Ask HN: Any advice for an early startup employee who feels screwed and lonely? - <AUTHOR> Hi,
2.5 years ago I joined a startup in SF as one of the very first employees. The offer was quite ridiculous, but after doing tons of work and becoming a key element I was able to negotiate again my compensation, and now I have north of 1% ISOs and 165k salary. My role is heavily technical, I built most of the core at the beginning and now I spend my day leading a few teams in the company (the company size is 35 people).
The main problem is that I feel this inner conflict that is deepening every day: I can witness that my productivity and my contribution to the company is huge, but I don't get any satisfaction out of it because I feel like my slice of the pie is way smaller than what I think I deserve.
Also, I feel very lonely in this matter, because all my coworkers are either more junior, less talented or less ambitious than me, and so for them the simple joy of working on interesting problems and getting an equity of 0.0x % is more than enough.
Some solutions I can think of might be:
1) Get a better title (VP of engineering): this is going to be absolutely hard. The founders are extremely stingy and so are the investors, and I've been repeatedly told that in order to aspire to a VP role for a company with our traction you need to have a previous curriculum, which obviously I don't have since this is my first startup experience (I'm 28).
2) Leave: this one would make sense if it wasn't for the ISOs. If I had to leave and exercise my vested share of options, I would have to pay an incredible amount of taxes (because our valuation increased) for a liquidation event that might happen years from now, or never.
3) Ask more money/equity: knowing myself, this would make me genuinely happy for about a year or so, and so might be reasonable. The problem is convincing the founders (and the investors) would be very draining, since I'm already the highest paid technical person.
Have you ever gone through something like this?
Thanks for reading. <comment><USER2> I would say this: it is never as bad as it seems and it is never as good as it seems. Startups are very hard on everyone, despite the smiles and glowing press. What you are feeling is natural, and a lot of close-to-founder employees go through it. (Founders do too.)

Tactically, at your age and at that level of comp, I would stick it out for a few more years or until it became clear that the ISO's were not going to be worth anything, which ever came first. Jumping ship almost always seems more attractive that it turns out to be in actuality.

I would also recommend some sort of stoic philosophy. I am a Christian, but there are plenty of other options: zen, greek, etc. At the end of the day, none of this shit really matter that much, and, additionally, it's all pretty funny if you can get some mental space between yourself and the situation.

Good luck.

<comment><USER3> > I would also recommend some sort of stoic philosophy. I am a Christian, but > there are plenty of other options: zen, greek, etc.

I highly recommend getting some of this advice to work for you. Having a different view on situation will definitely help "soften" the tough situation that you feel you are in.

In a similar vein, I have consider what my salary/job has provided me, it gave me opportunity to experience other cultures, provided my family the financial resources to be secure and look after their health. Sometimes, I feel that I am being greedy if I chase for more money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've been through a similiar situation and ultimately decided to leave. For me it boiled down to my gut feeling and me not wanting to pour more of my heart and soul into something I couldn't be genuinely passionate about anymore (partially due to ISOs / salary / titles on the table).

My advice is to ask yourself some hard questions and then follow your gut feeling. If you are discontented you are not going to perform at your best, it will affect your life negatively, and this will only get worse with time. So ask yourself the hard questions. If nothing changes do you really want to stay there? If no, then what will have to change in order for you to stay and be happy? You know yourself, decide what it is that will make you happy and otherwise you would be happier leaving.

Remember its just a business transaction, they profit from your skills and labor and you profit from the money and titles and equity they give you in exchange for it. I have the feeling a lot of startups will come along with the stingy spiel, but they have to pay up for services like everyone else and if they aren't willing you move along, also equity and titles cost a startup only theoretically (if they ever liquidate which is a rare thing) so even stingy investors etc will probably be more willing to upgrade you here than in the salary department since that cost real money next month.

Good luck

</comment><comment><USER5> Dude. You make 165k. More money isn't going to make you happy. A job is a job, and you have a damn good one. What else is going on in your life besides that?

<comment><USER4> "A job is a job, and you have a damn good one"

Please don't forget the cost of living before assuming the OP is some privilegiado who is unhappy being filthy rich.

According to this ([http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of- living/city_result.jsp?country...](http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of- living/city_result.jsp?country=United+States&city=San+Francisco%2C+CA)) a 1 bedroom apartment outside the city runs 31.5k a year thats about 20% of OPs salary. If he wanted a 3 bedroom in the city it would run 78k a year. By comparison someone living in Berlin will pay about 8k a year for rent of a 1 bedroom in the city.

So his 165k is roughly like someone earning 40k a year in Berlin. This isn't exact of course because of other factors such as utilities, food, etc, but comparing these costs to other locations it does look to be more expensive on these factors as well.

<comment><USER6> >This isn't exact of course

This is very far from exact. You're comparing a city with particularly high real estate costs to one with relatively low real estate costs (for the size of the city). Spending 20% of gross on rent is not particularly extreme, and factors like utilities, food, travel, and so on are not going to have remotely the multiplier that real estate does when comparing costs to Berlin.

Yes, 165k in SF is not like 165k in Berlin, but for a person without dependents it still leaves a lot of room for large savings or expensive luxuries. The median household income in SF is just $78k.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I feel like I could have written that. I can tell you what I've done, but I'd be overstating it to call it advice.

I've been a huge contributor to my current company, but as the first employee, even 3% of our stock feels stingy. I've easily contributed more than a high- equity founder (by everyone, including other cofounders', assessment). Also going through the "well, we can't pay you more because we can't afford it" rigmarole and not even getting the title consolation prize. Similarly feeling trapped by the whole mess.

I frankly think it was a poor decision for me to join the company, and I can't see myself taking another early employee position unless it's fully compensated (either much more equity than is traditional, or a market salary), which doesn't seem to be the norm, despite outsized risk.

I've found consulting to be a good outlet for ambition and way to make up for disappointing compensation. I also enjoy working on side projects with the intent of commercializing them.

<comment><AUTHOR> Consulting might as well be an option, if I just had more free time. The problem is that we are still early enough that I have to work a lot, and it completely drains my professional energy (nowhere close to a burnout, a "healty" draining)

<comment><USER8> By "consulting", I believe they mean leaving your job and consulting full- time. That way you are in charge of your own schedule and salary.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Disclaimer: I never went through a similar situation.

To me it sounds like that you have built the core platform for someone else, as an employee, and you have been rewarded for your work. Problem is: you are an employee and you are tired of that.

My feeling is that what you are really saying is that you would like to do your own thing, but the current situation is too economically stable and good to just give it up. How about keeping consistent with your current role and start working on a pet project? Might sound like an obvious advice but it does really make sense to me given your situation :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your reply. That's an incredibly sound advice, and I feel like I missed a detail in my post: the contribution that I'm giving to this company is requiring me to work a lot (not like crazy, but let's say a good average of 50 hours a week), so I really don't have the spare bandwidth to start a serious pet project that could lead somewhere else than just simply playing with some technology for the sake of it.

<comment><USER10> You are doing well enough to save to do your own project to do later.. Eventually this company will move on from your work, even though it seems impossible now, they are quietly trying to figure out a way to do so. When they do, just be keeping your expenses low now and low in the future so you are not dependent upon a job. I have made the mistake of becoming "invaluable" and every time the company management works to find a way to replace me because they want to show they are in charge and are not dependent upon any one single person even if it is not in their best interest to do so.

<comment><USER11> This is so true. If you are very unhappy and working hard, you may also be leading towards a burnout. A corporation (big or small) does not have a heart, always think about yourself first because from experience I know a company will do the same when time comes. Do what is right for you and your health. When you try to make a decision for yourself, don't forget to put a price on the happiness that you will get when you wake up every morning. Sometimes all it takes is a month or two of happiness and a change and you start doing amazing things for yourself again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I quite don't get why you're complaining with such a compensation, seriously. $165.000, goddamn. I'm 27 and I barely make 1/8 of that a year, being a full stack web developer, in Spain. And here you are, complaining. Sometimes I think you guys in the US live in another world. Better yet, you should try to live in another country. You'd quickly earn how inflated the startup scene salaries are in the US.

<comment><USER13> Ignoring the difference in salaries due to markets for a moment: This is obviously about respect and acknowledgement concerning this person's contribution.

That said, if you don't already you must learn that cost of living and the job market have a huge impact on compensation and can vary dramatically from region to region in a country. Different countries entirely are literally a world apart. If you do already know this your comment can only be taken as sour grapes.

Even giving you the benefit of the doubt concerning that still makes your comment a bit shitty. You have a skill that can be used not just remotely to get paid more, but as a basis for immigrating to a country that can pay you what you're worth. Yes, that's easier said than done but if you want something more you can get it with hard work and some elbow grease.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> What is --actually-- motivating you to stay?

I was hired, by a friend of a friend, to build a website. I was told "prototype", MVP, "ad supported".. "we'll find investors". As a contractor, fine, just pay me.

4 years later, after a customer threatened to sue for being defrauded, I finely wised up. I had been strung along with late payments for 4 years, the work kept piling up, I begged for help (it was just me doing all the technical work)... and the wife of the CEO let it slip they were doing 6 figures in revenue. I had gotten so obsessed with the work, that I fell into my OCD and did not pay attention to the business side of my "business".

4 years of near-burnout... and the guy who introduced me to this £$%£% finally decided to tell me he knew for a fact the CEO had a history of criminal behavior (i.e. fraud).

It was a harsh lesson in my blindspots. I learned a lot from a personal angle but it cost me 6 years of my life (to recover from the burnout as well). I got at the root of my OCD like behavior though. I was the same way - just a little more work, it'll all be over, the money, money, get all the invoices paid and quit... but it took a real crisis to slap me upside the head.

Not to say your founders are psychopaths, but look at it from their POV. You're just the hired help. It's not profitable to make you happy from a monetary perspective and you aren't taking advantage of the power you may not know you have (my biggest mistake).

If you're in business with someone, ruthlessness, however polite, is the only option (the CEO a year after I quit, -abandoned- his family and now is in a big legal battle with his wife who funded the company).

Ruthlessness is sometimes the only way to get respect from people, and I infer this may be part of your problem.

\-- But I may be projecting my issues onto your situation --

So that is why I ask - what are the possible deeper psychological issues that are keeping you stuck? I know this inner conflict you speak of very well, and until I really understood the fundamental reasons why I put up with all the shit, I drove myself crazy.

hope this helps...

<comment><USER13> Even if the founders aren't sociopaths they will be pressured by themselves and their investors to do what's best for them and the whole time someone will be telling them that "business is business". If people can rationalize committing genocide they will easily rationalize screwing you over.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Rationally, employees can get at most at their replacement cost, more or less. As you have built up experience in your present role and made yourself a 'key element', you should be compensated more highly than other companies will offer you for the same sort of work. If that's not the case, then you are right that you are underpaid - just accept one of those offers, or negotiate again on that basis. There are plenty of roles in the Bay Area where technical people can make more than 165k with salary being just a part of total compensation - and you can decide how any opportunities you can find line up with your current levels. If you can't get more elsewhere then you should feel better about it :)

You could try to demonstrate that you were a key value generator by doing a new startup without the other people who have a slice of this one :)

As to whether you deserve it or not, that's a tough one.

</comment><comment><USER16> Assuming no pay increase, titles are free. If you're already managing the tech teams, then you should be able to get the VP Eng title with little problem. It's a win-win situation for them, too: you're happier with the nicer title, it costs them nothing, and it looks better on your resume when you choose to leave.

If you want VP of Engineering and a pay raise, that's another story altogether... Sounds like you fought the pay battle already. I'd push for a better title.

The few comments posted before this one are valid and good advice. Stick it out, and keep pushing for the things you want. Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> From my understanding, titles are not free at all: they present an opportunity cost, especially when the company is on the right trajectory. Promoting someone to VP means that there will not be room to bring a VP from the outside with a track record of successes, one that most of the times the investors themselves are pushing to bring into the company.

<comment><USER17> Not true. Titles and roles change all the time. You can absolutely be the VP of Engineering and if and when they need/want a "real" VP of Engineering you can become for example, the VP of Infrastructure Engineering reporting to the VP of Engineering. I doubt that they have any formal structured options framework so don't let them use that trick, if they do mention it, have them show it to you right at that moment, because if they can't it means they don't have it yet.

Anything worth having is worth fighting to have. To quote Bill Gates in the Simpson's episode, "I didn't get rich by writing a lot of checks." That's how the founders think. Getting what you want will be like taking a gazelle away from a hungry crocodile.

<comment><USER13> Or they could pull the good ol' "SVP of Engineering hired to be the actual VP". If they do that you're in trouble since you're directly in the new guy's way because you're between him and the people he wants to directly manage/reorganize. But at that point you may as well take the hint and leave.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Given you are able to land a job at another company making $180K++ it would only add a few more hundred dollars to your bank account after taxes. If I were you I would not optimize for that unless I am after collecting a few more hundred dollars every two weeks.

In reality, the only way to optimize for the best returns for your time is to start something yourself. There is __no__ other way.

</comment><comment><USER19> > I don't get any satisfaction out of it because I feel like my slice of the > pie is way smaller than what I think I deserve.

Have you considered that you may be looking at the issue from the wrong angle? You are unhappy with your work, and it may seem like compensation is the cause of that, but there's a good chance that it isn't. Getting a better title and more compensation may satisfy you for a while, but it's quite likely feel just the same after a little while.

Obviously I don't know anything about you or your work, but there are a few points that stood out to me:

\- It seems like the company management does not respect you as much as you'd like them to and this makes you angry.

\- You say that you are the most senior/experienced engineer in the company, so you're missing a chance to learn from someone else. Personally this has been a major incentive for me to stick with a company/team.

Then there's the question of what you _actually_ want to be doing in the next 2-5 years and how your current job helps you towards that goal. Have you ever had that conversation with the founders? As someone else mentioned, being an employee is a business transaction. Money is part of what you get, but the perhaps more important part is how the company can help you achieve your professional goals. It seems like it really isn't in your case. Could this be the reason for why you feel demotivated?

</comment><comment><USER20> I've been struggling with a decision about whether to leave consulting and join a startup as an early employee under similar terms. After reading your post and many of the comments within, I have been able to trust my gut a lot more confidently and stick with owning 100% of my own small operation. So at the very least take solace in the fact that your post helped others out in making better startup decisions!

</comment><comment><USER21> Does the startup have technical founders? How many rounds of investment have you guys taken on? How many employees have an equal or higher title than you? Is your role in technical and possibly business development integral enough where it would be really difficult to replace? Does the company have enough of a runway to figure things out if you left?

<comment><AUTHOR> > Does the startup have technical founders?

Yes, one.

> How many rounds of investment have you guys taken on?

Seed and Series A. A new round might be coming soon.

> How many employees have an equal or higher title than you?

On the technical side, nobody (except the founder), but that will change soon as the engineering team is expanding.

> Is your role in technical and possibly business development integral enough > where it would be really difficult to replace?

I like to think that it would be difficult enough, because of the know how acquired from having worked from day 1 and for the potential contribution that I can still give to the technical execution.

> Does the company have enough of a runway to figure things out if you left?

The company is well structured, so it will definitely survive, but that being said I'm without doubts the employee who would cause the biggest, albeit reparable, damage if he left.

Thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> So there are 35 people. What's your role, exactly? Are you managing the entire engineering team?

If getting more money/equity would only make you happy for another year, then the money and the equity isn't the real problem here.

It sounds to me like the real problem is that management doesn't respect you as much as you think you deserve. In particular, it would be quite reasonable for a 35-person company to have a VP of Engineering. If that isn't you, then it'll end up being someone else that they hire in above you.

My recommendation is to be open and honest about your frustration with your manager, and if you don't see a path to being happy with your job without a huge equity/pay bump, just move on. There isn't going to be any easy, obvious solution here.

</comment><comment><USER23> > Have you ever gone through something like this?

Yeah. For me it wasn't worth it. I could make enough in other companies - where the opportunities for advancing were higher and where the work environment was nicer - to get what I wanted out of life. So, the money was more something that would have been nice to have if someone had offered it to me out of the blue, but of itself didn't/wouldn't result in any significant lasting increase in happiness by comparison to the alternatives.

</comment><comment><USER24> Have you considered becoming a (co)founder in you own company, thus capturing more of the value you create?

Statistically, those ISOs won't be worth anything anyway and sticking around to see them vest may just mean you put off moving to on to a place where you are happier. One way to extract _some_ value from that stock is to use it to negotiate a signing bonus at your next job.

</comment><comment><USER25> Hi!

For solution 1: Titles are based on what you are doing, not what you did at some previous company. Go research typical roles and responsibilities at other companies. If you are doing the VP work already (lots of personnel and process work, in my experience), then show them that you meet the criteria and ask for the title. If you aren't (or they disagree), tell them that you want to get there and ask them for support. This might include classes, an executive coach, and/or mentorship from other executives. Or you may discover that you really want a different title (e.g., technical architect, or something higher up the Google ladder [1]), in which case ask for that.

For solution 2, if you haven't already paid for an accountant who specializes in this, please do.

For solution 3, you could also consider asking them for a one-off payment that would let you collect some/all of your stock in exchange for staying on another year. Then they don't have to mess with the salary structure, and they also don't have to give away more equity.

I'll add that 1+% of equity does not sound bad for somebody who has always collected a good paycheck and who does not have a senior title. Here are some resources that can help you compare:

[http://avc.com/2010/11/employee-equity-how- much/](http://avc.com/2010/11/employee-equity-how-much/)

[http://www.ackwire.com/jobs/engineering](http://www.ackwire.com/jobs/engineering)

[https://angel.co/salaries](https://angel.co/salaries)

[http://www.datarevelations.com/startup-cto-salary-qnd- equity...](http://www.datarevelations.com/startup-cto-salary-qnd-equity-data- us)

[https://www.wealthfront.com/tools/startup-salary-equity- comp...](https://www.wealthfront.com/tools/startup-salary-equity-compensation)

I also saw a Riviera Partners report that put the average equity for A-round VPs of engineering at 1.4%.

[1] [https://www.quora.com/As-of-2015-what-are-the-different- leve...](https://www.quora.com/As-of-2015-what-are-the-different-levels-of- software-engineers-at-Google)

</comment><comment><USER26> My bet is that the emptiness you feel has little to do with a title, or how much you're paid.

I suspect that it has everything to do with meaning/purpose.

Maybe you need to ditch the day job (regardless of consequence), move somewhere cheap, and make something you care about.

Some of us aren't meant to be employees.

</comment><comment><USER27> So the main problem is you think you deserve more of the pie. But at the same time you think asking for more would be very draining. I don't see why you shouldn't ask for more, especially if you're even considering leaving.</comment>


Steve Blank: Don't Give Away Your Board Seats - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/accelerators/2013/06/17/steve-blank-dont-give-away-your-board-seats/ <comment><USER2> [http://www.paulgraham.com/control.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/control.html) is a good follow up to read on this topic.

</comment><comment><USER3> As always, VentureHacks has great practical advice on the board:

[http://venturehacks.com/articles/one-way- control](http://venturehacks.com/articles/one-way-control)

[http://venturehacks.com/articles/board- structure](http://venturehacks.com/articles/board-structure)

<comment><USER4> Great point - I was just reaching for it when I finished the article.

One general note... Look how many recent news articles you can find when you search for the board firing founders on Google. [https://www.google.com/#sclient=psy- ab&q=board+firing+founde...](https://www.google.com/#sclient=psy- ab&q=board+firing+founder+ceo&oq=board+firing+founder+ceo)

It's not scientific, but it highlights that friendly relationships can go awry.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> They went to business school and yet somehow met someone twice and wanted to give away the keys to the kingdom? Hmm...

<comment><USER6> The article doesn't specify _which_ business school they went to...doesn't necessarily mean they went to GSB haha.

<comment><USER5> That's fair, but I didn't go to any business school, just common sense school.

<comment><USER7> That's a very selective school that few people are lucky enough to attend. It is not well named.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "In the last few years, it's become more common for angel investors to ask for a board seat"

Is that really the case? It contradicts what I've heard.</comment>


Group differences in IQ are best understood as environmental in origin (pdf) - <AUTHOR> http://people.virginia.edu/~ent3c/papers2/nisbett2012groupdiffs.pdf <comment><USER2> Rushton's assertion that there was some genetic influence is still not clearly answered with this article, simply dismissed.

It is clear that environmental variables affect g-loaded test scores (one example showed that black children raised in white households test higher than black children raised in black households on average) almost always related to family income, but there is still a weird small percentage that just can't be explained away.

That is the genetic factor that Ruston and others believe exist. For example, white and black children raised from birth in the same household (predominantly white or black household, either one) have this weird gap where the white kids test better on g-loaded assessments.

SAT scores are positively correlated to g-loaded test assessments. The College Board's 2005 SAT data shows a 10 point combined advantage for white kids with family income under $10,000 over black kids with family income over $100,000!

I have no idea the reason behind that leftover unexplained gap. I have never read an article from the genetic or environmental side that adequately explained it in context of the obvious difference that environment makes.

</comment><comment><USER3> If someone was trying to study the genetic inheritance of intelligence, you would think he or she would want to look at more uniform groups than American blacks and American whites. Given the considerable amount of immigration and intermarriage modifying these group over time, both would appear fairly mixed with "stock" beyond even the European and the African. And Europe and Africa are wide, varied areas to begin with.

<comment><USER4> A uniform social and educational environment is far more important for these types of studies.

Comparing Africa And Europe makes that impossible - it's hard enough in the US as it is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Too bad we'll never see Rushton's reply, since he died a few days ago.

</comment><comment><USER6> _Rushton (2012) asserted that the fact that Black performance falls further behind White performance on subtests and items that have a higher g loading is an indication of a genetic contribution to the Black/ White IQ gap. He believes that a genetic hypothesis about the origin of the racial IQ gap would predict this pattern of larger differences for more heritable, heavily gloaded items, and that environmental ones would not. This belief is mistaken. The construct of g would have no significance if it were not a measure of cognitive complexity. If a group is environmentally disadvantaged, its performance in comparison to nondisadvantaged groups will be greater on more complex tasks than on less complex ones. If you have not played basketball for many years, your performance will be closer to what it was previously for layups than for fade-away jump shots._

\--Summary.

<comment><USER6> Disregarding the problematic use of (1) "groups" solely defined as [race]; and (2) IQ as equivalent to [intelligence]; the <logical> extension of the analysis with the words <in origin> as used in the title is specious. [#,$,!]

________

[#] ie. Logically ok would be _Group differences in IQ are best understood as an [having an environmental component]._

=edit=

[$] Its logically possible (and most likely correct) that there are N dimensions to intelligence that are consistent _in simultaneity_ (and while still excluding race). EG, including non-racial defined genetic group variation and environmental factors could both have measurable deterministic impacts on outcomes, of order of magnitude equivalent value. Its problematic to assert that the "origin" of [xyz] intelligence is an either/or hypothesis, when its most likely a complex composite. For obvious reasons.

[!] Environmental impacts, once established, cannot then simutaneouly be assumed as a neutral error variable (ie, with vanilla-stochasitic distribution). Certainly not without micro-analytic support. The latter is not evident / nor consistent with (1) or (2). Nor the use of basketball analogies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> [http://occidentalascent.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/800px-19...](http://occidentalascent.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/800px-1995-sat- income211.png)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> One of the best authors on this subject other than the joint authors of the brief reply article submitted here is Jelte Wicherts, who has the especially Internet-friendly habit of putting most of his papers up on his faculty website so that readers who can't punch through paywalls can still read them.

<http://wicherts.socsci.uva.nl/>

Almost anything by Eric Turkheimer (one of the co-authors of the submitted article, and on whose website I found the submitted article) is also good.

<http://people.virginia.edu/~ent3c/vita1_turkheimer.htm>

(Scroll down for live links to most of Turkheimer's recent papers, including several current classics.)

Lars Penke is another researcher who shares most of this papers, many of which are co-authored with star researchers on IQ or on human behavior genetics.

<http://www.larspenke.eu/en/publications.html>

AFTER EDIT: Following up on joe_the_user's comment, also a top-level comment, I should point out that the United States Census Bureau has consistently disavowed that "race" categories in the United States have anything to do with biology or genetics.

"The U.S. Census Bureau collects race data in accordance with guidelines provided by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and these data are based on self-identification. The racial categories included in the census questionnaire generally reflect a social definition of race recognized in this country and not an attempt to define race biologically, anthropologically, or genetically. In addition, it is recognized that the categories of the race item include racial and national origin or sociocultural groups. People may choose to report more than one race to indicate their racial mixture, such as 'American Indian' and 'White.' People who identify their origin as Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish may be of any race."

<http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/meta/long_RHI525211.htm>

A similar statement is found as footnote 7 in the Census Brief 2010 "Overview of Race and Hispanic Origin: 2010"

<http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-02.pdf>

which reads

"The race categories included in the census questionnaire generally reflect a social definition of race recognized in this country and are not an attempt to define race biologically, anthropologically, or genetically. In addition, it is recognized that the categories of the race question include race and national origin or sociocultural groups."

An earlier statement by the Census Bureau for reports on the year 2000 census

<http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/meta/long_RHI625200.htm>

says, "The concept of race as used by the Census Bureau reflects self- identification by people according to the race or races with which they most closely identify. These categories are sociopolitical constructs and should not be interpreted as being scientific or anthropological in nature. Furthermore, the race categories include both racial and national-origin groups.

"The racial classifications used by the Census Bureau adhere to the October 30,1997, Federal Register Notice entitled,"Revisions to the Standards for the Classification of Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity" issued by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)."

In other words, the professional demographers who work on the United States Census claim only to be following the law, not to be practicing biological, anthropological, or genetic science when they ask for self-identification of "race." That claim has continued through two different presidential administrations as the bureau conducted two successive decennial censuses and numerous community surveys. The Census Bureau practice is based on regulations from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which were announced on 30 October 1997

<http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/fedreg_1997standards>

to take effect no later than 1 January 2003 for data collection by all federal agencies. The summary of comments on the 1997 regulations makes clear that not all Americans are united in agreeing with the current set of categories. (The categories used by the federal government have changed several times in my lifetime.) The distinct differences between the categories used in the United States and those used in any other country in the world should make clear that categories are indeed "sociopolitical constructs and should not be interpreted as being scientific or anthropological in nature." I bring this up because several recent threads here on Hacker News have interpreted "race" categories as if they have genetic or anthropological meaning, which they do not.

The long story about how to think carefully about race and ethnicity in the human population can be found in the books recommended for first reading in a Wikipedia user bibliography "Anthropology, human biology, and race citations bibliography"

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WeijiBaikeBianji/Anthropol...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WeijiBaikeBianji/AnthropologyHumanBiologyRaceCitations)

in Wikipedia user space.

<comment><USER4> > consistently disavowed that "race" categories in the United States have > anything to do with biology or genetics.

They disavow it because it's politically poisonous any other way. But it's obvious that race is genetic - all you have to do is look at the physical, and heritable, characteristics.

And despite the "disavowment", practically speaking, most people are the genetic race they claim.

<comment><USER8> No, _ethnicity_ is genetic. Race is just something people made up.

Han Chinese, for example, are genetically distinct from ethnic Japanese, even thought to an ignorant white man they both look "the same".

<comment><USER6> China= 1.25 Billion

Japan= 0.125 Billion

India= 1.X Billion

The use of race as a proxy for _uniform_ genetic variation is silly. It follows (awkwardly) you cannot reject the hypothesis that genetics are determinate, by rejecting analysis on race-based data. But that is only the tip of the iceberg of problems here.

There is a logical problem and a data problem. The data problem is that race is not a _proxy_ for genetic variation, per-se (mixed data). The logic problem is that rejecting race as a hypothetical causal relationship does not reject genetic variable (by proxy, since proxy=false). Furtermore, rejecting the alternative hypothesis (ie, genetics) does not default to a single variable solution (ie Envronment or Genetics is origin). You cannot reject the hypothesis that they BOTH are important. Logically, they are not binary, per observation.

The takeaway is that the headline is a problem. Reducing Environment to a one of many simultaneous causal factors trivializes it.

Rejecting genetic determinants as having significant explanatory power is counter-thetical to Evolution. This is an orthogonal point, but its important. The Environment being "origin" implies that mate selection is irrelevant to inherited/expressed/realized intelligence. Which is clearly false. As a observed or as a logical matter.

Think of a car engine. Every manufacturer will have defects (manufacturing tolerances). And poor maintenance will cause every engine to eventually fail (ie, dont change the oil). So, (1) design is not determinate of performance fully; and (2) environment can determine ultimate success/failure. It does not follow that all egines have the same layout for internal cumbustion. Nor does it follow that when working at full capacity/optimim tune they will have the same power output. Nor can we conclude anything about the suspension or the chassis performance, etc. But nor does it follow that ultimate performance (of the complex system) cannot still be competitive (at least in certain environments, etc). Cars of various design are competitive at road-rally, for example.

While genetics is certainly not 100% explanatory, it simply is and must be a component in the "origin of intelligence". Unless you are a crazy-tea-party- sceptic-of-evolution.[sic]. So, this is problem for the intelligensia/left if they want to divorce inherited/genetics from the disucussion.

The problem is the level of abstaction. We know genetics matters by species. We know genetics matters by (nuclear) family. What are the in-between levels (if any) that also matter? That is where things get murky and messy (politically, logically, and otherwise). At some stage, this might also be analysed of as a question of entropy. ie, if two smart people get married and their kids are x/n likelt to be smart, at what stage in replication do they revert to x/n= population average. If ever? What if their is persistent top- quartile genetic pairings (ie, adding selective-diversity, etc). What if their is a random sample from the population? Are the two vcases the same or different? how do you tell/test? etc.

None of which should give cover for thinking without due clarity, however.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Hyperloop Is Real: Meet The Startups Selling Supersonic Travel - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/bruceupbin/2015/02/11/hyperloop-is-real-meet-the-startups-selling-supersonic-travel/

<comment><USER2> Not supersonic

</comment><comment><USER3> great read!</comment>


Crontab.guru – cron schedule expression editor - <AUTHOR> https://crontab.guru/ <comment><USER2> I just so happened to use this page today and have used it many times in the past. It's very useful for just double-checking my syntax. It's not like cron has a complicated syntax but for some reason I can't ever seem to commit it to memory, especially for the slightly trickier things like doing something every 15 minutes on the second Saturday of every month.

Part of my problem with committing the syntax to memory likely stems from the fact that I've always had pages like this one to fall back on.

<comment><USER3> I can't recall it either; and at 5 fields it's a case study of the problem of positional syntax. Even if we're a minority, we're a significant minority who find we have to check the man page to either read or write, thus defeating the savings from brevity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Cronitor isn't the first and probably won't be the last, but what is it with these stealth companies? _Crafted in Berkeley_ is the only info that somewhat narrows down who is behind it ("somebody that was in Berkeley when this was built"), but nothing else does. Even "contact us" just gives you an Email. There's a phone number for support, but no company, nothing.

Who trusts sensitive information like cron output to anonymous third parties? Is "but they are charging me, so I know I can trust them" the trigger here?

<comment><USER5> Hi luckylion,

My name is Shane, and my co-founder is August. We did an indie hackers interview about Cronitor a few years ago and we've been pretty active here on HN.

I'm happy to answer any questions you have.

<comment><USER4> I guess the only question is: why are you not actively communicating who is behind the tool? The impression it gives me is that either you don't want your names attached to the project, or that you fear that attaching your names to the project would hurt prospects.

Or is it just an oversight and you didn't intend to run the service anonymously?

<comment><USER5> On day one when we launched Cronitor (in 2014) I was a Sr Engineer at a tech company and August was the 1st Engineer at a YC-funded startup. Neither of us wanted to trade on that for our side project.

Over the years, as Cronitor grew into a successful business, we've shared a lot about it publicly with our names attached but I never felt a calling to put our faces on a webpage. I have always been more eager to collect customer testimonials and share what they have to say about us. Maybe I'm just shy.

<comment><USER4> It's not even about putting your face onto it, that's understandable. It's just that there's nothing. Sure, you can dig around, find the termly-page and then at the end find some info, but that looks so scammy to me, while the rest of the page doesn't give me that vibe at all.

Typically, I associate "we don't tell you who we are" with grey/black stuff. A DDOS service would only provide an email address for obvious reasons. But for a company? If somebody wants to sue you, they will find out who you are in any case. I wouldn't expect pictures, CVs etc, but a contact page that doesn't list a company/individual name and a street address triggers two feelings: a) scam or b) run from a bedroom. Neither makes me want to trust you with critical infrastructure (and here's where I'm irrational: _seeing_ a company name and address is enough, unless there's some suspicion, I won't even dig into it to see whether the company or address actually exists).

As I mentioned, it's not specific to you at all, a lot of SaaS companies do this, and I don't understand it. Might be a cultural thing. In Germany, you're breaking the law if you're running a commercial site and are not clearly stating who you are, so maybe that's why alarms are ringing in my head when I don't see it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Note that for Java/Spring cron there is an extra field for "Seconds" so it has one extra field to be configured.

<comment><USER7> Java Spring documentation also claims to support the question mark vs. asterisk character, however it seems that some versions treat them identically, where the ? is supposed to be a random value and the asterisk is supposed to mean every value...

[https://stackoverflow.com/questions/30341067/difference- betw...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/30341067/difference-between-and- in-spring-scheduledcron)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Better use systemd as a reliable cron replacement [https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Systemd/Timers](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Systemd/Timers)

<comment><USER9> And exacly why is that better than cron?

<comment><USER10> Because it integrates nicely with the rest of systemd. If you use systemd, there's no real reason to also have a crond running.

<comment><USER2> I think both have their use cases. For quick and dirty things (like manual logging/system performance), cron works just fine and is quicker to set up. For tasks that require dependencies or have to happen at very specific points in time (like immediately after the network services are started), systemd is more suited to the task.

There are of course quite a few people who dislike systemd for justifiable reasons (but I doubt it receives the disdain that SELinux does), here's a starting point:

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

That said, I very much like systemd and I hope it isn't going anywhere. I think it's improved on a lot of things from the SysVinit days and I hope and believe that its shortcomings will be addressed and improved in the future.

<comment><USER11> My problem with cron for short tasks is that pretty often I forget to add logging and/or locking. And then machine runs out of resources because of all the parallel jobs, and there aren't even any logs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This website is great! I use it all the time at work to help me grok the crontab expressions.

</comment><comment><USER13> I've got this website on a permanent spot in my bookmarks bar. It's kinda like tar - I use it enough that I should have absorbed the syntax by repetition and osmosis, but I still find myself looking up the syntax for cron "just to be sure" and running tar with --help.

</comment><comment><USER14> Perhaps off-topic, but this reminded me of Lingon, a macOS app for editing launchd services.

[https://www.peterborgapps.com/lingon/](https://www.peterborgapps.com/lingon/)

<comment><USER15> I settled on LaunchControl instead because I was impressed by the semantic understanding of fields that it has. If a job goes wrong it frequently has a 1-click suggestion to fix it or to facilitate debugging.

[https://www.soma-zone.com/LaunchControl/](https://www.soma- zone.com/LaunchControl/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Love this tool. Use it every time I write or review crontab code.

</comment><comment><USER17> > _We created Cronitor because cron itself can 't alert you if your jobs fail > or never start._

That's a lie. A mail is sent on failed jobs. The receiving mailbox is by default the executing user (so usually root) There is also an entry into the systemlog which should already be monitored.

The user might not get the notifications because he doesn't pay attention, but cron does notify.

<comment><USER18> _That 's a lie. A mail is sent on failed jobs._

Please don't use the lie word: it goes to intentionality. It's wrong, true: Cron has (for a very long time) been designed to mail and log on failure.

The thing is that a huge number of deployments these days don't run functional mail send, and so the failure states go to /dev/null (in effect)

Also, cron can fail to run: Linux moved cron to a different execution state from BSD, which has also introduced (on linux) the interaction between cron and anacron. Changing the state of cron.d/ doesn't always register in cron, and cron won't always send mail if it doesn't know new things have to be run. The older crontab -e method reliably made cron re-read the state of the file.

(I think this predated Vixie cron, cron existed since time immemorial in UNIXEN. Vix improved things, but the underlying system behaviour was established before he coded in this space)

<comment><USER19> > Please don't use the lie word: it goes to intentionality.

If someone built a whole product around it - and use it as their marketing pitch when it takes like 30 seconds of man-page reading to find out that it's wrong, I'd argue you have some fairly good reason to assume intentionality.

(That said, yes, I agree that there are failure states in traditional cron that won't alert you with an email, so the service might of course be useful.)</comment></comment></comment>


Quantum physics proves that there IS an afterlife, claims scientist - <AUTHOR> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2503370/Quantum-physics-proves-IS-afterlife-claims-scientist.html

<comment><USER2> where is the proof? also the double slit experiment isn't about consciousness, but rather the information itself as found in the double slit quantum eraser experiments: [http://grad.physics.sunysb.edu/~amarch/](http://grad.physics.sunysb.edu/~amarch/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I especially like the phrase "claims scientist", which will impress anyone but a scientist.

</comment><comment><USER4> Someone doesn't understand quantum physics or proofs.

</comment><comment><USER5> Son, this is factual pseudo-science.</comment>


Show HN: Stre.am for Android – Free, live video broadcast - <AUTHOR> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sparc.stream

<comment><AUTHOR> Some additional info:

 _Note: I previously posted this to the wrong category and was advised to post here instead._

Stre.am is a free app for broadcasting live video from your phone, with an emphasis on simplicity. We previously launched the iOS version, but as an Android user myself, I'm particularly excited about getting Android out the door now as well.

The app itself is designed to be as self-explanatory as possible, but the general idea is to sign up, hit the green record button, and your video shows up on stre.am with as minimal of a delay as possible.

From a technology perspective, the mobile clients are 100% native, and the backend services use a combination of Node.js+Express (web), Java+Play (api), and Scala+Akka (video transcoding/streaming infrastructure). I'd be happy to answer any questions on that front.

Thanks for reading!

Android: [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sparc.stre...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sparc.stream)

iOS: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/stre.am/id852662600](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/stre.am/id852662600)

Web: stre.am

</comment><comment><USER2> Stre.am is an amazing product, behind which stands an incredibly talented team. I've been very fortunate to have been a part of it all. jmar777 summed it up very well. I've mostly done front-end UI/UX implementation, but welcome any questions, just the same.

So stoked about our recent Android release... Can't put it away.

TL;DR Stre.am is an amazing product, and free.

</comment><comment><USER3> Additional dev here. I've done most of the video player work on the web and just recently did a little API work. Feel free to ask me specific questions about that or anything else.

<comment><USER4> Are you guys using Kickflip.io?

<comment><USER3> No, we are not using Kickflip. Some of the guys did take a look at it and at that point it wasn't going to help them for mobile, especially Android, since they only supported Android 4.3+ IIRC and we had already developed the iOS app. Additionally, we use RTMP & RTSP on our mobile apps. RTSP on Android produces 2-4s latency, which from what I saw could only be topped by WebRTC. HLS was producing 30-50s latency and RTMP was about 10-15s IIRC.

Somewhat related, but there are some other issues with trying to serve up HD mobile video, such as bad network conditions and capped usage. 720p video at 30 requires quite a lot of upload bandwidth (~1mb/s) for a good looking video.</comment></comment></comment>


Why can't I start my car with my phone? - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2013/11/19/why-cant-i-start-my-car-with-my-phone/ <comment><USER2> After market solution - [http://www.viper.com/SmartStart/](http://www.viper.com/SmartStart/)

Built into Chevy Cruze - [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xf9gOB9Tcus](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xf9gOB9Tcus)

Authenticating to the car is a different concept.

</comment><comment><USER3> Stay tuned for the sequel -- "Some kids used a Raspberry Pi to steal my car!"

</comment><comment><USER4> Lol, I can actually, it's called ONSTAR</comment>


I'm Shmacked Launches New Website...Also My First Built Website - <AUTHOR> http://imshmacked.com/

<comment><USER2> Great that you built your first website :)

I don't understand what it is though. Some text explaining the premise might help.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey jstanley! I'm Shmacked is one of the fastest growing college entertainment platforms (98th percentile). To be quite frank, though, the I'm Shmacked team travels to different colleges and gets footage of that colleges social scene, namely the party culture. It is extremely popular as several colleges which they haven't yet visited are demanding their presence. They are looking to expand and have partnered with DVBBS to put on shows at colleges--mainly to gain revenue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Gotta' give a point cause I partied with y'all at University of Alabama.</comment>


"It's not you, it's me"... says the netflix algorithm to the data-set - <AUTHOR> http://www.thinksketchdesign.com/2009/10/29/design/algorithm-design/its-not-you-its-me-says-the-netflix-algorithm-to-the-data-set

<comment><USER3> "No one seems to question the dataset".

Actually, this has already been pointed out in papers written on the subject. If you want to learn about the Netflix prize, read the papers from the teams that solved it, and don't waste your time on self-important bloggers who want attention.

<comment><AUTHOR> akamaka, I can understand how my blog might come across as self-important - <USER2> know I can be over the top, but that's part of the idea (see the tag line of my blog).

The thing is, I'm writing for a general audience from the point of a general audience. I'm a designer not a programmer. And though I've read lots of articles in wired and on tech blogs about the netflix algorithm, I haven't heard much discussion about viable alternatives to the five star system. Yes, there are articles talking about how the rating system is faulty, and they talk about how to best "work around" the faults of the five star system. But I'm trying to brainstorm alternatives - scrap the system entirely and build an algorithm on something else. I'm sure the ideas are out there, I'm just indignant that as a general audience, we haven't heard about them yet. I'm getting great feedback already. Thanks greatly appreciated.

For such a little UI pattern, the five star system plays an enormous influence on how we see the internet, and the effects of it have a tangible impact offline as well - for example, restaurant traffic influenced by yelp reviews. I've heard a lot of people question how five star reviews influence the range of products that we're exposed to. It seems like an important question to ask. Look and now we've got a good brainstorm going.. Maybe think of my post as a challenge and request for a detailed article from someone who knows their stuff about rating systems and how they effect our everyday life. Cheers -

<comment><USER3> Hey, thanks for taking the time to reply. I realize that my comment probably comes across as being quite personal, but it more reflects my frustration at the lack of insight into the Netflix Prize that exists in the blogosphere.

Here are some prime examples of people making lots of noise without any data or science to back it up:

[http://anand.typepad.com/datawocky/2008/03/more-data- usual.h...](http://anand.typepad.com/datawocky/2008/03/more-data-usual.html)

<http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2009/08/netflix.php>

There's actually very few people who have made genuine contributions toward winning the Netflix prize, as can be see in the winning team's final publications. They only list about a half-dozen key papers as references.

Anyways, I apologize for directing my comments specifically at you. I totally agree with your basic point, and this is a problem I've been spending a lot of time thinking about myself. My personal view is that explicit rating systems should be totally eliminated, in favor of using data gathered automatically, without asking the user to provide a subjective rating. I don't either have any evidence to prove that's better, mind you. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> YouTube recently admitted that they have a similar problem with their rating system ([http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2009/09/five-stars- domina...](http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2009/09/five-stars-dominate- ratings.html))

The raw data simply doesn't show a decent distribution of ratings. People are far more likely to simply give something 1 star or 5 stars.

I would say that it's far more meaningful to use a simple thumbs up/thumbs down system...

<comment><USER5> They need multiple dimensions for rating. Production values, humor content, information content, etc.

<comment><USER6> It would be interesting to see a thumbs-up/thumbs-down rating combined with an optional tag classification system.

I don't think the average user will ever really tag anything. But as long as there's a sufficient quantity of interested users who _would_ , I think you could get a lot closer to statistically guessing _why_ people might like/dislike certain videos.

<comment><AUTHOR> I like this idea a lot. I also think that once you have some tags, you could extrapolate which movies are likely to fall into those tag categories by seeing which movies people browsed on the site at the same time. You can get this information if you offer one additional step beyond flipping through thumbnails - such as watch a preview. Then with each browsing session you collect data you can use to map genres.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Data Factory – How Your Free Labor Lets Tech Giants Grow The Wealth Gap - <AUTHOR> http://m.techcrunch.com/2013/09/09/the-data-factory/ <comment><USER3> > It's not all bad, though. The tools and platforms listed above have given > way to a "personal revolution" that's delivered unprecedented productivity > and reach to small businesses and entrepreneurs. You don't need nearly as > much money to start a business anymore. Moritz gave a slew of examples of > people who made small fortunes selling sleds on Amazon, becoming makeup > spokeswomen on YouTube, becoming best-selling authors via Kindle, or earning > huge real estate commissions through Trulia.

Its really too bad that this article lets slip a critical point here. Yes, you don't really need much money to start doing something these days; it doesn't take more than a computer and an internet connection to start making music, or writing books, or getting a youtube channel going, or selling stuff on eBay or Amazon or Etsy or whatever.

But in all of these things, the wealth distribution is crap. I've heard the stories about the spectacular success of this writer or that one that sold an ebook on Amazon after being rejected by publishers and made millions of dollars, and its naturally never mentioned how many thousands or tens of thousands of people have tried doing exactly that and walked away with a pittance or nothing. It's no different from the millions of people that want to become actors, or singers, or whatever; most of them fail. A 1% or 5% or 10% chance at a big success is not a replacement for a stable, decently paying job for the vast majority of people.

And things are only going to go farther in this direction. I honestly don't see a solution to this aside from basic income. More/free/better educational resources aren't going to change this problem. Teaching everyone programming (insert other currently stable/growing industry here) isn't going to change this problem. Heck, programmers already deal with this on the app markets; what percentage of apps/developers walk away with 90%/99%/99.9% of the revenue?

<comment><USER4> The key though is that faster and cheaper tools for trying allows someone to fail faster, thus mitigating the impact of their failed potential career and allowing them to try or evolve faster.

A lot of these tools are built on open source frameworks, but rely on the network effect for their staying power and financial momentum. You could do the distribution yourself, but you'll have to do it on the open internet, not on a "Internet of Things" that is supported by the walled garden purveyors. This isn't too difficult to do, but is obviously out of the scope of something a musician might attempt.

What I'm getting at is that if they do charge too much, they'll end up undercut by some other media, unless they gain a "standard for enterprise" market saturation, then they can charge what they want since they own all the customers capable of buying your product. Since as soon as someone becomes "standard for anything", the NSA soon comes knocking at your door for a piece of your data pie, thus fueling the creation of yet more "gardens" until what end, I don't know.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Facebook gets some of my data, but in return I get a free software platform that makes it easier than before to keep in touch with my friends and family.

Like most of the U.S. economhy, it works because it is a free exchange in which both parties gain something. I could easily keep my data away from Facebook. But then I would not benefit from their services.

I think the real issue is hidden in the article--opportunity today is incredibly rich for those who have the right education...which not everyone has.

There are two issues here, actually. The first is whether our public education system is preparing youth to seize future opportunities. On the whole, I think the answer is at best mixed--but it seems solvable. We can improve our schools and make the students next year smarter than the year before. At least we have the concept of free public education as a platform.

The second is what happens to adults who lost their industries? Can a 40-something factory worker or lumberjack learn how to create Android apps that generate revenue? The answer here seems a lot worse. Not only does it seem harder for middle aged folks to radically change their professions, there are no free, and few low-cost institutions helping them do it. Online schools like Khan Academy seem exciting, but are very far from being proven answers to this problem.

There do seem to be openings in the middle--providing services to the educated people who can build moneymaking technologies. For example, I believe there continues to be a shortage in nurses nationwide. It's not easy to become a nurse or PA, but at least there are a lot of good community college programs for it.

<comment><USER6> Whenever you hear there's a "shortage" of a particular job, that usually just means wages are higher than the employers would like them to be. You can really think of that relationship either way around. e.g. – there's a huge shortage of butlers because they're just way too expensive.

One way to compensate for the suffering caused by economic dislocation is to reduce the hardship of not having a job. More unemployment and welfare aid, with less degrading means testing would help. Better would be a basic income, with income earned from working always a bonus on top.

<comment><USER7> A shortage also often refers to an inability for employers to find someone they wish to hire, regardless of what the price is.

I.e. I've interviewed a number of people in the past year or so. I only recommended hiring one of them.

<comment><USER8> I'm sure there are some brilliant people working on Wall Street right now who'd be happy to come work for you at the right price.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I watched Moritz's presentation yesterday, and I got a feeling that he has been actively thinking about the idea of data factories but he couldn't yet effectively convey the key insights. As a side note, this is very interesting that a VC that probably listens hundreds of pitches a year, is basically struggling with same issues that most of the founders: conveying your thinking in a crystallized form.

As far as I understood, the key point of data factories is that they are a new paradigm for organizing work. Many aspects are pretty obvious to folks hanging out in HN. A few key differences to earlier models: companies don't anymore employ workers directly, but more and more act as mediators between consumers and producers. Distance between consumers and data factories is shorter than between consumers and traditional factories, which gives new, previously unseen efficiency to the feedback loop and allows data factories to direct their efforts (or efforts of 3rd party producers) better than - let's say - <USER2> traditional car manufacturer.

<comment><USER10> Were you watching the same keynote?

"It's tough if you're poor, it's tough if you're middle class. It means you have to have the right education to work at [the tech giants]. If you're not like us, it's tough

The key point of data factories is that they are economically disenfranchising the vast majority of the population. The 'new paradigm' isn't for organizing work, its getting your consumers to do the work for you. If we weren't so wrapped up in the VC/HN/Web Tech echo chamber it would probably be easier to realize that this mode of economic growth is at best unsustainable and at worst destructive to the longterm health of a modern economy.

It would be great for startups to focus less on social and ads and more on how technology can be leveraged to raise the living standards for everyone.

<comment><USER11> >It would be great for startups to focus less on social and ads and more on how technology can be leveraged to raise the living standards for everyone.

I agree. When we automated away agricultural work, we found new things for workers to do. Now we're automating away the service economy, but nothing has sprung up to take it's place.

Do you have any ideas in this direction? all the sites I know of that are focused on finding shit work for the lower classes (taskrabbit, etc..) usually end up being criticized for replacing full-time work with part-time work without benefits that pays poorly and isn't stable.

Can you give an example of such a business? even a hypothetical one?

I mean, if the standard is "technology that can be leveraged to raise the living standards for everyone" that's a little easier. there's lots of opportunities for organization on the internet. But actually creating jobs without destroying more jobs? that's... difficult.

<comment><USER12> >Can you give an example of such a business? even a hypothetical one?

i think a lot of conclusions one can derive from pondering a situation like this one - "there is an order backlog of 800 Boeing 787 planes" and "there are a lot of unemployed people". Even if we suppose that these unemployed people possess necessary skills, the situation would still be pretty much the same as there is a lot of business/financial, technological, and societal/governmental complexity in the situation.

To compare, the unique situation of Great Depression allowed to plow right through the complexity and put people to work. Nobody (in wide sense, i.e nor people nor institutions) has the guts and skills/abilities/resources to put much more people to work on building planes in the current situation.

<comment><USER11> >i think a lot of conclusions one can derive from pondering a situation like this one - "there is an order backlog of 800 Boeing 787 planes" and "there are a lot of unemployed people". Even if we suppose that these unemployed people possess necessary skills, the situation would still be pretty much the same as there is a lot of business/financial, technological, and societal/governmental complexity in the situation.

I... disagree. Yes, there is bullshit surrounding hiring and firing folks. But it's not extreme bullshit. _I_ have managed to do it. It's not impossible.

If, for whatever reason, you absolutely can't hire someone to run payroll for you and keep track of your workman's comp bills, there are plenty of companies that do that and only that; trinet is one. The idea being that your employees are officially employed by trinet, who handles all the HR bullshit (Not hiring, of course, but the real bits of HR... managing benefits, taxes, workers comp, unemployment, and all that happy horseshit.) You just pick the folks you want and send trinet a wad of money every month.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > _" Instead, the data factories get free labor. They distribute what seem > like useful services to the world, things like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, > LinkedIn, Etsy, or Kickstarter. ...earn tons of money for the tech giants > without forcing them to do much work. That money stays concentrated around > the data factories and their limited staff instead of distributing it like > traditional factories."_

What? In what universe do the employees at YouTube or Facebook or Etsy "not do much work"? How do these only "seem" like useful services -- is somebody saying they're not? How do traditional factories "distribute money"? If Twitter is getting "free labor" please tell me how, so I can get in on it too.

Sure, there's a shift towards concentration of wealth, but paragraphs like the above one make zero sense.

<comment><USER14> The idea is that YouTube doesn't do much work when compared with _the people who actually make and upload all the videos._

Which is a perfectly valid criticism. In absolute numbers, the amount of hours collectively put in by YouTube users to create content is much larger than the number put in by YouTube/Google employees to serve that content.

Right now, however, there is basically very little actual negotiation between the platform provider and the content creator. The former gets the vast majority of all revenue; the latter mostly works for free. We consumers enjoy our free, ad-supported video site, but YouTube might as well just be the new record company (especially with the all the take-downs and region restrictions!).

<comment><USER15>
      > Right now, however, there is basically very little
      > actual negotiation between the platform provider and the
      > content creator. The former gets the vast majority of
      > all revenue; the latter mostly works for free. We
      > consumers enjoy our free, ad-supported video site

The uploader decides whether a particular video has ads or not. According to [http://allthingsd.com/20130304/youtubes-show-me-the-money- pr...](http://allthingsd.com/20130304/youtubes-show-me-the-money-problem/) YouTube takes a 45% cut, which means the content creator ends up with the majority of the ad revenue.

<comment><USER16> You get a better split with the mob. 45%? Wow.

<comment><USER17> Every content creator is free to roll out his own architecture of streaming video, strike ad deals and get 100% of the income.

Comparing Youtube to the mob is not a valid argument.

<comment><USER16> I'd argue Android's ecosystem and investment is enormous compared to Youtube, and they take a smaller cut from apps/in-app purchases than Youtube.

There's just something slimy about taking that much of a cut from someone's work. Its disgusting.

<comment><USER15>
      > I'd argue Android's ecosystem and investment is
      > enormous compared to Youtube, and they take a smaller
      > cut from apps/in-app purchases than Youtube.

You can do some quick back-of-the-envelope calculations on the storage and bandwidth requirements of video and applications. It's very expensive to process, store, and serve video at YouTube's scale. See [http://www.youtube.com/yt/press/statistics.html](http://www.youtube.com/yt/press/statistics.html) for some numbers.

      > There's just something slimy about taking that much of
      > a cut from someone's work. Its disgusting.

When media hosting sites take half of revenue, it's not out of sheer greed. Most of that money goes right into paying for bandwidth and compute to keep the service running. For example, iTunes Music is believed to have profit margins in the low single digits -- based on Apple's financial statements, it's barely break-even. Apple's App Store is much more profitable, despite taking only 30% of revenue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This topic is explored in more detail in _Who Owns the Future?_ — it's a fascinating (if sobering) book. [http://www.jaronlanier.com/futurewebresources.html](http://www.jaronlanier.com/futurewebresources.html)

</comment><comment><USER19> Humans have been automating away labor in various ways for thousands of years. At one point, everyone would've had to devote most of their time to obtaining food -- now one guy (plus some farm equipment) can feed thousands.

There are countless other examples industry-and-job-destroying innovations, and from a long-term historical standpoint they've always been a huge net win for humanity. And none of them required us to convert to socialism to prevent mass starvation.

And yet, this time around, innovation is evil somehow if it results in labor being done by software rather than people? The essay alludes to global financial collapse, but doesn't explain how that's supposed to happen. Are we supposed to guess? Or, more likely, just feel general outrage at the 1% and not think too hard?

He also claims that the minimum wage hasn't kept up with inflation. That's totally false -- the minimum wage in the U.S. was established in 1938 at $0.25/hr. That would be $4.14 in today's dollars, and we're at nearly double that!

</comment><comment><USER20> Huh?

"A single $800 Samsung Galaxy S4 has the same power as 375 IBM 3340 computers that cost a total of $33 million in 1973."

The 3340 is a DASD ( direct attached storage device), not a computer. The big computer for IBM in 1973 would have been a 370/158.

<comment><USER21> In fact, the 3340 disk drive was famous for introducing the "Winchester" technology:

 _" In 1973, IBM introduced the IBM 3340 'Winchester' disk drive, the first significant commercial use of low mass and low load heads with lubricated platters. This technology and its derivatives remained the standard through 2011. Project head Kenneth Haughton named it after the Winchester 30-30 rifle because it was planned to have two 30 MB spindles; however, the actual product shipped with two spindles for data modules of either 35 MB or 70 MB. The name 'Winchester' and some derivatives are still common in some non-English speaking countries to generally refer to any hard disks (e.g. Hungary, Russia)."_[1]

Yes, 70 _megabytes_ was the capacity of a mainframe-sized disk drive in those days.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_hard_disk_drives#19...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_hard_disk_drives#1950s.E2.80.931970s)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> There's a lot of truth to this, but it's also a massive simplification -- and a strange effort to blame tech companies for something that started happening decades ago.

Wage stagnation, growing unemployment and a decline in work started in the 70s -- well before most of these tech companies came on the scene (or had that much impact on the world). It seems to me that some people want to blame tech companies and new technology for something that's been a much wider effect across more platforms for a lot longer.

</comment><comment><USER23> This issue is too complex to be summed up by the wealth gap. It presumes that wealth can be measured in money, when human happiness is increasingly becoming cheaper to acquire, and free in many cases. I don't think the author of the article appreciates all the economic forces at play.

One thing we do have to think about is how the economy would have to adapt if the true cost to produce critical goods became zero. Capitalism's supply and demand theory will become inadequate in such a case.

</comment><comment><USER24> Reminds me of an idea where a company trains people to be professional bloggers or similar, and in exchange a fixed salary is given.</comment>


Scriptster: Make Your Ruby Scripts Nicer - astro- http://broken.build/2014/11/01/scriptster/

<comment><AUTHOR> This is really great! I find myself dipping in to Open3 (and friends) pretty regularly in my shell scripts because shelling out allows me to take advantage of tools that are much faster than working in native Ruby. Ruby is often a "glue" language for me. I could accomplish the same in a Bash script, but I never fell in love with Bash scripting like I did Ruby. It's probably a bit hackish to use Ruby in this way, but it gets the job done and results in very readable, maintainable scripts.</comment>


Video Commerce: The Quiet Revolution in Online Video[video+transcript] - <AUTHOR> http://video-commerce.org/2010/01/video-commerce-the-quiet-revolution-in-online-video-streamingmedia-west/

<comment><USER2> yes, it's getting more important quite quick.</comment>


Being clever is being childish - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@vr6/being-clever-is-being-childish-4365f384297 <comment><USER2> Couldn't disagree more. Lifespan is ever increasing. Violent death is ever decreasing. Individual empowerment is at an all time high. Brute force as the ultimate arbiter, which is the natural state of being, is at an all time low.</comment>


Ask HN: Are you participating in the global climate strike? - <AUTHOR> Today marks the start of the Global Climate Strike (https://globalclimatestrike.net/), many are taking the day off to get involved in protests/marches worldwide.<p>Are you getting involved? <comment><USER2> I flubbed today's date. But I'll participate in events in the coming week. Especially on September 27 on which the grand finale demonstrations will be held.

</comment><comment><USER3> yes, went to a march and listened to demonstrations at the end.

</comment><comment><USER4> yep! was pretty awesome and inspiring

</comment><comment><USER5> Yes, I did!

</comment><comment><USER6> Yes!

</comment><comment><USER7> Yep.</comment>


Ask HN: How close are we to a point when Google can ruin your life? - <AUTHOR>

Hardly a day goes by anymore without Google committing some new outrage against personal privacy...even that of non-users. The London Review of Books - http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n19/daniel-soar/it-knows - has one of the better roundups of the current state of Google's surveillance against its users.
I'm not here to rehash the online privacy debate, but to ask a new question. One of the things implied by the article is that given the voiceprints and images Google already has on file, it's relatively trivial to write an app that can identify anyone within a minute or two; the only thing actually preventing it from happening right now is that the API's either don't exist, or aren't available to the public.
Another thing implied by the article is that Google itself is attaining a certain level of sentience, or at least an ability to understand the contexts and meanings of what it reads. Google is improving itself constantly by absorbing and collating the information it receives through its billions of sensory organs. Presumably it's doing the vas majority of this without human intervention.
And then there's this in New Scientist - http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/onepercent/2011/08/facial-recognition-identifies.html - which basically says that Carnegie Mellon has an experimental app that runs the same facial recognition and, once it's identified you, tries to find your place and date of birth in public records; which, once found and taking it several steps further, allows the app (or another app) to make a reasonable guess as to your social security number.
Now. Google asked a friend of mine for her date of birth today, before letting her get back into the Gmail account she had for the last seven years. (It's hard to imagine a 6-year-old opening a Gmail account in 2003, but apparently they were worried she was under 13). What's interesting is that it didn't ask for my DOB. So I went to Google's Privacy Pages, which purport to list the information Google has on file about you. Nowhere in those pages was my date of birth. YouTube has me at 31 years old, but doesn't show my DOB itself. Which is interesting, because they must know what it is.
Nor is there anywhere in Google's privacy pages where it shows the biometrics of my facial features, or my voiceprint, although presumably those are also on file. In fact, there's very little real information shown there.
So, all that being the background, here's my question: What if Google -- the sentient thing out there, not the puny corporate hacks who are nominally in charge of it -- decided to ruin your life? I don't mean by de-ranking your website; I mean by really, seriously screwing with you? Could it forge your identity and rack up credit card debt, making it seem like the perpetrator was someone in Nigeria? Could it fake a photo of you cheating on your wife? Could it take over your bank accounts, guess your other passwords, or subtly alter your outgoing gmail messages to make them offensive yet plausible? How far are we from the point where it could do those things on its own?
And lastly, how close are we to the point where writing "fuck google" on the google forums will cause it to lose its temper? <comment><USER2> _Hardly a day goes by anymore without Google committing some new outrage_

I suggest you try this again without the axe-grinding editorial slant. By mentioning only a single company in a context which could be applied to several large firms, I can't help forming the strong impression that you work for a competitor.

<comment><AUTHOR> plus one I started writing this originally including Facebook, which to my mind is the other really egregious violator of privacy, and probably worse than Google. However, I'm not a Facebook user. I have been in the past, and they still collect data on me, but I realized Facebook doesn't have nearly the complete picture of my life that Google does. Nor do they have my mail, my spreadsheets, my contacts. Most of all, Facebook is not in and of itself, a machine potentially capable of abstract thought.

That was the heart of my question, and I'm not sure if you made it past the first sentence and read that far. I wasn't asking which corporation would screw you over with the privacy you gave up -- I'm not interested in grinding a personal axe or rehashing the online privacy debate. My question, as phrased in the subject header and as borne out through my post, was whether Google AS A MACHINE was capable of ruining your life, and if not, then when it would be and how it would proceed to do so.

<comment><USER2> I did read the whole thing, and I did find that question interesting. But honestly, I felt it came off as a bit pissy, and also underestimated the potential for other software behemoths to cross some AI boundary.

I suggest rereading (or reading) _Neuromancer_ and thinking about the differing approaches of the two AIs referred to in the book. One is very factual and logical and can manipulate some things directly, another is weak in that area but understands people well enough to engineer coincidental- seeming meetings and interactions that it anticipates will be helpful at some later date.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> They could shut down your ad-sense account and withhold funds. They could shut down your youtube account, ban some of your videos, or fudge the metrics on them. They could reveal all your Google searches to the public. They could lockup their apis' connections to your app. They could have #1 result on your name lead to a libelous page, either fake or real. They could modify or delete your emails. They could stop delivering emails or YT messages if they wanted to break a relationship. They could sell your personal data. They could use an auto-update of Chrome to send browsing or videocam and microphone data back to HQ - an update only sent to you. They could place a keylogger in only your Chrome and get your bank login, or have it navigate to a site without you knowing in a hidden window. They could find out when you're using Google finance, and insert fake numbers about your watchlist or portofolio. They could make all your websites in Webmaster Tools have PR of 0 or stop crawling it. They could return skewed search results.

These aren't the only ways: think blackmail, identity theft, misinformation, impersonation.

If they ruin your life, they will also be ruining or affecting other people's as well - the people connected to you.

</comment><comment><USER4> A 'sentient' Google? Frankly, that sounds paranoid. Google has algorithms, developed by humans and which don't change unless someone edits them. The idea that it can somehow get 'pissed' and start _purposefully_ trying to ruin your life is ridiculous.

Google 'grows' in data and it certainly improves certain AI-like mechanisms, such as spam detection, face and voice recognition, etc. Programs don't magically become sentient from that.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not sure that anyone's actually tested what happens when a lot of complex rule sets are allowed to overlap and each have access to virtually all information in the world; but I'm not sure the result wouldn't be a form of sentience. Sentience can't really be measured other than by I/O... the whole point of a Turing test is to figure out what's between the ears and the mouth of something that looks and acts like a sentient being.

I'm not saying it's there yet; I'm asking when it will be, and how it will act when it is. If you took something with a brain the size of a lobster's, say a couple million neurons or a few thousand programs competing for processing cycles, stuck a billion eyes and ears on it and fed it terabytes of information for ten to fifteen years (and gave it a perfect memory plus access to a few hundred million email passwords), are you really sure its behavior would be predictable? We're not talking about a bunch of rails scripts here. This code is made to improve large portions of itself to begin with.

<comment><USER4> _I'm not sure that anyone's actually tested what happens when a lot of complex rule sets are allowed to overlap and each have access to virtually all information in the world_

I'm pretty sure that they don't all have access to all information; if anything because that would make it much harder to scale. They _probably_ have access to internal services/APIs which give them what they need, more or less like Google App Engine works.

If even their browser, which is designed to run on a single machine by a single user, runs with a bunch of different processes which are limited by simple, well defined interfaces to each other and blocked from other IO, I'd say it's unlikely that they simply let their internal programs run 'freely'.

 _If you took something with a brain the size of a lobster's, say a couple million neurons or a few thousand programs competing for processing cycles, stuck a billion eyes and ears on it and fed it terabytes of information for ten to fifteen years (and gave it a perfect memory plus access to a few hundred million email passwords), are you really sure its behavior would be predictable?_

Almost all software has unpredictable behavior, but to consider that a combination of email servers, web page crawlers, phone routers, speech recognizers and such will develop _sentience_ just because they're running on the same network is frankly ridiculous. Yes, there are probably errors, strange behaviors that result from complex interactions, but to the likelihood of intelligence emerging from that is, in my opinion, rounded to zero.

It's like locking a few thousand animals of different species in a room and expecting them to turn themselves into a single thinking entity, when they're probably just going to eat each other.

 _This code is made to improve large portions of itself to begin with._

It is? I've never read that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> When I signed up for Google+ they knew what my hacker alias ("nickname") was. And here I thought it was still a secret after all these years.</comment>