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chi17

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Some questions:

* Would you consider your development team diverse?

* What is the office environment like?

* Have any stars come to visit?

* What's the weirdist thing you've seen or that's happened at work?

Seems like everyone's interpreting 6-figures in whatever currency they use, so here are the exchange rates, using USD for conversion since that's easier:

100000 Argentine Pesos = 5755 USD, 100000 USD = 1737740 Argentine Pesos

100000 Australian Dollars = 79514 USD, 100000 USD = 125764 Australian Dollars

100000 Bahraini Dinars = 265156 USD, 100000 USD = 37714 Bahraini Dinars

100000 Botswana Pulas = 9833 USD, 100000 USD = 1016942 Botswana Pulas

100000 Brazilian Reals = 31543 USD, 100000 USD = 317028 Brazilian Reals

100000 British Pounds = 129272 USD, 100000 USD = 77356 British Pounds

100000 Bruneian Dollars = 73743 USD, 100000 USD = 135607 Bruneian Dollars

100000 Bulgarian Levs = 61190 USD, 100000 USD = 163425 Bulgarian Levs

100000 Canadian Dollars = 79790 USD, 100000 USD = 125329 Canadian Dollars

100000 Chilean Pesos = 160 USD, 100000 USD = 62578223 Chilean Pesos

100000 Chinese Yuan Renminbis = 15171 USD, 100000 USD = 659165 Chinese Yuan Renminbis

100000 Colombian Pesos = 34 USD, 100000 USD = 293255132 Colombian Pesos

100000 Croatian Kunas = 16111 USD, 100000 USD = 620679 Croatian Kunas

100000 Czech Korunas = 4589 USD, 100000 USD = 2178982 Czech Korunas

100000 Danish Krones = 16055 USD, 100000 USD = 622874 Danish Krones

100000 Emirati Dirhams = 27223 USD, 100000 USD = 367343 Emirati Dirhams

100000 Euros = 119434 USD, 100000 USD = 83728 Euros

100000 Hong Kong Dollars = 12778 USD, 100000 USD = 782620 Hong Kong Dollars

100000 Hungarian Forints = 391 USD, 100000 USD = 25581990 Hungarian Forints

100000 Icelandic Kronas = 951 USD, 100000 USD = 10518565 Icelandic Kronas

100000 Indian Rupees = 1565 USD, 100000 USD = 6391818 Indian Rupees

100000 Indonesian Rupiahs = 8 USD, 100000 USD = 1333333333 Indonesian Rupiahs

100000 Iranian Rials = 3 USD, 100000 USD = 3333333333 Iranian Rials

100000 Israeli Shekels = 27978 USD, 100000 USD = 357426 Israeli Shekels

100000 Japanese Yens = 911 USD, 100000 USD = 10982976 Japanese Yens

100000 Kazakhstani Tenges = 298 USD, 100000 USD = 33534541 Kazakhstani Tenges

100000 Kuwaiti Dinars = 331580 USD, 100000 USD = 30159 Kuwaiti Dinars

100000 Libyan Dinars = 73952 USD, 100000 USD = 135224 Libyan Dinars

100000 Malaysian Ringgits = 23420 USD, 100000 USD = 426989 Malaysian Ringgits

100000 Mauritian Rupees = 3052 USD, 100000 USD = 3276862 Mauritian Rupees

100000 Mexican Pesos = 5594 USD, 100000 USD = 1787694 Mexican Pesos

100000 Nepalese Rupees = 979 USD, 100000 USD = 10219724 Nepalese Rupees

100000 New Zealand Dollars = 72430 USD, 100000 USD = 138064 New Zealand Dollars

100000 Norwegian Krones = 12879 USD, 100000 USD = 776482 Norwegian Krones

100000 Omani Rials = 259715 USD, 100000 USD = 38504 Omani Rials

100000 Pakistani Rupees = 949 USD, 100000 USD = 10535188 Pakistani Rupees

100000 Philippine Pesos = 1953 USD, 100000 USD = 5120066 Philippine Pesos

100000 Polish Zlotys = 28017 USD, 100000 USD = 356926 Polish Zlotys

100000 Qatari Riyals = 27240 USD, 100000 USD = 367105 Qatari Riyals

100000 Romanian New Leus = 25990 USD, 100000 USD = 384766 Romanian New Leus

100000 Russian Rubles = 1704 USD, 100000 USD = 5867167 Russian Rubles

100000 Saudi Arabian Riyals = 26661 USD, 100000 USD = 375074 Saudi Arabian Riyals

100000 Singapore Dollars = 73743 USD, 100000 USD = 135607 Singapore Dollars

100000 South African Rands = 7672 USD, 100000 USD = 1303373 South African Rands

100000 South Korean Wons = 89 USD, 100000 USD = 112359551 South Korean Wons

100000 Sri Lankan Rupees = 654 USD, 100000 USD = 15288182 Sri Lankan Rupees

100000 Swedish Kronas = 12567 USD, 100000 USD = 795748 Swedish Kronas

100000 Swiss Francs = 104577 USD, 100000 USD = 95624 Swiss Francs

100000 Taiwan New Dollars = 3320 USD, 100000 USD = 3011957 Taiwan New Dollars

100000 Thai Bahts = 3011 USD, 100000 USD = 3321156 Thai Bahts

100000 Trinidadian Dollars = 14876 USD, 100000 USD = 672215 Trinidadian Dollars

100000 Turkish Liras = 29016 USD, 100000 USD = 344640 Turkish Liras

100000 Venezuelan Bolivars = 9915 USD, 100000 USD = 1008583 Venezuelan Bolivars

Some sales-related challenges faced by companies I've worked for:

1. incentive plan - you'd be surprised at how much a poorly-thought out plan can screw things up. For example, let's say you're growth focused and don't have a lot to spend, so you think it's appropriate to only pay 20% commission on order revenue if the order belongs to a customer within the first 3 months after a customer's first order was completed. Genius right? Wrong. After that 3 months, your sales team is going to ignore that customer, and that unhappy customer at best won't be coming back as you burn through all of your leads; at worst they'll disparage you to everyone they know which includes your potential customers.

2. recruiting pool - this is not just a sales problem, but if you choose a crappy location because it's cheap or an easy commute for you personally, you're in large part defining the edges of your recruiting pool to reasonable commuting distance to your office. This is a great reason to embrace remote sales, but then you have to ensure a lot is in-place. Also, be aware of the general culture where you're recruiting. Do you accept it? Will the rest of the company and your customers?

3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11... many other things like: cell phone plan(s), travel reimbursement (don't give them a hard time about buying bottled water, do set realistic common-sense ground rules to ensure you have a sustainable plan through good and bad times, show them how to use a cellphone app to quickly scan and collect receipts, etc.), SalesForce licenses (or at least don't reinvent the wheel when it comes to CRM software), quality leads (ABC doesn't stand for "always be cold-calling"), automated contact resolution, sales training (and training for everything else!), customer training (and ensure that everything is legal in every way as it relates to the customer which is public exposure), network, IT/app support, product planning and ongoing FULLY RELEVANT communication about what is and isn't possible to do with your products/services.

...

9999999999. Last but not least, the selection process and effective sell of the position itself. You have to be ready and able to sell the position to a salesperson that you expect to be better than you at sales. You also need to recognize when they can't sell. You probably can't really accomplish this easily during selection, at the very least, ensure there's a clear understanding of quota, etc., and, like the reimbursement plan, it needs to be sustainable. If you keep changing the quota and they get pissed, they will know how to use Glassdoor, Google reviews, and tell every customer they run into at their new company about all your faults.

Some extras:

* Your smartest salespeople are going to make mistakes, probably be sneaky at times or try things that don't make sense. Encourage the creative things they do, but also listen to the others that provide better ways to handle those things. These are the ones to keep if they can really sell.

* Sales is about the company's success, not each sell itself. A bad sales staff will tank a company if told to do whatever it takes to make the sell, which includes selling at a loss.

Create a group/organization for the project or company, and put the documentation in a project under that group/organization in GitHub, preferably along with the project, which preferably has an open-source license that's appropriate (Apache and MIT are popular, and be careful not to use a license just because it's sounds cool or irreverant- often they won't pass Legal): https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html

The simpler alternatives involve having to pay a monthly fee or having to pre-pay for minutes. In the future, perhaps we won't have the luxury of paying for a lot of service we haven't yet used and might not need to use.

Not a freelancer. That's how I do it.

I don't think you're asking the right question, though. 100k+ USD/yr in some parts of the country is a lot different than 100k+ USD/yr in other parts. The really smart ones have found jobs in metro areas that pay lots, but work remotely from areas with low cost of living expenses, and put all the extra away into college funds for their kids and Roth 401k's invested in high risk, low-load index funds, with a significant amount invested.

And most of all, they ask for it. Once they get it, they don't piss people off, they do great work, and they get references.

I agree about networking being overrated.

What's better than networking is being good at your job, enjoying it, and enjoying working with those around you.

If you do those things, you'll have the network you need.

If you don't, get serious about finding it.

Disney’s Choice 9 years ago

The article indicated otherwise:

'At the same time, Disney might not even include all of its own content in the service. Iger said of Marvel and Star Wars, “We’ve also thought about including Marvel and Star Wars as part of the Disney-branded service, but there where we want to be mindful of the Star Wars fan and the Marvel fan and to what extent those fans are either overlapped with Disney fans or they’re completely basically separate or incremental to Disney fans.”'

If the only way I could stream new Marvel movies would be to go to Disney directly, I might pay per movie, or if it were cheap enough, I'd pay $7 for a single month of service to get that new movie or watch the original Tron re-engineered to look incredible in 8K one day when I'm 80 years old and have an old 8K monitor. But, I feel safe in my decision not to pay for a streaming service of only Disney content; I'm not a Zac Efron fan, though I did think Radio Rebel was Debbie Ryan's best movie.

Disney’s Choice 9 years ago

Splitting from Netflix would've been genius if the idea were that they'd partner with a competitor to challenge Netflix, namely someone like Hulu or, better yet, Amazon.

Going off on their own without being part of a larger more diverse set of content could deal a serious blow to Disney. I for one would not ever pay Disney through a Disney-specific service just for streaming Disney content, as much as I like Disney movies.

I think katas are great. So are all of the various tests you can take, as long as they provide accurate answers and information, because not all do.

However, I don't spend time on those. I'm not saying that you shouldn't, but I don't want to do it just like I don't want to go to a karate class. I have nothing against karate, but I don't want to hit and kick people. Similarly, I don't want to code the answer to some problem that someone else came up with, just because it's a kata or test.

I've been a programmer for more years than a lot of the people on HN have been alive and a professional developer for close to 20 years. That doesn't make my opinion right. In fact, I think the majority of you are probably better developers than I am.

But, if you don't like katas and don't like tests- don't feel bad about yourself. You might be like me. I just like to find my own problems and attempt to solve them. And that's ok. There might not always be a place for me as a developer, but there will always be a place for developers that think like that.

As long as you don't hurt anyone, just be yourself.

Could you explain?

Also, do you not think that current implementations that use eye tracking are not real holograms?

What's to say that holograms similar to those of Star Wars could not be produced by inspecting the environment and automatically determining where people's head and eyes are, e.g. via a combination of technologies similar to the following:

Eye-tracking holographic table requiring 3D glasses: http://www.euclideonholographics.com/

3D TV not requiring special glasses for the 3D effect: http://www.ultra-d.com/

And what about things that have been called and accepted as holographs created since the mid-20th century?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holography