VPNs and Internet Privacy - <AUTHOR> http://edgeofsanity.net/article/2017/07/16/vpns-internet-privacy.html <comment><AUTHOR> Put this write-up together over the course of the last 3 months when everyone started talking about getting VPN's. I know there's a lot of folks here building the "next best thing" on the Internet. Would be good if we started thinking about the privacy implications of our map-reduced, low-latency, high availability, machine learning algorithms.

Cheers!</comment>


Water Quality Portal - <AUTHOR> http://www.waterqualitydata.us/

<comment><AUTHOR> FYI:

 _The Water Quality Portal (WQP) is a cooperative service sponsored by the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the National Water Quality Monitoring Council (NWQMC). It serves data collected by over 400 state, federal, tribal, and local agencies._</comment>


GeoHot Says Goodbye To The Jailbreak Community - <AUTHOR> http://www.iphonedownloadblog.com/2010/07/13/geohot-says-goodbye-to-the-jailbreak-community/

<comment><USER2> I really wish he had never released his ps3 hack. It made the lives of those who actually use otheros much harder.

</comment><comment><USER3> Can anyone explain to me why people think he's egocentric? As far as I can see he just wants to share things with a technical community rather than with a bunch of teenage beggars. If he was so egoistic he wouldn't be closing down everything that gives him attention, no?

<comment><USER4> I don't think he'd shy away from the description of having a big ego. His posts are full of teasing, gatekeeper'esque type antics.

Heck, he chose the Kanye song "I've Got a Big Ego," as the BG track for one of his recent videos.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__TR86PLiHw>

He's made it so easy for jailbreakers, they don't respect how much time & work goes into doing what he does. It's that sense of entitlement that lends to him not feeling appreciated and shutting it down (for now).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Screenshots of 140 character text messages?! Kids these days.

</comment><comment><USER6> We'll see him again. No one that talented retires 'forever'.

<comment><USER7> Please tell that to why the lucky stiff.

<comment><USER8> How do you know he's not doing things under a different name now?</comment></comment></comment>


The Frontal Cortex : The Hidden Cost of Smart Drugs - <AUTHOR> http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2008/05/the_hidden_cost_of_smart_drugs.php <comment><USER2> The foundation for this post is the superstitious belief that all things balance out: i.e. that dramatically increased focus _must_ mean dramatically decreased creativity. Quote: "It makes perfect sense that such a cognitive trade-off would exist." As Errol Morris said, nothing is so obvious that it's obvious.

On the other hand, there are mounds of anecdotal evidence (and possibly some data) indicating that dopaminergic drugs like Ritalin, meth and cocaine have negative effects on original thinking; and likewise that drugs like LSD or psilocybin seem to have positive effects on the same.

(Note that I say original thinking, which doesn't necessarily mean creatively worthwhile thinking.)

My own pet theory on dopaminergics is that the constant stimulation of the pleasure response reduces our ability to evaluate ideas and distinguish between a good one and a bad one, or a fun activity and a boring one. This would help explain punding behavior (i.e. "tweaking") and "cocaine ideas", as well as the utility in getting school children to pay attention. It would also suggest that modafinil, which lacks this stimulation, wouldn't have negative effects on original thinking.

<comment><USER3> What exactly is original thinking, and what kind of "creatively worthwhile thinking" is not original? I was going to disagree with you, but what you said is too vague for me to even know whether I disagree or agree.

<comment><USER2> Original thinking being defined by novelty: new ideas and synthesis. Creatively worthwhile meaning good, usable, aesthetically sound, having value beyond novelty. The latter is a subset of the former. Or: not all new ideas are good ideas.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ritalin != Provigil. I've tried adderall, which is similar enough to Ritalin, and can anecdotally confirm the article's claim that creativity is reduced while on the drug. But, Provigil's mechanism is completely different, and I don't think you can make the same claim about it from anecdotal evidence just because they both keep you awake. Adderall and its friends do far more than that.

And if the same claim could be made of Provigil, at best the article's conclusion could be: There is a time and place for everything.

<comment><USER5> Moreover, it's quite obvious from the article that the author hasn't actually tried it to justify those comments. I've not tried Ritalin and such, but I have tried Modafinil. Though there is certainly some downside to the sometimes a little intense high of it, it definitely has been useful at times (such as when I was working a full-time job and starting up my company in the evening!)

I haven't noticed any issues with creativity on Modafinil. If anything, I find that I think of more interesting answers than otherwise - as if my lateral thinking was enhanced rather than diminished.

Daniel

<comment><USER6> I would have to agree with swombat. As with so many medical topics, many people instinctively respond without knowing anything about the published literature, let alone even the broad characteristics of the thing they are talking about.

Ritalin is a stimulant, like speed or caffeine. They are broad-acting jackhammers that boost your entire system, including your heart for that matter. Not exactly something to take lightly.

Modafinil affects the chemicals that the brain uses to regulate wakefulness, and surprise surprise many of us sleeping too little are actually a little bit sleepy even when we have just finished sleeping.

Many of the positive effects people ascribe to the drug are simply the effects of being truly totally awake.

ANYONE considering using modafinil should note that a single 200mg pill is a far more powerful dose than you probably want. That dosage is for a patient with severe wakefulness problems, to force their body to stay awake for an entire day.

Exercise restraint and caution.

<comment><USER5> Agreed - I only ever take 1/2 100mg pills - so 50mg in total - and not every day. Those are fine to give me a wakeful buzz through the day when I take them.

Even when I was working on my side business in the mornings and evenings, I still only got through about 1.5 of those pills a day, so that's a total of 150mg. Bear in mind in those days I was sleeping about 4 hours a night, plus a 1-hour nap sometime in the day. That lasted 6 months, and near the end I really needed the Modafinil to be productive in that time, otherwise I'd just curl up and fall asleep with my head on the keyboard :-)

Daniel

<comment><AUTHOR> How did the side business turn out? And, would you pop these pills again in a similar situation?

<comment><USER5> I quit and went on it full-time. It made a reasonable amount of money, and then it failed due to a major misunderstanding between me and my business partner about the goals of the business. I'm now working on another online business, though the first one is still running and making some modest amount of money.

I still occasionally use half-pills of 100mg Modafinils (ie 50mg doses), rarely, when I'm tired for some reason but I want or need to get some solid work done. Normally, though, I've reverted back to caffeine, for better or for worse. Occasionally, I also get bored of caffeine and go back to taking Modafinil regularly for a week or two.

I wouldn't recommend what I did - but not because of the Modafinil. Chronic lack of sleep just isn't good for you, drugs or no drugs. If I was teleported back in time to that point and offered that choice under the same circumstances, but with today's knowledge, I would definitely do it again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Wow. Suddenly everyone is using "deleterious". I've seen it 3 times in the past 2 days. That was my word dammit! Now I'm not going to get those quizzical looks whenever I use it.

Oh well, I guess it won't be as bad as when the writers of Star Trek usurped "anomalous". That was a dark day in vocabulary land...

<comment><USER6> Big ideas don't need big words. "Negative" works just fine.

<comment><USER8> "Bad". 1up! Oh, and if it's really bad, just prepend "plus".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> There was almost no information related to Provigil in that article. Sure, we got the standard, "Drugs are bad. Mmmmm...K?" But, that's just more noise. Why is is so hard to get signal on this topic?

Besides, I think that it's clear that the brain is a complicated and intricate combination of chemical reactions. I hardly believe that it can be considered balanced. Humankind has been self medicating with alcohol for centuries and the recent uptick in SSRI indicates that our brains may not not in fact be balanced (relative to the world we currently live in).

But, we're hackers; exploring new systems is what we do.</comment>


Analyzing Movie Subtitles with Sentiment Analysis - <AUTHOR> https://mubaris.com/2017-11-04/movie-sentiment-analysis <comment><USER2> It reminds me of a project I did where I sampled articles from the financial press, put it through a sentiment API, and found no correlation whatsoever with the SP500, VIX, Gold, Bonds, etc.

I got time-series charts that looked quite similar to the ones in this article -- just noise as far as I could tell.</comment>


Impact of the Amazon-Whole Foods Deal on Instacart - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/bizcarson/2017/11/08/amazon-whole-foods-deal-future-of-instacart-grocery-delivery/#450723a76d5a <comment><USER2> We've had mixed experiences with Instacart. At first we loved it. They literally have ONE job to do: make me not have to go to the grocery store.

But then we've had a couple of instances where they didn't pick the right food, or I rejected their replacement and they still sent it anyway, and I've had to go to the grocery store to fix the error, which defeats the entire purpose of Instacart.

At the same time, you feel like such an entitled a __hole for complaining (even if you 're not mad) that you asked for strawberry preserves and got raspberry preserves instead (or you ask for boneless chicken since it's easier to cut, but you get chicken with bones). I mean even typing it, I can't believe what a spoiled brat I sound like. But at the same time, this is the entire purpose of their service. If they can't get grocery shopping right, I just won't use them.

The other thing is, Instacart is aggressive about advertising its Express product but it's nearly impossible in all their copy writing to see what the actual price is. I had signed up for the trial but never actually found out what the price was (and it was "annual" which was even more scary), so I just never went ahead with it.

<comment><USER3> I actually have a crazy conspiracy theory that the reason they swap certain items is because there is a secondary means of profit where Instacart makes money through companies paying them to "suggest" certain products. I've had multiple occasions now where they've said they couldn't find an item that I knew was in stock, and in mass quantities. I've had common brands of milk swapped out for expensive shit like Atlanta Cream Top (which ended up being tasty). I have no hard proof, but I suspect.

<comment><USER4> I'm the engineer that wrote all the initial replacement algorithms and I currently work on the Instacart fulfillment system. We never have designed or even considered a system that would attempt to profit off not found items, that's insanely anti-customer and unethical. We do suggest items on the storefront, pre-purchase, but our substitution recommendation system is entirely driven based on any specific requests from you (that order or previously) and a collaborative model driven by prior replacements.

We are also working on better ways to collect preferences from folks; I'm not sure when any of that would be going live.

<comment><USER5> Maybe you should consider adjusting your recommendation engine to default to keeping the price as close to possible as the original item. The majority of your customers are going to have this as their highest priority. Basing it off prior replacements (which were most likely not optimal the first time), sounds like the engine might be perpetuating mistakes.

<comment><USER4> We do use (as inputs) problems folks report with replacements (which include "too expensive" as an option), so theoretically this is covered, but I do think that we will be looking at the initial ranking and boosting as it seems this is a consistent problem. As I noted elsewhere, we will be looking at better collecting preferences from customers as "the majority of customers" approaches don't always work for very personal items like groceries (eg some folks would prefer to have it organic regardless of cost!)

<comment><USER2> Right but if I'm shopping at Whole Foods, all the red grapes are organic. So are the eggs, whether they're $4 or $9 a dozen.

<comment><USER4> Yep, makes sense -- take my comment as "how things stand now" not "everything is hunky-dory" \-- we will definitely be looking at this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> >Mehta launched the service in 2012 and applied to Y Combinator, the prestigious Silicon Valley accelerator that hatched giants like Airbnb and Dropbox. He was rejected because the application deadline had passed. Undeterred, Mehta used Instacart to deliver a six-pack of IPAs to a Y Combinator partner. Within 30 minutes, he was asked to come in for an interview and the next day was accepted into the program. Shortly after, he closed a seed investment round.

A classic example of having faith in yourself and your product.

<comment><USER7> Wait, do people start companies from the ground up without faith in themselves and/or their products?

<comment><USER8> In most cases yes, people just starting do not have faith in themselves and their product. They have faith in their future selves and their future product.

If instacart had not even had an MVP ready, the more likely response would have been to wait for next year.

<comment><USER6> > If instacart had not even had an MVP ready, the more likely response would > have been to wait for next year.

Correct.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> tl;dr They are "stronger than ever" because all the other grocery chains are shitting their pants at the Amazon - Whole Foods deal and calling Instacart to shore up their ecommerce operations.

This does not in any way, shape or form suggest that Instacart actually has a strong _long term_ position or that their solution will help these grocers prevail against a direct assault from Amazon. Their largely manual, layered- over-retail fulfillment model has inefficiencies that cause higher costs and stocking issues vs. the high-efficiency warehouse approach that Amazon has perfected.

<comment><USER10> I have access to both Amazon Prime Now and Instacart in my market. Prime Now has access to a high-quality local grocery chain, and Instacart has basically everything else including Whole Foods. That local chain is much better in terms of selection and quality than anything Instacart has, especially Whole Foods, which I find to be overpriced for pretty indifferent quality.

Despite that, the service quality from Instacart is so much better than Prime Now that I prefer to use them unless there's something I absolutely cannot get except from that local chain. I'm crossing my fingers hoping that the outcome of Amazon's acquisition is that Instacart loses Whole Foods and the local chain moves over to Instacart, because then I will never order groceries from Prime Now ever again.

By service quality I mean all of these: good judgment in selecting items like produce and meat (although the meat quality from Whole Foods is very inferior), ability to add items before the order is shopped (you can't do that even if you place an order for the _next day_ with Prime Now), ability to cancel or otherwise alter an order (I had to cancel a Prime Now delivery in an emergency, and it required calling customer service), interactivity in selecting substitutions, good judgment in selecting substitutions, and accuracy and granularity of order status page.

I'm not saying I haven't had the occasional bad experience with Instacart on any of those, but they're good enough that I'd trust them to get me the groceries I need before a party I forgot to shop for. Prime Now I wouldn't trust unless I knew I had a good fallback if they mess up.

<comment><USER11> Prime Now and Amazon Fresh seem very different to me. I use Prime Now as a faster version of Amazon.com--if I do something stupid like move apartments and forget to buy a shower curtain until after the shops are closed, I can put in a Prime Now order for first thing in the morning. My wife uses Prime Now as a slower and more cost-effective version of goPuff sometimes.

Amazon Fresh, in contrast, is my primary source of groceries. Unlike Instacart, prices are consistently reasonable, the website actually knows what's in inventory so I don't have to make backup plans for everything I'm trying to get, and when I buy frozen foods, I get handy chunks of dry ice that I can use to make homemade smoke machines. Amazon Fresh is the first service I've ever used--and this includes previous incarnations of Amazon Fresh--that makes me seriously wonder whether I will ever make a trip to the grocery store again.

<comment><USER4> Can you clarify what you mean by "prices are consistently reasonable"? We do try to publish precisely what business model we are operating with pretty prominently on our storefront (e.g., if we have price parity with the store, or have a markup).

(engineer @ Instacart)

<comment><USER11> It's been a couple years since I've used Instacart, but I remember Costco deliveries being consistently expensive enough that I was better off going to the store myself unless I was literally crippled (which I was at the time).

<comment><USER4> since then, we've formally partnered with Costco and have adopted their online pricing model (still more expensive than the store, but not by very much): [http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Costco-debuts-new- gro...](http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Costco-debuts-new-grocery- delivery-service-and-12257392.php)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is a press release by InstaCart assuring their investors and employees everything is fine. We know it's not fine when PR like this comes out

<comment><USER4> it's "Instacart," not "InstaCart" and [citation needed]

(disclaimer: engineer @ Instacart)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> My experience with Instacart for Whole Foods delivery has been pretty bad overall. Too many items were consistently being marked as not available / not found by the shopper. Once, up to a third of my cart or almost 10 items. When you assembly your list and click "buy", you expect to get what you ordered, not for a third of your order to be missing come dinner time. I'm afraid Instacart won't ever be able to deliver a great experience as long as they have shoppers walking the aisles instead of direct back-of-store integrations and real time inventory.

The substitutions offered are also frequently terrible, and always without fail for more expensive items. Sometimes ridiculously so. And I'm pretty sure the shopper sometimes just doesn't want to buy some of the stuff I've ordered, like watermelons or water, that I know is available in the store.

Overall, I've found FreshDirect to offer a much more reliable service with good pricing and selection as well. They seem more professional in all regards. I also look forward to seeing what Amazon / Whole Foods come up with together, but I don't think the Instacart shopper model is something I'm interested in using again, it just seems like a fundamentally inefficient model.

<comment><USER14> Yes in the UK Tesco suffers from this (not as badly as a 3rd of items), because they pick out of their local supermarkets for the most part.

Ocado on the other hand uses huge centralised warehouses which have much more stock. They can also estimate substitutions ahead of time (much better stock management) based on delivery time and inform you to pick something else rather than some random choice when it's too late.

The difference in substitution levels is night and day. I feel instacarts model is really wrong on the logistics side.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> > Instacart has more than 500,000 customers and approximately $2 billion in > revenue, according to Forbes estimates. (The company, which _counts the full > price of customer orders as revenue_ , declined to comment.)

What significance does the caveat of counting (recognizing) full price of customer orders as revenue have? Is it different from traditional retail business?

<comment><USER16> It's GMV (Gross merchandise volume or GMV is a term used in online retailing to indicate a total sales dollar value for merchandise sold through a particular marketplace over a certain time frame. - wikipedia) not revenue (fulfilling the order through their service). Companies use it to inflate the topline (revenue) figures.

<comment><USER15> > Companies use it to inflate the topline (revenue) figures.

So, correct me if I am wrong, this implies Instacart is inflating the topline figures?

<comment><USER17> It is typical to include cost of goods a company onsells at a markup in their revenue figures. It's just worth noting in this case as they are effectively just a delivery service so it might be unclear.

<comment><USER15> I re-read the article. It says -

> Adopting an asset-light model, Mehta first built an app that let customers > shop from established retailers--charging a delivery fee and, _at least > initially, a slight markup_. Instacart kept a cut for itself and paid the > shopper.

So the implication is that they are not selling stuff at markups now.

> It's just worth noting in this case as they are effectively just a delivery > service so it might be unclear.

In that case, wouldn't revenue be the "delivery service fee" instead and not the value of what was delivered?

Looking at the article their revenue streams seem to be: delivery fees, Instacart Express Membership fees, partnerships with stores and advertisement fees. In which case using GMV seems odd.

So, the original question stands.

<comment><USER16> Yes - In my view revenue (and probably most accountants would also say this) is the delivery fee only. If you think about it, most marketplaces have this same issue. This isn't unique to Instacart, Enron did the same thing...(our accounting prof used them as an example). It's just not useful for analysis of the company.

Edit: Most marketplaces can charge you the "full price" to keep the transaction on the platform; however, they are only paid a small portion of that transaction as revenue -- e.g. Fiverr/Upwork/etc. don't keep the full amount the service provider charges their client, only a (hopefully) small fee.

[https://a16z.com/2015/08/21/16-metrics/](https://a16z.com/2015/08/21/16-metrics/) #6 Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) vs. Revenue "In marketplace businesses, these are frequently used interchangeably. But GMV does not equal revenue!" The rest of A16Z's explanation is worth reading.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Instacart began delivering in my area recently, and my first order was yesterday. All went well and I'm pleased. It took me back to a time when I ruminated start-up ideas. Standing in line at a deli, feeling guilty for making the deli person have to saw through a very tough salami, I imagined it was a perfect opportunity for robotics. Now I see it was simpler than that, just give customers a different way not to wait in line, and remove guilt by creating an opportunity to give the delivery person a tip. Why don't we tip deli people anyway? It's awfully physical labor they do, when the slicers are manually powered, and we as customers have to stand there and watch them. Sometimes it seems humiliating. I rarely feel as thankful as when I thank the deli person who hands me my order of cold cuts. But I still think the job should be roboticized.

</comment><comment><USER19> Costco claim "free drlivery" online, but the prices are 20% higher than in my local Costco store.

</comment><comment><USER20> I've gotten pretty good delivery service from Safeway in Seattle. What does Instacart provide over them?

</comment><comment><USER21> I like instacart but its frontend needs a lot of work. Until amazon fresh exists where I live it is nice to have around.

<comment><USER4> We actually take a lot of pride in our front end (most recently, to make as accessible as possible). Can you be more specific?

(Engineer @ Instacart)

<comment><USER6> There's some scrollbar jank on the homepage; the rendering of the page drops to just above 50fps rather than the buttery smooth 60 scrolling all the way down.

It's not going to lose you customers but it's the first thing I tested for.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Privacy Respecting Fitness/Sleep Tracker Recommendations? - <AUTHOR> Any recommendations for good fitness and/or sleep trackers? I'd love to use some, provided the data they gather stays mine and local to the device. I'm savvy enought to use apis or setup a local server if needed. <comment><USER2> Does the Apple Watch fit your criteria?</comment>


Effective Learning Strategies for Programmers - <AUTHOR> http://akaptur.com/blog/2015/10/10/effective-learning-strategies-for-programmers/ <comment><USER2> I was thinking about this some months ago and I came across the idea of source code reading. It helps to provide new insights in ways we can express ourselves (our logic in this case) in code. Learning how other world-class programmers expressing themselves is definitely a way to understand what makes them top tier programmers. I've written a post about source code writing to expound on this approach. Hope you all will find it useful! Cheers (:

[https://blog.phuaxueyong.com/post/2020-02-11-source-code- rea...](https://blog.phuaxueyong.com/post/2020-02-11-source-code-reading)</comment>


Should I fire an engineer for working on his side projects during office hours? - <AUTHOR> https://www.quora.com/Should-I-fire-a-software-engineer-for-always-working-on-his-side-projects-during-office-hours?share=1 <comment><USER2> When looking at an employee, measure their output.. not their input. I'm honestly not concerned about the amount of hours put in... it could be 4 hours hard work.. but if they deliver on targets, then i'm happy.

I also want to know that they are obtainable during work hours, attentive in meetings and are available for brief interaction out-of-hours if needed.

I'm less keen to pay people to keep the seats warm, and moving the mouse just enough to stop the screensaver kicking-in.

I'm a non-smoker, but I do not mind people having smoking breaks... but some people get really upset by this. If we are doing physical or menial jobs, then productivity is reduced.. but for intellectual jobs, we should simply measure output.

(Oh, and i guess /YOU/ are probably being paid by someone to read this comment.. instead of working)

Worth reading: [http://mentalfloss.com/article/74710/how-much-time-do-we- act...](http://mentalfloss.com/article/74710/how-much-time-do-we-actually- spend-working-work)

<comment><USER3> > it could be 4 hours hard work..

"Targets" are a pretty low end way to think of such an open ended job.

You can think of your job as "They asked me to do X and I'm going to do X and after that the rest of my 40 hours don't matter." Or, "I'm going to do as much as I possibly can in 40 hours." From the start of my career I always thought of it as the latter. I don't understand the mindset of the former in a professional job. Maximize your value to your employer or you'll be the last one to get promoted and the first one to get laid off.

There's always a backlog of defined tasks and there's always open-ended opportunity to make progress in ways you can think up yourself. Do you want to sit around waiting to be told what to do or engineer your own path?

<comment><USER4> > Do you want to sit around waiting to be told what to do or engineer your own > path?

It can be very difficult if not impossible to engineer your own path in most environments these days. These days most devs are simply trading time for money. If the backlog board is empty, they're on retainer waiting for it to fill up.

Because of the eternal effort of the enterprise to commoditize developers they're given no decision making power. So even though they continually identify work that could be done to improve product or process, they know it's a crap shoot to follow through on such work as it's more than likely to be rejected for one subjective reason or another.

<comment><USER3> That's not been my experience over a 20-year career. On a given day I might not have that freedom, and I've had ideas get shot down. But over the long run it's always been true that if I have extra time I can use it to my advantage one way or another. This feels like a pretty universal rule about work. If I worked at Chipotle I'm sure I could still find a way to distinguish myself over my co-workers.

<comment><USER5> If you take the advantage you gained from being recognized, vs the time spent towards that effort (including things shot down), is it worth it?

The recognition must have a high return to make up for all the time wasted on rejected initiatives.

<comment><USER3> Are you asking if tens of thousands of dollars in salary, and increased equity, and promotion to roles of greater responsibility, and increased job security, and recognition, and the freedom to design my own role are worth a lot to me? Yes, they are.

<comment><USER5> First of all, "greater responsibility" is not an advantage, it is a liability you accept in return for other advantages.

If the delta is worth "tens of thousands of dollars in salary", consider what your free time spent on other things is worth. It might not be.

But "freedom to design my own role"? Where do you get this?

<comment><USER6> > First of all, "greater responsibility" is not an advantage, it is a > liability you accept in return for other advantages.

This is an interesting point. We tend to conflate "greater control" with "greater responsibility", but we shouldn't. The first is a benefit, the second is a risk. They often go together, but having had a job with lots of responsibility and _no_ control, they certainly don't have to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Interesting the comments in this thread have focused on the 8hrs vs getting your work done, and not the key takeaway I had from reading the post, which was "Other developers have complained about it".

I don't care what hours people put in, or frankly, whether they meet deadlines or not most of the time (reality happens and most of our work isn't saving the world), but what would make me fire a developer in no time is disrupting the rest of the development team.

<comment><USER8> >but what would make me fire a developer in no time is disrupting the rest of the development team.

I can't really comment on it because my comment would depend upon the complaint and the reason behind it?

Is it actually disrupting other developers (say they aren't getting their actual work done)? Then definitely a problem.

But what if a developer who is doing extra but not getting paid more is complaining because they see this person not putting in extra and getting money by daylighting. The developer they are complaining about isn't the root of the problem, and even if you remove the daylighting developer, your complainer will eventually turn into them.

Basically, I can't tell from the question if the complaint is what I would consider legit or just office politics.

But I agree, if it is legit, then is a big factor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> You should fire them if they're not providing you the value your paying them for. That's it.

It's frankly immaterial if they're working on their side project at work. That may be part of what recharges them mentally. Which in the end, works out in your favor.

<comment><USER10> This.

When I have a big project at work I would also take a small one to recharge mentally as well and switch back and forth. We got new management and they saw this as us wasting time on the big project and declared we can only have one project assigned at a time. Genius, so now when I need a mental break I'm not allowed to work on things that benefit the company.

This lowered overall productivity and lead to either daylighting or just general time wasting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> _while I don't know your employee, I know why he's daylighting_

Sorry, you don't (always). I've worked on side projects during office hours before and will probably do so in the future. Yet none of that text applies to me. For me is is is not about feeling underappreciated or bad reviews or money or being fed up by middle management. I am appreciated, get extremely good reviews and get all tasks done, don't care about money enough for it being a factor and there is no middle management to be fed up with. It's just because I took a job which came with a certain amount of freedom I (ab)use that freedom, that is who I am.

<comment><USER12> Same, exactly. I frequently have impulses to do things that interest me, I enjoy following those impulses and they've benefited me immensely over the years..

There isn't always some malicious or negative root cause.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The big danger is the company siezing rights to any of the products the engineer made on company time, especially if they turn out to be worth a lot. It's one of the main reasons I wouldn't like to do this kind of stuff on the job.

<comment><USER14> Or with corp. equipment. Thanks Silicon valley for that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Co-founder with double digit equity shocked to discover employee with fractional percentage equity more focused on becoming founder than being good employee. Shocked.

<comment><USER16> Employee with fractional percentage of equity and dreams of becoming founder shocked to discover that the IP assignment agreement they signed when starting job means that old employer owns all the IP of his new start-up which he created on old company equipment on old company time. Shocked.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> If an employer is paying me for 8 hours a day I work 8 hours a day for them, if I'm mentally tired from a sustained period of programming I recharge by working on documentation or stuff I can do without a lot of mental effort.

On the other side of that unless I'm paid to be on call outside of work hours I don't answer my phone for anything less than "the server is on fire".

I've found that separation (and the expectation set early that the separation exists) prevents a _lot_ of these kinds of issues.

<comment><USER5> > I recharge by working on documentation or stuff I can do without a lot of > mental effort

There's a gang of technical documentation writers outside, and they want to have a word with you..

<comment><USER17> Tell them to get inline behind the systems adminstrators ;).

Joking aside I'd love to work with good doc writers, I do my best but it's not where my skills lie but I think having the developers at least work on the docs is something that isn't done enough but it's _amazing_ when it is done well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The idea of an 8 hour work day is that there is no idea, we just do this without any sensible excuse for it.

What is referred to here as a side project is actually the persons real life. The job is the side project.

Its a fascinating misconception that we would live to work rather than work to live.

You should make a deal with the engineer that he will do overtime if there is a lot of work to do and he will spend unpaid hours in office if things are slow.

Then you pretend to be interested in his side project.

<comment><USER19> > ...and he will spend unpaid hours in office if things are slow.

How is this in any way a good deal for the engineer? Being 'forced' to be in office has an opportunity cost, and should be compensated accordingly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I think you cross a line once you go to working on your projects. To me screwing around and doing nothing is very different than working on your own project/business during company time. If you want to do anything educate yourself on the technologies your project uses, but don't directly work on it during your work hours. Even education is different. I draw the line at working on your business during work hours.

<comment><USER21> Of course this is the only common-sense answer, I'm amazed I had to scroll this far down to find it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Well, Do they respond and work on your project outside of office hours? Do you pay them for that time. If it's not excessive it probably evens out.

<comment><USER23> That is spot on I think, some people will spend a whole lot of their personal time on work tasks just because they like it. The issue could be with the colleagues that clock-in/clock-out and see him work on personal stuff and think they can do it too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> My employer doesn't care, as long as I'm (a) getting my job done and (b) not competing with what they do as a business.

I have a 3d printer on my desk at the office. Boss actually gave me kudos during my last review for doing stuff like printing little utility parts for the office, team mascots, a Groot head for his desk, etc.

As long as it doesn't interfere with getting things done, my employer actually loves tech toys / hobbies / etc. One of our team-wide projects right now is fixing up an old payphone and hooking it up to our Asterisk PBX.

<comment><USER25> I "hear" you even have a TV, couch, and fridge full of drinks right in your team's area but the work still gets done.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> How about "Ask them to stop doing it" first?

<comment><USER27> I'd ask them why they're doing it.

I wouldn't ask if they're bored, if they're just not busy enough, if they're interested in a new technology, if they want to make the next Facebook, but a reason should come out of any discussion. Are 1-1s even regularly done? This sounds like a red flag on that.

The Quora question from a CTO, albeit of a startup whose financial situation may or may not be sensitive. But any kind of probing moves action from the employee to the prober. Less hours? More salary? Bonus? New role? Equity? They can't just promise something, as savvy people know such promises are empty.

In proto-corporate world, the manager's hands are tied much tighter. Promotions happen at fixed times of the year, or one-time-of-the-year only. Their budget is much more fixed. But if they are good at what they're supposed to do, manage, they will find a way, however too many managers don't think this is possible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I suspect the answers here will vary wildly with the commenter's actual position at their company.

Management would balk at it and say they ought to be immediately fired. I think it's usually a matter to see why they'd feel the need to work on their side projects during office hours- are they perceiving any extra effort they'd put into their company is not being valued enough? Are they still meeting all deadlines? Is there any conflicts of interest between the company and whatever project they are working on?

<comment><USER29> > I think it's usually a matter to see why they'd feel the need to work on > their side projects during office hours- are they perceiving any extra > effort they'd put into their company is not being valued enough?

Heck, for all you know they might be planning to use their side project to improve the company's product. Jumping to conclusions is always a bad idea, communication is key.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I was going to attempt a good comment here, but the highest positioned Quora answer from "Don Sevcik" is _so good_ , I don't think it's possible to top it. Seriously. If you're wondering why your employees are disengaged at work, read that top Quora answer. Then read it again and let it sink in. It's great because it centers on the employee's motivation and reasons for working on side projects, and the company's failure to address them.

</comment><comment><USER31> Uhhh, legally that company would probably own everything the engineer has been working on during office hours. So if it's really promising, then they might let him keep working on it. But he won't own any of it, and he can't keep it if he leaves.

I don't agree with it, but I think that's usually how it works, and they would have a strong case.

</comment><comment><USER32> One question is: is he able to complete his normal work tasks during the time his doesn't spend on his side projects?

<comment><USER33> I've yet to meet a manager that thinks that way. They always think that they've bought your time and get all of your skill for all of that time, no matter what they're paying.

And technically, they're right. If you aren't agreeing to that, you should find another job. But who would do that? Instead, as the answers on Quora say, people provide the value they think they've been paid for, and then use the rest of their time for their own things.

I have ethical issues with this, in case that wasn't clear. But everyone has issues with not getting paid what they're worth.

<comment><USER34> > And technically, they're right

My salary is seriously low if technically they've paid for an entire year of my time!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> The biggest problem I see here is that employees can see eachother's screens. Give your employees more privacy and don't treat them like children. Measure them by their output.

</comment><comment><USER36> I work with a bunch of remote employees. My general policy is that I want them to be available to say "hi" and talk about the day at the start of the day (9am) in my timezone, and to give me a status update at the end of the day (5.30pm, ish) in my timezone. (The morning "hi" is a standup, really.) I expect them to reply on Slack or by email in a reasonably prompt fashion (eg. within 1 hour) during regular office hours in my timezone, and if there's something that urgently needs doing (a bugfix, digging out some info because there's a meeting depending on it, etc) then I expect them to snap to it. As to their actual work, as long as the eight hours get done, deadlines are met, and we don't fall behind, it is a source of absolute indifference to me whether those eight hours of work are done during regular office hours or if they have an entirely different job they need/want to do during the day and can only do work for me at night.

That's for remote. If someone is physically located with the rest of a team and is doing side projects whilst their colleagues around them are doing real work, and potentially they're not responsive to work queries, then that seems fairly wrong.

Of course you have a conversation first with someone before you fire them!

<comment><USER37> I don't want to diss your way of managing remote teams, but the "in my timezone" part is incredibly absurd, except if your remote teams are very close. If you have a 5-hour offset, asking for someone to be available from 4am, or until 10pm sounds quite abusive. Now of course there should be a large enough common time window for several work interactions, but asking people in different timezones to have the exact same availability as you is wrong.

<comment><USER36> The biggest timezone gap we have is 3.5 hours, and they find it supremely convenient because they do other work in their morning. My company is based in the UK and we can only really work with people who can work in a moderately convenient timezone, at least on this sort of basis. If I hired a developer in San Francisco, I'd work with them in a different way, obviously.

Nobody is being abused, don't worry!

<comment><USER37> So you fall in the "close enough" category (UK being especially convenient since there's nothing close on the western side), good to know! I was mostly thinking of the US in my post.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Give them 20% time to play. Play is how humans learn best. My best works of engineering came from playing around with a system until I understood it well enough.

</comment><comment><USER39> Here is an engineer outputting X amount of work for a given work day which is equivalent to his co-worker only that he does it in less time. If you then require that person to work more than X in order to fill his hours, he will be incentivised to work less as he will find it to be unfair that he has to do more than his colleges. Thus, putting down time on his own projects should not be seen as a negative thing. Mainly because he is actually improving his skillset which in return benefits the company he is working for.

This however presume that he is in fact producing as much as his colleges in less time. The only two options I see is to let it continue as it is nothing wrong or cut him some deal where he can work less hours OR grant him a raise and ask him to do more for more pay.

It all comes down to expectations. If that employee meets your expectations then there is no reason to fire someone who is doing well just because he is better and more efficient than everyone else!

</comment><comment><USER40> I think that it depends on what the projects are. If they are literally building your competition, then yes, boot them asap, especially if they didn't sign a NDA/non-compete or if your legal team isn't strong enough to enforce it.

If they are just working on non-work stuff, then I would treat it as if they were spending that time on Facebook and reddit (since these are effectively the same): tell them that they aren't productive, then follow formal action if problem doesn't get fixed within some period of time.

The tricky thing is that the smaller the team, the bigger impact their non- productivity has, so that period of time might need to be shorter than usual. If that person is truly entrepreneurial, they will probably just say "fine," work their minimum and crank up their after-hours contributions instead until they can either go somewhere that will support their 20% non work time or decide to go 100% on their side projects

</comment><comment><USER41> From the link in his question he mentions;

> Many other software engineers have also complained to me and expect me to > take action.

If that's correct, then yes, you have to fire, otherwise it will turn the whole team toxic. Nothing breeds mistrust and resentment like having a co- worker where you feel you're picking up the slack for them.

</comment><comment><USER42> To me having some down time in an intellectual job is ok, so some HN, other news is good. So is self education and occasionally watching profession related videos online.

What is not ok is actively working on your own project or for someone else that is not a client of or owned by the company that you work for.

If it is a side project for the company then that could be alright, but the whole point of a side project is that it is done outside of regular hours. If it is work for your own company or another company then that's crossed the line. Technically your employer would own the work you were doing (because they paid for your time and equipment at least), and so could prevent you from sending the work to the other party.

Also don't forget what's happening now between Uber and Google.

</comment><comment><USER43> It seems likely they could accomplish twice as much in a day as they are currently providing your company. I suggest you talk to them, ask them to dedicate 8 hours to your tasks. Then double their salary, because they're doing twice as much in a day as their peers.

<comment><USER30> Alternatively, if you're happy with the employee's output and don't want to increase his salary, maybe work with him to reduce his official hours. Maybe he can work on his side project on Thursdays and Fridays, at home, on his own equipment.

<comment><USER44> love it!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> It reveals several problems you have to deal with:

\- not enough work given (it is his manager, not him) \- not driven by the mission (it is you, not him) \- a distance between you and him \- distrust from him to make his ideas come true in the open in the company

The final decision depends on a lot of small factor: is the guy producing a lot? Is he a good element? Why people are complaining about him and throw him under the bus? Was he hiding this activity? Does he confess when confronted? Did you ask him why he was doing it and how? Ask why 5 times to go to the end of his reasons.

There is so many better output than firing him. As a CEO, your job at that stage includes skills dealing with people. Firing is admitting your failure at that game.

</comment><comment><USER46> There are a few things that need to be acceptable for this kind of behaviors, IMO:

1\. The enginner needs to produce a certain level of acceptable quality and in timely manner.

2\. The engineer wants to participate in activities that ensures quality. E.g. code review, pull request, etc.

3\. Related to point 1 and 2, cutting corners and dumping work to his/her coworkers are so not acceptable. Clearly, the engineer has extra time.

I could care less about corporate loyalty, but the engineer needs to satisfy a certain level of SLA at the primary day job.

Almost all daylighters I've seen ruins team chemistry because he/she didn't really hide the side activities AND actually perform less than average, causing the rest of the team to feel salty.

</comment><comment><USER47> Clearly Conflict of Interest opening up both parties to potential litigation. a) Have a policy in place before hiring someone; b) remind the employees to follow the policy.

My previous company sold this type of training to corporations, who need to have concrete rules set up for the benefit of both parties (ok, mainly the corporation's benefit). I realize startups don't have time to focus on HR policies and legal protections, but get something basic in writing so both parties are on the same page prior to this issue coming up. Without it, the employee has the right to do whatever the heck they want and then sue for wrongful termination.

</comment><comment><USER48> You should fire her because I understand both of the following two facts concur:

\- If she told you during the interview that she would spend 2-3 hours on her work, you would not have hired her

\- Your team is complaining about it, which means that rhe situation is toxic

<comment><USER49> The remark about the team complaining is the most important above anything else.

<comment><USER14> Agreed.

If you're doing this, at least keep it private.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I'd welcome side projects as a mental diversion, but only for a brief while. I don't expect my team to be always on, and I expect them to be distracted partially. I just want them to get the right solution within a reasonable amount of time. It's easy to tell when someone gets sucked in to something they aren't supposed to be doing, versus just taking a much needed mental break without going so far as to take a vacation.

</comment><comment><USER51> That depends on what the 'side project' is.

There are lot of people in the web development world who regularly practice interview coding/algo/ds questions in office hours. They have to because the same company at which they are working expects candidates to have extraordinary levels of skills in competitive programming, which by the way is not possible without day-to-day practice.

Does this qualify as a 'side project'?

</comment><comment><USER52> It always helps appearances if an employee's "side project" can, in some small way, be incorporated into their job. I've had ideas for web apps before that I've developed as internal company tools just to justify my time at work spent developing them. I don't think this is always required, but it certainly staves off criticism from bosses and co-workers.

</comment><comment><USER44> a simple conversation doesn't hurt. i'm guessing he's probably bored or has a lack of motivation to do the full time work and possibly has stumbled upon something more lucrative, he/she could be out of there as soon as the mvp is done! i guess some obvious questions are whether or not this employee is working on open source projects or something for his own potential business, that wasn't clear in the question, if it's the later, have that conversation to figure out why. if it's open source that's not conducive to your company's goals then you need to set the rules and expectations explicitly. this is obviously affecting your team's morale so you need to have some decision on this, and quickly, because you've delayed for too long!

</comment><comment><USER53> this is very interesting to see the discussion and suggestions here all leaning the same way "does he get his work done?" being the most important bit of information required to make the decision in a almost all of the responses.

i've always suspected that over-delivering and working hard grants some leeway - that results are king, even compared to politics - whether its working on side projects on work time or equipment, turning up to work still intoxicated from last night, sneaking off for a quick spliff at lunch time etc.

its interesting to see this at least partially confirmed.

<comment><USER54> Bear in mind most of these replies are from employees, not employers.

There can be a lot of wishful thinking here.

<comment><USER55> The main concern of the question is the side projects, not whether the employee is performing adequately. This two questions are inherently tied together. If the employee wasn't performing then they would be fired regardless of the side projects.

So in order for the side projects to be a concern, it implies the employee is still performing their job at normal levels. So then the question becomes, why does the engineer have time and motivation to work on the side projects?

And ultimately I think, the answer to that question is that there's some failure on the part of company leadership, as other commenters have pointed out, regarding motivation, available work, and how over accomplishing is valued.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> If it interferes with his productivity or the productivity of others, then no.

But they really can't be understood as "office hours" if he's not working for you, right?

</comment><comment><USER57> >> "Well you should take on more work to show you are a team player." Nope. Team Player is code word for "Do more, and never get paid extra for it."

I wish I could call BS on this.

</comment><comment><USER58> Remind him that work done on company time is owned by the company, and that he might inadvertently give up ownership of his side project to the company.

It's not worth the risk.

</comment><comment><USER59> Only if the side project is an unauthorized intent of clone your software. Fire if he doesn't do his job. How want to fire if someone does more?

</comment><comment><USER60> Only if the output is an issue, I rather have an engineer who is still excited about coding vs. an engineer with barely any production.

</comment><comment><USER61> Nah, that's too soft. What you should do is assert IP rights over his side project and then sue him for infringing your rights.

</comment><comment><USER62> From _The Hacker FAQ¹_ (by Peter Seebach, 1999):

Section 2: Productivity.

2.0: My hacker plays video games on company time.

Hackers, writers, and painters all need some amount of time to spend "percolating" \-- doing something else to let their subconscious work on a problem. Your hacker is probably stuck on something difficult. Don't worry about it.

2.1: But it's been two weeks since I saw anything!

Your hacker is working, alone probably, on a big project, and just started, right? She's probably trying to figure it all out in advance. Ask her how it's going; if she starts a lot of sentences, but interrupts them all with "no, wait..." or "drat, that won't work", it's going well.

2.2: Isn't this damaging to productivity?

No. Your hacker needs to recreate and think about things in many ways. He will be more productive with this recreation than without it. Your hacker enjoys working; don't worry about things getting done reasonably well and quickly.

2.3: My hacker is constantly doing things unrelated to her job responsibilities.

Do they need to be done? Very few hackers can resist solving a problem when they can solve it, and no one else is solving it. For that matter, is your hacker getting her job done? If so, consider these other things a freebie or perk (for you). Although it may not be conventional, it's probably helping out quite a bit.

2.4: My hacker is writing a book, reading USENET news, playing video games, talking with friends on the phone, and building sculptures out of paper clips. On company time!

He sounds happy. The chances are he's in one of three states:

1\. Basic job responsibilities are periodic (phone support, documentation, et al.) and there's a lull in incoming work. Don't worry about it!

2\. Your hacker is stuck on a difficult problem.

3\. Your hacker is bored silly and is trying to find amusement. Perhaps you should find him more challenging work?

Any of these factors may be involved. All of them may be involved. In general, if the work is challenging, and is getting done, don't worry too much about the process. You might ask for your corporation to be given credit in the book.

2.5: But my other workers are offended by my hacker's success, and it hurts their productivity.

Do you really need to have workers around who would rather be the person getting something done, than have it done already? Ego has very little place in the workplace. If they can't do it well, assign them to something they can do.

① [https://www.seebs.net/faqs/hacker.html#section-2](https://www.seebs.net/faqs/hacker.html#section-2)

<comment><USER12> Always funny realizing what a stereotype you actually are.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> Usually depends on the contract of work. Most places have conflict of interest if the person does the similar job for 2 different employers. Side project could be landscaping, architecture, etsy business, or whatever that might not be conflicting and would be ok to continue. It is always good to communicate with your HR about the policies before starting any other project that might be conflicting to your current employment. So the real solution is a good Communication.

</comment><comment><USER64> The question has precious little detail, but it seems to me there are a few steps that can be taking between learning about the situation and firing the person. How about having a discussion with the employee, and trying to understand why they're doing it?

</comment><comment><USER65> A good employee does their job, and then does more. No way should they be allowed to work for someone else (themselves!) on your dime. Fired.

</comment><comment><USER66> I think they should probably be fired.

While I agree, output is the main thing to focus on... I would also ask a few questions:

1) Is the employee using company resources to work on their project? If so... it's bad for them and probably means the company owns it. If the company owns it, is the company getting a say in what's being built / is in line with the company goals?

2) Did the employee ever lie about doing their personal work at work? If so, I would suggest firing them for not being honest. If the employee is logging 8 hours, but only working 5... yes, that's dishonest. Are they billing clients for the extra time?

3) Did the employee flaunt, boast, or brag to others that they were doing personal work at work? If so, I would suggest firing them for being a disruption.

In reality, how I think this should play out is less black and white.

If the employee is getting his work done and still has time to do side projects, and I liked the quality of his work, like the employee, etc... I'd want to offer him a raise to do more work at work... give him more responsibilities that take up more of his time. If his current workload only takes 80% of his time, I want to find a way to give him a 20% raise and 20% more work. I know the first response to the question in the link said that management didn't like giving raises... but I disagree. If he was idle and had more time, and I could give him more work, I'd want to -- and pay him for it.

If that wasn't an option... if the employee was just killing time between builds working on his own stuff... as long as nobody was waiting on him, I'd suggest he use his own laptop, at least, and that we make sure his employment contract allows him to own work done using the company tools and internet. Assuming I don't know what he's working on, I'd want to know a bit about the project -- it could be based on something we make and that may be a conflict of interest, or be the next great Child Porn Bit Torrent Network, or a blatant rip off of copyrighted materials. I want the company shielded from liability there -- which means making sure he owns 100% of what he's working on. Likely we can't ever be shielded from potential lawsuit if we provided resources towards the project... even internet access... so I'd want to make sure there were clear lines and plausible deniability. "He used his own laptop, cell phone hotspot, etc."

If the employee lied about doing the work on company time... if they ever billed me, or a client, for hours spent on their personal project... I think that's a serious problem. I would have to fire them in that case. If they are reporting working 8 hours, but only worked 5, that's throwing off my KPIs and team metrics. If they are charging clients for more time than they worked... yeah I can't have that -- it puts my credibility in jeopardy. I'd have to let them go.

Lastly I'd encourage the employee to keep his mouth shut. Loose lips sink ships... and while the company has to give the appearance of treating everyone the same, I probably don't want this sort of thing to be the norm among engineers... creates too much incentive for false estimates, for starters. So we can have a deal where he does what he wants when his work is done, but he needs to keep it to himself. No asking the QA guys to test his project, no asking other devs how to solve personal project problems, no asking the graphic designers for logos, etc. If he does this work at work, he needs to not advertise that he is doing it or distract other people from their jobs...

</comment><comment><USER67> Is he/she using company resources? Then if so I'd say fire them. Since the team noticed, is it because of lack of responsiveness or inability to complete work? Or just that they saw them doing it? If they are getting their work done what's the difference between spending that time on facebook/twitter/hacker news??

</comment><comment><USER68> Is the name Levandowski, by any chance?

"It seems Waymo now thinks that Levandowski was deceiving Google almost from the moment it hired him to work on the Street View maps project back in 2007. Google first had concerns when it found out that Levandowski was working with his own startups, 510 Systems and Anthony's Robots, to build a self-driving car."

[http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that- think/transportation/self...](http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that- think/transportation/self-driving/waymo-vs-uber-8-things-i-learned-from- anthony-levandowski-taking-the-5th)

via [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14205715](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14205715)

</comment><comment><USER69> Also note many hiring contracts stipulate since you are using company resources and time they OWN what you are working on. I would give the person a stern warning then a firing. This is to protect all parties involved. If they are a contractor and working from home (not using company resources) then it is none of my business.

<comment><USER70> I agree: the cynical Enterprise response would be to assert copyright over everything touched during working hours and all that entails. After that: take a peek at all other projects this person has touched during the employment period and look for re-use of code that infringes on what is now the companies IP...

If the employee was working on a startup, then they just got acquired at the awesome valuation of "not getting sued to death" :)

Contractors and consultants are another issue... though billing Customer A for anything but work for Customer A creates its own kinds of legal pain...</comment></comment>


Is async/await a step back to JavaScript? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@gab_montes/is-async-await-a-step-back-to-javascript-95e31263dd31#.naiiw06cu <comment><USER2> So the author rejects what is basically syntactic sugar around the Promises because it _looks_ _like_ imperative programming, even though it's 100% promises, and makes the code cleaner to read and easier to understand?

It reminds me when object oriented programming was the trend of the day, and people got crazy about it. Every bit of code just had to be OO, and people would rewrite everything, including operating systems and network stacks. It was crazy because OO had become not a means to and end, but an end in itself.

Sometimes I feel like we are back at it again, but with functional programming.</comment>


How to Reject Engineering Candidates - <AUTHOR> http://code.dblock.org/2013/05/26/how-to-reject-engineering-candidates.html <comment><USER2> Please don't do this. I actually find these example emails much _more_ insulting than the generic "we're going in a different direction" emails.

The reason I prefer the generic emails is that in many ways they're a testament to the fact that interviewing has a high degree of randomness. In many/most cases, rejecting a candidate comes down to an amorphous feeling that they won't fit in. Or just a brain block on a particular problem which doesn't speak to overall technical ability. Bottom line: the process is often quite random, so attempting to ascribe random decisions to inherent personal attributes is insulting.

The one kind of feedback I appreciate is when it's specific and actionable. For example: "we only hire people with an active open source presence" or "we've decided to curtail all remote hiring." This is something with a clear reason that isn't inherently personal. And no, "improve your culture fit" is not actionable.

<comment><USER3> I've seen interviewers that were worse than the candidate, knew less, made mistakes in asking questions and evaluating the answer and then rejected the candidate anyway. To get an email like from the OP after something like this would be pretty terrible.

Recruiting personnel in human resources are not in a position to evaluate the merits of the interview and it might help if this person wrote the feedback from the perspective of the interviewer and not as a collective "we".

</comment></comment><comment> vezzy-fnord _These aren't perfect and they stay pretty general, but they aren't canned bullshit responses either._

Hm, I find that debatable. Your example rejection strikes me as overly verbose with little substance, is almost comically apologetic, and again boils down to the exact same one-liner of "You're not a good fit at this time."

It's really a long-winded way to convey the exact same (lack of) message, but with tidbits of one's resume and lots of apology sprinkled in to seemingly convey depth and empathy.

</comment><comment><USER4> Oh god, please don't do this. This is worse than "We decided to go a different direction," because at least that takes less time to read.

If you're not going to provide substantive feedback ("we felt like your performance on the nearest-neighbor problem was pretty rough and were looking for a more optimized solution") then just give the one liner and be done with it.

We get it: you're hamstrung because of legal liabilities. That's fine. Don't make it worse by making us read a paragraph that isn't going to be helpful for the future.

<comment><USER5> > We get it: you're hamstrung because of legal liabilities.

At one place that rejected me the recruiter offered to tell me the reasons _over the phone_.

I think that sidesteps any liability problem. The phone calls leaves no paper trail, and recording it without his consent is illegal.

<comment><USER6> > recording it without his consent is illegal.

Depending on your (and his) jurisdiction. In many US states, it _is_ legal.

<comment><USER5> I'm in California, where it is illegal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _We appreciate your huge desire to learn and your creative instinct. You're obviously excited to code and solve hard problems. But tech-wise we don't think you meet the bar that we're aiming for a candidate for this position._

Stopped reading right there.

You don't need to provide a wall of text why I'm not the right candidate. I don't intend to read your summary of my resume. There's really no point. I'm already in a mad/frustrated/disappointed/etc. state and giving me a great wall of text is adding insult to injury.

Engineering candidates are really looking for feedback on how the interview/technical component went. The "cultural fit" answer is a blackbox and stating it doesn't really answer what you're looking for.

You're better off just telling me I'm not the right fit and for legal reasons, you can't go into details. That's really it. Don't tell me about what you think of my previous experience. Don't tell me about the other candidates (frankly, I don't care unless they become my co-workers).

<comment><USER8> This does have useful info in it - the line starting with "But tech-wise".

I think you're right that technical feedback is the biggest thing, and even a binary answer is useful. "Cultural fit", "we found someone better", and "the boss' nephew got the job" are all somewhat interchangeable from the candidate's perspective, but "we didn't think you could do the work" isn't.

For a company willing to provide information (and yes, most seem to be scared of the legal issue), that's the most value-dense thing to provide.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I got rejected from Netflix, and they gave me the best feedback I've ever gotten after an interview. They said "Based on the interviews, we don't think you could get done what we need to get done fast enough".

I disagreed with them, but that didn't matter. I looked back on the interview and could see exactly why they thought that. That feedback helped me improve for the future.

<comment><USER10> Was the interview about stuff they need to get done, or doofy puzzlers?

<comment><USER9> Stuff they get done. It was a really good interview. Without going into too much detail (NDA), I had a take-home project about a real world problem, then there were a lot of questions about the project. Of course there are always doofy puzzles too, but those weren't a focus.

The only thing I didn't like about the interview was that they compared themselves with qualifying for the Olympics. That I should "consider it an honor" because I made it to the interview, which is like making it to the Olympic Trials. While I understand what they meant, I think it was a very pompous statement.

<comment><USER8> I've heard similar statements to that one, and never been pleased. I met someone with Dropbox who spent much of our conversation telling me how they only take the best (with extensive namedropping) and most applicants never even get a return phonecall.

I think it was meant to draw me in by promising a selective team (he took my resume), but it didn't work at all. It simply felt like he was bragging about his own greatness (because he _did_ have a job there) while telling me they would probably waste my time.

Even if the sentiment is good, any variant of "we're so great that failing is still an honor" feels tacky and self-aggrandizing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Providing feedback is pretty hit or miss - if you give anything specific enough to be constructive you also end up with people often wanting to argue the particulars. The feedback examples here are pretty bad. "You don't have enough experience" \- so you are going to hire him or her in two years once they have gained experience? "You aren't a culture fit" \- why not? Is it because he or she isn't a 20-something white male who likes video games and beer?

The feedback I have tended to give is along the lines of "Our process has a high chance of providing false negatives, so just because we are not offering you a position doesn't mean we are convinced you are not qualified. On [Programming Problem X] we felt that your code involved too much deep nesting and the variable naming was poor; in an environment with many programmers that is one of the most important things to do well. You also missed [Requirement Y] which, while not critical for the functioning of the program, did show a lack of attention to detail of the problem statement." And then they still argue. :-)

If they are really horrible they get rejected in real time, and if it's late in the process we have a conversation internally about how they managed to make it so far.

<comment><USER12> I think your first line is a great generic response and sufficient in itself:

 _Our process has a high chance of providing false negatives, so just because we are not offering you a position doesn 't mean we are convinced you are not qualified._

I don't really care for the reason why I'm rejected. I'm deluded enough in my own abilities to rationalize the reasons why you're making a huge mistake. :)

The main thing I want is a timely response. What drives me crazy is not getting any response at all.

<comment><USER11> That is something I didn't realize before but seems to be a common theme in the comments here - So I learned at least one thing to do better from this thread, even if it wasn't from the article. :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> As somebody who has been rejected a few times (and been on the other side), I completely disagree.

All I care about is speed. A boilerplate rejection in 1 day (or even that night) is 10x better than a more specific email. Also the reasons given in the example emails are so vague I think I would be more annoyed. Rejection sucks, there is little an employer can do to lessen the blow other than do it quickly, so as to avoid days of agony while the candidate waits.

</comment><comment><USER14> I do tons of hiring and there is no way I would ever write rejections like that. First of all if you are running a business and doing lots of hiring, there is no way you have time to write that many long thoughtful emails that refer to research you've done on their background, etc. Second, I highly doubt any adult developer gives a crap.

The only thing people want (and appreciate in my experience) is hard, cold facts about _exactly_ where they messed up so they can do better on subsequent interviews. There is nothing that feels worse than failing and not feeling empowered to succeed in the future. As lovey dovey as those examples are, they don't do anything to help the person succeed in the immediate future which is what really sucks about overly terse rejection emails.

<comment><USER15> I completely agree. I would never write anything like the examples in the article and would be very discouraged if I received any of those responses to an interview I attended.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Even though it is from a movie, I think this is better advice: "Do you want a bullet to the head or five bullets to the chest and bleed to death?" [1]

If you want to add something about what to improve, I think that is fine too but do it succinctly (not terse).

1\. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXEtOPMW2hM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXEtOPMW2hM)

<comment><USER17> Yeah I think that's much better advice. The problem with giving out reasons is that there's a good chance your perception of them disagrees with their own self perception, and so you run the risk of insulting them.

I remember years ago, one company I interviewed with ultimately didn't hire me because "my experience was very strong in graphics and game development but they needed more of a generalist". This was, I think, because my unix command line skills were mediocre (At least that's where I flubbed the interview a bit); but at the time they rejected me I was working in web development... so it's not like I'm not adaptable. Anyway, the only reason that I even remember that is because their rejection was _memorable_ , and it was memorable because I thought they were _wrong_. Of course I didn't argue with them because their minds were made up, but with this sort of decision you don't even want to invite the possibility of debate IMO, you just want to give a yes or a no.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Thanks for your article suggesting a better way to reject peeps. It made a good point, and I'm confident your hiring and rejecting career will be a colourful one, but we're going to stick with being human and not over- analyzing others' perceived shortcomings because we decided not to pull the trigger on doing the money-in-exchange-for-services thing. Cheers!

</comment><comment><USER19> Yes! I wish more companies would do this. I wrote a little blog post on this topic a couple years ago: [http://brandonb.cc/startups-stop-using-generic- form-letters-...](http://brandonb.cc/startups-stop-using-generic-form-letters- when-you-tell-a-candidate-no)

It's incredibly time-consuming to do well, so I cannot claim to hit the target 100% of the time, but I think it's worthwhile.

</comment><comment><USER20> Writing, in general, is an activity that engineers usually put at the bottom of the priority list but it's when you write that you actually organize your thoughts and think things through. The process of writing the rejection email, even if you don't actually send it, is likely to make you think about why you're rejecting them, and formalize/ reinforce concepts and ideas to keep in mind at the next interview.

</comment><comment><USER21> I would not find it easy to operationalize the feedback regarding cultural fit, either as a hypothetical jobseeker or as someone who theoretically knows what "cultural fit" is supposed to mean, which I would not model the modal jobseeker as understanding.

</comment><comment><USER22> While this was interesting, what I'd love to hear about are the candidates that were accepted who very obviously turned out to be a bad match within a few months time, and how they adapted the interview process and questions as a result.

</comment><comment><USER23> I'd hit delete on those messages after I'd have read the first sentence, which is one sentence sooner that on the generic one. If you're a hiring manager, please, don't post emails like this.

</comment><comment><USER24> I always thought they said nothing as a matter of liability.

<comment><USER25> Yeah, that's the explanation I've heard. "We don't feel you're a good fit at this time" says nothing beyond 'no', and so there is nothing for a particularly litigious candidate to use against the company. A more verbose explanation, which would be appreciated by a majority of candidates, might accidentally give them fodder for a lawsuit.

I'm actually curious how useful it would be though. I can only think of a couple of times I've interviewed, and been genuinely curious why the company decided not to continue with me. Most times it's been "-Wow-, that was a poor fit", either culturally, or what they expected me to know, or how the position was sold to me, or whatever (my favorite being an interview with Microsoft, where the HR rep scheduling it said coding in Java would be fine, but then the interviewer was predominantly a C guy, and so was telling me that my for(int i=0; i<stringObj.length; i++) meant I was running in O(n^2) time, and my having to correct him...yeah), and only one or two times left me curious what their impressions were.

<comment><USER10> A litigous candidate would litigate based on the interview experience, not the rejection letter, and then access to internal notes (where the illegal discrimination happens) during legal discovery. The rejection letter is irrelevant. I cases that win, do you think the HR rep said "sorry blackie, we don't want your kind here"?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I literally walked out of an interview at AirBnb in tears after the humiliation. I've been so traumatized after that I've stopped looking for jobs for over 3 years.

Only point of the idiotic BigO/whiteboard kind of interviews is to make the interviewer feel good about himself/herself.

</comment><comment><USER8> Some of the emails you present are straightforward and useful - the second one in particular I'd be happy to receive. If you feel like someone would be a good fit after improving their skills in some specific area, that's a good thing for the candidate to hear.

Others, though, feel downright insulting - especially the first email. Praising someone's programming background, past projects, and eagerness to _solve hard problems_ isn't an appropriate lead-in to telling them they failed a technical interview. It's either vacuous (they weren't talented, but you needed something to compliment) or back-handed (if their technical skills weren't good, how can you actually respect their past projects?) That's just a way to leave a candidate feeling worse about themselves and you.

Don't abandon this idea. I hugely value specific rejections, even blunt ones like "You don't have the skills we need" or "You failed the second technical interview". Just don't mix that with praising traits you're about to reject someone for.

</comment><comment><USER27> Do you have evidence that rejected candidates prefer this? That they find it less insulting, instead of more? Do candidates take you up on your offer to help with placement elsewhere?

All I see in defense of this approach in the article is "As a hiring manager, I...". This isn't about you.

</comment><comment><USER28> I tend to agree with others saying this is a bad idea. What I find the most irritating and insulting is when someone primes me to have a discussion about something (such as mentioning exactly what went wrong with the interview) and then acts as though there's no room for debate. If I got a rejection email like that, the first thing I'd want to do is write a reply detailing all the different reasons the interviewers were either wrong or overly concerned with the significance of my particular responses.

A lot of people are determined enough to start a debate about an interview. Comparatively few companies are willing to engage in such a debate and they shouldn't pretend otherwise.

</comment><comment><USER29> All the examples in that article come across as instances of a "praise sandwich" (also known by a less savoury name). The formula is, "We thought you were good at X, BUT, we need someone also good at Y".

Perhaps it's the impact of reading them all back-to-back, but the insincerity of that interstitial BUT begins to stand out. The impact of reading this feedback is to discount the praise, and emphasize the gaps.

Given that, the feedback doesn't seem specific and actionable enough in most cases. The last example in particular, I parse as [we appreciate your interest, but your skills aren't good enough], which I'm struggling to read as better than the standard template.

<comment><USER10> A feedback sandwich is:

1\. Congratulate for successes.

2\. Point out weaknesses to improve.

3\. Give encouragememt to keep working at it in future.

Plenty of people do it wrong and give BS feedback, but those people can put BS in any form.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> The standard rejection, even more "thank you for your interest, while you have excellent qualifications, we have chosen a different candidate" is fine.

The main thing is making the selection process _visibly_ fair and undemanding. The rejections that are most annoying are those in which the employer has candidates jump through numerous "hoops" and then rejects them, especially if the rejection is "oh you passed the test but we don't think you fit the culture" or something similar.

</comment><comment><USER31> Great topic! I try to put myself in the engineers shoes. I'd want to know why they didn't pick me and how I could improve.

</comment><comment><USER32> Writing these emails does not seem productive. You say you spend at least a half hour writing a draft, and you have someone else look over. That's alot of valuable time spent on a response that is almost as vague as the canned one liner.

Also, the cultural fit responses were worrisome.

</comment><comment><USER33> I like the intent behind it. I don't like the verboseness of it. Would you send this out to your own team? A simple "What worked, What didn't" with bullet points would definitely be way more useful.

</comment><comment><USER34> Author here. Old article, looking forward to reading your feedback!

<comment> jon-wood Has your approach changed since posting that article? What's the feedback been like from candidates that have received emails like that?

<comment><USER34> I still send detailed rejections and so does my entire team. We get a lot of genuine thanks for doing so and some smaller amount of nothings meaning this was either useless or the candidate got upset.

I try to minimize unnecessary praise and focus on actionable items. And I always use written feedback as source.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> There is no good rationalization for not hiring someone, because you cannot empirically connect your hiring process to more objective measures of success.</comment>