Is it unethical to have a society where only a small percentage can program computers? - <AUTHOR>

Isn't this a fundamental skill just like reading/writing? <comment><USER2> um, no, definitely not.

here are a few skills i would consider more fundamental than programming that are also lacking:

      * math
      * spelling
      * logic

in addition, it would only be unethical if the society at hand were enforcing some sort of limitation. anyone can learn to program (or learn math/spelling/logic) if they want to. maybe its easier for some than others for various reasons, but everyone _can_.

<comment><AUTHOR> Spelling is not fundamental in an age of spelling checkers. What do you mean by math? Being able to do basic arithmetic well is not all that important in the computer age.

Logic of course is important and it's something that would go well with programming skills.

<comment><USER2> good point. perhaps we should allow people to design and engineer cars that know nothing of mechanics? or people to build space shuttles who know nothing of aeronautics? or people to build nuclear power plans without knowledge of nuclear physics?

i mean, all of that is just totally taken care of by computers nowadays, amirite?

<comment><AUTHOR> Writing skills are still considered important even though most people will not be writing novels.

It's kind of like that here with computer programming skills.

<comment><USER2> why? with grammar checking, computers make forming correct sentences obsolete, no?

<comment><AUTHOR> Potentially, but grammar checkers aren't very good.

But yes, generally speaking, skills become devalued and not worth teaching much as computers help us with them.

<comment><USER2> neither are spellcheckers or any programs that will do math/physics for you.

crutches won't help you walk if you never knew how to walk in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> What makes programming computers a fundamental skill? What will forbid me from being a productive member of society if I don't know how to program?

<comment><AUTHOR> You would never know what you are missing in today's society... It's kind of like not knowing the benefits of reading & writing. That's why it is unethical.

<comment><USER3> So why isn't it unethical to not be a practicing medical doctor, dentist, physicist, mathematician, materials engineer, parent, charity donor, pilot, or an athlete.

If your job, hobby or passion is in set J of all possible jobs and vocations, it doesn't make it unethical to not be J-j, where j is your job.

And programming is _nothing_ like reading and writing as you need reading and writing to be a functional adult. You absolutely can not survive and be affluent without reading & writing or know someone close to you who does. The same is not even remotely true for programming.

As a matter of fact, if something requires a layman (or customer) to program, it means that one of us who creates these programs and products, to put it bluntly, fucked up.

<comment><AUTHOR> _And programming is nothing like reading and writing as you need reading and writing to be a functional adult._

...in today's society. But certainly long ago people could get by without knowing reading & writing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm really confused by what you mean by unethical in the first place.

Programming is not at all a fundamental skill, and I hope that as software gets better and better people will be able to do more with their computers without knowing how to program our configure some stupid setting. There's still too many simple tasks that are out of reach without some technical knowledge.

</comment><comment><USER5> Arguably, programming is as enriching a mental facility as reading and writing, and to be without this tool due to an educational oversight is tragic.

However, in a culture where lacking this skill is the norm (and many grew up without even a chance at it) you'll find this argument unpopular.

</comment><comment><USER6> Unethical? How? I'm not aware of any limitations in society that prevent anyone from being able to learn how to program computers?

Or are you suggesting that somehow computers should be dumbed down to the lowest possible common denominator?

</comment><comment><USER7> I think it is important to differentiate between knowing how to program and having a fundamental understanding about how technology works. Knowing how to program is hardly a necessity; if we have legislators, judges, and law enforcement who cannot comprehend technology on a basic level, that is a problem. It is not so much unethical as it is self destructive.

</comment><comment><USER8> Only a small percentage can fix cars, build bridges, prepare meat, cook fresh food, knit/crochet/sew cloths, etc...

so no, a programming minority is not the threat to our society that you might think

<comment><USER9> _A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects._

Robert A Heinlein, _Time Enough for Love_</comment></comment>


How good are anti-virus heuristic scanners? - <AUTHOR> http://archive.cert.uni-stuttgart.de/bugtraq/2003/06/msg00251.html

<comment><USER2> > ESATF is used to "check", so, in order to get a "full" checking, I think it > should be treated like a true virus

No, it shouldn't. EICAR is a special test-case, and if it was detected heuristically then Hello, World! would also get flagged as a virus. Not helpful.

A better way to test heuristics in AV scanners would be to run a 6 month out of date antivirus program against viruses that have emerged in the last 6 months, and that is exactly what the heroes at AV Comparatives [1] do every year.

[1] <http://av-comparatives.org/>

<comment><USER3> Direct link: [http://www.av- comparatives.org/en/comparativesreviews/retros...](http://www.av- comparatives.org/en/comparativesreviews/retrospective-test)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> 8 year old post. Interesting, though.</comment>


Ambition is good; action is better: Making progress on our climate commitments - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2019/09/22/ambition-is-good-action-is-better-making-progress-on-our-climate-commitments/ <comment><USER2> Actions speak louder than words:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21053119](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21053119)</comment>


Ask HN: What to do about bad code culture - <AUTHOR> Five months ago I joined a medium-sized fast growing startup. One of the reasons I joined was because they were having scaling issues and I felt confident I could help them. Now I think their problem is a cultural one and I don't know if I can help. Should I try to make it work or move to a company with a better culture?
Every engineer I've talked to agrees there are fundamental and pressing problems throughout our infrastructure. Despite that, prototypes of critical pieces of logic routinely get shipped.
I keep talking with anyone who will listen, asking how they think we can fix these issues and offering to help, but nothing gets done. Our infrastructure is completely unscalable and sometimes it feels like the people in power like it that way.
I'm ripping my hair out trying to work here.  Is this a learning experience or am I just wasting my time?
p.s. I have four years of engineering experience and this is a senior position <comment><USER2> You can get some ideas from [https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/12/25/getting-things- don...](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/12/25/getting-things-done-when- youre-only-a-grunt/) but I'm not sure if they apply here.

Is it possible to isolate some part, a small part and fix it? Perhaps some new code. Perhaps some stand alone part that is easy to use like an internal library.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a great guide! Thanks for sharing it.

I've tried a couple of these things so far. I moved teams to try and cut out some infrastructure improvements but got foiled when the other side of the company decided unilaterally to change cloud hosting providers (My boss left the company after that).

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Sometimes technical debt is required to leverage growth. Sometimes it's a bad idea. It's hard to tell what is happening here. But is shipping this unfinished code keeping this startup a float? If so maybe it's what's needed right now.

That said if it's not the way you want to work maybe moving on is not such a bad thing?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your comment. I think the unfinished code might be a symptom of a lack of direction rather than a need to move fast. There are large organization changes happening and the chaos is making it hard to see what the next steps are.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is your experience working with Flat File CMS? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Jekyll and many of the site generators are good examples. After coming from larger CMSes like Teamsite and Vermeer , the get you down to the content.</comment>


2013, the year of Usenet - <AUTHOR> http://www.therandymon.com/index.php?/244-2013,-the-Year-of-Usenet.html <comment><USER2> That bit about total anonymity is just not true. Usually you would use your organization's news server (because every ISP/university had one), so you could be easily located. Plus, it was part of the netiquette to post using your real name / well known identity.

Thinking of the 90s internet makes me all sentimental.

<comment><USER3> Things were better, then.

Yeah we had to contend with flash sites and low bandwidth, and didn't have slick css3 and backnode.js but the web was more fun in those days.

<comment><USER4> Flash sites? If the content didn't load in lynx it wasn't worth viewing.

<comment><USER5> I still think this sometimes.

<comment><USER6> I fall back on text-mode readers (usually w3m) for sites which are too broken in GUI browsers. It works rather more often than you'd expect (in large part because web crawlers need text).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Don't get me going about FidoNet[0] either... there are still good usenet servers out there[1].

 _Update_ added a link for those who are unfamiliar with FidoNet

[0] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FidoNet](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FidoNet)

[1] [http://www.eternal-september.org/](http://www.eternal-september.org/)

<comment><USER8> I've been on easynews on and off for quite some time. It's got some good web tools.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easynews](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easynews)

<comment><USER9> Yep, check out my full review here: [http://www.greycoder.com/the-best-usenet- providers-of-2012/](http://www.greycoder.com/the-best-usenet-providers- of-2012/)

<comment><USER8> greyone, they also have an android app. You can browse and download directly to your tablet or phone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> As a fun project, I have created web interface to Usenet with standard 3 panes like Thunderbird. It is free and without ads, has around 15,000 newsgroups, can be used without creating an account.

[http://www.newswebreader.com](http://www.newswebreader.com)

</comment><comment><USER11> This is my search engine for Usenet, currently only for the 1980s but I hope to have 2003 onwards searchable soon. I have about 2TB of news from 2003 which just needs indexing and uploading.

[http://www.dejadejadeja.com/10years/](http://www.dejadejadeja.com/10years/)

My goal is to give people an alternative to 'Google Groups'.

It's built on PHP and MySQL.

<comment><USER12> For his query: [http://www.dejadejadeja.com/10years/query.php?body=Star+Wars...](http://www.dejadejadeja.com/10years/query.php?body=Star+Wars&subject=&newsgroups=&email_from=&dateearly=&datelate=1983-01-01&minsize=&maxsize=&maxrows=100&orderby1=composeddate&orderby2=composedtime)

The top post is this: [http://www.dejadejadeja.com/10years/getmsg.php?whichmsg=ixlp...](http://www.dejadejadeja.com/10years/getmsg.php?whichmsg=ixlpc.166)

It has a post date of: Wed Dec 15 10:30:01 1982, but is given as 1970-01-01 in the search results.

I'm seeing lots of 1970-01-01 results. A bug, perhaps?

<comment><USER11> Yes, it can't handle all date formats, so it defaults to 0 which is Jan 1st 1970.

It's easily fixable but I haven't got around to it yet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> >brief resurgence distributing binaries - images, video, warez - but even that era faded

The author is clearly not sufficiently connected. Binaries are going stronger than ever.

<comment><USER14> The TV networks, MPAA, RIAA started issuing automated DMCA notices in early 2013, making it more or less useless for content. Have things changed?

<comment><USER15> Some uploads just use a random file name now making it impossible for MPAA, RIAA, etc. to just simply search usenet posts for their content. If you don't have the NZB then it's unlikely you'll find it. Also if you use the european usenet providers they typically don't comply with DMCA notices and have more complex take down procedures.

<comment><USER14> They were already doing random names in early 2013 too ... but it seemed like the enforcement groups were grabbing NZBs and issuing DMCAs rather quickly, even for those. _shrug_

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Usenet, or something very much like it, with a markup language (to allow for rich content), a paired messaging protocol (to allow for directly contacting individuals in chat / private message mode), and associated content distribution (images, video) could, I've felt for years, displace virtually all of existing social media.

The primary missing elements are filtering (as noted) and a distributed search capability.

<comment><USER2> That paired messaging protocol we used was called email. Filtering was pretty sophisticated using scorefiles and killfiles. You didn't have rich media because the Usenet was about exchange of thoughts and knowledge, but people were pretty opinionated about formatting to make reading your posts pleasant for everyone.

<comment><USER6> Oh, I was there, and I'm aware of this.

The rich media thing: it's useful. A minimal markup (such as markdown) would likely be sufficient. The ability to be able to emphasize and strongly emphasize text, create bullets and numbered lists, indicate (multiple levels) of quotes, hyperlinks. There's not much that Markdown itself doesn't provide.

A small amount of chrome for the masses would be nice. For the most part my feeling is that existing HTML markup goes too far, generally in the direction of _unusability_ for far too many websites.

Another feature which is quite useful is indicating followups and actions. Here I find Reddit has one of the best models around, though the UI/UX lightweight nature of G+'s Notifications widget is also nice (the absolute uselessness of most of the actual notifications, and the inability to filter / set precedence / classify types of notifications is a major failure of the site). G+ also suffers from one of the largest DOMs I've seen in any major website -- I've backed off using it pretty much at all, and find my browser memory footprint is vastly more bearable.

<comment><USER16> haven't newsreaders supported highlights of stuff like _underline_ /italics/, _bold_ , multiple level of quoted stuff, bullet points etc since about forever?

I remember forté agent and thunderbird doing it about ten years ago, and I recall being annoyed that markdown differed :)

<comment><USER6> There were conventions, and a lot of (graphical) newsreaders did support automatically presenting text according to those, but ... implementations varied.

Formalizing a _basic_ level such as markdown would be a big win.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Usenet isn't going to make a comeback, it's a relic of a different sort of internet than the one that exists today. Though something similar may end up existing in the future, it will likely have a lot of new features (like karma or trust networking or some such) that make the spam and trolling problems tractable.

For reference, I spent a lot of time on usenet back in the '90s, using "tin" as my newsreader. I even helped created a newsgroup in the "big 8" heirarchy. There were a lot of fantastic things about those days but I don't think we can ever get them back easily, too much was dependent on the community being small.

<comment><USER18> I kind of have to agree with you. But I also don't think this is a bad thing. I'm glad I was there to see it all happen and despite the groans I may receive I think reddit (as mentioned by other commenters) is a perfect evolution of what was. It encourages small communities to exist in the form of sub-reddits which has allowed it to survive the several massive growth phases in the last several years.

Part of the reason that places like reddit and HN are still working is because, I believe, they follow that same attitude from the usenet days. It's more about the discussions and cross-pollination of thoughts (whether you agree or not). Most importantly, it helps to break through that filter bubble that looms over us all.

While I feel privileged to have seen the world pre and post internet, I'm excited to see how we will be communicating in the next 20 years.

As I get older it seems harder to keep an open mind (yes, I can be very sentimental when it comes to old computer tech, BBS The Documentary is my ideal nerd porn) but I have to keep reminding myself that many great things aren't recognized as such until after the fact.

If I'm honest with myself, I think I've read and participated in some of the most thought provoking and hilarious on-line discussion from the early 2000's onwards.

I'll stop blabbering now.

<comment><USER17> Reddit and HN can be alright, but they are a shadow of what was normal back in usenet's glory days. Some sub-reddits can be quite good, especially with heavy moderation, but they have all of the problems of usenet except worse.

Most discussions on HN/reddit have a 48-hour time horizon, if that, whereas usenet could easily support threads lasting for weeks or months, with obvious effects on the quality of discussion. Also, web-based discussion makes it difficult to get rid of the clutter of read messages and manages threading poorly so discussions that were perfectly fine when everyone was using newsreaders would today be unwieldy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I've always felt that Reddit is Usenet 2.0. Calling it "the frontpage of the Internet" is a way better slogan, though. (Alexis said Paul Graham used that term on the WTP book tour during his lecture.)

</comment><comment><USER20> I would be curious to know if an IRC log from the 90s exist at all (major networks), even if it's only behind a "Google-wall"

</comment><comment><USER21> I had no idea Usenet was like a community or something. I primarily use it to download stuff.

<comment><USER22> Oh, god, it was glorious. Or at least, a lot of parts of it were. I made good friends on the Tolkien newsgroups there, back when they were _the_ place for discussions of his work (with multiple world-famous scholars taking part, and intense debates between many deeply knowledgeable people that could last for weeks). Nothing I've found today can compare. Heck, even the huge, high traffic groups like rec.humor had a real sense of community if you watched for a while and got to know the regulars. I still miss it (obviously).

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Are you releasing the source to your NNTP web forum?

</comment><comment><USER24> What's the first rule of usenet?

</comment><comment><USER25> sigh.... The first rule of Usenet: You do not talk about usenet. Didn't he get the memo?

</comment><comment><USER26> Don't talk about it, stop upvoting god dammnit

</comment><comment><USER27> What is this usenet?

<comment><USER28> [http://lmgtfy.com/?q=usenet](http://lmgtfy.com/?q=usenet)</comment></comment>


My YC Interview Experience - <AUTHOR> http://dshipper.posterous.com/interviewing-at-y-combinator-part-2

<comment><USER2> Thanks for sharing your experiences, 'though I've yet to try interviewing with YC, stories like this are always encouraging (even though things didn't work out for you this time around - I'm sure there will be plenty or opportunities in the future!).

Soldier on, man.

</comment><comment><USER3> dude, you're a hustler - somehow i don't think this minor setback is gonna slow you down.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks man we should skype some time

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> You say you've been programming for 9 years. You're 19 or so. That does not equate to true 9 years of experience, compared to say someone who's been working professionally for that long at a 9 - 5 job.

I find it amusing how you penny pinch on day to day food purchases, keeping track of it all in a notebook, but then expect to get hundreds of thousands of dollars of VC money.

I'm far from an expert in this but I don't see how you'd get funding unless you have a really great idea. It's cool how you can create a site really quickly though.

<comment><AUTHOR> hey thanks for your comment! so yea definitely those years of coding experience aren't the same as working full time at a job for 9 years I never claimed that it was. but I would still argue that it's significant experience given that I've consistently coded almost every week if not every day during that time.

about the penny-pinching - I think doing so means I'm more attractive as an investment because I'm unlikely to waste the money given to me.

and about the idea I think I could get funded with a good idea, but traction and revenue trumps idea. I'm not really actively looking for investment at this point anyway, just to build awesome things that people want to pay for.</comment></comment>


Michael Moore was right about a Donald Trump victory, and now he has a plan - <AUTHOR> http://globalnews.ca/news/3057433/michael-moore-was-right-about-a-donald-trump-victory-and-now-he-has-a-plan/ <comment><USER2> Well remember that Michael Moore is no angel. During an interview with Anderson Cooper about Sicko, Moore mocked Sanjay Gupta with an Apu-like accent.</comment>


Ask HN: how to become technical in 2-3 years? - <AUTHOR>

Hey HN, I have a different spin on the old "how do I learn how to program" question:
How do I learn how to program, launch, maintain, and update a web application? Measure this in years.
My story: I had an amazing idea for a business. I spent 6 months researching it and laying out exactly how it will work. The site isn't very technically-complicated, but it's not a blog either.
So I decided I could easily teach myself programming (with little prior experience) in ~6 months and then launch the serious, heavy-hitting product. If it were successful, I'd hire a technical guy to run the technical stuff while I manage everything else.
Am I correct in thinking that this was a bit shortsighted? I'm slowly starting to realize that there is a lot of technical (and non-technical) knowledge to be had: programming the site, system admin, business administration, etc. etc.  More importantly, that it may be too much for me to learn all at once, seeing that I'm a computer-savvy (but not math or programming-savvy) twenties-something guy. I can't really get a cofounder, because at the moment I don't have any actionable skills (if anything, I'm a "hustler" / designer).
Revised plan: Start small and work my way up to the big beastly idea. As in, slowly learn the ins-and-outs of entrepreneurship, programming, and the web by working on small, manageable projects.
At the moment, I'm working on a content-oriented site built on WordPress: I merely have to write articles and learn basic SEO and site administration. I'm also starting a small t-shirt sales company (not printing).
After this, I'd like to make some simple web apps. Rinse and repeat until I'm immersed enough in the web ecosystem to have a clue.
Thoughts? On both "what to learn and how" and my plan in general? <comment><USER2> Learning to hack is not too hard. PG says 6 months to a year. (<http://www.paulgraham.com/raq.html>) I tend to agree.

A friend is working through "How to Think like a Computer Scientist" -- <http://openbookproject.net/thinkCSpy/> \-- which happens to teach Python, and then he will learn Django (<http://www.djangoproject.com/>) and build Web applications and be most of the way to the level of technical skill it takes to build a prototype Web app and attempt to get funding.

In addition, I would suggest that it's a good idea to get your feet wet in actually building stuff quickly, rather than reading and designing all the time. Your designs are probably going out the window rather quickly once you start showing people a working prototype.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm. Perhaps I was not as over-optimistic as I initially thought.

<comment><USER3> You weren't :)

I took two night classes- the first was 10-week course on an introduction to python (which used exactly that book) and the second 10-week course was on internet programming. We learned other stuff in that class (REST, CherryPy, HTML protocol) but I spent most of the time going through the django tutorials & docs. djangobook.com provides a good alternative source for django documentation. And then after 5 months of study, I was hired as a python/django web dev. But I got lucky and I was serious during that time.

If you want any more tips or hit any roadblocks, feel free to hit me up: civilianjones gmail com

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow, a developer job? Impressive. What was your background before then?

<comment><USER3> I was doing data-entry _vomit_ and I had a degree in biochemistry. I had taken two years of programming in high school (like 6-7 years ago) which helped give me a basic understanding/foundation.

<comment><USER4> Ha, as someone with a degree is chem with a similar programming background who has been studying rails for 6 months, you give me hope and make me feel like a total slacker! Seriously though, that's awesome!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It depends.

Different people take naturally to different tasks or skills, often associated with their being "left brained" or "right brained".

How analytical are you? What's the closest thing/skill you've done that is similar to programming? What's the least and most amount of time you've spent learning some new skill or foreign language? Did you enjoy it?

IMO, by far the best way to learn to program is to have a goal. That way you are researching and solving small tasks (how do I setup a database schema, how do I make a registration page) and stringing them together towards a goal.

But, with only knowing you as a short wall of text on the Internet, I can't say how long it would take YOU to become technical. I can't even say if that is truly the best use of your time/skills.

It seems like you have the right generalistic approach and determination though.

<comment><AUTHOR> 1\. I would say that I am more of a creative person (right brained). I almost went to design school a few years ago (switched to philosophy at a state school.) I'm terrible at math. Yet, somehow I am really, really good at logic. Perhaps I just don't think in numbers.

My memory skills (specifically, spatial memory) are also top-notch. I've never set out to learn a language, other than Spanish years ago in high school. I also used to be a very good chess player.

My parents were computer consultants (programmer and biz dev/design) so I've always been great with computers. Just not from the programming angle.

2\. That makes sense and echoes what I've read/heard, thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> These might help:

Teach yourself programming in 10 years: <http://norvig.com/21-days.html>

and: <http://innonate.com/hope/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. 10 years is a bit too long, but very useful nonetheless!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> you don't think by the time 6 months rolls around, there won't be 5 companies doing exactly what you are trying to do right now? With the way startups spring up everyday, I suggest you find a tech co founder to get things going while you work on your own tech skills.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, yeah, I'd like to get out there ASAP. But there is nothing out there like my idea, and more importantly, it's not a new problem. So I don't think an extra 6 months will kill me - if it were that hot, someone would have done it already.

<comment><USER8> An extra 6 months won't kill you at all. Plus, I think finding a technical co- founder, or CTO will take longer than expected. Those 6 months are pretty much a sure bet if you devote enough time to learning, and you'll have the skills to do it yourself. Finding a technical person is a risk</comment></comment></comment>


Mysterious indeed... - <AUTHOR> http://mathema-tricks.blogspot.com/2012/02/421-loop.html

<comment><USER2> This is called the Collatz conjecture, and it still hasn't been proved: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collatz_conjecture></comment>


Paul Graham's Prescription For VCs: Move Fast, Take Less Equity - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/30/paul-grahams-prescription-for-vcs-move-fast-take-less-equity/ <comment><USER2> As this was a forward looking piece I was surprised to see no mention of crowd-investing. Are YC companies looking forward to it? Are they indifferent?

<comment><USER3> As one VC said to me on Friday: "The best way to take money from your users is revenue".

We've crowd-funded our seed in the UK, using an equity based crowd-funding site called Seedrs. We're currently the fastest equity crowd-funded company in the world, we got our seed in 15 hours thanks to the belief and need that the users have.

Our impression was that this was massive social proof, but what we're hearing from angels and VCs is that there is a great amount of uncertainty about crowd-funding.

Questions like:

* What happens with drag-along?

* Did you crowd-fund because no-one else would invest?

* Are we now dealing with 100 naive investors?

So much FUD.

We did it in place of the friends and family round, and chose Seedrs for their nominee structure that gives us a single shareholder with terms that are not a disincentive to any future investor. We had a third party (Orrick) check the papers to make sure nothing was in there that would cause complications, that things like drag-along and preemption rights were all standard, that the seed investors couldn't complicate things later.

We also had numerous options on money and went with the one that helped mitigate a risk we had. By securing a financial as well as emotional investment, our biggest risk of substantially changing the product and losing a core of our key early users as we imported sites with UIs that they knew intimately, is mitigated somewhat as their investment helps to overcome some of that.

Our experience has been positive, but the amount of inexperience within angel circles and VCs of crowd-funded companies that have later raised and exited is so great that there is a great deal of uncertainty, and from that the fear and doubts emerge.

We [http://microco.sm/](http://microco.sm/) have only good things to say about the process and engagement of users, and some of our "user as investors" have contributed phenomenal feedback and helped win us key customers at an early stage.

What happens next, for us, and for other companies in our position in the next few years, will help influence how crowd-funding is perceived by angels and VCs.

We are at an interesting stage now where we need to raise a further round as demand for the product is out-shipping our revenue and we need to go faster. Users still want to invest, but users can't always be the source of investment and we now need to start transitioning towards angels and VCs.

An issue for us is that the crowd-funding allowed us to get the MVP done and gain initial traction, and it has raised our valuation such that small angels may now be deterred as they won't receive as much ownership for their investment. And VCs like to have social proof of key angels to help filter and vet companies. So we find ourselves considering down-valuing to get the angels to help us go beyond this round, or tightening belts further and shooting for more traction and growth so that we can jump to Series A and skip the follow- on seed rounds.

If any angels are interested in hearing more, get in touch, contact details on my profile.

Ultimately what you learn is that more important than the money, is who backs you. We'd love to have one or two key angels who can be mentors and guides, whose experience we can learn from, and crowd-funding did not give us that.

<comment><USER2> Fantastic, detailed, interesting answer. My thanks.

For those missing the numbers, they sold 10% of the company for ~80K (US). [https://www.seedrs.com/startups/microcosm](https://www.seedrs.com/startups/microcosm)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've always wondered if I can do the mini version of an IPO instead of a Series A right after seed.

With some caveats:

I cannot make my business decisions public. You have to trust me as a founder. This is a company is still at a stage of going under water and moving fast with competitive technology/business tactics etc.

I should be able to choose the reserve investment amount at 1000$ or 2000. Maybe that's personal call

I am not clear about this one but I'll set the valuation for my company. If there is a mechanic for feedback I'll be able to move the scale based on tempo of the current market. This I believe will help set the right valuation for the convertible round I raised earlier.

Pros I can think of:

I can set an independent board

<comment><USER5> In an ideal world, this would be perfect. IPOs used to work more or less like this (albeit at a later stage). Unfortunately, it has been decided that amateur investors will do stupid things when they have the option of buying stock in companies that could tank at the drop of a hat. Sarbanes-Oxley has completely killed off this possibility.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> If I got it correctly, I wondered the same. Why not an investor would pay me to me and the other co-founder our salary for X months (12 months?) for the Y% of the company? I think it would be good and non-risky for both parts.

<comment><USER7> VCs want the high burn rate because it means that the company moves to finality (liquidity or failure) quickly and gets off the books in time.

They're not in the business of building long-lived healthy companies, even though that's something the world sorely needs.

<comment><USER8> >They're not in the business of building long-lived healthy companies, even though that's something the world sorely needs.

That's the thing, though; being a long-lived, healthy company is much easier if you have one person who unambiguously owns it (and that person is also the top operational manager.)

That's the thing, what kills a web startup? the owner deciding to get a real job.

If you have two owners? now rather than having one person who will kill the company if they get a real job, you have two.

I'm not saying absolutely that it's an unsolvable problem; if the person who loses interest early gives most of the ownership to the remaining partner, I suppose it could work out? but I'm not sure how that would or even should work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> My opinion is that we need more big seed funds (lets say ~$50M fund size). We can't rely on Series A funds to do smaller deals. Revolution comes from below. Besides, those Series A funds have probably sold an investment strategy to their LP investors and they can't change (or don't want to look silly changing) strategies in the middle of their fund.

<comment><USER10> Agreed. More smaller cap funds and accelerate deal closing. Shouldn't take three months to raise. Right team, right product/pitch and they should be on their way iterating as fast as possible.

This could also potentially shorten length of runway needed. If you knew you could raise in 30 days... you wouldn't need 12 months of runway. Much more efficient for the entire ecosystem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Yes. Yes, yes, yes. If you're an investor, and you want a given company to be healthy (and thus produce the best return over time for your investment), provide prompt support and let them do their jobs. If you think they can't, don't invest. If you think they can, but with help, help them... but promptly. Go, PG.

</comment><comment><USER7> I've never raised money-- I wasn't born into the connections, and that's what being "fundable" is actually about-- but I've worked in VC-funded companies and I hate what they have done to this industry.

The slow decision-making is about three things:

(1) It reaffirms the rank of the VCs. (Status waiting.)

(2) It's a test of the petitioner's social status. (If desperate or low- status, the petitioner will continually seek feedback.) The whole point of the time-wasting deliberation is to weed out the desperate, and more importantly to see if you come from the right social class (and can therefore summon enough resources to make their slow response tolerable) to be funded.

(3) It gives risk-averse VCs, who are driven more by their individual career goals (of being "in on" career-making deals that occur once every few years and require social access) than portfolio optimization, plenty of time to collude, trade favors, and peddle influence.

It will never change or go away. Nor do I think we will see an end to this insane bipolarism in which a company is either overfunded or forced to operate on a shoestring.

VC is just unhealthy for software; it works (because it's the only option) for biotechnology startups that require $50m+ just to get started, but for software it's just kingmaking (work with us, or we fund your competition) that doesn't really add anything.

<comment><USER12> _I wasn 't born into the connections, and that's what being "fundable" is actually about_

Are you amenable to being convinced that this belief is false if I can point to people who had no connections at birth but are funded or clearly fundable?

<comment><USER13> I don't think anecdotes can support or contradict the type of assertion he's making. People frequently point to that rare individual who overcame adversity. It doesn't really prove anything. The system is big enough that there will be instances to support nearly any belief. I think the opposite of what he's saying might be something like: "It's not who you know, it's what you know." I can only speak for myself but that seems much less true.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Amen Paul!</comment>


How Not To Promote Your New Startup - <AUTHOR> http://groups.google.com/group/barcampla/browse_thread/thread/4b4091eaf6fb6743 <comment><USER2> Wow. Pratt's obsession with Kickstarter "ripping off" Fundable is especially silly considering that both are essentially variants of Kelsey and Schneier's Street Performer Protocol, published in 1998 [1]. (That paper is not even the first instance of the basic idea, just one of the most well-known.)

Edited to add: I'd be really interested to see one of these sites implement the Rational Street Performer Protocol [2], which essentially means that each donor pledges matching funds ("I'll donate $X for every $Y that anyone else pledges, up to a maximum of $Z"). This gives individuals a stronger incentive to pledge more; the hard part is coming up with a simple explanation that first-time users will understand.

[1]: <http://www.schneier.com/paper-street-performer.html>

[2]: <http://www.logarithmic.net/pfh/rspp>

<comment><USER3> Would you happen to know why the Austin police were after the company? Sounds like a messy soap opera, but I'm curious about what went so wrong.

<comment><USER4> Sounds like Pratt is framing it as his partner making it up as a scare tactic to try and acquire his portion of the company.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I was the project manager at Kickstarter during its initial phase of development, during the time that we went from a single requirements document and some mock-ups to a functional site. We weren't ripping anybody off.

The boring truth is that we took Perry Chen's idea, and, like any software project, continued to refine and adjust our vision of what the site should be, and what the user experience should be, based on the imagined needs of some hypothetical users.

What we ended up building was only remotely similar to what our requirements started out with, and the project continued to morph after those initial stages, to what it is today.

I am sorry that this guy's startup did not take off as Kickstarter has. Making libelous claims about the work of others, though, is no way to be.

<comment><USER6> I'd have to say I agree - It's quite easy for someone to come up with the same idea as you and not even be aware that you exist(ed).

Blog posts and comments about my startup (<http://FriendBinder.com>) often think we copied FriendFeed, SocialThing or some other site though the reality is that those sites didn't exist when we started early in 2007 (or were in stealth at least).

That's life I'm afraid.

<comment><USER7> I don't use any of the three services, but the landing page of FriendBinder made me more curious then FriendFeed's. However, it just looks a tad unprofessional, with faded looking colours, unsubtle shadows & gradients, and heavy use of Arial. I'd really get a professional designer to tweak that a bit, I think you might profit from that.

Or, if you don't want to spend money: Brighter, more friendly colours, replace Arial with Helvetica, drastically cut down on the italic, draw some subtle, but clear seperations of the containers. But keep the basic concept intact, I really like it.

<comment><USER6> Thanks for the suggestions, I've started to move us to Helvetica (except logos for now) and cut down on italics. Do you have a site, twitter etc.? my details are in my profile.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _I cannot tell you how painful it is to watch 5 assholes take your idea and run with it and not even give you credit. I hate all 5 of them for that. If I see them, I may punch each one of them in the face. If you have never started your own company and then had someone else steal the credit for what you worked hard to develop, you don't understand._

yikes, sounds like entrepreneurship really doesn't suit John.

<comment><USER9> Was any patents involved?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is almost funny enough to become a meme:

 _For those of you who insist on thinking that the truth always lies in between two accounts of a situation, I urge you to drop that misguided notion, especially for this situation._

<comment><USER11> Wow. And check out www.fundable.com

 _Customers are encouraged to use Kickstarter as a replacement for Fundable.com and seek legal action against Louis Helm personally should he fail to resolve your payment issues promptly._

<comment><USER12> He apparently just redirected fundable.com to his new thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> From the article:

 _All it took was 5 super-connected people at Kickstarter (especially Andy Baio) to take a concept we worked hard to refine, tweak it with Amazon Payments, and then take credit. You could say that that's capitalism, but I still think you should acknowledge people that you take inspiration from._

The thing is being well connected does matter. And I wouldn't say that's just calling it capitalism. Further, getting an idea off the ground is hard regardless of how well you are connected and how good the idea is. The fact that Facebook is "the" social networking site shows that one idea can become successful while earlier attempts fall by the wayside. It happens everyday. Perhaps Kickstarter will be wildly successful, or perhaps not, but the connectedness of the founders is only one part of Kickstarter's rise.

To the issue of giving credit where credit is due. If Kickstarter did not use the author's code or his/her own works, then the author deserves no explicit named credit. Just as Google deserved no explicit named credit from Microsoft when it released Bing. Not to mention the other possible legal ramifications if Kickstarter came forward and publicly acknowledged their idea was based on Fundable's.

<comment><USER14> People become "super-connected" when they've earned a lot of people's trust or respect.

Can't imagine why this Pratt guy is having difficulties with that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> [http://www.maryrobinettekowal.com/journal/my-very-bad- experi...](http://www.maryrobinettekowal.com/journal/my-very-bad-experience- with-fundable-com/)

From the comments that pretty much sums up why he failed.

The quick synopsis: He gathered fundraiser money then just kept it and never returned it or dispersed it to the users. (Explains the police charges)

</comment><comment><USER16> For all first-time entrepreneurs, first read the original post and then remember the following as your first lesson of 2010. Whatever you do, don't post on the web immediately after you fail. Don't try to make yourself look smart. Don't try to rationalize your failure. Talking about failure doesn't make failure go away. It just opens yourself to saying things you will surely regret in later days. Instead of talking, you would be much better served if you just shut up and peddle like hell. Now is not the time to seek fame and recognition. With success, you will have both. It is much more fun to do a Blog when you fully recover and share your hard earned experience from the vantage point of sweet success. Otherwise people would make the obvious observation that you are nothing but a wannabe. However, if you inadvertently discover you have a knack for on-line comedy, then you should give up being an entrepreneur. It is a much better career anyway.

</comment><comment><USER17> Good gravy this is sad-not to mention embarrassing for other Oregonian entrepeneurs like myself.

Connected people (usually) aren't born connected. It's simply a byproduct of past success. They work hard, network, execute, iterate, succeed and get people's attention.

If you can't figure that after 4 years, too bad for you.

<comment><USER18> He doesn't strike me as the sort that's going to be able to make Portland work with him. Collaboration needs some cooperation; which, well, not his strong suit obviously.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> What a laugh!

Gosh I know how this guy feels -- I've had three other startup ideas that were "copied" by the market and took off in other formats. And he was so dead on and hilarious in his assessment of presenting to investors: * I tried for 4 years to get people to take Fundable seriously, traveling across the country, even giving a presentation to FBFund, Facebook's fund to stimulate development of new apps. It was a series of rejections for 4 years. I really felt that I presented myself professionally in every business situation and I dressed appropriately and practiced my presentations. That was not enough. The idiots wanted us to show them charts with massive profits and widespread public acceptance so that they didn't have to take any risks.*

But guess what? None of that matters and it's all so much whining. Dude -- don't go 4 years with any one idea. Try maybe a year or two. This is a numbers game and you may have to get 10 or 15 of these ideas behind you. Forget about financing. It's a fools game played by people with more money than common sense and all about jumping on the bandwagon and who you know, not about real market-changing potential.

Damn I feel your pain. I really do. It sucks to have a paradigm-shifting idea and watch some other assholes who are simply better-connected run with it. The marketplace is NOT a meritocracy.

I'm right where they were 4 years ago -- new idea, developing a new site, lots of upside potential, and lots of odds stacked against me. I could move to SV and start becoming a professional fundraiser/hanger-on, or I could work my idea and most likely fail.

I choose to work my idea. I'm not going to create charts or blow smoke up investors butts. They get so much of that -- it's one of the reasons their discriminators are so broken. Jesus himself could appear and ask for funding to start a new world religion and they'd probably respond with something like "Wonderful idea, Jesus, but your team doesn't look so good -- lots of fishermen and nobody is even literate. Also the market you're chosen, Judea? Not so good in terms of disposable income. You should move to Rome. Get to know some of the Senators. But good luck with all of that. Don't call us, we'll call you." [damn. That's a good blog idea -- if Jesus was a startup]

Having laughed (and cried) at how real this article was, I wouldn't have written it. As grellas points out, sometimes venting helps and sometimes it doesn't. It's time to get moving, not complaining.

<comment><USER20> _The marketplace is NOT a meritocracy._

Right, and neither is one's own opinion of oneself.

I don't know if this John Pratt guy actually has any intelligence, perseverance or marketable skills, but one thing he certainly does have is personality disorder. If I were him I'd take some time to reflect on his public persona, figure out what's wrong with his attitude, and then go get his name legally changed before trying again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> From <http://pdxcell.com/>

"The image comparison below indicates that I have something to offer in this area." What???

I think this guy needs some serious therapy. It's not healthy to be that deluded and angry about things.

You can either spend all your time and energy moaning and whining like this about how you had some idea once and someone stole it and executed it, which is _obviously_ trivial if you're well connected (BS). OR you can spend your energy executing, and making things work.

<comment><USER22> This is the first sentence I read in the page and thought the all site was a joke.

The funny thing about all that is that the guy put a lot of efforts into that and had the time to think, at least, twice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I hope Pratt gets over his misdirected anger.

I was happy when I heard of Fundable in 2005, not because it was a cool new idea but because it was an old idea overdue for someone to do it right. (In fact, in 2001 I owned the domains 'payzi.com' and 'tipzi.com' -- as possible homes for some sort of audience-sourced creative-project funding system to complement the Bitzi metadata service.)

Fundable didn't quite do it right, for whatever reasons. Now I'm happy the concept is getting another try from another team.

</comment><comment><USER24> Wow, that's one of those emails that he should have put in a drawer for a day and then torn up without ever sending it.

<comment><USER25> Amen. Wish I had a time machine just to unsend some of my own emails...

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Besides some miscellaneous bits about the guy not being a good businessman, one lesson I think everyone can learn from this is the following:

\--if you do anything with shifting money on the internet, your first and largest group of customers will be fraudsters. Plans to deal with this need to be in place from day 1, if not before.

Fundable was beset by fraud, and for whatever reason, failed to deal with it in a successful fashion.

It's sort of like input/output sanitization. If you take input from one user, and show it to another user, you've got HTML security problems. If you take money from one user, and you give it another user, you've got massive fraud problems, unless you have a comprehensive "money sanitization" process operating behind the scenes.

</comment><comment><USER27> It was a great sob story until he tried to promote his wireless thing at the end... Then I just had to laugh.

<comment><USER28> Yeah, that's really where it takes a turn for the surreal. "How not to promote," indeed - and the scary thing is how you can sympathize with his bitterness and sort of see how there, but for the grace of God, go you.

The part where he calls the founder of the list a troll is also choice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> You gotta love his sweet pic at the bottom... page - <http://PDXCell.com> pic - <http://pdxcell.com/images/johnpratt.jpg>

<comment><USER30> I think this is worth highlighting specifically:

> By nature, most engineers try to tear projects down and explain why things > won't work or are "too much work." It's often a consequence of how most of > them can interpret minor hangups as major, nearly-insolvable problems. > That's why you have to find those rare engineers, like Google engineers or > Apple engineers, who have a respect for the arts and humanities. Those are > the engineers who create breakthroughs and push the limits of existing > technologies. NeXT, a computer company from the 1990's, was a very good > example of this and its innovations are still being felt today. Its > technologies underly the iPod, Mac OS X, and the iPhone. Its hardware > manufacturing advances were far ahead of its time.

> If you are saying that this project is not feasible, you are simply > incorrect. Non-specialist observers can see that the technology to > accomplish this is available. We may not yet know how it's going to work > specifically, but we'll find engineers and programmers who want to make it > work.

<comment><USER31> Step #1 to making sure no capable engineers ever work with you: presume to know their craft better than they do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> "I cannot tell you how painful it is to watch 5 assholes take your idea and run with it and not even give you credit. I hate all 5 of them for that. If I see them, I may punch each one of them in the face." ... "I am not very bitter because I realize how much I learned and how much I got to experience"

Good god.

</comment><comment><USER33> If you're a "scanner" rather than a by-the-word reader, some advice here.. make sure you don't quit before you get about 7 paragraphs in. That's where it starts getting funny/sad.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> (The title isn't mine, it's Janey Lee's from Twitter, but it fits and so I kept it).

<comment><USER34> ha, thanks :) not that I can take credit for anything either, I just happened to have been subscribed to the barcampla mailing list.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> A venting of the spleen, with words improvidently spoken, over a topic best kept to oneself.

</comment><comment><USER36> Lots of hate for kickstarter.

Pledgebank has been doing this since 04 at least. I run petitionspot so I have been watching sites like this and they just didnt do a good job. Just look at thepoint.com ( now groupon ) - They tore it up because they did a good job. They were in chicago, not the valley.

</comment><comment><USER22> You should read basics about web usability. Nobody will ever read your new page.

</comment><comment><USER37> I can understand the disappointment, but, come on.. that's what a startup is all about. Sometimes you have to fail to succeed. Sometimes your ideas will get stolen. Sometimes Google will buy you for half a billion dollars; it's the name of the game.

In the end, "ideas" are worthless. It's implementation that leads to success; you actually have to _build_ the better mousetrap.

</comment><comment><USER38> I would have liked the article to go into more depth about his rejections and if he used the rejection feedback to change his marketing strategy. My guess is when things start heading downhill it all turns into personal problems so I would ignore that stuff in the analysis.

</comment><comment><USER39> That guy really seems to be a marketing genius [http://www.maryrobinettekowal.com/journal/one-more- fundable-...](http://www.maryrobinettekowal.com/journal/one-more-fundable- update/)

</comment><comment><USER40> looks like this particular train wreck has made it to news.yc previously:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=856301>

<comment><USER41> Screenshot of Fundable "closed permanently" (October 2009)

<http://img18.yfrog.com/img18/2396/s8u.png>

(image from: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=858033> )

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Just a little bitter! You win some and lose some dude! Pick yourself up, learn from your mistakes and for god sakes Shut Up, no one wants to hear you wining.

<comment><USER43> Quote from the bottom of PDXCell.com:

 _You can also hire me to teach you how to build your self-confidence as a standup guy or give a talk to your organization on the subject. The image comparison below indicates that I have something to offer in this area_

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Perfect example of "Lets kick the guy when he is down", and Seriously why is this even here? I rest my case.

<comment><USER34> I feel somewhat obligated to reply because I originally tweeted this (and with a title similar to the above).

I didn't do this to kick the guy while he's down. It's that on Twitter I knew enough people working in various roles in startups and even just most companies that I thought this would be a good warning to all of them of what never to do. You don't _ever_ publicly accuse your competitor of outright ripping off your idea (if that really was the case, take them to court, but it's clearly not appropriate here). You don't publicly attack your co-founder because it didn't work out for whatever reason. You especially don't do either one in an email to a group of pretty tech-savvy and possibly well-connected people and then go on to attack said group when they don't respond favorably because oh noes, they're being unfair to you. All because you wanted to tell them about your new startup.

Pratt seems to want to get more connections and more interested eyes looking at his new project for funding and development and more, and he's not helping his case by acting the way he does. All this bad press could have been prevented if he had edited out most of his original email. It should have been something like "Hey, remember me, we might have met before at a previous BarCampLA...I was one of the guys behind Fundable. I'm now working on a new startup called PDXCell, and I'd appreciate it if you'd check it out!". Not this burning-all-bridges tactic. I tend not to talk much at BarCampLA events, but I've still met people there looking to fund startups, talented developers/engineers/hackers, marketing types, and more. That's a lot of potentially useful connections that will now remember this guy as someone never to work with.

So while some of the comments here might really be kicking the guy while he is down, I saw this link as an educational moment, especially to HNers that might someday (if not already) find themselves tempted to do the same. I'd hope Pratt realizes what he's doing wrong eventually..

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> It appears the author has the wrong idea that a good idea demands exclusive success...if that were the case, I would imagine most of us would be millionaires.

You can't complain about something being hard to execute on and then bitch because others executed the idea better than you could. That's just the nature of the game.

<comment><USER8> That was my (probably engineer-biased) take as well. Pratt seems to think that their awesome idea even with shitty execution (by his own admission) should have won the day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The hilarity continues at PDXCell.com Check out the section entitled: "A response to this page". Shoulda known he was an Apple fanboy.

<comment><USER46> Yeah, trying to defuse expert criticism by accusing experts of being narrow- minded really sets off my crackpot alarm. (History _is_ full of cases where expert consensus was wrong, but I think these cases are notable precisely because they are exceptional.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> I got new iPhone. Now what's next.

I got new Mac OS. Now what's next.

I read the Y Combinator news feed. Major drama from some nutjob who ruined his company and was a douchebag. Ha ha.

Cool. Now what's next.

I read the TechCrunch page. Now what's next.

What's Apple working on next?

Ok. What's Google working on next?

Ok, I found out. Now, what's next?

What does Tim O'Reilly say is the next thing?

Ok. What does Cory Doctorow say is the next thing?

Ok. What does Andy Baio's link blog say is the next thing?

Ok. What does Mashable have to say is the next thing?

[continue as nested loop: your wasted life on the computer]

<comment><USER48> Not to wind you up further, but I think you mean "infinite loop".

I had never heard of fundable.com or you prior to the exposure initiated by this thread. I started looking up the all the background information I could and I tried (hard) to not pass undue judgment. The problem is not so much what others wrote about you or your business, the problem is what you wrote. In your messages you start (somewhat) rational and reasonable, albeit frustrated (for reasons anyone can understand). Then as you are coming to wrap-up of what you write, you say something that really makes me cringe. I don't know how or why you do it, but seriously, before you post something I urge you to sit on the text for a couple of hours before pressing that submit button.

Your name is attached to that shit.

(yeah yeah, feeding the troll, bbye karma -- should I have any)

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> I have three phrases for Y Combinator blog commenters:

BENCH WARMERS.

TROLLS.

LOSERS WHO HAVE NEVER TAKEN RISKS IN THEIR LIVES OR OPENED THEMSELVES TO PUBLIC OR PERSONAL ATTACK.

\- John Pratt (yes, it's me)

<comment><USER49> Check out <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_determinism> \-- the phenomenon is real!

Seriously, you need to cut out the coffee, stat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> If you comment on tech blogs like this, you're probably a loser. People who accomplish things don't have time to leave comments in tech blogs unless there are stories written about them.

That means if you are reading this, you are probably a loser.

Sorry, fags.

-John Pratt (yes, it's me)

<comment><USER49> Hey, HNers! Keep baiting him! The weather satellites show a spike in temperature over his location. At the rate he's steaming up, he'll explode into a fine red mist in a couple of hours!

("Fags"? Really? This from a grown-up? Utterly bizarre. Is this a fake account or something? It's done well, if so.)

<comment><USER50> Yeah. I can't believe anybody would really use the "f" word in a forum like this (or ideally anywhere, but especially in an otherwise civil, focused forum like this). Probably (hopefully?) a fake account.

<comment><USER51> His own replies to his google groups posting are just as bizarre. Sadly, this looks authentic.

<comment><USER52> Eh, the account was only registered to respond to this post. I'd presume John innocent until proven guilty.

<comment><USER51> I was referring to the follow up comments made on BarCampLA using the same gmail account as his original post there. Those comments have the same tone as the ones made here.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Python 3's Marketing Problem - <AUTHOR> http://teddziuba.com/post/26426290981/python-3s-marketing-problem <comment><USER2> The article misses a key point: people aren't going to migrate to Python 3 unless and until the most common libraries have been ported over.

About a year ago I tried to mass-upgrade my many Python apps to 3, only to discover that about half of them required one or another library that was unavailable in 3 (and remain unavailable).

To me, the syntax and other changes are a small issue compared to the fact that many of my apps would simply stop working, and with no recourse.</comment>


Caring for your introvert - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200303/rauch.htm

<comment><USER2> My favorite quote:

 _many actors, I've read, are introverts, and many introverts, when socializing, feel like actors_

When I talk to strangers, I often internally wonder to myself (during the conversation), "Can this person tell I actually have no interest in what they're saying, or am I properly feigning it?"

It seems that only after I come to know someone well (or I'm discussing a topic dear to me) can I manage to have a real interest in what they say, so I spend most time acting in social situations. Sometimes I'll dedicate effort to summoning all my ability to appear to care, but other times I just won't bother.

I've also found that at times when I have to both maintain my act and keep up with my internal monologue (or whatever it is), I lose the ability to retain the information being provided. For instance, until I've spoken with someone a few times, I will be unable to remember their name. I'll likely never remember what they just told me more than a few hours after it was said, either, unless it was exceptionally memorable. When trying to get me to remember someone, it usually requires a few examples of things they've said/done and a lot of context to piece them back together.

Think of all the effort; people are far more tiring than programming!

<comment><USER3> _I've also found that at times when I have to both maintain my act and keep up with my internal monologue (or whatever it is), I lose the ability to retain the information being provided. For instance, until I've spoken with someone a few times, I will be unable to remember their name. I'll likely never remember what they just told me more than a few hours after it was said, either, unless it was exceptionally memorable. When trying to get me to remember someone, it usually requires a few examples of things they've said/done and a lot of context to piece them back together._

Man, this describes exactly how I feel when meeting new people and why I find it so draining.

<comment><USER4> Actually, once I realized that I'll never remember their name anyway, I stopped fretting so much about trying to memorize their name, or what they look like, or pretty much anything else about them.

If I never see them again anyway, who cares; and if I see them again enough times, that information will start to stick naturally.

<comment><USER5> It's a second and third time that may get embarassing though.

You still have not seen this person enough times, but everyone around already knows that you've been introduced. And then you need to call this person by the name. Ugh! Hate these moments. :)

<comment><USER2> I won't go into details to spare the person shame, but this happened to me recently. I hope people aren't as adept as I am at reading expressions, because they would have instantly noticed I had no idea who they were as I was shaking their hand, despite seeing them only weeks earlier.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> We had a team bonding day in which we were split up randomly into small groups. Random or not, the group I was put on was all introverts. We were given a problem [a clever problem-solving exercise] and the observer (who was an extrovert) noted that (to him) 'it was like they were all just staring at the puzzle for 5 minutes. They were just sitting there thinking. No one in the group said much of anything until they arrived at a silent consensus.' Contrast that to other groups where members debated the relative merits of their solutions. We won the game.

In another company exercise, done after a Myers-Briggs session, they split the I's and E's into groups. And then they said (hypothetically) 'You have the day off. What do you guys want to do with the day? You have $100 each'. The I's were like - I'm gonna read a book, run errands etc. And the E's were like - 'Who's going to Vegas? Party at our house.' The E's were planning parties while the I's were planning alone time.

It really doesn't matter if you're an I or an E. Or switch between I/E. As long as you can accept yourself. The rule of thumb I use for I/E orientation is does that person get energized around other people...

<comment><USER7> _The rule of thumb I use for I/E orientation is does that person get energized around other people..._

In social situations, I often find interaction tiring. The one exception for me is highly intellectually stimulating conversation. It doesn't necessarily have to be anything deep; it could be witty repartee or even trading quotes from favorite movies. Though the latter seems juvenile, something about the act of recall feels extremely rewarding and rejuvenating.

A close friend of mine calls it "mental sex," a phrase she apparently borrowed from the popular television show _House_.

<comment><USER8> _I often find interaction tiring. The one exception for me is highly intellectually stimulating conversation._

I've noticed that my I/E orientation differs based on who I am around. Around good friends and generally intelligent people, I am more E. Around people I'm less familiar with, or people I assume I will not be interested in, I am much more I. If I've done a lot of socializing in the last few days, I am more likely to be I.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I had difficulty getting past the "my tribe is better than your tribe" stuff.

"If we introverts ran the world, it would no doubt be a calmer, saner, more peaceful sort of place."

"I suppose this common misconception has to do with our being more intelligent, more reflective, more independent, more level-headed, more refined, and more sensitive than extroverts."

Really. I suppose this might be true on average, but this makes it hard to take the article seriously.

<comment><USER10> _"I had difficulty getting past the 'my tribe is better than your tribe' stuff."_

Agreed. What really bugs me about this sort of piece (and about a huge number of comments in this thread), is that they tend to fetishize introversion, and make it a crutch. Introversion is clearly a real trait (and I'm one of those people who needs quiet time to "recharge"), but it's too easy to turn introversion into an excuse to avoid challenging situations and personal growth. I don't believe that's a habit to be celebrated.

I used to be much more "introverted" than I am today. Looking back, I can see that a lot of my formerly quiet behavior was a consequence of plain old shyness and fear, and I wish I had gotten over it a lot earlier than I did. For me, those years are lost.

<comment><USER3> The article itself seems to specifically differentiate between shyness and introversion and is more speaking to behaviors while with other people rather than trying to make excuses for avoiding others. In other words, it's not that an introvert avoids social interaction, just that an introvert's behavior during social interaction is different than an extravert's.

At least, that's the way I interpreted it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Odd. I've been an introvert for my whole life, and this is the first time I've ever come across such a brilliant description of what's going through my mind when I'm propelled into a crowd of people and asked to endure the hot air and noise they call socializing. I'm not shy either, yet I've always lacked the compunction to talk for the sake of filling a silence. Thanks for the link. It's been mailed to all the people who've called me an anti-social bastard down the years :)

<comment><USER12> "90% of all human communication is 'I'm still here. Are you still there?'" - Timothy Leary

For many people, words are incidental, and the actual communication occurs based on facial expressions and body language. For those of us who like language specifically for communicating complex and interesting ideas, this phenomenon is exasperating.

<comment><USER13> So you're saying we prefer less ping/ack packets and more data packets. Put that way, it appears that the primary problem when introverts communicate with extroverts is that we use incompatible protocols. I wonder if we could write a codec for this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I don't like the whole introvert vs extrovert divide. I am extremely introverted in some situations and extremely extroverted in others. I think I tend more towards the introverted side, sure, but I do plenty of things which smack more of the attention-seeking extrovert. Also, while I'm often shy to approach new people to start up a conversation (particularly if it revolves around the dreaded and dreadful "small talk"), when approached by others I never retreat into my shell - in fact, I come out and have a great conversation with pretty much anybody.

Perhaps, as the article argues, having introverted tendencies is not a choice, but giving in to them at the wrong time probably is. We all, extro- or introverts, have the potential to do both.

<comment><USER15> You may not like the divide, but in my moderately introverted experience, it is absolutely real. I can be very social and gregarious, but my energy and ability to recharge comes from solitude. Until I figured this out, and my wife and I came to an understanding about it, our difference i vs. e was a source of friction.

I also think it is telling that you speak of introverted tendencies in language that clearly dissaproves of "giving in" these "introverted tendencies". In some ways that linguistic construction echoes a moral judgment being passed on someone for their involuntary orientation. Maybe _you_ can choose to do both (engage in both introverted and extroverted behaviours) but there are clearly people further along the continuum than you towards the introverted side for whom that proposition is much tougher, and in some cases impossible.

<comment><USER4> Exactly. When I visit my friends, or go to parties or bars, I can be social, but I can't do it seven days in a row. If I don't get a few nights to myself per week, I get crazy and hate my life (and other people's, too.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> "The worst of it is that extroverts have no idea of the torment they put us through. Sometimes, as we gasp for air amid the fog of their 98-percent- content-free talk, we wonder if extroverts even bother to listen to themselves."

Listening to someone talk out of their ass is absolute torture. Honestly, it is something that I have a very difficult time sitting through.

<comment><USER17> Absolutely. I like listening to people talk when I'm interested in what they're saying and want to communicate with them, but when someone (like a co- worker) babbles on about their kids' baseball games or something, it is hell. I don't care! Stop talking!

This article spoke to about 90% of me. I've been introverted all my life (though less so in the past few years) but have always done pretty good with speaking in front of a group or acting in a school play or whatever. It's when there's a large group with many different conversations going on where I end up not talking to anyone and begin to feel like an outsider. One-on-one though, I can have a conversation with just about anyone. It usually takes the form of - They talk, I ask questions, they keep talking.

<comment><USER18> I think when they are telling you a story, even a boring and a stupid one it's okay, but the problem with Es is that very often you have to listen to their "mental" process, how ideas are emerging in their brains... now that's really boring :) "I don't care! Stop talking!" Just give me the answer or final thought

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Wow. For the introverts reading this, you're going to be nodding your head through the entire thing. Particularly if you live with an extrovert.

<comment><USER20> It's a good article, isn't it? I loved this quote because it fits me like glue:

"many actors, I've read, are introverts, and many introverts, when socializing, feel like actors"

I wish the article went into more detail regarding how introverted brains process information differently than extroverted ones. Anyone have any information about this?

<comment><USER21> No information, but here's some personal anecdotal data: I'm definitely an introvert, but I'm also a bit of a performer. Specifically, I enjoy giving presentations and lectures, and I always try to make them entertaining. I think the issue for me is interactivity -- I'm comfortable with noninteractive performance, but I find sustained interaction to be draining.

<comment><USER6> > I'm comfortable with noninteractive performance

Thank you. As someone who can and _likes_ to get on stage and do public speaking/tell personal stories to an audience, I think you've succinctly described why I like to do that and not mingle. Social hacking, mind hacking, and mingling techniques aside (which help), even in my most social, I gravitate towards deep one-on-one over being the entertainer in a loud, group conversation. And, yes my deep one-on-one smacks of being so lost in listening that the other person falls in love with talking to you ( _non-interactive_ _again_ )

Makes me wonder if there are more mental hacks to be applied - e.g. if you think of the group conversation as more non-interactive than interactive will that help?

As an aside on group conversations (another HN discussion) - I find that I can handle group conversations better if I don't try to participate (e.g. _non- interactive_ _yet_ _again_ ). I could listen to conversations all day (I find the interplay fascinating). I can lose myself in other people's stories (to the point of my friends saying - are you having a good time? you're _not_ saying _anything_ \- and I usually am.)

<comment><USER22> I'm curious, for the "deep one-on-one": is this more often with people you know well, or casual acquaintances who pique your interest on a particular subject?

<comment><USER6> For as long as I can remember, I have had a keen interest in understanding more about what I don't understand. Observing is my number one passion. Since I don't understand quite a lot, I can be easily entertained and captivated. I understand that a lot of people on News.YC want to talk about intellectual topics - I fancy myself a snob because I feel like I can listen/talk about anything (as long as the other person is _interested_ in what they are talking about)

By "deep one-on-one", I mean conversations where I am basically allowing someone to play the role of 'expert'. Not necessarily deep philosophical topics. But something the individual is keenly interested and/or passionate about. It doesn't have to be a person I know well - I've had these fulfilling mini-conversations with people on a train (and it tends to be strangers/acquaintances because I keep a moat around myself).

For example, yesterday at our office galley I got into a 5-minute conversation about soccer (with someone who plays for fun on weekends). I learned that one of the best ways to become a better soccer dribbler (foot skills) is to practice kicking a ball in the surf on the beach (because you have the water resistance to deal with). He also said that the reason why Americans aren't good at soccer (football) among other reasons is - Americans have perfect playing fields, while Brazilians, they grow up kicking stuff in the dirt, sand so the groomed soccer field is easy compared to the rough + tumble environment they learned on. I love learning about the 'hacks' (to become better faster).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Like others have said, I nodded my head through the entire article--pretty much describes me 100%.

A few years ago in a psychology class the teacher gave us some drawing tools and asked us all to draw what we'd be doing on an ideal day. I drew my girlfriend and I lounging on a beach with a pile of books. The person next to me drew themselves at a party and other drew themselves parasailing behind a boat filled with people.

Afterwards we took the Big 5 personality test and compared out introversion/extroversion results to our pictures and without fail, our introversion was predicted by the lack of people in our drawings.

</comment><comment><USER24> Introvert/Extrovert is not a capability as it is a _preference_. It took some time and pain in my high-school to realize I simply do not enjoy parties and clubs. I was very surprised by it too, since most of my middle school was full of stories about how awesome parties will be.

This is a piece of information which should be made available to young people as early as possible. It's another in the thousands of things schools do not even try to teach, but they should.

<comment><USER25> It is dangerous to label not least because the "my tribe is better than yours" becomes a spontaneous reaction. People should be left to themselves to figure out themselves.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I believe a quote by Soren Kierkegaard is apt in this discussion: "I have just now come from a party where I was its life and soul; witticisms streamed from my lips, everyone laughed and admired me, but I went away — yes, the dash should be as long as the radius of the earth's orbit ——————————— and wanted to shoot myself."

Funniest thing he ever wrote.

<comment><USER27> This quote is not about introversion, but about despair (depression?), isolation, and a poor definition of self.

[http://www.google.ca/search?q="have+just+now+come+from+a+par...](http://www.google.ca/search?q=)

The dash should also come before the word "but".

But then, a quote's whatever you interpret it to be, no?

<comment><USER26> I did screw up the quote, and I know it is about despair (different than depression, I think) but it popped into my head. I should have been more rigorous about getting the quote right. Sorry 'bout that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I recommend reading "The Introvert Advantage" for a more detailed look at introversion and advice on dealing with extroverts and situations which favor extroverts.

</comment><comment><USER29> Old but very good article. For once I'm glad to see something I've seen before.

</comment><comment><USER30> I'm one of the evil extroverts, and I love it. I'll be happy to answer any of your questions.

<comment><USER25> What did you think of the article? We see the introverts saying it describes them 100%. The article itself says an extrovert would never understand what the author speaks of. What did you think of it?

<comment><USER30> Well, I think I can relate to the part about having other people make me feel tired. But that might be just because I was introverted years ago.

In any case, I think I can get along fine with introverts as long as they're polite. But when my introverted brother interrupts me in mid-sentence and says "Sorry, I'm not really interested in talking about this", that's a bit much. I humor people when they want to talk about things I'm not interested in--is it really that hard?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Is this really not satire? "Are introverts arrogant? Hardly. I suppose this common misconception has to do with our being more intelligent, more reflective, more independent, more level-headed, more refined, and more sensitive than extroverts."

<comment><USER32> I think that part was a joke. But the article as a whole is definitely not satire; it's an excellent description of how I and many other people feel in social situations, and a rebuttal of some common misconceptions about us that have been annoying me for years.

<comment><USER25> How is that a joke. It fits neatly how I would have described it. Introverts are more reflective, the author states that they are a majority amongst the gifted and perhaps their reflection perhaps leads to sensitivity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> If you get a chance, read the interview with the author. It's a good companion piece to the article, and maybe even to Why Nerds Are Unpopular:

"They've turned this word 'geek' into a term that's almost romantic in some ways, and through the Silicon economy, they've been massively innovative and economically important. A lot of them are running circles around the extroverts who are selling shoes. So I think part of what's happened lately is that the digital economy is giving introverts a new place in the sun."

</comment><comment><USER34> Like a breath of fresh air.</comment>


Google bets big on China AI - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/12/12/google-opening-an-office-focused-on-artificial-intelligence-in-china <comment><AUTHOR> Yet Chinese people cannot use Google, at least not easily...</comment>


DeepZip: Lossless Compression Using Recurrent Networks [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs224n/reports/2761006.pdf <comment><USER2> I have a suspicion that in the future computers will use a vaguely DNN-like approach for compression, but I haven't seen any super compelling examples of this yet. I can say "imagine a photo taken at 2000 feet and 2 miles away of the Eifel Tower with a beautiful orange sunset in the background", and your mind can use it's internal representation to render something along those lines. I feel like computers some day should be able to do the same thing, except that with another kilobyte of constraints I should be able to make the final result really close to a particular photo that matches that description.

<comment><USER3> Though it has little bearing on your point, many people including myself do not possess the ability to "imagine a photo". It is known as aphantasia and Blake Ross has a great article[1] on the subject.

1\. [https://www.facebook.com/notes/blake-ross/aphantasia-how- it-...](https://www.facebook.com/notes/blake-ross/aphantasia-how-it-feels-to- be-blind-in-your-mind/10156834777480504/)

<comment><USER4> Well, in an even _more_ distant future, a more developed version of the kind of neural networks that the GP describes could be hooked up to your brain to provide this functionality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> On the one hand, DeepZip does neural net based compression.

On the other hand, in "The Case for Learned Index Structures" [1] paper, they replace B-Trees with neural nets:

> by using neural nets we are able to outperform cache optimized B-Trees by up > to 70% in speed while saving an order of magnitude in memory over several > real world data sets

Basically ML/DL is coming for the classic data structures, replacing some of them with learning based versions.

[1] [https://arxiv.org/abs/1712.01208](https://arxiv.org/abs/1712.01208)

</comment><comment><USER6> Can someone who knows more about neural networks tell me how this works? Apparently the model's weights don't need to be sent over the network. The only thing which is shared is some seed used to initialize the model with random weights. While the network encodes data it simultaneously updates its weights. To decode, somehow you can run the same process and magically get back the original data?

The paper doesn't explain how this is possible, how would I go about implementing something like this?

<comment><USER7> The naive solution would be to split the input data into the batches. Compress the first batch using a random model, then train a new model based on it. Compress the second batch using the model trained on the first batch and so on. Depending on your data structure, you can use a model trained on all the previous batches (or just N previous batches) when compressing the i-th batch.

This can be likely optimized (e.g. 7-Zip's arithmetical coder doesn't split data into batches, but rather uses exponentially filtered conditional probabilities that are instantaneously updated each time a new sample is processed). I'm no expert in RNNs, but my hunch is that you can adjust the model incrementally using backpropagation right after it processes another sample instead of completely retraining it.

<comment><USER6> Interesting.

So, to decode you would start with the unoptimized model and decode the first batch. You then train using that first batch to get a better model and use your improved model to decode the next batch.

Okay, that makes sense; thanks for the response!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "We know that Recurrent Neural Networks (LSTM/GRU) based models are good at capturing long term dependencies"

This seems like a bold statement. We know they are good at capturing some structure from sequential data at least, but they seem lacking in some regards [0].

However it seems to yield some interesting results. The architecture is like an autoencoder, but with RNNs connected at each layer? Have you tried using NTMs?

[0]: [https://rylanschaeffer.github.io/content/research/neural_tur...](https://rylanschaeffer.github.io/content/research/neural_turing_machine/main.html) (section on LSTM Copy Performance)

</comment><comment><USER9> Does anyone have a link to a good replacement resource for the 2nd source? The link is broken.

[2] EE376C Lecture Notes: Universal Schemes in Information Theory: [http://web.stanford.edu/class/ee376c/lecturenotes/intro_lect...](http://web.stanford.edu/class/ee376c/lecturenotes/intro_lecture_slides_ee376c_fall_2016_2017.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER10> Why aren't they comparing it to parq or even bzip?

<comment><USER11> Because the author compares to the best domain-specific compressors (by compression ratio) for each dataset instead. For text, he used CMIX[1]. For DNA sequences, he used MFCompress[2].

[1] [http://mattmahoney.net/dc/text.html](http://mattmahoney.net/dc/text.html)

[2] [http://bioinformatics.ua.pt/software/mfcompress/](http://bioinformatics.ua.pt/software/mfcompress/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> nit: an abstract should describe the obtained result

</comment><comment><USER13> Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems they haven't counted the network storage.

<comment><USER14> Quoting: " If the model is trained for more than an epoch, the weights of the RNN Estimator Block also need to be stored, and would count in the compression size (MDL Principle [14])"

<comment><USER13> After another read, they are only storing seed and not the weights, needing entire data to be decoded, and so the compressed format cannot be transferred without all the data.

> Only random seed is Stored: The model is initialized using a stored random > seed, which is also communicated to the decoder. Thus, the effectively the > model weights do not contribute to the total compressed data size

> Single Pass: As we do not store the weights of the model, we perform a > single pass (1 epoch) through the data

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Could the Weissman score be higher than middle-out methods?</comment>


Why "Start-ups" Will Destroy Us - <AUTHOR> http://petovera.com/professional-web-design-blog/2011/03/why-%E2%80%9Cstartups%E2%80%9D-will-destroy-us/

<comment><USER2> Honestly this kind of drivel needs to be kicked out of hn. Start-ups create value and what companies do with these start-ups once they have been acquired is their own problem. Big companies a constantly screwing up left and right, but that is not our fault.

Yes we lust for new things, which is why the author can afford a computer to write his article on; yes we lust for profit, that is why joining a start-up and taking up the huge risk is something one is willing to do; yes we make old businesses obsolete, but that just frees people to join other companies which are capable of creating stuff, not sucking up resources.

The only thing start-ups forces people to do is to think and adapt. And if they aren't willing to do so, they have nobody but them-self to complain about.

And no start-up can create a bubble, those bubbles come from the insane recklessness of the FEDs dollar printing and the resulting super low interest rates because there is too few productive places to invest ones money.

We need more start-ups, not fewer; We need more economic activity, not less and we need more people with ability, not clones who will never amount to anything.

<comment><USER3> I think we over estimate the impact startups have on job creation. The recent home runs (google, facebook, zynga, groupon) have created astonishingly large value with relatively few employees - a few thousand on average. Startups are good at creating wealth, but not necessarily jobs (we still have record level unemployment in silicon valley). Our country needs to put millions of people to work; the 20k jobs created by startups are not going to solve that problem.

Theoretically, the unemployed workers can adapt to the "new economy" and re- establish themselves. Empirically, however, that's not happening.

Startups are more likely to aid the jobless via welfare (from tax revenue) than by actually employing people.

<comment><USER2> It is possible for a writer now to make a good living selling his self- published ebooks on Amazon's kindle platform, to maintain a living writing blogposts for an audience larger than many smaller magazines ever had, etc.

But that is beside the point: job creation isn't the goal of any business nor is it the responsibility of any business to hire a certain amount of people, and the country as such doesn't need to put a large number of people to work - people are responsible for their own life and if they are not willing to do that (and you may very well be right about that I don't know), that is their own problem.

<comment><AUTHOR> I disagree, Tom. You see, I believe entrepreneurs are heroes, and as such they need to lead and guide people who are unwilling to lead themselves for the greater benefit of all.

<comment><USER2> Nobody can change others, and there are plenty of guides online about personal development if that is what one is interested in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Local bakery = shrub; IBM = redwood; startup = redwood seedling.

<comment><USER5> The author's point is that both IBM and the local bakery are built to last, patiently building value over time.

Startups are too often get-rich-quick schemes whose founders want to work hard for 3 years, then cash out and spend the rest of their time on 'speeches and beaches'.

<comment><USER4> IBM wasn't "built to last." It was a rollup of a bunch of cash register companies, handed to Watson to run by the financier who bought them.

The truth is that in reality there's usually less planning than there later seems to have been. Things that turn out big were often small and tentative initially.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am not sure how accurate your history of IBM is since I myself am not an expert.

I agree with your last 2 statements completely though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The author of the article paints with too broad of a brush something not everyone shares.

Lots of people would love to turn their companies into large going concerns.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree (I am one of them), but there are also lots of people who get into business and start a company for the exact opposite reason: cash out as big and as fast as possible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It seems to me that part of what he is complaining about is that startups are basically designed with scaling in mind. In other words, he is bitching about the fact that there are now 6 billion or so people on the planet, so if some service of a particular sort does well, good god, it needs to be fed like a growing baby whale on steroids -- something a couple of guys in a garage probably can't pull off by themselves without some of infrastructure you see in the form of YC, venture capital, et al.

PS: Really hideous website, offensively so given the title (or whatever it is) "The Difference between good and great web design".

PPS: Sentence #2, which starts with the word "this", I think you mean "think". Think hard about _that_ for a minute.</comment>


Turnaround: Marissa Mayer's First 300 Days As Yahoo's CEO - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/05/19/turnaround-marissa-mayers-first-300-days-as-yahoos-ceo/?fromcat=all <comment><AUTHOR> Is it accurate that she is the second longest tenured CEO after just 300 days? That can't be right, can it?

<comment><AUTHOR> Update: found this list

Marissa Mayer (2012–present)

Ross Levinsohn Interim (2012)

Scott Thompson (2012)

Tim Morse Interim (2011–2012)

Carol Bartz (2009–2011)

Jerry Yang (2007–2009)

Terry Semel (2001–2007)

Timothy Koogle (1995–2001)</comment></comment>