Things Many People Find Too Obvious to Have Told You Already - <AUTHOR> https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/936615043126370306 <comment><USER2> > Companies find it incredibly hard to reliably staff positions with hard- > working generalists who operate autonomously and have high risk tolerances. > This is not the modal employee, including at places which are justifiably > proud of the skill/diligence/etc of their employees.

This one. Every job I see when I go looking is 40+ hrs a week, likely with plenty of idle time and projects I don't believe in. Part of this is regional... my area is packed full of marketing jobs that I'm actively uninterested in. Anyway, I'm starting to get the hang of selling myself to contract shops, and I think I've found some twinkles of hope.

But today I was told straight up that my resume wasn't conventional enough, that it was too well-rounded. After quite a few messages back and forth, I'm not even sure if they even looked at my portfolio. They told me there was no money for me, because their funders were looking for someone more professional. So I took this as a sign that maybe this wasn't the job for me. No need to go barking up the wrong tree.

In the game dev world, I'd probably be a "technical artist", but even that doesn't quite fit for me. I'm like a "fool of all trades, jack of some, maybe a master of one or two". But it's hard to find a job that motivates me and leaves me with adequate space/time/energy to keep myself sharp and alive.

 _If anyone knows of funding for a guy that makes creative, reusable web components, let me know_... _edit_ : _I just saw that vue.js is primarily funded by patreon. that 's awesome!_

<comment><USER3> I think you framed your anecdotal evidence as supporting the OP's statement, but also that you misunderstood such statement; and you actually present evidence against it. If companies find it hard to reliably staff generalist positions, _and_ you're a generalist as you claim, then you would find it _easy_ to get a job.

<comment><USER4> There is a massive gulf between hiring and work. There's another massive gulf between what a manager asks for and what HR or recruiters ask for.

> _" If companies find it hard to reliably staff generalist positions"_

The process of hiring for this is hard. Finding people like this is also hard.

<comment><USER5> There's also gulf a between what companies think they need, and what they actually need. Almost everyone hires on technologies and not the abstract skillsets required to learn said technologies.

<comment><USER6> Any Idea how to find a company that hires on that abstract skillset, potentially by throwing one into cold water to test for it?

~Someone with little resume-driven experience but good grogging skills

<comment><USER7> Honestly, the way I got hired recently was by just reading job postings and cramming on the frameworks mentioned in them until I was competent enough to pass an interview/coding challenge. I'm a little peeved that it was essentially company training on my dime, and you have to count on companies not refusing to hire unless you have x years, but it did get me hired.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > CS programs have, in the main, not decided that the primary path to becoming > a programmer should involve doing material actual programming.

Well, that's because CS programs are designed to teach CS, not to be a vocational school for programmers.

<comment><USER9> I've been spending a lot of time lately wondering if people who treat colleges and universities as though their job is worker training are confused, or if I'm naive in believing colleges and universities exist to expand human knowledge through research and education.

I suspect the answer is that our culture is confused, we want people who are smart and well rounded to also be useful. And the ugly side of it is, we want clear class divisions. One would never refer to law school or medical school as "vocational".

<comment><USER10> Higher education is used as a proxy for intelligence by companies who are hiring because they are not allowed to use IQ tests. So I think it kind of makes sense that our society is confused about the purpose of higher education.

<comment><USER11> > because they are not allowed to use IQ tests

There's actual employment law that prohibits using IQ tests? I'd never heard that before

<comment><USER12> It's related to anti-discrimination / "psychology-test" laws. If there is any sort of "test" given as a condition of employment, it must be relevant, standardized, non-biased, reviewed by specialists and approved, etc.

[http://cdn8.openculture.com/wp- content/uploads/2014/07/Test1...](http://cdn8.openculture.com/wp- content/uploads/2014/07/Test1.jpg.CROP_.article920-large.jpg)

The value and definition of "IQ" is widely disputed and generally seen as of limited relevance to the actual work and performance of that work (uncorrelated). Look it up and do some research if you're interested, this is just a quick showing of _why_ tests may be considered bad.

<comment><USER13> One day I wonder if some lawyer will strike it big by making an argument that looking at universities is discrimination because e.g. family connections and wealth give you a big leg up in getting into certain elite schools...

<comment><USER10> Yeah, but most universities engage in affirmative action, which theoretically negates this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > People underestimate how effective a generalist can be at things which are > done by specialists. People underestimate how deep specialties can run. > These are simultaneously true.

This is really, really important. In my experience, this is not just _unknown_ but _actively ignored and disagreed with_ (either explicitly or effectively) by a large majority of people involved in software businesses. This hamstrings: companies, individuals' growth, and the advancement of the state of the art.

<comment><USER15> There's also often a messy transition period where a team goes from a bunch of generalists to more specialists. This can be extremely rocky for all involved as often generalists have lots of historic operational knowledge and strong opinions, but the new specialists come with external knowledge of best practices and how to scale.

It is important that historic knowledge is respected for the context it provides, while outside knowledge is equally respected for the deeper context and data behind it.

Unfortunately, this change often means generalists lose jobs in favor of specialists as a company grows if there isn't a good place for them, or if they don't rise to management. In fact, even early managers can be displaced by outside managers who come in with more management experience. And this is not inherently a bad thing for the company (while it may be for the employee getting bumped). The people that take a company from point A to point B are rarely the same people that take it from point B to point C.

<comment><USER13> Am I crazy to think that generalists are the best-suited engineers to making the managerial move? You can keep a good broad knowledge base sufficient to be useful in early directional discussions, and sufficient to sniff out a lot of (not all) BS artists and identify which specialists to listen to/loop in, in less time than it would take a specialist to do the same in terms of juggling things across team, due to the nature of the generalism skill.

I think otherwise trying to be a "senior generalist" or "staff generalist" is going to be very hard, but for logical reasons.

<comment><USER16> Being a tech generalist is a great background for a manager. But there are some caveats.

Firstly, besides understanding the work, a manager also has to be able to actually manage subordinates. This is orthogonal to technical ability. Secondly, internal promotion of a generalist carries risk of that generalist being too opinionated based on his own work. They are much more likely to be a conservative force. This might be an unnecessary barrier to good changes.

<comment><USER17> Great comment. I found these problems in myself as I transitioned into management years ago. I was blocking good changes...

These days I try to just be a tie-breaker for the team, instead of laying out the plan and looking for "feedback".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > Everyone in Silicon Valley uses equity, and not debt, to fuel their growth > because debt is not available in sufficient quantities to poorly capitalized > companies without a strong history of adequate cash flows to service debt.

A corollary to this is that if you're fundraising and can get debt, you should take it over equity almost every time. Many founders are skeptical of debt because everyone takes equity, yet everyone takes equity because it's all they can get.

At the very least, if you're seriously trying to decide between the two, remember that equity investors want at least a 10x return within about five years. Break out a calculator and look at what the interest rate on that would be (spoilers, it's higher than any lender would think to ask).

<comment><USER18> No no no. Debt is not universally better. Debt can wipe out companies. It requires payments that equity does not. Miss one payment and you're in default. It's extremely risky for companies that are young and volatile.

Debt vs. equity is always a case-by-case situation. Debt is cheaper but comes with strings attached. Equity is pricey but more flexible.

<comment><USER19> But it isn't in your creditor's interest that you go bankrupt either.

<comment><USER20> This. Being able to get debt should, in general, be a good indicator that your company might actually be valuable.

<comment><USER21> Not really. The easiest way to get a loan is to start a fast food franchise or build houses. Banks don't do innovation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> > The chief products of the tech industry are (in B2C) developing new habits > among consumers

This was a profound revelation I didn't realize until I read it just now. Facebook, Google, Amazon, etc. have all done so well by starting a habit for their users. ("Check Facebook daily to see what your friends are up to." "Google it whenever you need info." "Buy your stuff conveniently on Amazon when you don't want to go to the store.")

I think this approach can work great for even non-tech industries. It definitely worked for Starbucks ("Gotta get my morning Starbucks").

I think lots of industries are ripe for "habit-ifying", and I'm going to pursue that further. Brilliant insight.

<comment><USER23>
        > I think lots of industries are ripe
        > for "habit-ifying", and I'm going
        > to pursue that further. Brilliant
        > insight.

This is, of course, the same insight that the gambling and tobacco industries and cults thrive on.

Not talking you down - just reminding you never to forget the moral angle.

<comment><USER24> Is it a moral issue if the habit a starts a virtuous cycle? Like my Apple Watch making me exercise more?

<comment><USER7> It's pretty important to be constantly evaluating the ethical implications of what you're producing. I can't speak for larger companies, but I get the impression that ethics in software development is not nearly as emphasized as it should be. Even the tech guys/gals should be highly concerned with how their product affects their users' overall well-being (or the well-being of those around their users). In fact, they're a critical layer in protecting against unethical business practices given they're the ones actually implementing things and mediating the user's experience on a ground level. Small features in your product can have significant repercussions on the lives of many users given how these things scale. What could be a few lines of code to you could be something that millions of people end up being influenced by hundreds of times a day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Slightly off topic, but I didn't realize that this was a series of tweets (a thread) that was extracted and re-presented as a coherent essay.

This explains the somewhat "weird" cadence.

On topic: it makes a lot of sense.

<comment><USER26> Oh, that explains why it's so weird. I thought it was some kind of extra-terse blog until I saw your comment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> This should be titled "Condensed snippets of accumulated wisdom, focusing mostly on software and business, that I am fairly confident of and feel compelled to share with you".

Many of these nuggets are not "obvious", for any conventional understanding of that word.

That said, I enjoyed the post, and liked the concise format.

<comment><USER28> "obvious" is not a property of a statement itself, it indicates a relationship between a piece of knowledge and a larger knowledge base, where one thing immediately follows from other things that are already known.

I don't think "obvious" in the conventional sense is a real category, because no two people would agree the same things are obvious.

<comment><USER27> Ah, just like the good old "it is trivial to see that a -> b" from advanced mathematics.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> This one had me stop

>The explosive growth of the tech sector keeps average age down and depresses average wages. Compared to industries which existed in materially the same form in 1970, we have a stupidly compressed experience spectrum: 5+ years rounds to "senior." This is not a joke.

I agree that it compresses the experience spectrum, but has the opposite effect on wages. It's tough to find any industry that pays more for the amount of experience/education.

<comment><USER30> Tech does not pay for experience.

A new grad's compensation is often equal and some times greater than someone who's been in the trenches for 20 years. I don't know any other profession with this absurd inversion. And with a few notable exceptions, the idea that someone with 5 years of experience is Senior-anything is ridiculous. I remember myself at 5 years out, I didn't know shit compared to today. Yet, adjusted for location-cost of living and inflation, I'm making today about what I made back then. The compensation plateau is very real, I assure you. You'll probably find out in 20 years or so.

EDIT: There also wouldn't be so much persistent discussion about ageism in tech either, if experience was valued/compensated.

<comment><USER29> I've definitely been part of a hiring process where "over-experienced" gets thrown around a lot. Here's stuff that comes up all the time:

\- The main and _probably unfair_ assumption that they will want more money and special treatment for the same amount of grunt work.

\- They will not respect the (majority 20-something) peers and will try to subtly enforce seniority (again, unfair).

\- They will refuse to do grunt work and only want to work on high level problems. We have enough chefs, we need line cooks.

\- Veterans can come well-seasoned, but they can also be old cranks who are stuck in their ways and can drag a team backwards. It takes experience to tell the difference (irony).

\- If they were _truly_ experienced, they would be getting poached or going through a headhunter. If they are experienced and on the market, they must be damaged good. (This one is truly unfair, but it justifies people relying on paying the premium for a recruiter).

<comment><USER31> > If they were truly experienced, they would be getting poached or going > through a headhunter.

Huh, is that very common?

As someone with 10 years of experience but very little job-hopping (perhaps to my detriment) I always had this feeling that recruiters were a bit like dodgy car salesman, and that a direct application would be better.

<comment><USER32> Good recruiters are excellent networkers who are in touch with the most exciting businesses in your area and field of expertise. I've only met one but if I ever find myself looking for a job then I'll be talking with him.

<comment><USER31> What I meant is whether there is really that much of a bias against experienced direct applicants.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> "Your idea is not valuable, at all."

If execution is all that matters your idea isn't good enough.

I don't care how many times people keep claiming that execution is all that matters, it's still wrong or it becomes tautological, like saying. The key to success is being successful.

Good ideas are often shitty ideas until they are good. What makes them good isn't just execution but timing, luck and so many other factors.

Failing to understand that is a bigger problem than the few people left who think the idea is everything.

<comment><USER34> I always understood it to mean that a good idea doesn't sell unless you execute well on it, and also that an idea doesn't need to be unique, it just needs to be executed better than the competitors.

<comment><USER33> But that is also not always the case. If you are first to market you don't need to be executing better than the competitors since they don't necessarily exist.

It's way more complex and subtle than the "execution is all that matters" or the "my idea is secured in a password protected powerpoint" camp.

I have helped over a 100 startups and at least in my experience, it's not more correct to say execution is all that matters than to say ideas are all that matter.

Plenty of well-executed ideas don't ever go anywhere because the ideas were wrong, to begin with.

In the context of this otherwise fine list by Patrick this is just particularly problematic because it's wrong in a non-obvious way but sounds right.

<comment><USER35> > Plenty of well-executed ideas don't ever go anywhere because the ideas were > wrong, to begin with.

Or, to put it another way, the founders made an MVP from their initial (for argument's sake, poor) idea, and then couldn't find product-market fit before running out of (bootstrapped or VC-funded) runway. Your argument, then, is that some ideas and MVPs make it impossible to find product-market fit, no matter who the founders / executive team are, because there is no market or whatever other reason beyond the startup's control.

And you would be correct if it wasn't possible for startups to pivot. But they do, sometimes multiple times, and sometimes successfully. Part of the reason why execution is everything is because good executives can take what the startup has learned about its product and its market, understand that the startup's current trajectory leads to bankruptcy, and make the necessary pivot which presents better odds at viability.

<comment><USER33> Startups pivoting is because their original idea didn't go anywhere. Plenty of startups pivot and never get anywhere.

Again this obsessions witch claiming execution as somehow being in opposition to idea is what's wrong here.

Both are important.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> >Your idea is not valuable, at all. All value is in the execution. You think you are an exception; you are not. You should not insist on an NDA to talk about it; nobody serious will engage in contract review over an idea, and this will mark you as clueless.

John Carmack is unusually direct and asserts pretty much the same things a couple of weeks back. [1]

>This will never, ever work. Nobody will build your game idea and give you money for it. If you go through the development process, you will find that the original idea is a very small fraction of the value.

[1] [https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/931653803199275008](https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/931653803199275008)

Edit: typo s/in/is

<comment><USER37> I agree and disagree with this one. Of course, no one is going to pay money for your game idea, but there _are_ ideas which require an NDA. Those ideas typically take years of development and a person with such an idea would be able to present hundreds of pages of alternate designs and their pros/cons. For example, if I have a design for a 3mm x 1mm mechanism that can actuate a rod by 2mm and I know what kind of power consumption said mechanism will have, that design might be expressible on a single piece of paper, and be worth millions of dollars.

<comment><USER36> >a person with such an idea would be able to present hundreds of pages of alternate designs

Arguably, that's _much_ more than just an idea - it's the idea plus the development of the idea, with most of the value being in the development bit.

<comment><USER37> True, but if I know that you have been working on the idea for 5 years, and that you have those hundreds of pages of alternate designs, then even just the end result may be valuable enough to me that you would want an NDA.

<comment><USER38> I think the quote is talking about the original idea before work has been put into it, not an end product

<comment><USER37> But a sketch isn't an end product. It is not a "realization".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> >Companies find it incredibly hard to reliably staff positions with hard- working generalists who operate autonomously and have high risk tolerances. This is not the modal employee, including at places which are justifiably proud of the skill/diligence/etc of their employees.

I'm not sure if he's saying these hard-working generalists are hard to find, or undesirable to employ?

<comment><USER40> I'm also confused. What's a "mod _a_ l employee"?

<comment><USER41> I believe it's a typo, should be "model" employee.

<comment><USER42> No, it's referring to the statistical mode, the most frequent occurrence in a set, "typical" would be a reasonable synonym there.

It's a roundaboot way of saying those qualities rarely all come together.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> _If you are attempting to hire for an engineering position, greater than 50% of people who apply for the job and whose resume you select as "facially plausible" will be entirely unable to program, at all. The search term for learning more about this is FizzBuzz._

So true, and something that stumped me when I sat at the other side of a hiring table myself. I couldn't figure out why until it was pointed out to me that people who are good at their job are not looking for work, they already have a job. In fact, the really good people often don't apply for jobs at all, but instead they get convinced to switch employers. By contrast, the people who can't program are on the job market all the time. So, the job market is heavily skewed towards people not good enough to hire.

<comment> FLUX-YOU >By contrast, the people who can't program are on the job market all the time. So, the job market is heavily skewed towards people not good enough to hire.

People should be allowed to leave the industry for some amount of time without being marked as damaged goods.

In fact, based on how poorly technical interviews have evolved, I have no faith that a hiring manager _wouldn 't_ just blindly ignore all candidates with an employment gap on their record after reading posts similar to yours, and that really is a damn shame. It's not a humane practice.

<comment><USER34> I didn't mean to imply employment gaps, just that people who can't program do a lot more job interviews than people who can.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> > Charge more. Charge more still. Go on.

This might sound stupid, and maybe it's my inner hippie talking, but did this make anyone else slightly uncomfortable? I get that it's "good business", but something feels kinda gross about saying "extract as much money from other people as you possibly can." Like... shouldn't you just charge whatever you think something (a product, your time) is worth? I realize that "what something is worth" is often subjective, but charging more just because you can feels morally ambiguous to me at best.

(Then again, if you're talking about extracting money from a corporation, that feels less gross. But of course my inner hippie would say that.)

<comment><USER44> The problem (other than your inner hippie :P) is that it can be quite difficult to accurately value a software product. Most physical goods are valued based on the cost of materials/manufacturing. However software is an intangible good without those fixed costs. The closest thing is hosting.

For B2B solutions, value is more tied to how much it would cost a customer to implement your solution instead of buying yours. But even a startup founder who's been an engineer for many years might not have a clear picture of how much the previous projects they worked on cost their employer. They only see their own hourly rate or salary (which already might be low) and don't see the total cost of development, the cost of infrastructure, personnel for ongoing support, etc. Engineers notoriously under-price startup offerings because they lack the broader perspective to accurately value their creations.

<comment><USER45> mini aside but products are never based on the price of materials as if you follow the chain all materials start as free. They are all priced starting at what people are willing to pay for the labor to take/prepare/transport the free materials. maybe that helps see that enginering is no different

<comment><USER44> I get where you're coming from, but my point was mostly that when a business develops a product, upfront engineering is often seen as somewhat of a sunk cost. The more important measure is the margin on the physical product. The cost of raw materials (and shipping, manufacturing, etc) is far easier to quantify.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I don't believe companies want "hard-working generalists who operate autonomously and have high risk tolerances." I mean obviously, yes, they would claim to want that, but that sort of employee is fundamentally incompatible with modern business. Modern business is predicated upon the idea of employees being as replaceable and interchangeable as possible. It is a common idea presented in many management books that if an employee becomes important to the company, they should be fired immediately. The thinking is that if your company grows in reliance upon this person, they might one day ask for more money and when you fire them at that point the damage done will be worse so it is better to nip the problem in the bud and bite the bullet and get rid of them when you notice their importance and deal with the smaller amount of disruption. Any hard-working generalist who operates autonomously will, by necessity, be building systems which they have all of the domain knowledge about. And despite companies wishing to believe domain knowledge is not valuable, it has substantial operational and financial impact when lost.

>The hardest problem in B2C is distribution.

This confuses me. Distribution is trivially solved. Anyone can get a product to a customer for quite low cost anywhere in the world now. Is something else meant by "distribution" aside from 'getting things from point A to point B'? If I had a warehouse in my back yard and a customer wanting a product from it, I could ship it to the customer just as easily as Amazon could. Their advantage isn't in being able to distribute things. It's in aggregation and many other different things but not distribution. Distribution was the most valuable economic activity of the past century, but it's commoditized now.

>Weak-form efficients market hypothesis is a good heuristic for evaluating the public markets

The efficient market hypothesis says that profit is an error, an inefficiency which will rapidly go to zero as it will be stripped by underpriced competitors. This is not a good heuristic.

<comment><USER47> > The efficient market hypothesis says that profit is an error

No it doesn't. It's a pricing hypothesis. It says nothing about the presence or absence of profits.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> > Charge more. Charge more still. Go on.

I find this advice unhelpful. In the past, when I was making $23/hour as a web developer, people would occasionally ask to hire me for freelance work. I've given various answers, from $30 to $100, and haven't had any takers yet. The only freelance work I've actually done so far was when I said, "what do you think it's worth?" and my friend said, "I dunno, 60?" It was for about an hour of work so I said yeah, but I had already done the work by that point anyway.

$100/hour seems like the right amount to me, since my company was billing me out at $116. But no one else thinks so. I'm pretty sure there's more to it than just "charge more".

<comment><USER49> I think this piece of advice is extremely relevant for those selling B2B software/products which comes in bigger 'chunks' than your labor which can be sold by the hour.

The gist is that while you (as the average B2B startup) can estimate how valuable your product is to your average customer, you will most likely vastly underestimate the cost of replacement for such a system. In other words, if your sales pitch goes well and they like the product but think to themselves "How much would it cost us to build this ourselves?" you will underestimate this cost from the outside. This is because the cost of replacement is a reasonably good proxy for a price ceiling and by being aware of it you can get a much higher average selling price.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> I like this format/premise a lot... it allows you the freedom to say things you find insightful without the risk of some know-it-all coming along and telling you it's obvious. We should do more of this -- nearly everything is going to seem obvious to someone else, but those people should just keep their mouth closed and keep looking for something they didn't know.

</comment><comment><USER51> >The amount of money flowing through capitalism would astound you

I really like this one. During my biology days, there was a fellow PhD student in the lab who had spent 15+ years in corporate IT before joining academia, and he always had great stories of the incredible amounts of cash we should expect to see flow around us should we embark on careers outside of academia (he was not wrong).

</comment><comment><USER52> Especially after reading the comments on this thread, I'm really not sure HN is a good venue for discussing tweet streams. I think if Patrick wanted to write something that would spark a discussion on HN, he'd have written a blog post.

<comment><USER53> I for one had no idea this was not a blog post.

<comment><USER54> Can we change the link to this: [https://twitter.com/patio11/status/936615043126370306](https://twitter.com/patio11/status/936615043126370306)

(so folks understand this is a tweetstorm and not a post?)

<comment><USER53> I actually think this interface is a better way to read a tweetstorm, it could just do with prefixing the title with "A tweetstorm by patio11" to remove the confusion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> > There is no hidden reserve of smart people who know what they're doing, > anywhere. Not in government, not in science, not in tech, not at > AppAmaGooBookSoft, nowhere. The world exists in the same glorious > imperfection that it presents with.

This is painfully true. I so often hoped someone will explain some Linux stuff to me but... strace it is :)

<comment><USER56> I think the main point of the quote is that nobody knows everything. There are pockets of knowledge, and there are specialists who know quite a bit about Linux. ;) You just need to find that person and not expect them to also know about something completely different like Windows or Asian-Pacific geopolitics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> > Most open source software is written by programmers who are full-time > employed by companies which directly consume the software, at the explicit > or implicit blessing of their employers. It is not charity work, any more > than they charitably file taxes.

There are perhaps 1000 OSS projects that make up the software you use on a daily basis. Many of these have core developers or maintainers who are hired by a company to write or maintain that software for them to consume.

But there are literally millions more open source projects, almost entirely developed by hobbyists.

Github alone has 24 million developers, with 67 million repos (25 million of which are public), and 1.5 million organizations, in 200 countries. The top languages used there are JS, Python, Java, Ruby, PHP, C++, CSS, C#, Go, and C. (Github, btw, is not the only repository of open source code)

Most open source software is most definitely not written by one kind of dev. But there _is_ an underlying motivator behind almost all open source: _" I need this code."_ As long as there is someone who needs it passionately enough to take it upon themselves to craft and produce it, without regard to commercial gain, it will stay alive. Open Source is basically woodworking, and our computers are the chisels and saws.

</comment><comment><USER47> > Your idea is not valuable, at all. All value is in the execution.

This is wrong, and I'm surprised it's repeated so often. Some ideas are better than others. If you doubt this, ask yourself if, when starting a company, you would choose a random idea or your best idea.

Of course you would choose your best idea, which implies ideas have different value.

EDIT: I'm happy to debate this point with anyone who would otherwise downvote me. Critical replies welcome.

<comment><USER58> I don't think it necessarily means "all ideas are the same". You're right -- some ideas may be better than others, but until they're executed successfully, they're just ideas.

ie: There were multiple ways that Google could have executed their goal of building a search engine (engineering, sales, etc). Even if you come up with a 'better' idea, it may not be successful/valuable if you execute it poorly and make the wrong decisions.

<comment><USER47> Except google's idea wasn't "search engine". Google's idea was "search engine that uses the PageRank algorithm". PageRank did not encompass all of the value of Google, but it did encompass much of it, and it was unequivocally part of the idea.

What you're effectively saying is that ideas have no value _without_ good execution, which is of course true, but this is very different than saying they have no value, because after all, execution has no value without a good idea.

<comment><USER58> If the value is in "search engine that uses the PageRank algorithm", then theoretically you can take that idea and execute it to get the same value.

The difference isn't in the idea but the execution - hence the value.

<comment><USER47> I'm sorry, I don't follow.

EDIT: Oh I see what you mean now. By "you", you actually mean me. No, I couldn't, because Google has parlayed their initial good idea into a monopoly based on network effects, specifically the accrual of proprietary data (clicks) which I have no access to.

The idea was valuable in 1997. It's no longer.

<comment><USER58> If the value is in the idea, then multiple execution of the same idea should result in the same/similar values. But... this isn't true irl, therefore the differences in value isn't in the idea but the execution

<comment><USER47> Your error is in concluding that because execution matters, ideas don't matter. But that's erroneous. Both matter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> _The hardest problem in B2C is distribution. The hardest problem in B2B is sales. AppAmaGooBookSoft are AppAmaGooBookSoft primarily because they have mortal locks on distribution._

I agree with this, but I think it's interesting. Wasn't the Internet supposed to democratize distribution? All someone has to do is go to your website. And anybody can set up a website.

So it seems like the Internet just shifted the goal posts for everyone? The winners are still as dominant as ever.

But I guess it is true that you can have a break-out hit like Instagram or WhatsApp, and that wasn't possible pre-Internet. The time scales are compressed.

But perversely, maybe because distribution is easier and software flows more freely, you have to be even better? You can't rely on "local inefficiencies"? You have to be globally the best.

<comment><USER47> > AppAmaGooBookSoft are AppAmaGooBookSoft primarily because they have mortal > locks on distribution.

Well, first of all, this isn't true. Google and FB aren't so profitable because of a distribution monopoly. They're profitable due to network effects.

<comment><USER60> network effects: a phenomenon whereby a product or service gains additional value as more people use it.

How does google search get better from more people using it?

<comment><USER59> To be brief, more data (generated by clicks and queries) leads to better ranking. Better ranking attracts more users. Starting a search engine from scratch without any user data is a big disadvantage.

Basically, you're benefitting from other people who are searching for the same thing as you on the same search engine. (I'm sure that's not the only network effect, but it's one of them.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> > The tech industry is fundamentally unserious about how it recruits, hires, > and retains candidates. About which I have a lot more to say than could fit > in a tweet, but, a good thing to know.

Would love to read more about that. I'd be willing to bet most SMBs are terrible at hiring / retaining developers.

My last company did literally nothing to help devs learn and grow (or to reward those who did so on their own), which created a department full of miserable, unmotivated people. The only reason most of them are still there is because they haven't found a new job but can't afford to leave.

They're trapped, essentially.

</comment><comment><USER62> I expected this to be an article about general life tips. Perhaps the title could use the suffix "About Startups"?

<comment><USER63> I think it's about software / programming world and economics, not just startups. Still very niche, not stuff about life relevant to any non-tech person

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> "Your idea is not valuable" ... no, maybe not some top level idea like "Social media, but more private." But, execution is just a bunch of smaller ideas.

<comment><USER65> It's not just about ideas. Coming up with ideas is easy. Turning an idea into a viable product involves a lot of work.

<comment><USER66> > Coming up with ideas is easy.

I think that depends on how stringent criteria you put on the ideas. An idea that maybe, with a lot of work, would be successful might be easy to come up with. An idea that is very likely to succeed, with little work and no investments, might not be that easy to find.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> _> Your idea is not valuable, at all. All value is in the execution._

Then why did Amazon patent the concept of a drone that will fly to your car and recharge it?

<comment><USER68> Because patents are valuable. Specifically, blocking others from executing.

<comment><USER47> Patents first require an idea to be patented, so if patents are valuable, ideas are valuable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> I agree with most points except this one:

>> Most open source software is written by programmers who are full-time employed by companies which directly consume the software, at the explicit or implicit blessing of their employers. It is not charity work, any more than they charitably file taxes.

Most open source projects don't go anywhere... They have about 3 stars on Github and nobody uses them.

To say that open source is not charity work is quite unfair. The number of people who make money from their open source projects is tiny... Even among popular projects with thousands of stars. The real motivation behind most open source projects is a strong desire to learn and explore new ideas and to share these ideas with others.

The financial stuff might come later but most of the time it doesn't come at all.

Outside of the cryptocurrency space and big corporations, very few people who get into open source do so because they think it is a good way to make money... Because it's not.

I believe very strongly that most open source projects are founded on altruism. The motivation might change over time but you cannot disregard the initial intent.

<comment><USER70> You're making the mistake of assuming open source means "something you that's not your job."

This is false.

Most open source development is _paid work_. Many people "get into open source" by accepting a regular day job.

[https://www.techrepublic.com/article/for-50-percent-of- devel...](https://www.techrepublic.com/article/for-50-percent-of-developers- open-source-is-a-9-to-5-job/)

<comment><USER69> I've done open source work for 10 years. I'm pretty sure I know what open source means.

You can have a look at GitHub; there are 25 million active repos on there; at least 99% of them are not sponsored by any company and nobody gets paid to work on them.

People like the OP and yourself are spreading distorted ideas which harm open source and the software ecosystem as a whole.

Putting open source projects on the same level as commercial software is not right. They are often completely different kinds of people behind them.

<comment> benji-york You're probably mostly right, but note that there is a bit of a "dark matter" issue here. A lot of open source work is done at the behest of an employer and on the clock but still appears to be a "personal" project.

I have worked on many open source projects that would appear to be entirely the work of individuals, when they are in fact working on company time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> BTW, doesn't this app break Twitter's ToS by displaying tweets in a non- standard format? [https://developer.twitter.com/en/developer-terms/display- req...](https://developer.twitter.com/en/developer-terms/display-requirements)

</comment><comment><USER71> > Meta thought: you radically underestimate both a) how much you know that > other people do not and b) the instrumental benefits to you of publishing > it.

Can someone explain b) to me?

Is he saying that, assuming you fit into category a, by explicitly revealing your knowledge, your potential opportunities will expand more than you estimate?

<comment><USER72> Yes.

For instance, if you _consistently_ put out good pieces on your past experiences in the software industry as a PM, then your current experiences as a software business owner, you will gradually become widely known as the guy who gives advice about what you _shouldn 't_ be doing in your software career or software business.

This was essentially how Joel Spolsky grew his audience through his blog -- turning his knowledge into published pieces. His blog audience combined with Jeffrey Atwood's blog audience were instrumental to getting StackOverflow off the ground.

You never know, but having an existing audience can be an incredible enabler for getting your future ventures off the ground.

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> I do not doubt this:

> Most open source software is written by programmers who are full-time > employed by companies which directly consume the software, at the explicit > or implicit blessing of their employers. It is not charity work, any more > than they charitably file taxes.

But I wonder how many important Open Source projects were _started_ that way, by employees of companies which wanted to use those projects. Linux, for example, most certainly was _not_ begun that way.

<comment><USER59> Yes, I think this sentence oversimplifies things. The conclusions should be divided between:

1) Most open source software written and released today

2) Most open source software you use

The code in category #2 is much older on average.

Most people here use bash every day, but as far as I can tell, there's about one person behind it, who doesn't get paid for it (Chet Ramey).

And you're right that a lot of projects start free, and then get commercial contribution once they are valuable. Linux, git, hg, and Python all fit that profile.

In the "non-company" category, I would put Linux, git, hg, gcc, Apache. A lot of people still use Apache. nginx was in this category too until very recently.

SVN is interesting because it was started by a company (CollabNet), but I believe they diverged and the company no longer had much economic interest in it.

Anyway, I guess what I'm saying is that the story is really complicated. It's not as simple as what's in that Tweet.

<comment><USER73> > And you're right that a lot of projects start free, and then get commercial > contribution once they are valuable. Linux, git, hg, and Python all fit that > profile.

I think you used the wrong word here, or at least a misleading one:

Linux, for example, is still free and Free for most reasonable definitions people have of those terms. (Anti-copyleft trolling is not reasonable.) Its development is _funded_ , yes, but that funding doesn't give IBM, for example, special rights which a sufficiently determined individual hacker couldn't also have: Both have the ability to have an idea, code it, and get the code accepted, and IBM isn't immune to a Linus veto just because IBM's poured money into their team of kernel contributors.

I rant, but it's an important distinction between Open Source and closed source. It also reminds me of an old joke: Back in the 1990s, Apple, bereft of Jobs and nearly dead against Microsoft, was moving towards IBM in terms of strategic partnerships. So, the joke went "Apple + IBM = IBM", as in, if you move too close to IBM, IBM engulfs you and you lose your identity. My point is, IBM can't engulf an Open Source project unless absolutely nobody outside IBM cares about it and all the repos outside of IBM's purview utterly stagnate.

> In the "non-company" category, I would put Linux, git, hg, gcc, Apache. A > lot of people still use Apache. nginx was in this category too until very > recently.

I don't know if you noticed, but you put Linux in two different categories.

> SVN is interesting because it was started by a company (CollabNet), but I > believe they diverged and the company no longer had much economic interest > in it.

That is interesting.

> It's not as simple as what's in that Tweet.

Things rarely are. :)

Good post!

<comment><USER59> Yes, there are a lot of dimensions, hence Linux falling in multiple categories. It was started by an individual, but many of the current contributions are by people who are paid to work on it.

The story isn't simple for any big/successful project I can think of:

1) Started by a company for profit, vs. an individual for fun, or maybe profit.

2) Where the current commits come from, regardless of how the project started (contributor is paid or not paid)

I didn't mean to suggest that "free" and "commercial contribution" are mutually exclusive. The distinction I meant is whether the contributor is part of an organization that makes money from the software.

3) Whether the project was forked. WebKit was forked, LLVM was shepherded by Apple into a huge project, but Apple didn't start it. CyanogenMod was forked the other way (from a company to a commercial effort), and then turned back into a different company.

Additionally, some people might start a company to make open source software. And some employees might be paid more making proprietary software, but choose to work somewhere where they can work on open source.

So yes it's very complicated. This quote:

 _It is not charity work, any more than they charitably file taxes._

isn't useful, except for the very small number of people who think that "open source == free == no profit".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> Not sure I agree with these two:

"Salaries in the tech industry are up _a lot_ in the last few years, caused by: a tight labor market, collapse of a cartel organized against the interests of workers, increasing returns to scale at AppAmaGooBookSoft, and the like.

Investor money _does not_ pay most salaries."

But the rest are pretty sage. As one would expect of patio11 :)

</comment><comment><USER75> "collapse of a cartel organized against the interests of workers" \-- to what is this referring?

<comment><USER76> Agreements not to negotiate past a certain amount and not compete too hard for talent, etc. amongst tech companies to reduce wages. Link:

[https://pando.com/2014/03/22/revealed-apple-and-googles- wage...](https://pando.com/2014/03/22/revealed-apple-and-googles-wage-fixing- cartel-involved-dozens-more-companies-over-one-million-employees/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER77> > Technical literacy in the broader population can be approximated with the > Thanksgiving test: what sort of questions do you get at Thanksgiving? That's > the ambient level of literacy.

I didn't understand this one (perhaps due to not being American). Can someone explain it please?

<comment><USER78> Thanksgiving is a holiday where many people have a big family meal. If you have family members who you usually only see once a year, there's a good chance that day is Thanksgiving. So that's when a lot of people tend to field questions from people who 1) care about them enough to ask how their new job is going but 2) have no idea what they really do at work.

<comment><USER79> I thought they meant that they would ask you to fix their computer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER80> """in B2B) taking a business process which exists in many places and markedly decreasing the total cost of people required to implement it."""

thus a big idea search should be on what are common processes. "reading english" seems to be the next big one

</comment><comment><USER81> Your idea is not valuable, at all. All value is in the execution. You think you are an exception; you are not. You should not insist on an NDA to talk about it; nobody serious will engage in contract review over an idea, and this will mark you as clueless.

Love that so much.

</comment><comment><USER82> Whatever this app is, it would be really helpful to not do the jagged edge thing on the top as it makes it completely unreadable for me. I use the top of windows to line up text and without that ability, I basically cannot read the words.

</comment><comment><USER83> > This is not the modal employee,

Is this a misuse of the word "modal"? If not, could someone please explain this definition to me? From context, I'm guessing the author means "typical" perhaps?

<comment><USER84> He does mean typical, but I'm not sure if the definition is correct. Mode of a sequence is the unit occurring most number of times. So the modal employee is supposed to be the most frequently occurring one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER85> I thought this was going to be a list about "life". I was actually pleasantly surprised it was about our industry!

I would still like there to be a list like this about life though.

<comment><USER86> I'll have a go. Here's a few that seem almost axiomatic to me but that I think might be somewhat less so to this crowd:

\- Words are important. Choose them carefully. Hear them carefully.

\- "Tolerating everyone but the intolerant" is no real tolerance at all.

\- Only being "free" to hold your views in private, is no real freedom at all. Freedoms of speech and association and religion _must be public freedoms_ if they are to be meaningful in any real sense.

\- There's a continuum that exists between equality and freedom. Governments and society can more-or-less choose where they sit on the continuum, but can't move more towards one value without trading off some of the other.

\- Prices agreed to by individuals in a free market (read: without coercion) are a statement each individual is making about the value of the good or service being traded. What's a "fair wage" for mowing lawns? What's a "fair price" for a watermelon? How much is "too much" profit for a legal firm? Capitalism is nothing more than a recognition that built into humanity is a _desire to trade_ what you have for what you want, and a declaration that the Free Market is the most economical (read: efficient) way for humans to fulfill that desire. Following on from the previous axiom, you can certainly declare a "fair price for watermelon", but you're removing the freedom of individuals to decide for themselves how they value the world around them.

\- Be highly skeptical of anyone handing out pitchforks. And learn to recognize when you're being handed one in a news article, youtube video, reddit comment, political ad, etc., etc.

\- When you feel like the world is full of people who aren't changing their values fast enough, remember Chesterton's Fence[0]. In the main, the world around you exists the way it does for a reason (or for a plethora of reasons), and if you don't understand that reason, you're less likely to understand what the right fix is.

\- Debt (of all kinds: student, mortgage, business) is a promise you're making about your future. The older, more formal term for a loan is a "promissory note".

\- Before you make any promise, consider your ability to predict and control the future.

\- Constraints are natural pressures, disadvantages, and discomforts that can be helpful in decision-making. Don't avoid painful situations.

(I think those last three make a powerful argument for bootstrapping startups instead of chasing VC funding or debt.)

\- We will always have "bad" laws. There is no one set of guidelines which humanity will ever discover that will cleanly cover all use cases and will be agreed upon as being right by everyone.

\- Humans are moral creatures. Whenever anyone uses the word " _should_ " or " _ought_ " in a sentence, they're making a moral statement. Hawking may be a world leading physicist, but when he declared philosophy to be dead, there's a reason philosopher's all around the world shot milk out their noses[1].

\- You can't legislate morality. But in a democracy, legislation is the lowest-common-denominator of the morality of the governed. This means that just because something is legal, doesn't mean it's moral. It also means that in a society which encourages diversity of values, you'll have less common ground upon which to legislate.

\- Don't act surprised when someone is ignorant of a fact or subject which you know. Help them understand it with humility.

\- Don't hesitate to disclose your ignorance of a subject to someone who can help you learn more about it. They may not want to point out your ignorance, and silently pretending you do understand it only keeps you from learning new things.

\- Corporations are people. Or more precisely, its impossible to separate out the corporate entity's values and behavior from its owners' values and behavior.

\- As much as possible, have your mind made up how you will handle pressure to compromise on your values before you're in a tenuous situation.

\- Don't worry about "missing out". FOMO is terrible justification for doing things you wouldn't otherwise do. Though this isn't an argument against spontaneity.

[0]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton#Chesterton.27...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton#Chesterton.27s_fence)

[1]: [https://www.quora.com/How-are-philosophers-reacting-to- Steph...](https://www.quora.com/How-are-philosophers-reacting-to-Stephen- Hawkings-proclamation-that-philosophy-is-dead)

</comment></comment><comment><USER87> > Technical literacy in the broader population can be approximated with the > Thanksgiving test: what sort of questions do you get at Thanksgiving? That's > the ambient level of literacy.

At my Thanksgiving table there's two professional programmers, a CS student, and a CS professor. While I'm doubtless an extreme example, my general point is that "your Thanksgiving table" is still a bubble. That said, sure, for many it will be _closer_ to representative than friends/coworkers.

</comment><comment><USER88> Anyone want to take a crack at expanding this?:

> The tech industry is fundamentally unserious about how it recruits, hires, > and retains candidates.

<comment><USER89> Given the amount of money and resources that goes into recruiting and hiring, I find it hard to believe that the industry is not serious.

On the other hand, the current approaches clearly don't work very well, and everybody knows it, but nobody seems to be interested in seriously thinking about what we need to do differently. (patio11 and tptacek are notable exceptions)

<comment><USER90> Aline Lerner is interested: [http://blog.alinelerner.com/](http://blog.alinelerner.com/)

<comment><USER91> So her best predictor of future job performance is number of typos on resume. That is my pet peeve when looking at resumes, but it really discriminates against people for whom English is not their native language. On the other hand, didn't have a lot of non native English speakers applying to the positions for which I was hiring back then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER92> I like the notions of specialists and generalists. Generalists tend to under- estimate specialists and vice-versa.

</comment><comment><USER93> Can anyone expound on "collapse of a cartel organized against the interests of workers"?

<comment><USER93> Aha! [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High- Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High- Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation)

</comment></comment><comment><USER94> This is helpful for my Asperger's. I like the part about the coffee money. Thank you!

</comment><comment><USER95> Generally good stuff, some quibbles:

> Your idea is not valuable, at all. All value is in the execution.

Good advice in the main but not 100% accurate. Some ideas are novel and good. In fact, many are. But communicating even good ideas is _difficult_ bordering on impossible, more so for truly novel and innovative ideas. Think about how often an adaptation of an excellent novel translates into an excellent movie. It's rare. But that doesn't mean that novels (or idea) are worthless. It means that execution is hard, it means that communicating ideas is hard. Even if you can spend years turning an excellent idea into a fully fleshed out idea (a novel) it will still be hard to execute it faithfully. And by the same token, most books are pretty mediocre, for example, just as most ideas are mediocre. Trite, repetitive, hackneyed, etc. That doesn't mean all ideas are valueless, just most of them, and it can be difficult to figure that out until you've gotten to execution.

> There is no hidden reserve of smart people who know what they're doing, > anywhere.

This is also mostly true but a bit misleading. It's nice to think that everyone is just struggling along half-assing things the same way you are, and that's true. Mostly. But there are actually a _lot_ of people who really do have their shit together, really do know what they're doing, and are just _better_ at their jobs by a significant margin than most people. It's comforting to think that such people are an illusion, but they are out there, sometimes they aren't even doing glamorous work. The fact that they exist isn't really terribly important (if you're really lucky you might be able to hire them, but you probably won't be that lucky).

What's more important, I think, is that there is no excuse not to try to do better, constantly. If you want to really have a competitive advantage don't worry about hiring the top 1%, rockstars, ninjas, or even necessarily the "10x" workers. Concentrate on fostering a culture of continuous improvement and collaboration. Learn about best practices. Apply them. Build policies, processes, and culture that support doing better. Study what works and what doesn't push towards an environment that fosters doing what works and abandons bad practices. Stop firefighting start doing root cause analysis. Do code reviews regularly, get better at it. Test your code, increase automated testing, increase the quality of testing. Keep moving the bar higher in terms of quality. Figure out how to accelerate development velocity. Move error detection closer to the point of checkin. Never give up raising the bar. Decent developers working as a team with a good process focused on continuous improvement will out-perform rockstars stomping on each other's toes all the time every day of the week, by orders of magnitude.

</comment><comment><USER96> What is the anti-labor cartel he's talking about?

<comment><USER97> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High- Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High- Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation)

</comment></comment><comment><USER98> Which cartel is he referring to?

<comment><USER99> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High- Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High- Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation)

[https://pando.com/2014/03/30/court-docs-google-hiked- wages-t...](https://pando.com/2014/03/30/court-docs-google-hiked-wages-to- combat-hot-young-facebook-after-sheryl-sandberg-refused-to-join-hiring- cartel/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER100> > Your idea is not valuable, at all. All value is in the execution.

Simply not true. Ask the Winklevoss twins.

<comment><USER101> That's a near-perfect example of his point.

<comment><USER102> You are aware, I assume, that the Winklevoss twins were awarded $65 million for "their" idea?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER103> Typos are distracting. I don't know whether "modal" programmers is intentional or a typo for "model".

<comment><USER104> Pretty sure he means "modal" as in mode average.

<comment><USER103> Entirely possible, and I thought so too, but then I bumped into a typo later which made me question it. Dunno.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER105> > _Your idea is not valuable, at all. All value is in the execution._

This is oft repeated, but not always true. Take the Nazis (bear with me).

The Nazis had the best execution _ever_. They almost drowned the whole British army, which had previously conquered the world. While fighting battles all over Europe and being one of the most bombarded country in history, they continued to produce tanks, planes, submarines, operate a bureaucracy until the very end, invent bombs and other systems that befuddled all other nations.

Yet they lost the war. The reason they lost the war is, their _idea_ was so bad, people everywhere were willing to die to make it fail.

An excellent idea can survive a bad execution for some time. A terrible idea will ultimately fail, no matter the execution.

<comment><USER106> Terrible analogy. Nazi execution was horrible post invasion of France. Hitler's conservative generals hadn't foreseen how effective their blitzkrieg tactics were at the beginning of the war. That justified his own delusional view of his own greatness and Nazi superiority, even though he & the Nazi's had nothing to do with the success, it came from german armies brilliant strategies/tactics/training/soldiers and preparation.

So then Hitler stopped listening to his generals, and went on to micromanage the war, and made one terrible decision after another.

• Not invading Britain before starting a war with the USSR, where Germany was outnumbered by over 3-1.

• Focusing the Russian invasion n Moscow instead of the far more important strategic objective of Kursk's oil fields. Not only did Germany needed more oil, but Kursk was also nearly the USSR's only supply. They got close to Kursk, but didn't destroy tthe oil fields when they fell short, and Germany's war efforts was handicapped by oil shortages the rest of the war. Your air force can't use it's superiority if it can't leave the ground, and neither can your tank commanders if their tanks can't start.

• Sending a million man army to attack Stalingrad when it had little strategic value, then abandoned it, losing every single man. When you are outnumbered 3-1, you can't fight wars of attrition, every man counts.

• Rejected the Army's plan to liberate Ukrainians and recruit them to fight as allies against the USSR. This would have almost evened the man-power disadvantage with a fresh supply of soldiers who hated the USSR. Instead he declared them sub-human, ordering them liquidated to make "living space" for Germany, and turned Ukrainian resistance behind German lines into a devastatingly powerful asset of the USSR.

• Ordered the ME-262, by far the worlds fastest fighter, to be launched with bomb mounts that slowed it substantially so it could only be used as fighter bomber, while Germany was being bombed relentlessly and had lost command of it's own skies.

• Wasting huge amounts of resources on wonder-weapons such as the V1, V2, that had almost no impact on the Allies war efforts.

• Also includes the Maus and Tiger Tanks, which sucked resources away from building more of their best tank, the Panther.

<comment><USER105> Most of these examples are strategic mistakes, not execution. Execution means, the ability to do what you set out to do.

Not focusing on the right objective is not, IMHO, an execution problem. It's a vision problem, a leadership failure.

<comment><USER106> Hitler personally controlling movement of units on the eastern front, causing massive traffic jams and misallocations of fuel was clearly an execution issue.

But much of what I wrote above was also an execution issue. Making oil fields a number one priority was an obviously correct decision for the army generals. Not being allowed to do it because of diverted resources was an execution issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> _> Significant advances shipped by the tech industry in the last 20 years include putting the majority of human knowledge in the hands of 40%++ of the world's population, available on-demand, for "coffee money" not "university money."_

Oh, I didn't realize tech invented the library card.

<comment><USER107> As cool as libraries are, and they are cool, if you value your time at even minimum wage rates, they are not "coffee money". That's why you... yes, you, even you... whip out your phone to answer questions that you would never dream of running to the library to answer on the spot. This is a real effect, not an illusion. Friction matters, a lot.

<comment><USER40> Again, all these things people are saying are indeed true, but they also make the university comparison in the original quote something of a red herring.

<comment><USER107> I'm not sure you, or any other of the other commenters in this thread, quite understand what was meant by "university money". "University money" is what it costs to buy scientific journals; in theory anybody can do it, in practice only Universities have both the need and the funding to do it. It isn't that your phone is a university... it is that it has all this information accessible for so dirt cheap that African farmers can get at it, modulo the language barrier.

<comment><USER40> Interesting, thanks for the clarification.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Corporate dev job or startup tech support? - <AUTHOR>

I'm at a crossroads with making a decision about my job search so I wanted to get the HN communities feedback.<p>Would you personally rather take a job at a giant corporate consulting firm where you get trained to program in Java and become a software engineer, or take a much lower paying position at a mature startup (over 300 employees) with awesome culture doing product tech support with a possibility of growing with the company? <comment><USER2> Take the corporate job. The upside when you decide to move on from the corporate job will be so much greater. You might have fun but at the end of the day you will be known as a tech support guy with a company that is barely recognized by anyone.

With the corporate job, you'll have the tile software engineer and you get as good as you want. Once you move on you'll have a lot more jobs to move on to.

It's a sad reality that if you stay small company for a lot of your early career you tend to stay small company for the rest. That's a generalization but it's not far from the truth.

With the corporate job, lets say you are talking about IBM Global Services or Accenture, you'll have the opportunity to apply to interesting roles across Fortune 1000 and Fortune 500 companies without them blinking since you come from a known and reputable place. If you want to go work small company after that, then no harm done, you still can.

</comment><comment><USER3> I absolutely despise working for large corps but this seems like a no brainer. They're paying to teach you to become a Software Engineer?

It's not like this is a life or death decision. If you don't enjoy the job down the road you can quit and go do tech support for thousands of other companies. Thousands of other companies will not hire you and teach you to become a Software Engineer. When I hire developers, unless they're interns, I hire them because they already are Software Engineers.

</comment><comment><USER4> _... he also gave me some of the best advice I 've ever received. Trying to decide whether to major in psychology or art history, I had gone to his office to see what he thought. He squinted and lowered his head. "Is this a hard choice for you?" he demanded. Yes! I cried. "Oh," he said, springing back cheerfully. "In that case, it doesn't matter. If it's a hard decision, then there's always lots to be said on both sides, so either choice is likely to be good on its way. Hard choices are always unimportant."_

Adam Gopnik about Albert Bregman, professor at McGill University, on [http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/01/28/130128fa_fact_...](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/01/28/130128fa_fact_gopnik)

<comment><USER5> This is terrible advice in this instant.

If you want to be a software developer, taking a job as tech support is a bad career move. Our industry will type cast you as a tech support guy and you will be fighting an uphill battle for your first programming job.

Better to take the programming gig for a few years, then go try to find a great startup to work for....especially if you want to be a developer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It depends on where I saw my career going. Was I more interested in learning java or going the product route.

It's also obviously a question of culture. Which would you thrive in?

Me personally? I'm not sure what you mean by product support, but if you mean something like help desk/tech support for a product they make then I can't go that route. I've done it before and I was absolutely miserable.

Between the two choices you gave I'd have to choose the corporate firm and learn java even though I'd probably be more interested at the startup in a different position.

</comment><comment><USER7> I faced one issue with choosing between the two. Startups won't hire junior level people or people without extensive knowledge about the technologies they are using. With most startups they all have very different "stacks" so it is hard to catch up on the all technologies. Startups are trying to get a product up and running quickly for investors or create more value to get more customers. I interviewed at startups that I would love to have worked at and showed knowhow but was never sent an offer. I now work at a huge company with way more flexibility in the projects and time constraints. I love bigger companies as a software engineer for the learning experiences. Needless to say take risks when you are young and have nothing to lose (paraphrasing Steve Jobs).

P.S. I worked at a consultant software firm and it was the worst. I pretty much worked by myself going to clients then coming back. No team atmosphere to spread knowledge and challenges with.

<comment><USER8> +1 to your comment. I'm facing some of the same issues looking for a startup job. I have 2 years of professional experience with Python, and have concentrated on Python jobs, but haven't yet gotten better than a generically warm response, except once when I was brought in for a week-long "audition." (And, in that case, I feel that I just barely missed the mark and they were able to find someone just slightly more suitable to their requirements.)

Since then, I've started learning Django (as I feel that's probably the easiest route toward getting a job), and made some progress, but the state of Django tutorials being what it is, I'm starting to hit a wall with it. To that end, I've registered ReadySetDjango.com (no content there yet, so no need to bother visiting) and am working on changing that situation.

And I wonder if the situation is significantly different with larger startups, of, say 100-ish employees. At that level, it seems like they can afford to hire for demonstrated ability in related areas rather than expecting one to be able to ramp up in 2 days.

Anyone who has some advice or input on my situation, I welcome you to email me (contact info in profile). I'm wondering if the results I'm getting are because I'm just not what they want and I'm wasting my breath, or if I'm not presenting myself correctly.

PS I live in the Bay Area and would love to meet up with any of you who are also.

<comment><USER7> I just learn Python/Django for a side project over the last couple months and launching tonight. I like it way more than rails, that's for sure.

If you went to a big university try Google, Facebook, etc. They don't care what you code in, they just want to see if you understand programming fundamentals and problem solving capabilities. The bay area is flooded with Junior and Entry level developers so it is hard to land a spot. You have to go to networking places. The best way to find a job is by meeting someone who is hiring.

come listen to Jeff Atwood speak (created Stackoverflow.com) [https://www.eventbrite.com/e/jeff-atwood-founder-of-stack- ov...](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/jeff-atwood-founder-of-stack-overflow-and- discourse-talks-online-community- tickets-10013896835?utm_campaign=order_confirm&ref=eemailordconf&utm_medium=email&utm_source=eb_email&utm_term=eventname)

<comment><USER8> Unfortunately, I went to Small No Name College for undergrad, Large But Not Terribly Well Known University for grad school, and didn't major in CS or Software Engineering either time. So, yeah, I'm showing up to many, many networking events these days. :P In fact, I'm writing this from the Bay Area Python meetup where Guido is speaking.

<comment><USER7> I went to a no name community college and learned everything pretty much outside of school. I have found it not to be such a problem. People are more interested in what you have created or what you are capable of building.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> dude, listen up, I had a similar situation and went with the small startup. BAD MOVE. you're going to be expendable. Doing some time at megacorp-x yet learning production level java does not sound like a bad move (my alternative was not as cool)

</comment><comment><USER10> Unless you really need the money, it's always best to find the position where you will grow more. What skills will you pick up at the consulting firm? What skills will you pick up at the startup?

</comment><comment><USER11> Become a software engineer.</comment>


Show HN: Close chat threads like issues - <AUTHOR> https://threadtracker.kickoffpages.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hello HN!

we had the problem that we always lost important information in our chat history. At the same time, it was hard to follow-up after a day. One needs to read the whole chat-history linearly. At the same time we felt, that this was not a problem with github issues. So why not try to combine the advantages?

This is a working prototype, you can get access via a waiting list.

What do you think about the idea in general?

We're happy to answer any questions!</comment>


The Computer Science Rapper - <AUTHOR> http://www.coderjournal.com/2008/04/computer-science-rapper/

<comment><USER2> _Hilarious_ song. Monzy was my TA for a class last year.</comment>


Google Adwords Tactics for Startups & Launches - <AUTHOR> http://ppcblog.com/adwords-for-startups/ <comment><USER2> I do heavy Adwords analysis with my startup. One of the more interesting things I've come to discover though is that facebook provides much higher bang for the buck in regards to CPC and CPM (based on my limited budget, I can not saturate either FB or Google for my target keywords). However - the traffic behavior from users coming out of FB is very different than those from Google (and the Google ads network). For my current business I found that while FB was cheaper - traffic from google was more worthwhile (measured by conversions). I think that there are certain types of businesses which would do far better on FB ad network then on Googles however, and am flighting ideas across both.

<comment><USER3> It depends what type of business you are I guess: If you want click through -> landing -> sale pretty much then Google is going to win easy. If you want to say build up a fan page or place people on your website without exactly directly monetizing their visit straight away then Facebook has some promise. With Facebook I just don't think that buy intent will ever be there like it is when someone is searching for a product on Google.

<comment><USER4> We have a social game so Facebook works quite well. People are in a relaxed state looking for entertainment.

<comment><USER3> Yeah definitely, that would be right at the Facebook end of the spectrum and probably be hard to effectively market on adwords.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _Wondering if adding a new feature to your product or service will really make a difference to sales? Try running Adwords traffic to a split test pitting your typical landing page against a variant that highlights the potential new feature._

I don't get it. You advertise the feature but don't actually build it? That sounds pretty annoying.</comment>


Linus and his buggy Wi-Fi drivers - <AUTHOR> http://cheekycoder.com/2014/12/linus-and-his-buggy-wifi/ <comment><USER2> Linus should not be writing drivers for your device because you want it. It's manufacturer's job. OS community could write those drivers properly if they had good documentation. Most of those manufacturers _don 't_ want that drivers, because that would mean releasing documentation of their device. This means community must write drivers by reverse-engineering devices which will always cause problems.

Why manufacturers think their documentation is so important is beyond me.</comment>


Show HN: My Minimum Viable Beta - Hashtagify Pro - <AUTHOR> http://pro.hashtagify.me/home/index

<comment><USER3> I like the data that you're collecting. However, some of the visualizations are ineffective. Perhaps it sells in your target market, but things like bubble charts and gauges are horrible for showing data. You have pie charts but then proceed to display the numbers on the graph. Why do that? A table would have sufficed. Pie graphs don't demonstrate much other than that people can't figure out angles.

If you're making a metrics site you should look in to some of Edward Tufte's works. Things like sparklines (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Tufte#Sparkline>) allow you to display a large amount of information in a very compact area, and with high resolution. I look at "Average daily tweets" and see 22.5. Great. Was today a low day or high day? If you give me the history in something such as a sparkline, I can tell if this is increasing, decreasing, or simply an off day. Did Christmas influence the number of tweets? If I go back tomorrow I won't be able to see today's information in quite the same form, which may be what I wanted.

Sorry if this seems like a rant, but I see a lot of data visualizations at work. I drown in metrics, charts, and graphs. Most have information I want, which is why I look at them. However, I can't always get the information I need.

Just make sure your customer gets the information they need out of your graphs, not just what you want to show them.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your suggestions.

The "Executive Summary", where you see gauges and pie charts, is where you should get at a quick glance an Idea about how your campaign is going: If the trend is good or bad, and you your tracked influencers contributed to that trend.

To signal a positive, negative or neutral trend, I didn't find a better alternative to gauges. Please notice that the actual numbers the gauges show aren't easy to interpret - they're related to the steepness of the linear regression of the daily reach. So what I'm actually communicating could be expressed as "a little positive" "strongly positive" "strongly negative", but a gauge look good to me for that. Reading the number isn't that significant per se.

I also remember a heated discussion here on HN about pie charts, but I'm still convinced that they're good when you need to show the relative impact of a few alternatives.

Including sparklines in the first page could be a good idea though, I'll have to see that with my target market - for now I only had one reference customer to talk to, so I reckon that that isn't a good statistical sample :)

More detailed data is in fact shown in subsequent tabs.

Last thing: The bubble graph isn't good if you need to really compare the dimension shown with the bubble radius, but the other two dimensions here are much more important and for those I think this graph works really well. What alternative would you suggest to show three dimensions in a single chart?

Thanks!

<comment><USER3> I had found the data in your other tabs. Sparklines aren't necessarily reserved to summaries; I didn't mean to give that impression.

As an alternative to gauges, you could try a single horizontal bar, with background coloring for what you have as red, yellow, and green (picture a sparkline but as a bar). It shows the same information in less space and lets you show other related data to the side.

But as I said, if it sells disregard everything I've said. There's a discrepancy between the people who buy this stuff and the people who use it, and obviously you're trying to pitch to the guy with the money. People like pie graphs for instance. You probably shouldn't ditch the pie, even though a 4x2 table would show the same data.

Clustered bar graphs are generally an alternative to bubble charts, but it depends what you're representing whether that works or if you should split the data into multiple graphs.

I have to ask what that graph is really showing. Do I read it from the center of the dot? 'Nodejscommunity' is more specialized and more influencing than 'ryah' by that interpretation. Or should 'nodejscommunity' be more influencing because it has more followers?

Another question to ponder is whether the executive summary is a summary or dashboard. At my company the definition of a dashboard is something that doesn't scroll. So for whatever resolution you design for the data should fit on one page without scrolling. That would allow for someone to quickly open the page and make inferences about your data. A summary of course contains more information, but still at a high level.

Found an example for a dashboard: [http://media.juiceanalytics.com/images/BonaVista_dashboard.p...](http://media.juiceanalytics.com/images/BonaVista_dashboard.png) It even includes the horizontal bar I'm referring to.

<comment><AUTHOR> As this is in beta, if it sells or not is something I still don't know - <USER2> first I'll see how it goes with these kinds of graphs, but hearing more ideas is very useful to be able to do variations and see if and how they matter. For now my main concern is bugfixing and preparing to be able to sell, but then I'll work again on the refinement of the product itself.

In my summary I made the intentional choice of showing only the essential info. I hope to find out soon enough if that is exactly the information that my target is most interested in - my prospective customer likes it. But that's just one.

As for it being a dashboard or not, with content that is all above the fold... I could make the page liquid by adapting the size of the gauges and pie charts to your resolution, or just reduce their default sizes some to have everything above the fold with most resolutions. I'll consider that.

For the influence graph: Yes, the position on the axes is that of the center of the dot, so ryah in the diagram is less influential than nodejscommunity even having almost 10 times its followers. How is that? I don't calculate influence only based on your followers, but also on how much you tweet (in general and on the specific subject), how much you're retweeted or cited... that's why it's interesting to see more dimensions in that graph. The dimensions aren't independant from one another, and from that graph you can get a very good idea not just about how influential a user is, but also why/how.

But you made me realize that I need to explain that graph even better. I'll try to address this in my next iteration ;)

EDIT PS: I'll also add that the horizontal bars you linked are a good alternative especially if you have a target to reach. With negative/positive numbers and no target, I should try them to see how they work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Some months ago I created hashtagify.me - just because it looked like a very interesting idea that would allow me to experiment with node.js and redis and to get some attention.

While working on other ideas, I was contacted by a marketer that needed a specific kind of analysis for Twitter campaigns. Hashtagify Pro is my solution to his - and I hope enough others' - problem.

This is still a closed beta, but I'd like to get all the feedback I can get - be generous with your comments, ideas and criticism!

EDIT: If you're interested in the service, I'm looking for beta testers, so just ask - here or writing to daniele.mazzini(at)gmail.com - and I'll send you an unlimited beta account.

</comment><comment><USER4> looks like a great product. I think the demo interface you have is great and fairly easy to use.

I'm not your target customer, but I think the demo / tutorial might be a little daunting with all of the numbers around everywhere.

I also think there might need to be a little bit more explanation about what those individual dashboards mean or what type of action you can take against it.

best of luck with this.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I too had second thoughts about the number of "instructions", but I also thought that those who are really (ie practically) interested will want in-depth explanations. Let's see what others think ;)

For a more "strategical" explanation I was also thinking about writing a short (free) ebook. I don't know if a contextual help would be a good place to explain that kind of things...</comment></comment>


Who is the man living in Fukushima evacuation zone? - <AUTHOR> http://boingboing.net/2011/08/05/who-is-the-man-living-in-fukushima-evacuation-zone.html <comment><USER2> Awsome post! You have intrigued me to dig into your story. He is one brave SOB (or one stupid SOB). Either way, holding a martial arts stance in the middle of a highly radioactive area makes me say mind over matter! I hope you got his contact info, would be nice to do a follow up in a few years to see if he is still around!

<comment><USER3> How on _earth_ is it an example of mind over matter? Getting irradiated is not hard. It requires no willpower to endure. The only "suffering" you feel while receiving a lethal dose (not counting the part where you die later) is the taste of pennies and prickling on your face.

Nor is he demonstrating cleverness that allows him to escape the radiation- indeed, while stubbornness may be on display here, it has absolutely nothing to do with "mind over matter".

<comment><USER4> Well, if you could use the power of your mind to generate a field that repelled radioactive particles...</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What if insurance could subsidize fruits and vegetables - <AUTHOR> 1. obesity cost a fortune
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-pays-high-price-for-obesity/
2. fruits and vegetables are 0 points on WW
http://www.weightwatchers.com/util/art/index_art.aspx?tabnum=1&art_id=59781
3. what if insurance, medicaid could give a gift card only used for fruits and vegetables? <comment><USER2> Have you ever created a blackmarket that trades fruit for smack? Because that's how you do it.</comment>


Should you go out? A 60-second questionnaire - <AUTHOR> https://jimmeruk.com/stayathome/index.html <comment><USER2> I'd like to share this with other people, but the potentially-offensive language makes it so that I can't. My personal rule is that if I wouldn't say it in front of a kindergarten class, I won't put it down in print since I don't know who will be exposed to my writings.</comment>


Goethe's Theory of Colors - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goethe%27s_Theory <comment><USER2> "Newton's error.. was trusting math over the sensations of his eye."

A trait very common amongst scientists. I tried to explain to my peers that you could see blue as lightened darkness and yellow and red as darkened light.

This makes a lot of sense perceptually, if you look at the sky and the sun as it transitions from night to day.

But all they had to say was newton and wavelengths and prisms. That stuff is all fine, but it does't talk about how we perceive colour.

<comment><USER3> This "lightening" and "darkening" you describe actually makes a lot of sense in terms of another way of connecting phycis and color, if we by "lightened" mean "higher color temperature", and for "darkened" "lower color temperature".

(Color temperature according to Wikipedia is "temperature of an ideal black- body radiator that radiates light of comparable hue to that of the light source")

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Seems like he did at least one thing right: not mention indigo, unlike newton who used this not-even-tertiary color as a 7th color rather than e.g. put cyan between green and blue (ROYGCBV would have made more sense than ROYGBIV, color-wise)

</comment><comment><USER5> I remember an article about a study in which some psychologists tried to estimate the IQ of the most important scholars, writers and scientist of all time.

As far a I remember Goethe had the second highest score, right after Leibniz.

<comment><USER6> German psychologists, I assume, or "of the most important _German_ scholars"?

Newton or Archimedes vs Leibniz? I wouldn't dare make that call.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> > "As Feigenbaum understood them, Goethe's ideas had true science in them. > They were hard and empirical. Over and over again, Goethe emphasized the > repeatability of his experiments. It was the perception of colour, to > Goethe, that was universal and objective. What scientific evidence was there > for a definable real-world quality of redness independent of our > perception?"

In light of the recent scientific crisis it's interesting to look Gothe's work with new eyes.

<comment><USER7> It seems like we have many crises underway. Why focus on one as if it has a different source and meaning than another?</comment></comment>


100 Million Elderly: China's Demographic Time Bomb - <AUTHOR> http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2091308,00.html

<comment><USER2> RE: Nursing homes. Confucius did not see this shit comin'</comment>


Should children have the right to vote?  - <AUTHOR> http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=389

<comment><USER2> This was a hot-button issue all through my childhood, then somehow I lost interest once I actually gained the right to vote. ;-) I think that's the main reason why there's less pressure to fix this. Unlike with other oppressed groups, children eventually grow out of it, with no effort required on their own part. There isn't time for hopelessness and resentment to bubble over into an actual movement for change, because the people mostly likely to lead such a movement (teenagers aged 14-18) will be able to vote in 4 years anyway.

But it's worth remembering that this is _not_ fair, it's _not_ just, and it's ultimately bad for American democracy. Do you think our public school system would be in such a shitty state if children could vote? How about the national debt, which is a transfer of wealth from current generations to future generations? Maybe we would've fixed social security had the generation most likely to get screwed by it actually had voting power?

Seniors often have mental capacities that are not much better than children (Florida 2000, anyone?), yet the AARP is a massive political force, and seniors turn out to vote in disproportionate numbers. It's pretty lopsided that children do not and cannot have such representation.

<comment><USER3> One should be careful when making arguments like "do you think x current problem would happen if y happened?". There are a lot more in play than just voting rights when it comes to country-scale issues like national debt.

Like I wrote in one the last comments in the blog, you should instead consider: given that all systems have good and bad points (and loopholes, etc), which would you prefer, the current one or the system where children can vote? At the end of the day, it's a highly subjective choice, and given that this is a binary choice, the worst case scenario is that we get the second best option.</comment></comment>


How YouTube killed an extension with 300,000 users - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/07/21/how-youtube-killed-an-extension-with-300000-users/

<comment><USER2> That's what happens if you try to do something in the Google infrastructure that Google doesn't want someone to do.

IMHO, that makes Chrome a crippled platform subject to sudden application or addon deaths subject to Google's whim.</comment>


ENCRYPTION BLOCKING IS OCCURRING TODAY AND THE PROPOSED RULES WOULD Not STOP IT [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1312218/golden-frog-comments-fcc-gn-14-28-final.pdf

<comment><USER2> "Users are not receiving the open, neutral, and uninterrupted service to which the Commission says they are entitled."

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> TL;DR: Some mobile ISPs are doing a man in the middle on SMTP connections and stripping out STARTTLS. The FCC's proposed rules wouldn't prohibit this (even though they clearly ought to).</comment>


How to Lose Weight - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@AaronBleyaert/how-to-lose-weight-in-4-easy-steps-1f135f7e1dec <comment><USER2> I haven't read good writing like this in a long time. Granted, I've been had a lot of those same feelings earlier in life and managed them in similar ways. But still, the writing made you feel what he felt.

<comment><USER3> It had me gripped.</comment></comment>