On the Fetishism of Capital and Prestige - <AUTHOR> http://sorryhumans.com/capital.html? <comment><USER3> > The Valley is not a world run by 20-somethings bringing about the future, it > is a world run by the same people who run the real world - the financiers.

It's surprising to me that anyone would think otherwise. Weighted for risk, the winning play in Silicon Valley is not to take a Thiel fellowship and go found a startup. It's to do what Thiel did--take a pair of prestigious Stanford degrees into the finance sector. It's the VC's that are the ones reliably cashing their paychecks.

(This is not a moral judgment about whether this status quo is right or wrong. I'm long past the point where I see the status quo as anything more than something that "is.")

<comment><USER4> "It's surprising to me that anyone would think otherwise."

Not really if you think about it. Many experiences from the outside seem like one thing until you go through them yourselves.

You might think Starbucks is all about coffee "why would anyone pay $4.00 for a ..." but if you are a frequent Starbucks customer you then realize it's about a sugar fix, community (if you spend time there and get to know the regulars), habit and a host of other things you might not realize at the outset.

New people are introduced to new things all the time with a fresh slate.

I would find it quite surprising for any 17 year old or even a 50 year old who hasn't paid attention closely to know what the real game is (in anything).

I remember as a young child the shock I had finding out that there were dishonest policemen or other authority figures who committed crimes.

People get a good chuckle at newbies for sure (laughing nervously because they were all newbies at one point).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> As somebody who has gone through a startup that was pre-VC and post-VC, I assure you we didn't take investment to get written about or be cool. We took investment because to grow your company beyond the first few people you need to pay people money. Sometimes certain ideas or opportunities you might want to invest in cost money. And that is what the VCs provide you, money. Sure, we could bootstrap and generate the money ourselves, but a) it requires short- term trade offs and b) its much slower. And slower is a problem because time is a really limited resource. Opportunity cost for all your employees, time for competitors to spring up and try to beat you, etc.

VCs are a tool. They allow people like me to have upside while at the same time make a salary. They allow me to instill confidence in potential candidates that our business is safe and if they take the job here, the company will still exist in 5 years. Look, Techcrunch is not an accurate picture of the valley, I'm not going to dispute that with you. But VCs are not evil people or a scam. They are a tool that for the right startup, at the right timing, can be hugely beneficial. It is pretty stupid that the best way to get written about is to raise funding, but then again getting written about is so inconsequential to success you can just ignore it. However having resources to grow and accelerate can be very consequential to success, and you need to make sure not to confuse the two.

<comment><USER3> I don't think his argument is that VC's are evil. I think he's just realizing that VC's run the show in Silicon Valley, in the same way those who hold the capital run the show in every industry. VC's decide what the industry looks like, because VC-funded startups have a major competitive advantage over bootstraped ones. This is true in nearly every industry, by the way. F500 CEO's spend enormous amounts of time obsessing over Wall Street analyst reports. There is a reason it takes a CEO like Jobs and a company like Apple to ignore them.

This isn't good or bad, it is just the nature of the world.

<comment><USER6> I actually think Jobs's main accomplishment was to prevent Apple from developing an Effort Thermocline (the line at which jobs get easier, rather than harder, with increasing rank). What I've heard about him is that he was actually a very nice guy to low-level employees, but brutal with executives (the opposite of the normal company where shit rolls downhill).

VC-istan has managed to put the Effort Thermocline between companies, which is rather ingenious. Crossing the Thermocline also involves a total change of job description (from "entrepreneur", by which I mean glorified Product Manager who serves as middle-management within the VC-istan ecosystem, to investor/executive).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > It was 2010. I was 17 years old (...) and I had found the next Billion > Dollar Idea.

> It was 2011. I was 18 years old (...) and I had found the next World > Changing Idea.

> It is 2013. I am 20 years old (...) and I have found the Right Thing for Me.

IOW "this time it's different". Color me skeptical. Looking forward to the 2023 edition or whenever he gets over the Dunning–Kruger effect.

<comment><AUTHOR> Your skepticism is understandable, yet I feel as if you are missing the core message here. The message here is not about my own journey - my narrative is a trope for the culture of Silicon Valley. Whether or not I succeed in my venture is irrelevant to the main point - entrepreneurship is not about raising money or acquiring fame; it is about building a business.

As much as I appreciate constructive criticism, your implication that I am suffering from the Dunning-Kruger effect is unwelcome. You know nothing of my talents nor my mind-state and to infer that the small glimpse of my life I have provided is representative of my being is naive.

<comment><USER8> I'm going to try to be nice and give you some advice: don't write like that. Constructing these overwrought sentences with the dashes and the semicolons and the vocabulary and whatnot just makes you look like an insecure sophomore trying to cover up inexperience with excessive verbiage. Which is probably accurate, but oh well. The purpose of writing isn't to make you look smart, it's to communicate your thoughts clearly and convincingly, and writing to show off all your fancy college-boy book lernin' is just going to antagonize your audience. You're still in school, my advice is to take a writing course and listen to what they say.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I switch between being overly concise and overly verbose. Today is an overly verbose day. I'm working on finding a cool median.

<comment><USER9> 'Over' is already an adverb. If you want to modify a word with 'over', combine the two words or use a hyphen, as in 'over-concise'. Although 'overly' is now common usage, it is still looked down upon by the literati.

There is nothing wrong with using dashes, but if you do, use the correct dash. The em dash is U+2014. If you cannot type an em dash, the custom is to use two en dashes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> So the "businesses" you looked at when you were 17 and 18, did you actually do any development on them? Or by "not going anywhere", do you mean you never crossed the first hurdles (financing, media exposure, etc)? I'm fascinated by the idea that you can build million dollar ideas while dealing with the demands of school and (presumably) a social life.

I wonder if having a third business by age 20 leads to ADD-driven Entrepreneurship. Not to knock your age, but you can't ignore the truth that your longest "project" has probably lasted a semester. The full experience of high school, which surely feels like an eternity (I know it did to me at that age, as it represented 20% of my life span!), is less time than it took for some of the most successful businesses to attain profitability.

So what's your timespan for success? I guess I question the ability to even have the perspective to drive not only product development, but the business development it takes to bring a company to profitability at your level of life experience.

<comment><AUTHOR> I did some development work on the first idea but didn't get funding or media attention before a founder breakup. For the second idea I was even worse - <USER2> decided not to even attempt to build the project unless I got YC. This sounds ridiculous, but this story is so incredibly common. I talk to my peers and I read posts about people who completely abandon their projects the moment they fail to get into YC or [name incubator]. As if these fellas are legitimate gate holders.

I am admittedly fickle when it comes to startup ideas, but I must make it clear that these were not my only projects - they were the projects that I modeled my understanding of entrepreneurship on. I was the Director of Technology at Modify Watches [1] for two years and helped grow that business with the team to a pretty healthy size. I also created a coupon site that was generating about a thousands bucks a month semi-automatically which I ran for two years. These just weren't Silicon Valley opportunities... I wasn't at the helm.

My timespan for success is completely dependent on which level of success I'm looking at. With my current business, I consider the fact that I wrote software which generated revenue within an hour of turning it on to be a pretty huge success. In terms of how long I expect it to take to make the Big Bucks, I am completely realistic that this doesn't happen overnight. I plan to be in this company for the long haul.

Although I do not have the life experience of an older gentlemen, I would posit that my experience is light-years ahead of people who are my age. [1] I've literally been running companies or been deeply involved in them almost non-stop since I was 13 years old. I have real, executional experience and textbook knowledge from my Berkeley education. Not to mention, this company is not a company of one... Anywhere my team and I need help, I'm exciting to bring on somebody who does have the life experience.

I really appreciate your perspective. I love a bit a constructive criticism / interrogation... It helps with introspection!

[0] <http://www.modifywatches.com/>

[1] Not necessarily light-years ahead of other 20-year old entrepreneurs, but of the 20-year old public at large.

<comment><USER11> > I talk to my peers and I read posts about people who completely abandon > their projects the moment they fail to get into YC or [name incubator].

Yeesh. As someone who's currently bootstrapping a lifestyle business, this point of view seems downright toxic to me. If you _really_ believe in your company (and its product-market fit), then giving away equity (and control!) should be an absolute last resort, not something to be sought out. Better to work on your business as a side-project for months of alternating consulting gigs and destitution.

<comment><USER4> "then giving away equity (and control!) should be an absolute last resort"

You are focusing on the down side and not the upside of taking money.

As well as the upside to having to not give up any control or equity vs. the downside to trying to do it without that money. And totally underestimating what you can do with a shit load of money vs. what you can't do.

<comment><USER11> Note that I said "lifestyle business", not "startup." I can't think of anything outweighing the downside of losing the ability to have my business as an extension of my own life, perfectly meshing into my own desires. If I had fuck-you money[1], all I'd do with it is... start this business.

I hope to still be running it in 40 years--and imagining someone having the power to _force me to do something I don't want to do with my own company_ , even after I've put in 40 years of effort into it... well. This is why I would recommend just taking on loans/debt first: when your company grows, you'll pay off debts (and when your company fails bankruptcy/liquidation will still make them go away), but equity is a loan that gets harder and harder to pay out the bigger your company gets.

Of course, this is all assuming you're taking investment from someone whose utility function doesn't match your own (usually in that you care more about the business, and they care more about the money.) I would gladly put in with some people--but those are _cofounders_ , not investors.

\---

[1] But really, I don't think I need fuck-you money--I've planned the business in stages (pre-set pivots), where each stage targets a market of appropriate size and entrenchment to fund the next stage (tackle B2B when small, B2C when huge, basically.) In effect, I'm just planning to be my _own_ investor. :)

<comment><USER4> That's fine. Please keep in mind though that investors are only one of a group of many people that you have to bogu for ("bend over, grease up"). There are also customers (major and minor), employees, partners (if any) landlords, spouses, kids etc. Agree that not having investors is certainly one less to deal with though.

Even on the issues of "customers" that can be granular. Do you have a bunch of small customers who don't know about each other? Or a bunch of small customers that do know about each other (and can create a problem for you if you don't beat to their drum?). Do you have the type of business (not you but anyone reading this) that has a concentration of business with 3 large customers and if any of them left you'd have a big problem? Do you have someone who owes you money, won't pay (a big sum of money) and you have sleepless nights?

"and when your company fails bankruptcy/liquidation will still make them go away"

I come from a time and place where failure like that was viewed differently. It would not be as easy for me to do that and not have it bother me. That said it's not a bad mindset if it doesn't have the same impact on you (you're lucky it's really hard to un-ring that bell).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Man, now I feel really bad for exploiting all those 20 year old Stanford and Berkeley kids by handing them millions of dollars to see if they can get their ideas to work.

From now on, y'all are on your own -- good luck!

<comment><USER13> You're not _handing_ them money jackass, you're _loaning_ it to them, and you're being very well paid for it - ROI waaay above market rate, if you realize that market rate means the junk bond rate.

"Handing" it to them would be if you didn't get equity or anything else in return.

<comment><USER14> In no way is VC a loan. It's an investment. A bet.

(Ignoring the use of convertible debt, which is really just a hack to benefit everyone).

<comment><USER13> Don't work in finance. You'll lose a ton of money if you try.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Don't read TechCrunch. It's a cesspit of hype and sensationalism. Any plan which involves "get on the front page of TechCrunch" is a horrible plan, IMO.

I still occasionally look at TechCrunch, mostly because it's a good test site for browsers (because it's really memory-hungry). And every time I get sucked into reading an article, I inevitably end up feeling dirty. It's similar to how I feel after reading the covers of the gossip magazines when I'm waiting in line at the supermarket.

</comment><comment><USER16> Yes, taking VC money is a double-edged sword; that's basically the long and the short of it. However, it's a great thing that investors will line up to throw millions at a nascent tech start-up, especially if you want to spend your life building big companies.

VCs obviously have a lot of power and influence in the Valley because many businesses need a big chunk of start-up capital and they have it, and they own fractions of many companies and sit on boards. The fact that they are influential isn't a reason _not_ to associate with them.

Bootstrapping your business and paying your engineers' salaries out of your revenue rather than investment is admirable. I'd like to try it sometime.

The main thing to recognize is that when you take money from investors, _you_ are claiming the business is a good business. Successful fund-raising is not derisking, it is you explaining the risk and why you will succeed.

</comment><comment><USER17> _I have found some of the best reasons I ever had for remaining at the bottom simply by looking at the men at the top._

\- Frank Moore Colby

</comment><comment><USER18> It goes without saying on HN that not playing the VC-driven-startup game is the tougher road of the two options. That being said I have the utmost admiration and respect for those who are working hard to give us a more role models to follow in this mold.

\----

Btw completely off topic, but the red square on white background design immediately evoked images of Campbell soup in me, at which point I realized the magnitude and importance of their branding and visual identity.

<comment><USER19> > It goes without saying on HN that not playing the VC-driven-startup game is > the tougher road of the two options.

Tougher how? There's no way I could start a company if I was resigned to the fact that I'd have to be selling myself to financiers constantly. To me, running off my own cash is easier and saner.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> A VC fundable startup is one in which you KNOW you can turn $1 into $20. Once you figure out how to do this, you will want as much money as possible to make that happen as many times as you can. That's when VC's are needed. You take VC money for growth, not for ideation or market validation. Before you find your business model you should stick to bootstrapping, angel investing and just keep iterating until you figure it all out.

</comment><comment><USER21> As a 20 year old, maybe you should avoid writing such pompous and definitive posts and write with more humility, or indeed not at all (for now).

</comment><comment><USER22> Smart kid. It took me 20 years to figure this out.

</comment><comment><USER23> Some of the comments here a bit disconcerting. This is just a critique of the mentality that many aspiring entrepreneurs unknowingly engage in. It's not really an indictment of venture cap.

Also, discussing what nobody wants to hear and pointing out our deeply rooted assumptions is definitely a good thing. Sad that some people seem to get so defensive about such things.

</comment><comment><USER24> High on emotions. Low on facts and ideas.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't write much. If you have concrete feedback, I'd appreciate the commentary!

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Make things people want to buy, and you will be wildly successful.

</comment><comment><USER26> Note to the author: your Twitter account doesn't seem to exist?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Fixed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm not going to join the douche-pile of people attacking the OP because of his age. I admire his courage.

OP is literally sophomoric. He's beginning to realize that "tech" (meaning VC- istan) isn't a meritocracy, and this is a really hard realization. This is that stage where you hate something but don't know _why_ you hate it, and every time you speak out against something, people tear you down because you haven't figured out exactly what is wrong with it (much less how to fix it). You might complain about "politics" without having new insight into what makes various environments political.

I hate VC-istan and I have good reasons for it. I don't hate VCs-- not individually, and not conceptually. I don't hate every VC-funded company, of course; there are good ones, I'd probably raise VC (as horrible as it is) if I were in that space. I just hate the ecosystem and its _anti_ -technical, 17th- century reputation economy that is ripe for extortion. (The reason multiple liquidation preferences, participating preferred, and entrepreneur payment of VC legal fees exist is professional extortion via social proof; the VC knows he can pick up a phone and rape your shit for breakfast.) I hate that it encourages people to build horrible companies that destroy young peoples' careers. It's ridiculous how a bad implementation of something very old (patronage) can be dressed up as innovative and new.

OP isn't there yet on his knowledge of the _why_ , so his knowledge seems superficial. He'll get there, and he probably understands more than he can articulate right now.</comment>


Curse.com fails to notify Bukkit.org users of data breach - <AUTHOR> http://maxkorlaar.com/post/31 <comment><USER2> It's actually worse than the online post here indicates. There was another <script> tag at the bottom of the page that had remained there, seemingly missed after the password theft script had been removed.

Ultimately I think the site's been serving foreign (potentially malicious) JS for about two months with Curse having been aware for probably a month without users being informed. The password theft script was definitely there for at least a month before it was removed. It's great to hear Curse are working on a bug bounty programme but I as I mentioned in IRC it's disappointing to see such a big company respond like this.

There's some more information available from the channel IRC logs: [https://korobi.io/network/esper/channel/bukkit/logs/2015/12/...](https://korobi.io/network/esper/channel/bukkit/logs/2015/12/07/#L268)

</comment><comment><USER3> It gets worse that they're "still writing an announcement" to this day.

[http://bukkit.org/threads/let-users-know-their-password- was-...](http://bukkit.org/threads/let-users-know-their-password-was- stolen.396783/)

<comment><USER2> It's unfortunate the thread was locked, I feel like it's an important topic to discuss. I only hope the official announcement thread stays open for discussion.</comment></comment>


The Devil in Plain Text - <AUTHOR> http://devblog.arnebrasseur.net/2013-04-plain-text <comment><USER2> Honestly this sort of thing is a much better fit for statically typed languages. In modern typed language like Haskell or Scala (and presumably also F#) it's very easy natural to build parsers that can move back and forth between string and text representations, and the APIs one uses are largely generic whether one is building XML, Javascript, SQL or something else. It's also natural to use "tagged" datatypes to statically enforce that user input is handled differently from internal strings (I understand perl has a "taint" module that does the same thing, but presumably it has to happen at runtime, and I'm not aware of similar functionality in Python or Ruby at all).

Try a statically typed language sometime - they're not all like Java. You might be surprised.

<comment><USER3> >>Try a statically typed language sometime - they're not all like Java. You might be surprised.

This statement shows the kind of damage Java has done to the larger programming community.

Let me tell you the reason why people shudder to use to Java for things like text processing. To do as simple a task- to simply read from a file, do minimal processing(like extracting fields) and write to another, you have to deal with tens of api calls often with long names. Its extremely difficult if not impossible to remember each and every api call and the order they need to called in. So the net result is every time you need to do something, no matter how simple. You simply go to the internet, get a known-to-work-well template and just copy-paste it into your code.

And this is just the beginning, a sufficiently large Java application can be totally incomprehensible to understand, modify or develop without an IDE. Far too many nested api calls, far too much XML. Bulk of Java code today in the wild is machine generated and machine modified(I mean through IDE's)

Java these days feels like assembly language programming. You have to play with far too many api's to do even the simplest of the tasks.

No wonder people flock to a dynamic language at every chance they get.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think a blog post by Peter Bex, "Structurally fixing injection bugs", is a better description the problems associated with strings: [http://www.more- magic.net/posts/structurally-fixing-injectio...](http://www.more- magic.net/posts/structurally-fixing-injection-bugs.html)

Quoting it: "In other words, you're performing string surgery on the serialized representation of a tree structure. Just stop and think how insane that really sounds!"

<comment><USER5> That quote is great, made all the better by the reality that writing code is doing that surgery manually.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> His example of how things should work is pretty much 1:1 how the webhelpers.html library works in python:

        >>> from webhelpers.html import literal
        >>> p1, p2 = literal("
"), literal("
")
        >>> foo = "foo&<bar>"
        >>> type(p1)
        <class 'webhelpers.html.builder.literal'>
        >>> type(foo)
        <type 'str'>
        >>> p1 + foo + p2
        literal(u'
foo&<bar>
')

And yes, having this sort of thing implemented at the language level, in a generic way that can apply to HTML, SQL, and anything else would be wonderful.

While we're asking for ponies, I'd also like it if "costOfPieInDollars = distanceInMiles + angleInDegrees" would be an error (unless each part was explicitly cast to a compatible type, eg the base int)...

<comment><USER7> I'm not sure I understand your last point. Do you desire for compilers to deduce the underlying type from the name of the variable or a type system that would let you create subtypes to give them additional contextual informations that the compiler would then use to enforce integrity?

<comment><USER4> Well, actually Kawa Scheme has a feature called quantities [1]. (+ 1cm 2m) equals to 201.0cm, (+ 1cm 2degr) throws an exception (degr has to be declared first, with (define-base-unit degr "Temperature")).

To tell the truth, I've never found any use for this feature.

[1] <https://www.gnu.org/software/kawa/Quantities.html>

<comment><USER8> I'd imagine that such type/units system would be most useful in interactive use, like in WolframAlpha where the system has quite good "understanding" of units and how they should be applied to formulas.

<comment><USER9> It would be very useful in production code as well - consider the case of the Mars Climate Orbiter: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter#Cause_of_f...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter#Cause_of_failure)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Why not just use the real thing, and code in Perl? Besides if you're doing anything "sane" someone probably already did it and uploaded it to CPAN. For example, if you're writing your very own XML parser you're probably doin it wrong, just select one from CPAN and be done with it. I've done innumerable jobs which appear complicated but boil down to "use" two (or more) weird apparently unrelated things from CPAN and set one equal to another, rolled up in some initialization and error handling code.

<comment><USER11> I have to say that HTML::TreeBuilder saved our bacon a couple of years ago. But as far as XML goes, Python's implementation of Expat is perfectly usable

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I was expecting to see this...

             *                       *
                *                 *
               )       (\___/)     (
            * /(       \ (. .)     )\ *
              # )      c\   >'    ( #
               '         )-_/      '
             \\|,    ____| |__    ,|//
               \ )  (  `  ~   )  ( /
                #\ / /| . ' .) \ /#
                | \ / )   , / \ / |
                 \,/ ;;,,;,;   \,/
                  _,#;,;;,;,
                 /,i;;;,,;#,;
                ((  %;;,;,;;,;
                 ))  ;#;,;%;;,,
               _//    ;,;; ,#;,
              /_)     #,;  //
                     //    \|_
                     \|_    |#\
                      |#\    -"
                       -"

</comment><comment><USER13> Fancier string manipulation is still just string manipulation. The more correct way to handle it would be to use something like an xml-builder to construct your html, which could then automatically escape all of the given text-node data appropriately.

</comment><comment><USER14> Don't want to be the prototypical middle brow dismissal but this sounds like a bad idea to me. Or it would need to be 100% implemented in the guts of the language. Why? Because strings need to be pickled, memcached, passed to other machines using other languages ding other work, etc.

There was a template language called ptl in python using things like htmltext and it is actually a crazy dog biting everything's and everyone touching it.

</comment><comment><USER15> It sounds very much like the OP is looking for Yesod.

<http://www.yesodweb.com/></comment>


There are no small changes - <AUTHOR> http://www.contrast.ie/blog/there-are-no-small-changes/ <comment><AUTHOR> Current version of this article seems to be missing a stylesheet and some images.

Here it is ran through Instapaper's Text bookmarklet: [http://www.instapaper.com/text?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.contrast.i...](http://www.instapaper.com/text?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.contrast.ie%2Fblog%2Fthere- are-no-small-changes%2F)</comment>


Ask HN: How do I hire someone to make my site faster? - <AUTHOR>

I run a couple of sites that I'd like to speed up but know nothing about CDN and other technical things.  How would you go about hiring someone who could help with this?  Or are there any services I can use? <comment><USER2> Your first step is to look at a few simple tools that could give you ways to get perceived (and actual) speed-ups. These are your low hanging fruit, before spending time (and money) on infrastructure upgrades.

Look for a 'YSlow' plugin for your chosen browser (they exist for Chrome and Firefox), which can help you to identify things that are causing your site to appear slow.

After that, then I would look at CDN, and then I would look at database optimisation (many people just don't "get" indexes, and don't understand how much of a difference they can make), and finally code optimisation.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's good advice, but that's what I need help with. I don't know how to look into database optimization, CDN, etc. Where should I go to find someone to help? Are there forums, or services that do this?

<comment><USER2> You could probably hire a free-lancer to get most of this stuff going for you (there are plenty of sites around for hiring people to do small jobs).

Ultimately, though, you should look at trying to do as much as you can yourself. The better you understand your system, the better you can run your company.

Still, CDN and database optimisation isn't the first place to start. As I mentioned, look at YSlow, which should give you a few places to work on for optimising your sites.

As mentioned by someone else, depending on the technology your sites are running on, there may also be plugins/tools available to speed things up with little to no real effort.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Before doing anything clever/expensive, why don't you try CloudFlare?

<comment><USER4> I didn't know about CloudFare, thank you!!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Do these sites use a prebuilt CMS? Most have a cache plugin, and if you're not doing any caching of mostly-static pages, that'll probably fix all your problems instantly.

</comment><comment><USER6> Email me email@example.com the URL and the reason why you're trying to make it faster. I'll take a look at it and get back to you with the low hanging fruit.</comment>


Genius Hacker Who Made Distant Vibrator App - GetCloserToHer [video] - <AUTHOR> http://fundersandfounders.com/sex-tech-becoming-mainstream-justing-wilcox-life-30-april-2012/

<comment><USER2> Nice video, nice event! Love to see what new startups comeup from the next event.

<comment><AUTHOR> Looking forward to seeing you

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Awesome! Would love to have one</comment>


Y Combinator-backed Xix.ai wants to predict what you'll do next on your phone - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2017/03/17/xix-launched/ <comment><USER2> It seems really difficult to create personal agents that are actually useful to users considering startups have been trying to solve this problem for decades. I've only tried Google's Android default and it's painfully trivial and useless despite knowing absolutely everything about me.

"In the future you smart phone will know everything about you and will be able to predict the right action at the right time."

I'm not sure this is the best elevator pitch in this privacy anxious world. Sure, Google and Facebook knows everything about me but I'm not sure yet another party needs detailed access to my private data too.

<comment><USER3> I use Google instead of DuckDuckGo mainly because it does a noticably better job at delivering what I want. Data collection/privacy is an acceptable price I gladly pay for this functionality. I accept this as the way it is & am okay with it.

I imagine in the future, others will think of the services they use similarly, in that it's worth losing a degree of privacy to get whatever it is they get by doing so.

As long as malice remains a non-issue, out of sight & out of mind, I don't forsee future generations objecting to such things.</comment></comment>


Expedia Affiliate Hacks Google Plus Local hotel listings - <AUTHOR> http://blog.sweetiq.com/2014/01/expedia-affiliate-hacked-google-plus-local-hotel-listings/#axzz2qgalvsWF Recent Google Plus Local hack shown to be by Expedia affiliate <comment> no-brainer apparently this stuff happens all the time...

"Quite a few of these hijackings were my properties so I wanted to leave a few thoughts. This is not unusual activity, especially in the affiliate space, it simply got press this time. This has been happening for quite some time, albeit at a smaller scale. I will even go as far as to say it is the same group of affiliates. RoomsToBook is affiliated with RoomWhiz(z) which was an offending affiliate less than 2 months ago.

Read more: [http://blog.sweetiq.com/2014/01/expedia-affiliate-hacked- goo...](http://blog.sweetiq.com/2014/01/expedia-affiliate-hacked-google-plus- local-hotel-listings/#ixzz2qh1VX1xe")

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> any SEOs for hacked sites see traffic changes or referral changes</comment>


So you want to apply to Y Combinator... - <AUTHOR> http://www.zachbruhnke.com/so-you-want-to-apply-to-ycombinator

<comment><USER2> Just watched Moneyball last night, and the end of this post makes me think of what was said in the movie. I presume this to be true, because it's one of those simple things (for a little longer, FMRI's are starting to read thoughts afterall).

The point was that a scout can spot a player with great talent and abilities, but no one but the player knows what goes on inside his head, and no one knows how he'll do for sure in the big leagues.

Seems like a perfect analogy to founders. YC is spring training where they've identified people with potential and will then try to coach them onward.

The big difference, though, is that you can get 'the majors' (a successful company) without YC, and as stated in a similar post today, the greatest founders will find a way regardless.

Props to all who try. More props to those who try, fall, and try again.</comment>


Why You Need To Work For A Big Company - <AUTHOR> http://onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid/33111/7-Reasons-Why-You-Need-To-Work-For-A-Big-Company.aspx?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+onstartups+%28OnStartups%29&utm_content=Google+Reader <comment><USER2> Its funny, my advice would be the exact opposite. Don't join a big company if you are the kind of person who's ethusiastic and ambitious about what he or she does. It'll more than likely crush you. It'll feel like you're back in 2001, your co-workers will likely be average to poor, you won't have a choice in technology, you'll notice that being a shill is more important than being good.

<comment><AUTHOR> I worked for a startup where it felt like I was being crushed. Most of my co- workers and people running the company were average to poor, we didn't have a choice in technology and I saw a person who downloaded porn all day, was barely at the office and was caught with child porn on his computer promoted to senior management.

That's not a good enough reason. I worked for a large company and know others who work for large companies and find the work very rewarding.

The choice of what experiences will best suit you on your way to starting your own company is more personal than black and white comparisons. Not all big companies are evil empires designed to crush you (e.g. Google) and not all startups are rosy playgrounds for engineers.

In the end, as expressed by several people here, it's a personal choice that has to fit your own values and which experiences you want.

<comment><USER3> _Not all big companies are evil empires designed to crush you (e.g. Google)_

Google is "designed to crush you"? Hmm.

<comment><USER4> I think that was meant as Google is an example of a company not designed to crush you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's probably worth distinguishing between a big company where you're working on the core business (i.e. an engineering company) and a big company where you're working in a pure cost centre, like IT. I suspect that may explain the diverging views of the article and some of the commenters here.

<comment><USER6> I would also add that it's possible for this dynamic to change as a company grows.

I speak from personal experience - successful e-commerce startup where I am director of web.

Year 1 was about fast growth. We built a home-grown e-commerce platform, and made it scale. Lots of interesting challenges for hackers and a strong technology focus - improvements to the platform contributed directly to the bottom line.

Year 2 has a different emphasis. Many of the technical challenges are now past us. We did such a good job in Year 1 that we don't have to do much WRT scaling, UX optimization etc in Year 2. Year 2 is more about sales and marketing - continuing to find channels to acquire members and getting products into the store that people want (at good prices).

This has much less of a technology emphasis than Year 1, and indeed while Year 1 was very exciting, in Year 2 I find it difficult to motivate my team when the tasks at hand are things like "ok guys so we need a modification to our internal admin tool so that marketing can...".

Sure, there are constant improvements to be made. We do regular tweaks. We think up mini projects ("site looks weird on Android. ok lets fix that this week"). But the dynamic has most definitely changed and that is just a factor of the type of company this is (it's a sales company) and the stage of growth it is at (nearing a B round of financing).

<comment><USER7> What's much worse is Year 2 of a startup that didn't do so hot on the technical challenges in Year 1 and is treading water.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Be careful though. Even when the money, perks, and coworkers are good there are still serious risks to working at a big company. Certain aspects can make it a soul crushing endeavor that will burn you out and destroy your motivation to do anything software related (which can significantly hamper your efforts to move on to something less soul crushing). This is especially dependent on your personality. There's a reason why turnover is so high in this industry and it's not just because people are jumping from awesome experience to even awesomer experience.

<comment><USER9> I've worked for 2 startups before. Less money, less perks, coworkers can't cooperate well enough with each other and don't have time to gell.

Startups, at their first year, might be fun. But second and third year are soul crushing if they don't expand as fast as Twitter or Facebook. Startups have to keep the bubble strong (i.e.: brainwash) to motivate their employees. Otherwise, people will feel burn out due to 12-14 hours of working plus rotation on-call.

Most startups also write hacky code. In the long run, this can decrease moral of developers.

And you're right, there are reasons why turnover is so high in our industry. I don't think working for a big company is one of them. I didn't do a formal research but when I was browsing (re: stalking) in linkedin, the data I saw showed that people who work for a big company tend to stay longer than those no-name/small companies.

On the other hand, keep in mind that our industry keeps on building software to automate a long of manual tasks in a blazing rate. This could also be the reason why turnover rate is high: layoff due to automation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The main argument for working at a big company, in my eyes, isn't on the list:

You need a big company to work on a big product.

If you want to work on something as complex, massive, multidisciplinary, and grand as, for example, the space shuttle, small companies aren't an option. Sure, you might be called upon to learn fortran, and there will be underperformers and politics. But the engineering challenges can be mind- blowing anyway.

I'm reminded of one of the characters in _Snow Crash_ who loved her study so much she would go _anywhere_ to practice it. Sometimes big companies are like that. A dead sexy product can make it all worth it.

<comment><USER11> "If you want to work on something as complex, massive, multidisciplinary, and grand as, for example, the space shuttle, small companies aren't an option. Sure, you might be called upon to learn fortran, and there will be underperformers and politics. But the engineering challenges can be mind- blowing anyway."

Or you could work for a small company like SpaceX and work towards making NASA obsolete. The same engineering challenges without all the bureaucracy.

<comment><USER12> SpaceX has > 1,100 employees. How small is a small company?

(Source: <http://www.spacex.com/updates.php>)

<comment><USER13> It's pretty small for an aerospace company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> There plenty of poorly run, large companies, that are filled with people that aren't that smart, bright, or motivated. Many of these companies don't have great perks, but you might get some job stability out of it.

If you are going to work for a big company, choose wisely.

<comment><USER15> While this is excellent advice you could say the same about small companies too. There are plenty of small companies that are filled with people that aren't smart, bright, or motivated and that don't have great perks.

If you're going to work at any company choose wisely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I think there's one big thing missing here : the potential to meet future collaborators. A large company is the ideal place to find other people with skills and burning desires to do other things. You can find out if they have these skills by observing their output while someone else is paying. When it comes time to form your own, you should at least have a good shortlist of people to invite on board.

<comment><USER17> By that token graduate school is also an excellent place to meet future collaborators. If you go to a school that is decent, or better, you're surrounded by very smart and motivated individuals who will be looking for work within 4 years. You can see them give presentations, read their work, drink with them at pubs and work together... all good experiences to get to know them.

<comment><USER16> This may be true, but there is a difference between studying together and working together in a commercial enterprise. I've found the people I studied with drifted away whereas people I've worked with stick closer by. That, and people you meet through study all tend to be of the same skillset, whereas people you meet through work have varied skillsets.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> It depends on what you value.

The problem with being at a really large company is that it can be extremely difficult to find any kind of self-worth. You have to try and chase it but there will be so much red tape at every doorway that you'll have to find some other way around it. You may be in a huge department. You may be doing stuff that is only seen internally. You'll spend time hacking to rebuild something crappy to prove it's value. You're wedged into a system (slowly). The processes are already set. You'll learn a fair amount of things, but nowhere near what you'd probably learn at an energetic startup or doing your own thing.

The absolute best thing will be the people. You'll meet some outstanding folks... Potentially the kind that want to start something different.

It will be interesting for the first 6 months to a year, and then you'll become pretty bored. Unless you just don't care and you're riding the wave.

That self-worth thing is a pretty big deal. The majority of people enjoy being 'comfortable.' Finding the comfort that just pays the bills. That's great. That's where big companies shine. I'd rather chill on the edge being a leader revolving around building something new. But it took me joining a large company to learn that.

So, really, just follow you're heart. You'll learn. Nobody can argue that being a bad thing.

</comment><comment><USER19> I especially like point #7: "You get a baseline. Then you go and try to do it better."

One possible interpretation: "learn as much as you can about your enemy, then use that knowledge against them." :-)

<comment><USER20> I'd be thinking "learn as much as you can about your customers, who have virtually infinite amounts of budget relative to your needs and _lots_ of problems which you don't have because you can program around them in a day."

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> It really depends which large company you work for. My very first job was at an average large company and it was rather soul crushing. I currently work at a huge media company that has a terrific work atmosphere/culture. I think the difference between the two companies was a bankruptcy. The later company went bankrupt, projects were canceled, the hackers in the room figured they would be laid off any day and started working on whatever they felt like. Clients caught wind of what the hackers were developing and started buying in. The upper management saw all of this and didn't dare mess with it.

</comment><comment><USER22> I worked for a very large company with ties to the Bush administration that everyone loves to hate.

Here is my take, and I would _never_ want to work at a company of that size again...

1) I can say I did learn a lot during my tenure there, however, they were such a huge collection of edge cases that not much was directly applicable to anywhere else I have worked. I can say that I got a good grasp on not breaking large complex systems though.

2) I found this to _not_ be the case, and this was very disappointing to me. When I started there I was expecting to be surrounded by the best and brightest on a mission. I found that in the case of this company, in my group(say around 100-150 people) it was 5% of the people doing 95% of the work, surrounded by people content to do just enough to not get fired.

3) semi true, I do maintain contact with several people there.

4) Perks- NO NO NO NO NO NO!!! Benefits at this place sucked. After I left(2008) the company suspended raises for everyone for at least 18 months. While I was able to change titles to a much higher "paygrade", the company did not want to ever make my salary reflect the title.

5) Probably the biggest reason I never want to work at a large company again. Most managers were promoted beyond their competency, so decisions were made based on how much power they could wield and not what was best for the company. A great example is how they would not allow certain blackberrys to connect to the enterprise server because one of the managers thought the scroll wheel was a toy. iPhones were banned because it took > 1 hour to cut off your access if you were terminated. Thats right folks, exchange/Phone policy dictated by the fact that the company thinks they will probably fire you and they cant cut off your access quickly enough.

6) true

7) Absolutely. Im now at a small company(~150 employees) and the lack of all the crap I mention above has drastically improved my well being.

</comment><comment><USER23> Best reason: going home at 6 o'clock and rarely getting called on nights and weekends unless you volunteer for it.

 _1\. You learn an awful lot. You get to see the good, the bad and the ugly. You see lots of very good ideas (like proper source control) and some not so good ideas (like how not to motivate people)._

For good ideas, I think this depends on what you mean by "large." A small company company that has been around for a long time, and possibly grown into a medium- or large-sized company during that time, acquires a high level of expertise in its particular problems. It's really an education to see the technical solutions that emerge from years of accumulated experience in that kind of environment. However, after companies get really large, they devolve back towards mediocrity, because the prevailing management mentality is that technical excellence does not scale. Executives four or five levels away from the front lines want to feel in control. If they aren't in control, nobody is in control. If nobody is control, the company drifts aimlessly. And the executives aren't in control unless the people on the front lines are predictable and interchangeable. There's a flaw in that logic, but it's natural for executives to feel that way. Technical excellence (except in the empty sense that everyone claims) also means that management can't solve technical problems by itself, because management's only methods for solving technical problems are managerial: ramp up hiring, hire contractors, outsource, etc. Empowering management means organizing the company around the most common technologies, the most common practices, and the most common quality of developer. From that point of view, technical mediocrity is a feature, not a bug. There's no need to learn mediocrity first-hand: you can learn it from books and blogs, and from there you will quickly match or exceed it.

For bad ideas, I'm probably in the minority here, but I don't think there's much benefit to seeing ideas fail. Some things are obviously good or bad, and some things you need to see play out in practice, but in my opinion, the non- obvious things you need to see play out in practice are usually sensitive to context and specifics. They might work poorly in a large company but well in a small company, or poorly in one large company and well in another large company. Scrum, for instance, turns out to be a poor fit (in my opinion) for the engineering department I work in. If I try to predict whether Scrum will or won't work in another situation, however, I will fall back on common sense unless there are particular parallels to the situation I observed.

 _2\. You get to work with lots of clever people._

Surprisingly true, probably because of the exact reasons he stated. However, the better the tech economy, the more the best people feel confident leaving.

 _4\. They have lots of perks. I do miss the canteen, the sports gym and the other 'extras'. And that week's 'training' in Amsterdam at the company's expense. That was a lot of fun!_

Not always true. Many big companies have no perks at all, or insultingly crappy ones. Mine won't even provide decent coffee -- we have a bunch of coffee fiends who simply don't drink coffee at work. It's better to have a coffee house nearby than to have a company canteen. (Also keep in mind that if you're a lower-level resource, big companies may compensate for lax productivity standards by paying more attention to when you're in the office, which makes it a bad idea to go out for coffee on a regular basis.)

As for training, that depends, too. Sometimes big companies won't pay for any training except overpriced training in proprietary software, and then only one or two people get it. You can encounter cases where the company will only pay for (e.g.) introductory Oracle training, but will only pay for training for its most senior resources. The introductory training isn't offered to junior resources, and the company won't pay for advanced training for the senior resources, so nobody ever gets trained. (And you'll never know whether this is on purpose, or simply due to stupidity.) I was going to get flown to expensive official SAP training halfway across the country, but then (thank God) I managed to avoid working with SAP. Result? No training of any kind for me, even if it's half the price. Unless I want to get a Master's degree, that is, in which case I have a lot of leeway. It seems ridiculous that the company will pay for a Master's degree but won't shell out a thousand bucks for a conference, but apparently that's not unusual. The rules are often bizarre and counterproductive.

<comment><USER24> Re training, yep. Our training budget was seriously mismanaged.

We got a budget every year, but our development manager was too weak to organise it himself along with his other demands. So it got passed off to a senior team leader to organise. He didn't really have time to organise it properly. We went many years where the budget was not spent, and therefore got _shrunk_ the next year.

When we did finally organise training, it was very basic, and the company gave us 1.5 days off to study, which included the time to go to the testing centre (1hr trip each way, 2hr exam). Result: one afternoon off to study. At least I got Java 1.4 Certified Programmer (yay :-/ ).

The next training was organised the same, only this time, to avoid us all taking the 1.5 days at the end of the financial year (who'd have thought we'd do that!?!) training was organised in waves of 3 months. At the end of the 3 months, no one had taken an exam! So guess what? Training materials stayed with those people for the next 6 months. That was galling for the rest of us.

When I moved department, we had much better managers. They were pro-active is seeking out our training needs, and everyone knew what training or courses they would be doing over the next year. Then corporate HQ stole our training budget to train a team of inexperienced, but geographically cheaper, resources in our jobs. Surprise surprise we got pissed and started leaving. Now I hear that little experiment was an abject failure and they were trying to hire us back as consultants!

 _deep breath_ _sigh_

Hey, I got paid regularly, travelled a fair bit, learned a TON, and did get to work with some exceptional people. However racism was endemic among senior management, who were all based in ###### (redacted).

<comment><USER25> Could you, uh, undact the location of the racist managers?

<comment><USER24> Israel. I should point out almost all of my dealings with Israeli's have been positive.

However there were consistent appointments of Israeli managers and resources, where there were far more experienced and capable resources outside of Israel. Indians were exploited quite badly and rarely considered for any position above team leader. Within a division promotions would be blocked world wide, except in Israel, or Israeli's with Israeli bosses.

Conversations would often switch to Hebrew. If you knew a little Hebrew sometimes you'd figure out they were openly talking about co-workers who were in the room. The company official language was English, but that did not stop many internal job postings /requiring/ Hebrew (e.g. Central American on-site project, Spanish not required, English and Hebrew a must.)

This was not my observation alone, but a general consensus. Whenever it was raised as an issue, Israeli senior management response was "if you don't like it, you can leave". Seriously, go look at almost any Israeli company on Glassdoor etc, and you will find all the same issues again and again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> 1\. You learn an awful lot. \--This is no different from a small company. Nothing that stands out to be a reason to work for a large company.

2\. You get to work with lots of clever people. \--Are you nuts? A good percent of large companies are made up of "resources" who chug on the framework created by few good men(mostly when the team/company was smaller). Usually an offshore vendor is already established and politicizing the project.

3\. You become part of a large diaspora/community. \-- The explanation makes more sense if you are working in a large non-tech company (say Ford,Toyota plant). But again not a reason that stands out as unique to a Large company.

5\. you learn the art of politics \- You are crushed by the number game (with equally competent(or otherwise)) competing for promotions, that loving to lick ass becomes more of survival than a favorite activity.

6\. You have time to reflect. -It is not necessarily slow. It is fast paced repetitive, enough to numb you.You ponder about the life in general (and get into depression?) (this doesn't apply to the crowd that join the large company to live the retired life)

"You might also appreciate the relative security, the calm and the chance to get your life in order. Once you join a startup, it is generally going to be permanent 'seats of you pants' mode." -wtf is that about?

7\. You get a baseline. Then you go and try to do it better. -how is this a reason to work for a large company only.

</comment><comment><USER24> When you work in a large company you have to deal with many more people than a small one.

For example in a small company, if you have issues with pay, you go speak to the boss/owner, or if you're big enough, the book-keeper/accountant type. In a large company there will be a whole department for your problem - be it HR helpdesk, your local accounts/payroll clerk, etc.

In the big company, you should make the effort to learn who is who and what do they do. You will soon start working out what qualities these people have that make them great, average, or terrible at their job.

In a small company, if you hire someone with the wrong qualities, at a pivotal time in your growth, it will be like contracting a disease.

Big company experience shows you lots of mistakes, which can be covered over by co-workers, PR department, caught by the QA team hour before shipping, etc. etc. If you don't get exposure to these sorts of mistakes, whilst they may not kill your startup, they will cause you some big-time stress. Stress in those quantities is not good for the survival of your business.

You can, however, mitigate some of these risks by having good mentors around, and hiring smart and experienced staff at the beginning. Successful startups like Google, Apple, Microsoft etc. didn't survive on hiring graduates alone. And if they did, they were lucky or smart enough to hire the right people in the right roles.

</comment><comment><USER27> Two things you will learn:

\- How not to do stuff.

\- That you need to get out ASAP to protect your brain from rotting

<comment><USER28> I agree. Our small company which moved at a rapid pace was bought by a large company. Now because there are like 6 managers looming we can hardly code a line a day. Rapid paces are great if you actually want to learn your craft. But if you think your craft has anything to do with office politics, or any of the other things that you mentioned in this article, I would not want you to work with me and our company.

<comment><USER29> _if you think your craft has anything to do with office politics_

Ah, but it does. For a business to survive, it has to interact with people outside of itself. In those cases, understanding the political situation on the other side of the table can be of immeasurable value.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I don't "need" to do anything.

<comment><USER31> Eating? Breathing?

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Big companies let you fail and learn from your mistakes on their dime...which later helps you succeed on your dime!

</comment><comment><USER33> I worked in a few startups before joining a few large companies since then. The truth is that there is an incredible variety.

Not all large organizations are the same and it may be very different from department to department. I have worked with people of truly amazing technical expertise and work ethics in a large organization that relied heavily on heavy transaction loads. The cost of downtime was know to the minute and many operations were very sensitive to performance, the contribution of the technical teams to the business were known and recognized. Everything that was central to its operation was done in house all the way down to network protocols. This environment made technical excellence an important aspect of selecting employees. Less performing employees were moved to other areas of the business, or just not kept after their probation period.

I have also seen other organizations where you contact your technical team when you order the coffee for the press conference where you'll announce the new product they're supposed to build. When technical expertise is not well regarded; I've seen less talented people. But the machine was still working thanks to its traditions and established systems, at least if you're attentive you get to learn how to build resilience. I have done great and exciting work in startups, I have also seen countless numbers small companies with low levels of expertise and professionalism.

</comment><comment><USER34>
        most startups reckon you are past it if you are over 23

Is this true?

<comment><USER35>
      many startups reckon you are too expensive or less likely to work insane hours
      if you are over 23

Perhaps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Like most advice in life/money/startups doesn't it really depend?

I've never worked at a big company. I started and mostly failed at my first venture out of college. 2nd one did well. Never got a real job. Now don't need a real job, I love the one I've created for myself.

Why should I go work for a big company? To work more hours for little to no upside?

I can see some advantages....just not enough to make me quit working for myself.

</comment><comment><USER37> I agree. Having worked at CNET and AOL, the two were like a short-term intensive training course in working culture. Lots to like, lots to hate, and all really useful.

That being said I could only stay at either for a short while, because the lack of progress just doesn't sit well with me.

But, I did like the experience and given the choice to do it all over, would repeat them.

</comment><comment><USER38> I started out at a huge professional services firm. I only spent a year there, but I am really glad for that year. It was an introduction to the harsh realities of the work world that most people deal with day to day.

The startup that I went to work for afterwards was completely different in most ways. However, our clients were large enterprises like my former employer, and I was able to understand the pain many of our client contacts were going through while trying to do something that was obviously the right decision for the organization (buying our product) but dealing with red tape, politics, and morons in the approval process.

Not to mention, if I'd started out in a startup without dealing with the idiocy and creative vacuum of a behemoth organization, I am sure I wouldn't have appreciated the opportunity of working in a small, intelligent meritocracy nearly as much.

</comment><comment><USER39> Some good points - it would be easy to counter, but what I would really like to see is an empirical study of successful ventures started by founders with a big company background. That would be a more meaningful way to understand how the experience translates.

<comment><AUTHOR> While not exactly what you asked, here's a Kauffman study ([http://www.kauffman.org/research-and-policy/the-coming- entre...](http://www.kauffman.org/research-and-policy/the-coming- entrepreneurial-boom.aspx)) about average age of an entrepreneur. I don't have a source, but I read another study which showed majority of companies were started by 30+; this would merit the assumption that most companies are started by people who worked at other companies, including large corporations.

This rings true since working for other companies allows you to build a network and find out where the pain points are in different industries.

<comment><USER40> I wonder if it varies by field? The abstract indicates that most entrepreneurs are 35+ in that study ("The 20-34 age bracket has the lowest rate of entrepreneurial activity"), but all the major tech companies I can think of, at least American ones of the past few decades, were by people under 35: Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook, eBay, and Dell were all twentysomethings; Nvidia, Oracle, PayPal, and Cisco were early 30s; and I have to go back to AMD (founded 1969) to find a 40-year-old cofounder.

I could be totally missing some, but I did just look down a list of biggest American tech companies to see if I could find anything.

<comment><USER41> There seems to be a pattern where you're much less likely to succeed as a younger founder, but when you do succeed, you're more likely to succeed _big_.

I can think of a few reasons why that might be so. Big companies that change whole industries tend to be started on the leading edge of sweeping technological changes (eg. the PC for Microsoft and Apple and Dell, the Internet for Google and EBay and FaceBook); usually these trends are too minor for an established career professional to bother looking at. Even if they do look at them, someone inexperienced has the advantage of looking at them fresh, without any preconceptions. A large number of the original dot-com bust companies were started by 30- and 40-somethings, and the bulk of them just imitated the brick-and-mortar shopping experience or old media experience. It took someone without industry experience to realize that search would be bigger than content, and that social networking isn't just media consumption.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I've worked for big companies with training budgets, lavish perks and benefits, also for startups that went bankrupt. I learned things in both situations. You can always learn something in almost any situation, and come away the better for it in the long run.

<comment><USER43> This is true, and I think this is a good attitude to have when you're in a bad situation. That said, some things are more educational than others, and you need to think about the opportunity cost of choosing a particular path.

This is how people justify things like learning Latin in high school (which I did). Sure it helps you learn where English came from and helps you learn other languages, but surely learning German or French would teach you the same _and_ you would actually know a useful language.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I just joined a 70 people company from a company with 50K employees globally....and loving it here.

At my past company I worked on an important module, it was well tested, everyone loved it. After 2 months it was on the 'path' to be released after 2 months. At this company I worked on something last week and we are looking to release it in 2 weeks (with enough QA).

People work in mid-small companies. Big companies have smart people but they get LAZY and eventually the culture builds up on you.

It is important to work for a big company and get exposed to the culture......as these are the people you might make products for, these are people who may put money in your company, etc. I would RUN after spending 2 years.

</comment><comment><USER45> Working for a large but still quickly growing company has been, for me, the best of both worlds. There's still a lot of upside in stock options and in career path because of the growth. You get to dabble in politics and you have a large community of people to learn from and keep in contact with in the future.

And usually, these companies are not mired in the large and unwieldy bureaucracy that is common in large and established companies. i.e. companies like Facebook, Zynga, Google 5 years ago, etc.

However, my experience is limited to two big-but-growing companies, one startup, and one small but completely dysfunctional. Too small a sample size for definitive generalization.

<comment><USER45> Followup - if your startup is successful, chances are you're going to end up working at a big company. Either you will be acquired, or you will grow.

Experience with this can help you be a better entrepreneur.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> I have a hard time with articles like this that generalize over such a broad and variable base. Some big companies are great, some are terrible, and most are in between. And once you're in that big company, a lot depends on who you work for and what your group does, so you'll find that some areas are great to work in, some are terrible and most are in between.

And what makes this even more infuriatingly variable for the generalizer is that it is unlikely you and I would even agree on which of these companies, or departments within companies, are the great or terrible ones. So much depends on who you are, what you want and what you need.

</comment><comment><USER47> I joined a _very_ large software company almost 4 years ago, knowing that it probably wasn't for me... but you can only know for sure if you try these things.

As for the stated advantages? I don't see them here. I'm considering starting the New Year by resigning.

1\. You learn a lot: Yes, I'd agree although what you learn might be a lot of internal architectures an systems which aren't applicable outside. I'd agree that you need to experience a big company to get a proper perspective on the rest of your career though

2\. Smart people: kind of, though there's maybe 10% of the developers here who even touch a computer outside of work... far less do any sort of personal programming projects or reading.

3\. Large community: true, I've made good friends here and some international contacts though I'm not sure they will come to anything. I came from a fairly lonely road of research/PhD studies and wanted the experience of working in a team. Unfortunately, my "team" is now mostly remote and, no matter what anyone says, it's not the same as working with the people in the cubes around you.

4\. They have lots of perks: No! Our company doesn't even provide tea or coffee. We get health insurance but that's standard for most/all software companies here. Bonuses are small enough that you can effectively forget about them. There's no training budget or internal courses (except on internal processes).

5\. You learn the art of politics: No, not necessarily. I've had a lot more office politics in the small companies I've worked for. And regardless of the company, I don't play politics. I'm friendly but not fake, I say what I think and I do what I say.

6\. Time to reflect: That's part of the reason why I'm still here. The work is easy, standards are low and hours are flexible (and bosses generally ignorant as long as the job gets done) so I can work on side-projects in my spare time. The problem is that the lazy work and general depression at work spills over into your side-projects. So even though I have the time I've recently lost the motivation to do much in the way of proper side-project work.

7\. You get a baseline: Exactly. I firmly believe that you can't bitch and complain about something until you've tried it.

<comment><USER48> Re: #6, don't you worry that they'll discover your side projects and take ownership of them / shut them down? Even if it's open-source contributions and not for profit, it's a liability for the project you contribute to. That's why some projects make you sign an agreement before accepting commits.

<comment><USER47> Just to clarify: I don't work on side-projects when I'm in the office, "at work" or using their equipment. Only at home and on my own equipment.

My contract also states that they understand people do other activities and the company doesn't want to own them unless they are a competing activity. And frankly, even if they did want one of my projects they wouldn't do anything with it and I can move on pretty quickly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> I've worked for:

\- a large military contractor \- consulted for many clients who were just starting their own startup \- a 150 person internet company \- a small 10 person website

I just turned 30 and feel like I've experienced most of the different work environments out there. I agree with the original article, I think most people would benefit from spending a few years, maybe right out of college, at a large company.

At the larger companies, I could spend a month really getting to learn a language. I wouldn't be able to do that at a startup.

</comment><comment><USER50> All very good points, in line with my own experience. I skipped university and went to work for a big software company instead. I've transferred internally half a dozen times in six years, with half of that time spent in management. I've continually learned new things, and couldn't have got a better education anywhere.

Now, however, I'm ready to do my own thing. Thanks to the experience I've gained, I think I'll succeed, too.

</comment><comment><USER51> In small companies, you work like Rambo: one person deals with a few products and wearing different hats. In big companies, you work like a bow in a machine: you are easily replaceable with someone with similar qualifications/experiences.

</comment><comment><USER52> These are exactly the reasons I ultimately decided to work where I am today. I think it's worthwhile to reflect on these every now and then, because it's really easy to lose site of them in face of the politics and daily toil.

</comment><comment><USER53> I have every one of these things at my current company and I work at a 100 person company.

</comment><comment><USER54> I'm sorry, but I can't take advice from someone whose twitter handle is @JavaPDF. :)

<comment><USER55> Yes, but my real name is the same as that of Julian Assanges lawyer so JavaPDF seems a lot safer...</comment></comment>