jtoeman

Have hired twice from them, both are total winners. But took a lot of pruning to get there!

thanks for your thoughts, appreciated!

re '"but will never be "great" at either" What sort of attitude is that?' - I don't consider this a bad attitude, more of an acknowledgement that my goal is not to be "great". Further, I am of the personal belief that certain things are unattainable to all people - there is such a thing as a truly great writer, where it's not just attitude/hard work, but a certain natural inclination and ability. I believe I can be great at many things (we all can), but I don't think I have the mindset to be a "great" programmer. Does that make more sense?

thanks - agreed with your philosophy in general.

in this particular situation, the employees want the company's stock - the team is just trying to figure out what's fair...

OF COURSE you can. but it's about choices. you must weed OUT the 60+ hr/week startups for the ones who work normal hours. this will eliminate some fun/great opportunities - BUT - it will NOT eliminate ALL great opportunities.

our startup's been a ~50hr/wk place for 2 years, built great product, and got acquired in January. we didn't make $19B, but we aren't complaining either.

from your priority set, which I personally agree with, you have plenty of options - but you'll have to be "on guard" for the manic places that think 70hrs is normal and the "only way" to be successful. pro tip - they are incorrect.

i do recommend coming up to SF over the peninsula though.... YMMV.

Meh. I remember back when you could only register .ly domains using a Japanese registrar. Now it's so mainstream.ly

would love to hear the story of how you went from zero to game... where did you start, what resources did you use, etc...

It's actually the most accurate piece on what's going on inside the TV industry I've seen from a non-insider...

OP here - sorry for the dupe, I searched but didn't see it yesterday. Mostly I thought it was a funny video that the community would enjoy - hope it didn't offend!

As someone with 15 years experience building TV technology, my statement is: this is a must-read for anyone who wants to build, invest in, or otherwise "play" in this space.

and thus, like every other forum online, "those who came before" are massively rewarded, and new users are basically treated like crap.

coming soon to HN - AOL keywords, blinking text, and animated ASCII art!

OK, so I'll add some context, you tell me what you think. I have almost 20 years experience in 2 very niche fields (consumer electronics and TV technologies). As a result, I've built up a lot of domain expertise and a lot of industry contacts. Again - no judgement here on whether I'm good or not, just stating some facts.

I frequently get emails from people introducing me to "Bob" who is starting a hardware startup and really wants to learn how to bring a gadget to market. For me, this is fun - I love to talk about this stuff. I've mentored/nurtured/consulted for dozens of these startups, and continue to do so to this day.

BUT - I'm also running a startup and have a family at home. Which means I have much, much less time available than I used to. So every "Fun" activity I choose to take takes away from either my work time or my personal time. This is fine - as long as I can manage it. Which I do. Until requests show up uninvited. Which now puts, as I've said, a burden in my lap.

I can choose to either (A) reply and take on the intro, (B) reply and decline (as politely as I possibly can), or (C) ignore it. So I never do (C), as I feel it's rude, but I can guarantee you that every time I do (B) I create a negative perception about myself.

I don't like being put in a position where I have to tell other people - who genuinely could use my help - that I am too busy for them. But what else am I supposed to do?

Whereas when my colleague asks if I'm up for an intro, and I can say no to someone who I already have a relationship with, and will understand me, is fine to me.

Maybe you think the above is wrong, but I don't...

Looking forward to your reply.

true - sometimes i do that - but often i might not get some of the nuance of what person 1 does as well as they would have described. i've found that it's much harder to recover from incorrect perceptions/assumptions than it is to get them right the first time...

again, i care most about the double opt-in part - the rest is just my method. there are many ways to do it right. :)

when did i "judge others"? seriously? before this becomes some weird ad hominem thing, let's leave it with: go do your intros however you'd like, and good luck in life, i really don't care that much about this yet still feel i'm entitled to my opinion, thanks.

maybe i'm missing something here - are you the one looking to meet people, or are you already full-time working? if its the former, then of course you want all the intro's you can take! let's agree that if you are out looking to meet people, then you most certainly want every intro possible - but my take on it is if you want the most effective intro's, they are double opt-in...

gotcha - thanks for clarifying!!

chill - i inform the person I'm introing that i will be forwarding it, they are very aware.

and no, unwanted email coming from someone i value the relationship with carries negativity and tarnishes my relationship.

i agree, that if there was a single person to provide feedback to, i would. but compare that with a fairly consistent stream of "hey, help this person out" emails, and I think you'd come to the same eventual conclusion...

curious - how many different people have sent you favor requests?

i wouldn't call it "pessimistic" at all. i think of it as respectful or not, that's it. someone who thinks i have all the time in the world to help everyone else, no matter my job or personal requirements, is simply not thinking about my time. i love helping others out, but i don't think it's right to burden another person with your favor (yes, i said burden - even if i want to help someone, it's still a burden as it has impact on my schedule, typically negative - doesn't mean i don't want to do it, but it should still be considered that way...

same comment I left on the post:

This is missing a HUGE aspect of intro etiquette - DOUBLE OPT-IN, almost all the time (and if you aren't sure, then it's ALL the time). If you want your contacts to be worth something, be respectful of them.

Here's my "workflow"

1. Intro request comes from Bob who wants to meet Jim

2. I review Bob's email, make sure it's short and to the point, and includes WHY it's a request. If I don't think it hits the money, send feedback and recommend edits to Bob. Wait for acceptable email - which must be its own, NEW & clean email. [edited for clarity: i inform Bob that I will send him whatever he writes to Jim, thus allowing him to position himself/his need/the opportunity in his own words]

3. I forward Bob's entire good email to Jim, which includes MY take on the matter (I think Bob's a great guy, or I am not familiar with Bob's company, but we've worked together before and he's worth meeting, or whatever).

4. If, AND ONLY IF, I get a reply from Jim agreeing to the intro, do I continue forward. But if Jim says he doesn't want the intro, I politely decline back to Bob.

Personally, I hate it when someone dumps an intro in my lap - it just isn't courteous or respectful in my opinion.

couldn't disagree more. introing someone without checking in is disrespectful of the other person's time. at least 9/10 times.

yes, and there are a lot of programmer jobs where the same is true as well - maybe as a percentage it's less than in a sales role, but it still exists.

but it actually doesn't really matter - you choose to be a programmer, so you choose to put yourself into a role that requires such accountability. i'm sure you are quite qualified to be a barista, but would you get satisfaction? doubt it.

You related to Tom Perkins?

FWIW those people "talking" or "whatever" are quite likely creating some of the business opportunities for your code to sit in and make you the money. The number of times when coding=(lots of)money without some of the "whatever" involved is fairly rare.

Comment ignored due to incorrect use of "there" vs "their".

;)

bingo.

thanks, will try!

i keep trying physical/written/etc to-do systems, they continuously fail me unfortunately... but thanks for sharing, it sounds like a great method!

Is there a "battle"? I mean, a battle to me means there is a likely winner, and people are pushed into making decisions and taking sides. In 15+ years working at tech companies, I've never had to "pick" - I choose to live in SF - thats it.

Further, I've literally never, ever, heard a person who is actually running or employed at a startup consider it a battle.

But it does seem like a good headline for getting lots of clicks...

literally every single comment here that talks about the quality of AMC shows is utterly irrelevant to this topic. AMC doesn't OWN any of these shows, they currently own the CABLE RIGHTS to those shows.

buying AMC is just buying a cable channel and those rights.

NOT a good move for netflix. they could simply start outbidding AMC/others for quality shows. oh wait, thats exactly what they've been doing....

"The author also fails to note that the current American home school movement has explicitly Christian roots."

Actually that's not quite right. The previous home school movement came out of Christian roots. The more current "trend" tends to be unaffiliated with any particular religious background...