jahbrewski

Call me naive, but honestly never made the connection between swiss cheese and Switzerland.

I’ve heard “we’re not there today, but it doesn’t seem that far off” since the beginning of the AI infatuation. What if, it is far off?

If you’re vacuuming, shouldn’t you be responsible for what you’re vacuuming?

I've found myself finding more satisfaction and joy out of doing fewer things, but going deeper. Instead of picking up a new sport, I've gone deeper into running. Instead of learning a new instrument, I'm going deeper into the piano. Instead of re-inventing my business, I'm doubling down on what's worked in the past.

It's not the right mindset for every stage of life, but it's working well at the moment!

Are you American, by chance? I am, and this resonates with something a Japanese woman recently told me.

I asked her what she thought some of the negative traits of Americans are, and here’s the first thing she said:

“You bounce around too much. From thing to thing to thing.”

How do you "read" an article like this? I would need to pull out some paper, run calculations, etc. to understand this (but perhaps I'm not the intended audience, as a non-mathematician?) - Or is that how you all approach an article like this?

Hmm, my experience with people who are chronically late is that the specific time doesn't matter. This sounds good in theory, but I think those people would just show up at 10:40.

Not sure I’m tracking here. Can you explain this further?

According to Wikipedia she's produced five of the fifty highest-grossing movies in film history.

Maybe I just don’t understand finance very well, but who is bankrolling over 1B in losses? And why?

Good feedback here. Do you have any example “smaller forums” that you have found particularly helpful?

Damn. Humanity really is just one large brain.

Additionally, at a more fundamental/basic level, I wonder about the social gap we're left with, sans religion. I'm probably biased by my Christian upbringing, but I can't help but miss the camaraderie I experienced growing up in a church. My wife and I just can't bring ourselves to knowingly participate in something that now feels intellectually dishonest.

Ah, I like where you're coming from. Thanks for the link; I'm definitely interested in exploring these topics further. Is there a name for this field of study? Perhaps just the sociology of religion? That seems to leave out the evolutionary biology perspective though.

I think religion is actually an evolved mechanism for perpetuating (human) life. I developed this theory when my wife and I visited some friends in rural Kansas. We attended their Christian church service and I was struck by the potential evolutionary advantages that would play out if the preacher’s advice was taken at face value: 1) Anti-LGBTQ rhetoric: if only a fraction of LGBTQ individuals were shamed into a heterosexual relationship, there’s a potential evolutionary advantage. 2) Stay-at-home mothers: encouraging marriage/reproduction as the end goal for women likely has evolutionary advantages. 3) Early marriage: again, likely evolutionary advantage.

I find it extremely ironic that the groups most opposed to evolutionary biology are likely a bi-product of those forces.

Any resources/recommendations for truly learning SQL? I feel pretty comfortable with the basics, but could certainly stand to improve my SQL toolkit!

I appreciate your centrist views!

I think the loss of nuance to our political discussions is a disaster ...and I only see it getting worse. I believe there are good ideas on both sides of the aisle, but often feel like the only one with that viewpoint.

How can we fix this?

Ah. I really enjoyed that.

Makes me question my own habits: compulsive checking of email/Slack has really become the norm. On the one hand, as a manager, I want to be available to my team if they have any questions. On the other hand, a barrage of notifications and interruptions makes it hard to get focused deep work done.

Could you provide any further advice on how to hire sales professionals? I'm starting to feel comfortable hiring tech roles, but hiring for sales still feels like a black box!

Well, you sort of described the position I'm in :)

Given that, do you have any recommendations for developing channels of customers? I haven't really hired for marketing before - what should I be looking for in that role?

While I agree with the sentiment of #1, I would argue that sales are more important than marketing at this stage. You can spin your wheels “learning SEO” and “creating content” with very little tangible results. In the beginning, sales + product are just about all that matter.

As someone just starting to grow a development team (currently four people) in Denver CO, I’m already thinking about how to build a diverse group. Does anyone have any resources, books, or maybe just some plain common sense advice to recommend?

I'd just like to say thank you! As a kid, I loved all of the Klutz products. So many hours of enjoyment!

Reading the comments and is no one missing out on the irony that simply choosing "Imbox" over "Inbox" got all of the people on this thread talking about their product, and onto the front page of HN? Yeah it's goofy. Yeah it's controversial. That's absolutely the point and that's what gets people talking.

I think it's genius.

But at some point isn’t it helpful to know that some things are as difficult as you fear, and you just have to power through? I picked up vim early in my programming career and I think it was one of the best decisions I’ve made; I use it every day. Yeah, there’s a time and place for learning “easier” things, but there’s also a time to buckle down, get serious, and dig in.

I love the idea of this, but in reality I can’t imagine the time and energy required to scan and keep everything up-to-date is offset by the benefits. Perhaps a current user can prove me wrong?

In no way am I saying the business has _nothing_ to do with the product. Simply that it’s probably far less than the developer in many of us wants to accept.

I didn’t help my customers and was too focused on the technology.

Somewhat ironic that your Postmortem is highly focused on technology as well :)

But seriously, SaaS businesses are still businesses. I think so many software developers think “I can build that!” about X and fail to realize how much of a business has nothing to do with the product.

Oh man, I so badly want to use DDG. I was actually using DDG for the past several months and just switched back to Google today. As a developer, I'm constantly searching for things and I just couldn't justify the additional 5-10 seconds it would take me to re-do a search. Say I make 100 searches/day: (.2 * 100 * 7.5)/60 = 12.5min/wk. Not to mention the disruption in flow caused by those repeat searches. I applaud DDG for what they're doing, going up against a behemoth, but I just can't seem to make it work for me.