Ask HN: Did you get "never have to work again rich" through software? - <AUTHOR> How did you do it?
What did it feel like when you first realised it was going to be true that you would never have to  work again if you didn't want to?
How old were you?
What was it specifically that made the cash that ended up in your pocket?
Do you feel happy in your life? <comment><USER2> Yes.

I sold IndexTank to LinkedIn among other things.

It was a gradual process for me that started with the first dot-com boom. It wasn't as big of a deal as I thought it would be.

I was 41.

Cashing out stock from public companies I've been at, selling consulting services before building IndexTank, selling IndexTank.

I don't think there is such a thing as overall happiness. I do live in the present more than I used to, but that's perhaps because I'm older. I do worry less about certain things, but the "worry hole" is always there asking to be filled. We all age, get sick, have family / relationship problems, need to stay motivated. I almost certainly enjoy life more than I would if I were forced to take an unpleasant job, but there are many other things a person can do to make life enjoyable besides trying to win the startup lottery.

<comment><USER3> Hi Diego,

Could you elaborate more on the cashing out of stock from public companies point? You sold IndexTank for 1.6 million dollars. I don't really consider that "never work again rich" in this day in age. Were the sales of your stock significant?

<comment><USER4> I think you misread.. it looks like the $1.6 million is how much was raised in the seed round:

[http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/indextank](http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/indextank)

The acquisition would be much more than that.

<comment><USER5> The figure was never publicly disclosed but I'd say somewhere between $20M and 200M... If I were to guess I'd say somewhere around the middle of that range.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > How did you do it?

I got extremely lucky. I got dragged kicking and screaming into being an early hire at Google.

> What did it feel like when you first realised it was going to be true that > you would never have to work again if you didn't want to?

Kind of surreal. On the day of the IPO, one minute I was still a working stiff, and the next minute I was suddenly looking at an account with my name on it with more digits than I had ever seen before.

> How old were you?

39

> What was it specifically that made the cash that ended up in your pocket?

Not sure what you mean here. The IPO obviously, but that was set up by the work I did at Google, which in turn was set up by the work I'd done prior to that, which in turn was set up by going to college, which in turn was set up by doing geeky things in high school that college admissions committees liked.

> Do you feel happy in your life?

Yes, but it took a while to get here. Having money is certainly nicer than not having it, but it's no panacea. It comes with its own set of problems, and it has taken me a while to figure out how to deal with them (still working on that actually). Nice problems to have to be sure, I wouldn't trade my life for anyone else's. But even nice problems to have are still problems.

It's also important to realize that money is _only_ useful as a lever to accomplish some other goal, and if you don't know what you want out of life, money is not going to help much in figuring it out. A lot of people who make money without first getting to know themselves well enough to know what they really want out of life end up being miserable because they discover that having money in and of itself doesn't make them happy and then they are lost.

BTW, one of the things I found that I really want out of life is to be productive. So even though I don't have to work any more, I still do. I'm actually busier now than I was when I had to work to pay the rent.

<comment><USER7> I'm curious on the back story of how you got dragged into working for Google

<comment><USER8> He used to keep a blog on what it's like to work at Google from 2005-2007. In lieu of his response, it might suffice.

The archive is available below: [http://blog.rongarret.info/2009/12/xooglers- rises-from-ashes...](http://blog.rongarret.info/2009/12/xooglers-rises-from- ashes.html) [http://www.flownet.com/ron/xooglers.html](http://www.flownet.com/ron/xooglers.html)

<comment><USER7> Thanks. I wish there was a way to remove the comments and just straight read the story

<comment><USER9> On [http://www.flownet.com/ron/xooglers.html](http://www.flownet.com/ron/xooglers.html), from the console

      var jq = document.createElement('script');
      jq.src = "http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1/jquery.min.js";
      document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(jq);

      fromP = jQuery('span').filter(function() {
          return jQuery(this).text().match(/said\.\.\./);
      }).closest("p");
      commentP = fromP.next("p");
      timeP = commentP.next("p");

      fromP.remove();
      commentP.remove();
      timeP.remove();

I haven't QA'ed this beyond a quick eyeball of the results. Obviously it could delete a lot of stuff unintentionally if comments further down the page are of a different format, but the html converted word doc doesn't give you a whole lot to work with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I don't fall into the "never have to work again" category, but I can speak from some experience. I am 24, and the company I work for was acquired for a very large sum of money. Being one of the very early developers, the stock option payout was substantial. To be honest, it was all luck. I lucked into the job, as my first one out of college, and it happened to be successful. Some days I like to think I contributed to the success of the company, and while I am sure I did, the fact is that the company won the lottery and is one of the few success stories.

The really interesting thing is how little the windfall of money actually affected my day to day. I still drive the same car, and live in a normal sized home. I guess the difference is that I have zero debt, and a substantial sum of money in an investment account that I am not sure what I will do with. I work at a different company now, and still do the normal 9-5, even though I could take years off work if I wanted to.

I am really happy in life, and I don't attribute it to the money at all. I find it really difficult to explain how your life view changes. The most interesting thing I have observed is that once you have "enough" money, any more than that can just be a burden. What do I do with all this? Why am I paying more in taxes than I used to make? My best advice is to work towards making enough, where you aren't worried about money and are comfortable, and then pursue things that make you happy in life, because a few million won't be it.

<comment><USER11> This is an example of the Hedonic Treadmill [0]. At first glance, winning the lottery should increase your happiness compared to becoming paraplegic but after a few months the happiness level seems to go back to the baseline in both case anyway.

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

<comment><USER12> I don't buy that argument.

Sure, after 8 weeks, their happiness was equalized, but what about after 8 years, or a lifetime?

How many more positive experiences does having money unlock (innumerable) compared to how many positive experiences does being disabled prevent from happening (also innumerable)? Over a longer timescale, the differences between the momentum of good experiences versus the stagnation of having most of human activity inaccessible intuitively add up to be pretty large.

A good study would be to measure the happiness of paraplegics who won the lottery.

<comment><USER11> The Wikipedia article mentions further study showing that in some important disability cases, yes, indeed, the "happiness baseline" could move.

> In his archival data analysis, Lucas found evidence that it is possible for > someone's subjective well-being set point to change drastically, such as in > the case of individuals who acquire a severe, long term disability.[15] > However, as Diener, Lucas, and Scollon point out, the amount of fluctuation > a person experiences around their set point is largely dependent on the > individual's ability to adapt

But what I find interesting is the overall underlying argument that for most people, we have a happiness baseline that is only slightly moved by external events.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Yes

> How did you do it?

By not wanting to own anything, living in cheap countries, and finding things that I absolutely love doing that also happen to make some money :)

> What did it feel like when you first realised it was going to be true that > you would never have to work again if you didn't want to?

The realization happened a couple of weeks ago and it was incredible. Seriously. It felt like pure, absolute freedom.

> How old were you?

29

> What was it specifically that made the cash that ended up in your pocket?

Nothing, I just realized that if you're young, healthy, and single, you really don't need much cash to be extremely happy, if you choose the right location.

> Do you feel happy in your life?

See above.

Edit: so obviously this is kind of a hack, but I think it's a good one. I'm slowly travelling around the world, spending at least one month in each location (currently in Cape Verde). When I arrive somewhere, I find a place to rent for a month, and then I spend my days hacking on my Mac and visiting.

I'm working on "Of Dust and Dreams", my first indie game, a 3D exploration game with an innovative AI-based dialogue system. I own almost nothing, all my belongings fit in a 30-liter backpack, I'm completely free, and it feels AMAZING. I'm living off my savings, but I have no doubt I could sustain this lifestyle easily by doing some fun small projects on the side.

<comment><USER14> I'm absolutely fine with your lifestyle and understand your happiness, but you have to realize that the 3 assumptions it's based on, that you have to be "young, healthy, and single", are all highly mutable.

<comment><USER13> Which is why I'm doing this now that I can :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Yes. "Retired" when I was 33 with about $4.5m (now 35). Posting under a throwaway account, because I'm a private guy.

Made money off being the 100th engineer at a company which had a huge IPO ($2m+), and some good real estate transactions ($1m+). Plus my wife is very successful in her own right and added a fair bit.

Just to put it in context, I wasn't a total lottery winner. I spent 80 hrs/week working throughout my 20s, and had extremely challenging positions at some top companies. The company that IPO'd recruited me, and I was able to get a relatively healthy equity package, plus about $250k annual comp.

It felt good, though it only became real once the IPO lockup ended, and I saw my brokerage balance.

I'm very happy. I have a much quieter life than before I had money. I spend a lot of time with my kids and wife, as well as do almost all the cooking and some house chores (my wife still works). I get to spend about 3 work days a week coding stuff I want to build with some moderate success so far.

Once my kids are a bit older, I will startup.

In contrast to one of the other answers here, I really haven't been to a bar or club since I made money. But this may also coincide with me having children around that time.

<comment><USER16> > Made money off being the 100th engineer at a company which had a huge IPO > ($2m+)

If you don't mind, can I ask for clarification: I'm assuming that the "$2m+" was your stock option worth, and the company itself IPO'd for a much larger number (a few billions)?

<comment><USER15> yes, $2m+ was my take after taxes (california).

Yes, company IPO'd for many billions.

<comment><USER17> Sounds like LNKD or FB (don't mean to pry :) -- congrats!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Not "never again" but "for a while" the option is there for me. For those interested:

> How did you do it?

I've spent the past several years building small products, including a blog and various apps. My latest iPad app made it to the #3 most popular position and has brought in enough money where I wouldn't have to work for quite a while. Though it should be noted part of that is due to the fact I've lowered all my bills (including rent) over the last year.

> What did it feel like when you first realized you wouldn't have to work > again (for a while) if you didn't want to?

I'm still torn with this decision almost daily. I have a day job, it's decent and pays well, I like having the structure, but being able to spend my time how _I_ want to spend it seems promising. Realizing I could quit today and not have to worry about money for a while makes the day-to-day pings of things like paying bills, or buying groceries without looking at the amount I'm paying, almost painless.

> How old (are) you?

27

> What was it specifically that made the cash?

Years of work building a dedicated audience, establishing a (small) name for myself in a niche, then making things people can actually use and enjoy. Notably my latest iPad app: Brainbean

> Do you feel happy in your life?

Yes? No? I don't know. The success of my work certainly made me happy for a very short while, but the internal response dies quickly when you realize money isn't everything. Having a lot of money can simply make certain things easier, but it doesn't solve all of your problems (like figuring out what to do with your life).

I hope that's at all insightful.

Also, for those I fear who may be pursuing the "lottery" of "never have to work again" rich: be wary of what you read. It's easy to hype businesses that sell for billions of dollars, or young kids who turn into millionaires "overnight."

It's a dangerous place to be, believing that the news you hear about those types of people/businesses is real. That's not real life. If you really want to be rich, work hard. If you want to be wealthy, think about what you need to do even if you're not rich.

<comment><USER18> On a related note to my last paragraph, I just stumbled on this quote from David Foster Wallace and found it remarkably relevant:

"I think somehow the culture has taught us or we've allowed the culture to teach us that the point of living is to get as much as you can and experience as much pleasure as you can, and that the implicit promise is that will make you happy. I know that's almost offensively simplistic, but the effects of it aren't simplistic at all."

Source: [http://radioopensource.org/david-foster-wallace-chris- lydon/](http://radioopensource.org/david-foster-wallace-chris-lydon/)

<comment><USER19> I believe the objective in life shouldn't be how much money and success we can acquire, but how good a person we can become.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> You know, this whole "wow, what's it like to win the lottery?!" attitude is what makes the startup world so destructive and, I'll say it, exploitative.

Yes, live an intense life building something cool - but don't forget that most startups fail, and even the ones that succeed often end up having most of their money go to investors and partners rather than the founders and builders.

Also, as other commenters here have noted, you would get a lot more mileage out of limiting your lifestyle and expenses than in focusing on the big payout. Bonus: if that payout comes, it'll last longer if you've grown a realistic approach to life.

I've known a number of people who made "set for life" fortunes, and some of them have blown those fortunes surprisingly quickly.

</comment><comment><USER21> For my dad he had enough investments just doing the corporate grind to "retire" around 50. Before medical insurance cost $50K/yr for a family or whatever it is now, obviously, and back before the housing bubble crisis so a house thats like $300K now only cost him $80K. Salaries were about the same, maybe only 50% higher now. The middle class used to be a lot more wealthy...

The problem is you gradually build up investments until you can live a relatively poor lifestyle forever, but he wants the new SUV to make it easier to tow the RV (old people like SUVs, what can I say) so its a 3 month contract during the rainy spring, and then full time RV all summer. Then its too cold to RV in the winter up north, and the house could use a new kitchen remodel anyway and it looks like an interesting project so...

The point I'm making is "if you don't want to" isn't a constant $ value and isn't really easy to define anyway.

</comment><comment><USER22> Yes, I made enough money to not work, from a software startup, at age 28. Of course this is wonderful. Does it automatically = happiness? No.

When I was a kid, my grandfather told me he "would rather be poor than be rich" and meant it literally. He was a Christian missionary overseas for 10 years. He was sure God would provide; therefore he had no worries about lack of money. And, turned out he was right: in his retirement he had a comfortable (small) house in a nice little town, etc. He had done something with his life that was important to him, and raised a nice, ethical family too.

At the time, I thought my grandfather was being stupid: if you didn't like being rich, you could just give everything away, right? But he was talking about how you can get trapped by your money and/or corrupted by the pursuit of it. These are real dangers. (You can screw up your kids with too much money, too. I would honestly rather be poor, than be rich, the money having screwed up my kids. But, then it would be too late!)

If you can make a decent living & do something you find rewarding, you're winning. To do something I hate (for more than a limited time), or screw up my kids, just to drive a Tesla? (I actually drive a Tesla.) Not worth it.

I initially did not work & traveled for 2 years; eventually got boring. Now I am doing another startup. I love (much of) it. It's challenging for sure, and maybe you get to "make a dent in the universe". This is a special time in history for people with hacking talent.

</comment><comment><USER23> Kindasorta there.

I built a platform tool that basically replaced a department of people in this vertical. Add the bizdev cofounder who gets businesses use it and them lock them into long term agreements. Now we have some scale and I get to collect some dividends (low mils) every year that I end up throwing into real estate. My spend is <100k/yr so I figured even if I just dropped everything I could probably count on not worrying about things.

I still work at the company but don't drive the top line revenue -- I mainly tinker around with it because I enjoy algorithm and machine learning problems. (Historically this business is very qualitative and human-powered.)

> How old were you?

I'm 32 and this started two years back.

> What was it specifically that made the cash that ended up in your pocket?

Just the dividends that get dispensed every year. So I get a low mil payout every year -- which is not exactly "never have to work again rich", but the expected value of the business surviving 5-10 years at a minimum is pretty high.

> Do you feel happy in your life?

I'm satisfied but do not intend to be fully happy -- it keeps my edge sharper so my days feel longer, fuller, and with meaning. A lot of my defined purpose (which dispenses happiness) comes from solving problems and adding value friends, so whenever I feel satisfied I just increase the scope of the problem and the definition of those around me.

My biggest life change that set me on this current trajectory was probably when I was 29, where my startup folded, my gf broke up with me, my over- levered investments wiped out, fell into debt, binged on video games and food, and succumbed to depression for a year. Somehow channeling all that hate and self-loathing into recovery gave me a lot of perspective on the absurdities of life and every day I remind myself of this knowledge. I am grateful for every day and am glad to be alive.

<comment><USER24> How did you identify the vertical that you've successfully targeted?

<comment><USER23> This... is fortuitous I suppose, but my cofounder is actually the one who identified the vertical AND brought the first customer/partner. I was the execution guy who also happened to be a domain expert in a relevant field.

However, to get to this point: this was startup #3 for us together (and monetizeable side project #15~20, by this point in life). Our first startup fizzled out over time as the vertical became efficient (right domain though); our second was poorly executed and run (totally my fault)... but we grew together as a team. And on collective try #3 we learned through our fuckups to not do them again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Yes

I did it through pretty consistent work with large companies over 15 years but two startups as well. The startups both exited successfully but really just brought my compensation up to normal vs. a Google.

It felt like any other day. I write code because I love it. That said, I got really picky at work and started refusing total shit work.

I was 40.

Microsoft and Google really. The startups added a modest bump.

</comment><comment><USER26> > "Never have to work again rich"

I'm almost there. At this point, I just resigned my full-time job and have enough cash on hand to maintain my current lifestyle for the next 10+ years before even thinking about finding a new job or withdrawing funds from my retirement accounts.

> How did you do it?

I worked in IT at a community bank and built a reputation for software development. After ~5 years there, I started a consulting business on the side to develop websites and custom software. The CFO at the bank introduced me to a client that was growing fast and wanted to build their own software to eliminate their growth bottlenecks. By focusing on their business needs, I was awarded 2 contracts over 2 large firms and an independent developer that bid on the work.

>How old are you?

I was 24 when I started working at the bank, 29 when I started the business. I'm turning 31 at the end of this month.

> What was it specifically that made the cash that ended up in your pocket?

One of the contracts I mentioned above was to build and host a project management tool. I priced this hourly since I could see the potential for this to become a long-term project. Once the software was up and running, I packaged a hosting and support service together which effectively works as a perpetual 4-figure per month retainer.

The client thought this project would be done in 3 months but I was able to show them the software had much more potential than they expected. Yesterday marked the start of the 2nd year of development with a rate increase of 25% on development work.

All this was accomplished part-time and put over $160k into my pocket in the last year. I've used some of the money for real estate investments which have pushed my zero-effort monthly recurring revenue up to $3500 after expenses.

The client is now interested in selling the software, and since I carefully positioned myself as the provider of hosting and development services, they're open to a revenue share. If this works out then I'll officially be "never have to work again rich"

>Do you feel happy in your life?

Yes! But the money didn't make me happy. The first few 5-figure checks were exciting but now the money is almost irrelevant.

<comment><USER27> How did you get started in real estate? In a good year, it is sometimes difficult to choose what to do with extra money - and the usual 0.05-0.10% the banks offer certainly isn't cutting it.

<comment><USER26> Baby steps. I got my feet wet by taking on a roommate at my first house for the extra cash flow. Once I had saved up enough for a down payment on a 2nd house, I bought it, moved there, and rented out my first place. If things keep going well I plan invest in a 3rd property by the end of this year.

Some factors that helped out:

1\. I live in Texas so buying there is a healthy margin between mortgage payments and rent prices. Insurance prices eat into this margin but once you're renting this becomes and above the line deduction on your taxes.

2\. I bought my first house when I was 22 and lived there for 5 years.

3\. Luck - my first house was flooded by Hurricane Ike in September 2008. Insurance payout worked out to a free remodeling and a kickstart for the down payment on the 2nd house.

4\. I found tenants through assisted housing programs. Put in the work to find people who feel your property is a dream house, then they will want to be long-term tenants. The housing program pays via direct deposit on the first of the month so you never have to chase down money.

5\. Maintenance - get friendly with some people who work at home depot and local plumbing and electrical services so you can have a handyman to fix the inevitable problems that crop up.

6\. I had a friend who was going to transfer to a college near my 2nd house so he's living with me as a roommate. The deal is win-win - he saves money, time, and vehicle expenses while paying the mortgage for me and then some.

Hope that helps!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> The people I've seen make a good chunk of change through software are the types that reinvest their money, start new companies, and play again.

<comment><USER29> While not comparing myself to those who have already made "a good chunk of change", I had an experience along those lines two years ago: in the middle of a 3 month round-the-world holiday I absolutely needed to just take a day to explore a business idea that was festering inside me.

It was the day I realised I would probably never 'retire', and I found that kind of liberating in its own way.

I'm looking forward to my chunk of change so I can plan strategy days in Manarola, Italy, whenever I choose...or Lake Como. Maybe Santorini?

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> It's not most HNers idea of "never having to work again rich", but there's a great blog by a tech guy (and his techie-wife) who retired in his mid-30's, after having worked a decade or so in a regular salaried tech job. The blog is dedicated towards showing how to live a high-quality retired life with relatively small amount of money: [http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/about/](http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/about/)

<comment><USER31> Just commenting to endorse this site. Lots of good content.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Interesting post. I guess the emerging subtext here is: are you happier once you win the lottery?

Maybe you are interested in some contrast from academia?

I managed to become the academic equivalent of "never have to work again rich", namely, I got a tenured-for-life can't-fire-me professorship at a major university. This is the equivalent of winning the lottery for academics: we get to work on what we want and we get paid for it!

I literally do not have to go to work if I do not want to. I only have to teach a couple of hours a week, and I can get a graduate student to do that for me if it annoyed me (which it doesn't; I derive a great sense of satisfaction and fulfilment from teaching).

> How did you do it?

Working hard, naturally, but not sooo hard. Say 40 hours a week. But probably I am thinking about science all the time, so it's kind of hard to evaluate. But I also did it through _politics_ : knowing the right people, talking to the right people, learning the system, identifying trends, jumping on the right scientific bandwagons, publishing incremental results in trendy journals, and winning large public grants (so far over US$2 million).

> What did it feel like when you first realised it was going > to be true that > you would never have to work again if you > didn't want to?

I reinterpret this as "What did it feel like when you first realised that the need to ever look for a job again was gone?"

The answer is it took me a long time to realise: being a professor is much like being a postdoc, with some extra admin thrown in. So it took me a long time to really accept the amazing luck I have. I'm still coming to terms with it (5 years later). It gets better every day.

> How old were you?

Tenured at 28, full professor at 31.

> Do you feel happy in your life?

Now yes. But not because of the job. Another commenter (diego) noted that "We all age, get sick, have family / relationship problems, need to stay motivated." I completely agree.

Happiness has come to me not because of the job, but because I finally understood the value of family and relationships -- personally I derive much more happiness from my children, my wife, and the people around me than I do from science (although I do dearly love science).

For various reasons I know lots of very wealthy people who need never work again. They are, without exception, all miserable fucked up debased individuals who are so idle and unfulfilled they end up spreading their emotional contagion to all who are unfortunate to be in their way.

<comment><USER33> > They are, without exception, all miserable fucked up debased individuals who > are so idle and unfulfilled they end up spreading their emotional contagion > to all who are unfortunate to be in their way.

Really? Without exception?

<comment><USER32> Of the wealthy people that I personally know, there is no exception. However, "lots" is obviously relative. I don't know all the wealthy people of this earth: I'm sure there are very many lovely generous and wonderful wealthy people. I just personally don't know any.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> No.

But I found a pretty good approach to making a satisfying life without having to "make it rich". In my twenties, I moved to the part of the world where I most enjoyed vacationing, and built my life there. Now every day on my way to work, I look around and couldn't be happier with where I am. Even on the hard days, I have almost everything I really want in life pretty close by, and that pretty consistently helps me keep things in perspective.

Life isn't perfect here, and I did have to move pretty far from most of my family, but place is as important to me as people. If I lived in the wrong part of the world, I'd be pretty miserable and I wouldn't be very good to be around anyway.

I still hope to make enough money to not have to work, but in the mean time, and if it never happens, I will be plenty happy all my life.

<comment><USER35> Where are you if you don't mind me asking?

<comment><USER34> I grew up in New Hampshire, but now I live in southeast Alaska.

I found a third-grade autobiography once: "When I grow up I'm going to live in Arizona, California, or Alaska." I had no idea how far back I had the desire to move west.

<comment><USER35> Interesting. I always pictured Alaska as a beautiful but lonely place.

<comment><USER34> There are definitely some isolated places in Alaska, but how lonely a place feels depends on a number of things. My town is big enough that I don't feel alone at all here.

I live in Sitka. We have ~9000 people here, but you can only get here by boat or plane. It's really nice to be off the road system. If you need to get out, you can take a plane and be in Juneau in an hour or two, in Anchorage in a few hours, and you can get to Seattle in about 4 hours.

That said, you can climb to the top of a mountain, drop down the other side a little bit, and see no sign of humans for hundreds of miles. That's a pretty nice balance. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> No I did not do it; therefore, I have never had that realization. I'm 35 now and it has not happened. Nothing has made it happen yet. Yes, I am happy in life.

<comment><USER37> Me neither (I'm 35 too). But the pursuit is still there and I'm more aware of the journey than ever before.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> > Did you get "never have to work again rich" through software?

Yes

> How did you do it?

Started a bootstrapped, profitable small/medium-sized business (not a startup in the traditional sense). Don't really want to go into more detail than that as I still run it.

> What did it feel like when you first realized it was going to be true that > you would never have to work again if you didn't want to?

It didn't really have any impact. I will definitely continue to work and because of an accident of birth and a "strong background", I've always had the luxury of choosing what I work on, so that hasn't changed. I do have more credibility and capital, so that definitely helps for my next startup.

> How old were you?

26

> Do you feel happy in your life?

Business-wise, mostly yes. Thankfully it hasn't changed social aspects of my life.

<comment><USER39> hi patrick

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> No but I've been able to live off of a big passion-project(s) of mine for almost a year+ now. It helps that I am frugal and live in southeast asia (although the first 4 months was in Australia).

I still work on it because it was things I purely made for myself, but also put on a store -- and it appears others liked it too so it became a win-win.

</comment><comment><USER41> For people who have their basic needs met money is generally a non-factor in baseline happiness. Relationships have a much more profound effect on happiness and to have great relationships you will never reach a peak where you won't have to continually work for those relationships. Also people who involve themselves in humanitarian acts tend to be happier, even when surrounded with tragedy.

The best way to be happy is to give your time to the people around you.

<comment><USER42> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7978474](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7978474)

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> > Did you get "never have to work again rich" through software?

It feels pretty stupid to reply to this as a "no", but to offset the incredibly depressing stories of random luck success, I figured I'd go ahead with it anyway.

No, I'm not rich. I'm 33 and dead broke, actually.

> How did you do it?

I started my first company (a video-related SaaS B2B product) at age 22 and it should have been a home run. The idea and timing were perfect and I found product-market fit almost immediately, cold-calling my way to paying customers 10 months after quitting my previous job.

But I fucked it up. I was too young. My engineering was shitty (wasted all my time putting out fires), but more damningly, I tried to grow the business organically. I'd never been exposed to "real" entrepreneurship before and didn't know anything about venture funding. By the time I realized I needed to raise money (and actually going as far as signing a $1M+ term sheet with a group of shitty investors), it was already too late.

The old guard companies in the space I set out to bankrupt did, indeed, go bankrupt, but it was another startup with the same idea and technology as mine that put the screws to them. While I was trying to turn a profit and make payroll, these other startups just passed me by like I was standing still.

>What did it feel like when you first realised it was going to be true that you would never have to work again if you didn't want to?

Re-interpreted as "what did it feel like when success slipped through your fingers?"

The business was doomed by 2006, but I "stuck with it" (following bad advice) and pivoted (more bad advice) until 2010 when I finally gave up. I wasn't exposed to the concept of failing fast until later.

There was no real moment in time I knew the dream was over, but I fell into a deep depression. Thinking funding was imminent, I'd borrowed money and found myself $75k in debt after all the work and sacrifice.

I finally pulled myself out of the depression and was able to pay back _most_ of my debt within 2 years of being in the "working world".

> How old were you?

Company started at 22, on life support by 27, ended at 30. 2 jobs and 2-3 more startup attempts since then (one was a pivot, really). Now I'm 34.

> What was it specifically that made the cash that ended up in your pocket?

Like I said, I found product-market fit. Had I executed properly, as my competitors did, I'd be a multi-millionaire today.

I've tried to start 3 more companies since then, each better engineered and executed than the last, but none of them found the beginner's luck "fit" of the first.

What was different about the first? I experienced a pain point first hand in an obscure occupation. I don't want to get into specifics, but my first job out of college was as a peon in a non-tech industry. I saw a glaring inefficiency in one of the business processes and knew I could fix it with software.

Of my 3 product/usiness attempts since then, 2 solved problems I perceived from outside an industry that weren't really that problematic after all and 1 was/is a consumer product. For the consumer product, the problem I'm trying to solve is really a problem, but it's visible to many, many more people.

When you have a unique vantage point on an obscure problem, your chances of being the guy to solve it are much better.

> Do you feel happy in your life?

No. It gets really dark sometimes.

When I was running my first company, I was energetic and blissfully self- confident. Now I'm a heap of bitter frustration and anxiety with crippling sleep problems.

After I finally gave up pivoting and "persevering" on that first business, I had a 2-year "working world" tenure that was so painful I can't even talk about it under an anon account.

Entrepreneurship courses through my veins and I can't turn it off. But I've gone through my Rolodex of acquaintances a thousand times and can't find a viable co-founder for a new business. No cofounder = no accelerator = constantly stuck in neutral. The thought of going back to a cube job makes me break out into a sweat -- literally. (Echoing an above poster.)

All I can do at this point is try to start new businesses on my own and get traction like I did the first time. There is no other viable path for me.

TL;DR I was a 22-year-old wunderkind whose company crashed, career melted and am now a 34-year-old has-been.

\</comment><comment>---

Epilogue: A friend of mine went to a state university and applied to his dream job at Microsoft upon graduating. He got rejected and ended up taking a position at his backup, Google... in 2002. Made a boatload (but not retirement money) in the IPO, was heavily recruited by the most hyped startup of the late 2000s (he admitted it was only because of the Google name), and is now an angel investor.

Life is fucked up and random, my friends. Signal and noise.

<comment><USER44> _> No cofounder = no accelerator = constantly stuck in neutral._

I cofounded a startup that was eventually sold for $64 million. My cofounder forced me out of the company and stole all of my equity from me, costing me nearly $13M. So cofounders are not all they're cracked up to be.

As for the general negative tone, _businesses_ fail - _you_ don't, unless you quit trying. My advice: work on something with a short path to revenue for now, and stop taking yourself so seriously. After the thing with my cofounder, I had several ambitious ideas to make millions again, but those were failures and I was basically emotionally destroyed. So I finally made something with less potential, that was less interesting to me, but with a clear and simple value proposition for customers. I also developed a way to market directly to my potential customers for free. That business is now doing quite well, and the mere fact that people are paying for something I created has completely turned around the depression I was in.

Remember this: Walmart makes billions selling inexpensive crap that they buy from other people. Their innovation? They charge more for their products than they spent buying them. At least until you can afford to take risks on interesting, swing for the fences kind of stuff, get rich doing boring things. It's easier and faster.

<comment><USER43> How well did you know the cofounder beforehand?

This is very much part of my frustration. I put my pseudo-resume on CFL and got blasted with dozens of requests, so many that I had to put assholish "don't contact me unless" prerequisites on my profile. But here's the thing I've realized (and maybe you did, more painfully): I _know_ not to get involved with a stranger or even an acquaintance that I haven't known for years. Finding someone who can produce at an obsessive, passionate level like you (hopefully) will is extremely difficult and riddled with risk. Heck, just finding someone who is a net positive is hard enough.

If you co-found with a non-bestie, not only are you taking all that risk on yourself, but investors are going to look the other way. They know it better than anyone: startup teams are like marriages. It can get ugly really, really quickly, completely obliterating the business in the process.

I have an unhealthy envy of some cofounding teams that just _were_ , no work involved at all. It's like they took the undisputed hardest part of starting a company and just sidestepped it. Digital Ocean is a team of brothers, for example. Many big startups were formed out of happenstance high school or college buddies. But guess what? When you grow up in a tiny town in flyover country where entrepreneurship is unheard of, those people don't exist. I did go to a top-10 university, but it wasn't particularly entrepreneurial like Stanford or Berkeley. Everyone I knew there is now a banker, lawyer, doctor, etc. My only engineering buddy from college has been at Microsoft for 12 years and has two kids, and even still, I've made several unsuccessful runs at him (and others).

I'm allowing myself to be a little whinier than I would under a real account, so sorry if it sounds ultra-negative.

Meh, in for a penny...

Dear God I hate the concept of marriage. It has stolen all my friends and all my potential co-founders. I secretly celebrate divorce.

<comment><USER44> _> How well did you know the cofounder beforehand?_

I knew him very well....for about 5 years beforehand, and there are few entrepreneurs that come with a better resume and bankroll (which is why I agreed to take 20% of the company as a cofounder - he put up all the money and his history and contacts all but assured a successful exit).

What I didn't really know about was his temper and emotional issues when it came to business. He was essentially a completely different person. I thought I knew him well, and it turns out I wasn't even close. The beginning of the end turned out to be when one of his 7 ex-fiances (not exaggerating here btw) started flirting with me at a party and kept contacting me even after I told her it was a bad idea. I didn't reciprocate, but it didn't matter. After that, it all went downhill.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Intriguing choice of topic. For visitors of this thread, to read about the prequel to these lives, try "Founders at work"

[http://www.amazon.com/Founders-Work-Stories-Startups- Early-e...](http://www.amazon.com/Founders-Work-Stories-Startups-Early- ebook/dp/B009IXMK4O/)

</comment><comment><USER46> > How

Worked at a company which gave stocks and eventually was bought by a tech major from Asia.

> What did it feel

It was a tsunami of happiness which first made numb.

> How old

34

> What was it specifically that made the cash that ended up in your pocket?

Just the usual work, I worked at a lesser salary with much higher stress levels and far longer work hours.

> Do you feel happy in your life ?

Money bought a sense of achievement in life which probably made me 5x happier. The time I could spend with my family spending that money bought lot more happiness.

The only negative was the sort of insecurity which made me wonder what would happen if I lose all this overnight.

</comment><comment><USER47> One of the more interesting discussions about this that I've seen: [http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/azgs6/iama_guy_who_so/...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/azgs6/iama_guy_who_so/ld_his_startup_and_i_have_like_20m/)

</comment><comment><USER48> Just to balance out the responses here: No, I have not. I am nowhere near that goal. I'm 27.

</comment><comment><USER49> Does this thread always show up right after the "Who's Hiring?" ones?

</comment><comment><USER50> Didn't do it (get rich). I have, however, developed panic attacks thanks to open-plan offices (noise isn't an issue, but being visible from behind for 8 hours per day is extremely unhealthy) and been pushed onto a second-tier career track due to the "job hopper" image that comes from a typical tech career. (I leave companies that don't invest in talent, and have no shame about it; but that makes going back to the hedge funds a non-option because they still have dinosaurs in HR who think sub-2-year jobs are a negative.) I feel like those outcomes are more common than "fuck you money" and deserve a voice.

In the long run, the hellish experiences of my 20s are an advantage. I've become stronger. After enough panic attacks (the first sends you to the ER because you don't know what it is, the 101st is irritating and takes 15 minutes out of your day) you stop fretting the petty anxieties that dominate most people. Through adversity, I've traveled from being a socially awkward 22-year-old to someone who can actually fucking lead. It took a lot of pain to get me there.

Age? I'm 31. Everywhere but the Valley, that means I'm still in the game.

No, I'm not happy, but it's not for a lack of money. I make enough. Programmers are underpaid for what we suffer (including subordination to the whims of parasitic, talentless executives 20-75 IQ points below us) but it's the subordinacy and low status and the sheer fucking pointlessness of most of the work that makes it so awful. The money is not great but more than adequate, and I'm not worried about long-term income issues either.

<comment><USER51> Wouldn't frequent panic attacks warrant a change in workplace? Or at least an attempt from your company to make you comfortable? (This is assuming that you've brought it up to them, which you should do)

<comment><USER50> _Wouldn 't frequent panic attacks warrant a change in workplace?_

I don't have them often anymore, and they're pretty manageable at this point. When I started having them, there were discernible triggers and they were debilitating. Now they tend to happen at random (but are rare and rarely intense enough to be more than an unpleasant experience) and, 15 minutes later, I'm back to normal.

 _This is assuming that you 've brought it up to them, which you should do_

I don't like to have that discussion. Two reasons. One, it would block me from leadership opportunities, anywhere in private-sector technology except R&D (where excellence, instead of reliable mediocrity, actually matters). It could get me a better office, but I'd be the "diva" and never get promoted. Two, most companies see that sort of disclosure as an aggressive move. As they see it, it's the kind of thing you do if you're expecting to get fired, to lock in a severance.

Telling my manager at Google about these issues led him to toy with me for months, and the fallout really fucked up my career.

In the rare case that I have to miss a meeting, I use "headache" instead of what it actually is.

<comment><USER52> > _Telling my manager at Google about these issues led him to toy with me for > months, and the fallout really fucked up my career._

I'm really sorry to hear about that. They could have handled things a lot better.

I had my first panic attack a few years ago, trigged by non-work-related stuff. Everyone in my group up to the VP really went above and beyond supporting me through it. Thing is, that support built loyalty. I haven't had a panic attack in years now, but I'm still at that same company because of the kindness and caring the management showed. It was a real spark of that now rare, old-school silicon valley "caring about people" attitude and they showed me by example the kind of manager I want to be.

Also, I know from experience everyone and their brother hands out advice and remedies, but look into Propranalol. It's a beta-blocker with no mental effect and no known long-term side-effects. Public speakers and concert musicians take it to keep the physical symptoms of panic away. It totally blocks the heart palpitations, shaking and sweating. Block the symptoms and the rest takes care of itself - at least it did for me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> I feel obliged to comment, although not with my normal HN username.

I'm 41. I retired two years ago at the age of 39. I spent 18 years working in Silicon Valley at four different companies of various sizes. At 29 I was promoted to a first-level manager.

Two of the companies I worked for were successful while I was there, although not spectacularly so. Mostly I minimized my costs. For the last five years of my career, my base salary was about $200K and I was making another $100K in equity (stock options and vesting of restricted stock). Of the $300K, I paid 40% in taxes, lived on 10%, and saved 50%. Clearly, I made good money but I didn't get an Instagram-style money waterfall.

I retired with $3M. I've made another $1M off a well-timed investment of $30K in bitcoin, so my net worth is $4M now. By the "4% rule" I should be able to withdraw $160K a year. But I can't shed my frugal habits that led me to this place, even though I feel like I'm living "high on the hog" here. I'm going through about $60K a year ($5K a month).

I think that some people I know think I hit the jackpot. But it's really not like that. Mostly, I made a long slog of working unending sixty-hour weeks and also being effective while doing it.

I left and moved to Russia. (I speak Russian fluently as a second language.) I date a succession of girls in their twenties. 27 or 28 is about the cutoff for me. And they're attractive girls: they're not the twentysomething warpigs you see lumbering through the cubicle hallways of Silicon Valley. My girlfriend at the moment is 20, which is less than half my age. But I date other girls on the side.

I met a European guy with almost the same exact story: by some combination of success and saving money he is in the same position, although to a slightly lesser degree. He's my best friend in life: I've never connected with another man so well since childhood. We throw dinner parties in my huge flat, and invite cure girls and stand-up guys. We get each other 100% and feed off each other's energy. Our reputation is spreading and it seems like every week we throw a better party and with hotter girls. Today I ran into an acquaintance on the street that I hadn't seen in a year, and he said he'd heard of our parties and would like to get invited.

We are on a first-name basis with the owners of the coolest clubs and bars in the city. When I met my current girlfriend, I invited her out on Saturday night to the coolest bar in the city. She said, "I don't have a card." I said, "I don't need a card, I know everyone there." We went there, and as usual, the bouncer smiled and shook my hand. Sometimes I invite a bunch of people to these bars and they get "face controlled," but then I just come out and ask the bouncer to let them in and he always does. This is the closest to being a celebrity that I'm ever going to get.

I tinker around with software. I'm fascinated by Haskell. But I've lost my passion for it. I worked too long and too hard in Silicon Valley. Now I want to read books, drink wine, hang out with my friends, and consort with lots of girls. I don't have the drive I had as a twentysomething.

I get a lot of invitations on LinkedIn to come and interview here and there. Even though I've been gone for awhile, it's clear that Silicon Valley is booming. But I can never go back. After seeing this side of the wall, I can't possibly go back to a cubicle. And I don't know how I would explain my life. "I had this great 18-year career. I'm a great technologist and a great manager. But for the last X years I've been doing… um… well… just pure debauchery."

Having been at companies in growth mode, I know that there are really few good candidates out there. I literally interviewed THOUSANDS of candidates during my career. I know how clueless my competition is. If I want to go back, I can. Surely, there are much better people than me. I'd say I'm at the 80th percentile in Silicon Valley. But as I write this I know I can never go back.

When I first left, I considered doing a SaaS and had an idea. I formed an LLC before I left. But I've done nothing and have lost interest. I no longer have the love for programming that I once had, and I don't really need any money. I'm enjoying my life. So I just want to continue to enjoy my life.

I am happy in a way that I have never been. My biggest problem is shedding the mentality that brought me here. I got here by busting my ass, taking names, saving as much as I could and investing. It was a feat of disciple. I chewed my 20-year-old girlfriend out for not keeping the wine glasses of my guests topped off during dinner at her end of the table. She's attracted to my status and confidence, but she doesn't really understand my mentality, especially since it is essentially alien to her culture.

Ironically, I've taken a job two nights a week teaching English for $9 an hour. But I enjoy it. I connect with the students and the students love me. I think the people at the school are confused, because they know that I have this crazy life of high-end clubs and a fashionable flat in the dead center of the city, and they don't know how I support it on my income.

TL;DR: I busted my ass and made enough money to escape. I'm enjoying my life.

<comment><USER54> Reading this post was very uncomfortable, especially the follow-ups describing women as having "no intellectual curiosity", but also the general tone. I was also perplexed at how many others described this as an ideal life -- perhaps they were just referring to the raw facts (lots of fun, dating, throwing good parties, etc.) and not actually adopting many of the implicit attitudes in there.

Still, I couldn't help but read this post in the voice of a ~19 year old college "douche"[1] type, which felt very weird coming out of a 41 year old.

Perhaps the real lesson in here for young HNers is to live their lives fully, to grow, mature, and develop our emotional maturity, so that we don't sound like that at the respectable age of 41.

\--

[1] - couldn't find a better word; is there an alternative with less negative connotations, but carrying the same denotation?

<comment><USER55> I'd like to thank the gp for his comment and his honesty; I think his participation adds a lot to this discussion.

That said, I felt just as uneasy as you.

Here's my experience from the Funemployment thread, if anyone's interested -- not FU money, but a life that feels just as free: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7932707](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7932707) (I thought about commenting on this thread, but I already commented on the 'Funemployment' thread).

I think that "emotional immaturity" is a cop-out, though, one that I've seen a lot. What's mature?

I've seen, known and met dozens (hundreds?) of expats, and I fear that the real reasons might be a bit more grim: I don't think people really know what they would run away to _do_.

It's easy to funnel people towards technology and startups if they want to get rich. It's 'easy' in the sense that, whatever the reasons you might want to get rich, technology can probably help.

But on the opposite end?

Where do people go once they've achieved functional independence (through retirement or other means) and can basically take work or leave it?

Well ... that's pretty personal. It fans out, sometimes to really weird and specific places.

In this case, the gp has found one really good friend, who 'gets' him. The two of them have a bromance going, and they have a hobby they enjoy ('debauchery'), and they treat other people (including some women) as essentially disposable.

That makes me uneasy, but what about it specifically would you call "immaturity?" It seems that you might mean that it's empirically immature, in that it sounds like the dream and the description (and, hey, this being the internet, it might well be a fantasy) of young people without much life experience.

<comment><USER54> I don't think that having fun, drinking, knowing the bouncers, going to clubs, and having many relations (often overlapping) with much younger women is a sign of immaturity _per se_.

The reason I use the " _emotional immaturity_ " label to describe the post has more to do with the way its written. Gloating in certain details and expressing certain opinions that, in my view, are reflective of a person whose life experience is (in some ways) uninformed and lacking.

Again, the women comment I think indicates that he simply hasn't talked to an accurate sample of women (or hasn't tried to have serious conversations). That's a serious lack of experience (if you presuppose as I do that intellectual women exist in roughly the same proportion as men). I personally define maturity/immaturity as something related to these kinds of experiences.

It goes without saying that I am not referring to any _objective_ conception of maturity, but rather my own assessment of what it means.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> I keep trying :D

</comment><comment><USER35> One day...

</comment><comment><USER57> I really truly feel sorry for this guy.

</comment><comment><USER58> How did you do it?

I haven't. I've never had that "ah-ha!" moment and I'm constantly looking at problems to solve, nothing viable at least.

How old were you?

I'm 23, so I'm not worried. I have plenty of time!

Do you feel happy in your life?

Mostly. I've got debts and I'm trying to save for a house, but I'm working to pay the debts with freelance, whilst I save with my wages - it's hard work but will be worth it. I also spend time learning new things, so I feel like I'm progressing well :)

</comment><comment><USER59> No, not yet. I just got a job which pays me good, after 3 years of struggle. 25 Now I dont know what to do, since I got a job which I wanted after some 3 years. I work in a startup, we are building a product for middle east which is already proven in US. hopefully there will be a landfall of money someday. Still I have no idea what to do after 2 years.</comment>


Research questions that could have a big social impact, organised by discipline - <AUTHOR> https://80000hours.org/articles/research-questions-by-discipline/ <comment><USER2> Love these posts, here's a couple more that are similar:

Patrick Collinson- [https://patrickcollison.com/questions](https://patrickcollison.com/questions)

Gwern- [https://www.gwern.net/Questions](https://www.gwern.net/Questions)

Alexey Guzey- [https://guzey.com/personal/research- ideas/](https://guzey.com/personal/research-ideas/)

Anybody have more?

</comment><comment><USER3> Sorry, these are actually terrible. Some of the biggest questions off the top of my head:

1) How do we build machines that repair themselves?

2) How can we get human bodies to automatically repair and regrow damaged limbs and organs?

3) How do we build an energy source that is the same volume and mass as a litre of petroleum, is as stable and portable as petroleum but possesses 10x the energy density?

4) How can we get the human immune system to automatically develop suitable antiviral antibodies to combat a viral infection?

5) When will heated toilet seats become standard in North American homes (or at least north of Virginia)?

<comment><USER4> Solution to everything:

put human (consciousness) into silicon. Now all problems becomes one dimensional. (2), (4), (5) becomes moot, (3) is quite unnecessary because time is now more or less expendable, and we can just work on (1).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> As a biologist, the Biology and genetics section was really disappointing.

> What's the minimum viable human population?

Depends on your technology. If you have frozen sperm and an effective means of genetic engineering (to fix mutations), the answer is 1.

How about the long term implications of being able to fundamentally engineer life?

<comment><USER6> Agreed. The questions specific to my field do not seem interesting to me at all as a researcher. They are either way too vague and ill-defined to qualify as serious research, or way too niche to have a "big social impact".

Also, IANAB (I am not a biologist), but it surprises me that unravelling the genetic architecture of complex phenotypes is not represented on this list in any way, shape or form.

<comment><USER7> Make a pull request.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The year 2020 is providing all the Big Questions we can handle. How do we stop a pandemic? Climate change driven fires the size of a continent? Reforming the police to stop racial violence? Fighting bots and trolls that threaten democracy?

<comment><USER9> That last one is easy, at least: ban ad-driven social media as a business model.

<comment><USER10> Being ad-driven is a red herring. Trolls were known to exist on totally non- commercial mailing lists.

Being pseudonymous is key, but it's also the valuable part.

<comment><USER11> Being ad-driven is an important component because a big part of the incentive to maximize engagement is to drive ad impressions. If social media companies were compensated in some other way, the content might be different.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> All the computer science questions are about ML. Are there no impactful computer science problems left outside of ML? I also get the impression that the author did not really understand the ML/AI research questions. Otherwise, they would have probably chose more general/high-level questions.

<comment><USER13> The "effective altruism" movement (of which 80,000 Hours is a part) has long been preoccupied with preventing a malevolent, superintelligent AI from killing or enslaving humanity (they call this fostering "friendly AI"). Their position is that this is a low-probability but extremely severe risk that few people are working on preventing.

Whether AI is really more dangerous than, say, pandemics or asteroids, is left as an exercise for the reader.

<comment><USER14> AI safety isn't an EA "preoccupation"; it's just weird enough and noticeable enough that it's easy to mistake existence and prevalence. It's also not even their weirdest position.

The first question on their list is about the 'problem' of wild animal suffering - and I've personally seen EAs argue that, because some animals are carnivorous, nature should be destroyed.

That's not even the weirdest position EAs take. Look up Brian Tomasik. Specifically, his paper about the possibility that _electrons_ might suffer.

Concern about superhuman AI is one thing; bullet-biting utilitarianism is another entirely.

(This isn't the only place where their philosophical framework is stuck in the British Empire; they also tend to take a teleological view of history and moral development, and believe that their views are the self-evident progression of ethical development that every culture and civilization will come to eventually. They may not be as bad about this now as they used to be - there are questions about China now - but I don't think they're quite to the point of coming to terms with cultural contingency yet.)

<comment><USER15> It's a preoccupation because EA is mostly a rationalist thing, and Elizier Yudlowsky has had tremendous influence on that movement by being involved with Less Wrong. His views on AI have kind of become a mainstream position among them.

80k hours is more a cultural snapshot of the rationalist movement than anything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Needs a section on engineering research, specifically energy. Cleaner energy and energy distribution is the #1 global concern, in my opinion, and has been for a long time.

<comment><USER17> yes! i know this is a hyperbolic example, but infinite clean energy would clear up a lot of problems on this list.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Ha, such a list is a great thing to argue about. But nevertheless, I am disappointed by the politics section.

The Big Question in politics is, as it has been for 2 centuries now, how do we deploy the brightest minds on the biggest problems.

Our biggest problem in politics is that decisions have to make sense to the median voter. If someone comes up with a process that can transcend that without the well understood failings of dictatorship, that would be game changing beyond game changing.

The world has too many problems with well known solutions. People keep reinventing square wheels instead of being honest about what worked and didn't in the past.

<comment><USER19> "The Big Question in politics is, as it has been for 2 centuries now, how do we deploy the brightest minds on the biggest problems."

I am sorry to have to inform you, but this is a meritocratic, very naive view of modern societies that every single datapoint points against. That is not the biggest problem.

The biggest problem is: what to do when there is an ongoing state capture of your country by oligopolic pan-continental corporate structures?

Stop assuming that we just have to find out a solution. Solutions exist. We can have co-owned drone farms sustaining entire villages. We COULD have that. We already have tens of thousands of bright scientists who work on drugs where the patents go to the corporations, not for those who actually did the research anyway. Profits, however, are more important to those who make decisions about our ways of living.

<comment><USER20> > We already have tens of thousands of bright scientists who work on drugs > where the patents go to the corporations, not for those who actually did the > research anyway.

That's because corporations do the part of drug research that actually matters, viz. translational research and safety/effectiveness studies. And it would be just as expensive if non-profits were doing it, so talking about "profits" is just not relevant.

<comment><USER21> Both parts matter, but you are right it wouldn't be significantly cheaper to do the transnational and regulatory stuff publicly or by non-profits.

What probably _would_ change is the choices on which conditions and drugs to target, and to what degree. Conceivably could shift from an ability-to-pay focus to an impact focus.

Exercise left to the reader to decide if that would be desirable and/or likely to be more successful overall.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Extreme life extension looms large in my mind and I don't have much trouble imagining that many people hope for this as well. My gut tells me that it's possible but my mind says we aren't the ones to get it.

I feel like the barrier here is more of a political one than being a matter of research or feasibility. I never quite understood why we are not throwing money at this issue. I mean I get that we collectively have doubt it could happen but the alternative is the big sleep anyway so why the hell not try?

Every day we feel tantalizingly closer to solving each of these problems but each decade seems to pass by quicker than the last. Perhaps we are a terminal species.

Maybe the real big problem lies in social science or psychology. Better stewardship or collective modeling. Maybe we should start force-feeding lsd into people who actively vote against and stand opposed to scientific progress. There's got to be more in life than just withdrawing a paycheque or not and dying eventually. Sinking into the past and eventually erased from living memory. I once saw a picture of a guy in the 1920s who bred horses in the Greek mountains. This vague memory is all that's left of my great grandfather. I don't even know his name.

<comment><USER23> I get it but I don't understand it.

Can you imagine: on the one hand post industrial countries are inhabited by a bunch or multi centenarians, on the other hand poor countries are overpopulated by youngsters.

In the post industrial countries their minuscule pool of young people have no chance to dislodge entrenched old people who have the power.

There is less rejuvenation and less change in these multi centenarian societies and they become calcified, ossified. Old buggers hanging on for what? Will their minds be plastic? Sure, I don't always agree with my young self or today's young on all things, but I believe they should have the opportunity to shape their society in their time without obstructionist old timers.

<comment><USER24> Well the good news is that historically we've been more progressive than it takes for people to die. It is still a slow process, but it is clear that cultural change isn't happening because old people die and young people with new ideas replace them.

<comment><USER25> I don't think that's so clear because historically we've never been in a situation where the average age of the population moves towards 40-50, or already is there in some countries. The median age in the US in 1900 was 23.

If the oldest members of the population constitute a majority, and you're living in a democracy, cultural change is pretty hard to achieve.

Here in Germany, where we have one of the oldest populations on the planet, politics consists essentially of one issue, social services and pensions.

<comment><USER24> At least here in America it seems like culture has shifted very quickly. The last 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, 50 years. I can't speak much for German culture, but I can say with high certainty that German culture is extremely different than 30 years ago. Yes, there's similarities, but things have changed quite a bit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> > The replication crisis has cast into doubt important research findings, such > as the Stanford prison experiment. What other socially important findings > have been undermined? How should we interpret scientific literature post- > crisis?

This should start early in middle school and high school, too. Surprised this idea of replication crisis fails to get more attention.

<comment><USER27> 99.9% of teens do not have the knowledge, skills or capability to critically examine academic research. Hell, most secondary and high school teachers don't have those skills. Thus, all you can say is "be skeptical". But that is next to useless if the student has no basis to make an assessment -- all it will do is erode confidence in the process of science. Instead, IMO, students should be 1) given a firm foundation of well accepted knowledge and 2) taught how the process of science works.

As an aside, I'd ask those who promote the idea that children should be taught "how to think" instead of "facts they can just look up" to think a bit more deeply about what they are saying. IMO, you cannot reach valid conclusions without facts. Facts are the foundation of knowledge, synthesis and analysis. Without facts, one cannot understand a topic or even know what questions to ask about it. Note, I'm not saying that children should be force fed facts via rote learning. But consider, what happens when someone believes they can think for themselves but is ignorant of topic they're thinking about?

<comment><USER28> I'd expect them to iteratively learn the facts of the topic, just as the people who first discovered those facts would have had to. Many areas of knowledge are traditionally introduced that way. Of course it can't be the only teaching strategy, since many things couldn't be learned within a human lifespan without explicit instruction on the facts, but it plays an important pedagogical role.

The replication crisis indicates, frankly, that confidence in the process of science _should_ be eroded a bit. Many people I know treat scientific studies as true until proven otherwise, and the replication crisis demonstrates this isn't an accurate assessment.

<comment><USER29> There's two different kinds of confidence in science. There's the type that uncritically accepts an article at face value (oranges cause/cure cancer! Time to ban/require orange consumption!), and there's the type that says "the scientific community thinks evolution is true, so even if individual articles can be criticized, on the whole I shouldn't discount it as a theory based on a single critique or mistake." The former is good to undermine; the latter bad. But the boundary between them can be murky.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Can someone tell me more about the ideological (theological?) assumptions underpinning these questions? They seem to come from a very peculiar understanding of "social impact".

<comment><USER31> 80,000 Hours would associate themselves with "Effective Altruism"

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

[https://80000hours.org/about/#how-are-you- funded](https://80000hours.org/about/#how-are-you-funded)

The principles of effective altruism are largely consequentialist, utilitarian, cosmopolitan, and humanist, although none of those fit exactly right.

<comment><USER32> But in practice, this list of questions reflects less the principles of Effective Altruism and more the overlap between people calling themselves Effective Altruists and other personal and career preoccupations. That's how you get four of the six "most impactful" questions in politics and international relations being about AI and one of the others involving representation for 'sentient nonhumans'. (Suffice to say this is not a list a political scientist, or even your average consequentialist utilitarian cosmopolitan humanist who read more newspapers than AI papers would propose as research priorities in politics and IR. Probably great research questions to get you a popular blog and a job in a Silicon Valley research institute though)

<comment><USER31> Although all organizations are influenced by their particular constituency, the guys at 80k have been led to these causes by particular philosophical and empirical arguments, which they explain in the website _at great length_ , not (say) because they all used to be ML researchers. (They do not have technical backgrounds.) You can certainly disagree with the arguments, and they would be first to agree that their conclusions (although not premises) are radical.

But more importantly, I think if you just went and talked to random political scientists, you would find they actually had not thought very hard about what the most important causes are. If you ask them, they would come up with something on the spot. Indeed, political scientists don't at all seem to be the correct experts for this question.

<comment><USER32> I'm going to go out on a limb and say that political scientists that spend their entire working life studying political science and teaching students the most important questions in political science (including ones which aren't their specialism!), _might_ have put more thought into which political science questions have impact and which aren't studied enough than was required to pick three questions from Allan Defoe's paper on AI, once from a CNAS paper on AI and one from a list already on their website, before moving onto the next field in the alphabet. The list covers 19 academic disciplines and a third of their sources are papers mainly about AI!

To be fair to the authors, they openly state right at the beginning of the article that the scope of the questions they're listing is based entirely on questions being asked _within_ their community. I'm not saying the questions aren't worth answering, but a community with less overlap with LessWrong's 'politics is the mind killer' singularity-believers would perhaps choose a set of 'important questions in politics' somewhat less narrowly focused on AI. And this community overlap clearly has more of an impact on the authors' conclusion that the most impactful questions in politics nearly all concern AI than pure philosophical commitment to maximising the utilitarian value of their time.

<comment><USER31> > I'm going to go out on a limb and say that political scientists that spend > their entire working life studying political science and teaching students > the most important questions in political science

Political scientists will know the most important questions in political science as judged by _intellectual interest_ , but that's just not the question being asked here. They are asking which questions in political science will have the biggest impact on the world as judged by a utilitarian and long-termist framework, and I don't see why political scientists would have a confident answer to that.

Likewise, I am a physicist with expertise in what questions are of intellectual interest to physicists, but I don't think that I or my colleagues have good ready answers to which physics questions will have the biggest impact on the world.

> And this community overlap clearly has more of an impact on ...

But the community overlap wasn't a random event that is just now influencing this investigation. The members of the community were attracted to each other _because_ they were convinced by certain abstract arguments. (LessWrong is concentrated in Berkeley while 80k Hours is UK based and the members mostly hail from there and Australia. They found each other through the internet and through the Oxford philosophy department.) You can certainly disagree with the arguments, but chalking this up to having overlap with some dorky community is a cheap ad hominem.

<comment><USER33> > They are asking which questions in political science will have the biggest > impact on the world as judged by a utilitarian and long-termist framework, > and I don't see why political scientists would have a confident answer to > that.

> Likewise, I am a physicist with expertise in what questions are of > intellectual interest to physicists, but I don't think that I or my > colleagues have good ready answers to which physics questions will have the > biggest impact on the world.

While answering the question involves predicting the future in ways no one should be _overly_ confident in, it's worth noting that social impact questions of that type are, in fact, within the domain of political science in a way they are not within the domain of physics, so practitioners within the two fields aren't exactly similarly situated with regard to the question.

<comment><USER31> Sort of. Some political scientists are certainly more likely to estimate the impact of their policy suggestions than physicsts, mostly because physicists rarely make policy suggestions. But I don't think they try to survey all political science questions and systematically compare them along some measure of impact. I expect the hypothetically disagreement between Dafoe and a random political scientist is based on a disagreement outside the expertise (the importance and long-term impact of AI in general). Likewise, physicists wouldn't tell you much about the impact of their work because it hinges on things (e.g., econ) outside their expertise.

<comment><USER34> And is everything you are saying just sort of, your own take on things?

Or do you have some sort of special expertise?

Because sure, what you're saying _sounds_ good, but it's far from a piece of ironclad logic, so, color me un-convinced : ).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> The list seems pretty off. It lists the creatine makes vegetarians smarter in cog sci and psychology. The article that question links to kills the idea in the headline.

Sentience of animals and non-humans comes up a lot. Which looks less important than a lot of other areas of research, fusion, physics, ect.

</comment><comment><USER36> Biology and genetics, only one focused on genetic engineering and it's for "crops that could thrive in the tropics during a nuclear winter scenario". This seems to reflect someone's biases more than anything.

</comment><comment><USER37> How about chemistry and materials science?

Think how 40 years ago lithium batteries didn't exist, and they only started becoming commercially available in this millennium.

Are equivalent improvements happening soon?

<comment><USER38> >How about chemistry and materials science?

There are more problems than there are scientists.

And more scientists than there are labs that can solve problems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> There are a lot of question where I would have problems to asses whether an answer is a correct/valid one. I'd even argue that different people would accept different answers as answers. Which in turn make them bad questions to begin with.

</comment><comment><USER40> It's frustrating that "Computer Science" is prefixed with "Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, and". Ignoring many of the notable research questions that have nothing to do with intelligence. Ditto the "Statistics and" prefix to mathematics. Both of which ignore the 90% of the field that isn't the prefix.

<comment><USER41> This is just nitpicking

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> I would say that the absence of any overarching anthropological, epistemological or philosophical basis for these questions is the fundamental observation that needs to be made. "Big social impact" is hardly a defined category, let alone necessarily representative of desirable outcome.

As we move from a multiplicity of disparate cultures to a single common denominating quagmire of internet-unified global capitalism, how do we ensure that alternative perspectives on nature, society and purpose continue to exist and are granted reasonable space and resources to self-sustain?

Alternatively stated: how can _homo sapiens_ as a group reliably value things such as the commons (nature, intellectual heritage, freedom of choice, individual dignity, etc.) that exist outside of conventional private ownership and economic rationalism without politically centralizing objective value thereby capitulating the great strengths known to be associated with heterogeneity?

</comment><comment><USER43> In the Bio and Genetics section there are some good ones and some answers already (kinda). I'll try to be brief:

> What's the minimum viable human population (from the perspective of genetic > diversity)?

~500 people. It's not a 'firm' answer, as the research is still ongoing (aka, its complicated) but it looks like the number is ~500 but likely a bit more : [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_viable_population](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_viable_population)

> What future possibilities are there for brain-computer interfacing and how > does this interact with issues in AI safety?

It all come down to scarring. Current attempts typically end in scarring, at least in the Central Nervous System. We've not got a good way around it yet, at least for little tetrode like probes you have to insert.

The most exciting (to me) is to use Clarity and Optogenetics. Clarity to make the brain, well, clear-er. And Optogenetics to stimulate cells with light. Shine light, nerves fire.

Trouble is the Clarity makes the brain swell ~3x, and nerves are smaller than the diffraction limit of light, mostly. Maybe attach some iron atoms in the optogenetic pore and then pull on them in a magnetic gradient, thereby separating out the frequencies needed. Still it's a _long_ ways off.

> What do we know from animals about how cognitive abilities scale with brain > size, learning time, environmental complexity, etc.?

There's been some good work out of the Hercule lab (U. Chile I think?) about this. The trouble is in getting a reliable brain marker for 'learning ability'. You can use markers for the number of layers of the cortex, and their cross connectivity, but it's still tough to understand. Turns out, the 'wrinklage' of a mammalian brain is correlated with increasing 'learning- ness', but atmospheric/hydodynamic pressure plays a huge role in the 'wrinklage'. Sorry, my google-fu is not good today and I don't have the paper citation

> Why has Mohism almost died out in China, relative to other schools of > thought?

Damn! Now that is a good question. For those just seeing Mozi for the first time, he was a defensive siege engineer during the early Warring states period (~470BC). Guy's ethos would really fit well in Silicon Valley, he was a kinda engineery-hippy dude, kinda Kevin Kelly-esque: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozi)

</comment><comment><USER34> Does anyone know if these folks got help from various experts in each of these fields in order to assemble the list?

</comment><comment><USER44> Some that caught my eye:

"Improve our modelling of impact winter scenarios, especially for 1–10 km asteroids. Work with experts in climate modelling and nuclear winter modelling to see what modern models say. "

I think impact scenarios is a definite, but nuclear winter is actually an extremely questionable "theory". Many people are not aware, but the the Russian KGB boasted that they literally made this up in order to divert public opinion in the west against nuclear weapons as NATO rolled out medium range missiles in Europe back in 1982: [http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/nuclear- winter/](http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/nuclear-winter/) The mushrooms clouds from nuclear detonations do indeed dissipate over a few days. I believe subsequent modeling has come up empty even in the worst case scenarios.

"Develop more reliable and tamper-proof measures for so-called 'dark tetrad' traits — psychopathy, Machiavellianism, sadism, and narcissism."

I actually like this question and have been thinking the same thing recently. These traits are very dangerous especially when exhibited by those at the top of the food chain in both politics and business and need to be identified early and treated, and not allowed to flourish among those in power (Some good reads on this is The Sociapath Next Door and the Sociopath Test). Bad actors have incredibly out-sized influence globally.

"Why have certain aspects of Chinese civilization been so long-lasting? Are there any lessons we can draw from this about what makes for highly resilient institutions, cultures, or schools of thought?"

I'd be curious to know what they are referring to here in modern China. Is this question even relevant post cultural revolution? I think its a more relevant question for Taiwan that preserved the "old" culture as best it could.

<comment><USER45> The personal benefits of power may not be great enough for anybody but full dark triads to pursue competitively. You can see this easily in first-line managers. And of course we are programmed to filter for this, so imagine how deep the deception must go for politicians.

<comment><USER46> Maybe a system where authority is a duty and is not competed for may be a solution?

<comment><USER47> I imagine that some people would still seek positions of authority for its own sake. Not to mention actual sociopaths who would make use of it the same way that they do now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> What if every scientist stops what he is currently doing and starts working on General AI? After they complete that task, all the other problems on the list will take 0.1sec to solve.

</comment><comment><USER49> We've got eugenics, corporatism, sci-fi bait, and worse. I do like the idea of a field of "China studies" through the very specific lens that they've sketched, which focuses on the experience of Hong Kong throughout the past century, but otherwise, ugh, what a series of shallow tropes. Their "climate studies" list is papering over the fact that those studies were done decades ago and the conclusions were well-understood. Here's _one_ question in each field which is better than any of theirs:

Genetics: To what extent does the RNA world (leadzyme, ribozyme, RNA bases) influence our DNA's actions; is there more beyond genome and epigenome?

Business Development: Enumerate all models of cooperation.

Climatology: Classify the climates of Venus and Mars under anthropogenic climate change; what will terraforming do to their climates?

Earth Science: Classify the minerals and rocks of Venus and Mars.

Neuroscience: Is demyelination preventable or treatable?

Economics: Are markets efficient? Prove that either P<NP (no) or FP=PPAD (yes).

Medicine: Can phage therapy prevent an antibiotic-resistant bacterial doom scenario?

History: Just let historians critique history books for a few hours live on stage, and broadcast the results. This will more socially impactful than any specific question or research agenda.

Law: I do have a soft spot for "What rights might digital minds have under current law?" It's a good question. However, a better one, in terms of social impact today, might be: How can the law establish effective oversight over its executors and legislators?

Statistics: Are there tighter bounds on neural net performance than PAC/VC theory? Alternatively, are neural nets essentially polynomial regression?

Philosophy: The Hard Problem.

Physics: Scale quantum computing to today's classical computational regimes.

Astronomy: Finish building planned telescopes; do the planned experiments have results which agree with current theories?

Political Science: How can two-party democracies be converted by the will of the people to multi-party democracies; can Duverger's Law be bent?

Psychology: The Hard Problem.

Philosophy of Science: The Demarcation Problem.

Sociology: How do societies collapse; how are technologies lost? Case studies won't cut it; we need models.

Mathematics: The Riemann Zeta Hypothesis. If metamathematics is allowed, then whether P<NP, P=NP, etc.

Research on these lines of thought _does_ have a big social impact today just by consideration and exploration, and _will_ have big social impacts if they ever actually answer the questions.

<comment><USER50> Wonder why this post is being downvoted

<comment><USER51> I'll answer: first paragraph was trollish and could have been left off. I'd flag but for the later stuff being more substantive.

<comment><USER47> Trollish? Hardly. It's a strongly-worded criticism of the article.

<comment><USER51> Yes, and when that harsh working provokes unproductive dialogue, it is known as being "trollish". If you really don't see what's trollish:

\- inflammatory, dismissive labels without concrete justification: "eugenics, corporatism, sci-fi bait:"

\- ditto for "what a series of shallow tropes"

\- presumptuous assertion: "Here's one question in each field which is better than any of theirs"

The HN guidelines strongly advise against doing that.

<comment><USER49> This is fair. I started my comment by responding to each section, but I quickly realized that I wouldn't be able to make a constructive contribution.

First, the most important thing: Note that one of the responses to my original comment is feeling intense emotional relief at having some uncanny unease put directly into words. This is not the first time I've responded to this sort of article, and not the first time I've seen this sort of reply. I gather that it is _difficult_ for folks to articulate the ambient horror of what this sort of writing is sketching.

Eugenics is recognizable from phrenology. They want to know why brain size matters and how to measure intelligence in different parts of the brain. They also want to know whether FAAH-OUT can make people happier and less sensitive to pain, and whether "extreme" human life extension is possible. They want to know how small the human race can get, and what the marginal utility of each additional person is. Indeed they ask whether utilitarianism isn't the ultimate ethical method.

Corporatism is most obvious in the framing. Various already-established consensus positions are turned into but-really or what-about questions, so that it seems as if climate change is not something that definitely exists, that we definitely could do something about, and that we definitely are not doing enough about. Corporations are portrayed as the leaders in innovation, while governments and the public are incompetent and slow to change.

Why do I say that these positions are tropes? Because I've read enough Dark Enlightenment literature to recognize its fingerprints, mostly. The authors are very slanted towards a meritocratic transhumanist utopia, where their very intelligent observations about the coming utopia will be rewarded with high stations and praise in the coming utopia. Meanwhile all of the implications about classism and injustice are carefully worded away so as not to be blatant and repulsive.

I recognize that you might not like my questions. But you also admit that they're substantive, and that's good enough for me. Honestly, they're barely my questions at all; each of them has been open for decades, I think. Maybe quantum computing is the most recent one to have something interesting happen, and that's changed our trajectory from asking "can we?" to "can we, bigger?" and "can we, cheaper?" and "can we, easier?"

<comment><USER51> Thank you for clarifying. I still think those aren't good reasons to apply the labels. But at least now you've spelled out your justifications for those strong claims, which is more productive that the first paragraph of your original comment, since it allows others to respond. So I do not consider it trollish when phrased as your most recent comment does.

Also,

>I recognize that you might not like my questions.

My criticism wasn't about any of those.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


A real Good Samaritan (2010) - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12043294 <comment><USER2> I usually try to stop for stranded motorists, and likewise, I've been saved by strangers.

The most memorable was when I was a newly licensed driver, well over a decade ago.

I stalled my vehicle in the middle of a T-junction where the joined a main road at the top of a hill. I had just screwed up a relatively tricky hillstart. I then compounded it by flooding the engine trying to restart it in a panic.

So I'm stuck partially blocking a main road. If anyone had been going along that road and they hadn't been paying attention, they'd have hit me at a fair speed and caused a pile-up.

A car comes along the main road but instead of hitting me or going around, it pulls up to me. It stops, four guys get out. They yell at me to "put it in neutral" and then they start to push the car. (They then ask me to "take off the handbrake". In my panic I hadn't disengaged the handbrake, which made it more difficult for them to push the car...)

They pushed the vehicle to safety, made sure I was ok, and then drove off.

I've not forgotten that, and hopefully, I never will. I hope I'm remembered in a similar fashion by some other random strangers.

</comment><comment><USER3> Lovely story and message.

</comment><comment><USER4> It has always amazed me how many people are one kind act away from personal salvation[1]. Just a glimpse of something going their way.

Simple things make so much difference and are often enough reason for folks to give it another go. A little bit of a trend happened when people were buying their meal in the drive-thru and also paying for the next person's. I wonder how many folks that simple act made a difference?

"to this day, I won't hear a bad word said about British Rail." \- yep

1) secular, religious, and all the places in between</comment>


iOS 9 Update: "Software Update Failed" Affecting Many Users - <AUTHOR> https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7773779/IMG_0577.jpg <comment><USER2> This appears to be resulting from the "overwhelming number of downloads", according to Apple: [https://twitter.com/iOS_Support/status/644190240836591616](https://twitter.com/iOS_Support/status/644190240836591616)</comment>


Ask HN: Any Alernatives Similar to TripleByte? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> You can try offerhunt.io</comment>


U.S. to shoot down errant satellite - <AUTHOR> http://edition.cnn.com/2008/TECH/space/02/14/spy.satellite.ap/

<comment><USER2> A couple of days ago I heard an expert on satellites say that a lot of them come down and never even touch the Earth. I started wondering what all the fuss about the American spy satellite was all about. It's clear now, they spread the fear to make it ok for them shoot it out of the sky, even after all the fuss around China's testing last year.

Militarization of space has already begun, welcome to the next phase.

<comment><USER3> This one is a big one, and still full of fuel. It is possible that it poses a small danger. That said, the military just _loves_ its toys...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I hope Nasa & CSPAN team up to make a video</comment>


Computer Capable Of Calculating 640TBs Of Data In One Billionth Of A Second - <AUTHOR> http://www.iflscience.com/technology/new-type-computer-capable-calculating-640tbs-data-one-billionth-second-could

<comment><USER2> darn it, already posted by you :-p Looks good though doesn't it.</comment>


Google Updates its Transparency Report - <AUTHOR> http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/more-data-more-transparency-around.html Google has just updated its transparency report with data from the first half of 2011<p>http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/governmentrequests/#2011-06 <comment><AUTHOR> The major new interesting metric on the report is the disclosure of the number of users or accounts that were 'targeted' by requests for user data:

[http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/governmentrequests/...](http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/governmentrequests/US/?p=2011-06&t=USER_DATA_REQUEST)</comment>


ScorSer – Search System for Musicians - <AUTHOR> http://scorser.com <comment><USER2> As a musician/programmer this seems like a great visualization for exploring related information about music. For searching, well, if you study music you just kinda learn the corpus as you go, so tools like this are the equivalent of browsing programming languages by type. Yeah it's great for true beginners but even a year of music study (not long) is enough to outgrow this kind of system imo.

</comment><comment><USER3> What's the innovation here compared to something like [https://imslp.org/wiki/Main_Page](https://imslp.org/wiki/Main_Page) that has a larger score library?

Is it the search algorithm? If so where can we learn more about that? I don't see any kind of about page or "learn more" link.

<comment><USER4> From a cursory glance, this also lists purchasable scores, and I also found some copyrighted full scores that are not in the public domain.</comment></comment>