Why you shouldn't bother with an MBA - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/whichmba/think-twice <comment><USER2> I have a top-5 MBA. In hindsight, I am torn.

A big part of me believes "you don't need an MBA to be successful in tech" (etc etc etc).

However, every week I use tools & skills that I picked up during my MBA. Yes, sometimes it has to do with modelling and such stereotypical MBA skills. Many other times my MBA has a much larger impact - recalling the themes that were incessantly driven into me in my Managerial Leadership class, or enforcing the rigor that my Marketing prof required of his students when writing positioning statements.

I believe my MBA has increased the likelihood of me being successful. That's what matters to me. I agree that it's not for everyone.

</comment><comment><USER3> Article is pretty skimpy on details and plays fast and loose with facts. Apple has hardly any MBAs, but it does have some, notably Tim Cook, who many claim singlehandedly turned Apple around. Also telling is that the dollar figures for salaries exclude bonuses. I know several executives who have base salaries less then some engineers, doesn't really mean anything without the bonus figures.

The value of an MBA will be what you yourself put into it. It was never the case that you could just sign a check for tuition and get a high dollar figure salary.

The fact is, that short of a start up with traction, getting an MBA is the best way to get exposed to a wide variety of business challenges, from operations to sales to organizational behavior, and yes, even finance for entrepreneurs and fund raising.

MBAs aren't going anywhere, and they have been evolving with the business climate over the past 100 years. They certainly aren't for everyone, but I don't think this article does much to accurately paint the pros and cons to help someone decide if it's right for them.

<comment><USER4> _They certainly aren't for everyone, but I don't think this article does much to accurately paint the pros and cons to help someone decide if it's right for them._

Well, in its proper context, the article is a counterpoint to The Economist's entire "Which MBA?" section and/or issue (<http://www.economist.com/whichmba/>). In the context of an entire section devoted to helping you decide which MBA you should do, this brief argument against doing an MBA at all is a helpful piece of contrarianness.

Presented out of context on HN where "MBAs suck" is conventional wisdom rather than contrarian iconoclasticism, though, it loses much of its effect.

(In my opinion, as someone with a PhD and 5/32nds of an MBA, the answer to "should I do an MBA" is "Do you want to do an MBA?".)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> _"Apple, which recently usurped Microsoft as the world's largest technology firm (by market capitalisation), has hardly any MBAs among its top ranks."_

Tim Cook has an MBA from Fuqua, one of the top MBA programs in the US. Was that really that hard to fact-check?

<comment><USER4> Well, if he's the only one then that's still "hardly any".

Is he the only one? I don't know.

<comment><USER5> Six of the 25 people listed here have MBAs, and several don't mention college at all, so it's probably more:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Apple_Inc._executives>

It actually saddens me that this article is being voted up. It's more evidence of the phenomena of people upvoting articles whose thesis they agree with rather than those which enlighten an issue. The article adds virtually nothing to an already tired discourse.

<comment><USER6> Most of those people aren't current Apple executives. Current execs here: <[http://www.apple.com/pr/bios/>](http://www.apple.com/pr/bios/>);

I count 4 MBAs out of 11 current execs: Cook, Oppenheimer, Johnson, Williams.

By comparison, there's 5 with science or engineering degrees, 1 with a J.D., and 1 with no degree.

<comment><USER4> Ah, thankyou, so finally we have an answer to the question "Is it true that hardly any current Apple executives have MBAs?" and the answer is "No". Four out of eleven is a minority, but doesn't count as "hardly any".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> You shouldn't bother with an MBA.... as long as you're spending the equivalent amount of time learning and growing as a person.

The key here is what you do with your time. A structured education is hardly ever going to be a waste of time. It may not bring instant promotion and salary increases commensurate with the cost, but to call it a waste of time would be quite incorrect.

Like the Rent vs Buy argument for property, the 'Rent' case is only better if you invest the amount saved. The MBA vs No-MBA argument is better for the No- MBA side if you invest time and effort into learning and growing as an individual. MBA vs Watching TV is a no-brainer, as they say, you should always opt for studying.

For some people, the structured learning environment and connections made during the course are invaluable. People tend to discount or forget this when evaluating the worth of MBA courses.

</comment><comment><USER8> This article is really devoid of substance. I expect more from the Economist magazine normally. They provide anecdotes about companies and countries that got by without a large number of MBAs. They don't even provide any evidence of correlation, let alone causation.

I have generally been skeptic of increases in higher education- but this doesn't really explain the pros and cons of an MBA.

</comment><comment><USER9> Am I reading the chart on that page correctly that the post-graduation salary is on average 20-30% less for most MBA graduates?

I find that to be a shocking figure after the 2 years and huge amount of money that people generally invest in getting an MBA.

<comment><USER10> I think that they must have transposed the labels. The graph must mean that a student who goes into Harvard leaves an $80,000 a year salary and after two years gets a $115,000 a year salary. That doesn't tell us all that much unless we know how much that same person would be making if he or she stayed in the workforce for those two years.

<comment><USER11> The graph must have been done by someone without a MBA...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Articles like these over generalize, and I hope that anyone who reads this article doesn't assume everything they read is gospel. I know my point of view on MBA's isn't the popular one on HN, and that's fine.. but an MBA was just right for my career, and it is for _some_ others as well. As for "...MBAs brandishing spreadsheets, the latest two-by-twos and the guilt induced by some watery ethics course." Way to read the "10 day MBA" and write an article about it. Oh wait a minute, the author is also basically pushing his own book on basically the same subject.

<comment><USER13> From the bottom of the article: Philip Delves Broughton is the author of "What They Teach you at Harvard Business School" and _a Harvard MBA_.

<comment><USER12> saw that, but I still think my point about him pushing his own book is valid.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I was intrigued until I saw the site and realized that they were talking about a degree in business and not a MacBook Air.

</comment><comment><USER15> An MBA is what you make of it.

For some people, seeking to transition between industries, an MBA can be very helpful. If you are working as a marketing person for General Mills and then decide that you want to break into ibanking, an MBA is great. It allows you to re-enter a very standardized recruiting process versus having to haplessly apply to random jobs. The same goes for people who work in fields where hiring and promoting is very standardized. At certain F500 companies/investment banks/PE firms it is expected that after 2-4 years of working you'll go back and get your MBA (if you want to be promoted). It's pretty dumb, but that's the way it works. Certain star performers can sidestep that but it tends to occur less frequently.

At the same time, for certain careers which are based more on merit (trading, entrepreneurship) an MBA might be less helpful. At best, for a non-business person, you will learn some basic skills and gain a good network. But it's a pretty high cost.

</comment><comment><USER16> Anecdote:

I went to a decently-respected, and rather expensive, private college. Lots of wealthy folks sent their kids there (and the high tuition allowed the school to hand out big scholarships to kids like me, who couldn't have afforded it any other way). One of my friends was the son of an executive, worth more money than I or any ten people I know will ever be; once he was visiting his son, and being introduced to his friends. Anyway, at one point he said something that stuck with me, and given the mix of people he was talking to I'm pretty sure he wasn't just trying to make the liberal-arts folks feel better about themselves:

 _The thing about business degrees is this: I can hire someone who studied history or literature or whatever, and in six months teach them what they need to know about business. But if I hire someone who got a business degree, I can spend all the time in the world and never be able to teach them how to_ think _._

</comment><comment><USER17> One of the key issues that I think has accompanied the downfall of the MBA is that the pure-boardroom corporate suit no longer delivers as much value as he used to. Sure, most big companies are run by corporate suits with MBAs, pedigree degrees and well-oiled networks of friends in management positions across the corporate world, but the primary metric used for rewarding management is growth.

While in the past, most companies grew under the direction and helmsmanship of a corporate suit A-list CEO, the return on investment is no longer there: 20 years ago, investors in a million dollar startup would get nervous and push for an MBA to steer the ship. When Google got big, there was a lot of clamoring from investors for "adult supervision". In contrast, while there were a few calls for Zuck to relinquish the helm to MBA-led adult supervision, he has resisted them while successfully growing his company to apparently a 50-billion dollar valuation. I only expect this trend to continue. The next big tech startup will never have a corporate non-tech type at the lead until it reaches it's current-day Microsoft-esque peak and slow decline. (One can argue that this is already the case, given that Eric Schmidt is actually a tech geek in corporate clothing.)

And this effect is not just at the top CEO-level: it is mirrored across the slightly lower tier of upper-management: the very tier that most aspiring MBAs hope to occupy at the pinnacle of their career. High performing tech departments are no longer being as gingerly managed by MBAs --- or if they still are, the leadership and powers are slowly being devolved more and more to the nerds. Quant managers in investment banks are already more compensated than the CEOs of those banks themselves. People no longer blink in horror when a boffin (what an antiquated and obsolete word!) is made a CEO.

Of course, most _mature_ well-established companies are and will probably continue to be run by MBAs in well-oiled corporate boardrooms. But the compensation is not the same for someone who takes a billion dollar company and grows it at 2% year on year as it is for someone who takes a 100 million dollar company and turns it into a billion dollar company.

In the past, MBAs used to be handed on a silver platter these gems in the rough by nervous investors eager to get some security (imagined or real) in their growth assets. This is no longer the case. And therefore, MBAs no longer have this easy source of high growth opportunities to lead to success. They are going to have to make these gems in the rough themselves, because those who are making the high growth companies are not relinquishing control (like Zuck.) to them to steer and get lavishly compensated for.

And if there's anything I've learned from the tech industry, it's that MBAs don't create value, aren't original, and don't actually start things --- and they are finally losing their cash cow of having high growth ventures handed to them. I wouldn't be surprised if in 10-20 years the MBA would either be radically different (evolved into a little corporate training and social skills for nerds seminar) or obsolete and viewed as a mature, well (but not outrageously so) compensated professional training programme like a degree in Accounting or Medical School. I have even bet on this being the case in choosing CS grad school over an MBA program in the recent past.

<comment><USER18> All of your points are valid. But, for an individual who want to increase their perceived worth, and make more money, (even it's with a boring mature company) an MBA from a good school can't hurt, and is bound to teach some useful management skills.

MBA's from mediocre or unknown schools aren't going to get one a highfalutin job with some bank or the upper echelons of the S&P500, but they might teach some useful management skills and decisions making skills that could be useful to techie's and others who want to run their own companies.

<comment><USER19> _an MBA from a good school can't hurt, and is bound to teach some useful management skills._

I'm not so sure. Reading Henry Mintzberg's writings, one gets the sense that MBA programs are dangerous. They don't actually impart useful skills but they convince their students that they do. I mean, consider Harvard Biz school's case study methodology. You get a bunch of people who know nothing about a company or an industry to read 20 pages of material, reduce all its problems to a single strategic question, then pronounce a decisions and that's it -- this is like a parody for designing a process that allows ignorant people to screw things up, all the while relishing their elite ignorance.

<comment><USER20> Being a published co-author of a business case ([http://hbr.org/product/vidalia-onions-sweet-and-sour- transit...](http://hbr.org/product/vidalia-onions-sweet-and-sour- transitions/an/906M22-PDF-ENG)), I find this to be a strawman argument for decrying business cases. I get your underlying criticism about lack of domain expertise, but case study analysis never devolves into "single strategic question" situations. Usually, cases are just meant to exercise brains into trying to understand and analyze different situations and realize that the various tensions can actually be quite complex. The methodology has its faults, but let's (edit: not) make it out to be less than what it is. It helps people to get into the mindset necessary to make good managerial decisions in diverse situations. The key difference between case studies and real life is that case studies hand all the information to you on a silver platter, while in real life, managers need to go digging hard both inside and outside the company for all the information necessary for good decisions. Case studies never intend to cause managers to want to avoid listening to their employees, especially the ones who are domain experts. Such instances reflect more on the manager's incompetence than it does on the case study methodology's inability to teach.

As well, there's something good to be said about being able to bring in outside perspectives to right sinking ships, thanks to not being chained to pervasive biases that may unknowingly be held by those who were "insiders" for a while. IBM's perhaps one of the most extreme examples. They brought a CEO with a non-technology background to right the ship. And he did.

"In April 1993, IBM hired Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. as its new CEO. For the first time since 1914 IBM had recruited a leader from outside its ranks. Gerstner had been chairman and CEO of RJR Nabisco for four years, and had previously spent 11 years as a top executive at American Express. Gerstner brought with him a customer-oriented sensibility and the strategic-thinking expertise that he had honed through years as a management consultant at McKinsey & Co.. Recognizing that his first priority was to stabilize the company, he adopted a triage mindset and took quick, dramatic action. His early decisions included recommitting to the mainframe, selling the Federal Systems Division to Loral in order to replenish the company's cash coffers, continuing to shrink the workforce (reaching a low of 220,000 employees in 1994), and driving significant cost reductions within the company. Most importantly, Gerstner decided to reverse the move to spin off IBM business units into separate companies. He recognized that one of IBM's enduring strengths was its ability to provide integrated solutions for customers – someone who could represent more than piece parts or components. Splitting the company would have destroyed that unique IBM advantage.[25]"

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

Not that John Sculley managed to do anything remotely as good for Apple when he was recruited by Jobs from Pepsi. ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I personally don't have an MBA but I think it's important to at least pick up a few books and become a pseudo expert. Accounting is also extremely important to be familiar with (if you plan on becoming a business owner).

</comment><comment><USER22> So _The Economist_ was originally against the PhD and now they're against the MBA. What's with the anti-postgraduate rant? I guess they'll claim physicians don't need an MD next.

<comment><USER23> I'm pretty sure that in the UK medics do an equivalent of an MD as an undergraduate degree:

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

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bachelor_of_Medicine,_Bachelor_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bachelor_of_Medicine,_Bachelor_of_Surgery)

The Economist is UK based.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Two points, not necessarily in response to the article, but to the comments to this item and the general attitude of HN towards the MBA.

1) There are a lot of industries outside of technology and even within technology, the facets vary greatly. Trying to say what a startup needs vs. what Apple needs vs. what Facebook needs is a largely useless exercise. Saying "MBAs are a dying breed because Facebook didn't need them" is pretty irrational, as is judging someone based on whether or not they have an MBA. If Mark Zuckerberg dropped everything and knocked out an MBA in a year or two, would he somehow no longer be the person he was before he did the program?

I guess what I generally don't get is the idea that the MBA brands you as an undesirable idiot in this community. It's as ridiculous as thinking that just having an MBA qualifies you for huge responsibilities

2) MBA programs are capable of evolving and they are. Many MBA programs are now focusing much more time on leadership and teams and give students the ability to exercise these areas much more than they used to.

</comment><comment><USER25> Many companies have issues finding top management talent and thus why they resolve to accrediting individuals with MBA's as being suited for the job. I've begun to think about a new concept for harvesting this type of talent. What about the following idea:

As a company (or recruiting company) you essentially "poach" people who have gotten into Booth, Wharton, Kellogg, etc. So you approach them once they have received letters of acceptance from these schools and offer them a nice job in your company. The individuals that actually would accept your offer (and of course the offer would be good) would even be in the ideal talent pool of aforementioned top MBA universities. Down the line someone may question "well yes Mr. Smith did get into Wharton, but he never went". My answer would be "Any person smart enough and business minded enough would realize their investment in this offer is much more advantageous to their career than attaining their MBA".

Who wants to create a recruiting business that does this? ;)

</comment><comment><USER26> I've been meaning to do an Ask HN on this, but since we're sort of on the topic, whats a good way for a technical person to learn the basics of business, especially as it pertains to startups? Is there some good central source or book that could take me from basically getting things conceptually to knowing all of the jargon, etc?

<comment><USER27> I wrote a book that will help you: <http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1591843529/>

<comment><USER25> 50% through it now. Highly recommend!

Sidenote - I was surprised that the author of the Economist article didn't use Josh's quoted research from Christian Schraga who estimated the ten-year NPV of a top MBA program is approximately negative $53,000 [1]. If these assumptions are correct, it would take approximately 12 years to just break even.

[1] - [http://mbacaveatemptor.blogspot.com/2005/06/wharton-grads- ca...](http://mbacaveatemptor.blogspot.com/2005/06/wharton-grads-caveat- emptor-for.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I spoke once with the MBA program manager (or something, I don't know what, he wasn't the dean for sure) at my university. He summarized that an MBA is a professional degree, not an academic degree. As such, the value from an MBA depends on who your classmates are, not what your profs/textbooks say. He said that it's often the prof actually learning from the students. They can discuss case studies and business issues in class, and each student can add something special to the discussion. "Well, we experienced this exact thing back in our 2004 expansion push, and these were the issues that we encountered and how we dealt with them." "That's funny, we experienced something similar in 2005, but it was in Japan, and dang, we had a totally different set of experiences, this is what we had to do, but we failed at this and that in the attempt. These were our results from the whole thing."

Joe Schmoe with no real experience can try to mumble something that he learned back during his Marketing 303 class, but nobody will care. If the university is worth anything, Joe Schmoe would not be accepted in the first place.

So the guy emphasized to me that the real value from an MBA is not the fancy 3 letters, nor the fancy job prospects, though those are all nice bonuses. He emphasized that the real value was the professional network that would be accumulated (the better the school, the better the network as a general rule), and correspondingly, the wealth of information and future opportunities that could be gathered from that professional network.

So it sounds very similar to a comment someone made about why they found university to be valuable in that other thread about whether to attend university.

On the flip side, I knew a director of marketing from when I worked in telco. He had an MBA from Phoenix University online. His class included a hotel clerk, for reference in terms of their student quality. But he wasn't expecting anything out of it. He came from an engineering background and had gradually transitioned into sales and marketing. But he found as he moved up the chain in sales and marketing, he lacked some of the fundamental aspects of business that many of his peers seemed to possess (simple things, like even vocabulary; what the heck does managerial accounting mean, and how does it differ from regular accounting?). So he enrolled into Phoenix just so that he could talk shop properly with his peers. He's a lifer at that telco, a rising star, so getting an MBA from Harvard wouldn't help him achieve his goals any better than Phoenix would. His goals were just to keep growing inside the company, not seek a high-profile exec position somewhere else; Phoenix provided him the tools he needed to do exactly what he wanted.

So in the end, it depends on what you're looking for.

<comment><USER23> But management isn't a profession in the same way that law, medicine, accountancy etc. are - in those fields you have to be professionally qualified to practice and a "real" professional qualification (i.e. a non academic one) is revocable.

<comment><USER20> LOL, that made me think, don't we all have experiences where we wish the people above us could have their statuses revoked due to their incompetence? :D

<comment><USER23> In some way that is the mark of a "real" profession - if you are unhappy with the way someone has performed you can go to the relevant professional body and they will carry out an inquiry and they can be stopped from doing their job.

And yes, for people like lawyers, medical doctors etc. this _does_ happen, for example the MMR vaccine fiasco resulted in this:

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8695267.stm>

Can you imagine that happening with MBAs?

<comment><USER28> Or to computer programmers? Or system administrators? Or DBAs? Something about glasshouses and bricks seems apropos here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> This is an issue we have discussed here at Hacker News. Shameless plug: I for one have tried to push the cause of No-Degree-MBA. For example, you have The Success Manual which contains actionable summaries from 200+ greatest business books self-improvement books of all time. <http://thesuccessmanual.bighow.com>

</comment><comment><USER30> Business school is not about the quantitative skills - those you can pick up in a couple of weeks from a book, if you have any decent proficiency in arithmetic and/or using a spreadsheet. It's about networking and about learning to manage a schedule of incessant busyness.

<comment><USER31> In addition to adapting to a new place and working with all types of people who you would never have come across in your prior role.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> It says a lot about me that I thought that MBA meant "MacBook Air" in this context.

</comment><comment><USER33> For me, I have to say that the high point of that article was squinting to read the small, non-clickable graph and seeing "Queensland" (Australia) as one of the universities mentioned.

Oh, the article? Pretty bland.

</comment><comment><USER34> I discuss

(1) The Article.

(2) An MBA.

(3) Professional Education.

(4) Business.

(1) The Article.

The author seems angry about MBA programs, and he doesn't support his claims with solid data.

(2) An MBA.

If an MBA didn't take quite a lot of time and money and, possibly, _opportunity cost_ , then, sure, get an MBA.

If someone has a clear objective where an MBA is important, then maybe get one.

If someone wants to be in business but really has no significant background in business from family or experience and, say, didn't major in business as an undergraduate, then maybe get an MBA.

Some of what is taught in some MBA programs is not easy to learn from experience or independent study and might be useful later in business. Examples include optimization (e.g., linear programming), statistics (random variables, distributions, expectation, variance, independence, central limit theorem, law of large numbers, conditioning, hypothesis tests, confidence intervals, the general linear model), an overview of information systems (likely not worthwhile for readers of Hacker News!), accounting, mathematics of finance (e.g., Black-Scholes), business law, organizational behavior.

(3) Professional Education.

I never wanted to be a college prof but, due to some strange circumstances, for a while was a prof in one of the better MBA programs. I concentrated on optimization and computing.

Since I was in such a program, I wanted to try to do something useful. So, I tried to offer _professional_ education to the students. But I learned that business schools are very much against being _professional_ , say, like law or medicine.

Instead, business schools have _physics envy_ and want the profs sitting alone in their little offices with the door and curtains closed and thinking up some business world version of Newton's second law F = ma or Einstein's E = mc^2. So, they want _research_.

Of course, so far no business school prof has found anything like F = ma, but there are journals run by B-school profs where B-school profs can get whatever they do published. The journals do have some value as examples of make-work, junk-think, busy-work, prof-scam!

Shockingly, the business schools very much discourage the profs from having significant contact with real business.

If medical education were like business education, then all the med school profs would be at best second rate experts in biochemistry doing third rate work on imaginary cures for imaginary diseases and would never see real patients, and no one would go to a hospital no matter how much they hurt. Law schools? The profs there would never see clients, file a legal case, or appear in a courtroom and would do statistical studies about whatever in legal cases pursued by others. Gee, maybe they'd do _research_ on the ratio of nouns to verbs in legal briefs!

Instead, in medical school, the students actually get a good start on medicine, that is, how to take sick people and make them well, and that utility totally blows away anything in an MBA program.

So, what happened? In WWII, the US military concluded that research in physical science was crucial. Then the top 24 or so US research universities got an offer they couldn't refuse: Take big bucks from the US Federal Government as grants for research that is promising for US national security (eventually, or medical care) or cease to be a competitive research university.

Then the B-schools, somehow, got dragged into the same thing: The profs needed no business accomplishments or experience, had no on-going contact with actual business, taught _theory_ sometimes close to business but usually not, and did _research_ that has little promise of utility in business or anything else for at least 100 years.

In simple terms, the business school profs commonly don't know enough about business to run a lemonade stand.

Far, far too close for comfort is the clip

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlVDGmjz7eM>

from a business school class in Dangerfield's _Back to School_. The clip is perceptive on several points:

(A) The prof's idea is to set up a business "from the ground" up "with a 30,000 square foot facility" and an "efficient administrative and executive structure". Uh, generally that's a lot of money spent and likely at risk before any revenue. So, it is more common in practice to start small and, if successful, then grow.

(B) Dangerfield asks, "What's the product?". The prof wants to say "That is immaterial for the purposes of our discussion here". Well, maybe "immaterial" is okay from 100,000 feet up or when just talking with the general contractor, but anyone actually in business cares a lot about the product and would want to discuss it. The prof makes a stab, "tape recorders" and from Dangerfield gets a big lesson, "Are you kidding? The Japs'll kill us on the labor costs." The lesson: It's not trivial to think of a promising product. Quite generally the "product" is from important up to crucial. So, Dangerfield doesn't want to discuss spending big bucks without the product clearly in mind, and here he is correct.

(C) Dangerfield asks, "Why build? You're better off leasing at a buck and a quarter, a buck and a half, a square foot, save your down payment". One lesson here is that the prof is being too simplistic on the build/lease decision. For a growing business, building is likely a monument to ignorance. Another lesson is, Dangerfield has actual, current costs for leasing; in a real business of that scale, the CEO knows costs in fine detail. The clip is accurate: Commonly profs don't know real costs. E.g., I ended up leading the college in buying some computing; from the work I'd done before being a prof I knew the current costs in good detail, and the other profs in _information systems_ didn't. For a student to toss out actual cost data in class can be embarrassing, intimidating, and infuriating for a prof!

(D) Of course the high point of the exchange is where Dangerfield interrupts and says, "Oh, you left out a bunch of stuff.", and with contempt the prof responds, "Oh, really. Like what for instance?". So, Dangerfield rattles off several points of costs in the _real_ world! Could be very good to know! The clip shows a student taking notes furiously; that's accurate: Commonly the students really do want the real stuff. Finally the line, "How about Fantasy Land" is on target and a hoot.

It's a well done clip and parody of B-school and indicates that the movie makers and much of the audience got the points quickly.

The profs are pursuing a scam and know it: The smarter ones see how to game the system and do but are ashamed of all they do. The still smarter ones leave for something else in academics or just for actual business.

Instead, for a much better model, business schools should become plainly professional and borrow from medicine. If some problem in a real business in, say, _supply chain optimization_ becomes important, then a B-school prof with such a problem should contact the campus applied mathematics, civil engineering, or operations research department much as a medical school prof might contact someone in biochemistry or cell biology.

A business school prof is someone who teaches students how to avoid the pitfalls in business they avoided by being business school profs.

(4) Business.

For someone who wants to start a business and make it successful, there are various directions:

There are the businesses common on Main Street, and likely the best way to learn such a business is to have a father who is successful in that business and learn from the father while working in the business.

There are businesses successful due to parts of _globalization_ ; some of these opportunities are too new to learn from a father, and how to learn is not clear. Travel the world on a tramp steamer and spend a few days in each of 100 foreign ports?

And for readers of _Hacker News_ , sure, software.

For such possibilities, I have a tough time seeing that an MBA would be worth the time, money, effort, or, especially, the opportunity costs.

So, instead of just cursing the darkness, what might B-schools do?

Well, as I said, borrow from medicine. Or, health care is important: Medical school teaches students how to deliver high quality health care; to do this, the profs need to be experts in health care and relevant parts of the human body, disease, and how they work. This expertise was difficult to get and to confirm, formulate, and teach but is crucial. The research, say, in biochemistry, is important but not nearly the same thing.

Well, business is important: B-school should teach students how to do well in business; to do this, the profs need to be experts in business and how businesses work, the problems they encounter, and how to solve the problems and do well. This expertise will be difficult to get, confirm, formulate, and teach but is crucial. The research, say, in statistics is important but not nearly the same thing.

<comment><USER35> _Shockingly, the business schools very much discourage the profs from having significant contact with real business._

This was not my experience at UMass Lowell's undergraduate College of Management program (graduated 04). One of my professors was CEO of a manufacturing company in South Korea, teaching at the same time because he loved to teach. Another one came directly from Gillette (now P&G) and shared tons of personal experiences which were extremely insightful. A third professor was a consultant to numerous companies. I can go on and on, but virtually all of my professors had strong ties to the business world, and that made them extremely good teachers. While I can't speak of their MBA program specifically, many of my professors taught those courses too.

There were some academic professors, but they were the exception rather than the rule. In fact, come to think of it, I can't name one of the top of my head. In other departments, sure, but not in their management program.

I think it's safe to say that every college is different, and you'll get a unique mix of backgrounds and experiences from Professors pending on where you go. There very well may be academic-only business schools, but that's not everywhere. Some schools are terrible, while others are great.

\</comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>--

One thing that I wish I had more exposure to in college was working directly with businesses. There were internship programs, but during my Junior/Senior year the economy was utter crap, and opportunities were virtually non- existant. As you pointed out this is something you see in medical and legal education, and I wish I saw more of it in business school. I agree with you that it's an area that needs improvement if it hasn't been universally implemented yet.

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>--

 _(A) The prof's idea is to set up a business "from the ground" up "with a 30,000 square foot facility" and an "efficient administrative and executive structure". Uh, generally that's a lot of money spent and likely at risk before any revenue. So, it is more common in practice to start small and, if successful, then grow._

This touches on the "level of abstraction" that some business types fall into. It's basic South Park Underpants Gnomes logic: Phase 1: Collect Underpants. Phase 2: ???. Phase 3: Profit! (<http://cart.mn/aYOY1h> \- maybe NSFW)

Basically, skip over the most difficult parts and focus on the easy ones. It's "easy" to walk out with a business degree and not understand Phase 2. Real world experience hopefully fills in that gap. Definitely another opportunity for business school improvement.

When it comes to web-startups though, I can't say this loud enough: LEARN HOW TO HACK! Otherwise you're nerfed because you can't do Phase 2.

<comment><USER34> Well put.

Yes, in the Dangerfield clip, it's possible to argue that the prof was being appropriately _general and abstract_. But, then, to what end for the costs for the plant? Is this to test ability to add some numbers? No. Is the detail enough actually to help someone work with an architect and general contractor to get the building constructed? No. Is it useful in business to address business planning in such an abstract way, that is, so distant from actual details such as Dangerfield was mentioning? No.

There is a role for some abstract work in business, but the lecture in the clip was not an example.

E.g., long in some schools of agriculture, e.g., Iowa, a question was, say, for growing corn, what corn variety, planted when, with what density, with what soil chemistry, with what fertilizer would be best? Broadly the key was the special case of the general linear model called _experimental design_ and/or _analysis of variance_. It's powerful stuff, a nice tool to have, broadly applicable, and can be presented quite abstractly. In the end, the corresponding software knows nothing about the real problem, from an ag school, P&G, some ad agency, etc. Still, real examples are important.

The B-school where I was a prof had rule: No more than one day a week _consulting_. And any outside contact with business was a black mark as in evidence that the prof didn't really care about _research_. To the best of my knowledge, no one on the faculty had any significant on-going contact with business, and only a tiny fraction of the faculty had any significant business experience at all.

I wanted the B-school to be like a research-teaching hospital where the halls were full of people from real businesses with problems looking for solutions. So, I wanted to look at the problems and assign them to, say, undergrads, grad students, grad student research, faculty research, or maybe hand them off to profs in, say, engineering. For the student projects, have faculty supervise the work. Hopefully have the problem presented in class, maybe by the person with the problem, and later, by the students, also the solution. The students would make some real business contacts and get some _internship_ experience.

The usual standards for peer-reviewed research are "new, correct, and significant". Well, if the business person is doing something new and significant, then any "correct" solution for the business problem likely also satisfies "new and significant"! Also, once have a solution for one real problem, the chances that the solution applies to another real problem are increased! If find a third problem the solution solves, then are on the way to some progress. So, for research, starting with a real problem can be one heck of an advantage in several ways.

Fees? Med schools have worked all that out, along with professional peer review, ethics, etc.; so borrow that.

The work I did for the school in computing helped the school a lot, and the deans knew that I was really interested in real business and not research in the form of generalized abstract nonsense; I was relatively well qualified to do such _research_ but just wanted contact with real business instead or at least _first_ as in the recipe for rabbit stew that starts, "First catch a rabbit.".

So, to thank me for the computing work I did, the deans passed lots of consulting to me, and I doubled my income. Yes, lots of business people do have problems and do contact B-schools; it's just that mostly the B-schools tell the business people to go away.

I very much wanted to bring the consulting into the school for the students, in classes, etc, but made only partial progress: After I did the computing work, I gave a grad course on it. The first half of the course I lectured on _speeds, capacities, costs, and principles of operation_ and other overview topics in computing. The second half of the course was all presentations from vendors! The class was well attended by grad students, faculty, and staff! Everyone got current on a lot in computing! The final was to write a paper. A few students got together, formed a team, went off campus, dug into some deep stuff, and got close to some significant business opportunities!

The first lecture in the course was to pop the covers off the computing I'd had the college buy and show people the main pieces. Students were thrilled.

Seeing what the school, profs, chairs, deans felt they wanted in _research_ , I, uh, did them a _favor_! We needed to do some faculty recruiting, and resumes came across my desk. So I saw and picked one with some rare and powerful qualifications and led the recruiting effort, and the person was hired! They quickly wrote a lot of highly regarded papers in applied math and became famous, not so much in B-schools but in some parts of applied math. Their work was novel and curious applied math, actually at times close to the question P versus NP in computer science. But the work was done with no contact with actual business, and it will be a very long time until that work actually impacts business. Still, just as _research_ , that person totally knocked the socks off everyone else in the school.

The points, I'm saying, about B-school being _professional_ with good contact with real business is no secret at all; it is widely, thoroughly understood. The problem for the B-schools isn't understanding the points but liking them. To like them, have to give up on _physics envy_ , etc. And with the contact with business, have to be vulnerable to accusations, say, from elsewhere on campus, that the school is just being used for something _crass_ that has nothing to do with _contributions to knowledge_ for _progress_ in business. People who so criticize contact with real business and have a child with a really big tummy ache should take them to a research prof in biochemistry instead of a gastroenterologist!

But just contact with business is not enough: Instead it is important to identify important _principles_ , test and confirm them, organize the knowledge, and teach it. So it's _research_ analogous to mapping out new geography and finding the main features. This work is actually not easy to do; problem is, it's important. Medicine did it, with a lot of hard work, bloody hands, horror stories, but finally some of the best progress in civilization. It can be done, but B-schools are not much trying to do it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> another reason for not doing an MBA is that it stops you from being able to make a point concisely....;-)

</comment><comment><USER37> An MBA is garlic to my entrepreneurial vampire.

That being said, there are two different responses I would give to someone considering getting an MBA. If you're looking to climb the ladder in an old school company an MBA is par for the course. If you're using the MBA as an excuse to put off being an entrepreneur you're shooting yourself in the foot with a silver bullet.</comment>


Mistakes on Our Way to $88k in Revenue - <AUTHOR> https://beamjobs.com/blog/14-mistakes-our-startup-made <comment><USER2> 3\. Start your company as an LLC

No matter what anyone tells you, don't start as a C-Corp, unless you are sure that VC is investing in your company right away. Even the cost of winding down a C-Corp is substantial.

<comment><USER3> Unless you're in the Cannabis industry and you don't want to worry about 280e

<comment><USER4> How does being a C Corp protect you against 280e?

<comment><USER3> Pass through tax liability.

Let's say you did your accounting wrong and your company owes a bunch of money. These accounting mistakes usually account for double digit percentages of revenue.

If you own an LLC, you get the benefit of only paying taxes once unlike a double taxed C-Corp. The cost is pass through tax liability. If your company owes taxes, the owners personally owe taxes.

Let's take a real world example that happened to someone I personally know. They owned a dispensary, made some money not too much, everything going ok. IRS comes and says 4 years ago you did your taxes wrong. On revenues of ~$2.5M, she owed $400K that she deducted incorrectly due to 280e. In a day, she almost had her life ruined. She's back and opened a couple more dispensaries. She managed to survive others didn't.

If you had created a C-Corp, the business goes bankrupt. IRS collects what it can. You go on your way.

[https://investinganswers.com/dictionary/p/pass-through- entit...](https://investinganswers.com/dictionary/p/pass-through-entity)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> 13 is super crucial. It doesn't matter what you're doing, making your entire identity revolve around one thing is always a bad idea.

Growth is all about branching out and trying new things. Maybe some of those new things are dead ends, but I find trying new things or hobbies always helps me learn about the things I'm already passionate about. The stress relief and mental break ain't bad either!

<comment><AUTHOR> That's so true. It's probably the point that resonates most with me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> 14 - LOL. One of my friends in SF got locked on the roof of his startup--with his dog!

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha that's great. Stephen's dog Lila was right there with us too!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> While those points can be seen as very subjective points it was still a good article with real life experience behind, thanks for that and good luck!

</comment><comment><USER8> I really liked #8. Don't Engineer Too Early.

If customers are asking for features, processes, (your time), etc...then don't give that to them. Sell that to them. They'll pay if they really want it.

If a restaurant owner is asked why a certain thing is not on their menu enough times, the smart ones will get that on their menu. Is that new menu item free? Hell no.

</comment><comment><USER9> What about IP agreements? After reading "Venture Deals" you get the idea that if you to talk about your project and bounce ideas off of them during the development phase they could have implicit "rights" to IP. What do you have to have everyone you talk to about developments sign an IP agreement?

<comment><AUTHOR> That's honestly something he haven't considered. We generally tend to believe that ideas aren't worth much on their own, so we're happy to talk about our company/experience with anyone.

At our size, the downsides to protecting most of our ideas are outweighed by the value we get from practicing our pitch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Great article, thanks!

</comment><comment><USER11> Use a Retina logo!

<comment><USER12> I'm pretty sure most logos are retina.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Click-bait. Imagine you made a way to make 88k a month and keeping growing, why tell anyone?

Exactly: You tell once growth has stopped and you need a quick fix.

<comment><USER14> 88k a month is absolutely nothing.

<comment><USER15> I'm happy to take your 88k/month "nothing" from you, that would be life- changing for me.

<comment><USER16> Don't forget it is quite easy to end up losing money on 100k MRR.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why Smart, Hardworking People Don't Become Successful [2017] - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/the-mission/7-reasons-why-smart-hardworking-people-dont-become-successful-fbb2f27eed44 <comment><USER2> The piece reveals little wisdom and too much blame the victim. Two of three of the most important reasons are mostly beyond the control of hardworking, smart, less than totally successful individuals: Location, timing, and luck.</comment>


Presentation Rules - <AUTHOR> http://www.jilles.net/perma/2020/06/05/presentation-rules.html <comment><USER3> One piece of advice I've got a lot of mileage out of is that the title of a graph should be the conclusion.

So instead of "tire wear vs miles driven" it should say "tire wear increases with miles driven"

It saves people, especially non-technical ones, from having to read axes, look at the lines, and come to a conclusion while listening to you talk.

<comment><AUTHOR> Going to add that to the article; been struggling with this one. I have been seeing multiple different approaches for titles that seem to work.

<comment><USER3> It really fels like a cheat code. Once you start to notice it you'll see it everywhere in newspapers, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> That's all pretty solid advice. One thing that was always repeated to us over and over again was:

'Tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them'

As in, make sure you give a clear summary at both the beginning and the end of the presentation. Most people have short attention spans and tend to best remember the beginning and end of things.

Make sure you've repeated the main points of your presentation at both the beginning and end to ensure maximum retention.

<comment><USER5> Nice work following your own advice.

<comment><USER4> I always try to lead through example.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Don't use slide presentations for business meetings. Ever. Write a document or a memo instead. Every time.

Slides are ok as a backdrop for a talk, as long as that talk works as its own cohesive narrative. Slides are also ok as a last resort if it is what the audience demands. A sales meeting with people who expect slides. Or a pitch with investors too ignorant or lazy to demand the precision of a document instead.

But in general; a document will be much much better. This guide references Tufte's, whose own advice is to write docs.

<comment><USER7> I see this differently. If I go to a "business meeting" and someone has not taken the time to summarize their message in a succinct presentation, and instead hands me a document, I'd "nope" out of there.

"...too ignorant or lazy to demand the precision of a document instead" Wow. What a statement. How about time constrained?

"I didn't have time to write you a short letter, so I wrote you a long one instead" -Mark Twain

<comment><USER8> The problem is that presentations are not just short documents. I think GP would be fine with a short document.

A presentation is a sequence of slides, along with which comes many issues that prevent critical thought, such as the lack of random access, the lowered bar of evidence, and so on. You can convince anyone of anything as long as you craft your slide deck deviously to hide the lack of evidence and internal inconsistencies.

That is much harder with a document, even if it is short.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > One way that works well in most situations is to divide the story arc up in > Situation, Complication and Solution. [...] I believe the structure was > first created, or popularized by McKinsey, who depending on your views, have > a core business of turning slides into billion dollar revenue streams.

It's actually the Hegelian dialectic triad (thesis-antithesis-synthesis) from the late 1700s [0].

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thesis,_antithesis,_synthesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thesis,_antithesis,_synthesis)

<comment><AUTHOR> TIL! Awesome, going to read up on that.

I've found the "situation" part to be really powerful in my experience. Starting off with an important/relevant ground truth is highly effective.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> A few random thoughts

\- Always ask for a copy of a good presentation. You can reuse any visually compelling elements.

\- Start with a personal story or an interactive set of questions.

\- Think about who your audience is, and why they care. What is in this presentation for them?

\- If critical stakeholders are going to review your slides offline, as painful as it is, consider putting all your talking points in the slide and just reading from the deck.

\- Smile. Make eye contact. Be excited by what you have to say. Pause... for dramatic effect. Use your hands. Use your hands more.

<comment><USER8> > Always ask for a copy of a good presentation. You can reuse any visually > compelling elements.

Highly unlikely. Unless you also ask for a licence to use them in the specific ways you desire.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Advice I was given years ago is 7 plus or minus 2. The average person is purportedly able to grok 7 things simultaneously. Some only 5, others 9 hence the plus or minus 2.

And so I build my deck with that rule in mind - Never more than 7 slides. Never more than 7 bullets per slide. Never more than 7 words per bullet.

Also, if appropriate, I like putting only a single number onto a slide. No title, no explanatory text. An example might be an interest rate.

That allows the audience to listen to what I have to say about that data point. Because we either read a slide, or we listen to the presenter - <USER2> cannot do both simultaneously.

</comment><comment><USER12> Providing the deck as a memo is so refreshing.

Lockdown meetings have taught me to compress presentation to 25 minutes total per week, across my group's three regular meetings.

It's fantastic because it obviously helps focus the presentation, but also because it's nudged me into providing the presentation as a PDF at the start of each netting, Amazon style, with a five minute period in which to read the document.

(This in itself is a nice way of gathering attendees. "Here's the PDF for the meeting" is much less aggressive than "friendly reminder we have a meeting rn.")

My only wish would be that AsciiDoctor / PrawnPDF handled PNGs and Pygments faster. 5s is too slow to build a 3 page memo with graphics!

</comment><comment><USER13> Don't use sayings, cute phrases, or non-industry jargon. Plain, simple business text works better and you don't run into a possible offensive phrase. Unless you know every phrase that might be offensive, then don't risk it. If you cannot be a compelling writer with just basic language then get help. That's how you learn.

On that note, some organizations (e.g. The US Government) have cycles where words go from good, clued in meanings to bad, evil, outsider meanings. I realize this sounds like some high school clique stuff, but its so damn true. Its actually worse because there are many, many departments, and I'm sure many organizations have their own things. I had an aunt who was a grant writer and kept up with these things by volunteering to be a reader every so often. It kept her in touch with the trends. Now, you can follow other companies / governments social media accounts, request for proposals, and press releases for the phrasing you should use when presenting to them.

These days, unless it is organization photos, I really try to not have any people in my slides. I just don't think its worth it because you will offend someone. It might seem paranoid, but I really believe social media makes a lot of people from all sides overanalyze everything.

<comment><USER14> > On that note, some organizations (e.g. The US Government) have cycles where > words go from good, clued in meanings to bad, evil, outsider meanings.

Quick anecdote: I remember the day when "Information Assurance" was out and "Cybersecurity" was in. Took a few years for it to fully propogate in policies and org names... but it did.

They don't even really have the same meaning, but nevertheless... we all had to Find-and-Replace.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have seen this in the corporate environment just as much. It becomes somewhat clear after senior leadership changes: after a few months you will hear others use words that were previously only used by the new incoming leader.

It's not necessarily linked to what is "hot" right now. For example, I have observed German colleagues copy Italian phrasing in english.

<comment><USER15> _It becomes somewhat clear after senior leadership changes: after a few months you will hear others use words that were previously only used by the new incoming leader._

Although this isn't always a good thing.

After a UK company I worked for was taken over by a US company, we started to get these nauseating "all hands" propaganda calls, hosted by the senior executives. The rank and file staff were indeed later using words previously used only by the incoming leader: they were the butt of just about every office joke for weeks, and demonstrated the raw contempt that the people doing the real work had for the empty rhetoric the executives delighted in making us all sit through.

Maybe it was some 4D chess thing intended to boost morale after the takeover. Yes, I'm sure that was it. :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The only two rules that I think matter are:

1) make the presentation interesting to sit through

2) have something that you are convincing the audience to do, you should be telling them to "do X" not just tell them "about X".

Whether you have page numbers (I don't) or builds (I do) or executive summaries (I don't) is not going to meaningfully add to the chances of your presentation landing.

Structure is key. The "Tell 'em what you're going to tell 'em; then tell 'em; then tell 'em what you told 'em"[1] method works well.

The Duarte Method's[2] "Big Idea"[3] is a good approach:

> A big idea is that one key message you want to communicate. It contains the > impetus that compels the audience to set a new course with a new compass > heading.

Presentations without a key message are just somebody standing there and talking at you.

[1] [https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/08/15/tell- em/](https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/08/15/tell-em/)

[2] [https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470632011](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470632011)

[3] [https://www.duarte.com/presentation- ideas/](https://www.duarte.com/presentation-ideas/)

<comment><USER17> What is a build? Another word for an animation? Web searches just throw up guides to making a presentation.

Edit: Found it. A build is a type of animation that builds up a slide in multiple steps, e.g. revealing steps of a flow in sequence [https://www.techrepublic.com/article/creating-animated- build...](https://www.techrepublic.com/article/creating-animated-build-slides- in-powerpoint-2002/)

<comment><USER16> Builds are ways of trying to avoid the audience reading ahead and getting to the conclusion before you've told the story yourself.

For example, if you were explaining your business plan that had three steps:

        Phase 1: Collect underpants
        Phase 2: ?
        Phase 3: Profit

Your audience isn't going to be giving you their full attention while you walk them through Phase 1, because they've trying to understand the whole process think through it themselves.

Instead a build would use animations or duplicated slides to present this flow:

        Phase 1: Collect underpants. (click)
        Phase 2: ?                   (click)
        Phase 3: Profit

Now you are controlling the visibility of each step. It's very quick to author: create one slide, duplicate it twice, delete content off those two slides.

The slides should be there to reinforce your point. You shouldn't be showing a slide and then reading over the content.

It's one reason that some of my decks have a lot of slides, some may only be shown for 5-15 seconds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Nice! Bookmarking.

2 typos: Rule 10 ("it's" s/b "its") and 14 ("marke" s/b "mark").

Brings back memories of this: [https://guykawasaki.com/the-only-10-slides-you- need-in-your-...](https://guykawasaki.com/the-only-10-slides-you-need-in-your- pitch/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback -- I really should've edited before publishing at 1am!

<comment><USER18> No worries here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Working in consulting, I have a similar list of lessons learned from where I could feel I had lost control of the meeting, or the clients attention, or both.

The biggest one I have fits around 9 and 10. No numbers until the end. As in don't show data, tables, (a group of) numbers, graphs etc. until you are ready to cede the floor.

As soon as numbers appear, people's brains start analyzing and trying to make sense of what they are seeing, naturally this can/will lead to an inordinate amount of time discussing provenance, methodology and other associated aspects, or silent thinking i.e. not listening to your analysis.

Of course this doesn't apply to every type of meeting, but I always ensure I get everything else in up front first. Leave the detail in the back, don't bury the lead.

<comment><USER20> I suppose for a meeting where you want to foster discussion this rule tells you to start with a bunch of numbers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> First sentence: "Invariably my work requires to create and consume various presentations of differing nature."

Does anyone else find this style of writing unbearably pompous?

<comment><USER22> It sounds like a non-native speaker to me, I wouldn't even be surprised if this is Google translate output

<comment><USER23> I'm a non-native speak and I too find myself writing like this on occasion. Would love to know what about it rubs readers the wrong way.

<comment><USER24> "Invariably" is an uncommon word to be honest. Also "nature" in this context is uncommon as well. Kind of archaic. It's pompous because it uses a whole bunch of words to say nothing. Use of the active voice instead of passive voice would have helped as well. Add in unnecessary words such as "ergo", a frilly web font, and people assume the author just wants to show off.

<comment><USER25> Yeah--compare an alternate phrasing here, like "I watch and give a lot of presentations at work."

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! [https://github.com/ojilles/jilles.net/commit/fe6010fb208905e...](https://github.com/ojilles/jilles.net/commit/fe6010fb208905eac1e0656e18bf8b8c7945566b)

(I do hope I can clear the Google Translate bar of quality. Should have edited before publishing! And taken more of my own advice.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Most important communication at the company I work for is done through written documents instead of presentations. It's worth giving a try.

<comment><AUTHOR> I wish this would happen more often, indeed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is really practical advice.

The classic Really Bad Powerpoint by Seth Godin has some conflicting points but is still worth a read if you've never come across it.

[http://www.wendelberger.com/downloads/ReallyBadPowerpoint.pd...](http://www.wendelberger.com/downloads/ReallyBadPowerpoint.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER28> If you find yourself making presentations, buy this book and you will wow everyone.

[https://www.amazon.com/slide-ology-Science-Creating- Presenta...](https://www.amazon.com/slide-ology-Science-Creating- Presentations/dp/0596522347)

</comment><comment><USER23> I've another one, especially when dealing with managers who say "can you put this into no more than X slides?" when the subject matter is complex:

If you're trying to diagrammatically convey something complex on your slide, make the order of reading obvious. When the information is 2-dimensional, readers will zig-zag across the slide trying to make sense and then give up until you walk them through it. If there is a linear order (numbering, arrows), they'll follow it.

</comment><comment><USER29> > Use fewer words.

I'd go even more drastic here, don't use words or only use nothing more than a few words in very very big font. The rest should be just data, visuals helping you to get to your point.

And don't make presentations to be hands-out. You can't serve both purposes at the same time.

</comment><comment><USER7> Animations and transitions are very easy to abuse for sure, yet I've also seen them used very effectively in delivering a message. (Just was in a data presentation today where, without the animation, would have been very hard to grasp.)

So, careful of extremes.

</comment><comment><USER30> Demos work best for most things software. Avoid business presentations where possible.

<comment><USER31> Pre-recorded demos are the best.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Very good. All of that makes sense to me. Well almost

Can't make heads or tails out of point 12 though. Who's including homework (??) in slides and making some assumption about it? Very "failed to communicate" meta.

<comment><USER33> I believe point 12 advises to avoid slides that try to impress by obscure complexity.

An offending example might be a slide showing complicated equations that remain unexplained by the presenter. I've observed many presentations where such slides are introduced as "this is the equation used to derive value X from earlier, but I am just going to move on to the next slide..."

edit: format

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I would add "do not use fancy ligatures or loud typography". I just read the web page and you know what stuck in my mind the most? The fancy R's and K's. Also I kept waiting for a Q.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wanted to change the typography myself as well, but didn't want that to be an excuse for not writing. Thanks, the next version of the blog will be simpler!

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> > Minimum font size 14pt or 25px.

Is this a typo? Most guides will suggest 24 pt as a baseline, and maybe 20 pt as minimum. 14 pt is _really_ small for a presentation.

<comment><AUTHOR> Fixed, thank you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I find it ironic that a post teaching people how to present information properly is filled with typos, which is the number one sin in presentations.

<comment><USER37> I was annoyed by this as well, but the author appears to not be a native English speaker, so I withdrew my objections. Much better job than I'd do in German, which is the only other language I know to any degree.

<comment><AUTHOR> Author here: late night writing, wanted to push it out. Was expecting it to be ignored completely on the internet. Editing today — real good feedback here. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> The first image, of people having a meeting, is stolen. It has a link saying "Image Attribution" (which should really say the name of the attributee) which goes to the Flickr account of some random portrait photographer who doesn't seem to specialize in anodyne stock photos at all.

Here's the BBC attributing the very same image in 2015: [https://www.bbc.com/news/business-34666150](https://www.bbc.com/news/business-34666150)

Here's what Getty charges for this image ($55 and up): [https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/successful- business...](https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/successful-business- meeting-royalty-free-image/78806323)

There is even a comment from three years ago on the Flickr page saying the file has Corbis copyright embedded and asking if it's original.

How do I know these things? TinEye: [https://tineye.com/search/ce7668fe2986a90a93d5fda4d1c90c8ee6...](https://tineye.com/search/ce7668fe2986a90a93d5fda4d1c90c8ee6617585?page=1&sort=score&order=desc)

It's very frustrating for hard working stock photographers who already only get 20% of the sale price to see Flickr enabling copyright violations by displaying images as Creative Commons when an algorithmic search of the two most popular stock photo sites shows it is not original.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah did not realize this, will be corrected ASAP. Quite sympathetic to the situation of photographers, actually.

<comment><AUTHOR> Removed the image.

<comment><USER38> Thank you. I would suggest changing your "Image Attribution" text to actually say the name of the person or organization you're attributing to. Right now it's just a link which is less valuable to photographers than having their name written out (yet takes about the same space), and is subject to link rot as seen on another one of your posts: [http://www.jilles.net/perma/2014/10/03/introducing- graphite-...](http://www.jilles.net/perma/2014/10/03/introducing-graphite- news.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah was thinking the same after reflecting on your message. Have to tweak the system for that a bit, but it's worthwhile.

For a while I was thinking of setting myself the rule of only using my own images to circumvent this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Great post!</comment>


Back-lit e-readers 'damage sleep and health,' doctors warn - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/health-30574260

<comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8787218](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8787218)

</comment><comment><USER3> From the paper itself (highlight mine):

> During LE-eBook reading sessions, the light-emitting device was set to > _maximum brightness_ and placed in a stand that held it at a fixed angle. > This stand was placed on a table directly in front of the individual at a > 30- to 45-cm distance from their eyes. Participants were allowed to turn > pages on the LE-eBook, but were asked not to hold it while reading or make > any adjustments to the settings. During the _printed book reading_ sessions, > participants were _allowed to hold the book at any desired distance_ from > their eyes.

Is this anything new anyways? Shining bright blueish light into people's eyes before bedtime has got to be a well researched topic already. This feels like media-tailored hype while a simple "yes, back-lit ebook readers use this kind of light so those existing findings apply" would have sufficed.

<comment><USER4> Bad science combined with terrible reporting from the BBC where "light emitting e-book readers" become in the headline "e-books"...

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> "They found it took longer to nod off with a back-lit e-reader, which led to poorer quality sleep and being more tired the next morning."

So going to sleep later means you get less sleep and are more tired the next day. This is not a shocking revelation. I'd also be curious what they think about frontlit eReaders as opposed to backlit.

<comment><USER6> You stripped the context from the quote... They're not comparing going straight to sleep vs using an before bed e-reader.

"A team from Harvard Medical School compared reading paper books and light- emitting e-readers before sleep."

<comment><USER7> A bit more important context, by "light-emitting e-readers", they really mean iPads positioned at a fixed distance with a fixed brightness.

Feels like a rigged experiment to me, frankly. "I hypothesize that reading on an e-reader has a negative impact on your sleep, let's design a study which shows exactly that."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> On my laptop, I've been using f.lux [0] to prevent the bright monitor lighting from keeping me too alert late into the night. It took me a while to get accustomed to the hues, but I really like the way the light softens as the evening progresses.

[0] [https://justgetflux.com/](https://justgetflux.com/)

<comment><USER9> I love f.lux. It would be nice if you could run it on iOS without jailbreaking.

<comment><USER10> This is one of those comments we'll look back on in 30 years and say "what the hell were we thinking letting a company control our devices like that?".

<comment><USER11> Do you miss the days where you had to manually adjust the choke while driving and decoke the engine every few thousand miles? I think we're going to look back on computers of the 90s and 2000s with a similar quaintness. More people care about a bullshit-free computing experience than an abstract concept of "freedom".

<comment><USER12> I think it's not a true comparison - freedom to modify your hardware doesn't have to imply that it's a hassle to use such hardware.

In other words: does "bullshit-free computing experience" (or let's just say usability) have to exclude freedom (i.e. your options to freely modify hardware/software you own/use)? I'm thinking about that for some time and I think that (as most of the things) it's not a objective thing but dependend on the philosophy of the producer/maker. And I'm sure that there are people who want to produce well designed things (be that a phone or an app) that can be modified by users/owners (here comes the topic of ownership in the light of digital world, but that's another thing).

<comment><USER11> Is there a better way to prevent malware than a pretty basic review process (iOS/Mac App Store) and data sandboxing?

And to continue the car analogy, lots of car modifications are illegal for safety and public health (smog) reasons. I think computers are headed in the same direction in the next 40-50 years. The children of tomorrow will think it's absolutely bananas that we used to run unsigned code, because malware behaves much like pollution.

<comment><USER12> I think sandboxing is a quite good solution, but it doesn't mean that you can't have a root access. Consider jails in FreeBSD, where you can isolate a single process but at the same time you have a control over whole system.

Your car analogy can provide insight into the consequences of a single insecure system in the network, but at the same time it's not valid when you consider that you can (should) control your systems and network if it has to fit your needs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The key here is "Light Emitting" rather than eBooks. So the title is more than a bit misleading since it's mostly tablets that emit direct light. The experiment specifically used an iPad in comparison with a paper book. Seems odd to generalize it to all eBooks.

This article[0] seems to have a more accurate title.

[0] [http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/12/141222131348.ht...](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/12/141222131348.htm)

<comment><USER14> >So the title is more than a bit misleading

I already made a comment here some dutch news thing that picked up on this and debunked it. It's weird to see it on HN this late and this upvoted.

Technically it's not misleading.

Why not? Let's grab Wikipedia's definition: "An e-reader is a mobile electronic device that is designed primarily for the purpose of reading digital e-books and periodicals." e.g. there is being made NO distinction between e-ink displays and normal LED displays (iPad, tablets, screens and the sort).

It's kind of misleading because people usually think of e-readers as e-ink display type of e-readers. But this is only a small subset of the 'actual' e-readers.

Conclusion? Don't stare at a light emitting screen (iPad, TV, PC) before you go to bed. Read from an e-ink display or a book.

I, personally, am still waiting for the day that 60 Hz e-ink PC monitors will be available.

<comment><USER7> I think it's fair to say that an iPad was _not_ "designed primarily for the purpose of reading digital e-books and periodicals."

Ironically, its size and backlight make it very poor for that purpose, but its ubiquity makes it easier for the iPad to fill the role of the e-reader in addition to its multitude of other roles.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> From Doc linked from the page: "Dr. Czeisler received royalties from McGraw Hill, Penguin Press/Houghton" [1]

It's shaming of the BBC not to have dealt with the findings more critically, rather than regurgitation of the press release. The characterization of iPads as e-readers in the context of the royalties looks suspicious.

[1] [http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/12/18/1418490112](http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/12/18/1418490112)

<comment><USER16> He's the fourth author and receiving royalties from publishers for use of his intellectual property (at some unspecified point in the past) probably isn't uncommon for a leading researcher in a field, particularly one that is employed by Harvard Medical School.

I'm not saying the paper is necessarily without its faults because of who he is (again, noting that he is only the fourth author of the paper), but implying that the paper was somehow funded by the publishing industry seems misleading at best.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> > Our bodies are kept in tune with the rhythm of day and night by an internal > body clock, which uses light to tell the time.

That body clock has been completely destroyed the day we started to use lamps and night and even more since we use Electricity. It's fine to say it's bad for your health, but seriously, being exposed to bright light until late at night is nothing new at all. And so far the Human race still endures.

<comment><USER11> Homo sapiens - ~250,000 - 400,000 years old

Electricity for lighting - ~120 years old

It's pretty new.

<comment><USER17> I'd rather submit to you it's BECAUSE Homo sapiens mastered Fire AND Light that we have become a dominating specie. So, it may have damaged our health in the process, but it has been massively beneficial for our survival as a whole.

<comment><USER11> So why aren't fireflies our lords and masters?

<comment><USER17> Because fireflies do not master Fire.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> k-mcgrady E-book readers _with a backlight_ 'damage sleep and health'.

<comment><USER18> Headline is definitely a bit click-baity. "Hmm, how can we write a story about how bright lights mess up your body clock, but not make it as boring or mundane? I know, we'll say _e-books_ are the culprit!"

<comment><USER6> You know you're reading a quality article when one of the subheadings is literally just (quotation marks and all) 'Concern'

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Dozens of comments here assume that there is an important difference between reflected light that enters the eye and light shining "directly" into the eye. It's obvious that spectrum, intensity, flicker, and other properties of the light can have an effect on us, but what difference could it possibly make, aside from these factors, whether the light is reflected or "direct"? Why is there an essential difference, everything else being equal, between backlit and frontlit readers?

<comment><USER19> Reflection off anything but a perfect mirror has a significant effect on spectrum, intensity, flicker, and other properties of light. So, given the limited set of available artificial light sources suitable for inclusion in an e-reader (which limit the starting set of options for those properties before considering reflection), _even if_ there is no essential difference in the abstract between reflected and directly-emitted light in terms of the human effect, the effect of those properties likely creates an important difference between _practical_ reflected and direct lighting in e-book reader devices.

The comments that assert (not "assume") that there is an important difference between reflected and direct light _in portable e-book readers_ largely _expressly_ note that the difference they are discussing is in that context, and neither assert nor assume a fundamental difference in reflected or emitted light _in general_. If you could make a back-lit reader that simulated a front-lit reader in all relevant features of the light reaching the eyes, it is obvious (tautological, even) that there would be no difference in the effect that light had -- but in real-world devices, "everything else" _isn 't_ equal between front-lit and back-lit devices, and the issue here is the effects of real-world devices, not hypothetical devices that exist only in thought experiments.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm not changing my habits from a study based on 12 people.

<comment> k-mcgrady Hasn't this already be researched quite a lot with Laptops and PC's? I thought it was common knowledge now that the light emitted from those devices would effect your sleep. A sample size of 12 isn't good but I'm sure there are much more comprehensive studies that have already been done on this. I think they're the reason apps like Flux exist.[1]

[1] [https://justgetflux.com/](https://justgetflux.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Meme-science. What about those laptops people staring at for 8 hours/day and those 50" back-lit TVs running 16h/day? Do they contribute to a "health- damage"? To what extend? How do they factor out "stress" from being a subject in a "study" from "stress" of being exposed to deadly back-lit?

"Methodology" aside. Let me guess - the "study" has been sponsored by affiliates of e-ink display producers/sellers?

</comment><comment><USER22> It's a shame [https://justgetflux.com/](https://justgetflux.com/) isn't available in the App store. As far as I know you have to jailbreak to install it (so it's not a technical limitation per se).

Can anyone think of a good reason why Apple doesn't ship with f.lux like software by default? It's pretty much a necessity for using a computer device at night.

<comment><USER11> Because all it does it makes your colors screwy, it doesn't actually help anything?

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> "They spent five days reading from a paperback and five days from an iPad."

... and proceed to show a kindle in the pictures.

Of course, the iPad has a screen so it's going to damage your sleep. The refresh rate + bright blue light is bad for you. Why did they need to make a study for that? That's know.

What I am wondering is a backlight e-ink display. No refresh rate, and a dim backlight. Now, that's a study that is worth it.

</comment><comment><USER24> Can people at least stop saying that f.lux does nothing? I have used it for like a year now and it has profoundly improved the length of time I can look at my computer screen. Also once I started using it I didnt have the slight double vision you get from staring at bright blue light for long periods. The study may be shit, but f.lux is effective.

</comment><comment><USER25> I still keep around a few _halogen_ and _incandescent light bulbs_ for the evening.

They emit a better light (color temperature) than fluorescent & LED lamps (and contain no hazardous waste). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_temperature](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_temperature)

</comment><comment><USER26> I asked a friend of mine and Kindle engineer for an amber-hued backlit kindle about six months ago. He thought it was a good idea, so maybe we'll get one in another year or so.

</comment><comment><USER27> I've got a Kobo Aura HD, and notice no difference in sleep quality compared to reading a normal book with a light on. YMMV, of course.

</comment><comment><USER28> Misleading. Reading from an iPad is not the same as reading from an e-ink device.

</comment><comment><USER29> Misleading title, it's reading ebooks on a tablet that's a problem, just like doing anything else at night on a tablet or laptop. Reading ebooks on an ebook reader with an eink screen is fine.

<comment> k-mcgrady The new Kindles (Paperwhite, Voyage) are backlit. If that trend spreads to other e-readers it won't just be a tablet problem. I guess this is a good argument to keep the old style Kindles around.

<comment><USER30> Paperwhites are not backlit.

"Paperwhite guides light toward the surface of the display with its built-in front light—unlike back-lit tablets that shine in your eyes—so you can read comfortably without eyestrain."

Source: [http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Paperwhite- Ereader/dp/B00AWH595...](http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Paperwhite- Ereader/dp/B00AWH595M)

Illustration: [http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/12/26/technology/lig...](http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/12/26/technology/light- reading.html)

<comment> k-mcgrady Interesting, thanks for the info. The article specifically calls out 'original Kindles' as being ok which led me to believe the Paperwhite could be an issue - however that might have been referencing the Fire.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Intel's 9th generation processors rumored to launch October 1st with 8 cores - sahin-boydas https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/12/17680384/intels-9th-generation-processors-october-release-date-rumors <comment><AUTHOR> Is there a chance that we never see a traditional 10 nm Intel processor?

I wonder whether they could embrace whatever problems they're having through instead of trying to model strictly 1s and 0s including intermediate states.

<comment><USER2> Define traditional.

I think Intel has to follow AMD's many CCX per CPU approach, especially after Intel hired Jim Keller who ran the Zen program at AMD. If they have started the many CCX program before hiring Jim Keller I would have hope it could come out in 2019, otherwise I think it would be 2020 at the earliest.

Thus the "traditional Intel processors" will likely have time to launch on 10mn before then. 10mn must be ready at some time right?

<comment><USER3> Intel is working on chiplets connected by EMIB, but it's not clear whether they would be cheaper than a monolithic die. Intel's ring and mesh interconnects with shared L3 cache have far better performance than AMD's CCX+crossbar arrangement so there's no reason for them to go backwards.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> Is the 9th generation Intel Core CPUs just a rebranding of the existing 9th generation with a few more cores? There is no process improvement, no architect improvement, just more cores?

I notice that the integrated GPU is the same one that I have in the 8750H, the Intel Graphics 620 UHD.

If this is the case, these chips then are going to be hot, power hungry and probably thermally throttled.

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

<comment><USER4> They use a refined 14nm process, 14+++.

> If this is the case, these chips then are going to be hot, power hungry and > probably thermally throttled.

Coffeelake isn't particularly power hungry, nor does it run particularly hot, nor does it have issues with thermal throttling.

<comment><USER5> I have the 8700k and you can barley overclock it without it running too hot.

<comment><USER6> Luck of the draw mine does 5.3ghz easily on an AIO and doesn't go above 80c even with Prime/Intel stress test.

Also make sure you are not using offset voltages instead of fully manual ones, the OC/Boost voltages motherboards set are way too high.

<comment><AUTHOR> What's the AIO make/model?

<comment><USER6> H110 don't remember if I or not it's a pretty old one I had for nearly 5(?) years I've replaced the liquid in it with distilled water a few times already.

My vcore is set to 1.34 but the LLC pushes it to abit more than 1.35 under a burn test, AVX offset is -2 (it seems to be stable at 0 but temps reach to 90>), IMC is at 3666mhz.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> And Spectre architectural fixes, one hopes

<comment><USER8> haha, no. That would deserve big headlines.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is this in response to competition? I wonder where we would be without it.

<comment><USER2> With 4 cores (8 with HT) like we were for the last 8 years - argh: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Core_i7_micropro...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Core_i7_microprocessors#Nehalem_microarchitecture_\(1st_generation\))

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The question for me isn't the nm size. It's "are the hardware fixes for Meltdown/Spectre in there?

<comment><USER7> Right. Obviating the grotesque hacks ( _cough_ retpoline) needed to work around the recent speculative execution problems would yield more performance "improvement" than some incremental process bump.</comment></comment>


Interviews of German and Soviet Survivors of Stalingrad - <AUTHOR> http://facingstalingrad.com <comment><USER2> My grandparents (Allied nation) would not have met if it were not for Hitler and the war. This is a weird and existential thought, but as much as I abhor Hitler's actions, I likely wouldn't exist without him.

My German wife, similarly, has grandparents who would not have met had it not been for the War (one grandfather walked home from Stalingrad having been taken prisoner during the battle).

I'm sure this story is true for many (we are history's product) and I can't be the only one a bit freaked out by my existential dependence upon the great bogeyman of history.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's nice to hear some of the positive things to come out of that catastrophe.

<comment><USER2> I guess you wouldn't say that if you met my family.

<comment><USER3> We might say it if we met _you_...

<comment><USER2> It's very sweet of you to say so. But alas I'm as difficult as the rest of them.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Shop like a pharmacist: Don't buy Advil - <AUTHOR> http://www.vox.com/2014/7/25/5936739/shop-like-a-pharmacist-dont-buy-advil <comment><USER2> As always, this is a good rule to follow, but you have to be careful to watch out.

The last time I bought some Tylenol, I went to a local pharmacy and scanned the shelves for the price/count combination.

The name brand Tylenol was a 100 tablet container. Sitting adjacent to it was the generic Tylenol store brand. Exact same physical size container. Twenty five cents less price as marked on the shelf.

Looking more closely, the identical physical size container of generic contained 50 tablets (of identical tablet size to the 100 tablet name brand Tylenol).

The end result, due to the price mis-match, is that the name brand was actually nearly half the cost of the generic (because one got 2x the pills for 25 additional cents).

I've noticed this effect in grocery stores as well. Often the lowest unit cost item is the middle of three sizes. The small container is larger unit cost because the packaging contributes a larger percentage of the total price. The large "bulk" container (which should be lowest unit cost) often is not. The only valid reason I have deduced for why is the stores trying to take advantage of people who "grab the bulk size because it's cheaper" without actually looking at the true costs.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm usually a brand-name food and medicine buyer, for one particular reason: reputation.

Tylenol is an excellent example. It's such a valuable brand that the manufacturer has an incentive to provide a quality product. In the past, J&J has done an excellent job of this. But even they have slipped. For a while in the recent past, J&J was forced to recall quite a number of products.

But still, in my probably grossly uninformed opinion, generics are generally a "commodity" business. Where else to manufacture a product like that but China? And I'm tired of reading about harmful Chinese products, e.g. [0]. China is like the USA was about 100 years ago, the wild wild West.

I don't mean to single out China. I'm leery of the entire third world. E.g. [1] given the state of sanitation in India, do I want them manufacturing my medicine? They have been called out on this in the recent past. [2]

To paraphrase Clint: You've got to ask yourself a question. "Do I feel lucky?" Well, do ya?

[0] [http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/726160-dog-treats-made-in- ch...](http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/726160-dog-treats-made-in-china-linked- to-kidney-failure-death/)

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/15/world/asia/poor- sanitation...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/15/world/asia/poor-sanitation- in-india-may-afflict-well-fed-children-with-malnutrition.html)

[2] [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/15/world/asia/medicines- made-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/15/world/asia/medicines-made-in- india-set-off-safety-worries.html)

</comment><comment><USER4> Brand-Names have such a hold in the US that it's often quite difficult to find out what the chemical (or 'generic') name for a drug really is, even using Google. This is a problem for them overseas because the brand-names often differ from country to country while the chemical name remains the same. Many people in the US often don't even realise that Tylenol is the same thing as Panadol or acetaminophen. (Such an ugly word, acetaminopen, that I'm surprised the other common generic name, paracetamol, hasn't won over.)

In most other countries, the generic name is used more commonly and Brand- Names are used as an option. Thus a client can say to herself, "Now, which brand of paracetamol will I buy? The 'Tylenol' brand at $10 a hundred, the 'Panadol' brand at $9.50 a hundred, or the local pack at $5?

Or even, "I see they're out of my preferred brand, 'Tylenol', so I'd better grab the 'Panadol' brand instead."

</comment><comment><USER5> I was surprised to see that this is relatively unknown in the US. I think it's common knowledge here in Canada.

Generally, it is the pharmacy chains that sell their own, branded generic medication at the stores. These products have higher margins and lower prices, so it is in everyone's best interest that they are promoted. The generic is located on the shelf right beside the major-label brand name, so price comparison is a no-brainer. But I suppose having the knowledge that the ingredients are identical precludes making that choice.

<comment><USER6> _" Generally, it is the pharmacy chains that sell their own, branded generic medication at the stores."_

The same is true here in the U.S. You can find generic brands in all the drug stores chains and supermarkets, right next to the name brands on the shelves.

My guess is that the pervasive advertising of the name brands somehow convinces people subconsciously that these products are better, even if they know that they have the same ingredients as the generic versions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It depends. I used to take a lot of ibuprofen (generic Advil), and I found that generic ibuprofen is often wax coated, probably because it's cheaper. Real Advil is sugar coated and much easier to swallow.</comment>


European stock exchanges down because of hard drives broken by sound - <AUTHOR> https://metropolitan.fi/entry/nasdaq-operated-stock-exchanges-in-europe-halted-by-fire-extinguisher-sound-that-broke-server-hard-drives <comment><USER2> Something is weird about the translation, it talks about the sound of the fire alarm system destroying hard drives, but then includes this quote:

"The cause of the hardware failures is because of the fire extinguishing system that uses an explosion to consume all available oxygen."

Did Michael Bay invent this fire extinguishing system? Seems like a not so helpful way to put out a fire.

<comment><USER3> That is how oil well fires can be extinguished actually, but it's hard to imagine this being an option in a building. More likely this is a form of Halon system, using displacement rather than shockwaves and consumption of free oxygen</comment></comment>