Ask HN: Best book / resources on leadership, especially for tech teams? - <AUTHOR> Although I know self help books are of little value, but wondering if any author has really nailed the topic? Would be even be better if the book is specific to tech leadership. <comment><USER2> The US Army has an _exceptionally_ well-crafted field manual on leadership. No fluff, but also no chest-thumping. It's honestly the best resource I've ever seen on what constitutes a good leader, how good leaders are developed, and how good leaders develop their teams.

Being a DOD publication, it's in the public domain: [https://usacac.army.mil/sites/default/files/misc/doctrine/CD...](https://usacac.army.mil/sites/default/files/misc/doctrine/CDG/cdg_resources/manuals/adrp/adrp6_22_new.pdf)

I can't stress enough how excellent it is.

<comment><USER3> I don't have a reference available but the concept of 'Mission Command' used by the UK Army amongst others contains the best and most succinct description I've seen of how to delegate a task to a subordinate. And is perfectly suited to many civilian situations as well. From memory, and paraphrasing, it boils down to

State what you, as the leader, are trying to achieve, and why ('the big picture')

State what you want the subordinate to achieve

Define the resources available to the subordinate, and any constraints

Say how you want progress / issues to be reported

You don't define how the subordinate should carry out the task – if they are competent and you trust them, they should be able to figure this out themselves.

[Edit] - the military distinction between command and control is also relevant to the civilian distinction between leadership and management. Paraphrasing slightly: Command is getting people to do something. Control is stopping them from doing something else.

<comment><USER4> > You don't define how the subordinate should carry out the task – if they are > competent and you trust them, they should be able to figure this out > themselves.

I would argue that this isn't always the case. When tasking a subordinate you should also consider where they fit in a matrix of competency and confidence. If they are competent and confident in their ability to carry out the task then what you described is fine. If they aren't competent I'd give them the task but keep a very close eye on progress and be ready to step in with feedback before things spiral out of control. If they're competent but lack confidence I'd probably have them walk through their plan with me first. This can help them feel more confident in the approach that they planned to take. If they are neither competent or confident in their ability to perform the task I'd question why they're being assigned it.

<comment><USER3> Totally agree - I should have unpacked 'trust' in more detail :-). It includes competence and confidence as you say, whether their experience is current or out-of-date, whether they have been trained by an organisation that you trust, and several other factors. If I was tasking someone who lacked any of these, I'd definitely want to keep an eye / mentor / etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The best book on leadership IMO is the Tao Te Ching, Ch. 17.

It's very short, about ten lines, but it contains all that you need to know. The final verse, especially, destroys or subsumes pretty much all concepts of leadership.

YMMV:

[http://taoteching.org.uk/chapter17.html](http://taoteching.org.uk/chapter17.html)

[http://www.egreenway.com/taoism/ttclz17.htm](http://www.egreenway.com/taoism/ttclz17.htm)

[https://www.taoistic.com/taoteching- laotzu/taoteching-17.htm](https://www.taoistic.com/taoteching- laotzu/taoteching-17.htm)

[https://taoteching.daodejing.org/17.htm](https://taoteching.daodejing.org/17.htm)

[http://tao-in-you.com/lao-tzu-tao-te-ching-chapter-17/](http://tao-in- you.com/lao-tzu-tao-te-ching-chapter-17/)

<comment><USER6> But that's only the "what", and not the "how", no?

<comment><USER7> Bit like if someone asks you to teach them to paint and you show them a Monet and go "like that!", yeah.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Everything by Simon Sinek, but most important for me is "Leaders Eat Last" [0]. I haven't read the last one (The Infinite Game), but I've heard it's pretty good as well.

Also Extreme Ownership [1] and Dichotomy of Leadership [2] by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin.

All of these books had tremendous impact on me as a leader and I highly recommend them.

[0]: [https://www.amazon.com/Leaders-Eat-Last-Together- Others/dp/B...](https://www.amazon.com/Leaders-Eat-Last-Together- Others/dp/B00HQ3K34M/)

[1]: [https://www.amazon.com/Extreme-Ownership-U-S-Navy-SEALs- eboo...](https://www.amazon.com/Extreme-Ownership-U-S-Navy-SEALs- ebook/dp/B00VE4Y0Z2)

[2]: [https://www.amazon.com/Dichotomy-Leadership-Balancing- Challe...](https://www.amazon.com/Dichotomy-Leadership-Balancing-Challenges- Ownership/dp/B07BN5NGQ5/)

<comment><USER9> I must have missed something, seeing extreme ownership praised so much but I stopped reading it after a chapter or so. The whole macho thing didn't jive and I'm struggling to find parallels to ordinary life. Lives aren't at stake for 99.9999% of work out there. The whole military hierarchy and all the idealization doesn't exist in normal contexts. Leaders aren't trusted implicitly always or "lives are at stake". So how does it translate??

Perhaps my view is tainted having been through mandatory military service, and hated every minute of it. But I guess I simply "don't get it"

<comment><USER10> Corporate business leaders here in America tend to be obsessed with trying to apply military-style terminology and doctrines to their business. In their minds, business is war, and "lives are at stake" gets translated to either "jobs are at stake" or "revenue is at stake," depending on the person. There are so many war-isms in business it's impossible to list them all. "In the trenches," "boots on the ground," framing sales territories as battlegrounds...

In short, these things sell because American business leaders fetishize these sort of ex-SEAL types.

It's all a little much for me. Not to mention unfortunate, because the sort of leadership that works best in the military is decidedly not the sort of leadership that works best in business. The military _demands_ that soldiers immediately and unquestioningly follow commands given by their superiors (particularly during combat). Lives are literally at stake, so any hesitation for even a moment could spell doom.

Meanwhile, in business, I strongly believe leaders need to be in more of a team-servant role -- yes, motivating, providing vision, etc., but also cultivating a sense of "your voice matters," if that makes sense. Being a 'force multiplier' in business requires a different mentality than in war zones.

<comment><USER11> > The military demands that soldiers immediately and unquestioningly follow > commands given by their superiors (particularly during combat).

This doesn't jive with my understanding of US military (or human nature). Out of combat, a top-down command and control hierarchy leads to poor decision making by troops on the ground. A general can't and shouldn't make decisions on day-to-day operations at the platoon-level.

In combat, certainly the stakes are higher, and lives are on the line. If anything, that means trust plays MORE of a role than hierarchy. If a leader I don't trust tells me to do something that seems wrong and reckless enough to get me killed, I'm not going to do it. I'd rather get court martialed back home than die in the dirt. It's all about trust. If the leader has earned trust, I'll know that they have the bigger picture, and what seems wrong to me now makes sense in some way I can't see from where I am. And of course, it's not all black and white, these are matters of degree, including measuring the desperation and force in the tone of an order.

<comment><USER12> See for example _Team of Teams_ by General Chrystal--which is also a good book about organization/business generally.

<comment><USER13> +1. Team of Teams is a great intro to leadership for tech. General Chrystal identifies the distinction between complicated and complex areas and shows best practices for dealing with complexity (it's not just a semantic argument but actually something substantial, where tech leaders generally deal with complex problems and not complicated problems).

<comment><USER11> Is it an easily communicated difference?

<comment><USER12> Yes. Complicated means lots of moving pieces but predictable. Complex means lots of components that are far less predictable.

[https://thearmyleader.co.uk/team-of-teams/](https://thearmyleader.co.uk/team- of-teams/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Most books on leadership give principles and science, which don't hurt to know, but leading is a practice -- an active, social, emotional, expressive, performance-based field.

We learn to perform by practicing the basics in any field.

Leadership Step by Step [https://www.amazon.com/Leadership-Step-Become-Person- Others/...](https://www.amazon.com/Leadership-Step-Become-Person- Others/dp/0814437931) gives a set of 20 exercises that teach the basics of leading yourself and others. If you practice, you'll develop the skills, experiences, and beliefs of an effective leader. Other books are like music appreciation. This book is like learning to play the piano.

Written by a PhD in physics (me) then started several companies, got an MBA, and teaches leadership at NYU to stellar reviews. [http://joshuaspodek.com/reviews-leadership-step- step](http://joshuaspodek.com/reviews-leadership-step-step)

Leadership Step by Step: [https://www.amazon.com/Leadership-Step-Become- Person-Others/...](https://www.amazon.com/Leadership-Step-Become-Person- Others/dp/0814437931)

<comment><USER15> Self promotion usually rubs me the wrong way, but judging from this excerpt, your book looks like it's well worth reading:

[http://spodekacademy.com/wp-content/uploads/spodekacademy- co...](http://spodekacademy.com/wp-content/uploads/spodekacademy- com/LeadershipStepByStep_JoshuaSpodek_MeaningfulConnectionExcerpt.pdf)

<comment><USER14> Thank you. I appreciate your suspending judgment enough to research it.

If you read it, I hope you'll share your thoughts on it, especially if you do the exercises.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Try "The Manager's Path" by Camille Fournier.

[http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920056843.do](http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920056843.do)

<comment><USER17> Agreed, I particularly like the way each chapter dealt with a rank further up. Even if you have _no intention_ of going higher, seeing what they want from you and what they should be doing was immensely helpful and clarifying.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Extreme Ownership [https://www.amazon.com/Extreme-Ownership-U-S-Navy-SEALs- eboo...](https://www.amazon.com/Extreme-Ownership-U-S-Navy-SEALs- ebook/dp/B00VE4Y0Z2)

How to Win Friends and Influence People [https://www.amazon.com/How-Win- Friends-Influence-People-eboo...](https://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Friends- Influence-People-ebook/dp/B0811Z2NNF/)

The Phoenix Project [https://www.amazon.com/Phoenix-Project-DevOps-Helping- Busine...](https://www.amazon.com/Phoenix-Project-DevOps-Helping-Business- ebook/dp/B078Y98RG8/)

Don't worry about "tech specific". Core leadership principles are universal. The first two books on the list show the principles, and the mindset you should approach them with to be successful.

The 3rd book will help set the tone for leading in a modern tech environment, and what kind of business decisions you should prioritize.

<comment><USER19> The third book is also good for bragging at work about devops.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> When managing people in tech, I think it is equally as important to know how to organize as it is to know how to lead. I would recommend "The Phoenix Project" and "The Unicorn Project" and "The Goal" to all tech managers.

No matter how good your communication/leadership skills are, your team will be severely handicapped if they are working in an inefficient/limiting environment.

Coming at the same lessons from a different perspective, I have also found "Turn The Ship Around!" to be a very good resource.

<comment><USER21> > I would recommend "The Phoenix Project" and "The Unicorn Project" and "The > Goal" to all tech managers.

Goldratt's "The Goal" and its sequels are interesting reading, but please, please internalize the principles he was arguing from for the theory of constraints before trying to apply it to software. Otherwise you end up with "The Pheonix Project" (whose author is apparently making a nice living as a snake oil process consultant, according to friends who have dealt with his appearance in companies) which is the "software factory" mess of the 1980's rewarmed and shoved out the door again. Rather, go read Deming's "The New Economy" (just ignore the section on intrinsic/extrinsic motivation).

<comment><USER22> I'm not really following your criticisms on The Phoenix Project... Can you elaborate?

<comment><USER21> I didn't attempt to make a detailed criticism. Basically, it's the naive application of Goldratt's "The Goal" to IT. People have been trying to model IT processes on manufacturing for decades. Still doesn't work. The opinion of several engineers that I respect very highly who suffered from the author's consulting services makes me discount his work entirely.

If you read farther in Goldratt, the sequels to "The Goal", he refines the notion of constraints in very interesting ways that leave the factory floor. I don't think the author of the Phoenix Project ever got that.

<comment><USER23> Would you mind expanding on how your friends suffered? What went wrong etc. Sounds interesting.

<comment><USER21> I haven't done a detailed debrief with them, so I can pass on an opinion and experience that I respect, but I can't expand without conjecturing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Any of the classic books of the late Jerry Weinberg is full of wisdom. Oldies but goldies. Leanpub has all of them: [https://leanpub.com/u/jerryweinberg](https://leanpub.com/u/jerryweinberg)

There's the People Skill bundle: [https://leanpub.com/b/peopleskillssoftbutdifficult](https://leanpub.com/b/peopleskillssoftbutdifficult) with the books: Are Your Lights On?, What Did You Say? The Art of Giving and Receiving Feedback, Exploring Requirements One, Exploring Requirements Two, Becoming a Change Artist, More Secrets of Consulting, and Becoming a Technical Leader

But maybe the better for you are his classic The Psychology of Computer Program (to understand the mind of programmers) [https://leanpub.com/thepsychologyofcomputerprogramming](https://leanpub.com/thepsychologyofcomputerprogramming)

Becoming a Technical Leader (to grow to a leadership position) [https://leanpub.com/becomingatechnicalleader](https://leanpub.com/becomingatechnicalleader)

Managing Teams Congruently (to manage groups) [https://leanpub.com/managingteamscongruently](https://leanpub.com/managingteamscongruently)

<comment><USER25> Thanks for those links, I will check out a number of those. Weird I've never heard about him before, impressive number of books.

<comment><USER24> Maybe because he is from the pre-internet era. The tech parts are dated, but since he sees people as the center of the problems, it doesn't matter much. Any of his books will give you a year of blog posts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink & Leif Babin

This book is about the lessons learned on leadership by two Navy Seal Officers and how they are applied in business. It learned me to take ownership on what is happening, always work together, keep it simple, focus on a single priority, and give ownership.

Turn the ship around! by L. David Marquet

This book tells the story of a submarine captain that turns his subordinates into leaders and his submarine goes on becoming the best submarine in the US Navy. It learned me to move authority to information, train competence, and the power of clear communication.

You can find more good books at [https://www.norberhuis.nl/books/](https://www.norberhuis.nl/books/)

<comment><USER27> +1 Turn the ship around! by L. David Marquet

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I think this is a more complicated question that it first appears. What do you mean by leadership? Getting things done for some strict definition? Managing a team? Managing a huge enterprise? I think reading books across the spectrum of leadership and management is critical, as each gives you some feeling of the underlying "truth" that you're trying to find.

I think the best book on the topic as I think you mean it is High Output Management by Andy Grove. It's a classic. Incredibly well written. Direct.

From there, I'd actually take a pivot and read MCDP 1 Warfighting, which is concise, brilliant, generally applicable, and completely aligned with the thinking of Grove. Along the same lines, I'd consider reading about OODA (I like "Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War" but not strictly necessary to read an entire biography). I think then you start to see that "Management" began to mean something particular in the post-war era for those who could see it, that it's been lost in most organizations. Agile, lean, blah blah blah is all sort of derived from here.

Then get some conditioning on how it all goes wrong, for which I would suggest the classic "The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering", which is generally applicable.

Then personally, I era toward thinking about organizations that have accomplished great things, so suggest "Creativity, Inc", "Doing the Impossible: George E. Mueller & the Management of NASA's Human Spaceflight Program", and books of those type.

</comment><comment><USER29> "Peopleware" is a great one -- [https://www.amazon.com/Peopleware-Productive- Projects-Teams-...](https://www.amazon.com/Peopleware-Productive-Projects- Teams-3rd/dp/0321934113)

<comment><USER30> Excellent book! Adding Managing Humans to that.

[https://randsinrepose.com/books/](https://randsinrepose.com/books/)

<comment><USER31> I concur! Just finished MH and really enjoyed it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> The best definition of what's a good leader is found in the book "the captain class" : [https://www.amazon.com/Captain-Class-Hidden-Behind- Greatest/...](https://www.amazon.com/Captain-Class-Hidden-Behind- Greatest/dp/1785030272)

What's interesting is that the author have a data oriented strategy to find a good definition of a leader: he processed a lot of data to find which teams had really exceptionnal success IN THE HISTORY OF ALL SPORTS.

When he found the 8 teams with the most exceptionnal success, he looked for what they share. He found that all of those exceptionnal team success coincide with the arrival and departure of a captain.

Then he looked for shared trait between all those captain. What he found is the best definition of a leader.

<comment><USER26> I am definitely going to read this!

<comment><USER32> You won't regret it ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> The best management book I read this year was "The Making of a Manager" by Julie Zhou [1]. The book is concise, clearly written and actionable. It's specifically written for first time managers and the author is a design lead at Facebook.

[1]: [https://www.amazon.com/Making-Manager-What-Everyone- Looks/dp...](https://www.amazon.com/Making-Manager-What-Everyone- Looks/dp/0735219567)

<comment><USER34> +100 for this book. Absolutely amazing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> A few recommendations from me and peers in my company who highly value some of the following:

\- "Managing Humans" by Michael Lopp very insightful and easy to read.

\- "Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps: Building and Scaling High Performing Technology Organizations" by Dr Nicole Forsgren brings a long research on how to organize teams for success.

\- "The Manager's Path: A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change" by Camille Fournier which I especially recommend for new managers.

Lastly, and this time not tech-specific, but by far my best read of 2019: "Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley's Bill Campbell" written by Eric Schmidt & others.

</comment><comment><USER36> High Output Management by Andy Grove, Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink & The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz would be my top 3.

<comment><USER11> I'm sad to have to scroll down so far to see High Output Management. Timeless principles that boil down the ABCs of being an effective manager. No bells and whistles. This is a must-read for any new manager.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> It depends on what your definition of "leadership" is - personally I found "Managing Humans" by Michael Lopp to be really insightful. It's really more a collection of anecdotes than a seminal work on the topic, but I think there's a bunch of good components in understanding team dynamics around technical / software engineering teams.

</comment><comment><USER38> It's years since I read it but Gerald Weinberg's Becoming a Technical Leader. The best general book on leadership I've read for a while is Marquet's Turn the Ship Around – great also as an audiobook. I referenced the latter in my own Right to Left: The digital leader's guide to Lean and Agile (arguably a leadership book too)

<comment><USER39> 'If you are a good leader,

Who talks little,

They will say,

When your work is done,

And your aim fulfilled,

"We did it ourselves."'

\- Lao Tse, quoted in 'Becoming a Technical Leader'

I heartily second 'Becoming a Technical Leader.' The exercises there are designed to get you to think about and grow in the situation that you are currently in, so the book will be a perennial.

I'd add that Weinberg also produced a four-volume series, 'Quality Software Management', where he sums up all he learned about project management in his programming, management and consulting careers. He later republished the material in a series of smaller eBooks [0] at LeanPub.

I know of no better written resources for people who want to learn to manage software development in a way that accomplishes the technical tasks while respecting the people who do the work.

[0] [https://leanpub.com/b/qualitysoftware](https://leanpub.com/b/qualitysoftware)

<comment><USER40> Upvoted. Also by Weinberg, _The Secrets of Consulting_.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I run Developer to Manager ([https://devtomanager.com](https://devtomanager.com)), where we interview tech leaders and ask them for advice they have for someone new to this field.

I'm of course biased, but I do feel it's turning out to be a good resource. Feedback is always welcome!

</comment><comment><USER42> Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink -> [https://www.amazon.com/Extreme- Ownership-U-S-Navy-SEALs-eboo...](https://www.amazon.com/Extreme-Ownership-U- S-Navy-SEALs-ebook/dp/B0739PYQSS)

Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek -> [https://www.amazon.com/Leaders-Eat-Last- Together-Others/dp/B...](https://www.amazon.com/Leaders-Eat-Last-Together- Others/dp/B00HQ3K34M)

</comment><comment><USER43> Creativity, Inc. [1] It's not a textbook but a really fun read for the inside stories that pushed Pixar to its success. Maybe it's just me personally but I found it hard to follow some syllabus to learn management --- instead, I enjoy being inspired by other great managers through their concrete stories.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FUZQYBO/](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FUZQYBO/)

<comment><USER44> This was an amazing read. Ed Catmull explains many nuanced aspects of leadership, management, creative organizations, and related. All of these lessons are wrapped into the personal history and narrative surrounding Pixar, which is fascinating in its own right.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I'm reading _High Output Management_ by Andy Grove at the moment. Definitely one of the best practical guides on being a leader and a people manager I've ever read.

</comment><comment><USER46> Leading Snowflakes is written specifically for new engineering managers. In my opinion, it nails it: [https://leadingsnowflakes.com/](https://leadingsnowflakes.com/)

Unlike many books on leadership, this one is specific about the challenges of leading a technical team:

      * Carving out maker vs manager time

      * "Code reviewing" your management decisions with your teammates

      * How to delegate without losing visibility or quality

</comment><comment><USER47> "Manager tools" and "career tools" podcasts have been eye-openers for me about corporate relationships and management politics.

</comment><comment><USER48> I think "Team Geek" [0] is probably worth a mention in this light.

It's written in that infuriating cutesy techy-language that seems to infuse a lot of the "hipper" books of this genre but there really is some good advice in there.

FYI these are the guys that did Subversion, which was a pretty successful project for a while, back in the day. This same writing style pervades the SVN docs as well. Yeuch.

In the same vein, I also enjoyed "rework" by Jason Fried [1] though that's more about modern work, than purely management. Also kind of "hip" in style, but not so insufferable ;-)

[0] [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14514115-team- geek](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14514115-team-geek)

[1] [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6732019-rework](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6732019-rework)

<comment><USER49> > infuriating cutesy techy-language

Happy to see I'm not the only curmudgeon around here. I'd say this trend is at its most loathsome when employed by big corporates - it's as if everyone is so terrified of being mischaracterised as old or uncool (daddio) that noone is willing to point out how facile, affected and obnoxious this type of language is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> The Great CEO Within (great for non-CEO leaders too). Free here: [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZJZbv4J6FZ8Dnb0JuMhJxTnw...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZJZbv4J6FZ8Dnb0JuMhJxTnwl- dwqx5xl0s65DE3wO8/edit#)!

</comment><comment><USER51> My favorites are Good to Great and Principles

* [https://www.amazon.com/Good-Great-Some-Companies-Others/dp/0...](https://www.amazon.com/Good-Great-Some-Companies-Others/dp/0066620996/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=good+to+great&qid=1575558089&sr=8-3)

* [https://www.amazon.com/Principles-Life-Work-Ray-Dalio/dp/150...](https://www.amazon.com/Principles-Life-Work-Ray-Dalio/dp/1501124021/ref=sr_1_3?crid=3TSPWCDP7GWFR&keywords=principles+ray+dalio&qid=1575558133&sprefix=principles%2Caps%2C172&sr=8-3)

</comment><comment><USER52> Turn The Ship Around!: A True Story of Building Leaders by Breaking the Rules

[https://www.amazon.co.uk/Turn-Ship-Around-Building- Breaking/...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Turn-Ship-Around-Building- Breaking/dp/0241250943/ref=sr_1_1?crid=M1VNDUFRQ7LB&keywords=turn+ship+around&qid=1575555726&sprefix=turn+ship%2Caps%2C163&sr=8-1)

HN post about this book recently: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21662941](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21662941)

</comment><comment><USER53> Extreme Ownership is an excellent book on the topic (or so peoole tell me, I started reading it today actually).

<comment><USER54> It is. It is also filled with gratuitous disregard for human life and cruelty towards animals. But that's what war is about, and having a book about military leadership without actual examples of conflict would be kind of vacuous.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> This is a little bit out-of-left field. But I'd recommend the classic Foreign Policy essay "Why Arabs Lose Wars". On the surface it's obviously about military doctrine, and how it's affected the various conflicts in recent Middle Eastern history.

But fundamentally its about management culture, and what factors distinguished well-run organizations from dysfunctional ones.

[0] [https://www.meforum.org/441/why-arabs-lose- wars](https://www.meforum.org/441/why-arabs-lose-wars)

</comment><comment><USER56> This isn't specifically about tech, but The Culture Map by Erin Meyer is really worth reading.

I'm not 100% sold on it being correct, but it does give you a framework to think within when you're working with other people, no matter which culture you're from.

Forbes have a decent write-up:

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/rawnshah/2014/10/06/the- culture...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/rawnshah/2014/10/06/the-culture-map- shows-us-how-we-work-worldwide/)

</comment><comment><USER57> Question is, do you want a book about the input factors to how people end up leading, or one on evaluating the output effects of other leaders against?

Leadership is not an activity or an action you can mimic, it it is an _effect_. Most books are the stories people tell afterwards about how virtuous they were and they call that leadership. Jeffery Pfeffer says this specifically as well.

Pfeffers books on management provide the insight into the dynamics leadership emerges from. His triad of, "performance, credentials, and relationships," that describe power in a situation also describe the necessary factors we look back on as leadership.

[https://www.amazon.ca/Power-Some-People-Have- Others/dp/00617...](https://www.amazon.ca/Power-Some-People-Have- Others/dp/0061789089)

I like Jocko Willnick's whole attitude about ownership, respect, delegation, and working with people to leverage their skills to achieve outcomes. He says the hierarchy in the military isn't as much of a factor as how you relate to your team and the world, but I suspect Pfeffer would disagree in that its hierarchy and training culture provides the credential piece in his triad, where in business, that's more dynamic.

There are lots of good books about leadership, but reading them without having read Pfeffer's "Power.." is exploring the territory without the map, imo.

</comment><comment><USER58> I found "An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management" by Will Larson quite good for advice on practical management challenges one comes across in technology companies.

</comment><comment><USER59> "Extreme Ownership" by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin. I highly recommend the audiobook, it is narrated by the authors and is very engaging.

Some of the comments in this thread say that military orders and life and death situations don't apply in the business world. But that isn't what this book is about, the advice is really the opposite of giving orders the must be followed without question. And the lessons are explained in ways that clearly relate to business management.

</comment><comment><USER60> I've been a team lead for close to four years now in two different companies, both times my teams spanned multiple time zones!

I really enjoy this subject and read a lot about it. My favorite books so far are:

\- Radical Candor \-- Gives a great framework for candid conversations and empathy which IMO are the most important thing! Clear #1 in my list.

\- Leading by Alex Ferguson \-- A great successful leader in another area - Soccer - that had many years building effective teams. It's incredible how many concepts can be mapped over, he talks for example on how having "rockstars" in a team that aren't team players isn't worth it.

\- Ride of a lifetime by Bob Iger \-- It's mostly a biography of Disney's most successful CEO, I thought it was very authentic and gave good advices on how to deal with creative people, empathy, setting goals and navigating hard situations (compartmentalizing)

\- Creativity Inc Amy / Ed \-- Pixar's president biography on how to manage creative teams, it is a bit repetitive but it is golden! Lots of good ideas and insightful chapters that make you think about how to build a successful culture.

\- The Manager's Path: A Guide for Tech Leaders \-- IMO a bit shallow compared to the other books I mentioned but it was a pleasant read.

<comment><USER61> Radical Candor is easily the most impactful leadership book I've read. I've always struggled with finding the balance between being direct without being a jerk and being compassionate without being ineffective. I still feel like I nail it about 10% of the time, but at least I have a clearer picture of what the communication style I'm aiming for looks like.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> On the topic of

General Management - High Output Management by Andrew Grove

Visibility and Alignment - Measure What Matters by John Doerr

Understanding People and Teams - Surrounded by Idiots by Thomas Erikson

</comment><comment><USER63> Radical Candor by Kim Scott. By far the best management book that I have read, it changed my way of thinking when it comes to leading a team.

</comment><comment><USER64> "An elegant puzzle", "High output management" and "Behind Closed Doors" have all been useful to me.

</comment><comment><USER65> I think leadership stems from engineering cultures. So I guess you may find Netflix Culture Code interesting [1]. It's introduced by Reed Hastings, the CEO

[1] [https://www.slideshare.net/mobile/reed2001/culture-1798664](https://www.slideshare.net/mobile/reed2001/culture-1798664)

</comment><comment><USER66> This comment is for anyone like the OP who is looking for resources beyond books.

I run a free mentoring service for managers, and most (but not all) tend to come from the tech side of the world. My sessions are 45 minutes long, and I did over 120 in 2019.

I'm currently on hiatus till January as I just had a baby boy I'm spending time with (actually sleeping on me as I type this out!), but feel free to grab some time in January if you'd like to talk to someone live.

[https://freemanagermentor.com](https://freemanagermentor.com)

A lot of people in comments below have talked about struggling with the "How" when it comes to taking the concepts they've learned and putting them into practice. This is the value of a live conversation with another human being, where we can talk through specific examples, play around with the scenarios, and either prepare for a future challenge, or come up with a plan to address the current one head on.

<comment><USER67> I think I will!

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> I strongly recommend the following:

Good to Great: Why some companies make the leap and Others Don't The Goal: A process of Continuous Improvement Team of Teams Strategy that Works: Bridging the Stategy to Execution Gap

There isn't a single book that will teach you everything you need to know, but these 5 books taken together will cover nearly everything. The points I suggest paying the most attention to are level 5 leadership, the hedgehog concept, the flywheel concept, Kaizen style continuous improvement, how to organize groups of teams to avoid micromanaging, and how to work with a company culture to make decisions supported by real data that tells you what the most effective decisions would be and how to achieve this by choosing concepts to promote to employees in order to guide their decision making.

</comment><comment><USER69> What Every Body is Saying: An Ex-FBI Agent's Guide to Speed-Reading People [1]

This book has allowed me to understand what the people around me are saying, without even saying a word!

"Read this book and send your nonverbal intelligence soaring. Joe Navarro, a former FBI counterintelligence officer and a recognized expert on nonverbal behavior, explains how to "speed-read" people: decode sentiments and behaviors, avoid hidden pitfalls, and look for deceptive behaviors. You'll also learn how your body language can influence what your boss, family, friends, and strangers think of you."

[1] [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1173576.What_Every_Body_...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1173576.What_Every_Body_is_Saying)

</comment><comment><USER70> Here is my favourite; David Packard's (of HP fame) address to HP managers - [https://gizmodo.com/the-hp-way-how-bill-hewlett-and-i- built-...](https://gizmodo.com/the-hp-way-how-bill-hewlett-and-i-built-our- company-5634378)

Read and memorize the above.

There is a whole lot of BS in the Leadership Industry and we should first educate ourselves on the realities. Start with Jeffrey Pfeffer's "Leadership BS".

The above same charge of BS can also be laid at the door of of various Management "theories". A good antidote is Ted Stephenson's "Management: A political activity".

Leadership/Management is more about understanding People/Organizational psychology and behaviours and not "feel good" theories.

</comment><comment><USER71> Gerald Weinberg's "Becoming a Technical Leader" is an often overlooked classic.

<comment><USER72> Seconded - and most stuff written by Weinberg is worth reading

<comment><USER71> Agreed, one of my secret goals is reading each and every one of his books ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> [0] The Score Takes Care of Itself.

[0] [https://www.amazon.com/Score-Takes-Care-Itself- Philosophy/dp...](https://www.amazon.com/Score-Takes-Care-Itself- Philosophy/dp/1591843472)

</comment><comment><USER74> For being immensely practical, I'm a big fan of 1\. "An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management" 2\. "High Output Management" 3\. "Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams"

</comment><comment><USER75> There is a nice compilation of articles in a github repo, divided by topic. [https://github.com/charlax/engineering- management](https://github.com/charlax/engineering-management) Leadership is an expansive topic and I don't think it's possible to nail it. "Turn the Ship Around" I think really nails the strategy of Functional Leadership, plus it's a true story. Keep in mind that Leadership and Management are two very different topics that people often conflate.

</comment><comment><USER76> Not specific to just tech teams, but I loved The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success by William Thorndike. So many great notes about leadership and successfully running a business in general.

[https://www.amazon.com/Outsiders-Unconventional-Radically- Ra...](https://www.amazon.com/Outsiders-Unconventional-Radically-Rational- Blueprint/dp/1422162672/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=outsiders+book&qid=1575567270&s=books&sr=1-3)

</comment><comment><USER77> How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. Not really about leadership per se, but it helps you get out of your own way which allows a lot of other good things room to happen.

</comment><comment><USER78> While i really value the books from the US and British armies that were shared, I think "Principle Centered Leadership by Stephen Covey" is a really good book on the topic of Leadership. [https://www.amazon.com/Principle- Centered-Leadership-Stephen...](https://www.amazon.com/Principle-Centered- Leadership-Stephen-Covey-dp-0671749102/dp/0671749102/)

</comment><comment><USER79> Recently I have been relying on two good sources for leadership:

\- Book: The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker: I think this is an excellent book to teach the part of the brain that wants to execute to think more strategically and concentrate on the leadership side.

\- Podcast: Modern CTO: This podcast has lots of interviews CTO's from all kinds of companies. It's pretty casual and entertaining but also seems to always motivate me to be a better leader.

</comment><comment><USER80> You learn from history and what other people did well and didn't do well. Leadership is a combination of your own innate abilities combined with self- awareness and feedback. From this, you can apply historical knowledge (understand you may not have Washington's height and strength, but may be a better tactical decision maker).

Read biographies on others:

Washington: A Life

Hamilton

Grant

Fighter Pilot (Robin Olds)

Boyd

Anyone you admire - read about them - find out what was good and what was bad.

Mattis's new book is good: Call Sign Chaos.

</comment><comment><USER81> "On Becoming a Leader" by Warren Bennis

This book is not very big but is exceptionally dense and easy to read. I found a lot of useful information that I apply to my daily life - reflection, being authentic, allowing oneself to make mistakes and much more.

I reread it three times already and I always found new ideas.

(As a technical guy) I developed a great passion for philosophy and arts in general thanks to his book.

</comment><comment><USER82> Tribes by Seth Godin is good as it talks about how communities grow around ideas not individuals.

Also read things written by great leaders. i.e. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius [http://classics.mit.edu/Antoninus/meditations.html](http://classics.mit.edu/Antoninus/meditations.html)

</comment><comment><USER67> Most of my responses are covered already, and I know this is cliche, but Art of War by Sun Tzu.

One thing that has always stayed with me about leadership is his five traits that define a great leader.

1) Wisdom 2) Courage 3) Sincerity 4) Benevolence 5) Discipline

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

And on a side note, I love seeing the increased submissions around leadership!

</comment><comment><USER83> Not strictly management, but related:"The Trusted Advisor" is a book about consulting. Which is really the same soft skills you would need in leadership positions where you have a lot of domain experience and leadership is more about helping the team make their own tech decisions

</comment><comment><USER84> Managing the Unmanageable, a second vote for Peopleware, The Mythical Man- Month, and The Conviction to Lead

[https://b3n.org/programming-management-leadership- books/](https://b3n.org/programming-management-leadership-books/)

</comment><comment><USER85> One of my personal favorites is Tribal Leadership: [https://www.amazon.com/Tribal-Leadership-Leveraging- Thriving...](https://www.amazon.com/Tribal-Leadership-Leveraging-Thriving- Organization/dp/0061251321)

<comment><USER44> Also a really good book. +1

</comment></comment><comment><USER86> I found this podcast very interesting [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/leadership-is-a- person...](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/leadership-is-a-personal- choice/id1473306732)

</comment><comment><USER87> A variant on the OP's question.

What are good books on leadership that are written by people who have actual experience of being great leaders?

Most books on leadership seem to be written by people who have no experience of leadership, they just know how to market their books.

</comment><comment><USER88> Not a book but Software Lead Weekly is a great newsletter that curates content from around the web about leadership in tech: [https://softwareleadweekly.com](https://softwareleadweekly.com)

</comment><comment><USER89> Just so you know, leadership is completely different for middle managers and founders. A lot of the "leadership books" are targeted at middle managers, and if you follow their advice word for word, it won't work.

</comment><comment><USER90> High Output Management by Andy Grove. Great resource that I re-read every year or so

</comment><comment><USER91> The only one you need:

[https://www.amazon.com/Five-Dysfunctions-Team-Leadership- Fab...](https://www.amazon.com/Five-Dysfunctions-Team-Leadership- Fable/dp/0787960756)

</comment><comment><USER92> Leadership for me is "influencing people to create change".

We use many books, but my favorite is 5 dysfunctions of a team.

After that is first break all the rules

Both of these are extremely practical and give a model for how to operate on a daily basis.

</comment><comment><USER93> "Score takes care of itself" By Bill Walsh

While not necessarily a "tech" book, the parallels to leading high performing teams are incredible. For me, this was the book that changed the way I think about leading my team.

</comment><comment><USER94> Most bookstores would put leadership books and self help books in different sections of the bookstore. And these are the folks who put science fiction books and fantasy books in the same section!

</comment><comment><USER95> My boss gave me a copy of _Talking with Teach Leads_ by Patrick Kua. I enjoy it. It's an anthology of testimonials by tech leads. It helped give me some perspective on what I need to focus.

edit: grammar

</comment><comment><USER96> Relevant discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21663254](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21663254)

</comment><comment><USER97> Lots of good recommendations here; two I would add are "Debugging Teams" and "The Geek Leader's Handbook"

</comment><comment><USER98> The One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard. It's simple but effective and malleable once you've had some experience.

</comment><comment><USER99> Satya Nadella's 'Hit Refresh: The Quest to Rediscover Microsoft's Soul and Imagine a Better Future for Everyone'

</comment><comment><USER100> Hey, I really like your contribution with such a great collective approach, I loved reading them, l would really appreciate it if you add me in your collection to lend me a thumbs up also and keep up the good work though. besides, I'll be reading them whether it would be yes or no :) [https://studioelitechicago.com/](https://studioelitechicago.com/)

Thank you

</comment><comment><USER101> Just FYI your search input goes over your header on mobile, looks a bit odd. Give that header a z-index :)

</comment><comment><USER102> I recently bought 'Talking with tech leads' by Patrick Kua. Very applicable to tech companies

</comment><comment><USER103> My favorite is 'Multipliers'

</comment><comment><USER44> Here's my shortlist:

\- The Art of the Advantage (33 stratagems)

\- Winning By Jack Welch

\- Tribal Leadership

\- Creativity Inc

\- The Lean Startup (~leadership in the face of uncertainty)

</comment><comment><USER104> The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz and The First 90 Days by Michael Watkins.

</comment><comment><USER105> see a famous Harvard Case study, with an emphasis on leadership in crisis, about Ernest Shackleton's race to the South Pole: "Leadership in Crisis: Ernest Shackleton and the Epic Voyage of the Endurance"

</comment><comment><USER106> I liked Bossidy's "Execution" and "Facing Reality", like all such books they wander a bit but they have some good insights. "Managing Humans" was okay but I guess I may have come to it a bit later in my managing experience so it seemed pretty obvious. "The 5 dysfunctions of the team" is useful for understanding how to look at root causes of teams that become dysfunctional, can be depressing when you recognize your own team in its pages :-). And not a management book per se but "The Sociopath Next Door" was a useful read because it better helped me understand and identify people who were very different than I am in terms of their emotional investment in things.

</comment><comment><USER107> The Phoenix Project

</comment><comment><USER108> Brene Brown 'Dare to Lead' is excellent

</comment><comment><USER109> Dynamics of Software Development, by McCarthy.

</comment><comment><USER110> This is a great thread!

</comment><comment><USER111> Read Watership down.

</comment><comment><USER112> Be Slightly Evil: A Playbook for Sociopaths

is pretty good on this topic.

</comment><comment><USER113> Saved</comment>


US State Dept questions Australia's planned Internet Filtering. - <AUTHOR> http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/stephen-conroy-and-us-at-odds-on-net-filter/story-e6frg996-1225846614780

<comment><USER2> This quote from the article is what bugs me about these national firewalls: "While considered a noble idea..."

It's not noble at all - it's an outrageous, secretive, information-blocking filter with no accountability whatsoever. It's a great way for a government to get its foot in the door into controlling what information is acceptable for its citizens to consume.

While this sounds like a slippery-slope fallacy (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope>), I'd like to point out that leaked copies of blacklists from Australia, Denmark and Thailand all contain entries which, IMHO, a reasonable person would not consider worthy of a block:

[http://www.somebodythinkofthechildren.com/denmark-net- censor...](http://www.somebodythinkofthechildren.com/denmark-net-censorship- blacklist/)

All of my Google searches for supporting references ended up at somebodythinkofthechildren.com- I'd recommend reading further there for anyone interested.

<comment><USER3> >with no accountability whatsoever.

The legislation has been delayed so that the government can implement "transparency and accountability" measures.

>It's a great way for a government to get its foot in the door into controlling what information is acceptable for its citizens to consume.

Get its foot in the door? The scope of the internet filter censorship will be identical to what already exists for traditional media - books, magazines, films and video games. The government already has its foot in the door. What's happened is that since 1996 they've started to lose grip, and this legislation is an ineffectual attempt to regain the control the government had 15 years ago. However, as the trial report and Conroy himself have stated, the filter will be trivial to bypass.

<comment><USER4> The internet isn't media, it is the domain in which modern citizens conduct business, exchange ideas and interact with one another. Censoring the internet isn't like censoring books - it's like policing social clubs, mobile phones, political organisations and retail stores.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm very pleased that this topic has been raised on the international agenda.

So far I have only heard meaningful criticism of the plan from within the Internet industry.... this is so much more important than the man on the street realises.

<comment><USER5> I'm expecting the filter legislation to be dragged out till after the election then dumped once they win especially if (let's hope) Fielding loses his seat!. I think the only reason it has been dragged out this long is face saving on Conroy's part.

<comment><USER6> _I think the only reason it has been dragged out this long is face saving on Conroy's part._

I'm not so sure about that. Conroy keeps returning to the filter, whereas if they'd wanted to save face but ditch the policy they'd have just murdered it by committee somewhere.

<comment><USER5> They know it is unworkable, they know it is a waste of money so as long as they don't implement it instead of a black mark against them they have the promise of "protecting children". They can then go into the election with it as a plus. This is assuming the average aussie is sucked in by this, I have major sampling bias as I surround myself with techies and left wing nuts so I haven't a clue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Ironic we question another country, yet we still haven't put net neutrality to bed here in the U.S.

</comment><comment><USER8> .... "for advice".</comment>


The Descriptor: a definition of the B5000 information processing system (1961) - <AUTHOR> http://www.cs.virginia.edu/brochure/images/manuals/b5000/descrip/descrip.html

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a follow-up to recent threads/posts:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2855500>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2855508>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2856567>

I highly recommend the last one. All of it, not just the linked passage. I doubt I've ever enjoyed reading a technical memoir so much.

</comment><comment><USER2> See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burroughs_large_systems#B5000> for background.

Some noteworthy firsts:

First commercial implementation of virtual memory

Tagged, stack-based architecture, designed for easier compiler implementation

Most of the OS and other systems software written in a high-level language (a dialect of Algol 67)

The descendant of this architecture is still in production as the Unisys ClearPath/MCP architecture

(edited for formatting)

<comment><USER2> Gah, of course I meant Algol 60 (a much simpler language than Algol 68, there was no Algol 67)!</comment></comment>


Coulter: Any growing interest in soccer a sign of nation's moral decay - <AUTHOR> http://www.clarionledger.com/story/opinion/columnists/2014/06/25/coulter-growing-interest-soccer-sign-nations-moral-decay/11372137/

<comment><USER2> Presumably relevant because [http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/33085994](http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/33085994)

"Carli Lloyd scored an incredible 13-minute hat-trick as the United States thrashed Japan to win their third Women's World Cup title."</comment>


Think Your Start-up Is Venture Worthy? Think Again.  - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/19/think-your-start-up-is-venture-worthy-think-again/ <comment><USER2> I'm still amazed that there are companies with no business model that people will invest in. I understand this works out (occasionally) but I still really don't get it. I mean if you're spending millions and don't make money, and don't have a plan to make money, juts a plan to spend more money (i.e. acquire more users) how is that a business?

<comment><USER3> Because for venture-backed companies, becoming wildly profitable is only one of several possible exits. Acquisition, IPO, and bankruptcy are the most common other exits.</comment></comment>


Obama overturns Apple import ban - <AUTHOR> http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7321bf0a-fc6b-11e2-95fc-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2axhtHJlF

<comment><USER2> You can read it without registering here - [http://www.cnbc.com/id/100937213](http://www.cnbc.com/id/100937213)

</comment><comment><USER3> Link not requiring registration:

[http://www.cnbc.com/id/100937213](http://www.cnbc.com/id/100937213)

</comment><comment><USER4> "FT.com articles are only available to registered users"

<comment><USER5> You can get a few free, and 8 per month if you register.

The quality of their stuff---they compete with _The Wall Street Journal_ \---is high enough I had no trouble registering.

On the other hand, major discussion of this is here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6152872](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6152872)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What programming skills are required by HFT or Trading firms - <AUTHOR> What are some skills required to land a job in Trading Firm especially in roles like DevOps or developing software. How can a person excel at the technologies required by these firms <comment><USER3> Basically Java, .NET and C++, with heavy focus on C++.

Being able to write allocation free algorithms, even on GC languages, lock free data structures and good knowledge of all multi-core programming paradigms and distributed computing.

Here are some talks that will give you a small overview into that world,

CppCon 2017: Carl Cook "When a Microsecond Is an Eternity: High Performance Trading Systems in C++"

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NH1Tta7purM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NH1Tta7purM)

Core C++ 2019 :: Nimrod Sapir :: High Frequency Trading and Ultra Low Latency development techniques

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0aU8S-hFQI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0aU8S-hFQI)

Open source Java HFT code from Chronicle Software, [https://github.com/OpenHFT](https://github.com/OpenHFT)

"Writing and Testing High-Frequency Trading Engines", from Cliff Click

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iINk7x44MmM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iINk7x44MmM)

However in these domains every ms counts, even how long cables are, so also expect Verilog, VHDL, and plenty of custom made algorithms running directly on hardware.

"A Low-Latency Library in FPGA Hardware for High-Frequency Trading"

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXFcM1pGOIE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXFcM1pGOIE)

You can get an overview of the typical expectations here, [https://www.efinancialcareers.com/](https://www.efinancialcareers.com/)

<comment><USER4> > allocation free algorithms

Do you have any good sources for information about this concept? I'm having trouble understanding how a algorithm could produce useful work without allocating anything.

<comment><USER5> Not an expert by any means but another way to look at "allocation free" algorithms is by looking at them as "statically allocated".

They don't allocate any new memory but they do perform operations on an input and write it to an output. At least in the embedded world this is how this is often done. Considering the overlap between embedded software and HFT, I'd imagine most of these algorithms are going to be something along the lines of "Take in a massive but fixed size block of read only data and output a fixed size result." You can have allocated memory but it needs to be allocated at startup and be able to be consistently reused without need for reallocation.

If you want super low latency, the last thing you want is a memory allocator blocking in the middle of your highly optimised algorithm. Instead you allocate everything ahead of time and just reuse the memory over and over again.

<comment><USER6> Exactly this. It's annoying but also not as intractable as it sounds. NASA has a similar requirement for mission critical software operating under strict constraints.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Moral flexibility and subjugation. The boss says to build a thing, you build the thing. If rewriting an infiniband driver and pinning it to a core on the server and processing requests in kernel space in exquisitely crafted C is what cuts reation time by 0.0000005 sec and makes the firm a few extra bucks, that's what you do.

I interviewed at a Manhattan HFT firm (~2015) and that's what they do. The boss noted that "Congress could make a law invalidating our business model" and I realized that would be a good idea. They're not making the world a better place; they're not providing a valuable service; they're just exploiting and extracting and skimming some dollars out of the market. They have money and they're in the right place so their money can grab more money.

<comment><USER8> Which would you say is more morally problematic, HFT or figuring out ways of making people click ads?

<comment><USER9> The entire financial sector. It captures 30% of all corporate profits in the world economy. Ads are bad, but not "take 1/3 of what other people make" bad.

<comment><USER10> You'd figure bank stocks would be performing better, considering they're capturing so much purported profits.

<comment><USER11> In many listed financial companies it is certain employees and management who do well financially, rather than the shareholders.

<comment><USER12> As Matt Levine puts it, investment banks are kind of like socialist collectives run for the benefits of their workers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've worked at two of what are broadly considered to be the top firms. Most of these comments are inconsistent with my experience.

Everybody's talking about what it takes to write trading systems, but OP asked about "skills required to land a job" not skills needed to do the job. Aside from a few specialized roles (like FPGA dev or security), the firms I'm familiar with only evaluate general dev skills. The interview process is pretty much the same as you'd experience at a top tech company. They don't care at all if you know the languages they use. Once you're in the door, the firm will teach you everything you need to know.

<comment><USER14> Which firms are broadly considered to the top ones?

<comment><USER15> Two Sigma, Renaissance Technologies possibly. Jane Street like the other reply mentioned

<comment><AUTHOR> What about Bridge water and Hudson river trading

<comment><USER16> Bridgewater is not an HFT, they are a hedge fund.

That being said - Bridgewater are looking for more than just skills. Bridgewater is very heavy on meetings and those meetings being recorded. You can ace the skillset, but would be completely inadequate.

Their interview process is great. It's very honest and revealing. I don't fit the company and I made the decision at their campus interview, their opinion matched mine as well.

But, unlike most other companies, you are shown exactly what the company is. Which is very good.

If you can land an interview, you like them and get an offer - I hear that it's a pretty good place to work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I can only speak to HFT.

For dev roles, Python experts (emphasis on expert) and experts in modern C++ have the easiest time. C experts and systems programmers with assembly expertise can also find a job, but the market is smaller for them (although higher-paying).

OS-level and systems programming are valuable. Understanding computer architecture is important, and computer systems as well.

Credentials are an important filtering mechanism for them, so if you didn't go to a top 10 school, your resume needs to make up for it (or you need to be a very experienced hire). Working at a FAANG company or a bank doesn't necessarily make up for not going to a top school.

Successful devs at HFTs usually have a ~50-hour workweek or are very efficient programmers.

<comment><AUTHOR> I wonder How can someone become an expert at python. Even though i have worked for two global banks as an intern but now I'm exploring to land a position in HFT to gain more financial/tech experience to become more well rounded person

<comment><USER18> I've written python for a living everyday for a few years now. No means an expert but IMO there are two core skills:

Cleanliness and design. Learning and using language features that make code easier to build on, test, and deduce about. Basically writing code that's very nice to humans. Here python really shines.

The second part is writing code that's very nice to machines and runs really fast and correctly. Multiprocessing, writing parts of the code in a compiled language for extra speed, using buffers for speed, async, that kind of thing. Easy enough for specific problems, the issue is that these performance tweaks often make code harder for humans to understand.

Now writing a nice looking and well designed program is fairly easy. Making a really fast-but-ugly program is also fairly easy. The mark of a real expert in my opinion is combining these two abilities: writing code that's both human and machine friendly. As always, practice makes perfect.

To practice you need to practice both, and on real data. Don't just use toy examples, get your hands on some big messy data that takes hours to crunch. Don't just write toy apps, keep writing and adding features until it becomes a huge stinking mess, then learn from that mess and do it again.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed. I totally agree with unless you aren't willing to try you can't really learn so pratice really matters

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I passed the interviews at one of the top stat arb hft firms and it sounds like there are a couple of responses from similar shops here. One thing people haven't mentioned: pedigree. I passed 3 rounds of interviews and my final interviewer was batting for me, when I didn't get the offer, he said the team was apprehensive because I didn't have the pedigree from MIT/Princeton like everyone else. He wasn't a fan of the decision because he worked at a string of failed startups himself prior to starting there, c'est la vie. Also for the curious, he said the salary range was 400-460k with ~3-5 yoe.

<comment><USER20> A hiring partner at an HFT firm once told me why they had a disproportionate number of people from MIT or Ivy League schools, especially for fresh grads: they selected for intelligence, coding skills etc., but they also needed people who could very quickly focus on the top priority tasks for the firm. (For example, if someone committed buggy code and the firm was losing out on profits because its algorithms weren't running, do you hunt down the bug or do you revert?)

And it turns out that kids from Ivy League schools tend to be very good at constantly being aware of these top-level priorities for the firm. This applied for almost every front and mid office role in that firm: DevOps, algorithm developers, traders, researchers. I can't speak for all the firms out there, but I think at least my friend would happily substitute pedigree for another item on a person's resume that demonstrated experience with running a live system where downtime is very costly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The three biggest skills aren't directly tech: learning fast/efficiently, communication and execution under pressure, and perseverance/discipline to finish/deliver.

Where I work, our devops use a mix of python/ruby/golang/bash for day to day debugging and development. Ability to read, understand, and modify Python (or a similar scripting language) and a familiarity with Bourne/bash are probably the minimum for devops.

For operations, you'd want to bring some skills that add to the team in new skills or redundancy. You'll likely be trained/cross trained in many more. Familiarity with and ability to debug some of the following: databases, networked services (sometimes a pcap replay is all you have), systems troubleshooting, monitoring, queues, or specific hardware and software platforms we use.

At the HFT I work at, we hire Jr and Sr people. For systems people, there is a bit of a divide between trading systems engineers, who work directly with devs and traders on the care+feeding of some corner of our software stack and infrastructure systems that provide shared tooling and substrates (k8s, deployment tooling, continuous integration/delivery, configuration management tooling, additional debugging help, etc). We also have network teams, traditional IT service desk teams, and performance monitoring/improvement teams.

If you're not coming from trading, we still need all of the standard sysadmin and devops skills. We have SSH, Kafka, Zookeeper, MySQL/Maria, tcpdump/wireshark, Linux, Puppet, Docker, Kubernetes, ElasticSearch, Hadoop, etc. We have misc custom file formats but also loads of json , some xml, etc. We integrate open source and proprietary as much or more than we build. Outside of the execution stack, you'd recognize a lot of what we do at any medium-sized tech company.

If you want to talk about life at an HFT, my email is in profile. I came into HFT as an experienced hire from the startup world and currently do builds development.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey thanks for sharing I'll send you an email and i would love to know more about HFTs since I'm currently an undergrad working for a financial company as intern at the moment and graduating soon On the side I'm exploring different career options and one of my top choices is to learn more about HFTs

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> HFT and Trading firms are largely like any other firms. They have job postings and the skillset they expect is largely what you'd expect.

[https://www.virtu.com/careers/](https://www.virtu.com/careers/) has a devops role listed within the first 10 results on their careers page. It looks like basically any other modern ops job sheet.

Here is one for DRW [https://drw.com/careers/job/1280794](https://drw.com/careers/job/1280794) again, not much different than any other firm.

Most software written at trading firms is the same as software written anywhere else. The only real differences are on the actual tick to trade path, where you will see the need for FPGA/ASIC programming, very low level network programming and C/C++ systems programming or on the Quant side which can vary widely but typically involves showing PHD level research skills in some hard math/science.

</comment><comment><USER23> Suppose you have top notch data science and machine learning chops and also suppose quant shops are willing to hire you regardless of your financial domain expertise.

In such a scenario, is the 99th percentile of quant compensation significantly higher than the 99th percentile of tech company compensation (FANG etc)?

I've always considered this a fork in the road for many---finance versus say advertising--and I'm curious how others with more experience would describe the pros and cons of each.

<comment><USER24> I've done FAANG, and I have friends who've done the HFT shops.

HFT shops do indeed pay more. Perhaps at the top percentiles they're similar but at the median, HFT probably pays double, and it's cash, not RSUs that vest over many years. The downside: culture of always in the office (not sure how covid will affect this), software that is insanely specialized and uninspiring, and generally awful work/life balance. I'm sure some shops are different, but they expect you to put in a lot of time to earn that salary. Compared with FAANG where the burn-out is at little more prolonged (and of course the morally dubious business that is ad-tech).

I've learned to stay away from both and have never looked back. But I think working a FAANG or HFT is a good thing for any dev to at least look into while they're young and ambitious and can "afford" a bit of burnout to see what life can really be like (or not).

<comment><USER25> Counterpoint: I've worked in two HFTs, and both have very decent hours and work/life balance.

<comment><USER16> Define "decent". Is it 80/60/50 hours per week? Because it's clearly not regular 40 hour weeks.

Because I can work in a very chill environment and earn 200k-250k + stock. I can also work 60 hour weeks for 300k + bonus.

I used to work in London on roughly $180k putting in about 20 hours per week.

<comment><USER26> Where were you working? Or maybe you can say a list of similar places if you don't want to be specific

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> From the anecdotal experience of developing such software as a side-project for myself, the hardest parts technically were dealing with concurrency and race conditions caused by it. Other skills for prosperity is understanding statistical significance and randomness. Also, writing reliable software and designing both the best-case and worst-case scenarios is required when interfacing with remote systems: brokers return error or exception cases saying you were too slow all the time, which means your software is dependant on that information and must run in probabilistic state conditions while waiting for the answers to remain performant.

<comment><USER28> When dealing with race-conditions, is the skill required just the ability to identify candidates where the race-condition will occur and then apply the relevant locking features around the mutations? What are the implications of identifying a scenario where there is no race condition? Does it just result in a performance hit?

<comment><USER27> In my case, I still have unexplainable race conditions in my software, so take it with a grain of salt. But yes, identification and understanding both the locking and synchronization are hard. I don't think there are many other definitive solutions than modeling your software in a predicate language like TLA+ or Alloy, especially once your software grows hence its possible states diverge.

> What are the implications of identifying a scenario where there is no race > condition?

No race condition? Great. It's totally possible there are some not-so- concurrent parts of your software that can run in what I deem a performant manner.

> Does it just result in a performance hit?

It's much more than that. A bug I have is very serious and it goes something like this: you set a limit order to buy X shares. The limit order gets a partial fulfillment, and you immediately set stop losses and take profits for X shares. However, the limit order gets complete fulfillment before the two other requests are done. If you now try to update the previous orders, for example, it might be that the update call gets registered at the broker first, but the creation gets there last, which means you have bought X+Y shares, but you have stop losses and take profits for only the X. You might now completely lose Y unless you monitor the software all the time. Things like these might happen everywhere, and the real trouble starts when these instances with plausible race conditions of their own start communicating with other parts which might also have race conditions.

And the requirement for the concurrency is not only a performance: you might want to collect data in thread N, while you have different strategies of amount M, which all by default subscribe to N, but only selectively when they are doing their strategies. In such a sense, I don't think that doing even a semi-serious trading software without concurrency is possible.

<comment><USER29> What language are you writing it in? There are some common tools that can detect race conditions dynamically (i.e. at runtime). Especially easy in a language with a GC where you can lean on the reference counter.

Go for example has a race condition detector built in to the tool chain (go run/test/build --race). They won't tell you how to fix it, but they'll tell you which lines are in the critical region that the programmer missed.

<comment><USER27> I am indeed writing it in Go, but I have somehow missed the race condition detector... So thanks for reminding me of it! Once I get back to programming it more I'll look up how to properly make use of all the tooling -- the last time I ran money on it I simply made a service which phoned me every time a trade was happening, so I could observe _any_ bug in real-time.

<comment><USER29> Ah great! I hope the pointer saves you $5 :)

Go's support for race detectors is super ergonomic. You need a unit test for the parent function that's spawning the routines. Run that unit test with the race flag, and it'll catch it for you. If you're curious about how it works, this post is good: [https://blog.golang.org/race- detector](https://blog.golang.org/race-detector)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> From 4 years in a large public quant house (not HFT): everything upstream of trade execution is Python with very heavy use of numpy, scipy and pandas. This has pros and cons, on balance I'd prefer a better type system, but that everyone in the org can share code has tremendous value at scale.

Briefly, the faster your execution the faster everything else needs to be. Java should be fast enough for almost anything short of HFT + colocation which is super expensive infra wise.

The skills are not different from other backend roles, but you will need to exercise more math with emphasis time series and stats.

</comment><comment><USER31> Agreed with the rest, you should just look at job descriptions. Different firms use different technologies, but a devops person will probably be building tooling for monitoring live trading, or GUIs for themselves and traders. These tend to not be as performance-sensitive.

If you want to work on the trading systems, you should be good OS-level and network-level things. And you should probably know C/C++. I think some firms might still use Java.

Good firms have probably been around for a couple of years, so it's unlikely that they'll use the cool new languages of the day.

<comment><USER32> Cool new languages don't provide any competitive advantage. You will not be doing HFT with Rust or Haskell or whatever.

<comment><USER21> That's not true. Source: I work at an HFT. Rust is very interesting for Greenfield work. The major down side is millions of lines of legacy C++, the more useful already using C++17 or C++2a, which typically provides a lot of what you'd get out of Rust's stdlib and ecosystem but already packaged and integrated. When you choose Rust at an HFT you have to worry about integration with codegen tools (generating efficient Java/C++/$HDL and reasonable throughput Python for protocol definitions is table stakes at any HFT I've heard of) and build pipelines (which might already have distributed building/caching infrastructures and fancy packaging/deployment.

Rust has some benefits (and still integrates reasonably well at the ABI level), but modern C++ compilers are no slouches. Rust provides a friendly dev experience, which is a valuable thing, but a lot of the ecosystem advantages are old hat at companies with mature codebases.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think Jane Street is using OCaml I'm not sure why did they decided to go with functional programming even though most popular firms are still using C/C++ Do you think using functional programming might have advantage over these programming languages

Just curious to find out

<comment><USER21> Jane Street has some blog posts talking about why they chose OCaml.

I'm very torn on this. I've used Rust to quickly prototype things that I think could be used I prod. It's fine. In some places it is better than what we had for C++, in most places it is very similar for experienced devs. I don't think Rust let me complete my code any quicker than if I had done it with standard C++ tooling.

The main issue I see with something other than C++ is compiler maintenance. gcc and clang generate very good code. There exists a good body of well optimized C++ for various use cases (various kinds of latency and throughput). It takes a lot of commitment to maintain and extend a compiler to keep it on par with gcc/clang and also still maintain a good stdlib for trading.

I think a huge benefit of owning your compiler in a functional language would be easier/better codegen, particularly the ability to sidestep some of the shittier hardware languages with a better DSL (since you already have some compiler and tooling expertise in-house). This matters at lot for HFT since at the most critical places, you want to use FPGAs or better.

<comment><USER33> > you want to use FPGAs or better.

What are those used for? I only did slower signal trading bots and this sounds interesting as I make hardware as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Nobody has mentioned the K language and Q language; and the Kdb+ product from KX Systems. I know many institutions and HFT's use the K Database. It's fast because it crunches data in the CPU cache which is insanely fast.

Reference: [https://code.kx.com/](https://code.kx.com/)

<comment><USER35> kdb+ would be used for analysis or slower signal generation. it's not low latency for trading applications.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Trading firms have many positions available other than the HFT algorithms. There are teams that support those to enable desks (read: startups) to get off the ground quickly (like YC!), analysis teams for doing research for future strategies, accounting, shared service teams, as well as governance teams like risk, compliance, treasury. Depending on the team you're on, your job may be drastically different. I find myself in a role focusing on devops, developer tooling, and team automation, but others on my team focus on data ingestion, financial models on top of the data, UI development for end users. If you're a skilled programmer, there will be a role for you in a sufficiently large firm.

</comment><comment><USER37> These days I would say you should get into OS development and learn about unikernels. Linux should be a solved problem right now and the future would be in OSes that don't have interrupts enabled and you have full control over the CPU cores.

<comment><AUTHOR> I see I'm currently programming mostly in python at my day job do you any good resources i could consume to gain more knowledge on OSes

<comment><USER37> This is not a joke: Read the Intel manual, maybe check out some of the learning repos on github that solves all the glue-stuff that isn't important. I have one such repo here:

[https://github.com/fwsGonzo/barebones](https://github.com/fwsGonzo/barebones)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for sharing that Out of curiosity do you work for trading firms

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Worth to mention is the [https://lmax- exchange.github.io/disruptor/](https://lmax-exchange.github.io/disruptor/)

A High Performance Inter-Thread Messaging Library used for HFT.

</comment><comment><USER39> I used to work for a firm that did FIX parsers for hft. FIX is the standard protocol for financial data. Company's claim to fame was the fastest parser on standard hardware as opposed to an FPGA and handling the many many dialects of FIX.

A lot of work and skill went to memory layout (minimize cache missed), lock free data structures and spending time in perf looking for ways to shave microseconds off a function.

God knows how I got the job, I was super junior , but that's the kind of work we did and presumably what other companies would want you competent with

<comment><USER35> HFT firms would likely use the exchange binary protocols where available over FIX. Ie: OUCH/ITCH, Pillar etc.

With that said, FIX is still relevant on many exchanges and in wide use by the broker/dealers etc...

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> C/C++ is most common. Good luck getting their attention if you didn't go to MIT, CMU, Stanford, etc.

<comment><USER41> Citadel notably interviews people from all over. Chicago trading firms are also more egalitarian, like Belvedere or Wolverine or DRW or Akuna.

Source - got an offer from Citadel previously without a top school or C/C++ expertise.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wait how come if you don't mind sharing your experience

<comment><USER41> My interview loop was mostly UI related. All of these trading firms and hedge funds require UI expertise at some form, either for WPF/QT apps or web UXs for reactive charts, tables, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow that nices so It's easy land a postion with these expertise too but I guess it hard to get your recognized in the first place

<comment><USER41> The loops were imho, pretty tough but focused on library specific knowledge while implementing algorithms in the form of live coding.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I used to work in HFT, but haven't for five years. For core developers, there's heavy use of C/C++ with a deep understanding of low level programming. On the trade strategy development side, it's usually some combination of a columnar database, Python/R along with rewriting performance sensitive areas in a lower level language. I won't be surprised if there was an uptick in the usage of GO the last few years as well.

</comment><comment><USER43> I worked at one of the top tier prop shops in Chicago. This is my experience there:

Fresh grad devs are generally evaluated on their potential and not what languages and specific skills they know. The people they end up hiring for fresh grad dev roles tended to come from the same six schools. Said schools are generally not top tier (for developers) and are local to Chicago.

<comment><AUTHOR> Compared to New York, I think you'll find out more trading jobs in Chicago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Not exactly known for HFT, but Man AHL use their own library arctic with Python/Pandas and MongoDB. See [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVyIxdxsyok](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVyIxdxsyok) \- The presentation touches on performance considerations.

</comment><comment><USER45> Well you can take a look at their job openings pages:

[https://www.hudsonrivertrading.com/careers/](https://www.hudsonrivertrading.com/careers/)

Looks like c++, python, and linux sysadmin stuff.

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you work at HRT. just curious

</comment></comment><comment> andrew-nguyen Besides searching on Glassdoor or Indeed, how can someone find a list of companies that are doing this type of work? Are they limited to the east coast?

I'm not very familiar with the HFT industry, but the skills that they require (C++, computer architecture, OS, networking, & performance) are ones that I'm interested in and would love to deepen my experience with. Are there companies on the west coast (more specifically southern California) where one could develop this experience?

<comment> mark-r They'll probably be located close to an exchange so that they can colo the servers, but not all exchanges are on the east coast.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> They usually ask for C/C++, but what they really mean is C++.

<comment><USER24> Not just "C++" but usually they want C++ experience that is very relevant to precisely what the hiring manager wants.

Maybe I'm sour-grapes, but I got pretty far through a HFT loop only to get turned away because I didn't have any experience with the particular boost library they were using. (A library that will be mostly obsolete by C++20) They said that this was common in the industry.

<comment><USER25> >because I didn't have any experience with the particular boost library they were using. (A library that will be mostly obsolete by C++20)

Brave of you to assume they'd be able to use C++20. Unfortunately HFTs are just as susceptible to "stuck on an ancient version of GCC" as any other C++ shop, so maybe you dodged a bullet there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> HFT firms use all sorts of technologies. But to be clear, you want to be closest to trading - that's where the big money is; so either a) idea generation (quant work) or b) execution (dev work) For the execution piece, C++ would be the most viable option.

On the quant/research piece, python/R/kdb are common tools used, but the real skills are the statistics/math and market knowledge.

</comment><comment><USER47> DevOps - standard tools, depends on the firm

Trading Systems - C++, networking, memory management.

* I work at a HFT firm building algos for clients

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice building algo requires heavy math knowledge correct me if I'm wrong Most firms look for masters or Phds for that type of role

<comment><USER25> "Building algos for clients" may refer to implementing the algos designed by traders/quants.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Here's a nice (old) blog of someone in the industry: [https://mechanical- sympathy.blogspot.com/](https://mechanical-sympathy.blogspot.com/)

</comment><comment><USER49> >How can a person excel at the technologies required by these firms from my fintech experience with the financial departments there ... excel in Excel. it's a whole programming-parallel-world

<comment><USER50> For HFT? Absolutely not. For trading? The original poster needs to clarify what they mean by "trading" as this is probably still the case for most tech- driven prop trading firms.

<comment><USER51> You'd be surprised at how many traders and QRs in HFT (or at least in OMM) often reach for Excel. Granted this is way more common among older people in the industry. And as a technologist OP wouldn't have to worry about writing or maintaining Excel scripts :p

<comment><USER50> Excel is a very effective tool for many things but suggesting that it would be useful to spend time learning Excel to prepare for HFT is really bad advice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> for currencies / commodities

zmq/java - <USER2>

then there is forex c++ mt4 metaquotes

more hardcore like cheetah-solutions fpga / hdl

don't know about asic

some insides but now inactive [https://mdavey.wordpress.com/](https://mdavey.wordpress.com/)

there are also options / stocks and cryptocurrencies

</comment><comment><USER53> C++ was big. Comfortable navigating a very large and complex codebase, being able to understand complex rules-based systems, and of course knowledge of equities and financial markets.

But they'll teach you everything you need to know as long as you can pass the interview.</comment>


Leonardo da Vinci's forgotten musical invention - <AUTHOR> https://www.classicfm.com/music-news/leonardo-da-vinci-viola-organista/ <comment><USER2> The music he is playing, of Marin Marais and St. Colombe, would have been written a century after da Vinci's death in 1519 as St. Colombe and Marais were born in the 1600s. However, the instrument suits the music naturally well as some kind of viola da gamba would have been around during da Vinci's time. What has morphed into the modern day violin, viola and cello but has lost the breathy sorrowful voice of the gamba in exchange for virtuosity and loudness.

Music more representative of da Vinci's time:

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

For more of the beautiful music of Marais and St. Colombe see Jordi Savall, the living maestro on the viola da gamba:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylpOO-7cyt0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylpOO-7cyt0)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fXQ7Su4KZ8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fXQ7Su4KZ8)

and the beautiful film made about the two composers, about grief and love, about the viola da gamba:

[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLF41CDD78BE4BF6C8](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLF41CDD78BE4BF6C8)

Savall's own wife died in 2011 and when I watch this movie since then, I feel his (pre-widower) outpouring of the deepest expression of grief. It's stunning.

</comment><comment><USER3> > The unusual instrument is a hybrid of elements from a harpsichord, an organ > and a viola da gamba.

It looks to me more akin to a hurdy-gurdy: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurdy- gurdy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurdy-gurdy)

<comment><USER4> I was wondering about that too. Wikipedia has a nice explanation of how the two are different:

 _In the first model the friction of the strings was achieved by a mechanical bow traveling sideways. The second model featured a single rotating wheel, similar to that of the earlier hurdy-gurdy, to play strings. It differs in that a hurdy-gurdy has a small number of strings that are constantly in contact with the wheel, rather than a larger number of strings that can be lowered onto the wheel. A hurdy-gurdy has a keybox with tangents that change the pitches of the strings, rather like placing fingers on violin strings. Leonardo 's innovation of a keyboard with a lowering mechanism allowed individual notes to be played, alone or in specific desired chords over a large range of pitches._

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viola_organista#Description](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viola_organista#Description)

In terms of sound, the instrument in the video in the posted article is not at all like a hurdy-gurdy. I find it sounds like a string quarted. Perhaps it's more the kind of pieces that are normally played on a hurdy-gurdy that tend to have a very folk-y sound, whereas the gentleman in the video above is playing a classical piece. But I don't think I'd really mistake this for a hurdy- gurdy.

All of which reminds me- man, I'd love to learn to play the hurdy gurdy. Damn expensive instrument though.

<comment><USER3> Huh, thanks for that. :)

> Damn expensive instrument though.

I seem to remember having (way back when I was a kid) one of those "101 do-it- yourself projects" type books that had instructions for actually building one. I'm pretty sure it's where I learned about them. Seems like a lot of work though.

These guys ([https://www.cbgitty.com/kits-instruments-amps-more/diy- hurdy...](https://www.cbgitty.com/kits-instruments-amps-more/diy-hurdy-gurdy- kit-build-an-amazing-musical-machine/)) have a laser-cut kit for a toy quality one which might be good enough to learn on.

<comment><USER4> Oh, wow, that can actually be played? I saw it when I was looking around for one and thought it was just for decoration.

Thanks for pointing it out, I think I might actually give it a try. Cheers! :D

<comment><USER4> So I had a look around and there are actually a few people who make perfectly serviceable hurdy-gurdies that cost not that much.

And so I just went and bought a proper one from this gentleman:

[http://www.vrabelhurdygurdy.com/instrument/](http://www.vrabelhurdygurdy.com/instrument/)

People on the internets say he makes perfectly serviceable, no-frills hurdy- gurdies, which explains the price.

So hey, taneq, if you're reading- thanks for the heads up, which started me on the search for an affordable hurdy-gurdy. I'll let my neighbours know it's all the fault of someone on the internet :P

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Apparently the instrument is more like one of Hans Haiden's _Geigenwerke_ than Leonardo's _viola organista_ concept, though the two are similar. [https://slippedisc.com/2013/11/leonardos-instrument-no- its-a...](https://slippedisc.com/2013/11/leonardos-instrument-no-its-an- obscure-german-contraption/) WP: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viola_organista](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viola_organista) . See also the hurdy-gurdy (of course), the Wheelharp [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VP2iMdvMN5U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VP2iMdvMN5U) and the Gizmotron [https://www.gizmotron.com/](https://www.gizmotron.com/) .

<comment><USER6> You forgot the nyckelharpa:

[https://youtu.be/e7sK5OiJHHQ](https://youtu.be/e7sK5OiJHHQ)

Which kinda inverts all this in an entirely different way. Well, except for the wheelharp, the two sound very similar yet distinct.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The title says that none had been built, while in the video the man who made it says none have survived.

Otherwise, quite an interesting sound, perfect for baroque music.

<comment><USER8> > none have survived

Several have survived, but only one in complete working order, this 1625 specimen:

[https://www.europeana.eu/portal/en/exhibitions/explore- the-w...](https://www.europeana.eu/portal/en/exhibitions/explore-the-world-of- musical-instruments/instrument-design#ve-anchor-section_11862-js)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Nice! So it has (in MIDI parlance) polyphonic aftertouch, but no pitch bend. I wonder if you could make a string instrument with both.

<comment><USER5> Sure. Here's a fretless bass with a Gizmotron: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBCvI- do0KA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBCvI-do0KA) Even better, here's a pedal steel guitar with a Gizmotron ... and Robert Randolph: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-CODgpHuPY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-CODgpHuPY) .

<comment><USER9> Thanks, I didn't know about this device, really cool! Do you know if it's possible to have a sharper attack? Like, pluck the note normally and then sustain it with the device.

<comment><USER5> It should be possible: at [https://youtu.be/i-CODgpHuPY?t=59](https://youtu.be/i-CODgpHuPY?t=59) you can see Randolph using a thumb-pick as well as the Gizmo, though it requires some careful positioning. (I've never used a Gizmotron myself.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Sounds horrible

<comment><USER11> Maybe so, but could you please not post unsubstantive comments to Hacker News?</comment></comment>


Engineers build advanced microprocessor out of carbon nanotubes - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2019-08-advanced-microprocessor-carbon-nanotubes.html <comment><USER2> Already discussed at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20823339](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20823339)

</comment><comment><USER3> The great thing about research and development like this is by designing practical use cases for carbon nanotubes, its far more likely for large companies (eg TSMC, Samsung, Intel) to pick up and invest large amounts of R&D money to improve yield/production of carbon nanotubes, benefiting everyone involved.

Reminds me of how large phone/computer makers like Apple, Samsung and Huawei help foot the cost of R&D for so many innovations in the tech field (expensive die shrinks, display technology) which ends up trickling to nearly every industry.

</comment><comment><USER4> Just remember carbon nanotubes are highly carcinogenic.

<comment><USER5> Is breaking open processors and inhaling the dust a common occurrence where you live?

<comment><USER4> Although that sounds like fun (for certain values of fun), the issue would exposure during fabrication and possibly during destruction of nano tube containing equipment.

<comment><USER6> We have to rely on them handling hazardous substances properly anyway since semiconductor manufacturing already involves many of them. They use ClF₃ and sulfuric acid as cleaning agents, phosphine for doping, silane for CVD, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> As with anything nanotubes, scalability and yield are the bottleneck and have been for the last ~20 years. Not sure we've made much progress in the 10 years since I was a great student in the field?

<comment><USER8> The article points out different ways yield is increased to get to a practical level</comment></comment>