Jessica Livingston: What Goes Wrong - <AUTHOR> http://www.foundersatwork.com/1/post/2012/10/what-goes-wrong.html <comment><USER2> The link assumes that you know who is speaking. But it doesn't give that critical piece of information.

 _Founders at Work_ was written by Jessica Livingston, who is a cofounder of ycombinator. She's married to Paul Graham. But do not think that she's in there just because of the personal connection. Her book is truly excellent. And in previous articles I've seen Paul say that the #1 thing that they want in a founder is determination, and the person that they rely on to spot it during the interview is Jessica.

<comment><USER3> She also contributed her financial and legal knowledge to YC. The others were "only" programmers.

<comment><USER4> The part about the "others" isn't really true. Paul and Robert had founded two companies together and Paul had been the CEO of a medium sized startup and taken it through the acquisition process.

Also, at least in the earlier YC batches before there were more folks helping out, Jessica definitely felt like the operations person; like she was the one that actually made things happen.

<comment><USER3> We are talking about the same thing. I meant operations as part of legal/financial -- the business side of things. As Paul put it in an interview at Mixergy.com, she brought the knowledge required to actually put YCombinator together. I certainly meant no knock on the other partners' experience other than what they claimed to lack themselves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Two of the problems can be easily avoided: 'cofounder disputes' and 'investors' are not problems in case of single-founder bootstrapped startups. :)

One thing I would add to the topic of 'determination': Are we speaking about determination to make a startup successful or determination to try out as many ideas in our life as possible, learn as much as possible and try to make at least one startup successful in our life?

I mean first we have to analyze what we optimize for:

If we optimize for the success of a given startup then it is obvious that the optimal strategy is to never give up on the startup.

If we optimize for the success of a person in his lifetime then it is different. In this case we have to examine all kinds of opportunity costs. Could it be a better strategy to very quickly abandon a startup when it seems that people do not want the product, so that we can start much more startups in our life, to increase the chance of at least one becoming successful?

<comment><USER6> For me and my co-founder, especially during the dark days of 1) tech not working 2) clients stopping service with us or 3)someone yelling at us over Twitter, email or phone - it is Critical to have a team and more importantly to have a partner. I don't share all of my concerns with the whole team because that could shift the mood of the company and damage our internal resolve. But I need to be able to talk about the full reality of the situation with someone and depending on who is having an up day one of us can rally the other person around to being enthused again.

Without that, I know there would be days I would be lost, and if that lingered at all I could see weeks of inactivity at exactly those points where we needed to move fast.

I whole-heartedly agree with Jessica that having a co-founder that, above all, you can trust is huge (I'm lucky that I do), but I agree with the other reply here that a single founder, in almost all situations is more trouble than any sort of cofounder disputes.

<comment><USER7> I fully agree, but the partner doesn't have to be cofounder. It could be the wife (or husband), a very good friend or anything equivalent.

From what I have read so far the main difficulties of a single founder is lacking an alternate view and help to restore drive when in doubt or exhausted.

Of course other kind of problems may show up if the business is a startup of the dropbox kind. But this is a mazzerati problem. My feeling is that more than one founders expose to much more difficult and nasty problems than a single founder will met. A single founder can find paliatives for his weakness which do exist and shouldn't be ignored.

<comment><USER6> I can see what you mean here - my wife is my life partner, and she is a fantastic balance outside the support my business partner and I provide each other. But she has other things going on - her life is more than just waiting to hear about how Perfect Audience is going and having someone as focused as you are on your work baby, but in different ways, is useful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Here's a link to the video version of Jessica Livingston's talk from Startup School: <http://startupschool.org/2012/livingston/>

It really is great! I encourage everyone on HN to read or watch it if they have not already. As a not-yet founder, it has a lot of interesting advice that I don't think is documented anywhere as concisely and practically as it is here.

<comment><USER9> As a founder (2x) she has some absolutely fantastic advice. Though I haven't seen every problem/monster, many of them apply to my experience. In addition, the examples she gives are fantastic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Worth the read just for this:

The pizza place was very confused by this, but they send the pizza guy without a pizza, Kyle answers the door, and the pizza guy says, "The site is down."

<comment><USER11> Indeed. I plan on using this as an example of what a clever hack is from now on when it comes up in conversation. It is adorable, clever, and just...great.

</comment></comment><comment> mck- The Mixergy interview with PG (Feb 2010)[1] mentions Jessica working on a second edition of Founders at Work.

PG: "You know, that is her deepest wish. If she is watching this, she'll be laughing so much at this point because that's what she would like the most too to be able to spend more time on the new version of Founders at Work. There's a new, she's working on a new edition, with a bunch of new interviews."

Any updates on this?

[1]: <http://mixergy.com/y-combinator-paul-graham/>

</comment><comment><USER12> This is extraordinarily accurate, based on my experience.

</comment><comment><USER13> This is excellent -- and very much in the spirit of Charlie Munger's often- repeated saying: "All I want to know is where I'm going to die, so I'll never go there."[1]

\--

[1] <http://www.pbs.org/wsw/news/fortunearticle_20031026_03.html>

<comment><USER14> Death is inevitable, these mistakes aren't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Having started riding this roller coaster I particularly enjoyed a view of what pitfalls to be aware of in the future.

Also, since I just survived a dual-founder breakup (company intact), it was encouraging to know that this was probably a bigger bullet to have dodged. (For those curious, post-breakup I reached out to an old friend with whom I've shared some tenuous situations and we have applied to YC for the next batch)

Edit: I forgot about the pizza comment! When she asked how to contact someone in Lake Tahoe, I audibly said pizza (in my empty apartment). When the solution was pizza, I had a celebratory moment.

</comment><comment><USER16> Very interesting. Statistically speaking, women are better than men in reading non-verbal information. I wonder if this is a part of YC success.

<comment><USER17> I think so. Within YC Jessica's nickname is The Social Radar. One nickname at least; the other is Panic.

<comment><USER18> PG, mind sharing some insight on the "Panic" nickname? I'm curious about how/if the two are related.

<comment><USER17> We call her Panic because she's the office worrier. I never considered her two sides might be related. Interesting idea, but I don't think so.

<comment><USER19> I wonder if her strength in picking up social cues also causes people to panic because shes the office warrior, detecting problems/issues and cutting through to their core.

<comment><USER18> My thoughts as well. Empathy has its costs. I was wondering if exposure to swings was one of them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Arguing anything other than differences in levels of persistent hard work and skill in your particular field has a large mountain of evidence to overcome.

The effects of those two are very large, the effects of everything else comparatively small per decades of startup and longitudinal entrepreneurial studies.

Nonsense about hustle is exactly that: nonsense. The weight of evidence suggests that, if anything, hustling and creativity have a net negative effect on long term health of a startup.

But there's money to be made keeping up the lie.

Lastly, beware of pseudo-pop-science that opens with only a few people's stories. People manage to succeed as founders all over the world; these stories are not remarkable and tell us nothing.

In general the whole "determination" thing has little to no value in any serious consideration of startup success: it's about on the same level of credibility as diet fads.

<comment><USER21> Well, played. For a couple of seconds I was wondering why I had this impression of deja vu then I found this (<http://hackerne.ws/item?id=4692794>). I burst out laughing.

<comment><USER20> Haha you got me. PG can rest assured that middlebrow dismissal apparently only gets a disproportionate share of upvotes when it's about health or nutrition :P

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This is another great piece of writing by Jessica Livingston (I was at Startup School for the talk as well).

Is she ever going to pursue writing a sequel to _Founders at Work_?

</comment><comment><USER23> Jessica's speech follows one of the themes she established in "Founders," - overcoming emotional responses being a key to success in startups (and life). Her skill in communicating complex ideas is subtle, but more impressive because it lacks the usual dose of ego and/or one-upmanship. The sole intent being to help people who can listen well enough to use the information to help themselves.

</comment><comment><USER24> Are people really having such trouble with the context of this article? The author's name is in the headline (maybe it was modded in later, to be fair), but also there's an "author" link[0] in plain sight. PG's essay's don't have a "who am I" introduction, and if you didn't know who he was then you'd simply click on the obvious "bio" link.

[0] <http://www.foundersatwork.com/author.html>

<comment><USER2> At the point where I replied, the name was NOT in the headline. It was definitely modded in later.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I know this is a minor issue. But when I publish something I want people to inform me of problems. Please note that I don't mean to be disrespectful and just want to help. So here goes:

3rd sentence: "There's a talk I've always want to give at the beginning of each batch...". I think this should be either "I've always wanted to..." or "I always want to..." right?

<comment><USER26> Fixed - thanks!

<comment><USER25> Wow! Thanks for replying. I have already been down-voted once for what I posted and was beginning to think my comment was a huge mistake.

As hackers we get trained to look at details. So I was hoping others on "Hacker News" would understand where I was coming from. It's not about right or wrong. It's not about ego. I just thought I could help.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I love this! It's one of the best pieces of startup advice I've read in a long while; I've sent it to my startup friends. New fave quote: "Determination is really two separate things: resilience and drive. Resilience keeps you from being pushed backwards. Drive moves you forwards".

</comment><comment><USER28> If you are interested in a take on this topic that is based on data, check out Noam Wasserman at BoS 2009 (his talk at BoS 2012 was very similar)

[http://businessofsoftware.org/2009/05/professor-noam- wasserm...](http://businessofsoftware.org/2009/05/professor-noam-wasserman-at- business-of-software-2008-rich-or-king/)

He has been collecting data on start-ups and then looking at survival lengths and outcomes. He wrote a book on the topic

[http://www.amazon.com/Founders-Dilemmas-Anticipating- Foundat...](http://www.amazon.com/Founders-Dilemmas-Anticipating-Foundation- Entrepreneurship/dp/0691149135)

</comment><comment><USER29> _In order to make something people want, being brilliant and determined is not enough. You have to be able to talk to your users and adjust your idea accordingly. Ordinarily you have to change your idea quite a lot even if you start out with a reasonably good one._

\-- This is a great point. Even outside of startups.

</comment><comment><USER30> I saw this talk at Startup School. Honestly, as someone working in industry who tried doing a startup during school, there's a huge thing missing.

CMD+F for "luck" = 0 results.

Luck is a huge factor and sometimes you just need to move on to either something new, or working for a company to fill in the gaps, and trying again soon.

<comment><USER31> Talking about "luck" in a presentation like this is like talking about the life benefits of physical attractiveness.

Precious little of it is in your control, so what's the point? Address what you _can_ control, and hope for the best.

<comment><USER32> Actually you control luck with determination.

By increasing determination, you decrease the effect luck has on anything you do.

<comment><USER33> And for that matter, you can control physical attractiveness. There's always _something_ you could do if you really had to, right? Lose a little weight, gain a little weight, hide your flaws, accentuate your good points, dress a certain way. You know how sometimes on tabloid covers in the supermarket they have pictures of celebrities wearing sweats and no makeup? It's a petty thing to fixate on, but it illustrates a valuable point.

<comment><USER32> The initial analogy with physical attractiveness is broken. Physical attractiveness is akin to the intelligence you're born with. You may not be able to boost your intelligence much, but you CAN minimize the factor luck plays in you realizing your potential afforded to you by your intelligence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Awesome read!

Jessica mentions the Codecademy team launched 2 days before Demo Day and managed to signup 200k users. If I remember correctly, they launched on HN through a Show HN thread.. and so on..

What I really want to know is, how many of those initial 200k users stuck around? I was one of them and I have only signed in maybe twice since their launch.

So what does that mean? they leveraged the curious users to get VC interest? Did they really engage me, us, the 200k? is that a false positive?

I guess if the net result is a positive one Today, none of this really matters.

<comment><USER35> Really I would think it doesn't matter. With that kind of interest (even if it just of the curiosity kind, rather than the stickiness kind), then it's a definite flag that you're onto something.

So, even if the 200k users never came back, there was clearly _something_ interesting about the concept to get that much attention. And with the right development, the next 200k people can be convinced to stay around.

It's a lot easier to convince 200k people for a second look than it is to find 200k in the first place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> This is one of the best articles I have read in a while. Obviously you see a lot over 7 years/ 500 startups.

</comment><comment><USER37> Wow. Great advices. I especially like the resilience part. Those rejection stories really hit home, as I have gone through similar experience recently. When reading them, the line "when life deals you a lemon, make lemonade" kept flashing through my mind.

</comment><comment><USER38> Loved it. Very informative. Being an entrepreneur is a tough road, but with preparation, belief, and determination things will eventually take its course.

</comment><comment><USER39> Are those Pokemon in the first figure? If so, I have severely underestimated the coolness of next-generation Pokemon.

<comment><USER17> Jessica got those monsters from Mino Monsters (<http://minomonsters.com/>).

(When you've funded 467 startups, you can find one to supply you with practically anything.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> A byline would be helpful, here...

<comment><USER24> There's an "author" link: <http://www.foundersatwork.com/author.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I read this yesterday thinking it was from pg, strange feeling.

</comment><comment><USER42> "Investors tend to have a herd mentality."</comment>


To Make Cordial Pepper Water - <AUTHOR> https://rarecooking.com/2018/04/16/to-make-cordial-pepper-water/ <comment><USER2> Seems like using poppy seed instead of actual poppies is a big deviation from the original? (Or is that what the original recipe meant?) ...As well as omitting the licorice root. Then again, I love licorice but I understand not everyone does.

<comment><USER3> Reminds me of feeding black licorice "Drop" to non Dutch people, make sure napkins or a trash can is nearby for them to spit it back out.

<comment><USER4> Are those the really salty ones? I like black licorice, but have only ever enjoyed it with a sweetener.

I had what may be an equivalent experience when I gave a bag of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups to my Italian hosts. One adventurous set of tastebuds out of the bunch had led me to believe they'd be a good gift. People were practically knocking each other over looking for a place to spit :-)

<comment><USER5> American and European chocolate are very different tastes.

[https://www.gourmetboutique.net/blogs/tasting- room/17250043-...](https://www.gourmetboutique.net/blogs/tasting- room/17250043-european-vs-american-chocolate-whats-the-difference)

<comment><USER6> very different is a pretty huge overstatement, and this article only describes the mandatory legal minimums. There is plenty of american chocholate (including easy to find mass market stuff) that meets or exceeds the european standards.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This was confusing for me because my grandma used to make pepper water for me when I was a child, and it was nothing like this. It's a kind of spicy soup. Recipe here: [http://anglo-indianfood.blogspot.com/2013/06/anglo-indian- pe...](http://anglo-indianfood.blogspot.com/2013/06/anglo-indian-pepper- water.html)

</comment><comment><USER8> Starting with 4 gallons (more than 16 litres) of "very good brandy" is an enormous amount for personal use. Was the original recipe aimed at businesses?

<comment><USER9> I've found that with old alcohol recipes, they always specify a recipe to make massive amounts.

A few years ago I was looking at recipes for brewing from the Household Cyclopedia of 1881 [1]. The recipes specify malt by the sack. 3 sacks of malt to brew 3 barrels. I never did actually brew any beer from the book, since the recipes were fairly standard and not altogether that different from modern brewing. 1881 is late enough that we had a good understanding of the chemistry and microbiology involved in brewing beer.

The book also has recipes for various liqueurs, usually with recipes calling for 4 gallons of spirits. There's even a recipe for "port wine" that calls for 100 gal of claret and 12 gal of honey.

[1] [https://archive.org/stream/Household_Cyclopedia#page/n403/mo...](https://archive.org/stream/Household_Cyclopedia#page/n403/mode/2up)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Since these old recipes are showing up every now and then here, I feel like I should plug www.archiefkok.nl for those of us who speak Dutch. It's like the blog linked above except she also writes an essay around the historical source the recipe is from or the historical context of the recipe. Do not open this site on a morning where you can't afford to lose most of the day browsing the archives.

</comment><comment><USER11> Pity that anyone who makes this according to the original recipe would be violating the law in the U.S. and (I believe) many other countries. I'd love to try it.

<comment><USER12> If the poppy seeds are unwashed, even this version would break the law.

<comment><USER13> What's the law? Are you not allowed to possess unwashed poppy seeds? Or are you just not allowed to put them in brandy?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> A splash of soda / seltzer water seems to make just about everything better.</comment>


Alibaba.com, China's eBay, Admits Fraud - CEO, COO, 100+ Employees Resign - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/alibaba-ceo-resigns-over-huge-fraud-scandal-2011-2?utm_source=pulsenews&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=Feed:+typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider+(Silicon+Alley+Insider)&utm_content=Twitter

<comment><USER2> to be pedantic Taobao.com (owned by Alibaba group) is China's ebay- (although its more like a cross between ebay and amazon with amazing customer service and zero fees for buyer and sellers )

Alibaba.cn is China'a Alibaba.com</comment>


Inferring Tweet Quality from Retweets - <AUTHOR> http://www.evanmiller.org/inferring-tweet-quality-from-retweets.html <comment><USER2> _tweet 's quality (percent of readers who will retweet it)_

That seems a very odd way to define "quality", and the phrase that most comes to mind is "quantity is not quality". Perhaps _virality_ would be a better word for this metric.

<comment><USER3> It doesn't strike me as odd. Retweeting is something you do when you like a tweet for one reason or another. What seems odd is invoking "quantity is not quality" for retweets since that is a second order phenomenon. It would seem more appropriate to apply it to people who tweet a lot, not people who are retweeted a lot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It sounds like a feature Twitter might be interested in - Especially given all the recent talk about users being 'overwhelmed' with too many irrelevant tweets.

Having a tweet score based on those formulae could allow twitter to filter out less interesting tweets from users' feeds. It would be a nice optional setting to have for those users who have too many followers.

</comment><comment><USER5> I did some similar analysis on gauging the quality of a user from their retweet behaviour [1]

[1] [http://bit.ly/Pzea7o](http://bit.ly/Pzea7o)

</comment><comment><USER6> it'd be interesting to get more metadata for Nth level retweets as another measure of quality

<comment><USER7> That essentially reduces to PageRank, replacing links with tweets.

<comment><USER6> Yes it does. But the Nth level metadata is not publicly available today. I'm not even sure its available in the Twitter API.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Second-order retweets as a measure of retweet quality has been a thing since as far back as 2011.</comment>


Ask HN: What essay/blogpost do you keep going back to reread? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER3> Joel Spolsky, "Things You Should Never Do, Part I": [https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you- should-...](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-never- do-part-i/)

It seems like common sense, but every few months I need a reminder that I should prefer to incrementally refactor/re-architect the codebase I have, rather than start from scratch.

<comment><USER4> I wish I had seen that (or if I had seen it before just remembered that) a few months ago. I work on an internal project that is core to part of our business and we are on our 3rd iteration of our platform in less than a year. An when I say iteration, I mean from scratch re-write. I will say it was probably necessary to go from the first to second platform with a re-write because the first one was half baked and didn't do much of what was needed. However, the 2nd to 3rd platform was not necessary and like Joel says, could have been refactored instead of scrapped entirely. Our QA person was super pissed too since they had put in so much time and effort into creating test cases for the platform we had and now they are completely wasted. Not to mention, because we are writing the newest iteration from scratch we missed deadlines because we had to deal with more than just business knowledge (which the team lacks as all but one of us is new to the specific domain in the health care realm) but putting together a new platform that could be extensible (just like the previous version of it was supposed to be) for future clients and outputs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Not exactly a blogpost, but this is Randy Pausch's last lecture about achieving your childhood dreams. He was a CS professor at Carnegie Mellon, who passed away roughly a decade ago. I watch it from time to time: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo)

<comment><USER6> Oh yes !

There is also a book, quite short but there are some things that are not in the lecture. Good read

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It has nothing to do with programming but I find myself rereading Smedley Butler's essay, "War is a Racket", quite often:

[https://archive.org/stream/WarIsARacket/WarIsARacket_djvu.tx...](https://archive.org/stream/WarIsARacket/WarIsARacket_djvu.txt)

</comment><comment><USER8> What You Can't Say [http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html)

The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dictatorship of the Small Minority [https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the- dict...](https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dictatorship- of-the-small-minority-3f1f83ce4e15)

</comment><comment><USER9> This response to someone on StackOverflow asking how to parse HTML with regex: [https://stackoverflow.com/a/1732454/145684](https://stackoverflow.com/a/1732454/145684)

<comment><USER10> I used to love this answer but after I realised that it's same irrational peddling of best practices as "don't-use-goto". There can be many cases where parsing HTML with Regex is abuse, but equally others where it's the best available solution. I wasted countless hours in working with lame HTML libraries, their limited options for selectors, their frustrating failures with invalid HTML, all because of this advice. Looking back, I think Regex would have worked just fine.

<comment><USER11> Yes, a thousand times this. First of all, regex in the wild (e.g. Perl regex) is much more powerful than the CS version (that can only handle regular languages). This point is often conceded though from the "don't use regex to parse HTML" side, but some don't realize this.

Another thing is that you don't really need to handle HTML at all, only a small subsection that might be totally fine with a regex, even a simple one, for a lot of cases.

The true enemy is parsing something that might change over time, and that's totally unrelated to the regex issue.

<comment><USER12> I have done plenty of regex parsing of xml with Perl. It has been very useful. Over time I have also used things like the index function to eck out some additional performance.

Recently I replaced this with a xml tokenizer I wrote in Go that can deal with invalid or corrupt xml. On top of this I have used a state machine to make it possible to handle different situations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Jay Kreps' article on the log abstraction - [https://engineering.linkedin.com/distributed-systems/log- wha...](https://engineering.linkedin.com/distributed-systems/log-what-every- software-engineer-should-know-about-real-time-datas-unifying)

<comment><USER14> I've had this open in my browser for about two years now. I've read it maybe 1.5 times and I know I want to re-read it, but it's so long that I rarely actually get to it.

If you enjoy the subject, these two are good reads as well: \- [https://www.oreilly.com/ideas/the-world-beyond-batch- streami...](https://www.oreilly.com/ideas/the-world-beyond-batch- streaming-101) \- [https://www.oreilly.com/ideas/the-world-beyond-batch- streami...](https://www.oreilly.com/ideas/the-world-beyond-batch- streaming-102)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Joel Spolsky - "Strategy Letter V". The article serves as an economics primer for any individual(though its much more relevant to software developers). Key Takeaway-- commoditize your products complement

[https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy- letter-v/](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v/)

</comment><comment><USER10> What should a four-year old know? [https://magicalchildhood.wordpress.com/2010/08/31/what- shoul...](https://magicalchildhood.wordpress.com/2010/08/31/what- should-a-4-year-old-know/)

It's common for parents to be daunted by the fact that their kids are being left behind. This fear leads to high-pressure parenting and its symptoms are much worse in an Indian society (in which I grew up). What kids need more is freedom to explore their own interests and inquisitiveness rather than forced lessons. I keep revisiting this article to remind myself what kids needs the most to grow.

</comment><comment><USER6> Richard Hamming: You and Your Research

[http://www.paulgraham.com/hamming.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/hamming.html)

<comment><USER16> If you like this, I _highly_ recommend Hamming's book _The Art of Doing Science and Engineering_. This is the write-up of a graduate course he taught at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School. There is also a complete set of video recordings of his lectures from his 1995 teaching of that course on YouTube [1].

The talk _You and Your Research_ is actually the final chapter/lecture in the book/course.

I can't personally recommend the lectures, since I have not watched them, but I have carefully read the book and taken notes: it is pure gold.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2FF649D0C4407B30](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2FF649D0C4407B30)

<comment><USER6> Thanks !

I can't find it in paper version though - only PDF. Any idea where could I buy it ?

<comment><USER16> Alas, it is long out of print, and the few used copies out there are expensive. I just did a search on AbeBooks [1], and the cheapest is about $300 USD, which is greatly down from the outlandish $700 that the two available copies were going for five or six years ago. You can buy it as a Kindle ebook though, and there used to be an Adobe DRM'd PDF available (which is what I have) but I don't know that you can buy that one any more.

I _did_ have the opportunity to compare my PDF with a genuine original book, and found no differences. Even the typos I found in the PDF that I thought must be OCR errors turn out to be in the original as well.

[1] [https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?isbn=97890569...](https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?isbn=9789056995010)

<comment><USER6> Thanks. I will go will the PDF then, which is too bad since I much prefer paper versions. I've seen some used at around $300 USD indeed. That would make it the most expensive book I've ever bought I guess ! (currently it's "Poor Charlie's Almanack", by Charles T. Munger - I think I've paid something like 150$ some years ago. Best money ever spent !)

<comment><USER16> Given your liking of Munger's book, you might find this interesting: in the _Stress-influence tendency_ chapter (page 434 or thereabouts, I think), Munger mentions a "description of Pavlov's last work in a popular paperback, written by some Rockefeller-financed psychiatrist". This is probably Battle for the Mind [1] by William Sargant [2].

The Wikipedia entry on Sargant says things like "his reliance on dogma rather than clinical evidence have confirmed his reputation as a controversial figure whose work is seldom cited in modern psychiatric texts.", and others "described him as 'autocratic, a danger, a disaster' and spoke about 'the damage he did'".

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Battle-Mind-Brainwashing- Evangelists-...](https://www.amazon.com/Battle-Mind-Brainwashing-Evangelists- Psychiatrists/dp/1883536065)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Sargant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Sargant)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> How to make wealth by PG [http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html](http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html)

Why Amazon has no profits and why it works by A16Z [https://a16z.com/2014/09/05/why-amazon-has-no-profits-and- wh...](https://a16z.com/2014/09/05/why-amazon-has-no-profits-and-why-it- works/)

</comment><comment><USER18> (NSFW) "The Others" I keep it in a bookmark with the title "never forget". It is in French but it is mostly for the pictures of civilian victims in Syria.

[https://making-of.afp.com/les-autres](https://making-of.afp.com/les-autres)

Remember how privileged we are. Remember how quickly these privileges can go away. Remember how unfair the world is.

Focus on what is important. Focus on life. Yours and others.

</comment><comment><USER19> Paul Graham's essay _What you can 't say_ was one of the most enlightening pieces I've ever read. It makes a strong case that whatever your current ethics are, some of them will look strange or even barbaric to people in the future, just as the beliefs of many compassionate rational people living 100, 500 or 1,000 years ago do to you. Then it talks about root causes of moral fashions and what you can do to discover what heresies you might unconsciously believe but be unable to speak without serious repercussions.

From this vantage point 13 years later, there are specific parts of the essay that are objectionable now, and yet that reinforces rather than refutes the core thrust of the essay.

[http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html)

</comment><comment><USER20> I always find it stimulating to read

How to do Research At the MIT AI Lab [1] and Where's the Passion [2].

[1]: [https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/41487](https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/41487) [2]: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3093808/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3093808/)

<comment><USER11> David Chapman, the author of "How to do Research at the MIT AI Lab" is currently writing a book on meta-rationality over at meaningness.com. Highly recommended.

A taste from the blog outside of the book: [https://meaningness.com/metablog/stem-fluidity- bridge](https://meaningness.com/metablog/stem-fluidity-bridge)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Stevey's Google Platforms Rant

[https://plus.google.com/+RipRowan/posts/eVeouesvaVX](https://plus.google.com/+RipRowan/posts/eVeouesvaVX)

</comment><comment><USER22> Luigi Rossolo's The Art of Noise, a 1913 futurist manifesto that talks about how people adapt to technology, and that defines their aesthetic sensibilities (and predicts electronic/industrial music).

[http://www.artype.de/Sammlung/pdf/russolo_noise.pdf](http://www.artype.de/Sammlung/pdf/russolo_noise.pdf)

Bob Altemeyer's The Authoritarians has gotten multiple re-readings (it's a short book/very long essay, but is published free online) and has given me great insight into the attitudes behind the right-wing populists currently dominating politics in the West:

[https://theauthoritarians.org/](https://theauthoritarians.org/)

</comment><comment><USER23> Smart Guy Productivity Pitfalls

[http://bookofhook.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/smart-guy- productiv...](http://bookofhook.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/smart-guy-productivity- pitfalls.html)

</comment><comment><USER24> 14 years ago: the day Teller gave me the secret to my career in magic

[http://shwood.squarespace.com/news/2009/9/21/14-years-ago- th...](http://shwood.squarespace.com/news/2009/9/21/14-years-ago-the-day- teller-gave-me-the-secret-to-my-career.html)

</comment><comment><USER25> 8 Years Today - Paul Buchheit

It's a very personal post about death & loss & mourning. It helped me navigate through a tough time.

[http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2012/03/eight-years- today.h...](http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2012/03/eight-years-today.html)

</comment><comment><USER26> [http://www.paulgraham.com/startupideas.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/startupideas.html)

"The way to get startup ideas is not to try to think of startup ideas. It's to look for problems."

I personally think this is an profoundly important piece of writing.

<comment><USER27> aka - "scratch that itch"

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Execution in the Kingdom of Nouns, Steve Yegge: [http://steve- yegge.blogspot.com.au/2006/03/execution-in-king...](http://steve- yegge.blogspot.com.au/2006/03/execution-in-kingdom-of- nouns.html?_sm_au_=iVVs6jNjDn4QWTLs)

</comment><comment><USER29> Not tech related, but helped me realise how we subconsciously view others and ourselves:

[http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/picture-yourself-as- a-s...](http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/picture-yourself-as-a- stereotypical-male)

</comment><comment><USER30> Let's Build a Compiler by Jack Crenshaw.[1] It's not really the content that I enjoy, rather the form of instruction. To exaggerate, I'm sure that someone who had never touched programming in their life could learn how to write a compiler from this work.

[1]: [https://compilers.iecc.com/crenshaw/](https://compilers.iecc.com/crenshaw/)

</comment><comment><USER31> Scott Adams, "The Day You Became A Better Writer", 2007

[http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/06/the_...](http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/06/the_day_you_bec.html)

<comment><USER32> Half as long

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vRhOdf-6co](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vRhOdf-6co)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> You and Your Research by Hamming

[http://www.paulgraham.com/hamming.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/hamming.html)

It's just spectacular in a way that is hard to summarize. My favorite part is the lesson about closed vs open doors.

</comment><comment><USER34> I want to mention 2 of my all time favorite articles -

1\. How language influences emotion - [https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/12/the- book-...](https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/12/the-book-of- human-emotions-language-feelings/420978/)

2\. The Kekule Problem - [http://nautil.us/issue/47/consciousness/the-kekul- problem](http://nautil.us/issue/47/consciousness/the-kekul-problem)

Both of them very thought provoking and excellent articles.

</comment><comment><USER35> How to Be Polite, by Paul Ford: [https://medium.com/message/how-to-be- polite-9bf1e69e888c](https://medium.com/message/how-to-be-polite-9bf1e69e888c)

</comment><comment><USER36> Naval Ravikant on Reading, Happiness, Systems for Decision Making, Habits, Honesty and More:

[https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/wp- content/uploads/2017/02/...](https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/wp- content/uploads/2017/02/Naval-Ravikant-TKP.pdf)

audio: [https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2017/02/naval-ravikant- read...](https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2017/02/naval-ravikant-reading- decision-making/)

</comment><comment><USER37> "This Is Water" speech, by David Wallace.

Link: [http://www.befreetoday.com.au/this-is- water/](http://www.befreetoday.com.au/this-is-water/)

<comment><USER38> As a counterpoint, see Cushman's comment in this thread about DFW: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2909562](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2909562)

I've reread it probably hundreds of times, it might be the single most insightful HN comment I've ever read.

<comment><USER39> Direct link to Cushman's comment:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2910381](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2910381)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I find myself going back to "The Absolute Minimum Every Software Developer Absolutely, Positively Must Know About Unicode and Character Sets (No Excuses!)" by Joel Spolsky.

It's the basics that I forget often...

[https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2003/10/08/the-absolute- minim...](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2003/10/08/the-absolute-minimum- every-software-developer-absolutely-positively-must-know-about-unicode-and- character-sets-no-excuses/)

</comment><comment><USER41> Richard P. Gabriel, "The Rise of Worse is Better"

[http://dreamsongs.com/RiseOfWorseIsBetter.html](http://dreamsongs.com/RiseOfWorseIsBetter.html)

</comment><comment><USER42> Meditations on Moloch. In which coordination problems are incarnated as Ginsberg's Moloch. [http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on- moloch/](http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/)

<comment><USER43> Came here to post this one too. He has so many wonderful essays, but this one amazed me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Start Now. No Funding Needed. by Derek Sivers

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KLnXjqKL5g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KLnXjqKL5g)

</comment><comment><USER45> On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber

[http://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/](http://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/)

<comment><USER46> That website seems to be under construction but I found an alternate link: [https://libcom.org/library/phenomenon-bullshit-jobs-david- gr...](https://libcom.org/library/phenomenon-bullshit-jobs-david-graeber)

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> _Epigrams on Programming_ \-- Alan Perlis

[http://cpsc.yale.edu/epigrams-programming](http://cpsc.yale.edu/epigrams- programming)

</comment><comment><USER48> Ada Palmer's "On Progress and Historical Change" [https://www.exurbe.com/?p=4041](https://www.exurbe.com/?p=4041)

"So when I tell people about this election, and they ask me "Does it always have the same outcome?" the answer is yes and no. Because the Great Forces always push the same way. The strong factions are strong. Money is power. Blood is thicker than promises. Virtue is manipulable. In the end, a bad man will be pope. And he will do bad things. The war is coming, and the land — some land somewhere — will burn. But the details are always different. A Cardinal needs to gather fourteen votes to get the throne, but it's never the same fourteen votes, so it's never the same fourteen people who get papal favor, whose agendas are strengthened, whose homelands prosper while their enemies fall. And I have never once seen a pope elected in this simulation who did not owe his victory, not only to those who voted, but to one or more of the humble functionaries, who repeated just the right whisper at just the right moment, and genuinely handed the throne to Monster A instead of Monster B. And from that functionary flow the consequences."

</comment><comment><USER49> Julia Evans' Linux Debugging Zine: [https://jvns.ca/debugging- zine.pdf](https://jvns.ca/debugging-zine.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER50> "The Egg"

[http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html](http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html)

</comment><comment><USER51> The mythical 10x programmer - <USER2> [http://antirez.com/news/112](http://antirez.com/news/112)

<comment><USER52> me too :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> this was posted on HN a month or two ago, but I've read it several times and has motivated me to avoid mindless consumption of media and instead create stuff.

[https://www.sophiaellis.co/blog/the-world-belongs-to- those-w...](https://www.sophiaellis.co/blog/the-world-belongs-to-those-who- create-vs-those-who-consume)

<comment><USER54> try this one:

[http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews](http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews)

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Humdog's Pandora's Vox: [https://gist.github.com/kolber/2131643](https://gist.github.com/kolber/2131643) Every time I read it, it feels like the first time. I first read it one month before graduating with my undergrad CS degree and it profoundly changed me. She sure was ahead of her time.

</comment><comment><USER56> Brendan Gregg's [linux perf]([http://www.brendangregg.com/linuxperf.html](http://www.brendangregg.com/linuxperf.html)) posts.

They a great reference for linux tools and how to use them.

They are also a great guide to deductive reasoning when spelunking through a system to find issues.

</comment><comment><USER57> Not programming related, just wonderful.

REFLECTIONS AFTER 25 YEARS AT THE MOVIES

[http://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journal/reflections- after-2...](http://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journal/reflections- after-25-years-at-the-movies)

</comment><comment><USER39> The neatly itemized startup-howto advice in @jasonlbaptiste's very long comment from 7 years ago:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1447467](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1447467)

</comment><comment><USER58> I have a couple of go to pieces on procrastination/getting things done:

Procrastination is not Laziness ([http://www.raptitude.com/2011/05/procrastination-is-not- lazi...](http://www.raptitude.com/2011/05/procrastination-is-not-laziness))

6 Harsh Truths That Will Make You a Better Person ([http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-harsh-truths-that-will-make- yo...](http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-harsh-truths-that-will-make-you-better- person/))

</comment><comment><USER59> Solitude and leadership [https://theamericanscholar.org/solitude-and- leadership/](https://theamericanscholar.org/solitude-and-leadership/)

</comment><comment><USER60> Web design: The first 100 years.

[http://idlewords.com/talks/web_design_first_100_years.htm](http://idlewords.com/talks/web_design_first_100_years.htm)

</comment><comment><USER61> On Scott and Scurvy: [http://idlewords.com/2010/03/scott_and_scurvy.htm](http://idlewords.com/2010/03/scott_and_scurvy.htm)

</comment><comment><USER62> The Flinch | motivational | [https://raouldify.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/2011_1203-the-...](https://raouldify.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/2011_1203-the- flinch.pdf&ved=0ahUKEwiDw8T49NjWAhXDFJoKHQUZBGUQFgglMAA&usg=AOvVaw3AfF4dMDPUhM0i8Shw8Huw)

Self Reliance | inspirational | [http://www.youmeworks.com/self_reliance_translated.html](http://www.youmeworks.com/self_reliance_translated.html)

</comment><comment><USER63> A recent article, but "WHEN THE LEVEE BREAKS" has been bouncing around my head and had several re-reads over the last month.

Its not about technology, and its not about football, though it uses that as a backdrop. Read it twice. [https://www.everydayshouldbesaturday.com/2017/9/1/16233388/w...](https://www.everydayshouldbesaturday.com/2017/9/1/16233388/when- the-levee-breaks)

</comment><comment><USER64> The top idea in your mind by Paul Graham

[http://www.paulgraham.com/top.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/top.html)

</comment><comment><USER41> Derek Lowe, "Sand Won't Save You This Time". My favorite entry from a drug discovery chemist's _Things I Won 't Work With_ stories.

[http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2008/02/26/san...](http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2008/02/26/sand_wont_save_you_this_time)

</comment><comment><USER65> "How to make breaking changes and not break all the things"

would love a poster version of this

[http://web.archive.org/web/20160411085134/http://matthew.mce...](http://web.archive.org/web/20160411085134/http://matthew.mceachen.us/blog/how- to-make-breaking-changes-and-not-break-all-the-things-1315.html)

</comment><comment><USER66> Yonathan Zunger's explanation of Paxos/consistency: [https://hackernoon.com/how-your-data-is-stored-or-the- laws-o...](https://hackernoon.com/how-your-data-is-stored-or-the-laws-of-the- imaginary-greeks-54c569c17a49)

It's a lengthy read, but that's the one which helped me _really_ understand Paxos.

</comment><comment><USER14> Meta-question: how do you keep track of these? Every now and then I come upon something and I think "Oh, I should definitely re-read this!". But then, eventually, I end up forgetting about it. Are these just things that often come up and re-read them because you know they're worth it, or do you actively keep track of them somehow?

<comment><USER67> I use Pocket, and after going through this thread my feed looks like this :P [https://i.imgur.com/DOPpL0Z.png](https://i.imgur.com/DOPpL0Z.png)

Though if you start using pocket you will inevitably end up with thousands of unread articles that you will "read later" which might be worse.

<comment><USER68> If you use Kindle you can use [https://www.crofflr.com/](https://www.crofflr.com/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13574916](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13574916) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14163905](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14163905)

</comment><comment><USER70> Most of the ones by Paul Graham. They seem to condense things very well, and no matter how many times I reread it, it has the same fresh impact.

One of the best is [http://paulgraham.com/growth.html](http://paulgraham.com/growth.html)

</comment><comment><USER71> Pretty much anything by Patrick McKenzie. He goes by patio11 here. His writing imparts so much value.

</comment><comment><USER72> The Legion Lonely: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15000729](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15000729) (I always keep the HN link for the comments but its the blog post Im talking about)

</comment><comment><USER73> McSweeney's Decorative Gourd Season: [https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/its- decorative-gourd-sea...](https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/its-decorative- gourd-season-motherfuckers)

</comment><comment> jules-jules Why news is bad for you.

[https://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/apr/12/news-is-bad- ro...](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/apr/12/news-is-bad-rolf-dobelli)

</comment><comment><USER74> Electricity Misconceptions Spread by k-6 Textbooks: [http://amasci.com/miscon/elect.html](http://amasci.com/miscon/elect.html)

</comment><comment><USER75> [https://signalvnoise.com/posts/3972-reconsider](https://signalvnoise.com/posts/3972-reconsider)

</comment><comment><USER76> Black Triangles by Rampant Games:

[http://rampantgames.com/blog/?p=7745](http://rampantgames.com/blog/?p=7745)

</comment><comment><USER77> Is it OK to be a Luddite - by Thomas Pynchon

5-10 page long essay about "technology scepticism", from 1984 . A perspective on digitization of society, then and now.

</comment><comment><USER78> "Class" [http://siderea.livejournal.com/1260265.html?format=light](http://siderea.livejournal.com/1260265.html?format=light) or a Slate Star Codex summary: "Staying Class" [http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/01/30/staying- classy/](http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/01/30/staying-classy/)

About the differences between economic class and social class.

An example question to consider:

why are electricians and plumbers less respected than university professors even though they often make far more money?

</comment><comment><USER79> Freeman Dyson - he wrote a few books years ago on a lot of interesting subjects. I flick through them occasionally

</comment><comment><USER80> Anything by Peter F. Drucker. If you've never read Drucker, you owe it to yourself.

</comment><comment><USER81> you and your research

[http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html](http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html)

</comment><comment><USER82> Programmer Interrupted

[http://blog.ninlabs.com/2013/01/programmer- interrupted/](http://blog.ninlabs.com/2013/01/programmer-interrupted/)</comment>


A new class of magnet that exhibits novel quantum effects - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2020-07-scientists-topological-magnet-exotic-quantum.html <comment><AUTHOR> [https://phys.org/news/2020-07-scientists-topological- magnet-...](https://phys.org/news/2020-07-scientists-topological-magnet- exotic-quantum.html)

<comment><USER2> I've put that URL above instead of [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2482-7](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2482-7). When it comes to highly specialized papers like this one, please submit the best third-party article instead.

Papers on computing are exceptions, as are papers readable by a smart general audience. But not papers that are as specialized as this one—if people can't read them then there isn't anything meaningful to discuss; perhaps a bit of the title and that's it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Got it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> > Quantum magnets are promising platforms for dissipationless current

Does that mean that we can produce long-distance very efficient power lines that don't need superconductors?

<comment><USER4> No, this about signals, not power.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a super weirdly sensationalist article. It's far too popsci to be a good read for physicists, while being far to science-jargony to be accessible to laymen.

<comment><USER6> I wonder if it's possible to build a language filter that excises the "named chair" names from someone's title, so:

F. Duncan Haldane, the Thomas D. Jones Professor of Mathematical Physics and the Sherman Fairchild University Professor of Physics at Princeton

becomes

F. Duncan Haldane, a Professor of Mathematical Physics at Princeton

It would vastly increase the readability of some of these things.

<comment><USER7> I am glad someone else is bothered by such titles as far as readability goes.</comment></comment></comment>


Living on $100k a Year - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/2017/12/03/567602293/what-living-on-100-000-a-year-looks-like <comment><USER2> Recently, the news media seems to have developed a weird fetish for the petit bourgeoisie. The U.S. is highly atypical in how we treat the upper middle class.

In Germany, for example, a two-income couple making 84,000 Euro ($100,000) in Bavaria nets 57% of their income: [https://www.icalculator.info/germany.html](https://www.icalculator.info/germany.html). In Maryland, a relatively high-tax state, they net 76% of their income. And that doesn't adjust for the additional upper middle class tax benefits like the mortgage interest deduction, which don't exist in Germany, which would take the net income over 80% on a typical house.

A couple earning 840,000 Euro ($1 million), in contrast, net 55% of their income, barely different from the previous example. In Maryland, they net 54%, less than in Germany! In contrast, actual corporate tax rates in Germany are about 15.5%, versus 18.5% in the U.S. (and Germany is quite high compared to say Canada, at 8.5% or France, at 11.2%).

I live on the east coast, but about an hour east of D.C. Around here, you can live very comfortably on $100,000/year. Certainly, more comfortably (at least, materially) than you typical middle class German family. The only reason the situation gets worse as you get closer to D.C. is expensive housing and worse schools, which are problems that are entirely inflicted by the middle class on itself (through anti-development and pro-segregation policies).

<comment><USER3> Just a heads up: The numbers for Germany on that page include all social security contributions, including health insurance (4.7k€) and pension contributions (6k€). (Not sure if you accounted for these in your number for Maryland.)

<comment><USER4> Not to mention high quality education through university.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, that's something I always forget about when talking to people from the US: I don't have any student loans. A semester at a university in Germany costs around 250€ (plus housing and food), so it's hard to get to a point where you need 10 years to pack back loans. I had a part time job all through university and even saved up a reasonable amount of money.

<comment><USER5> There is really no reason for an American to have a unaffordable student loan. They could easily go to a state school instead of a private college and save thousands.

<comment><USER6> I don't know that it's quite that simple; for one, tuition dominates college cost discussions while actual costs consist in large part of living expenses, i.e. room, board, food, misc. Second, there are some impressively expensive state schools out there, and not all have especially affordable in-state tuition, particularly not to those of working class background.

Still, I agree with the general idea you're reaching for. The ostensible premium of elite private schools isn't worth going into crippling debt for in most cases I can envisage.

<comment><USER5> How many college students _have_ to stay on campus? How many could go to two year college, stay at home and then transfer two years later?

I went to a small state college with a horrible computer science department. Four years out of college I was making just as much as people who had way more debt than I had (I.e. none)

<comment><USER6> I dropped out of UGA 2.5 years in and moved to Atlanta to pursue a burgeoning tech career. :-)

I can tell you that UGA requires freshmen to live on campus, though in my case I was able to get a waiver because my parents were local. And I get the impression that their housing costs are actually fairly competitive compared to local commercial rent.

<comment><USER5> If someone's ultimate goal is to graduate from UGA and they are not local, they still could probably find a two year college where their core credits would transfer (English, math, etc.)

<comment><USER6> I think that's probably true.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > "And now I'm one of those coastal elites, a term, you know, that people in > Middle America use. And it feels like betrayal," he says. "But what I've > learned in moving to the coast is there's real inequality. And the biggest > driver of that inequality is the tax code. The biggest social welfare has > been to the rich and powerful, giving them loopholes and abilities to keep > money from the government and keep money from the rest of us."

It saddened me to read that snippet. Growing up on the west coast, I was aware of some ideological/cultural differences between urban metros and the Middle America, but I was not aware of that sense of classism.

A take-away I had from Trump's election was that there still is a lot of economic struggle in the interior of the US. Nobody seems to be interested in improving the situation, and very few of these communities have the means and/or the willingness to move towards greener pastures. Is there anything that can be done to improve the situation?

<comment><USER8> > A take-away I had from Trump's election was that there still is a lot of > economic struggle in the interior of the US. Nobody seems to be interested > in improving the situation, and very few of these communities have the means > and/or the willingness to move towards greener pastures. Is there anything > that can be done to improve the situation?

I work in a typical liberal as hell company in a very expensive city. The level of hate/class superiority towards the unwashed masses from my co-workers is absolutely mind blowing. It is casual hate that shows up everywhere, every day in a unrelated conversations. If one was to do s/<who they talk about>/gay|minority/g they would be terminated on the spot. It goes all the way up the corporate latter. All of them are card carrying progressives.

<comment><USER5> I didn't realize how outright prejudice I was when it came to the stereotypical Trump true believer until after this election. It just never crossed my mind. I'm African American grew up middle class but I saw and interacted with plenty of poorer minorities but never poorer Whites - I went to a predominantly white private school, but by definition if they were at private school, they weren't poor.

Went into tech and only interacted with other white collar workers.

Of course I don't agree with Trumps demonization of "other" but I do see how he easily tapped into their resentment. People don't seem to realize how many Trump voters in middle America voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012.

<comment><USER9> Hillary Clinton had Donald Trump beat by millions in the popular vote. I suspected it was more or less the same conservative base, with Democratic voters less enthusiastic in rural/suburban America.

<comment><USER8> In the rules of the NFL team that has the ball longest is not the team that wins the game - team that scores does. Those are the rules.

<comment><USER5> I'm not sure that it's a bad thing that the electoral college is used for deciding the presidential election and that the senate isn't representational of the population. Even considering that "my side" loss twice because of it.

The needs of the least populous states - trump country -have been ignored in the national conversation for too long by both parties. Trump was just paying lip service to their needs and is actively selling them out. But no one else was even paying lip service.

I'm not part of Trump's core demographics - both a minority and part of the "liberal tech elite" but a lot of his policies will help me a lot more than they will help people who voted for him.

Yeah I'm ignoring the so called "moral majority", there is no hope for them. Hopefully changing demographics will continue to make them even less relevant.

<comment><USER8> It is _irrelevant_ if rules are bad or rules are good. It is only relevant what the rules are at the time of the competition.

Rules can always be changed but it must be done before the beginning of the game.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm one of those coastal elites. Early career, so ballpark around this salary. I have some student loan debt, but my portion of the rent is only $1,000 a month plus utilities (I split a place). I spend about $2,500 a month. And I sock away the rest (about $60k annually) into investments.

$100k still goes far in a high cost of living, coastal area. However, I drive a used car. I'm a renter, and probably will be for awhile. If I wanted to be a homeowner, a good portion of my retirement savings / investments would be going towards that.

If I decided to have kids, which would mean at least a place with additional bedrooms, plus additional health care coverage costs, etc., I could see it getting tight. I might have to compromise my retirement savings goals.

I don't have a lot, but I'm also a minimalist. And I realize that, income wise, probably 80% of society has it worse than me. I don't know how households earning around $50k would feel any semblance of having a future financially. Growing my savings/investments is the only way I feel like I'm getting ahead. Having any sort of typical American dream goal (house, kids, etc) would basically nullify my ability to get ahead, with the exception of building some home equity.

<comment><USER10> The difference between you and the 1987 version of you is that you are kneecapped from an earning power perspective.

Barring equity compensation that appreciates, you're likely to grow your income until around 35. Then you plateau.

You're also unlikely to retain companies or career skill set through to retirement. So you're facing a crisis where you need to transition and maintain salary around age 40, where 1987 you would be entering peak earning years.

It's a particularly vicious cycle as professionals marry late and have kids late, so when you're scrambling to maintain your 401k to retire, you get hit with a big college bill in your late 40s/early 50s. If you invest unwisely and don't have a home, you're choosing to either retire comfortably or not pay for college.

<comment><USER9> Your children can always borrow for college. You can't borrow for retirement, so it makes sense to prioritize retirement savings.

I agree, though, that the purchasing power is nowhere near 1987 and that the plateau comes earlier. I suppose it's what makes saving earlier and saving more ever pertinent for the younger generation. If I can get to 200k before I plateau, I'd be happy. If I have a working spouse that makes at least 100k, I'd say we could probably keep the American dream alive for us.

At least via my 401k, there are few poor options to choose, thankfully. The worst you could probably do is pick a fixed income class (and get no growth) or go too risky with international funds (if you for some reason went 100% international). But the target-date funds and index funds provided (SP500, etc) are diversified and generally considered good investments.

<comment><USER11> If you're making that good already and working in tech, I doubt it will be hard for you to reach that target income. Keeping up with the latest technology, learning skills and delivering on projects has got me very far in my professional career, and I've worked with Senior Engineers who continue to do engineering and switch jobs (although perhaps less frequently since it means changing a lot of things).

I guess what I'm trying to say is: financially, you are likely to be OK, if you manage to have a spouse that will be a good partner and you both stay together while bringing up the kids (and that is a BIG IF). It get VERY dicey if you do split, in which case you have to pay for spousal and child support (I've seen this happen wayy too many times).

Which brings me to what has been my most important realization perhaps: be VERY VERY careful when you choose your spouse and how you combine your finances. I'm not saying that you spouse will be bad; but statistically it seems like there is a 50% chance that it won't work out, for whatever reason. This can ruin your finances. So spend some significant time and effort to try to make the right decision there. This is kinda hard when society emphasizes getting married and having kids ASAP.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I really cannot sympathize. My father raised a family of 6 making ~$30k/yr at his peak. Yes we struggled at times. Public school. Knock off sneakers. Cheap cost cutter food and small simple meals. Crap car. Etc.

When I started working in software I made way more money right out of school than my family ever made. And I developed a lot of bad spending habits as a result. After a few years I got my head on straight. Paid off all my debt, got disciplined about saving, and cut out unnecessary expenses.

It's not that hard to live very comfortably on 100k. But you aren't going to be eating out all the time, driving new cars, living in a gigantic mcmansion, etc.

Edit: My youngest sibling was born in 93. 30k in 93 is like 50k today. HALF of what the people in this article are living on. Give me a break! These people don't need a raise or a hand out, they need a realistic budget.

<comment><USER13> > My father raised a family of 6 making ~$30k/yr at his peak.

When your father was working and you were growing up, $30k was worth more (perhaps much more, depending on how old you are) than it is now. His job probably had benefits and protections modern jobs don't have. What used to work for people increasingly doesn't work, in large part because benefits are disappearing, government programs and subsidies are being cut, and what's considered a "fair wage" hasn't tracked at all with how much things actually cost, especially on the coast.

<comment><USER14> Crap cars are also expensive as hell to keep running nowadays. Buying new or nearly new, if you need the transportation for your job, can be more economical. That wasn't the case 40 years ago. That labor that his mom presumably put in is also not without monetary value - two working parents cost a fortune in childcare, and many people need both salaries to make the equivalent of what just one used to.

<comment><USER2> That's a falsehood people tell themselves to justify buying a new car. One of my parents' cars is a 2003 Acura. It's never needed anything but oil changes since we got it. Cars these days are much cheaper to operate than they used to be.

<comment><USER15> Totally true. Just about every reputable financial advisor says to drive used cars and run them 'till the wheels fall off.

Today's used cars are fantastically reliable, historically. (At least if you stick with 'Best Buy' recommendations.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As someone with a six-figure self-employment income, I can also say that cash flow is a very important part of the equation. If you take an appropriate discount for bad/unsteady cash flow (and few of us do), one is led to the conclusion that $100k+ in SE income can often afford one a ~$40k lifestyle at best, in terms of recurring expenses one can reasonably commit to and consistently afford.

That's something a lot of people on salary don't get. Back when I was on W-2 and had much lower compensation than I nominally have now, I had my ducks in a row, taxes paid, a positive savings rate, and good credit. That hasn't been the case since I went self-employed about ten years ago.

If someone were to divide my annual revenue (less expenses) by 12 and distribute it to me on the 1st of every month, a lot of problems would be solved. But because that's not how reality works, I take a bath in late fees, interest, overdraft fees, no access to credit due to bad rating, etc.

Some of those things are more avoidable than others depending on the choices one makes, but that's not the point. The point is that W-2 and SE income are not equivalent. Unless you've devised some compensation scheme that is substantially similar to salary as a contractor, you can't afford anywhere near a $100k lifestyle as a consultant earning $100k+. There are many days I'd happily trade places with folks who get a lower, but steady paycheck every two weeks for doing more or less one job.

<comment><USER16> It sounds like you are not budgeting appropriately for the amount and variability of your income. I just recently left the consulting game, but did so for nearly a decade. If you're truly interested in making a change I recommend reading The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey.

<comment><USER6> I'd like to think I budget appropriately, though I'll admit I didn't always when I was younger; it's an acquired skill. But you try budgeting appropriately through a divorce and absurdly expensive custody battle.

But in a way, you're making my point for me; because $100k in SE income is not the same as $100k in W-2 income, it requires special budgeting considerations, to the degree that I'd benefit from reading a whole book about it. :-)

<comment><USER16> >But you try budgeting appropriately through a divorce and absurdly expensive custody battle

I did.

>But in a way, you're making my point for me; $100k in SE income is not the same as $100k in W-2 income.

Actually, I'm making the exact opposite point. The budget is the exact same. The budget is what forces you to not over-spend when times are good, so that you have plenty of money around when times are lean.

<comment><USER6> Well, indeed; what that adds up to is that it's safer (if perhaps unwise, that's debatable) to get closer to the line with a stable income than an unstable one.

Otherwise, it seems your advice is "live within your means", "spend less than you make" and "save for rainy days". Thanks, dad.

<comment><USER16> >it's safer to get closer to the line with a stable income than an unstable one.

No, it means you've failed to accurately assess what the "line" even is.

>Otherwise, it seems your advice is "live within your means", "spend less than you make" and "save for rainy days". Thanks, dad.

No, my advice was a specific set of principles and practices laid out within Ramsey's book which could help you to overcome the problems in your life that you were discussing. I was not promoting useless platitudes.

<comment><USER6> My point was that with greater volatility, a smaller portion of income remains sufficiently consistent, and thus the line will be lower and the budget will be smaller.

<comment><USER16> I don't think you would feel that way if you actually read the book and followed a real written budget. I know this because I've lived it myself. The only difference between variable income and static income is gauging the size of your emergency fund. Otherwise, your budget is identical.

<comment><USER6> Yes, but maintaining a bigger emergency fund implies spending less in other categories. :-)

<comment><USER16> Nope. Building an emergency fund implies spending less in other categories, namely retirement savings. But once you've made those initial, temporary sacrifices, maintaining the emergency fund doesn't cost any more just because you have variable income.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The article even touches on how everyone is trying to keep up with the Joneses instead of living within their means.

Everyone is in a different financial position but instead of recognizing that and living a life you can afford, people get jealous of what their neighbours have or their friends are doing and pursue the same lifestyle regardless of if they can afford it or not.

I do not sympathize with someone struggling to make ends meet on $100K a year. That is a ton of money and if you have debt and bills you can't handle then unless it's just a result of horrible life circumstances, it's most likely your own bad decisions.

</comment><comment><USER18> I don't mean to sound unsympathetic, but it would be nice to hear what is eating into their income so much.

My thought pattern here is that if you can't manage on $100,000 a year then you'll have the same problem at $200,000 a year, so on and so forth.

<comment><USER9> I'm a bit sympathetic to the idea that the American dream, when compared to the average paycheck, just doesn't add up for most people. I don't empathize with the poor financial choices folks make to place their expectations above their reality.

<comment><USER18> I guess I feel the same.

I'm very sympathetic to people who, when making decent financial decisions, are unable to meet their basic needs. Poverty / under-earning like that just creates a constant stress that is completely debilitating and unproductive. It has a real psychic toll.

It's just difficult for me to imagine not being able to make $100,000 work, save for a bunch of kids. But after all, those are somewhat of a choice as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I read the article and I still don't know why these people can't live comfortably on $100k. It is never explained, and I have lived reasonably comfortably with a household income of <$100k in some of the mentioned locales. You don't have to be frugal, just not wasteful. It leads me to believe that it has more to do with life and lifestyle choices than income per se.

It is also hard to be sympathetic given that $100k is substantially higher than the median income in many of these areas, and while not wealthy by any means, many people living a little closer to the median have a pretty decent standard of living simply by managing their finances wisely.

I have many friends in this situation. Too many people refuse to live a lifestyle afforded by their income even though it would be pretty comfortable if they did. My lifestyle, which is far from austere and in Seattle, easily fits into $100k income (though I'd probably have to cut back on the luxury a bit if I had kids).

</comment><comment><USER20> > "People feel like they haven't been getting ahead for a long time," says Jim > Tankersley, who covers taxes and the economy for The New York Times.

I won't say this can't be true, but by experience casts doubt on trusting what people "feel".

For example, lots of people feel they struggle to attain homeownership. But homeownership rates are within 1% of what they were in 1980. Meanwhile, median house sizes have increased 50% since then (or 100%!, relative to household size).

Lots of people feel they aren't being paid enough. But median household income has increased ~25% over the past 40 years (50%, relative to household size). (Looking at household, not individual, child care has transitioned from one stay-at-home parent to one working parent + contracted child care and only the latter adds to "household wages".)

Lots of people feel that education is too expensive, but total scholarship money has exploded. In my home state of Florida, a 970 (Math + Reading) SAT and 3.0 GPA gets you a 75% scholarship to any state school. That is well within reach for most university-bound students. Or achieve a 1270 SAT + 3.5 GPA + 75hrs community service for 100% scholarship.

Lots of people feel cost of living is rising. And yet, there are 10% _more_ people living in urban areas since 1980, which tend to be far more expensive than rural ones.

Sometimes I think all some people ask is to own a home and a couple cars in a good neighborhood with good schools in a big city, travel abroad, and go to private or out-of-state school for a few months salary of a hobby job (and obviously without ROTC) after buying the new $700 smartphone every year and continue that lifestyle into government-sponsored retirement. You know...do what their parents did, but without any of the drawbacks.

\---

In reality, I suspect these feelings are grounded much more with keeping up with the Jones' (+ Facebook), rather than the objective quality of living.

</comment><comment><USER21> There is a very relevant set of articles right now on reddit on this topic.

It started when an Austrian software engineer published his entire spending, and where every cent of his taxes goes, in this post: [https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/7h2idb/wha...](https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/7h2idb/what_my_gross_income_of_60000year_is_actually/)

Other users, employed in all industries, quickly responded, some from Japan [https://redd.it/7h99vj](https://redd.it/7h99vj) , Seattle [https://redd.it/7h6bsr](https://redd.it/7h6bsr) , Brisbane, Australia [https://redd.it/7h9gpe](https://redd.it/7h9gpe) , New York City [https://redd.it/7has76](https://redd.it/7has76) , rural TN [https://redd.it/7hbhe9](https://redd.it/7hbhe9) , London, UK [https://redd.it/7h9tjf](https://redd.it/7h9tjf) , a Major in the US Air Force [https://redd.it/7ha2q0](https://redd.it/7ha2q0) , and another one from Switzerland [https://redd.it/7hbehc](https://redd.it/7hbehc)

There's dozens more posts, I can't link them all, you can find the rest at [https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/](https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/) – but many of them show how people can live very successfully on low wages, and others yet struggle with much more money.

</comment><comment><USER22> The article isn't great, but the audio snippets are a lot better.

I've posted this book a zillion times on HN, but "$2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America" really changed a lot of my thoughts and feelings about what is going on in America today. Highly recommend reading it:

[https://www.amazon.com/2-00-Day-Living-Nothing- America/dp/05...](https://www.amazon.com/2-00-Day-Living-Nothing- America/dp/054481195X)

</comment><comment><USER23> The article would become useful with the addition of the budgets of each of the people/families. Without that it is hard to understand the individual problems, besides some generic platitudes. That is if one would want to find a way to succeed on 100k/yr and not just voice one's current issues.

</comment><comment><USER24> I'm kind of disappointed by this article. As someone who makes a little over six figures (before combined comp.) in the Bay Area I expected to relate a lot to the individuals described in this article. Instead is just had 4 testimonials from individuals who weren't happy on a six-figure income, it failed to list any of the root causes either then a small jab at the tax code.

<comment><USER25> Yeah, it's a lot of "100K seems good until the debt piles up", and I'm wondering where the debt came from and why they're letting it pile up. And why people making half that wouldn't have the same debt with even less ability to manage it.

<comment><USER26> Student loans to earn that 100K a year.

Housing to live near a job that pays 100K a year.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> FYI I think $100,000 of income puts your household in the top 20% of earners in the US.

<comment><USER28> That doesn't mean anything, it depends on what the distribution looks like.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Oh so terrible, how can they even survive, really heartbreaking. Meanwhile the UN is investigating the extreme poverty in the US, you know the people that don't even have their basic human rights guaranteed by their hyper capitalist government.

[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/01/un-extreme- pov...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/01/un-extreme-poverty- america-special-rapporteur)

</comment><comment><USER30> Without any kind of breakdown, this is really uninformative.

Is this due to housing cost? Student debt? Medical debt? Bad decisions? Good decisions that were invalidated by events? Who knows?

</comment><comment><USER31> It would have been nice if they included anything about family size and details besides "kids", budget, lifestyle, etc.

<comment><USER32> It's kind of inconceivable that a family in Kansas City making 100k a year can't afford more than one car. The article is super light on details. Do they have a super expensive house? Student loan payments?

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> A lot our missing the point. 100k/year is good but it takes just one major expense for that to set you back, put you in the hole, and usually leads to more interest, fees and spirals out of control.

"The report, put out by Pew Charitable Trust, includes the results of surveys conducted in 2014 and 2015 to see how Americans were coping with what are referred to as financial shocks—those one-off expenses that crop up from time to time. Pew found that in large part, Americans' ability to weather financial shocks is partially dependent on something that Americans still struggle to accumulate: savings." [https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/04/savings...](https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/04/savings- money-emergency/522036/)

<comment><USER16> >A lot our missing the point. 100k/year is good but it takes just one major expense for that to set you back, put you in the hole, and usually leads to more interest, fees and spirals out of control.

It really should not, if you've budgeted conservatively in the way that our grandparents generation did. For example, if you don't have 3-6 months of expenses in a savings account, short term disability insurance, long term disability insurance, and a term life insurance policy of 10x your annual salary, you're living a fairly high risk financial lifestyle. Again, if you budgeted the way your grandparents did you wouldn't have any debt except MAYBE your house, so a financial setback would almost certainly not result in more interest or fees, since you wouldn't be paying any interest to begin with.

You've accepted this false narrative that the banks have sold you on that being perpetually indebted to them is normal. It's not, from a historical standpoint. And you don't have to live that way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I would just like to point out that using median income to define the middle class is part of the problem. That's really poverty today. In the middle ages when nearly everybody was a serf, would you use median income to define the middle class? Of course not.

</comment><comment><USER34> We live in Dallas on about $185k/year cumulative. Despite $1200/mo in rent, >$1500/mo student loan repayments, $500/mo car payments and $1350/mo credit card debt (i'm aware of how dumb that was), we are living comfortably. My plan is to earn a $200k/year income in less than four years so that my fiancee can go back to school without sacrificng our current lifestyle.

However, we live in an apartment and don't have kids.

There is absolutely no way we could do kids and a mortgage with this debt burden without life going to hell. Once that debt goes away, though? Not a problem at all...for one kid and a cheap house. ($250k house, which is what we wanted anyway, as we aren't fans of big houses)

</comment><comment><USER35> The middle class has been unfairly burdened with paying for the expenses of the entire country. The poor, unable to, the rich, unwilling to.

Tax breaks are at best a very short term proposition, and if the numbers are to be believed, the current tax plan only serves to widen the gap over time.

Unfortunately, many Americans have been convinced to vote against their best interests since in many places, D means Devil. Having a strong stance on hot button issues like abortion is more important than whether you will gut a union or make a fair tax code.

If it's an indication about how bad things are, a probable child molester has an actual shot of being reelected, simply because of the R next to his name. We are not selecting for the best candidates.

<comment><USER36> _The middle class has been unfairly burdened with paying for the expenses of the entire country. The poor, unable to, the rich, unwilling to._

That's not really supported by the data. A more accurate summary would be "the poor, unable to, the rich, _not numerous enough_ to". Raising taxes on the top 1% or the top 0.1% or the top 0.01% has very little impact on total revenues simply because you need to raise taxes 50x, 500x, or 5000x as much in order to extract as much revenue as you would get by raising taxes on the top 50%.

<comment><USER37> Confiscatory taxes on the wealthiest would bring in hundreds of billions. That's not "very little impact", the money could be used to massively improve the lives of millions.

Yes, there are few people, numerically, in the top 0.01%, but that doesn't mean their taxes are inconsequential. Otherwise you might as well argue that they should pay no taxes at all. Absurd.

<comment><USER36> Confiscatory taxes could bring in hundreds of billions of dollars... once. But you can only expropriate someone's property once.

<comment><USER37> Every dollar in the economy is spent and taxed many times. Taxation doesn't make money disappear.

<comment><USER38> Sure, but if you confiscate the wealth of the 0.01% then it's not in their hands anymore and you can't take it from them again.

<comment><USER37> The money would end up in the hands of _somebody_ and subsequently it can get taxed again. You tax wherever the money is.

<comment><USER38> But then we're talking about raising taxes on people other than the 0.1% to fund whatever initiatives we're talking about which was cperciva's point. You can only get so far taxing the ultra rich.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Someone making $100k should easily be able to save $1k a month _wherever_ they are living in the world and put it into a fund making at least 15% a year.

Here's some mind blowing advice - stop buying useless ornaments that do nothing to elevate you or enhance your life in meaningful ways. People have been hoodwinked into buying junk and stand there teary eyed wondering how it all happened and why they're so empty inside. How they went so far but did so little.

This years black friday/cyber monday sales were extraordinary - because people are idiots.

It's not a mystery. Make conscious choices in your life and you won't be a victim. Someone making 6 figures is the last person anyone should feel sad for.

</comment><comment><USER40> What do people think about federal taxes (mostly) not being adjusted for cost of living? It serves as a disincentive for moving to the cities, but is that a good thing or a bad thing?

<comment><USER38> It's a good thing. Living is a high COL city is a luxury. One shouldn't get a tax break because of their particular luxury purchases.

<comment><USER6> Without taking a position on the original COL-adjusted tax question:

Living in a high-cost city isn't necessarily a luxury. Many people who do would prefer not to, but cities concentrate economic opportunities and that is why people migrate to them. This is why urbanisation is a byproduct of economic development pretty much everywhere.

Case in point: I lived in Atlanta for ten years and recently moved back to Athens, a small university town about an hour and some change east. There's no question that it's much cheaper to live here. But if I wanted an actual job in my field, I'd pretty much have to live in Atlanta - that's why I moved there in the first place.

I'm fortunate enough to be self-employed and to no longer care, as the vast majority of my customers are out of state. But make no mistake, there are vanishingly few tech job opportunities here - and this is a fairly educated college town.

And as we know, IT is fairly democratic in the degree to which it can be done remotely. But if you specialise in finance, entertainment, fashion, big law, aerospace, or a variety of other areas, there are certain places you more or less have to be. The American economy is eminently decentralised compared to that of most countries, but still - the cities have the lion's share of white collar, professional middle-income jobs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Its definitely not a enough, even in a medium cost of living area. The biggest problem? Taxes. Of that 100k, 30-40K are taxes.

This is why lowering taxes is great.

</comment><comment><USER42> I've only ever heard the term "coastal elites" from people the live near the coast and wish they were elites.

</comment><comment><USER43> ThrowAway I live in Baltimore, MD. My salary is $100k flat (80k base + 20k bonuses). I would not say that I am king of the hill, but I am in much better position than majority of my friends, though. To be honest, I don't feel like it such a high salary.

</comment><comment><USER44> This is an awful article. How is it at the top of ycombinator. There is no breakdown of any costs or what their living standard ACTUALLY is. These people could very well (and likely do) have spending issues. Eat out too much, buy too many gadgets, replace their car far too often, etc. Thats the problem far too often. Boo Hoo

</comment><comment><USER45> I lived very well on $100k in the DC area. It's all about budgeting.

</comment><comment><USER46> This is ridiculous. It's one thing to claim that 100k is "not enough" if you live in a high cost of living (which is still dubious, considering the median income in NYC is half of that.) If that's not enough for you in Kansas, the fact is that you're living far beyond your means.

I think it's telling that one family cited credit card debt like it's an act of nature instead of a conscious choice. And just because you qualify for a million dollar mortgage doesn't mean you should get one. Spend that big salary on a home near your workplace and sell the $40,000 SUV.

The sooner we wake up from the "dream" of being deep underwater in debt to fund an ecologically and economically unsustainable lifestyle, all the while just a paycheck or two away from complete ruin, the better off we'll be.

<comment><USER47> There's an irritatingly prevalent attitude that once you've moved to a high cost of living area (or were born there), you're forever entitled to stay there. That if you can't afford it, it's the fault of society and needs to be corrected.

<comment><USER6> I don't know if it's the fault of society, but it's fairly natural. Humans get attached to familiar places in which they grew up, in which they have lived in a long time, etc. They plant social roots.

I'm not saying that means people who can't afford to live in places like NYC or SF shouldn't move, just that there's a complex tension between economic theory and "messy" human reality.

The ideal rationally self-interested agent described in economics texts would just move from place to place in search of profit-maximising opportunities, but that's not what actually existing humans do much of the time. They have relatives, friends, aesthetic preferences, social obligations, religious beliefs, and other things that "do not compute" in mathematical models.

<comment><USER48> This ^^^^. I have lived in San Francisco for 25 years now. While I could reduce my cost of living dramatically by moving, I have spent my entire post- college life here. Nearly all of my friends and professional network are here, so I have approximately zero interest in moving, even if it would be cheaper, it would not be worth it.

<comment><USER6> And arguably wouldn't make financial sense. There's a benefit to being within driving distance of 900 of the world's top 1000 tech companies, or whatever it is.

You might be able to afford a better lifestyle on a modest paycheck in Sioux City, Iowa, but what happens when that company, the approximately ~1 serious tech employer in town, lays you off? In the Bay Area, you just go across the street.

Lest anyone think I'm a cheerleader, I live in northeast Georgia and have no intention of moving to the Bay Area. :-)

<comment><USER5> Well if you live in northeast GA (as do I) you know that a software developer with 5-10 years of experience can easily make $110-140K and that easily affords you to live in some of the nicest part of Atlanta.

True. We aren't around "900 of the world's top 1000" companies, but in the 20 years I've lived here, I've never found there to be a lack of development jobs.

As a single person, you could easily live comfortably in parts of metro Atlanta making 70K.

<comment><USER6> My impression of the top end of typical developer salaries in Atlanta doesn't quite go that high, but it's possible they're crept up since I last took a look.

I agree that metro Atlanta is not an especially high-cost area, though parts of it certainly are; ITP in general is getting overheated. I lived in Midtown for the better part of ten years and by the end of that, rents seemed on par with Brooklyn and Chicago, though I did have to upgrade from single-person housing on account of a short-lived marriage.

Nowadays, I've moved back to Athens. Where are you?

<comment><USER5> Forsyth County. I've lived in Marietta,Decatur, And Johns Creek before. And yes the salaries are accurate. This is from both my own experience as both a job seeker and a hiring manager (not really a "manager" more like a team lead who has hired contractors)

Salary.com is seems pretty much in line with my experience.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Does Monthly Pricing Suck For Desktop Apps? - <AUTHOR>

I don't think so - but this is the pushback I've noticed when talking to users.
They are perfectly happy to pay this way for a web app but seem unhappy to consider it for desktop apps even though it has a number of benefits:
- Monthly pricing allows you to spread the cost of the software and if you don't like it you only pay as long as you used it - The software developers can offer silent updates quickly and often to keep adding features and fixing bugs - The software developers are only maintaining one master branch of code - keeping their costs lower which can be passed on to the customer - Most users are paying a regular payment anyway: a product cycle is around a year with most desktop products - after that you have to buy a new version to get new features
Why is this and will it ever change? <comment><USER2> If I have something natively running on my computer, it's mine now. I don't like to pay for it more than once.

This is what goes in my and users' minds, most likely.

</comment><comment><USER3> This difference is what puts the second S in "SaaS" — apps are traditionally products that you buy, not services you subscribe to. When I buy a copy of Sublime Text 2, I then own a copy of the program — it's mine, full stop. But nobody believes they own Basecamp; they just have an account with 37signals' service. If somebody feels like you're selling an app but pricing it like a service, that dissonance reads as unfairness.

<comment><USER4> Completely agree. If I am going to pay an ongoing fee I need to feel like I'm getting ongoing value for the money. I don't like the dynamic of having to continue to pay for something that I already have in my possession in it's entirety, it feels like someone is collecting my money for no continued work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> There are lots of expensive software products that I may have an occasional need for but not enough to justify purchasing a license. For example :

\- Microsoft Office

\- Various (possibly obsolete) versions of Windows

\- Non-Express versions of Visual Studio

\- Matlab and Toolkits

\- Mathematica

\- Photoshop

\- SolidWorks

One reason for this is that I tend to do a lot of short-term freelancing projects, some of which may require access to these products.

Monthly licensing for products like these could be very useful, either locally or in some cases via a remote VM.

Unfortunately only the IP owners could make this happen and they don't seem to have much interest in that type of business model.

</comment><comment><USER6> The desktop subscription model is to sell the software for a one-time fee and then sell support annually (or monthly.) If the software uses a web service then the service is likely an additional subscription fee, or it might be bundled with support.

The only desktop software model that people will pay for without support or a web service is the frequent upgrade model. Microsoft Office and operating systems are the most famous examples of this model. Starcraft II is a example from the gaming world.

</comment><comment><USER7> Yes, it's changing. But it depends on the software and whether it's specifically built to work around monthly payments. As an example, Diablo III was beatable in a few days and left you with absolutely nothing to do afterwards. Whereas a game like World of Warcraft has you paying monthly for several years to play a seemingly never-ending game.

</comment><comment><USER8> Adobe has a monthly payment pay-as-you-go option with their suite of products. They have a pre-existing client base, but this also allowed for people to use as needed,as well as lowering the barrier to entry for product purchase.</comment>


Socialcam is pumping popular YouTube videos... Smart or seedy? - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/05/10/socialcam-is-pumping-popular-youtube-videos-into-its-app-to-drive-usage-smart-or-seedy/

<comment><USER2> My Fb feed has been thick with friends' updates of Socialcam viewing. 9 times out of 10 the still-image in the update is a revealing woman.

I give it two weeks to a month before most folks associate it with the same.

</comment><comment><USER3> Reminds me of those pages where there is no content, but links to _more_ results for the term you originally googled for. Just there to drive views and clicks, no original content.

I'm baffled at how they justify using these kind of tactics. A YC company no less…

</comment><comment><USER4> WOW. so socialcam scrapes videos and then gets them into facebook - what a shame...</comment>


This Warms My Heart: Netflix Has Twice as Many US Subscribers as Comcast - <AUTHOR> https://www.allflicks.net/netflix-has-twice-as-many-u-s-subscribers-as-comcast/ <comment><USER2> On the other end, don't most people need Comcast to watch Netflix anyway?

<comment><AUTHOR> comcast is only in some parts of the country while netflix can be access anywhere</comment></comment>