HN user
http://simpixelated.com
Makes a lot of sense and I don't disagree. They're definitely not a return to the web and I probably misrepresented them that way in my post. I was mostly using them as examples of existing platforms where you can find content without being subjected to the algorithm's suggestions, if you choose to use the "following" or "subscribed" features instead of "Discover" or "For You".
At some point you have to stop exploring and actually consume what you've collected. I think that's one psychological trick of infinite scroll feeds... our minds naturally want to see what's next. Personally, I spend more time searching and saving things to my various lists instead of actually watching or reading what I've saved.
The YouTube channel Technology Connections recently made a video [1] about this and used the term "Algorithmic Complacency" to encompass how many people would rather be fed content determined by their algo of choice than seek it out.
But for those who do want a return to the "Web", I think there are plenty of existing tools for this. RSS feeds allow you to follow independent blogs and websites. BlueSky and Mastadon can be used to curate a list of like minded people who will suggest other cool people or content to check out. YouTube has a Subscriptions tab that is not influenced by the algorithm.
That being said, I applaud anyone who wants to make the independent web more accessible and popular. We need alternatives to the infinite scroll fed to us by massive tech companies.
Exactly. Also, this _world_ is about money, dude.
I agree with this. The titles of Staff and Principal, generally, include some responsibility for teaching others (writing articles is one of many good methods for this) and helping to recruit people to your team through external marketing.
How do you get new contacts that you can pitch in a single email? Is it organic newsletter signups or something else?
I agree with this and similar posts suggesting they find local non-profits. There's probably no perfect answer to what's most "efficient" and I think that's probably the wrong way to look at it. As a single, non-billionaire, there's only so much you can do to help others. But, you will get much more satisfaction from seeing "first-hand" the "effect of your actions". Sending your money to some faceless global charity is not going to be as rewarding and will make it a lot easier to stop doing.
Good answer. I'll add that as a middle manager, it's your job to take a large umbrella strategy and break it down into actionable terms for your team. I think this is the root of the OPs problem. These meetings are for disseminating a goal/strategy that is set near the top of the organization. It has to be broad and generic in order for different groups to enact. It's up to the management of each team (whether its sales or engineering) to translate the company goals into specific goals for the team that are understandable.
I think this form of imposter syndrome is fairly common. I feel the same way, quite often. I no longer feel like I don't belong because I'm not smart or skilled enough, but that I'm not passionate enough to keep my skills as sharp.
One thought that helps me deal with it, is that every company/team needs people like us. If everyone on the team is obsessed with the work, then it starts to create bad habits of overwork that will further alienate new people. So just by being less interested, we're helping normalize separating work from life, taking things slower, and hopefully preventing the whole team from burning out.
The capitalist machines do indeed grind up most attempts at simply helping humanity; I don't think that's unique to tech. So I doubt you'll find solace by simply quitting tech entirely. Also, be aware that your contributions are relatively minor in the grand scheme of things, would have happened with or without you, and will not be solved if you quit the game. The problems are systemic, global, and ultimately controlled by corporations. You should not feel guilty for being forced into playing by the rules of capitalism.
I would suggest two options:
A) Try to make as much money as you can and use that money to help humanity. We are all extremely lucky to be in tech at this time, when compensation is massively higher than most other jobs. You could leverage your ability to make money and then donate that money to charities you believe in.
B) Find companies who have missions you actually agree with. While these are rare and don't always pay as well, they do exist. There are non-profits (and for profits) trying to solve homelessness, world hunger, inequality, discrimination, climate change, etc. Every type of company needs software developers. You just might have to take a paycut.
Good luck!
Yet another reminder to always negotiate.
That's probably part of it, but I think the root is that a college campus is designed for people to use it without cars. Food, stores, classrooms, places to sit and meet are all built in and connected via walkways. Cars become unnecessary once you get to campus
Some of the best advice I've ever heard regarding this is that you don't have to be an expert, you just have to know a little bit more than someone else. So take whatever you've recently learned, write it up, package and sell that. People tend to overestimate the level of knowledge required to sell advice. People pay for beginner level courses all the time.
I personally don't move anything into git until it's close to ready. WIP writing is kept on Bear (Markdown editor). But there are tons of other apps, including ones that sync to a cloud.
I have a similar setup for my blog and I'm using Netlify for both CI and hosting (free). It's been great! GitHub Actions could probably work well for you if you already have decent hosting.
Congrats on the launch/relaunch! The site looks great! One thing I would like as a job-seeker is a way to sort/filter by full time jobs where everyone works 4 day weeks vs. hourly jobs. I know I can work less than 40 hours as a contractor pretty much wherever I want, but companies that actually give full benefits and a salary that's comparable to 40 hours are more rare.
One point that I disagree with is "Every question asked in an internal Slack is a policy failure. It means the existing information systems failed to deliver an answer, and the user falls back to manually asking the hive mind's tacit knowledge." I find it's usually a failure of the doc search mechanism. It's much faster to ask humans a vague question than try to form the right search query for the internal doc system, which is usually much much worse than Google.
This can be solved by making docs public, but also by having people respond with a link to the docs. So Slack can still be a good interface to Q&A, as long as a single answer is documented.
Thank's for sharing! I hadn't heard of him until now. Love the suggestions for how to have better meetings especially.
Pretty good analysis, but I don't know if I agree with some of the final lines. Hard to see this as a "Molotov cocktail through the front window of the country and the global financial system". I mean they are literally playing by the rules of the financial system. This isn't Occupy Wall Street, or anything close to that. Sure, I get that they will declare bankruptcy and move on, but ultimately the major players of the global financial system are happy if people are buying stocks, win or lose.
OP here; I gained ~30 points on my PageSpeed score by switching my blog from WordPress to Gatsby.js + Netlify. Really happy I finally did the conversion. It was easier than I thought! I've lost a lot of CMS and SEO features from WordPress, but so far I don't miss any of them.
Along with the unionization at Google, I think it's a good trend to see them happening at big tech companies. As it says in the article: "Unions are a prominent presence at Amazon in Europe, but the company for years successfully fought off labor organizing efforts in the U.S."
It's sad that Amazon, along with FB and Google, etc. have managed to squash unions so completely here in the US. There's a lot of propaganda around unions that helps prevent them from every gaining much power. Obviously Amazon warehouse employees desperately need unionization much more than software devs, but I think both are needed.
Awesome! Glad it has worked out for you. I still feel like I might go back into management someday, but it will need to be an ideal situation.
OP here; yes, definitely! However as a tiny company, we don't have any of the same incentives to make it work like Google does. But it still manages to work because we enjoy the freedom/low-stress environment and want to maintain that, so that means doing enough good work to keep the business alive. Being so small also means that whatever we do has a huge impact on the company, both positive and negative. So while the lack of deadlines reduces stress, there's still the reward of feeling like your work means something at the end of the day.
Yeah, we see plenty of churn on smaller/newer accounts, but a good chunk of our customers, especially on the larger plans, have been with us for years. It's partly platform lock in, because it's probably a pain to switch, but I like to think it's also we solve a majority of their needs at a decent price and provide good support. So why would they switch? I think it also helps that we are generally targeting that small to medium size company. Or even smaller departments/teams within larger companies. So we're not subject to the whims of a C-suite that is looking to cut 5% off their budget every quarter.
I don't think so. Everyone seems to put in a solid day working. No one is counting the hours, but we seem to be productive enough. Still, I definitely joined the company to get away from working more than 40 hours per week and feeling stressed all the time.
I'm sure there are specifics for Gumroad, but there are lots of insights available via other remote companies:
https://blog.doist.com/asynchronous-communication/
https://zapier.com/blog/how-to-work-asynchronously/
Basically instead of waiting for a meeting to communicate, just write it down and send it out, via Slack or whatever. People can consume it on their own time.
I work at a similar company (less than 10 employees, no deadlines, (almost) no meetings), but unlike Gumroad we actually have health insurance, 401K with matching, donation matching, etc. So it is possible to to have "freedom" without laying everyone off and removing all benefits. You can read more about it here: https://simpixelated.com/two-year-work-retrospective
I work for a small company (less than 10 employees) that follows a very similar working process. No deadlines, one (very short) weekly meeting. We don't try to stay competitive with similar products. That's impossible with VC funding flooding the market. What we do instead is focus on making our current customers happy. Everyone is involved in support. We follow up with customers when we do launch features they requested, even if that's years later. It seems to be working well. It's not going to be hockey stick growth, but "freedom" for us (the employees) is well preserved.
As an introvert who was a manager for several years, I agree that it is very difficult and draining. I believe that I have the skills to be a good manager (empathy, EQ, organization), but I did find it extremely draining. Towards the end of my experience I could tell I wasn't giving my best to my direct reports and so I've gone back to being an individual contributor.
I still entertain the idea of getting back into management, but I'll have to figure out how to offset that drain, or even gain energy from personal interactions, as you said, in order to sustain it for more than a few months/years.