO's leaked memo on survival - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/04/chat-not-snap/ <comment><USER2> Give credit where credit is due. Spiegel is digging deep, showing humility, and asking the right questions after Snap has been flailing for a long time. The crux of the issue is that they haven't launched anything fundamentally innovative and game-changing since the original Snapchat, which went insanely viral in the teen demographic.

In this sense they are following a similar path as Bebo, where I worked before they were acquired by AOL. Launch viral product to teens, blow up huge, score huge business deals, and then growth stagnates because it turns out the original vision only encompassed a product, not an entire platform. Bebo ended up selling to AOL right before it became clear the entire business model was failing thanks to Facebook. I saw a comment below about 2019 being the year that Snap is acquired. I could very much see that happening.

The only thing that would turn things around is if Spiegel can pull another rabbit out of his hat and launch a category-defining product somewhere. Augmented Reality could be where they do it. They did fail miserably with Spectacles, their first take on smartglasses, but again, give credit to them for having the balls to invest in hardware and ship a product. That said, the fact that they shipped a v2 of Spectacles that didn't fix any of the core problems with the original isn't a good sign.

Still, augmented reality is going to be the future of computing when it merges with consumer wearables. It's early days in this market. Every Big Tech company is racing to launch the iPhone of smartglasses. Snap has managed to be the first to launch consumer glasses with a camera. If they can pull their sh*t together and ship something that is actually useful and doesn't look ridiculous, they could still emerge as a dominant player.

<comment><USER3> Snap was first? We forgetting Google Glasses I guess.

Google tried but clearly market maturity is not there yet. Doubt it will be 2019. We need to squeeze more into chips before a regular-size glasses will be available with AR built in.

Also personally I doubt it will be iPhone of AR. Too many companies are working on it and probably will come up to light at the similar time. It will be more like cruise control that so many car makers basically invented at the same time.

<comment><USER2> Correction: first to put camera on glasses with enough fashion sense not to spawn a brand new word to describe just how much their owners looked like Borg assholes. I'm referring of course to "glasshole."

All signs point to Apple launching their glasses in 2019 or maybe 2020 if they slip. I don't have insider info at Apple but if you look at the rate they are hoovering up AR companies it's clear they're prepping for a big move. If they don't launch by 2019 somebody else will steal their thunder with the first consumer smartglasses that don't totally suck, most likely a fast moving startup with a killer niche product.

<comment><USER4> Glasshole has been used for a long time to describe a personal style of egotistical glass artists. It had a new meaning added.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I used to be a heavy user of Snapchat, and fall into its dominant demographic - young* (edit, had forgotten this word) users.

I remember buying stock in the company, and the same week, their big update rolling out, and quite literally burying my friends and their stories underneath the "overcrowded pile of clickbait" mentioned in the article. That, I believe, is where Snap really went wrong, and what drove 3 million users away from its platform.

When you combine Instagram's own story implementation with the fact that Snap's focus seems to be mainly on Discover from this point, it seems unlikely to me that they'll ever regain the interest of people who abandoned it back in February.

It will be interesting to see which changes they roll out in the months to come, but honestly, as long as the Discover page has even less meaningful content than a Taboola "Content you May Like" block, I can't foresee it being a real draw in for new users.

<comment><USER6> I don't have many friends on Snapchat, but I follow a lot of celebrities.

Literally the same week, 90% of them stopped posting, and it never recovered. Now it's a ghost town.

People who followed friends got hit, people who follow celebrities got hit, I just don't get it what was on their mind.

<comment><USER7> I would have to wonder how many true celebrities, people whose fame come from outside of social media, felt the same frustrations at not being able to see their friends feeds as other users.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> One of the reasons they had the mass exodus of the celebrity / influencer content makers was due to statistics.

On "Instagram Insights" you can see: Interactions of the last 7 days, profile visits, email clicks, reach, impressions.

Also in-depth demographics by your audience as well: city/country breakdown, age range, age range by gender, gender percentage, followers per hour and per day.

And get similar statistics / demographics for all images and stories you post.

If you were paying someone to promote content - these help justify payments made for content.

Compare to snap with the stat of: "I have 10k follows" and that's it.

Marketers want to know they are getting value for money, so need these to help justify paying someone for promotions/ads.

eg. [http://musemarketinggroup.ca/wp- content/uploads/2017/08/insi...](http://musemarketinggroup.ca/wp- content/uploads/2017/08/insights-770x481.jpg)

<comment><USER9> > Also in-depth demographics by your audience as well: city/country breakdown, > age range, age range by gender, gender percentage [...]

Does Snapchat actually collect all this information about its users? If yes, when it's such an unbelievable miss.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Lost in all this is an important distinction that Snapchat wanted to make: they wanted to separate friends from influencers / celebrities / media. It was a good change. Another important thing Snapchat does is it doesn't show likes / followers publicly - when the whole world is chasing these numbers Snapchat has taken stance against it. The general philosophy they follow makes me think this is short term pain and the company will do fine in the long run.

<comment><USER11> I'd love to hear why you think that separating friends from influencers, celebrity, or media is a good change. The last element I get somewhat, but I don't think anyone has a conceptual issue identifying who is a fried and who is an influencer, and being able to see stories with minimal friction was a major draw for me.

<comment><USER12> I follow few friends and non-friends on FB and they are very distinct entities. The non-friends I follow are because of some common interest like a research field or outdoor sport. I would be happy to see weekend yard work photos from my friend but I wouldn't care so much of that from non-friends. The intent of why I follow these two classes is very different. However Snapchat crowd might be different as I understand. Young folks would tend to consider both classes as same.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> As a college student who's only social media comes through Snapchat, I'm glad that they will be making changes. The redesign doesn't make much sense and just made things more confusing if anything. I have 12+ friends in a group which we use to coordinate hanging out and to generally chat about things we find interesting. I haven't used the stories functionality in over a year. I really think the move to focusing on chat is the way to go, even though there's a lot of competition there.

I started on Facebook at 12 years old when it first became popular, I've gone through many platforms but dropped them all and I've been using only Snapchat for over 4 years now and it seems to have the perfect level of privacy. It also doesn't feed as much into the whole "look at how awesome my life is compared to yours" trap of facebookish platforms, at least the way my friends use it.

<comment><USER14> Just curious (I don't use Snapchat as I'm a fair bit older then the target demographic), why do you use it to chat rather than an actual IM? Eg Telegram or Discord or Wire.

<comment><USER15> I'm not OP but I use Snapchat a lot to chat. I like that the messages are not saved, it feels more natural for me as in I don't have to "think" too much about what I write, just as talking. This way it feels less staged, you can compare it to photos on insta vs photos on snap (likes and permanent vs none of that). With text it's obviously to a lesser extend but still. No one can go through years of messages and see what i said back then.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The discover shit what made me delete Snapchat, keeps throwing annoying people at my face every time I open the app, why? it was a fun way to chat with friends and share short videos but no let fill it with booty shaking and nasty stuff and force you to watch it

</comment><comment><USER17> They had a working thing and then ruined it. I'm not sure how they managed to do that with a product change. Didn't they have a way to release changes and measure impact before just forcing it on their entire user base?

Once a company gets to this level, they need to recognize the role that luck played into their original product and design. They hit a resonance with people, and it was probably more luck and timing than anything else. Changes to that core product need to be treated as an experiment and conducted as such. Show some discipline.

You can still innovate but those ideas should be made to stand on their own, grow on their own. Just because you have control over a platform with millions of users and can make changes doesn't automatically mean you can do no wrong at this point. It just means you will have more time and resources before those mistakes take you out of the game completely.

He should be punished for his mistakes by the board installing some experienced adult supervision for a while until he shows he can fix his current mess (reverse negative growth) and innovate in at least an additional major product category tangential to Snap. If he can't do that in the next 24 months, he should step down for the good of the company.

<comment><USER18> I think you hit the nail on the head here. There were reports that came out from several sources that Evan ignored all feedback from product and design including hard numbers from early tests. There were apparently several groups internally that tried to stop the massive changes from dropping without adequate testing and iteration. Those groups were overridden by Evan in favor of "vision" and that apparent lack of discipline led to the situation they're in today.

If Evan can't show that he has the discipline to lead a company at this stage of it's life in the public market then the board should absolutely give him the boot in the next 24 months.

I think the narrative of "product visionary" has been spun a bit too hard by the tech media and it likely has gotten to his head.

He also took a $500mm bonus for successfully executing the IPO at a time when the company lost over $700mm in 2017. That's not a great look - but I digress.

<comment><USER19> > then the board should absolutely give him the boot in the next 24 months.

Very funny, Snapchat has two classes of stock and he owns enough of the kind that matters that no one can oust him. I looked through the S-1 when they were going public and decided owning the shares they were selling to the public was the equivalent of a "board observer" seat. You are free to watch him run his company, but it is still his company

[https://www.recode.net/2017/2/21/14670314/snap-ipo-stock- vot...](https://www.recode.net/2017/2/21/14670314/snap-ipo-stock-voting- structure)

<comment><USER20> The sad thing is that it applies to many other companies these days, most notably Facebook, Google et al.

Why do people buy common shares which give them no voting rights as a shareholder?

Sure while company is minting money (or debt and marketshare) you can find a greater fool to offload your shares.

However when things turn the Zynga way, what recourse do you have with these no vote shares?

At least Bond holders and Preferred Shareholders have certain rights.

PS Then there are the Chinese stocks such as BABA where you do not even own the assets of the main company but I digress..

<comment><USER21> I think we're going to see less of that. A few companies with founder control through multiple classes of stock have screwed up badly. It's now a negative with investors.

For many decades, the New York Stock Exchange refused to list stocks that had multiple classes of stock, except for a few companies such as Ford Motor that were grandfathered in. But they no longer have enough clout to make that stick.

Google and Facebook got away with it because they were highly profitable before the IPO. Snap was not like that.[1] They went public while still losing money, and with way too high a valuation. It's been all downhill since the IPO.

[1] [https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertberger/2017/03/07/snapcha...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertberger/2017/03/07/snapchat- ipo-dont-confuse-popular-with-profitable/#5bdba09f2b73)

<comment><USER22> > _Google and Facebook got away with it because they were highly profitable > before the IPO. Snap was not like that..._

So basically, we'll see it with the companies that are _profitable_ at the time of their ipo's, but we _won 't_ see it with the companies that are _unprofitable_ , (and maybe even losing money), at the time of their ipo's.

Sounds to me like the future Facebooks and Googles of the world will continue to set up structures like these. Before anyone jumps down my throat, I'm not complaining. I know, it's the founder's company. I get that. I'm free not to invest if I don't like the terms. I just wanted to point out that HN User "Animats'" conclusion that founders will choose this structure less and less is flawed. It really does seem to me that this structure is just going to be more and more of a reality in the future for any of the startups that are actually worth buying into. (ie - Any of the startups that actually _make money_.)

In the end, the founders of the winning companies don't want their money or power diluted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Why did they ignore Android usability and performance for so long? Also, I guess one of the cool things was the mystery meat UX but I wonder if that hurt them as they tried to garner broad appeal? Sometimes I see other people's Snaps and have no idea how they did certain things like effects, text, or interactive elements.

<comment><USER24> They explicitly focused on teens in rich countries with high end phones and high speed mobile connections. They wanted to target that "rich" niche.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Snapchat has failed the test of feature vs. product.

Everything that made Snapchat unique is something easily emulated in a myriad of other apps. When you strip away the interface, the only unique part of it was the network/aggregator-effect they have. However, they were much smaller than Instagram and as a result would be fighting an uphill battle with a product that already has the network and could easily duplicate the features.

<comment><USER18> I think of any social media company as an interface into a network. If the network isn't fundamentally the moat then that's a problem because the interface can often (but maybe not always) be a commodity. In the early stages, a small social media company may use its novel interface as the moat. Interface moats can be fragile but they buy the company some time to grow the network and gives the initial set of early adopters a reason to join. However at maturity, the interface alone can't continue to be the only thing that can defend or provide a moat for a business.

The problem with Snap (as you pointed out) is that the network characteristics are similar to Facebook's or Instagram's....aka friends and family....aka people in your phone contacts. Facebook's fundamental value is that they were one of the _first_ ones to capture the graph that already existed in your phone and brought it online at scale. However, the actual network they built isn't as novel or as difficult to build as something like Twitter which is a graph that existed nowhere else before.

LinkedIn is similar to Facebook in that the business contacts probably already existed in your phone or on a bunch of business cards. But because we don't want our professional lives and our personal lives to share the same spaces, LinkedIn was able to capture the professional opportunity by bringing business contacts online.

What does this all have to do with Snap? Well Snap has the unfortunate position of having similar network characteristics to Facebook's while _also_ being in a similar social space albeit heavily skewed younger (I consider Instagram to be in a roughly similar social space). Snap probably felt like the demographic skew alone would be enough to balance out this weak position but I suspect they're finding out quickly that it is not since Instagram is proving to be a thriving space for young people too.

On the other hand, networks like Twitter, LinkedIn, and Nextdoor are all either unique networks underneath the primary interface or they share different social spaces that people usually don't want mixed. Anyone can make an interface but it's incredibly hard to grow a network in a particular social space. The latter almost always makes for a stronger moat. Snap needs to figure out how to make progress on the latter because I think many of their large problems stem from not having enough of a moat at the network level.

<comment><USER25> This is really well thought out. Thank you for posting :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Snapchat's biggest value to me is that they aren't owned by facebook. So many jumped to Instagram and use it as a cross-platform messenger now as well—I don't want to use Facebook (Instagram) messenger.

I would love a more legit chat feature. It's great that you can keep messages around for longer now. A safer UI that prevented accidentally adding the wrong friend to an image share would be awesome, as would as unsends.

Unfortunate that their main revenue source seems to be really, really bad clickbait stories.

<comment><USER27> At least the memes are decent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> _Most of the incremental growth in our core markets like the US, UK, and France will have to come from older users who generate higher average revenue per user._

 _Changing the design language of our product and improving our marketing and communications around Snapchat will help users understand our value_

 _Aging-up our community in core markets will also help the media, advertisers, and Wall Street understand Snapchat._

To be honest, this seems like wishful thinking to me. It's going to very hard for them to regain momentum in their current demographic. It's going to be close to impossible to create a network effect outside of their current demographic.

</comment><comment><USER29> _"Adults, not teens. Messaging, not Stories. Developing markets, not the U.S."_

So... Snap basically wants to be Facebook?

Adults, messaging, developing world — Facebook is already enormously entrenched in the overlap of those markets thanks to Messenger and WhatsApp. FB has also shown the ability to clone Snap's product innovations.

I have a feeling 2019 is the year when Snap is acquired. The market cap is already below $10 billion.

<comment><USER30> > "Developing markets, not the U.S."

I thought he hated developing markets?

<comment><USER31> "This app is only for rich people," Spiegel said, according to Pompliano. "I don't want to expand into poor countries like India and Spain."

Delicious irony.

[https://variety.com/2017/biz/news/snapchat-evan-spiegel- only...](https://variety.com/2017/biz/news/snapchat-evan-spiegel-only-for- rich-people-anthony-pompliano-1202028526/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment> village-idiot When I was much younger, I thought that adults didn't know how to use new tech, and that's why they didn't bother with new fangled tech like Facebook.

Now that I'm closing in on my 30th birthday, I realize I had it all wrong. I can use snapchat, I just don't understand _why_ I would want to use it.

I'm curious what Snapchat will do to try and entice people like me into using it. From where I sit, I'm having a very hard time imagining what they could possibly do.

<comment><USER32> Snapchat filled a niche that sat between directly messaging your friend/family group and putting something on display on Facebook. You could share random thoughts, things that happened in your day or interesting things you come across.

It was walled version of Twitter with a focus on photo and video.

What made it really interesting for me is that, because it uses your phone book to gather your contacts, you end up with a somewhat different circle to who you might have on Facebook. There were some people I hadn't spoken to for years, or people who were in my friends circle that I didn't talk to much, that became some of my most-interacted with people on Snapchat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> And once again you read "slowed down and ruined it" (aside from the language, which is too strong) ... people REALLY respond to latency.

I wish Google would pay attention to this. Especially Gmail. It's just unacceptably slow and there is just no excuse.

</comment><comment><USER34> I am just surprised that a publicly traded, multi-billion dollar company either did not think to A/B test major changes to the product or did not know how to properly conduct A/B testing.

I assumed every one of the top apps/websites did this automatically, but I guess I was wrong.

<comment><USER11> They certainly did, but reports are that the CEO overruled the data and even multiple internal efforts against the change.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Did Snapchat really flop, or is the equity market undergoing a correction and return to sanity? Snapchat was a fun fad, not a sustainable enterprise. Everyone involved should have taken money off the table in the high times and realized the bubble component would pop.

<comment><USER18> You can call it a fad, but the truth is that they had and still have the opportunity to build a real business.

The reality is that despite how seemingly old the internet is, we're still in the relatively early stages. There aren't that many companies globally building content systems at scale and working through the challenges of what that means - at scale. Those skills in an organization are extraordinary valuable as old media starts to crumble and information infrastructure on the internet becomes the new fundamental fabric of society - moreso than even today.

I know that sounds a bit grandoise but that's the thinking behind the big bets behind companies like this. If Snap can just get some experienced, less impulsive leadership in place - they can still build an extremely valuable global media property. 180mm daily actives is no joke.

As you can tell, I'm skeptical of Snap in it's current state of management but I'm bullish on social media overall.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Snapchat may have lost a lot of users across the world, but it's still extremely popular in Norway. I'd say probably more than half the population aged 18-50 has it installed.

<comment><USER12> Any idea why?

<comment><USER37> From what I've seen, people are addicted to streaks.

<comment><USER36> If that's the case, the popularity won't necessarily translate into revenue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I don't use Snapchat, but now I understand why the redesign I saw so much hate on was pushed into production. I can't speak to the specifics of what changed, but I don't see why you wouldn't even A/B test such a massive change to your service.

Instagram Stories seem like they might've had a big impact on the popularity of the app as well.

</comment><comment><USER39> Oh, so now Evan Spiegel want to prioritize developing countries... [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/17/snapchat-...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/17/snapchat- denies-claim-ceo-did-not-want-to-expand-into-poor-india)

<comment><USER40> I'm pretty sure he still doesn't. He just needs to boost the user numbers so the eventual takeover price tag isn't embarrassingly low.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Makes me laugh every time when people lionize some platform because "all the cool teens are on it!". It's obviously not a demographic you can profit from. And they will easily abandon your platform once they grow up.

</comment><comment><USER42> Coming off of the recent SEC case against Elon Musk, does anyone know how they look at leaks from public companies, especially high impact ones like this? Are there any examples of SEC action in the past?

<comment><USER43> The SEC allows companies to make corporate announcements through social media. Tweets of a public company's CEO are thus corporate announcements. Leaks are reported on by third parties, and thus don't fall under the same rules. The leaker might get in trouble for Reg FD violations, or for violating an NDA, but given the reduced risk of damage (particularly when the leaked information is not fabricated), it's been a low enforcement priority.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Success in entertainment (and this includes social media startups) is really hard to replicate! I wonder why that is. It seems easier to consistently start enterprise software companies than it is to create new social media apps.

Facebook's strategy of just buying what works and creating a media conglomerate for advertisers seems very smart to the casual observer.

<comment><USER45> Maybe unconventional successes in entertainment tend to be hard to replicate because they require years gaining expertise and creating a strong product _and_ that the ebbs and flows of public taste happen to favour that product when it comes out.

If you're lucky, you might score a long shot at a moving target from very far away, but it will be hard to score a second one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> I'm not sure they can make a comeback, Instagram ripped off all the good parts and executed on their vision better. Adding all of the celebrity ads and discover feature was a huge mistake, all users wanted to do was communicate with their friends.

</comment><comment><USER47> Snapchat's lens studio product is a definite category defining product. As an AR developer, it's been soo much fun and enjoyable creating AR experiences, and its one of the first times I can make an experience and directly engage a large audience.

</comment><comment><USER48> 15 pages? It's not a leak if it's meant to get out, and 15 pages means it was meant to get out.

</comment><comment><USER49> He blames "impatient strategic moves." If they're done hastily, are they even strategic?

</comment><comment><USER50> They forced me off their platform. I have an older iPhone 4s and can not update past ios 9.3.5. Snapchat eventually forced an update and that required me having the latest ios which I could not even do since Apple stopped supporting this device years ago despite it still being a pretty good phone.

</comment><comment><USER51> Maybe this will be the beginning of the end for the social media bubble?

<comment><USER38> Is there really a bubble? The players look fairly solidified to me.

You have Facebook, which might not be as cool in all countries with younger users, and has had a lot of controversy surrounding fake news, election influence, and privacy, but it's doing well.

You have Instagram, which is doing very well, was a great Facebook acquisition, helping their parent company even more.

You have Twitter, which seems to be struggling by, and is still very relevant.

Reddit is doing very well if you can even call it social meddia.

Apps like Yik Yak, Whisper, Snapchat, and such all seem to have been going downhill or are gone for some time now. But I think the players we have are here to stay.

<comment><USER52> Reddit is certainly trying to pivot toward social media, with probably the least enthusiasistic and most hostile user base for that change they could possibly have.

<comment><USER53> The magic of reddit has always been in its detachment from real-world social structure. Reddit is successful because it grouped users by common interests and eliminated the burden of having your real identity associated with your online alter-ego. If they ruin that in an effort to sell more ads, it will be a sad loss.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Here's coverage without an insanely user hostile "WE ARE PART OF OATH YOUR PRIVACY IS IMPORTANT (BUT IT'S DIFFICULT TO FIND SETTINGS TO DISABLE COOKIES)" lightbox which cannot be dismissed:

[https://cheddar.com/videos/snap-ceo-evan-spiegel-company- mem...](https://cheddar.com/videos/snap-ceo-evan-spiegel-company-memo- on-2019-strategic-goals-and-profitability)

<comment><USER55> Ublock Origin plus Cookiemonster list - I never see a cookie banner.

<comment><USER56> Thanks for mentioning this[1]! I just realized that I was only using the Prebake[2] list, which doesn't appear to be actively maintained.

[1] [https://www.fanboy.co.nz/fanboy- cookiemonster.txt](https://www.fanboy.co.nz/fanboy-cookiemonster.txt)

[2] [https://raw.githubusercontent.com/liamja/Prebake/master/obtr...](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/liamja/Prebake/master/obtrusive.txt)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> I read the whole memo, or tried to. Ridiculous. It means nothing at all. One OKR is "spread positivity". What does that even mean? How is it measurable? [https://cheddar.com/videos/snap-ceo-evan-spiegel-company- mem...](https://cheddar.com/videos/snap-ceo-evan-spiegel-company-memo- on-2019-strategic-goals-and-profitability)

<comment><USER58> Indeed. Looking at their OKRs, the only one I can see turning it around for them is "Lead the Way in Augmented Reality". The others are fluff in wording and in punch, and I can't see them gaining ground against IG when IG executes on these ideas much better than Snap does.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> _Snapchat is still bleeding money, losing $353 million last quarter._

I literally do not understand what they can be spending that much money on, can anyone clue me in? It can't be on infra and bandwidth.

<comment><USER24> For one thing, they are contractually obligated to pay Google and Amazon at least $600mm per year for the next few years.

So that's $150mm per quarter, as a minimum (if their usage doesn't meet that amount they have to pay the difference).

They are paying something like $200mm on R&D/quarter, and over $100mm on advertising and administrative each.

Their "cost of revenues" (I'm not exactly sure what this means for them...I wonder if it is discounts offered to advertisers) is another $190mm.

So a few hundred million here and a few hundred million there adds up to a $350mm quarterly loss.

What's interesting is their R&D expenses have dropped 20% from the year ago quarter, while their sales and marketing have increased substantially. That does not bode well for the future either in my opinion (although it's easily arguable that even $200mm per quarter on R&D seems excesssive for Snap).

Edit: I quickly compared them to Twitter, which isn't known as the most leanest of run companies in the first place, but Twitter's R&D costs are $139mm/quarter compared to over $200mm for SNAP. Their administraative costs are $74mm/quarter, compared to over $100mm for SNAP. How is SNAP spending so much more money than Twitter, and clearly producing a fraction of the output?

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> They're fucked.

<comment><USER61> Please post something useful, insightful or worthy of discussion. Otherwise, don't post at all. Thank you.

<comment><USER62> Please don't complain that a submission is inappropriate. If a story is spam or off-topic, flag it. Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead. If you flag something, please don't also comment that you did.

<comment><USER61> Thanks, I didn't realize I can flag it. I shall do that going forward.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> >The biggest mistake we made with our redesign was compromising our core product value of being the fastest way to communicate," Spiegel stresses throughout the memo regarding "Project Cheetah."

Hmmmmmmmmmm. The Google Mail redesign comes to mind. Gmail has 1.4 billion users. (April 2018 figure, Gmail's Wikipedia page.)

Google management, if you're listening: the writing is on the wall. You have it there black and white: "The biggest mistake we made with our redesign was compromising our core product value of being the fastest"

In this comment I outline some reach goals for you:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17873576](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17873576)

(That comment is written in a wishful style, what I know you can do and what I imagine you can do.)

You can do it! Just hire the best. Put the best on that team. 1.2 billion users mean you can afford it. You can do it.

Do it. You can do it. I believe in you with all my heart.</comment>