How to (Not) Hire Freelancers for Your Startup - <AUTHOR> http://dennybritz.com/blog/2013/08/27/startup-outsourcing/ <comment><USER2> So... freelancers are vampires.

Just to pick on the most obvious one:

"Freelancers want to make money. They don't care if your business succeeds or not."

A good freelancer does care. Ignore the other ones. Good freelancers want to be involved in decisions regarding their piece of work. They take interest in what you want to achieve and try to do the best for your project. They pour in an extra hour for a bit of polish that would hurt their pride otherwise.

Freelancing leaves a lot of flexibility and ways to cut deals.

To give you an example: I had multiple prospect clients where I straight-out said "don't build that feature (now) and especially not for my price.". Quite a few ended up not doing (or delaying) the project and were very happy with the decision. All of these turned out to be lucrative events, because those clients pass you on to others with kind words. Find the ones that jump on your idea once you tell it to them and want to work with you. Enthusiasm is (relatively) hard to fake.

Also... I'll never do a fixed price project, unless you agree that: a) it is time-constrained, b) you won't change any of your wishes during the project.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't disagree with you that "good" freelancers should care, but that doesn't change the fact that (in my experience) most do not. That being said, most of my experiences were with "low price" freelancers, which probably has a high correlation with that fact.

<comment><USER2> Sure. If you buy at a low price you show that _you_ don't care.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> > Hire an expert to regularly review your code. Contrary to what you may think > this doesn't cost much. Any good developer can tell "good" from "obviously > bad" code in a matter of minutes. Hire a consultant for one hour and he can > tell you exactly what state your code is in.

Generally-speaking, an "expert" is not likely to be interested in periodic code review engagements:

1\. Most "consultants" aren't working on an hourly basis, at least one free of reasonable minimums. In other words, good luck finding an expert-level developer eager to take on periodic hour-long "Is this code okay?" projects.

2\. A _real_ code review consists of more than just a cursory "this is good code, this is bad code" analysis.

3\. A code review doesn't really help a client who doesn't have the ability to rectify issues that are discovered. I can guarantee you that a consultant asked to perform a code review in the scenario described here will nine times out of ten find himself being asked "How do I fix it?" Unless the client is prepared to pay for the skills of a quality developer, getting involved in a "How do I fix it?" discussion is going to be a tar baby for the consultant in question.

4\. The author is generally distrustful ("Don't trust reviews or portfolios", "the motivation of most freelancers directly competes with writing concise code") yet curiously he doesn't consider the possibility that the "expert" you bring on to review your code, if he's looking for development work, has an incentive to raise questions about the quality of the code.

Not all of the advice here is bad, but I think the author generally glosses over the fact that finding good freelance developers and doing so when you have limited technical skills and experience managing the development lifecycle is difficult and may not be a viable approach.

<comment><USER4> I've actually been thinking about offering a code review service, since it would fit well with the way I like to work. Personally, I wouldn't want to do one-hour reviews, but would be very happy selling four hour blocks of my time.

A third-party code review could easily point out certain problems that aren't only qualitative (e.g., the code is vulnerable to SQL injection attacks). It could also be useful to evaluate programmers. The project owner hires a few different developers to write a single user story, the reviewer tells them which code is the highest quality, and the project owner hires the best coder to do the complete project. For slightly more corporate clients, it could also be used to identify to a non-technical manager where their programmers need additional training.

As far as the reviewer being asked, "How do I fix it?", that could lead to the reviewer offering training material, libraries, or development tools.

<comment><USER5> Sounds like a good idea to me. The biggest problem is establishing credibility, and deserving the credibility. The code reviewer really needs to be up to the task.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Perhaps I'm a jerk, but I don't feel bad when non-technical people get taken for a ride when hiring people for a tech-startup. I have no business trying to start a hair salon on the cheap, so why should I feel sorry for someone who feels that he can make a go at something that requires highly talented, seasoned workers?

<comment><USER7> "Perhaps I'm a jerk, but I don't feel bad when non-waiters get taken for a ride when hiring waiters for a restaurant."

This makes no sense. If you want to open a restaurant, you need to know the _restaurant business_ well, not how to efficiently coordinate table serving.

<comment><USER8> Alternatively, if you want to open a restaurant, you shouldn't need to be an expert in plumbing, electrical, framing, HVAC, upholstery, cabinet-making, painting, and floor refinishing just to get the place ready to open.

<comment><USER9> The reason you don't need to be an expert in all these things is because there are governmentally mandated codes, licensures and bonds with which all such workers must comply or face governmental censure. These standards have supposedly been crafted to represent an acceptable minimum quality of work by qualified persons.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I believe the better solution to most of these problems is to find your freelancer, consultant, etc. through personal channels where their reputation is already established and their past success verified.

For example, you may not have a technical co-founder, but you may have a friend who does, and they're likely to have a friend who is still doing independent consulting. Now, that person may not be available to work with you, but since they're in freelancing circles, they'll likely be able to put you in touch with someone who can, all while knowing that a bit of their own reputation is on the line in the process of recommending someone.

The key here is that you're not finding a stranger online and asking them to establish their credentials. Instead, you have no idea who you'll end up with and the only way you'll find them is if they've got the credentials (and the availability.)

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm currently working some freelancers on my HypedSound relaunch. The designer and frontend coder both worked on hourly billing but everything was very well- defined. Since the backend is a much more complex scope, it was hard to define hours, and I'm working with a 'variable scope and budget' that we're shooting for. I wasn't ready to commit to hourly billing. Luckily, I have an advisor looking over all the code, which I think is essential as you mentioned. Whether it's a language barrier, technical barrier, or incentive barrier to good communication, you should have someone technical on your side even if they're not doing the coding.

</comment><comment><USER12> What a terrible article. There are very few actual justifications for the arbitrary claims the guy makes. Even some anecdotes (especially non-personal ones) would be better than this guy's random assertions.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, these are just my personal experiences, no hard data. I added a little note making that clear.

<comment><USER12> You did, but you also titled the article "How to...for _YOUR_ startup", implying that somehow these tips are valuable lessons for others, when really any founder taking this advice (without more) is doing him/herself a disservice.

An example, lest I just be picking on you. Other commenters have already reasonably tackled many of the other assertions, so let's go with this one: "Developers have gotten really clever about creating fake portfolios"

First of all, how do you even know this? Did you work with someone who did this? Have you discussed this w/other entrepreneurs who experienced this? Did you hear a rumor somewhere? No one's demanding hard data, but it's fair to expect you to back up your assertion WITH AT LEAST SOMETHING. Even if you had a personal story, you'd have experience that others could use to detect red flags.

Second, what did they do? Get fake apps uploaded to the App Store? Put together screenshots that weren't theirs? What is this super clever scheme that you've discovered? I assume it's not that clever, if it exists at all, but there's no way to tell.

Finally, your lack of trust just creates a hostile environment around what might otherwise be some good advice. I'm a freelance dev and I LOVE SAMPLE PROJECT "INTERVIEWS". There's a number of reasons why they are significantly better than just guessing based on a resume and some technical questions (especially w/non-technical startup founders), but I expect to go into first time projects with a sense of optimism and mutual respect, not mindless fear.

Your article starts out noting that it's best to find a technical co-founder, and I couldn't agree more. Devs often understand what is going on in the mind of other devs, but also represent the needs of their company, so it's a good balance. Way better than relying on overseas talent using this linkbait as a guide. Ugh.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The idea that "goals are not aligned" is very much dependent on the freelancer you hire, and is not a universal truth. The way I approach all my projects is that I (like everyone else) have a limited amount of time left on this earth. I feel a real sense of urgency to make the best use of that time doing meaningful work that I can be proud of.

The idea of just churning on a project to make a few extra dollars really makes me feel a little bit sick. The opportunity cost of that time is just too great. I would much rather take the most efficient route possible to build what my client wants and then be able to start on the next project. Hopefully the client is pleased with my work and that next project might even come from them.

</comment><comment><USER14> It sounds like the OP was burned at least once by a freelancer in the past. We come across folks like this every so often at matchist ([http://matchist.com](http://matchist.com)).

The biggest problem we often see (and I've seen in my previous experience as a freelance developer) is a lack of trust between the two parties. The client doesn't trust the developer to do their job and/or the developer doesn't trust the client to do their job.

The OP has some good ideas about how to establish trust between the two parties (communicating regularly and effectively, but most of his ideas appear to stem from the fact that he simply doesn't trust freelancers from the get go.

</comment><comment><USER5> >>> Hire an expert to regularly review your code. Contrary to what you may think this doesn't cost much. A good developer can tell "good" from "obviously bad" code in a matter of minutes. Hire a consultant for one hour and he can tell you exactly what state your code is in. >>>

Where? How? I've tried. Even if for my own code I would love it. Any credible recommendations and I would do it.

</comment><comment><USER15> Everything made sense to me except for the part about writing tests.

If you're confident you're product will have a long lifespan then tests make perfect sense. But from what I've seen most MVP's are experiments that may or may not stand up to real users.

If you're in the latter camp, writing test code is prematurely optimizing for stability.

<comment><AUTHOR> Totally agree, but I thought I wrote that ;) "If you know that you will start from scratch soon you can most likely skip the tests and focus on testing your hypotheses as quickly as possible."

<comment><USER15> Yeesh, just went back and re-read that. I fail at reading.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> That is precisely why I usually recommend avoiding websites like oDesk, elance, freelancer etc. You need to have experience and knowledge in order to weaeve-out the bad candidates... but odds are, it's due to your non-experience that you're looking on these websites.

</comment><comment><USER17> I've been a freelancer for the better part of 17 years. A few quick reactions:

1\. (Code reviews.) This seems really rare, in my experience, and there are a few problems with it. For one, the code reviewer might not be better than the original developer. And they may not know the constraints and development process of the project. Secondly, the one time someone wrote up a major code review for a project I had recently finished, I felt they were nit-picking and falling into the trap of "well, that's not how I would've done it" mostly just so they could land a job fixing the alleged problems.

Even if you're non-technical, I might suggest asking the developer to show you how they've organized the code. Just because you're curious how it works. I really enjoy teaching people about code, and it can be fun when non-technical people get a glimmer of understanding. And I think you can tell a lot about how clearly someone thinks simply by how clearly they can explain what they're doing.

2\. (Sample projects.) Sorry, I don't do these. Look at my portfolio, resume, and go use some stuff I've built. If you think I'm lying to you about my involvement in those, then we have a bigger problem on our hands. If you need to, ask me for the contact info of someone I've previously worked with and talk to them about me.

3\. (Goals not being aligned.) No two people ever have perfectly-aligned goals -- there's no need to get weird about it. Part of hiring someone is assessing whether you can trust them to do what they're expected to do. You'll get better at this with age. And hiring developers you can meet and talk to face- to-face is probably important. I am a professional and I am invested in the success of my clients. Because I'm a human being with a soul. And because it makes me look better if I can say "I built this app and then the company went on to wild success!"

4\. (Tests.) It's all about budget and timeline. And project complexity.

5\. (Communication.) Yes, good communication is key.

6\. (Hourly vs. fixed-price.) My clients mostly want fixed-price contracts, which is fine. But I don't think it's because they don't trust me -- it's because it's easier to predict budgets that way. If trust is really such an issue that you need to worry about whether a developer is wasting time and you're thinking about hiring someone to audit(!) their timesheet, you have a bigger problem on your hands. So much in life requires trusting people and you need to either find people you can consistently rely on or come up with some ways of judging the trustworthiness of someone that doesn't involve micromanaging them. As for not getting screwed on fixed-price contracts: Trust also comes into play. But so does a well thought-out contract that spells out exactly what's expected from everyone and when. A contract doesn't replace trust. But it does make sure that everyone's on board with all of the nitty- gritty details and it lets everyone know what happens if something goes wrong. Think of it as a design document for your working relationship.

Anyway -- I'm glad people are thinking about these issues, but my general sense, here, is that Danny Britz is fairly new to this and has been hiring people off of relatively impersonal cattle-call sites like Elance. Which is fine. But I think that once you establish a rapport with some developers and get more experience working with them you'll find that you don't have to be quite as fearful that they're going to screw you.

<comment><USER18> > 2\. (Sample projects.) Sorry, I don't do these.

Even if they are paid for? If so, why?

<comment><USER17> They're too small. Any project requires a certain amount of headspace. I just don't have enough to work on two hour projects that may or may not lead to something else. It just sounds like a pain-in-the-ass.

Also, being a good developer doesn't mean I know how for loops and basic OOP works -- it means I know how to build and organize non-trivial projects that require thought and care. Having me work for two hours on something random won't tell you anything about this.</comment></comment></comment>


Healthcare - <AUTHOR> http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/11/healthcare.html <comment><USER2> I have worked on healthcare software for the last decade. Healthcare technology is really not something that one can understand from the outside. It is also not an area where web startup knowledge is as applicable (eventual consistency is entirely unacceptable, any caching of data must be very precise to avoid showing stale data to users and is generally not done, all sales to hospitals and most physician groups are "enterprise" sales). There are many different standards for data transmission, but none of them are required and most people see them as more of a recommendation. Non-technical people are put in charge of technical projects.

That being said, it is not a technologically challenging industry at the moment. Most of the work that is being done is just automating existing paper- based systems. The regulations that everyone worries about are really not very onerous. Complying with HIPAA is mostly common sense and the FDA does not yet regulate most information systems unless they control medical devices or provide specific types of alerting (vendors are preparing for the day when they do).

Two of the biggest challenges that I see are the caliber of the technologists in the industry and the absolutely disgusting new interoperability standards that are being developed by people with questionable technical skills.

The company to watch at this point is Epic (I do not work for Epic). They are really crushing a lot of other companies and they are somewhat progressive.

<http://www.epic.com/>

If people are interested in some of the technology that is being used in the industry outside of the standard .Net and Java stuff take a look at InterSystems. They even have all of their product documentation online, which is a bit of a rarity for enterprise vendors.

<http://www.intersystems.com/>

<comment><USER3> Epic's software looks and (according to the doctors that have to use it) works like a bad 1990's database program written in Access. I work with a hospital that has it implemented. It's inflexible crap, where their idea of someone using it on a tablet is "get one with windows, or here's a RDP session you can get to through a VPN". One doctor I know said it took him 17 clicks and both reading help and contacting the help desk to enter simple information, which turned out to be in a totally nonintuitive way.

We need the SMTP of medical communications, not the Microsoft Exchange. Epic's system is very like the latter.

All medical software suffers from the problem of all software where the end user and the creator of software isn't the same person - it just doesn't work in a way that makes sense.

The problem, for medical software at least, is that once you've one of the very few people who have a medical degree, you're often in demand to the point that deciding to 1. write software at a competent level and 2. have the business moxie to turn it into a decent business, the talent pool is basically nil.

<comment><USER2> As bad as Epic's software might be, the rest of the software in the industry is worse.

<comment><USER4> Interesting side note about InterSystems - I interviewed there a few times about 10 years ago, and the first step was a written exam in Mumps (the programming language). Turns out it's popular in the healthcare space, being used in both InterSystems Cache and VistA, the open-source medical records system used by the Veteran's Administration:

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/256876/tips-for- learning-...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/256876/tips-for-learning- mumps-m-cache)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Education and health care are both dominated by government as the single largest player in the marketplace. The U.S. government actively sets the number of doctors, the types of procedures that can be covered by insurance, and dominates market spending through its Medicare, Medicaid, and VA programs. And if you aren't on a government program, the tax code forces you into a employer-provided insurance ghetto.

Healthcare innovation will remain low, and costs will continue to grow at double digits, until America passes real healthcare reform. Allow insurance competition across state lines, give private individuals the same tax treatment as employers when buying healthcare, and allow individuals to form groups to purchase health care (e.g. alumni groups, church groups, etc). Those three steps would go a long way to opening up the industry to the web and to innovative, competitive forces.

<comment><USER6> First, most Americans fall outside Medicare, Medicaid and the VA programs. The government currently does not regulate individual/employer coverage. I would not characterize the entire private insurance industry as an "employer- provided insurance ghetto" - what does that even mean?

The whole second paragraph makes it clear that you don't understand the complexities of the Healthcare industry. You provide very broad brush statements like "allow insurance competition across state lines", the complexities of that single issue alone are staggering. Are you aware that the strength of most in-state insurance carriers is their in-state network. An insurance company IS it's network. In addition each individual state has a Department of Insurance which also regulates all carriers in that state. DOI rules and regulations vary from state to state. Expanding your coverage to another state is a very complex undertaking.

Also, Individual groups do have the ability to purchase healthcare - see many professional organizations(AIGA, etc) as working examples of this today.

In either case, making those changes won't just magically open the industry to "the web and to innovative, competitive forces". There are already competitive forces at play. Any new player attempting to join the fray faces an uphill battle just in the regulatory aspects of the business alone.

What do the advantages of the web and new technologies bring to insurance? How do these changes the provider networks which are the backbone of major insurance coverage today? These are the types of questions which need to be posed, and the people in the best position to answer these questions and change the game are insurers themselves. There are many smart and talented people working in insurance. The recent proposed Healthcare changes have helped to begin the process of moving forward and thinking differently, but with an industry like this it will take time.

It is happening, insurance providers are looking at new technologies and ways to provide the coverage that people expect, for lower costs, in new and different ways.

<comment><USER5> It is a common tactic for people invested in a broken status quo to dismiss critics as "not understanding the complexities". Which insurance company or regulator do you work for? I've worked on health care policy professionally, I assure you I understand the issues.

Much of the distortion in the current system come from the fact that employers can deduct health care expenses, which means that you save around 15-30% versus buying healthcare as an individual with aftertax dollars. That single policy is what ties health care to your employers-- in my mind, a kind of serfdom that keeps people tied to jobs simply because of health care insurance.

So getting tax equality by eliminating the deduction, or extending it to individuals, would rock the market. Beyond that, it actually is as simple as allowing interstate competition, which will allow people to escape all of the insane state regulations, and lack of choice, that drive up costs.

And groups can't organize to purchase health care-- I'm talking about a world where my university alumni association or church has a plan, and I could choose that for life, and it has the same tax and regulatory treatment as my employer's health care offering. I want vastly more diverse delivery mechanisms, all competing for my business, and ideally with a long-term relationship that would naturally incentivize preventative care.

<comment><USER7> Listen, you don't understand the complexities...

<comment><USER7> Is humour not allowed?

<comment><USER8> It's not _forbidden_. It's just rarely considered worth the space. I hate to say "lurk more", but you are new here, and you don't yet understand the complexities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Personally I believe the problems with healthcare and education are largely the domain of government to fix.

I actually believe in the (now-dead) Republican policy that, in the US at least, education is a state not Federal issue. By making it a Federal issue, we're just creating one giant bureaucracy and we all know how good those are at solving problems.

We should probably have a model like some European countries where the money follows the student and what school a student can go to isn't restricted by some arbitrary boundary on a map.

Likewise the tenure system has to go. What was imagined as a means of allowing academic freedom has become a recipe for entrenched mediocrity and stagnation.

Also, it's a problem that schools are largely funded by property taxes. This alone ensures a better education for the rich. I'm not sure what the alternative is but we need one.

As for healthcare, IMHO we're largely in this position because of the "blank check" model for health insurance and because of pharmaceutical patents.

Each country has different laws about what is patentable and what isn't. In the US, for example, nuclear technology is expressly forbidden from being patented as it is seen as a matter of national security. In India, health care is seen likewise so pharma patents aren't allowed, providing for cheap generic medicine.

I foresee a day when the US will swing in India's direction. Not that I necessarily think this is all good. The fact is, drugs are expensive to develop but it's also true that the pharmaceutical industry spends more on marketing than anything else (basically getting doctors and hospitals to use their drugs).

Also, litigation is a problem for health care. We all pay for outrageous punitive damage awards.

Lastly, it's a problem that insurance in the US is essentially tied to employment and large employers get that substantially cheaper than smaller employers (let alone individuals).

And of course the complexity and administrative overhead are huge problems, which is probably the one area that could be disrupted without government intervention. But it doesn't help that part of the reason things are so complex is essentially to deny coverage.

<comment><USER10> > Also, litigation is a problem for health care. We all pay for outrageous > punitive damage awards.

I'm not an expert, but I think it's very important for us (normal citizens) to be skeptical of these kinds of claims:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tort_reform#Healthcare_industry>

Large corporations have created a mythology of an epidemic of frivolous lawsuits that Americans have completely internalized: those women weren't sexually harassed they just wanted to be bought off, or: she probably spilled coffee on herself on purpose.

Also, you mention government bureaucracy and efficiency: I think it's worth pointing out that you can have a large amount of inefficient private sector bureaucracy, where the government could step in and create a more efficient system. The highway system is one obvious example. I think healthcare is also in this category.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The problem with venturing into healthcare is dealing with highly regulated industry and wrong incentives for most of the players.

"Large networks of engaged users" do exist, but the ones who control real money (doctors, hospitals, insurers and pharmas / device makers) are highly suspicious of outsiders. Every one of them has the incentive to not share their data with the competition, even though they will all publicly pay lip service to doing this in the name of "improving patient care".

If you look at patients / consumers, you can roughly divide them into the healthy and the sick. The healthy ones generally speaking do not want to invest time and effort into their health, unless it overlaps with lifestyle / food / entertainment - well covered by ventures we do not normally put into "healthcare" category. If you look at the sick ones, they tend to skew to the older demographic with lower online literacy. Even when you pick out the ones active online who care enough about their conditions what you get at best is small niche communities like PatientsLikeMe.com that are at best able to function as support networks and clinical trial recruiting sites.

Did I forget to mention that pharmas and device makers are mortally scared of participating in social media because of FDA? They are in business where even acknowledging any adverse event could make them liable for billions. This is a great example of why for most of the healthcare industry social media is all downside and very little upside.

<comment><USER12> "[...]the ones who control real money (doctors, hospitals, insurers and pharmas / device makers) are highly suspicious of outsiders."

And each other.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The baffling thing to me about healthcare in the US is that there are a number of models[1] from other nations that have desirable characteristics, and yet everyone is the US seems to think it's this huge problem that is brand new and that no one has ever looked at before. It should be well known by now that most developed countries spend less money on healthcare and get higher coverage rates and better outcomes. Surely the sane thing to do would be to research those models and figure out which one seems the best fit to us and then adapt it. I'm not opposed to innovation, but our approach to solving the healthcare problem seems seriously fettered by a bad case of not-invented-here syndrome.

1: What I mean by this idea of different models is that everyone seems to assume that all universal healthcare schemes are created equal, but this is simply untrue. Some examples:

\- Potential single-payer systems proposed in the US are most often compared to the Canadian system, but Canada actually has one of the worse systems (according to my previous metrics) among OECD countries.

\- People also assume that a single-payer system is the only way to achieve efficiency, but Germany has a very effective healthcare system which is not single-payer.

Of course, even setting aside that we seem bad at considering _the details_ of a solution to this problem, the _real_ problem, in my opinion is that we can't even agree on what role government should play. If we can't even agree that the government _should_ solve the healthcare problem, how can we even begin to agree on a solution?

</comment><comment><USER14> Speaking from a Web/Healthcare IT startup experience: The BIGGEST challenge is that your buyer, user and payer are 3 different entities. Every budding healthcare entrepreneur wants to "disrupt" this somehow, but eventually almost everyone gives up and they either die or become yet-another-enterprisey software company that everyone loves to hate.

You can make a decent, linearly growing business if you can survive 2-3 years long sales cycles. So it makes sense that VC's don't want to venture into this space.

</comment><comment> buff-a _When we look at healthcare, what's wrong with it, and what needs to happen to fix it, we can't see as clearly how the web, technology, and large networks of engaged users can impact healthcare in a positive way._

Because we are not allowed to. I can't even write an iOS app that shows images if they happen to be X-Rays.[1] Its a group of giant monopolies and special interests who as an industry spend more on lobbying than any other industry ($250m in 2010)[2]

And they need to. The industry is ripe for disruption. It amazes me that we allow utterly fallible human beings to attempt to diagnose in a 5 minute appointment conditions that they may never have heard of. And we talk of older doctors having more experience, but only more experience in the stuff they see everyday. Meanwhile computers can diagnose conditions more accurately than humans [3] but we'll see how far the AMA lets that go. Probably require an extra specially trained doctor to operate it. They'll probably require a man to run in front of it with a flag lest this dangerous machine hurt a patient.

[1] [http://www.macworld.com/article/161397/2011/07/fda_regulatio...](http://www.macworld.com/article/161397/2011/07/fda_regulations_for_ios_apps.html)

[2] [http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?showYear=2010&i...](http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?showYear=2010&indexType=i)

[3] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3219909>

<comment><USER15> This is so true. The AMA and FDA are really the enemies of the public, countless suffering has occurred because of them.

<comment><USER16> And yet we haven't had another thalidomide scandal since the FDA introduced mandatory clinical trials for new treatments. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide>

I'm not saying you're entirely wrong, just that its not a simple as you make out.

<comment><USER15> people have looked at this before, the net effect is negative, (sorry no sources off-hand)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's the current uptime of your workstation? - <AUTHOR>

I am curious to know whether people suspend or shutdown their primary machine while taking a break. I have been rater busy past few days and here is my uptime:
nilesh@cd-oneiric-laptop:~$ uptime
 20:00:02 up 7 days,  7:41,  1 user,  load average: 0.01, 0.06, 0.08
which is not extraordinary by any means, but it would be interesting to know the extremes. Share your uptime. <comment><USER2> 16:47:42 up 70 days, 17:30, 1 user, load average: 0.14, 0.12, 0.09

It's a Linux machine, I don't need to shut it down often.

I did have a problem with the UI, so my Emacs only has an uptime of 5 and 1/2 hours, otherwise that would be not terribly far off the machine's uptime.

<comment><AUTHOR> I too am a linux user. This kind of stability was a breath of fresh air when I first switched from Windows XP.

Shutdown has a benefit though - it _feels_ like a real break from work and helps me unwind. Weird, but true. :-)</comment></comment>


Why I'm Furious with Silicon Valley - <AUTHOR> http://www.quora.com/Aaron-Greenspan/Why-Im-Furious-with-Silicon-Valley

<comment><USER2> This seems very un-Valley-like from my understanding.

What would the VCs and Angels benefit from the new laws? if anything, I suspect many would be against the new law as they have already invested in Square and other similar ventures (there is a SimpleBank or something like that).

Also, if this is a California law and Aaron (poster on Quora) is so dedicated to his idea, why not move the company elsewhere? If so many people move to the valley to pursue their ideas, this could be a strange example of the need to move elsewhere to pursue his.

The whole 'furious with Silicon Valley' just doesn't make sense to me. Furious with California State Legislature, sure. If he's angry at the Valley because he didn't get an investment and the reason was these new laws, I don't know that his anger is aimed at the right people.

Hopefully he moves the company somewhere that he can operate and shows everybody who he feels has scorned him the mistake they made.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm Aaron.

It's irrelevant where your company is headquartered. Without a license, you cannot do business with any individual in California, period. Therefore, this affects many companies outside of California, not just mine.

One would expect politicians to make sometimes less-than-ideal decisions. One would not expect top-tier investors to ignore real innovation in favor of useless fluff. Nonetheless, that's what is happening in the Valley and it has been for years.

<comment><USER3> I sympathize with you as much as anyone can who's not in your exact situation. The new law stinks, and unfortunately, a lot of finance-related startups aren't affected by it because they've already come up with workarounds for this kind of thing. (BankSimple, for example, just provides a software interface; funds are managed through a regular banking institution.)

However, I'd like to second the notion of taking your ball and going elsewhere, even if it means opening up some kind of satellite office. Why not another country? Chile, for example, has been getting lots of press lately for being startup friendly. They'd probably love to have your product down there. Yes, it's a smaller, more limited market, but so what? You'd have the opportunity to get in to an untapped market with a product that already works. You could keep pumping the product into the U.S. press in the meantime with an angle that editors will love to run because it'll sell copies faster than hotcakes: U.S. innovation is moving to other countries because of stifling laws. (Regardless of your opinion of that point of view, the fact is that it's one that sells magazines and other print publications right now.)

In all seriousness, in your situation, it's what I'd do. In Go parlance, right now you're trying to defend from a weak position. Give up that territory now, before you're any more invested in it, and focus on building a strong position elsewhere on the board, and then attacking from there.

And you could still continue U.S. operations on other products and projects. You, personally, wouldn't need to relocate. With your track record, you'd be a shoe-in for Startup Chile, which would mean you'd get access to a small amount of capital ($40k IIRC) and all kinds of help during their next application round.

As far as the Valley goes -- well, fuck 'em. The scene in the Valley is entirely self-interested; if its revenues aren't directly affected by something, it just doesn't care.

Getting pissed off at the situation, while certainly understandable, won't help you to think more clearly about it. Consider all your other options, even ones you would ordinarily dismiss.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Building a website ok, but a connecting to a CMS? - <AUTHOR> Question;
I know my way around HTML and CSS (or SASS) but how do I connect my site to a CMS? So people can update their site i build for them, I don't want to keep updating their site in the HTML code every time. I can't seem to find a good connection (tutorial) on how to make this happen.
Hopefully you have some examples of how to connect my HTML designs to a (free) CMS.
Much appreciated! <comment><USER2> HTML and CSS alone would not be adequate for the kind of behaviour you are looking for - 'updating their site'. At the very least, you need to learn how to customise a CMS. A well known CMS that I would recommend is WordPress. However, there are others in other languages/platforms. But, since you are talking of a CMS, I thought I should point you towards the most widely used one. Thus, you need to invest your time in learning how that CMS works and what you need to do to customise it for your clients. You might also need to learn something about databases and MySQL would also be another good recommendation.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm familiar with Wordpress. I did set it up a couple of times, but I used a theme were i could re-do some colouring, and fonts etc. Now i've got a website, and I would like to add a CMS behind it, It could be Wordpress or another one, but the connection I can't seem to make. Build a website, then connect the HTML / CSS to Wordpress. Do you have any resources where I can look into to start making this connection?

Thanks

<comment><USER3> It's more typically the other way around: use Wordpress to build a website. That way all the plumbing is there. Another way of thinking about it is that a website is just one part of a CMS and it is an easier part much of which can be generated automatically. The harder parts are things like dashboards and security and asset management.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I would say that you need to start looking into frameworks if your goal is to build a custom CMS. I have done this on many production projects using the MEAN stack (MySQL, Loopback, Ng2, and Node). There is a lot to take on if you go this route if you are not familiar with any of these. I would suggest starting with Loopback + Node, and then move to Ng2. If this is to overwhelming, I would focus a lot on @sdiq points :)</comment>


Recycling Proc in Turing - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/jeremywan/8683443

<comment><USER2> Seems like a fairly inefficient algorithm -- could replace lines 6-44 with

%request homejoy.com/cleaning

</comment><comment><USER3> the original: [http://imgur.com/Ls9kAR9](http://imgur.com/Ls9kAR9)</comment>


The Evolution of the Cell Phone - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcnXOhrmDB8

<comment><USER2> Wow, well done.</comment>


Ask HN: Digital Nomads: What tools do you use daily? - <AUTHOR>

Can be any tool, if it makes your life easier on a day-to-day basis or even something you couldn't now live without! <comment><USER2> Stylebot.

</comment><comment><USER3> lastpass</comment>


Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 too little, too late - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/10/25/BUUC1G00J3.DTL <comment><USER2> The mobile OS space is still in its infancy, It's always better to wait and see what happens.</comment>


GNU patch - auto detect strip level - <AUTHOR> http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?33081 <comment><AUTHOR> Just stumbled across this script. Works great. Also available in Ubuntu "bikeshed" package.</comment>


The Role of Luck in Life Success - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/the-role-of-luck-in-life-success-is-far-greater-than-we-realized/ <comment><USER2> I am financially independent and it is almost entirely due to luck. I was in a stable career as an AI researcher when, in 2000, pretty much on a whim, I decided to apply to work at an obscure little startup company called Google. It was the only startup I had ever applied to at that point (until then my ambition had been to become a university professor). Since 2005 I have participated as a principal in half a dozen other startups. They all failed. Being in the right place at the right time makes a much bigger difference than effort or ability. Working hard and being skilled can help tilt the odds in your favor, but they are neither necessary nor sufficient for success.

<comment><USER3> Around 2001, a cohort of recent grads was working on an obscure experimental thing at Microsoft that never went anywhere. Half of the group went to Mountain View, and half stayed in Redmond. The first half are all millionaires now, and the second half are just well-off.

You can look at this from many directions. Did the natural hustlers hustle their way to Google, while the naturally complacent stayed put? Did the Googlers just go there because that's where their friends went, or because they thought it was cool? Did the Mountain View people catch the fever after the fact, and _become_ hustlers, while the Redmond people absorbed the relatively relaxed culture there? Did everyone just go where they thought was best and then it turned out one of those places was saturated in money?

<comment><USER4> Sounds like the Monty Hall problem :) keep your door or switch. I'd say the ones who left were wiser ex-ante

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Of course after someone has achieved success they put it down entirely to innate worth, effort, skill and so forth. Likewise plenty who have deserved success have been wiped out by unlucky timing of the dot com bust, credit crunch, fraud.

Yes persistence pays, but however unpopular it might be around here, we are nearly all one or two rolls from disaster - be that business failure, major illness, or whatever, that can easily escalate into life ruining proportions.

I am far _less_ inclined to simply spout "work hard and make your own luck" now than I would certainly have done in my 20s. Thirty more years of experiencing life, and seeing what sheer luck, good and bad, has done to friends, family and their businesses has changed my perspective on luck quite dramatically.

You need hard work _and_ luck.

<comment><USER6> I'm not that convinced about the hard work part, it strikes me it's a hangover from the protestant work ethic. If you can't achieve something in 40 hours a week why would adding another 20 make much difference. If anything it might make it more difficult.

I think I'd phrase it as you need _work_ and luck.

<comment><USER7> Also the ingredients of hard work, I.e. preservance, energy, focus, etc are themselves dependent on luck - having the right genes, growth environment , health , etc - so that's another type of luck.

<comment><USER8> Claiming that working hard is "luck" is an absurd excuse for not bothering to try.

The vast majority of people in the US are healthy and the environment in the US is the most conducive in the world to success. Stop making excuses.

<comment><USER9> I think if you took the time to research obesity, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, etc, in America vs. other countries, you would not be spouting this nonsense. Americans have the ability to get in a bad car wreck and live because we have incredible emergency care. That's it. That is not health.

<comment><USER8> > nonsense

I'm happy to tell you the good news that the overwhelming majority young adults in American are not suffering from debilitating health problems nor have their lives been saved by incredible emergency care.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> One point of contention I have with this article is that it mentions that many CEOs were born during certain months and have names starting with certain letters. The mere mention of the phrase I am about to use always draws the ire of the HN crowd, but I see a big correlation/causation issue with that specific data point.

As for the larger point of the article, I always frame this conversation in this way: if you were lucky enough to be born in a first world country, you can become a millionaire through hard work with relatively little luck involved, but you have to get very lucky to become a billionaire.

In other words, the kind of large scale success that it takes to become a billionaire is nearly always dependent upon numerous factors outside of your own control, any one of which could easily put billionaire status out of reach. Becoming a single digit millionaire, however, can be done by anyone of at least average intelligence, that is willing to work long and hard in a field that has historically paid its workers well. Jobs in technology, finance, medicine, and even some trades (master plumbers/electricians etc.), pay well enough that anyone who manages their money properly should be on track to become a millionaire at some point during their lifetime.

<comment><USER11> "One point of contention I have with this article is that it mentions that many CEOs were born during certain months and have names starting with certain letters. The mere mention of the phrase I am about to use always draws the ire of the HN crowd, but I see a big correlation/causation issue with that specific data point."

On the point of birth month, there is a cause. Kids born before the cutoff year for kindergarten are younger than kids born after the cutoff. At that age, every month of development makes a big difference in social skills, which leads to more leadership opportunities. Obviously it's not a direct causation but this point should not be ignored.

"As for the larger point of the article, I always frame this conversation in this way: if you were lucky enough to be born in a first world country, you can become a millionaire through hard work with relatively little luck involved, but you have to get very lucky to become a billionaire."

I agree with you and I would add that "hard work and thriftiness" lets most people with average luck become millionaire. This is the sentiment of the Millionaire Next Door.

<comment><USER12> This is exactly what Malcom Gladwell talks about in Outliers: The Story of Success. He starts off by mentioning how hockey players have this age advantage since they are more physically mature than people born in other months and cut off by our artificially created system.

<comment><USER13> Makes sense for hockey players given the investment they need in development from a young age and how that investment is directly based on physical evaluation. For CEOs that pattern doesn't exist save perhaps in the mind of status-obsessed parents.

<comment><USER14> If you're the oldest individual in your elementary class, you've got ~11 months more development than your worst-off competitors. You carry that age advantage throughout every level of education you go through, allowing you differential access to awards, accolades, special opportunities, etc.

When development evens out following full development, you're already past the majority of the educational sorting mechanism - you've been scoring higher and formed by your experiences as a high performing student throughout.

<comment><USER13> But in athletics you stop getting training and don't go to the next level if your performance is sub-par, so the effect is magnified.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Just read this article. Very cool how the researchers simulated the role luck plays in society with some neat models. The conclusions they reach are fascinating and counter-intuitive e.g.

>"[I]f the goal is to reward the most talented person (thus increasing their final level of success), it is much more convenient to distribute periodically (even small) equal amounts of capital to all individuals rather than to give a greater capital only to a small percentage of them, selected through their level of success - already reached - at the moment of the distribution."

My two cents from being an entrepreneur: everyone needs luck to succeed but those who are fortunate to have wealth and a support network get far more opportunities for luck to come by. Or, put another way, those with a fortunate background have more chances to fail and find luck eventually than others. Life is not fair but so it is.

<comment><USER16> Perhaps to bastardise an old quote.

"When luck turns up it better find you with a bag of cash"

<comment><USER17> Love that.

I am looking at a great idea that I have been working on, but I am afraid to release it because I know it will be cloned in a matter of months since I can not afford worldwide patent protection.

<comment><USER15> Without much more data I'd say: 1\. I once thought the same of an idea I had. When I finally launched it failed. So no one cared to clone it! 2\. I have another idea I now think has merit. I've proven some traction with users. Enough that filing a provisional patent makes sense for about $2k. Might want to try this path too.

<comment><USER17> This is not my first time down the primrose path. I already have a few patents in my basket. I been tempted to try filing it myself masochist that I am.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Apologies in advance but I must confess.. I don't get it.

Can someone define luck?

-I didn't choose my DNA.

-I didn't choose my parents.

-I didn't choose my circumstances.

-I didn't choose which neural pathways were reinforced based on my experiences.

-I didn't choose which environmental factors altered any of my biological systems.

-I didn't choose not to die in my sleep every night from an undiagnosed ailment.

Removing, for the moment whether or not "Free Will" exists...

What can _anyone_ choose that isn't based on prior experiences; Experiences that they couldn't control?

What can't be attributed to luck?

<comment><USER2> I think most people believe that you can choose, on any given night, to study or play video games. And I think most people believe that if you choose to study then sooner or later you will succeed. And I think most people are wrong on both counts.

<comment><USER8> Studying improves your odds of success. Video games improve your odds of failure. It's your choice.

<comment><USER2> That's true, but being in the right place at the right time improves your odds of success more.

<comment><USER8> So put yourself into the right place. There's a reason people move to Silicon Valley, for example. Put the video game console down, turn the TV off, get up and go to where the opportunity is.

<comment><USER2> That is easier said than done. The right place is usually only evident in retrospect. A lot of people move to Silicon Valley, work their freakin' asses off for decades, and still don't succeed.

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that it's hopeless and that you should just give up and play video games. But I believe that dumb luck is a bigger factor than effort. Luck is necessary, and can be sufficient for success. Effort and skill are neither. (And, BTW, this is a consequence of deep problems in the system we have set up, and we ought to try to change those. But you can't solve a problem without first acknowledging that the problem exists.)

<comment><USER8> > But I believe that dumb luck is a bigger factor than effort.

Make no effort, and your odds of failure are 100%. Your odds get better and better as you make smarter choices, put out the effort, and position yourself for success.

> A lot

Yeah, some fail. But most succeed in SV, the proof is in the housing prices.

<comment><USER19> > the proof is in the housing prices.

I feel like this statement gives more backing to the arguments on luck. Those lucky enough to by an apartment in the peninsula in the 80s, who are gaining the most off of soaring housing costs, are now reaping remarkable 'success' with no proof they predicted, with skill, foresight, or intellect, the housing market of 2018.

<comment><USER8> Those housing prices wouldn't be going up if there weren't an awful lot of successful people in SV.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I attest to this. I have had a reasonable success in life (built and sold a few companies, have a financial cushion, a home, a small plane, etc.).

I have done everything well and with diligence but when I look at the flow of my life, the financial success came primarily from luck. Being at the right place at the right time. Having a good idea at the right time. Knowing the right people at the right time. Having the right product pivot in the right market conditions.

Many of these things worked out because of circumstances beyond my ability to predict and control. I have had a similar amount of failures and my ability to predict what will be successful is limited to nil.

Yes, I worked hard and put my all into everything, but so do many others I know. I was also fortunate (lucky!) to have support systems and friends which allowed me to take risks that turned out to be rewarding. I also try to spread the rewards and recognize those people who have allowed me to find this lucky success.

I also have the luck to be in a country that has reasonable government and infrastructure (perhaps notwithstanding the last year or two), lucky to have chosen economically stable parents who gave me a top education without debt at the end, lucky to have chosen (ha) white privilege which I didn't fully understand or appreciate until the last decade and try hard to expand to everyone now.

Yes, I made some circumstances to benefit from the luck. But so have others who have not experienced the luck. I am grateful for my luck and work to enable others to have a good life without the same luck. There but for the grace (of god or gaia or luck) go I.

<comment><USER21> Luck plays a huge role.

However, it does help when one can recognize a rare opportunity, and can quickly act on it (take that meeting, show up at that event, say the right thing).

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> You can only get lucky if you position yourself to be able to get lucky. In addition, you need that carpe diem attitude to exploit any lucky breaks.

A business opportunity is not gonna magically appear if you are not constantly looking for one and you won't be able to exploit it if you haven't learned relevant skills and built a network.

<comment><USER23> You can't position yourself to be born a white male, which I believe affords the greatest advantages, and opens the most opportunities of any personal attribute you can have.

<comment><USER24> Stop trying to make it a race and gender issue. It helps no one but the rentier class to further divide the people they are extracting profit from.

What wealth 'class' you are born into has by far the biggest effect on your chance of success.

<comment><USER23> But it is a race and gender issue. I'm not trying to divide people, just stating facts.

Attaining wealth is much easier if you're born into a specific race, thus your chances of being born wealthy are directly correlated with your chances of being white.

Attaining wealth is much easier if you're male. Among the many reasons are increased career opportunities in general, less chance of a stalled career because of child rearing, greater status in negotiations, etc.

All I'm saying is it is incredibly lucky to be born a white male in a society which so highly values them, and try as hard you might, you can't position yourself to get that advantage if you weren't born with it.

<comment><USER25> Having a black doctor for a parent probably provides more benefit than having a white dockworker for a parent. That's the point of the comment above. Similarly for being the daughter of rich couple or the son of a poor couple.

<comment><USER26> >Having a black doctor for a parent probably provides more benefit than having a white dockworker for a parent.

Sure, but having a white doctor for a parent is very likely more beneficial than both of those examples. This should not be a very controversial point.

<comment><USER25> Yes being white and rich is better than being black and rich, the point is about where benefit is coming from. The idea is that being white and rich is better than being black and rich but being black and rich is _much_ better than being white and poor. Race, gender, all these things play a role but their influence is totally swamped by the influence of class.

<comment><USER26> Your argument would only hold water if distribution of wealth were independent of race. On the contrary, it is intimately intertwined with it. Race is the fundamental foundational rift that the nation constructed itself on, and it had better bring its primary focus to it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> One of the most important takeaways from this article, is not what the title suggests, but the consequence of it being true for society. It is buried in the middle of the article and if true, is must-reading for everyone who determines public policy or funds startups:

 _" [I]f the goal is to reward the most talented person (thus increasing their final level of success), it is much more convenient to distribute periodically (even small) equal amounts of capital to all individuals rather than to give a greater capital only to a small percentage of them, selected through their level of success - already reached - at the moment of the distribution."_

</comment><comment><USER28> I've at times stated that anyone who says that luck isn't important has possibly never had any success in life.

There are _a lot_ of things that can go wrong in any pursuit. Hard work shrinks the error bars in the distribution of success but doesn't make them disappear.

<comment><USER29> Anecdotally, I've found the opposite. The most successful people ascribe their success to their own hard work first and foremost, discounting all the benefits that luck has brought them, most especially the accident of their birth (rich country, rich parents, race, gender, date, etc.). On the other end of the spectrum, those who are less successful tend to blame all their failures on bad luck and discount their own contribution.

<comment><USER30> The "You didn't build that" types vs. the self-made man with a million dollar trust fund types.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> If you sit on the couch all day doing nothing, you wont get lucky. Sure, we can identify "luck" as a path to success, but honestly that seems more like survivor bias....

There are a nearly infinite number of events that had to take place for everything to exist in its current state. We can call it "luck" or "randomness" which then leads to specific actions leading to success. However, in reality we are designed to recognize patterns.

If we recognize a pattern and make an attempt to improve our situation, it's not "luck" or "randomness" its a probability of success. Combine that over a life time and persistence will lead to success, not just one random event. It's a series of events that lead to success, each one moving you one way or the other. It's typically your "choice" which path you take.

I think these articles rub me the wrong way, because it leads a lot of people to think - "If it's all luck, why bother doing anything?" When in reality it's only you that can get anywhere.

<comment><USER32> You're already lucky if you have a couch to sit on. Plenty of people have no house, let alone couch to sit on.

Who you are is substantially a matter of luck, too. Somebody who has two driven parents that spend enormous amounts of time and effort raising them is far more likely to be driven and competitive than a person whose parents lay around smoking weed all day.

<comment><USER33> What if one parent was never to be found and the other was always at work to ensure you had a roof over your head and as such you were frequently a feral kid?

Your genetic makeup is a product of the genetic histories of two people that (perhaps, but not necessarily) fell in love and had a baby. If they were genetically predisposed to large amounts of self discipline, then perhaps you will be too, perhaps not. I'd say this can count as lucky... or unlucky(?) beyond that, all you've got is your own toil, sweat, tears and guile.

"Your choices are half chance, so are everybody else's"

<comment><USER34> >I'd say this can count as lucky... or unlucky(?) beyond that, all you've got is your own toil, sweat, tears and guile.

No, luck does not end at birth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> At the opposite end of the spectrum is modern self-help culture seems to focus entirely on hard work, habits etc. I routinely balk at stuff promoting 7, 10 or 100 habits of successful people, CEO, leaders or otherwise, as if following them blindly will get you any where.

While hard work helps, it takes some luck to succeed.

<comment><USER36> Honestly, most of those pieces are really just cargo culting more than anything else. They don't know exactly why a CEO or leader did well, so they look at their mannerisms and everyday habits and assume those were all things that made them more successful rather than ones they were good enough to overcome/that were completely irrelevant.

Well that and the real lessons (aka, luck has a role) isn't quite as soundbite friendly when written in article format.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I agree with this article, but a healthy way to look at for me is multipliers.

Example, success will get you there, but luck is the multiplier.

Example lets say you work super hard and become a millionaire, you run a 2 million dollar company.

I think it's realistic, however your friend with the 20 million dollar company and 200 million dollar company probably didn't work that much harder than you, they just chose better fields and where at the right place at the right time.

Another example non-business wise is genetics. Example: you can work your ass off and be a really good basketball player, you'll have fun, you'll get admiration, but to be an NBA superstar you need a ton of luck involved ie lack of injuries, right coaches, right genetics.

That doesn't mean quit improving as a basketball player or quit that business, it just means try your best and admit luck is a factor.

</comment><comment><USER38> The study was discussed yesterday at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16496898](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16496898), but I guess we'll not treat the current article as a dupe, since it's a bit better.

<comment><USER39> why was the title editorialized? I think it's quite important that the results are in the title.

<comment><USER38> If you mean "The Role of Luck in Life Success Is Far Greater Than We Realized", that's misleading because the actual result was the output of a computer simulation. So we took the misleading bit out, per [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). It was also linkbaity, so that guideline applies too.

If you mean the title of the other post, it had the same problem and we edited it in response to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16497343](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16497343).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> These kind of articles and discussions almost invariably lead to defeatists and cynical attitudes. It's akin to saying "Unless you're born with good genes, you'll never be an Olympic athlete, so don't bother training and exercising".

You may not ever be wealthy by trying and working hard because of the role luck plays. But there's value in working hard at it that everyone should know, just like there's value in physical training that everyone should know. It takes training and (very importantly) discipline to stick with it.

<comment><USER41> It's interesting... there's an anecdote floating around out there somewhere about a famous wrestling coach (quite likely Dan Gable[1]) talking to a group of young wrestlers and telling them something approximately like:

"Most of you have the genetics to be an Olympic wrestler. But most of you don't have the work ethic".

Of course that's just an amusing anecdote and there's no reason to think that Dan Gable is an expert on genetics. But it's something to think about.

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

<comment><USER42> And what if the personality traits that feed into "work ethic" have a strong genetic component?

<comment><USER41> That's possible. That's one reason I don't take this quote as gospel or anything. Like I said, it's just food for thought.

As far as that goes, we don't even know for sure that we have free will and that we ever actually make any decisions at all. Maybe the whole universe it totally deterministic. I mean, it's hard to see an explanation of how it _isn 't_ so. That said I prefer (well, I think I prefer) to believe that we do have free will.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I think it is more about increasing your "luck surface area". If you are well prepared in your craft you will be better suited to exploit a potential opportunity favorably when the moment comes.

</comment><comment><USER44> It isn't luck, it's money. Successful entrepreneurs aren't lucky or hard- working, they're just people who have enough cash to operate at a loss while they pursue an idea.

<comment><USER6> You could argue that's luck as well, lucky to have wealthy parents or contacts that can finance your business.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Here's my feeling on luck: You have some control over your own luck, ie. you can make your own luck.

The key is to maximize your own opportunities for luck. For example, when I heard about the very first startup school, I didn't really have the money to go to Boston. But I found a really cheap flight at a terrible time, found a floor to sleep on in Boston, and went.

And in doing that, I met Steve and Alexis and ended up working at Reddit, which made a huge difference in my life. At that point the luck that I can't control kicked in (them wanting to hire me).

But I only met them because I made it a point to find them and meet them and say hello, and it would have never happened if I hadn't figured out a way to get there in the first place and made sure to meet them.

Things like this happen all the time. I look for opportunities were I can "increase my potential for lucky things". Sometimes that means going out of my comfort zone, or asking for something that may be a bit unexpected or there is a good chance someone will say no.

</comment><comment><USER46> And then the problem is that we are biased to believe that the winners did almost everything right, and the losers did almost everything wrong. Often is chance.

Having said that, those who persevere, by definition are more likely to succeed. They have more changes.

"The harder I work, the luckier I get".

<comment><USER47> Maybe I have a stronger intrinsic work motivation than most people, but I seem to get luckier when I slow down, assess the situation, and start making simple but sometimes extremely emotionally difficult changes.

<comment><USER46> Well, I think your scenario applies to another idea: most often we avoid doing that thing that really is the most important, because we emotionally fear it somehow. It can be just calling a client, or changing a career, or even translates for asking a partner out.

For this, you are right, it is vital to stop from time to time, assess the situation, identify the most important thing, and regardless of how difficult it is, do it.

<comment><USER46> And you are right, often in hustle mode we go fast and work hard, but don't work intelligently.

I'm trying myself to incorporate forced "retreats or slow-downs" to better assess my progress.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> The most important quote:

"In general, those with greater talent had a higher probability of increasing their success by exploiting the possibilities offered by luck. Also, the most successful agents were mostly at least average in talent. So talent mattered."

<comment><USER26> I don't understand this artificial distinction between talent and luck. Isn't one lucky to possess the talent in the first place? What one does to develop that talent into something meaningful is of course a different matter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> If the only thing that gets you out of bed in the morning is the blind pursuit of "success" for that alone, or money, that makes me sad.

<comment><USER19> Unfortunately that is an overwhelmingly large amount of people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> A bit of self-promotion. I wrote an essay on this topic. Perhaps it's worth reading for those interested in this thread: [https://hackernoon.com/a-guide- for-getting-lucky-in-startups...](https://hackernoon.com/a-guide-for-getting- lucky-in-startups-1ec24ee40c5c)

</comment><comment><USER51> It seems that King Solomon already figured this out:

"Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all." Ecclesiastes 9:11 ESV

</comment><comment><USER52> Define luck. The Universe by definition isn't deterministic starting from three particles in classical mechanics and one particle in the quantum case. Define success. Is it doing what you like being surrounded by people you love? Or has it to be a mansion and a yacht?

Without proper definitions the entire discussion is useless.

For example, I state that I have already succeed not because of luck, but because of my free will. And all further improvements in my life will be just better grades of success. Argument 'if a raptor didn't kill that butterfly far far ago you would now be slave to the vicious Uganda Empire' doesn't fit, as it can by applied to every statement. Argument that I don't have a yacht doesn't fit, as "yachts are for loosers" and success isn't tied to material posessions.

</comment><comment><USER53> I believe being at the right place at the right time with the right people matters a lot. And the 'right' part of this equation is more luck than talent, although preparation can definitely help.

</comment><comment><USER54> This study seems like a subtle ad for UBI. If everyone gets more resources, the most talented will be the most successful (instead of the moderately talented but incredibly lucky).

</comment><comment><USER55> IMHO, for normal people like me, who do not have lots of money in trust fund, I have to work hard, acquire skills and obtain luck to succeed. :-)

</comment><comment><USER56> We're on a small rock flying through an infinite universe. Our lives exist in a small blink of time. Computers run billions of operations per second using software with countless defects at every level of the stack.

We're lucky anything works at all. In that context, we succeeded just by being born and living as long as we have, and we'd be pretty narrow-minded to assume that the material success we enjoy is significantly more than a series of happy accidents.

</comment><comment><USER57> That's why you should try you best to enhance your luck factor.

[http://www.richardwiseman.com/resources/The_Luck_Factor.pdf](http://www.richardwiseman.com/resources/The_Luck_Factor.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER8> Every detail that happens in one's life can be attributed to luck. However, one's choices and effort are what enable one to recognize luck when it appears, and take advantage of it.

After all, what are the odds of success for a person who smokes dope and watches TV all day, compared with someone who gets an education and is out there swinging every day?

</comment><comment><USER58> You can improve your chances of success with hard work/perseverance though.

1\. Try -> (luck roll) -> fail

2\. Give up

vs.

1\. Try -> (luck roll) -> fail

2\. Try -> (luck roll) -> fail

3\. Try -> (luck roll) -> fail

4\. Try -> (luck roll) -> fail

5\. Try -> (luck roll) -> fail

6\. Try -> (luck roll) -> success!

<comment><USER59> Only if you have enough resources to continue.

<comment><USER40> 1\. Try get resources -> (luck roll) -> fail

2\. Try get resources -> (luck roll) -> fail

3\. Try get resources -> (luck roll) -> fail

4\. Try get resources -> (luck roll) -> fail

5\. Try get resources -> (luck roll) -> fail

6\. Try get resources -> (luck roll) -> success!

<comment><USER60> Try to get resources -> (luck roll) -> fail

Try to get resources -> (luck roll) -> fail

Try to get resources -> (luck roll) -> _starve to death_

You see this with people who always have some scheme in the pipeline and may have even had some modest success (and notoriety) with one of the schemes, but ends up dying alone and penniless anyway. They do the work, but never get the break. The world is just unfair sometimes.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Evolution of a Haskell Programmer - <AUTHOR> http://www.willamette.edu/~fruehr/haskell/evolution.html

<comment><USER2> I am simultaneously intrigued by the possibilities of functional programming, and horrified by the ways it can take people off into the weeds.

Were I to use Haskell in a real-world project with teammates, I'd have to keep an iron grip on the complexity of the code the team writes. Maintainability (mainly readability/comprehensibility as far as I'm concerned) is far more important for the kind of work I do than theoretical purity and hypothetical applicability to classes of problems the team isn't facing.

I could easily keep things on the rails on my own, but I suppose it's simply unsettling thinking about using Haskell for something sizable; probably due to my own lack of experience with it. I'd love to hear about sizable real-world Haskell projects, since I think FP is the future of software engineering.

<comment><USER3> Isn't maintainability going to be significantly added by so much being statically checked? Even if people are writing functions that are internally ugly, wouldn't haskell largely enforce that those functions can't really hurt the outside world?

It seems to me like "off the rails" in a pure language is going to be much nicer than off the rails in a language where mutable state is the norm.

<comment><USER4> I used to think this about Java's static typing. Then I worked on a ten person team writing a SAAS project, which had some... less than stellar coders. They would write 800 line functions, complete with 15 levels of nested "if else" statements and two-letter variable names.

Yes their code sorta worked, but Deity help you when it came time to add a feature or fix a bug.

Contrawise, my next project was with a team of moderately competent Perl programmers. Functions were concise and variable names reasonably clear. Maintenance was a breeze by comparison.

<comment><USER3> People who are going to use bad variable names and 800 line functions are probably not even worth thinking about, but if you had a bunch of mediocre programmers working in each language (perl, java, haskell), do you think their code would be more maintainable as you moved up the level of static typing? I would think so, but I don't have any actual experience with this or a really strong opinion on the subject.

<comment><USER4> My point is that architecture and programmer ability is a much stronger influence on maintainability than type system IME. Although your experiment would be an interesting one.

Java's static typing did make it easier to traverse the code using an IDE, and avoided the occasional subtle type casting bug. The easy integrated debugging was nice too (eg setting remote breakpoints).

These benefits were vastly offset by the productivity hit from wading through boilerplate code, language verbosity and dealing with type conversion issues.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Since the "original" mentioned at the top is not available anymore: [http://web.archive.org/web/20071020011113/http://www.cse.ogi...](http://web.archive.org/web/20071020011113/http://www.cse.ogi.edu/~diatchki/jokes/programmer.html)

</comment><comment><USER6> It misses the math Haskell programmer using the closed form expression: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibonacci_number#Closed- form_ex...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibonacci_number#Closed- form_expression)

What is the best way to implement it in Haskell since Phi and Psi are real numbers?

 _Edit: as the user tome told me.... It was about the factorial function not about fibonacci. I blindly see fibonacci._

<comment><USER7> For example like this (it provides _exact_ result _Edit—no matter how big n is_ ). CReal is some magic.

      import Data.Number.CReal

      fib :: Integer -> Integer
      fib n = round $ (φ^^n - (-φ)^^(-n)) / sqrt 5
          where
            φ = (1 + sqrt 5) / 2 :: CReal

      -- While we at it
      fib' n = fibs !! n
          where fibs = 0 : 1 : zipWith (+) fibs (tail fibs)

<comment><USER8> Yeah, the constructive reals lib is really cool, and that's definitely an example where it really shines.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's quite amusing how accurate this is, knowing Haskell users across a number of these levels. It's quite a handy learning tool as well with the added explanations at the bottom.

</comment><comment><USER10> I really want to understand about morphisms and category theory after reading this. Can anyone point out any good introduction to the category theory behind those catamorphisms?

<comment><USER11> More of a programming than a CT introduction, but very useful nonetheless: Functional Programming with Bananas, Lenses, Envelopes and Barbed Wire (1991), by Erik Meijer, Maarten Fokkinga, Ross Paterson

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Was there some new patterns since the last decade (the page updates stopped in 2001) ?

<comment><USER13> Unifying Recursion Schemes will be part of the ICFP 2013 papers ([http://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/people/jeremy.gibbons/publications/ur...](http://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/people/jeremy.gibbons/publications/urs.pdf)) which is tangentially related to the penultimate entry using recursion, as we have another way of reasoning about them now.

<comment><USER12> Many thanks

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Haskell? Just let it fade away!

<comment><USER15> Ironically, Haskell is gaining traction while your comment is fading away :-)</comment></comment>


I'm Attending MIT, Stanford & Harvard - <AUTHOR> http://mattiasgeniar.be/2009/01/29/im-attending-mit-stanford-harvard/ <comment><USER2> Although it is great to have lectures, slides etc. online (check also the Open Course Ware initiative from MIT), it is still a difference if you are just listening to the lectures or if you can really interact with the people attending. Education is more about interaction and struggling for ideas than it is about listening to lectures. Still great complimentary resources ... (also for lecturers).

<comment><USER3> >Education is more about interaction and struggling for ideas than it is about listening to lectures.

I disagree. Education is about acquiring skills & knowledge. Lectures, interactions, books, tutors, classmates.. these are the way education is delivered. Maybe university experience is "more about interaction and struggling for ideas than it is about listening to lectures," but saying that about education as a whole sounds a lot like saying news is about printing.

<comment><USER4> I semi-agree.

I have been an autodidact all of my life, and poor (and occasionally homeless) most of my adult life. I'm still young.

I've been learning partially via online video lectures (specifically MIT's OCW) and course materials since they first started popping up a few years ago, and I've learned a great deal - however, I feel that I would have learned _much_ more if I was in a situation where I was always very close to being able to interact with other people learning the same stuff in person. Not to mention that there are other benefits.

In fact, I'll probably be pursuing college after completing my next gig, which is 4-5 months down the road - mainly because the type of stuff that I'm _very_ interested in (like friendly AI and cognitive science) are only really moving in colleges - I'd be put directly in contact with more people with more interests doing more relevant stuff once I sludged past the undergrad part.

It's not that I can't keep learning and applying my knowledge on my own, it's that I think I may have hit a point where it's just not as efficient (for my purposes) anymore.

<comment><USER3> Doubtless.

Colleges can be very useful. Access to lectures is only one of the ways they do what they do. That particular aspect, well you can do that without them.

I'm not saying this replaces colleges. Just saying that this also helps people become educated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hulu for Academia, this is awesome!

I don't know if any of you feel the same way, but I didn't appreciate how much random and interesting subjects I could learn from college until I graduated. Now I can attend lectures on my own schedule and in the comfort of my home, nice!

<comment><USER6> I used to go through the course catalog as an undergrad the same way I looked at the Sears Christmas catalog as a kid. Trying to pick the most interesting classes out of so many choices, like trying to pick the toys I wanted at the top of my Christmas list.

Agreed that it's amazing to be able to "attend" so many of these lectures for free now, just need to make the time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The bandwidth will probably cost $100.

I guess that means discipline is worth $159,900.

</comment><comment><USER8> ..but not Carnegie Mellon? Oh well, I guess we can't all be the best. ;)

<comment><USER9> Does CMU offer any lectures online?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> To get the most out of these lectures, you really have to do all the problem sets and carefully read all the notes and material. Simply just watching the lectures is not enough unless you just want a very rough overview of the topic.

It will be really great if someone made a forum/website where people could interact with each other about a particular course and ask questions and have discussions regarding certain topics.

<comment><USER11> Not sure about MIT and Harvard, but for Stanford CS courses, if you go to csXXX.stanford.edu you'll typically get the class page, including slides, problem sets, programming assignments etc. Ex. <http://cs221.stanford.edu>.

Obviously, I agree with you. In fact, I'd go a step further and say that watching the lectures without doing the problems/coding gets you significantly less than halfway.

<comment><USER4> MIT has a whole directory of openly available stuff at <http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/courses/courses/index.htm>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is an incomplete collection. MIT has many more video courses here, for example: <http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/courses/av/index.htm>

</comment><comment><USER13> I've been a big fan of watching this stuff for edutainment. It's much like watching TV documentaries but with actual depth and insight about the subjects.

</comment><comment><USER14> This is one of the best thing that happened to me this year. Also it would be great if these videos were also available through torrents. Lots of people can't streamline videos due to slow internet connection and constant disconnections and these videos are pretty huge(It is taking me 4 hours to download a single 400MB video) But again just a thought, Thanks Academic Earth for such a wonderful website.

<comment><USER15> If they started to support torrents, they could slap an RSS feed on it and you could pull them into Miro.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is great. I've been watching some lectures online recently and found myself wishing for a good consolidated site. I wish there catalog was a bit bigger, but with luck this will grow. I wish they had some social tools too. Like a forum for each lecture for people to discuss and ask questions.

</comment><comment><USER16> Thats TRUE hacker news :) Thanks for sharing this link.

</comment><comment><USER9> This is a pretty incredible compilation of lectures. I also really like the fact that they post Sample Exams, so you can test your learning.

My question... whats the licensing of these materials. What would stop me from setting up my own mini college, with a big screen TV, and use these courses instead of hiring professors. The value prop would be to combine these lectures with a classroom setting and a program that would encourage students to read along with the courses (textbook) and graded exams for feedback.

<comment><USER9> Looks like MIT's stuff is licensed under creative commons, which means noncommercial. Wonder how hard it would be to get commercial authorization.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I have been blogging about free education for almost 3 years on my Free Science Online (<http://freescienceonline.blogspot.com>) blog. Check it out! I have collected hundreds of courses in math, physics, engineering, computer science, and other topics.

</comment><comment><USER18> It should be pointed out that at least with the mathy lectures, its the same material as is listed on Itunes U etc

<comment><USER19> The UI also takes some elements from iTunes, in particular the "accordion" selectors for subjects and universities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Link to Open Yale: <http://oyc.yale.edu/>

I've "sat" halfway through their Econ 159 - Game Theory and Econ 252 - Financial Markets. They seem interesting enough to be completed. Open Yale has best UI but their course plate is limited in numbers and to introduction courses.

</comment><comment><USER9> Anyone know what Flash video player these guys are using? Is it available for use? It's pretty awesome

</comment><comment><USER21> and they even have berkeley! wait until they add the computer science lectures to the site :)

It's cool, because I could just watch lectures from previous semesters on webcasts.berkeley.edu, or even on youtube.

</comment><comment><USER6> The particular class he highlights, "Computer Science III: Programming Paradigms" does look pretty awesome.

</comment><comment><USER22> Every once in a while I have a slight pang of "well, jeez, I spent $120k and 10 years doing this! And now it's free?"

It's like that moment when you buy a computer and its successor comes out the next week.

With a few exceptions, I barely remember the lectures. At times it feels like I barely remembered what I learned! But I sure do remember _how_ to learn.

</comment><comment><USER23> Academicearth is a non-profit startup?

<comment><USER24> from MIT opencourseware FAQ:

# Commercialization is prohibited. Users may not directly sell or profit from OCW materials or from works derived from OCW materials.

<comment><USER23> I saw that too, but they could make it some kind of integrative portal.

If their goal is simply to stay as they are, just with more content, that is, quite literally, incredible. If I'm wrong though, hats off a million times to them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> this is great! thanks for the link. perfect to listen in the background as we hack

</comment><comment><USER26> I understand this is likely a PR under the guise of a blog post - but it seems unfair to overlook iTunesU and MIT's already mentioned OpenCourseware.

The benefits of viewing lectures within the iTunes/iPhone/Boxee environment shouldn't need to be recounted here - but it's important point to reinterate for less techy folk who may be looking for something similar and already have an itunes store account.

<http://www.apple.com/education/mobile-learning/>

<comment><USER27> Quick! Edit away your fixed text and stop messing up the page layout!

There's still time! You can do it!</comment></comment>


How Do We Gracefully Fake a Functioning Online University System? - barry-cotter https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/glv7wt/comment/frke2zn <comment> barry-cotter > In short, I was looking for a solution when actually what is desperately > needed is a face-saving kludge. Right now, most young Americans passing > through the US education system do not acquire critical skills and deep > knowledge of their chosen subjects. The fact is, that's largely not what > higher education is for. It can't be. If it was, you wouldn't do it the way > it's done.

...

> The real trick that I think colleges are looking for right now is to find a > cheap way to move classes online that doesn't rock the boat. A way that the > strong students can get on with learning on their own and the weak students > can be kept entertained long enough to pass the course. And a way for the > really weak students to go on pretending to learn while we go on pretending > that they've learned something. But it has to at least have a veneer of > seriousness and accountability. And that's what's hard. That's the problem > that'll make some tech firm rich when they figure out a way to solve it.</comment>