Ripgrep code review - <AUTHOR> http://blog.mbrt.it/2016-12-01-ripgrep-code-review/ <comment><USER2> ripgrep author here! This is a great review, thanks for doing it!

I'd like to respond to a few of the bad things pointed out. :P

The search code is indeed in a less than ideal state. I've mostly avoided refactoring it because I want to move it to its own separate crate. I've been steadily doing this for other things. Namely, ripgrep used to be a single main crate plus a small regex handling crate (grep), but now it's several: globset, grep, ignore, termcolor and wincolor. I'd like to roll the search code into the grep crate so that others can use it. Once that's done, ripgrep proper will be a pretty small, limited mostly to argv handling and output handling.

I do sometimes get overzealous with inline(always) and inline(never). Both are almost always a result of trying things while profiling, and then forgetting to remove them. If you look closely, most of them are in the core searching code where performance is quite important!

Finally, this code review was done while I was in the middle of moving more of ripgrep code out into the `ignore` and `termcolor` crates. The `ignore` crate does all the gitignore handling (which is _quite_ tricky and is now being used by the tokei project: [https://github.com/Aaronepower/tokei](https://github.com/Aaronepower/tokei)) and provides a parallel recursive directory iterator, which made ripgrep even faster! The `termcolor` crate handles cross platform coloring shenanigans, including Windows consoles and mintty. It wasn't fun: [https://github.com/BurntSushi/ripgrep/issues/94#issuecomment...](https://github.com/BurntSushi/ripgrep/issues/94#issuecomment-261761687) \--- The author did a great job reviewing the previous solution I used for colors though, and was something I really wasn't proud of!

<comment><USER3> blog author here. Thanks for your feedback, I appreciate that! I'm gonna edit the post with it. And don't worry about your code... it's the best crate I've seen so far ;)

By the way, shouldn't msys_tty_on_handle be marked 'unsafe' too? I'm wondering if what happens I pass in some garbage as a handle...

<comment><USER2> > By the way, shouldn't msys_tty_on_handle be marked 'unsafe' too? I'm > wondering if what happens I pass in some garbage as a handle...

Possibly. How would you construct said garbage? Would it require unsafe?

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure, probably yes. It all depends on the winapi crate. If you can get an handle of a different "type" than the expected one, then it's garbage for GetFileInformationByHandleEx. Probably you can't do it without unsafe, so maybe it's fine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Code review blogs are a cool concept, I hadnt seen it done before. Anyone know of any other good blogs that do this?

<comment><USER5> Ayende Rahien made an illustrative code review series of LMDB in 2013, particularly good due to its author Howard Chu's responses: [https://ayende.com/blog/posts/series/162754/reviewing- lightn...](https://ayende.com/blog/posts/series/162754/reviewing-lightning- memory-mapped-database-library?page=2)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I love the ripgrep utility, and it is slowly replacing ag for me. But I am more interested in your blog design. I am an Emacs and Org enthusiast. Would you like to share your blog generation setup? I'd like to learn how you creates the TOC at the end of the page (looks like that on phone) and see if I can recreate that in hugo. Thanks!

<comment><USER7> Not the author but if you view source or follow their linked github you can find generation is the result of org-mode and org-twbs[0].

[0] [https://github.com/marsmining/ox-twbs](https://github.com/marsmining/ox- twbs)

<comment><USER6> Thanks! I was going to do that on getting to a computer. That confirms.. I had seen ox-twbs exported sites before, but not on a phone. It's interesting that the TOC is still retained but put at the bottom.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I love the graphics and clear examples :) Would read more posts like this.

<comment><USER8> I'm a fan of the graphics as well. Does anyone know what they were made with? I see the org-mode reference at the bottom of the page, but I assume that doesn't include the images.

<comment><USER9> Darn, I was hoping that they were created with some custom [plantuml] theme that I could steal, but it seems like they're [manually created] with inkscape.

[plantuml]: [http://plantuml.com/](http://plantuml.com/)

[manually created]: view-source:[http://blog.mbrt.it/2016-12-01-ripgrep-code- review/crates.sv...](http://blog.mbrt.it/2016-12-01-ripgrep-code- review/crates.svg)

<comment><USER10> You could get close with graphiz.

      digraph G {
        "Ripgrep" -> "ignore"
        "ignore" -> "globset"
        "Ripgrep" -> "globset"
        "Ripgrep" -> "grep"
      }

[http://www.webgraphviz.com](http://www.webgraphviz.com)

You could also set color, note I didn't do that in this example.

<comment><USER9> Plantuml is (I think) built on top of graphviz. In any case the syntax is extraordinarily similar. This[1] is similar to the first example:

      @startuml
      component ripgrep
      component ignore
      component globset
      component grep

      ripgrep --> ignore
      ignore --> globset
      ripgrep --> globset
      ripgrep --> grep
      @enduml

You can get the structure right, and easily, but those beautiful icons are not something that I know how to create, and the 90-degree turns are I think actually impossible.

The fact that it is so elegantly expressed in plantuml but it's still so ugly (by default) makes me really wish for a theme that's as nice as the hand- created diagram the author wrote.

[1]: [http://www.plantuml.com/plantuml/uml/SoWkIImgAStDuU9ApiyjoCz...](http://www.plantuml.com/plantuml/uml/SoWkIImgAStDuU9ApiyjoCzBpIjHACeiI2zABK0IoKpFoozAHH98pybFAaujGHO1wU22QbNGrRM3QO9GO16OBcHLMCL0PZcavgK07GO0)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Business owners: which software to keep track of expenses/receipts? - <AUTHOR> Struggling with which direction to go here.  Currently I have a slew of paper receipts I've been meticulously keeping ordered in a special paper notebook, along with detailed dates and descriptions for the line items.
I need to upzone my tech stack.  Looking at the 'receipt scanner / software' reviews on Amazon, everything is spat on my the reviewers.  I'm wondering if I shouldn't just move to taking pictures of the receipts with my phone so I can throw them out (I'm in the U.S. and I'm pretty sure paper isn't a requirement), but then I need a clever system to keep track of them.
What do you do that works for you? <comment><USER2> [https://www.expensify.com/](https://www.expensify.com/) has been my go to for the last two years about.</comment>


ISO 3103:1980 (ISO standard for tea making) - <AUTHOR> http://sub.spc.org/san/docs/BS6008.pdf

<comment><USER2> This standard basically dictates how to prepare 'tea' so that an expert tea taster can evaluate its quality. At the end of the day the tests are subjective.

It never amazes me how many of these tests and standards have been produced and in many cases stop progress.

Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if there was a 'Standard for Web Applications' although things came close enough with accessibility laws.

<comment><USER3> George Orwell did it better:

<http://www.george-orwell.org/A_Nice_Cup_of_Tea/0.html>

<comment><USER2> Sure he did!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> And not a word about brewing temperature? Nothing about the quality of the water and its TDS? Seems like a pretty loose standard.

</comment><comment><USER5> 6 minutes steeping for tea? That's an awful lot. Good tea is usually steeped for 3-5 minutes.</comment>


In 1976 Arthur C. Clarke Predicted the Dark Side of Smartphones - <AUTHOR> http://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/in-1976-arthur-c-clarke-predicted-the-dark-side-of-sma-1683571223

<comment><USER2> Was it a prediction or inspirational template for how communication could or should be done? Don't forget this was the sci-fi writer that invented the concept for weather satellites too.

See "Arthur C. Clarke the Engineer" [http://www.clarkefoundation.org/sample- page/](http://www.clarkefoundation.org/sample-page/)</comment>


Ask HN: Places near nature to live/work remotely in US/Canada? - <AUTHOR> With working remotely now acceptable for all companies, I'm looking for places to move from NYC. Ideally in or near nature; affordability would be a plus; a place where one can live year-round without temperature extremes in summer or winter. What's your experience been living there? Thank you!! <comment><USER2> Denver, Salt Lake, Boise, and Reno are pretty good. I'm not sure that they fit in your "without temperature extremes", though. The upside is, with the temperature extremes comes some pretty good skiing.

Without temperature extremes... maybe San Diego or Seattle. I'm not sure that either of those are great for affordability, though. San Diego might be better than Seattle, but I'm not sure.

My experience: I live in Salt Lake. World-class skiing is 45 minutes from my door. I can literally wake up, look at the weather report, decide to go that day, email my boss, and go. I don't waste half the day getting to or from the slopes.

In the summer, there's a lot fewer mountains than in Colorado, but they're closer. There's a couple of good trout rivers an hour away.

Moab is four hours away. Yellowstone is 6 1/2 hours away. The Grand Canyon (North Rim) is 6 1/2 hours away.

If you want to get away (like, _really_ away), in two hours you can be the only person in the surrounding square mile.

Salt Lake is pretty affordable, at least compared to NYC or the Bay area.

The weather, though... it gets up to 100 in the summer. It can get down well below 30 in the winter. And it's _dry_. 20% humidity is a regular thing in the summer. 12-16 inches of water in a year, and some of that comes in the form of snow.

Also, Salt Lake sits in a valley. That valley has a nasty tendency to trap air pollution. It's not as bad as Los Angeles, but it's still an issue.

Oh, yeah, and the valley floor is at 4200 feet elevation. The mountains go up to 11000 feet outside of town. You may be in good aerobic shape in New York, but expect to take a little bit to get adjusted if you come here.

<comment><AUTHOR> Appreciate the detailed reply!!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> > _without temperature extremes in summer or winter_

That's going to limit your options tremendously (in the US at least). Parts of Southern California would fit, if desert is an acceptable type of nature for you. The cities are expensive, but smaller towns aren't always.

What are "extremes" for you, anyway? Are hot summers OK, but cold winters are not? Vice versa?

The only place I have personally been with lots of nature and mild weather year-round is Guatemala. Perhaps somewhere in the Mediterranean region?

<comment><AUTHOR> Let's say <90 F in summer and >30 in winter :). Open to suggestions with weather extremes as well. Thanks!

<comment><USER4> Some parts of Western Washington might fit your criteria. Maybe Western Oregon as well and Northern California. I mean north of the Bay Area and towards the coast -- temps are more extreme the further inland you go. Large parts of Northern California, Oregon and Washington have a lot of nature -- national forests, etc.</comment></comment></comment>


Benchmarking AMD's New AOCC Compiler for Ryzen - <AUTHOR> http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd-ryzen-aocc&num=1 <comment><USER2> That's pretty disappointing. I know it's 1.0, and maybe these tests aren't the greatest, but even with something that appears to be favourable for AMD specific optimisations that was only a 3% boost. Would love to see a broader test set, more stuff that AMD specific optimisations could help with.

<comment><USER3> I think this is more a testament to the quality of the current state of compilers. (I could be wrong.)

<comment><USER4> I suspect this is a require prerequisite for enabling higher performance on AMD tuned codes. Like say AMD's ACML library (much like Intel's MKL). Give that Naples isn't shipping yet, and that's the target for things like ACML the timing seems about right.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Please AMD: Just contribute to GCC and Clang.

<comment><USER6> This is based on Clang. No doubt they want to upstream the improvements.</comment></comment>


Oracle Says H-P and Intel Secretly Propped Up Dead Chip - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2011/11/19/oracle-says-h-p-and-intel-secretly-propped-up-dead-chip/

<comment><USER2> Although this is very true, I'm not sure how secret this is. It is well known the chip was dead, and Intel and all the Itanium partners were playing out Weekend at Bernie's.</comment>


A Piece of Apple II History Cracks Open - <AUTHOR> http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/4630 <comment><USER2> This is about a collection of about 300 Apple II games playable in the the browser, but the best part comes at the end of the article:

        4am meticulously and [sic] carefully walks through
        the entire process of cracking each program. The
        code, the tracing of boot flow, the missteps, and
        even the internal thought processes that lead to the
        solved mystery.
        They're magical. And every 4AM item has one.

</comment><comment><USER3> I cut my teeth programming this machine and learning the ins and outs of how it worked. We were much closer to the hardware in those days-- you could have things like disks that wouldn't work on some machines because the variance of the resistor in the disk drive caused a slight incompatibility when you tried to read data from a nonexistent track that only exists in the custom made disks the program originally came on but that doesn't exist in the operating system (which formats the disk you put the program on when you copy)... and which most disks with custom assembly code can read, but your particular drive cannot.

In 2008 I spent 6 months going thru my Apple II collection, many of the disks had spent years in a garage in Louisiana and Texas. Surprisingly most were still readable, but I lost some terrible poetry and equally terrible letters to my high school sweetheart (turns out she wasn't so sweet as an adult.)

IF you have Apple // disks, or any kind of old format, I urge you to recover it NOW. Time is not on your side.

I had a DEC Tape from the 1980s that eventually I think I just threw away because I couldn't find anyone on the internet who could read the data.

<comment><USER4> I have literally a thousand or so floppies (apple II, PC, some CPM). The vast majority weren't legitimate. A few years ago I went through and retrieved some of the ones with my own personal work on them. But the vast majority sit around waiting for the oxide to fall off.

I was actually thinking the other day it might be amusing to upload the text editor I wrote in applesoft basic to github.

I was lucky I guess, most of the ones I recovered worked, but the recovery process (IIGS, via appletalk to 68k mac, to pc via ethernet) is such a PITA, I quit after the first 5 or 6...

I figured that most of the games and apps were available in some of the abandonware collections that my pirated copies weren't really worth recovering.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Apple IIs were part of my childhood, yet I never owned one.

In school, we had copies of Oregon Trail. Class time when we had spare time would often devolve into our own little version of "Twitch plays Oregon Trail", with one guy at the keyboard, and everyone trying to help make the decisions, usually ending up HEY LETS BUY LOTS OF AMMO and we spend 15 minutes collecting 22 metric shitloads of game and only being able to carry a tiny fraction back.... or fording the river and drowning. Every. Goddamned. Time.

Best part? The end game where you raft down the river on the final stretch, and its just everyone cheering on whoever hasn't managed to crash the raft yet. You could tell who actually had a video game console at home, whoever manned the controls and survived knew the horrors of Megaman and Castlevania; those who didn't, well, lived much simpler, less action packed, lives.

Fuck, when did games turn into a chore and stop being fun?

<comment><USER6> If you want to re-live good old Oregon Trail, I recommend the zombie-themed retro remake "Organ Trail". It's tons of fun... and I didn't even play the original!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> For those of you experiencing a lot of nostalgia for your old faithful Apple II machine, may I recommend checking out some of the other wonderful 8-bit machines of that era, too? If you've got the druthers, you can get a really nice taste for my favourite 8-bit machine from that era, the Oric-1/Atmos.

You'll need an emulator:

[https://code.google.com/p/oriculator/](https://code.google.com/p/oriculator/)

And some files to use it with:

[http://www.oric.org/index.php?page=software&fille=top150game...](http://www.oric.org/index.php?page=software&fille=top150gamesoverall)

Take the first 10 or 20 entries from that list and have a lot of fun!

And remember: Old machines never die - their owners do!

<comment><USER8> This is a really cool machine! Never saw one here in the States. Too bad. Would have been a fun computer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is a great addition to the archive of publicly available Apple II software! If you like playing around with old Apple II programs, our Applesoft BASIC interpreter DiscoRunner comes with close to a thousand games and apps to play around with. Check it out at [http://discorunner.com](http://discorunner.com)

</comment><comment><USER10> I love how the text descriptions of the cracks are formatted to 40 columns. That's some serious Apple ][ fidelity. I'm grateful they used mixed case though.

</comment><comment><USER11> I also cut my teeth programming on the old Apple IIe. Brings back some fond memories... bought a big tome at one stage that had an assembler you could 'install' by typing out pages and pages of machine code... I devoutly typed out all umpteen pages but I never got that assembler to work, even with checksum bytes at the end of every line. Back then programming felt like working magic to me. Ty Woz.

</comment><comment><USER12> I remember the days of hacking Wizardry 1 and 2 on the Apple... for awhile we had an arcade in an upper scale mall named The Galleria called 2001 which used to let you rent time on Apple 2 computers.

</comment><comment> white-flame As somebody researching automated reverse engineering, I would love for these to alongside the uncracked originals. While the text files document what it was doing, the ori isn't there to replicate the process.

There are file formats which record the raw head flux from spinning across the drives, which should archive any goofy drive-munging scheme employed.

<comment><USER13> That might work for most but not all schemes; spiral encoding encodes data _while_ the stepper motor is moving, so you'd need some very fine-resolution imaging and some very accurate hardware simulation to make everything work properly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Under download options, there is "TEXT" and these are commentaries about each crack. Great to read.

A small group of us successfully cracked a program or two, using just the monitor and some utilities we wrote. It was a challenge and an education all in one! Highly recommend reading through a few of these.</comment>


In re Bilski: Tangibility Gone "Meta" - <AUTHOR> http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2008/11/professor-colli.html <comment><USER2> This _is_ really important. The patent process is about come to grips with a fundamental property of software that is going to surprise them greatly. We're not even sure what software really _is_.

They used to just assume the computer was a machine and software was the gears inside. This lead to all sorts of nonsense.

As they struggle with what data is, what it represents, and how its manipulated, they are approaching in the courts from the back side what software engineers approach from the front side when designing software. And wouldn't you know it, its not about 1 click to buy after all. This stuff is _hard_.</comment>


Any writers around here? - <AUTHOR>

Hi everyone!
I'm building a new journalism startup called Journalium (www.journalium.com) and I am looking for a long form articles about technology and science for our launch in month or two.
IF there is anyone interested, just send me email: aleksi at journalium dot com and name your price ;) <comment><USER2> I see three grammar problems with this post. If you're launching a journalism site, better get used to comments like that. Cleaned up version:

I'm building a new journalism startup called Journalium (www.journalium.com) and I am looking for long-form articles about technology and science for our launch in a month or two.

If you're interested, just send me an e-mail at: aleksi at journalium dot com and name your price ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the clean up :)

I'm not native speaker, but that's of course no excuse for bad grammar.

PS. Did you already sign-up? ;)</comment></comment>


Change the world. Code stuff for IoT - <AUTHOR>

Complete a challenge on http://devdraft.com and see if you have the chops to code for companies like this one https://onion.io/livelab/thermal-printer. <comment><USER2> Having 27 years experience in the industry, I have become quite skeptical of the expression "change the world". I've been hearing that since Apple's radio ad back in the day.

Yeah some people change the world, but most don't. The few that sort of succeed, really only make already-wealthy people into filthy-rich ones.</comment>


WeWork's Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/neumann-expected-to-step-down-as-we-ceo-11569343912?mod=rsswn <comment><USER3> I'm so glad I read hacker news. I almost took a job at WeWork just 2 months ago with a recruiter working very hard to convince me I'd be rich when they IPO. Now I'm at a much smaller startup called Weave which is a really phenomenal place to work. I didn't discover until recently that it's also a YCombinator company.

edit: to clarify, hacker news has been extremely skeptical of WeWork for some time, due to this, I was extremely wary of their offer and leaned towards (and eventually chose) other options.

<comment> 88840-8855 I must say, I am jealous. It seems a bit unfair to me how computer engineers are getting hired and paid so well, while my economics degree is useless and I have to fight like crazy to get a job that pays WAY less than engineers get. Honestly, I studied economics because I wanted a job that pays well - that was one of the key criteria - and now I am standing with little money and a job I hate. It sucks.

<comment><USER4> What originally led you to believe that an economics degree would result in well-paying jobs?

<comment><USER3> Seems ironic to me that the study of wealth production, consumption, and transfer wouldn't lead to making money.

<comment><USER5> Doesn't seem ironic to me. It's easier to be the play by play guy/sports analyst than to get into the field/cage/arena/whatever and make something happen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I had concerns earlier this year when I interviewed at WeWork—which was the worst interview experience I've ever had. I applied for a data science role. The first two hours of the on-site were painful—they seemed to be asking questions tailored to be outside my experience. The third interviewer came into the room and said, "I, uh, just looked at your resume and I have to ask, why do you want to be a backend engineer?" :facepalm: I showed him my application for a DS role, so he left and came back with a DS guy who made up an interview on the spot. I (fortunately?) didn't get a call back.

<comment><USER7> WeWork is basically a real estate company. Why would they need a data science engineer?

<comment><USER8> Real estate is a data play: figuring out which locations are going to be valuable. McDonalds famously does _tons_ of research on locations, so much so that "be mcdonalds-adjacent" is an acceptable strategy.

I'm not entirely sure what a data science engineer does, but somewhere between "making it easier for the DS team to find what they need to find" and "figuring out where we should buy/lease next".

<comment><USER9> Burger King's strategy for the longest time used to be 'just build across the street from McDonald's'

<comment><USER10> Sounds smart, let maccers do the research.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Well, corporate governance was one of the main factors why the market refused to accept anything close to their last private valuation, so this makes sense. Note that they desperately need the public money before the end of December in order to avoid running out of cash [0].

My bet is that they will now try to remarket We as a shareholder-controlled company, will maybe even eliminate the multi-class stock structure in order to get included into the passive funds. I am still not sure they will ever become profitable through. The only way to disrupt the incumbents in an established market like this one would be to spot a new opportunity in the market and capitalize on it faster than the slow 30-year-old companies like Regus. Except the only market opportunity We has successfully exploited by now are the desperate investors ready to shove billions in your hands if you pretend to be a cool techy thing they don't fully understand.

[0] [https://www.reuters.com/article/wework-loan/clock-ticking- do...](https://www.reuters.com/article/wework-loan/clock-ticking-down-on- weworks-us6bn-loan-after-ipo-delayed-idUSL2N26A0VF)

<comment><USER12> I just don't see them wrestling control away from the deranged, cult leader. He truly believes he is destined to be president of the world and revolutionize.. well every thing. There best bet would be to drop the multi- class structure to get into passive funds.

It needs $8.1b market cap to get into S&P500.

<comment><USER13> Is this part of the business model of these large, unprofitable VC-backed companies? Build a valuation to meet the 8.1bn threshold, then sell the shares to passive investors in S&P 500 index funds?

<comment><USER14> No. The S&P 500 is selected by committe. And it's 6.1bn, not 8.1bn. Mabye that's the plan for the Russell 3000, though.

But it doesn't really matter except when the stock gets added to the index. The index funds and ETFs are going to rebalance their positions based on market cap and will not affect the price. These funds could affect the volatility though, since it's conceivable that with a lot of the shares locked up, these stocks are going to be more thinly traded than they would have otherwise been. This could create price instability, though I'm not sure there's any proof that it's true.

<comment><USER12> Not true. [0]

>...Unadjusted company market capitalizations of US$8.2 billion or more for the S&P 500..... are required.

[0] [https://us.spindices.com/documents/methodologies/methodology...](https://us.spindices.com/documents/methodologies/methodology- sp-us-indices.pdf)

<comment><USER14> Hmm. I guess it just changed this year. My bad!

<comment><USER12> I saw $6.1b first as a Google given answer. It said different on Wikipedia so I investigated the source. I knew my high school teachers were wrong about Wikipedia!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> From "We Wants a New Boss"[0], written yesterday in Money Stuff:

> ...it's terrible for SoftBank! The message from SoftBank is pretty much > "your [Neumann's] job was to extract billions of dollars out of us, and you > succeeded at it admirably; now that you've served that purpose, we should > replace you with a real-estate CEO to salvage the value of your investment > and ours."

[0] [https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-09-23/we- wan...](https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-09-23/we-wants-a-new- boss)

<comment><USER12> There was another good segment on it today.

From "WeKeepGoingWithThisHuh"[0]

>...Or I guess maybe the IPO bankers leaked it because they want Neumann gone, to make the IPO easier, and want to commit Son to it by leaking. Or because they love messy drama maybe? It's not their company.

The even funnier part of the segment is when he gets into what some of the banks actually put out as a reasonable IPO valuation.

>...JPMorgan told WeWork executives the company could be worth between $46bn and $63bn in the listing. Goldman pegged the equity at between $61bn and $96bn. Morgan Stanley estimated WeWork's valuation at between $43bn and $104bn in a presentation in 2018, though a pitch for the IPO set it at a more modest $18bn-$52bn.

[0][https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-09-24/don-t-...](https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-09-24/don- t-steal-the-payrolls)

<comment><USER16> At what point do these deranged estimates start damaging the credibility of the estimators?

<comment><USER12> It would seem like never. Matt Levine had another interesting take on that as well. [0]

>... Well, I just got through saying that there's not really any reward for being pessimistic and right about valuation when you are pitching an IPO. Your optimistic competitors will get the mandate, and then spend some time walking the company back

...

On the other hand it is a repeat game and there are occasionally penalties for getting it wrong:

...

it will be rough for Morgan Stanley if winning the biggest IPO prize [Uber] of the unicorn era loses it the biggest IPO prize of all time [Saudi Aramco]

[0][https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-09-09/we- mig...](https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-09-09/we-mig..).

<comment><USER17> Your link is 404'd for me. Googled and couldn't find it either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm sure I'll get downvoted for this, but I actually just signed up to be a (thankfully month-to-month) WeWork customer for a HotDesk today in Phoenix, and it's actually been a pretty great experience: Great space, nice people, reasonable IT, I was up and running and working within 30 minutes of doing my tour. And yes I've had a cup of the famous We Kombucha.

This particular location just opened 3 weeks ago and is apparently already at 70% capacity with a mix of enterprises and startups. Even my Hotdesk membership can't start officially until Oct 1 because they're apparently sold out (though walking around there's plenty of space).

Based on these surface observations, the core business at least seems "plausibly profitable". But all the crazy side businesses like co-living just seems like overexpansion to me.

I'll politely decline as an investor, but I'm happy to sign up as a lowest- tier, month-to-month customer.

<comment><USER19> The reason WeWork is great is because investors are subsidising our memberships, just like Uber is cheap because investors are shovelling in cash. WeWork has the potential for profitability if you take away the ridiculousness but the ridiculousness _is_ WeWork: co-working spaces have existed for years, companies like IWG (Regus) offer the same as WeWork and they're profitable... because they don't have a full time bar staff, a live DJ and a skateboard ramp in their lobby. Yes, the new flagship WeWork in London has a skateboard ramp and live DJ in the lobby. When WeWork fails (and their spaces are scooped up by the mature players in the market) the ridiculousness will disappear and we'll be left the same space that has been available all along.

I like WeWork, WeWork has value, but ping-pong and baristas don't make for 10x valuations.

<comment><USER20> The superfluous perks are a red herring, they're not why WeWork doesn't work. Regus filed for bankruptcy after the dotcom collapse for similar reasons WeWork is struggling: taking a bunch of long term leases and re-leasing them out as short term leases to economically vulnerable businesses is a recipe for disaster.

<comment><USER21> Why is it? If there is a steady supply of economically vulnerable businesses and you charge a relative markup?

<comment><USER22> Because they have long-term liabilities with short-term income agreements. If there's market downturn, all those companies that were their customers disappear. But the bank doesn't disappear and We still owes them their monthly mortgage payment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> CNBC reporting his Class B and C shares will be further reduced from 10:1 to 3:1 voting rights, so he no longer will control the majority of votes.

[https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/24/wework-ceo-adam-neumann- is-e...](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/24/wework-ceo-adam-neumann-is-expected- to-step-down-amid-controversy-and-retain-chair-role-wsj-reports.html)

<comment><USER24> Wow. That's a surprise. I wonder what kind of stick they had to beat him into that?

<comment><USER25> Well, if he leaves now, it's not as if he's going off to a terrible fate. He's been pretty well-paid. If he gets an IPO out of it someday, he'll get even more money, but if he doesn't, he gets to step off the burning ship.

Or, to put it another way, he doesn't have to go through firing all of those people that he hired when he was pumping the company up to ginormous size. I think perhaps the fun part of running WeWork was behind him, regardless of how it turns out.

<comment><USER26> Exactly. If they have a successful IPO and become a profitable company - <USER2> gets very rich. If they don't - he still stays rich and gets to gloat about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is some dense shit. I can't imagine how working for WeWork feels like, right now. I have worked for companies where all the employees were eagerly waiting for the day the company will go public. It was seen as a pivotal moment both financially and professionally.

In any rational world that's a landmark moment. A significant milestone for founders, investors and early employees. For WeWork it has been the complete opposite. They filed to go public and everything is going south since then. Must be surreal that what seemed to be the start of a bright future may be very well the start of a dark end.

<comment><USER28> WeWork has been an obvious fuckup to even casual observers for years, if people inside the company couldn't see this I really don't know what to say.

<comment><USER29> All the more reason for employees to be excited about the opportunity to finally see liquidity for their shares.

<comment><USER30> A lot of people convinced themselves that if they could just make it to the IPO at least they'd have a lucrative way off the shipwreck. Oops.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm guessing the "Non-Executive Chairman" position will just be a temporary one until they can come to agreement on how much money they need to pay him to go away.

Professor Galloway called this the other day. His next prediction is that We will sell off all the bullshit vanity projects like WeLive and WeGrow along with the other nonsense Adam bought (like the wave pool company so he can practice surfing at work). Then they will fire all non-core employees. The clock is ticking if they want to save this company.

<comment><USER31> I don't think they will shut down WeLive. The entire premise of WeWork, and WeLive, is that they can sell you more than real estate -- they can sell you a "tribe." There are so many reports in recent years about growing social isolation and loneliness, that if something can be successfully packaged into a simulacrum of a community, it will be a hot item indeed. That's the only way WeWork can justify its stratospheric investments, and it is the market they will aim to dominate.

<comment><USER23> I'm sorry, but while there is some logic to the co-working idea, I don't see any serious demand for co-living. Quite frankly, I find the idea of having on- premise yoga instruction, cafes, bars, shared hot tubs, shared kitchens, etc. so you never have to leave your apartment building (except, presumably, to go to WeWork) to be absurd.

<comment><USER32> I personally see value in it and could even see myself as a customer, at least to try it for 6-12 months and see what it's like. Sounds like a good way to meet other young people with a bent towards tech

That said, I don't know the details of the program so can't speak to its practicality in this instance. But considering it's wework, there's opportunity for a good vertical there. At its face it seems like sound corporate strategy

<comment><USER33> Living in a company town earning company scrip to spend in the company store is an old business model and one that had never, ever gone well for the resident-workers. There's even a word for it: serfdom.

<comment><USER32> Except you're not employed by them, you're just renting office space and potentially living space from them. You don't have to do it if you don't want to; I am interested in it for the social aspect of it and the 0 commute

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I work in one of the companies WeWork acquired. The first time I heard Adan in a townhall I kept wondering, what kind of hell is happening to the world so that guy was sitting in a massive pile of money thanks to VCs. His nonsense and lack of business mindset were evident in every interaction and announcement. So IMHO he deserves that.

The issue is that now we have +10k people wondering about their future because they have bills to pay and a hard path ahead. Meanwhile, Galloway brags about how he was right during all this time and suggest massive layouts to save "investors."

I'm getting tired of this.

</comment><comment><USER35> I get the impression that SoftBank learned the wrong lesson from Uber. While Uber also raised billions of dollars and had a CEO get forced out by investors, it was broadly understood that his sin was creating a toxic/sexist culture. It wasn't related to business fundamentals, per se.

WeWork's sins were less of rampant sexism, and more closely related to an unreasonable valuation and a business that wasn't prepared for the current IPO climate. In other words, they were things for which the investors are also culpable.

I'm not a founder, but I'd be very hesitant to raise from SoftBank if I was (and very nervous if I had already raised from them). With Benchmark (and Uber's other investors), I'd only be worried if the toxic culture I created was putting their investment seriously at risk.

<comment><USER36> > it was broadly understood that his sin was creating a toxic/sexist culture. > It wasn't related to business fundamentals, per se.

So it had nothing to do with:

\- General disregard for regulation

\- Blocking regulators from the plaform via Greyball

\- Corporate espionage - Waymo vs. Uber

From my impression at the time he was forced out primarily because of actions like those last two (only few of many), because they have the potential to cost Uber serious money (sexism sadly not so much).

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> People work for people. Not the company. That said, I've spoken to lots of WeWork employees in the past. If you had a simple job, Adam wanted to know how you could do it faster, or automate it (with you out of work). If you worked on the tech side which seemed to be Ruby on Rails with Bootstrap, well, you were in New York at first, but then Adam would accuse techies of not thinking big enough, or not delivering 5 points worth of features in the time it took 1, and where's the mobile app? The guy knew absolutely nothing about technology, and when he outsourced the reservation system to India, then I knew it really had nothing to do with innovation. What's worse is lots of folks worked there expecting six figures before the outsourcing, but got nickel'd & dimed to something way under six figures. All without a PIP.

Edit: removed exact salary amounts because my sources said it would out them.

</comment><comment><USER38> WeWork's Bond Prices are falling rapidly.These are the only financial instruments that measure market appetite. Someone thinks they might not be paying back the money they are borrowing.

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-wework-ipo-debt/wework- bo...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-wework-ipo-debt/wework-bond-prices- falls-after-softbank-questions-ceo-marketaxess-idUSKBN1W81J0)

<comment><USER39> You added the editorial "rapidly", which doesn't appear anywhere in the article linked because the fall _isn 't_ rapid.

It fell 1.1%, which is not rapid, especially for something that was already rated a junk bond.

And without any data on the bond's previous price volatility it isn't impossible to say whether 1.1% is worse than it had, say, the week before.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> WeWork's business model is convincing investors they are a tech company with a dozens-of-billions valuation. I am glad HN, amongst others, have torn down this real-estate company wearing a tech-unicorn-mask.

<comment><USER41> > WeWork's business model is convincing investors they are a tech company with > a dozens-of-billions valuation

That's their recruiting model too. These cults have people married to them their whole career and don't even know they are a laughing stock. They have conversations with their friends like "well joining a tech company has been very different from my old cubicle farm!"

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> There are a lot of large and small ironies at play, but the one that irks me the most is the interrelation between `investment` in the financial sense and `investment` in the dress sense, for the word has its root in the word `vestment` which means `clothing` ([https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=investment](https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=investment))

I keep asking myself how startup culture has gone so far off the rails in terms of professional business tropes, even while they court traditional financial backing to the point where the emperor's new clothes scenario is playing out in front of us and we barely even notice? One word: entitlement

Could this fellow have stood a chance if he wasn't so nonchalant with his appearance opting for the messianic playboy look rather than the modest preppy techie?

I'm sure this comment will get downvoted to oblivion but what are imaginary internet points for if not spending on counterculture opinions?

I say the reason this all fell apart is because the guy is simply unlikeable and his shitty entitled-looking Keith Raniere-esque stage presence did nothing to help

<comment><USER43> "but what are imaginary internet points for if not spending on counterculture opinions?"

Hear hear!

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> So he gets to keep all the leases that his company made against his properties that are collateralized by the value of his company?

Essentially they solved the self-dealing issue by removing the self instead of removing the deals?

<comment><USER45> Interesting point. Although if they broke the leases, I'm sure that would also line his pockets (from early termination fees) without necessarily getting anything out of it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> I can just imagine Prof Galloway taking victory laps and talking about how the big dog is awesome !

[https://www.profgalloway.com/wewtf-part- deux](https://www.profgalloway.com/wewtf-part-deux) [https://twitter.com/JordanBitterman/status/11765494016213483...](https://twitter.com/JordanBitterman/status/1176549401621348352)

<comment><USER47> It never occurred to me just how pretentious/bad the name 'We' is until reading that article...

>We will now need additional capital from the private markets, who are no longer under the influence

>We has gone from unicorn to distressed asset in 30 days.

>In just seven days, We lost more value than the three biggest losers in the S&P 500 have lost in the last year combined: Macy's, Nektar Therapeutics, and Kraft Heinz.

I have to pause each time and re-engage my brain to realize he is talking about the company and not himself.

I'm significantly enjoying the level to which this fiasco has made investors look like dolts. One can only hope that it does something to pierce the narrative about the possession of capital making people visionary

<comment><USER48> >Kraft Heinz

Super off topic but why the heck is Heinz losing so much value?

<comment><USER49> You got me curious as well. [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/24/business/kraft-heinz- food...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/24/business/kraft-heinz- food-3g-capital-management.html) lists a boatload of issues.

<comment><USER50> That is just sad. Both of those were staples of childhood...

td;lr - Both kraft & heinz were slammed together by a company that bought them both out and then forced them to cut a ton of costs. As it turns out, you can't just cut costs and expect to grow and prosper as the market changes around you.

PS - in the article they mention they took away the free office snacks. Taking away perks like that is always a sign that you should head for the exits...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Doesn't that ... devalue the company? they re now a real estate company without a spiritual leader

<comment><USER52> They were always a real estate company, they just didn't get to IPO under the SV hype because as it got closer people looked closer at the company and realized the valuation was ridiculous and the CEO was lining his own pockets acting as landlord to his own company. Now that that's happened and it's all come out he has to step down.

<comment><USER53> Why "SV" hype? WeWork was founded and HQd in New York.

<comment><USER54> Synecdoche:

[https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/synecdoche](https://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/synecdoche)

See also: Hollywood. Nashville. Foggy Bottom. Quantico. Denim.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> My interview with WeWork was for a dev role.. Recruiter emailed me a 'homework' assignment. This homework assignment was basically work they needed to get done and offed it on candidates to finish.. I noped out of that pretty quick.

<comment><USER37> Some people are actually ok with this as long as it's not really _the_ work, but similar to the work being done. Good for you that you noped out pretty quick.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Could this be a turning point in the current tech bubble ? Might be a good opportunity to bring valuations back to sane levels before things get too extreme and damage lots of livelihoods.

<comment><USER57> Except that WeWork is not a tech company

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is some dense shit. I can't imagine how working for WeWork feels like, right now.

I have worked for companies where all the employees were eagerly waiting for the day the company will go public. It was seen as a pivotal moment both financially and professionally.

In any rational world that's a landmark moment. A significant milestone for founders, investors and early employees. For WeWork it has been the complete opposite. They filed to go public and everything is going south since then. Must be surreal that what seemed to be the start of a bright future may be very well the start of a dark end.

<comment><USER12> I imagine it feels like you just lost 50%+ of your net worth. If there's no liquidity then you never know when you could get screwed!

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> [https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/24/softbank-has-a-multi- million...](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/24/softbank-has-a-multi-million- dollar-protection-in-weworks-ipo.html)

"But because SoftBank's latest round was so large and the possible down-round was looking to be less than half of that, the provision was expected to result in the world's largest IPO ratchet."

Relative to Softbank's total investment, it's not a huge percentage, but relative to the amount expected to be raised in an IPO it certainly is.

</comment><comment><USER58> Wow I am floored. Given how he had structured the company so favorably toward him, I'm surprised he could put his ego in check for this. Their back must be really against a wall if they don't raise that $3 billion

<comment> drevil-v2 I read an article that Adam Neumann has a $700 million line of credit against his WeWork shares and has already drawn down around $550 million of that (to purchase real estate and lease back to We).

After the IPO valuation downgrade the banks are now questioning the value of his collateral WeWork shares and could force a margin call.

I think this might be driving it.

<comment><USER14> Also he took out credit against his shares to buy even more shares! I guess I can't fault him for believing but it sounds like an unwise move to me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> And what about the buildings he leases to We? Or what about his wife?

<comment><USER60> I'm interested about the buildings. A lot of people bullish on WeWork say -- "Oh, they'll just walk away from the leases. Each lease is owned by a different subsidiary. That subsidiary will just file bankruptcy. Problem solved. They'll just cut the losers, and turn up the dial on the profitable buildings."

Adam got a $750M loan from WeWork, right? I'm assuming he used that loan to secure more loans to buy the buildings he then rents back to WeWork (at a profit). I wonder what happens to him if WeWork walks away from his buildings. I doubt he has the cash to hold onto those buildings for more than a few months without a client -- especially if WeWork is still private. If they go public before they "walk away" from his buildings, he'll have to sell massive amounts of stock to cover his losses.

Unless we get to negative interest rates, I don't see a future that looks good for WeWork.

<comment><USER61> > "Oh, they'll just walk away from the leases. Each lease is owned by a > different subsidiary. That subsidiary will just file bankruptcy. Problem > solved. They'll just cut the losers, and turn up the dial on the profitable > buildings."

Ugh. What an awful culture we live in where this is considered perfectly normal behavior.

<comment><USER62> Limited liability is a great concept which allows businesses to be run by people who don't have the personal capital to absorb all possible losses of the business. Our society would be more unequal without limited liability. There are also many legal safeguards in place to prevent it being used for fraud, negligence, etc.

Are you really worried for big commercial landlords who know exactly what they are dealing with and how corporations work? Commercial landlords are not typically thought of as especially trusting and vulnerable entities who need special protection.

<comment><USER61> > There are also many legal safeguards in place to prevent it being used for > fraud, negligence, etc.

You're doing a thing which is quite frequent on HN, which is where you say that unethical behaviors are prevented because some narrow definition of those unethical behaviors is illegal. But the bit I quoted above is an unethical behavior which is clearly _not_ prevented by the law.

> Are you really worried for big commercial landlords who know exactly what > they are dealing with and how corporations work? Commercial landlords are > not typically thought of as especially trusting and vulnerable entities who > need special protection.

"The victims are tough enough to handle it" is a pretty poor justification for sleazy behavior.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Honestly, this was inevitable. What it makes me wonder long term is who else will be impacted, how it will spread. I can't help but wonder if Musk is next...[0]

[0][https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/09/solarcity-was- in...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/09/solarcity-was-insolvent- when-tesla-paid-2-6-billion-to-buy-it-lawsuit-says/)

</comment><comment><USER63> The latest Slate Money podcast had a great segment savaging Neumann.

[https://slate.com/podcasts/slate-money/2019/09/slate- money-o...](https://slate.com/podcasts/slate-money/2019/09/slate-money-on- uber-and-wework)

<comment><USER64> Their criticism of just about anything rings hollow since two of the hosts basically hate just about everything associated with money and capitalism, despite their staggering ignorance of many corners of it. Their guests and Anna Szymanski are the only non-embarrassing parts of the show for me, but I still eventually just gave up and stopped listening.

<comment><USER65> I think you've got that backwards. Anna is an unabashed capitalist who refuses to criticise even the shadiest goings-on in finance, start-ups etc. Felix and Emily seem to have a good nose for nonsense, like wework.

<comment><USER63> Well, it looks like we've covered both sides of the arguments :)

I guess my take is somewhere between these two comments. I sometimes hate the way it feels like Anna plays a "contrarian character" no matter what, and yes, Felix and Emily can sometimes be a bit too.. "NPR do-gooder, feel-gooder" for my taste. But I really enjoy the show regardless. It's a saturday morning long-run staple for me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> He flew too close to the valuation sun.

<comment><USER67> Too close to the Son?

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> OK faith in humanity restored. Glad the "we'll we didn't hide any of the adam neumann transgressions from you! Look at the s-1!" didn't work out..

</comment><comment><USER69> I assume he still retains the gobs or cash extracted through all his shenanigans and controlling shares?

And thus could reinstate himself after IPO?

<comment><USER70> They loaned him a lot of the money that he used to buy the properties. It remains to be seen how the loans are structured, but it's possible that the company can call in their loans and put him in a position that he needs to sell properties.

<comment><USER71> Wouldn't he still be making money on the sale, unless the loans gain the same amount of interest as the amount the properties have appreciated by?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> I am soo glad, that I cancelled my interview with WeWork. I feel bad who bought into the hype recently and joined the company.

</comment><comment><USER73> Everything stinks in this ponzi scheme company. For those who haven't read it: [https://firstname.lastname@example.com/is-we-work-a- fraud-5b78...](https://firstname.lastname@example.com/is-we-work-a- fraud-5b78987d3e61)

</comment><comment><USER74> Every 20 years another company takes out long term debts when credit is cheap. It always crashes and it always brings its business partners with them. This should be unlawful and we need gov't organizations to never allow this type of risk to be taken.

</comment><comment><USER75> From the article lol:

Further undercutting his position: eccentric behavior that was detailed in a Journal articlelast week, such as a party-heavy lifestyle that included marijuana use in an airplane and unpredictable management decisions.

</comment><comment><USER76> It still does not make it a tech company and does not justify the valuation. The business at the very core is not healthy and needs cash to even survive. Institutional investors will not take the bait with no upside.

</comment><comment><USER77> Wow does a day not go by that we get new news of wework falling apart?

<comment><USER78> WeWork is an easy target. It's like no matter what they do, they're getting shot at.

<comment><USER79> Let's be honest, in your analogy, WeWork painted a giant target on their own back, put on a shit eating grin, raised a placard saying "I crapped on your lawn and fondled your wife" and started parading through the target end of the All National Homecoming Machinegun and Automatic Weapons Competition range, all the while their CEO handed out 1000 round ammo cans at the entry.

To say that "they were asking for it" would be a huge understatement. The night shift janitor of the building two blocks down from their offices would have called this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER80> Not surprised. IMO WeWork is not bad concept, they have built brand-awareness and a solid real-estate portfolio BUT some actors often magnify what the company actually is ...TBC

</comment><comment><USER81> Those deck chairs aren't going to rearrange themselves!

</comment><comment><USER82> Can anyone explain why we're seeing so much WeWork content in the news? Is it because they have so many customers in the tech industry?

<comment><USER83> I think it's because it's a totally crazy story. WeWork is the Florida Man of startups.

</comment></comment><comment><USER84> Too bad they did not get a chance to start WeInsure and subsidize medical insurance for a lot of people.

</comment><comment><USER85> Appending ?mod=rsswn to the URL is not bypassing the pay wall anymore

</comment><comment><USER86> What pressure is this with the crazy different classes of stocks?

</comment><comment><USER87> Does it change the financials, not sure what this does for them?

<comment><USER88> Corporate governance is just as important as financials. There is no point investing in something that is out of control.

</comment></comment><comment><USER89> Up next .. Softbank and their "Vision" fund.

</comment><comment><USER90> As with Theranos, I told you early on it was a scam. If there's one thing a grouch knows well, it's how to spot trash.

<comment><USER91> Totally different scam than Theranos. WeWork is a cult (like Apple), and has a poor business model, but it at least works. It just doesn't generate enough money, like with the Texas shale oil boom. Everybody thinks it's great, but it's not, they are loosing money and no turnaround in sight.

Theranos never worked.

<comment><USER90> It's a different sort of scam for sure - I should have made clear that I was basing this on my read of the star CEO rather than the business.

I have a similar enough personality type to such folks that they're easy for me to spot. Rather than taking claims in good faith and doing extensive due diligence to assess their business-worthiness, if I read someone as a fake (an almost purely intuitive thing) and then look at their project with that working assumptions, the holes in their pitch are magnified into yawning chasms.

It's not perfect, of course. I've been taken in by other sociopaths several times, but in personal or employment contexts where it was a 1:1 relationship. I'm not money-oriented so sociopathic entrepreneurs stand out like a sore thumb because I don't have any feeling of excitement about an investment opportunity to get in the way. It's like being able to spot a good or bad athlete in a sport you don't play, if that makes sense.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER92> what does 'pressure' actually mean? How is it exerted by outside investors?

</comment><comment><USER93> Timber.

</comment><comment><USER94> why WeWork is a constant source of `NEWS` on HC?

</comment><comment><USER95> Sorry for my ignorance on this, but recently I find that top hacker news articles need a paid subscription. Do you have a trick for accessing them or just everyone here has a paid subscription?

<comment><USER96> On NYT in particular, load the page, when the text loads hit escape and the subscription nag simply doesn't load. It's not particularly ethical, but on the other hand maybe NYT should get serious about the software that's meant to protect its business model.

<comment><USER97> "If they don't want me to steal, they should have better locks." Would not be a good defense to allow theft.

That is not to say piracy is theft. Only that 'they should protect themselves better' is not a justification.

<comment><USER98> They aren't withholding the content on page load or requiring authentication, because they need search engines to be able to read it freely to get SEO benefits. They are tricking the search engines and to think they are giving content away to everyone for free unconditionally. They gave you the article for free, then added a bunch of CSS to make it difficult to consume. Modifying the content they already gave you for free is not stealing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER99> You've got to wonder what kind of a person is it that can get so far in building a successful behemoth like this but at the same time is able to seriously put forward ideas like becoming President of the world or asking management to cut 20% of the workforce yearly

<comment><USER87> I wonder if there is some lingering idea inside their own head that what they're doing is nonsense ... so more nonsense seems pretty logical.

<comment><USER99> Yeah my curiosity is how one can get so many things right when the same logical processes can spit out completely bonkers ideas at the same time. Is it insane luck that they hit the mark so often?

<comment><USER100> >Is it insane luck that they hit the mark so often?

No, its money.

All these "tech unicorns" backed by VC money are the same.

Spend Billions to obtain "growth metrics" until such time as the spending can no longer be maintained and you have grown your "valuation" to a point no VC/private investor will save your ass, then dump the company on the public.

The marketing doesn't even change just the company, "at any time we can turn off the spending and growth, and make pure profit."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER101> Given a choice, would founder/CEOs with big personalities prefer being powerful or rich?

<comment><USER102> Given that you can't really have power without being rich, I question the assertion that this is a choice :)

<comment><USER103> Many previous presidents of the US were "very well off" but not Rich in the warren buffet sense (Obama comes to mind). Possibly the most powerful position in the world.

Many generals of the US army are not "rich".

I suspect there are some cabinet positions that don't pay a lot, but offer a lot of power...

<comment><USER104> Ulysses S Grant comes to mind.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> another open position [https://www.indeed.com/viewjob?jk=cf0378114e63aeb4&from=tp-s...](https://www.indeed.com/viewjob?jk=cf0378114e63aeb4&from=tp- serp&tk=1dld0iag1430g802)

</comment><comment><USER105> Dupe: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21062260](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21062260)

@dang

<comment><USER106> "How I Built This Episode WeWork: Miguel McKelvey" (June 19, 2017)

Host: Do you think all of this could just collapse one day?

McKelvey: You know it's a great question. One of the things we're holding onto very tightly is the feeling that we're still figuring it out every day... We'll have that learning curve forever which is what make it awesome.

I guess "awesome" is one way of putting it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER107> Not to generalize, but if you relied on Hacker News for recruiting you could wind up in all sorts of wonky, dubious or failed companies. Like people were such sweethearts for Juul and Alt Schools. They're also really skeptical of Google, which for all its faults is, without a doubt, the single best deal for employees in the history of the world, at least since the time that anyone was legally or culturally allowed to take such jobs in this country. That's coming from a noted skeptic!

Personally I've always found that libertarian ethos in support of crappy things, like shitty schools and tobacco, and opposed to nice things, like healthy kids, frustrating. Like on the one hand there's a kind of engineer who finds the most abstract IT infrastructure so stimulating, something totally removed from actual concrete stuff with even an iota of moral, emotional or socioeconomic consequence. But then when the schadenfreude gets going, an emotion that these supposedly stoic people seem to have in spades, they have opinions about fucking everything. And then when it comes to hills to die on, they finally choose to die on the Hill of Nicotine.

So like sure, say no to some recruiter. But if you trust the aggregate opinions of people on this board, with its profound adverse selection, get ready to be disappointed.

<comment><USER108> this reads like a rant but I am not sure what it's ranting about. I've read it three times but I am still not sure whats going on. People having opinions? I read a lot of great advice (also about recruting) on HN and I don't really get why I should be concerned. Also starts with "Not to generalize" but then has a really wonky generalization.

<comment><USER109> It's more don't follow the opinions here like it's religion because you will learn tech no one uses in the real world and miss out on great companies like google.

I get the impression google is seen as the best employer at least paywise mosly from comments on here. Go figure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER110> I guess he has more time now to focus on his campaign for president of the world.

<comment><USER111> Maybe so, but please don't post unsubstantive comments here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER112> > recruiter working very hard to convince me I'd be rich when they IPO

recruiters still do that? so unethical.

<comment><USER113> Even FANG companies try to play this game (our stock will appreciate more, our company is more volatile the upside is way higher, etc...)

<comment><USER114> I've heard the opposite pitch from FANG recruiters: Our stock is pretty stable and/or appreciates modestly. But if you don't believe me we are a public company so you can sell on day one. Unlike those startups that are just offering pieces of paper with promises of riches on them.

Maybe they're just good at tailoring their messages. They look at me and see an old guy so they bring out the "stable liquidity" pitch.

<comment><USER113> This could be the case, I figured they were trying to spin some sort of message to me given my age.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER115> Comedy!!!

<comment><USER111> Please don't post unsubstantive comments here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER112> wow! that was quick. surprising to say the least.

these kind of people tend to be driven by ego, so this must have hurt.

looks like he'll still be chairman though.

<comment><USER116> My assumption has been he will step aside, wait for an inevitable restructuring post IPO markdown (and blame the markdown on his being pushed out) then swoop in and take the credit for getting it back on track

</comment></comment><comment><USER117> Could someone explain to me why this is happening? Is it a metoo situation?

<comment><USER118> Here's a good read: [https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/9/23/20879656/wework- mess-ex...](https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/9/23/20879656/wework-mess- explained-ipo-softbank)

Short answer: No, it's not a sexual assault thing. It's a "shady self-dealing business" thing

<comment><USER119> Sort of true ...there was an allegation made and lawsuit: [https://www.vox.com/2018/10/12/17968668/wework-employee- sexu...](https://www.vox.com/2018/10/12/17968668/wework-employee-sexual- assaults-lawsuit)

<comment><USER118> Him allowing a toxic culture in which shitty people were hired and allowed to behave poorly is very bad and likely helped push him out.

However, those allegations aren't against Neumann, so I personally don't think this quite qualifies as a #MeToo strike against him specifically, but maybe I'm applying that concept too stringently?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Interview with Nina Jablonski about Skin - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/26/color/about-your-skin <comment><USER3> > In other words, we are all born basically with equal potential and what > happens after birth is what really determines our so-called intelligence.

That's pretty bold. I'm aware at least of some nutrition studies but I've never seen any sort of scientific claim that everyone is born with basically equal potential. Does anyone have links or information about this?

I'm not interested in "proving" that some races are naturally inferior, so please refrain from that. I'm just curious about the "basically...equal potential" bit. It seems highly unlikely based on my personal experience - <USER2> things being equal, intelligence levels have definite family clusters which parsimoniously would be genetic.

edit: removing a mistaken word. meanings have not changed

<comment><USER4> It is incredibly obvious that we are not born with equal potential. Genetics do play a large part. To think otherwise is absurd.

However, this century, many social scientists disliked these facts, and have done everything they could to disprove them. If you're interested, I highly recommend The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker

Note: I'm not speaking of genetic differences across populations, just between all people.

<comment><USER5> > However, this century, many social scientists disliked these facts, and have > done everything they could to disprove them.

No, you are misunderstanding what they say to strengthen your negative opinion about them. They _are_ talking about populations, not individuals. Everybody acknowledges that some individuals are born smarter than others.

However, even on the personal level, there are many things that influence future accumulation of power (and hence can be called potential) much more than genetics. A genius born in Uganda has much lower potential than an idiot born on the Upper East Side. And even intelligence is greatly affected by social forces. At the end of the day, you'll find that genetics has relatively little influence on "success" (accumulation of power). Always look at the effect size. There are many effects at play, and each -- while significant -- does not have the same effect size as the others.

<comment><USER6> Suppose genetics and/or intelligence did have a large influence on success. In what observable ways would the world be different?

<comment><USER7> Interesting question. Would this mean that more genetically homogeneous countries like Japan and Iceland would have lower GINI coefficients?

<comment><USER6> All else held equal, probably yes. Unfortunately all else is NOT held equal - genetic homogeneity is inversely correlated with population, and more people usually means more inequality.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, and now that I think about it, culture/techlevel is going to cause huge variance in GINI anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Based on the title, I was hoping for more details on the structure, function, and possibly even care for our skin. There was a little bit on evolution, but the interviewer in this article was predominantly preoccupied with race. The article is a bit of a missed opportunity in this respect.

</comment><comment><USER9> The problem with intelligence and race is that scientists are required, ex ante, to believe that if there _was_ a link between intelligence and race, then this would not be something we should want to investigate, but if there _was not_ a link, then this would be something that we should want to investigate and publicize.

But Bayesian reasoning doesn't work like that. You can only say "I want to know if X is true", not "I want to know that X is not true".

<comment><USER10> The problem with this line of argument is that books like "The Bell Curve" have been debunked on _scientific_ grounds, leaving no reason for scientists to believe in them except that someone wants them, ex ante, to believe that black people are genetically determined by their race to be stupid (and so forth).

<comment><USER9> Trying to determine the cause of racial differences in IQ is extremely complicated, since we cannot simply assign a person Black genes and a White environment while growing up (since having black skin in itself will mean a person's environment while growing up is different).

I'd be very interested in seeing a specific study, but to my knowledge there is no compelling evidence for either nature or nurture when it comes to racial IQ differences.

There have been a lot of studies with varying results. But the narratives that "people went looking for differences because of their racial biases, but then their studies were debunked" is not accurate. The fact that people believe this narrative is due to politics. For example, Steven J Gould "debunked" craniometry in "The Mismeasure of Man". But his debunking was criticized by peer reviewed work that upheld the original craniometry work[0].

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mismeasure_of_Man#Craniome...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mismeasure_of_Man#Craniometry)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> >So race is strictly a social construction?

>Yes

Alright, so race _is_ a matter of social identity, whereas sex (biologically "set in stone") is less important than a person's "gender identity"?

I'm sure I'll be criticized for expressing a political viewpoint here, but our now-popular social norms seem to have these two ideas reversed. I guess popular opinion and what a person feels is (and always will be) more important than what science says.

Edit to add: my point isn't so much about either of these issues individually as it is about (a lack of) consistency in popular views. If gender is just about identity, then why isn't race? Recently, I've been hearing the same people argue for one and against the other. Similarly confusing is the notion that sexual orientation is _not_ an issue of identity (it's somehow deeper than that), even though there's no concrete scientific evidence to suggest it's not a matter of identity or preference as well.

<comment><USER12> Your genes are like the least interesting thing about you. If you want purple hair, cool patterns on your skin, different-colored eyes, a stronger heart, a straighter nose etc etc than your "genes" say you should have, you can change it. Same with gender. Whatever you want, you can get it. Your genes don't really define what kind of person you are.

<comment><USER13> Exactly. It's unfair to judge people on their genetics or more generally on how they were born.

It might surprise us if someone identifies as something that seems "at odds" with how they were born, but if they honestly identify that way, I see no reason not to tolerate and accept them. It's a matter of basic decency.

<comment><USER14> If someone identifies themselves as an 'Otherkin' then I feel the most humane thing to do would be to help treat them. Playing pretend only worsens their condition and reinforces the behavior. Regardless of the size of the population ("other people believe they are dragons too!") doesn't make it "right" anymore than a majority of a population being bipolar means we should stop treating bipolar disorder. Same goes for gender dysphoria.

To me, "basic decency" would be helping to treat their gender dysphoria and not _encourage it_. Gender reassignment surgery (encouraging gender dysphoria by helping them "become" the other gender) leads to an increased risk of suicide and depression, with regret of the surgery itself not being uncommon [0]. Even in areas where the social stigma of being transexual isn't anything near what is in the US (ie. Sweden).

That isn't _helping_ these people, it's hurting them. _Basic decency_ tells me I shouldn't hurt people - I should help them. Even if they don't "feel like I'm helping them" (eg. intervening for a drug addict). Sometimes what is in someone's best interest isn't necessarily what they think they _want_ as sometimes what people think they want or say they want isn't _really_ what they want; as UX research alone shows [1].

"They are judging the evidence presented to them based on a model of reality, a map that they've used their entire lives, and you can't just tell someone that his or her map is of a fantasy realm that doesn't exist and expect them to respond positively. You can't just ask a person like that to throw away that map and start over, especially if they've yet to realize it is just a map, and their beliefs are only models." \- [2]

Links are to blogs - as the blogs link to a multitude of studies/sources themselves:

[0] [http://waltheyer.typepad.com/blog/2013/11/20-regret- changing...](http://waltheyer.typepad.com/blog/2013/11/20-regret-changing- genders-over-40attempt-suicide-and-even-after-surgery-a-large-number-remain- traum.html)

[1] [http://uxmyths.com/post/746610684/myth-21-people-can-tell- yo...](http://uxmyths.com/post/746610684/myth-21-people-can-tell-you-what- they-want)

[2] [http://youarenotsosmart.com/2014/09/30/yanss- podcast-033-the...](http://youarenotsosmart.com/2014/09/30/yanss- podcast-033-the-psychology-of-forming-keeping-and-sometimes-changing-our- beliefs/)

<comment><USER15> > Gender reassignment surgery (encouraging gender dysphoria by helping them > "become" the other gender) leads to an increased risk of suicide and > depression,

This is a lie. It's a particularly vicious lie because you want to:

1: prevent people getting rapid access to gender reassignment treatment (and that delay increases risk of suicide)

2: "treat" gender dysphoria (and your style of treatment also increases risk of suicide).

Those links you provide are not sources. Do you have any actual sources?

<comment><USER14> No it isn't - and it's even more annoying that you make assumptions on my behalf. You should make a better effort not to make assumptions about people or their motives.

1: I'm someone who suffers from gender dysphoria

2: I considered and researched gender reassignment for 6 years before deciding that the evidence largely shows it is not beneficial and often leads to regret and depression that is _worse_ than pre-op. Given I won't know how I'd react to it until _after_ the fact and it isn't easily reversible, I decided against it.

Here is the Sweden-based study I hinted at: [http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....](http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0016885)

<comment><USER13> As the summary of that study says,

> Our findings suggest that sex reassignment, although alleviating gender > dysphoria, may not suffice as treatment for transsexualism, and should > inspire improved psychiatric and somatic care after sex reassignment for > this patient group.

In other words, they agree it helps with dysphoria. However, it may have other downsides - which is perhaps not surprising, as it is major surgery in some cases; and it is troubling that there is an increased risk of suicide. However, it should be an informed choice for people to make: this can help with their dysphoria, with some significant risks. Many treatments have such cost-benefit tradeoffs.

In the end, it should be a personal decision for the relevant people. It is unfair to say that these treatments "do not help". And risk of mortality is not the sole determining factor, there is also quality of life and so forth (e.g., some powerful anti-acne medication has an increased risk of mortality).

<comment><USER14> Aspirin alleviates headaches but is not a treatment for headaches. Be very careful with terminology like _alleviating_ and _treating_ and what they imply.

"In other words" they are saying it's a temporary fix to a broader problem and does not suffice as _treatment_. Crossdressing can also alleviate gender dysphoria, but it isn't a treatment.

I'm curious, what are you viewpoints of people who suffer from BIID?

<comment><USER13> And yet, one has the right to alleviate their pain. It's their body. And sometimes things like aspirin are useful.

Yes, they say it doesn't suffice. It is a good start, but we need more. People are still hurting.

My thoughts on BIID are the same as for anything else: if

1\. The major healthcare organizations believe that there isn't a better treatment for BIID, and

2\. A person is shown to be mentally competent in every way except for having BIID, and

3\. They want surgery to remove their foot, then

why should I deny them the right to modify their body as they see fit? It's their choice.

I have not heard that there is a good consensus on BIID. It is far more rare than being transgender, and far less well understood.

But consider anorexia - they fail the first criterion, because medical science does have better ways to treat anorexia than to let people starve themselves to death. Many people with anorexia with proper treatment get over it, and thank the people that helped them get over it. I would therefore make a rare exception and agree we should not let anorexia suffers starve themselves to death.

But that is simply not the case for transgender people, hence the medical establishment does support gender reassignment surgery, hormone therapy, etc.

<comment><USER14> I asked the question about BIID to see if we'd ever be able to see eye to eye. I'll save us from further discourse over the matter: we won't.

I see benefits in identifying the source or cause of [__] rather than merely treating the symptoms of [__]. I find it more beneficial to see if low sodium intake is the root cause of a persons continual headaches rather than have them take Aspirin every day they have a headache. This is something we differ in ideologically and thus we will not see eye to eye.

Your (1) only holds true when we can research alternative methods openly and decide there are no better alternatives. Loud and threatening advocacy groups, social pressures, and current popular political standings _do not allow_ such research to be done. It also requires there to be a medical consensus and currently, there isn't one.

There is a lot of criticism over the more 'positive' results of TS studies. They are often poorly conducted, lose track of many participants, or are not set up in meaningful ways [0]. To me, that says we can do better. But we can't look into better solutions because advocate groups and TS activists shut attempts down with threats and public backlash.

This is something that _personally affects me_. So I feel very strongly about supporting research that goes against advocate groups and what people _want_ others to believe.

I'm in a particularly shitty situation: I'm a minority among a minority group. I'm forced to live in their world view, even if I disagree with it. Doubly so because in the current "PC Era" I can't even oppose the popular opinion of a minority group _even if I belong to the same group_. I'm still trying to fathom how I can be a transexual transphobe, but many people have asserted that I am. Or worse: I'm a fraud!

I ask that you see my viewpoint: I don't think SRS is beneficial. I'm not alone in these beliefs as someone with gender dysphoria. I want alternative methods researched, _for my benefit_. TS activist groups actively threaten, riot, condemn, ridicule, etc. any attempts at doing so and squash them. All because this research goes against their world view and hurts their feelings. To even suggest to these people that they _could_ be wrong is blasphemy to the highest degree. This leaves me in the dust. It leaves me and others like me behind. We aren't allowed a voice - and are increasingly silenced. It's actively harming me, and I won't stand for that.

[0] [http://library.transgenderzone.com/?page_id=1895](http://library.transgenderzone.com/?page_id=1895)

<comment><USER13> I think you make a bunch of valid points. I agree for example that politics make it hard to study this area. And I agree it is sad that there is silencing.

But I just don't see how you can say that SRS is bad for other people. Let them decide for themselves, given the evidence, much of which supports that it does help.

I agree that some people might be led by hurt feelings to jump to conclusions on this topic, as you say. But I don't think that explains the APA's position as mentioned earlier. There is substantial medical establishment support for SRS being helpful.

<comment><USER14> I don't trust the APA's position on anything with strong political standpoints since homosexual lobbyists/activists pressured them for several years leading to their 1973 decision. Being disrupted and threatened for years and knowing a single statement with no immediate consequences to _them_ could make it all stop - the decision seems easy.

Regardless if that decision might prevent further research into the area and _might_ be justified: it was pre-emptively killed off due to activists and social pressures.

Which makes the APA's position on a related, but different and still politically-charged issue utterly meaningless in my eyes.

There's also substantial evidence _against_ SRS being helpful. So we'll have to agree to disagree based on our sources (which could easily be confirmation bias or simply politically-slanted studies, hard to tell with the lack of research in the area).

It's very difficult to assume that a person who is "certain it will help" will actually be helped by the treatment. It is not a decision someone can make beforehand, but rather a result that happens _after_. Believing it will have a beneficial outcome and it having a beneficial outcome are not the same thing. Even if someone believed it would be beneficial had a beneficial outcome, that has little to do with their beliefs on the matter.

That's why so many people who _believed_ it would help them _regret it after_. Their beliefs of what would happen didn't match with the reality of what happened after.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>