The Most Revealing Job Interview Question - <AUTHOR> http://refer.ly/blog/most-revealing-interview-question/ <comment><USER2> Hmm, I'm not sure I like the idea of intentionally trying to steer the candidate off on a tangent. It feels like a trap.

In an interview, the interviewer literally has all the power, and saying "no" or refusing to answer a question posed by the interviewer seems rather difficult.

This would be doubly hard for me since I like to teach (both my parents are teachers and I love to explain things to people so that they can understand them). If a person shows genuine interest in a topic by asking a question that might go in a tangent, I generally want their curiosity to be sated before moving on; in some cases a deeper understanding of a related topic will help educate them on the main topic.

Anyway, I think I would fall for this trap for both reasons (not wanting to refuse the interviewer and also wanting to genuinely teach someone). I'm conflicted.

However, I like the overall idea of the question. So much time during actual real-world development is spent communicating between coworkers about how a system works or will be implemented. I think being able to gauge a candidate's communication/knowledge transfer ability is very important and a good indicator of success.

<comment><USER3> > Hmm, I'm not sure I like the idea of intentionally trying to steer the > candidate off on a tangent. It feels like a trap.

And, yet, it's quite a realistic model of what happens in meetings and presentations all the time.

> In an interview, the interviewer literally has all the power, and saying > "no" or refusing to answer a question posed by the interviewer seems rather > difficult.

You could say the same with regards to managers or other higher-ups in real workplace environments. It's an important skill to be able to say no, or deflect gracefully.

In this situation, saying "I'm not going to answer that question" is the wrong response. Something like "that's an interesting question, but it will take more than 5 minutes to answer. I'd be happy to go into more detail later if you'd like." is.

<comment><USER4> It's a realistic model, sure, but the stakes aren't the same.

In a meeting or presentation, you have a subject and an agenda and many people present who expect you to cover them.

In an interview, it's one-on-one. If the interviewer asks you A, then stops and asks you B, there's no reason _not_ to move to B. If the interviewer is suddenly asking about B, they must want to know about it. There are no other stakeholders present who might care more about A. You didn't even know you were going to be talking about A until a few minutes before!

It's an important skill to be able to say "no" and stay focused on a subject. But this is a shitty test for finding out whether a person has that skill.

<comment><USER5> If you have to interact with customers at all, this is a very realistic situation. The candidate would get points for following up on the tangent question after demonstrating the ability to control the flow of the conversation.

That may not be key for all positions, but for more senior roles, and all roles which are predominantly customer facing, it's absolutely critical.

<comment><USER4> I disagree. There's no _goal_ here.

Being able to say "no" is important, but so is knowing when to say "no" and when to say "yes".

If somebody tries to drag you onto an irrelevant tangent in a meeting, that's when you should say "no". If somebody is talking to you one-on-one and you discover that they actually care about something different than you thought, that's when you should say "yes".

The problem with this scenario is that it pretends to measure a person's ability to say "no" _all while giving them no reason whatsoever to actually say "no"._

If you want to test a person's ability to say "no", you have to put them in a situation where that's actually the correct move.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Giving credit where it's due - this is a famous Google interview question. [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405270230491110457644...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304911104576444363668512764.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> I actually heard this question before Google even existed. It's not my original idea either. This is an old Microsoft interview question, and I would imagine it predates them too.

<comment><USER7> I ran into this question at Novell in the early 90's. I answered it by giving a detailed description of Issac Asimov's [fictional] theories of Psychohistory (from Foundation).

I got the job. But I doubt my answer was the reason why. But it did get chuckles from everyone in the room. I never ran into this type of question again. I kind of wish i had though. Lots more sci-fi to run through.

I'm sure it predates Novell too.

<comment><USER8> Would love to hear more about your answer to the fictional theories of psychohistory. I have not read the Foundation series in a long time, and I've never quite understood the predictive mechanism, how possible Asimov actually thought it was, or the wrinkle introduced by the Mule.

<comment><USER7> From <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychohistory_%28fictional%29>:

 _Psychohistory depends on the idea that, while one cannot foresee the actions of a particular individual, the laws of statistics as applied to large groups of people could predict the general flow of future events. Asimov used the analogy of a gas: an observer has great difficulty in predicting the motion of a single molecule in a gas, but can predict the mass action of the gas to a high level of accuracy. (Physicists know this as the Kinetic theory.) Asimov applied this concept to the population of his fictional Galactic Empire, which numbered a quintillion. The character responsible for the science's creation, Hari Seldon, established two axioms:

1\. that the population whose behaviour was modeled should be sufficiently large 2\. that the population should remain in ignorance of the results of the application of psychohistorical analyses _

I believe we are already laying the "foundation for this study. Look at the market. The foundation of the market is us - our consumption (which I believe is ultimately unsustainable - but that's another discussion). At it's core, that's what the market is all about. Right now I suspect Goldman (and the other investment houses) have stopped trying to _predict_ the market. They are trying to _control_ the market. Which leads to many of the problems we have now.

Without accurate data, predictions, you can't completely control risk. So risk remains.

Anyway to answer your question; I just repeated the theory of Asimov and argued why I thought the theories of psychohistory were already in practice. Which of course they _were_ , since everyone _was_ trying to predict the course of the market; which meant predicting the course of the herd. So if you studied people (all of the people), you could win in the market.

But much of the market has changed in the last 20 years. I believe, today it's more about control then prediction.

<comment><USER8> Hmmm. But the Mule operated outside the Seldon plan.

<comment><USER9> Psychohistory involves predicting the effects of large numbers of people and assumed that single individuals could not significantly change the future of the galaxy.

Without giving too much away, The Mule was a unique being who could not have been predicted, who could significantly change the future of a whole galaxy.

The Seldon Plan did have contingencies for this kind of thing, hence the Second Foundation novel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > Pick any topic you want: a hobby you have, a book you've read, a project you > worked on–anything.

Hopefully there's more guidance than this, because I feel like I'd freeze up and start "um"ing for five minutes trying to decide the best concept to explain. Maybe this says more about me than the exercise, though...

<comment><USER11> That's exactly the point. The ideal candidate presumably has a number of ideas ready to go - the question is very similar to other interview questions and you should already be preparing to talk about your hobbies and interests. The question ensures the candidate can think quickly, pick a topic they know about, and talk about it coherently. If you can't do that, you're probably not a good fit for the team. Therefore, the question is an excellent interview question: it identifies those people who are very passionate about <something>, who are organized enough to explain it on the spot and who can interact well while teaching.

Now, to the point about you: you should practice this. Being good at talking about your hobbies and interests in technical detail while explaining clearly is an extremely valuable skill. Learn it.

<comment><USER12> I dunno. What if my non-professional hobbies are controversial, or simply derided? I see no reason prospective employers should know that I'm a socialist or enjoy anime conventions, and many of them would almost certainly disapprove of one of those two.

<comment><USER11> Edit: I think I hold exclusively controversial hobbies / books / opinions. I would love this question so much if I ever saw it in an interview. Controversial topics seem to be perfectly suited to this question.

Original:

The point of an interview is two-fold: the company is looking to find a good match for an open position, and the candidate is looking for work. Neither of you wants to enter an agreement that will turn sour.

It is a reasonable position that if you have no interests, or hobbies, or any read books at all that you are comfortable talking about with your employer, that you are likely a poor fit for the company. The topic does not have to be non-professional, either. Pick something that relates to the job if you must.

Isn't about half the world's population somewhat socialist? Or fans of anime? Those two examples you picked are, in my opinion, absolutely _ideal_ topics to answer this question with. Why would you be so afraid to talk about them?

<comment><USER13> > It is a reasonable position that if you have no interests, or hobbies, or > any read books at all that you are comfortable talking about with your > employer, that you are likely a poor fit for the company.

Really? I dunno--I always saw employment as more of a business transaction, and I don't give a damn about the personal lives of those I do business with.

<comment><USER14> That's extreme. You spend over half your life at work. It _is_ personal. The most popular employers make an effort to contribute to employee's personal lives.

<comment><USER13> > You spend over half your life at work

Well, that depends. 40 hours a week out of 168 is less than 1/4, but it's certainly true that you spend at least half of your weekday, waking life at work. But more pertinently, it should be time that's set aside for _work_. I don't know why what we do outside of work should even be a factor, or why I should have to share the cultural values of my coworkers. It comes dangerously close to discrimination.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> "Sergey [Brin] nodded his agreement, then asked about my six months in Siberia, casually switching to Russian to see how much I had picked up.

Finally, he leaned forward and fired his best shot, what he came to call 'the hard question'. "I'm going to give you five minutes," he announced. "When I come back, I want you to explain to me something complicated that I don't already know." He then rolled out of the room towards the snack area.

I looked at Cindy. "He's very curious about everything," she said. "You can talk about a hobby, something technical, whatever you want. Just make sure it's something you understand very well."

... I decided to go with the general theory of marketing, which was fresh in my mind because I'd only learned it recently..

I went to the whiteboard and furiously drew circles and squares and unleashed arrows like Legolas. I was nervous, but not very. Sergey bounced on a ball and asked questions that required me to make up things up on the spot...

...

Later I found out that Sergey did this with everyone he interviewed. An hour wasted with an unqualified candidate wasn't a total loss if he gained insight into something new."

"I'm Feeling Lucky: The Confessions of Google Employee #59" - Douglas Edwards

</comment><comment><USER16> The submitted site seems to be having trouble keeping up with the referrals from Hacker News, judging by its response time. (And that is amusing for a site called "refer.ly" that is all about user referrals. The site still needs upgrading to work at scale.)

The question is "I want you to explain something to me. Pick any topic you want: a hobby you have, a book you've read, a project you worked on–anything. You'll have just 5 minutes to explain it. At the beginning of the 5 minutes you shouldn't assume anything about what I know, and at the end I should understand whatever is most important this topic."

I have to say that the proposed job interview question is interesting, and the thought process outline in the blog post kindly submitted here for evaluating answers to the question is also interesting. That made me think of a way to evaluate the hiring procedure mentioned in this blog post--do empirical validation of whether people hired through that procedure really do better work over the course of their career than people hired through other procedures. That's the scientific way to look at what hiring procedure to use.

Here, in a FAQ that should take less than five minutes to read for a native speaker of English, is what is most important about what science has validated on the topic of company hiring procedures. The review article by Frank L. Schmidt and John E. Hunter, "The Validity and Utility of Selection Models in Personnel Psychology: Practical and Theoretical Implications of 85 Years of Research Findings," Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 124, No. 2, 262-274

[http://mavweb.mnsu.edu/howard/Schmidt%20and%20Hunter%201998%...](http://mavweb.mnsu.edu/howard/Schmidt%20and%20Hunter%201998%20Validity%20and%20Utility%20Psychological%20Bulletin.pdf)

sums up, current to 1998, a meta-analysis of much of the HUGE peer-reviewed professional literature on the industrial and organizational psychology devoted to business hiring procedures. There are many kinds of hiring criteria, such as in-person interviews, telephone interviews, resume reviews for job experience, checks for academic credentials, personality tests, and so on. There is much published study research on how job applicants perform after they are hired in a wide variety of occupations.

[http://www.siop.org/workplace/employment%20testing/testtypes...](http://www.siop.org/workplace/employment%20testing/testtypes.aspx)

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: If you are hiring for any kind of job in the United States, prefer a work-sample test as your hiring procedure. If you are hiring in most other parts of the world, use a work-sample test in combination with a general mental ability test.

The overall summary of the industrial psychology research in reliable secondary sources is that two kinds of job screening procedures work reasonably well. One is a general mental ability (GMA) test (an IQ-like test, such as the Wonderlic personnel screening test). Another is a work-sample test, where the applicant does an actual task or group of tasks like what the applicant will do on the job if hired. (But the calculated validity of each of the two best kinds of procedures, standing alone, is only 0.54 for work sample tests and 0.51 for general mental ability tests.) Each of these kinds of tests has about the same validity in screening applicants for jobs, with the general mental ability test better predicting success for applicants who will be trained into a new job. Neither is perfect (both miss some good performers on the job, and select some bad performers on the job), but both are better than any other single-factor hiring procedure that has been tested in rigorous research, across a wide variety of occupations. So if you are hiring for your company, it's a good idea to think about how to build a work-sample test into all of your hiring processes.

Because of a Supreme Court decision in the United States (the decision does not apply in other countries, which have different statutes about employment), it is legally risky to give job applicants general mental ability tests such as a straight-up IQ test (as was commonplace in my parents' generation) as a routine part of hiring procedures. The Griggs v. Duke Power, 401 U.S. 424 (1971) case

[http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=8655598674229196...](http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=8655598674229196978&q=Griggs+Duke+Power&hl=en&as_sdt=2,24)

interpreted a federal statute about employment discrimination and held that a general intelligence test used in hiring that could have a "disparate impact" on applicants of some protected classes must "bear a demonstrable relationship to successful performance of the jobs for which it was used." In other words, a company that wants to use a test like the Wonderlic, or like the SAT, or like the current WAIS or Stanford-Binet IQ tests, in a hiring procedure had best conduct a specific validation study of the test related to performance on the job in question. Some companies do the validation study, and use IQ-like tests in hiring. Other companies use IQ-like tests in hiring and hope that no one sues (which is not what I would advise any company). Note that a brain- teaser-type test used in a hiring procedure could be challenged as illegal if it can be shown to have disparate impact on some job applicants. A company defending a brain-teaser test for hiring would have to defend it by showing it is supported by a validation study demonstrating that the test is related to successful performance on the job. Such validation studies can be quite expensive. (Companies outside the United States are regulated by different laws. One other big difference between the United States and other countries is the relative ease with which workers may be fired in the United States, allowing companies to correct hiring mistakes by terminating the employment of the workers they hired mistakenly. The more legal protections a worker has from being fired, the more reluctant companies will be about hiring in the first place.)

The social background to the legal environment in the United States is explained in many books about hiring procedures

[http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=SRv- GZkw6...](http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=SRv- GZkw6TEC&oi=fnd&pg=PA271&dq=Validity+and+Utility+of+Selection+Models+in+Personnel+Psychology&ots=iCXkgXrlOV&sig=ctblj9SW2Dth7TceaFSNIdVMoEw#v=onepage&q=Validity%20and%20Utility%20of%20Selection%20Models%20in%20Personnel%20Psychology&f=false)

[http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=SRv- GZkw6...](http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=SRv- GZkw6TEC&oi=fnd&pg=PA95&dq=Validity+and+Utility+of+Selection+Models+in+Personnel+Psychology&ots=iCXkgXrnMW&sig=LKLi- deKtnP20VYZo9x0jfvqzLI#v=onepage&q=Validity%20and%20Utility%20of%20Selection%20Models%20in%20Personnel%20Psychology&f=false)

Some of the social background appears to be changing in the most recent few decades, with the prospect for further changes.

<http://intl-pss.sagepub.com/content/17/10/913.full>

[http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/fryer/files/Fryer_R...](http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/fryer/files/Fryer_Racial_Inequality.pdf)

[http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=frfUB3GWl...](http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=frfUB3GWlMYC&oi=fnd&pg=PA9&dq=Validity+and+Utility+of+Selection+Models+in+Personnel+Psychology+%22predictive+validity%22+Duke+Power&ots=5O9Hx_E1vY&sig=g-zERWztBWq3h4guEuv9VVkTh8I#v=onepage&q=Validity%20and%20Utility%20of%20Selection%20Models%20in%20Personnel%20Psychology%20%22predictive%20validity%22%20Duke%20Power&f=false)

Previous discussion on HN pointed out that the Schmidt & Hunter (1998) article showed that multi-factor procedures work better than single-factor procedures, a summary of that article we can find in the current professional literature, for example "Reasons for being selective when choosing personnel selection procedures" (2010) by Cornelius J. König, Ute-Christine Klehe, Matthias Berchtold, and Martin Kleinmann:

"Choosing personnel selection procedures could be so simple: Grab your copy of Schmidt and Hunter (1998) and read their Table 1 (again). This should remind you to use a general mental ability (GMA) test in combination with an integrity test, a structured interview, a work sample test, and/or a conscientiousness measure."

[http://geb.uni- giessen.de/geb/volltexte/2012/8532/pdf/prepri...](http://geb.uni- giessen.de/geb/volltexte/2012/8532/pdf/preprint_j.1468_2389.2010.00485.x.pdf)

But the 2010 article notes, looking at actual practice of companies around the world, "However, this idea does not seem to capture what is actually happening in organizations, as practitioners worldwide often use procedures with low predictive validity and regularly ignore procedures that are more valid (e.g., Di Milia, 2004; Lievens & De Paepe, 2004; Ryan, McFarland, Baron, & Page, 1999; Scholarios & Lockyer, 1999; Schuler, Hell, Trapmann, Schaar, & Boramir, 2007; Taylor, Keelty, & McDonnell, 2002). For example, the highly valid work sample tests are hardly used in the US, and the potentially rather useless procedure of graphology (Dean, 1992; Neter & Ben-Shakhar, 1989) is applied somewhere between occasionally and often in France (Ryan et al., 1999). In Germany, the use of GMA tests is reported to be low and to be decreasing (i.e., only 30% of the companies surveyed by Schuler et al., 2007, now use them)."

Integrity tests have limited validity standing alone, but appear to have significant incremental validity when added to a general mental ability test or work-sample test.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employment_integrity_testing>

[http://apps.opm.gov/ADT/Content.aspx?page=3-06&JScript=1](http://apps.opm.gov/ADT/Content.aspx?page=3-06&JScript=1)

<http://www.princeton.edu/~ota/disk2/1990/9042/9042.PDF>

[http://www.hotelschool.cornell.edu/research/chr/pubs/reports...](http://www.hotelschool.cornell.edu/research/chr/pubs/reports/abstract-14602.html)

AFTER EDIT: A kind comment to this comment graciously assumes I wrote this FAQ only just after when the article opening this thread was submitted. In fact, as was pointed out by a kind reply to that comment, I have prepared this FAQ document in advance, because questions about company hiring procedures frequently come up on Hacker News. I began summarizing the research about six months ago, and other participants here on HN have helped me take this FAQ through several revisions as it reached its current form about two months ago. Questions about hiring procedures come up again and again on Hacker News, and I like to store electrons to conserve keystrokes.

<comment><USER17> I agree that intelligence and work samples are the most critical things to look at. The trick with work samples is that most people focus too narrowly.

Yes, coding is a critical part, so don't skip it. But so is team communication (no matter how great of a programmer you are, if you won't respond to my emails, I won't think you are a great employee). So are code reviews (if you call people morons for not agreeing with your style, no matter how great of a programmer you are, I won't think you are a great employee). So is mentoring (if you can't explain concepts to people who aren't as smart/experienced/whatever as you, no matter how great of a programmer you are, I won't think you are a great employee).

I could go on. I think it is some of these softer skills that many interview questions have tried (and mostly failed) to suss out. Back to the OP, I can see it being a reasonable effort at experiencing some of the non-coding work requirements.

Much better than "how many ping-pong balls would it take to fill this room" and "design a nuclear reactor for me", both of which have been asked of me in web developer interviews.

<comment><USER18> What were the interviewers trying to find out by asking those questions?

<comment><USER19> The ping pong ball question has been used a lot to see how/if engineers will attempt to give a reasonable estimate with proper caveats. No attempt is auto- fail, as is going into too much detail, and the rest is judged by the reasoning, approach, and if decent upper and lower bounds are given.

I imagine the reactor is similar but also checks if you can say where you are not competent and should defer or delegate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> For those that can't see the post, try this - it's a cached version from Instapaper: [http://www.instapaper.com/text?u=http%3A%2F%2Frefer.ly%2Fblo...](http://www.instapaper.com/text?u=http%3A%2F%2Frefer.ly%2Fblog%2Fmost- revealing-interview-question%2F)

And we're sorry about the downtime on the blog! We're trying to fix it as we speak and it kind of caught us off guard, because the blog's handled being on the front page of HN all through the summer without a hiccup.

<comment><USER21> Could always try a little CloudFlare to handle the load.

<comment><USER22> I think a disclaimer might be appropriate here ;) Not that I mind at all; CloudFlare is awesome.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> That is great advice on how to hire mindreaders. While the first idea (explaining something concisely) is defensible, the second (testing if people will 'stay on topic' when deliberately asked about something else) is just crazy.

<comment><USER24> I put a piece of paper on the desk in front of them. It has the number "3" with a big red X through it. Then I hold a baseball bat in a threatening position and tell them to give me an integer between 1 and 10.

This technique works wonders, as I'm able to filter out the 90% of candidates who are losers.

Spoiler: the right answer is 8.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Saw this in an article about Google from last year: [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405270230491110457644...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304911104576444363668512764.html)

About Sergey Brin: "I'm going to give you five minutes," he told me. "When I come back, I want you to explain to me something complicated that I don't already know." He then rolled out of the room toward the snack area. I looked at Cindy. "He's very curious about everything," she told me. "You can talk about a hobby, something technical, whatever you want. Just make sure it's something you really understand well."

Really like this. Covers a lot of bases in a single question, such as curiosity, depth, interpersonal skills, etc.

</comment><comment><USER26> I hate, hate, HATE gimmicky interview questions. At my job I am asked frequently to be on interview panels for my own department and sometimes other departments. It seems like every manager running the interviews throw out these trick questions at some point or another and I just cringe.

There is no magic recipe for interviews. Ask about the person, ask about their experience, see work examples if appropriate and ask some questions to gauge knowledge level for the position being applied for. Anything more and you are just going to second guess yourself out of a good candidate.

</comment><comment><USER27> This submission has only 14 points at this time, and the server is already a smoking crater.

Lesson: Ensure your infrastructure can handle the traffic _before_ you submit links to social sites.

<comment><USER28> How do you know how much traffic you will get?

I have no idea how many people visit HN and how many click on any given link in what space of time.

Maybe PG or someone can give some guidance?

<comment><USER29> I saw a load of about 200-250 simultaneous visitors when one of my sites got posted from ycombinator to the reddit. After 12 hours it tapered off.

<comment><USER30> There's no excuse for failing under that kind of load serving what is essentially a small, static text document.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> You can assess almost nothing that would distinguish one qualified candidate from another to determine who is better spending five minutes with a person. The fact that you see the faults you predicted when you were overruled on hiring decisions is a confirmation bias, not a scientific study of any kind.

Job interviews are a terrible method of hiring good long term people, just a necessary evil to weed out the moronic or insane. The concentration has to be long term on how the person does on the job, the willingness to work hard to retain good people and get rid of ones who aren't working out.

People who are involuntarily committed are observed for more than an hour, because it's known that an insane person can hold it together and appear normal for longer than that period of time before they start talking to people who aren't there.

I couldn't be more sick of posts with "that one interview question" and people who think they are clairvoyant "five minute judges" of character.

</comment><comment><USER32> Very good question. This could not only apply to programmers, but anyone involved in communicating complex issues (medical personnel, engineers, etc).

On a side note, I do not read that many articles about the effectiveness of hiring. It certainly deserves more attention, because the good people in the right places is so important.

Start-up idea: Provide companies with interview questions for specific jobs, and then measure employee success/failure and use this to improve the process.

</comment><comment><USER33> "At the beginning of the 5 minutes you shouldn't assume anything about what I know"

This part of the question would really throw me off. If I want to explain wood working, and I can't assume you know what wood is, we are in trouble.

I think it is meant to say don't assume there is any domain specific knowledge known ahead of time. That would make more sense to me.

</comment><comment><USER34> How about a meta-answer?

"I am really passionate about an interview question, which I like to call the most revealing job interview question.

It's without a doubt my favorite interview question, because it only take 5 minutes and tells me a remarkable amount about candidates. Even though it's not a technical question per se, I still give it to every programmer I interview.

[...]

For senior positions, I will ask a question early in the 5 minutes that is a complete tangent and has little to do with their goal. A star candidate will politely refuse to go down this rat hole and insist that we stay on topic. This seems unfair since an they're in an interview and just doing what they're being asked. In reality though, the very same thing happens often in real work. Even mangers do not innately know what is most important about a topic, and it's key to have confident people on the team that add focus to conversations."

</comment><comment><USER35> _For senior positions, I will ask a question early in the 5 minutes that is a complete tangent and has little to do with their goal. A star candidate will politely refuse to go down this rat hole and insist that we stay on topic. This seems unfair since an they're in an interview and just doing what they're being asked._

Got that right. Trick questions are always unfair (and mildly insulting, and just a plain waste of time) in interviews, just like they are in real life.

"Star interviewers", on the other hand, know that there's no reason to ask candidates to jump through artificial hoops like these.

</comment><comment><USER36> While interesting and thoughtful, I dislike trick interview questions where you tell the interviewer one thing, but look for another. The first problem is that someone who knows what you're doing, had read this article, for instance, has a huge advantage. The other problem is that it during an interview, I try to get people to relax so that I can get a sense of what they're really like. When they're on their guard of trick questions, it creates the opposite environment.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think the "trick" elements of it may have been over emphasized by my blog relative to how I really do this question. Ultimately, the core of the question is hard enough, and does plenty to figure out who's a really good communicator. Just explaining something in essential form is actually quite hard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Can somebody just post the question? Server's aren't responding.

<comment><USER38> I want you to explain something to me. Pick any topic you want: a hobby you have, a book you've read, a project you worked on–anything. You'll have just 5 minutes to explain it. At the beginning of the 5 minutes you shouldn't assume anything about what I know, and at the end I should understand whatever is most important this topic. During the 5 minutes, I might ask you some questions, and you can ask me questions. Take as much time as you want to think it through, and let me know when you want to start.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> The question I ask at the beginning is "tell me about something you are proud of". This helps sets them at ease, gets them to brag/market themselves and is positive.

Later on I pick something prominent on the CV/resume and ask them to explain it in detail on the whiteboard. I try to pick something with multiple components communicating over time (web browsers/mobile clients talking to servers is good). That requires sequencing, boxes, and arrows. The answer also helps set expectations on other items on the CV/resume - if they can't explain something they claim to know well then the other items are likely an exaggeration too.

I never penalize answers of "I don't know" to questions about parts, but am astonished at how few candidates will say that. For example they'll say "there is a POST". I'll ask what a POST is. They'll mumble something incomprehensible about HTTP. So I'll ask what a POST is, again. They'll mumble something about GET, and I'll give up. There is no problem with not knowing - Google/Wikipedia/Stackoverflow will address almost all things - but it is a huge red flag not understanding something, being unable to explain it, and being unprepared to say so.

</comment><comment><USER40> Why can't you find out the same information about the persion by just engaging in normal conversation, asking them about their interests, and asking reasonable follow up questions?

Presenting it as some kind of weird test that makes the interviewee feel awkward and suspicious is no way to conduct an interview. It says more about how bad the interviewer is.

<comment><USER41> They avoid a normal conversation because then the interviewer would not be able to be achieve a master smug rating. You need to be psychic and 'get' what direction or type of response that they expect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> The post is apparently a marketing effort. The interview question is pretty old. If it is that effective as claimed, it would have been known and applied widely. (Then, candidates will prepare for the question and it is not revealing at all.)

Also, claiming any interview question as <bold> MOST </bold> revealing is simply simple-minded.

</comment><comment><USER43> >>> Here's how I set up the question:

>>> I want you to explain something to me. Pick any topic you want: a hobby you have, a book you've read, a project you worked on–anything. You'll have just 5 minutes to explain it.

I am an experienced technical guy. In case of technical interview if somebody starts away with that kind of question; i would take that in a negative way. I hate it when interviewers instead of being focused on their requirements focus on unnecessary things. As a job seeker i would like to be felt that i am required for the position; and that am not just a guy seeking money or a change in job. I would like to have the interviewer ask me questions for the job-position that i've applied; such that i feel motivated to continue; and know that the interviewer is serious about the position; and is just not filling up vacant company position.

</comment><comment><USER44> I've interviewed at many places, and received many offers. What ever happened to no BS, sit down and have an honest conversation. I'm done with interview questions.

People hiring fret so much about tricking candidates into revealing certain qualities. The candidate will give you the answer they think you want.

</comment><comment><USER45> This is one of my favorite interview questions as well! I originally got the idea from an autobiography of an early Google employee; apparently this was one of Sergey's favorite questions.

Definitely helps you see how effective people are at organizing their thinking and communicating it effectively.

</comment><comment><USER46> I would have thought that the author would have bothered to proof read the question.

<comment><USER20> It's not given in written form - it's a friendly oral conversation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> I think this post has a lot of interesting points, but in general I find asking interviewees questions that are not related to their job a little weird because no you are basing your judgement on things unrelated to the actual position.

However, if we changed this question to "in 5 mins. please explain the most important partt of X" where X is some relatively commonly understood computer science topic, I think it would be a much better interview question. And if you want you can still look for the traits empathy, goal directed, etc..

</comment><comment><USER48> > I will ask a question early in the 5 minutes that is a complete tangent and > has little to do with their goal. A star candidate will politely refuse to > go down this rat hole and insist that we stay on topic.

These types of "trick" questions don't allude to anything. A star candidate also wants to respect their interviewer and refusing to answer a question can be seen as disrespectful.

Granted, the characteristic you're trying to surface is a fantastic one (saying no) - but this is not a surefire way of discovering it.

<comment><USER41> It is a terrible way of discovering it.

It's the same as if they asked you a php question. You answer it, and then they say 'wrong!!!! the right answer is php sucks, in ruby I do it like so:...'

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> I refer.ly they are looking for a senior software engineer with good knowledge of php and mysql. So perhaps the title should be "The Most Revealing Job Interview Question for Finding a Good PHP Developer".

A very conservative approach, in this landscape every single decision must be attached to a clear goal, there is no room for experimentation, you should follow a direct goal Explain to your team how can get they solve the problems for their clients and describe the path for this goal.

</comment><comment><USER50> Based on the numbers provided in the post, it sounds like the best case scenario is:

o). 41 people got hired in total after being asked this question. o). 4 of those were hired despite answering it badly. o). Those 4 people did not do well. (these were hires where the manager was specifically overruled in hiring them) o). The other 37 did well. (these were hires where the manager was not overruled)

Ie. an interesting, thought provoking post, but tough to draw any definitive conclusions..

</comment><comment><USER51> I remember a similar test from one of the books by Lister & DeMarco. They also mentioned one caveat not present in the linked article: they advice not to let the candidate choose the topic but instead let them prepare a presentation on a pre-chosen one. The rationale for this is that you might see passion and quality that are only attached to topics the candidate is passionate about if the choice of the topic is with the candidate.

<comment><USER52> I had to do this in an interview for a software project manager position. I presented on how GFP-tagging of proteins works in biochemistry research, to an audience of glassy eyed HR reps.

I was hired, but the point is that you can't allow the presenter to take something too technical, otherwise the audience won't understand the jargon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Computers don't have empathy. Sometimes a cold and rational personality is what you need when you have to deal with compiler errors and stack traces all day.

</comment><comment><USER54> Slightly tangential.

I've been running an experiment of my own. As part of my work, I need to hire freelancers for dev, design and so on. It's not specific to the tech field, I also hire virtual assistants as well.

I've been working with devs on and off for about 10 years and have my fair share of experiences.

I don't interview people that I hire/sub-contract to, I just chat to them. Maybe there are people out there that do interview, but I find it a bit strange, so asking the "5 min" question as per the blog post would be a little weird.

But I've been doing some experimenting for quite some time. It's really important that the people that i choose to sub-contract to work well with me as part of a team.

When put out an ad for a freelancer of a particular kind, I deliberately say something that paints me as a potentially difficult client. I tend not to let on how much I know about the field that i am looking to hire in either.

The results are always amazing. The ones that contact me that don't make even the slightest mention of the possibility of me being difficult, or find a way to laugh about it, are the ones that i choose to do business with first.

These people are so intent on focusing on the positives that they don't even notice my poor behaviour. It's that enthusiastic attitude that makes them a really good team player.

Of course, after i establish the business relationship with them, i do my level best not to be a difficult client for them.

Personally, i always feel that the relationship you have is far more important than the skill set, and the rates being charged.

I've tried this experiment a few times - I call it my freelance filter.

One example is a project that a freelancer worked on for me when i first tried this filter. His skill set was a bit worrying to me. I had spoken to others that were more experienced, but i loved his attitude and he passed my filter test with flying colours.

Anyway, i hired him and he far exceeded my expectations in every way. Was very responsive, communicated really well, exceeded my expectations on the project and over-delivered voluntarily and gave plenty of his own creative input without being detrimental to the project.

Anyway - just thought i'd share. It might rile a few people up, but maybe one day someone will benefit from using this process.

<comment><USER17> Or you are simply weeding out the top class of freelancers before they even contact you because they have enough options that dealing with a potentially aggravating client isn't worth a response.

I do agree that, of those who remain, filtering out those who fixate on negative aspects of the relationship is a good idea. Those people will often look for negative things, even if none are there, making them painful to work with.

<comment><USER54> That's also deliberate by me as well. If they have enough options and they're busy enough then we shouldn't be working together because they have a fair amount on their plate.

It's not a perfect filter. You are indeed correct. I would be wary about a client that demonstrates certain traits as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> _I do not give any "uh huh" or "I see" kind of interjections that underlie most conversations._

And you want to use this method to gauge a candidates communication skills? Human communication is a very complicated and error prone process. If you're going to cut out all the vital clues, how you can expect it not to fail horribly? Feedback from both sides is essential.

<comment><USER56> No. _At first_ , he doesn't give any indications to check if the candidate recognize this lack of understanding.

As you said it very well:

      If you're going to cut out all the vital clues, how you can expect it not to fail horribly? Feedback from both sides is essential.

If your audience doesn't acknowledge your basic explanations, it's not worth going deeper in the subject. I.e. If you get no clue, go get them!

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> I love interviewers' tips, upvoted. However, it's not clear to me how Kevin is able to "ask a question early in the 5 minutes that is a complete tangent and has little to do with their goal" to see if they "say no". As much as you want to test the candidate's confidence, you have to ask a relevant question. Maybe an example could help?

<comment><AUTHOR> Here's a good example... one candidate chose to explain how residential firefighting works. They got into explaining why water is really important. I asked them about halon and they indulged a little bit. Then I asked them to explain how halon works. And so on...

If they haven't shut me down by the 3rd question, it's a sign they're never going to, and I stop distracting them.

For junior candidates, I usually don't even bother with this, because I am not going to stop myself from hiring just because they fail this question. So it's usually better to see if they can do well at just the core question.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> > –anything

Let me show you my collection of cat whiskers, it's right there in my tinfoil hat.

<comment><USER59> That _would_ be a very useful reply. It would effectively communicate to me whether you would make a good hire.

<comment><USER58> Are you running a cat whiskers collectors exchange? We definitely should talk.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> And now on Forbes: [http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2012/10/04/a-big- ques...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2012/10/04/a-big-question- that-could-decide-any-job-interview/)

</comment><comment><USER61> Oh, this is indeed an awesome question. I would've appreciated to be asked it if I were interviewing somewhere. There's so much I can tell about bacon :)

Seriously though, it's a very clever question. Thanks for sharing.

<comment><USER62> What was the question? The site seems to be down and Google doesn't seem to have a cached version yet.

<comment><USER32> Paraphrased: Ask the applicant to explain _any_ topic for 5 minutes to the one interviewing. Then the interviewer will draw a blank face. Talented applicants will ask the interviewer if he understands, less talented applicants will just continue their story.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> Along these lines, the CIA requires all applicants for foreign office positions to fly to Washington and deliver a 5-minute briefing on a topic of national security as part of their interview process.

</comment><comment><USER64> So question about this question: do you think this can be trained (and if so, would that training help with job performance) or it's just an inherent characteristic?

<comment><USER65> It can definitely be trained and practiced, so quite clearly it is going to skew towards those that read blog posts about hiring.

<comment><AUTHOR> The thing is if you're good at this, it translates into real work performance. So I almost don't care if people have "cheated" and studied up on the question. None of the people I've hired suddenly stopped communicating well on the job after doing well on this question.

<comment><USER66> I think this is the part where you're doing some magical thinking backed up by anecdotes. Have you done any actual experimental work on those who have failed the question but that you've hired anyways? Have you then been able to objectively measure how well they communicate? Your sample size seems pretty small (a couple hundred) so my guess would be no. I frequently see this kind of thinking about interview questions: "If somebody fails this problem this way, then they'll perform poorly on the job in the following way." Unless you actually have performed a study on this kind of thing, then you're probably just guessing when you say those kinds of things, and you're showing a lot of not particularly rigorous thinking about the relationship between the interviewing process and on the job performance.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's definitely a small sample size, but I have more data on this than any other techniques I've seen out there.

I've been overruled once after no hiring a candidate. Low and behold the same person ended up nearly getting fired 9 months later for the very same issues that came up from this question. They struggled to answer even the simplest questions with one sentence responses.

<comment><USER66> So, that's a sample size of 1. Not quite what we would call scientifically rigorous ;). I'm not saying it's not a useful question. I'm just saying, you jump to a whole lot of conclusions that are clearly not based on evidence in your hiring process. That's fine, just be aware that your hiring process is not doing what you're thinking or asserting it's doing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> Split the pile of application in two halves. Throw one of the halves in the trashcan. Hiring people with bad luck isn't good for business.

<comment><USER59> While often given as a joke, this is effectively what many of these "best interview question" posts really are:

Find any random old way to save time and effort in the interviewing process, _then_ come up with some clever-sounding rationalization.

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> From the article that has ceased to be:

\---

We have been doing a lot of interviewing at Referly lately, and my team asked me to share an interview question we get the most mileage out of. I've been doing this question for years and now have seen over two hundred different answers now. It's without a doubt my favorite interview question, because it only take 5 minutes and it tells me a remarkable amount about candidates. Even though it's not a technical question per se, I still give it to every programmer I interview.

Setting up the interview question

Here's how I set up the question:

I want you to explain something to me. Pick any topic you want: a hobby you have, a book you've read, a project you worked on–anything. You'll have just 5 minutes to explain it. At the beginning of the 5 minutes you shouldn't assume anything about what I know, and at the end I should understand whatever is most important this topic. During the 5 minutes, I might ask you some questions, and you can ask me questions. Take as much time as you want to think it through, and let me know when you want to start.

When I give this, I usually emphasize each of these points multiple times, with a real stress on their goal: have me understand what's most important about the topic.

Empathy

As they start explaining, I make sure to have the most vacant look on my face possible. I do not give any "uh huh" or "I see" kind of interjections that underlie most conversations. A star candidate will pick up on this and ask if I understand so far. On the job, these star candidates also are the same kind of people that empathize with customers and think about it in all the work they do once we hire them. Conversely, weaker candidates think that presentation and communication are one in the same, and loose sight of their audience. They end up being the hardest developers to work with just to understand how they're solving a problem, much less have a constructive argument with them.

Explaining by analogy is a shortcut some of the best candidates use. One example I heard while someone was teaching me the basics of poker was to take advantage of the fact I had played backgammon even though I hadn't played poker. He talked about how in backgammon all the pieces on the board are exposed information that both players can see, but in poker you have hidden information. These type of explanations go a long way towards quickly communicating an idea with all kinds of implications very succinctly.

Goal directed and organized

It is amazing how many candidates will not premeditate before diving into this interview question. Once the trigger happy type candidates get going, they don't have any kind of bulleted list or outline in their head of what they hope to get across. What's most incredible about this is how accurately it predicts disorganized and non-goal directed behavior on the job. I've been over ruled a few times by my manager on a hiring decision, and question was a harbinger of things to come. Conversely, the people that think it through and have a few crystal clear points are amongst the best people I've worked with. They are not just easy to communicate with, but get results in their work.

Leaders have the guts to say no

For senior positions, I will ask a question early in the 5 minutes that is a complete tangent and has little to do with their goal. A star candidate will politely refuse to go down this rat hole and insist that we stay on topic. This seems unfair since an they're in an interview and just doing what they're being asked. In reality though, the very same thing happens often in real work. Even mangers do not innately know what is most important about a topic, and it's key to have confident people on the team that add focus to conversations.

Stacking up

Usually only 1 or 2 out of every 10 candidates will do well on all these points. That has held true after giving this interview question over two hundred times.

I take a risk sharing this, because this question has been an amazing tool in picking apart the best talent from rest. I ended up deciding this was worth sharing because after years of telling people exactly what I am looking for in the set up, weaker candidates still can't help but get tripped up.

Want to experience it first hand? We have open positions right now :)

</comment><comment><USER69> Wasn't it originally Bezos who requested interviewees to tell, elaborately, about something he doesn't know?

</comment><comment><USER70> Sooooo. Why did you just give away one of the best questions to ask at an interview?

</comment><comment><USER12> I like it. It's pretty close to my favorite one: "What's your favorite algorithm?"

</comment><comment><USER71> Totally stealing this.

</comment><comment><USER72> For those who can't see the page - the answer is 42.

</comment><comment><USER73> refer.ly just dropped the ball on this one.</comment>


Amazon Plans to Split HQ2 in Two Locations: NY and VA - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/05/technology/amazon-second-headquarters-split.html <comment><USER2> > Amazon executives met two weeks ago with Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo in the > governor's Manhattan office, said one of the people briefed on the process, > adding that the state had offered potentially hundreds of millions of > dollars in subsidies

> "I am doing everything I can," Governor Cuomo told reporters when asked > Monday about the state's efforts to lure the company. "We have a great > incentive package," he said.

> "I'll change my name to Amazon Cuomo if that's what it takes," Governor > Cuomo said. "Because it would be a great economic boost."

If these quotes are truly representative of Cuomo's attitude towards Amazon, that's an incredible amount of pandering for the governor of the state containing New York City to be doing. Isn't large amounts of incentives for Amazon essentially a trickle-down economics policy? Interesting to see that Cuomo, ostensibly a progressive, would be for such a thing.

<comment><USER3> > _that 's an incredible amount of pandering for the governor of the state > containing New York City to be doing_

Pandering is free.

I imagine infrastructure-based incentives will be popular in New York. Large tenants make big infrastructure possible. That enables further density, which means more jobs, more municipal budget and more demand for local commerce. Turning Amazon's HQ2 into the catalyst for building out Western Brooklyn and LIC infrastructure isn't a bad trade for the city. (Tax credits would be tone deaf, but if done in a budget-neutral manner _could_ be okay.)

New York City is a commercial centre. Pragmatism wins votes.

<comment><USER4> Indeed. Many people will say dropping a huge Amazon campus in Queens will adversely effect the character of the city, and exacerbate many of its issues.

I don't necessarily disagree with them, and if it was up to me, I'd rather Amazon land in Dallas that probably needs the jobs more.

However, this will be an objectively good thing for NYC as a center of commerce, and help establish it as a tech hub at a time its local job market isn't doing all too well.

Moreover, I doubt Amazon will game the system so excessively that it won't end up paying in taxes and investment and influx of business and salaries much more than it will receive in tax breaks.

It's unlikely they'll game the system so badly because it's not wise to screw the municipal authorities that can make your life miserable.

<comment><USER5> > I'd rather Amazon land in Dallas that probably needs the jobs more.

Having lived there, disincentivizing jobs and thereby incentivizing emmigration is the best outcome for most _people_ in the DFW area. What a hellhole. "I want to die in Dallas" said noone ever.

<comment><USER6> I grew up around Dallas, a lot of the suburbs around there are _really_ nice (All-American feel, everybody goes to high school football games, etc.), had a lot of the fastest growing communities in the nation, the economy is booming in Texas, lower taxes, family friendly, and the culture is a lot more neighborly/friendly than most of the places I've lived (our neighbors brought over cookies when we moved in). Curious what gave you the opposite impression?

<comment><USER7> It's funny to me that your example of all American is changing pretty quickly, at least in places with educated parents, since it involves watching children get brain damage.

<comment><USER6> Hehe, I actually hate football, and my mom never liked it either since she wanted us to have brain cells and such (we all played basketball instead), but I give it as an example of a community thing people did and supported. Totally agree on that point though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> VA was chosen for its proximity to regulators.

Consider that if Microsoft had put an office in the DC area in the mid 1990s we would all be shopping at some e-commerce behemoth owned by Microsoft.

The reality is that for a company like Amazon, regulatory risk is the biggest existential threat to the company's future, and the only way to fight regulatory risk is through extensive lobbying and various legal forms of bribery that involve lots of face time with powerful officials.

<comment><USER9> The best hedge against regulatory risk wouldn't be jobs in DC, but jobs that turn a light red state purple, or a purple state blue.

Maybe that's partly why Northern Virginia is a leading candidate, but it seems like there might have been even stronger options.

Having a workforce in a low population swing state could have disproportionate impact on national politics. It could elect Dems, or turn against them if they move to break Amazon up.

(I'm not saying this because I know which party would favor Amazon more, but just because polling suggests tech workers are mostly blue, so I think that's the direction you'd start.)

This is if politics were the only consideration, though I'd wager the main considerations are far more mundane, something actuarial.

<comment><USER10> >The best hedge against regulatory risk wouldn't be jobs in DC, but jobs that turn a light red state purple, or a purple state blue.

How so? If you turn a state purple or blue you're now at risk of being regulated by the state in addition to federally. Red states are generally hands off when it comes to business.

<comment><USER9> Imagine green and purple instead of red and blue.

If you give a state to green, with the power to turn it back purple any time green threatens your workers, you have the policy leadership in a bit of a hostage crisis.

Ideology is flexible in big tents, and everyone is a pragmatist with respect to their constituency. Ds in hunting states are more circumspect on guns and Rs near DC go much easier on federal employees.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The stunning transfer of wealth from technology companies to residential landlords through their employees will continue.

<comment><USER12> Don't forget though that that area in NYC has a _ton_ of both empty space and low-value commercial space that can be torn down and redeveloped. It's also home to one of the biggest transportation deserts in the city, which will be functionally unlocked in the next five years or so once self-driving cars are a thing.

While stuff takes time to build, at the end of the day there is a lot more land to build buildings than there are people who want to live there. And unlike in SF, if there is new demand then those buildings will actually get built.

edit: Was referring to the LIC location, not VA.

<comment><USER13> > _It 's also home to one of the biggest transportation deserts in the city, > which will be functionally unlocked in the next five years or so once self- > driving cars are a thing._

Self-driving cars don't magically make other cars, self-driving or not, vanish from the roads and they certainly can't match the raw throughput of moving thousands of people in a single train on a dedicated right of way.

<comment><USER12> > Self-driving cars don't magically make other self-driving cars vanish

I mean that's what they're supposed to do, if they can all drive one behind another at a constant speed without crashing or creating traffic jams. But more importantly, if you can be doing work while your car is driving itself then your effective commute is zero. And if your car can park itself in the suburbs, then that creates yet more space in the city that can be used to create housing. Self-driving cars, if they actually work, should radically reduce housing costs -- both by making formerly unlivable places suitable for residential buildings, and by freeing up significant amounts of land.

<comment><USER13> My point being that they don't make other cars vanish and they certainly don't make human-driven cars vanish in any sensible timeframe.

On a person-kilometre-minute basis, cars are _absurdly_ inefficient. Stupendously so.

A typical subway train typically runs to about 157 metres. A 2018 Camry runs to about 5 metres. That gives about 31 car lengths for the subway car.

Assume that _every_ Camry is fully loaded with 5 passengers. That's 155 people. In the ideal condition, driving bumper-to-bumper with no other cars, 155 people in 157 metres -- about a person per linear metre.

Here's the fun bit: the passenger capacity of an R142A carriage is _176_.

Not the whole train.

 _One subway car_.

One subway car, approximately 16 metres long, holds more people than an entire train's length of self-driving Camrys driving with zero tolerance.

Now add the fact that the trains have dedicated rights of way and note that even with the profound multi-decadal mess made of the MTA you simply cannot replace the subway with any other mode of transportation, not now, not ever. Self-driving cars don't repeal the laws of physics and they don't override Little's Law either.

<comment><USER14> Yes, rail offers unparalleled efficiency at transporting people from one place where they don't want to be to another place where they don't want to be.

<comment><USER15> That's pedantic nonsense. If I took that argument to its logical conclusion, I'd point out that I also don't want to be in my garage or the city car park.

<comment><USER16> This thread is discussing self driving cars which would presumably not have either of those problems.

<comment><USER15> I think you missed the point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Why would NYS/NYC need to subsidize Amazon in NYC?

If NYC is indeed confirmed, then rents for Queens are going to be absolutely fucked.

While Astoria is high, Sunnyside, Woodside, and Jackson Heights will likely see never-seen-before rent increases.

This would be greatly concerning because Eastern Asians from Flushing are already moving west towards Manhattan and are already encroaching on Hispanic minorities in Elmhurst and Corona.

(Source: was native NYCer for 24 years)

<comment><USER18> > This would be greatly concerning because Eastern Asians from Flushing are > already moving west towards Manhattan and are already encroaching on > Hispanic minorities in Elmhurst and Corona.

Why is it better for Hispanic people to live in an area than Eastern Asian people?

<comment><USER19> I think the grandparent post is saying that Asians in Flushings are more likely to own their property and then it gets rented out inside the ethnic group moreso than outside the group. So Hispanics etcetera will be squeezed between that and rising prices from HQ2.

I don't know how much of these are true, but I've heard anecdotes/stereotypes like this a few times in New York. Just haven't seen (or looked for) any confirmed studies about it.

<comment><USER20> I can't speak for other areas of the country, but NYC native Asian Americans are notoriously obsessed with and very adept at purchasing property. Whether it's pooling money among friends, having very low living costs, or even helping their sons and daughters with a down payment, it's clear it's very important for the culture in a way it's not for other minorities or even white people.

<comment><USER21> > I can't speak for other areas of the country, but NYC native Asian Americans > are notoriously obsessed with and very adept at purchasing property.

I can speak for other areas. To a first and second approximation, all Chinese, regardless of what country they live in, believe very strongly in owning property and will go to what you might consider ridiculous lengths to do so.

There's a reason the rhetorical enemy of Maoism was the "landlord".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I really hope Cuomo didn't give Amazon huge tax breaks for coming to NY. Frankly Amazon needs NYC more than we need them. NYC is a boom town at the moment with a lot of jobs and skilled professionals moving in. Since 2010 the population has grown by 375k people which is about 40% the population of San Fransisco.

There are 20 million people in the NY Metro area, and NYC is a true global city. I know it will be some political coup for Cuomo who has sights on national office bringing Amazon here, but to win the Willy Wonka like contest by giving Amazon a lot of freebies is disapointing.

<comment><USER10> Unless he's caught tossing puppies into a wood chipper he will carry the NYC area and it won't matter what the rest of the state thinks. Cumo doesn't need to give anyone tax breaks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> It's humorous how willing they are to build HQ2/3 in areas already with high rent and income. They probably have the money and the will to create a new city and public transit system out of a pliable town. Why not do that?

It's not so simple and I'm not quite so naive... but it would be interesting if high paying jobs went to places with decent weather and reasonable land prices.

<comment><USER24> Talent doesn't want to work in the middle of nowhere.

I wish it did, but it doesn't.

<comment><USER25> This isn't an unreasonable generalization. But a) there's plenty of talent that wants to live somewhere other than an urban core, and b) if Amazon opens an HQ in a place, that place will become a somewhere, and c) Amazon is at the scale that they can afford to take raw talent and train it up.

Personally, I find Amazon's decision disappointing, and I regret getting caught up in the hype. I was hoping that they'd do something bold and interesting, not open a couple of satellite offices in obvious places.

<comment><USER26> More on this point, there were a number of perfectly reasonable second tier cities in their 'final 20' shortlist already, which were lagging behind first tier cities only in transit, or, for all we know, in the amount of incentives they were willing to throw at Amazon's feet.

Raleigh/Durham would have made for a fine urban or suburban campus and would've capitalized on the presence of tech talent already drawn to the area; Austin would have been another obvious choice for pre-existing tech talent. A pick like Nashville or Columbus would have been _bold_ , picking a rising star midsize metro with diverse strengths and no strong background in tech and lifting it further. Instead, it's looking to be NYC and DC. Much ado about nothing.

<comment><USER27> It's amazing. All of those months of speculation about what secondary city or emerging tech hub will become the next Austin, _gone_ just like that, in favor of Amazon deciding to set up shop in the super-obvious capitals of finance and government.

<comment><USER28> Guys, Amazon is not a charity.

They aren't looking to build up a city. It's a foolish business decision to put something with the needs of HQ2 in a place with no transit. Sure, you can build transit, but A - it's expensive, and B - it's not your job or expertise.

Instead of lamenting the jobs they missed out on with HQ2, a forward thinking city would get to work building out its transit system. Many cities are doing just that. Houston for instance.

If places like Columbus or Nashville have a better strategy than building attractive infrastructure for competing with places like Houston and NYC for such jobs, then let them pursue that strategy. The market will settle the issue in the end.

<comment><USER27> You're ascribing moral judgment to my post. I'm not criticizing for taking potential jobs away from a secondary city. Playing host to an HQ2 is both a big boon and a great curse; witness all the articles about Amazon's impact on prospective cities' real estate markets and traffic. But my specific criticism is in questioning why did Bezos put on this charade to evaluate cities throughout North America, if he was just going to choose the obvious choices? The only more unimaginative city than NYC and Washington DC, would be to build HQ2 in the Bay Area itself.

Was this all a ploy to test how far local governments be willing to bend over for Amazon? A PR spectacle to show how important and influential Amazon is to warrant that kind of kowtowing from mayors and governors? If you're going to claim that Amazon earnestly pursued the search for HQ2, only to decide that NYC and D.C. were the best choices at the end, then their strategists must have done a poor job in not figuring that out before the city talent show.

And for us HN commentators: these picks are just _boring_. So much for innovation, imagination, and daring. Ho-hum.

<comment><USER29> _So much for innovation, imagination, and daring._

Maybe you shouldn't have ascribed those qualities to Amazon's search for a new HQ?

<comment><USER27> Maybe they shouldn't have framed the contest as finding "a city that is excited to work with us and where our customers, employees, and the community can all benefit", but rather a purely financial and strategic decision that would take their analysts less than a day to wrap up.

<comment><USER29> None of those things have anything to do with "innovation, imagination, and daring".

<comment><USER27> Maybe it's too much to ask a company to embody its professed values in every aspect of its operations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> If true, I wonder if they did this so that their ability to play one city off the other doesn't have to come to a close when they make the announcement. Or ever.

Every year or so, you can call them up and say:

"Hey NY, we're thinking of expanding in VA, but maybe you could convince us otherwise."

"Hey VA, we're thinking of expanding in NY, but maybe you could convince us otherwise."

<comment><USER31> Why would NYC give a shit? Amazon represents a quite small amount of economic activity relative to NYC.

<comment><USER4> It's not even an entire office, just a small project representing a few hundred jobs at most.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> It will be far more interesting to see the impacts on Queens versus Crystal City, IMHO.

Crystal City already has a strong tech presence - it's government, not industry, but still - no shortage of technology around. 25K new workers is about a second Pentagon in the area, but nothing more than that. Office rental rate pressure will slightly go up, but Amazon's a drop in the bucket compared to federal government buying power for office space.

Queens, though, is a dramatic change to the general landscape of that area. I can't even imagine an Amazon-style campus in the middle of Jamaica.

<comment><USER33> Arlington has been running a fairly high office vacancy rate for a long time. Amazon moving in doesn't really require new construction.

[https://data.arlingtonva.us/dataviews/227253/vacancy- rates/](https://data.arlingtonva.us/dataviews/227253/vacancy-rates/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> As an Amazon employee, I will only believe it when Jeff says it's so.

"Sources" that aren't specified or provide any evidence tend to have a poor track record.

</comment><comment><USER35> > Amazon declined to comment on whether it had made any final decisions.

Speculation. Amazon is also talking heavily with Dallas according to CNN.

[https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/05/tech/amazon- hq2-update/index....](https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/05/tech/amazon- hq2-update/index.html)

</comment><comment><USER36> I hate when people use the word bubble but I think we finally have a real bubble here. Google opening a new campus in San Jose, Amazon in NYC. I mean, how expensive can it be to live in one of these already expensive places? We're at a breaking point where salaries offered by tech giants aren't keeping up with the price of real estate. We're talking engineers, etc. not even able to afford a home. Now if you don't work for a google or an amazon etc. How do you survive in these places? We need stores, transportation, plumbers, gardners etc.

I see a bubble here. It's gonna get ugly soon.

<comment><USER37> NYC is surprisingly affordable if you can make the mental gymnastics that NYC != Manhattan.

You can get single family homes within city limits for $450-$750k. If you can't figure out how to afford a home like that on a six figure salary (let alone with 2 income earners in family situations), what you probably really need is a financial adviser. If you don't want to live in the city, Jersey City is swimming in sub-million dollars single family homes.

The D.C. area is actually more expensive in many cases, but you can haul out to a suburb 30 miles away and get more affordable housing on an engineer's salary and metro/commuter train in. It's not the end of the world.

Your commute may not be a 10 minute walk door-to-door, but...well...welcome to living in a large U.S. city where the jobs are.

The problem these companies are facing is availability of qualified staff. It'll take years to build out the facilities, and cheap places just will never attract the talent pool.

<comment><USER38> > The D.C. area [...] haul out to a suburb 30 miles away [...] and > metro/commuter train in.

That might as well be the end of the world. The commute from that distance can easily crack two hours; I'd have a shorter commute driving from DC to literally the capital of the confederacy (105 miles, 1.7 hours reverse commute) than I'd have driving from Dumfries, VA into DC (30 miles, 2+ hours traffic).

Source: lived/ing inside the beltway for decades until present. Also, I've made that DC-RVA drive more times than I'd care to admit, and it was less self-harm-inducing than my standard commute from _inside the beltway_ into DC itself.

<comment><USER39> And it's been this way for a long time. In the mid-1990's I lived in Vienna, VA and my office was in Tyson's Corner just 1.5 miles away. Yet there was no way I could eat lunch at home and drive back to the office within an hour, and it was actually faster to _walk_ to work than drive. The only bright side to that situation was that I lived a few blocks from the Orange Line (at Dunn Loring).

In 2020, would I want to be living in Vienna or Chantilly and commuting to Crystal City? No way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The cynic in me suspects that these articles are last-minute PR plants intended to place negotiating pressure on one or both for final concessions.

<comment><USER40> NYC should never negotiate. If you want to be in NYC then pay full price. There's no shortage of demand here. The benefits of being here are manifold in and of itself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> So three headquarters? My speculation on why these two cities were chosen would be that they are the two cities that Bezos wants to spend the most time in. Most business headquarter moves to a new city are because the CEO wants to live at the new location [citation needed]. At least in this case people at the old HQ can stay put and Bezos is the largest stockholder in the company, not just the top manager.

<comment><USER13> Bezos is probably very careful about how much time he spends in NYC. Both the State and the City charge income tax based on their definitions residence. They don't mess around, either.

<comment><USER42> Did you used to frequent r/weightlifting?

Moving on..

Bezos has basically no income from Amazon. He owns a bunch of shares, some of which he sells for a capital gain. Amazon doesn't pay dividends. He may have some income from other investments.

In his case, the tax man can only come when he sells stock, of which he only sells a ~1 billion USD per year.

<comment><USER13> > _Did you used to frequent r /weightlifting?_

I did, a long time ago. I became tired of arguing with PED apologists and anyway, injury has driven me out of the sport.

> _In his case, the tax man can only come when he sells stock, of which he > only sells a ~1 billion USD per year._

And they will, if he spends enough time here. He'll need to increase his sale to cover the difference.

<comment><USER42> > injury has driven me out of the sport Me too.

> I became tired of arguing with PED apologists

It is a tiring debate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Call me skeptical but: two days after a flurry of articles about how NYC, Crystal City, AND Dallas are in late stage negotiations, NYT doesn't mention Dallas at all?

Property developers of earmarked properties in Dallas, per WSJ, have also taken their potential Amazon properties off the market as have developers in Crystal City. Yet NYT makes no mention of such a move in Dallas. Why?

<comment><USER44> The basis of this article comes from "people familiar with the decision-making process", so probably those people said NYC + Crystal City and not Dallas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Why don't they try remote work? Virtual HQ2? It would be cheaper and give them access to better talent.

<comment><USER46> Who's going to subsidize that?

<comment><USER40> Vermont is starting a program where they will pay you to move there and work for an out of state company remotely.

To the companies benefit you can pay employees substantively less outside major cities.

<comment><USER46> Do you need to have the remote job first? If so, the remote salary would probably have already been calibrated. Still interesting though.

<comment><USER40> I'm not sure. I think they have a set number of grants and you have to come as a new Vermont resident. First come first serve.

I think the idea is to attract folks from major Eastern cities that lust for the country side. It is a gorgeous state....but winter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> As someone who owns a home in a beautiful quite neighborhood less than a mile from one of those locations I can't figue out if I really like this news or it's terrible.

On the downside many things that I like will get worse with the influx of people. On the plus side, my house is probably worth significantly more money as an investment.

Maybe I should buy the house for sale down the street...

</comment><comment><USER48> Gah, Queens? I was hoping they'd come a bit further upstate (like where IBM is/was in Poughkeepsie).

<comment><USER4> Oh, totally. Every young engineer's dream is to live in Poughkeepsie!

<comment><USER48> I'm a young engineer, I live up there. It's a very pleasant area to live out your life. Not everyone wants the pace of a big city.

<comment><USER4> How's the dating scene, if you don't mind my asking?

<comment><USER48> I wouldn't really know. I married my college sweetheart.

<comment><USER4> Then it makes sense. For engineers with families, a quiet little town where you can buy a house and the crime is low sounds pretty good.

As a young, single engineer, I won't move there no matter how much they pay me.

<comment><USER48> I didn't say that the dating scene was bad. I said that I didn't know what it was like. Realistically, it's probably a lot better than Silicon Valley.

<comment><USER4> But nowhere near as good as a decent city like LA.

<comment><USER48> If you believed you already knew the answer, why did you ask?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> NYC, FinTech VA, Defense

<comment><USER50> NYC also has ad tech, commerce and fashion.

<comment><USER51> NYC is also big in film and television, which could interest Amazon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Curious what this is going to do to engineering salaries in NYC.

</comment><comment><USER53> Not a terrible idea to build two campuses along the Accela line. There probably are other opportunities like this for bigger metro areas along the Accela corridor.

</comment><comment><USER54> Well, if there was any hope of me being able to afford an apartment in NYC in the next few years, that hope is now extinguished.

Let the wildly speculative house buying begin!

<comment><USER55> 25k people in nyc, even very well paid, is a drop in the bucket. It'll have a big impact in LIC. Astoria, Greenpoint, and Sunnyside will also be impacted. But beyond that the effect will fall off rather steeply.

<comment><USER56> You are missing a point. every 1 regular job creates 3 non-regular jobs in the market. New businesses like restaurants, coffee shops etc will created which will boost local economy.

<comment><USER25> I would like to see the math on that. The proportion seems impossible to me.

<comment><USER57> It's debated, of course: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_multiplier_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_multiplier_effect)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> My Austin commute thanks you, Mr. Bezos.

<comment><USER59> I'm torn. In my heart, I absolutely did not want Amazon here due to how it would obliterate any shred of culture we have left, decimate anyone who didn't work in tech, and paralyze the city's traffic completely.

On the other hand, as a developer and a home owner, it would have been amazing for my pocket book.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Does anyone think this "search" was even real? I think this was decided long before the "search" was announced.

</comment><comment><USER61> NYC and Queens especially doesn't need any more traffic.

</comment><comment><USER62> Why build two new locations right next to each other?

<comment><USER25> Per Google Maps, the locations are a 4- to 5-hour drive apart. That's about the distance from Amsterdam to Frankfurt.

<comment><USER62> True, but they're also two cities that are 200 miles apart in a country that is 2500+ miles wide.

<comment><USER13> More people live in those 200 miles than live in Australia, a country of comparable size to the US.

In fact almost as many people live in the tristate area as live in Australia. Brooklyn alone would be Australia's second largest city in a fraction of the area of Melbourne.

<comment><USER62> Judging by the number of downvotes I'm receiving in this chain, people have very strong opinions (and interesting reference points) on what 'right next to each other' means. However, since karma is free, I'll point out that the population of Australia is less than that of many well-separated regions of the U.S., which is unsurprising given that its total population is 1/13th of the U.S.'s.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


A Country Breaking Down - <AUTHOR> http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/02/25/infrastructure-country-breaking-down/ <comment><USER2> I do wish the author didn't continually repeat that "rusty pipes" were the causative factor in the Flint crisis, as it was the exposure of lead pipes to highly corrosive river water that was the primary concern. Having said that, corrosion of iron pipes consumes chlorine used to protect against pathogens, so while the presence of rust was itself an unpleasant but not itself harmful signal, it was symptomatic of the corrosion that unleashed toxic levels of lead and risked the growth of harmful pathogens.

<comment><USER3> To further clarify, the chemicals put into the water to treat and protect the water from the pipes ended up making the water more likely to leech lead from the pipes (acidic, when they wanted basic pH).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I have more and more trouble as each year goes by of picturing a prosperous United States in 50-75 years time. That isn't to say there's going to be some huge revolution or massive collapse in our economy. But barring a third world war that can allow politicians to play fast and loose with public funds, political friction is SO high on all the most important issues of building a nation, that I think the U.S. may have hit an apex of development.

Yes, technology will continue to improve. But the great philanthropists of our past and future had and still have little interest in building high speed rail, repairing old bridges, dredging harbors, or laying fiber.

Google's pervasive internet may be as useful for the 19 million Americans estimated to still not have access to broadband as the abjectly poor in sub- Saharan Africa.

</comment><comment><USER5> Not mentioned in most discussions about infrastructure is that the US routinely spends 5 - 10x other developed countries for like pieces of infrastructure due to how projects are planned and implemented. This huge degree of waste, more than anything else, is what holds infrastructure development back.

If we could get 5x the amount of infrastructure for the money, most of these problems would be magically solved. But this solution involves a lot of hard work reforming processes many have a vested interest in keeping exactly the same, rather than just throwing more money at the problem.</comment>


Mixbook recruiter spams DHH for Sr. Rails role - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/#!/dhh/status/175658131429400576 This guy wins! I'm sure everyone on HN gets these clueless recruiter emails, but DHH always puts these idiots on blast. That's the only way it'll stop them from doing it. <comment><USER2> While I think DHH is a very good developer and conributed a lot to the community (more than majority of us ever will), I still think he's becoming a web diva. Richard Stallman is getting company :)</comment>


Ask HN: Terms and Conditions? - <AUTHOR>

I'm curious if any HNers have recommendations for writing or otherwise establishing terms and conditions for web services? I have to assume it's not a good idea to try to do it without some kind of legal consul but what about using canned terms? Thoughts, suggestions? <comment><USER2> Many companies I know of find a similar competitor and copy their terms, replacing names and other specific info. Legally, it's weak and won't replace having a general counsel draft up a document, but you likely don't have the money for a 100% fresh copy. Do this at your own risk, of course.

On a related/unrelated note, the original Virgin Records contract for Mike Oldfield was another label's contract with this same find/replace action.

<comment><USER3> Checking out your competitors and drafting a version on your own is often a good starting point. You can sometimes save on legal hours and get something closer to what you want if you try this first and then run the result by your lawyer.

Side note, avoid direct plagiarism.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Maybe this can be a beginning: <http://www.freeprivacypolicy.com/></comment>


Larry Lessig on This Week in Startups - <AUTHOR> http://thisweekinstartups.com/larry-lessig-referendum-president/

<comment><USER2> Go Larry. I think this helps keep campaign finance at the forfront of the dem debates and that helps Bernie.</comment>


14 Ways to Become a Better Technical Manager and Leader - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@yagiz/14-ways-to-become-a-better-technical-manager-leader-7b57324c2a6d <comment><AUTHOR> This is the blog post that I decided to write after the discussions in this thread: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15463612](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15463612)

I'm looking forward to hearing your feedback and to participating in any resulting discussion.</comment>


Show HN: Find hidden interests in Facebook Ads targeting - <AUTHOR> https://www.interesthound.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN, this is a weekend project I made and something I completed for the first time and released publicly. Thanks!

<comment><USER2> Hi, thanks for sharing. Show HN's are supposed to be able to be tried, is a demo on the way?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Nice idea in theory, but I'd recommend:

1\. A demo of how it works, with some sample data

2\. Some metrics about how using hidden interests materially changed the efficacy of your ads

Just some thoughts. Good luck!</comment>


Mintbox Mini Pro - <AUTHOR> http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=3095 <comment><USER2> I love the specs (and the price) except one: that CPU.

I bought a computer like six years ago that had an Intel Q9400, which was mid- to high-range then. Since then the computer has gotten old and I stopped using it three years ago. The main slow components are the HDD and CPU. It wasn't even a high-range CPU to begin with, just slightly above average. Yet that Q9400 has a Passmark benchmark score twice as high as this AMD A10-Micro. That is a dealbreaker.

I expect passive cooling is the reason for the underpowered CPU. While passive cooling is nice, having a smartphone-grade CPU is not worth it.

<comment><USER3> It depends on what you are using the CPU for. For someone like you and me, running IDEs and doing heavy web tasks, this is probably not good enough.

For running spread sheets, face book, and youtube this is more then enough.

Also, I'll take that computer off you. I'll turn it into a FreeNAS/webserver haha.

<comment><USER2> I am still looking to buy a new web server and am purposely not using that old desktop because it's such a power monster compared to an old laptop or so. It has a 500W PSU and while its idle/average power usage is probably more like 200W, that is still extremely inefficient.

<comment><USER3> Well then you can use it as a house warmer. Put it in your room and use it as a space heater.

<comment><USER2> I'm not there 24/7, so that's a waste of power too unfortunately. And turning it on when I'm there makes it into a shitty server, better use a heat pump then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not a bad price for 802.11ac, 8GB RAM, an SSD, and a higher-end AMD APU. Considering that it's all that and only draws 4.5W, I'm very impressed.

Does anybody have any experience with the Mintbox Mini? Is it easy to upgrade, both in terms of hardware and software?

<comment><USER2> Given the size I expect a lot of stuff is integrated. The first thing you'd want to upgrade is the CPU anyway, since that is by far the slowest component in this setup.

Nevertheless, I really like the thing for its other specs. I'm also impressed by the specs you get for that price at that size.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, I suppose that's the cost of the form factor.

It looks like the RAM is installed in a standard 204-pin SO-DIMM [0], so that might be upgradeable. Then again, it looks like they only "support" a maximum of 8GB, so who knows.

[0]: [http://www.fit-pc.com/web/products/mintbox/mintbox- specifica...](http://www.fit-pc.com/web/products/mintbox/mintbox- specifications/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is all you really need for steam streaming for anyone interested in that.

I'm currently on an AMD 5350 APU with an NVIDIA host system

</comment><comment><USER5> And I'd buy this over a NUC... wait, why would I ever buy this over a NUC?

<comment><USER6> It comes with Linux preinstalled.

Not a NUC, but I bought a Gigabyte Brix and put Linux on it. I tried a few versions and can't fine one to get everything working (currently on Manjaro and bluetooth doesn't see anything, wifi was dodgy on other disrtos). Also involved downgrading to an older kernel to stop it crashing regularly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm actually thinking of purchasing it, for use as a javascript development and learning rig with other languages, would this be appropriate? Any other better rigs?

<comment><USER8> Build a A10-7850K, 16GB RAM, 250 GB Samsung 750 EVO SSD, Some A68H-based motherboard, preferably not from MSI (I had bad experiences with three different MSI boards and cooling control), a 1TB WD Blue (Green no longer exists) and some case with a built in 500W PSU. Will be the same price of $400, but will be MUCH MUCH more powerful, you can even play games on it, and will be upgrade-able and last you at least 5 years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I love the specs. Too bad it's a jaw dropping $400.

<comment><USER2> I don't think the price is "jaw dropping". It could probably have been produced a little cheaper with some compromises but I don't think you can get these components for much less without cutting back on RAM speed or another spec that is often forgotten.

<comment><USER10> Unless you are dying for this tiny form factor, you can get a significantly better machine for less money. Surprisingly the machine is for industrial use, which you pay for, and which likely, you don't want.

<comment><USER2> > Unless you are dying for this tiny form factor, you can get a significantly > better machine for less money.

Sure, that's like the laptop vs desktop debate. Of course desktops are a lot cheaper for the same performance, but they're also a lot bigger.</comment></comment></comment></comment>