The average iOS app - <AUTHOR> http://daveaddey.com/?p=893

<comment><USER3> When it comes to games, originality is a crucial factor that's frequently overlooked. It's difficult for indie devs to compete against licensed properties (e.g. Temple Run: Brave) or against freemium games that can throw a lot of money on user acquisition. Creating truly original or interesting games is one way to compete against them. Unfortunately, the typical reaction is to just do a spin on high grossing casual games (e.g. Fruit Ninja) leading to a price war and generally low revenues.

When we made our running game, Zombies, Run!, we had absolutely no interest in competing with the freemium or 99c games - we don't have the properties or resources to do that. Instead, we made a game that straddles the fitness, gaming, and storytelling genres. We also charged $7.99, making it the most expensive game in the Top 200 Grossing today (even more expensive than Minecraft).

Part of the reason why we can do this is because we basically have no competitors - although obviously that made it a little harder to educate the market. I'm sure we will get competition, but the skills required to make the game (iOS dev, web dev, award-winning author, voice actors, sound producers, community support) are not trivial to find and organise.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, people _will_ pay for an app that they think is original and worthwhile, and not just on iOS but Android as well (we're very happy with our Android sales).

<comment><USER4> I completely disagree. Angry Birds, quite possibly the most successful mobile game to date, is a completely unoriginal title that just looks prettier than most of its competitors.

You cannot simply attribute your success to originality, without looking at the other 650,000 apps and ranking them by originality as well, and then correlating that with success.

I would predict that originality falls behind a large handful of other factors when it comes to calculating the success of a mobile game. I would not be surprised if originality was not a statistically significant factor in a game's success.

<comment><USER5> Angry Birds was the first game of its kind that _tons of people actually played_. The fact that it looks prettier than the competitors is the reason _why_ people actually played it. They pulled an Apple.

If there is an original game out there that is not catching on, it's likely that you can take it and do it better, and finally get traction. This still means it's an original game _to the players_.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What the analysis is missing, in my opinion, is sufficient emphasis on the age of the iOS App Store. Not only has the $5 billion has been paid out over four years - meaning even a 1% app won't necessarily replace a decent job in a Western European country or the US - but also that much of that 1% has probably gone to apps that are no longer in existence due to changes to the approval process, the developer agreement, the API, or simply the maturing marketplace - i.e. 650k represents the current number of apps in the marketplace not the total number of apps which have offered over the past four years.

That's not to say the analysis isn't a useful back of envelope calculation. Because what it shows is that the economics of the app store probably favor developing many lower quality apps in places with low cost of living - <USER2> where a few hundred dollars is significant income.

<comment><USER7> The article is not clear on this. But the data from the image is unrelated to the stat of 5 billion. The data was compiled over 7 days from 252 respondent 1 year ago. From that data, the median life time revenue of an app is about $3,000 and the distribution on revenue is a long tailed one. The OP is also misleading in that you can't assume a uniform distribution in each bucket. Quite likely the same uneven long tailedness would appear at each level.

[http://www.streamingcolour.com/blog/2011/09/28/results- ios-g...](http://www.streamingcolour.com/blog/2011/09/28/results-ios-game- revenue-survey/)

<comment><USER6> The article is pretty clear. The income distribution data in the image is extrapolated across the entire App Store.

 _"Before reading the rest of this post, bear in mind that these numbers are not necessarily accurate, and may not be representative of other categories in the App Store. However, if they were representative, the back of our napkin would give a very different split from the default assumed position:"_

        1% of apps (6,500) would be sharing 36% of revenue
          ($1.75bn), i.e. an average of $269,230 per app
        19% of apps (123,500) would be sharing 61% of revenue
          ($3.05bn), i.e. an average of $24,696 per app
        80% of apps (520,000) would be sharing 3% of revenue
          ($150m), i.e. an average of $288 per app

<comment><USER7> Sorry you're right, on that aspect I was mistaken. But the caveats listed in the thread and the weakness of the assumption of a uniform distribution in each bucket makes it difficult to draw any meaningful conclusions beyond what the original article had. That is, I don't think the mean is useful at any level.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _19% of apps (123,500) would be sharing 61% of revenue ($3.05bn), i.e. an average of $24,696 per app._

So, as a skilled iOS developer you can get a salaried job or work on contract and _easily_ pull down $100k/year.

Or, you can bank on hitting 4 near home runs a year with your own apps.

Which sounds like the smart bet?

<comment><USER9> For me, this not an IF-ELSE question since you could do both.

Furthermore you aquire many new skills while doing so, which will make you more employable and thus increases your future income.

<comment><USER8> Sure. Having a few apps in the store makes it a lot easier to land a job or a client.

Just don't bet your mortgage on app revenue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> As someone exploring the prospect of app sales as a career (working on my third app now, supplementing it with consulting work), I'm quite heartened by this article. There's a tenacious belief within the indie game-dev circles I bump around in that the _only_ way to profit from iOS sales is to win the top- ten lottery and join the 1% this article describes.

But the real story that Addey tells here says that Sturgeon's Law is in full effect in the App Store: if you can make your app _not crap_, if you can rise above the dross that inevitably makes up 80 to 90 percent of any sizable collection of creative work, then people will buy it. And if you're willing to act wisely and keep working at it, always pushing out more quality, care- driven stuff, then you can succeed.

This is what I want to do.

</comment><comment><USER11> There really seems to be a meme at the moment for stories about how difficult it is to make money on the iOS / Mac app store. Ever since the sparrow acquisition, it seems like every day there's another similar story on the front page of HN about how hard it is to make money there. Which, unfortunately for me, is quite discouraging because i'm about to launch an iPhone app in a week :(

<comment><USER12> Making iphone apps used to be good a few years ago when the store first opened. Not so much now. Earning $0.70 per sale is just not enough. And that's if your app can even be found. It's even worse with Android. With mobile overtaking PCs, it's a slightly depressing thought about the direction the software industry has taken.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> There are "tons" of free apps on the App Store. Either completely, honest to God free, or ad-supported (usually from Google, so they're not paid by Apple)...

</comment><comment><USER14> I wonder what the numbers would look like if we did the same calculations for websites instead of apps. Of course, it would be practically impossible to do but I bet that at least 99% of revenues would come from <1% of websites.

</comment><comment><USER15> "1% of apps were making 36% of the revenue." Occupy the App Store.

</comment><comment><USER16> Two things:

1\. The calculation averages the gains throughout ALL apps - given the vast majority of the apps are free, that means the paid ones are getting a lot more revenue (individually)

2\. It doesn't take into consideration advertising revenues (admob et all), which represent a considerable chunk of revenue for a lot of apps...

</comment><comment><USER17> I think these results look great. Does anyone who's browsed the App Store really think that more than 1 in 5 paid games are even vaguely compelling? No, most of them are rubbish. The real story is, if these statistics are to be accepted, that there's _one hundred thousand games_ earning real money. I'm genuinely impressed.

</comment><comment><USER18> Power law at work?

</comment><comment><USER19> This doesn't seem to factor out the truly/intentionally free apps (i.e. no charge and no IAP). Doesn't that make the number of apps in each category too high and, hence, the revenue per app too low?

<comment><USER8> It does. Read the linked study. These are all non-free games.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Paraphrasing Tim Bray, selling bags of bits is probably not a good business model for most of the people. (Unless you have draconian DRM measures in places.)

</comment><comment><USER21> How much does quality matter in terms of iOS marketshare? Or is it mainly marketing driven?

For example, if I have time but not money and invest lots of time into creating a high quality iOS app for a niche market does it stand a chance or rising to the top or will it simply fall into obscurity without being featured by apple etc?

<comment><USER8> The app market is _extremely_ competitive now. You need a quality app _and_ a serious marketing effort to make real money. Just tossing an app up on the store among 600k other contenders isn't going to get you far.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Not sure why this is surprising. If we could take out the apps that didn't try to make money (or could somehow run an experiment where all apps were paid), I wouldn't be surprised if the revenue distribution followed the 80-20 rule.</comment>


Marissa Mayer interviewed by Michael Krasny on KQED Forum [mp3] - <AUTHOR> http://kqed02.streamguys.us/anon.kqed/radio/forum/2008/04/2008-04-23b-forum.mp3

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting bits: 1\. Genesis of Don't Be Evil 2\. GMail/Privacy 3\. 1-800-GOOG-411 as a speech recognition AI lab 4\. The Google Jet</comment>


Men resist green behavior as unmanly - <AUTHOR> https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/men-resist-green-behavior-as-unmanly/ <comment><USER2> Wow! That surprises me. I'm a guy and I actively think about the environment. But ive never been concerned about appearing unmanly because of this.

I think most of my guy friends are similar. Based on this, I question the robustness of the survey. I know my friends and I are a small sample size. But the article referenced a small study size too.</comment>


Hacker News Feed Broken - <AUTHOR>

In the RSS/XML <https://news.ycombinator.com/rss> the forward slashes in URLs is being escaped, breaking the links in my reader. <comment><USER2> So, the changes are my fault, but the escapes are valid XML[1][2]. I'd recommend using a better reader. Both Google Reader and Mozilla Thunderbird work fine for me.

[1] [http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/REC-xml11-20060816/#dt- escape](http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/REC-xml11-20060816/#dt-escape)

[2] [http://validator.w3.org/feed/check.cgi?url=https%3A%2F%2Fnew...](http://validator.w3.org/feed/check.cgi?url=https%3A%2F%2Fnews.ycombinator.com%2Frss)

<comment><AUTHOR> Rawdog's author has filed a bug [1] against feedparser.

[1]: [https://code.google.com/p/feedparser/issues/detail?id=407](https://code.google.com/p/feedparser/issues/detail?id=407)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Twitter bot hasn't updated in about 2 days. Sadness.

<comment><USER4> I made a new one at [https://twitter.com/HackerNewsYCBot](https://twitter.com/HackerNewsYCBot)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Which reader do you use? Is HN open source?

<comment><AUTHOR> I use RawDog, but it's HN that is sending links that look like this:

<link>http://stockman.house.gov/media-center/press- releases/stockman-requests-subpoena-of-nsa-s-white-house-irs-phone- logs</link></comment></comment>


Anthropogenic Space Weather - <AUTHOR> https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11214-017-0357-5 <comment><AUTHOR> Journalistic context, an article explaining its significance to general audience [http://www.sciencealert.com/nasa-space-probes-have- detected-...](http://www.sciencealert.com/nasa-space-probes-have-detected-a- human-made-barrier-shrouding-earth)</comment>


Seriously, Stop packing so much - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@jamesturnerux/seriously-stop-packing-so-much-8cbd64458946 <comment><USER2> If it doesn't fit in your Tortuga Outbreaker, leave it at home. Words from a carry-on traveler.</comment>


My year in startup hell - <AUTHOR> http://fortune.com/disrupted-excerpt-hubspot-startup-dan-lyons/ <comment><USER2> Apparently Hubspot did dirty tricks to try to obtain a copy of the manuscript, as well as blocking publication. The CMO and a VP are gone because of it. You can't make this stuff up.

[https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/03/23/documents- re...](https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/03/23/documents-released- hubspot-probe-involving-author-dan-lyons/VZH4CN4kR5p7iyhsKEdwJI/story.html)

Edit: Here's the worst stuff the article mentioned, I figured it would be good to highlight the relevant quote. These are felonies.

 _The documents also say there was an effort "to obtain sensitive information on individuals with access to the book's transcript, or control of the publishing deal. The information found was then used as leverage in an attempt to prevent the book from reaching the market place."_

 _The report also mentions "tactics such as email hacking and extortion" in the attempt "to railroad the book."_

<comment><USER3> I'm curious as to why there was no prosecution. Given the heavy hand wielded by the Feds in this region for other cases, you'd think extortion and hacking would be a slam dunk?

<comment><USER4> Well unfortunately I think part of the answer may be the victims in those cases were more influential.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I worked at HubSpot for many years. (disclaimer - I do not have a financial interest in the company. But I do still have strong emotional and social connections, and I was there long enough that I feel some sense of ownership for the company culture).

Remember that this article is written in order to entertain and sell books. Everything is hyper exaggerated. There are a few fair points (for instance we were very overcrowded, we could not lease new sections of the building we were in fast enough. And yeah, some of the "change the world through Inbound marketing" messaging was over-the-top and made my eyes roll). But a lot of it is either inaccurate or spun to seem bad when it wasn't (see my other comments [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11370077](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11370077) or [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11370016](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11370016)).

For the most part, HubSpot was a normal workplace where the vast majority of the time people worked hard and did their thing. People occasionally interrupted work for fun hijinks and we did sometimes have parties after work. By packing in every outrageous story into a few paragraphs, he makes it sound way crazier than it was.

I should also add that overall work-life balance was pretty good, and the company made efforts not to be "ageist". I had both mothers and fathers on my team and they could get out of the office on time to be with their families. As we matured, we planned our fun team-building events in ways to ensure that parents could attend them. There is an implication by the author that he did not fit in because he was old, but I do not think that is a fair critique.

<comment><USER6> I do not think he was implying that he did not fit because he's old. He implied that he did not fit because he's mature...

<comment><USER7> I didn't get a total feeling of maturity from his writing. Did you read it? Mostly low-ball shots taken at startup practices that are pretty commonplace now, primarily for their proven effectiveness. Like the fact that he was disturbed to find that Zack, being so young, wasn't an assistant but a manager. It's like the idea of promoting individuals based on results and performance, rather than age and tenure, was foreign to the author. And ironically, he displayed a lot of ageist qualities himself there. I wouldn't exactly characterize that as maturity.

<comment><USER8> I got the same impression. And I'm close to the same age as the author so it's not like I'm a teenager thinking "You just don't get it!"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Hubspot (disclaimer: I hold a nominal number of shares I bought on IPO day, entirely because I like them) is, contrary to take in this article, a software company which makes a suite of things that are essentially me-in-a-box at a price point that a business with $500k in revenue can tolerate. With specific reference to the spam bit: they neither teach it nor allow it, because (like everyone else in email marketing) if one of their customers spams and they don't address that, Google/Yahoo/Microsoft will end their business.

The basic model on that side of the business is really simple: teach people how to write things that good prospects would find useful. Get them to write those things. Trade a copy for their email address and permission to send more things they will like. Send them more things they like, including recommendations on what you have that they should buy.

I know this sounds like black magic. It's not. Consider an insurance agent who sells to small businesses. They have zero software people in-house and perhaps 1.5 people who do marketing.

You tell those people "Write about the businesses you work with. Write about the kind or risks they have. Write the stuff you know that they don't about E&O policies and bind documents and what own occupation LTD means and how it is superior to any occupation LTD. Get the emails of businesses who could purchase from you. Then, after becoming their trusted advisor in the confusing world of insurance, sell them insurance. They did not do the research on E&O because they were fascinated with the subject intellectually. They did it because they have a legitimate need for it. Do the work upfront on education and you will be the obvious place to buy it from."

This works. Very well.

I can't comment on the company culture. Many startups seem pretty wild to me on that score. At the end of the day, though? It's a bunch of people, with jobs, engaged in honest labor. Insurance agents need marketing software; Hubspot makes it; this leaves the world a bit better off.

<comment><USER10> I delete about fifty or those things a day.

<comment><USER11> Why not just click unsubscribe at the bottom? I've found that's a very effective way to stop them being sent.

<comment><USER12> It's never just one list. As savvy inbound marketers, they added you to the list for their daily newsletter. But they also surreptitiously added you to separate lists for monthly and quarterly news, book releases, and events.

And since you didn't read the fine print, you didn't realize you were being signed up for those five lists at each of the parent company's properties.

But they all have separate unsubscribe links. So just when you think you're done hearing from them, you get an email from another list.

That's what happened to me recently when I signed up for daily "running tips" from a major publisher in the field. I ended up setting up a filter for the publishing company's name straight to spam. Then I hop in my spam box every week or so & unsubscribe.

Edit: today's lists were "You have been unsubscribed from our Men's Health Special Offers email list. Thank you." and "You have been unsubscribed from our Organic Gardening Special Offers email list. Thank you."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> "For example, it instructs that when someone quits or gets fired, the event will be referred to as 'graduation.'"

Well, they're certainly laying on the euphemisms here. I mean, maybe it's just me, but that reminds me an awful lot of 1984 esque newspeak and the Ministry of Love. It's all 'lets make the worst possible stuff sound like a good thing'.

<comment><USER14> Using euphemisms, particularly with the goal of making bad events seem good, is indeed grating and lame.

I think the intention here is sound, though. There is so much negative baggage around "fired", "laid off", "quit", etc, when these are really not negative events at all. This is where an employee is liberated from a situation that isn't working (quite possibly at a company that isn't doing well, is poorly managed, or in a shrinking industry), and will generally end up working somewhere better, taking the opportunity to travel or start there own business, and grow.

Trying to remove these associations from the process is a worthwhile goal, but it would be rather more honest to just go for something neutral like "no longer with us" than trying to co-opt "graduation", which obviously means something completely different.

<comment><USER15> > There is so much negative baggage around "fired", "laid off", "quit", etc, > when these are really not negative events at all. This is where an employee > is liberated from a situation that isn't working (quite possibly at a > company that isn't doing well, is poorly managed, or in a shrinking > industry), and will generally end up working somewhere better, taking the > opportunity to travel or start there own business, and grow.

Yeah, right. Try to tell this to a single mother of two trying to pay the mortgage.

For a lot of people (I'd say most people), being fired is _not_ a pleasant experience.

<comment><USER16> True. Words are cheap. However, with sufficient severence and a removal of social stigma it might someday be less of a "your life is a failure" situation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Can we create a thread called "my year in big company corporate IT department hell"?

I'll go first:

I reported to an incompetent business person who having failed at doing anything that required business sense, used his considerable political skills to lead a tech team instead. Management practices included lying to create enemities between team members.

I am also writing a book about it. :)

Would you rather work in a room full of motivated smart people who are building somthing useful, or a rigid heirarchy that lacks transparency and puts its own personal interests over the work they do? Hmmm hard choice.

<comment> FLUX-YOU The support ticket reads:

"I can't upload this lab document to the site!"

I call the person up for details, get the file they were trying to upload, and recreate the issue. I pull up the code for this site, run it on a local copy to get the exception, and find out that someone's string concatenating SQL queries from form inputs. This site was written in 2014. I bring it up in a meeting but we can't allocate time to fix that because it currently works well enough.

<comment><USER18> Using bind variables?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Two reactions to this article (and I say this as someone near 50):

1\. Dan's obviously not cut out for startup life. When he meets Zack, he assumes Zack must be someone's assistant because he is young. Dan has no concept of the fact that someone might have their position because they are skilled and perform well. In his mind, the only way to have a fancy title is tenure and age.

2\. Sure, the language of startups is interesting (graduation as a euphemism for quitting or getting fired), but the clear message is that this is odd, and thus, wrong. As though normal corporate America is the one true way and is just fine. Bullshit. Let's make sure to keep the workplace exactly as it's been for the last 100 years and never evolve.

<comment><USER20> But this _is_ normal corporate America. Dan apparently isn't familiar with the history of IBM, which was so bonkers it had its own song book attempting to engineer a cult of personality around Thomas Watson.

[http://arstechnica.com/business/2014/08/tripping-through- ibm...](http://arstechnica.com/business/2014/08/tripping-through-ibms- astonishingly-insane-1937-corporate-songbook/)

This was back in the 1930s. Apparently not much has changed.

In the 60s and 70s the DEC people used to talk about "Mother DEC" and "Father Ken (Olsen - CEO)" \- and DEC was a vastly more pleasant company to work for, if you didn't mind meetings where people shouted at each other a lot.

Elsewhere, this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RINizGmhrYo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RINizGmhrYo)

US corporate culture is insane. It has always been insane. The insanity takes different forms, and the web startup version frequently manages to be both insane and infantilising. (See also, startup names that sound like baby talk - more of a thing before DotCom 1, but there are still a few relics today.)

This is not what an adult professional culture looks like. Signifiers of playful childlike wonder and creativity shouldn't come in stick-on corporate office multipacks, especially not if they hide much uglier relationship dynamics in the office space.

It's fascinating to wonder why this has been such a strong trend in the startup space. Obviously it's more likely to appeal straight-from-college CS grads than battle-hardened senior engineers. But my guess is it's also an evolutionary adaptation to trigger paternal (less often maternal) feelings in investors and VCs, who are more likely to feel generously disposed and still part of youth culture if they sponsor a brogrammer creche, and less likely to feel threatened by kids who look nothing like direct competitors.

Social signalling in business is a very interesting thing, and maybe isn't questioned often enough.

<comment><USER19> Great point on this actually being part of corporate America. I had neglected/forgotten that point, when I'm pretty sure buzzword bingo predated the rise of startups (synergy, touch base, strategic alignment were all part of the lingo when I worked at larger companies).

I wasn't really commenting on the healthiness of the startup culture, just how out of touch and corporate Dan was (apparently so out of touch he doesn't even realize he's out of touch). But you make some really good points about this trend. I'll have to think about that some more.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Summary: guy gets hired by company he doesn't like in an industry he doesn't like by someone he doesn't like. Spends a year there doing things he doesn't like. Writes book about what he didn't like about it.

I'm sure HunSpot isn't for everyone. But I'm also sure it's awesome for some people. They make a real product people find useful and helps them run their business.

Don't believe everything you read. Especially when it's to promote something (like a book or a company).

<comment><USER22> It's awesome for young people. Back when they were a lot smaller I had some friends there and considered joining, but all the parties they invited me to in an effort to recruit me made me feel too old, and I was still under 30 at the time. The book is exaggerated to sell books, sure, but in reading that article I didn't see anything _grossly_ exaggerated based on what I've seen at their parties/events and what friends who work there have told me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> As a 50-something guy as well, I guess I see it much differently than this guy did.

Firstly, IMO, there was nothing "hell"-ish about Hubspot's culture or business model. It seems to me they were just playing the game-as-given, and doing it quite well frankly.

The proof of that is IPO.

Personally, I find it beyond refreshing that management is making a powerful effort to change up the typical gray-flannel corporate work/life thingy.

So old-school didn't get it, or even see beyond his own prejudices at the positive work culture meta-messages.

That's on him, not Hubspot.

<comment><USER24> ELI5, "positive work culture meta-messages"

<comment><USER23> To me it means they are showing effort and interest in the workplace environment, and not just making it a drab cubicle farm, and messages something beyond just the actual stuff like dogs and music instruments.

BTW, nothing personal but I hate trying to explain my writing as I am a big fan of metaphor and ambiguity.

<comment><USER25> I have dogs in my office. They run around and bark all the time. Their presence shows to me that serious engineering work is not important, but the image of being a "startup" is. The idea of a musical instrument being played while I am trying to focus on engineering is horrifying.

There's also a whole world of potential designs besides "drab cubicle farm" and "kindergarten mashed-up with ComicCon". For example, the 37signals[1] office.

If they want to show effort and interest in the workplace environment, they should try providing private offices with doors that close.

[1] [https://37signals.com/office](https://37signals.com/office)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> As someone who has never worked in a SV startup I find the whole culture alien (fascinating but alien).

I don't want an adult sized creche, I want somewhere quiet I can think.

<comment><USER27> One of the most difficult things to do in today's young/modern/culture-y office is work.

<comment><USER28> Y'know, I've been working in one for 6 months now, and, despite some initial trepidation, I haven't found that to be true at all. Sometimes you do have to put on headphones to cut down on the auditory distraction, but otherwise it's been just fine.

Granted, every office has a different culture. I'm guessing the most distracting offices are the ones where everyone is distracted to begin with. For example, if you're at a startup where everyone works 60-80 hour weeks and is so chronically sleep-deprived that their ability to concentrate for any length of time is shot, then yeah, that's going to be a hellhole.

<comment><USER29> I'm in an open floor plan space with about one hundred desks in it and it's never particularly distracting to me. I barely ever even have to use headphones to concentrate. People simply don't have loud distracting conversations. It'd be different if I were mixed in with salespeople having phone conversations from their desks all day every day, but we're all engineers. I appreciate being able to easily ask my coworkers a question as it occurs to me immediately.

<comment><USER28> OK, fair point. I did once get rearranged into an open plan office where all the teams were intermixed for I-still-don't-know-what reason. Half the staff was sales, and yeah, it was impossible to concentrate. Fortunately, we had a liberal work from home policy, so I had a means of escape when I had a deadline approaching. But I still only lasted for a few months after that.

Just to reiterate, I don't think the open plan office was really the fundamental problem. It was the attempt to mix oil and water.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Step 1: Read the article.

Step 2: Watch these videos:

[https://www.youtube.com/embed/Sknnd- pkQ8A](https://www.youtube.com/embed/Sknnd-pkQ8A)

[https://www.youtube.com/embed/avzzEOWFj9k](https://www.youtube.com/embed/avzzEOWFj9k)

<comment><USER31> Learn what promotional videos actually mean.

<comment><USER32> Business Maverick and humble genius? Does that really not sound completely over the top and ridiculous to you?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> As someone closing in on 40, the depiction of this place does indeed seem like hell.

To all the ex-Hubspot people getting defensive: This article isn't about that specific company. Hubspot was the author's convenient example. It's about the ideas that companies like it exemplify: That work has to be "a cross between a kindergarten and a frat house" (I'd add "a cult"). That work should include partying and nerf guns and dodgeball outings. That you have to always pretend your company is about "leading a revolution" or changing the world. That you have to follow its culture and believe in its mission and values. That your work has to be more than an exchange of your labor for money. That's what this article is about, and that's what all the cynicism about tech startup culture is aimed at--not Hubspot in particular.

<comment><USER34> Cynicism is fairly easy, defining the alternative is harder. For example based on what you describe the characteristics of what makes the startup culture "like hell", it sounds like you prefer that work should be nothing more than an exchange of your labor for money, you don't interact with your colleagues other than work, company to not have a defined mission and values other than making money. A hired gun to do whatever we're paid to do. That's also definition of hell for many of us. I don't know whether the author has anything constructive in his book but judging what's in the article, looks like it's pure snark.

<comment><USER35> Actually, cynicism can be fairly painful.

It grows from a lot of moments.

One moment your leader is asking all the employees if they're ready to change the world. Everyone thinks the company is a rocketship. They slave away into the moonlight and beyond. The next moment, the leaders gets everyone together and announces news that don't quite match what was promised before. Sad faces. Stiff upper lips. No worries, we can work past this.

The moment after that: more bad news starts trickling in. Then a flood. Then empty desks. Maybe, you get out first. Maybe, you're the first to discover your key card won't let you in the building anymore.

Throughout these moments, the faces of your comrades-in-arms will stay with you; the way the light in their eyes fades and fades and fades. You were "family", you were together, you were united in purpose...

And now what are you?

Fast forward years later. Your friends from the old startup no longer talk to each other. They all work at big companies. You're interviewing at a fresh up- and-comer. Someone 10 years your junior sits you down and asks if you're ready to change the world.

What do you say?

... Writing aside, I think the best company cultures tend to be filled with people who have been fooled before (the essence of cynicism) yet still manage care about what they're doing and building. These folks also tend to have meaning and identity outside of their work.

<comment><USER34> Well articulated. Clear description of what pushes us to become more and more cynical. I find it far easier to empathize with you than the author. It did not feel justified (based on the article).

I hope that it does not have to be this way. I hope we can create companies that strive to be better. Culture does not have to mean one has to put the company above everything else. Making the environment that we spent most of our lives better requires more than nerf guns and ping pong tables. Having meaning and identity outside works in essential. I just don't want to give up the working hours. May be I have not been fooled enough times ...

<comment><USER35> I appreciate the hope you have for the future. I, too, would not like to give up the working hours, though I have yet seen observe a general-purpose, adequate solution that works outside of extremely specific situations[1].

Perhaps "Insufficient data for meaningful answer" as a certain computer would say.

[1]Certainly not "Management Consulting" :) [http://paulgraham.com/before.html](http://paulgraham.com/before.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Wait. They hired Fake Steve Jobs and didn't make him sign an NDA? That's.. going to end a lot like this. o_O

<comment><USER37> I'm pretty sure he signed an NDA when he accepted the offer (part of the employment agreement), but that's different from the nondisparagement/nondisclosure agreement mentioned in the article (normally done when somebody leaves a company).

<comment><USER10> The latter comes at a price, such as severance pay.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> > "You don't get rewarded for creating great technology, not anymore,"

This resonated with me the most, as I learned it the hard way through my own failed startup. I was informed by several investors that tech was a commodity and they only wanted to discuss our go to market plans.

<comment><USER39> If indeed this is a bubble and we do pop, about the only enjoyable thing to watch will be all these junior associates that autodial on fishing expeditions scrambling around for new work. Never actually started a company but they've analyzed plenty of models.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I don't understand why people dislike working in a startup environment. I work for a tech company that has really outgrown it's startup stages, but still acts like one.

It's brilliant, I'd never want to work for a corporate company! We have regular parties, play table tennis daily, beers on Friday. It just makes work so much more enjoyable.

Admittedly, this is only my second job, and I am only 20, but I can't imagine ever wanting to leave. The only company that may tempt me would be Google.

<comment><USER41> >It's brilliant, I'd never want to work for a corporate company! We have regular parties, play table tennis daily, beers on Friday. It just makes work so much more enjoyable.

When you leave or a bunch of your friends who used to go to happy hour together leave "for better opportunities," you'll realize that most people who are your work drinking buddies didn't really know you or felt or thought deeply about your personal experiences. (It's not that they're bad people, it's just what happens when people are put in an artificial social environment where people slap high-fives after work rec dogeball and shout out witty one- liners).

Also when you realize after 5 or 6 years of working, and the startup mantra of "changing the world," your other friends whom you laughed at before, toiling away in their fields have started coming on their own. You have only pushed bits for marketing, spam, online shopping, on-demand on-gig economy for people like yourself to get a stick of gum delivered in an hour. You can try to justify how you are promoted from junior all the way to lead to technical product manager, or how you led your team to switch from Rails to Node, SQL to Cassandra, Java to Scala. But you'll begin to see the thin-veneer of how little management cares about tech and how most of it is a pep-rally, a race to the bottom for those at the top of the Ponzi scheme to enrich themselves.

You look at other people in other fields or in other area's of tech. At work cafeteria IKEA lunch table (after a lengthy morning standup where there was yet another pissing match about React vs. Angular), People shoot the breeze about AlphaGo or that Tay twitter bot, and someone else shoot another witty one-liner comeback, everyone laughs, one person groans - in between the silence after the reactions settle in, it dawns slowly on your mind that we've all become spectators in the real information technology revolution.

That what you are toiling away when you go back to your desk after this lunch conversation is just another Twitter stream, another HN comment, Instagram heart, albeit decorated in syntax highlighting to the "AWS/Google Cloud/Azure Twitterverse."

That is just the same as the well-dressed girl or guy sitting in the next row over in the open-office environment, whom you never talk to but to make yourself feel better, secretly put down in your mind because what they do "is so much BS, social media customer engagement"; but they are the same, and you're all the same...

You call your friends up from college and hear their stories at the precarious precipice of 28-30. How many hours they stayed up at the hospital during a rotation, and a critical debate they had with their attending whether to admit a patient; or how many e-mails they had to sent to get their 15 minute film considered at 50 different film festivals; or staying on after getting finally their PhD, to work for free to do the technology transfer to industry the physics research they worked on in their group; and always, the one-liner remark, "tech has it so much better, you guys make so much money!"

Of course, the response begets a begrudging smile or another sequitur to equalize the conversation; but come work Monday, the habit to don on the noise canceling headphones, the cursory checks on social media to keep abreast fantasy football leagues/stock portfolio's, the internal monologue of the recalculation how much your employee stock options are going to be worth/vest, have all become instinctive rituals to not let the existential dread set in.

<comment><USER42> That's some good writing right there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Dan Lyons sure gets around. In another life, he was an early and vocal supporter of SCO in their lawsuits against Linux. At least in the end he finally came around and admitted that he'd been "Snowed By SCO"

[http://www.forbes.com/2007/09/19/software-linux-lawsuits- tec...](http://www.forbes.com/2007/09/19/software-linux-lawsuits-tech-oped- cx_dl_0919lyons.html)

[edit for typo]

<comment><USER44> Looks like he worked it out in the end.

Meta: Forbes are convinced that I'm using an ad blocker to the extent that I had to google/cache the article linked above. I actually have no plug-ins at all, just accessing the site thru' and academic connection, suspect proxy may be blocking stuff. First time I've had that one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I read the entire article trying to figure out what exactly was "hellish" about the experience - but couldn't find anything other than what can only be called a really bad culture fit.

<comment><USER46> 125 pages inspirational memo for starter. I have been working for a number of banks in the past years, but this level of BS is off the chart.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> I'm not sure if this is satire. 1 + 1 = 3 ? Orwell will be turning in his grave.

<comment><USER5> I worked there, it wasn't anything as bad as what he makes it out to be. It was just shorthand for saying, "the whole is greater than the sum of the parts."

Our whole sales pitch was that we were all-in-one software. So instead of running one system for your blog, another system for your home page, another system for email, another system for analytics, another system for your contacts database, etc, etc, you would just run HubSpot, and when all the tools work together you get much better results then when they are separated. To make good on that sales pitch, we had to be constantly thinking of ways of how we could add value by integrating pieces together and making things work well together. Hence we were told to always be thinking about how to make 1 + 1 equal 3.

<comment><USER31> The right notation would be:

      f(1) + f(1) = f(3)

<comment><USER48> More like: f(1) + f(1) < f(1+1)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> How is it now in the valley - can you get a startup funded if you don't have a higher mission that workers work towards? Can you just say it will be a nice place to work and we will treat our workers with respect and pay them competitive rates? It all feels very 'power of nightmares _' in making up bogus mission statements to create a shared sense of purpose, but done completely cynically (at least by the power-brokers).

_ [http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x20su5f_the-power-of- nightm...](http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x20su5f_the-power-of- nightmares-1-the-rise-of-the-politics-of-fear-bbc-2004_news)

</comment><comment><USER50> The absurdity of this article make me laugh more than it should have. I'm still not quite sure if I red a testimony or a scenario from an arrested development/parks and recs

Definitly saving it !

</comment><comment><USER51> I wonder if the author bought into Newsweek's mission when he worked there, or if he was just as cynical?

<comment><USER52> The cynic is inclined to ask what Newsweek's mission is exactly these days. That snark aside, Dan Lyons seems to have largely shifted into a writing style that's more entertainment than journalism. And the Jon Stewarts of the world aside (and even there at times), it's a difficult blend to pull off. There's always this tradeoff between what is objectively balanced and accurate--and some would argue that's an impossible goal--and what attempts to convey an entertaining "truthiness" of a thing even is it plays a bit fast with specific facts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> > I'm heading for my first day of work at HubSpot

Having been forced to use Hubspot, I can say their UI is fairly horrific.

</comment><comment><USER54> It's just a small point, but I like the idea of treating people who leave as "Graduating". Yes it's contrived, but it's better than silence or badmouthing which is a frequent alternative. (I have no connection to the company)

</comment><comment><USER55> Holy shit - 1+1=3; what is this, the mind of George Orwell transplanted to the tech boom?

</comment><comment><USER56> While this article somewhat makes fun of the overally idealistic, sugary, positive culture HubSpot built, I'd much rather work there then somewhere where everything is done out of fear.

<comment><USER57> Everything likely _is_ done out of fear—the kind of fear where you barf of dialectics at the proletarian youth league meeting to avoid having a struggle session in your honor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Love it. I can relate!

</comment><comment><USER59> I have nothing but good things to say about HubSpot. I never worked there, but I did work in the same building for about two years, and I managed to sneak in to a few of their parties, as well as snag a few bowls of free cereal. (They play up the candy wall too much. The cereal wall was where it was at.)</comment>


Google reveals plans for 1.1M square foot, 4 floor 'Bay View' campus near SF Bay - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/google/2013/02/22/google-reveals-plans-for-1-1m-square-foot-4-floor-bay-view-campus-near-san-francisco-bay/?utm_source=Twitter&awesm=tnw.to_j0brb&utm_campaign=social%20media&utm_medium=Spreadus

<comment><USER2> My only fear when I read about these campuses (Apple's 'spaceship' in particular) is the old adage about the 'curse of the new HQ'. See:

[http://www.businessinsider.com/poorly-timed- headquarters-200...](http://www.businessinsider.com/poorly-timed- headquarters-2009-11?op=1)

I know it's a bit superstitious, but the basic idea is that when a company starts building temples to itself and its employees, that means their focus has shifted and their eye is getting off the ball.

I hope it's not the case with any of these companies, and I know there are plenty of counter-examples, but still, I think about this.

<comment><USER3> Interesting. Apple is doing 'great' but the stock market (1) disagrees so almost by definition it isn't doing good. Investors see clouds in the horizon and don't want to look at the $50 billion they might make in profit this year. Is Apple going to grow by 10 to 20% a year?

Google reported huge revenue increases and the stock is on fire but not because of new ventures or customers, they just added even more ads to the pages. That's not sustainable and when that happens it has a lot of falling to do. <http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=goog> . Virtually all their money is still from ads.

Edit: 1. I think all this hype on stocks is a pump-and-dump operation, played by the big investment banks. "They" buy lots of shares, start the fire with $1000 price targets from their own analysts and when the price is high enough, they dump it, leaving some retail investor holding the bag. Google went from mid $500s to $800 in a few months

<comment><USER4> I don't think it's true that "the stock market disagrees that Apple is doing great". Apple is valued at over 400 billion dollars by the stock market. Maybe you mean that the price of Apple stock fell in some period t0 to t1, but that certainly doesn't mean the stock market is saying Apple is doing badly. That might simply mean the stock market updated its predictions on how Apple is going to do in the future.

Also, every stock has some degree of volatility. Take any stock and you'll find periods that the stock went up or down. In the case of Apple, if you look at the 5-year period finishing the increase has been 270%, way over the Nasdaq average.

> _I think all this hype on stocks is a pump-and-dump operation, played by the > big investment banks. "They" buy lots of shares, start the fire with $1000 > price targets from their own analysts and when the price is high enough, > they dump it, leaving some retail investor holding the bag._

Sorry, but this is naive. It's not feasible to manipulate the market over several months that way.

In most cases, the biggest shareholders are the company's founders and management, mutual and pension funds, and hedge funds. They would need to do a lot of (very illegal) conspiring in order to pull out that sort of thing. E.g. they would have to agree not to start selling off until a certain date.

Although illegal trading certainly does happen, that's usually via insider information (e.g. the investment banking division obtains secret information from Apple, and leaks it to the prop trading division). In this case, retail investors can get screwed, but so do all the banks and funds who aren't in the know.

If you're a retail investor, the way you lose money to brokers and market makers is typically by trading too much and thereby paying too many fees, and paying the spread too many times. Another way you lose money is when the company board & management screws you (e.g. by overpaying management, or by liberally issuing too much stock thereby diluting yours).

<comment><USER3> " That might simply mean the stock market updated its predictions on how Apple is going to do in the future.."

Exactly my point, Apple (PE of 10) is not going to do that well in the future, unlike Google with a PE of 24. At least that's how the market sees it right now. When AAPL was heading to $700 and many analysts got in line to call AAPL $1000 /share the market thought differently.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> For a minute I thought they might be revitalizing one of the poorer neighborhoods of SF; but no, 'Bay View' does not reference Bayview.

<comment><USER6> I don't think that would have been well received. Locals would have decried that SF gov 'gives in' to big corp at the expense of the local population (i.e. not creating jobs many locals could fill and that land that could be used for affordable housing was being bid up by big corp) and probably would have added that not many from the Bayview would have benefitted directly. That's SF politics. People want the clean baby without the bathwater.

Lowes+HomeDepot (HD started but bailed and Lowes took over) went thru some idiotic approval process to build their Bayshore location --about 12 or more years after Goodman Lumber closed its doors.

<comment><USER7> Offtopic, but is there any sane reason plastic bags are outlawed here. It really annoys me because it seems like a victory of naive idealism over common sense. Plastic bags are really useful.

<comment><USER6> Good question. They both have advantages and disadvantages. I think the main disadvantage of plastic is that few people re-use plastic bags --mainly because most plastic bags are designed to be disposed from the outset.

However, petroleum plastics are very durable (else there would not be such disdain for them fouling the enviro), so they could easily be more useful than paper bags. On the other hand, there are bio-sourced plastics (mainly from corn) which are very eco friendly, so I don't know why they'd be banned as well.

I think if SF would make a sensible decision, rather than a political decision, they'd just make people pay the 5 or 10 cents for any store-issued bag. The better option is to use bags made for re-use whether plastic, canvass, or other.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wonder if it will have flood doors to contain the rising sea waters :-)

This is a pretty cool concept drawing. At one time there was a suggestion for Google to run a hovercraft or hydrofoil type ferry from the GooglePlex to San Francisco. This will make that easier!

That said I was expecting something to happen, I mean Apple has a spaceship, these guys needed to pupate out of the dead husk of SGI and spread their wings!

<comment><USER9> You joke, but our office in Dublin actually has flood doors ^^

<comment><USER8> Ok, that is just too awesome. Now if they had a submarine base behind them. That would be perfect. Maybe just a conference room that was decorated to be a secret submarine base, but still.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I can't understand why the big players like Facebook and Google are not building somewhere like South San Francisco. Most of the employees either live in San Francisco or want to, and the difference in real estate pricing could easily be offset by eliminating half the bus fleet.

<comment><USER11> I disagree, they're in an ideal location for people from both SF and down to San Jose and Fremont.

That gives their employees a whole lot more choice for housing and makes it more attractive. Every time I see a company that's in SF offering jobs I shudder at the travel time from the valley. It's wonderful if you've already got a place in SF but makes anyone think twice about joining a company when they consider the crazy living costs in SF.

<comment><USER12> None of those things are true for me. I shudder when I think about paying crazy bay area prices and then having to live in a typical valley suburb. I might as well move to Ohio and pay 1/4th the rent.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Original Source: [http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2013/02/exclusive- pre...](http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2013/02/exclusive-preview- googleplex)

</comment><comment><USER14> I wish Palantir would do a campus somewhere (which I suspect would be an awesome LOTR-themed campus).

That would drop Palo Alto real estate from $5-7 to maybe $3-5.

</comment><comment><USER15> "As this project progresses, we'll continue to work closely with NASA, the community and the City of Mountain View."

I must be confused, but what does any of this have to do with NASA?

<comment><USER16> NASA's Ames Research Center is just south of Google main campus, and is the owner of the wetlands this is likely to be built on. See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moffett_Federal_Airfield>

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Does anybody know if the plan is to build atop the Shoreline Preserve in Mountain View? That seems to be the only large parcel of land that is both closer to the bay than Google already is and not currently occupied by other structures. Seems a shame to wipe out a hefty chunk of a nature preserve simply to satisfy a corporation's desire for self-idolatry.

</comment><comment><USER18> The most beautiful office I've ever seen is that of ILM in the Presidio... about where Starfleet Academy is supposed to get built. ;) They have a "cafeteria" overlooking the Golden Gate, Bay, forest, etc.

<comment><USER19> I was about to correct you and state that Starfleet Academy was (will be?) located in Sausalito north of the Golden Gate Bridge... but I was wrong! <:)

Starfleet Academy's _HQ_ was in the Presidio, but the Academy's training facility was in Sausalito.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Anybody else notice the three tents they have one of the grass covered roofs?

Easter egg or nice place to catch a nap?

</comment><comment><USER21> Looking at the image I see 5 floors. Is counting done differently, the image not right or the headline wrong?

<comment><USER22> Not sure if it applies in this instance but some customs have it so the ground floor is not counted and the second floor is referred to as the first and so on.

<comment><USER21> I'm British and that is what we do. But that is the label applied to each floor in the lift (some places omit the 13th floor label) and some have floors below ground. However that doesn't change how many floors a building has.

The article is written by an American residing in the US about a building in the US so using American conventions would seem appropriate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Can anyone explain why they would have to "work closely with NASA"? Is it a typo of the architect firm, NBBJ?

<comment><USER24> This is the distance between Google's HQ and Moffett Airfield / Ames Research (both NASA properties):

[https://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=Unknown+road&daddr=Cr...](https://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=Unknown+road&daddr=Crittenden+Ln&hl=en&sll=37.424366,-122.06244&sspn=0.021471,0.051155&geocode=FXkJOwIdE2O5-A%3BFfYOOwId6Fm5-A&dirflg=w&mra=dme&mrsp=0&sz=15&t=m&z=15)

It's likely that the land that Google is planning on expanding onto is either owned by NASA or adjacent to their facility.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Maybe they'll finally afford private offices then... So that engineers won't work full day with headphones.</comment>


Redesk Beta - <AUTHOR> https://redesk.co/ <comment><AUTHOR> Redesk is the async messaging app for teams with built-in goals, deadlines and upvotes. It offers a different way to communicate using asynchronous messaging, thoughtful and long-form messages to reduce noise and interruptions at work and promote remote work.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN community,

My co-founder Raphaël and I are thrilled to introduce you our first app: Redesk. The product is still in beta right now but we are iterating rapidly.

Redesk is the async-first messaging app for teams with built-in goals, deadlines and upvotes.

Redesk offers modern teams a different way to communicate by leveraging asynchronous messaging with thoughtful and long-form messages instead of one liner chats and reactions.

The main problems we are trying to solve are:

\- Information losses \- Too many meetings \- Noise and interruptions \- Time zone desync within remote teams \- Bad communication and poor decision making

Our ultimate goal is to create an healthy and thoughtful culture of written communication in modern enterprises while accelerating remote work adoption.

Why it matters ?

Team communication is the beating heart of every company.

But we strongly believe that modern apps like real-time group chats in always open channels are destroying your productivity, your focus and your overall efficiency at work. People get mad, stressed-out or worse just because of all the noise that pollutes their mind during the day.

In just a few months, it creates a very toxic 'fear of missing out' and ASAP culture.

It's time to reduce all that noise and bring back the signal.

There is a way to do this. It's called "asynchronous communication" and it is something many successful tech companies have in common. Just ask Loom, Gumroad, Buffer, Zapier, Doist, Gitlab and many more...

We all used to communicate more asynchronously when we were writing emails. Emails are async by design. You don't expect the recipient to respond instantly, you draft your messages, you write long-form texts... but emails was not built for work. They are unorganized, noisy, mixed with personal stuff, not collaborative, not project-driven and just old-fashion.

We want our project to be at the crossroad of emails and group chats and take the best of both worlds.

Because we all love to be connected together and the playfulness of emojis reactions and gifs inside conversations, we build the best of both worlds with an Inbox and an integrated 1 to 1 live chats as well.

Modern teams need thoughtful conversations to make great decisions, generate innovative ideas and solve problems. They don't need meetings. This is why we are building Redesk.

It's still an early version and we need your feedback on this vision and product. Raphaël and I really hope you will give it a try.

If you want to stay in touch, feel free to follow us on Twitter: [https://twitter.com/redesknow](https://twitter.com/redesknow) or drop us a line at email@example.com

We love you all. Many thanks,

Julien

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> Congrats guys :) Your product will get the traction it deserves !</comment>


Former AMD Chief's Book Describes Fight Against Intel - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/02/14/former-amd-chiefs-book-describes-fight-against-intel/

<comment><USER2> On a plane flight about a year and a half ago, I sat next to a Professor of Electrical Engineering who worked with various chip companies and startups on chip design. The discussion was very interesting.

In particular, we talked about Intel and AMD. He claimed that if AMD's architecture was produced using Intel's fabs, the chips would be better than Intel's.

I'm not sure if he had inside knowledge or it was just his industry experience, but I found it interesting that AMD's primary disadvantage is fabrication technology and not chip design. They have to design their chips better because they are competing often 2 processes behind Intel and still compete.

<comment><USER3> > In particular, we talked about Intel and AMD. He claimed that if AMD's > architecture was produced using Intel's fabs, the chips would be better than > Intel's.

I would have believed this maybe 4 or 5 years ago, but these days I don't think that's the case anymore. There was a time maybe 7 or 8 years ago when AMD was hands down better, then Intel started doing good work with the original Core 2 and then Nehalem, innovating on both the architecture and process sides. Now AMD is kind of where Pentium 4 Prescott was in that their latest architecture has to be pumped up to insanely high clock speeds to be competitive with Intel's midrange parts. I don't think shrinking the process node would help there, because they just don't have the IPC, and I don't think going down to 22nm would help AMD push their clocks that much higher that they would suddenly be competitive. And power consumption would probably go through the roof if they tried that.

That said I'm probably going to build another AMD desktop just to support them though an Intel would be way better for my needs, only because without them competition would die on the CPU front. At the price points I'm looking at I could get AMD's fastest CPU which competes with Intel's mid range and it'd at least do everything I need it to do, but the Intel would probably use less power. I'm kind of curious if AMD's Bulldozer architecture benefits parallel compiling because my hand wavy intuition says that compiling should be mostly integer code, and their processing modules do have two integer units so vaguely speaking it might be able to perform close to how an 8 core standard system would perform.

<comment><USER4> Intel is essentially still using the Pentium II architecture, where AMD has refreshed theirs recently with the bulldozer. Intel's fab advantage (32->22nm gives a massive thermal advantage) is getting wasted on putting more GPU on die. Probably because they can't put more cores on there without blowing their thermal threshold. The only way to add more cores then, is for cores to share more component: share the sequencer (more vector instructions), share the FP pipeline (aka bulldozer module), etc.

Running bulldozer modules on a 22nm fab would definitely beat the Intel Xeons on the majority of the server applications. Increasing the cache sizes and increasing the set associativity (amd is at 4, Intel at 8) will already give it the edge.

With regard to the sharing of FP pipelines: this is not new, the Sun Sparks have been doing that for ages. As we add more cores and parallelism, we will go more towards finer-grained parallel architectures like the spark. The bulldozer is only a shy step in that direction, not willing to commit too much in loss of sequential performance.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Google labeling our sites as malicious - <AUTHOR> Our company does over 300 million ad impressions per month. This is where our company's revenue is. We use Google's ad stack extensively and we're definitely a power user.  We use Adsense, AdX, DFP, Adwords and Analytics.
Here's our problem.
For months now, Google's automated system has been consistently harassing us about malware on our websites. We've called Google multiple times to provide more information, and they send us the links that are considered malware.  None of these links are malware of course.
To keep things simple, let's focus on the first link they deem malware:
Their automated system is convinced that one of the SVGs on our site (specifically, the "Get it on the App Store" SVG we copied from Apple's site) is serving malware. I'm fairly certain this is impossible.  On the phone I described where I got the file, and why we are hosting it.  I've asked for them to go look at the file, have a specilist take a look.  They won't.  They don't care.
Ok so boohoo, we can't adverise our products.
Well today, we realized we can no longer run in-house ads on our own site.  DFP is saying our site (which is serving the DFP script) is hosting malware, so we cannot run ads on our own site.
We called Google again.  Getting the run-around as usual.
So my question to you is: why does Google think an SVG is malware, and can something be done to fix it? <comment><USER2> Some things to check out:

1) is your site running pop ups of any kind?

2) is your site and links all SSL?

3) do you use or link to any affiliate tracking solutions like Cake, HasOffers, etc?

4) do you use any back button redirection scripts or other types of scripts which google might consider malware or harmful to the user?

<comment><AUTHOR> 1) No 2) Yes 3) No 4) No

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Site link?</comment>


Airbnb Sues San Francisco Over a Law It Had Helped Pass - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/29/technology/airbnb-sues-san-francisco-over-a-law-it-had-helped-pass.html <comment><USER2> Discussion of news: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11990451](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11990451)</comment>


EU Clears Google Buy Of Motorola Mobility - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20120213-712259.html

<comment><USER2> And the US DOJ clears it as well

<http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2012/February/12-at-210.html></comment>


Ask HN: Development Styles on Complex Tasks? - <AUTHOR> Colour me curious as to how people <i>generally</i> approach a complex task once it's been designed.  Do you right a lot of code and test closer to the end, or do you write smaller bits bits, test, iterate, and repeat.  Which approach do you prefer and why? Does it differ with the size of the code base?  For those of us who do a combination of both - how do you decide which is a better approach and when? <comment><USER2> I write more profusely when the nature of the work/design is familiar and when the tooling validates well-drafted coding through contracts, typing, syntax checking, autocomplete, live warnings, etc

I test sooner and more frequently when the work is unfamiliar or fragile/finicky, or when the tooling is more permissive or less capable.

In terms of process, complexity and size are largely eclipsed by the above factors. They matter more for how long the whole process takes.</comment>


Consensus in Bitcoin: One system, many models - <AUTHOR> https://freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/randomwalker/consensus-in-bitcoin-one-system-many-models/

<comment><USER2> _Can we effectively model the system with all its interacting components in the language of strategies and payoff-maximization?_

For a certain set of scenarios probably but what if the goal of an attacker is, for example, the destruction of Bitcoin? I don't think you can capture motivation for such a scenario in a model that, as far as I understand it, is based on value maximization within the Bitcoin system. The negative effect of any action within the system can always be offset by some positive effect outside the system. So I don't think it is a good idea to decide what metric should be used to judge the behavior of actors if you want to analyze attacks.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a good question. One of the points I'll make in the follow-up post that I promised is that it is indeed possible to capture the motivation of such an attacker in game theory, and in fact, this has been done. [1] However, it makes the model less elegant and introduces parameters. The more of these complexities you wish to model, the less tractable the model becomes.

[1] [http://weis2013.econinfosec.org/papers/KrollDaveyFeltenWEIS2...](http://weis2013.econinfosec.org/papers/KrollDaveyFeltenWEIS2013.pdf) (Section 5).

<comment><USER3> I think that's the paper that Eyal & Sirer disprove with "selfish mining".

And here's a post that may provide a useful mental framework for thinking about cryptocurrency consensus protocols and game-theory:

[http://tendermint.com/posts/security-of-cryptocurrency- proto...](http://tendermint.com/posts/security-of-cryptocurrency-protocols/)

And a proposed solution:

[http://tendermint.com/docs/tendermint.pdf](http://tendermint.com/docs/tendermint.pdf)

Also, check out the email invite I sent you to the group! p.s. if anybody wants access, just email me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I strongly agree that byzantine fault tolerance theory by itself is a vastly insufficient model for explaining the workings of a cryptoeconomic consensus system. Cryptoeconomic consensus systems actually have to deal with five separate problems:

1\. What mechanism is used to process a batch of state transitions during each round? (blocks in bitcoin, a BFT algorithm in Pebble, etc)

2\. What mechanism incentivizes correct participation, as opposed to incorrect participation or non-participation, during a round? (block rewards, slasher penalties, etc)

3\. What mechanism disincentivizes nodes from replaying a given round or set of rounds after the fact with different state transitions? (ie. the short- range double-spend problem) - block rewards in BTC, slasher deposits in PoS, being voted out in DPOS

4\. Assuming a replay does happen, what mechanism do nodes use to determine which of the branches is correct? (PoW scoring in BTC, other scoring algorithms in PoS)

5\. What mechanism invalidates long-range forks? (PoW for bitcoin, social checkpointing for PoS systems)

BFT consensus algos are equipped to only solve (1), and even there only part of (1) (specifically, given N participants, how does the next block get produced; the neglected part is how to pick the N participants given a free- entry economic system in the first place). It's an economics problem more than anything else, really.

</comment><comment><USER5> I hope following article will be more interesting, this one is kinda introduction, I guess.

We in Consensus Research( [https://github.com/ConsensusResearch](https://github.com/ConsensusResearch) ) are study some consensus properties of proof-of-stake cryptocurrencies with executable models written in Haskell & Coq. Feedback from HN guys is highly welcomed!

</comment><comment><USER6> This reads like a freshman in college read wikipedia and submitted a paper.

<comment><USER3> If you have anything more intelligent to say on the topic, I'd like to read it.

<comment><USER6> I don't have any particularly insightful opinions on consensus, nor on Bitcoin. However, neither did this writer, and yet the post was voted to the front page.

I literally do not understand how anyone could read that and think "man, other people should totally read this!"</comment></comment></comment>


Coders, the robots will be coming for your jobs before mine - <AUTHOR> https://www.techinasia.com/coders-robot-revolution-coming <comment><USER2> It's not as crazy as it sounds. Compositional programming tools and intent parsing is a remarkable combination. Simple process based tools can be driven by voice interface without much hassle.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's so great to have a good laugh before I get some sleep.

I don't think the author understands how unreasonably effective machine learning is on their sort of work.</comment>


Formspring Closes $11.5 Million Round, Launches 'Respond' Button - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/11/formspring-closes-11-5-million-round-launches-respond-button/ <comment><USER2> I've refrained from saying that the bubble is really starting to get scary, until I saw this.

<comment><USER3> 22 Million uniques a month, making it the 157th largest site on the internet.

 _2 Billion_ responses in total, and over 10 million a day.

This isn't an investment people should look at and think "this colludes to a bubble" because this is already a valuable site. This is a site that can easily monetize. This is a site that _has traction_.

You'll know a bubble when people are raising tens of millions of dollars for nonsense ideas for products that haven't even got a prototype (let alone traction) yet.

Also you don't know the valuation so you have no idea if this deal is under or over priced, nor do you know the companies plans to decide what is the correct price.</comment></comment>


$75,000 = Free Android Smartphone. Really? - <AUTHOR> http://content.schwab.com/m/android/

<comment><AUTHOR> Just thought this was a little out there. Wouldn't you already have the smartphone you prefer if you have $75K to invest?</comment>


Publicly, We Say #MeToo. Privately, We Have Misgivings - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/05/opinion/golden-globes-metoo.html <comment><USER2> People not on the hard left have been saying this exact thing for years. I guess now that people like Franken are going down due to outrage, the NYT sees value in due process and treating women as responsible adults.

I don't mean for that statement to be flame-bait, I think it's the unvarnished truth and I'd be happy to hear opposing views.

<comment><USER3> If you don't want it to be flame bait I'd suggest you phrase it more politely.

Feminists didn't put a gun to the leadership of NYT and demand they do what they did. They reacted in the dumb ways that any corporation scared by the idea of bad PR would and do regularly, and have been appropriately chastised for it.

Both sides of this get it wrong: Women are cast as hapless victims way too often, and their opposition in turn over-simplify every case, ignoring power dynamics, social pressure, and the numerous other completely legitimate reasons women have to say yes when they want to say no.

This is going to be a long and painful process, but it's overdue, and necessary.

<comment><USER4> Well put. What I would like to see is a public discussion around what constitutes a power dynamic large enough to make sexual advances unacceptable. Any two people have some degree of power differential, after all.

<comment><USER3> That's a VERY hard question to answer. And of course there is going to be situations where a Manager legitimately is romantically interested in a subordinate. It's going to happen, it's not even that out there of a scenario.

I think the most logical step is to get this shit out of the news cycle entirely. Accuser and accused should be out of the public eye for as long as we can possibly manage. The problem is so many mechanisms in both private corps and even civic orgs are shit, which is why women are going to the media instead because it's the only way they get listened to.

<comment><USER4> A manager relationship is the most clear cut. Much harder are the "powerful people in the industry" relationships. Is the entire industry off limits to those at the top?

<comment><USER3> Again, all of this is extremely muddy by nature and will stay that way. There are innumerable variables in every single case: the intent of the accused, their credibility, their track record regarding these issues, the circumstances of the perceived attack, the credibility of the accuser, which of them is actually telling more of the truth, anything that was documented, on and on and on.

Right now there is a revulsion in the public space because of the real bad cases like Weinstein, who had a long and seemingly well known track record for abusing his station to get sexual favors from women in his industry, and use of his connections to keep it quiet from people who would've made it public. That needs to fade away before there's any realistic chance of a rational discussion. Yes, some people are going to get caught in the crossfire and that's unfortunate, but I don't see a way around it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This piece is congruent with Megan McArdle's "Consider the consequences of #BelieveAllWomen: It won't turn out well for women." [https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-12-15/consider-...](https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-12-15/consider- the-consequences-of-believeallwomen)

<comment><USER6> I can see how a pithy hashtag could be misconstrued, and I doubt that is how the hashtag was intended.

It shouldn't mean assume the accused party is guilty, it should however mean don't dismiss the injured party. If someone came up to you and said "James broke my leg" the response shouldn't be "No he didn't", but it also shouldn't be "Let's beat him up". It should be "Hey lets help you get that leg fixed up, and help you get an investigation started". What people presently face with sexual assault, especially when bringing up cases against people in power is "No, not them, that didn't happen, you're making that up because you want something." It's not limited to just women, Terry Crews was sexually assaulted in an elevator and couldn't even use his massive muscles to pop them like an orange because of how that would appear. He didn't speak out because he didn't think anyone would believe him. So when people say believe the victim it doesn't mean assume the accused party is guilty, but rather it means don't just dismiss the victim when they say someone hurt them.

<comment><USER7> In this case, intent has no bearing on its utility.

What should guide the rhetoric of social movements is, to take it back to your college GE writing class, the consideration of "writer-based" vs. "reader- based" writing. In the former, you write what you feel based on how it makes sense to you; in the latter, the intent of the writing is to convey a message in the way that the audience can comprehend it.

That hashtag will and does imply "the accused is guilty." Something that would convey the intent you describe more directly would be along the lines of #DismissNoWomen or #TakeHerSeriously.

<comment><USER6> I'll be honest I'm don't really think the hashtag was written with that much thought in mind. It seems to be more a reaction to people being told "I don't believe you" when they claim someone has assaulted them. I agree it's unclear, and reading the responses is a mixed bag. #MeToo was more direct and obvious what it was about, however I don't think it's a huge mental jump to realize that "Assume the accused is guilty" isn't a nuanced conclusion and is frankly untenable as a policy.

<comment><USER7> You'd be surprised by the extent to which governments enact policies based on a tiny, very vocal minority of people with bones to pick.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think that this is a natural consequence of a world in which it's impossible to have a dialogue about some things. There are some topics in which it's essentially impossible to have a reasoned discussion about things that we disagree over.

This article talks about one: it's impossible to have this discussion with most people (including friends and family) because as soon as someone questions the generally accepted opinion, they're put on the defensive (in this case: "OMG why would you defend a molester?"), and the entire discussion becomes one of trying to defend yourself, and not about what you're trying to discuss.

The same thing happened with the Googler who questioned the idea of whether the tactics used for trying to improve Google's male-vs-female pay discrepancies. Instead of anyone responding to points he made in any sort of rational way, the discussion was immediately turned into "how can you defend someone who says women are worse than men?" \-- not at all the case, but a quick way to avoid a factual discussion by pigeon-holing a person who dares to deviate from the generally accepted opinion.

This has also spread to politics: it's impossible to have any sort of reasoned debate about "hey, maybe <insert your favorite politician here> isn't literally the devil across the board" \-- the conversation immediately becomes one of trying to undermine the person ("OMG I can't believe you're defending Franken, a man who has assaulted women!").

It also happens when people try to debate things like whether the "Yes means yes" laws are useful, reasonable or effective; I've never seen a reasonable discussion about this (online or in real life), because if anyone questions it, they're immediately on the defensive, trying to argue that no, they're not defending rapists, and no they're not against a safe environment for women. Politically, it's brilliant marketing, because there is absolutely no way to argue against it without being immediately pigeonholed as a rape-defender, and then spending all of your time trying to dig out of a hole that you've been put into.

It's unhealthy, and I think leads to echo chambers -- no one dares to voice an opinion unless they know people will agree with them. And this ultimately makes the problem worse, I think, because without a reasonable dialogue about issues, and without being able to accept the fact that people may have logical reasons to disagree with you, I don't really understand how things will get any better.

Edited: Dialog -> dialogue

</comment><comment><USER9> The reason we must be careful is beacuase women can suffer from mental illness just as easy as men. People with mental illness make things up.

Remember "mattress girl" or the Duke lacrosse team?

These cases ruined innocent lives, not something to be taken lightly.

</comment><comment><USER10> No light will come from discussion of this article.

<comment><USER11> I could not disagree more.

In a world where great injustice have happened, the solution is rarely to abandon the legal system in order to right the wrongs. Too much collateral damage.

The article encourage us to discuss how to right the wrongs without abandoning the legal system. That would be a nice discussion to have on HN.

<comment><USER6> I think most people who supported #MeToo or #BelieveAllWomen do not believe in abandoning the legal system, though they may be discussing adjusting the legal system such that we actually see more convictions of rapists, assaulters, etc where the evidence succeeds in proving the accused party guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt.

<comment><USER11> If we agree to that then I think we can also agree that adjusting the legal system such that we actually see more convictions is also something which practically everyone would want. There is few crimes in any nation that has more than a single digit conviction rate. To give an example, Sweden has dedicated police units for sexual violence crime, dedicated unit of prosecutors for it, and a legal system where if there is evidence proving the accused party is guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt then the accused will get jail time. It still only has 8% clearing rate, which to be fair is higher than in the US, but still where the wast wast majority fails because a lack of any evidence beyond the testimony of the accuser and accused. By a coincident, assault also has the exact same 8% clearing rate (but with a higher occurrence rate).

The question is how to get the clearing rate anything near in which people will start to feel that the guilty will be punished.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "the trickle-down effect to cases like those of Garrison Keillor, Jonathan Schwartz, Ryan Lizza and Al Franken, in which the accusations are scattered, anonymous or, as far as the public knows, very vague and unspecific, has been troubling."

This is a hot take, especially when Al Franken was literally photographed with his hands on a woman's chest. Sexual assault is bad, using your position to enable that should get you fired. Yes even if you are a democrat.

"What about the women who are the predators?" the author claims, though the #metoo was fundamentally about sexual assault, not specifically men assaulting women. I mean literally one of the heinous examples she provided was a man assaulting a man. This article is concerning, and I'm curious what their ulterior motive is.

Just to announce my bias, I'm a leftist, and I have a suspicion this is a democrat trying to gloss over the unacceptable behavior of Al Franken, who for the record I personally supported until I learned about the sexual assault.

<comment><USER4> > Al Franken was literally photographed with his hands on a woman's chest.

No, he wasn't.

<comment><USER6> Yes, I guess you're correct looking very closely it does appear he is merely making groping motions very close to her breasts. It changes it from sexual assault to sexual harassment which is still completely unacceptable. It still is not a behavior that any of our elected officials should be engaging in.

<comment><USER4> It's still not completely clear. I haven't been following this case specifically, so I don't know other details that may have come out, but there can easily be mitigating circumstances. Maybe they had a cat and mouse game going on all day, and she had been doing the same to him. Maybe he was merely reciprocating an inside joke. He wasn't her boss, so that sort of game wouldn't be a big deal.

I'm sure this sounds to you like I'm reaching, but I can think of many, many similar circumstances where I've done something completely innocent in context that would get me skewered if taken as a sound bite or a picture. That's why I'm slow to take the man's career.

<comment><USER6> They were on a work trip together as colleagues. If you're on a work trip, or any work event you don't make advances on your colleagues and you definitely don't make sexual jokes. IANAL but unwanted advances in the workplace constitutes sexual harassment, feigned groping jokes also count as sexual harassment. If she was making butt grope jokes at him she could similarly lose her job. It's a very bad idea all around and you shouldn't do it. Just because someone doesn't press charges because they're having fun with it doesn't mean you're not walking on insanely thin ice.

<comment><USER12> > IANAL but unwanted advances in the workplace constitutes sexual harassment

No, it doesn't.

Asking a colleague someone on a date may be an "unwanted advance" but that is _not_ sexual harassment. Even asking someone on a date and having them decline multiple times is not sexual harassment, so long as the asker is polite and respectful about it.

Sexual harassment is a fairly high legal bar in the USA. You can _sue_ for just about anything, but if you want to win you need _evidence_ of truly bad behavior.

Which is as it should be; convicting based solely on the accuser's testimony is not fair no matter the crime.

Source: recent all-hands corporate training session held by an employment attorney

<comment><USER6> edit: To clear the air, I completely agree regarding the statement. "convicting based solely on the accuser's testimony is not fair no matter the crime."

it's not always so clear cut though, for example if they decide to quit as a result of the advances, then it could count as sexual harassment due to the adverse employment decision. Admittedly you're completely right about winning. You're not going to win a lawsuit because Sally politely asked you out once, but maybe if she "politely" badgered you every single time she spoke to the point where you were not willing to work with that person any more, and that caused you to get demoted.

Usually someone has to be a dirtbag, but some people think they're not dirtbags when they totally are dirtbags. That's when HR disasters happen and the accused weave some tale about how they were totally innocent when in reality they were shitty people creating a hostile workplace otherwise the jury would never have voted the way they did.

bob: "Oh but you said asking out was okay" HR: "yeah but uh your version of asking out was putting your balls on their desk and saying 'hey babe you know you want this'" bob:"Yeah but there was nothing rude about that, babe is a compliment"

bob@thePub: "I can't believe they fired me you ask a girl out and all the sudden it's sexual harassment"

you know who I'm talking about.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Uber to pull out of Denmark, blaming new taxi law - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/28/uber-to-pull-out-of-denmark-blaming-new-taxi-law/ <comment><USER2> Nothing more beautiful than bureaucracy driving out a thriving new business. Many of us danes were hopeful that the old taxi business would finally be shaken up as it is much needed.

<comment><USER3> Well, when the "thriving new business" isn't paying tax in Denmark and its employees doesn't pay tax either we have a problem.

<comment><USER4> I always learnt that if a business model doesn't work with tax, it isn't a successful business model.

Specifically in regards to the article, the fare meter requirement sounds reasonable. Both the driver and the passenger have a phone, I am assuming as you travel your fare will go up so why not show it on that? The seat sensor requirement might not be so easy to get around.</comment></comment></comment>


A taste for the beautiful: How evolution shapes attraction - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/02/a-taste-for-the-beautiful-how-evolution-shapes-attraction/ <comment><USER2> I'm a little baffled by that part at the end. Sex with someone to whom you're genuinely attracted is wildly different and superior to porn... I guess I'm still young maybe that'll change when I'm older.</comment>