Bootstrapping a SaaS Startup from Scratch  - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@cliffordoravec/the-epic-guide-to-bootstrapping-a-saas-startup-from-scratch-by-yourself-part-1-4d834e1df8c1#.qf7sgvbhu <comment><USER3> "Instead of coding, the vast majority of your time is going to be spent marketing, selling, optimizing funnels, and providing support. Those are the things that get (and keep) customers. Those are the things that you do when you run a business. Not writing code."

This is the best part of this article for me. A lot of solo bootstrappers don't get it. They struggle. But the fact is that you have to market and sell. Talk to customers and do the shittiest but most important thing: Support. No matter how much automation you create, clients will send you emails and say "I cannot do anything. please help" before even explaining what exactly is broken.

There is a lot of dirty work you have to do every day as a bootstrapper and you get no relief from it. You can surely add team members or "outsource" some of it, but you can never outsource talking to clients (both pre sales and post).

<comment><USER4> Agreed. When I started writing my SaaS app, I thought the 25000+ lines of code and 80+ database tables would be the hardest work, and that the marketing would be a breeze afterwards.

How wrong I was! The marketing aspect proved to be just as difficult and brain taxing as the coding. In fact, I found it almost impossible to move ahead until I decided to bring on board a co-founder with a marketing background (after a full year of struggling). It was only then that I realised that marketing and sales is a whole art form not unlike programming. Both disciplines need focus and constant energy to bring about results.

<comment><USER5> I wonder where I can find such marketing partner and what's the expected compensation in term of equity and whatnot?

<comment><USER6> I got into marketing through reading about the startup world (I think some of the people on HN would be surprised at how much of it is a discipline once you get passed the BS-ers), and come more from a hacker perspective.

If you're bringing them on as a co-founder, then they're a co-founder, equity and all. It's a valuable skill as much as programming and sales are (if you're actually building a business, that is).

The issue you'll find is that most of the places to find them will be full of aforementioned BS-ers, or self-titled growth hackers. Have a small LinkedIn hunt at marketers who work in-house at a semi-large organisation - in a lot of places there's a lot of hunger to do more, but large orgs tie your hands and often see marketing as a "support" function over and above a business driving one.

It might also be easier to find a part timer who doesn't want to give up the above security, but wants to exercise their creative muscles, depending on what stage/size biz you've got and your reqs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Hey everyone! Clifford here, the author of the article. Just thought I'd jump in and say thanks to everyone for all the awesome feedback - you've all seriously made my day (and probably even year for that matter)!

<comment><USER8> Nice work Clifford. Any reason you used a fictional SAAS example rather than the real Tamboo story?

<comment><USER7> When I started out writing the guide, I actually didn't have any references to Tamboo - it was just me writing about approach using some fictional examples.

I posted Part 1 on Barnacles ([https://barnacl.es](https://barnacl.es)) in October (I believe) and a lot of people gave me good feedback but one of the things they said was that it was really hard to find a link to my site and that I was nuts for not talking more about my direct experiences with Tamboo since that was something they really wanted to know more about.

So in the later parts of the guide I do talk about some very specific Tamboo things and went away from the generalized example in the first part.

I honestly wasn't planning for it to spread to a larger audience like HN (this is a total surprise that's just flooring me right now!), so I never bothered to go back and change Part 1 to use a more Tamboo-ish example.

<comment><USER8> OK this makes sense. I would really encourage you to do another write up of the full Tamboo story especially all the nasty warty bits that all real business stories have.

<comment><USER7> Oh, and there are plenty of those! I've been trying to incorporate experiences as I go, and there's a good amount of nasty experiences I make mention of in this post: [https://medium.com/@cliffordoravec/expect-everything-to- be-u...](https://medium.com/@cliffordoravec/expect-everything-to-be- unexpected-883642c0d7c#.ib3g08xui)

But I will definitely look to put something together that incorporates more of what you're talking about - thanks for the input!

<comment><USER9> I just submitted that one since it was my favorite. Especially the image metaphor at the beginning. :) I just saw this comment but extra references can't hurt ya.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> _> Some of it may seem simple. Don't be fooled. There is complexity in simple things._

I've interviewed 80+ founders (mostly bootstrapped) for [https://IndieHackers.com](https://IndieHackers.com), and people sometimes come away from reading an interview thinking, "Well that person had it easy." We tend to underestimate the importance of the things we don't -- the part of the iceberg that's beneath the surface. In truth, the amount of work people are doing behind the scenes is often of staggering importance.

For example, Jason Grishkoff ran his popular music blog Indie Shuffle for 7 years before spinning off a successful SaaS app: SubmitHub. It's easy to look at that and conclude that he had it easy because of his blog. But Jason spent a grueling 4 months sending 1000 hand-crafted emails to his target customers in order to get SubmitHub off the ground. That's neither an easy nor an obvious path to take.

I see lots of people quit after a few weeks/months of not finding a magic bullet, so it's important to realize that there is no magic bullet for most companies.

<comment><USER5> How ironic of you showing in the particular post. He's precisely referring to people like you and your illegitimate interviewees at IndieHackers who all claim to be overnight successes.

<comment><USER10> Nobody on Indie Hackers has ever claimed to be an overnight success, and every interview is transparent about the details so that readers can see exactly how long it took.

<comment><USER11> To be fair, he has a point. The indyhackers Submit hub article is sub-titled:

"Jason Grishkoff built a $55,000/mo SaaS business helping musicians promote their music, and he did it in under a year. Here's how."

<comment><USER10> Well, he started his business in November 2015, started charging in February 2016, and hit $55k/mo by November 2016. I don't see any hyperbole/dishonesty in saying he built his business in under a year given that he actually did so. Sometimes rapid growth happens!

Of course him being able to accomplish this feat stems from skills/knowledge he acquired earlier (his blog, music industry experience, learning to code, learning to design, etc), but that's true of any business. Nobody starts from scratch, and the interviews cover people's histories pretty thoroughly.

<comment><USER12> No he started his original blog years earlier, he pivoted/made a new product and sold it to the same audience. That's like saying google built the macbook pro 16 in under a year.

<comment><USER10> This is misinformed on a number of points, unfortunately.

First, Jason didn't "pivot" from Indie Shuffle. It's a separate standalone business that he never shut down, and in fact continues to spend many hours running even today.

Second, SubmitHub's user base consists of hundreds of other blogs and labels, whom he spent a painstaking 4 months sending 1000+ personalized emails to trying to convince them to sign up. They're responsible for the vast majority of his revenue. He did not simply keep "the same audience".

This is exactly what I was talking about when I said that people read these stories and conclude that everything was easy.

<comment><USER12> No one belittling the amount of work he put into it, quite the contrary, where saying indiegogo attempts to make things look more successful in shorter periods of time when that's not the case.

The rapid success of submitHub is directly correlated to success of IndieShuffle, which he spent an immense amount of time building.

<comment><USER10> Success in any area is _always_ directly correlated to some earlier knowledge or skills which took time to develop. The fact that SubmitHub's success is "correlated" with Indie Shuffle's is such an extreme standard that, using it, we could never assign a starting point to anything.

Everyone is quite aware that founders acquire domain knowledge, contacts/network, programming ability, business acumen, ideas, etc before the very day they start their company. I know you mean well, but this comment thread itself suggests the only people misled by the title were those who mistakenly believed that SubmitHub was a simple continuation of Indie Shuffle.

If SubmitHub's users had simply come from Indie Shuffle, or if Jason had simply pivoted Indie Shuffle into SubmitHub, then I would agree with you. But neither is the case.

<comment><USER12> I quote, directly from your site, from the Jason Grishkoff's own explanation of how he got his first users:

 _I always knew I was sitting on a great source of users with the ~300 daily emails, and sure enough, as soon as I started pointing them to SubmitHub they latched on...

...Given Indie Shuffle's prominence in the digital music industry, word spread fast. _

> If SubmitHub's users had simply come from Indie Shuffle, or if Jason had > simply pivoted Indie Shuffle into SubmitHub, then I would agree with you. > But neither is the case.

That's exactly what happened, isn't it? No one is belittling it, no one is claiming he didn't work for it. We're simply saying, SubmitHub wasn't successful over night.

<comment><USER10> > That's exactly what happened, isn't it?

Not quite. I suppose I just know more of what happened behind the scenes than is apparent in the text-based interview, because I recorded a podcast episode with Jason afterwards. Two things:

1) Yes, Indie Shuffle's users latched onto SubmitHub, but Indie Shuffle is just one of 250+ blogs and labels whose readers use SubmitHub. It's a small percentage of the total revenue and users. 2) Yes, others in the industry knew about Indie Shuffle, but Jason had to spend months and months sending cold emails and doing sales in order to land other blogs and labels as customers.

I agree with you that it didn't happen overnight. And I also don't think you're belittling what Jason did, at least not intentionally. My only point is that it's easy to conclude that the surface level details of any business' story played a much bigger role than they actually did.

In this case, Indie Shuffle was crucial for Jason understanding the problem, coming up with the idea, and even beta testing the product. But the user acquisition responsible for the massive sales happened the hard way, and it happened in the last year.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > If you want to feel good about yourself, go listen to one of the startup > gurus out there that will be more than happy to spoon feed you some > entreporn.

I love it. Hope this stays on the front page for a while. It's both motivating as well as demotivating; that's how you know it's for real :)

Props to the author, fantastic read and echoes my startup experiences to a tee!

<comment><USER4> Echoes my experience as well! Frankly, I am getting tired of all the spruikers who tout the "Just get an email list together to make a bazillion dollars a day" type rubbish. Or the "just work really really hard and it will rain money" type posts.

Truth is, the grind (especially in the early days) is incredibly difficult and soul wearing. This article does a good job of articulating that.

<comment><USER13> Early last year, I was very actively working on [http://www.gameref.io/](http://www.gameref.io/) and I had never done any kind of early-stage marketing before. I remember sending literally hundreds upon hundreds of (hand-crafted) emails to bloggers, influencers, magazines, shows etc.

Even though the project is basically dead now, those few months of absolutely intense grind were very formative. I had always had the "business-y" co- founder before, and this was my first solo flight so to speak. It was SO MUCH WORK[1], but it was absolutely awesome getting interviewed by PCGamer, or Polygon, or having hardware manufacturers reach out for meetings, or being asked to speak at conferences.

Don't get me wrong, I love my day job as a typical run-of-the-mill engineer, but I'll always be addicted to that kind of start-up high :)

[1] I can't emphasize this enough!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> In Part 3 of the series[0] he hits home pretty hard. Often when I have an idea for something I also take that "opportunity" to learn something new or interesting, something I don't do at my day job

> Use Java/.NET/PHP/Rails/Perl/VB in your day job? Then > Java/.NET/PHP/Rails/Perl/VB it is.

> I don't care if you don't know ASP.NET MVC and only know WebForms. Just use > WebForms. Does that suck? Yes, it does. But do it anyways.

> Learn something else once you're making money and you can afford to pay > yourself the time to learn something else.

> I once spent three months learning production-grade Scala for a project I > thought it would be awesome for. That project never got off the ground, and > now I make $0.00 a year from having learned Scala.

...

> Take a lesson. Use whatever you know.

> The same thing goes for architectural concerns.

> Microservices? STOP.

> Crazy ass front-end stuff with ReactJS or Angular2 with TypeScript? STOP.

> How about some hot new NoSQL platform? STOP.

> What about going cloud with AWS or Heroku? STOP.

I've learned a lot, made little, and most of my extracurricular activities/skills have basically been funneled back into my day job.

[0]: [https://hackernoon.com/make-it-rain-building-an-mvp-for- fun-...](https://hackernoon.com/make-it-rain-building-an-mvp-for-fun-and- profit-part-3-of-the-epic-guide-to-bootstrapping-be2b00f697c9#.cx9jfkf1d)

<comment><USER15> > _Use Java /.NET/PHP/Rails/Perl/VB in your day job? Then > Java/.NET/PHP/Rails/Perl/VB it is._

Another way to put this (that I've seen on HN a handful of times so bear with me) is that it depends what the product is for?

If you only know C# but want to learn Go:

\- Do you want to make money? Write it in C# \- Do you want to learn a new language, struggle, (most likely) produce little value, and scrap the whole thing a half dozen times in two months? Write it in Go

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> So much truth in this series. A lot of what he talks about I can back up with my own experience building and running SaaS apps. "I want you to understand first hand that building a SaaS startup is mostly a marketing optimization problem — not something that you can just code your way out of."

Part 2 & 3 can be found here

[https://medium.com/@cliffordoravec/the-no-bs-approach-to- bui...](https://medium.com/@cliffordoravec/the-no-bs-approach-to-building- your-saas-startups-launch-list-part-2-of-the-epic-guide- to-8cc371be772c#.ruedms8fs)

[https://hackernoon.com/make-it-rain-building-an-mvp-for- fun-...](https://hackernoon.com/make-it-rain-building-an-mvp-for-fun-and- profit-part-3-of-the-epic-guide-to-bootstrapping-be2b00f697c9#.umcnekiie)

</comment><comment><USER17> I especially appreciated this:

"Think of building your SaaS app like a game of chess. You want to win the game with the least number of moves possible, but you have to think about how each of your moves potentially affects the overall game (and your chances of winning)."

The analogy is even better with a one-person SaaS startup because you really can only make one move at a time (you can only do one thing at a time). The value in this series of articles is to get you to think strategically about those early moves and not to waste too much time thinking about the moves in the future that you currently have no visibility into.

</comment><comment><USER11> The whole series is painfully accurate; glad to see someone telling it like it is.

That aside, article is actually not as anti-establishment as the author makes out -- unless your source of prevailing wisdom is from click-baity 4 Hour Work Weak style articles. But I doubt any serious founder puts any stock in that stuff. There's a lot of valuable info to be learned from high quality sources like Steve Blank's articles, or even a good MBA entrepreneurship class.

<comment><USER18> I have mixed feelings about this. The 4 Hour Work Week created my "why" for me that's kept me going through thick and thin. I definitely realize that it's a ton more work than it's made out to be (and while Tim Ferriss simplifies what it takes, he doesn't downplay the amount of work involved).

My company is also at a point where my business partner and I could reasonably step away and spend 4 hours a week literally running the business but of course, that's not what business is about, it's about helping our customers and we work hard every day to do that.

Think my "issue" here is I was one of the people who only had that source of prevailing wisdom for a long time and while I can't say it helped me create the business, it did create the dream that led to me starting, and powering through, what I currently do.

(also, while my partner and I both work hard on the project we both happen to be on a tropical island in Thailand at the moment ... but it's 8 am and beautiful and I'm sitting here on HN :-D )

<comment><USER19> In my experience, that "tropical island" trope goes hand in hand with the "4 hour week" BS.

I lived in tropical Thailand for 2 years (wife had a job there; now we live in Korea). And let me tell you, you'll get bored out of your mind sooner rather than later, and find yourself "sitting here on HN" more often than you'd like to admit.

Creative people live for the thrill of being "in the zone", utilizing their potential to the max. Tropical surroundings or "4 hour weeks" have surprisingly little to do with that.

<comment><USER18> It's not my first time here. I can't say I'd stay here long term but it's good for focusing for a few months with high quality of life and good balance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > This might be going a little too far, but at the same time it's probably not > going far enough: Code is the least important thing about a SaaS business.

This is true about software businesses in general, not just SaaS businesses. Arguably more so for enterprise products where all that matters is smiling faces.

None of your customers care about your beautiful build-test-CI-deploy pipeline and unless it's actually saving you time to add new features[1] it's not worth it.

[1]: _Shocking twist: It does save time!_

</comment><comment><USER21> "Start Small, Stay Small" is a great book that really goes into detail about this. Highly recommend it!

(No affiliation, just really like it)

</comment><comment><USER22> Good article on the dangers of starting a business without actually knowing anything about how to do business. I've been reading "The E-Myth Revisited" and it's been really incredibly helpful in showing all the common pitfalls that folks fall into when trying to start up their own business, usually using the same logic of "These jokers don't know what they're doing, I'm gonna start my own thing and do it the RIGHT way!"

Highly recommend everyone check it out before starting a new business. I've been helping my father with his own small business, which is a bit of a total mess. Some of the advice in this book has been incredibly illuminating, regarding why so many small businesses are structured to fail, rather than aiming for success from day 1. Between that and a book like "The Personal MBA", I think that would be a solid background before getting anything off the ground.

I don't work for any of these folks or the authors, they've just made a big positive impact in the way I think about business.

</comment><comment><USER23> 'Startups for the Rest of Us' seem like a decent podcast in that area.

[http://www.startupsfortherestofus.com](http://www.startupsfortherestofus.com)

</comment><comment><USER24> Most of your "heck yes" people will disappear or forget anything about having that conversation within a few days as well.

Also, discount anyone who has any reason to please you. Their responses are often biased and not helpful towards validation.

<comment><USER8> This is true. They can still be useful if you can interview them in depth to determine why they are saying "heck yes". When doing this make sure to ask them about other services, especially failed ones. This will help you work out if they love your service or are just the type to say yes to everyone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I chuckle as I read these comments. Seems like you guys just needed a Marketing Monkey! ;) I could replace the word "marketer" and insert "developer" and that would be my experience. I've been bootstrapping a startup and thought it would be easy to hire a developer - a code monkey - who could knock out some code. But I ran into a few BSers who took me for quite a bit of money - hard learned lessons. More than anything, I want to find a co-founder with complementary skills and who shares the same vision and passion. But then, if this was so easy, everyone could and would do it. Therein lies the rub. I see many amazing ideas generated from developers that fail due to a lack of skilled Business Monkeys. And, likewise, until I found a few good devs, I was not able to get my idea to the market. But now that we got our SaaS startup to market, I concur with the other comments here about how a majority of time is spent with customers, engaging in support functions. It sucks, but it's very instructive. Those interactions add value to our business and make the product stronger. Keep up the great work and don't give up the fight. Success won't come quickly, but it will come to those who are persistent and who persevere.

</comment><comment><USER26> Hey Clifford,

I just read your blog posts regarding real SaaS experience. I'm a fellow side project sole founder bootstrapper. I launched linkpeek.com 4 years ago to Hacker news and earned the number 1 position and had exactly 0 sign ups. The struggle is real.

I'm sort of intrigued about tamboo, and I want to see what I would get if I signed up. But the urgency of the 24 hours makes me afraid to sign up when I don't have downtime to tinker with your tool.

What you should do for tamboo:

        * create a couple quick animated gifs of your UI and recordings. Put them on your homepage  / landing page.

        * create a couple youtube videos showing what the recordings look like, a prime example would be the video which helped you debug the sign up flow and then a follow up with the fix!

I have some example UI/UX gifs on remarkbox.com and I used licecap on the mac, but there are linux alternatives.

PS: you should remove this part - it smells like bullshit -

"That's why I'm giving you a free 24-hour pass to use Tamboo on your website - but only if you try it out today."

PSS:

Your contact form is busted and won't post, and it takes like 1m for it to reply that "something went wrong. please try again."

</comment><comment><USER27> This article is spot on and just so timely for me. I just signed up for adwords after finding it tough to reach my target customer segment on FB. Never under-estimate the challenge of reaching your target market and convincing them to buy.

<comment><USER8> Is your target customer in the small and medium size market? If so you will struggle finding any scalable pay per click method that is cost effective if your lifetime customer value is under $2000.

If your LCV is over $2000 then you can support a direct sales model which works really well in the SMB market - the only problem is few SMB targeted products can support direct sales.

<comment><USER27> My service is for medium to large enterprise customers and lifetime value is probably much higher than $2000. But I am still validating if they would even value it or pay for it. Reaching the buyers (VP/Director Software Engineering) to validate is in itself an art form and an exercise in careful tuning. I cannot afford to be at conferences or get highly targeted lists. If you are interested - my landing page is [http://opensourcebay.io](http://opensourcebay.io)

<comment><USER27> And I am pretty sure, I broke all rules about landing pages mentioned in the article :-)

<comment><USER8> Yes. If you are going to direct sell it is not so critical, but if you are going to try to use PPC then you need to get the value story front and centre.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> _I'll get to spend all of my time writing code that I could finally be proud of. I'll get to code things the right way — not the jank ass way these ass clowns do things. I'll have a build server for continuous integration and have automated unit tests for everything and I'll use that cool new framework I just saw the other day on HackerNews_

You caught me.

</comment><comment><USER29> This is very similar to what Jonathan Blow is telling about programming games as Independent devs [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjDsP5n2kSM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjDsP5n2kSM)

<comment><USER30> That is an amazing talk by Jonathan Blow, never seen it before, thank you for posting it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> This is a good read, but I'm a bit concerned by his product Tamboo[1], which lets site owners track exactly what their users do on their sites. I was looking at competitors and found Smartlook[2], whose website asks "Is this super-awesome service even legal?" A better question might be, "is it ethical?" and generally when you're asking is it legal the answer to _that_ question is no.

[1]: [https://gettamboo.com/](https://gettamboo.com/) [2]: [https://www.smartlook.com/](https://www.smartlook.com/)

<comment><USER32> In my opinion, the legal aspect is unclear too. In case of brick and mortar stores, AFAIK, most jurisdictions require a noticeable sign revealing surveillance/videotaping. The law hasn't quite caught up online though.

Regardless, I'd say it's ethical if they clearly tell users they're being watched. I bet no one would use the service if it was required.

<comment><USER31> Yeah, I'm not totally against the idea, but I know a lot of people have concerns around privacy online and how data about them is collected. I agree that you should let your users know you're tracking them in this way if you use something like this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Right in the beginning:

 _The stone cold truth of the matter is that most of the people pandering this advice are only doing so to build up their "guru" status ... They do this so that look up to them. They do this so that you talk about them (getting you to help them grow their audience). They do this so that you'll feel like you're somehow less than they are ... I promise I'm not going to do any of that to you._

Really? Just a couple of paragraphs down:

 _First off, you should know that your idea probably sucks ... It doesn't matter what you think ... we're not going to refer to your precious game- changing idea as "your idea" anymore. We're going to refer to it as "your guess"._

Ok, so first he's telling you that he's the honest guy who would never bullshit you and really would never try to make you feel less than him. Then goes on to do exactly that.

To me that's an immediate red flag. I don't know the author personally and can't tell what his intentions were when he wrote his essay but I've had the past displeasure of dealing with sociopaths who showed the same kind of behavior.

(Edited for less drastic choice of words)

<comment><USER7> Wow, I'm really sorry if it came across that way.

Where I was coming from with this was that I was sick of seeing all of these posts and podcasts where they were saying things in a very humblebraggy way like "Yeah, I only got something like 3,000 signups for that but was able to launch anyway" or "Yeah, I did a soft launch to $25K MRR just to my Twitter followers" or "I spent a weekend ranking #1 for this keyword and it took off from there" or "I've never spent a dime on advertising and I've never done any marketing and I don't spend more than 10 hours a month on this thing, but it pays for my awesome lifestyle."

I was referring to that kind of attitude when I wrote about how they do that to make you feel like they have some secret knowledge you have to pine for.

My approach was to say "That's total bullshit. Let me show you what it's really like." Because in my experience it's been nothing like that. In my experience, that was fairy tale land.

So I tried to write the guide as if I were the one it was written for - <USER2> wanted to put something out there that I wish I could have read 5-10 years ago that would have given me a brutally honest view of what was involved, just how bad it could be, and that would have shown me what the most important things to focus on were. And most importantly, to get me to think critically about everything I was doing. Hence the strong tone. I wanted to write something that would have gotten my attention and would have made me stop and think and avoid wasting time. So that's what I wrote.

<comment><USER34> > I wanted to write something that would have gotten my attention and would > have made me stop and think and avoid wasting time. So that's what I wrote.

And that exactly what happened for me as a reader: I've read it _because_ of this introduction. It was really eye-opening in a way ‑ it is so easy to forget how much work is behind the non-code side of a start-up project.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> This is sharp written, voice of truth and reality. I know of on my own, running Reblaze for the last five and a half years.

Almost nothing comes in easily, and you end up every day with more open tasks that you have started with.

Teams, Dev, Ops, BusDev, partners, legal, HR, taxes, you name it. And all in all, you got to keep the product and production in their path, keep your customers and employees extremely happy, and the cash flow!

As we all know:

        Cash-flow does not matter, until it is matters,
        and when it is matter, it is the only thing that matters!

I guess we could have take Reblaze to the VC path at start, but hey! Would they ever let keep the product the way we believe it should [1]

[1] [https://www.reblaze.com/using-the-cloud-for-web-security- wha...](https://www.reblaze.com/using-the-cloud-for-web-security-what-you- need-to-know/)

</comment><comment><USER36> What a refreshing read, it came across as authentic advice with actionable points - I feel that the "value your own time above all else" and "prepare to be wrong" are all too often missed in the more glitzy & glamorous "I make n$$$ per month" posts.

</comment><comment><USER9> If you like that, then check out his Expect Everything to be Unexpected write- up. My favorite reality check. I posted it in its own thread:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13217086](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13217086)

</comment><comment><USER37> Thanks for inspiration, I'm in! Will try and put something out by 8 Jan!!

</comment><comment><USER38> There's lots of good stuff here, but while your code might not be the most important aspect of your SaaS startup, your code can't be garbage either. I've seen lots of startups and early-stage businesses rot from the inside because of bad coding practices and not being able to deliver features in a timely manner or what they do deliver is broken and buggy, driving customers away.

If you can't deliver the features your customers need because of shit code, that really does matter.

</comment><comment><USER39> His "interlude" article on the same topic is epic:

[https://medium.com/@cliffordoravec/expect-everything-to- be-u...](https://medium.com/@cliffordoravec/expect-everything-to-be- unexpected-883642c0d7c)

</comment><comment><USER40> I agree with almost everything except advertising on FB and Twitter. I have worked at several startups that had ZERO return on thousands of advertising on FB. Our Google ads cost more but had an actual return. There is a reason that they cost more.

<comment><USER41> It's easy to waste money with Facebook. It's also easy to make money with it when using the right process.

<comment><USER42> Any tips on what the "right process" entails?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Just curious, how many new visitors/sign-ups author received for his service using this content marketing? ;-) (Totally no offence.)

</comment><comment><USER44> Nice write-up! Note to the author: Your website is really slow! Try to use live text instead of images, also use progressive images.

<comment><USER45> (That's Medium, a blogging platform. It's very fast for me at least, mabye your internet?)

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Shameless plug, I want to share an online course I'll be teaching mid-Jan 2017: [http://wiradikusuma.com/](http://wiradikusuma.com/)

It's more like "an opinionated step-by-step guide to bootstrapping a startup, so i can use it myself", with "study case" of actually building one (as the course progresses).

</comment><comment><USER47> This is a really good read for anyone interested in starting a business or side gig.

</comment><comment><USER48> And _this is why_ , mom and dad, I don't start a company just because I know how to code. None of this stuff interests me.

<comment><USER49> This is really honest and I commend you for saying it. I think too many people don't think about all of the things that are involved before jumping into starting a company. I sure didn't.

It is not as sexy as the tech blogs, gurus and mainstream media make it out to be. Bootstrapped or not. Seems like there is this uptick lately with promoting bootstrapping. Don't get me wrong, it is the way I started and grew my businesses but it is hard. It is also soul crushing when something that you invested huge amounts of your own time into and most likely your own savings fails. You can't really blame anyone else but yourself.

I always felt that those of us that go down this path are a little crazy ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> If you're interested in bootstrapped SaaS writing, [https://startingandsustaining.com/](https://startingandsustaining.com/) from Garrett Dimon is really good as well.

<comment><USER51> Never head of Garrett, and I'm always looking for more material. Thanks for posting that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> I feel like a legitimate "disruption" of SaaS would be a company that has an easily adaptable, well tested, and smartly engineered code base...</comment>


Nobody told me it's impossible, so I did it - <AUTHOR> http://blog.traysoft.com/2009/12/nobody-told-me-its-impossible-so-i-did-it/

<comment><USER2> Here's a demotivational post :) No one says it's not possible to learn programming this way. In fact, I'm sure almost everyone here has a similar story (mine even includes the paper programming). What I wish I found out earlier than I did is that no one finds this impressive.

<comment><USER3> Compared to what most of the kids his age were probably doing? I'm impressed.

<comment><USER4> I'd actually go so far as to say that anyone _not_ impressed either doesn't understand what he did, or has a badly miscalibrated scale of what counts as impressive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Guys, I didn't write that story to show off. Sorry if it comes out this way. Of course tons of people here did much more impressive things. I see a lot of people who want to do something like start a business or change career and they get discouraged by everyone saying it's hard and not worth doing. I just wanted to motivate them and tell them that it doesn't matter what others are saying.

And I had a girlfriend at 14 who by the end of high school messed me so much that I spent first 2 years in college avoiding girls completely. But that's not a Hacker News story ;)

<comment><USER6> I don't think it sounded like you were showing off at all. It was a cool story. I think a lot of people are just inferring that you were implying that your story was unique (that's a lot of assuming going on there) and it's not, so they were balking at it because they've had similar experiences or what have you. Sure, it may be BTDT to a lot of folks (brought back fond memories for me), but when you're 14 and doing it and discovering for the first time it, it's awesome and that _is_ inspiring. I think we sometimes forget how exciting learning and just putting ourselves out there can be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> "It was great! I could put GOTO on an empty line and write additional code on a separate piece of paper. I know all programmers are laughing reading this, but I was happy that I didn't have to squeeze several lines of code into one line in the notepad anymore!"

That reminds me of line numbers, counting by 10s, and then using line 15 if you needed to put something in between 10 and 20. I am just glad I discovered gosub before goto.

<comment><USER8> BBC BASIC had "RENUMBER" which would renumber your lines for you if things started getting tight!

<comment><USER9> If I recall correctly, RENUMBER only renumbered lines, but not the GOTO and GOSUB labels, so it was pretty useless after all :)

The best thing you could do was to stick to the practice of labeling by multiples of ten, and if you needed to hack something, you could still do it in one or two lines.

But basically programming in BASIC was hacking :)

<comment><USER10>
      > If I recall correctly, RENUMBER only renumbered
      > lines, but not the GOTO and GOSUB labels, so it
      > was pretty useless after all :)

You remember incorrectly. I've just gone and confirmed that the labels and references are all changed.

FWIW, we've had BBC BASIC programs running commercially in the field in a semi-embedded context for over ten years and they are still running perfectly. It's perfectly possible to do structured progamming in BBC BASIC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The smileys are distracting. I am not against them in principle, I think they can add a layer of emotion above that conveyed purely by the words (I think of it as an internet form of prosody); however, in this case they are over-used and distract from the overall quality of the post.

<comment><USER12> Ironically, I was distracted by what I initially assumed was your use of a "frowny-winky" after "prosody."

<comment><USER4> You must have a tough time reading C code.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Well, it certainly isn't impossible. As a matter of fact, I'd argue the opposite - that it's impossible to really learn anything without being inspired and motivated. I know the only times I've _really_ learned things is during bouts of excitement, and the smartest people I know just get excited very easily :)

Sure, some people go through learning motivated by impressing their peers or satisfying their parents/teachers/bosses. But they're not really learning in the true way, now are they?

</comment><comment><USER14> If batch programming had not existed long before, he would have reinvented it. :-)

Heck, my first exposure to programming was by way of a textbook that used a nonexistant decimal machine's assembler; presumably I could have submitted my code to a simulator had I been attending the right college, but I was only in seventh grade at the time.

Show of hands: who _hasn't_ ever played computer with their code?

</comment><comment><USER15> I stopped reading when he mentioned that he had a girlfriend when he was 14. Was there anything else he did that was remarkable? ;)

</comment><comment><USER16> I started in BASIC on a Sharp MZ-700 (a horrible machine) but in 1988 I got a Commodore 64 as a gift, along with a book (Programming the 6502) and got to grips with assembly after a christmas present: a freezer cartridge and a floppy disk drive. It was the best christmas present ever.

Further on, my C64 interest became an obsession and I dropped out of school - though passing some exams - and even led to me hacking PBX's and blue boxing across the USA (I live in the UK). But again - I don't regret any of it!</comment>


Why Everybody Loses When Someone Leaves Academe - <AUTHOR> https://www.chronicle.com/article/Why-Everybody-Loses-When/242560?cid=trend_right_a <comment><USER2> This same sentiment also applies to engineering teams. Projects we've worked on, systems knowledge, ops battle-scars--all fade away.</comment>


Tell HN: Accepted to DreamIt and looking for iPhone developer co-founder… - <AUTHOR>

Our early-stage startup was accepted into DreamIt recently and we're looking for one or two iPhone developers to join the founding team.
The product is a social game for teaching languages and other subjects, so it's a major plus if you've worked on games before or even apps with animation.
We prefer someone who can come on board as a co-founder but are open to contract roles as long as you're on-site in Philly with us. Housing will be provided.
I know it's tough to find an iPhone developer given the contracting work out there, but I think this is an awesome opportunity nonetheless.
You'll shape the vision of the product that was a finalist for three top accelerator programs including Y Combinator.
You'll be working with a team with lots of experience in UX / UI design, marketing and education.
You'll be a part of DreamIt, which offers a lot of serious benefits (mentorship, capital, networking, office space, etc.)
You'll get paid, housing will be provided and true co-founder level equity will be provided
You'll be working with two stand-up guys who just want to build a great product
Email me at firstname.lastname@example.com if you are interested <comment><USER2> I've worked with Jesse and Jeff and they're great guys. The product they're building is a great chance to make something that's both fun and very helpful for a lot of people. I'd step up to join them in a heartbeat if I wasn't already occupied.

Jesse can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think their product also involves a backend component for profiles, sharing, analytics, etc. The big picture will use an interesting blend of tech. It's a good opportunity to lead, learn and grow.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, Mike. We think the product is really interesting from a tech perspective. We're also looking to expand out to Facebook, iPad, and Android in the near future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Congrats on DreamIt Jesse.

I've worked with Jesse before and can vouch for him. I too would join his team if I didn't already have prior commitments.

Best of luck guys.</comment>


Julian Assange sex case: Swedish court upholds warrant - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30129453

<comment><USER2> There is no standing extradition order to move Assange from the Sweden to USA.

Swedish court says prosecutors are not correctly handling case if the case is simply about sexual assault.

Which is interesting.

<comment><USER3> I also remember distinctly the two women involved dropped the charges. Wasn't it a prosecutor from another region who continued the process despite that?

<comment><USER2> Charges were originally dropped within 24 hours of filling. As the original arrest warrant was written for the incorrect crime "Molestation" instead of "Rape".

Also yes both women admit there was no rape. They were merely inquiring about obtaining HIV tests.

>The woman of whom Mr. Assange is accused of the offence of "lesser rape" (a technical term in Swedish law) sent an SMS to a friend saying that she "did not want to accuse JA [of] anything" and "it was the police who made up the charges". The other woman tweeted in 2013 that she had never been raped. Both women's testimonies say that they consented to the sex. A senior prosecutor already dismissed the 'rape' accusation, saying that there were no grounds for accusing Mr. Assange on this basis. But a third prosecutor, lobbied by a politician who was running for attorney general, took over the investigation and resurrected the accusations against Mr. Assange

Yes you are correct.

<comment><USER4> That quote is not from the article. In fact the BBC article says the exact opposite "two women in Sweden accuse Mr Assange, 43, of sexual assault."

I'm inclined to believe the BBC over an unreferenced quote.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Prometheus: 2000 year old programming code - <AUTHOR> http://science1.wordpress.com/2008/10/25/prometheus-a-2000-year-old-programming-code/

<comment><AUTHOR> #Skimming the article, it is sounding a #little bit like "intelligent design", #when it talks of "programming" humans.

Well, I am really disappointed that the article sounds like "intelligent design." That may be due to my inarticulateness. I have no intention of advocating "intelligent design."

I am just curious to know if there is an academic or scholarly field where people study programming outside of computers, more specifically, programming humans.

#In a sense, natural selection programs all #organisms by allowing only the fit variations #in a given generation to survive, promulgating #the "fit genes" forward, but "design" or "program" #are terms in this context to be used metaphorically.

But it seems to me that "natural selection" is a term that needs to be used metaphorically as well.

In the article, the Prometheus story is not metaphorical. It is a real story written by a real person. I am trying to understand if humans reading the Prometheus story can be considred to be programmed in analogy to computer programming.

So when I read a Sunday paper supplement about discounted items and I go buy one, am I being programmed? What is the scholarly field that studies such programming?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I just posted this to ask people here if it makes sense to talk about programming anything other than computers and if not what kind of science investigates this subjects. Thanks.

</comment><comment><USER2> Skimming the article, it is sounding a little bit like "intelligent design", when it talks of "programming" humans.

In a sense, natural selection programs all organisms by allowing only the fit variations in a given generation to survive, promulgating the "fit genes" forward, but "design" or "program" are terms in this context to be used metaphorically. Natural Selection is itself an alogirthm: Variation + Selection + Inheritance = Evolution of new forms of life. So in this sense it is a "program" but only as a metaphor.

I have neither the time nor the patience to argue with an intelligent design advocate, anymore than I would spend time arguing with a flat earth advocate.</comment>


Ask HN: Should I spin up and spin down VMs constantly? - <AUTHOR> I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions on what the right 'cloudy' way of doing things are. Should I spin up a VM on the cloud and use it forever like I do with a physical machine? Or should I constantly spin up and spin down VMs daily? My VMs are stateless.<p>Are there organizations that have chosen one path or the other and have had success? Links to blogs/articles would be appreciated <comment><USER2> You should on GCE, but not on EC2: per-hour billing for EC2 means your 15 minute VM costs you 60 (aka 4x as much). We (sadly) have a 10 minute minimum, but the difference is pretty stark.

Once they got through some growing pains (rate limits per project), Travis CI has switched to a 1 VM per build model that they'll probably detail in future blog posts.

[https://blog.travis-ci.com/2016-04-07-migration-update](https://blog.travis- ci.com/2016-04-07-migration-update)

Disclaimer: I work on GCE, so of course I want you to use it ;).

</comment><comment><USER3> The _only_ way AWS is cheaper than other providers is if you take advantage of the ability to spin up an EC2 instance from an image for just the time you need it, and spin it down when you don't.

If you're not using AWS, check to see how up/down affects your costs. Some will still charge you for VM's that are "down", meaning there is limited benefit (to you directly) to spinning them down.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Stephen. Are there any large scale AWS implementations that you know of that spin VMs up and down? Also, besides cost, are there benefits to doing so?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you have a stateless architecture, you should use Google's Preemptive VM. It is cheaper [https://cloud.google.com/preemptible- vms/](https://cloud.google.com/preemptible-vms/)

</comment><comment><USER5> r_groop</comment>


Cached Procrastination - <AUTHOR> http://lesswrong.com/lw/d2/cached_procrastination/

<comment><USER2> I suffer from "Compiling Procrastination". I go to HN and reddit when the code starts compiling.</comment>


More data and charts in Top Search Queries - <AUTHOR> http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2010/04/more-data-and-charts-in-top-search.html?

<comment><USER2> I'm going to have to strongly disagree with at least the "useful" adjective in this statement. I would concur that if the click-through-rate and impression data were accurate or consistent with other data sources that claim to show the same thing (Google Analytics, log file analysis, Google AdWords campaigns) it would be phenomenally valuable.

However, as it stands, my digging suggests that not only are the numbers dramatically different between other sources and GWMT, they're not even consistently different (at times, the multiples of variance can range from 0.5X-3X).

A number of good posts have been written on this by the webmaster/SEO community already:

[http://www.distilled.co.uk/blog/seo/new-google-webmaster- too...](http://www.distilled.co.uk/blog/seo/new-google-webmaster-tools- keyphrase-data-is-70-useless/)

<http://www.davidnaylor.co.uk/google-webmaster-tools-2.html>

<comment><USER3> I'm not doubting the claims in these posts, but I'm having trouble understanding why google was interested in releasing crappy data.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Compared to Google Analytics (which by necessity undercounts queries, due to Javascript-related issues) this undereports my queries by a factor of two.

Line-by-line comparisons seem to hold up pretty decently, though, in my five minute spot-check.

</comment><comment><USER5> Can anyone beat my record for worst keyword clickthrough rate?

0.01% (12 clicks out of 110000 impressions)

<http://i43.tinypic.com/156ppuw.png></comment>


Alcatraz 1962 escapees had small chance of success - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-30349106 <comment><USER2> Mythbusters labelled it "plausable."

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MythBusters_%282003_season%29#E...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MythBusters_%282003_season%29#Escape_From_Alcatraz)

Video: [http://www.discovery.com/tv- shows/mythbusters/videos/escape-...](http://www.discovery.com/tv- shows/mythbusters/videos/escape-from-alcatraz-minimyth/)

"The makeshift raft crafted and crewed by the MythBusters team did indeed reach the shore, but at the Marin Headlands instead of Angel Island."

</comment><comment><USER3> Details here: [http://www.tudelft.nl/en/current/latest- news/article/detail/...](http://www.tudelft.nl/en/current/latest- news/article/detail/nederlandse-wetenschappers-laten-zien-ontsnapping-per- boot-van-alcatraz-in-1962-was-mogelijk/)</comment>


I have the coronavirus. So far, it isn't that bad - <AUTHOR> https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/opinion/article/I-have-the-coronavirus-So-far-it-isn-t-that-bad-15093664.php <comment><USER3> Earlier discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22448502](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22448502)

</comment><comment><USER4> Those who died from the virus aren't writing in to tell us it's very bad, so there's that.

Edit: To be clear, I'm not being dismissive of this patient's experience; just want to point out the element of survivorship bias.

<comment><USER5> I think this mans perspective is important. For the vast majority of people who get this it isn't much different then having a cold or the flu. The large majority of people this is killing are elderly, whose immune systems are less likely to successfully defend.

[https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age- se...](https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age-sex- demographics/)

But that is not the picture painted by media day in and day out. There is so much hype and sensationalism with this story. They would have us believe it's the zombie apocalypse out there, and I just don't think that is the reality.

<comment><USER6> The media mostly ignored this story for 1 entire month despite its constant seriousness and despite it being clear that it was the biggest event of the year so far. Only this last week has it picked up on it. For people who have been following it from the start that fact was used as evidence that it was an actually serious problem given that the media was constantly downplaying it or just ignoring it.

In regards to the disease's lethality, even though most people will experience it as just a flu, between 10% to 15% of people experience it bad enough that they need hospital beds. If there's a generalized outbreak in the population like there was in China hospitals will be overloaded and general chaos will ensue, because hospitals in most countries aren't ready to deal with this kind of surge.

<comment><USER7> So, my son had a really bad cold that resulted in an infected lymph node and a course of antibiotics. They never ran a test for covid-19.

So, how do we know that we have anywhere close to the right number of total patients?

Do you have any citations for these high numbers? Some statistical skepticism is important in matters of public concern.

<comment><USER6> [https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.18.20024539v...](https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.18.20024539v2) This is a paper that looks at 50k Chinese patients and 18.1% of them are considered "severe cases", which China has been using to mean needing special care in the hospital.

And based on a WHO official's statements they found no evidence that there was a big number of unreported cases in China. [https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/25/new-data-from-china- butt...](https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/25/new-data-from-china-butt...), [https://twitter.com/HelenBranswell/status/123233479099875328...](https://twitter.com/HelenBranswell/status/123233479099875328..). Which would mean that these numbers coming out of there are likely more correct than wrong.

<comment><USER7> From your second link:

""What [the data] support is that sure, there may be a few asymptomatic cases … but there's probably not huge transmission beyond what you can actually see clinically," Aylward said.

The claim was quickly challenged by an infectious diseases expert who serves on a committee that advises the WHO's health emergencies program."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> That's why it's so dangerous. For 80% of people it's a mild cold. - so they go to work like normal.

<comment><USER9> This is a time where it would be preferable to live somewhere that has good free/cheap health and social systems: if you're sick, you stay home and there are limited social or financial repercussions.

So many people where I am will just "soldier on" because they have no choice.

<comment><USER10> I'm living in such a place and if you have a cold it is normal to go to work even if you are sick, it's really hard to make people stay at home just because they feel a bit ill. Remote work has to be come more accepted.

<comment><USER11> There's still social stigma not being able to work 100%. Even if people were just clerks for eachother and total Waste, the stigma would still be there. People seem to not mind infecting others.. Except as dictated by political correctness.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The Guardian today have another story titled "To hell and back": [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/29/to-hell-and- ba...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/29/to-hell-and-back-my- three-weeks-suffering-from-coronavirus)

<comment><USER13> That's why it's important to have positive stories like this one, the media is only focusing on the negative ones even though they only count for < 1% of the real situations.

<comment><USER14> Yeah, and a couple of days ago LinkedIn got spammed by "Supply Chains will die" posts. Well, at least my feed. So yeah, a hell of a load of clickbait all over the place. And only minority is trying to calm things down.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> And it wouldn't be so bad for me either. But I am taking care of my 88yo Mom and for her it might be lethal.

</comment><comment><USER16> And I had the flu.. it nearly killed me.

Can we please stop this nonsense

<comment><USER17> I think after the success of the media in respect to this virus (massive amounts of clicks and TV view time), I firmly believe that every new flu will have it's own name and similar coverage from now on.

They just made too much money off this, fear is a big seller.

<comment><USER18> This is about 20x deadlier (rate, not absolute numbers) than the seasonal flu as of midweek (numbers may have changed a bit in last few days). It is a more apt comparison to compare to the 1918/19 Spanish flu than the seasonal flu.

edit: yes, I know the age breakdowns of deaths. But young people can still transmit the virus to their elderly loved ones etc. I don't understand why people are dismissive about the fact that "oh its just the old people dying, nbd".

I guess in general, while I understand that the death rate may come down etc, I see a far bigger risk in making people think that it isn't a big deal. I'm not suggesting we should freak out, but I just don't understand downplaying it either.

<comment><USER5> That is a terrible talking point. It paints a picture that is not inline with reality. It's the only 'evidence' anyone can grasp to as to why this is any more concerning than the common flu. Meanwhile the numbers are HIGHLY skewed by age group.

It is almost exclusively killing elderly people. For anyone less than 50-60 years old, the numbers are in line with flu. And the old people will be better protected once the vaccine comes out.

[https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age- se...](https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age-sex- demographics/)

<comment><USER18> Yes, but honestly why does that matter when talking about the implications of it spreading? Are you saying that old people's lives are worth less? It doesn't diminish the _general_ threat just because you or I are less likely to die. You or I may not be too affected, but what if I unknowingly transmitted (as is happening) to my grandparents when I got dinner with them?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I almost died from the type 2 strain of flu two years ago. Was out for almost 2 weeks straight. Wife found me under every blanket in the house wearing two coats with a 104.5 fever. I understand how this could be fatal to the elderly. We take care that no one is sick when we visit community centers.

</comment><comment><USER20> Humans are bad at gauging low probabilities. I for one cannot wrap my head around the actual badness of an event that has 2 percent chance of getting me killed. Taking the "average" approach, i.e. 2% loss of my expected remaining life time doesn't seem very good.

# Yup, I know getting the virus is more than just a chance to die - <USER2> possibly infect others, get quarantined, etc.

<comment><USER21> Part of the reason humans are bad with probability is because they are bad at conditional probabilities. There is likely much less than a 2% chance you die from this. First that is assuming you will catch this disease. Even the most gloom and doom projections I've seen are saying that this virus will infect 40-70% of the worlds population. Which means the chance that you catch this and die from it is more like 1-1.5%. Outside of Wuhan, the death rate has been more like .7-1%, so now it's more like .3-.7% chance you actually catch this and die. The numbers are far lower if you are not elderly, and have no pre- existing conditions.

That isn't to say the virus isn't concerning, especially on a societal level. We absolutely should all be taking precautions to prevent the disease from spreading. But for a given individual, the probabilities of dying from this is very low.

<comment><USER22> > So now it's more like .3-.7% chance you actually catch this and die

Speaking of people being bad at probabilities..

A .3-.7 chance of death is still VERY dangerous. Your odds of dying of a car crash in any given year is 1 in 10,000. Your odds of dying from Coronavirus is 1 in 333 (at your best estimate). Yes this is absolutely serious at a societal level, and yes, you can die from this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I suppose any disease isn't that bad when you have round the clock medical care pumping you full of medicine.

<comment><USER24> No, in fact lots of diseases are incredibly bad even with round the clock medical care pumping you full of medicine.

<comment><USER25> Sure but you can bet that CDC is caring for those few that are infected. Meaning among the best doctors in the world so it's very unlikely that he will die for inadequate care.

What will happen in a third world country? Or in the USA if million and millions are infected, overwhelming the health care system?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> He mentioned he's participating in the clinical trial so there's a chance he received Remdesivir treatment.

</comment><comment><USER7> Why do we still call it "The Coronavirus", despite the fact that the common cold is caused by coronaviruses and rhinoviruses [1]? Like, with the H1N1 flu we had a more specific name.

Isn't it morally important to provide the public with nuance? i.e., "there is a bad version of the common cold this year, so watch out, especially if you are over 60".

[1] Falsey, A. R., Walsh, E. E., & Hayden, F. G. (2002). Rhinovirus and coronavirus infection-associated hospitalizations among older adults. The Journal of infectious diseases, 185(9), 1338-1341.

<comment><USER27> SARS-CoV-2 is that "more specific name". I agree that it didn't help that it went without a specific name for a long period of time.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome_coronavirus_2)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> This is a pretty dismissive thread and P.O.V. The point is the combination of all characteristics of it is bad. No one has a resistance to it because it's novel. It looks to have an infection rate of 2 for 1 infected. It will likely reach huge numbers of people and kill orders of magnitude more than the usual flu. If it gets to a billion people we're talking tens of millions dead.

<comment><USER29> To add to this, what some people apparently don't realize is that those who get mild symptoms and ignore them or don't get tested and quarantined will almost certainly infect others who might die from it. It could be your elderly neighbor, your parents, grandparents, or an acquaintance with a compromised immune system.

<comment><USER28> Yep and there are far too many people who will gladly come to work very sick. I've suffered far too many examples in corporate America.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> R0=2.2 and CFR=2.5% is all you need to know to realize this is _not_ the "seasonal flu". Look at the visualizations in this article[0] that compare the average number of people infected by each sick person and the fatality rate of various historical epidemics.

[0] [https://nyti.ms/38Xc1ho](https://nyti.ms/38Xc1ho)

<comment><USER31> Still hard to believe to me that with the current numbers at least 30 million people will die. And we are not even at 3000 yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Let me know on day 8 or 9. That's when you find out if you're one of the lucky ones to develop pneumonia.

<comment><USER33> He has already had it with symptoms for 2 weeks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> This is dangerous. Take every precaution you can not to get infected for as long as you can and that you don't infect anyone else. This is not the flu. The flu makes you more susceptible to a material pneumonia and that's how it kills. SARS-CoV-2 is NOT the flu. COVID-19 is the disease, by the way.

Here is the list of complications: -ARDS in 29% (Acute respiratory distress disease, this needs mechanical ventilation to survive) -acute cardiac injury in 12% (this potentially kills your heart tissue which leads to arrhythmia and then a heart attack) -secondary infection in 10%

[https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31986264-clinical- features-o...](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31986264-clinical-features-of- patients-infected-with-2019-novel-coronavirus-in-wuhan-china/?dopt=Abstract)

This is something you should be very mindful of. A Cavalier attitude can get you or people you care about killed.

Here's the current list of symptoms to know if you're infected with SARS- CoV-2:

fever in 98.6% fatigue in 69.6% dry cough in 59.4% anorexia in 39.9% myalgia in 34.8% dyspnea in 31.2% expectoration in 26.8% pharyngalgia in 17.4% diarrhea in 10.1% nausea in 10.1% dizziness in 9.4% headache 6.5% vomiting in 3.6% abdominal pain in 2.2%

[https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32031570-clinical- characteri...](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32031570-clinical- characteristics-of-138-hospitalized-patients-with-2019-novel-coronavirus- infected-pneumonia-in-wuhan-china/?dopt=Abstract)

<comment><USER35> If most people don't care to prevent infection, the hospitals and medical resources will soon be overwhelmed, the death rate will surge from 0.5-4% (no exact figure at the moment) to 10-20% like earlier in Wuhan. When viral load in the environment becomes sufficiently high, some young people will be taken away by it too, as in the case of several Wuhan doctors who sacrificed themselves under that circumstance.

Among the ~16-19% who are hospitalized and recover, you may suffer through weeks of pneumonia and your lungs could be damaged long-term.

Even if you're lucky to be among the 80% who survive without hospitalization, you could still be the vector who directly or indirectly infect someone you care about.

<comment><USER36> >the death rate will surge from 0.5-4% (no exact figure at the moment) to 10-20% like earlier in Wuhan

Those percentages come from different samples altogether and cannot be compared. 10-20% is heavily biased toward people who were admitted before there were even reliable tests for the virus or a recognition that it's novel and serious. Now you're comparing that to 0.5-4% which includes a bunch (though by no means close to all) of mild cases who got picked up by the tests but may not have required a hospital visit at all. What's the point of mentioning two numbers that aren't just unreliable and biased, but unreliable and biased in different ways?

<comment><USER35> Yes, I think I might have mixed up stats of different kinds (Posting too late at night, sorry).

However, the point stands that fatality rates will likely go up a lot if medical resources are overwhelmed. Long-term lung damage is also another risk for younger people and its rate will also go up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Anecdotal. One data point shouldn't mean much to anyone.

</comment><comment><USER38> It's called "survivorship bias".

<comment><USER39> When >98% are surviving it, it's not much of a bias.</comment></comment>


Joinwire video - <AUTHOR> http://joinwire.com Pretty funny. I wonder what problem they are trying to solve. <comment><AUTHOR> Pretty hilarious video for the new startup being let by Benchmark Capital's former Entrepreneur-in-Residence</comment>


Episode 1 of "Connections": A Series that Follows the History of Science and Technology - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcSxL8GUn-g

<comment><AUTHOR> The user who uploaded the Connections series has also uploaded other TV shows James Burke worked on. You can find all the episodes here [http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=JamesBurkeWeb&view=p...](http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=JamesBurkeWeb&view=playlists)

Also, there is a fascinating episode of the show that deals with the history of computers (punchcards as a way of holding information) which is available here <http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=0C43386079D8B683>

I hope you all find it as interesting as I did.

</comment><comment><USER2> "The Day the Universe Changed" is equally brilliant - a guided tour through the history of science and western civilization.

[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001RCL5SQ?ie=UTF8&tag=...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001RCL5SQ?ie=UTF8&tag=smasher02-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B001RCL5SQ)</comment>


Mirantis acquires Docker Enterprise and Docker raises $35M - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/13/mirantis-acquires-docker-enterprise/ <comment><USER3> Docker is the single best thing to happen to software deployment in 20 years, not just because of what it did for eliminating "works on my machine" build problems, but because of what it enabled. A _huge_ ecosystem has sprung up around containerization, with immense value created for other businesses. Their "Docker for Windows/Mac" apps are one of the first things I install on any new dev machine.

It's unfortunate they didn't figure out a way to make money off the best thing to happen to building and deploying software in 20 years.

A lot of other people did, from the startups now selling value-adds to Kubernetes like Kong and Tigera and TwistLock (since acquired) and others, to the public clouds which all offer Docker-based build services, image registries, and PaaS deployment tooling, to Kubernetes itself which for most users today still relies on Docker.

<comment><USER4> > Docker is the single best thing to happen to software deployment in 20 years

Something like Docker may eventually hold this title, but Docker itself? Certainly not. It was simply too poorly executed, both strategically but especially technically.

Running production workloads in Docker containers was, is, and will be remembered as nothing short of professional negligence. Often expedient, sometimes worth the risk, but always a liability.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, totally agree. Most uses of Docker are of the "Junk Drawer" variety.

A bunch of disorganized unpinned dependencies get thrown into a container that will work in a reproducible manner only until one of the upstream deps changes.

This approach also allows people to get away with deploying an app without truly understanding it. That's always been a good recipe for success.

Another poster claimed that it's mainstream practise, so what? So was running your web-server on 90s era IIS. Not that that was good idea either.

<comment><USER6> The biggest issue I've had with Docker is that Dockerfiles aren't designed to be reproducible, so regressions are practically guaranteed. If there were tooling around pinning versions of Linux distro packages, and maybe a few select PL package managers like Go, Node, Python, Ruby, it would make a huge difference. I tried to do this by hand and finally gave up.

<comment><USER7> You can stack layers (where you install exactly what you want) and create an image that is deterministic.

Even if you install from repos in the dockerfile, they should have version numbers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This seems like an embarassing error in communications for Docker! I wonder what's going on behind the scenes.

There is one positive message for Docker coming out today, which is that they raised $35 million dollars. Yeah, they didn't announce the valuation, so it is probably a down round, but still, getting $35 million dollars to work on your core business is a good thing.

However, the first announcement that TechCrunch wrote about didn't include that at all!

Check out the timeline here. At 8:45 a.m. TechCrunch publishes the first article, about selling off the Docker Enterprise line. Then at 9:21 a.m. TechCrunch publishes a second article - [https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/13/mirantis-acquires- docker-e...](https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/13/mirantis-acquires-docker- enterprise/) \- with two really large pieces of news. Both that Docker raised the $35 million, _and_ they replaced their CEO for the second time since May.

TechCrunch says: _for reasons only known to Docker's communications team, we weren't told about this beforehand_. It seems like they only learned the full news after publishing the original article, and quickly wrote a followup in the next half hour.

What's going on at Docker to be this confused in the message to the press? Chaos around the leadership change? Close to running out of money and they only raised the round at the last moment? Were they going to sell off the open source component to someone else, but that fell through? Or, boringly, maybe they just thought they clicked "send" on an email that they didn't. I'll keep imagining there's an exciting reason though.

<comment><USER9> maybe signals it wasn't a done deal or similar? but still, I agree that none of this makes sense. why not just sell off all the bits? like you, wondering if that fell through.

sad end to a once tech darling.

Has anyone secured rights for the book yet?

<comment><USER8> Well, it's not an end yet. That $35 million isn't nothing! That's why it's a shame that this was messaged so weirdly, a lot of people are going to skim this news and conclude that Docker went out of business.

Plus, open source Docker is a really nice tool. Even if the company tanks, I hope somehow the open source community manages to keep it going, because it would be a shame if the Docker parts of peoples' infrastructure just decayed over time.

<comment><USER10> Ok, we've added $35M to the title above.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This makes much more sense if you think of Docker as two distinct companies that were awkwardly sharing the same name and corporate entity, and are now being separated.

One makes developer tools, has a huge developer brand and community. It does not generate revenue except for Docker Hub which probably barely pays for itself.

The other sells enterprise products competing directly with Red Hat and Vmware, and indirectly with the big cloud providers. It generates meaningful revenue, but probably flat growth, which considering the huge amounts of VC money invested, makes it a failed business.

The investors probably decided that 1) Docker developer tools and brand still have potential, but 2) the enterprise business failed to deliver, so 3) they are jettisoning the latter and recapitalizing the former- essentially starting over.

<comment><USER12> Docker hub probably makes no money. We pay monthly for it, but could easily switch to AWS ECR at this point with a cheaper monthly price. The Hub is nice in that it essentially has unlimited storage, but I suspect this might be an internal struggle for the company. We have no reason to go in and clean up 2 year old images that are 1GB each. We generate images on each commit - <USER2> to do as much as DIFF reductions as possible, but if we change package.json - boom, puppeteer + all over again. And that's quite often.

<comment><USER13> But if they're using a deduplicating storage backend, they can shrink down the actual storage on disk across all customers to something quite reasonable.

<comment><USER14> That only works if Dockerfiles are layered in such a way to maximize caching (many are not and naively pack many changes into a single layer). Yes there are block-level dedupes but that's a transparent feature of most storage systems and not a competitive distinguisher of Hub vs ECR/ACR/Quay.

<comment><USER15> I believe the person you replied to was commenting on the advantages to Docker, not the customer, and how (blocklevel is what I inferred) dedupe makes the quantity digestible to Docker's pocketbook.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > Update: for reasons only known to Docker's communications team, we weren't > told about this beforehand, but the company also today announced that it has > raised a $35 million funding round from Benchmark. This doesn't change the > overall gist of the story below, but it does highlight the company's new > direction.

This is weird

Edit: Link of announcement : [http://www.globenewswire.com/news- release/2019/11/13/1946551...](http://www.globenewswire.com/news- release/2019/11/13/1946551/0/en/Docker-Restructures-and-Secures-35-Million-to- Advance-Developer-Workflows-for-Modern-Applications.html)

Excerpt: AN FRANCISCO, Calif., Nov. 13, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Docker today announced it has successfully completed a recapitalization of its equity to position it for future growth, and has secured $35 million in new financing from previous investors Benchmark Capital and Insight Partners. The investment will be used to advance developers' workflows when building, sharing and running modern applications.

<comment><USER16> Can someone explain what is "recapitalization of its equity"

<comment><USER17> It means they were broke af and in a death spiral because nobody wanted to buy any shares of docker at any worthwhile price, so instead, they created a ton of more shares and sold those and now the organization has capital to do things that makes value for all shareholders

<comment><USER18> For clarity: Since a ton more shares have been issued, the previous shareholders own much, much less of the company than they once did.

<comment><USER17> and for clarity, this doesn't get them out of the death spiral it is a key part of the concept! but maybe they generate value with their second wind

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I kinda wish Microsoft would just acquire the rest of the company and be done with it. It fits in very well with their Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers focus. Especially in the era of Open Source friendly MS.

VSCode, GutHub and Docker. Three peas in a pod.

<comment><USER20> While I think CNCF/Linux Foundations would be a better fit, I do agree that the rest should probably come under a more protective umbrella. Given the many options, MS is probably one of the better ones. Definitely wouldn't want to see Oracle step in, and while I appreciate RedHat they are much slower moving (since IBM's acquisition, and I'm not sure if for the better).

<comment><USER21> My theory at work is that this is arbitrage. Docker wouldn't sell to Oracle. So instead, Mirantis buys the Enterprise side and in 6 months will sell to Oracle. At which point everyone who has ever looked sideways at a Docker download will be subject to an Oracle licensing audit...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Something makes me feel that today a lot of hard working employees lost all their stock options, or their hard earned cash if they previously exercised them... Mirantis can't possibly have paid multiple billions for that, which means all common stockholders were likely wiped out as part of this "fire sale" (pure speculation on my side).

<comment><USER23> Probably, yes. Unless they turn it around in a big way and IPO one day, your typical rank and file is probably out of luck here.

The good news is they have a lot of engineering talent so if you're a hiring manager then now is a good time to begin directing your recruiters to poach aggressively from there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> This seems like a bit of an unusual move at first glance, hopefully more details will come out about Docker's plans.

From this article it sounds like Docker are keeping Desktop and Docker hub, neither of which make a lot of money (I'd have thought?), so not sure what their plans are to develop those, but you'd think that without the enterprise product line, they'd perhaps need to start monetising Docker Hub more...

<comment><USER25> Docker Hub does make money with paying for private repo plans but not sure how much that is and how many people are in the "newly restructured" Docker org

<comment><USER26> Unless they are downsizing to 10-20 people, I don't see how that generates enough revenue to keep the lights on.

It's weird. Assuming Docker Enterprise was keeping the lights on, why would you sell your cash cow? Maybe the price was too good to turn down. But now Docker Inc finds itself in the same shoes as other companies trying to monetize open source without a platform.

If this means we'll get to pay for Docker on the desktop AND it'll get improvements, I'm all for it. But it's a tough situation nowadays (nobody expects to pay for most developer tools).

<comment><USER11> Reading between the lines, it's pretty obvious that the enterprise business did NOT generate enough revenue to keep the lights on.

<comment><USER26> And what does exactly?

<comment><USER11> Funding from investors betting on the future value of a business built on the huge user base of Docker's free products.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Sad to see this happen, but honestly their SaaS products (Docker Cloud, Docker hub etc.) were absolutely terrible.

The UI and UX felt like some half assed intern rush job.

Terrible bugs around things like login and teams that just never got fixed.

As if no one really cared.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Can anyone explain what this means for the future of Docker the company?

<comment><USER28> Yes. Docker the company is gone. It is hollowed out. Docker Enterprise will morph into mirantis Kubernetes offering as added features.

Probably the rest of the company will turn into some sort of Kubernetes desktop dev tool.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> This news comes at a time when I discovered that Fedora 31, the latest release, doesn't support Docker anymore.

<comment><USER30> To give more background, it supports Podman[1], which behaves the same as Docker in many ways. But the support situation changed with Fedora 31 because of CgroupsV2[2]; however, that doesn't mean Docker CE _won't_ ever run on Fedora 31. Follow this GitHub issue[3] for progress

[1] [https://podman.io](https://podman.io)

[2] [https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/CGroupsV2](https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/CGroupsV2)

[3] [https://github.com/docker/for- linux/issues/665](https://github.com/docker/for-linux/issues/665)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> ...the Docker CLI is part of the sale?

What exactly does that leave Docker the company with?

<comment><USER32> the desktop experience and the docker hub apparently a.k.a : the good bits imo.

<comment><USER31> Oh, the macOS app? I've never used that or the Windows app, do you still use the CLI to control them?

Docker Hub is kinda worrying for me, as GitHub, Gitlab, GCP, Heroku, and AWS all offer container registries now (and Quay is open source)

<comment><USER3> The MacOS and Windows App automate the process of running Docker on a non- Linux OS. It sets up a virtual machine, volume mounts, port forwarding, and so on, and the Docker CLI then allows you to just "docker run" an image and have navigation to "[http://localhost:3000"](http://localhost:3000") just work.

Recently the app gained the ability to run a Kubernetes cluster as well, which makes spinning one up on a machine quite a lot easier to evaluate those workflows.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Not really sure what got acquired here? Are they just taking the docker enterprise business? How can they acquire Docker CLI? Isn't it opensource?

<comment><USER34> They can acquire the team that's primarily building it. If they stay on board and they keep focused on docker CLI, then that's effectively the acquisition of an open source project

<comment><USER35> And they can take the copyright and the brand and the domain name and ....

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> LinkedIN profiles that mention Docker

Mar 2015: 14,000

Mar 2016: 50,000

Dec 2017: 178,000

Nov 2019: 534,000

Still going up!

</comment><comment><USER37> I've never even heard of Mirantis - curious to know if I'm alone in this, or if they're better known by others on HN?

</comment><comment><USER38> Finally they found someone to get sold to. Only 750 customers, so low.

And no info on the price.

<comment><USER11> 750 customers for an enterprise business is quite high. They are not counting Docker Hub customers which are probably in the tens of thousands.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Can we please not show yet another container ship every time there is a new about Docker? I get it - all news articles need an image. But imagine being a non-tech person trying to follow news and wonders...

</comment><comment><USER40> Are there any particularly detailed/good anthologies out there about the founding/fate of Docker after Google opensourced Kubernetes?

</comment><comment><USER41> Don't Docker Enterprise and Docker Desktop share code and expertise? Isn't this a loss for both of those projects?

</comment><comment><USER42> It buffles me that software-wonder Docker raises so few money compared to unicorns like WeWork or some SF Startup.

</comment><comment><USER43> I wonder why the investors weren't concerned. They've replaced their CEO for the second time since May.

</comment><comment> Pirate-of-SV Does anyone have a background story of Mirantis? Where's the money coming from?

<comment><USER44> [https://www.mirantis.com/company/investors/](https://www.mirantis.com/company/investors/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> When is Docker going to add the basic functionality to see if a container image is out of date from the registry, without having to re-pull the image?

</comment><comment><USER46> Who keeps Docker hub?

<comment><USER11> Docker.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> > Mirantis will keep the Docker Enterprise brand alive, though, which will > surely not create any confusion.

Is this in jest?

<comment><USER24> I took that line to be sarcasm.

<comment><USER47> I thought it was quite funny that they snuck in that line in the middle of a serious news article.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Is it just me, or does it seem that New York tech companies are really struggling?

<comment><USER49> Docker is headquartered in SF:

[https://www.docker.com/company/contact](https://www.docker.com/company/contact)

We're actually in the middle of a tech renaissance in NYC, especially for software infra: eg Datadog, MongoDB.

<comment><USER48> My bad. I think I got it mixed up with Digital Ocean. Still, WeWork, StackExchange...MongoDB isn't particularly loved anymore.</comment></comment></comment>


How do you avoid getting Zuckerberg-ed? - <AUTHOR>

I'm helping some non-technical people start their startup and the question is a common one,"How do I prevent my technical lead from stealing my idea and creating their own version?" I've struggled with a good answer.  Is there any standard contract for this kind of thing? <comment><USER2> The best way to avoid it is to make yourself valuable enough that the technical lead can start the company more easily with you than without you. There's a _lot_ of non-technical tasks that are needed in a startup: everything from talking to customers to negotiating contracts to finding investors to drawing logos to ordering pizza. Make yourself really good at those and your technical lead will _want_ to work with you. Don't, and why should they?

Other people can chime in on the legal aspects, but I suspect there's not a whole lot you can do. Ideas are only protectable to the extent that you can patent them, which costs money and gives you only a very limited monopoly. If all you have is a general idea for "I'm going to enter this market," you haven't actually added any value.

</comment><comment><USER3> That's a false argument: If Zuck was really just a "code monkey who got lucky" he could never have built that business up into anything. The problem with your premise is that it assumes that a site or a company is "one great idea" — that's the case to a degree but it's really "one great idea + execution + the right team to grow it".

Honestly Facebook was far from the first social website — in fact during the web 1.0 era theglobe.com went public and once upon a time there was a great site called SixDegrees.com which lasted from '97 until 2001 and used the same formula that facebook did. But the difference was execution, execution and execution.

On a side note techies get screwed over by business people more than the other way around. For every Gates there are dozens of inventors who lost out on their patents and the like. So your real question should be "How to avoid be Winklevossed?"

</comment><comment><USER4> There are three situations:

1) the idea is sufficiently novel that it would be difficult for an average person to conceive without suggestions

2) the idea is commonplace, but the value-add is something that is not obvious

3) the idea is a clone.

In the third case, there's really nothing you can do to protect yourself.

The second case is what happened to the Winklevosses. Their value-add, the idea of exclusivity, is something that a lot of people write off as obvious. However, and a poster correctly pointed out, the idea of social networking is commonplace. The cachet was an idea that the Winklevosses figured out, and that essentially was what propelled the entire project (had that been commonplace, someone else would have tried a long time ago)

Again, its difficult to protect nontechnical people in this circumstance, but the idea would be to let the technical people build the standard stuff first and then reveal the value-add after trust has been established (the winklevosses made the mistake of revealing the value-add way too quickly, before establishing trust)

In the first case, you definitely want to learn the technical stuff yourself. Especially if the idea is really good, in which case any developer would try to zuckerpunch you. You don't really have any protection, other than potentially trying to patent.

</comment><comment><USER5> Of course there is. The startup should have a good lawyer, which will provide you with the usual employment agreements and IP assignments, customized for your area.

</comment><comment><USER6> How do you avoid anyone from stealing your idea?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the advice everyone

</comment><comment><USER7> Look, to be part of a startup you need to be providing value equal to your equity share. Otherwise you're leeching. If you're non-tech you can add value through getting word out, negotiating, and taking care of all non-tech business issues (legal, accounting, marketing, sales), basically things a tech is _usually_ not very good at.

If you are not valuable equal to your equity share, reduce your equity share to a more appropriate value or GTFO.

I calculate equity split on my startups using an auction format and it just works: <http://nerdr.com/hacking-the-50-50-equity-split-using-shak/></comment>


John McAfee Vows to Unmask Satoshi Nakamoto Within Days - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-23/john-mcafee-vows-to-unmask-crypto-s-satoshi-nakamoto-within-days <comment><USER2> Big if true.

If not though, nearly a million out of 17.6 million bitcoins seems like a huge number to be out of circulation, and that's a lower bound (other bitcoin owners have almost certainly died without being able to pass them on). I know that the rate at which bitcoins are awarded slows over time, so it seems like eventually the rate at which bitcoins are lost due to owner death should exceed the rate at which they are created.

How is the long-term state of bitcoin not just a bunch of unrecoverable keys held by dead people?

<comment><USER3> If it ever became the major world currency and those coins were assumed to just be lost, their reappearance could cause single-day 6% inflation.

<comment><USER4> I cannot imagine Bitcoin becoming the major world currency without a wealth tax in place.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Full of shit as usual but I guess we'll see.

<comment><USER6> There is nothing to see, McAfee is a well known charlatan and it's sad to see Bloomberg covering such a story.

<comment><USER7> Consistent with the reputation they've carefully built with the Supermicro story.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "My entire life I've been tracking people who are the best in the world, and hiding their identity," he said in the interview.

Such as?

</comment><comment><USER9> McAfee: "I'm about to unmask Satoshi"

Press: "Where is he?"

McAfee: "You are looking at him."

</comment><comment><USER10> Awh dear this made my morning, nothing like reading quotes such as "I'm one of the best" from self-aggrandizing hasbeens :D.

</comment><comment><USER4> People like Kim Dotcom and McAfee just seek to be constantly in the news by creating controversies.

</comment><comment><USER11> Mcafee is not of sound mind, and definitely not to be taken seriously if anyone has even followed his antics in the absolute loosest sense of the word.

I don't know why the article says it's "hard to know". Mcafee is an attention seeker.

Sloppy journalism from Bloomberg to even cover this.

Also sloppy to assume he must be dead. Someone who is going to invent something like Bitcoin may very well have strong libertarian and perhaps anarchistic political views, it's entirely likely he doesn't care too much about making money himself.

This is how to tank your reputation as a journalistic outlet.

</comment><comment><USER12> John McAfee: "I am the Batman."</comment>


Manual for Civilization: 3500 essential books to rebuild civilization - <AUTHOR> http://blog.longnow.org/02014/02/06/manual-for-civilization-begins/ <comment><USER2> A third for great cultural works: great!

A third for actually learning how to build things: why so low?

Ah, right, because science fiction (but only the rigorous kind!) and futurism take up the last third.

I find that hilarious.

</comment><comment><USER3> Notice that this article was published in year 02014 (following Long Now's style.)

Has there been any further work on this project?</comment>


Memo to boss: 11-hour days may be bad for you - <AUTHOR> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37082387/ns/health-heart_health/

<comment><USER2> "People working 10 or 11 hours a day ... The finding, from an 11-year study of 6,000 British civil servants ..."

From a study of what?!

<comment><USER3> civil servant = government employee

<comment><USER4> He is probably making reference to the perception that, in the United States, civil servants work _legendarily_ lax schedules, and have union rules where it would take a joint resolution of Congress, an amendment to the Constitution, and a burning bush on Mt. Sinai to get them to shave even a single minute off their second break.

(I had a huge amount of culture shock a few weeks ago when I went to town hall in Japan to file some paperwork regarding my self employment. It required applying for insurance, switching social security systems, and getting paperwork ready for taxes. Being an American, I had naturally blocked off a day for this. I was whisked between four effective, courteous bureaucrats who got everything done in under twenty minutes.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I find it deeply disturbing that we seem to need studies to prove that working 11 hours a day is bad for health.</comment>


Show HN: I made an image sharing site where you can tag what you upload - <AUTHOR> https://showcash.io <comment><USER2> Google photos tags my images and I don't have to worry about uploading myself.

Why would I use this?

<comment><AUTHOR> The ability to earn via affiliates, add more detail and more... Worth looking at rather than just concluding?

<comment><USER2> Have you heard of FB/IG?

So not really worth considering, image sharing requires network effect, and that exists already. Why go where no one is? Who am I going to share with? Why am I hanging out in a ghost town?</comment></comment></comment>


Kim Jong-il has died - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-10745725

<comment><USER2> i wish this means the end to that regime, or at the very least some sort of Khrushchev type loosing of control will occur. I dont think there is any other group of people on the planet that have been suffering for such a continuous period of time as the North Koreans. It's the greatest tragedy of our age

<comment><USER3> Agreed. But there is very little to be hopeful about: North Korea has survived for many years by threatening violence and chaos to put a meager amount of food on its table. Its neighbours (and the international community) are about as afraid of the fallout from its collapse as they are the threats it puts forward. However, we are soon approaching a time when the global economc crisis will result in no one meeting its demands.

Couple that with a twenty year old playboy leader who's been fed his grandfather's crackpottery from the womb onwards, and there's no way this will end well.

For those who do not know much about the brutality of north korean life, there are several google videos of real life inside north korea. Be warned, though: they aren't graphic, but there isn't much on the internet that is as disturbing.

<comment><USER2> I'm really hopeful the kid will be a force for change. He was educated outside the country, and so was exposed to different cultures and ideas..he must have taken something positive away from that</comment></comment></comment>