A Solution of the P versus NP Problem? - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1708.03486 <comment><USER2> This is definitely one of those "I'm going to wait for the peer review" claims, but it is pretty exciting.

Pros: The author is not a dilettante, and is actively researching in the area ([http://theory.cs.uni- bonn.de/blum/Forschung/forsch.var](http://theory.cs.uni- bonn.de/blum/Forschung/forsch.var))

Cons: It's not my area, but I was expecting something a little more novel for a solution to P?NP. This almost seems too simple (it might almost fit in a margin...).

Could be pro or con: Single author. It's becoming rare for important new work to not have multiple authors, especially from professional academics. However, Andrew Wiles...

<comment><USER3> The paper looks like it is 38 pages and builds on other work. That doesn't seem too simple to me.

<comment><USER4> I tend to agree with GP that this is suspiciously simple. I've only skimmed it, but the novel part of the proof appears to only be Thm 5-6 which is less than 10 pages, and it's not especially dense writing. So this would be a relatively simple proof. Moreover, the technique used appears to be rather incremental over known techniques, so it's surprising it would be strong enough to prove PvNP which is so far away from the frontier of known techniques.

<comment><USER5> The known technique was a proof of an exponential lower bound on something extremely similar to an NP-complete problem. That moved the frontier of known techniques a lot closer to P vs NP.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A list of 116 previous "solutions" to the P versus NP problem: [http://www.win.tue.nl/~gwoegi/P-versus- NP.htm](http://www.win.tue.nl/~gwoegi/P-versus-NP.htm)

<comment><USER7> After skimming its interesting that the majority of the proofs in your list claim P equals NP. I would have guessed it would be more common for proofs to claim the opposite because P != NP makes sense intuitively. That being said it would certainly be more exciting if P did equal NP.

<comment><USER8> A simple but wrong proof of "P = NP" is easier to write in some ways, since you "just" need to provide a single algorithm for one NP-hard problem, and show that it runs in polynomial time. It looks like many or most of the proof attempts in that list take this form.

A plausible proof of "P != NP" won't be quite as simple to express, since it needs to prove that _all_ such algorithms do _not_ run in polynomial time.

<comment><USER9> Well yes! Two things: You have a successful algorithm that runs in P time that solves an NP Hard problem and 2) you can map other NP Hard problems to your problem. Without the second factor, it is only a demonstration of a "range" in the computational realm in question, where p = np or whatever the declaration. Being able to show that your pizza slice is actually an ocean of pizza, and also show that any other shape of pizza slice can be appropriately transformed into the shape you have means p = np. a "solution." Or perhaps better put, it is a _funnel_ through which complex computational patterns can either be reduced or simplified or elegantly correlated, approaching absolutely perfect parallelization of operations. This is just one way to look at it, but essentially intractability is an interesting term to consider.

Please forgive me if my liberal use of the language is an offense

<comment><USER10> Your 2 is the easy part: "NP-hard" is exactly the set of problems to which any NP problems can be reduced in polynomial time, and there are many known existing examples, both within NP (aka NP-complete) and outside it.

<comment><USER9> So part of the solution set satisfies P=NP and some satisfy P!=NP?

<comment><USER10> No, some NP-hard problems are outside NP (i.e. harder than NP), while some are inside. The wikipedia article has a good explanation and a good diagram: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NP-hardness](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NP- hardness)

<comment><USER9> Thanks many for your kind explanation. It makes more sense now. I forgot that important detail that mapping is pretty easy as most involvements reduce to and from 3-SAT

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Scott Aaronson on "suppose someone sends you a complicated solution to a famous decades-old math problem, like P vs. NP. How can you decide, in ten minutes or less, whether the solution is worth reading?": [http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=304](http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=304)

<comment><USER12> " _Yet here's the bloodied patient, and here we are in the emergency room._ " " _The lemma encrusted shoulders of giants._ "

Aaronson on writes very well.

<comment><USER13> A little too flowery. He's also needlessly political.

<comment><USER14> Are you one of those people who equates any mention whatsoever of Trump as "being needlessly political"?

<comment><USER13> Not at all. But bringing him up in an unrelated post on a technical blog just screams "virtue signaling" to me.

<comment><USER15> When you feel strongly about something and write about it, you aren't virtue signalling, you're expressing your view. If you have any reason to take the rather uncharitable stance that his views on Trump are inauthentic, then post them, otherwise it's better just to assume that people who say things you disagree with _actually think those things_ rather than are just saying them to look good.

Accusing others of "virtue signaling" is a much clearer example of "virtue signaling" in my opinion, since it's a particular population that tends to do it, and is used primarily to put down those they disagree with and mark them as belonging to a different group rather than to actually make any kind of meaningful point.

<comment><USER13> I'm curious what I said that sounded to you like "his stated views on Trump aren't authentic."

<comment><USER16> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_signalling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_signalling)

        Virtue signalling is the conspicuous expression of moral
        values done primarily with the intent of enhancing
        standing within a social group.

I don't think Aaronson states his views on Trump with the hopes of increasing his social status. He does it because it's just what he feels and wants to express himself.

<comment><USER13> And which part of that definition has anything to do with the views being inauthentic?

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills here.

<comment><USER15> When you express a view that you don't hold in order to receive social approval, or when you express a view that you hold lightly with more intensity and frequency than you would except for your desire to receive social approval you are being inauthentic.

The whole value of the phrase 'virtue signalling' is that it accuses those you disagree with of inauthenticity. If I'm saying a thing I genuinely believe because I genuinely believe it, I'm not virtue signalling. It's only if the reason for saying the thing is to gain social approval that it's 'virtue signalling'. Any assumption that your opponent is doing something for this reason is uncharitable, and kills rational debate. It's essentially an ad hominem attack.

It's also ignoring the fairly detailed entry that Scott posted explaining in his own words why he started talking about Trump in his blog: [http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=2777](http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=2777) when previously he'd avoided the subject.

Maybe it is virtue signalling, or maybe he really did feel as he claimed, that he had a moral responsibility to speak out against Trump. If you assume that it is only 'virtue signalling', you are cutting yourself off from engaging with his points.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interesting that this is the second P!=NP proof from a University of Bonn researcher. Other one, by Mathias Hauptmann, is here: [https://arxiv.org/abs/1602.04781](https://arxiv.org/abs/1602.04781)

I never did hear the status of Hauptmann's proof (I'm not connected to academia so only know what I've read on the internet), but given it's been over a year without word, presumably there's something flawed.

I might not get too excited over this proof, either, until another member of the TCS community can vouch for it. There have been many serious-looking attempts at PvNP that turn out to have fundamental flaws.

<comment><USER17> How does the paper of Hauptmann prove P != NP?

Sigma_2^p != NP as far as I know and after a brief skimming the paper does not mention P != NP.

Edit: the paper does indeed mention P != NP in the form of P != Sigma_2^p => P != Sigma_1^p = NP. Please disregard my comment.

<comment><USER18> P = NP implies the polynomial hierarchy collapses, thus P = Sigma2, so by contradiction P != NP.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I would normally sigh and move on seeing such a claim, but this guy is an established senior researcher at the University of Bonn. A career-ending disaster or instant and eternal fame, that's some serious cahunas.

<comment><USER20> > serious cahunas

I think you mean "cojones" (which btw is a very rude word in Spanish). A kahuna is a kind of Hawai'ian shaman.

<comment><USER19> I stand corrected, thank you. I would normally have said "serious bollocks", but this forum is mostly left-ponders who would probably not have caught my drift.

<comment><USER21> North American here, we hear enough Brits speak to get the expression :)

<comment><USER22> "serious bollocks" means "very questionable statement" in the British English I'm familiar with. Perhaps GP's idiom is from elsewhere. If the reference is to bravery/daring one would use "balls" as in US English, I believe.

<comment><USER23> "Bollocks" in Britain and "Balls" in North America both refer to the Testes, as does "cojones". So all three statements are actually the exact same slang in regional dialects.

Bollocks, like many slang words, have multiple meanings in different contexts. It can be used as you stated as well, but "What you said is bollocks" and "You have bollocks for saying it" are very different statements.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Just a half minute skim shows the author claims it passes the natural proof barrier but makes no claim about it being non-relativizing or non- algebraizing.

<comment><USER25> For those following along at home: this is important because we have a proof that relativizing wouldn't work. In this context, relativizing means relative to an oracle. For example, P^A means "just like a Turing machine would regularly recognize languages except this one has a magical oracle that can recognize A in one step". A can be arbitrarily complex, including NP-complete ones like 3SAT.

This is important because the Baker-Gill-Solovay theorem already demonstrates that there exist oracles A != B relative to which P^A = NP^A, but P^B != NP^B. This shows that the problem has contradictory relativizations, and hence can't be proven that way. This matters because it's a litmus test against quack proofs.

I don't think this is a problem here; the proof doesn't appear to be doing that.

<comment><USER26> I first learned about this because there's a decades-old joke in NetHack that cites this result when you ask for a major consultation from the Oracle when you can't afford to pay for it. I think the joke is that in this case, the Oracle can't tell you anything that's useful to you. :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I like the straightforward title. I know that it is politically correct to christen your paper solving e.g. the Poincare conjecture like e.g. "Ricci flow with surgery on three-manifolds", but all rules are there to be broken once.

I wish the author best of luck.

<comment><USER28> At least he couldn't resist making the important point a corollary.

<comment><USER29> what else, a mere remark? a theorem?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> John Baez has a bit of a discussion here:

[https://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2017/08/15/norbert- blum...](https://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2017/08/15/norbert-blum-on-p- versus-np/)

</comment><comment><USER31> I see a few typos in the wording of the paper (e.g., "spezify", "touchs", etc.). While this doesn't mean much, I would expect if the paper had gotten a fine-toothed comb review that these sorts of typos would have been caught. Moving back to the "not holding my breath" stance unless there start to be indications from experts in the field that the claims are holding up.

<comment><USER32> I can forgive imperfect English. He's not a native English speaker and his reviewers probably are not be either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Can someone ELI5 what this problem is, how likely the proof is to hold up to scrutiny, and whether P != NP follows?

<comment><USER34> Here is a largely correct ELI5: P != NP asks the question "Are problems that are easy to _verify_ (NP) also Easy to _solve_? (P)".

Note that the _reverse is obviously true_ : problems that are easy to _solve_ are also easy to _verify_.

Here is an example: Take the problem "Find minimum of 5,6,7,8". You solve the problem and tell me that the answer is 5. I can verify your answer by solving the problem myself, getting the the answer 5 and comparing it with your answer. So we can conclude "Problems that are easy to solve are easy to verify" In other words, P ⊆ NP.

_Now is the reverse true? Are problems that are easy to verify also easy to solve?_

Let me give you an example. Let us assume that the question is "Is 1053188576519689 prime?". You come back and tell me, "No it is not prime, it is divisible by 32,452,867".

1) It is easy to verify your solution. I can divide 1053188576519689 by 32,452,867 and verify that it is indeed divisible. 2) It is hard to solve the problem, I have to try out numbers from 2,3,...,sqrt(1053188576519689), which is quite painful. (Or maybe there is as yet undiscovered better algorithm). So it appears that problems that are easy to verify may not be easy to solve. Or it appears that NP ⊆ P is not true. In other words, it appears P != NP (because if P ⊆ NP and NP ⊆ P, P == NP).

NP problems have wide ranging applications in things like cryptography for example. Let us assume I have a hashing technique. It is easy to hash a document, but hard to reconstruct the document from the hash. Then this technique can be used in auctions where you do not trust the auctioneer. You publicly submit the hash of your bid before the deadline. You do not submit your bid itself, because you are afraid that the person handing out the contracts will reveal the number to his brother-in-law who will bid $1 more than you and win the contract. After the deadline is passed, you send your actual bid to the Auctioneer.

Now 1) Everyone can verify that the documents have not been altered (the hashes are posted publicly, each document can be hashed and compared with its publicly posted hash). So it is easy to _verify_ that the documents have not been tampered with after the deadline.

2) Nobody can construct the document from the hash. So it is not easy to _solve_ for the bid document given the hash. So everyone can post the hash publicly with confidence before the deadline.

If P != NP we can have this type of auctions. If P == NP then there is no difference between posting the hash publicly and posting the document publicly.

<comment><USER35> (You may have omitted this detail on purpose, but I think it's worth pointing out) The example of trial division as a primality test is a good illustration of an algorithm that takes a lot of work to run but whose output is easy to verify. However, the problem of primality testing is actually in P. [1] You have to use a fancier algorithm than trial division in order to get polynomial time.

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

<comment><USER36> another detail that the GP most likely left out on purpose is that the fact that easily checking divisibility means that primality is co-NP. Primality being NP is actualy non-trivial (even before AKS). see wikipedia for more details: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primality_certificate](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primality_certificate)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> [https://cstheory.stackexchange.com/questions/38803/](https://cstheory.stackexchange.com/questions/38803/)

</comment><comment><USER28> After skimming the paper, the methods used look quite basic. There seems to be no really deep new insight as far as I can tell. Let's see what experts will have to say.

</comment><comment><USER37> An insightful interview to give perspective. [http://www.se- radio.net/2017/07/se-radio-episode-298-moshe-v...](http://www.se- radio.net/2017/07/se-radio-episode-298-moshe-vardi-on-p-versus-np/)

</comment><comment><USER38> If established researcher in the field makes a breakthrough of this magnitude I would expect rumors to start to circulating first.

Showing the draft to few colleagues to see if they can spot mistakes before 'shaking the world' is probably a good idea.

<comment><USER39> Hmmm, maybe he analyzed the game theory:

If he publishes without consulting peers:

      If his proof is correct, he gets unending fame, millions in prize money.

      If his proof is laughably flawed, he'll promptly be forgotten as one of the 100s who have been wrong before him.

If he consults his peers:

      If his proof is correct, he may end up sharing credit, maybe they'll even publish his work quietly under their own name while he's still waiting for feedback. Maybe that is what we are reading now.

      If his proof is laughably flawed, then they'll give him his feedback and only his peers, instead of the whole internet will laugh at him for a day, before it's all forgotten.

Seems like with any tiny chance of a correct proof, the dominant strategy is, by far, to publish without consulting your peers.

<comment><USER40> Entirely possible: The paper's author has actually given lectures on game theory.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> What are the implications of solving the P versus NP problem? What practical effects would that have? Not trying to belittle the problem, just curious as an outsider.

<comment><USER42> The most interesting thing is if P=NP. If that's the case, that means that there is an algorithm that can solve any NP problem in polynomial time. This means that things like crypto would be able to be cracked in polynomial time which presents a huge problem for security.

We basically operate under the assumption that P!=NP currently. Validation that this is true doesn't really change much. I can't speak to how this may help a academic researcher in CompSci, but it probably doesn't change much for most programmers.

<comment><USER43> I think it's even less useful, even if P = NP it is possible that no one finds an algorithm. Creating a (useful) algorithm is independent of proving the theorem. Also interesting is that someone could create an algorithm that solves NP complete in polynomial time without proving P=NP. They would be unable to prove the algorithm correct though.

<comment><USER44> If P=NP, then finding an algorithm is, by certain definition, exactly as easy as proving an algorithm correct! This is, after all, the gist of what P vs NP means. And this is why it's such a huge deal - the problem is almost self- referential in nature.

<comment><USER45> > This is, after all, the gist of what P vs NP means. And this is why it's > such a huge deal - the problem is almost self-referential in nature.

Could you back that up with some citations? This doesn't ring true. But my pure CS has withered a bit...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> I remain optimistic, but some potential holes are starting to show. Scott Aaronson: ([http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=3389](http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=3389))

"To everyone who keeps asking me about the "new" P≠NP proof: I'd again bet $200,000 that the proof won't stand, except that the last time I tried that, it didn't achieve its purpose, which was to get people to stop asking me about it. So: the paper claims to give an exponential circuit lower bound for Andreev's function, but that function as defined in Section 7 of the paper seems clearly to have a polynomial-size circuit, based on polynomial interpolation (thanks to Luca Trevisan for this observation). So I don't see how this can possibly stand. Please just stop asking, and if the thing hasn't been fully refuted by the end of the week, you can come back and tell me I was a closed-minded fool."

</comment><comment><USER46> Say you wanted to let a computer search for a proof of P!=NP - which axioms would you start with and which rules to transform the axioms into additional valid statements?

<comment><USER47> I wonder if the algorithm to search such a space of axioms and transforms for a solution would itself be P or NP. :)

<comment><USER48> Almost certainly so super-exponential that NP appears easy in comparison.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> As someone with an undergrad level knowledge of the problem can someone please outline the importance of this research. Is this research done in some bounded domain. From what I have read in the comments, there seems to be other papers which have also proved P!=NP. So what does this research add...Just curious, feel free to ignore this...

<comment><USER50> _> From what I have read in the comments, there seems to be other papers which have also proved P!=NP._

None of those papers have been accepted as correct, the problem remains open.

There's a gazillion articles describing the context and importance, and I suggest you do a web search for something like "P vs NP and why it's important".

Here's one: [http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=459](http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=459)

HN discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1605415](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1605415)

<comment><USER49> Thanks for the reply. Thats a great article. I have read a lot of articles like that, in fact was planning to write one myself. Just wanted to know more about the paper submitted i.e. what it proposes and the methodology adapted. I tried reading it but couldnt parse the data with all the jargons.

<comment><USER50> That's not the question you asked. If you want to know more about the context of this specific paper then you need to (a) wait for the people in the area to start writing explanations, or (b) ask more specific questions about specific terms.

A good place to start to get a sense of what's going on with this specific paper is this thread, but more particularly, the articles linked from it. One that I think is a great starting point is this one:

[https://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2017/08/15/norbert- blum...](https://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2017/08/15/norbert-blum-on-p- versus-np/)

But you should perhaps start by asking the question you actually want the answer to - it sounds like you didn't. So take a moment, do some reading, then come back with particular questions. They may already be answered, but before you did the outside reading you didn't realise. That's what happens to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> So at least according to this P != NP. I've always been skeptical of this just because if you find an efficient optimal algorithm the problem moves between the classes.

<comment><USER52> >if you find an efficient optimal algorithm the problem moves between the classes

This hasn't ever happened.

You can prove an algorithm is in NP-hard by reducing another NP-hard problem to it. You can prove an algorithm is in P by showing the algorithm.

If you find and efficient algorithm to a problem in NP-hard, you show P == NP. No one has ever done this.

P != NP is considered by many to be most likely true.

<comment><USER51> > You can prove an algorithm is in P by showing the algorithm.

Thanks for clarifying - I always though that's what the above meant but I didn't realise that the reduction side was also important.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> If true, would this be an actual 100% solution, or just an indicator that P != NP? This is all way over my head but the word "approximator" makes me wonder.

<comment><USER54> >> This implies P not equal NP.

<comment><USER55> > This implies P not equal NP

I did some graduate level research on P =? NP, specifically in the SAT space <[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satisfiability>](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satisfiability>).

In particular, I helped design MARMOSET (Marmoset Automated Reasoner Mostly Only Solves Easy Theorems), a competitive SAT problem solver. <[http://www.cs.unb.ca/research- groups/argroup/marmoset/>](http://www.cs.unb.ca/research- groups/argroup/marmoset/>) . (It's a cool name... I didn't come up with it :))

The conclusion I drew was:

1\. P != NP because you can convert in polynomial time every SAT problem down to Horn clauses, which are P to solve, plus non-Horn clauses that cannot be converted i.e. have intractable intrinsic NP complexity whose reduction to the polynomial space requires "clairvoyance" of the quantum computation variety.

2\. Nobody's really interested in a proof that P != NP.

That said, I only spent a couple years at it, and my memory may be faulty and I might change my mind if I revisited the issue. Part of me has always felt that the Horn clause reduction is a first step to isolating problems for a next step, but again — it's been a long time.

<comment><USER56> >Nobody's really interested in a proof that P != NP.

I doubt that.

<comment><USER57> I believe what they are saying is that the entire field just assumes P != NP and so if the proof came to be P != NP, then most people would just have their inklings confirmed and that's about it. It wouldn't really cause a shift in research in any of the CS departments. However, if P = NP, you can bet on a renewed interest in finding polynomial time algorithms.

<comment><USER58> That's like saying no one is interested in a solution to the Riemann Zeta Hypothesis. It's thought to be true, and mathematics have been derived from its assumed truth, but there is still major interest in proving it to be true.

<comment><USER57> The difference is that if Riemann Zeta is incorrect, many theorems that are based on the hypothesis being correct will also be invalidated. Whereas assuming P != NP is limited to a relatively small area of complexity theory. I think a much more equivalent conjecture in complexity theory would be the unique games conjecture. Because the unique games conjecture already provides certain problems to be completely characterized (see: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unique_games_conjecture#Releva...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unique_games_conjecture#Relevance)). Thus, proving this to be true kind of closes the chapter on many problems. Whereas proving P != NP true still leaves many gaps open.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> tl;dr Not crackpot, not proven, interesting math. There's a discussion on Google+ started by John Baez, which includes a comment by Gowers: [https://plus.google.com/+johncbaez999/posts/hGshTfdimpZ](https://plus.google.com/+johncbaez999/posts/hGshTfdimpZ)

There's some interesting ideas in the paper, the researcher has done good work in this area before.

</comment><comment><USER60> If's its legit proof, they author should be able to explain why SAT2 is in P and SAT3 is NP-complete. That's my BS test.

<comment><USER61> Why? Proving something doesn't mean we understand all implications of said proof or how to apply it to a particular situation.

Think about non-constructive proofs.

<comment><USER60> It's an important special case. You need some sort of filter for all the crazy submissions of potential proofs. I am not the only one who uses this problem as the filter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> Some informed discussion -- [https://www.facebook.com/shachar.lovett/posts/10155282027901...](https://www.facebook.com/shachar.lovett/posts/10155282027901321)

<comment><USER63> There's really nothing there - 11 likes and 1 comment ?

Also, this very same Facebook link was linked to at [https://cstheory.stackexchange.com/questions/38803/is- norber...](https://cstheory.stackexchange.com/questions/38803/is-norbert- blums-2017-proof-that-p-ne-np-correct) by [https://cstheory.stackexchange.com/users/24/opt](https://cstheory.stackexchange.com/users/24/opt)

Neither this HN user, that FB user nor that stackexchange user seems like anyone important, respected or relevant in the field of CS of this article (correct me if I'm wrong).

Smells like a bad attempt at karma whoring to me.

<comment><USER62> That 1 comment raises very serious doubts about that paper. The paper is basically assuming that a polynomial time solvable problem takes super- polynomial time. If it's using that fact in an integral manner then that kills the proof. And even if not, just the fact that the paper is making such a basic mistake raises questions as to how solid the rest of the paper is. Also the guy who made the comment (Luca Trevisan) is a very famous researcher in theory/crypto...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> I wonder if crypto values will skyrocket if this is proved

<comment><USER65> Interesting, I would assume it would tank since there is a way of undermining the system.

<comment><USER66> No, that would be if P=NP. This is either a proof that P!=NP, or not a valid proof of anything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> 1\. no google scholar account 2\. three publications on the arxiv.

I am willing to toss this out of hand...but look at yitang zhang or perelman. who knows? best of luck

<comment><USER68> although not prolific, the guy has published in top cs theory conferences and journals: [http://dblp.uni-trier.de/pers/hd/b/Blum:Norbert](http://dblp.uni- trier.de/pers/hd/b/Blum:Norbert)

dblp is the proper place to check computer scientists' record, not arxiv/google scholar.

<comment><USER67> I am not really sure I agree. At least in my part of CS in the united states arxiv/google scholar are pretty omnipresent. Thank you for pointing me towards a new resource.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> Until the singularity P will always be different than NP.

</comment><comment><USER70> Haven't we seen too many proofs that demonstrate N!=1 but forget to also show that P!=0?

</comment><comment><USER71> If this is true (and the proof has no flaw), it would be huge and pleasant (many expect it, although there are some who think it's a problem that might be unprovable in our current logic framework). So let's see how it works out.

However the author missed that there is a special case for N == 1, where actually P == NP (sorry, I could not resist).

<comment><USER72> Don't forget the case where P == 0

<comment><USER73> You're both wrong.

P is the union of all TIME complexity classes defined by n^k for every natural k.

NP is the union of all NTIME complexity classes defined by n^k for every natural k.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> If p != np, then comp sci will lose much of its appeal. There is an underlying hope behind the field that p = np, otherwise most problems of interest are intractable, and programmers are no longer masters of the universe.

This is probably why there is not a proof yet, since the truth is undesirable.

<comment><USER75> I'm not sure what you mean by "appeal." But, it seems to me that if P = NP, and if we can find a constructive proof of this fact, i.e. someone presents a P-time algorithm A_L deciding an NP-complete language L, the field of CS in a sense would get much _less_ interesting, because although we would have answered arguably the most important question ever posed, there would be much less of a need to research and develop efficient algorithms or approximation strategies. We'd probably just focus on trying to improve the runtime of A_L and the reductions from other NP languages.

<comment><USER74> Yes every field is of interest to its specialists. But the popular appeal is that comp sci promises the ultimate explanation of a materialistic reality. At least this was its appeal when I chose it for my major, and it drives the religious transhumanism and the AI hype and arguably the funding of IT. But if the public learns seemingly trivial problems are inherently intractable or impossible for computers, that glamorous spectacle will shatter.</comment></comment></comment>


Apple Pays Swiss Federal Railways $21 Million For Clock Icon - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2012/11/11/apple-licenses-clock-icon/ <comment><USER2> It this really true? I hope this doesn't count as a useless contribution, but paying 21 million dollars for a clock design on your mobile OS seems to me like complete insanity. For this price, you could literally hire multiple competent workers to do whatever you wanted for the rest of their working lives, and still have money left over.

It would be a lot more rational to just switch to a different clock design and pocket the money. 21 million is almost just a rounding error in Apple's accounting department, but it's still a ridiculous amount of money. I can't possibly believe that giving your users this specific design and not losing face due to backpedaling is worth this much.

<comment><USER3> Agree. Still pretty upsetting news for an average stockholder. If those are Apple decisions as to how spend money, no wonder 30% stock downslide. Truly no better usage of this money?? Replacing icon with $99 design and give it out to charity, especially for a company so deattached from such actions, would bring new or sustain existing clientbase much better than this "cool" icon of a clock staying on your device's dashboard.

<comment><USER4> Replacing it wouldn't protect them from infringement lawsuits, and a 30% stock downslide because of a 0.021% outlay on their $100B cash hoard is a little too insane even for a conspiracy theory.

<comment><USER5> >Replacing it wouldn't protect them from infringement lawsuits

Why not?

<comment><USER6> Because the infringement has already happened. You don't just get to say "oops - I'll stop now" and get away free and clear. You still have to deal with the fact that you did infringe, and compensate for the damages that infringement did to the company and licencees involved.

So the choices are:

* Have a long and involved court case that you will almost certainly lose, where the press will continually poke you about the obvious and direct comparisons to the Samsung/Apple suits.

* Pay compensation/licencing fees, have the story become a non-story in a day or two, carry on using great piece of iconic design.

No brainer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Watching the motion of the real Swiss railway clocks [1] with its smoothness is quite soothing.

"It requires only about 58.5 seconds to circle the face, then the hand pauses briefly at the top of the clock. It starts a new rotation as soon as it receives the next minute impulse from the master clock." [2]

1: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvIvKiDWDks> 2: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_railway_clock>

<comment><USER8> Interesting fact. I wonder why they could not make it go round in 60 seconds exactly. Did you they have to play with some motor limitations for the seconds hand, or was it purely by design ?

<comment><USER9> It's to keep all the railway clocks in sync. You could have one that's running up to 1.5s slow and it will still be able to keep up with all the rest, and they're all resynchronised with each other every minute. This is important when it could be the difference between catching a train or not.

<comment><USER10> If it's really that important, why not just use digital clocks?

<comment><USER11> This was designed in the 50s!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> When you are making $4 million in profit per hour[1], you might as well buy a nice watch (face).

1.[http://daringfireball.net/linked/2012/07/27/amzn-profit- corr...](http://daringfireball.net/linked/2012/07/27/amzn-profit-correction)

</comment><comment><USER13> While this is obviously a copy, I'm not sure why everyone loves this design. The only thing that looks different from every other watch in the world is the ball on the end of the second hand, and I find it disturbing.

<comment><USER14> It'll grow on you :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Can Swiss Federal Railways now turn around and offer a license to Samsung for $9.99?

<comment><USER16> It is their property, they can do whatever they want with it.

<comment><USER6> Depends on the terms of the licence. It might be exclusive in certain domains.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> When an app that lets you upload photos to the internet sells for 50 times this, I think I'm OK with it.

</comment><comment><USER18> Apple has sold a quarter _billion_ iPhones. This fee works out to 10 cents per phones for one of the most prominent images. Arguably worth it.

<comment><USER19> This clock isn't used on the iPhone.

<comment><USER20> I imagine if they've just licensed it they'll be considering getting their money worth so to speak.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> An identical clock is used at most of the swimming pools I've competed/trained in for lap times and synchronization. I remember it distinctly, since I spent so much time looking at it. It even has the "smooth motion, with a pause at the minute mark" feature that others in the thread are discussing. I suppose that also has practical advantages for swim meets.

I sure hope my high school won't also have to pay $21,000,000; I don't think they'll be able to afford it.

<comment><USER22> With a red (not orange) second hand? With that big counter-weight circle on the end of the second hand? With square-cut parallel-sided hands?

<comment><USER21> Yes, yes, and yes. Especially those last two things, that's the most distinctive thing about it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Kinda puts the whole Samsung deal in perspective, doesn't it? $1 billion seems like a bargain now.

</comment><comment><USER24> 3-4 Hours of net profit. :)

</comment><comment><USER25> Will someone please stand up, gets some balls, and say that the world needs to stick its litigiousness where the sun don't shine? I'm not defending Apple. They screwed the pooch recently suing Samsung. This is karma. But, we need to speak out against people just suing because they can. And, while we're at it, enact laws that restrict the power of unions.</comment>


Conntrack-Tools: Linux Interactions with the Connection Tracking System - <AUTHOR> http://conntrack-tools.netfilter.org <comment><AUTHOR> [https://github.com/evilsocket/opensnitch](https://github.com/evilsocket/opensnitch)</comment>


RFC 2468 - I remember IANA - <AUTHOR> http://jacquesmattheij.com/I+remember+IANA

<comment><USER2> With all this talk of domain name seizure, I wonder if any ISPs (big, small, whatever) support alternate DNS or the .i2p domain name.

</comment><comment><USER3> Jon Postel, a great man indeed. Perhaps I'm missing the significance, but is there _any_ reason to celebrate a 12 and a half year anniversary?

<comment><USER4> It's the semi-25th anniversary!</comment></comment>


Is "IPv10" a joke or a serious RFC draft? - <AUTHOR> https://networkengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/44010/is-ipv10-a-joke-or-a-serious-rfc-draft <comment><USER2> I suspect its a joke ala OSI Layer8. Given that IPv6 adoption has been incredibly slow, more IP standards are unlikely to be transitioned to.

If you're really picky about layouts, you can just reuse your IPv4 address with your IPv6 address (given you have a prefix/etc)

IE: My IP is 184.108.40.206, my IPv6 prefix is 2607:ff58::/32, I can make my IPv6 IP 2607:ff58::220.127.116.11 (aka 2607:ff58::101:101). And if you're especially keen you can do some awful NAT tricks...</comment>


Grit: A Protocol for Distributed Transactions Across Microservices - <AUTHOR> https://tech.ebayinc.com/engineering/grit-a-protocol-for-distributed-transactions-across-microservices/ <comment><USER2> In all fairness, I have not read this yet. But my initial thought process when I see "a protocol for distributed transactions across microservices" involves a dose of skepticism. If you need distributed transactions across microservices, why not just provide an XA compliant interface, and then plug in to an existing transaction manager? And, probably more to the point, while EBay specifically might need "real" distributed transactions, I suspect that most organizations rarely - if ever - need distributed transactions across microservices, and should instead use the Saga Pattern[1].

[1]: [https://microservices.io/patterns/data/saga.html](https://microservices.io/patterns/data/saga.html)</comment>


A day at the YC interviews, see what it looks like from inside - <AUTHOR> http://eeve.co/s/126

<comment><AUTHOR> And here is a link to an Eeve from inside the interview room <http://eeve.co/s/12a></comment>


[video]: The Silicon Valley of Hardware - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGJ5cZnoodY&feature=youtu.be <comment><USER2> Impressive growth -- would be fun to try to figure out the planning for that:

"Through strong government planning and infrastructural development Shenzhen saw an average annual population growth around 30% for the next 3 decades" (1979-2007)

\- from [https://encounteringurbanization.wordpress.com/2011/06/22/sh...](https://encounteringurbanization.wordpress.com/2011/06/22/shenzhen- the-instant-city/)</comment>


Ask HN: Raise VC/angel for tech services in growth vertical? - hiding-vertical Hiding behind a throwaway to guard business details.
So here's the story - I work for a small 20 year old business in California with a blend of development consulting services, a cluster of specialized SaaS applications and a fully bootstrapped enterprise SaaS product that is revenue positive with growing MRR even during covid.
We cater to a vertical niche that analysts see being in the "safe" or "growth" category for the post-covid recovery, faster than even the rest of tech sector. I'm seeing even bigger opportunities for what we do in the rebound. We work globally too.
Our owner / CEO got the PPP loan very easily and we've found that banks seem unusually interested in us beyond the PPP loan. We recently found a product-market-fit for our enterprise product and are learning that we can reliably make the services side of the business profitable. And there's now a model to scale it..
Up until I joined the company all of our business was word of mouth referral. Great CTO but no COO, no CFO (the CEO is both). I'm the BD. No CMO or CPO either. So even modest investment in growth (marketing, sales, ops, product, finance) would bring significant ROI. It's just a services business so slower growth. Less hockey stick more like.. banana?
My question is - would it make sense to ride this wave of interest towards raising more capital than we actually need for covid runway? Is that even doable for a business that's 70% consulting services?
Could we raise VC/angel and use it for growth? Is this an opportunity? Should I be putting together fundraise plan and pitch decks? <comment><AUTHOR> VCs are looking for "hockey stick" growth and will push you to pursue that even if that's not in the best interests of the business' survival or long term health. Proceed with caution.

Angels are more varied in the outcomes they seek. Screen them for alignment.

Alternatively, if you can invest cash in the business now for meaningful ROI, consider traditional small business loans.

<comment> hiding-vertical Forgot to mention, I've been in the game quite a while. Yea assuming VC would definitely not interested in a services business with such a slow growth trajectory.

 _However_ also become acutely aware that everything in business right now has flipped topsy-turvy upside down and backwards. Nonsensical even by standards of the last recession.. wondering if VC is acting as weird as everyone else, since all the rules are being broken.

Business loans would keep us on the same business as it's been for 20 years bootstrap path. I want a big shake up of the company structure to spark a fire and accelerate growth ahead of the rebound, so we can rise with the market at the top of the pack.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How much did you, as an employee, make when your startup exited? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I'm a senior software engineer with over 12 years of experience.

6 out 7 start ups I worked for never had a liquidation event that resulted in any monetary gain.

The one that did ( i was employee #97 and worked there for almost 6 years) and they finally had a 2ndary offer which allowed me to sell 15% of my shares, for about 7K, but because it's short term gains, about 4K is what I got after taxes.

The rest of the shares were completely worthless because they couldn't be sold. I am not disappointed. I never assumed the options would ever be worth anything - I choose my employment based on Salary and work life balance. Options are just a nice bonus, if they do happen.

<comment><USER3> Your argument is not making sense to me as someone who had offers from startups. I was asked to take roughly 40% pay cut now and expect 10X increase in valuation for equity over 4 years which would put me ahead by 2X to 3X in terms of total compensation over that time frame. I didn't took the offer taking to account risk of failure (~80%). If I treated options as "nice bonus" it would never make sense to take any startup offer over jobs at established companies.

<comment><USER4> That's why people say look at them like lottery tickets. There's many factors that go into whether or not they are worth anything - dilution and whether or not the startup is successful. The successful startup part needs good management, good demand for product, competitive against competitors.

> I was asked to take roughly 40% pay cut now and expect 10X increase

Of course you were. They are selling you on the dream, the best case scenario, etc. The hard part is that no-one is intentionally or literally defrauding, but it is up to every person what terms they agree to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> First startup, I traded nearly all of my salary over four years for stock options: $0

Second startup, I was told I'd get 5% of the company (no contract though). I quit after a year without pushing the topic: $0

Third job was not a startup, but it was a fairly small company, and I've made nearly two million in tax deferred accounts having made a healthy salary the entire time. I'm retiring this year.

I learned a lot of great things at those first two companies, but I would never recommend a startup from a financial point of view. I almost joined a third startup, but I didn't, and they folded as well. I suspect you've got better odds going to Vegas and putting your salary on a number from the roulette table.

<comment><USER6> "Third job was not a startup, but it was a fairly small company, and I've made nearly two million in tax deferred accounts"

I would love to know how. Am I just stupid? How am I missing these opportunities? Someone above posted that 4 years at FAANG would net you $1,000,000 savings. And you're saying that a "fairly small" company netted you $2,000,000 savings?

I am failing at life, apparently.

<comment><USER7> People win the lottery. You don't ask "Am I doing something wrong. I bought a ticket too and didn't win anything".

These huge bonuses, etc are handed out to people who either have really scarce skills or get lucky.

Wikipedia[1] says there are nearly 4 million software developers in the US. If each were to receive a million dollars, then it would total up to 4 trillion USD (using US ways of naming large numbers). The GDP of the US in 2016 (same time the software developers demographics was reported) was about 18.6 trillion USD.

The idea that a million USD is reasonable for a developer is absolutely laughable.

[1] - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_engineering_demograph...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_engineering_demographics)

<comment><USER8> Nobody makes a million dollars a year. Read the comment... it's over their entire tenure at the company.

<comment><USER9> Even 4 years at FANG with million in savings is laughable. You gotta be pretty high up the ladder. It is definitely not the average.

<comment><USER8> Actually an initial grant of 600K in RSU's in a FAANG would probably net that much with 4 years of rapid growth in stock price. And don't forget the cash component isn't peanuts either.

<comment><USER9> Is 600K RSUs a normal thing? I'm guessing it's only for senior+ engineers only.

That's a ridiculous amount of money. Microsoft feels very stingy if this is the normal.

<comment><USER8> The old guard (MS, IBM etc.) seem stingy indeed when it comes to comp (except for executives, who seem to be compensated somewhat similarly across the board).

The newer software firms are much much better at adequately compensating software engineers, and especially senior software engineers. If you are a senior software engineer you should seriously consider trying getting compensated along those lines.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Startup 1: $50k for 1 year (in the 90s, do the math what it would be right now)

Big company for some time

Startup 2: $0 for 2 years

Startup 3: $0 for 2 years

Startup 4: $0 for 2 years

Startup 5: $500k for 4 years

Startup 6: $1m for 1 year (still somewhat in play because 3/4 of my options got converted into the options of a public company as a result of acquisition, and I got RSU handcuffs on top of that)

All numbers before tax. I hope I'm done with my startup adventures. Lost taste for it.

Financially, based on my experience, startups do not make any sense as an employee.

Mentally, Startup 5 made me question my faith in humanity.

<comment><USER11> > Financially, based on my experience, startups do not make any sense as an > employee.

Absolutely. Also note that you are an extreme outlier for having had a 7 figure payoff.

Most people who spent their entire career in startups will be lucky to see a 6 figure payoff at any point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Joined among the first 10 employees. The company grew to 200 employees and 400M valuation in 4 years. Sold last year a portion of my vested shares for 1M to investors as part of a secondary transaction, and I still have a decent amount (70%) of vested shares and unvested options, since the company hasn't exited yet and management has no plan of doing so in the short/medium term.

I'm not counting on the rest of the equity to be worth as much because I don't believe in the company ability to execute well at this point, too many changes diluting the quality and the mission. Unfortunately I wasn't able to sell more as part of the secondary transaction (company rule), otherwise I would have dumped it all (the vested part that is).

Yet I consider myself lucky after having read all these comments, but had I gone to FAANG 4 years ago my financial outcome would have been very similar, if not bigger.

<comment><USER6> Seriously? 4 years at FAANG would net you $1,000,000 savings?

That seems... crazy. Can someone explain how that works? Your salary alone living in the bay area, definitely isn't goin to net you $1,000,000 in savings.

<comment><USER12> I got an offer from Netflix for 450k cash and another offer from FB for 210k cash with 600k equity over 4 years, a few years ago.

Considering how well those stocks did after such offers were made to me, and how frugal I am (avid minimalist spending <50k a year in the bay), I would have saved even more than 1M (I know most of my friends working there did).

Also, the 1M from the startup wasn't net, but gross (taxed at long term capital gain luckily).

<comment><USER13> > 210k cash with 600k equity over 4 years

Could you please explain how does this work? Is it a one-time payment of 600K spread over 4 years? And afterwards you just end up with 210K base (or maybe a small increase) for the following years, with no additional bonuses/etc?

<comment><USER8> You need to look up how Equities work.

This looks like an RSU grant of 600K; there are different vesting schedules (i.e. how much of the RSU becomes actual shares in the company, owned by you which you can sell/keep). Typically its 25% every year with a 1 year cliff (i.e. you get 0 actual shares when you start, but 25% after a year and so on).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I joined as a regular non-manager, non-lead employee. Actually, I started as an intern, and was offered a full time job immediately after that. I was employee #~100. I sold 1625 shares in a secondary round for $14,000. When the company eventually exited, I sold 27,375 shares for $1.1M. I have 1000 shares remaining. If I hadn't sold anything, my shares would be worth about $5.1M today.

<comment><USER15> Curious why you have 1,000 shared remaining? Are you still employed there?

Also, what was the tax bill on the $14k and $1.1M in terms of percentage? Was it long term capital gains 15% fixed?

<comment><USER14> I am no longer employed there. I hold them mostly for nostalgic purposes. I sold all of my shares because it seemed foolish to have 100% of my net worth in one company. Holding 1000 shares feels okay. Tax bill was ~0 on the $14K and my marginal tax rate on half (I'm Canadian)

<comment><USER15> How do you not owe any tax on $14,000 income? Is that some Canadian benefit?

<comment><USER16> When a Canadian has $14,000 in capital gains, their tax liability is calculated as: $14,000 * 50% * marginal tax rate. The 50% is basically the Canadian way of taxing capital gains lower than earned income.

What GP was trying to convey, albeit in a slightly confusing fashion, was this:

1\. He had $14,000 in capital gains

2\. No tax was directly accessed against this $14,000 amount, in other word: "tax bill was ~0 on the $14K".

3\. The taxable portion of his capital gains was $14,000 * 50% = $7000

4\. He paid his marginal tax rate on the taxable portion of his capital gains ($7000)

<comment><USER14> Sorry, yeah, could have been a lot more clear there. I was making extremely little salary at the time of the secondary, so I paid something like 20% tax on half, for about $1400 in taxes on $14k proceeds.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I was employee #1. It sold to google. All employee options were wiped out.

<comment><USER18> It sounds like the Founders had to have made some poor/greedy decisions if even employee #1 didn't see anything.

<comment><USER19> As someone who has been on the purchasing side of one of these transactions, that's not really the case.

What usually happens is, say the company has received $x million in funding. Everyone is plugging away working hard, but runway starts to run short and the product isn't getting the traction originally anticipated. At that point it looks obvious the company will go bankrupt relatively soon, so the investors push for a sale to try to recoup some of the their money. Often times there is value in the team and perhaps industry knowledge to the acquiring company, but the tech itself is often worthless, so the sales price is below the $x million capital raised and only holders of preferred shares get anything.

Note that founders rarely own preferred shares. They have common stock just like employees, so they are usually wiped out, too, in cases like this.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the insight. I had guessed that most of the aquihires price are set at (investments + $500K/employee). If this wasn't the case, I would think that employees would have no incentive to get onboard and that would basically not allow the sale to go through. Is this not the case in your experience?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I joined a successful startup about ten months before it was acquired for several hundred million. The deal somehow led to a lot of employees losing their options (myself included). There was some discussion of a lawsuit but it fizzled.

<comment><USER21> Tell us more about "somehow"?

<comment><USER22> what needs to be explained, a several hundred million exit is LOWWWWWW. If they had a series B for 20 million or so, or a series C for close to or above 100 million, then the valuation itself was WAY more than that.

A few hundred million exit will result in ZILCH (almost $zero) for any common stock shareholder every single time, unless the company was in series A or lower.

VCs have a separate share class called Preferred, and they also negotiate "Liquidation Preferences" with a multiple. So a Liquidation Preference x1 means they get their money back, as much as possible. A Liquidation Preference x2 means they get double their money no matter what, before anybody else - like common stockholders - get paid.

And this is before your stock options' strike price matters.

Its a shitty deal, investor protection laws should be extended to cover this, because the information and transparency is lacking.

<comment><USER20> The exit was in 2005, and several hundred million was not bad (although it came after a failed effort to go public for somewhere north of a billion). I was very new to the startup game and had comparatively little at stake and didn't understand any of the language but I was invited to some gatherings of engineers who had been screwed by the deal.

My impression is that founders or early investors often have a lot of ability to dilute the value of stock prior to making a deal (there's description of similar shenanigans early in "Chaos Monkeys")

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I joined an already-successful ~400 person company with an already-published S-1 at around year 8 or 9, and worked there for around three years in total. I was given options representing such a small fraction of the company that it wasn't memorable (perhaps a hundredth or thousandth of one percent?). My options were underwater for several months after a lackluster IPO, but eventually the stock picked up enough steam to make me around $300,000.

Of all the companies/startups I've worked for, this one was by far the most corporate and least startup-ey, yet this was the only one that made me more than a penny after an exit, despite working at a few other startups that have had "exits."

</comment><comment><USER24> Startup 1: $0 Startup 2: $0 Startup 3: Would've made ~$40k had I not left so early (left after 7 months, sold for a couple hundred million like 6 months later) Startup 4: Publicly traded now, will see how it turns out but hopefully $100k or more

Overall, simply bank on it being nothing

<comment><USER25> what equity % did you get ?

<comment><USER24> At the now public company, it wasn't a %, but just a grant mix of options post IPO and a grant of RSUs as well because of some funny timing with the IPO.

I only planned on staying a year before moving so I didn't negotiate any stock into the initial comp package, but later re-negotiated that into the plan which resulted in the weird timing around IPO so have a weird mix of options and RSUs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I joined a startup in 2000. All employees starting before me were offered ~50k shares in the company as part of compensation while I was offered ~50k options. I was told options were the more correct way of doing way of doing things and other than the strike price they were essentially the same.

As a junior employee who didn't know any better (and no negotiation leverage anyway) I accepted the deal. Fast forward a couple of years and as a potential sale of the company approached it was announced that the stock was going to split 10 for 1. What this means is everyone with shares now had 10x, while option numbers were unaffected (ignoring that the stock price is now 10% of what it was).

When the company was bought the price per share was equal to the strike price of a second grant of options I had, making them worthless. I suspect most of the employee options were at this strike price.

A fellow employee with shares made 40x what I did for starting a month earlier. My payout was <$30k.

<comment><USER27> This doesn't make sense. Options should have been adjusted for the split.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Startup 1: $0

Startup 2: $0

Startup 3: $3,000,000

Startup 4: $0

That's over the course of 25 years, with a few stints at non-startups as well.

<comment><USER29> You didn't put anything away from your salary? (401k? Roth IRA?)

As someone from humble origins, it surprises me more people don't live frugally 5-10 years in the Bay then retire in luxury somewhere with lower cost of living.

<comment><USER30> The question probably means money made as a result of the exit, likely due to options/RSUs. I'd think that 401k/IRA comes from salary.

<comment><USER29> Yes, should have been clearer. That's what I was clarifying, since some startups vastly underpay. A disturbing number of people I meet in tech don't plan well for retirement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I once joined a company that already had several hundred employees as an entry level software engineer. It was my least favorite job: I couldn't find a fit and I only lasted just over a year. However, during that year they IPO'd, and because I made it over the vesting cliff I was able to buy my options on my way out.

Ballpark numbers: I had 300 options at $5. post-IPO price was around $15. I did the "sell to buy" thing, so I sold roughly 100 shares to pay for buying all 300. I haven't sold the other ones yet but the stock is north of $50/share. It seems like there's less than 20k shares total in circulation. (that's like an order of magnitude less than I expected? I took "shares held(000s)" and divided by "% Own", and rounded.)

I have the impression that most of the "old-timer" employees did quite well as long as they sold their stocks at the right time: one guy spent 6+ months traveling and then took his time finding his next job, another guy thinks he might be able to retire in his '40s.

edit: as elsewhere in this thread, I also worked at a startup that failed ($0), and I've left a couple that to my knowledge are still going ($ -4k , because both times i bought options on my way out just in case they make it)

<comment><USER32> I've never heard of an IPO'd company--meaning one that's listed on a public market like the NYSE or NASDAQ--with such thin trading, nor have I ever heard of option grants measured in hundreds...

<comment><USER28> I got an option grant once for hundreds. It was for a promotion and, whatever the intended effect, I felt like "why did you even bother?"

<comment><USER33> Me as well (well, it was 1000 shares for a promo, but close enough). I left shortly thereafter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I was co-founder of a software company's old during internet bubble. My partner funded everything so we split shares 80-20. Then we both got substantially diluted by two rounds of investment and 140 employee share packages. I think i had 5% at the end.

When sold we got 15% in cash, and 85% in stock in the public internet company, that was locked up for one year. The cash was a $800,000+ check. A year later i sold the stock for maybe $150k.

<comment><USER15> Do you regret selling the stock, unless the parent company went under.

<comment><USER34> No, my average sale price was about $1. The purchasing company was sold a year later for fifty cents a share.

If I could have sold earlier I would have. Even then i understood a near revenue-less business couldn't be worth $500M+.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Made 1 million on a company exit of about 100 million as technical co-founder. Started with 15% but got diluted to 1% after several rounds of funding including down rounds.

<comment><USER22> > Started with 15% but got diluted to 1% after several rounds of funding > including down rounds.

haha WOW oh my god, and the software engineers getting a fraction of a fraction of a percent and being "reassured" that its a generous offer!

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6IQ_FOCE6I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6IQ_FOCE6I)

<comment><USER19> While I don't disagree with your comment much (if the technical cofounder was diluted down to 1%, guessing pretty much all employees received well under $100k), it's weird that you linked to that "tech bubble" video from _2007_. If anything, Peter Thiel was exactly right, and he understood that winner-take- all tech leaders would become insanely valuable. That video is arguing 2007 Facebook was a bubble at a $15 billion valuation. It's worth $470 billion today.

<comment><USER22> the video is linked for the "pay developers a fraction of a fraction of a pie" line in the catchy song

extremely relevant and the 2007, in italics for emphasis, is irrelevant ... or is it timeless

Peter Thiel? yeah I'm going to go with "'Missed the Point', for $10,000"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Startup 1: 30k (Joined as a Junior Engineer)

Startup 2: 2M$ (Joined as a mid level engineer, built the product ground up to scaling it to millions of users and hundreds of customers)

</comment><comment><USER37> The current company I'm at just sold about a month ago for $140mil. I was one of the first engineers (the three of us originals all started at the same time) and started a few months after initial funding was raised. Between my purchased options and non-purchased vested options I made about $130k and have another about $40k in remaining options that are converting over. I was kept on by the acquiring company and given a new company package with about $40k of additional RSUs that vest over 4 years.

<comment><USER25> What % of the current company (startup) did you own when you were made the offer originally ?

<comment><USER37> My original option grant was for 0.00225%. I optimized for salary when I was hired, due to the stock at my previous two startups being worthless, and didn't fight for more. Between series A and B we were going through some rough times as a company and I was granted a second grant of the same number of shares but not sure what the percentage turned into.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> There are a few answers in this thread from 2 years ago [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12116137](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12116137)

</comment><comment><USER39> Employee # 3 at a startup, my first full time jr dev job. Eventually talked my way into .33% equity.

$6M exit, our shares were bought with the acquiring company's publicly traded shares. Those shares had a 6 month cliff before we could sell them.

~$9 a share at the time of acquisition, ~$4 a share at the end of the 6 months. Sold about 1 year after acquisition for ~$10/share, now at ~$17 a share and climbing.

Made $11k pretax in the end. (+$4k cash gift from founder that got a bigger payout, due to the board not approving more equity for employees pre- acquisition)

</comment><comment><USER40> It's really interesting to see $100M+ exits that have resulted in trivial sums for founders and early employees after multiple rounds of dilution and/or VCs with preferred shares taking home the spoils.

I have always optimised for salary although I can see why a young engineer with no dependants might opt for the gamble of a big payday instead, likely without really understanding their true chances.

Too much industry focus is heaped on 'unicorns' when these kind of companies really are a drop in the ocean.

<comment><USER11> > It's really interesting to see $100M+ exits that have resulted in trivial > sums for founders and early employees after multiple rounds of dilution > and/or VCs with preferred shares taking home the spoils.

My unscientific impression is that in 9 figure exits the founders typically do make money, because they typically retain enough equity even after significant dilution.

However, I have heard of high 9 figure exits in which nobody but the founders and VCs made any significant money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> CTO on founding team. Started out with 10% equity. Co. is now 6 years old. After a merger (diluted by 40%), $10m investment (diluted more), $4m strategic investment (diluted more), then investors taking money off the table first for an exit event - I stand to make $100k if we sell at $20m and $600k if we sell at $40m (currently valued at $20mish). That's pre tax.

<comment><USER42> That's underwhelming.

<comment><USER9> Well that's what you get when you go for VC money. VC's want the least risk possible for their money. So they will put themselves the first. Always. As an entrepreneur, your choice is to go with another VC. However VCs are short in supply, so the best option is to bootstrap and take the least amount of money

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I was employee 30 at a startup. I worked there about 3.5 years, and then left. The company was acquired a year later. I made about $115,000, which frankly is a lot less than I would have made at a public company. My friend at Twitter during the same timeframe made close to $1M, and my friend I worked with at the startup left to join Facebook and also made over $1M.

</comment><comment><USER44> At a startup that folded, $0. (Failing is an exit!) At a startup acquired by a larger company, about $20k. Neither made up for the delta vs market rate salary.

<comment><USER45> Yeah, my first exited to $0 as well.

<comment><USER31> I had one of those too!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> After taxes and interest on the purchase loan, about $485k. The golden handcuffs the acquirer wanted ended up being worth more than that, though.

</comment><comment><USER47> Was young and stupid. Joined a startup (Kno formely Kakai) as #12 employee. Made $0. Would have been negative amount if I hadn't ripped up my early exercise papers before leaving. Company took O($xxxM) and due to mismanagement & nepotism sold for O($xM). Nobody made any money. Some lost a lot.

</comment><comment><USER48> Started at a company that technically was not a startup at the point I joined (10 years old — 300 employees). I got lucky and 6 months in the company was acquired and all my stock vested immediately. Made about $15k but was given $200k in RSUs at the new company. I can't complain.

</comment><comment><USER49> I got lucky; they had a successful IPO and I made around 150k based on working there 1.5 years. I joined fairly late (employee 400-something) at a startup that was very secretive about their finances and customers, but clearly doing well, if you were paying attention:

They had taken on a relatively small amount of VC funding when I joined, so just doing the math on the number of high-quality employees and the fact that they were making market-rate salary offers made it obvious that they had been successfully running on their business model for a long time, even though they wouldn't disclose finances or customer numbers to non-employees. And sure enough, they eventually IPO'ed as a company that had been (mostly) profitable for a while.

</comment><comment><USER50> About $2500. It was basically a lousy tip for about 14 months work.

Some context: The initial offer was either higher salary and lower equity, or lower salary and higher equity. The difference in pay was $5000 / year. Given the nature of the exit, I felt like a decent thing to do was at least make up the difference in pay. (The terms of the deal were confidential.)

Things were eventually "made right" by the new owner.

The problem with startup equity is that employees almost always have little bargaining power and always are kept in the dark about the real value of the equity. It almost always turns into a lottery ticket... Some people make out well, others don't, and always for reasons out of the employees control.

<comment><USER51> > always are kept in the dark about the real value of the equity

Why would shareholders stay in the dark? Is it because these employees- shareholders are not curious enough to request information about the company they own?

<comment><USER50> Because employee-shareholders are NOT owners. The system is compensation, and in practice is designed to keep employee-shareholders out of all "ownership" tasks.

Equity is really a benefit that's part of compensation; it's not the same as voting rights. I like equity because I feel like I have "skin in the game," but I never consider it ownership.

A simpler way is: you are only an owner if you have >= 1% and some kind of voting rights.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> I joined a company which had already IPO'd, 1 year before I joined. And had had 14 years of its runway. They gave me some options, which would mature in 5 years. During that period, the stock exploded. Which the company founders, themselves never expected, else they would have given off much less to employees. Some other employees who had the stock matured, sold it.

They gave me stock options worth 300 $ but it increased 2000 times, in a span of 10 years. It increased so much, that I sold it eventually(to avoid all eggs in one basket). Got myself a house. Loan free. And started my own startup. Which I run till date.

<comment><USER53> hi aws_ls, thanks for sharing. Is there a way to contact you. my email is in the profile. Thanks :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> First company if I had chosen to exercise when I left maybe 10k. A second company I chose to give up 5k in salary to get some shares which I opted not to exercise when I left. Now, I follow these rules:

1) optimize for cash. Stock is cherry on top. 2) if weighing two offers the one with RSUs should be weighted more. No "handcuffs" needing to pay to exercise if you leave.

Number 2 is referring to later stage private company. I haven't worked at a company where strike price is pennies or whatever, or a public company where you can sell at time of exercise. Then handcuffs may be worth it.

</comment><comment><USER55> I've worked for around 10-15 startups now over the years. Only one meaningful exit or equity:

NEWR from 2009 to 2011, employee #20 or so, 20k shares (0.05%), exercised most of my vested ~10k before leaving, sold post-IPO-lockup at ~$36/share for a gross of around $385k . Would have gone up if I had waited to sell, to around $1m now. Most of my former coworkers are independently wealthy now, solid folks who all absolutely deserve it. Should have negotiated for more shares or cash, stayed longer, and exercised all vested shares. Live and learn I guess.

</comment><comment><USER56> I probably lost about $3,500-4,000. Startup was having financial issues, and got last minute funding. People were asking to give up salary for more equity. I was employee #1, and really enjoyed working there, so I took the deal. I truly believed with had a great product, but that's not enough for a company to succeed. Company went out of business 6 months later.

Not a huge financial loss, but I learnt a valuable lesson.

</comment><comment><USER57> Five out of seven startups were zero. One was $17K, another was $2K. At all but one place the salaries were not great.

I have done far, far better at larger companies in terms of salary and stock programs. If I'd stayed one of the big companies, I'd likely be able to retire right now (not that I will -- I like writing software and I plan to continue doing it as long as I can, ideally well into my 70s).

</comment><comment><USER58> First employee. Company sold for $1B in 6 years.

$2.95m before taxes.

<comment><USER12> How much did you have when you initially joined, that got diluted to ~0.3%? I guess somewhere in the ballpark of 1.5%?

<comment><USER58> Yup

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> I made about $75k when my last company IPOed. I had worked there for 2 years before and had a relatively junior salary and not many options. I had a range of options at different strike prices, they averaged out to about 100% gain, but some were more and some were less.

People who had been there long had both lower option prices and more options and made quite a bit.

</comment><comment><USER60> ~$1.5K, circa 2003

This is the one startup I worked for that exited. I was only there for a little over a year. But for a few months, they couldn't make payroll and issued stock instead.

Ironically it was the project that I was working on which ultimately led to the acquisition. Not really because I was writing brilliant code though, so I'm not bitter about that.

</comment><comment><USER61> first job out of school, started as an entry level at a startup with ~$20MM in funding, employee #60 or so. Stuck around six years through an additional hundred $MM and an exit for $3-400MM and was the most senior director at the time.

Walked away with $140k after taxes

</comment><comment><USER62> One of the first employees, the company got sold in about 3 years from starting, enterprise space but very little revenue and a frankly half baked product. I think of it as a team acquisition, made about 5k and 40k in RSUs to vest over 4 years.

</comment><comment><USER63> Startup 1 (2 years): $0. Acqui-hired for less than total investment raised. I had long left by then but had vested shares which were wiped out.

Startup 2 (6 months): $10k. Mainly from the profit-sharing of the startup incubator, not from actual equity.

</comment><comment><USER64> $0 at one and $80,000 at another. I spent several thousand on something I wanted, and banked the rest. My boss bought a nice car. Oh, and a third sold and the buyer had a clause where if you quit you got shit.

</comment><comment><USER27> startup1: $0 (company went bankrupt, wiped out stock holders, reformed, went bankrupt again.) startup2: $0 (acquired, but all common holders were wiped out since it all went to preferred stockholders.) startup3: $0 (did not exercise my options. company is still going, has not been acquired.) startup4: $10K (did not make up for my salary decrease when I joined.) startup5: still working on it... not optimistic.

The good news: none of this has mattered. After 20 years of work, I've done well through traditional savings and investment.

</comment><comment><USER65> 40k and it was small for how long I was there. I heard others got more for being with the company less time I was. A bit of wisdom here. Be selfish. Get everything you reasonably can.

<comment><USER66> By 'Be selfish', do you mean aggressively negotiate for more? Or sell as much as you can on the next liquidation event?

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> Startup 1: $0 (company still going but options are worthless) Startup 2: $0 - options cancelled in lieu of ~$2k in bonus.

</comment><comment><USER68> -$6k The startup was a scam (as most of them in silicon valley). I later came to know and left after 1 and half years.

</comment><comment><USER69> $1000 from a part-time gig quasi startup, and $0 from a startup that got acquired.

</comment><comment><USER70> This thread is depressing I´m not even earning 1k/month here in Spain.

<comment><USER71> Move to the netherlands if your english is good. You can make at least 50k/year here

<comment><USER72> Same here in Finland!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> Employee #40 at a medical device company after working as a contractor for one year and then asked me to join. Received a first round of ESOP options a bit under the valuation price ($20 at the time). Then RSUs as bonuses for the next 5 years. After company started to ship, shares went up and even reached over $100 at one point. Sold half of my stock between $70 and $90 and made around $450k before taxes. We were partially lucky that those were the recession years and investors were looking to put their money in less risky ventures, and as far away as possible from real estate.

I quit a couple of years before the company got bought by a major player, leaving my remaining unvested stock which would have been worth another $300k at the moment of the acquisition. Good money for me as my first job in the US, although not as good as a bunch of colleagues before me that were turned into senior management and made millions. Loved the job, and I would have stayed if they hadn't assigned me a new boss that, albeit not a bad person, his professional demeanor was awful.

Have worked for 3 other startups since then. The next one, also a medical device company, looked promising. Joined as their first contractor/employee but I could not secure equity. They also changed directions on their development so I left. Salary was not terribly low but half of what I usually make. They are currently supposedly doing well and are shipping product after 5 years, and received around $30M funding mostly from a Silicon Valley VC last year to accelerate their growth. I know other employees left after me for similar reasons. They got compensated even less than me.

The following one again as a first contractor/employee in the connected home space with some promises for equity if the company soared (founders had done that before and were successful, with strong ties to Apple). Salary was not superb considering my skills, but above market. However after 2 years the founders could not do a buyback and the company was absorbed by their single investor, a big security business that was just in the process of rolling their IPO. They only offered us employees options at market price with a lot of restrictions. They were also going to reduce my salary and obviously I didn't like the terms.

Currently almost two years at a SF startup, with all the pains of working and living in the preposterous SF zeitgeist under a small startup company salary. Own more than 1% of the company but I know it will get diluted after we receive our series A, and where I don't have much control of the circumstances.

Before all these deeds, founded my own startup with a friend right out of college, mainly building industrial systems. We were naive and business inept, never made serious money but managed to stay alive for five years doing some cool customer projects, having fun and learning a lot. Plus the gratifying feeling of having control over our destiny, even if it was a bit for a small period of time. Hands down one of the best experiences of my life.

There is a reason startups - technology startups in particular - are declining in number, specially in the US. The field is too mature, consolidated and institutionalized now. There are some niches and pockets of opportunity, however competition is intense. Sadly most affairs and regulations are rigged against employees, and if you are not being compensated at market level with all the associated perks, you will never get rewarded as you deserve as an employee compared to a founder or investor in the minuscule event that the business is successful.

If you really want to be part of a startup, first try to work at a FAANG type of company even if the idea does not appeal to you. Leverage their massive resources to learn and grow your wealth. Save enough to a point that you are comfortable and don't need to worry about money anymore, whatever that means to you. Then, and only then, if you still feel the need to scratch your entrepreneurial itch, make your move. The full monty - not as an employee but a founder. Your increased experience and business network will further increase your chances of success. And you will also have come across real industry problems that desperately need solutions. Win-win.

In this age where work is changing so fast and the future of security for workers is uncertain, hoping for the best and planning for the worst has more relevance than ever.

My 2c.

</comment><comment><USER74> So far 0$ (I would guess this is the median, as most do not succeed)

<comment><USER75> Yes. And even "successes" often don't result in better total compensation than you would have gotten at a FAANG.

</comment></comment><comment><USER76> ~ 25k gross

I was the 2nd employee too.

</comment><comment><USER77> $230k

<comment><USER78> Details? What company stage did you join, how long did you spend there, what was the exit like, etc.?

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> $5k.

</comment><comment><USER80> This is pretty late, but I was feeling retrospective on a sunday evening so let's see... the tldr;

#0 = 0

#1 = 0, ~500k options on day 1 eventually underwater and unexercised

#2 = 0

#3 = 25k

#4 = 0, but left unexercised options that were worth 500k about 8 years later

#5 = 0

#6 = 100k with additional options exercised and held

#7 = current gig, tbd

Background: I'm a software developer first, a good architect and team-lead but a reluctant manager.

startup #0 was a summer gig doing "web consulting" before my last year of college. I got put on a huge e-commerce project with tight deadlines (in C++). Slept under my desk for a few weeks and got it shipped. I rearranged my double major to a single degree to graduate early and the bigger company hired me away from the consulting gig. They had just gone public and were pretty flush. Turned out the web consulting shop actually got acquired and staying would have been more lucrative. Oh well.

startup #1 went public shortly before I was hired, ended up with approx $500k in options which were underwater by the time I could vest. Learned a lot about options, it was the first dot com bust. Had some great experiences, went to India, went to Japan, went to SF. Learned a lot about running software dev projects with global teams.

startup #2 was a combination consulting + java middleware/framework company, which was kind of a new idea at the time (again, post dot com crisis, pre- rails, java was new). We were building VB6 for the web, basically. Doing consulting work to eat our own dog food using our own tools. A few dry months led to missing a few paychecks here and there, and it would always take a really long time to get re-paid. Eventually our largest customer left and that wasn't enough work to sustain the whole company. Learned a lot though, especially about software schedule estimation (it's not THAT hard if you really put the prep work in).

startup #3 I was a co-founder, we were aqui-hired for zero up front but future promises/profit share etc. Ran as a small subsidiary of the parent company so we stayed independent and sank/swam on our own merits. After a year of zero salary (credit cards) we could eventually pay ourselves and got up to 6 employees and generated enough profit to be sustainable but I lost my interest in the product space. Sold my fraction for about @25k and moved on. Also learned a lot on that project. Parent company is still around and from what I can tell, very profitable.

startup #4 was a job offer from someone I met at startup #1. It was Ad-tech, which I have come to loathe, but I grinded it out there for a few years. When I left, I was so burned out I didn't exercise any of my shares which if I remember would have been about a $1k check. Of course, a mere 8 years later they were quite successful and those shares would have been worth about $500k.

I never took vacation at any of those previous companies, a span of about 10 years. At that point I was able to take a year off. Unlike #2 and #3, #4 were solidly profitable and paid well and I was able to save a bunch of money. Paid off all credit cards and will aim to never have debt again.

startup #5 was a facebook game company. Some kind of farming game thing, but not the famous one, a ripoff of a ripoff. Still, I met a bunch of great people there and learned a lot about cranking out content to pay the bills. At one point, there was a rumor of an acquisition by the famous farming game company, but that never came to pass.

startup #6 was a good experience, I worked with talented folks, got to travel to Europe for work, had the 401k etc. That's the place I worked the longest and it was managed the best out of all of the various dysfunctional places I've worked. Got to go to conferences, travel, work on open source projects, company wide hackathons that actually ended up in the product. Good work/life balance. After 6 or so years a new leadership team came on board and things started to change. I got an offer from #7 and decided to take it. I was able to exercise some options before they expired. Sold some and held the rest. The experience from #4 informed that choice. In the past I let a lot of options expire when I'd leave a place because I wasn't that personally enthusiastic about any more. Now I see it as leaving the bet on the table that might hit in 10 years, but if/when it does it will be worth it.

startup #7 is tbd. It's an interesting project, but it's back to the 60 hour / week grind with a bad commute and much less work/life balance.

I'm in my mid 40's now and I've pretty much decided that I'm done with the startup thing after this. If #7 doesn't hit then my next gig I'll go to some BigCo and apply all this weird knowledge and experience making software engineering teams function.

I do have savings, more than most, but definitely not enough to retire yet. Startups tend to underpay on salary. One side effect of all this is that I also have no family/kids/etc. I think that's partly due to choice but also partly due to having worked my ass off for the last 20+ years. I worked weekends, holidays, and 100+ hour weeks. I bought tickets for shows and never went. I've had my laptop open on Christmas day troubleshooting something or other that I don't even remember now. I was always able to do that because I never had a family. In the long run, I don't think the companies I worked for were any better off for that sacrifice. In the short term it always seemed necessary but in retrospect, the forces that made these companies successful or not were always much bigger than me.

<comment><USER3> I really have only one question... why did you kept doing more startups as employee? I totally understand people doing this as a founder but just don't get it otherwise.

<comment><USER80> That's a great question... I don't know!

I have done the "founder" thing once (at #3), and at one point I had to lay off employees that I had just hired. That sucked. I think when I'm just the technical lead, I can work hard on that and let revenue be someone else's problem. Also, most of the companies I've worked for have been founded by people that I know who asked me to come on board and take a senior technical role. Ultimately that's led to relatively low pay and low ownership stakes and a couple of decades of wasted time. So... don't do what I did?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER81> startup1: 0$

startup2: 0$

startup3: 20000$

</comment><comment><USER82> All: Watch out for survivor bias. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Qd3erAPI9w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Qd3erAPI9w)

<comment><USER83> Don't worry it's pretty clear from this thread there are practically no survivors anyway...

<comment><USER84> This genuinely made me chuckle. So damn accurate.</comment></comment></comment>