Paying journalists to promote brands in articles - <AUTHOR> https://theoutline.com/post/2978/these-are-the-people-paying-journalists-to-promote-brands-in-articles <comment><USER2> This would happen less if the people writing the stories were paid more (so it removes some temptation on the writers part).

The problem isn't new though. After I had written a few articles for the old BYTE magazine I had the weird experience of being called up, at home (this is before Cell phones), by a company with an expensive schematic design package call me up and ask if I'd like a copy of their software. It was pretty clear they were angling to get a positive mention/review into BYTE and I turned them down, the then called Editor-in-chief Fred Langa. He laughed and said that now I was a "true" BYTE author since it indicated I had enough visibility to attract the attention of the advertisers.

</comment><comment><USER3> "2.1 Advertisements must be obviously distinguishable from editorial content, especially if they use a situation, performance or style reminiscent of editorial content, to prevent the audience being confused between the two. The audience should quickly recognise the message as an advertisement."

[https://www.asa.org.uk/type/broadcast/code_section/02.html](https://www.asa.org.uk/type/broadcast/code_section/02.html)

<comment><USER4> " – Deny favored treatment to advertisers, donors or any other special interests, and resist internal and external pressure to influence coverage.

– Distinguish news from advertising and shun hybrids that blur the lines between the two. Prominently label sponsored content. "

[https://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp](https://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp) (Society of Professional Journalists)

" 2.3 Readers are entitled to expect that the content of the press reflects the best judgment of editors and writers and has not been inappropriately influenced by undisclosed interests. Wherever relevant, any significant financial interest of an organization should be disclosed. Writers should disclose significant potential conflicts of interest to their editors. "

[http://www.presscouncil.ie/code-of-practice](http://www.presscouncil.ie/code- of-practice)

There may actually be a technological fix for this. One can use [computational stylometry]([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stylometry#Current_research](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stylometry#Current_research)) to analyse a blogger's (sorry, I mean journalist's) written output. The algo performs clustering, any articles not written by the author are shown up as outliers. Author attribution works because everybody uses function words differently from each other but fairly consistently over time. If an author has 150+ articles you'd definitely spot copy that came from another source I'd say!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you're getting paid to do this you are not a journalist. Can we please stop using the word journalist / journalism when we mean: reporter, hack, whore, propagandist, marketer, etc.?

<comment><USER6> Could you give an example where you've seen someone use the word "journalist" when you think they should have been using "whore"?

<comment><USER7> I propose a middle ground with "whorenalist".

<comment><USER8> "influencer blogger"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This isn't a secret among marketers. They talk about it very openly amongst themselves.

This is why, when you see the Forbes, Inc, Business Insider, or HuffPo logo on the site of an "expert" or startup company, you know they are bullshitting—those "press mentions" were, most likely, paid for.

<comment><USER10> In both the current company I work in, and the company before that, we had articles written about us that were pushed by the company.

I don't think that money was involved, but the marketing copy (wait, sorry, the "article") was basically written by us, and sent to the journos with some photos. All they had to do is upload it to the news site.

Makes an workday for the journo, and the company gets some publicity. Win-win for everyone, except people that enjoy reading quality, impartial content, rather than advertisements dressed up as legitimate articles.

<comment><USER11> This is largely how "guest blogging" works too. Marketing agencies hire writers who create content for their clients. The agencies then give the content to publishers for free, and it's published under a pseudonymous byline or the byline of an executive that typically includes a link to the client.

When you see an article in Forbes written by a CEO or some other executive, it's often ghost written by a marketing agency's writers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is illegal right? Warner Bros. had an FTC settlement because they paid youtubers for video game reviews, and that fact wasn't disclosed by many of the youtubers.

[https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press- releases/2016/07/warne...](https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press- releases/2016/07/warner-bros-settles-ftc-charges-it-failed-adequately- disclose-it)

<comment><USER13> Probably is, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if parts of the press just didn't think the FTC rules applied to them. (I know they had to have sharp words with quite a few publications about actually following their rules on affiliate links, and that's a lot more publicly visible and easy to prove than the stuff alleged here.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Pretty obvious when you read practically anything these days that PR has taken over not just promotions but the entire narrative.

</comment><comment><USER15> sites like reddit are plagued of users inserting brands into the comment, seems like a place full of marketers...

<comment><USER16> Totally agree, I wrote about it on my blog [http://myblogclickhere.com/lookatmyblog.html](http://myblogclickhere.com/lookatmyblog.html).

<comment><USER10> I really enjoy reading that blog on my LG Ultrawide monitor!

<comment><USER17> The new Dell 38" 21:9 is actually way better!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's a stretch to call the people accepting these payments journalists although the lines are admittedly blurry these days.

<comment><USER19> NPR does this. I don't like it. "... blah blah. For more on this story, Joan Smith joins us via Skype."

The sound quality is often terrible, and this being _radio_ they could have easily done this over high quality phone.

But I'm sure NPR gets "support" from Microsoft for this.

How soon before "Joan Smith joins us via Verizon, with her LG phone."

<comment><USER20> Skype requires a verbal announcement if used on a broadcast. It does feel weird, but it's the cost of using free software. [https://www.skype.com/en/legal/broadcast/](https://www.skype.com/en/legal/broadcast/)

<comment><USER21> Is enough of a reason that journalists should dump Skype

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Funny no one mentions Google, all this is done purely for the SEO juice. We've heard it for years, links don't matter that much these days.. but in fact they do matter.

Imho Google needs to fix this, not the content farms that Google thinks are "trusted" news sources.

</comment><comment><USER23> I always dreamed of a news site that is just like Wikipedia, but has the mechanics of HN (upvote, downvote, flag, etc.). So that, you can weed out all these middlemen agents and crooked journalists who poison our news consumption.

<comment><USER24> Because upvotes and downvotes did such a wonderful job of keeping shilling off reddit?

I don't follow.

<comment><USER23> > but has the mechanics of HN

> keeping shilling off reddit?

They do a pretty good job on HN. That's my point. I understand why you cite Reddit, but that's not my point.

<comment><USER25> Clearly the mechanics of upvoting/downvoting don't prevent shilling at scale. HN is just small enough to not attract large numbers of dedicated shills.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> These journalists should just call their critics racist and sexist. It worked during the Gamergate scandal.

</comment><comment><USER27> I wish that TV shows and movies had to disclose which companies paid for product/brand placement.

</comment><comment><USER28> We do it for our politicians...why stop there

</comment><comment><USER29> Since the publishing industry as a whole is on the edge of bankruptcy, this is just a response to ad blockers not being able to block these kinds of ads. You didn't want ads, you get them anyway as part of fake reporting.

People running ad blockers shouldn't have an opinion on how publishers run their operations. It's just tit for tat.

</comment><comment><USER30> A vicious cycle that's triggered by a perpetually degenerative and complacent society. This is a problem that runs through everything - social media, education, health sectors, the job market, etc. Marketing something that's really worth little as being world changing.

To the point of paid journaliists.

The media isn't paid well, not nearly as good as other career options (depending on where you are). It's because journalism (magazines, TV shows and web sites) are expected to pay for a service for free. They need to pay salaries, buy equipment, operate their business. This money has to come from advertisements.

Advertisers, marketeers, PR folk are constantly paying less because there are abundant channels to pick from (web sites, magazines, TV channels) to promote their brands. There's someone who'll accept little to do the same job. The concept of an 'advertorial' is fading. Advetisers know their agenda gets diluted / ignored by using advertorials, so they've found a marketing gimmick to do the same - promote their content through legit channels and that's what we see. This is what earns them their bread and butter.

When journalists look at other media houses getting a piece of the pie (big exclusive breaks, perks and good relations with big names), they want it too, so they become more willing to do so. We as consumers of journalistic media aren't willing to pay them neither do we don't want the ads either.

As a society, we're only getting 'cheaper'. Perception owns more importance than reality. We love what we consume, it stimulates us what politicians say, what products we see our stars eat, drink, use. Advertisers and media provide what is demanded.

<comment><USER31> Tone down the moral panic. The 'Style', 'Food' and 'Travel' sections in newspapers have been bought forever and this is more of the same in a different era.

I've always been most interested in why European goods are seen as luxurious in North America despite usually objectively being nothing special (wines that aren't any better in blind taste tests, cars of average reliability, bogus health claims of olive oil). You can usually trace this back to some mid-20th century group of journalists or experts getting a fully paid trip to Italy or France by some interested industry group.</comment></comment>


Founders Usually Hire People Just Like Them. Big Mistake.  - <AUTHOR> http://www.inc.com/magazine/201111/are-you-a-narcissistic-boss.html

<comment><USER2> Okay so clearly hiring people just like you is probably not a good idea, not just because the qualities that led you to be a founder are likely present in the prospective employee but also because you're likely to suffer from confirmation bias if you hire someone that thinks in a similar manner to yourself. However, that said, this article does a horrible job of prescribing an adequate solution to hiring practices: personality tests? Are you kidding? Easily foiled, especially when you understand its purpose, i.e. to assess whether you work well with others. Someone in need of a job is probably able to not only trick the testers but also themselves into believing they have the qualities necessary to get along in the work environment. A better solution might be temporary work that has the possibility of becoming full-time. While this isn't always possible, it should be possible to at least ask for and follow up on references for any perspective employee.

</comment><comment><USER3> You're right, the article is sort of clumsy. There are three sparkplug issues at work here: 1) founder self-awareness 2) how to hire people and 3) how to develop effective teams. They're all lumped together in the article (and in many actual companies). What would have prevented the problem in the first place? Somehow short-circuiting the tendency, especially in founders, to insist the same qualities as your own are most useful in business building.</comment>


Silicon Valley's Economic Indicator: Caltrain Ridership - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/09/18/silicon-valleys-economic-indicator-caltrain-ridership/ <comment><USER2> These are the good old days.

There is also an incredible boom in commercial construction. Large, multi- story office buildings popping up all around the new 49er stadium, a mass of new distribution & warehouse space in South Fremont (serving future Tesla capacity?), new Facebook, LinkedIn & Apple HQs. There seem to be a lot of people betting that this boom will continue, and profits from regional companies are not disappointing investors: "the [2015] SV150 produced a profit margin of 16.4 percent amid record sales and profits,..." [0]

The commercial boom parallels spiking rental and real-estate prices throughout the region. [1]

What goes up, must come down. How sustainable is this cycle? To what extent do the startup incucelerators play into the momentum?

[0] [http://www.siliconvalley.com/sv150/ci_27941929/sv150-silicon...](http://www.siliconvalley.com/sv150/ci_27941929/sv150-silicon- valley-led-by-apple-becomes-wall) [1] [https://www.zumper.com/blog/2015/09/san-francisco-rent- price...](https://www.zumper.com/blog/2015/09/san-francisco-rent-prices-hit- new-record-this-august/)</comment>


A blazing fast and lightweight pure C asymmetric coroutine implementation - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/hnes/libaco <comment><AUTHOR> I have implemented a fast pure C coroutine library named libaco. It is production ready now. A context switching between coroutines only takes _10.29 ns_ (for the case of standalone stack) on a AWS c5d.large machine. The README also contains a detailed documentation about how to implement a _fastest and correct_ coroutine library (Sys V ABI) and a strict mathematical proof of it. I hope that my efforts could bring some help to the people who is interested in C coroutine.</comment>


3D images that are 'indistinguishable from reality' could be just 40 years away - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/25/3116827/sharp-labs-3d-displays-holodeck

<comment><USER2> So, a good ways behind nuclear fusion, then?

No, let's be fair--fusion research is actually looking pretty promising, what with polywells and all.</comment>


Two Paths to the Telephone (1981) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.princeton.edu/ssp/trips/data/scientificamerican0181-156-hounshell.pdf <comment><USER2> Great article. Back in the 80's Scientific American magazine published much more substantial articles than it does today. Nowadays, its articles are very much watered-down and superficial.

</comment><comment><USER3> > STRIKING PARALLELS between the telephones envisioned by Elisha Gray and > Alexander Graham Bell are evident in their respective sketches of the > instruments.

Didn't Bell have a friend at the patent office that allowed him to see the Gray patent and retrospectively alter his (Bells) patent application. This to increase the quality of evidence as to who had prior claim on the invention.</comment>


Website offers to cancel Comcast for $5 (ref to HN/YC) - <AUTHOR> http://finance.yahoo.com/news/website-offers-to-cancel-comcast-for--5-180730710.html <comment><AUTHOR> Ref to HN in this article as a reason for the success:

"The site has been nearly overwhelmed with traffic -- the founders won't disclose how much -- since going live on Friday. To announce their service, St. Sauver and Pollak initially just posted a link on Hacker News, a popular site among techies run by venture capital firm Y Combinator. The news next spread to Reddit, prompting another wave of traffic."</comment>


Arch, Debian, Gentoo, Grml and openSUSE merge into Canterbury - <AUTHOR> https://www.archlinux.org/news/the-canterbury-project/

<comment><AUTHOR> A fitting name for a fairy tale.</comment>


Sqwiggle Makes Working Remotely Less Lonely, More Awesome - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/11/sqwiggle-makes-working-remotely-less-lonely-more-awesome/ <comment><USER2> I wouldn't use this.

One of the secret joys of working from home is being able to work in my boxers (or less) and not get in trouble. Some days I jump out of the shower and just don't bother to do my hair until I need to go out of the house, and if I don't style it I almost look like Lloyd Christmas from Dumb and Dumber. I move around, I nap, I eat like the 7 Habits of Highly Obese People is my bible, and I swear liberally; even if you can't hear it, you'd know it's happening. However, when I'm around other people, you'd never guess. Using this app would take out the best part of working by myself: no judgement!

(This comment's gonna come back to haunt me one day.)

<comment><USER3> Then (shameless plug) try Sococo Teamspace! You can turn camera on/off, and it includes app sharing, group and p2p chat.

<comment><USER2> Oh, I really like this concept although I'm a desktop Linux user (one of the few!) and couldn't use this unfortunately.

<comment><USER3> Dang. We have Win32, Mac, iPad, iPhone, Android ... but not linux. Well, we do run on linux but only as a 'supernode' for media routing, no GUI there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Having a camera pointed on your 8 hours a day? Yuck.

I can't imagine being concious of that all day long. You can't even scratch your nose!

<comment><USER5> Well, a real-life office is like that anyways, at least with open layout.

But I _REALLY_ like their idea of having occasional snapshots of workers not involved in chats, instead of constant video -- first, it's less distracting. But secondly, if they chose the "keyframes" to be ones when you're still, then you can assume they'll never grab you scratching your nose, etc., except for when you're conscious of already being in a chat.

<comment><USER6> very cool idea.. yep, you definitely catch people in awkward positions sometimes hah but we use Sqwiggle every day and it certainly becomes a non- issue very quickly, you just become alright with it.. Naturally we will be building in some extra privacy features but, as-is, it really isn't as intrusive as one might think! Love the idea of picking more flattering stills, thanks for the input!

<comment><USER7> I disagree. I think the only people who back this idea are the startup CEO's trying to keep tabs on their remote employees. I get more done from home because I can avoid this exact kind of distraction. This is another idea developed by extroverts who don't understand introverts at all. How is this even a main HN article?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm not sure how I feel about this. One of the biggest problems I had with working in an office was precisely how easy it was for people to bother me for just a quick question, killing my flow. I much prefer having passive indicators and queries, as you get with IM (which you can ignore until you're ready) and a bug tracker (which also forces people to keep their process rigorous and documented, as they have to work through these systems to communicate at all; too easy to let bug trackers and the like get out of sync with reality if people are just quickly verbally telling people about problems).

I can see how this would work well for people who work on many short tasks, though, as opposed to work like mine that often benefits from focusing for hours at a time with no interruptions.

<comment><USER9> After the first passive indicator (mail, IM, issue tracker), I much prefer phone/face to face over written communication - faster and higher bandwidth.

As for interruptions - if somebody else is stuck, and a quick answer from you will let them continue, then you'll be less productive, but the overall productivity may be higher.

I wrote more about it here: [http://henrikwarne.com/2013/04/02/programmer- productivity-in...](http://henrikwarne.com/2013/04/02/programmer-productivity- interruptions-meetings-and-working-remotely/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I thought one of the biggest benefits of remote work was NOT having to look at the same people all day, every day.

If i'm lonely I'd go hang out with my actual friends. And since I'm remote, those friends can be anywhere I can travel to.

</comment><comment><USER11> This look awesome and I can't wait to try it out. Hell, I think we'd even use it in our office (a large open room with 8+ people working, meaning we are all often wearing headphones to stay focused).

Feature suggestion: Have an "away" feature. I hit a button to say I'm going away, type a message (brb, out for lunch, etc), and that's what is displayed in my window while I'm gone. Adding a time stamp + optional field for when you'll be back would be nifty as well. This feature could just be an extension of "privacy mode" as well.

<comment><USER6> nice, glad you like the idea. We are actually trying to build the product for teams which work together in a physical office as well, definitely some benefits there :)

Regarding away status, in the future Sqwiggle will automatically know when you are away or at your computer by monitoring input... good point about the status message though.. I bet there's a cool way to work that in ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I was secretly hoping there was a Chatroulette-like component where you got to hang out with other crazy freelancers so you had some kind of human contact. Oh well.

</comment><comment><USER13> Hm. Maybe that's why I don't particularly enjoy working remotely as much as some people. I don't feel like I'm a part of any kind of team, just a guy hiding in his room clicking his keyboard.

</comment><comment><USER14> I like the whole video thing. Clever way to not have the video "always on" with their black and white picture every x seconds.

However why re invent the wheel with their "streamer"? Can't we just have a normal chat + a "link/media' history that we can browser and search like on jaconda or other group chat tool?

<comment><USER6> Great feedback, thanks! Our stream is actually more geared towards media. We found out that, during a conversation, it was always necessary to share links, code, images, etc. Using a separate app for greatly interrupted the flow so we felt the stream was a very valuable addition. Thanks again.. Very open to any other thoughts you have!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> No joke - years ago I had a rodent friend named Sqwiggle (named by my girlfriend). Thanks for the inadvertent trip down memory lane. :)

<comment><USER16> Well, we're still looking for a mascot... ;-)

<comment><USER15> Sadly I have no photos. :( He was an overly-endowed, seemingly happy, albino rat. I can't think of him without feeling sorry for his over-endowment, but I also wouldn't include that in a mascot image ;) Frequently, he would sit on my shoulder, with his tail hanging down while I worked, which seems a rather appropriate image for your sqwiggle. So maybe a happy, albino rat would be an appropriate mascot. :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Interesting take. It sounds like they've sniffed out a few features that will go from pipeline to production quickly (fingers crossed).

</comment><comment><USER18> I really _want_ to use this.

Particularly like the idea of always-on for remote workers.. and the click-to- talk idea.

</comment><comment><USER19> Isn't this basically a virtual panopticon?

With all the distractions and unnecessary meetings to make certain staff feel functional?

This is basically all the disadvantages of working in an office projected on home working.

A management dream!

EDIT: perhaps I'm just cynical and an isolationist :)</comment>


Network problems last Friday - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/blog/1346-network-problems-last-friday <comment><USER2> Nice writeup, but it leaves me curious about the root cause:

For some reason, our switches were unable to learn a significant percentage of our MAC addresses and this aggregate traffic was enough to saturate all of the links between the access and aggregation switches, causing the poor performance we saw throughout the day.

Did you work with your vendor to understand what caused the above problem? Was it a lack of number of entries in the MAC table?

This problem aside, I am wondering why you still run layer 2 network in a tree-like configuration. These are known not to scale well, beyond a small LAN. An appropriate layer 3 network (with multipath routing) would ensure there is no such flooding, and ensure you use all the precious capacity in your switches!

<comment><USER3> Yeah, if you read a little further down we worked with the vendor to get them extensive diagnostics and get to the root problem. TL;DR: Lock contention on the CAM table.

"We have worked with our network vendor to provide diagnostic information which led them to discover the root cause for the MAC learning issues. We expect a final fix for this issue within the next week or so and will be deploying a software update to our switches at that time. In the mean time we are closely monitoring our aggregation to access layer capacity and have a workaround process if the problem comes up again."

In terms of network scalability, a properly designed layer 2 topology can scale quite a bit farther than our current needs. This is very much the least disruptive change we could introduce to solve the immediate network problems while we work on the future architecture.

<comment><USER2> Ooh, lock contention on the _hardware_ CAM table or the software in the switch that handles these updates? The first time I am hearing about this bug :-)

Thanks a lot for sharing this bug story!

<comment><USER3> It was a lock that was being held by software but also prevented hardware updates to certain hash locations in the CAM. So MAC addresses that hashed to those locations couldn't be learned by any means.

<comment><USER4> I wonder what hash was in use. Also, what workaround were you using to prevent flooding while this issue was happening?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "We experienced 18 minutes of complete unavailability along with sporadic bursts of slow responses and intermittent errors for the entire day."

Well, I can say we experienced worse than that. Our private repositories were unavailable starting at 9am until 4pm PST.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for reminding me, my apologies. I was focused entirely on the network components since that's the part of the problem I personally responded to and overlooked it. I've updated the blog post:

Note: I initially forgot to mention that we had a single fileserver pair offline for a large part of the day affecting a small percentage of repositories. This was a side effect of the network problems and their impact on the high-availability clustering between the fileserver nodes. My apologies for missing this on the initial writeup.

<comment><USER5> Thank you for being responsive and honest.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Welcome to the club of STP meltdown survivors!

Unfortunately, large L2 Ethernet networks is not scalable and prone to episodic catastrophic failure. You can read more here: [http://blog.ioshints.info/2012/05/transparent-bridging- aka-l...](http://blog.ioshints.info/2012/05/transparent-bridging- aka-l2-switching.html)

One way to make L2 network somewhat stable is to replace many little switches with one big modular chassis for hundreds ports, like Cat6500/BlackDiamond.

Or, to minimize L2 segments and connect between them in L3 (IP routing).

<comment><USER7> Very little of this outage can be attributed to STP issues, and most of the outage seems to be down to a software fault with the switch itself not learning MAC addresses correctly. I'm not sure how having one big chassis switch helps here, since I've experienced many an IOS bug and if anything, putting all your eggs in one big/modular basket just means when the basket breaks all your eggs get smashed.

<comment><USER8> The problem sounds like it was a bug with vender interoperability based on the unidirectional link detection that most people run on fiber based uplinks. Personally I would have went with a homogenous environment with staged deployment. While the server guys seem smart, having a professional network design team commissioned to do the work should have prevented this by labbing it up properly in the first instance. That said, I completely understand outages because projects like these are all a game of calculated risk management.

<comment><USER3> Our goal with this change was not to radically redesign our network in one bite. We are making incremental improvements in our existing environment to solve very specific, ongoing problems.

Given the flexibility to completely rearchitect our network you might see different decisions. Stay tuned. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is a great writeup! I love reading these types of postmortems because I always end up learning something new.

</comment><comment><USER10> Wow, I totally empathize with that pain. Let me guess, you've got switches from Blade Networks (aka IBM) ? :-)

Large scale networking changes like this are so challenging to pull off, one missed cable, one mis-configured switch, and blam! everything is nuts.

<comment><USER11> _Large scale networking changes like this are so challenging to pull off, one missed cable, one mis-configured switch, and blam! everything is nuts._

Only because industry best practices are incredibly fragile. A little DRY would go a long way towards eliminating misconfigurations.

<comment><USER10> Perhaps, but I wonder if you are dismissing the challenge of the physicality of it too quickly. Few processes prepare you for plugging in a cable where 2 of the four pairs are only marginally connected. Or an SFP+ cable where its connected enough to see the lasers but is generating a lot of noise that the buffers are trying valiantly to compensate for.

<comment><USER11> Sure, hardware faults and firmware bugs are always going to exist and will be hard to resolve. But the problem is currently so bad that solving, say, half of it would still be a huge improvement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > Last week the new aggregation switches finally arrived and were installed in > our datacenter.

It sounds like you rushed these switches into production, maybe with insufficient testing.

There are all kinds of bugs and weird interactions in network hardware and software that cause problems that you can't anticipate.

You have got to lab it up and do sanity checks before deploying (referring specifically to the lacp/port chan problems).

<comment><USER13> We always, always, always evacuate the datacenter before we do any non-trivial network changes. And then trickle traffic back in.

Lab testing is fine, and is a must, but it may or may not have caught this.

Datacenter agility is the only way to scale and have high availability.

<comment><USER7> But you also work for Facebook, and consequently have slightly larger scale problems than most get to worry about.

True multi-datacenter availability in an active-active manner is actually fairly difficult to achieve.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The excuse that the application grew faster than scalable is amateur hour. This entire article makes any true sys engineer cringe in their stomach.

You are ~100 million dollar company and it seems like you drew your systems architecture with crayons. The article is upsetting. The lack of segmentation is embarrassing.

"oh it's the switch's fault, it doesn't learn MACs fast enough" - actually you could subnet your racks and use f*n vlans. You might use public Ips on everything but this could still be educational for the company.

Your solution to all of this was to spend twice as much on a "staging" network. Something doesn't seem right here.

It makes me cringe when I see any one sentence that has the following three words in it: escalate, network, vendor.

This isn't a boeing airplane, you cannot just rely on the vendor. This article just gives me a good sense of job security in the field of sys engineering. I really think that they should sit down and really go over their network. A bridge loop like this for a company this large is pretty amateur. Github you can do so much better.

<comment><USER7> Since staging environments are often scaled down but functionally equivalent, it does not track that having one involves spending twice as much.

It is also nothing to do with the switch learning 'fast enough' and everything to do with the switch having a fault which entirely prevented it learning certain MAC addresses. Would you care to clarify how your solution (above) would help in this situation, and how you fix switch firmware issues without escalating to your vendor?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> [shameless plug]

Hey github, sounds like you need SevOne. You could have diagnosed this issue with one TopN report and been done with it.

[/shameless plug]

edit: See following thread for a full explanation .

<comment><USER3> Shameless is exactly right. Any inclination I may have had to even consider looking at your product just evaporated.

<comment><USER15> I am curious as to why that would be ? I think that the product that I helped develop would provide immediate value for someone in this situation, and I think it would be unethical to suggest it without at least a cursory acknowledgement of my bias.

Or does the fact that I work at a company solving these problems preclude me from participating in the conversation ?

<comment><USER16> At a guess, it's because you don't describe how it would help.

"Just do a TopN report" is not a diagnosis, analysis, or furtherance of the discussion. If you want to do an effective shameless plug, write a few sentences about how your product would have helped from the beginning of the incident, through its resolution. Show how it would have saved time/effort and given more visibility into the problem.

This was a multi-hour incident with code-level escalation to the network hardware vendor; assume complexity.

<comment><USER15> So I see. I think I didn't take the time to define my terms, or give the full sales pitch around them. I am not going to give the sales pitch, but TopN is a style of report that can query in real time every metric across every performance metric available and find not only find and alert on ones outside of normal operating parameters, but predict which ones will go haywire in a given time frame. This means no going around to all your switches to figure out which ones are causing problems.

In this specific instance if you had an indicator on an OID .18.104.22.168.18.104.22.168.3.1.1 you could see how big the MAC table was and have noticed when it dropped below the expected value. This would have alerted immediately letting you know not only that you had a problem, but on which switches there were issues. Alternatively you could have set alerts on any number of packet level indicators.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is the kind of situation that I think screams for OpenFlow[1]. It seems issues like this would be easier to avoid and faster to troubleshoot.

1\. <http://www.openflow.org/>

<comment><USER10> Can you say more about this? I'm quite familiar with OpenFlow but I've not seen anything that would help with problems like "I need to increase the cross sectional bandwidth of this collection of 1000 machines by 50%, and keep those machines running and serving data."

<comment><USER11> I am building an OpenFlow-based fabric where the switches have no configuration; all decisions are made by the controller and pushed down to the switches as soft state. STP is not used, so no ports are ever blocked and all forwarding is shortest-path. The goal is to be fully dynamic so that adding links or switches triggers hitless path recomputation as necessary.

This technically doesn't come out until Tuesday, but here's a peek: [http://conferences.sigcomm.org/co- next/2012/eproceedings/con...](http://conferences.sigcomm.org/co- next/2012/eproceedings/conext/p49.pdf)

<comment><USER10> Ohh, that is very nice, thanks for the link. We happen to have G8264's at the center of our network ...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I've got a pet theory here that this is going to be a trend over the next few years. A lot of companies github's age were built on the "we misinterpreted devops as noops" attitude, which works great for a few years, but somewhere in the year 3 - 5 range the entropy and technical debt compound faster than a non existent or small/inexperienced ops team can keep up with.

<comment><USER18> Ops has been at the core of what GitHub does pretty much since day one. I'm not sure there's a team more celebrated within GitHub as our ops guys, to be honest.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is Cisco Nexus gear with Bridge Assurance enabled, probably 5K to 7K uplinks, IMHO

<comment><USER7> What odds are you giving on that?

      https://twitter.com/markimbriaco/status/276438853257162752

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Were you running LACP on the LAGs?

<comment><USER3> Yes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> GitHub is unresponsive as today, again.

<comment><USER3> Have you contacted support? We are not having any known problems today and our traffic patterns look normal.</comment></comment>


Amazon's carbon uptake declines as trees die faster - <AUTHOR> http://www.exeter.ac.uk/news/research/title_442151_en.html <comment><USER2> I thought rainforest is carbon neutral. Every tree is oxidized back to carbon dioxide after death. How can it absorb more carbon, than release? What is the sink?

<comment><USER3> Yes, trees die and immediately sublimate.

No, it turns out, decay is a long-term process, and much (most, even) of the carbon is taken up by the organisms that feed on that decay.

<comment><USER2> So, what happens when that organisms die? Carbon should be stored somewhere without contact with oxygen, for forest to be carbon absorber.

<comment><USER3> _So, what happens when that organisms die?_

Another organism feeds on its decay? Lather, rinse, repeat.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> So we're pretty much f'ed, right? [http://dark-mountain.net/](http://dark- mountain.net/)

<comment><USER5> Every single doom and gloom "unsustainable" claim I have looked into to date has been bunk.

<comment><USER6> Wald's unique insight was that the holes from flak and bullets on the bombers that did return represented the areas where they were able to take damage. The data showed that there were similar patches on each returning bomber where there was no damage from enemy fire, leading Wald to conclude that these patches were the weak spots that led to the loss of a plane if hit, and that must be reinforced.

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is not amazon deforested to make place for biofuel plantations?

<comment><USER3> Actually, much of the land in Brazil that's being used for biofuels was previously deforested for logging and cattle. Of the remainder, yes, some of it is biofuels, but the vast majority is simply logging, with agriculture (both crops and livestock) a distant second.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> You know, we could stop this nonsense in less than a year if we wanted to.

Do you know why we won't? Of course you do. You know the answers just as well as I do.

Firstly, you have to understand the role of the human ego. Some people like playing the revolutionary role, but many people don't. People who want revolution think the answer is to get other people to take up their cause, to think like they think, become committed to a just world.

Can you not see why it's ineffective? Can not see that all you end up doing is preaching to the converted?

If you want an fast, effective environmental revolution, you downplay the rhetoric. You make it mundane. You make it so people can join in without needing to act or think in a set way. You stop trying to fix everything all at once and you focus your efforts on breaking down the problems systematically.

As an example, think about how the conversations surrounding fossil fuel usage have evolved. At first the main argument was about global warming/climate change, how we must change to save the planet. It helped build awareness, debate, column inches in newspapers, etc... but the arguments were too easily swayed by climate change deniers, who could cherry pick various statistics in order to further their case. However, luckily we found a better argument... peak oil.

Peak oil is a simple concept to explain. We're using crude oil at a much faster rate than it's being produced, and there will come a tipping point after which we will have no choice to use less oil, as it'll be harder to come by and more expensive. The concept is simple, it stands up logically, you don't need to follow the latest developments in order to appreciate its validity, all positive points. But the most positive point at all, there's no cultural baggage that comes along with it. There's no lifestyle expectations that come from taking it to heart. It's a less emotionally stimulating idea, and it's all the more effective for it.

So let's look at this Amazon carbon capacity issue. Let's look at what works. Easy first focus, deforestation. People are cutting down trees in the Amazon rainforest in order to make a living. So you focus on giving those people other options to make a living, options that take away the need to cut down rainforest trees. Is it as cathartic as shouting in the streets about saving the rainforest? No. Is it more effective? You know the answer.

<comment><USER9> The world's environmental problems is ultimately a single over-consumption problem.

We consume too much:

* fossil fuels

* trees

* fish

* food & fertiliser & antibiotics

It'll be difficult to convince others to spend less. We're currently taxed on how much we extract the earth's resources for other's use. I think to solve the consumption problem this is the wrong way to go. It would align incentives more to tax consumption instead. This will better encourage people to not spend.

Of course this goes against what the ECB and the Federal reserve's objective, to increase GDP and thus, consumption, reducing our forests, increasing our CO2 output, and destroying our fisheries.

The world's capital and political system is aligned the wrong way around in creating a sustainable system to manage humankind's allocation of production and consumption. I think it will be too difficult to change the world, and the only thing I can do is to encourage my own frugality.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I am actually surprised that ecosystems on Earth somehow are in an equilibrium, with plants converting as much carbon back into oxygen as animals convert back, on a global scale.

I mean, how does evolution explain that? We once had a near exinction for anaerobic bacteria, because of all the oxygen they produced, at least that's the theory. But the feedback mechanism is through such a global thing (amount of CO2 in the atmosphere) that it is a wonder to me how the populations don't just enter a tragedy of the commons.

<comment><USER11> I don't think it's right to say that Earth is in "equilibrium"; it's always changing, with or without us (though it's changing faster with us).

 _But the feedback mechanism is through such a global thing (amount of CO2 in the atmosphere) that it is a wonder to me how the populations don 't just enter a tragedy of the commons._

If oxygen-using species generate more carbon dioxide, plants grow better, producing more oxygen. No tragedy of the commons here once the feedback is in place. We're also talking about geological time scales.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is it possible to create a man-made process to convert carbon into oxygen? Do we need to rely on plants?

<comment><USER13> It requires energy - plants use photosynthesis to harness sunlight, and then use the carbon to build more of themselves, a great positive feedback loop. We have no current technology that has anywhere near the ability to be as net- carbon negative as a plant

Now, if we had something like insanely-cheap fusion power, this would probably be a solvable problem. Otherwise I think some serious advances in nanotech would be required - you're talking about needing to pull 32.3 billion metric tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere per year just to offset our current emissions, much less pull the atmospheric ppm down from the dangerously high (and likely unstable) spot it's already at.

tl;dr the problem isn't getting carbon out of the atmosphere, the problem is being net-carbon for the entire process lifecycle while doing it

<comment><USER14> I'm about 40. Do you realize that people have been heralding nanotechnology as the solution to all these problems since I was 17? Same goes for fusion. I remember reading in Scientific American that fusion was just a few years off. that was over 20 years ago.

<comment><USER15> They keep fusion in the news as marketing for the uneconomical nuclear _fission_ power that we're actually forced to use. "Any day now, we won't be producing all this noxious waste!"

<comment><USER16> I'm sorry, but what noxious waste? You mean coal, right?

<comment><USER17> He meant the radioactive waste from nuclear fission (with an I) plants. If I picked up the argument correctly, fusion was never meant to work, it was just a smoke screen so that people would not look too closely at what the nuclear industry was actually doing.

I don't share that opinion, though I think nuclear fusion power production - at least in the scales that would matter for the project of human civilization - turned out to be much more harder to achieve than what anyone had expected 50 years ago; and that some hard questions about the practical feasibility of that option went unasked for far too long. Out of normal human nature, of course. No need to cry conspiracy!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> algae to the rescue!

<comment><USER19> [http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/08/140804-harmf...](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/08/140804-harmful- algal-bloom-lake-erie-climate-change-science/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> If a carbon-credit system ever gets off the ground, will Brazil have to buy credits from the USA with its steadily-growing forest cover?

</comment><comment><USER14> don't worry, i'm sure that we'll be able to just put it all back together again.

</comment><comment><USER20> One more reason to hate Jeff Bezos! Amazon's doing nothing to stop global warming (I'm kidding of course).

<comment><USER21> They must be sequestering a lot of carbon in all those cardboard boxes :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Oh well. We're screwed. It was nice while it lasted.

</comment><comment><USER23> It's hard to see when there is so much money in the way.</comment>


Please, John Oliver, Please Talk to a Real Nuclear Scientist - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2017/08/24/please-john-oliver-please-talk-to-a-real-nuclear-scientist/ <comment><USER2> John Oliver's point--which I will note had absolutely nothing to do with the safety of nuclear sites despite this article going off the path to defend them --is that while we have a strategy to store nuclear waste (with a designated national site for doing so), we haven't actually executed on that plan after many decades. His piece was not "anti-nuclear", and if someone wants to show that his arguments are wrong they also would be flying in the face of the scientists who put together the national plan.

Regardless, this author claims "please talk to a real nuclear scientist" and then provides not a single statement from a nuclear scientist on any topic at all, much less on the topic of "should we execute the national nuclear waste storage plan and how bad is it that we aren't making progress?"... this is essentially "trust this random reporter", and I personally do not think reporters are to be trusted sources with respect to science: that's how we have gotten into so much trouble to begin with :/. To put this another way: this article is, in my mind, even less scientific than John Oliver's skit, so I am flagging it for not being appropriate on this website.

<comment><USER3> First off, I emphatically agree with the top paragraph, but I'm not sure I would so quickly write off this guy's credentials. Not saying his background is unquestionable, but it does seem to deserve some credit.

> Dr. James Conca is an expert on energy, nuclear and dirty bombs, a planetary > geologist, and a professional speaker.

<comment><USER4> He also works for a company in the nuclear industry and frankly that byline is not all that impressive to me. "Professional speaker" is not a qualification, and "expert" is suitably wishy-washy at this point that it's nearly meaningless, especially when one uses it to describe oneself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > It's one of the least threatening issues facing our country, the one with > the lowest risk factors of any environmental threat. It's safer to work at a > nuclear site than to sit at a desk trading stocks

The relative safety is often brought up in this debate. It's technically correct, but fails to account for just how much damage a single incident can do. Chernobyl had 31 "direct" deaths and several hundred more due to radiation poisoning.

That looks good on paper, but does not account for the radioactive plume that has spread all over Europe. To this day I can find contaminated mushrooms and areas of increased radioactivity in Germany, about 1500km away from the reactor site. 30km around Pripyat are considered uninhabitable for 20000 years and cancer rates in Belarus and Ukraine are still way higher than elsewhere. The Dniepr is contaminated and the flow went all the way to the black sea.

It looks similar in Fukushima: Few direct deaths, a small exclusion zone, but the effects can be measured in the entire Pacific.

We must realize that even if nuclear power works out well w.r.t. Co2 and direct death count, it is fundamentally impossible to rule out the occurance of a catastrophe on par with Chernobyl or Fukushima. If something like that occurred in central Europe, mainland China or one of the US coasts, highly developped regions would be rendered partially uninhabitable and largely undesirable. This kind of damage is not accounted for in these kinds of articles.

<comment><USER6> Sure.

However, you are exactly falling victim of the illusion.

When you say "contaminated mushrooms and areas of increased radioactivity", do you have any idea how much damage such radio activity can cause? Is it really that serious at all?

When you say "catastrophe on par with Chernobyl or Fukushima", what exactly is the catastrophe? How can you quantify it? Is there any informed discussion?

Then go back to the point of the article: Talk to an expert... Stop acting like a manipulated mindless person...

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Disclaimer: while i'm not a physicist, i happen to date one working for plant security/contamination at Areva.

The claim about 70k tons of nuclear waste being uranium is frankly misleading. The author have to be aware of this, so i will not expand the discussion (because it could give him credit), but please be aware that the main part of nuclear waste is contaminated equipement, so very much not uranium.

In France, we consume several tons a year of screwdrivers hand hammers, and while our yucca montain equivalents are working, this is still a pain in the ass to get rid of this stuff. Maybe someone can explain how John Oliver is wrong, but please don't trust anything this guy write. i don't know much about nuclear waste, but if i am aware of this, there is no way a "specialist" is not.

</comment><comment><USER4> You can call it ad hominem and poisoning the well all day, and it is, but at the end of the day this dude backs up everything he says by linking to himself and doesn't even begin to talk about the biggest barrier to new plants (money). I can't figure out exactly where he works but the whole article smells fishy to me.

<comment><USER8> He doesn't even describe Oliver's claims in enough detail (let alone directly quote the segment) to make it especially clear what he's taking issue with. I watched that segment, and as far as I remember Oliver was talking about the risks of containment failure if we don't proceed with a long-term solution like Yucca Mountain, not just vaguely casting aspersions on nuclear power or even nuclear waste.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The article apear to fight non scientific claims on a comedy show with non scientific claims in a news site! Where is the science here? And 70000 tonnes of nuclear waste sounds like a lot to me? The claim that no one has ever died from nuclear waste also sounds suspect. Can anyone fill in the actual science behind this article?

<comment><USER10> Assuming the data given is correct:

The article seems to assume the waste is uranium, with a density of 19.1g/cubic centimeter.

That's roughly 3.325×10^9 cubic centimeters of waste (70000 tons / 19.1grams) in cubic centimeters, or 117421 cubic feet

1 acre, 10 feet high, is 435602 cubic feet.

So it's a little more than 1/4 acre, 10 feet high, filled with uranium.

IMHO, that is not a lot especially over 60 years.

<comment><USER11> Can one actually stack nuclear waste like that? It's my impression that some nuclear material cannot be stored too densely, otherwise it "goes critical" i.e. sustains an ongoing nuclear reaction.

<comment><USER3> Correct, you wouldn't be able to pack it that tightly together for the reason you theorized, but the point is it doesn't take a lot of space for the fuel itself. Radioactive waste is far more than just used fuel though as another person here has repeatedly pointed out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I don't think people comprehend the magnitude of the catastrophe we are facing from climate change. Even if nuclear is just as bad as the most hysterical critics say, it is peanuts compared to the alternative. We need to invest heavily in it, now.

Unfortunately I don't see the public changing its mind, so we will probably have to work with alternatives like wind and solar. But if the public embraced nuclear when it should have, we would be much further along.

</comment><comment><USER13> It's obviously the other extreme of this spectrum from Oliver's waste bit last week, but that doesn't make it useless. And yes, a lot of it addresses concerns with arguments Oliver didn't make.

On the other hand, the point about the volume of waste coal generates is probably well taken (though I'm guessing the numbers are hyperbolized, extrapolating from plants with outmoded scrubbing tech).

</comment><comment><USER14> Signed, a guy who makes his living pushing nuclear.

</comment><comment><USER15> Yes his segment was extremely disappointing. It amounted to a lot of fear- mongering, and I have to wonder why they wasted an episode on this when there are so many more real issues they could have discussed.

This is not the first time.

</comment><comment><USER16> > _I am hurt, though, that climate scientists get on all the cool shows, but > nuclear scientists just get dissed_

Perhaps that's because the former are actually fighting for science against an aggressive polluting industries and interests, whereas the other are mostly employed by, and often shill for, aggressive polluting industries and interests, science be damned.

> _It's one of the least threatening issues facing our country, the one with > the lowest risk factors of any environmental threat. It's safer to work at a > nuclear site than to sit at a desk trading stocks._

Taleb: "As we saw, a situation is deemed non ergodic here when observed past probabilities do not apply to future processes. There is a "stop" somewhere, an absorbing barrier that prevents people with skin in the game from emerging from it –and to which the system will invariably tend. Let us call these situations "ruin", as the entity cannot emerge from the condition. The central problem is that if there is a possibility of ruin, cost benefit analyses are no longer possible".

<comment><USER17> This comment is like...the definition of an ad-hominem attack.

<comment><USER16> Or, you know, the definition of an empirical observation. Which of the two, we will never know!

Besides, I find fallacies useful. In real life it is often beneficial (to the point of survival) to depend on some fallacy or another for course correction or quick decision making, and the naive "avoid fallacies at all costs" believer would end hurt more often than not.

In lots of cases, who says something is more important that what they say -- like when you don't have all the information on something, and don't have access or any way to check the numbers and run the tally by yourself, but are relying on information that people who have huge interests (and people who work for them) control.</comment></comment></comment>


Pandoc: universal document converter - <AUTHOR> http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/index.html <comment><USER2> One of the nifty applications of this is Gitit: store your files in a normal Git or Darcs repo, and then users can export the webpages in 16 formats.

And you can easily script it in Haskell - I wrote one plugin that archives external links in the Internet Archive & WebCitation, and another link which adds interwiki syntax to markdown, eg. '[Plato](!Wikipedia)' or '[abstruse](!Wiktionary)' or '[scanl](!Hoogle)' or '[gitit](!Hackage)'.

<comment><USER3> Did you extend Pandoc or Gitit? I would be very interested in extending/changing Pandoc slightly, but so far I got along with doing my changes with sed and writing some inline LaTeX.

If you extended Pandoc, do you mind giving a pointer to your source? I write Haskell poorly, so an example would be appreciated.

<comment><USER2> The plugins are bundled with Gitit. See:

[https://github.com/jgm/gitit/blob/master/plugins/Interwiki.h...](https://github.com/jgm/gitit/blob/master/plugins/Interwiki.hs)

<https://github.com/jgm/gitit/blob/master/plugins/Subst.hs>

[https://github.com/jgm/gitit/blob/master/plugins/WebArchiver...](https://github.com/jgm/gitit/blob/master/plugins/WebArchiver.hs)

They are meant for use with Gitit, but they are easily adapted for other purposes. For example, the archive code was easily adapted into a script to read Markdown files and spit out external links to stdout: [http://groups.google.com/group/pandoc- discuss/browse_thread/...](http://groups.google.com/group/pandoc- discuss/browse_thread/thread/42c29d0b66dcdb14/347498f0234cc1dc)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I use Hakyll & Pandoc to maintain a single README in github which is also the webpage for Solarized. A little sed magic in Hakyll converts the github links. Makes life much easier.

</comment><comment><USER5> Talk about Renaissance men: John Macfarlane's main activity lies in philosophy, and still he answers within hours most questions on the Pandoc mailing lists.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm actually writing my diploma thesis using Markdown and Pandoc. Some hacking is necessary (sed is so far sufficient), but it's a lot more pleasant then writing LaTeX directly.

<comment><USER6> I sometimes start writing papers in markdown using Pandoc too, but usually I eventually switch over to Latex when the formatting needs get more complicated. Still, it's a nice way to write. I love that Pandoc allows you to throw in arbitrary Latex markup wherever you want, easily allowing for math formulas and figure floats.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I used Pandoc to convert my online tutorial into a book for publishing:

<http://leanpub.com/learn-python/>

The whole process took about two minutes (pandoc converted all the HTML to basically perfect Markdown). I've told the guys who run leanpub about pandoc, hopefully they'll use it to compile all of its formats down to LaTeX so you can publish books much more easily.

</comment><comment><USER8> I used Pandoc at a previous job when I got frustrated with writing documentation for our customer in OpenOffice.

Instead, I started writing markdown and wrote a script that used Pandoc to convert it to LaTeX, insert headers/footers and company logo etc, and finally used latexmk to output PDFs. This looked far more professional than the word documents we shipped previously.

It also successfully separated content (markdown text files) from presentation (handled by script), making sure all PDFs had a consistent look.

With documentation being just another buffer in emacs it was more often written/sketched when implementing, instead of being a task to do last when you had already run out of time.

It is also much easier for developers to follow changes to the documentation in the version control system, and merges are a breeze instead of a time-sink.

</comment><comment><USER6> I use this all the time for running web pages (often blogs, as well as Project Gutenberg books and wikipedia pages) through LaTeX to convert them into a format more palatable on my ereader.</comment>


Ask HN: What keeps you from beginning your Start Up? - <AUTHOR> Let's set the stage here, as I'm sure most will be expecting a nice motivating pitch about why you should quit your job.  My purpose here is to find a way to keep one of our bright young stars from doing just that.
He wants to execute on his planned startup, and I want to provide all the same opportunities a startup offers, within my organization, so that there is no need to look elsewhere for it. So what motivates the decision to fire your boss?  And I do believe that people don't quit their jobs, they quit their boss.  But we should not get side tracked by the "quit your boss" thread: his decision to do a startup was made before he was hired, and he very openly shared his plans with us and we made our offer anyway. He signed, and now the deadline he set on day one is approaching.
Is it the opportunity to make more money?  Possibly over a long distant event horizon, but his startup is unlikely to match the salary potential of the next two to three years.
Is it ownership / equity?  Stock options are available, thus it is possible to use this incentive to  keep him within our engineering team.
Is it responsibility?  His career path can include that too, and I'd be happy to start transferring more  on to his shoulders.
Is it influence, decision making, and direction setting?  Well, we kinda fall down there.  Many cooks in this kitchen, and most have greater influence than is available to him.  His voice is heard of course, and great ideas are easy to spot no matter who they come from, but if he expects his voice to win out every time I can't provide any assurances that it will be so.
Have I missed anything?
Let's not forget the other things that corporate life provides that Start Ups simply can't compete against:  we've got cash which means all your standard developer care and feeding: snacks, beverages, free lunches.  With cash comes profit sharing, job security, benefits, paid vacations, etc.  We've got lots of people in the office too and that adds to your daily life experiences:  co-workers become friends become family. And he's got me, and many others, as advocates within the company trying to show that we are invested in his career and will support him no matter which path he chooses. <comment><USER2> Nothing, I'm on my second one.

Oh, and to answer your question, what made me go start my own business is I couldn't stand the way things were done in the big corp world.

I'm impatient. I want to get things done. I want to achieve things. I cannot stand the idea of being given orders. I have no respect for authority, only for competence. I want to realise my potential. The tedious and endless game of corporate politics bullshit is just a problem to be solved, as I see it. And one valid solution for it is to get out. This game just isn't worth the candle. What do you get for learning the ropes of the politics game? More politics. It's self-defeating. "The only way to win is not to play".

The corporate world also has a well earned reputation for being bland and boring. All the dishonesty and obsequiousness that comes out of needing to maintain a "normal" image makes it conforming like a mass of grey goo. Embrace weirdness and difference. Accept the idea that exceptional people are not normal. Then maybe it'll be less bland.

I haven't looked back since I quit. Life is so much more varied and interesting. I only ever do things that I think are worth doing. I work at my own pace (which is 10x faster than anything I ever observed in the corporate world). I work exclusively with brilliant people, doing something which I think is worthwhile.

Even if there wasn't more money in the long term, this is an infinitely preferable lifestyle.

What about you, yourself, who asked this question? Why do you stick around in this corporate world? If you're wondering why all these people are leaving, maybe you should go and find out for yourself. Believe me, it's worth it.

<comment><USER2> Oh yeah, and one more thing...

 _all your standard developer care and feeding: snacks, beverages, free lunches._

Really? At your company, can I stay in bed or spend the day doing something else when I hit one of those days when I don't feel like working? Can I work in my dressing gown? Can I prepare my own food in my own kitchen? Can I have a 10-second commute from my bedroom to my office? Can I have a nap whenever I want to? A 2-hour nap?

Perks-wise, working in most corporations doesn't hold a candle to working for yourself.

<comment><USER3> Well, I get all of these, except for the preparing food part( which I anyways can't). And I work for a really big company :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't think startup people are "quitting their boss" (i.e. running FROM something), but they are rather running TO something that is magical and not entirely rationale. Statistically/financially, it's a dumb decision to start a startup-- but it doesn't matter. You can sit down, run the numbers, make pro/con lists-- but it doesn't matter. You've already lost. Here's what you can't match:

1) The big win. You can heap stock options on him, but your board will block you from giving a dev more than 1% or so, I presume.

2) His baby. His own company. A sense of TRUE ownership.

3) A clean slate. New companies/new products are more fun than existing ones for a lot of people.

4) Having ANY boss. Everyone rolls their eyes at even the best boss SOMETIMES. The irony is that, if he succeeds, he'll be that boss. But it's a great feeling to NO MATTER what, be able to fix something that organizationally broken if you think it's important. To be where the buck stops.

5) Fame/notoriety. Some people are motivated by this. If your startup wins, he'll be an unnamed dev in a winning startup. If his startup wins, he'll be the guy the led it there. Either way, it feels WAY cooler to say "I own my own company" when someone says, "so what do you do?".

Doing a startup isn't a sensible CAREER decision... It's a largely emotional lifestyle decision.

<comment><USER5> | 2) His baby. His own company. A sense of TRUE ownership.

I'm surprised that more people aren't making this point.

I think it's common among entrepreneurs to take ownership of some idea -- not in terms of stock or revenue, but more like parenthood -- and want to see it through to completion, on their terms, their way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> _Have I missed anything?_

Yeah, you've missed everything. It's a nice idea to try and give an employee what he's looking for from a startup within your corporate environment, but it's just not possible. Corporate employees exist to build wealth for someone else. That's just the reality of the situation. There are a lot of benefits that come with corporate life, primarily stability, but if he wants freedom, he won't get it working for someone else. When I was an employee, I had to remind myself that every benefit and incentive was an addicting trap, designed to keep me from leaving. A steady paycheck will erode an entrepreneur's soul over time, because you come to rely on it and striking out on your own is that much harder.

To be clear, I think it's commendable that you're trying to provide a great environment for your employees, but I think the best case scenario here is that you'll work hard to keep him, and you might succeed, but something inside him will die a little and he'll always wonder if he made the right choice. Why not just let him go give it a shot? I think it'll cost you more in the long run to fight it than it would to just get a new employee.

And I know we don't want to get sidetracked on this, but entrepreneurs do not "quit their boss". They absolutely do quit their jobs because they long for the freedom and rush of creating something on their own, no matter how awesome their boss is. If you disagree, perhaps that indicates more about the difference between a corporate and entrepreneurial mindset than anything else.

</comment><comment><USER7> Be the first to fund his startup.

This is one mistake employers do. Do not try to retain him. If he wants it enough (and in this case he does) he will sooner or later find a way to make it happen.

Join him. Give him office space. You can still use his brain while he is around.

EDIT: Entrepreneurs should also not be afraid to share their ambitions with their boss. That is only if your boss started his own business. You may find a new partner in your boss. Remember that those who made it always want to help others make it as well. They will see themselves in you and noone can resist that.

<comment><USER5> That's really not a bad idea at all. I don't know all of the circumstances of their situation, but they might be able to set something up where jmagar will earnestly support and help launch his employee's startup, for a share of the action. While the startup's getting off the ground, the employee might be able to continue a few responsibilities at the company.

I know I would have jumped at a chance like that, mostly because I was scared witless of being without a regular paycheck.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> For me, it's freedom. And only he can give that to himself. I would say your best option is to support his decision, but give him a big welcoming door to walk back in if his startup doesn't work out. Sometimes people with the drive to do things on their own need to try it first, and maybe it won't work out for him. Then he will come back to your company with that much more experience, plus he will be more invested in your company emotionally as you supported him along the way.

It's hard to lose good people, but even harder to see somebody leave their dreams on the table.

</comment><comment><USER9> Im in Peru, so I first have to figure out a way to move to a startup hub and only then can I start. I'm possibly going for a scholarship to do a masters, which would delay me (I must finish it, being a scholarship I can't drop out), but at least would get me there. This is kinda frustrating, because to get a scholarship I must have good grades, but studying steals hacking time...

In the meantime, I'm honing my programming skills. I've been programming for a while now, I'd say that I'm intermediate. I know Pascal, C, Python, and bits of Java, C# and Lisp (I'll look deeper into this one though). My main objective now is to design and code larger apps.

<comment><USER10> As someone who makes fun of folks who say "{place} is just as good for startups as SV", I want to point out that you don't have to move to a startup hub to do a startup.

There are advantages to doing a startup where you are. If/when you move, it will take you a while to learn as much as you currently know about the resources where you are now. In addition, you can start now instead of waiting.

<comment><USER9> There's just no way to rise funds here :(

My plan is to program some big stuff myself, so as to learn about design; read the code of some open source software, to learn how others design; and program something from scratch with someone else and submit patches to an OS software, to learn how to work with other hackers. I hope that teaches me what I need.

<comment><USER10> (1) Don't do a startup that requires raising funds. (2) You probably can't raise funds in SV either.

While there are many things that are easier to build in SV, there are things that are easier to build elsewhere.

More to the point, people who build things in SV could almost certainly build things other places, they'd just build different things. If you can't build anything where you are, is it really reasonable to think that you could build something in SV?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm still in high school, but this summer i had a chance of getting a job. I didn't get one, instead i decided that i need to learn to program better and learn a few new languages. I also learned to draw, and I've been working on my writing style and my English. I also learned a lot of otter stuff(how to meditate for example). I don't know if I'll ever get a "real job", but I'll avoid it if i can. I probably will get one eventually, money is not useless. We like adventure more, and don't like having a boss in general(or any other authority figure for that matter). We are not afraid of failure, if we fail, big deal, we can take it(job security is for people who are afraid of change). I don't know how many hackers are like this, but from what I read on HN, there are a lot of them. You should ask your hacker about his plan, he may have good reasons.

<comment><USER12> I really recommend you take a real job at some point in your life for at least 6 months.

Some of the best lessons in life come from contrast. Being able to remember what it was like at a regular job provides a lot of motivation for people to continue working hard at their own company. You will also learn some good lessons about what to do, what not to do and make contacts.

<comment><USER13> One of the "best" corporate experiences I had was when I worked for BMW for 5 months. I now understand how large corporate engineering companies work, and that I NEVER want to work for one. Sometimes you have to do something that sucks, so that you know that you don't want to do that and to look out for it in the future.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Savings is the most important thing...once you have enough savings you can walk out.

If you really want to keep the guy around, make it easy for him to do his startup while he still works for you. i.e. have him spend 60% of the time working on your stuff, and 40% of the time are free for him to work on his startup. If he gets that security he'll probably stick around.

And chances are he'll be able to provide the same amount of productivity during that time.

</comment><comment><USER15> For me it's the need to try and do something for myself, and to do something that is excellent - something I'm proud of.

I've been in large corporates for 10 years. A corporate can basically never compete against this kind of desire (which, is actually quite rare).

Even though I've got more senior over the years, you just end up with less control over more - until you reach the point that you're just a powerpoint jockey.

It's almost impossible to do something innovative at a large corporate - because of the inertia and the massive amount of consensus building that's required to do anything different. Pure design doesn't exist, it's an exercise in compromise.

That's not meant to knock it. The environment suits many (i.e most) people. It won't suit everyone though.

Personally, I've never found going over the top to keep someone around is a good idea - If someone wants to leave to broaden their horizons, I'd encourage it.

Sometimes they leave and succeed - then they're a great person to keep in contact with. Sometimes they leave and it doesn't work out - in this case they sometimes come back, and usually a much better and more capable person for the experience.

</comment><comment><USER16> Have you ever made him do something in a specific way, because of "enterprise"-reasons, politics and "that's the way we do it" instead of arguments?

Do you make him run windows, when he'd rather use a Mac or Linux, because he has to use Visual Studio? Did he ever suggest that you do a project in Ruby or Python, to be told that "we're a Java shop"?

Do you have bureaucratic rules? Do you make him punch in and out, and log time down to the minute? Are certain websites blocked because they are not work- related?

Is the working environment pleasant. Are you six developers and two PMs on cheap chairs and small tables, in a 300 sq ft office, with hard floors and no sound dampening?

Is management not only a step up in salary and responsibility, but also access to unrelated perks like a better chair?

But mostly, I think, it was the "talk the talk" about creative minds, and not walk a single step of the road, that made sick of that place.

</comment><comment><USER17> a good idea keeps me from starting my next startup right now.

i've said this many times before here, but one of the biggest things that prevent people from starting a startup is the instability of the startup. the family man or person with larger financial responsibilities will usually need the steady paycheck.

some of the pro-big-company arguments that you make are off the mark.

make more money? yes, in the short term. with the risk of a startup, there's potential for great reward, especially if the company gets acquired.

ownership/equity? those are nice, but you typically get more with a startup.

responsibility? career path? sure, you get some control, but not nearly as much as you will in a startup with a small team. you get to do so much more when working on a startup.

influence? again, so few people, your voice counts way more, especially if you're an expert at something.

company benefits/culture? they don't even compare. a company can pay for lunch, great, but that doesn't mean that they understand what the people want (my company is a good example of that). "paid vaccations"? typical startups don't track hours and you take off the time that you need when you need it. just get your work done.

</comment><comment><USER18> Offer him a pathway. Making a startup will be hard on him, so if you offer a soft job and allow him time to work on his ideas, he will stay.

But if he has the bug, he will leave at some point. You can't hold down a ramblin man...

</comment><comment><USER19> Your post in and of itself is why your employee wants to found a startup. Instead of sitting down directly with him and saying, "What will it take to keep you here?" and listening to the nitty gritty of what he wants for himself, which would totally make your post here unncessary, you are posting here, trying to convince everyone bullet by bullet why corporate life is the shiz and looking for someone to hand you some magical answer that you can whisper in his ear to get him to continue working for you.

Look at it this way; people don't leave companies when they:

a) Have a vested interest in staying (they share in the rewards) b) They believe in the company's vision. c) They believe the company is run by competent individuals who can execute that vision.

</comment><comment><USER20> The freedom to develop code I want to in the manner I wish to. Enough of the usual crappy corporate tools/procedures/apathy.

To be judged on what I produce not how many hours I'm in the office.

Rewards equal to my contribution, this is where corporations fall down completely. If I'm ten times more productive than my team mates why am I not rewarded in such a manner OR to be more truthful I will not put in any more effort than is needed to secure my position in the corporate hierarchy. So I dutifully do what I consider a mediocre amount of work and yet am rewarded in the top 10%

I couldn't care less for the crappy soda and chips or a paid lunch. Pay me the money and I'll decide how I wish to spend it.

</comment><comment><USER21> I like to create new things; develop new ideas and build them. In most jobs, you are but a cog in the machine, and have relatively little creative allowance. I just churn out code per requirements, or test code per requirements, or write requirements per requirements. Not a whole lot of in- depth thinking seems to occur.

Personal time off, and ability to set my own schedule. In a job, my ability to take time off to travel, do volunteer work, do research, whatever, is not so much limited by a lack of money as it is by a lack of formal vacation time. If I want to take two months off a year, and have the money to do so, then I want to be able to do it. If I want to set my own hours to best suit other things in my life, I don't want to be confined to the general expectation of 8-5 M-F.

And yes, money does play a factor. In most jobs, you and your peers make the same salary plus or minus 5%, regardless of how hard you work or how inventive you are. If I can work harder and/or smarter and produce something worth more money to more people, then why should I not reap the financial benefits of my labor?

There certainly are advantages to working at a regular job, among them fairly reliable income and insurance benefits and what-not. But even so, employment can be fickle. If "the economy" turns sour, your job may not be as stable as it seems.

(Actually, I would advocate spending time running multiple diverse business projects, to help balance out "the economy".)

</comment><comment><USER22> This may sound glib, but have you asked him?

Have you explored with him, with you in a Coaching/Mentoring role, where he sees himself heading; who he sees himself being; what effects he sees himself making over the next year / 2 years / 5 years / at retirement?

Once you have the answers to those (and he may not have fully considered these things himself, to that degree of clarity and detail), you can then work together to see if any options exist where you both get what you want.

</comment><comment><USER23> It's an incorrect assumption that you can't work on a startup while working at a company. If you have a boring 8 hour day job, you still have _sixteen_ hours left in the day. The first 8 hours may be mind-numbing and leave you exhausted and incapable of independant thought, but focus hard enough and you can get a decent 6-8 hours for a quality coding spree _at minimum_. You just have to get used to the work.

<comment><USER24> _If you have a boring 8 hour day job, you still have sixteen hours left in the day._

Of course, you're going to spend 6-8 hours out of those 16 sleeping. And 1-4 hours travelling to and from work. And 0.5-1 hours preparing and eating breakfast and dinner (I'm assuming you have lunch during your 8 hours at work). And at least 0.5 hours showering/shaving/brushing teeth/getting dressed/etc.

 _focus hard enough and you can get a decent 6-8 hours for a quality coding spree at minimum_

If you only need 6 hours/day of sleep and live five minutes from where you work, sure. But for most people there simply aren't enough hours in the day to stay alive while working two full-time jobs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> A start up is desirable because:

1) Chance for a life changing payday, that could free you from the burden of working (if that were desirable - I have a theory that working is more fun when it isn't required).

2) Ability to control how the game is played. You don't want to lose because you were forced to follow someone else's direction - if you lose it should be your own damn fault.

If you can create these two things in a big company, let me know :)

</comment><comment><USER26> Risk. I'm risk-averse (as most people who objectively have it pretty good are). I have shit to loose.

Bureaucracy. I hate that I can't just do something. Ironically, the level of bureaucracy might be less at my job than if I worked for myself because if I work for myself I have to do lots of crap like dealing with laws that govern companies. I could hire a lawyer/accountant, but that gets back to Risk.

Sites like this. They make you think too much about scaling and building for a billion users. Databases don't scale. None of them. You do have to turn to a dumber object store at some point and loose a lot of query power. I'm moving past this mental roadblock.

Winner-take-all economies. A lot of what I would like to create isn't likely to result in money. This isn't because they don't have value. It's because they aren't good without lots of users. This is the most aggravating. Once users are using one thing, even if you're better, they just use that one thing for the same reason that more data trumps better algorithms.

</comment><comment><USER27> What stops me starting a business or even working for a startup?

A 6 month old daughter and a wife who's been made redundant. All dreams and ambitions play second fiddle to keeping your family alive.

My day job was a smallish business that got bought out by one of the largest IT companies in the world and the birth rate has shot up dramatically since we were acquired.

</comment><comment><USER28> I work 30 hours a week. I'm taking a heavier course load than I ever have. And to top it off, I'm in a semi-long-distance relationship (3 hour drive) and make every effort to see my SO.

My current job isn't so bad, either. The pay is peanuts, but it isn't "corporate" (100-ish employees, but just 6 in my department) and they've been great about working around my school schedule for the last 4 years.

So yeah, jumping feet-first into entrepreneurial waters is appealing to me for all the usual reasons, but I just don't have the time to devote to it right now. And weekends are off limits, too.

I should have more time in the spring, but Spring Fever usually starts early for me. :)

</comment><comment><USER29> I jump between working for myself and working for other people somewhat regularly.

Right now for example, I have what I think is the perfect job. The pay is good, I work on interesting problems, I drive all the dates and functionality; basically I am getting paid to make all the IT decisions and I have enough budget to do things the way I want to do them.

But even though I have the perfect job, it still feels like servitude. So, at some point I'll have the next idea I think is worth striking out to try, and I'll be gone. It won't be because I dislike my job; but it will be because it's in my genes to go out to the frontier and pan for gold.

</comment><comment><USER30> _Is it influence, decision making, and direction setting? Well, we kinda fall down there. Many cooks in this kitchen, and most have greater influence than is available to him. His voice is heard of course, and great ideas are easy to spot no matter who they come from, but if he expects his voice to win out every time I can't provide any assurances that it will be so._

That's probably the biggest one, if I had to guess. I don't know what this individual's motivations are, but if he has his heart set on something you're best not to pull a subtly different direction, the impedance match will eventually cause something to give, and maybe not on the best terms.

Now, maybe you can flip this from a specific role to a personnel management pattern.

You've clearly found someone who has been a valuable member of your team. You might believe that some of the things that would make someone a good entrepreneur would make them a good employee for your company, and from the outside, at least, that seems pretty sane. Someone who is intelligent, has drive, and is interested in all aspects of the business seems like the kind of person you'd want to have working for you.

If you know you can't hold on to good people like this forever, maybe you could build a culture of growing people up and out. I don't think it would take a whole lot -- open, "face-up" handling of the business in the presence of your employees, a positive attitude towards contractors, mentoring and maintaining good relationships after they've left, and the opportunity to come back should the gig not work out and you have a position available, are all non-cash things that seem to basically be heresy to the standard beige manager, and I can't for the life of me figure out why. They also are generally things that you can do toward the end of the employee relationship where you appear to be now.

Don't throw him out of the nest, of course, but definitely encourage him to spread his wings. Think of it as putting a little "Sponsored By: OurCo, Inc" on his brain. He'll either fail at his task and possibly come back as a better, more mature employee, or he'll soar, and he'll be thinking of your company in a positive light when he is networking like no tomorrow. Sounds like a win for you either way. :)

</comment><comment><USER31> _Let's not forget the other things that corporate life provides that Start Ups simply can't compete against: we've got cash which means all your standard developer care and feeding: snacks, beverages, free lunches. With cash comes profit sharing, job security, benefits, paid vacations, etc._

These are the kinds of things that "concerned" family and friends will point out. They're nice things, but I think the arguments about their value just amount to FUD to a person longing to make a move. They are reasons not to leave, not reasons to stay.

</comment><comment><USER32> The security blanket is nice and its probably what keeps most people in their place in a kind of Matrix mentality. Startups only offer the truth of what you dare to be vs what the blue pill offers you.

He has you, and all that corporate goodness but thats just it, you have him. He needs more.

I think only thing you're missing here is the sheer creation aspect. Creating, manifesting that did not exist before and won't go beyond your napkin sketch unless you take it somewhere.

</comment><comment><USER33> Depending on how far you're willing to go with this, there is the best of both worlds. Give him command over a group. If they get somewhere, offer the chance to lead a spinoff.

The other thing that'll hold a hacker in a job is a hot wife and a good family life. A man's focus can change over life, and one can prefer to put their heart there instead of in the industry. Of course, there are few legal ways to work in this area...

</comment><comment><USER34> I'm slow to develop mine for the worst reason in the world: I can't program.

Oh, don't get me wrong. I have a coder's mind. I'm content with sitting down for hours and nitpicking code until it works just fine. It's just that I don't know the languages I need to know, and so development happens slowly.

It's happening, don't get me wrong. But if I could actually program, this thing would be out in a week, rather than a month or more.

<comment><USER35> I'm wondering if you have the same issue I do, the day job is pulling more of your programming bandwidth than you think it is.

In my case I'm dealing with a virtual river of shit, and when I get home, I don't want to touch the computer at all. And when I do make time for programming, it's very hard to get into flow because it's usually 'sandwich time' stuck between other responsibilities.

<comment><USER34> I've got something similar. I'm in college, just started, and there's a prevalent feeling that spending hours in your room not being social is a bad thing. When I DO get in front of the computer, it's harder to push forward.

Progress is happening, though, so I'm optimistic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> _Have I missed anything?_

Yes.

No matter how pretty you make your diapers, they still have _your_ baby's shit in them.

Entrepreneurs want to change their own babies' diapers.

<comment><USER27> And parents just want to be able to afford diapers - so a risky startup with long hours and little immediate pay, is very hard pill to swallow. Startups are great in your early twenties (I worked in 3 -- all bust now) but your life (hopefully!) won't always remain as carefree. For most people, 30's and 40's are a different matter altogether.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> To join the several comments here: let him work on his startup part-time (20-40%) during work hours, as long as he gets his responsibilities done. I've quantified this idea a bit in a blog post: <http://blog.ezlearnz.com/post/40316576/the-6-hour-workday>

</comment><comment><USER38> I would agree that most people quit their boss and not their job, there's empirical evidence to support this. However it isn't true all the time. I'm wondering if what he wants to do more interesting to him than what he is doing at the moment? Does it scratch his itch?

</comment><comment><USER39> Freedom. You can't keep someone employed that values freedom. A startup offers freedom from being a "wage-slave". It offers liberation from indentured servitude and if that is what your employee values, nothing you do will satisfy him.

</comment><comment><USER40> If you don't think you can stop him, don't try to fight it. Let him quit, and work out a part-time consulting deal. If you really think so highly of this guy, offer to become his first client and maybe invest in his new venture.

</comment><comment><USER41> I have been working for more than a decade in startups, and when folks as me why im still continuing doing so, simple answer is- the passion and the drive to work on something innovate, that, someday will change the world.

</comment><comment><USER42> Procrastination.

</comment><comment><USER43> Sometimes it not as much about money as it is control of your destiny and the ability to do interesting work

</comment><comment><USER44> 20% to do whatever you want (as long as it makes things better), kept me in the corporate environment ...

</comment><comment><USER45> Knowledge. I believe it is very important to know the code behind the startup.

</comment><comment><USER10> Why is it so important for you to keep him?

</comment><comment><USER46> A killer idea.</comment>