Announcing Spark 1.6 - <AUTHOR> https://databricks.com/blog/2016/01/04/announcing-spark-1-6.html <comment><USER2> We've been testing 1.6 since before release, specifically SparkSQL and there are some big performance improvements in this release. We're putting together a 3rd party benchmark I'll post to HN when we are done.

</comment><comment><USER3> It sounds like many of the improvements are not available on PySpark yet, which is disappointing. (Notes say feature parity for MLIB, so I'll look into that) However, the notes sound promising.

<comment><USER4> To be honest PySpark and SparkR are always going to be 2nd category citizens (because of the serialization/pickling between the two environments). Databricks shows nice graphs, saying they are equivalent for DataFrames, however those count only for built-in functions that basically translate code into execution plan for Catalyst. For anything bespoke (UDFs, custom Transformers/Estimators) you're better off using Scala.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is true when you compare the performance vs Java/Scala, but if you compare it with other tools that are native in Python, it is not really much worse. For examples, Pandas operations that use custom UDFs are substantially slower than the native operations.

That said, as part of Project Tungsten, we have some ideas about a batch columnar format that can be shared by Python, R, Scala and Java, and that should be able to eliminate most of the inefficiency in serialization across process boundaries.

<comment><USER4> That sounds very interesting. Is there any ticket, where I can follow the progress on the batch columnar format you mentioned?

Btw, I was critical about the issue above, but I do love Spark, using it on a daily basis. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> I just created a JIRA ticket tracking this: [https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/SPARK-12635](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/SPARK-12635)

Thanks for the reminder!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> So the detailed post on datasets at [https://databricks.com/blog/2016/01/04/introducing-spark- dat...](https://databricks.com/blog/2016/01/04/introducing-spark- datasets.html)

uses groupBy

I'm pretty sure based on previous comments you've made that groupBy was one of the things you'd rather eliminate from the RDD api, because of the performance impact compared to reduceByKey (which is almost always what people should be using instead).

Are you at all worried about confusion if groupBy now performs ok on datasets, but not on rdds?

<comment><AUTHOR> Despite our attempts at warning people, a lot of users still use groupByKey in RDDs. Hopefully over time this won't be a problem as the engine should be able to figure out more intelligently and do the proper rewrite (of course, we won't be able to do it 100%).

<comment><USER6> Many people blindly point to the docs to say "don't use groupBy, prefer reduce because it's faster..." Are there better examples that illustrate the fundamental differences between the two operations? Surely there is still a need for both operations

<comment><USER7> Reduce can perform reductions on locally on each machine before shuffling the data. This decreases the memory as well as the network overhead. If you need all the elements for a given key - e.g. to display them to a user or save them to a DB, perhaps you should use groupBy. If you're going to perform some form of a reduce after that though, it's likely sub-optimal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This post: [https://databricks.com/blog/2015/07/30/diving-into-spark- str...](https://databricks.com/blog/2015/07/30/diving-into-spark-streamings- execution-model.html)

In the section titled "Future Directions for Spark Streaming" there is a paragraph about _Event time and out-of-order data_ and _Backpressure_. This would blow my mind to be able to use; this is a real pain currently.

<comment><USER9> Backpressure is in 1.5+ by setting spark.streaming.backpressure.enabled=true ([https://spark.apache.org/docs/latest/streaming- programming-g...](https://spark.apache.org/docs/latest/streaming-programming- guide.html#requirements)). Like you, I'm looking forward to the out-of-order data support.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> New statistics/machine learning algorithms are always welcome, but the big plus for productionizing is ML pipelines persistence.

That said, during Spark Summit Databricks guys themselves were most excited about Dataset API. Looking forward to giving it a try.

</comment><comment><USER10> Great news, Spark is awesome. Only problem is that I now need to review my Spark material for an eBook that I released a month ago and update the examples to work on version 1.6, if required.

</comment><comment><USER11> Any support for nearest neighbor joins? They are very important for aligning events in time series data sets.

</comment><comment><USER12> Love Spark! great works, folks!

</comment><comment><USER13> Excited about dataset api and ML pipeline.</comment>


Show HN: TimeTrackTurbo for business or consulting - <AUTHOR> http://www.timetrackturbo.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> Not affiliated with site but I use it and found none better.</comment>


Toshiba Launches First Cell CPU-based laptop - <AUTHOR> http://www.hothardware.com/News/Toshiba_Launches_First_Cell_CPUbased_Laptop/

<comment><AUTHOR> One point of interest: there are already a couple of Linux distros that will run natively on the Cell processor by itself; could these same libraries be integrated into a IA32 / AMD64 environment? I'm thinking something similar to the ATI optimization of Folding@Home but widely applicable using OSS libraries.</comment>


Ask HN: Should I omit education on resume? - <AUTHOR> I'm graduating college in May with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. It doesn't particularly interest me, I'd rather get an entry level CS job.
From past work, I've got a bit of coding experience. Maintenance on Rails apps, python scripts, C++ state machines, etc. Style wise; I put in detailed comments and use version control, etc.
How do I make my resume sound the most appealing to a company (preferably larger)? Most people see the mechanical engineering and immediately think I don't know what a for loop does or how to use a command line. Should I put my education lower on resume? Not mention it at all? Say:"bachelor of science" and not mention major? I don't want to lie or imply something that isn't true, but I have no qualms leaving out details. <comment><USER2> Nah, don't remove your education. I did that once and people just kept on asking anyway or assuming I didn't have any at all. Not a good idea.

Just like anything else if you want to code you don't need a degree. Just prove that you can code.

Just keep improving your skills. May be difficult at times with no background but that goes for anything.

</comment><comment><USER3> We are psyched to hire mechanical engineers and physics majors. You wouldn't happen to have an active github do you. ?</comment>


Broken my site in Google Search by switching to HTTPS/SPDY? - <AUTHOR> https://gergely.imreh.net/blog/2013/05/switched-to-spdy-and-now-googles-confused/

<comment><USER2> My server (<https://serveur.clauzel.eu/>) have been connected using spdy on IPv6 for more than a year, and I didn't notice any problems.

Google crawls it daily : « 2001:4860:4801:2:aa00:6006:1300:b075 - - [20/May/2013:11:54:32 +0200] "GET /robots.txt HTTP/1.1" 200 4109 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +<http://www.google.com/bot.html)> »

<comment><AUTHOR> Webmaster Tools told me that all crawl is good (even improved), no error messages, still the impressions disappeared.

Any tools you'd recommend checking out whether the config is good?

I'm on an IPv4-only network, unfortunately cannot check out your site...</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is your main criteria when looking for a new job? - <AUTHOR> Some people look at the salary, the location, a promotion, the project, company, people, etc.<p>If you were to pick one criteria for your next gig, what would you be looking at and why? <comment><USER2> (1) Was the process of discussing and negotiating the opportunity with these people pleasant or unpleasant?

(2) All the other stuff.

Of course the "other stuff" (moving forward in one's career, not signing on to the prolonged early death of a torturously long commute and/or dealing with unpleasant or just uninspiring coworkers all day) _should_ be most important. But it's amazing how many companies just don't seem to care, or any awareness at all about the importance of item (1). And quickly start pulling all kinds of stunts (from delayed communications to silly questions to just being highly disorganized in general about the whole process) that make one just as quickly lose interest long before things actually come to the offer stage -- even if the position does offer a high salary and/or interesting work.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is it remote?</comment>


Authentication Vulnerabilities in OpenBSD - <AUTHOR> https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2019/12/04/5 <comment><USER2> Oh, wow, this is brutal. They're shelling out to a command line program to do authentication, and not catching the "-" metacharacter in the username they shell out with, so you can pass options to that program.

<comment><USER3> That's why I like DBJs method. You still use a command line program, but you pass a filehandle that the authentication data can be read from.. this seems much safer than trying to parse and re-format that data as an intermediary. Also avoids any data leaks through the often unprotected 'cmdline'.

Is there some technical reason OpenBSD doesn't do this?

<comment><USER4> What does "DBJ" stand for?

<comment><USER5> Daniel Bernstein, author of qmail, djbdns, and daemontools among others.

<comment><USER4> And where does that auth-info-via-file-handle come from? I did a bit of duckduckgoing and couldn't spot anything about that.

<comment><USER6> The qmail source code has this convention.

<comment><USER4> Thanks!

<comment><USER7> Some call the concept "Bernstein Chaining": [http://www.catb.org/%7Eesr/writings/taoup/html/ch06s06.html](http://www.catb.org/%7Eesr/writings/taoup/html/ch06s06.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > We thank Theo de Raadt and the OpenBSD developers for their incredibly quick > response: they published patches for these vulnerabilities less than 40 > hours after our initial contact.

Awesome.

</comment><comment><USER9> > this vulnerability is remotely exploitable in smtpd, ldapd, and radiusd, but > its real-world impact should be studied on a case-by-case basis. For > example, sshd is not exploitable thanks to its defense-in-depth mechanisms.

Does this mean OpenBSD will have to update the tagline on their website that says "Only two remote holes in the default install, in a heck of a long time!"?

<comment><USER8> Most of the issues are classified as Local privilege escalation, and none of the daemons mentioned are enabled by default, sshd can be enabled in the installer, but as the quote says "sshd is not exploitable thanks to its defense-in-depth mechanisms."

So, no. Still holds.

Worth pointing that Linux has had a rough week as well, this one is pretty bad: [https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss- security/2019/12/02/2](https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss- security/2019/12/02/2)

Patch your systems.

<comment><USER10> Smtpd (one of the mentioned daemons) is started in a default install. It is configured to do local mail delivery and can queue up remote deliveries for programs running on the system. It only connects to localhost and does not authenticate so this exploit would be irrelevant. If one did open an authenticated mail connection on an interface accessible to the world then the exploit would allow the system to be used as a spam relay.

Added: Just to be clear, this doesn't give any significant access to the system itself through smtpd even if it is configured to be remotely accessible. So not a possible remote hole. Dunno about other stuff.

<comment><USER8> Yes, correct. smtpd is enabled on localhost for local users only. This is pretty common on most systems, AFAIK Debain uses exim4.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Upstream eratta and binary patches to address these issues is available: [https://www.openbsd.org/errata66.html](https://www.openbsd.org/errata66.html)

<comment><USER11> The patch is still fresh so it's not distributed to most mirrors yet.

In case syspatch doesn't appear to do anything, check your /etc/updateurl, set it to the OpenBSD CDN, then run again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Important quote:

"this vulnerability is remotely exploitable in smtpd, ldapd, and radiusd, but its real-world impact should be studied on a case-by-case basis. For example, sshd is not exploitable thanks to its defense-in-depth mechanisms."

Edit: formatting.

</comment><comment><USER13> Yikes. This one just turned my mail server into an open relay (assuming any would-be attackers picked up on it running smtpd). Went ahead and shut off outbound mail delivery (so smtpd only accepts mail destined for my domain) until I can get this patched.

Kudos to the OpenBSD folks for getting a patch whipped up so quick, and thankfully SSH ain't affected, but Jesus.

</comment><comment><USER14> What's very cool about this to me is how well put this report is in layman's terms.

Also is this going to increment the "X remote vulnerabilities in X years"?

<comment><USER15> As long as you override a default PF install, go on. Because you can't. Even with a PF rule being set, you must set up smtpd.conf right.

Also no ldapd and radiusd is listening by default, and SSHD is secure by itself. And you are asked in the first install if you want to enable it at boot, btw.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is the new -froot!!!

[1][http://seclab.cs.ucdavis.edu/projects/testing/vulner/18.html](http://seclab.cs.ucdavis.edu/projects/testing/vulner/18.html)

[2][https://www.symantec.com/security_response/attacksignatures/...](https://www.symantec.com/security_response/attacksignatures/detail.jsp?asid=22145)

</comment><comment><USER17> Worth noting that this vuln passes you through authentication as an almost certainly invalid user - I expect the devs to put in more username validity checks, like the one ssh has, to mitigate this class of issues in the future.

(The second vuln listed is less sexy but escalates you to a real group.)

</comment><comment><USER18> Tangential, but it appears openwall.com is on several of my pi hole blocklists. I'm guessing its because of the tools they offer?

</comment><comment><USER19> So... are they gonna update the OpenBSD webpage to say "only three remote vulnerabilities in a heck of a long time?" Do these bugs represent a vulnerability to real systems deployed in the wild, or are they more of a theoretical threat?

<comment><USER20> sshd is mentioned (1.5) exactly because sshd did catch this and refused login. So no, no remote exploit in the default install.

But it was close :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> >/usr/X11R6/bin/xlock is installed by default

Most servers will not install Xenocara at all in order to avoid

most security and space issues, as a lot of them now are using

vmm(4) for testing purposes.

Also as xlock moved upsteeam, OpenBSD will stop importing xlock

and maybe the will implement a patched and pledge(4)d slock (with

some features such as passwd display as asterisks) as the

Xenocara's workstation locker.

If would not be weird at all. Today the default wm is FVWM because

of historical respect to BSD's/Unix, but the most common WM used

by OpenBSD fans is, by far, CWM, which came from evilwm.

As Xenocara was already a fork of X, having a patched slock as

"xenolock" would be the next logical step.

Because xlock(4) is a shitty security fest by itself. Not to

blame the OpenBSD developers, but the main project. It's full of

features and slock matches better the OpenBSD's philosophy.

<comment><USER21> I'm a big OpenBSD fan, but the OpenBSD devs recommend you install Xenocara, otherwise its considered a non-default install.

<comment><USER22> Yeah, the "it's secure as long as you don't use it for anything" gets old.

<comment><USER15> Also, OpenBSD is pledging the usespace really fast, such as Firefox and Chrome, among unveil.

Even mgba got patched.

I woudn't call that as "don't use it for anything".</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: 4-day week startup list? - <AUTHOR>

Where can I find a list of startups and companies with a 4 days working week? <comment><USER2> 37 signals has a similar experiment,

"Back in 2008 we shared some of our workplace experiments including the four day work week (still in effect May – Oct), ...." mentioned at: [http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3186-workplace- experiments-a-...](http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3186-workplace-experiments- a-month-to-yourself)

and the 2008 article: <http://37signals.com/svn/posts/893-workplace- experiments>

</comment><comment><USER3> Maybe we can put a list together ourselves - the only startup I know doing this is Treehouse.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure we can. How? On quora theres only one answer [http://www.quora.com/What- companies-have-a-4-days-working-we...](http://www.quora.com/What-companies- have-a-4-days-working-week)</comment></comment>


The Women Code Breakers Who Unmasked Soviet Spies - <AUTHOR> https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/women-code-breakers-unmasked-soviet-spies-180970034/?no-ist <comment><USER2> I highly recommended [https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062430489/the-woman- who-sm...](https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062430489/the-woman-who-smashed- codes)

Excellent backdrop into the birth of cryptanalysis.

</comment><comment><USER3> duplicate of

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17890264](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17890264)

</comment><comment><USER4> honestly an excellent read and a great insight into the kind of people who are good at this. The avoidance of marriage was interesting</comment>


OpenCourseWare - to access MIT courses over the Internet for free - <AUTHOR> http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/courses/courses/index.htm

<comment><USER2> <http://youtube.com/edu>

is also good. Only videos though, sometimes a link to additional material.

More courses (mostly European)

<http://videolectures.net/>

A simple search page:

<http://ocwfinder.com/>

EDIT: Another link added.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm curious what courses any of you have audited (is that the right word for this?) through OCW or the other recent online offerings.

I was taking a course on regex compiler design at Stanford long ago before they locked down their student access system. In that case they weren't meaning to share. Nice format though, video + coordinated slides in a two up view. Stanford iphone development and some Berkeley/Yale philosophy courses since then. Nothing yet from OCW.

<comment><USER4> I had started to follow "Introduction to Algorithms" ([http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/Browse/mit.edu....](http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/Browse/mit.edu.1298167185.01298167189)) but I dropped out… It's mostly that I never took the time to listen to it as a class and more like a regular podcast, while I needed to really sit down and concentrate.

I recently started to watch the iPhone Application Programming from Stanford ([http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/Browse/itunes.s...](http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/Browse/itunes.stanford.edu.2024353965.02024353968)) and it is really great. For an introduction to Objective-C and iPhone development, so far it has been very, very well done. Most (if not all) speakers are actually Apple engineers.

That kind of initiatives is really great because honestly, Stanford can have a class given by Apple engineers pretty easily (in that they are very close by), but it would be quite difficult for any other college in the world, regardless of the quality of the school.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This has been around for a while but it's impressive how much it has grown since its humble beginnings in 2002. It's also exciting to see how this has inspired other schools like Stanford (<http://itunes.stanford.edu/>) and the iTunes U initiative.

I think we'll be seeing a lot more schools starting to follow suit and an opportunity emerge within Open Source Education.

</comment><comment><USER6> Also, <http://www.academicearth.org/>

</comment><comment><USER7> In addition to the much venerated Abelson and Sussman 6.001 SICP course lectures - [http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.001/abelson- sussma...](http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.001/abelson-sussman- lectures/)

There are 2 excellent interactive tutorial courses offered by the MIT iCampus tutorial server - <http://icampustutor.csail.mit.edu/>

The Introductory computer science tutorial is basically a set of audio lectures of the 6.001 course as well as interactive quizzes and problem sets.

It's very much worth the effort to go through the whole tutorial.

</comment><comment><USER8> Unfortunately, some advanced technical classes are still missing. Yet, the ones that are there are "well-supported"

</comment><comment><USER9> I particularly like the ones with videos. I'm going through the Linear Algebra course now and it's like being in the classroom.

<comment><USER10> A lot of credit should go to Strang for being such a great lecturer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Too bad the required textbooks and papers are not free. A lot of the classes in there are incomplete without the additional material.

<comment><USER12> It's better than nothing. For some courses, you could easily use the previous edition textbook. Dunno about the papers, though.

<comment><USER11> Yes, it's a lot better than nothing :D

There's another problem though, I don't live in the US and the only way to buy the books is through something like Amazon, shipping from the US. If you add shipping and taxes (local taxes here), books become _really_ expensive.

<comment><USER12> It's why I mentioend previous edition of the book. For very common courses, it can be next to nothing for the book. I'm talking $10 vs $80 for current editions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Oldie but goodie. :)</comment>


One Goal of Amazon's HQ2: Learn the Lessons of Seattle - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/29/technology/amazon-hq2-seattle.html <comment><AUTHOR> I'm not normally one to roll my eyes too much at PR-led stories. That's what PR does after all. (Please no one bother with pg links.)

But seriously "Adam Sedo, a spokesman for Amazon, confirmed that public transport and housing affordability were important topics in conversations with the finalist locations but declined to elaborate further." given that this whole story was obviously orchestrated with all the people talking to the NYT who would otherwise be absolutely mouths zipped.</comment>


How Web Graphics Affect Conversions - <AUTHOR> http://blog.kissmetrics.com/shocking-truth-about-graphics/

<comment><USER2> Another tip for increasing readership: don't have annoying popup social widgets that jump in front of the text.

<comment><USER3> Seriously. I had to click an X in the top right corner and use Firebug to set "display: none;" for three boxes just to get the distractions out of the way. It's a site called "KISSmetrics" which cannot "keep it simple stupid" and is telling me about how images can distract people from your articles?

One cute statement about their final image example: whenever I have to pay a new web service, there are just an absolutely tremendous number of options for me to be dealing with. In order to narrow down the field to companies who actually care about my time, I have some peculiar general rules:

(1) Name must not be concatenated CamelCase words. This still eliminates about 50% of my options, while GitHub is among the only known exceptions where it might be worth paying them for something.

(2) No autoplaying flash. This no longer eliminates so many services as it once did, but it should still be standard.

(3) SSL is a must. You would seriously be surprised.

(4) May not contain clip art of a white woman wearing a headset. It can be an Asian woman, or a white man, or she can be holding a phone, or it could not be clip art (here is our cofounder Olivia...), whatever. This actually seems to further limit the field by over 50%. Web service hosts apparently have really odd stereotypes, or else they expect me to.

I give that list here, again, because their last example of ineffective image use is, naturally, clip art of a white woman wearing a headset.

<comment><USER4> What's wrong with CamelCase names?

<comment><USER5> Medial capitals have always been around in English, but the use has exploded of late, and a lot of people think it looks silly, as though a word is missing a space or a letter is randomly miscased. It looks alright in personal names because we're used to it—no one complains about MacDonald, DeLuca, LeBlanc, or O'Shaughnessy. But the phenomenon of medial capitals in company names is really only about 40 years old. There are many well-known examples—YouTube, PayPal, RadioShack, PlayStation, &c., but I think they succeed by sheer volume and dot-com kitsch.

The only time it really bothers _me_ is when budding authors are trying to come up with fantasy names. They use (what I lovingly call) Dread Intercapitals alongside Dread Apostrophes and Dread Accents to make names that look like Harâk'Thür—presumably in imitation of Tolkien, who actually knew what he was doing, and had internally consistent language models.

<comment><USER6> _The only time it really bothers me is when budding authors are trying to come up with fantasy names._

Neal Stephenson has a fairly long, very amusing riff on this in his latest book, Reamde. Well worth the read.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This being an article by KISSmetrics, I was disappointed there were no actual numbers or research done for the article. Unless I missed something, not a single statement was backed up with actual data. The only study mentioned in the entire article was in the context of ad copy and was done over 30 years ago (I'm assuming they're referring to a study from Ogilvy on Advertising [1] but I could be wrong).

For example:

 _If the images you're using are not clearly tied to your value proposition, or to the central theme of your page, then they will only confuse your readers. At best, they'll be pointless distractions. At worst, they'll give the wrong impression and lead readers to feel tricked or disappointed._

In my experience, the blog posts I've written gain much more traction when they have images, even pointless stock images (I have experimented with this). So while I agree, that ideally, images should provide actual value to the story, I've found that a couple pointless stock images are better than no images. This is why I would have _really_ liked to see actual evidence to back up their claims.

EDIT: Also, while we're on the topic, I also hate including all those social sharing widgets, but viewership takes a dramatic hit when they're not there.

[1] <http://www.amazon.com/Ogilvy-Advertising-David/dp/039472903X>

<comment><USER8> Blogs and landing pages should be treated separately. For a blog, a pointless stock image still serves the purpose of visually breaking up the article so it doesn't look like a big wall of text.

I agree with you though that I would have liked to see some numbers, but otherwise it was a good article that should at least give you some ideas on what to test next.

<comment><USER7> I completely agree, which is why I was also confused that the referenced study was on offline ad design and copy, their first screenshot was a landing page, their second screenshot was an online news article, and their third screenshot was a blog post.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > Ogilvy found that, on average, headlines placed below an image are read by > 10% more people than headlines above. Since reading the headline is a > prerequisite of reading the body copy, you're losing a potential 10% of your > audience if you're distracting them with an image in the wrong place.

Actually, you'd be losing at most about 9% of your audience. I know that's a bit of a nitpick, but it bugs me when people equate "not X% more" with "X% less".

Also, to actually lose 9% of your readers to your headline position, you have to make the very optimistic assumption that you're not losing readers to any other factor.

<comment><USER10> These Ogilvy's stats are about printed documents. I am sure it is false on the Web because we are so used with images. All major websites put the title above the image. See the Huff or Ars for example. And they know their business. For the rest, it may be true or partially true.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The shocking truth about conversions is that businesses, including startups, spend crazy amounts of time tricking people into "converting", instead of building products that, you know, actually improve people's lives.

<comment><USER12> I think you're conflating "tricking" with "doing a better job of communicating". For most businesses (including startups), there's a clear value proposition. Their product/service actually fills a need/want. Iterating design/marketing copy is an attempt to find the best (or at least a better) way to communicate that value proposition. In the vast majority of cases, the goal isn't to trick someone into converting, it's to properly communicate the benefits of converting.

<comment><USER13> There's an argument to be made (not necessarily by me) that if you have to spend a lot of time communicating your value proposition to your market, there may be something wrong with your product. The value proposition of your product should be self-evident.

<comment><USER12> Generally there are alternatives, so the challenge is in communicating why your product/service is a better fit for solving that problem than any of the other possible alternatives. There's also a greater than 0% possibility that your marketing copy is so bad that it confuses people and gets in the way of a solid and "fool-proof" value proposition. Even the best product/service can shoot itself in the foot with poor copywriting or unprofessional design. Making sure you pay attention to doing well with that isn't the same as "tricking" people into buying your product/service. It's about attention to detail and making sure everything you do is demonstrating the quality of your company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Finished reading it. But where is the "Shocking Truth"? Wondering if I am missing something.

<comment><USER15> Shocking Truth was that shocking headlines really do work.

<comment><USER16> Did you convert? :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It's a shame that the kissmetrics.com does not follow this philosophy.

</comment><comment><USER18> Most of it applies to photosharing websites as well - especially the bit about keeping the title/headline below the image. I'm irritated every time the title is at the top and I need to scroll up to see the title (The initial response for me is to inspect the photo - exactly as mentioned in the article).

Building one myself, I instinctively felt this should be below the image, but my designer disagreed and that's the way it is right now. We will definitely push this down - evidence always wins :)

</comment><comment><USER19> I feel like the bombard-the-reader-with-images approach could be an artifact of thinking from the time when HTML images were still a novelty, simply because no one else had done it before. (I have absolutely no data to back this up though).

It just goes to show that quality > quantity.

Thanks for the link, good read!

<comment><USER20> Images in web sites? That hasn't been novel since .. well .. before html

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Here is a design tip for you: don't take up my screen space with useless shit I can't scroll away from

</comment><comment><USER22> The annoying popups on the bottom of the article actually get in the way of reading it, to a point where I just close the page. They are definitely not following their own advice.

</comment><comment><USER23> I thought the reason annoying generic stock images of salespeople smiling and wearing headsets were so common is that they _did_ increase conversions, a lot.

<comment><USER24> That is the reason, you are correct. What I've learned in the past two years is that the web is chock full of blogs that repeat tired old "tips" that are either outdated or just plain wrong and that other blogs that give fresh insights and new tips but wrongly give readers the impression that those tips are gospel (ie set in stone).

The trick is to do your own homework, don't take any advice as absolute, fit everything to your unique circumstances, and always remember that your mileage _will_ vary. I've spent enough time reading a lot of crap and had to learn to be extra judicious the hard way. I take most articles like this as very loose guidelines. It was definitely a great article with good advice but I know better than to just run out and apply it just because the experts said it. Experts contradict each other all the time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I thought it was more or less proven that stock photos (like headset girls) do in fact work, how dull it may seem.

</comment><comment><USER26> Not sure who kiss metrics is and I'm on my iPhone so not gonna check before posting, but this looks like a shitty Jason calacanis, mahalo style content farm article. There probably is something to the thesis "graphic design doesn't necessarily equal higher revenue" (I mean duh, see digg) but this post didn't support the thesis in a meaningful way.</comment>


It's Time to Switch to a Privacy Browser - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/privacy-browsers-duckduckgo-ghostery-brave/ <comment><USER2> Except Ghostery actually comes from a company selling tracking information.

So, would you like some additional tracking in your privacy?</comment>


$500 smart glasses debut at CES - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/06/vuzix-smart-glasses-m100-hands-on/

<comment><USER2> Hmm, I hope they got that resolution wrong. The last thing we need are some more 540 x 240 resolution glasses.</comment>


ICANN Rejects .ORG Sale to Private Equity Firm - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/04/victory-icann-rejects-org-sale-private-equity-firm-ethos-capital/?hn <comment><USER2> previous discussion when it happened: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23038637](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23038637)

<comment><USER3> Is this rejection a more final decision than withholding consent or is this the same decision?

<comment><USER2> It's the same thing: The article here is 17 days old and links the same ICANN press release that's the subject of the linked HN discussion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "But the .ORG registry still needs a faithful steward, because the Internet Society has made clear it no longer wants that responsibility."

Stopping the sale doesn't prevent a "distasteful" actor from acquiring it eventually. Definitely need to get on the road to picking a capable successor or else this will be for nothing.

</comment><comment><USER5> Here are some of the major threads on this ongoing topic. In reverse order:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23149732](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23149732) \- What the heck happened with .org?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23038637](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23038637) \- ICANN board withholds consent for a change of control of the .org registry

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22895784](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22895784) \- ICANN delays .org selloff after California's attorney general intervenes

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22363787](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22363787) \- Internet Society told to halt .org sale by its own advisory council

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21931258](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21931258) \- The NRO Issues Inspection Request to ICANN Concerning .ORG Sale

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21800085](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21800085) \- ICANN Delays .ORG Sale Approval

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21723682](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21723682) \- Why ISOC sold .ORG to VCs

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21689121](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21689121) \- The .Org Fire Sale: How it sold for less than half its valuation

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21667355](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21667355) \- ISOC sold the .org registry to Ethos Capital for $1.1B

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21656960](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21656960) \- Why I Voted to Sell .ORG

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21626677](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21626677) \- ICANN races towards regulatory capture: the great .org heist

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21611677](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21611677) \- Save .org

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21592297](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21592297) \- Internet world despairs as non-profit .org sold to private equity firm

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21582622](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21582622) \- Private Equity Is Going to Ruin the .Org Domain System and Screw Nonprofits

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21557779](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21557779) \- ICA asks ICANN to block .Org private equity deal in damning letter

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21526982](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21526982) \- Private Equity company acquires .org registry

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20263561](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20263561) \- Regulatory Capture at ICANN

I'm pretty sure there have been others, if anybody finds one.

</comment><comment><USER6> > The sale threatened to bring censorship and increased operating costs to the > nonprofit world. As EFF warned, a private equity-owned registry would have a > financial incentive to suspend domain names—causing websites to go dark—at > the request of powerful corporate interests and governments.

Exactly. That is the risk of what was going to happen had that went ahead.

> This decision by ICANN is a hard-fought victory for nonprofit Internet > users. But the .ORG registry still needs a faithful steward, because the > Internet Society has made clear it no longer wants that responsibility.

A triumphant victory to everyone involved in stopping this catastrophic sale.

</comment><comment><USER7> I will also say that there is a group (other than nonprofits) that stood to lose massive amounts of money - domain speculators. Maybe ICANN should raise the fee to $100 per year for all domains? Then it would 90% less profitable to own a shitload of domains for speculation.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm told that CCOR doesn't plan on bidding in 2029 for .org (w/ or w/o Afilias) so this looks like a temporary thing at best. It doesn't look like there is a coherent alternative.

Honestly, ISOC was on this path after they eliminated trustee elections.

</comment><comment><USER9> This is an old article referencing the event that happened several weeks ago, not a new development.

</comment><comment><USER10> If Ethos Capital is still looking to put their investor money to work in a manner that does subscribe to the same ethos I hear usury pays well. Maybe payday lending is in their future?

<comment><USER11> My impression was that the only reason for Ethos Capital to exist was to hide that fact that key ISOC decision makers were giving .org at a bargain price to themselves and their buddies while getting rid of the pesky non-profit status at the same time. It doesn't actually have people with the skillset to manage an investment fund and will likely be wound down after failing its mission.</comment></comment>


Automated deployment systems: push vs. pull  - <AUTHOR> http://agiletesting.blogspot.com/2010/03/automated-deployment-systems-push-vs.html

<comment><USER2> How do you "swamp" a configuration management master server?

I've seen people manage thousands of servers with Puppet and not break any kind of sweat, what am I missing?

</comment><comment><USER3> <http://reductivelabs.com/trac/puppet/wiki/PuppetScalability></comment>


The Diagonalization Proof Without Infinite Sets - <AUTHOR> http://rjlipton.wordpress.com/2014/08/03/diagonalization-without-sets/ <comment><USER3> Introducing these generators as objects feels like new technology perhaps not so available in Gauss' time: codata/corecursion! The idea of a finite datum (ie a finitely specified program) which produces infinite "unfoldings" or operations is pretty formalized today, but not exactly amenable to standard set theory (or anything available in Gauss' time).

For instance, usually in order to formulate these things in a set-theoretic method you need to reject the foundation axiom and replace it with the (aptly named) "anti-foundation axiom" which basically says that we can define "sets" which uniquely satisfy any recursive set of equations satisfying some properties. From here you get generator "objects", bisimilarity, and enough mechanism to formalize this proof nicely.

<comment><USER3> I just wrote up a post describing this idea in Haskell [http://tel.github.io/2014/08/04/codata_diagonalization/](http://tel.github.io/2014/08/04/codata_diagonalization/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> in Python:

      # assume every generator produces integers and is unbounded from above
      def diagonalize(generatorOfGenerators):
         currentMax = 0
         for G in generatorOfGenerators:
            for x in G:
               if x > currentMax:
                  yield x + 1
                  currentMax = x + 1
                  break

</comment><comment><USER5> FTA: "Suppose that we reject the actual infinite. But we allow a process that _goes on forever_. "

Er... some infinities are more equal than others?

<comment><USER6> No, it is just saying that the process is _unbounded_ , not _infinite_. This subtle difference can be very confusing.

 _Unbounded_ means: for every n, the computation can generate more than n values.

 _Infinite_ means: the computation generates infinite values.

Talking about infinity is usually very tricky because it is easy to run into paradoxes without a good knowledge of set theory. So many mathematicians are more comfortable using finitary arguments like the unboundedness argument above.

One prominent example is calculus: despite logicians have laid down solid foundations for non-standard calculus using actual infinitesimals/infinites, most analysts prefer to use the Weierstrass epsilon-delta-like arguments, for example:

lim x->0 f(x) = 0 is defined as

for every epsilon there exist a delta such that |x| < delta implies |f(x)| < epsilon

while with infinitesimals you can just write

f(csi) is infinitesimal for every infinitesimal csi

Notice how the epsilon-delta argument is similar to the unboundedness argument for the integer generator.

<comment><USER5> But the infinitesimals invite treating them as "quantities" in an algebraic "game". That's a drill-lesson in abstraction when they're teaching you ( usually pre)Calculus, before you learn the dF(x)/dt transforms in derivative and integral tables. They also turn up in engineering contexts, which is pretty cool when it happens - it's not all just slide rule and look-up - <USER2> get to play with first principles some times when you're lucky...

Wasn't me, but I got to watch.

I still suspect the generators are infinite sets in the Cantor sense, just stated more politely. We're more of a habit to think in terms of ... series in that way.

I recall being exhilarated by the sheer ... hubris of Cantor's approach. So I am probably biased. And as strange as it may sound, if I use infinite sets to derive the Diagonalization, then use that to assist in Godel's Theorem, it feels less like there's a tangled hierarchy when reasoning about Turing machines.

That could easily be an _elegance_ that I'm am stubborn about missing.</comment></comment></comment>


Rackspace releases CLI for managing cloud via Ruby - <AUTHOR> http://rackerlabs.github.io/rumm/ <comment><USER2> [https://github.com/fog/fog](https://github.com/fog/fog)

I haven't used it much but fog seems to be a nice gem that can manage not just Rackspace clouds but AWS and Digital Ocean too I believe (and perhaps more).

<comment><USER3> fog doesn't seem to be a CLI. Tugboat (by Jack Pearkes) is a very good CLI for managing DigitalOcean services.

<comment><USER2> That is true but the one time I used it directly(rather than as a dependency of another library) I used it interactively from the Ruby repl.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm wondering why they started MVCLI instead of using Thor - [https://github.com/erikhuda/thor](https://github.com/erikhuda/thor)

<comment><USER5> MVCLI has an amazing README.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Looks similar to the brightbox CLi - [http://docs.brightbox.com/guides/cli/](http://docs.brightbox.com/guides/cli/)

</comment><comment><USER7> What does "via Ruby" mean here? Title should probably not include that.

<comment><USER8> I think it means it's a ruby gem you install to manage your cloud environment. Technically you would be using a ruby gem via the command line. I suppose it could just say "via command line" but I don't see it as incorrect in its current state.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Wow. Welcome to 2009.</comment>


Critique: "Programming Collective Intelligence" - <AUTHOR>

I have just gotten the book "Programming Collective Intelligence" and having read a few chapters i am wishing that i had gotten the book earlier!. At the same time, it shows how much most web applications being developed today lack deep technology (I am also guilty of this). Whats your take on this? <comment><USER2> I had the same thought: does the web guy who did this site know about all those algorithms? (im from Mexico, you see all kind of crapy sites here)</comment>


Ask HN: Any of you took a loss while trading? How did you handle it? - <AUTHOR> For me, it was yesterday on GDAX.
What are the best ways to improve myself over it?
The amount loss wasn't much, but stings. <comment><USER2> I suggest you don't trade and instead focus yourself on growing your assets by working and doing value investing.

Trading is a 0 sum game. It's the same as playing in the casino. The only one who makes money consistently with trading is:

. your broker

. people holding illegal priviledged info not released yet in the media

. big funds, tricking people like you

In the long term, the value of stocks follow the profits which companies have, If you manage to learn how to do value investing, slowly and calmly, never really selling the companies you commit yourself to, while focusing at your work(which usually pays way more than what you can earn in the stock market).

I think generally people are addicted to losing, to having the thrill of winning/losing something, but when actually, if you want to get rich and consistently become wealthier, there's no thrill and it's a quite boring road. It's up to you which one you could take. The internet is full of forums with crazy people which pretend to be traders and winners but they are all actually addicted to the thrill and losing. Just check how much people are crazy about failed businesses and penny stocks. I wouldn't bet my money or even less something more important: the peace of my mind into this crap.

I want you to answer me a question: how anxious are you? I think a lot. You even came to HN to talk about your loss. I think you are one of the people who will never win on this game, but can actually win in life. You just need to learn how to control it.

I've been managing to grow my assets slowly for years. Have been enough time in the market. If you want to know more, shoot me an e-mail. I won't tell you what stock to buy, but guide you so you can make your own choices. I can already live a few years without working, but I'm so satisfied with my life that I don't have to. I travel every year and so on... and don't even make that crazy software dev salary some people in the US can.

Also... practice Sports. The more you live, the more money you can make.

I used to be very sick about trading and so on. Now I'm healthier, wealthier, less anxious and everything.

<comment><USER3> > practice Sports

Why advise this rather than focusing on core exercises to build injury resistance and a healthy metabolism? Is it just that in your experience, sports are a good way to motivate yourself to keep to an exercise regimen? Or something else?

<comment><USER2> I said it in general, some people find one or two things boring, but generally there's at least a sport or something that involves physical activities that they do like. I advise them to do it.

The main issue is that people don't exercise regularly, while investing and thinking about their future, when that actually makes they live less and also reduce their potential investments returns(as yield doesn't beat time)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> #1 - Money/Risk management. You need a stop loss and a price target. Before you take a position on the market, know exactly how much loss you're wiling to take. Know exactly how much gain you're targeting. When you reach any of these 2 numbers, exit. Always stick to this strategy and you'll end up positive. Yes, you won't win the lottery, but this is how the pros do it. For a given position, on average people go for +5% gain then -3% loss. On a 50/50 scenario you're always positive over the long term.

#2 - Gain maximizer. Sell only half of your position on a winning trade when you reach your target point. You're covered in case it goes down (still need a stop loss). Then if it goes up it's all good :) Make sure to setup a second price target to exit. Always stick to rule #1. If you hang on to your stocks with no target price - like your average Joe - you'll go negative.

Welcome to the market.

</comment><comment><USER5> I lost $30,000 in two weeks trading options and futures. It seems like a considerable amount but that account was started only a couple months prior with $5000. For me it was fantastic and extremely depressing all at the same time. Unlike most people I don't mind great risk for great reward, and I always learn something. The things I know now are worth more than the 30k lost. That's how I handle it, knowing that I now have possession of information worth more that the amount lost....which means I can duplicate the performance at any time.

</comment><comment><USER6> I have dabbled many times over the last 20 years in trading and even done it rather professionally. There is no easy way to handle a loss. Take comfort in the story of a Ray Dario having lost everything to the point of borrowing 10k from his dad to get back on his feet and now managing 10s of billions.

Trading is a really hard way to make money.

The best way to bounce back from a loss is to make sure you will never ever place yourself in the position to make the kind of loss from which you can't recover.

You did this, now never ever do it again. There is no sense in trading unless you have a provable long term edge.

Most people would say good luck at this point. I would instead say, re- evaluate if trading makes any sense. Why do it?

Are you willing to spend 20 years "mastering it" only to accept one almost never truly masters the strangeness of financial markets, but perhaps develop a bit of character and pick up some sound principles and some unique chance insights for which there are no shortcuts.

<comment><USER7> When you learn index funds aren't any worse than actively managed funds, you realize no matter how much you learn, it's nothing.

It's better to learn how to handle losses psychologically and just find something worthy and wait on it in the long run.

<comment><USER8> It's certainly a personal risk tolerance decision as well balancing high-risk individual trades with indexing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I only think about the percentage loss (and invest money I can afford to lose), and then buy and hold more often than not.

From my "fun" portfolio personally, which is mostly tech stocks, there are many small losers but a few massive winners that outweigh the losses. When I was trading on a daily / weekly basis I never saw this, but after holding for quarters it's become my new approach. Instead of checking daily, now I check the numbers every few weeks.

If it's any consolation, I got started with investing in the 3 months before the housing crisis in 2008 and watched 50% of what I invested in relatively stable funds disappear basically instantly. That was depressing but in time all of them came back. For longterm, you've really gotta trust dollar-cost averaging and just waiting out the bumps. After surviving that rough introduction, everything else feels minor.

</comment><comment><USER9> I don't handle it, as it's always hard, but it's easier to take a loss if you go into a trade knowing what could invalidate your thesis. This is either from further research or the price action. Once you can admit the jig is up, and you are convinced the price can fall further, then it's easier to cut the loss. Then, it feels like you've made the right decision and you can move on. A kind of moral victory.

</comment><comment><USER10> Risk Management. No more than 5% of your portfolio in a single company. No more than 25% of your portfolio in a single sector. A stop loss strategy. An exit strategy. The best investors in the world generate 20% returns year over year consistently. Don't be greedy.

Read The most important thing - Mark Howards.

</comment><comment><USER11> From a trader's perspective, losses are the cost of doing business. When you're starting out, your losses are your tuition. An engineer spends at least $100K+ and 4+ years going school to learn their craft; why should it be any different for traders? (Aside from the fact that there's no school and no curriculum; there's only the library, the market, and your wits.) If you read the Market Wizards series, you'll find a lot of pros saying things that amount to "on average out of 10 trades 6 or 7 of them will be losers - but I keep my losses small and let my winners run."

Here's how it works for a casino: the outcome of any given roll of the dice (say) is random. But over a thousand rolls of the dice, the odds of the game are not random. For a casino, obviously the games are set up so the odds favor the house, and "in the end the house always wins." For a trader, your "odds" against the market are determined by your skill. Every individual trade is still essentially random, but if you're good at what you do - if your market analysis, entry timing, risk/money management, and adherence to your trading rules is solid - over a large enough sample size the outcome will be net positive. It's a strange duality for some people to grasp.

A good first read: High Probability Trading (Marcel Link)

The Bible: Reminiscences of a Stock Operator (Edwin Lefevre)

The basics: Technical Analysis of the Financial Markets (John Murphy), Japanese Candlestick Analysis (Steve Nixon - skip the first chapter), Trading and Exchanges (Larry Harris)

Good follow ups: All the Market Wizards books (Jack Schwager)

Psychology: Trading in the Zone (Mark Douglas), The Nature of Risk (Justin Mamis)

Less theory, more practical: Mastering the Trade (John Carter)

Putting it all together: How to Buy (out of print) and When to Sell (both Justin and Robert Mamis; slightly outdated but 100% worth reading.)

Some of these books are "expensive." But even if you only learn _one_ thing from a book, it'll have paid for itself 10 times over. Take copious notes. Find the commonalities. Filter out the bullshit. Watch the markets; see what "clicks" for you. The trading exercise towards the end of Trading in the Zone is a great way to test yourself without risking a whole lot. (On that note, a theme you'll find, if loosing 2 or 3 thousand is going to be an issue for your current well being, perhaps better to wait to put money up until such a cost is somewhat closer to pocket change...)

If that all sounds like too much effort, then perhaps the more typical buy index funds and hold until you retire answer you'll often get around here is more your speed. No shame in it.

</comment><comment><USER12> Before you start trading, do extensive back testing, especially on the risk management... also please note, you'll allways have losses, but if you control them and have a system with slightly better winning percentage, the compounding will make you rich in the long run...

</comment><comment><USER13> Bought treasury bonds instead (Brazil).</comment>


HN Show: Tested model with early MVP, great results so far - <AUTHOR> http://www.inuigo.com <comment><AUTHOR> A service that shows homes to interested clients, paid for by the agents. MVP works by outsourcing showings to highly rated ride-share drivers who are also licensed agents. Worked in trail runs in So Cal. Would love any feedback. Thank you.

<comment><USER2> It's almost like you're turning ride-share drivers into agents. How many ride- share drivers are also licensed agents, and do they need to be?

Doesn't RedFin do this with locals operating the open-houses?

It's a nice idea, I love the idea that anybody is going to disrupt the Real Estate market.

Not sure if you realized, but the video on your page is set to private, and it has a non-nonsensical title.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi! Thanks for the heads up on the vid. Rideshare real estate - that is exactly the idea. Many are licensed, 75k agents in LA county alone and not many are doing much all day as the top 20% of agents close 80% of the transactions. It would be harder to find 5 star review uber/lyft drivers than agents to be honest. Yes, must be licensed as homes are on lock boxes only agents may access. Please check back in a few weeks or so, really working on MVP atm and will push working model out into market soon. Thanks for the feedback.</comment></comment></comment>


Facebook Is Calling the Cops on Sad Users - <AUTHOR> https://reason.com/blog/2019/02/13/facebooks-calls-cops-on-sad-accounts <comment><USER2> So Facebook will swat you if its algorithms don't like what you say or you violate its terms of service or for whatever reason it wants to fuck you over. Now there's a good reason never to use that garbage. This is insane. I wonder if people have already died from this and how many...

<comment><USER3> I think it's called getting "Zucked"</comment></comment>


Why we love and hate meetings - <AUTHOR> http://secretsofconsulting.blogspot.com/2009/05/why-we-love-and-hate-meetings.html

<comment><AUTHOR> found this article interesting for its insight on why some people enjoy meetings for the sake of meetings.

summary: Those people who like meetings for sake of meetings: "emotional drama-conflict, blaming, flirting, one-upsmanship, random outbursts, anger, and so forth. For these happy people heading for meetings, it's those the soap-opera aspects of meetings are the most exciting parts of their jobs...On the other hand, all this drama - the stuff we contemptuously call "politics" seems to be the bread and butter of the non-techies. Indeed, these people are often upset if I show them how to conduct well-run meetings, because I've taken all the joy out of their lives.

</comment><comment><USER2> This article leaves out all the people out there that simply use meetings as an excuse for social lives, the chance to be heard, or as a way out of actually working hard.</comment>


Ask PG: Why do you think Africa cannot produce global scale start ups? - <AUTHOR> Hi PG. As a Nigerian Internet start up founder, I was quite disheartened to read  Leila Janah, post (http://tcrn.ch/aE4UqK) where you were quoted as saying you would "rather fund an incubator for less glamorous businesses, like gas stations and plumbers." than start a Y combinator in Kenya.
A continent with 1 billion people and, 110 million connected online (growing in triple digits) I would like to believe we can produce companies that can have product market fit before deciding to scale up and probably open offices in the west. .e.g US.
When I wrote my blog post "A cure for Nigerian Internet Scams (http://bit.ly/ayCTUX), I counted you as one of the people that we would seek support from to become relevant in the world of startups.
So hearing that you think there is no hope for us, is quite deflating.
So my question is, why do you believe Africa cannot produce global scale startups? <comment> clark-kent I am Nigerian now living in NY. I used to run a successful Internet Cafe at Yaba,Lagos. Before Nigeria and most other African countries can join the tech startup world some big infrastructure issues needs to be addressed.

While I was running the internet cafe, the bigger problems I had to deal with had nothing to do with my line of business.

I had to bribe employees of the electric company (NEPA) to hook me up to a more reliable power line where electricity is more stable. Stable electricity in Lagos means you get it like 6 hours a day. The rest of day, you had to power your business with Generators. For the Generators, we had to buy drums of diesel to keep them running. Buying diesel was something else because Lagos always had a fuel shortage going on. We had to buy tank loads of water to keep the business location clean because otherwise we had no running tap water. I had to deal with thugs showing up every now and then, asking me to pay for street protection. With all these problems how do you focus on your startup and grow your business.

My wishlist for Nigeria will be a wireless internet solution that is cheap and can reach the whole country, the type that the company Teledesic tried to provide. Also an Energy solution that will free us from evil Oil companies and evil electric company. Something you could just plug in and get cheap, clean, efficient enegry to run your entire business. But thats just what my wishful thinking. When we can have that, we will see more startups from Africa.

</comment><comment><USER2> Every third order my company receives from Nigeria is a scam. The cheap, effective and over reaching solution to this issue is to simply stop shipping to Nigeria. This is the path I chose and the one that most small business owners will choose.

Perhaps we're missing out on some money but the cost in time and effort to capture that little bit of money isn't worth it relative to other projects. I'm in business to ship product to those who will reliably pay, not to figure out which of my customers will actually pay ahead of shipment. If I can't know, I won't risk it.

I don't think my experience is unique. I think this situation has repeated itself in most small businesses in America. I think this group of individual experiences has been generalized as "It costs too much to do business with Africa". Unfair? Sure. Poor Logic? Absolutely. Am I going to change this? No. Its not worth my time and effort.

I'm also going to be very skeptical of business deals or services originating from Nigeria. Do you see a mint.com or inDinero taking off in Africa? Would you personally trust your financial data to such a service and if so, what are your reasons given your lack of recourse through rule of law?

I believe what I'm saying here is what most are thinking, but won't say. I want to lay out what it looks like in the trenches on this side. I fully realize that I am half of the reason that this situation exists. Until I need your money more than you need my services, I do not see it changing. I know that is harsh, but I sincerely believe it to be the case.

I hope things improve. I hope bad experiences are replaced with good ones and Nigeria specifically and Africa generally are looked at as reliable business partners. I hope you create a ridiculously successful business. Most importantly, I hope you'll take this post in the spirit in which its offered.

<comment><USER3> Very interesting, but a few questions:

1\. Really one in three orders was a scam? How big is the sample -- how many times did you ship to Nigeria? How long ago did you stop?

2\. You list two problems: determining if a customer really can pay, or as a startup, having customers trust you with financial data.

In both cases, the problem is trust & reputation. Foreign customers do not trust Nigerian businesses or customers. So the missing piece of the puzzle is either better police enforcement and government regulation, or some kind of third-party who can engender trust and verify identity to and from African businesses and customers.

<comment><USER2> 1\. Before we stopped completely, we would get two kinds of orders:

a. Orders over $1000 to Fancy Sounding Expediters Co XYZ Address Nigeria

b. Smaller orders to <Big Oil Co> <Some Compound> Nigeria

I shipped one and only one of type a. This happened in ~2001. I took this hit as a business 101 tuition fee and stopped shipping this kind of order.

I continued to ship to people on compounds working for Shell/BP/etc. During this time, I got my rough sample size. For every 3 of this kind we would get, we'd get one of type a. It was years ago and it could have been 2:1 or 5:1. It was not 10:1.

After a few months of this, the "type a fraudsters" figured out the pattern and we started seeing smaller dollar orders to "compounds" come back fraud. At this point, I just shut the whole thing down.

The way this works now is that someone in Nigeria in a big oil compound will order to their home and have someone forward it. No USA address, no shipment over.

2\. Exactly so. If government won't fill the trust gap, perhaps a private enterprise can. They would face a steep challenge. There has to be enough money in Nigeria seeking to buy goods internationally but unable to because of people like me for it to work. Is there enough "domestic pull" to make it viable?

<comment><USER4> I believe some international freight forwarders and delivery services offer part of the service described in (2) - a US address that pays for and receives goods and an African facility to forward them onto and collect payment from the end user.

<comment><USER2> We've tried some of these services out, though not specifically to solve this issue. When you add the cost of they add, the legit customers balk, driving volume down to the point where its not worth doing for our business.

As a result of this, what we do and what I suspect others do is ship to areas with low fraud rates direct, eat any losses and call it good. Anywhere that you eat more than you make, you simply stop.

The margin on something that would provide the security and keep small businesses interest would have to be razor thin. It would be a challenging or impossible business to run.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _As a Nigerian Internet start up founder_

Note: I'm an American and not an expert on Nigeria. Still, my impression is that Nigeria doesn't have a very robust legal system or real property rights enforcement; when I think of law in Nigeria, I remember Ken Saro-Wiwa and the innumerable articles I've read about people fighting over oil spoils. (Once again: this could be wrong and Nigeria's legal system might be very good, with the Western press merely gravitating toward sensationalistic stories).

If you don't have a functioning legal system that enforces contracts (and a culture that respects contracts), I don't think you can have tech startup investments. If you have a high level of political risk, coups, and corruption, you're not going to get tech startup investments. Westerners have an unfair but real habit of lumping Africa together; when we read about the Zimbabwe disaster, for example, the possibility of political risk wiping out investment in other countries becomes very real.

One other commenter compared development to the technology stack, which is pretty astute.

It might also help to read William Easterly's paper, "Was the poverty of Africa determined in 1000 BC?": [http://aidwatchers.com/2010/07/was-the- poverty-of-africa-det...](http://aidwatchers.com/2010/07/was-the-poverty-of- africa-determined-in-1000-bc/) . You might be running up against not just decades of difference in development, but _centuries_.

<comment><USER6> Forget causation, there's not even correlation there. What about all the startups in China, India, Russia?

<comment><USER5> I think some of the other commenters addressed this well, but as for Russia, it's a terrible example and has a lot of the same problems that Nigeria appears to; Newsweek just ran an article on the subject: [http://www.newsweek.com/2010/08/14/putin-s-russia-exile- busi...](http://www.newsweek.com/2010/08/14/putin-s-russia-exile- businessmen.html) .

As for China and India, both countries have GDPs that have been growing at 10% per year for more than two decades, and not purely from oil or other natural resource profits, which appears true of what growth Russia and Nigeria have experienced.

That's not to say India and China will continue their incredible growth forever, or that either country is ideal for startups, but my impression (once again: might be wrong) is that despite the problems startups face, those problems are not as tremendous as they are in Nigeria or Russia.

In addition, as far as I know neither India nor China has produced any global Internet software product companies along the lines of Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, or Facebook.

<comment><USER6> "I think some of the other commenters addressed this well, but as for Russia, it's a terrible example and has a lot of the same problems that Nigeria appears to; Newsweek just ran an article on the subject: <http://www.newsweek.com/2010/08/14/putin-s-russia-exile-busi...>

You can continue to read placed PR Newsweek articles and be an idiot (the part about the "has a lot of the same problems that Nigeria appears to" is sort of the point of using it as an example), or you can do a quick google search:

<http://www.centernetworks.com/top-russian-web-sites>

[http://royal.pingdom.com/2010/07/27/top-20-countries-on- the-...](http://royal.pingdom.com/2010/07/27/top-20-countries-on-the- internet/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Don't you think it's something like the following: think of a country's economy as a technology stack. You need to have the base levels of the stack in place before you can make more abstract things.

In places like Africa and India, there's a lot of access via mobile phones. But there's also a lot of missing pieces: transporation goods and services, smartphones, etc.

It seems to me like there's a lot of opportunity for media startups in both places, but that actual monetization is difficult because there isn't much in the way of ecommerce (due to logistical issues) and there isn't much in the way of advertising (because there's a lack of a base level of businesses to support it).

As for going global from a place like Africa: totally possible. But most startups follow a plan of succeeding at something small first.

I also think that Africa is going to leapfrog certain stages of technology / development and not others. For example, mobile banking in Africa is more widespread than it is in the US. My guess is that the first huge ecommerce company in Africa will be some weird hybrid of mobile, local, and banking infrastructure that people already trust.

</comment><comment><USER8> I think we already know the answer to this question. taking you O_O as an example, your new startup called Lotaar, do you think it can become a global scale startup? The problem with us Nigerians/Africans is that we do not like to scratch our own itches, 2008 here in Nigeria, social networking sites were the rave, all because facebook was just becoming huge here then. Kenya's startup scene is light years ahead of Nigeria because they are creating "local" startups which are relevant there and also meet needs in other places, e.g. ushahidi (which I might not be right to call a startup) was created in kenya to monitor their elections but has been used in places like haiti to monitor disaster response during her earthquake. If african's can create startups that would be useful here in Africa and meet local needs, I think such a startup can grow to a global scale because the continent has an estimated 1 billion people. Like I have always said ( [http://aitoehigie.wordpress.com/2009/05/15/building-a- world-...](http://aitoehigie.wordpress.com/2009/05/15/building-a-world-class- startup-the-nigerian-story/)), Africa doesn't need clones of facebook or twitter when there are other fundamental problems that technology can be used to solve.

<comment><USER9> I think the contradiction is that what makes for a successful startup within Africa ( _scratch our own itches_ ) doesn't necessarily translate well to the developed world. The examples you mentioned, such as monitoring elections and disaster response would do very well in developing countries, but they aren't necessary in countries like the US or UK. I think that's what PG was suggesting.

<comment><USER10> As someone watching from outside, it seems to me there is a need for better solutions in the "monitoring elections" and "disaster response" spaces in the US, too..

<comment><USER9> Of course these services are needed, but in developed nations, they usually fall in the purview of the government, who is unlikely to hand it off to startups.

<comment><USER11> Especially startups in foreign countries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think the main reasons Africa hasn't produced global scale startups is that they (global scale startups) are _so_ rare you really need _everything_ to be in your favor AND to have a lot of luck for a startup to become a global success.

What unique advantage does being from Africa give you? I'm assuming you are clever and lucky - but there are a lot of clever, lucky people around who also have access to friends with huge amounts of capital (eg, Silicon Valley) or cheap programming talent (Bangalore) or a positive start-up culture (Israel) or government backing (endless incubators around the world).

Some advantages I could see being in Africa (and I'm hardly an expert!):

There appear to be a large number of state-run monopoly businesses that could be undercut by a cheaper, faster startup. My understanding is that this is how a lot of the successful African telecom businesses got their start. That's a good advantage, because state monopolies are very slow to react.

Cheap natural resources. I'm from Australia, and a large amount of custom software development here is related to what is essentially counting rocks being pulled out of the ground or wool of sheep (etc etc) and making sure it does to the correct places. I'd expect it is the same in Africa, and there maybe local opportunities there that give you a big advantage.

Anyway - I don't know, but I am really interested. Why would PG be interested in African startups? What advantage do they have that would make them worth investing in?

<comment><USER13> Re: "What unique advantage does being from Africa give you?"

I am in Cape Town, South Africa and let me tell you it is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, with a university producing decent CS graduates (Mark Shuttleworth), beautiful weather, vineyards on our doorstep, plenty of African color and positive energy, terrific advertising talent, and the typical South African work ethic. South Africans love work.

To answer your question, what unique advantage does being from Africa give you?

Objectivity.

<comment><USER14> Cape Town has very little to do with the Africa most of the world is thinking of. OP's question is about Nigeria. Not so long ago, Nigeria wouldn't even let you in if your passport had a South African stamp.

The problems and opportunities in Cape Town for startups have, in my experience, no relevance to Lagos, Kinshasa, Abidjan, Accra ...

As you're from Cape Town, you know this is the real problem:

[http://sewayoleme.wordpress.com/2008/07/08/africa-in- perspec...](http://sewayoleme.wordpress.com/2008/07/08/africa-in-perspective/)

Most people have no idea Africa is larger than US, Europe, India, and China _combined_ , but without infrastructure on most of the continent and so tribal that even greed takes a back seat to boosting a friend from the village.

These aren't bad things, they're just different--and Kaapstad, Africa's first permanent European settlement and now considered the most entrepreneurial city in South Africa, may not offer the best model for addressing the OP's problem.

<comment><USER13> Thanks for the interesting link. The world may have a "huts and lions" view of Africa and may find it convenient to classify Cape Town as no longer "African" because it's more developed. But I would question that sort of definition of Africa as necessarily implying "third world". As you say, people must regard Africa as a whole, from North to South, East to West. What's needed is more definition, more detail, more brush strokes within the outlines. Talking about all kinds of African cities (including Cape Town) will help in that respect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Another thing oo, PG doesn't know Africa like you and I do, so I don't think his statement is the final word on African startups. Lets prove him wrong. (rolling up sleeves....)

<comment><USER15> Warren Buffet once said, invest in what you know.

<comment><USER16> Exactly. And the more African entrepreneurs come up with innovations and reforms and new products/services to try to reduce Africa's problems -- while hopefully making a profit and building a big business out of it -- the better off Africa is going to be. Use foreign resources where useful, but the more that Africans drive it and control it the more long-term benefits it's going to yield especially in terms of role models and morale and self-respect and making sure things are done in a way that's consistent with the values of local culture and traditions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> My guess would be that the best and brightest end up overseas. Of all of the African kids I went to high school with in Nairobi, only a handful remain in Kenya. Most, particularly those that went on to complete tertiary education, now live in the US and the UK. I suspect many educated Africans realise early on that they'll need to make a life for themselves elsewhere.

</comment><comment><USER18> Part of the problem might be that solutions that work for US startups (and therefore are assumed to be defacto global solutions) might not work in Africa. The usual promotional tools for a website are to get a blog up, build your followers on Twitter, try to get covered by Techcrunch etc. None of this is going to be anywhere near as effective in Africa. It's probably not cool - but perhaps African (and all developing world) entrepreneurs should look back to see how Web 1.0 sites built audiences - ebay, paypal, god forbid... even Yahoo.

Edit: I think it's taken as a given that this extends to the technical too. While we're all bitching about IE6 and drinking our Ajax goodness from the cup of rails, it's easy to forget that there are guys who should be banging out sites in 800 x 600 optimized for dialup.

<comment><USER4> There's the pricing factor too... a population with a median income of between 2 and 10% of US median income simply isn't going to buy SaaS subscriptions in comparable volumes at comparable prices to US companies. For much the same reason, these consumers are also worth less in raw money terms to advertisers. which means a lot less revenue for typical Y-combinator startups in African domestic markets even before transaction costs (quite possibly higher?) are taken into account.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Economic Evolution:

Agrarian -> Manufacturing -> Service

Web-apps are Service sector. African countries need to start displacing Asian ones as manufacturing centers before we can even start talking about foreign venture capitalists wanting to invest in African tech-service startups. If the company targets a global audience because there is not enough local demand for web services, then why is it based in Africa?

</comment><comment><USER20> There are some success stories like <http://softtribe.com> from Ghana. This story gives some of the <http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/it/the-african- hacker> background. The opportunity that SoftTribe went for was unique. In Africa every country has different pay roll taxes, and it is too expensive for the likes of the multi nationals to keep up with each country, SoftTribe fills this niche.

I worked with them for a year. I was the only non African. There where challenges like fending off kind hearted westerners who had less skills then the Ghanains and wanted to come over and be boss. Competing against NGO for staff (Western NGO's have the highest salaries).

</comment><comment><USER21> Well, my one datapoint on this whole matter is that the overwhelming majority of scams on my sites come from that region of the world, so I'm about ready to write off the whole continent in terms of doing business. If I were to write a bayesian scam filter, "Comes from Africa" would be one of the most important positive signals.

I would assume that many other businesses have shared this experience and come to the same conclusion. Things are getting better, I'm sure, but they're not near the "worth my time" threshold yet.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> First of all I would apologise for not responding since. I foolishly forgot to remove my noprocast setting so I was essentially locked out of hacker news while this has been up.

I would like to point out that I worded my question poorly. I do not agree Nigeria/Africa cannot create world class startups. I meant to say like RobFitz pointed out below: Why does PG and others like him capable of change write off a whole continent without trying.

Nevertheless, you guys as usual have got an amazing discussion going. Thank you!

I fully understand the points a lot of you have raised and it boils down to two things.

1: Lack of Trust 2: Lack of infrastructure (Legal, Human resources, Power, e.t.c)

In my book, I thought an identifiable problem breeds opportunity. We have a market western countries are unwilling to serve because the perceived risk outweighs the perceived opportunity. America had the highest fraud but is not blacklisted because the opportunity outweighs the risk and I believe it is the same for Nigeria/Africa. I believe there is an opportunity for our local companies to act as local representatives of existing global companies and combine local knowledge with international skill to create businesses back in Nigeria/Africa.

I do not think location matters in creating a product that has potential as anyone can launch a Rapportive from anywhere in the world. Of course it matters when scaling it.

From what I have seen, our greatest challenge stems from the fact that our people are trying to succeed against the odds. We do not have access to mentors or education that will help us tackle these problems so we are left at a very bad advantage. We struggle to have belief on ourselves because people we look up to have written us off. We have a long rough road ahead and we will trudge on. one day we will succeed. All I ask is for people like PG (who still hasn't responded) and HN'ers to have a little faith in us. Believe me, it helps.

<comment><USER22> " We have a long rough road ahead and we will trudge on. one day we will succeed. All I ask is for people like PG (who still hasn't responded) and HN'ers to have a little faith in us. "

Sorry if this is harsh but this is honestly what I think.

"Faith" in you by other people should be _earned_. I deal with many people who think all Indian developers are cheap and incompetent and can't speak English (There _are_ plenty of those around :-P) . Arguing why they shouldn't be thinking like that (or asking them to act opposite to what they believe) is (imo) futile.

 _Show_ what you can do (against the odds if required). _Then_ people will support you. That's just the way the world is.

" I would like to believe we can produce companies that can have product market fit before deciding to scale up and probably open offices in the west. .e.g US"

If you believe this why don't you do this? Why do you need PG?

I am not being sarcastic or snarky. I live in India and hear . "If only PG & co would start a YC branch in India ..." all the time.

I think something like YC in India (or China or ...) would be great, I also suspect that people who plan to build "global scale startups" wouldn't wait for PG and co to come around to their pov first.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Africa has produced a number of insanely successful start-ups, though mostly not in the tech area. e.g. De Beers is dominating the diamond market worldwide & was founded in South Africa. Same for Anglo American PLC.

On the tech side there is Dimension data. They are in talks regarding a take- over for 2bn pounds. MTN Group is operating in 21 countries. Then there is Mark Shuttleworth's startup Thawte consulting. Sure, none of those are on the scale of Google, but given the circumstances its not bad.

I'd also like to point out that this part is deceptive "110 million connected online (growing in triple digits)". Being connected in Africa does not mean that the connection is really usable. Its expensive & slow and has only been really improving in the last year or so.

<comment><USER24> Awful examples man. De Beers are colonial profiteers, not an African firm. Sheesh.

<comment><USER25> The business practices of De Beers have been less than stellar, however De Beers was founded in South Africa, has been headquartered in South Africa and is 15% owned by the Government of Botswana. I agree that they are a poor example though as considering them a start up though would be a bit like calling Ford a startup, both companies are a bit beyond that stage of their lives.

<comment><USER26> It may have been founded there, but only because that's where the rocks are and they can get away with running a cartel. It was founded by a Englishman and even then it was 120 years ago. Terrible example of an African startup.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Simple. Shitty Governments/Leadership -> Inadequate infrastructure -> End of story.

</comment><comment><USER28> There is one very widely held theory that no one is voicing here.

<http://lagriffedulion.f2s.com/sft.htm>

<comment><USER29> I can't find any professional or academic links to or from this paper. Do you have any more resources?

Specifically, I'm interested in the sources for their data. This was a fascinating paper.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> If you're anxious to start a startup, you should probably move to the US, Europe, or East Asia. There is simply too much infrastructure to replicate. That's also true of starting a startup in Oskaloosa, Iowa, too.

If that's a problem, it would be interesting to know why.

<comment><USER31> I see Oo around London pretty often, so I don't imagine the question is about his personal location. I suspect it's more about why a continent is being written off.

<comment><USER30> Probably for the same reason that Kansas is being written off, only more so, perhaps even to the same degree.

Keep in mind that a large group of people with a low average income means that your a larger portion of any marketing budget is wasted.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> A lack of objective rule of law defending property rights.

</comment><comment><USER13> Did you know?

Mark Shuttleworth and Elon Musk come from South Africa.

<comment><USER33> Elon Musk left SA when he was 17.

<comment><USER13> The point is that he is of South African origin.

<comment><USER34> Indeed, but his startup was not. And that's the critical point. It's unlikely the company would have had a chance at the global market when based in Africa. It's somewhat of a self-fulfilling prophecy, as people aware of the lack of chances pursue them elsewhere, spreading the gap even more.

<comment><USER13> Yes, he did move to Canada and then the States. He may not have looked back. At the same time, as a South African myself, I would find it hard to discount my South African heritage, or say that I was not at all influenced for the better by it: the diverse melting pot of people, the rhythmic languages, the sports, the myriad of cultures, people like Raymond Ackerman and Anton Rupert and Nelson Mandela, children dancing in the dusty township streets, vast natural beauty, the tension and miracle of pre and post 94 Elections, Rugby World Cup 95, FIFA 2010. South Africa lives and breathes hope.

Regarding not having "a chance at the global market":

Mark Shuttleworth's Thawte was based in Cape Town, South Africa yet captured almost 50% of the world's SSL certificate market, in the 90s, at a time when South Africa barely had dial-up. In South Africa we have a saying "'n boer maak 'n plan" (a hard-working man makes a plan).

But that was then. Today, I can read Hacker News from my desk in Cape Town, South Africa while looking out at Robben Island or Table Mountain. I can SSH into Amazon EC2. I can PayPal. I can send an email. I can be connected. I can ignore the hype of the Valley when I need to. I can use the distance to think. I can focus on my work and put the hours in. Sometimes, the "disadvantaged" are in fact advantaged.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I think culture plays a big role. When I was in China for a while, it seemed like the government wants to build a Chinese copy of other things. Whatever technology exists elsewhere, they seem to want to have their own version of it that's Chinese.

Philippines is another country with a lot of smart people, but I don't feel that the people in power there really have a building culture. Even with their last round of elections, they bought their voting machines from a Venezuelan.

If technology and startups really are in the culture of a country, there are lots of opportunities everywhere, to try and make a difference.

I guess it's better if things can come from the top down, like in the case of China - to jump start things a bit.

The other thing, with Nigeria. It's economy has been growing steadily over the past decade. But, it seems to be primarily driven by foreign oil companies.

Is there any room for doing start ups related to this? Oil exploration definitely requires a lot of capital. It would be hard to imagine what kinds of contributions a lowly Nigerian hacker could make in this area. Lastly, I know that India benefited quite a bit by having a large community of overseas Indians. People who came to USA for school, and later stayed on and worked here after graduating. As I understand it, these people provided some of the key contacts as the outsourcing boon started.

</comment><comment><USER36> I think it's an opportunity, but not for expanding to the West - I don't know how many ideas that can "make it" in Africa are readily translatable.

Rather, since isn't even on investment radar at the moment, as a local startup you can expand across the continent and have a big head start on foreign companies that try to enter the market when you're already established (viz. QQ, Taobao, Baidu in China), if the African market starts heating up.

Whether your startup will be an internet startup or not, is probably the question.

In nominal terms, the GDP and number of people on the African continent is roughly equivalent to India (numbers from Wikipedia), though it is true that it is spread across numerous countries.

I find it hard to believe that it will not become the "next frontier" at some point, if nations across the continent start electing technocrats.

</comment><comment><USER37> I don't think africa is alone in being behind the 8-ball in the creating a global scale company (which I take it you mean world-wide adoption and not just huge locally). Even with the greatest talent and product, it would still be hard.

No one is looking to africa for the next big thing - this is a huge problem for any company - how can you get to critical mass if no one is paying attention to you.

I am sitting in a beijing starbucks writing this and thinking about the global brands; there aren't that many of them.

</comment><comment><USER38> >So hearing that you think there is no hope for us, is quite deflating.

He didn't say "there is no hope of successful startups in Africa"; he just said "African startups aren't high on my priority list".

</comment><comment><USER39> If we want to routinely produce global scale startups in Africa we need to concentrate first on gaining sufficient skill to routinely produce continental scale startups.

</comment><comment><USER40> It's not question of can or can't. The probability is just low, at least for the near future.

The dynamics of the economies and governments are just not aligned with that outcome.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> 120 points and 67 comments later, I am still waiting to hear PG's point of view. :(

<comment><USER41> Well... do you think PG will have something to say that isn't already within these comments? Or do you just want to force him into responding with no other goal in mind?

HN isn't his inbox, after all. The discussion here is pretty interesting, and worth talking about -- that's why the topic has been voted up. But if PG (one of very many participants in HN) personally wants to write an updated statement about his views on investing in Kenya or other African countries that is primarily based on what's already being said here, that might be more appropriate for an essay (which takes time).

If he doesn't have any insight that _adds to the discussion_ , I don't see why he should feel obliged to comment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> "A country is not made of land; a country is made of its people." -- Unknown

</comment><comment><USER43> I am actually very excited by opportunities in Africa, but I know nothing about marketing to Africans. For example, out of the 110 million connected online, what percentage of them are willing to pay for goods and services online? How do you accept payment from an African user? How do most people access the Internet? What sort of social media sharing is most popular - Twitter, Facebook, texting, Skype ...?

<comment><USER44> The problem is that most of them can't even if they want to especially if we're talking international payment.

My view is based on my own experience (Morocco, here), and it's almost impossible to get an international credit/debit card from your bank unless you're building and import/export company.

Online payments (in a national scale) are, sure, evolving but the ignorance is killing the online market, nobody is willing to pay for something that they can't touch.

<comment><USER43> thanks. do you know anything about moneybookers or paypal in morocco?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I think the asker is making the classic error of "the exception does not invalidate the rule". Is it possible to do such a thing out of Africa/Nigeria? Probably. Would it be much harder to do so than in many other more developed/western countries? Most definitely. But this doesn't mean an entrepreneur or investor should be dissuaded from doing such a thing, especially if you are a native of such a country. Instead, probably the more that native residents of any country try to build something new and innovative and bootstrap a new empire, the better -- for everybody concerned.

</comment><comment><USER45> I certainly think it is possible, but I wouldn't trust their government at all. I would suggest building a prototype ,demonstrate some traction and then move out of the area to grow the business if that would be possible. You don't really need to incorporate until you have paying customers, so you wouldn't have to deal with any government before that point.

</comment><comment><USER46> hmm?</comment>


On building systems that will fail - <AUTHOR> https://fermatslibrary.com/s/on-building-systems-that-will-fail <comment><USER2> For those who prefer PDFs (for local reading / archival):

[https://www.cs.umass.edu/~emery/classes/cmpsci691st/readings...](https://www.cs.umass.edu/~emery/classes/cmpsci691st/readings/OS/On- Building-Systems-That-Fail-corbato.pdf)

The author is the late Fernando J. Corbato.</comment>


2 Years, and 50 Million downloads later... Bump is back at YC  - <AUTHOR> http://blog.bu.mp/2-years-and-50-million-downloads-later-bump-i

<comment><USER2> Very cool. I see a tangential relationship to MS Surface (which I am sad did not "take off" in relation to its potential, re: costs). This may be the type of App where demonstrations of trivial to the complex of its uses "explains" the App in better terms. I mean this in the sense that friends with iPhones, Smart Phones don't necessarily "see" the value (which I do) in the App.</comment>


Srsly. Is this AI stuff ready for ux/ui designers? - <AUTHOR> https://autonomous.design/ <comment><AUTHOR> Aut.Des is going to be an ongoing experiment in adding AI/ML to the user interface design workflow. I'm planning to check out (all) tools that are available, write about them and share the results online.

Let me know your thoughts and if you are using something worth calling AI or at least algorithm based in your workflow.

I'd love to know!

Cheers - Olivier</comment>