Play.js: The Node.js and React Native IDE for iPhone and iPad - <AUTHOR> https://playdotjs.com/ <comment><USER2> I clicked the logo 3 times. It's not a video :)

<comment><USER3> Me too.

</comment></comment><comment> martin-adams The app is really slick. I'm surprised they were allowed to have their own window manager as Apple were very against that in the past. But I really like it. It actually is a nice take on a desktop environment on a tablet.

I'm curious it being Node.js. It can run my js file on flight mode so isn't using a remote execution. But I didn't believe you could run node.js on an iPad due to the Apple restrictions (hopefully I'm wrong).

That said, the whole ecosystem of Node.js is about bringing in modules. I can't see any mention of how to do that.

<comment><USER4> > they were allowed to have their own window manager as Apple were very > against that in the past.

How is it a window manager when it's just an app with whatever screens it appropriate to display?

It's no more a window manager than sketchbooks in drawing apps.

<comment> martin-adams It's because they've recreated the internal menus, window snapping, ability to overlay windows and has a desktop. It looks like an OS. Apple were against this in the past because it doesn't align with their OS way of doing things. I never liked the rule so I'm excited to see that it looks like they've relaxed it in recent years.

<comment><USER5> I don't think they've ever had a policy about whether apps could / couldn't re-create their own menus or windows.

<comment> martin-adams I finally found it. It's the "create an alternate desktop environment" part that I would say this falls under. Mostly because you have a desktop and they've created a new windowing environment that isn't native to iOS.

>> 2.5.8 Apps that create alternate desktop/home screen environments or simulate multi-app widget experiences will be rejected.

[https://developer.apple.com/app- store/review/guidelines/](https://developer.apple.com/app- store/review/guidelines/)

<comment><USER5> Got it. Yeah I see what you mean. This rule is more about them wanting to maintain control over distribution than it is about having a custom desktop / windowing metaphor. They don't want people to create a platform within their platform where a third-party is distributing app-like things in an end-run around the iOS App Store.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is there a hidden demographic of devs building React apps on iPads? This seems very, very niche.

<comment><USER7> Hidden? Probably more like latent. I build React apps all the times professionally and in my leisure time. I also use my iPad Pro a lot. I just don't use my iPad Pro to make React apps, because I've never been aware of any feasible way to do so.

<comment><USER8> I'm in a similar boat. I desperately _want_ to be able to develop on my iPad, but just haven't found a good way to do it yet. The best I've found so far is programming a micro:bit with the scratch-like environment.

I'll probably try this out, but what I really want is something like Max/MSP so is don't have to type so much (although I do have a keyboard for my iPad, but it's not something I like to type for long durations on)

<comment><USER9> There are several very capable, full-blown dev environments available for the iPad and iPhone. I think the main ones are:

Codea for Lua [https://codea.io/](https://codea.io/)

Pythonista for Python [http://omz-software.com/pythonista/](http://omz- software.com/pythonista/)

Continuous for .NET [http://continuous.codes/](http://continuous.codes/)

Codea and Pythonista also provide XCode templates you can drop your code into to create App Store apps from your projects. Not sure about Continuous.

Apple allowing iCloud syncing for code has removed the last real source of friction I'd had using Pythonista. Now I can write a script on my iPad, then reach over and run it on my phone, then if it's cross-platform sit at my Mac and run it from there too before checking it into Github. No fuss, no bother.

<comment><USER8> I've looked at the first two of those and I found them still too awkward due to being very text-typing heavy. Similar to play.js so I guess it mightn't work well for me. I do have a keyboard and get by, but it's uncomfortable for anything but shortish bursts and while I can of course use a normal keyboard, when I have one available I typically also have a laptop or desktop available so it's easier to just use those. Like I said, I really dream of something more touch-friendly like an iPad-max/msp type language.

Still, I'll try the ones you linked again and see. Maybe I got it wrong.

<comment><USER9> Graphical development environments like that are a nice idea, but tend to be somewhat limited and very domain specific.

Pythonista does come with a graphical UI builder, but it is still a very code intensive environment.

<comment><USER8> > Graphical development environments like that are a nice idea, but tend to be > somewhat limited and very domain specific.

Sure, they tend to be, but in my experience with them (mainly Max/MSP and Synthmaker) they don't _have_ to be. The potential is there, but nobody has really done it well. Max/MSP came close when I last used it, but had a few annoying limitations[1] and there's a general negative sentiment towards graphical programming environments, which I feel puts a lot of people off trying them in earnest and therefore puts people off experimenting with building them (and they will never improve if people don't try -- remember, we have decades of textual language evolution and tooling).

Some of the negativity is justified, but some of it is, in my opinion, not. For example, people criticise the visual spaghetti code and cite examples from many existing visual languages (usually the domain specific ones), but ignore that these domain specific ones are used by non-programmers who never learned software engineering principles. Textual code when written by these same people is just as much spaghetti code lacking encapsulation and abstraction and good naming conventions as visual code written by these people. I've seen some Max/MSP code that was downright beautiful and super easy to follow. Don't get me wrong, on a laptop/desktop, I totally prefer textual like everyone else, but I feel on a tablet, visual would be a great fit.

But even with the negative aspects, I think the benefits of being able to use a touchscreen outweighs the negatives, when compared to using a textual language on a touchscreen. For me, at least, if not for others.

> Pythonista does come with a graphical UI builder, but it is still a very > code intensive environment.

I guess I'll give it a try, but "code intensive" sounds like what I don't want. We will see. Thanks for the recommendation regardless!

[1] At the time, I couldn't figure out a way of nesting data structures, for example. It seems this is now possible, so I don't know if it was added since or if I overlooked it at the time. There were a bunch such limitations that prevented it from being useful as a general purpose language, but since its not meant to be one, I guess it doesn't matter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Is there something similar that would allow me to use one of these on iPad Pro:

\- A fully featured linux desktop with Visual Studio Code and a terminal

\- A sandboxed terminal with persistent storage

\- A text editor and a rust compiler

\- A text editor

I could always ssh into my raspberry pi while at home, which is my second best solution. But, if anyone has some ideas/solutions in mind that require even a large bit of tinkering, please tell me :)

<comment><USER11> Here's how I do this: [https://stephendotz.com/posts/pocket- dev/](https://stephendotz.com/posts/pocket-dev/) Originally I set it up on my iPhone, but now I use my iPad Pro "13 w/ the keyboard cover and it's really pleasant. I've written a ton of code on it. Front-end work is a little bit less fun because there aren't any browsers with dev tools for it.

<comment><USER12> Inspect Browser: [https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/inspect- browser/id1203594958...](https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/inspect- browser/id1203594958?mt=8)

<comment><USER11> Amazing, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Cool would be if this app had some basic git(hub) support - currently seems only to support storing files locally or sharing to anything with a registered Sharing Extension (not aware of app that registers github sharing extension)

<comment><USER14> It already exposes it's document folder "On My iPad" so you can use the folder sync feature in Working Copy to work with github.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I am incredibly excited for this. As a developer, all of my mobile devices excel at doing almost everything except....development. One step closer to a realized dream.

</comment><comment><USER16> I bought this, it looks very nice and the UI has a very high level of polish to it.

I'm trying to use this with WebViews to hack together a multi-window, multi- tab browser thing, not sure if this is something that exists already.

The main issue with this is that it closes all of the windows when you switch away from this app, making it quite inconvenient at the moment.

</comment><comment><USER17> Side note: I was expecting the background to be some really neat CSS trickery... Sadly just an image :'(

</comment><comment><USER18> This is pretty cool. Just killed 30 minutes while in a waiting room.

Couldn't figure out how to add modules.

Auto-prettier would be awesome.

</comment><comment><USER19> What Node modules does it download and how can I inspect them? What are the security implications?

</comment><comment><USER20> You will be much more productive on any Chromebook with a Linux distro than on a iPad.

</comment><comment><USER21> Anything similar for android people who have some time to kill while commuting?

<comment><USER22> Termux + Expo.io

Or Samsung's Linux on DeX works well for app dev on your phone.

<comment><USER23> How can you use DeX and commute?

<comment><USER24> Theoretically you could use a portable HDMI screen and a battery pack, but that's quite clunky.

The Galaxy Tab S4 supports DeX right on the tablet AFAIK.

<comment><USER22> The Tab s4 and s5e both have DeX mode on screen and can be proto-laptops. Also there exist lapdock implementions by favorite being the HP Lapdock which even supports wireless pairing (Although DeX still needs to enable wireless projection mode)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I hate to brag but why can't you enlarge the screenshots on the App Store? Why is there no info or video what so ever to showcase the tool?

</comment><comment><USER26> the video doesn't seem to play...

</comment><comment><USER27> Cool but why though? I understand for those small percentage of iPad users this will be great.

<comment><USER28> That's precisely why. Took my money. Is great.

<comment><USER29> real image?

<comment><USER28> on HN nobody knows if you're real.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Tarsnap - Why picodollars? - <AUTHOR> http://www.tarsnap.com/picoUSD-why.html <comment><USER2> I love tarsnap. Its, by far, one of the best tools I've adopted in the last year or two. The service is simple and easy to understand. The tool works great, has great documentation, and makes sense to my unix brain. And the price is fair and straightforward. I prepaid the minimum amount, $5, and have backed up 189 GB of data and still have $2.603332060102213400 available on my account. How can that be? Well, one last reason why tarsnap rocks: it deduplicates the data automatically.

Great job, Colin. I've been recommending it to everyone I know. Keep it up.

<comment><USER3> _I've been recommending it to everyone I know_

Thanks! This is very important to me -- both because such recommendation tells me that I'm doing something right, and because Tarsnap's target user base is a very hard one to reach by any method _other_ than word of mouth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> When I first looked at tarsnap a few days back, one of the first things I thought was "What the hell is a picodollar?"

So I gave up on the idea.

</comment><comment><USER5> Tarsnap is the one service which I log on to once in several weeks and go..Wha! How the hell did I spend so _little_ money in all this time?

ps. Note to cperciva - Speaking as a customer, please don't take this as a sign that you should raise your prices.

pps.: Note 2 to cperciva: Speaking as a fellow entrepreneur, how can you _not_ raise your prices? ;)

<comment><USER3> _Speaking as a customer, please don't take this as a sign that you should raise your prices._

Don't worry, I have no intention of raising prices. Tarsnap is not wildly profitable, but it is profitable -- and the most feasible way to make more money is to get more customers, not to increase prices and probably lose customers.

 _Speaking as a fellow entrepreneur, how can you not raise your prices? ;)_

As I said above: Raising my prices would probably be a bad business move. That said, I make no guarantees that my prices will come down every time that my costs come down (as they inevitably will over time), so my profit margin might increase in that way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's nice that you shared the reasons for using the picodollar, but I'd never buy your product because it's not blatantly obvious how much it costs. No offense intended.

<comment><USER3> _it's not blatantly obvious how much it costs_

The front page of the tarsnap website says

      Storage:
        300 picodollars / byte-month
        ($0.30 / GB-month)
      Bandwidth:
        300 picodollars / byte
        ($0.30 / GB)

Even if you don't know what the pico- prefix means, I'm not sure how you could be confused by the $/GB pricing...

<comment><USER7> It's still confusing and redundant. Just write $0.30 / GB and that's it. Nobody cares if they will be paying 5 cent or 3,789 cent a month for their small-scale backups.

Also a little javascript calculator, right there on the frontpage, would be a nice gimmick.

<comment><USER8> _It's still confusing and redundant. Just write $0.30 / GB and that's it._

Edit: Okay, $0.30 / GB / month

<comment><USER7> Well, $.30 / GB / Month, to be precise. The "storage over time"-part is just very hard to communicate in a single sentence. Hence the javascript calculator. Give them a small box where they can tack in GB's and number of days and see for themselves.

Just avoid confronting your potential customer with terms he has never heard. "Don't make me think" applies here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Hrm. That information is useless though... people think in terms of GB, which is indeed also listed on the front page...

<comment><AUTHOR> It definitely isn't useless, the billing is in terms of that, so a tiny backup will cost you a tiny bit of money.

Anyway, I thought it was really neat.

It sets a new standard for honesty in business. No rounding required.

<comment><USER3> _No rounding required._

That's not quite true. Tarsnap does billing computations daily, so -- in months which do not contain 30 days -- there is some rounding.

However, usage costs are computed to attodollar precision, and are rounded _down_ \-- so I don't think anyone will object to said rounding. :-)

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm really happy I'm not in competition with you, you set the bar rather high :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> ARGHHHH I finally decided to use Tarsnap and it happens that it's not available in Canada :/

<comment><USER3> Send me an email and I might be able to help you out.</comment></comment>


Why Sweden Clears Snow-Covered Walkways Before Roads - <AUTHOR> https://usa.streetsblog.org/2018/01/24/why-sweden-clears-walkways-before-roads/ <comment><USER2> what? no they don't.. This is completely dependent on where you live. In stockholm, absolutely the roads are kept clear first in many areas, as well as the rails with plow trains. Then they have plows for the sidewalks. In Ursvik it was certainly the case that they kept the roads clear first

Not to mention many kommun areas' snow are managed by its citizens (t.ex. the areas southwest of Farsta Strand). It's not uncommon that areas don't get plowed at all and people just chance driving it.

Blatant exaggeration of limited cases where this is true imo.

<comment><USER3> For non-Swedish speakers context, "t.ex." (till exempel) = e.g. (exempla gratia).

Agreed that this article is missing the point - this is just what Norwegians call "swedenisms" (svenskerier)

<comment><USER4> exempli gratia</comment></comment></comment>


Kent Beck's Smalltalk Best Practice Patterns is Now Available in Digital Formats - <AUTHOR> http://www.informit.com/store/algorithms-9780132852111

<comment><USER2> Wow. It's a wonderful book. It's great for Smalltalkers of course, but it's also a wonderful book for OO in general. It's also available on Kindle [1] and Apple iTunes [2].

[1] [http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=000000&IS2...](http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=000000&IS2=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=hboon-20&o=1&p=8&l=as4&m=amazon&f=ifr&ref=ss_til&asins=B000OZ0N5S) [2] [http://click.linksynergy.com/fs- bin/click?id=dE0y3GuqVK4&...](http://click.linksynergy.com/fs- bin/click?id=dE0y3GuqVK4&subid=&offerid=146261.1&type=10&tmpid=3909&RD_PARM1=https%3A%2F%2Fitunes.apple.com%2Fus%2Fbook%2Fsmalltalk- best-practice-patterns%2Fid598887118%3Fmt%3D11)

PS: Yes, both are affiliate links.

</comment><comment><USER3> Great news. This is a classic and deserves to be more widely read.</comment>


When last checked, nytimes.com was loading 29 third-party trackers - <AUTHOR> https://better.fyi/sites/nytimes.com/ <comment><USER2> Gotta catch em all</comment>


You probably are Part Neanderthal - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703686304575228380902037988.html?mod=WSJ_hps_MIDDLEFifthNews#dummy

<comment><USER2> Discussion at: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1325126></comment>


Ask HN: How can I revert GitHub's new Gitlab-design? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> [https://gitly.org](https://gitly.org) is going to have similar design, even simpler.

It's written in V, so it's very light and fast. Open source release this week.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm migrating to gitlab</comment>


Yahoo and Alibaba, Joined at the Balance Sheet - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/backchannel/yahoo-and-alibaba-joined-at-the-balance-sheet-94b459233894 <comment><USER2> "And yet…your company is worth less than zero."

I don't understand how this keeps getting repeated. It's one of the more financially ignorant things I see, repeated like a common myth.

It's the Alibaba stake that is discounted, as assets / cash on a balance sheet always are.

Yahoo, the stand-alone business, is not worth less than zero. It was not worth zero before Alibaba became valuable, it won't be worth less than zero after the Alibaba assets are discharged or spent.

If Yahoo has $X in earnings, and they remove the Alibaba stake completely from the company (say it all goes to shareholders in a one-time dividend), those $X earnings will be not receive a zero multiplier when it comes to a valuation for the publicly traded YHOO. If Yahoo can generate $500m in net income off of $4 billion in sales, they will be worth $10 to $15 billion roughly speaking. Even without net income, Yahoo will still receive a sizable valuation on Wall- Street. See: AOL, which is presently worth $3.3 billion (while struggling the last few years to generate much net income from their actual business), and there is no question Yahoo is worth a few times what AOL is. The claim that Yahoo's core is worth less than zero, does not hold up under any actual real scenario.

<comment><USER3> For the financially ignorant, why does asset/cash on balance sheet get discounted?

<comment><USER4> In this case, because:

1/ As a minority shareholder, you don't have control over the Alibaba shareholding. Theoretically, the company could sell it off and do other things with it and you would have no way of stopping it. If this company would be trading at a substantial discount (say, 15-25%), it could be 'raided' by an (activist) investor who sells it for parts.

2/ The Alibaba stock can't be transferred directly to the shareholders without incurring tax. It's 'stuck' in a shell corporation. The only exit is probably Alibaba acquiring that company to clean up their shareholder structure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > Mayer returned half of the after-tax money to shareholders in the form of a > dividend.

Nitpicking but Yahoo never paid a single dividend in its history. Mayer vowed to return the proceeds of the first Alibaba stake sale by doing share buybacks. That generally implies that the company estimates it's undervalued. They already brought down the the number of outstanding shares from 1B+ to <940M.

<comment><USER6> Dividends and buybacks are functionally equivalent. Think of a company like a short, wide plastic container, half-full of water. Think of the air in the container as being the cash that the company has, and the water as the rest of its value. Each share in the company corresponds to some imaginary vertical slice of the container.

Now, you can apportion the value in the company in a few different ways, but there are two extreme ones:

1\. The container is lying flat on the table. Each share has the same proportions of water and air as the others. If everyone's slice of the container is 10% air, you could pay it out to them evenly ("dropping the lid" of the container.) This shrinks the company, but it doesn't shrink the volume of "stuff" that anyone owns, modulo taxes.

2\. You tip the container on its side so all of the air goes to one end. If the container is 10% air, now 10% of shares are _all_ air, and the other 90% of the shares have no air at all. If you "paid out" the air now, you're doing a share buyback.

These accomplish basically the same thing for a company -- they have less cash (air) and less market cap (total volume).

They're about the same to the shareholders, too. If I have 10 shares in Yahoo and they use all their cash to do a buyback of 10% of their stock, I can sell one of my shares and be in exactly the same financial situation I would have been in had they decided to pay a 10% dividend (I'd have the same amount of cash, my shares would be worth the same amount, and they'd correspond to the same proportion of the company.)

<comment><USER7> Capital gains and dividends aren't taxed at the same rate, so the whole water air thing in the end doesnt match up for an Investor.

Then theres the whole debate about, maybe management can't reinvest that money properly, maybe the shares will actually lose value because of this.

<comment><USER8> My guess is that management gets bonuses based on how well the stock performs, and dividends don't get included in that calculation. So dividends will never cross their mind.

<comment><USER9> A buyback also raises the value of options, while a dividend is not paid to option holders.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Spinco gets Yahoo Store? Aw.

Yahoo Store was originally Viamall, which had the first application where you could build a web site on line. It was written in LISP. How else would you represent an editable HTML tree?

</comment><comment><USER11> I've read a previous article[0] on Marissa Meyer's tyrannical reign. I fully expect SpinCo's launch to result in Yahoo's share price tanking and Meyer being fired.

I'm not trying to be super-negative, but honestly, I've heard nothing good about what Meyer's done for the company, and it's a shame.

Edit: I think Yahoo and Aol merging might not be the worst idea. Aol have something Yahoo desperately wants: content.

[0] [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/21/magazine/what-happened- whe...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/21/magazine/what-happened-when-marissa- mayer-tried-to-be-steve-jobs.html)

<comment><USER12> I guess you missed Levy's first Yahoo story: [https://medium.com/backchannel/marissa-mayer-has- completed-s...](https://medium.com/backchannel/marissa-mayer-has-completed- step-one-71dc31912855)

Many feel the precise opposite as you.</comment></comment>


How not to do customer service - <AUTHOR> http://www.altgate.com/blog/2009/02/how-not-to-do-customer-support.html

<comment><USER2> No No No. All wrong. This is how not to do it (video):

[http://www.comedycentral.com/videos/index.jhtml?videoId=1899...](http://www.comedycentral.com/videos/index.jhtml?videoId=189931&title=popcopy)</comment>


Ask HN: What makes a good technical leader – any recommended books? - <AUTHOR> I just became a technical lead (spiced with a little product manager) for a team who is working with machine-learning/deep-learning technologies (I have ~6 years of background in this field). I feel like I am performing well, but there is a lot of room for improvement on: how to plan for the future, how to communicate success, how to assign engineers and researchers to tasks, how to define tasks, etc.<p>Do you have any recommendation on what should I do, read to become better and better every day? I want my team to be successful, and to show the improvements we make to the company. <comment><USER5> The best book on leadership I read was Jocko Willink's Extreme Ownership[1]. He was a career US Navy SEAL and bring a lot of great leadership approaches from the SEALS and correlates them to the business world. His principles lead back to the idea of taking extreme ownership of everything related to your team and the "mission". I really liked his no nonsense approach.

The best lesson I learnt on leadership is to listen to and believe in your team. They are the experts, not you anymore. Your job now is to clear the path to their success. Different people need different things to succeed, it's your job to figure that out and try your best to provide it.

What I recommend: Figure out what kind of leader you want to be. Read as much as you can and talk to other leaders inside and outside of your company to see what works and doesn't work for them.

Finally, make sure your team has a crystal clear definition of what success is and the milestones to get there. Ensuring this understanding will help your team move in the same direction.

Good luck!

[1] [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23848190-extreme- ownersh...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23848190-extreme-ownership)

<comment><USER6> When I was still a new dev, I had a "superboss" in another city (HQ) managing teams across the country including our little dev team. I was new and did not interact with "superboss"-es from HQ directly.

One day after a major release stuff broke in production. The company was losing customers daily. The "superboss"-es from HQ descended on our little dev team in a small midwestern city and ordered "Code Red".

What it meant to me as a new dev was that I can't go home and the whole team had to stay in the office until the problem was solved... A part of the team had to sleep in the office for a few weeks. (I still don't know if this is against OSHA.)

Many years later while I was watching the movie "A Few Good Men.", I learnt that "Code Red" was a military term. Suddenly, it dawned on me that my "superboss" was also an ex-military person.

Sleeping at work did not fix the issue, after many months of hiring help and bringing in more hands the outage was brought under control.

Did the ex-military "superboss" help the situation? I don't know...

Now I know that Military veterans in their enthusiasm to find work in civilian environments tout their ex-military skills as team building or leadership skills.

Skills learned in the military are for war, learned for conflict situations and applying them to civilian environments and bringing a war mentality or attitude to a workplace is toxic.

I don't have an answer to what makes a good technical leader but I know from experience that ex-military style leadership only adds to the toxicity of a workplace.

<comment><USER7> EDIT- Seems the below came from a misreading of the OP text, But i cannot delete it now that I'm downvoted... Please ignore.

> Skills learned in the military are for war, learned for conflict situations > and applying them to civilian environments and bringing a war mentality or > attitude to a workplace is toxic.

> only adds to the toxicity of a workplace

What exactly was the toxicity besides your choice to overreact (stay overnight) ? Why do you believe that leadership skills for war are not applicable to other domains?

<comment><USER8> >A part of the team had to sleep in the office for a few weeks.

So it sounds like OP was coerced to do so and it was not a free choice or an "overreaction" as you characterize it.

<comment><USER7> i see, I didnt read it as a command but as a "We volitionally chose to solve the issue this way"

<comment><USER9> "Had to" usually implies coercion of a sort. Like you might say "in PE class we had to stand on one leg for 10 minutes".

<comment><USER7> I've had experiences where "Had to" was like

"If I wanted the outcome I was aiming for I had to.... (workout?)" This is how I took the sentence. A totally volitionally accepted responsibility

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Congrats on the transition! I have several books to recommend that I all read are on my bookshelf, some with reviews[1]. YMMV vary but these were the most helpful for me:

1\. The First 90 Days - a good reminder that when you transition, it's like starting a new job

2\. Become and Effective Software Engineering Manager - a hands-on book for people transitioning to management, starting at a new company or looking to make more of an org-wide impact.

3\. The Manager's Path - a short reference handbook for managers at all levels.

4\. The Goal - written in the '80s, yet a timeless novel on what management is about, may that be a manager of a team, an organization or an industrial plant.

Also, I wrote a post about my learnings on transitioning from engineer to manager that has some good comments on HN[2]

[1] [https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/my-reading- list/#engineer...](https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/my-reading- list/#engineering-management-books)

[2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15326652](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15326652)

<comment><USER11> Following on from _The Goal_ are _It 's Not Luck_ and _Critical Chain_. The latter of those is particularly good in combination with the more recent _Phoenix Project_.

Each of these books is a bit utopian or idealistic. By doing what's suggested by the guru everything magically works out. But, while not magical, the ideas really do work and help operate and understand organizations. The principles are not complex, each book can probably be summarized in a 3-5 page paper. But the "case study" (quotes because it's a fictional plant/company, not just one obscured by pseudonyms) is good for illustrating the point and the path of process improvement.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> 1\. "An Elegant Puzzle - Systems of Engineering Management" by Will Larson. His blog & "Staff Eng" posts are helpful as well. [https://lethain.com/tags/staff-eng/](https://lethain.com/tags/staff-eng/)

2\. "The Phoenix Project", "The Unicorn Project" (novels), and "DevOps Handbook" by Eugene Kim, on how different parts of a tech + non-tech organization come and work together.

3\. "High Output Management" by Andrew Grove on overall technical management.

4\. "Measure What Matters" by John Doerr on setting objectives and measuring their progress.

5\. "The Checklist Manifesto" by Atul Gawande on thinking through replicable processes.

6\. "Who" by Geoff Smart on hiring.

7\. "Start with Why" by Simon Sinek and "The Culture Code" by Daniel Coyle on creating culture and reasons for why people do the work. It's an important part of any management process, double import because of how often it is lost in technical management.

<comment><USER13> Some good suggestions (and a couple I'll have to read...) I'd add the following:

8\. "The Mythical Man-Month" by Fred Brooks (still, IMO, one of the best management books ever, esp. for software and product development.)

9\. Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War by Robert Coram (OODA is the true core of agile thinking, and it works pretty much everywhere.)

For software and computers specifically, add:

10\. Computer Lib/Dream Machines by Ted Nelson (Impossible to categorize - it's a hypertext _book_ for crying out loud - but browsing it can change your thinking.)

11\. The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder. (Good for new products in general.)

And for general management and leadership inspiration, two great autobiographies:

12\. Mover of Men and Mountains, by R.G. Le Tourneau.

13\. Rickenbacker, by Eddie Rickenbacker.

<comment><USER12> Some good additions there, some I'll need to check out. I really liked the Boyd book when I read it, but I would probably recommend his papers/reports or some of the more short form things written about him to get to the point faster (RibbonFarm/Venkatesh Rao was how I was introduced). That said, I did learn a lot about navigating bureaucracy (perhaps bullheadedly).

On that note, I would also add another book about organizational psychology - how people game incentives, how cya evolved, how people focus on short term thinking over long term investments, problems common across big businesses, written by a sociologist embedded for a few years in a corporation, but I can't for the life of me remember it.

But also:

The Secrets of Consulting" by Gerald Weinberg on generally thinking through 'solutionizing'.

"Systemantics" by John Galt as a short and fun intro to applied systems thinking and cascading effects.

"We Need to Talk" by Celeste Headlee on how to have difficult conversations.

"Never Split the difference" on handling and understanding negotiations both up and down the chain.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Becoming a Technical Leader: An Organic Problem-Solving Approach - <USER2> Weinberg (and many other great books by him) - a book I've read and re-read many times. A brief review here - [https://blog.mkorman.uk/book-review- becoming-a-technical-lea...](https://blog.mkorman.uk/book-review-becoming-a- technical-leader/)

<comment><USER15> I'm surprised this book didn't come up sooner, it's a fantastic book.

To my knowledge the only book mentioned here that takes the time to define technical leadership and present models of leadership suited potentially to different circumstances.

I might add 'The art and science of doing engineering' by hamming and recently republished by stripe.

The more leadership or management books I read the more inclined I am to respect Taleb's approach of looking for old timeless material rather than what's new or hot.

Most of what Gerald Weinberg has written qualifies IMO. Tom DeMarcos books also.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This book is not about technical management in particular, but it can help you a lot in understanding and dealing with people better, it's called The Charisma Myth: [https://www.amazon.com/Charisma-Myth-Science-Personal- Magnet...](https://www.amazon.com/Charisma-Myth-Science-Personal- Magnetism/dp/1591845947/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=charisma+myth&qid=1594135403&sprefix=charisma+my&sr=8-3)

The book is an interesting read, but merely reading it won't do anything. There are one or two exercises per chapter, and you should work on them if you really want to see the benefits.

Also, if you want to do a little test before reading the whole book follow these tips from the intro:

> Three quick tips to boost charisma in conversation: Lower the intonation of > your voice at the end of sentences, reduce how quickly and how often you > nod, and pause for two full seconds before you speak.

From this summary: [https://github.com/mgp/book-notes/blob/master/the- charisma-m...](https://github.com/mgp/book-notes/blob/master/the-charisma- myth.markdown)

</comment><comment><USER17> Read/listen to [https://www.manager-tools.com/](https://www.manager- tools.com/) they posit that all good managers do these four things in abundance:

1\. 1 on 1's (which are for the benefit of the direct report not the boss) weekly for 30 minutes - 15 minutes for you, 15 minutes for the direct report.

2\. Giving feedback both good and bad in a constructive way

3\. Providing coaching and context to the reports work

4\. Tactical delegation of tasks both that you know they can do so they feel good about their work, and also some difficult tasks to stretch them (with coaching)

This plus understanding the different types of role power within an oganization, and knowing which type of power to use when and with who.(hint it's often never the right answer to user your role power to say ''do this because I am the boss'' use role power sparingly)

<comment><USER18> I second the recommendation for Manager Tools. Start with the "Basics" casts on one-on-ones, feedback, coaching, and delegation to get up to speed. Their book The Effective Manager by Mark Horstman is a great place to start, too.

The podcast was super helpful to me in transitioning from IC to management.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I would say ask for feedback from the team you are leading in an honest way and evaluate what you get back and try your best to change if it makes sense.

Usually your actions affect them the most and if you do something that "annoys" them(e.g. Too authoritarian, micromanaging, Not giving the credit when due, Not defending them against external forces etc.), most would not approach you from below to mention it(exceptions exist), after all you are the lead/manager imagine how you would(or would not) give feedback to a Senior Director if they did not ask for it. Giving unsolicited feedback is also weird and some people don't receive feedback well, so them making the first move is all but risk unless they know you want it.

Not every feedback makes sense and not every person can give feedback properly(being too shy or too harsh etc.). You would also need to learn how they communicate their concerns and calibrate what they say. For example "I don't like X because Y" of a very introvert person carries more weight than same sentence of someone that can easily discuss things they don't like openly.

Edit: As you have asked specifically for books, I can recommend "Making of a Manager" by Julie Zhuo. It is a very good and structured read.

</comment><comment><USER20> \- The Mythical Man Month by Brooks talks about ways to avoid the traps of blindly throwing more people at problems.

\- Out of the Crisis by Deming is useful for thinking about achieving quality by improving the systems rather than focusing on the individuals.

\- Peopleware by Demarco for arguing the opposite.

\- Everything ever written by Tom Peters for staying focused on customers and engaged in the game.

</comment><comment><USER21> The type of knowledge relevant to becoming a good technical lead seems to me to be "tacit knowledge".

Books can provide vocabulary and ideas, as well as ways of thinking about the subject. I know that Andy Grove's "High Output Management" gave me way of thinking about the corporate world that helped shape my interactions in the workplace and with senior management. There's no doubt that through great books one gets to pick the brains of geniuses whom one might never get to meet in real life, so there's inherent value in that.

That said, to truly get better though, I believe one needs to be apprenticed or coached by someone who knows what "being good" looks like. That is, to find someone who has real expertise (not just commenters on HN who've never managed anyone), shadowing them and synthesizing their expertise to fit one's own style.

Most people who are "good" can't explain why they're good (some can, most can't) -- so one almost has to study them up close. There's an old saying that "leadership is caught, not taught"... sounds like a tired old cliché, but seems to be somewhat true in my observation.

</comment><comment><USER22> An Elegant Puzzle by Will Larson was very interesting. It's a bit of a handbook and you don't necessarily have to read it cover to cover but instead you can dive into whichever section that is relevant for you at the moment: [https://www.amazon.com/dp/1732265186](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1732265186)

<comment><USER23> I second this. Will Larson's book is definitely one of the best if not the best book I have read on the subject.

There are other good books which can add to it like "The Manager's Path" by Camille Fournier.([https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06XP3GJ7F/](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06XP3GJ7F/))

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Crazy that no one mentioned the Mythical Man Month by Fred J. Brooks ([https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13629.The_Mythical_Man_M...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13629.The_Mythical_Man_Month)). I thought it was the definitive classic.

I also like to recommend Coders at Work by Peter Seibel ([https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6713575-coders-at- work](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6713575-coders-at-work)). It's incredibly useful to read about just how different 16 ultra high performing software engineers are/were. Nothing prepares you for technical leadership better than understanding that.

EDIT: just saw that Mythical Man Month was added 1 minute prior to my comment.

<comment><USER25> I love Seibel's work, but it's important to know he has retracted much of the emphasis on code reading. He apparently read that into his subjects words, perhaps in a manic period.

<comment><USER24> Ah, that's good to know. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> > Do you have any recommendation on what should I do, read to become better > and better every day?

It helps to write a hello world for every hot new tech out there. Not to follow trends, but to actually be knowledgeable enough to have a valid opinion. Think of yourself as a radio station who has to buy or at least sample every popular track. Crystal is hot? Set up a web server and connect to sql. Set up a Vert.X server and write a consumer. Set up a simple neural net with torch, train it a little, load it in java. These all take an hour max each day. An hour well spent compared to scouring books for managers in order to deduce some insight on how to manage people. Developers will appreciate and respect you when you know their job at this precision level and it will make your job a lot easier.

<comment><USER27> > These all take an hour max each day.

um, what? If this is based on personal experience I would love to understand how.

In my experience, Setting up a totally new development environment in an unfamiliar toolset generally takes waaaay more than an hour.

<comment><USER26> There is usually a gotcha when setting up a new environment. IMO it works frictionless when you are on linux. Android studio installs sdk and ndk so it's like cheating. Linux provides everything to write some c++. Pyenv can easily install whichever python environment you want. Then you can use venv/poetry/pipenv. Snaps can help set up java and kotlin instantly. Spring boot has a website to download a starting template. rvm for ruby, just setting up some environment variables is enough for go, rustup and cargo for rust, etc. Elixir just works out of the box. I don't know how hard the next thing will be.

Do you have an example of a setup you got stuck on for hours?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Remember that it is not "your" team but that you are just a member of the team, in good standing, with the relevant experience, that is volunteering to take on some additional responsibility.

Focus on the job at hand. Don't get into unnecessary political disputes. You're a tech lead, so keep it technical and focused on solving business problems.

Be kind and understanding of people's personal issues. It's a marathon, not a sprint, so it's fine if people's productivity goes up and down over time. As long as they contribute well over time, there should be no problem.

Make sure people take time off. Burn out sneaks up on people. Taking weeks off regularly is essential.

Do plenty of grunt work yourself, don't pawn it all off.

Write the most documentation and help your teammates write theirs.

Share the credit. Credit the team and individual team members frequently. Point out when people do well.

Downplay failures. Unless a mistake is malicious, you should blame the technology and the processes in place rather than the people involved. Humans make mistakes and it's through technology and process that we avoid them causing damage. Fixing the weakness in your technology or process is what really matters.

Most of all: lead by example. You should be an exemplar team member. Not perfect; no one is. Not an expert in every dimension; no one is. You should simply perform your duties in a way that your teammates could emulate with success.

There are a hundred other things, of course. That's just a few ideas.

</comment><comment><USER29> My two favorites for this are 'Becoming a Technical Leader', Gerald Weinberg, and 'Making Things Happen', Scott Berkun.

<comment><USER30> +1 on Becoming a technical leader:

[https://www.amazon.com/Becoming-Technical-Leader-Problem- Sol...](https://www.amazon.com/Becoming-Technical-Leader-Problem-Solving- Approach/dp/0932633021)

<comment><USER31> +2 It's a nice read with a lot of insights.

Does go off on a lot of tangents, but it's more interesting than books which keep rambling on the same idea chapter after chapter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Podcasts:

Coaching for Leaders (Gold mine with hundreds of great episodes, as an example [https://coachingforleaders.com/podcast/maximize-team- perform...](https://coachingforleaders.com/podcast/maximize-team- performance/))

Manager Tools (They even have a section for new managers: [https://www.manager-tools.com/podcasts/important-topic- feeds...](https://www.manager-tools.com/podcasts/important-topic-feeds/new- managers-feed))

Books:

The Effective Manager

The Speed of Trust

Five Dysfunctions of a Team

Turn The Ship Around

If you want to look further than traditional command and control structures, I recommend looking into Deming, Sociocracy, teal organizations or the aforementioned book "Turn The Ship Around".

Also, look into norming, storming, forming performing and team operating guidelines.

</comment><comment><USER33> I've found that Switch[1] is really helpful for technical leaders. A large part of the job of a leader is successfully implementing change and too many leaders with a technical background lean too much on logic and reasoning to try to make changes happen. Switch offers a playbook for successfully implementing change and when I've followed it closely I've been much more successful than when I wing it.

[1][https://www.amazon.com/Switch-Change-Things-When- Hard/dp/038...](https://www.amazon.com/Switch-Change-Things-When- Hard/dp/0385528752/ref=sr_1_1?crid=14KDF62P1N9YT&dchild=1&keywords=switch+how+to+change+things+when+change+is+hard&qid=1594133848&sprefix=switch+how%2Caps%2C157&sr=8-1)

</comment><comment><USER34> The Five Dysfunctions of a Team is a perennial classic, though not tech focused. But that's probably okay in combination with more tech-industry focused literature.

</comment><comment><USER35> What "tech lead" means varies hugely from organization to organization and from team to team and person to person. For general success of teams, this is my favorite book: [https://www.amazon.com/Debugging-Teams-Productivity- through-...](https://www.amazon.com/Debugging-Teams-Productivity-through- Collaboration/dp/1491932058)

<comment><USER36> you can get pdf of this book free from [http://cdn.oreillystatic.com/pdf/Debugging_Teams.pdf](http://cdn.oreillystatic.com/pdf/Debugging_Teams.pdf) (legal)

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I wrote a blog post about this forever ago[0] summarizing what I've seen work.

The most important thing to realize is how success will be measured. It will no longer be your individual contributions. Instead, you will be measured by how successful your team is. So you need to use your time to make your team more effective.

So the most important thing you can do is prevent anyone from becoming blocked. The next-most important thing is unblocking people when they become blocked.

How do you prevent people from becoming blocked? Make sure that everyone knows where they are going, and they know what to do when they get there. Make sure everyone knows what they are working on, and what they will be working on next. Promote good practices, and ensure that processes have consistent documentation.

How do you unblock people? Review their code quickly. Learn to differentiate "I don't want you to submit this because I don't prefer this" (bad attitude) from "I don't want you to submit this because it's going to have a negative consequence"). Learn how to phrase that second sentence in a way that doesn't make your coworkers dread getting reviews from you. Spend your time fixing tech debt that's adding drag to the team.

As you do this more, you should also make sure that people on your team are growing. Give them harder tasks than they had before. Ensure that junior engineers are getting mentored. Correct imbalances: if a specific engineer is always taking notes in meetings, create a notes rotation so that everyone has to do it.

[0] [https://www.bitlog.com/2017/10/12/what-does-a-tech-lead- do/](https://www.bitlog.com/2017/10/12/what-does-a-tech-lead-do/)

<comment><USER38> > The most important thing to realize is how success will be measured...

I think this could be applicable in general sense too, so that your team understands the value system that you establish. People are smart, professionals are even smarter, so they figure out the incentive system quickly. Placing a right emphasis and staying consistent helps to communicate this.

Another thing that adds to the notion of unblocking is to establish a culture of "a long enough before calling for a backup", that is to try your best to crack a problem by yourself, but have a way to recognize a being stuck and allow to call for a help with no shame or sense of failure. In my view, this has both a culture and a protocol aspects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> A few things that have helped me.

1\. Have a one-on-one meeting with every member of your team, for 30 minutes each week. They know when that meeting is coming up, and you know, so things that they want to tell you in private can come up then.

2\. A good leader anticipates what his team is going to need before the team knows they need it. Try to do that. If there's a big release coming up next month, do what you can to make that 100% successful. Make sure there are no vacations, company meetings or other things that would impede that. Give your team room to breathe and make sure they are not bogged down with distractions.

If you can make their lives easier, they will make your life easier by kicking ass for you.

3\. Oh, one more thing. If you are in a meeting and you are having a group discussion on how to solve a problem, make sure you call in people who are quiet. After the conversation has quieted down a bit and you are dialing in on an answer, if Jim hasn't said much simply say "Jim what do you think?"

<comment><USER40> Once a week is a lot in the age of Slack. I talk to my people asynchronously all the time, so the one-on-one is less important. Still do it though.

I'll tell my single Golden Rule for managing people is to make sure they always know what's expected of them. Not knowing what's expected of you is probably the single greatest source of stress.

<comment><USER27> An even bigger source of stress is asking questions to try to understand what is expected of you and being told that your leader is confident that you understand what is expected of you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Contrary to most people, in my experience managing technical people is the same as managing anyone else. The best general management book I've read is: Becoming the Evidence Based Manager. The information in this book is backed by science studies and is also extremely actionable and easy to understand. It's really changed my life as a manager.

[https://www.amazon.ca/Gary- Latham/dp/1473676975/ref=sxts_sxw...](https://www.amazon.ca/Gary- Latham/dp/1473676975/ref=sxts_sxwds-bia- wc-p13n1_0?cv_ct_cx=becoming+the+evidence+based+manager&dchild=1&keywords=becoming+the+evidence+based+manager&pd_rd_i=1473676975&pd_rd_r=c14cc298-7cb1-46f0-a8ef-64852464351b&pd_rd_w=lHbtO&pd_rd_wg=uFv97&pf_rd_p=5dc9bb73-73b1-4abd-a228-ac5c707beb7e&pf_rd_r=23NSX8AAT6989PEV6ZY5&psc=1&qid=1594140442&sr=1-1-70f7c15d-07d8-466a-b325-4be35d7258cc)

</comment><comment><USER42> Two absolute must reads:

Peopleware

Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software

Both are scientifical approaches to what makes effective teams.

<comment><USER43> I will second Accelerate. Phenomenal book.

It breaks down what a modern, high performance software team in 2020 looks like. It has the best explanation of what burnout is and the causes of I have ever read.

Accelerate takes a scientific approach to managing teams, so when you try to raise these ideas at your own place of business, they are backed up by research instead of just: "This person said X."

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> The classics are all covered in other comments. For some hyper-relevant content (the sand to fill the in-between spaces filled up by big philosophies and principles), I've found Will Larson's blog ([https://lethain.com/](https://lethain.com/)) and book ([https://press.stripe.com/#an-elegant-puzzle](https://press.stripe.com/#an- elegant-puzzle)) to be really useful.

It provides tools for solving specific problems, and a language to discuss what's going wrong and what the solution looks like. [https://lethain.com/durably-excellent-teams/](https://lethain.com/durably- excellent-teams/) The concepts he covers in this post, in particular, have been invaluable.

</comment><comment><USER45> Put yourself in the CEO's shoes and see the entire company end to end. Then see how your team is contributing to the bigger story. Work on bringing business context to tasks. Help your team members see the business/strategy line of thought behind decisions. Once team members have context to the work they do, they are better motivated and bring in valuable insights. Always appreciate and bring spotlight on them for successes. Always take on the blame and never forward criticism directly to your team members. You are the buffer. Read books on strategy/business to gain greater perspective. Train yourself and your team in second and third order thinking. Helping them come up with all kinds of scenarios around their tasks. Finally, be humble, caring, and be nice to everyone. Cheers!

</comment><comment><USER46> I have been a team lead for four years now in different companies / teams.

I think empathy and radical candor are the most important skills ! There's a book called radical candor that I really recommend.

Other than those I recommend reading how very effective leaders did their job, Eleven Rings by the NBA coach Phil is absolutely amazing on how to build a winning team as is Leading from Ferguson (soccer). Turn the ship around is another great book by someone's experience in the navy.

Creating a safe space where people know the goals clearly, communicate effectively and helping to unblock them are part of the goal !

</comment><comment><USER47> Here's two really good articles, not books, on the subject:

* [https://www.hashtagcoder.dev/blog/director-of-engineering](https://www.hashtagcoder.dev/blog/director-of-engineering)

* [https://humanwhocodes.com/blog/2012/06/12/the-care-and-feedi...](https://humanwhocodes.com/blog/2012/06/12/the-care-and-feeding-of-software-engineers-or-why-engineers-are-grumpy/)

<comment><USER36> nice articles

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Read The Manager's Path by Camille Fournier. It's not just about managers, it's also about tech leads.

<comment><USER49> If I recall correctly, only the first 2 chapters are about tech leads and mentoring. The rest is already about manager roles. I don't know if it's a good investment for someone focusing exclusively on tech lead role.

That being said, really good book :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Here's the list of books I've been recommending new managers and leaders read:

Small Unit Leadership: A Commonsense Approach [https://www.amazon.com/Small- Unit-Leadership-Commonsense-App...](https://www.amazon.com/Small-Unit- Leadership-Commonsense-Approach/dp/0891411739/ref=sr_1_1)

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0787960756/?coliid=I12MQNI6MIK6JR&...](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0787960756/?coliid=I12MQNI6MIK6JR&colid=133LYQFI0Z2OA&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it)

High Output Management [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0679762884/?coliid=I2G1Y1JLPP55SY&...](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0679762884/?coliid=I2G1Y1JLPP55SY&colid=133LYQFI0Z2OA&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it)

Measure What Matters [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0525536221/?coliid=I1G6EQRC0QYPE1&...](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0525536221/?coliid=I1G6EQRC0QYPE1&colid=133LYQFI0Z2OA&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it)

Death by Meeting [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0787968056/?coliid=I38A8AYMZGSLYZ&...](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0787968056/?coliid=I38A8AYMZGSLYZ&colid=133LYQFI0Z2OA&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it)

Work Rules!: Insights from Inside Google That Will Transform How You Live and Lead [https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1455554790/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1455554790/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title)

The Hard Thing About Hard Things [https://www.amazon.com/Hard-Thing-About- Things-Building/dp/B...](https://www.amazon.com/Hard-Thing-About-Things- Building/dp/B00I0A6HUO/ref=sr_1_2)

Start with Why (you can prob skip the book and just watch [https://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_insp...](https://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action?language=en)) [https://www.amazon.com/dp/1591846447/?coliid=I2Q0IN84LJ230W&...](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1591846447/?coliid=I2Q0IN84LJ230W&colid=133LYQFI0Z2OA&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it)

</comment><comment><USER51> Anything from the Harvard Negotiation Project [1]. Their books set the standard for universal, transferable, actionable, and evidence-based advise about how to optimise social situations for the benefit of everyone involved. They have online classes for various different skillsets and situations. Almost every mentor I have has recommended either the project as a whole, or a specific resource of theirs, to me.

Just in general I want to commend you for taking the time and energy to learn about this. It's a tragedy of the modern world that highly skilled people tend to be promoted into management roles and then stagnate, so that many tech organisations end up with people who are great at their specialism and terrible at managing people in managerial roles. Taking the initiative to really try to understand and excel at management is going to benefit not just you, but everyone who works with you. Bravo.

1: [https://www.pon.harvard.edu/category/research_projects/harva...](https://www.pon.harvard.edu/category/research_projects/harvard- negotiation-project/)

</comment><comment><USER52> I'd say, don't lead/manage but assist.

Don't decide on your own if possible.

Decision coming from top? Communicate that. Otherwise, ask your team what it think is the best course of action.

Only decide on your when something would be blocked.

I always read about two sides.

"Managers are needed, because there are tough decisions to make and people need to be led!"

"Managers aren't needed, people can govern them on their own!"

I think the truth is in the middle.

</comment><comment><USER53> Few things I've learned recently is that mistakes happen, as long as an honest effort was made, it shouldn't be a big deal

All arguments are communication problems.

If you're coding all day you're doing it wrong. Delegation is the most important. Communication is critical. Tech leads who crash and burn are usually the strongest developers.

Happy team is a productive team. Always expect the best from people.

</comment><comment><USER54> I recommend learning about, and practicing, servant leadership to the furthest extent possible in the role.

I don't have a specific book for you, so will link the wikipedia article as a jumping off point:

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

</comment><comment><USER55> I would recommend the One Minute Manager. It is written in story format, and its a very simple set of three concepts.

I have tried other books, but they usually have too much to remember.

One other book I found useful was The Coaching Habit. It gives you a different perspective on how to deal with the emotional aspect of leadership.

</comment><comment><USER56> First figure out what they want, and then figure out what is best for the project/company, finally figure out what how to turn it into the future you want.

What they want is important. This could be a way to recognize that you are great without giving you architecture power, they want you to continue to do what you are doing no more (this is unlikely but be aware of it). They may want you to write a little less code and turn some of the "lesser" developers into a 10x developer. They may want to give you permission and power to re- architect the system so it will work for the future. They may want you to spend all your time estimating effort so they can decide which interesting project is worth doing. This may be the title they give to the boss of small teams and you no longer do technical work.

What is best for the company/project is sometimes different. Sometimes that means what you need to do to make a success is different from what they think. If so this is tricky ground that will either get you fired for not doing you job, or a great promotion for saving the company. More likely you have options in your position and so you need to figure out which option is worth spending your time on and which are less useful for your company now. There are interesting tools that won't solve your biggest problems even though they would make some other lesser problems better, choose wisely what to spend your time on.

Last where do you want to be in the future. Within the above you have choices. If you are interested in something not the most important thing to work on you need to decide how much to focus on each. (different situations have different answers, sometimes you have to focus on the important things, others you can only give it a little attention and that is good enough) sometimes you will refuse the promotion. Sometimes you will decide what is best for the company is best for you. Sometimes you take the promotion but need to focus on your personal life to ensure the job doesn't kill it, other times they are compatible. Sometimes you realize you are in the wrong job.

</comment><comment><USER57> So many good book recommendations here, but no one has mentioned Tom DeMarco's The Deadline: [https://books.google.com/books?id=5_kJAQAAMAAJ&printsec=fron...](https://books.google.com/books?id=5_kJAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover)

In style and content, it's a bit like an older version of "The Phoenix Project" that was focused on delivering packaged software, and mostly oriented around a "stocks and flows" model of the development process.

The framing narrative is _much_ more amusing, though.

Also worth reading Edward Yourdon's Death March:

[https://books.google.com/books?id=FdAZUX9H_gAC&printsec=fron...](https://books.google.com/books?id=FdAZUX9H_gAC&printsec=frontcover)

</comment><comment><USER58> I've just started reading "Agile Conversations" [1], and I found it's a nice complement to the other books mentioned in the thread. It's a little idealistic at times, but I like the focus on shared understanding and aligning perspectives. I used a couple of the approaches from the book quite recently and found that it kept the discussion focused on improvements rather than blaming.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Agile-Conversations-Transform-Your- Cu...](https://www.amazon.com/Agile-Conversations-Transform-Your-Culture- ebook/dp/B07YZP8LC9)

</comment><comment><USER59> _How to win friends and influence people_ , by Dale Carnegie. Despite the somewhat creepy title, it's a really good book on how to get good relationships with other people. It's not necessarily for tech folks.

</comment><comment><USER60> I've written a lot about this as a resource for my colleagues at work, perhaps you would find it useful as well. There's a list of recommended books embedded in there, but a lot of other info as well: [https://ianwdavis.com/advice-new- lead.html](https://ianwdavis.com/advice-new-lead.html)

</comment><comment><USER61> The biggest change is to change your mindset to "it's your job to enable the team to do the work vs you doing it." So, whenever you are thinking about doing X, think about how to enable your team to do X. This is not trying to be lethargic but working to make yourself redundant, which is the highest success for a leader, IMO.

</comment><comment><USER62> I have a little hobby project which aims to answer that exact question: [https://leadership-library.dev](https://leadership-library.dev)

It's essentially a collection of books / podcasts / newsletters on modern technical leadership :)

</comment><comment><USER63> I really liked "Managing Humans". Super useful and told in a story format that makes it ultra accessible

<comment><USER64> This book left me with a bad taste in my mouth, as though it were written by someone who wasn't really grounded in experience. I'm not sure if the author was trying to convince me or himself. Perhaps I'm not the target audience, but I'd be interested to hear more about why you liked it, since it was such a disappointment to me.

<comment><USER63> It's years since I've read it to be honest. I remember finding the parts on how to conduct one-on-ones useful at the time. I don't recall feeling the author was unsure of himself (and he's a pretty successful tech leader btw, currently VP Eng at Slack).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> "Adventures of an IT Leader" from Harvard Business School Press - is good. It is perhaps more general than what you are looking for. It is written from the CIO perspective. You can often find the audiobook in your local library.

</comment><comment><USER66> My recommendation:

1\. Learn Scrum/kanban (not a book)

2\. Developer Hegemony: The Future of Labor

3\. The First-Time Manager by Loren B. Belker

4\. Conscious Business: How to Build Value through Values

5\. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable

</comment><comment><USER67> a good technical leader goes to bat for the scientists and engineers in his team, at the VP and C-level, to make sure they are on top and paid at least equally well if not better, compared to anyone else, including marketing and sales drones.

</comment><comment><USER68> Leadership:

\- Turn The Ship Around (Marquet) - make everyone a leader \- The Effective Engineer (Lau) - leadership for engineers \- Leadership, Strategy, and Tactics (Jocko) - leadership in military/business \- Good To Great (Collins) - <USER3> companies vs great ones

How to get better at everything:

\- Mindset (Dwek) - growth vs fixed mindset \- Atomic Habits (Clear) - automate good decisions w/habits \- Change Your Habits, Change your life (Corley) - data driven selection of which habits matter \- Ultralearning (Young) - how to learn anything faster \- Anything You Want (Sivers)

How to talk to humans

\- Difficult Conversations (Stone) - how to talk to humans \- Never Split the Difference (Voss) - every conversation is a negotiation \- Death By Meeting (Lencioni) - short fable \- anything else by Patrick Lencioni

Prioritization and focus:

\- The One Thing (Keller) - prioritization \- Deep Work (Calport) - focus \- Indistractable (Li) - <USER4>

See also anything by: Jason Friedman, Jim Collins, Patrick Lencioni, Peter Drucker and biographies in general

</comment><comment><USER69> Didn't see this mentioned anywhere:

Notes to a Software Team Leader by Roy Osherove

</comment><comment><USER70> "Messages" by Matthew McKay.

"Mindset" by Carol Dweck.

</comment><comment><USER71> The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

</comment><comment><USER72> "Becoming better" points to the question of what is a good tech leader and how you can evaluate yourself as you make progress on this path. In my experience and according to Google's research in this area ([https://rework.withgoogle.com/guides/managers-identify- what-...](https://rework.withgoogle.com/guides/managers-identify-what-makes-a- great-manager/steps/learn-about-googles-manager-research/)), there are specific traits to cultivate:

1\. Is a good coach / Supports career discussions and discusses performance

"Leader As Coach: Strategies for Coaching & Developing Others" by Mary Dee Hicks and David Peterson. An in-depth, very practical manual on how to coach your reports according to their specific needs and personalities.

"Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High" by Kerry Patterson et al. Helps you prepare and approach difficult conversations with empathy. Especially useful for performance conversations.

2\. Creates an inclusive team environment, showing concern for success and well-being

"The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable" by Patrick Lencioni. If there is one book to read about team dynamics, this is the one.

"First, Break All the Rules" by Marcus Buckingham. Slightly more general than the 5 dysfunctions, but with a lot of good content about psychological safety and what makes team work.

3\. Has a clear vision & strategy / is a good communicator

"High output management" by Andy Grove. Probably the most famous book on this list. It gives you a good introduction to setting goals, communicating about your team's work inwards and outwards. It also features more "system thinking" than the other books - how everything fits together as organizations scale, which is useful for developing vision and strategy.

I'd also recommend reading biographies and memoirs of famous leaders (e.g. Churchill, Marcus Aurelius). Strategic thinking can be easier to learn through examples and pattern recognition than through abstract / self-help books.

4\. Is productive and results-oriented / has key technical skills to advise the team

A lot of new managers over-index on the people management side of the job and forget about the key responsibility of a technical leader: choosing a direction, leading others in this direction and delivering results.

"Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps: Building and Scaling High Performing Technology Organizations" by Nicole Forsgren et al. One of the most recent, well-researched books into how to measure the productivity and quality of software teams.

"The Art of Scalability: Scalable Web Architecture, Processes, and Organizations for the Modern Enterprise" by Martin Abbott et al. This book uniquely blends the technical, organizational and people management aspects of technical leadership.

</comment><comment> just-juan-post > Do you have any recommendation on what should I do

Research. Why? Because this question has been asked dozens if not hundreds of times.

<comment><USER35> One of the skills of a tech lead (or parent, or anyone) is recognizing when a person may just be seeking recognition and politely playing along.

<comment><USER73> Personally I think people with sports and military backgrounds have the soundest perspectives on leadership.

The sociology of software engineering biases the perspectives on leadership therein toward this kind of contempt for subordinates.

<comment><USER35> Great point. Who has better perspective on teamwork than people who spent their life in real teams? Life experience is an area where tech really needs to diversify. Hire ex-military, hire rugby players, philosophers, political scientists.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> Managers are useless guards for the bosses. Quit immediately and let those engineers manager themselves.

<comment><USER63> Sounds like either you've had bad managers or you need to invest in a quality mirror</comment></comment>


Discrete Mathematics: An Open Introduction, 3rd edition - <AUTHOR> http://discrete.openmathbooks.org/dmoi3.html <comment><USER2> I really recommend Generatingfunctionology by Herbert Wilf [https://www.math.upenn.edu/~wilf/gfologyLinked2.pdf](https://www.math.upenn.edu/~wilf/gfologyLinked2.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm just a hobby programmer, but I've been looking to learn discrete math so I can get in to algorithms. Is this a good book? I've seen a lot of people recommend Epp's _Discrete Mathematics with Applications_. I've kind of been holding off the topic until I really hit a wall and discover what/how much I need to learn. Any advice would be great.

<comment><USER4> Let me use the, 'What programming language should i start with?!' analogy :)

Just start reading the book (any discrete mathematics book!) :)

<comment><USER3> Actually, having gone through multiple programming books, I disagree with that. I highly recommend HTDP because of their design recipes. The book shows you an approach to solving problems with programs rather than just the syntax of a language. This book has had the largest impact on my (very humble) approach to programming.

<comment><USER5> I get the following error:

      Error on line 1. Unspecified reference named 'HTDP'
      in the expression 'I highly recommend HTDP'

Any help?

<comment><USER6> Clever!

[https://htdp.org/](https://htdp.org/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is a great introduction to discrete math. I found it valuable for deciding what topics to invest more study into. Good survey of discrete math.

I'm about 70% through this book. I've done every exercise and have meticulously journaled about each concept as I encounter them into my Zettelkasten.

Best part: you can read it online and then determine if you want the physical book (which I prefer for math).

<comment><USER8> Thank you for introducing me to the idea of the "Zettelkasten" \- I'm "one of the 10,000" for that idea today.

<comment><USER9> I don't have much time, but look at: Tiago Forte's blogpost about How to Take Smart Notes (also, see the book), Roam research, Obsidian, Zettelkasten.de (mostly English). Also, both Roam and Obsidian have Slacks (or Discords) full of friendly knowledge-management enthusiasts.

Those are the things that I found most helpful on my recet foray into the Zettelkasten world. Could save you some time.

<comment><USER10> Just added Forte's blog post to my reading list! This seems similar in benefits to the idea of a Common Place Book. I've just had some more hardback notebooks delivered for that purpose. I've been keeping one for a year, filled up 2 notebooks and it's been night and day for me. I've been able to comprehend subjects that I've struggled with before, e.g linear algebra, abstract algebra or any topic I take an interest in.

One thing my notebooks don't have is structure and a system of referral. This makes it hard to reference previous ideas and concepts. In fact, I don't because it's so difficult - it's just one big stream of consciousness. And it seems Zettelkasten does that!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The book I used in college is super good, still have a copy on hand.

Discrete and combinatorial mathematics by Ralph Grimaldi

[https://g.co/kgs/1Yx3N4](https://g.co/kgs/1Yx3N4)

<comment><USER12> If you don't know how to count, this book will teach you how to do it, a legendary book by Grimaldi.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is amazing. It works perfectly on mobile. The fact that it explains the concepts, and then has quizes right inline to test and reinforce knowledge is awesome. And, it is free.

Wow.

</comment><comment> ur-whale Nice book with very clear explanations (sometimes a little too elementary).

However, I found the chapter on generating functions a little frustrating: it gives a very good explanation of what they are, tells you they're super useful, and gives no example of an actual problem where they're used.

</comment><comment><USER14> This book seems truly well written. Even though the material is familiar to me, I liked the chapter on generating functions for its stepwise treatment. The online exercises are wonderful too.

</comment><comment><USER15> I have to say that I quite like the visual design of this "open" textbook.

<comment><USER16> It does seem neat, yep! It looks like it's based on a format called PreTeXt[1], and the interactive exercises (Q&A) are implemented using an extension called WeBWorK.

[1] - [https://pretextbook.org/examples.html](https://pretextbook.org/examples.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is a fantastic resource. I've long lamented the difficulty of finding textbooks. Since colleges buy them back every semester to control demand, it's actually hard to find something that should be cheap and common. It's tragic.

Good to see they're at least here online, though it's also shameful that I didn't find this on Google when I searched for it a year or so ago. Tried to buy a calculus textbook to teach a friend - only overpriced latest editions by and large were available.

</comment><comment><USER18> This is great. Is there anything else of similar methodology and quality for other math subjects? I would love any recommendations.

<comment><USER19> There is an open abstract algebra book that is similar, also rendered by pretextbook framework.

[http://abstract.pugetsound.edu/aata/aata.html](http://abstract.pugetsound.edu/aata/aata.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Could all or nearly all discrete maths is just matrix manipulation in disguise, if the function is closed in discrete number?

<comment><USER21> Unlikely. Lots of mathematicians' hearts jump every time someone finds a slick algebraic approach to some messy combinatorics, but it's not a very frequent occurrence (I think of finding such approaches as the main part of my job).

In a typical discrete maths course, the main "arbitrage" you get from algebra is the "method" of generating functions, which is a technique for dealing with integer sequences and counting problems using polynomials. If you like matrices, you can encode polynomials as Toeplitz matrices, so you can view products of polynomials as matrix products. But generating functions are not a panacea for counting, and you usually have to seed the ground with some combinatorial results before you can water it with generating functions. Also, there are some neat uses of matrices in understanding Pascal's triangle ( [http://www-math.mit.edu/~gs/papers/pascal-work.pdf](http://www- math.mit.edu/~gs/papers/pascal-work.pdf) ) and other sequences.

In graph theory, the matrix-tree theorem lets you count spanning trees using a determinant, and the Dijkstra algorithm for path finding can be regarded as a matrix power over the max-plus semiring. But that's about all you get out of linear algebra in a typical first discrete maths course. Matrices become more useful if you go deeper into graphs or into counting, but never take center stage.

[And before the next question comes: I haven't seen many monads used in discrete maths either.]

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> #RAD</comment>


Why I may be going back to incandescent light bulbs - <AUTHOR>

I'm considering going back to incandescent light bulbs, even though this will mean my energy bills will go up, and I'm wondering if anyone else is seeing the same thing as I am:
At our house we have had CF bulbs for something over five years. We have now had three incidents of bulbs spontaneously cracking open at the end of their life. Why is this a problem? Mercury exposure. I have no idea how much mercury we have inhaled since this began. We have also had some bulbs die without obvious cracking [edit: and I wonder if maybe they have leaked too, since I wasn't looking for the problem until now], but the most recent bulb to die did so while I was in the room, and I noticed it happening, so I got to see what was going on.
The bulb was flickering and the gas at the base of the tubes (where they enter the body of the screw-on portion) was turning orange. I decided to remove the bulb before it had a chance to break. Very shortly, in the few seconds it took me to remove the bulb, the bulb started heating up. At first it wasn't even warm to the touch, and ten seconds later it was so hot I was starting to wonder if I would get it out in time to not need a glove or cloth. At that point I turned off the power (should have done that to start with) and noticed acrid plastic-smelling smoke coming out near the base of the tubes.
I'm guessing some sort of plastic or epoxy/resin material is used to seal the tubes at the base, and this was melting. And the next step, had I not been there to catch and prevent it, would have been the heating of the glass to the point where it broke.
I'm not really super thrilled about myself or my children breathing mercury vapors repeatedly as the light bulbs in my house expire one after the other over the years.
Question for HN: Has anyone else seen this? Since these bulbs are supposed to last for seven years, maybe it's a hidden problem until now? I was hoping LED lights would be the solution, but they are so dim they don't really act as an adequate substitute.
tl;dr: Upon aging, my CF bulbs have been cracking open, presumably releasing mercury vapors into my house. With 50+ light bulbs in the house, I'm concerned about this and wonder if others see it too. <comment><USER2> The GE Lighting FAQ (thanks, squidbot):

[http://www.gelighting.com/na/home_lighting/ask_us/faq_compac...](http://www.gelighting.com/na/home_lighting/ask_us/faq_compact.htm#mercury)

says that GE's bulbs contain about 5mg of mercury apiece.

The OSHA guidelines on mercury vapor:

[http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/healthguidelines/mercuryvapor/recog...](http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/healthguidelines/mercuryvapor/recognition.html)

... states the following:

 _The current Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) permissible exposure limit (PEL) for mercury vapor is 0.1 milligram per cubic meter (mg/m(3)) of air as a ceiling limit. A worker's exposure to mercury vapor shall at no time exceed this ceiling level._

 _The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has established a recommended exposure limit (REL) for mercury vapor of 0.05 mg/m(3) as a TWA for up to a 10-hour workday and a 40-hour workweek._

Now all we need to know is that a 12 foot by 12 foot by 8 foot bedroom is about 4 by 4 by 2.5 meters, which adds up to about 40 cubic meters. Break a mercury bulb in that room, disperse 100% of the mercury in the bulb throughout the room, assume the room is leakproof, and stay in the room breathing deeply for several minutes after the bulb breaks and you'll get exposed to 0.125 mg/m(3). This is about twice as high as the maximum amount that you should be breathing for 10 hours per day, 40 hours per week. But it is barely above the maximum legal exposure limit for workers.

Now consider that your bedroom isn't airtight -- assuming your house is either properly ventilated or improperly insulated. ;) Not only will the mercury distribute itself through the house, but it will then leave the house, within a matter of an hour. Also, not all of the mercury is likely to leak; some of it will condense in the bulb. And all of this will only happen once per bulb failure.

Conclusion: I'd find something more important to worry about. You probably don't have to look very far, because this risk is pretty low. If you just can't stop worrying without taking action, turn on a fan and open the windows for five minutes every time a bulb burns out. You'll still save plenty of energy.

Second-order conclusion: Take a class on solving Fermi problems. ;)

</comment><comment><USER3> I've had three cf bulbs crack at the bottom and had the same concern about mercury vapors. One thing I've noticed is that the bulbs that failed were all very inexpensive bulbs from the multipacks I picked up in discount stores. I have never had one of my more expensive bulbs break (name brand sold in a single package usually, I get these for dimmers and for spotlights.)

GE has this to say about the mercury and safe handling of broken bulbs: [http://www.gelighting.com/na/home_lighting/ask_us/faq_compac...](http://www.gelighting.com/na/home_lighting/ask_us/faq_compact.htm#mercury)

</comment><comment><USER4> Of course, murdercury containing lightbulbs are obsolete:

<http://www.envirowarrior.com/pharox-light-bulb/>

But the GE and the military industrial complex wants us to buy 50 years obsolete poisonous garbage bulbs instead of using things like Pharox bulbs.

GE lightbulbs with Hg = murder.

</comment><comment><USER4> Murdercury. The sale of things that contain mercury should result in companies being charged with attempted murder.</comment>


How to find a list of companies by date of incorporation? - <AUTHOR> Anyone have any advice for finding companies that were founded in 1977 in the Bay Area?<p>Trying to do this for research purposes. Want to see the effects the microcomputer had on newly founded startups, among other things. <comment><USER2> I'd reach out to the CA Sec of State: [https://www.sos.ca.gov/administration/contact- information/](https://www.sos.ca.gov/administration/contact-information/)

It's probably going to be a custom search.</comment>


Two Pillars of AGI - <AUTHOR> http://lumma.org/words/2PillarsOfAGI.html

<comment><AUTHOR> I tried to list all the projects and methods I know of that may be useful in achieving AGI, and arrange them in a way that makes some kind of sense. I only list what I consider to be the canonical or best examples in each category. This isn't meant to be anything super-special, but I couldn't find a list like it on the web. Feedback welcome. At the moment it's deficient in Computer Vision, and probably in Alife as well...</comment>


Evil people at mozilla  - <AUTHOR> http://pavelmachek.livejournal.com/120952.html

<comment><USER2> Pretty confused about this whole sensationalized title, but even more by the fact that it's 2014 and Livejournal is still around.

</comment><comment><USER3> Based on the post's content, I have no idea what the complaint is. Can some one provide some more context?

<comment><USER4> Guessing here: Mozilla has a location service, fed by volunteers/contributors. One way to contribute is by installing the MozStumbler app.

It seems the author contributes and is now disappointed about the inability to download the full dataset and pouts. I would be interested in the full dataset myself, fail to see the why Mozilla guys are evil if they don't provide me the information about wifi names around the world.

<comment><USER5> I think the author is complaining about the opposite: Mozilla is now making available GPS coordinates from volunteer's contributions, which could be used to determine where a volunteer lives.

<comment><USER4> Reading it again and again I can see how you got that impression. It doesn't mix well with

> Data actually useful for non-evil purposes, like cell numbers and wifi APs > are still not available for download.

but the bits around it .. might work either way (non-native speaker here, but so is the author it seems).

One way or another, the post has a crappy title and doesn't explain itself well enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If I comment on his blog, will he give me access to download his blog database?

</comment><comment><USER7> makes no sense - wish I could downvote

</comment><comment><USER8> What?</comment>


Ask pg: How good is this YC application? - <AUTHOR>

In another thread, hn user "many" posted a link to his Winter YC Application.  As I read it, two things occurred to me: that this was the first time I had ever read a completed YC application, and that I was underwhelmed.  (Sorry many, I really don't mean to pick, and maybe I don't understand your app, but you posted it, so I guess it's fair game.)  Here is that link:
http://listenlight.net/media/ycombinator_funding_application.pdf
So, pg, I thought it might be helpful to others considering applying if someone from yc could provide a little constructive criticism of this (now public) application.
Of course, if my request is out of line, or unnecessarily hurts many's chances, then never mind.
Any thoughts? <comment><USER2> I would not recommend using it as a model.

I know you meant well, but I'd appreciate it if people didn't post applications for the current cycle on News.YC, or the site will be overwhelmed with "critique my application" links.

<comment><USER3> are you serious?

<comment><USER4> As a heart attack would be my guess.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think attempts to "hack" the YC application will be largely counter- productive, given the people doing the selection and knowing a little about the process.

My advice would be to be genuine. If you're worried too much about conforming to what you think YC will want, you're missing the point entirely.

<comment><USER5> I agree. Your passion for the idea you're working on should make it more or less easy to explain it to others - maybe not concisely, but you can surely talk about it. Explain your vision exactly as you hope it to be - changing it to meet others' expectations hints that you don't have confidence in your idea. Put your application in. If it gets rejected, and you believe it's a good idea, why not pursue it anyway? Look at it this way - another 2-10% of your idea you get to keep to yourself :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Some folks might find this link useful: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=251075>

It's a response to a question I posted a few months ago asking to see former (successful) YC applications. There was a single response but it could shed some light on what works.

And to set the record straight, of course getting into YC has less to do with the application than it does the quality and content of the company's founders/their ideas. But there's no reason to let a poor application get in the way of that end.

</comment><comment><USER7> Umm... surely that application is a joke? No?

<comment><USER4> I thought that at first, but by the end was convinced it was just someone trying to be creative and failing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Thoughts:

Give straight answers.

Have co-founders with whom you have at least 6 months working history.

How will you make money? Try this formula: "_____ will buy ___ for $___ because ___."

Avoid seeming like an unstable loner.

</comment><comment><USER9> The only problem I see with pg giving advice is that future applicants might tweak their application just to fit what pg is looking for, possibly resulting in an application that misrepresents the team or idea.

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually, that's exactly what I was hoping for (the tweak, not the misrepresentation).

The "tweaking" wouldn't be the effect, but the cause. The effect would be to help the team focus on their best target.

I believe that anything that gives people a better chance at succeeding is a good idea.

<comment><USER10> I think that'd be a disservice to future applicants and YC.

Here's why: Any single application cannot represent _everything_ YC is looking for. They invest in wildly varying startups. I was surprised when we were asked to come for an interview, and equally surprised when we were accepted...because YC had never funded anything in our area before (we're not web 2.0, we're not a hosted app, we're not social or user generated, and our design sense historically kinda sucks). But, history now indicates that YC is looking for more than merely more web 2.0 apps. They've now funded hardware, enterprise apps, sports related apps, and a lot more. There is no "YC style startup". Reddit was a great success, and one can find parallels in some of the other YC startups...but there are far more that don't fit that mold at all.

If you tweak to fit what you think is the YC mold, you may very well tweak out the really unique and interesting bit of your application.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What would be really interesting to see is, PG fill in the application with the Viaweb idea, that should give prospective applicants _some idea_ when applying to YC!

<comment><USER12> If an applicant sees _filling out a form_ to be a major challenge that requires a model to work from, then how is said applicant going to cope with running a company?

<comment><USER13> More importantly, if you need a model to create a good application then chances are your personality/idea is not valid to begin with.

Thats kinda-sorta the whole idea of an application :)

<comment><USER11> very true :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> PDF replaced, I take it? Or are those two words the app?

<comment><USER15> Seems like it, that's all I get as well

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'd be happy to offer constructive feedback on YC apps; just send me an email.

</comment><comment><USER17> I would imagine that by now college admissions officers are tired of reading the same formulaic crap.

If I were reviewing applications for anything I would provide a basic skeleton of guidelines and hope for a diverse pool of responses. Trying to fit in to someone else's mold (even that of the reviewer) often comes off as quite contrived.</comment>


How Much MBA Grads Are Paid at Startup Jobs - <AUTHOR> http://chicagoinno.streetwise.co/2017/03/29/heres-the-salary-equity-bonus-mba-grads-make-at-startups/ <comment><USER2> I understand that MBA's can command high salaries, so they're helpful for the degree holder in that sense, but how useful is the degree beyond just being a signalling mechanism for potential employers that the candidate is driven?

<comment><AUTHOR> I would say the majority of the degree is in its signaling effect. In general I would say thats true of most degrees, its a heuristic that indicates something about a candidate.

Luckily, in terms of actual skills, some MBA programs are offering more quantitative classes in big data and product management/application development which I think is catching the degree up to modern times.</comment></comment>