Aren't the present customer success tools like Totango and Gainsight too costly? - <AUTHOR> I have been checking out the current customer success tools in the market and I think they are too pricey. They start at $500. Do we have a cheaper solution? <comment><USER2> We have worked with a number of SaaS organizations to understand the goals and objectives of their business and their CSM efforts. As a result we have packaged our customer success solution based on company maturity and budget. Our high-touch solution designed specifically for startups is priced at $200/month. Pam - Director of Marketing at Amity

</comment><comment><USER3> There are these guys with a free offering (for now): [http://retainly.com/](http://retainly.com/)

As well as using apps like Mixpanel to do "basic" success automations such as basic email interactions, etc.

There's also intercom.io, which is the least expensive (and least comprehensive) CSM app available.

</comment><comment><USER4> A lot of it depends on what kind of product you're offering. If it's more transactional in nature with high volume and churn then it mightn't be for you. If you're looking to become more enterprise oriented then it's worth the investment. Conor - Customer Success at Datahug

</comment><comment><USER5> Savinay, we are just about to launch an affordable customer success solution at iridize.com - I'm curious to know what you would consider a reasonable price. Any thoughts?

</comment><comment><USER6> Hi, what would you think should be a fair pricing model for a customer success solution? I assume you are looking at a starter package? Guy - founder & CEO of Totango

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup, I am looking at a starter package, something for a customer success team at a startup.</comment></comment>


Land Lines, Cell Phones, and Their Social Consequences (2011) - <AUTHOR> https://thefrailestthing.com/2011/09/20/landlines-cell-phones-and-their-social-consequences/ <comment><USER2> It's only more private in the sense that phones can be moved to quiet places or ignore calls more easily (little brother).

It is not more private from a number of other perspectives (big brother). Not by a long shot.</comment>


Register of Copyrights: without SOPA, copyright "will ultimately fail" - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/11/register-of-copyrights-without-sopa-copyright-will-ultimately-fail.ars

<comment><USER2> Full testimony: [http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/pdf/Pallante%2011162011....](http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/pdf/Pallante%2011162011.pdf)

Although I strongly suspect that SOPA will stall either in the legislative pipeline or in the courts, I think it behooves opponents of the legislation to address the legitimate points raised here about the interests of copyright holders. The financial cost of creating and launching content into the market can be considerable, and to the extent that technology facilitates piracy the economic impetus to produce high-quality content is correspondingly reduced. Considering that the entertainment industry makes up about 5% of GDP, there's quite a lot of money at stake.

I share the general opposition to censorship, but what sort of enforcement mechanisms _would_ be appropriate against organized infringement carried out for profit?

</comment><comment><USER3> There's another argument against SOPA.

</comment><comment><USER4> I remember this woman speaking in the video stream. She's not ignorant, but rather heavily biased and convincing enough to sway others to her position.</comment>


Ask HN: What is the best programming language and eco system for backend? - <AUTHOR> I've been programming in nodejs, js is fine but eco system has become toxic. Highly unstable, incohesive, probably insecure, and just painful.
You're lost orchestrating a dozen of libraries with conflicting dependcies and configuration that's in flux.
I'm done with webpack, typescript, loser react eco system where you drag 10 libraries through your code as soon you learn them only for them to become obsolete in 5 months, done with docker/image, done with Babel and its plugins, done with graph ql, redux... Just random bs stuck together aphazardly
I plan to leave js and thus front end development altogether. So my question is what is a good choice for backend language, ecosystem and all. Where things come , if not batteries included, then at minimum designed intelligently to work together.
I used to care about performance, but I'm open to compromise now. Car's speed doesn't matter if it breaks down every other mile.
I'm leaning towards python, Ruby, and go <comment><USER2> The grass is always greener... over the years I've built stuff with Perl, PHP, node.js, Ruby/Rails, Elixir/Phoenix, and Go. Each felt good at the time, but it's easy to get overwhelmed over the latest hyped frameworks and libraries. Don't like Typescript or Webpack? Nobody's forcing you to use them, you can still use node.js.

Tried and true principles and architectures will outlive any libraries. Remember, React is only 6 years old, do you think new projects will use React in another 6 years? Remember Meteor framework that was all the rage 7 years ago? I don't know anyone using it for new projects. It's the natural cycle of development. Don't get emotional about frameworks.

If anything, build _your own framework_. I don't mean a competitor to React or whatnot, but your own set of tools that can be reused over time across projects. Back in the days before jQuery, people were doing DOM manipulation themselves and everyone built their own wrappers around the DOM. Nowadays, I notice too many people reach for a framework without thinking about what they even want to accomplish.

At the end of the day, "best" is always subjective, relative to your own experience and expectations. For what it's worth, I used to be a node.js developer in the pre-1.0 days and switched to Rails, Elixir, Go, but I'll probably use node for my next project since it's super easy to get stuff running in messy JavaScript compared to something statically typed like Go. In most cases, performance is moot for projects without users. Hell, a CGI script written in Bash could rival the performance of modern web frameworks.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've tried all the things you've mentioned and beyond. And I think finally found something I love. I've discovered Clojure. Nothing else gives me so much productivity and joy and the sense of stability. It's not perfect (nothing is) but it's a good balance between pragmatism of engineering and the art of logic based creativity.

Don't just "look" at it, don't try to "check it out". If you never done any Lisp, Clojure will not look extremely sexy at the first glance.

But give it a heartfelt try, I guarantee - you will find something truly incredible. Something that is still missing in many, perhaps most other language ecosystems.

<comment><USER4> What resources would you recommend for someone starting out? Coming from Ruby.

<comment><USER5> At work we use the Living Clojure book. We also make use of 4Clojure [0]

[0] [http://www.4clojure.com/](http://www.4clojure.com/)

<comment><USER4> Thank you

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> When it comes to reliability, maintainability and a huge ecosystem it probably doesn't get any better than Java and the JVM. The JVM also fares great in terms of performance.

</comment><comment><USER7> Seems like you couldn't go wrong with using the Java Virtual Machine or the Common Language Runtime(.Net).

Both have a wide variety of libraries and a reliable VM.

Plus, if you want more productivity, or to use other programming paradigms, you can use C# or F# for the CLR, and Groovy, Kotlin, Scala, or Clojure for the JVM. I believe all of them have full access to all C# or Java libraries.

</comment><comment><USER8> Python / Django is a very solid platform that I've always enjoyed working with. Python has a very rich ecosystem.

It has its warts (Python's tragic history with packaging systems) and Django isn't quite in the sweet spot anymore now that we usually only serve Rest Apis instead of Html pages. Python isn't typed (though there is mypy now) and slow, sometimes that matters.

So I don't know about "best", but that's an endless discussion anyway. We still get lots of mileage out of it.

</comment><comment><USER9> I have felt the same way and choose Elixir and Phoenix. It's not easy to get a job in but easy to get your current boss to allow if starting a new project at current job.

</comment><comment><USER10> Check Scala and it's frameworks, unless you don't like JVM based approaches.

<comment><USER11> I am not sold on scala. i would rather use clojure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I feel your pain, I managed a node app in production for 2+ years. That made me realize PHP is not that bad. Now I see this trend where people just throw in Typescript. Why not just use a statically typed language?

if you write lots of rest API you should use Go and thank me later.

</comment><comment><USER12> For Python, Flask and Django are awesome. Ruby on Rails is awesome. For Go, just learn Go. I have some experience with each of these and I think they're all great choices.

</comment><comment><USER13> Check out Ballerina. Interesting cloud based language [https://ballerina.io/](https://ballerina.io/)

</comment><comment><USER14> "Best" is subjective. Some might argue that Assembly is the way to go: [https://asm32.info/fossil/repo/asmbb/index](https://asm32.info/fossil/repo/asmbb/index)

Personally, I had the most fun with Erlang and what happened to become N2O: [https://github.com/synrc/n2o](https://github.com/synrc/n2o) It is designed for speed not compromising reliability so it kind of looks like what you want.

Python+Django probably has better ecosystem though.

</comment><comment><USER15> The one you make work. No one is going to care if you run an ASP application on non-containerised IIS instances if your product is good.

</comment><comment><USER16> How about JavaScript using NodeJS without NPM? Modern JS is a good language, and you can easily opt out of the ecosystem.

<comment><USER17> >and you can easily opt out of the ecosystem

You really can't. There is no JS ecosystem left to speak of beyond Node and NPM.

<comment><USER16> You can. You just have to write your own code instead of using NPM. Node itself comes with a few libraries, but they are fairly minimal.

<comment><USER17> Fair enough, but that's not an ecosystem, and every JS library is currently written assuming it will be pulled in with NPM, as are all Javascript tutorials. You can avoid it all, but at some point I would have to wonder if it's even worth the effort.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Diwali Celebrations in India (Satellite Picture) - <AUTHOR> http://gregosuri.com/diwali-celebrations-in-india-satellite-pictur <comment><USER2> It's not a Diwali picture, just a normal night picture. Why else would Pakistan also be lighted ?

More comments here [http://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/e2hkp/a_satellite_ima...](http://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/e2hkp/a_satellite_image_of_india_during_diwali/)

</comment><comment><USER3> this picture has been floating around a lot..but it seems that this does'nt have anything to do with Diwali [http://www.sciencephotogallery.co.uk/pictures_1705155/india-...](http://www.sciencephotogallery.co.uk/pictures_1705155/india- at-night-satellite-image.html)

<comment><USER4> Have to agree that although this is a nice pic, it prob has nothing to do with Diwali. There's no way that India's current infrastructure can handle/generate all that electricity. It's a nice dream but unfortunately not reality.

Though a bright spot (no pun intended) is that a lot of remote villages (and there are a ton of them) utilize solar, biogas, and other alternatives as their primary source of energy. Really cool stuff.

<comment><USER5> I wonder. There still are quite a few empty spots though, and like the poster above me said, white lights were present since 1992 and the red ones are 2002+. Why wouldn't ISRO or someone release a pic ? Would be all the rage for atleast a couple of weeks one would think.</comment></comment></comment>


Dude Tries to Get Funding to Destroy his Car on Kickstarter - <AUTHOR> http://kickstarter.com/projects/499548243/carnage

<comment><USER2> 60 gran from 5 backers? you must be kidding me!</comment>


Ask HN: Networking in the valley - <AUTHOR>

I'm planning to come out to the valley for the month of August to network with other entrepreneurs and try to find investors for my seed stage startup. Unfortunately I don't know anyone in the startup scene there.
Does anyone have any suggestions on how to get started meeting entrepreneurs and investors.
Has anyone else been in my situation. How did you go about finding people, investors, a place to stay?
How did you get around? rent a car or ...?
Right now my plan is to attend the following events, meet people and go from there - http://newtech.meetup.com/14/
- http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/910056/ - http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/793854/ - http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/867200/
Thoughts? <comment><USER2> You can meet other entrepreneurs at a Bootstrapper's Breakfasts <http://www.bootstrappersbreakfast.com/> there are three scheduled for August. We get a number of out of town visitors and you would be welcome. The other events you list all look very good, if I had to pick one from those you mentioned to make sure of attending it would be the the New Tech Meetup in Palo Alto. SVASE (<http://www.svase.org/>) runs a number of events where you can meet VCs: breakfasts, Startup-U, CXO Leadership forum. SDForum (<http://www.sdforum.org/>) runs 20+ SIGs, I would check out the Startup and VC Funding SIGs during your visit as well as any related to technologies you are working with.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks. I'm here in the valley now and I've signed up to get event mails from those groups.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> If you're looking for a place to stay, I love, love, love Dinah's Garden Hotel (although I don't know how close it is to where you want to be). It's actually one of my favorite hotels inside the contiguous: <http://www.dinahshotel.com/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Looks really nice, but I'm planning to be there for a month, so its too expensive :(. Thanks though.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm thinking of using zipcar -<http://www.zipcar.com> to get around. Has anyone here used it? What do you think?

<comment><USER3> I read the cover story about them in Inc mag - looked very cool. Haven't used them though.</comment></comment>


Israeli Government to Financially Support Programming Bootcamps [Hebrew] - <AUTHOR> https://www.calcalist.co.il/internet/articles/0,7340,L-3717664,00.html <comment><AUTHOR> Short summary: The Innovation Authority Board approved a new program for rapid training of high-tech workers. The goal of the program is to encourage new and existing non-academic bootcamps that will provide intensive training for a period of six months to a year. The goal is to provide 250 new employees by the end of the first year and reach 450 new employees in the third year. The plan is currently pending approval by the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Economy. Bootcamps will enjoy a bonus of (14,000 NIS - current salary) X 8 for any hired prticipant. (Or X 10 for females or X 12 for arab or ultra- orthodox minorities).

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> More coverage: [http://www.themarker.com/technation/1.4281310](http://www.themarker.com/technation/1.4281310)

(Funding is 10M NIS per year, for two years)</comment>


Trailer for 'Indie Game' - <AUTHOR> http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/independent/indiegame/

<comment><USER2> For those of us without QuickTime: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhaT78i1x2M></comment>


Into the Ether: Walkthrough, Gotchas, and Tips for Ethereum Development - <AUTHOR> https://omarmetwally.wordpress.com/2016/06/08/into-the-ether-walkthrough-gotchas-and-tips-for-ethereum-development/ <comment><USER2> Kudos to you doc, for mastering two disparate domains!</comment>


Parking trouble needs technology - <AUTHOR> http://blog.queaar.com/post/9210055342/how-qr-codes-can-solve-parking-troubles

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, QR codes was just an enabler there. Can be NFC or something else.</comment>


Checking the C# Source Code of MSBuild with PVS-Studio - PVS-Studio https://medium.com/@sofiafateeva93/checking-the-source-code-of-msbuild-with-pvs-studio-36d71762d705 <comment><AUTHOR> [https://github.com/Microsoft/msbuild/issues/940](https://github.com/Microsoft/msbuild/issues/940) feels more like an advertisement than a genuine issue report. Wouldn't it be better to make two or three issues from the "worst" errors found, rather than pointing at a third party blog?

<comment><USER2> Microsoft runs internally similar tools. The usual deal is that _grandfathered_ issues (ie. issues found by new code analysis tools on old code base) are generally not fixed, and the warning is instead silenced (all tools have means to suppress specific warning for specific code place). This is done because the risk to fix a code analysis issue on old code base is often higher than the benefit.

 _New_ code on the other hand is usually required to pass all static analysis without introducing new warnings, and is often enforced by automated code review (bots that runs static analysis will mark the code review and it will not be possible to check it in).

From time to time some teams form to work on fixing static analysis code warnings on old code, but is not a high priority. Of course a public PR event like the OP may trigger some action, is going to be up to the individual team priorities, policy, schedule, workload etc.

This may sound like laziness or carelessness, but these are good engineers with plenty of experience that are capable of judging risk vs. benefits. If the code was like this for years and no actual bug was reported, is not always worth modifying it. Eric Lippert has a nice blog about How many Microsoft employees does it take to change a lightbulb? [0] and why some of these 'trivial' changes for a small project add up to a risky change at MS scale.

\- [0] [https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/ericlippert/2003/10/28/how-...](https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/ericlippert/2003/10/28/how- many-microsoft-employees-does-it-take-to-change-a-lightbulb/)

<comment><USER2> \- StyleCop [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StyleCop](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StyleCop)

\- FxCop [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FxCop](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FxCop)

\- Prefast [https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/d3bbz7tz.aspx](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/d3bbz7tz.aspx)

\- Code Analysis Check-In policies [https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/ms182075.aspx](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/ms182075.aspx)

There are more tools like these and at the time I left there were still more popping up. I hated StyleCop, the Tabs vs. Spaces Sillicon Valley episode is very relevant for my relation with StyleCop...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> It feels like a few of those could actually be prevented with different language features/by the compiler:

\- `null` related errors: through algebraic data types like `Maybe` in Haskell or `Option` in Rust

\- Unused arguments in string formatting methods: I don't get why the compiler doesn't see this as an error

<comment><USER4> I'd go further: that probably applies to all their checks. If you can formalize it enough to put it in an automated checker, why not put it in the language type system? Often these automated checkers end up having to keep track of a bunch of assertions about the input/output of the methods, sometimes even specified with annotations or magic comments - basically a second shadow type system. Just use in the types!

<comment><USER5> The appeal of those tools is that they allow you to retrofit more sophisticated safety features into existing lanugages, where a giant heap of existing code prohibits breaking changes.

<comment><USER4> I find it more effective to make the porting explicit - make a new language that has a really good FFI into the old language, and gradually migrate to that. (I tried to use the checkers framework for a few years, then instead started using Scala, which was much more effective)

<comment><USER6> Porting the C# compiler to Scala doesn't seem like it would constitute a real vote of confidence in the technology.

<comment><USER4> Porting it to F# would probably be more aligned to their business interests, and have much the same effect. Actually MS has been pretty good at cherry- picking parts of F# and including them in newer releases of C#, so simply "porting" it to "modern C#" would provide at least some of the benefits (though there's only so much that can be achieved without a willingness to outright deprecate features that now have a better replacement).

(You still need a linter to check for use of deprecated features, but that can be a very simple thing; what I'm saying doesn't make sense is sophisticated (and expensive) static analysis tools)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> When i see the tool in Github as a developer, i would just think.

Have you found a bug? No, so what are you submitting? Possible bugs.

Okay, this is closed. This isn't a bug, wontfix isn't even required.

<comment><USER8> Do you disable the compiler warnings just in case it reports something that isn't a bug? Probably not. The same applies here. Just because it's a (not very thinly veiled) advert, doesn't mean you should automatically dismiss it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The miliseconds bit doesn't look like a bug to me. The truncation is on purpose.

<comment><USER10> Why would you specifically cast it to a float if you wanted an int?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Any detailed explanation of computer science - <AUTHOR> Any detailed easily understandable explanation of computer science from bottom-up like Feynman's lectures explanation of physics. <comment><USER2> Bits

Boolean algebra

Boolean logic gates / (set theory)

CPU / cache

Memory / storage

Data types (signed integers, floats, decimals, strings), encoding

...

A bottom-up (topologically sorted) computer science curriculum (a depth-first traversal of a Thing graph) ontology would be a great teaching resource.

One could start with e.g. "Outline of Computer Science", add concept dependency edges, and then topologically (and alphabetically or chronologically) sort.

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

There are many potential starting points and traversals toward specialization for such a curriculum graph of schema:Things/skos:Concepts with URIs.

How to handle classical computation as a "collapsed" subset of quantum computation? Maybe Constructor Theory?

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

<comment><USER2> From "Resources to get better at theoretical CS?" [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15281776](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15281776) :

\- "Open Source Society University: Path to a self-taught education in Computer Science!" [https://github.com/ossu/computer- science](https://github.com/ossu/computer-science)

This is also great:

\- "Coding Interview University" [https://github.com/jwasham/coding-interview- university](https://github.com/jwasham/coding-interview-university)

Neither these nor the ACM Curriculum are specifically topologically sorted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I think this is foundational

[https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/computer- science/algor...](https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/computer- science/algorithms)</comment>


I Quit: What really goes on at Apple - <AUTHOR> http://roadlesstravelled.me/2015/04/06/why-steve-jobs-motivated-me-to-quit-apple/ <comment><USER2> But... the author worked in customer support, managing agents. Customer support in _any_ company is like this: it's full of bobblehead managers who make work to justify their own jobs. It's a cost center, and cost centers are where you put executives who are capable, but not exceptional. This is why OP has stories about how firing people was considered heroic -- when you work in a cost center, the only thing the business cares about is getting the same results for less money.

Cost centers also tend to have very toxic work environments as a result: people are constantly reminded that the business can and will go on without them. Hence the epidemic of throwing people under the bus, trying to "catch" coworkers in a screw-up, etc. You don't have to be the fastest zebra, just faster than the slowest one.

<comment><USER3> You are painting with an overly broad brush.

Where I work, our Support Heroes (yes, we call them Heroes because the lengths they go to for our customers are heroic) are one of the main reasons so many of our customers love us and stick with us so long.

You've probably heard that it can cost ~5x more to acquire a new customer than retain an existing one. An exceptional Customer Support team is your front line in fighting churn, and are an invaluable asset, not a liability. They can also be critical to making sure your product and engineering teams are up-to- date on everything they need to grow a successful product that your customers want to pay for.

Unfortunately, many companies simply don't realize this or don't care because they have a captive market (for now). I would encourage you to research more about how customer support can be done "right" vs. "wrong." If customer support is a "cost center" for you, you're doing it wrong.

<comment><USER4> I disagree. You are using your company as a counter example to all other companies, and you admit that in your last sentence. I am glad your company treats your people right, and it bodes well for your EVERYTHING.

I have worked at a dozen or so support jobs, and no matter how much the customers stayed because of the support team or how much we drove the value our clients got out of the product, we always were a cost center and treated as such.

That always meant they we got the second best of everything, were always last on the list for raises, promotions, new hardware, proper chairs, whatever. We were left out of planning, and whenever another department decided at the last minute it wasnt their job now became ours to complete forever.

The second I switched over to being a consultant and making money for people instead of helping to avoid lost revenue, their attitude changed towards me and became much more positive and friendly instead of unreasonable and demanding (both on management and customer side).

I dont even know if this is a conscious or unconscious decision, but support/helpdesk job position is reviled for a reason, and the reason is that it is an unforgiving job with little acknowledgement, pay, or chance for promotion.

It gets even worse if you are doing stuff like Apple support (I trained iphone/ipod then ios/cpu at a vendor site) and almost everything he said rang true about them specifically (and the call center management world in general.)

Apple's training team was pretty cool and one of the few saving graces, I am glad I got to hang with them in Austin, they definitely were trying to build a robust system to train people with reproducible results. It was the best training I had gotten from any corporation before or since, it was what got me into training in the first place.

<comment><USER3> OP said:

>"customer support in _any_ company is like this."

My post was specifically in response to that, because it was an inaccurate statement.

I'm really sorry to hear you've had such poor experiences in support. That sucks, and I realize how hard/impossible that can be to turn around from a business and culture standpoint.

Sounds like you have found a path that works better for you, so congrats!

<comment><USER5> When someone says "any company", it's easy to interpret that as meaning "any company without exception". This is a very logical interpretation, but it is not necessarily reasonable to interpret it that way.

My experience is that (1) most companies do a lot of things wrong (2) the respect which support receives varies from company to company as well as industry to industry, with business support taken more seriously than consumer support. I'd be curious to know what industry you happen to work in.

<comment><USER6> > _When someone says "any company", it's easy to interpret that as meaning > "any company without exception". This is a very logical interpretation, but > it is not necessarily reasonable to interpret it that way._

Well, it's not logical at all in the common sense of the word logical. It's like you're talking to a compiler...

In casual conversation everybody understands that it doesn't mean "absolutely every company".

<comment><USER7> > In casual conversation everybody understands that it doesn't mean > "absolutely every company".

That's not true at all! There are lots of people (myself included) who tend to interpret things very literally, and would not recognize this subtlety. So not EVERY person understands that...

... oh. Never mind.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> One of my friends used to work at Apple. After one particular grueling stint of 14+ hour days, management decided to give them a thank-you. In the form of vouchers. For frozen dinners. Meanwhile, all of his friends worked for Google, we got gourmet food every meal of the week as a standard perk, and we were usually home by 8 or 9 PM rather than midnight. It's sorta like "Your 'thank you' is really more like a giant 'fuck you'".

He works for Google now.

My cousin also works for Apple, and after complaining about crunch time and how he had to check the bug queue when I was visiting him on a Saturday, I asked him "So, how long has crunch time lasted?" He replied, "Oh, about 18 months. Makes it really hard to date when I don't get any weekends." (He's in his 40s now, still no girlfriend.)

<comment><USER9> With this negative image among developers in the Valley, how is Apple able to attract top quality engineers? They probably are not. Anecdotally, I still haven't met one single engineer who would love to work for Apple though they love using Apple products.

Apple is not even on the list of all top graduating kids who wants a job in top valley firms (Google, FB, Dropbox, Twitter, AirBnB, Uber, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Quora, other promising startups). Any software engineer who is in the valley for a while (and heard the inside horror stories of working for Apple) wouldn't want to work there. There is no way in hell, senior engineers from the new age tech companies (listed above) will go to Apple. Apple will have a hard-time poaching them. Based on this, I have to conclude that most good engineers@Apple are candidates who have a tenure of more than 15 years and are aging. All, relatively new Apple employees are either left-overs in the talent-pool who couldn't make the cut to the above top firms/startups or really B-grade senior engineers. What is Apple's strategy of thriving in a knowledge economy, when the only asset you need are "great people" to succeed in the long term. They probably have great hardware engineers. It is a travesty that though they are the richest company in the world, they still couldn't build a compelling cloud services suite which is better and cheaper than what Dropbox, Google, Box, Microsoft can provide. This comment, will probably ruffle a few feathers. [updated for typos/grammar]

<comment><USER10> From the outside, it definitely looks like the closer it gets to hardware, the better engineers at Apple get. Metal is awesome, Metal shading language and recent clang progress not bad too, Swift a little bit wonky but interesting — but the quality of their customer-facing software, especially ui stuff (not design, but I engineering) is getting worse and worse. It just doesn't "just work" anymore.

<comment><USER11> > (Mac OSX UI) doesn't "just work" anymore

Please, if someone can sell a Linux with the same polish as Mac OSX, and as low-administration time, I would agree to pay about $200 per year for it. I've switched away from Ubuntu after being unable to resolve a problem after upgrade two years ago (which cost me 4 days). I spend 2x more on computers for Macbooks, not because of the hardware but because of Mac OSX.

I don't know how large is the audience for a paid workproof Linux, but I wish someone would build it.

<comment><USER12> Yes, that would be very cool. And I say that as a happy OS X user. Competition in that space would be good for the customers. Unfortunately all the workstation companies went down the drain. SGI, Sun, etc. But who knows what the future holds in store?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> In "Becoming Steve Jobs", Tim Cook says the following in regards to Apple's collusion scandal:

"I know where Steve's head was. He wasn't doing anything to hold down salaries; it never came up. He had a simple objective: if we were working together on something, like with Intel, where we threw everything in the middle of the table and said, 'let's convert the Mac to the Intel processor', well, when we did that, we didn't want them poaching our employees that they were meeting, and they didn't want us poaching theirs. Doesn't it make sense that you wouldn't, that it's an OK thing? I don't think for a minute he thought he was doing anything bad. And I don't think he was thinking about saving any money. He was just very protective of his employees."

Ed Catmull of Pixar, a seemingly gentle person, is similarly unapologetic about the issue. Why is it that, at a certain level, intelligent company leaders seem to stop thinking of their employees as individuals and instead start thinking of them as company assets?

(I don't mean this as an anti-Apple comment. In fact, I want to give Jobs, Cook, and Catmull the benefit of the doubt, in the sense that they probably _did_ approach the issue from the perspective of doing what's best for their companies, not as a quick way to save some paltry money. But that's kind of the underlying problem, isn't it? Once you've internalized the idea that your employees are company assets — that they aren't hard workers who make the company tick, but that they literally _are_ the company — it's easy to slide down the slippery slope towards incredibly unethical and shady dealings like collusion. I wonder how this can be avoided.)

<comment><USER14> Remember in this case we have two companies which decided to work together on a project and established no-poaching agreement.

If you ask your friend to go out with you on a trip along with your girlfriend, would it be ok if your friend builds relationship with her during the trip and she breaks up with you? You can argue that may be your girlfriend found a better fit and you should be ok with that. OR you can argue that you and your girlfriend were doing just fine but your friend violated your trust and lured her away destroying your precious relationship. I bet you can find people arguing both cases as "obviously" right outcome.

PS: I'm not arguing any of the sides but I'm intrigued by this morality problem.

<comment><USER15> I don't think that analogy works. The boyfriend/girlfriend relationship is completely different from the employer/employee relationship, and the whole point of this controversy is that companies aren't supposed to be friends.

Here's what I think would be a better analogy: let's say you run a restaurant in a small town. The restaurant business is booming, and you and your competitors are all expanding, to the point where it's getting hard to find qualified cooks and servers.

The cooks and servers start working to get a piece of the pie. They move between restaurants as higher pay is offered. You desperately need more staff and since you can't find new people, you resort to soliciting the staff at competing restaurants and offering them more money. They do the same to your employees. Average pay rises.

You and the other owners don't like this at all. Cooking and serving was a minimum-wage job not too long ago! This steadily increasing pay is eating into your profits. So you all get together and agree to put a stop to it: you won't try to hire away their staff, and they won't try to hire away yours. Pay stagnates, and you and the other owners get to keep more of your profits.

This is what happened with Apple and these other companies over time, only with computer people instead of cooks and servers. Is it immoral for businesses to collude to artificially hold down wages? I think most people would say yes. Probably more importantly, it's _illegal_.

<comment><USER16> Employers would say such an agreement is not immoral, because it benefits them, but employees would say it is immoral, because it harms them. However, most people are employees, so yeah.

<comment><USER17> Immorality aside, it is illegal.

<comment><USER18> Law aside, it is unpractical. All companies are starved for cooks, and by collaborating to keep salaries low, they are preventing the job market from expanding.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Former engineer @ Apple - some insight from my side. There is no one culture that pervades through the entire organization. Some software teams are chill, some are not, hardware side of things can be long hours for people. Can't really speak for customer care/marketing/retail/design.

1\. I think most of us here understand that a single bad experience cannot reflect the culture in the company. Previously I was in a few other tech companies, where my experience was quite similar in nature. Some teams have inherently crappy people, leading to crappy culture. Ultimately it boils down to the manager and the members of the team when it comes to the question of fostering a culture.

2\. The culture in my team(software) was mostly relaxed. Most of my colleagues did a 8-9 hour days on average. Of course, there were days(very rare) it became a 10-12 hour shift.

3\. I am a firm believer in the fact that the employee needs to set the expectations straight, right off the bat. If you run the wheel like a hamster on steroids in the first few months, sucking up, staying late and trying to be the all conquering hero - the expectations are going to be centered around that.

4\. I am an average Joe, who preferred to get in by 9.30 and get off by 6.00ish - I didn't sync my emails, didn't give a hoot unless it was absolutely crucial and someone called/texted me about the issue and it needed urgent attention. I am not a doctor saving people, just an engineer fixing bugs.

5\. Of course my compensation/bonuses didn't go up like my friends who did the long hours, but I am absolutely cool about that. They deserved it.

<comment><USER20> >There is no one culture

It seems he worked at the Sydney office. There's a comment on his story as news.com.au

"Apple HQ in Australia was no different - a big frat-house where the "in" crowd got ahead and anyone else who challenged a process was seen as a difficult employee and managed out of the business."

Must be kind of hard to deal with that at a distance - It's not like Tim Cook would know who's who and doing the bad stuff. Maybe some sort of feedback tech would help.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The culture of silence between Apple and the public extends to more than just upcoming products. Has anyone noticed that there aren't as many Apple employees participating in tech conferences, hackathons, public presentations? Even for subjects unrelated to their work? Definitely fewer than Google/Facebook/Amazon/Microsoft employees.

<comment><USER22> From my understanding Apple effectively owns your entire output when you're employed full-time (at least as an engineer). At a recent interview I mentioned I like tinkering with code on the side and was told I'd have to give that up and stop contributing to open source. I imagine that extends to participation in the "outside world" at least to some extent.

The fact that Apple developers I've spoken to spend their personal coding time (on the rare occasion it exists) on work projects only reinforces all of this.

(All that said, my sample size is seven people, so I could be quite wrong in the end.)

<comment><USER23> From my understanding, it's effectively impossible for Apple employees to have any apps listed in the App Store through personal accounts. Which, no doubt, accounts for a lot of the reason why the Xcode -> iTunes Connect -> App Store experience is so miserable.

<comment><USER24> This is certainly not true. One of the guys in charge of Apple store approval had a number of apps on the app store.

[http://www.imore.com/director-app-store-apple-fart-wiz- apps](http://www.imore.com/director-app-store-apple-fart-wiz-apps)

<comment><USER23> I have specific knowledge of several instances where this is, indeed, true.

Your article:

Is five years old, and never claims about that the person mentioned in article was still developing apps after being hired by Apple. In fact:

The picture displayed is from a now-defunct Seattle-centric business social networking website, and Phillip is mentioned as being part of the "Seattle Community," but a resident of "San Jose California."

It seems totally sensible that Apple would want to hire someone with experience building iOS apps, and would then make them give all of those up as soon as they're hired. Which would be identical to the experience that the people I know have had.

I did some more digging, and:

        "Apple employees are generally prohibited
        [from publishing apps in the App Store],"
        [Evan] Doll told Wired.com. "You have to
        get a special exception from a VP.
        Otherwise, big no-no. If he was doing it
        pre-Apple then he'd have an easier time
        getting an exception," he added.

[http://www.wired.com/2010/08/apple-fart- apps/2/](http://www.wired.com/2010/08/apple-fart-apps/2/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> _I had organised a day off recently where all my family were visiting me from interstate. Despite this I had agreed to dial in to one conference call as the audience attending was 'important'. Well it seems Important but disrespectful, as the audience never even turned up, yet I was still made to 'dry-run' the whole meeting from start to finish for an hour and a half as if there was full attendance and interest in what I was saying. So, as the food I had prepared for my family went cold, there I was stuck on the phone role-playing a fake menial meeting to satisfy managements ego._

Oh god. I would have hung up. The concept of a "dry run" for a meeting is _insanely_ offensive and counterproductive. If a meeting needs to be _scripted_ and _rehearsed_ , it does not need to happen.

<comment><USER26> I read it with a few grains of salt. I've had dry runs for meetings where I was presenting. It's pretty useful to walk through your presentation with your boss when your 3-4 level higher boss is there. I've also requested subordinates dry run when they have poor communication skills and need coaching to perform up to standard.

It's not something you do with everyone there or with a meeting that just works off an agenda.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I was interested in working at Apple so I messaged a few of my alum friends. All of them said they worked around 60 hours a week. Nope, can't pay me enough to work 60 hours a week.

<comment><USER28> You _can_ pay me to work 60 hours a work, but so far no employers _choose_ to.

<comment><USER29> Heh, 60 hours is a low intensity week in management consulting and especially investment banking. Once upon a time, a banker 2-3 years out of an MBA (say 28-30) would make $300-500K cash. The hourly rate is lower than minimum wage though (these guys used to put in 100+ hours). They did it in the hopes of landing a private equity gig that would pay them $1M+ for a 50-70 hour work week. That's a deal I would take in a heart beat, if I found the work interesting.

There was an interesting article in Fortune a while ago. The tldr was that you shouldn't get mad that Wall Street pays too much, but that the rest of corporate America pays too little. When companies are building war chests in the tens of hundreds of billions, and also feel the need to collude to prevent "poaching", you have to wonder.

The sad part is that people in technology sometimes love the work so much, that they are willing to put in more than they should on pure economic terms. The finance and consulting types are more ruthless about their own worth.

EDIT: My minimum wage comment was more about making a point. Banker types like to say they make lots of money but make less per-hour than a McDonald's employee.

<comment><USER30> Even with your edit, you still don't get it. McDonald's employee's don't make > $50 an hour. No one can make $300k+ working at mcdonalds, even if they work 24/7\. Even if you worked LITERALLY every single hour of the year (8760) minimum wage would get you to ~63.5k. That's a far cry from 300-500k

Any banker type that says something like that is an asshole or is really bad at math. Assuming he's a competent banker he's probably not actually bad at math and is just an asshole.

<comment><USER29> No, you don't get it. The point is that is working insane hours worth the hourly wage you get in finance.

<comment><USER30> well it doesn't help your (or their) point when they underestimate the hourly wage by an order of magnitude.

<comment><USER29> I don't disagree. The point was directionally correct, mathematically inaccurate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> There are two orgs in Apple that are soul-crushing - AppleCare and IS&T. AppleCare is a depressing meat grinder of dealing with unhappy customers with broken things. IS&T uses parasitic funding (other orgs. are "customers"), and is internally broken into competing fiefdoms and systems that are a horror to interact with. Kind of sounds like this guy was in IS&T working with AppleCare. I was in IS&T for a year, and was happy it was only a year.

Other orgs. in the company are generally a lot nicer to work in, though it varies where you wind up.

</comment><comment><USER32> _Words like 'pressure' kept getting thrown at me in the context of I can't handle the pressure and "you were told at the interview it's high pressure"._

Oh lord. As though any of them have any clue about real "high pressure" work environments. Being an asshole unnecessarily isn't a high pressure environment.

<comment><USER33> Quite so, but nonetheless Apple very much strikes me as a high-pressure workplace. There's a reason why they ship what they ship when they ship it.

<comment><USER34> An air traffic controller messes up and they risk hundreds of lives and 100's of millions of dollars in property. That's a high high-pressure workplace, Tech is just a combination of greed and poor managment.

<comment><USER33> Ehhh. Zooming out this far just makes the phrase meaningless in the context of tech, which seems counterproductive since as you may have noticed we tend to discuss tech around here.

<comment><USER35> Fine. _Writing_ air traffic control systems is tech, and is pressure.

The difference is artificial pressure driven by concerns like "I will look bad to my boss" or "or EPS might dip a fraction of a present", as opposed to "people will die".

<comment><USER36> I know that it's hard to feel the difference between condescension and having a point, so I want to let you know you're doing the first thing here.

<comment><USER35> How wonderfully recursive of you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I've found it is easy to poach talent from Apple, Google, and other large ventures.

It's not the money. It's the vision and the way they treat talent. They don't pay much deference to the consummate creators, the lifeblood of innovation.

Long hours, synchronous work schedules with asynchronous dependencies, long commutes, and not an equal pay to warrant education level and mental capacity required for task at hand.

I think the future may consist of Life-Work balance where one's life outside of work, is greater than their work.

<comment><USER38> I definitely think the "startup life" culture is something a lot of people will eventually consider a downside. I recently interviewed at a place with an open floor plan, and I found that a big turn off to the position. While free lunch and dinner are nice perks, sure, they also suggest you're still at work for lunch and dinner. I want a job, not an overly-attached workplace.

<comment><USER39> The best jobs I've found are at smallish companies with reasonable chance of growing revenues that are just past the startup phase, and over the initial politics that comes from growing. They have enough job security to make it comfortable but still have the opportunity for a person to make significant impact, and usually a mixture of legacy and new project code base. Some technical debt to fix from the startup-sprint phase.

I've worked at net-new startups, very large companies, and companies like I've described above. I miss the comraderie of a team under a dozen people making good progress and with everyone able to make good impact without being a superstar.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Toxic management in Silicon valley seems to be becoming a force to be reckoned with. Time and time again I hear horror stories like this and from first hand experience I can confirm all this mind playing is in fact happening by certain managers. I've worked with managers that worked at top tech companies in the Valley and their resume lists one company after another, it goes to show how easy it is for them to jump ship if things are going sour without anyone at the new company really noticing that in the interview process. There seems to be a strongly connected network of toxic managers swarming the valley more and more. It's not just Apple.

</comment><comment><USER41> From reading about Apple I have the feeling innovation comes from the top (or from small special teams) and the rest of the organization is about pulling that innovation together. Which would make endless meetings make sense because instead of innovation you just need organization to push the innovation made by a tiny fraction of the company forward.

The positive is just having Apple on your resume you will make landing a job anywhere easier. So the torture is more then worth it.

<comment><USER42> Yes they are structure top down.

In contrast Google is more bottoms up / crowdsourced or "Darwinian" as Elon Musk would say. Meetings are more cross functional, shorter, and to the point this way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> > When I started my role I missed one business trip as my wife was pregnant, > fell down the stairs and had to be hospitalised – this was listed as a > 'performance issue' on my record and brought up during a one on one with > management as a major 'miss' on my behalf.

What the fuck?! How the heck can this happen between two human beings who happen to work for the same company? I'd rather plant potatoes for a living or even go to war than having to deal with people who have no soul inside of them. Empty shells.

<comment><USER44> "Having no soul" is considered a required attribute for a managing roles in some companies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> So what I find so interesting about this is that I've never heard the counter- argument. No one is rushing to defend Apple, or say "Yeah I work at Apple on X and I really love it".

In fact, the more I think about it, I don't know of _any_ prolific bloggers, or open source contributors, or HN commentators, or really anyone, who currently works for Apple. I know Bret Victor (worrydream) used to work there, but left IIRC because they weren't letting him do things he creatively wanted to do.

Where are the Apple advocates?

<comment><USER46> I worked at Apple on OS X server in various capacities for a few years, and really loved the experience. As an open-source user and advocate, I was really sad there because they have a very hostile and defensive position about open source (which is a very reasonable stance, in my perspective).

The fact that there aren't any prolific bloggers, open source contributors or HN commentators is an artifact that the company does not encourage anyone to do that -- in fact, they actively discourage anyone that isn't involved in open source work on Webkit or Obj-C or Swift from talking about their work. For better or worse, they still have a culture of secrecy around their products.

For what it's worth, I really enjoyed my time there and wouldn't trade it for anything else; I worked with a lot of fabulous teams, learned a lot, and got to build some really amazing stuff.

<comment><USER47> How is it reasonable for them to have a hostile and defensive position in relation to open source when so much of their software is either built upon or enabled by open source?

<comment><USER48> A thing can be unethical and still be reasonable.

<comment><USER49> You can twist the definitions of words to anything you want.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> The most interesting stories about Apple, or Amazon, or a few others, cannot be told in public.

Most of these former employees feel legally threatened by their former employers, and that's what prevents them from sharing more.

I wish there was a way.

<comment><USER51> Glassdoor makes for interesting reading :).

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> I wonder how many people the author has really interacted with? Even if it was 100 individuals (which is probably unlikely) that's still <2% (I think Apple has > 5000 employees?) of the total organization. Basically a rounding error.

It's very hard to make conclusions for the whole company from such a small sample. That borders discrimination/racism thinking. Not in any way trying to say that he had a pleasant experience or that his management was solid. Probably wasn't. Just hard to make conclusions for a big group from such a small sample.

<comment><USER53> _It 's very hard to make conclusions for the whole company from such a small sample._

Statistically speaking, an n of 100 is a reasonably decent sample of 5000 data points. It seems to me that you're looking for excuses, as if this concept of 'dry-run' meetings only happens to be within the author's "hundred-person bubble".

<comment><USER30> as noted elsewhere, apple actually employs over 90,000 people. it's less significant in that scope.

Also, while I have no doubt his experience sucked, he was also in customer service as opposed to being a developer/engineer. I suspect those areas differ somewhat. (Not suggesting it's ok at all, just that it may not be completely representative of the entire company)

<comment><USER53> My point is that the parent considered a sample of 100 to be too small for a population of 5000. Statistically speaking, it's a decent sample size.

<comment><USER54> To mikeash and vacri,

A sample size of 100 is equally meaningless for 500 or 5 billion if the sample is skewed--which it definitely is in this case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Apple has, what, a hundred thousand employees?

If you expect none of them to be intolerable nuts, you have a problem with scale.

The thing is, if you're unsatisfied with your job, equating your personal experience with the entire company as a whole, and going on a long name- calling rant shows you as rather unprofessional yourself.

I don't doubt that some Apple managers are jerks.

<comment><USER56> The problem isn't when it's "some ... managers". It's when you can't go to anyone for help with those managers. Sounds like it the problem went up at least another level. That's a problem and nothing anyone should be defending.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> May I suggest that when you leave a place, and it was not a positive experience, you look back on that experience, try to learn from what you experienced and generally deal with the emotional trauma of trying to fit in, in a place where you do not fit. Ben Farrell writes in his blog ...

 _" Road Less Travelled is authored by Ben Farrell, (online alias 'nomadic_rambler') – Freelance Writer & Photographer – That's me!"_

When I read that I thought to myself, this guy has so much passion and enthusiasm for understanding the world, it is a shame he took a job at a company that is as intensely focused as Apple is.

This is the money quote for me, _" Finally now, for the first time in two years, I feel light, creative and inspired. I am again an individual with my own creative ideas, perceptions, values and beliefs. It may take me a while, but from what I believe – I'm now able to express such beliefs again."_ I really admire Ben for sticking it out for two years. The key here is that Ben was _always_ the individual with ideas, perceptions, values and beliefs, and it sounds like that was not what Apple was looking for in this position. I've seen it time and again where someone races home after work to play in their garage band or rebuild an engine or practice some other art. And if there peers at work are staying late to work on something they believe in at the office, well that is a recipe for a problem.

I also think that if you find yourself in the situation of finally unwinding what turned out to be a painful choice in your life, its probably not the best thing to blog about it on the same day you take action on your future :-)

</comment><comment><USER58> Would like to know which division the departing employee worked in, and how long he stuck it out.

I personally liken companies to a large conglomeration of small organizations - your management chain really matters. Which is why when a respected manager leaves, sometimes his/her team leaves with them (HR flight risk).

I know someone who worked (works?) at Apple - she moved from a difficult arguably acidic environment to one where she feels valued and rewarded.

I can relate similar stories from other companies all over the world.

<comment><USER59> According to his LinkedIn profile[1], he was responsible for:

 _Managing Quality Customer Experience Programs for AppleCare 's technical support contact centres across APAC; including vendor and internal teams in Australia, New Zealand, thePhilippines and the USA. Vendor management and quality initiative planning and execution to ensure Apples technical support contact centres maintain the highest level of customer satisfaction & consistently deliver an exceptional standard of customer experience by measuring & analysing performance in-line with regional and global standards of excellence and technical aptitude._

He was there for 19 months.

1: [https://www.linkedin.com/in/bencfarrell](https://www.linkedin.com/in/bencfarrell)

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Apple has built one of the most successful businesses in the world on mostly one thing: design. (And user experience, which is design more broadly applied.)

Undortunately, it seems to me that good design requires totalitarianism. Apple's products are comparatively coherent, clean, unified, and aesthetically pleasing. This is achieved via a culture of totalitarianism that extends all the way down to the device. OSX has some openness grandfathered in, but iOS shows you where Apple wants to go.

... and customers largely approve. Having used both iOS and the more open Android, I can say that while Android is more capable iOS is more of a pleasure to use. There you have it.

It's something I have seen broadly in the world, and I actually find it rather disturbing. Bazaars can be creative and can offer a rich array of options and a lot of value, but only a cathedral can deliver aesthetics and usability.

<comment><USER15> Apple happens to have good design and happens to be totalitarian, but I don't think the one comes from the other. Apple used to be a lot less awful in this respect, but their design and usability was still great (arguably better than today).

<comment><USER61> > Apple used to be a lot less awful in this respect, but their design and > usability was still great (arguably better than today).

It's interesting that you say that because from everything I've heard talking to people I work with and in other departments who have been here a while, the opposite is true.

The conventional thought is at least over the past 2 years or so, the stress has gotten lower. Most of this is from the departure of a particular executive (no, not Steve) who was known to crack the whip really hard on people. I also hear those same people talk about how quality has suffered as a result of his departure, and they actually long for the higher-stress days when they had to work longer hours but were happier with the finished product.

<comment><USER15> In this case, "totalitarian" refers to their level of control over their platforms and over third-party software, not their attitude toward employees.

<comment><USER60> It's hard to keep a mentality from infecting everything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> He missed a big chance not titling the article "iQuit".

That bit about missing time to take care of his pregnant wife is pretty horrible.

</comment><comment><USER63> Lots of money means lots of asshatery. When the cycle comes around again and Apple finds themselves scrambling, this will all go away, because such people are useless.

</comment><comment><USER64> I work for a small company while my wife works for a large corporation. She makes more than I do, but I work less hours and don't have to deal with the politics.

</comment><comment><USER65> Is this for real? Can anyone else corroborate this?

<comment><USER61> FWIW, as an Apple employee I have no idea what the hell he's talking about.

I've worked here 4 years and I absolutely love. my. job. I take days off to work from home whenever I feel like it. We drink at the office on occasion. I'm never harassed for not being constantly online. I don't have endless meetings. I'm constantly praised for the work I do, I get great reviews, with large bonuses.

My impression from reading this article is that he either had a shitty manager (it can happen, Apple's a huge company) or his department wasn't very well- run. (It _is_ customer service, that's never known for being a great environment almost anywhere you work.)

I feel bad for the guy, in a situation he described I would've left too. Fortunately I'm not in that situation, and neither is anyone else I know here. People have their issues with small things but at the end of the day I think everyone I work with loves what they do.

<comment><USER21> It's a big company, and there will certainly be diversity in experiences. But he's not the first person to talk about such situations: [http://oleb.net/blog/2014/09/work-habits-at- apple/](http://oleb.net/blog/2014/09/work-habits-at-apple/) ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8389238](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8389238))

It does happen.

<comment><USER61> I'm not really sure that article even paints Apple in a bad light. Yeah, it talks about how much you work hard, but even just listen to them:

> I mean, it's not that it's not fun, it's not that it's not fulfilling, it's > not that you don't get to work around all these brilliant people. The bad > side effect is they're all, like, workaholic, psychotic brilliant people.

For me, one of the best things in life is the opportunity to work hard at work worth doing. Apple gives me that, and I feel extremely fortunate.

I've been at jobs where the stress is very low and I had time to browse the internet at all hours and didn't have much expected of me. This is 100% the opposite of that, and I'm happier now than I ever was then. It's been 4 years and I've never had anything close to burn-out, because I've never felt that the work wasn't "worth it". (To me, burn out is a result of feeling like you're not getting anywhere, and that just plain isn't the case at a company where we consistently ship things with huge scopes, on time and to resounding success.)

Yeah, there's exec demos, and yeah there's dry-run meetings for them, but you know what? The execs here are fucking _smart_. Every meeting I've had with execs has left me awestruck at the level with which someone can be simultaneously so big-picture oriented while still being able to sweat little details. There's a reason they got to where they are, and I really feel that at Apple it's a true meritocracy.

It sounds like it's even harder work if you're in the direct email line-of- sight of an exec (which I am not), and I feel for the authors of your linked post about how hard that must be, but to me that comes with the territory of being so close to the success or failure of a product that you are under that kind of scrutiny. What else would you expect?

<comment><USER21> "To me, burn out is a result of feeling like you're not getting anywhere, and that just plain isn't the case at a company where we consistently ship things with huge scopes, on time and to resounding success."

Just because a company is getting somewhere, doesn't mean you or your team or even your org is. You mustn't overgeneralize your own positive experiences at the company to reflect that of a majority of people working there. (Of course, for people with the opposite experience, overgeneralization should be avoided as well.)

It's a big company. Experiences will vary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> I would be interested to hear whether the culture in the engineering departments is similar to this.

</comment><comment><USER6> > _I spent two years in the Apple camp managing customer service improvement > for their technical support contact centres_

Yeah, not exactly the kind of Apple insider we'd imagined when we read the first few paragraphs...

> _Sixteen hour days are filled with meetings after meetings followed by more > meetings. Whilst this is somewhat standard in most organisations, meetings > at Apple wreaked of toxic agendas designed to deliberately trip people up, > make fools of the less respected and call people out. Team spirit is non > existent as 'internal customers' attack individuals and push agendas that > satisfy their morning egos. Hours upon hours were wasted in meetings to > prepare for meetings in preparation for other meetings to the point where > little work actually got done._

And yet, they manage to be on the top at least financiancly, if not anything else, and put out tons of good products.

So either this is not the whole story, or it's mostly about the customer service department, and not the hardware and software units...

> _Sickness, family emergencies, and even weddings are given no respect at > Apple. When I started my role I missed one business trip as my wife was > pregnant, fell down the stairs and had to be hospitalised – this was listed > as a 'performance issue' on my record and brought up during a one on one > with management as a major 'miss' on my behalf._

This kind of thing on the other hand is important whoever it's happening to. Maybe Cook instead of pretending to care for more glamorous media causes (like Indiana) and start treating his own employees (which include plenty of gays of course) better?

It's quite hypocritical to be a supporter for gay marriage, and then piss on the marriages and personal life of your employees in general.

</comment><comment><USER67> I believe that everything that was written in this article is true and it's really depressing to see a work culture like this. How they can retain and attract talent with this kind of culture?!

</comment><comment><USER68> I don't like to talk about it, but some tech giants are going the same path as investment banks. I left my quant job to get freedom in the Valley, but it turned out to not be so different.

</comment><comment><USER69> I think that it should be pointed out that Apple doesn't have "values". The idea that apple has "values" that it "preaches" is just wrong. That is called marketing. It's funny that people are shocked by this. This is what businesses do and it makes the weird partisanship that forms around them seem mad.

<comment><USER33> No, they have values alright. They may not be what you think they should be, or what I think they should be, but.

<comment><USER70> No, they don't. People personify corporations and talk about them being evil. But they are not evil. Nor are they good. They are amoral. They lack any moral code either way. They exists purely to maximise the profit of their shareholders. That is all. No more. No less. People have morals. But corporations are not people. No matter what the courts have ruled.

<comment><USER69> Exactly. I think its weird that people think of marketing messaging as like a person communicating with them...Like somehow Apple is a quirky guy that loves music and simple Swedish furniture and just happens to be the most valuable enterprise on the planet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> Great read! But come on, customer support is not the main body of the company, just one of the limbs. And those limbs suffer if they do not strive to be themselves and instead seek to be someone else.

One phrase that I tell myself often kept coming to mind: the freedoms you don't take, someone else will, and the freedoms you don't fight for, someone else will take. This applies between government-citizen, corporation-employee, manager-managee, and head-subordinate.

And do you know what happens when one hot shot takes hold of the company/department/group? Everybody seeks to emulate him and judge themselves and others in comparison to him. What happens then is like what happens to metal dust scattered on paper with a magnet in the middle. The hot shot is no longer a leader with a team, but instead a one-man army with slaves extending his rule.

And some leaders will never manage creative people because they can never step out of the way.

</comment><comment><USER72> If you get no respect where you work, just quit, as soon as you can.

</comment><comment><USER73> I don't want to offend anyone, but really Apple has become a lousy company. The single only thing that still flawlessly works is indeed the "glossy surface" (article).

Their hardware, sold as rock-solid, is partly flawed. My (and thousands of other users ) Macbook graphic card broke after 12 month. The OS and their software has become bloated inconsistent and buggy. Their customer service is so bad, it even beats some of the worst telecom companies in my country. Their sales people are good looking but technically incompetent. Some of Apples technologies (Applescript, Objective-C) are just awful.

I think Apple products and services are only usable, if you have a lot of money to throw around and if you don't really rely on them, but look at them as toys to play around.

Using Ubuntu and Android now, I can admit that the UI is not nearly as sexy. But stuff works or can be fixed in reasonable time.

</comment><comment><USER74> Wow! This reminds me of my career at PwC. I was a strategic consultant to the Financial Sector there.

<rant>

People were measured more on how long they stayed back in office rather than how much work got done. On multiple occasions, I was contacted by the Associate Director for some 'urgent' work while I was on leave. As you can imagine, none of the work was actually that urgent. The worst was the politics to take credit for other people's work.

</rant>

</comment><comment><USER75> I feel like he missed a big opportunity here to say, "iQuit". Just sayin'.

<comment><USER76> I assume that was the intended reading.

</comment></comment><comment><USER77> > Management were inconsistent, moody and erratic. I'd often receive > aggressive chats at all hours, and harassing texts every fifteen minutes > asking "are you online? Your status shows you as away – are you there?".

As they saying goes, shit runs downhill. I guarantee you these guys are behaving this way because someone above them is giving them the same amount of shit.

</comment><comment><USER78> Sounds like Samsung.

EDIT: No really, IT SOUNDS JUST LIKE SAMSUNG.

<comment><USER79> What? The extreme dedication demanded by corporation from the employees?

It happens pretty much in all big corporations in S Korea and also Japan.

</comment></comment><comment><USER80> Welcome to a large corporate environment! Apple isn't special.

</comment><comment><USER81> Why 900 upvotes? This reads like a vengeful laundry list of excuses for essentially being fired, written by a low-performing, poor-culture-fit middle manager from an exceptionally dysfunctional team at what otherwise might be a great company. I've never worked there so can't say.

</comment><comment><USER82> One possible explanation for his experience is that he was what they call "managed out".

</comment><comment><USER83> Not sure why person would not have called ethics line or even complain local govt HR authorities(if any). The allegations seems to be definitely a harassment if the person was not paid for work to be done outside working hours(not very clear if the person was paid for midnight calls). Not sure now but when I worked in Microsoft as customer support. They really really took care of the employees, it was a cost centre and there were call centre metrics in place but employees were treated really well. Leaves given as needed, paid for extra work and an excellent customer centric but a humble culture inside the org. The dev teams appreciated inputs from support and vice versa.

</comment><comment><USER84> Not to attack or defend apple or the author but he just seems like a free spirit, and from personal experience in customer support myself (also quit twice) this is just not the job for a person who travels the world that much...

</comment><comment><USER85> TFA, and these comments, have made me curious -- what is the best way to get a breakdown of how much people like working for a company? I know there are job sites like Glassdoor, etc, but in those reviews everything is scrambled together. And as the comments here suggest, there could be a huge difference between what it's like to work in software development (say, doing stuff for OS X) vs. customer service kinds of things. Are there any resources that could help you get a 'fingerprint' of the work-experience at a certain company, across its various aspects?

<comment><USER48> Ask the right questions at the interview.

"Do you like working here?"

"Yeah. I guess it's okay."

Versus

"What's the worst thing about working here?"

"They stick used hypodermic needles in your urethra once a week."

</comment></comment><comment><USER86> "The common language spoken being passive aggression, sarcasm and Kool-Aid fuelled stories of 'success' designed to manipulate and intimidate naive workers who have never experienced corporate life outside the Apple walls"

Sounds like all experiences I've had with the private sector although I have had better experiences with teams and general behaviour of team mates. I think founders of companies expect everyone to have the same belief in their business as they do but with less money out of it and no real influence over the company...that and not everyone thinks the same.

</comment><comment><USER87> It is a shame that you finally reach a key point in your career only to find that they are not as great as they are made out to be. But it is refreshing to see that they were able to realize where they were and that it was not for them. I would think that if we ever make it to the point where people won't make these obscene sacrifices to work for (insert random SV co. name here) it might be a better place...but lets face that will never happen.

</comment><comment><USER88> I once attended a hackathon in Switzerland where Apple sponsored some prizes. They had a bunch of relatively young (read mostly junior level) developers there and one 'glorious leader' management-level kind of guy. I shall never forget seeing two of the young developers following their glorious leader with ipads in their hands wherever he went.

<comment><USER89> I don't get it. Why is that an unforgettable image for you?

<comment><USER88> OTOH, why do you perceive this as something not to be forgotten?

For me, this simply shows a specific kind of dependency and hierarchy that I don't want to identify with. In my opinion, IT (especially) is a topic where knowledge (how to do X) matters less and less, because said knowledge is accessible for free anyway. All that matters is how quickly and well you can execute and whom you know. (Not that I really like the last part, but I guess that that's human)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER90> Another perspective is how valuable would your options have to be to stay put in such an environment?

It's not always easy to walk away from a significant sum of money, even when you sense it's doing real damage.

In a similar situation I didn't walk away and it took years to recover. Probably would do it again, having a family might be the deciding factor.

</comment><comment><USER91> As others have pointed out, life in a cost center is very tough. People turn to infighting because it's hard to use revenue as an arbiter. Apple doesn't venerate customer support. Apple celebrates the designers and engineers. It would be more interesting if this article came from there.

</comment><comment><USER92> I've been seeing a lot of edits to the article. It seems that for now, one global network of feedback and peer review ( Apple ) is being exchanged for another ( HN ). Not good or bad, just "is" \--

As with any "break up" this phase of WOOHOO+rage will crest, then the community dynamic ( refactored/lost ) will echo as loudly in the mind if not louder than the perceived freedom gained... to go work with other people, but still always people.

Draconian tendencies aside, no one will ultimately satisfy as a peer or network. So, OP, enjoy the rush. High-profile exits from large names is thrilling, but then you're without a scapegoat, if there is one at all. Tomorrow will be a reality check unless self critique is harsher than pointing fingers.

The whole "tell the entire world how much X company sucks" trend is pretty much played out, even/especially if the company left does suck. It's a form of therapy to do it, probably, but a lot of it feels like marketing for the next leg of a career regardless.

</comment><comment><USER93> It seems that maybe they were manufacturing mind games just to edge him out, for various reasons. But if Apple is so good at making bold moves and quick decisions, it's weird that his superiors would act so childishly toward him.

</comment><comment><USER94> Well that's pretty much the case with everyone who quits a big company and goes on "his own path" adventure. It's not something specific to Apple, but I guess putting it "I quit Apple" makes you cool?

</comment><comment> maze-le Wow... I expect that things are not as shiny and glamoury as they seem, but this!?!

</comment><comment><USER95> Ever heard of 'fast-paced' work environment. Sadly I run a tiny small company, where we make it loud and clear. That it's fast-paced work environment, full of stress, haste and everything in between.

Even for me as an owner, this has deteriorated my life. I run an international shipping company. And every shipment is time-definite, not because they are, because customers make it so.

Such kind of job, is not for everyone, therefore we make it loud and clear, we have a lot of fun too, to compensate for it and I make it clear to my guys.

Anyhow, we do not have a culture of 'disrespect' but in a fast-paced environment, moods swings are pretty common.

Again it's not for everyone. Ask me frankly, 911 or Police are less stressful than we are. as you laid out., as If police job is more stressful.

</comment><comment><USER96> sounds like apple definitely takes advantage of its prestige. if OP made >= 6 figures, this treatment seems kinda par for the course in this industry.

It's sad that in order to 'make it' we can expect to receive such insensitivity at work, I certainly wouldn't stand for it, but it's frustrating that this is ultimately a first-world problem; millions of people deal with this kinda shit day in day out at shitty fast food jobs, and they get neither respect nor compensation for their efforts.

</comment><comment><USER97> I was under the impression that this is an accepted thing for both Apple and Microsoft, while Google is the "we know what's good and you products deal with it" company.

</comment><comment><USER98> Thank you to every poster who stayed in the world of facts, honesty, and objectivity in a thread about a potentially madly divisive topic. Medals for Bravery all around.

</comment><comment><USER98> _assuming the story is accurate_ The sad part about cult mentality is that this post will probably just reinforce the dogma of the 'true' believers.

</comment><comment><USER99> "I used to be a police officer. I've held a gun aimed at a dangerous offenders head and had to choose whether or not to pull the trigger."

Wait, what?

<comment><USER100> What troubles you about that statement?

It may well have been a situation where the person was presenting a threat to others and he had to decide how to how much threat was being presented and how to prevent that.

<comment><USER99> I misread that as "holding a gun at someone's head", as opposed to "holding a gun _aimed_ at someones's head". My bad.

But even so, should police officers really aim for the head?

<comment><USER100> > But even so, should police officers really aim for the head?

That's a good question.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER101> News@11: Working at BigCorpXYZ is not rainbows and puppies like in the brochure. Who knew.

</comment><comment><USER102> "Drinks with colleagues revolved around the same stories told _again and again_ " hm, anything to do with their address of "1 infinite loop"? Funny, usually infinite loops are a sign somebody fucked up.

</comment><comment><USER103> This doesn't aound any different from any other company on the planet if you look at it from this angle. The author seems overly entitled and disgruntled. Any job is what you make of it.

</comment><comment><USER104> Sounds awful !!

</comment><comment><USER105> Another perfect data point to add to Michael O`Church`s excellent series on the politics and psychology of the modern corporation.

For you starry eyed youngsters, just remember that this is Apple, the world`s most profitable company. It only gets worse as you go down the list.

Work for yourself. Consulting, the trades and any type of work you can do independently is far superior to dealing with wannabe Machiavellians on whose benevolence your paycheck depends.

Get out of the corporate world, and do anything else. The sky is the limit.

<comment><USER106> Whoa whoa. Consulting isn't _the_ answer. There are plenty of opportunities in both private and public sector on awesome teams with amazing management.

<comment><USER107> Consulting is just a different beast.

You get a lot more freedom and typically a higher pay, but sometimes management uses consultants to be the fall guys or hires consultants to confirm their existing decisions. It takes a lot of business savvy (read: empathy) to understand why you're really being hired as a consultant.

I don't think OP here would be happy consulting. (Just my 2 cents.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER108> What a heartbreaking story. I'm glad that the author quit, and I'm yet again reminded how fortunate I am to have a boss who comes relatively close to understanding me and has my back.

</comment><comment><USER109> That's a lot of words to say Apple is a corporation and acts like many others.

I guess the author expected it to be like an iPod commercial when he started.

<comment><USER110> Agreed. Sounds like it acts like many (not all!) others.

I've worked at a lot of places. I've been told that open-heart surgery would be counted as a vacation day. I've been in 3-hour meetings where a dozen executives bickered the whole time over how one toggle should be labeled. I've been where fully half the employees had been fired and continued working on the sheer grace/need of the owner. I've been given hard deadlines to complete hundreds of pages of documentation nobody would ever read. Etc...and plenty of people on HN have their own equivalent stories. Apple is a big company, and can't keep everything pristine and orderly, and still has to meet massive big- budget deadlines by every means necessary.

The kicker: Apple gets _results_. One way or another, that system _works_ ; one company does not have one product take over fully half of an entire major electronics market unless they're doing something right.

<comment><USER21> For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?

<comment><USER111> I would fain give up my imaginary "soul" in return for the whole world.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER112> I would never hire this guy.

</comment><comment><USER113> My favorite from the comments section "Maybe you were just holding your phone incorrectly."

xD My sides!

</comment><comment><USER33> Oh brother.

</comment><comment><USER114> RIP FoundationDB.</comment>


Facebook being used to collect demographic info from email addresses - <AUTHOR> http://blog.cubeofm.com/how-to-convert-email-addresses-into-name-age

<comment><USER2> I applaud them for their simple ingenuity. Even with my privacy settings to the max, my basic personal information is still displayed (profile pic, name, city and state, etc...). Facebook has successfully de-anonymized a large portion of internet users.

GNUnet here I come! (a social networking application on top of GNUnet? _that_ would be awesome)

</comment><comment><USER3> Old post. Also, there is a startup that does exactly this. They turn an email address into a social connection - <http://flowtown.com>

<comment><USER4> Actually there is more than one service offering this and most of them are built on top of the Rapleaf API: <http://www.rapleaf.com/></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Follow your passion or be realistic and practical? - <AUTHOR> Is it a good idea to quit the safe job and work on a startup full time. I am a bit confused about this.
I am already 28. I wanted to do a startup since I was 18. I started a few things on the side in the past 7 to 8 years and learnt a lot from each of my mistakes.
I started a few months back (my latest sideproject) and got my first paying customer ($400 per customer). I have a 9 - 6 job. I have trouble following instructions, paying attention and very restless. I have trouble focusing on work that I don't own 100%. I am a terrible, error-prone, procrastinating employee. There is 0% chance that I will be able to work for other people.
My question is: Do I quit my job and pursue my passion full time? Steve Jobs, Paul Graham, Tony Hsieh and host of other entrepreneurs suggest this route to become a successful entrepreneur.
Or should I be resourceful and just grind away. Like how Gary Vaynerchuck, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Patio11, James Altucher and a bunch of others recommend.
You know, work on the day job. Do the appropriate amount of work and get back to grinding on your project from 6:00 pm - 2:00 am everyday and 10 hrs per day on the weekends. This is what I am currently doing by the way.
If I screw up, I will lose the savings I built up. (I don't mind it too much.) But it will screw up my dating prospects.  If I suck it up and date/get married/have kids and continue working. I might end up not giving my project 100% and I might regret later in life that I did not take the risk and that I compromised. I am afraid I would get stuck in a job for the rest of my life. Some of my colleagues do great work and they seem to genuinely be enjoying coming in to work everyday. Unfortunately, my brain is not hardwired that way.
So, do I take the big risk and follow my passion or just suck it up, be practical and grind away till I get a lot of revenue from the sideproject and then quit? <comment><USER2> You talk of passion, but speak in terms of escapism. It sounds like you have some personality flaws. From your short description, the writing describes someone who appears unfocused, impulsive and unreliable. If you were slave to your clients (working on your own startup), would those traits magically disappear? Also your root motivation for quitting is suspect. Don't quit because of boredom or from feeling empty. Quit because staying at your job is preventing you from taking full advantage of a growing opportunity from one of your side projects.

Also, advice on success is very situational. To replicate Arnold Schwarzenegger's success, you would need to go through physical child abuse and develop a deeply rooted negative self image. Somehow he got over it, and channeled those flaws into body building, real estate, and movies. Did he do these things because he felt unworthy and strived to become worthy? Would you want to be tortured and abused during your childhood if you had a greater chance of "success" in adulthood? For other wildly successful people, what demons are they hiding?

Whether you decide to work own your own startup full time, or stay at some job, I'd urge you to increase your chance of future success by working on yourself. Read books, do exercises, see coaches and mental health professionals.

<comment><AUTHOR> I do have personality flaws.

>> If you were slave to your clients (working on your own startup), would those traits magically disappear?

No. But I can pick and choose people to complement my weakness. People who are reliable and are finishers.

<comment><USER2> _I can pick and choose people to complement my weakness._ This is commonly preached advice, and is somewhat true. Think about all the business types with "brilliant" ideas that are only a technical cofounder away from millions. When you're rare and in demand (in your case people who are reliable and finishers, and in the previous case idea guys who need technical people), you don't just go with the first bloke that makes an offer. You need to offer something compelling that they can't get elsewhere.

This is only a suggestion, but think about optimizing for lifetime happiness instead of focusing most of your energies on the now and the short term. So with respect to these personality flaws, it might also affect other areas of your life. If you spend the necessary effort now, you'll experience the compounded effects of these benefits over a longer time horizon.

This post may seem overly critical. In actuality I'm trying to have a conversation with my earlier self who was about to make similar missteps as you. I sincerely hope you find what you are looking for.

<comment><AUTHOR> _When you 're rare and in demand (in your case people who are reliable and finishers, and in the previous case idea guys who need technical people), you don't just go with the first bloke that makes an offer. You need to offer something compelling that they can't get elsewhere._

You raise a valid point. But I am hardly ever naive. I live a pretty frugal life and saved up quite a bit of money ($xx,000). I usually hire people from codementor.io/airpair/railshotline (this is free) and pair program. This was the secret to finishing my last two products on time and landing my first paying customer for the last product.

Please don't apologize for stating your opinion. I always seek feedback and I am not easily discouraged.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I can relate to you quite a bit, at least in terms of feeling if not experience. I'm much better working for myself than anyone else and would prefer to quit my current job and start a personal project or startup and make a living that way. I have not done so yet, but I plan to before I'm 25.

My advice would be to not (yet) quit your day job until you achieve "ramen profitability" or perhaps a bit more.

My personal advice:

1\. Look into various (legal) nootropic medications, and consider seeing a doctor. Some of your issues with attention may be a result of ADHD, sleep disorders, or other things. Relatively side effect-free drugs like modafinil and piracetam are worth trying, and if a doctor does diagnose you with some issue then you could look into more serious prescriptions. You may be surprised how work that was suddenly torturous to do is now neutral, or perhaps even enjoyable, after you make small changes to your health or mind. And be sure you're getting enough sleep.

2\. Continue juggling both "jobs". Odds are your side project is not currently at some critical point where _not_ working on it full time means it's doomed to fail. This means there's not a lot of risk from spending 10-30% of your time on the side project while keeping your day job, but there's a whole lot of risk from quitting your day job.

</comment><comment><USER4> As a side note, you might have ADD. It might be worth looking into if the symptoms you described seriously interfere with your life.

Practically, don't quit until you have the revenue stream and then the decision will be easy. You have one customer, try for two.

There is plenty of time. Avoid the celebritization of entrepreneurship. Focus on getting the next customer.

</comment><comment><USER5> 28 is still young, particularly if you don't yet have kids. Go for it. Starting a company will only get harder as you have more responsibilities later in life.

<comment><USER6> This. Doing a startup is way harder once you get older, unless you've already made your nut and no longer need a salary.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I would say this, take your savings and double it before jumping in. Your going to realize that you might be spending more money then allotted for your project. Also make friends with internet marketers and such to help you raise awareness for your brand/company. I've made friends with startups and helped them get traction and they have hooked me up with their development knowledge (not work, just answers to questions) and such.

What's your plan if this doesn't work out? Hate to say it but just wanted you to think about it.

</comment><comment><USER8> Pick something, get good at it... _then_ the passion will follow.

The follow your passion part, is starting to be shown as bad advice.

Refer to "So Good They Can't Ignore You" by Cal Newport.

He turns conventional advice on this topic on its head. Excellent book, in my opinion.

</comment><comment><USER9> Can you find something in-between? E.g. try to find a part-time job, so you can earn just enough without dipping into savings. Then spend that extra time on your side projects.

</comment><comment><USER10> One word: strategy.

Both quitting your job and engaging in a startup are absurdly risky if you don't have a very cushy safety net.

Steve jobs was a hippie who was fine with living homeless and dumpster diving for food, so there was no downside for him in screwing around with startups. Paul Graham completed his PhD in CS from Harvard, so he had a very solid alumni network he could turn to if he ever found himself unemployed. Bill Gates and Zuck both went to Harvard and had trust funds and/or wealthy parents.

The stories you're often told of successful entrepreneurs usually leave out one important fact: to be successful, you must eliminate downside risk. Once failure costs you nothing, then it's just a matter of how big your upside can be. You want to get into a position where failure is irrelevant. That's the only way you can fail fast, and fail often.

I recommend cutting your costs down to the absolute bare minimum and investing every penny you earn. Try to establish a steady income from consulting and/or investments. Passive income and cost minimization are the keys to freedom and success in the modern economy.

You mentioned that you're worried about dating. That's a whole other can of worms. I would say focus on dating while you're working on the preparation phase (passive income/cost minimization). Once you start engaging in startups, you may not have the time.

Good luck, and remember: only show up to battles that you're likely to win. Stack the odds in your favor. The more you leave to chance, the riskier a venture becomes.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the perspective. The most likely thing that can happen will usually happen, I guess.

One of my coworker quit to do a startup. Now all he is doing is sitting at home and updating Facebook all the time. That is a position I definitely don't want to be in.</comment></comment>


It's not the post-PC era, or the PC-plus era. It's the PC era. - <AUTHOR> http://technologizer.com/2011/08/22/hey-theyre-all-just-pcs/

<comment><USER2> Excellent coverage:

"smartphones and tablets are good at a subset of what PCs do"

Combined, they are excellent at what a printer and paper do,</comment>