A Simple Suggestion to Help Phase Out All-Male Panels at Tech Conferences - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/01/a-simple-suggestion-to-help-phase-out-all-male-panels-at-tech-conferences/266837/

<comment><USER3> As someone who would be in attendance at a tech conference I will tell you: I do not care at all what the gender is of the presenter.

It has ZERO impact on my judgement of the content, discussion or presentation. I do not believe that a person's gender provides any meaningful impact to a presentation unless the topic is specifically about that person's gender.

To think otherwise is sexist and discriminatory.

Now if the best participants for panels are female and are being actively excluded because of their gender, this is a problem. But simply refusing to go to "all male panels" is a useless call to action and will not solve anything. Neither will forcing a gender count.

Find specific instances of qualified and capable women being overlooked by organizers in favor of less qualified men simply because of gender stereotyping and then publicize the crap out those incidents. Boycott those specific conferences.

<comment><USER4> > As someone who would be in attendance at a tech conference I will tell you: > I do not care at all what the gender is of the presenter.

Aaaaand that's the problem.

When half of the population isn't participating in one of the most important fields for the advancement of our prosperity, _and the other half doesn't give a fuck_ , nothing gets better.

All the time we hear that it's tough to find skilled engineers. Guess what? We can double those numbers – as soon as this perma-adolscent male monoculture gives way to a healthy balance of both men and women.

But it's going to take your learning how to care about inclusion. Yes, _you_. And everyone else.

<comment><USER5> I don't understand this and I think I ultimately disagree with you deeply. Women clearly are not that interested in computing per se. There are other fields that "advance our prosperity" where the situation is the other way around. That it would somehow make the world a better place if we force an artificial ratio of genders in all fields, is incorrect.

<comment><USER4> > Women clearly are not that interested in computing per se.

Clearly to whom, sir? Not to me. Many of the women I know are interested in computing. The ones who've made a career in tech continually lament to me the attitude you've just demonstrated.

<comment><USER5> Look, I don't think I personally have any 'attitude' here. Girls like to be doctors or biologists, rather than staring at the screen for 8 hours a day. Perhaps boys have higher frequency of introvert temperament traits. I don't know.

<comment><USER4> > Girls like to be doctors or biologists, rather than staring at the screen > for 8 hours a day.

> Look, I don't think I personally have any 'attitude' here.

Wooooooow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> While we're at it, let's tackle other super important issues:

We also need to phase out the All-Straight panel. Refuse to join a panel of all straight people!

We also need to phase out the All-college educated panel. Refuse to join a panel of only college educated people!

We also need to phase out the All-uninational panel. Refuse to join a panel of only people from the same country!

We also need to phase out the All-tall panel. Refuse to join a panel of only people over 6' tall!

We also need to phase out the All-Expert panel. Refuse to join a panel of only experts on the topic! We need more diversity of opinion!

</comment><comment><USER7> From now on, every time I see a panel discussion with exactly one female participant, I'm going to think, "Oh, she's just a token who got included because one of the male participants put their foot down."

I don't think that's really true - but doggone this post for putting that idea into my head.

<comment><USER8> I hope any women who read this article and someday find themselves as the only female on a panel don't question themselves now too, wondering if they only got accepted In order to be a token to get one of the other male speakers to join.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The problem isn't really with panels. In mechanical engineering, only 10-15% of students are female. Assuming an equal distribution of students go on to become notable enough for panels, a panel with any more than 15% of members being female would be unrepresentative. My understanding is that 20 years ago that proportion was even lower. If a representative panel is made up of notable people who graduated 20 years ago, even fewer of them will be women.

I don't know what the statistics for computer science or programming are, but I'd imagine that they're not vastly different.

I think limited female representation _is_ a big issue in a lot of fields (including technology), but in technology the real issue is that women aren't coming in at the bottom.

<comment><USER10> I think it's probably okay to go over on the percentages for awhile to try to correct this.

You can't get women in at the bottom if their perception is this is for men only. That said, I think more in the top of the funnel is probably the most important step.

<comment><USER6> Why do you think that? The panels are going to suffer because they aren't accessing the best talent pool, and therefore everyone is going to be worse off.

<comment><USER11> If temporarily increasing the concentration of women panelists contributes towards permanently reducing discrimination, then it's a net gain for humanity, even if it's a net loss for panels in the short term.

<comment><USER12> Not only that, but in the long run 50 males + 50 females will have a larger amount of talent than 50 males + 1 female. That's a direct plus for the communities.

If everyone waits for the rest of society to change, it never will. Note that I'm not saying any one proposed solution is the right one, but it is an important discussion.

<comment><USER6> To that same point, 50 males + 1 female with have a larger amount of talent than 45 males and 1 female. That's a direct negative for the community.

Just because you have good intentions does not mean that any random idea you put forth will achieve those good intentions.

<comment><USER12> That's exactly my point. A larger pool means more talent. So what's speaking against working towards women having an easier time becoming part of the community and exercising their talent?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is a really unfortunate problem statement and solution.

I don't think a declaration that the existence of all-male panels is in an of itself a bad thing that needs to be wiped out (as opposed to a symptom of systemic sexism/pervasive sexist attitudes). Immediately jumping to a belligerent, absolutist position on the matter that won't be well received by anyone except people looking for good-person credits by taking a stand isn't helping either.

The underlying idea of Affirmative Action is sound: instead of just taking people at their word when they say they aren't bigoted (they probably aren't, inertia is sufficient), expect them to show some sign of it: Not just passively waiting for someone who isn't a white dude to wander into their social circle, but have an actual process.

For example, you look outside your Rolodex of usual invitees for some qualified new blood. If you don't find any, have your white dudes conference. It's the existence of a credible process for an outsider to get in that establishes your good faith: not some magic ratio or token representation, and not empty promises that you're totally not one of those bad sexist/racist/whatever people.

The bad news is that before anyone gets anywhere along that path, the usual brigade of people looking for any excuse to exert coercive authority over other people jumps in and starts perverting it into the usual garbage of "Not quotas, by which we mean quotas", leading to "oh you only invited $group to fill the quota" or just even "Fund our group for an indulgence". Ugh.

<comment><USER14> I like your idea about looking outside your rolodex. It would be nice if there was an org that compiled a list of minorities in technology, who could be contacted for events like this and give suggestions for presenters.

<comment><USER15> How is this any different from "binders full of women"? A rolodex of people available to be tokens is just as bad as a rolodex of all white men.

The lack of women on panels is a symptom. You don't fix a problem by treating the symptoms, even if there's some circular feedback. In this particular case I think there's very little feedback. How many girls are discouraged from programming because they didn't see women on panels? Or for that matter, how many boys are encouraged to do programming because they didn't see women on panels?

Panels just don't matter that much. Fix the problem at a lower level - <USER2> teachers to encourage girls to go into STEM or programming, and get them to encourage the kids' parents to encourage them. Squash sexism in the classroom - "I don't want to be lab partners with _her_, she's a girl" should be right out, but so should "I don't want to be lab partners with _him_."

It's a matter of mindset, and one that can only be fixed in the young. Tech has, latent sexism (and possibly racism) aside, a highly meritocratic culture. Pledges like this will cause men and women alike to question whether a female speaker is there for her opinions or to fill a quota, whereas before, few as they might be, if women were there, there'd be no question that it for was their opinions and expertise. This doesn't remove the latent sexism, it hurts the meritocracy.

<comment><USER14> Because you're going to vet these people and determine if you want them on your panel?

It's very easy on the Internet to not know if someone is a black, a woman, gay, etc, especially if they don't advertise it (and many people don't). If people really have a problem with what's perceived as limited diversity, the best way to combat that would be to do something like this, rather than just moaning impotently every time an all-male or all-white panel is chosen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Yes, you'll see lots of dismissive comments here, and this will not be a very productive discussion. I apologize in advance to those who might think this comment is dismissive as well. But I think that one of the reasons sexism is so hard to fix is that people get into a "you're with us, or you're against us" attitude very quickly with it. Finding fault with a proposed solution does not always mean that you refuse to acknowledge the problem. Sometimes it just means that the solution would not work and / or it would create additional problems.

The fact is, there is a wide variety of possible situations here, differing from field to subfield. The role that representation quotas can play is probably different in these situations:

1\. A field in which there are lots of competent female practitioners, but prevailing sexism makes it impossible for them to stand out and reach the summits of recognition.

2\. A field that most women would generally like to work in, but they are often turned away by prevailing sexism.

3\. A field that most women are generally averse to, and would avoid even if there was no sexism whatsoever in it. (Think long-distance truck drivers.)

4\. A field that is so sexist that women are only allowed into it based on good looks rather than competence. (Representation quotas are arguably counter-productive here.)

</comment><comment><USER17> At the end of the day you need to find them and this is hard. A more practical strategy is to group the chromosomes in a way that gives you the desired ratio.

For example, if you have 4 male speakers

XY XY XY XY

Simply rearrange to form 2 females. The residual, YY is dead.

XX XX YY YY

<comment><USER18> So you have two females, 0 males, and 2...aliens?

<comment><USER17> The yy are dead

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I find it amusing that a woman who chose not to go into technology says the the root cause of women not being well represented in technology is something other than "women choose not to go into technology".

<comment><USER20> This is my main complaint about all these editorials about the gender ratios at tech conferences. Well, I'm sure if you go to a trucker/blacksmith/hairdresser meetup the ratio is just as skewed, in one direction or the other.

There's no escaping the fact that certain professions tend to attract more people of one sex than the other. Forcing the selection criteria to enforce an equal ratio instead of aiming for excellence will only hurt the content and those paying to access it.

(And NO, I'm NOT saying the aren't awesome women in tech. I'm just saying that gender/ethnicity should never take precedence over merit.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Having worked in security & federation for years I can say, there just aren't any women in the field. There was one woman I meet during a conference who was into federation but she went by some weird name like Mrs. Federation or Authentication, something like that, I can't remember.

What I just glanced over is ridiculous, even though Rebecca J. Rosen is worried about it I can 100% say that I'm not. When I'm actually spending my time listening to someone talk, I'm more interested in what that person is saying, not what sex they happen to be.

It's unfortunate but most women at technical gatherings seem to be more marketing types, and if you're technical you know, there's nobody you'd rather NOT listen to more than some marketing person babble.

<comment><USER22> I think that's an unfair characterization of women as marketing types. Don't forget HR and recruiting!

(I keed, I keed.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Every time this issue comes up everyone talks around in circles, statistics are thrown around, disputed, refuted, it's all discussed at length, and then everyone gets frustrated and gives up until the next article gets posted. You know what's going to fix this? Complete transparency and a nearly omniscient source of available speaker data.

So we create some kind of online universal tech speaker rolodex. Sortable, filterable, searchable, anyone and everyone that's brave enough to get in front of more than a dozen people are on there along with a list of subjects they're comfortable speaking about. Steal the subject tags right off StackOverflow, I don't know.

Then it's got a list of tech events. Every event in the world, if it's public and related to technology. It's got a full list of subjects the event covers and who's speaking on it, and more importantly _who they invited_. Maybe 50% of the speakers they invited were unavailable; couldn't afford the flight, scheduling conflict, don't speak the native language, whatever.

Actually, maybe the site wouldn't even need to list who was invited. After all, the site would have a comprehensive listing of subject matter experts, right? So Super Big Tech Conference San Francisco 2013 gets announced and currently has 10 out of 10 male speakers on Subject A, we do a search and find out those are indeed the only available speakers. Or there is a female speaker on the subject available and she writes to the conference organizer and offers to speak, or posts a blog post about her disappointment at not being invited to speak, at which point people are (potentially) justifiably upset.

You know what, I'd sign up on that site in a heartbeat. Not as a speaker, of course, but I'd love to see a comprehensive list of subject matter experts whose blogs and articles I can follow, find out when I might be able to catch them speaking, or even find out when any event at all related to a subject I'm interested in might happen near me. That sounds too obvious not to exist already, maybe I'm just missing something there, maybe it'd just be ridiculously hard to monetize, or maybe one of you has the skills and dedication to make it happen.

</comment><comment><USER24> >I am writing this today because yet another tech conference -- Edge: Building Out From the Edge of Web Technology -- has been announced and this time there is exactly one woman confirmed to speak.

That's a horrible ratio, but it's most certainly _not_ an all-male panel.

Reminds me of an article on "brogramming", in which the best example they could find of brogramming was a marketing executive (not a programmer) giving a sexist speech.

<comment><USER25> "Panellist profiles will be posted as they are announced."

<comment><USER24> What's your point? Are you saying the crime here is not posting a profile because they were waiting on a photo (which is now posted)?

The author of the post is asking panelists to protest all male panels but _this is not one_ , so I'm not sure what she's asking. To protest less than X women or less than X% women? What line are we asking not to be crossed?

<comment><USER25> The point is, the female speaker appeared after publishing this post. I guess it's great the organizers relented. She was asking for what actually happened.

The first reaction from the organizers to what happened wasn't exactly promising as well.

<comment><USER24> Ok. If that's the case, I take back my comment.

It's not clear from the article though. Usually updates are clearly noted in an article with brackets and italics and the original content is left untouched.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> As a female computer scientist, I would be very sad if a speaker I was very much looking forward to hearing at a conference opted out because there happened to be no women on the panel. This seems to be an inappropriate level at which to demand action or try to intervene. How about a pledge instead to mentor some young women so that they go into the field and then go on to become part of the panel?

Here is an interesting thought for the discussion: in fact, the more highly skilled women I see in tech, the less I feel I should be in this field unless I am as good as them, which I simply am not. If there were more average chicks doing average tech things, I would feel much better - but as it is, I feel like I need to be some sort of super women who speaks on a panel in order to fit in.

</comment><comment><USER22> The Python Software Foundation seems to be doing a good job of including more female speakers and panelists. However, there's already a nice baseline of 20-30% female users. Assuming you could force everyone to hew to this rule, how would it work in fields where there were very, very few female participants?

</comment><comment><USER27> Let me first say that I may not have the proper PC sensibilities as I am not a US citizen; apologies if I cross a line.

As I understand the issue of "women in tech", I believe people are usually referring to two separate issues;

\- __Lack of acknowledgement, representation of and hostility towards women __within the tech community, in the professional context especially, context which extends to conferences and other gatherings.

\- __Lack of women actually choosing or sticking to a tech career path __, which is attributed at least partially to the previous point.

Affirmative action has been around for long enough to have created a decent amount of literature on all sides of the fence. I doubt that there's a final conclusion to that chapter.

I'd be curious to know what the public opinion is nowadays on that issue, specifically in the US. Personally I would favor positive initiatives focusing on easing the process of women going into tech, rather than trying to force some sort of (subjective) balance upon a community that more often that not behave organically (thus likely to not be very receptive to this kind of action). Things like <http://techwomen.co/> or <http://www.girlswhocode.com/>.

</comment><comment><USER28> I think the ratio of female speakers at a conference should be equal to the ratio of women in the industry. Otherwise, you're dumbing down your speaking qualifications just to allow women speakers. That doesn't help anyone. If 1% of people in the tech industry are women, then 1% of the speakers at any conference should be female. No more, no less. Doing it any other way would be unfair.

At Pycon next year I will skip all the women speakers because I know they got that speaking spot because the Python Foundation is on a crusade to get as many women speakers as possible, not because their proposal was great or interesting. It won't just be me though. Whats going to happen is that these women will be treated differently than the men, not because of their gender, but because their talk just wasn't interesting. I go to those conferences to hear interesting talks, I don't care about gender. But the end result s that people like me in the community end up looking sexist and overall makes the problem worse.

<comment><USER29> But why wouldn't you just read the talk description and title to decide whether or not to go? This reaction: "I won't go because I think that some women were specifically recruited!" doesn't make any sense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Why am I not surprised to see the usual litany of sexist, condescending, dismissive and outright offensive HN comments on what is unquestionably a serious problem of gender imbalance in the tech industry?

Ugh.

<comment><USER31> What comment do you find offensive here? The most dismissive comments I see seem to be arguing that sex should not be a factor in selecting panelists. Maybe that's a debatable stance, but I think it's a little extreme to declare it offensive...

<comment><USER12> Because it greatly simplifies the issue. It's basically saying "there would be more women in tech if they wanted to". And it completely ignores the issues of "Why don't they want to be part of these communities?" And if that question is asked, the answers usually circle around "Women shouldn't be offended by sexism." I can see how those two combined attitudes could offend people.

It's not about fixating on a 50/50 ratio. It's about changing the climate and attitudes so it's a more welcoming environment, so they _do_ want to be part of the communities. If more women go into tech, that doesn't automatically mean less men. My personal belief is that it would increase the amount of capable people in the respective communities.

What I find most surprising though, is the vehemence with which these attitudes are defended.

<comment><USER31> This line of reasoning seems to assume that it's sexism that drives women away from tech. But most people chose to go into a technical field when they're still in high school -- long before they would have encountered the sort of workplace/conference/community sexism people gripe about. Colleges have historically had a lot of trouble attracting girls to their technical/engineering programs, despite often bending over backwards to try to improve their ratios.

Isn't it possible that there are other factors which cause such a large gender disparity between choices that teenagers are making...?

<comment><USER12> Sure, there are lots of factors. But "It is what it is, and we shall not touch the natural order of things" is not a productive part of the discussion, at least to me.

Don't you think an IT community more friendly towards the female part of the population would be beneficial and could interest more young females than the status quo? Consider in todays age it is easy to lurk a community over the internet.

So, would you think being a teenage female trying to learn language $X and finding lots of sexism is an encouraging experience and would not be a factor in driving them away?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's fun coming up with fake names.

On a more serious note, this is tired. If a man is as good as a woman, why does it matter what is or isn't hanging between the legs of a speaker at a conference?

<comment><USER32> You're raising a strawman argument. Advocates like the OP aren't arguing that a person's gender affects their merit as a conference speaker. They are arguing that organizers, like any other social group of people, tend to groupthink...not out of malice necessarily, but in such a way that women (or whatever excluded group) are not reached out to enough.

In a conference with two, three, five speakers...sure, no big deal if it's all one gender. Ten, 15, 20? Something would seem amiss.

<comment><USER14> If you are saying that this statistic proves bias, then you don't know enough about statistics.

If you are saying we should introduce bias towards women, then you don't know enough about programmers (man or woman). Would you really want to be the lone woman on a panel, who was picked not because she is the best speaker, but because she needed to be the token presence? Do you think you're going to get the best female programmers to do that? How do you think people are going to respond to that?

If you think that the panel already is biased, then that may be the case but in order to prove that you'll have to point out people who were not asked to talk that should have been, that are more prominent in the community than those already speaking.

You actually have to have statistics and data to back up your argument, and not just emotion. I'd love to see a 50/50 panel at a convention, but it's not likely to happen - I'm impressed when I see one woman presenting at a convention. Like it or not, programming is still a sausage fest.

<comment><USER32> > _If you are saying we should introduce bias towards women, then you don't > know enough about programmers (man or woman). Would you really want to be > the lone woman on a panel, who was picked not because she is the best > speaker, but because she needed to be the token presence? Do you think > you're going to get the best female programmers to do that? How do you think > people are going to respond to that?_

Who said anything about advocating for tokenism? I'm saying that that is the strawman argument here because the OP is (ostensibly) not arguing for the selection of a woman just to balance the panel, but arguing that a panel of N number of human beings is unlikely to be all-male unless the panel-organizers had overlooked female prospects.

To further my point: what is "the best speaker"? I mean, how do you rank that? Are the best qualified speakers the ones who are the best programmers? The ones who are the most accomplished? The ones who are the most engaging speakers (regardless of actual topic)? The ones who make the most money? The ones who work for the most interesting startups who have used web tech in the most interesting ways? The ones who have the best perspectives (and how would you rank that)? Unless you have a very limited view of who would make a good panelist, it's hard to imagine a web tech field in which no woman excelled in any of those above metrics.

<comment><USER14> > arguing that a panel of N number of human beings is unlikely to be all-male > unless the panel-organizers had overlooked female prospects.

Then lets get together a panel of N former professional football players, or navy SEALs, or physicists.

The fact of the matter is that I can't think of a single individual on any of the mailing lists I frequent that is unambiguously female.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> No, the panel should be composed of _the best people._ Anything else is, by definition, suboptimal. And unjust.

This is just like "affirmative action" in schools (which is reverse racism, which is racism). Except it's reverse sexism. Which is sexism.

I am sure that women get selected for panels all the time, when they are experts in the area of discussion of the panel. So this is addressing a non- problem.

<comment><USER34> _I am sure that women get selected for panels all the time, when they are experts in the area of discussion of the panel._

You're very wrong on this.

<comment><USER33> So you think that women are systematically passed over because they're female? What makes you think this?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I'm not sure any top down approach that's done out in the open like this will ever really work. At best you'll end up with the situation that now exists in college admissions where it's just assumed all minority applicants got in on preference and the white/asian applicants got in on merit (excluding legacies). While these programs do achieve the goal of "diversity" over the long term they just further stigmatize minority participants in other ways.

To me at least, the only approach that will work will be long-term and bottom up. We're just going to have be more aggressive about getting women in tech in high school and let them slowly build their numbers until there's enough of a critical mass to open the flood gates.

</comment><comment><USER36> anyone think the stackoverflow top users is sexist? [http://stackoverflow.com/users?tab=reputation&filter=all](http://stackoverflow.com/users?tab=reputation&filter=all)

</comment><comment><USER37> Panels should include speakers with the most relevant input in regard to the topic under discussion.</comment>


Are global wages about to turn? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34488950 <comment><USER2> The elephant in the room I don't hear people discussing is the impending spectre of deflation. If the labor supply diminishes what happens to aggregate demand? Judging from the example of Japan, demands implodes as fewer people buy goods and services because they aren't working! This deflates the currency and pushes the economy in recession.

Most of the developed world is sloughing off huge portions of its working populations. For example, Italy is set to halve its workforce in the next decade. There are huge economic, social, and political ramifications.

<comment><USER3> All the more hilarious in the context of the "immigrants are stealing our jobs" narrative that has always been popular.

<comment><USER4> Well, yeah. If jobs are cut in half, and the immigrants steal the other half, then were are you?

(I'm not seriously making this statement, but "they" are)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have to disagree about the demographics. The job market will not improve. It will continue to deteriorate.

China may have a growing middle class, but there are over 1 billion people in India and 1.1 billion people in Africa which have yet to be brought into the middle class, and companies will take advantage of this army of reserve labour.

By the time these countries have been exploited, then robotics will have taken over and most everyone will be unemployed.

Once fully automated, are the owners of the robots going to be even richer than today, and the rest of the world population left to live in misery, or will there be a revolution (peaceful or violent) which forces redistribution?

<comment><USER6> > By the time these countries have been exploited.

While I agree with many of your points, and certainly there are many people who get exploited. But overall, if employers and employees are agreeing to mutual employment terms without coercion, then by definition it is not exploitation.

Additionally, things robotics and 3D printing are different than events like the industrial revolution which a large amount of capital was required. The owners of robotics and computing will be much more distributed and require less capital.

Brining people into the middle class with the modern infrastructure and stability that comes with is a really great thing. Robotics will only augment the quality of life for these people, freeing up massive amounts of human potential.

<comment><USER6> The example I like is the farming revolution. There was a point when only 97% of people worked on farms. Now that's flipped. Only 3% of people work on farms. Are those 97% without jobs and nothing to do? No, of course not. The economy expanded and new industries emerged that nobody expected. The (farming) machines unlocked massive amounts of human potential. I don't expect the robotic/software/3D revolution to be any different. I'm pretty optimistic about what's coming.

<comment><USER7> Previous innovations have essentially automated human (or animal) muscle power. A tractor is vastly more powerful than a horse.

AI (or whatever you want to call it), is coming - perhaps not as fast as its proponents would like, but I think we can agree it will happen.

This is the first technology that automates the power of the human mind.

The range of jobs that _can 't_ be done by a machine is going to get increasingly narrow

<comment><USER8> Right. Part of what's missed is that we don't need great GAI to get rid of lots of jobs; weak "AI" / deep learning / related automation techniques get us a long way there. We have existing examples in law document review, article topic summarization, etc.

Another thing which is often missed is how complementarity may play out for certain jobs: it's NOT going to necessarily be "program / robot replaces every job X", but instead "program / robot allows one person to do the job previously done by 50." You can still have massive unemployment without getting rid of every worker doing a certain job (and their job may change more to be a machine guide / manager / error corrector.)

An example I see all the time now is in supermarkets. You have self-checkout lanes that are overseen by one person. It used to be 5 lanes staffed by people. Now you only need one to intervene when something goes wrong. 5 workers have become 1 without eliminating the job "register person" completely. Instead, they've changed into "auto register checkout manager" while everyone else got the ax.

<comment><USER9> And on the topic of register checkout manager, you can easily see the natural progression towards the elimination of the profession entirely.

The registers get more self sufficient as the software matures. The security systems become cheaper and more accurate to eliminate the lackluster security effect a clerk has standing there. The clerk is removed entirely. Then the shelf stocking is automated with computer vision and maybe magnetized sticker guide rails in the floors.

And then people realize its stupid to go to a store to buy stuff when you can virtually tour a mall of everything and have whatever you want shipped to you. You order it, it goes through computers without ever interacting with a person, and a manufacturer ships you it instantly.

And that process gets automated too. The transport goes from self driving autos transporting your goods using standardized automated transfer mechanisms to your automated mailbox to a fabricator in your own home that comes from Star Trek.

None of that (besides the fabricator part at the end, thats going a bit heavy) is nothing novel or even new. It exists. It just takes market pressure and time to make it economical to implement and for culture to accept it. Because it _is_ more efficient, and it _will_ inevitably happen because its better in every way except the "but people aren't doing it!" angle. It does not take AI sentience to move boxes or see dirt on a floor through dictionary lookup and fuzzy logic processing.

<comment><USER8> In the developed world, I think we'll be seeing the hybrid approach for the next few decades at least, but yes, we will get past that to your fully automated vision. Also, the non-evenly distributed future effect means we'll likely see that vision in SF in, let's say, 2100, but won't see it in Flint, MI until 2150. It is coming, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > The global population grew at a rate of almost 2% a year throughout the > 1950s, the 1960s, the 1970s and the 1980s. That slowed to a rate of between > 1% and 1.5% a year in the 1990s and 2000s and that rate of change is now > forecast to fall relatively quickly...The working-age share rose strongly > for the 40 years to 2012...An ONS report of 2014 found that UK real wages in > the 1970s and 1980s grew by an average of 2.9% a year. That fell to 1.5% in > the 1990s, and 1.2% between 2000 and 2010...

According to the article's own data, rising real wages have occurred during a time of increasing population and an increasing share of the population being working-age, and slowed as population growth slowed. But the article goes on to argue

> A smaller workforce though should raise demand for workers

but doesn't this contradict the very evidence cited in the article?

</comment><comment><USER11> I see two ways how wages can grow: More wealth is generated (per time) or income is redistributed to the working population.

I don't see how any of these follow from the observations noted in the article.

<comment><USER12> You don't own that non-robotic/robotic factory - only sub-percent of the population does, neither you can tax them properly - tax 'optimization'. Thus redistribution is not happening today and there is not going to happen. Most of today's redistribution is from earners income tax, not from business. And less workers means less people from whom to redistribute.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> How about the impact of automation on jobs. Will this finally mean that we have robots perform more of the drudgery work? Maybe a return to artisans lovingly crafting luxury goods?

<comment><USER14> You can already get lovingly handcrafted luxury goods if you want them. They're expensive, and they're not going to get cheaper.

If I need a new wallet I can buy a cheap one which was mass-produced in a factory for ten bucks, or I can buy a nice one which was _also_ mass-produced in a factory for two hundred bucks, but if I want one that was lovingly hand- crafted by an artisan over a period of a week and a half I've gotta pay a week and a half's skilled wages, and there aren't that many people with the money and the desire to surround themselves with pointless proof-of-work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Does this mean that there are less people competing for jobs every year and we should negotiate accordingly?

What are the implications on job hopping? In theory my market value should go up every year even if all other factors remain constant.

<comment><USER8> If one is in a non-routine job that requires creativity, the human touch, synthesizing (currently) difficult concepts together, etc. then the job market is going to be great for a while. Software developers (particularly, as several recent papers indicate) with great communication skills and high emotional intelligence, "designers" (used very broadly - could be anything from art design to system design), marketers, artists of various kinds (though this will be subject to the superstar effect), politicians, certain kinds of teachers (I'm including everything from the creators of tutorials to Sal Khan- types) and various types of business owners/managers will be in good shape for a while. Anyone in these categories willing to become non-stop learn-for- lifers ([http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/22/business/to-stay- relevant-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/22/business/to-stay-relevant-in- a-career-workers-train-nonstop.html)) will likely be OK. So yes, your negotiating position may actually improve a great deal.

If one is in an a "routine" job (as defined by Autor), one should be thinking very carefully about the next few decades. Upskilling, becoming autodidacts, and most importantly agitating for political change will be things that this group needs to engage in (the former two to stay relevant; the latter to keep eating.)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Moving to San Francisco: Best way to find an appartment - <AUTHOR>

I'm moving to San Francisco for the summer (June to Mid August) for an internship. I was wondering what's the best way to find an apartment for this period. I've checked Craigslist so far, but was wondering if there are any better options/sites where I can look up listings?<p>Also, I'll be working in Redwood City, so what would be the best area to live in? The office is very close to the BART station, so theoretically I can live in SF and come down daily for work. Is that a recommended option? <comment><USER2> <http://padmapper.com/> and co are great for finding apartment rentals, but I suggest you consider something like <http://airbnb.com/> too.

It's very difficult finding a rental with less than a 12 month lease in SF. The best part of Airbnb or similar is, if you travel light, you can spend some time in different neighbourhoods which vary significantly in SF.

End of the day, you might even save some money compared to renting.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think someone else mentioned it, but BART doesn't go to Redwood City. Caltrain does. As a daily BART rider from the East Bay, occasionally needing to be in Palo Alto, I don't recommend combining a BART and Caltrain commute.

If you want to live in SF, and commute to Redwood City, your best bet is to ride the 8:44 or 8:59 baby bullets on Caltrain. The one at 8:59 gets you in Redwood City in a scant 30 minutes.

Pick a place in the city that is near the Caltrain station, maybe even within walking distance. Dogpatch/SOMA/Potrero? Keep in mind Muni timing sucks, BART is semi-stable, and Caltrain is the most reliable.

Also that's a reverse commute, so maybe even drive it.

<comment><USER4> I've driven it before, the 280 is kind of bad but tolerable and the 101 is definitely bad.

<comment><USER5> I drive the 280 every day now to Palo Alto. After 9:15 am from Noe Valley and after about 6:30 PM, it's a breeze. It takes me 35 minutes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Padmapper.com puts listings on a map, and includes a lot of useful features like remembering listings you've already viewed.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the suggestion. Padmapper indeed is pretty great, but the one problem I'm having is that most of the listings are for 12 month leases (or similar). Is there anyway to narrow the results to just sublets or listings just over the summer?

<comment><USER7> click on 'filter listings' in the bottom left. uncheck "Show Full Leases" and all you are left with is sublets.

I'm looking to stay in Berkeley from mid May to August so I've been browsing padmapper and this made the searches much more efficient.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> <http://housingmaps.com/> is the granddaddy of them all. IIRC, it was one of the first such mashup apps with the newly launched Google Maps API (well, it was one of the first to become popular, at least (for the pedantic crowd who hasn't had their morning coffee yet ;-) ) )

Also: Redwood City is in the Peninsula (i.e. directly South of San Francisco). BART does not serve RWC; Caltrain does. Assuming you meant Caltrain, then you should look for places near the intersection of 4th St & King St (that's where all Caltrains start). There's ATT Park nearby, and a decent amount of stuff to do.

Also: it may be hard to find something now, given that you're interested in June. Most apartments are advertised just a month before being vacant.

<comment><USER9> If you really want to be pedantic, it was one of the first such mashup apps with the Google Maps "API" that hadn't even launched yet. That's what was so cool about it, and why Google was so interested in bringing him on, he reverse-engineered their API that they were still building.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Craigslist and Padmapper are the best. I just did this, it took me about a month and a half to find a place. I ended up getting a place in Noe Valley of 27th.

I drive the 280 every day now to Palo Alto. After 9:15 am from Noe Valley and after about 6:30 PM, it's a breeze. It takes me 35 minutes total, and I got 75.

If you don't want to drive, Portrero hill is your best bet. If you don't mind driving, Bernal, Noe, Glen Park or the mission (or portrero) is your best bet. Castro, SOMA, or anything north/west will pretty much suck unless you leave after 10am.

The real problem with RWC is that it takes a long time to get to the downtown section from the 280, so you might have to think about the 101, which WILL suck, no matter what. The 101 doesn't really settle down at night til 7 or even 8. I've only tried a short stint from PA to RWC on it in the mornings and usually that sucks too.

Portrero is your best bet for caltrain though. You'll probably spend $150 a month on caltrain passes. The big thing there though is you'll have to find somewhere in portrero/dogpatch to stay, and I think that's harder to do because there seems to be fewer places. Also, if you live there, you'll probably want to live close to 18th or 3rd to be within walking distance of anything.

Check walkscore.com for any places you find to see what's around them.

<comment><USER10> Potrero Hill also features some great affordable subleasing in some nice old houses. It's also, iirc, more "suburban"-feeling than other parts of the city.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Your best bet is HackerHouse IMO. If you're really looking for an apartment, go with <http://padmapper.com>, really easy way to browse for apartments

</comment><comment><USER10> Rent.com is good, plus they send you $100 if you sign a lease you found through their site. I left the Bay Area for Indiana and was pleasantly surprised when I got a check in the mail from them. _shrug_ That's a big plus IMO.

Also Redwood City is on the south end of "the peninsula," touching "the south bay." It's not a bad place to live, you're iirc 7 or 8 bart stops from the city. But yeah if you're gonna be there for the summer I would definitely consider living in the city and commuting to work. It would be a really awesome experience.

You can find inexpensive places to live and mass transit is _EVERYWHERE_ , plus a lot of great night life in walking distance. Bring a bike. It's definitely possible to commute to Redwood City every day. Get a kindle.

tl;dr: I miss the Bay Area so bad, and I'm jealous of you. TAKE ME WITH YOU. I don't eat much, I promise.

</comment><comment><USER12> The best apartments in San Francisco will never be online. You'll need to get to the neighborhoods you like and walk around.

You'll find plenty of large apartment buildings online, but the really quaint nice spots just have a sign in the window.

Lots of people move here and even more talk about it. I'd guess having a sign in the window cuts down on the BS.

Redwood City is fine for work but if you're moving here you'll have way more fun in San Francisco.

</comment><comment><USER13> Check out <http://www.prometheusreg.com/>. We moved to Sunnyvale from Minnesota and leased our apartment sight unseen. We later moved to another one of their complexes in San Mateo and they transferred the lease. They offer month-to-month leases, I think they manage a lot of corporate housing.

The apartments are a bit on the pricey side, but they're so nice. Good luck, and welcome to San Francisco!

</comment><comment><USER14> When I was living in the Bay Area I found my place in craigslist, don't know if it's still good. But yes, you should go live in San Francisco and comute to work.

</comment><comment><USER15> Look for sublets on Craigslist. You won't find a place to rent for that short of a duration, but you can find someone who is going on vacation for awhile and has a furnished apartment that they are willing to rent out.

This is what I did when I was in the city for an internship last summer and again when I moved to the city in January.

</comment><comment><USER16> I'll also be in the bay area this summer, working in Mountain View but hopefully living in the city. Looking for a roommate?

<comment><USER10> Best idea. Definitely contact him via email.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I live in the Dogpatch, within 5 minutes walk of 22nd Street Caltrain (to the east), and commute to Stanford by train.

Nice neighborhood. The disadvantage is that it's not right next to very much, but it's a quick bus ride (on the 22) to the Mission, the T light rail goes downtown, and if you have a car then parking is easy.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm also interning out in San Francisco from June to August/September, and looking for a place to stay. A friend out in SF recommended <http://www.sfhomestay.com/> to me.

Padmapper looks pretty good though, and I'm going to spend some time checking that out now.

</comment><comment><USER18> <http://padmapper.com> as others mention here.

Click on Filter Listings, enter your criteria for your ideal apt, and then get daily email alerts sent to you too. It's an awesome resource.

</comment><comment><USER19> i found my short term lease in SF thru this leasing company: <http://www.archstoneapartments.com/>

they have a couple buildings in and around the city. hope this helps!

</comment><comment><USER20> padmapper.com is quite good

</comment><comment><USER21> <http://nestoria.com>

</comment><comment><USER22> I think it's Caltrain, not BART in Redwood City

<comment><USER23> This is correct, BART stops in Millbrae.

The San Francisco Caltrain stops are at 22nd (in potrero hill) and 4th and King (SOMA). If you don't live in either of those neighborhoods, you'll need to take a bus or MUNI train to the station.

<comment><USER24> Speaking from experience anytime your commute in sf includes more than one bus or MUNI to another system like BART or caltrain your soul will be quickly crushed.

A bike ride to caltrain from the Mission or greater Castro area is also doable. One other thing to consider is that redwood city is pretty spread out and you may find yourself needing to bike from caltrain once you get down there. Avoid the 101 (sf) or 880 (east bay) drive down south if at all possible. 280 from sf to Palo Alto is the only reasonable driving commute from sf as far as I am concerned. I did it for a year to cupertino and it was... bearable. Email if you have any specific questions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> You don't have get an apartment in SF if you'll be working in RWC. Remember: SF is not the Bay Area. The Bay Area is a large metropolitan area with three major cities. You'll be working about halfway between two of them (SF and San Jose). You might very well want to stay in Mtn View or Palo Alto -- much more hip in the tech sense than SF.

<comment><USER10> I was going to recommend the South Bay, but I wouldn't say MV/PA since Santa Clara is right there and much cheaper in my experience in terms of rent.

<comment><USER26> The South Bay is certainly cheaper but has no where the amount of culture and fun that living in Mountain View and Palo Alto has. If you're only in the Bay Area for 3 months, I'd shell out some more dough to live in SF or PA rather than be bored in San Jose.

<comment><USER10> Oh, right, forgot about San Jose. Guess that shows how much time I spent there. But I definitely meant the MV/PA area; Santa Clara is 5-10 minutes from Mountain View, if that.

<comment><USER26> Opposite direction than PA/SF, and a snoozeworthy downtown area to boot. :P

<comment><USER10> There's a downtown area? Damn I was missing out!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Stack Overflow for Guitar - <AUTHOR> http://www.axedork.com

<comment><USER2> The offensive tagline (and the site's author _acknowledges_ its offensive nature) seems like a mistake. Why alienate 50% of your audience with the _first thing_ they're going to read?

Edit: The author has changed the tagline, but for posterity it said something along the lines of: "Want to know what boobs look like?" With a subheading along the lines of "You might have been offended, but you're still reading..."

<comment><USER3> Yeah, please delete it, it's just stupid and terrible.

I was kinda excited about the idea, but then I saw the tagline and I was like "oh god that's the stupidest thing I've seen this month" and closed the tab on pure reflex.

Seriously, what?

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh no please don't delete it! I've changed the tagline and everything now, please re-check. :)

<comment><USER3> hey I didn't mean delete the submission, just delete the awkward tagline :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Good idea, but the name may be off-putting, as well as the tagline. Rebrand it and you should be good.

<comment><AUTHOR> Everything changed :)</comment></comment>


Lavaboom: Secure email for everyone - mike-cardwell http://www.lavaboom.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> So in your nerd info section (I would prefer something more professionally named), are you referring to this JS library?

[https://github.com/openpgpjs/openpgpjs](https://github.com/openpgpjs/openpgpjs)

And how do you operate without RSA using PGP? I am confused. SHA-512 is for hashing, but not the encryption. The so-called "RSA debacle" does not stop you from using RSA as part of PGP, unless you are using the older (and maybe less useful; I am not a cryptograher) DSA options in PGP. Care to elaborate? Your jokes are cute, but that joke in particular scares me out of trying your service because it shows a biased or garbled technical story here.

Also, we appreciate the mention of the Pax kernel, but TrueCrypt on Linux. Can you go into more detail? I am intrigued why you would choose this over any other software-based full disk encryption system (LUKS+dm-crypt, for example).

Also, FDE of the email servers is nice, but as the sole owner of a bunch of accounts, you can still be compelled to hand that data over, and without hardware-based encryption (and people are more skeptical than ever about TPM chips due to recent news in play), I am not sure it helps. The PGP is nice, but I think you are going to get a lot of snark and rightful skepticism on browser-based JS crypto, which is controversial. I did not say impossible, but many people, me included, do not think this is ready for primetime (some think it never will be, I am staying out of that flamewar).

Nice site, so-so copyright, but there is no silver bullet in this arena and I would prefer your "nerd info" gives better technical detail and a real, real warning about promises you cannot keep.

</comment><comment><USER2> Bill from Lavaboom here. There are a lot questions about what we've built, we've answered some of them here: [http://www.lavaboom.com/nerd- info](http://www.lavaboom.com/nerd-info)

If you have any questions or suggestions I would love to hear them, hit me up here or on Twitter at @lavaboomhq

<comment><USER3> How do you handle the case where a MITM might be modifying the Javascript sent to a user? (Or the equivalent case where a CDN or server hands out bad JS)

Is there any transparency around the internal key server? How would I know if someone's key has been replaced?

> Since we do not have to use RSA to generate the keys, we don't! SHA 512 is > our jist.

I suspect this answer on the nerd-info page might need to be re-worked.

<comment><USER2> The internal key server auto updates your contacts public key, this only works if they're also a Lavaboom user, if your contact uses another service and changes public key then they'll need to give you the new key.

Man in the middle attacks are a risk, we'll be publishing some detailed info on this shortly.

The purpose of Lavaboom is to remove all the weak links in email security from the email provider. DIY encryption is inherently more secure, but we're hoping to get regular folks using encrypted emailing.

RE the RSA answer - how so?

<comment><USER3> Thanks Bill.

Re: the internal key server, what I'm really asking is how do I know that _you_ (or someone who gained access to a server) didn't replace the public key for a user? (and thus I end up encrypting to the wrong key). This could happen on both sides of a conversation if the server is malicious.

Re: MITM are you thinking of supporting the use of e.g. a JS verification plugin like the mylar project made? It would be great to have a shared plugin for this gain traction rather than every product implementing its own browser extension. Users would still be trusting your JS, but at least not all the network infrastructure so much.

>> Lavaboom's take on the RSA scandal? > Since we do not have to use RSA to generate the keys, we don't! SHA 512 is our jist.

Re: the faq above, I meant firstly that the "RSA scandal" and "RSA the algorithm" have basically nothing to do with one another so the answer is a non-sequitur. Secondly that since RSA and SHA 512 do different things, it's hard for me to understand how you replace one with the other without more information. User 616c above is asking the same question.

P.S: I support what you're trying to do :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> From the FAQ:

"Do we know the exact locations of our servers, and, if so, do we have physical access to our servers?"

"We do not know the exact locations of our servers.We do not have physical access to our servers."

"Rest assured that we do have something in place that will destroy our hard disks in a matter of minutes and turn them into little more than coasters."

Those two answers seem contradictory.

<comment><USER5> Being able to send a message to your machines to say "delete everything and overwrite with lots of zeros" doesn't seem to be in conflict with not knowing exactly where the specific disks are in real life.

<comment><USER6> That works great until guys in suits walk in and plug the servers out.</comment></comment></comment>


A Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Hardbound Update - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@nbashaw/a-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-hardbound-update-eacaf767db6a <comment><USER2> Why didn't the fundraise work? Maybe because your business model doesn't appear to be working at your current scale, you're not scaling fast enough to make it work any time soon, and you didn't seem to have any clear plan to change this.

I don't mean to be harsh, it sounds like you gave it a shot and it went pretty right. But you got caught up in the unicorn-chaser Silicon Valley mindset:

      1) Do something that only works if you're huge
      2) Raise lots of capital based on the idea that you will one day be huge
      3) Use that capital to become huge enough that your thing actually works

Sure, planning for your startup to be a unicorn is great if it works, but "big or bust" almost always ends up in "bust".

<comment><USER3> I was wondering about this too. Why does this product only work if you're huge? It sounds like something you and a programmer buddy could have started as a side project and grown organically.

<comment><USER4> VC's are only interested in high growth startups. That means they'll have to pass up on a lot of good ideas such as OP's. The whole thing boils down to power law that guides investment. VCs are hoping that out of 10, at least 1 would be a super-duper hit (think facebook, google) that'll offset the losses of the other 9.

In short - go with "disrupting" world-changing ideas to the VCs. If your idea is good, but not great, you're better off finding money on your own and growing it organically.

<comment><USER5> Wouldn't an investor want a "diverse portfolio" divided between low yield low risk (such as OP pre-unicorning) and high yield high risk such as you mention?

<comment><USER6> For the same reason Berkshire Hathaway isn't investing in your lemonade stand: they have billions to invest, so if you're only making hundreds of thousands on the best day, you're not worth the required effort.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Sounds like you should be the platform and let content creators in. Pay them commission on sales and you can QC anything coming in until you can afford to pay someone else.

<comment><USER8> It's definitely something we considered! We actually were really focused on that for a long time, but didn't get a lot of traction with it, because creating content in our format requires illustration and animation, which is not easy to do. A lot of people said they wanted to do it, but very few followed through. We did some partnerships with media companies but we didn't solve a critical problem for them (the original inspiration was the end reader experience) so there was not very much urgency or willingness to pay. So we pivoted to a "full stack" model where we create the content and build the platform. It was working decently well (it's not easy to get 1,200 people to pay for access to content), but just not well enough.

<comment><USER9> Have you tried creating a 'creator's' software that's lightweight, easy to use and has lots of pre-loaded illustration packs (with a wide variety of themes) & drag-and-drop style animation presets?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> To the founder: you're equating the failure of your business/idea with the failure to raise money. They're not the same. Perhaps try to delve deeper into this thinking. That thinking is toxic.

You do still have the option of keeping your "vision" afloat and your business going (also, please, call it a business, not a 'startup'). Get a job, use the $2500/mo to keep producing content with the resources you can afford and work at 4xing that $2500/mo that you're currently making. You'll eventually be back in business, if you are flexible with how you think about this.

$1B or nothing is fool's errand.

<comment><USER8> Am I?

"Now, everyone has moved on but me, and I'm trying to figure out how to move forward. For the time being, we're not going to be able to release any new stories (it sucks, I know), but the app and website will stay up. I am not ready to quit just yet. There probably will be some big changes, but I am not finished."

Also:

"The second option [continuing with our same model & creating all the content myself] is tempting, because I have no significant new data that changes my mind about Hardbound's potential. Investors are wrong all the time. But if I just jumped into that, I would need to spend all my time working on new stories and I wouldn't have very much time to learn from what just happened. So I have reservations about immediately jumping into this route."

When I reference "failure" in the post, I am referring to my failure to keep our bank account full.

<comment><USER10> I certainly don't want to be presumptuous about your thinking. You obviously know better how big a role the failure to raise money played.

<comment><USER8> I appreciate that! I mean, obviously I was wrong about _some_ things, otherwise I wouldn't have had to write that post. So I'm super open to new ideas and learning. That's also why I'm replying to all these comments. I'd rather reply with more detail so people can give better feedback. I just wish more of the commenters here would start from a perspective of asking questions, than thinking the answers to all my problems are glaringly obvious. Reality is extremely nuanced, in my opinion! I would love if more people were asking more questions, rather than making strong claims based on a very small amount of information that was more intended to communicate a very important life event to friends and users, than to be a detailed diagnosis of everything that happened.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Ok, here's some advice from an Internet random person.

1\. Yes, if you can take some time.

2\. Do some crying. You probably feel depressed, burnt out, stressed out. Crying is a great release.

3\. You don't need to do anything right now it's ok not to do anything right now.

4\. If you're under personal financial stress try and resolve that. Perhaps move somewhere cheaper.

5\. You probably don't need to think too much about what went wrong right now, maybe take some time first?

Realize that there will be a time when the stresses of this business will be long behind you, and you won't feel it with the same intensity anymore. Maybe read some good books, it can really help you feel alive again.

All this is very biased. It's based on how I would be feeling, if I'd gone through the same process as you.

Good luck!

<comment><USER8> Thank you! This is very thoughtful. I'm definitely taking some time and thankfully not under too much financial stress. But honestly I actually feel really fine. This happened a couple weeks ago and I have had some time to process it. Writing the post was super cathartic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Maybe it is just me, but I cannot refrain from noticing how the "layman examples" and "imagining" he makes seem a bit off in a funny way.

>There's an image in my head that helps me make sense of this:

><image>

>I'm driving towards the horizon in the desert.

Wait a minute, a man can dream, but the image in your mind is driving in _a Ferrari_ towards the horizon in the desert.

And right after:

>Instead, the car ran out of gas, and it's just me now.

Maybe if you had an ordinary pickup with a couple jerry cans in the back you would have gone further?

<comment><USER8> The ferrari thing was definitely a little distracting, for sure, but literally it was the only good free photo I could find of a car driving towards the horizon in the desert.

<comment><USER12> Yep, I understand that, I only saw it as "funny", I am sorry, but it is stronger than me, you depicted verbally something very like the final of Terminator (1st), "a storm is coming":

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C6GZQ7UNaU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C6GZQ7UNaU)

and I visualized that (or any of the movies where the car is a battered old car, possibly an old jeep or a pickup) before noticing the Ferrari logo.

Maybe this one would do (not a photo, but a painting) to better explain what I visualized:

[https://www.flickr.com/photos/alberto_ollo/5229651715/sizes/...](https://www.flickr.com/photos/alberto_ollo/5229651715/sizes/z/in/pool-1238939@N25/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Reconsider. [https://signalvnoise.com/posts/3972-reconsider](https://signalvnoise.com/posts/3972-reconsider)

<comment><USER14> I know a guy who has run a small social gaming company for eight years and about four years in he moved to bigger, nicer offices.

I tell him I'm impressed with his success and he kinda downplays it. I've worked plenty of places that failed after four or five years. If you can keep the wheels on that long you must be doing an abnormal number of things right, and you should be objectively proud of that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> You should never have raised money in the first place. It sounds like this was not a business that was compatible with the goals and requirements of a venture-backed business. The moment you accepted your first investment you were committed to that path. I agree - not all businesses are VC businesses, and many startup failures are a result of pursuing the wrong model for assuring continued operation and not a reflection (necessarily) of the "business".

<comment><USER16> Assuming significant investment, I would agree. On the other hand, they might have just raised $50k from an angel or two, which wouldn't really cause issues with bootstrapping...

...unless they used it to bump up burn rate to the point where another round or layoffs were inevitable, because profitability before out of runway was never feasible. That's what it looks like, but hard to tell from outside.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> > I see a huge range of possibilities:

> 1\. Try to get acqui-hired and pretend I didn't fail to fundraise, as is the > tradition in our industry ("our incredible journey!", etc). Hint: I'm not > going to do this.

In the words of Oliver Cromwell: 'put your trust in God; but mind to keep your powder dry'.

<comment><USER8> What does that quote mean in this context? I am trying to decode the meaning but am failing haha

<comment><USER18> Keep your powder dry probably refers to gunpowder... old flintlock rifles had separate gunpowder and bullets, and if the powder was really wet the gun wouldn't fire. So, have faith but do everything you can to improve your chances of success.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm really wondering how VC money was supposed to make this business profitable. Sure, the idea is let them last long enough to grow their customer base, but with "millions" of pages read, they were making ramen-profitable- for-one-guy money from something that required a team of people. I imagine it didn't seem clear to investors that there was a big potential for growth, and they'd need big growth just to _survive_ , much less provide a return to investors or drive off into the sunset in a Ferrari.

<comment><USER8> Actually we had a pretty detailed financial model for how we expected to get to profitability! We currently have ~1,200 subscribers, and about half are paying us $1.99/mo (our old price point) and the other half is paying $3.99/mo. Our growth model is based on people sharing our content, and so we can predict pretty well how many new customers we'll get every time we post something new. With a $15k monthly content budget (a couple writers, network of freelance designers) we were pretty sure we'd be able to bend the growth curve to the point where we'd reach profitability (~15k subscribers) in about 10 months, assuming modest improvements in conversion rates and share rates (we'd obviously be doing a ton of experiments to move these numbers).

At the end of the day, investors weren't convinced, so you certainly have a point! There may have been something seriously wrong with the plan. But I challenge your assertion that we'd need "big growth just to survive". Yeah we'd need pretty good growth, for sure. But not "unrealistic, crazy unlikely" growth.

And on the upside, once we got there, all growth would be pretty much pure margins after that! We don't think we'd need to dramatically increase our investment in content.

Basically, it might not be as dumb as it seems.

<comment><USER11> I'd assume most investors are not really interested in you reaching profitability. In fact it's probably a negative for them.

What they want of for you to reach a high valuation which allows them to get a +10x return on their investment. What they want is for you to need more money from them in order to survive, so if they believe in the play they can increase their stake.

At some point they want liquidity. But that doesn't have much to do with your profitability.

Honestly, you probably know better than me. But this has been my limited experience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It's about a book app, not the memory safety feature ( [https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Hardbound- architectura...](https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Hardbound- architectural-support-for-spatial-safety-Devietti- Blundell/1810f70bdcb6f50ff70bed2c165918046e6a8aef/abstract) )

</comment><comment><USER21> Just by the way, you may want to check out this interview of Blinkist (a similar app)'s co-founder: [https://mixergy.com/interviews/sebastian-klein- blinkist/](https://mixergy.com/interviews/sebastian-klein-blinkist/)

</comment><comment><USER22> That analogy really didn't work for me. "Crawling towards the horizon" seems to correspond to option 2, continuing to run the business at a much slower pace. Options 3+4 are more like stopping to look at the car, take a breath and re-evaluate whether it's designed right.

</comment><comment><USER23> How do they make money? Do users pay for the service? It is not obvious from the website.

<comment><USER24> yes, it's I believe $5/month to unlock all of the stories, otherwise you get just the newest one.

<comment><USER8> It's $3.99 but yeah, we have a subscription model

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Hardbound once launched a 'YC for writers' program [https://www.producthunt.com/posts/hardbound-writer-s- program](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/hardbound-writer-s-program)

Maybe focusing on opening the doors for content creators is what they need to create _enough_ stories for user demand</comment>