xstartup

I know lots of smart people who worked for at least 10 years in very intense startup environments and got essentially nothing out of it. Often, they have to fallback on a life of contract work for huge boring corporations.

Yes, it's not guaranteed by anything.

I also know of cases where founder alone ended up with billions and early employees got nothing.

I just see those startups as poorly executed who decided to kill their army after victory way home.

We should strive for execution where at least your comrades also win.

> Can anyone explain to me where does this obsession with VC funding and huge growth come from? I feel like if you grow your company by more then 50% YOY you will end up with a totally different company culture, and you might end up hating your own company.

Startups need an exit strategy.

Employees want to work 5-10 years max and end up with millions to retire peacefully while working in an intense environment which serves as the story of their accomplishment for the lifetime.

Then they plan to follow their other life goals like going on a world tour with the family or watch their kids growing up or creating their own small lifestyle business. It can be anything.

The key realization is that most employees do not want to work for you just because they have found themselves in such place.

When I was new in the industry, I put a lot of blood/sweat into building a company. Today, I can't force myself to put the same amount of efforts even if I want to.

The idea is to raise money fast, hire experienced people for ancillary services and develop the application in a way so that it is able to hold up till IPO. Defer all costs (application maintenance, vendor lockins, IP infringement risks) for post IPO. Create the Hype around the product which gets you eyeballs, subscriptions, MAU and other metrics which translates into the valuation. Once you've caught market attention, the solution can always get more love post IPO.

The market pressure to produce returns post IPO results in the broad application of the company's IP, resources, and talent. This might spin up new industries.

Once the employees have cashed their equity, it's up to them to stay (if they are enjoying the position) or leave (if they've other life goals).

A lifestyle business, won't be able to achieve this for each of their employees. Even very few startups achieve this for most of their employees.

I was working on an app which serves roughly 400*10^6 API requests/day.

One cool property of our app is that it's rarely updated and mostly read.

And the goal is to achieve the lowest possible latency at the edge.

It scales beautiful, I am not sure which other architecture can help us keep this afloat with only 4 developers working on it.

So, we have a DynamoDB table which is replicated to multiple regions using DynamoDB streams and Lambda.

For us, Lambda means achieving a lot without many developers and system administrators but I understand that not all problems yield gracefully to this pattern.

It seems using Cloudflare Workers to trigger our Lambda function instead of API gateway could prove to be cheaper.

Grade inflation refers to the phenomena of getting an "A" despite having what used to be a "B" or "C" level of knowledge.

If an institution gives grade A based on some objective criteria and students getting the grade C turn out to be successful then methodology of the institution will be considered flawed by the vast majority. Soon, the institution will lose its relevance.

If the institutions have to stay relevant, they'll have to make sure the grades are correlated to successful people in some way even if it means handing out grade A to any student!

I and my wife discuss programming matters in front of our kids. And my kids listen to the discussions and want to be part of it.

Then I start teaching the basics, they are a bit more willing to hear.

Here the incentive for them is to be part of the club where interesting things are happening.

We laugh at coding jokes which kids don't appear to understand which leaves them confused.

So, it seems they are aware they lack some understanding because of which they are unable to understand us.

The same idea has worked for math, playing musical instruments like keyboard/ukelele, physical exercises like skipping ropes or air pushups.

If I simply give them a computer or ukelele, they won't be interested as they don't know how to hold a ukulele or have no one to tell them how to hold it right and how to fuse a chord progression with the strumming pattern. These things are not obvious by just watching or hits and trials on a guitar/ukelele.

Alright, this is a personal observation of mine:

1. I go to a store where workers are paid bare minimum, they give me odd looks and make me feel as if I stole their bread or smth.

2. I go to premium stores, where I pay more but they treat me better.

So, I go to premium stores even though I am aware I am losing more money, because in Maslow hierarchy of needs - I am at the top where I want to be treated better not save more money.

Cost of negative interaction is much much greater for me. I randomly have flashbacks of negative experiences but I forget all positive or neutral experiences.

Based on Exchange theory of Price, #2 price is justified.

Now, if you remove the workers in option #2, the interaction goes from negative to neutral and I'll prefer #1.

I and my wife discuss programming matters in front of our kids. And my kids listen to the discussions and want to be part of it.

Then I start teaching the basics, they are a bit more willing to hear.

Here the incentive for them is to be part of the club where interesting things are happening.

We laugh at coding jokes which kids don't appear to understand which leaves them confused.

So, it seems they are aware they lack some understanding because of which they are unable to understand us.

The same idea has worked for math, playing musical instruments like keyboard/ukelele, physical exercises like skipping ropes or air pushups.

If I simply give them a computer or ukelele, they won't be interested as they don't know how to hold a ukulele or have no one to tell them how to hold it right and how to fuse a chord progression with the strumming pattern. These things are not obvious by just watching or hits and trials on a guitar/ukelele.

Our python projects have <50 files. Each file with <100LOC.

There are hardly any comments on the projects. So, far we've not faced any issue.

It's easier to pay first engineers a higher amount after you get funded.

When the money dries up, it gets harder to offer even the same amount to an equally capable or a better developer.

Is it an established company?

You both can be right at the same time.

CNP transactions (which stripe does) cost bit higher than CP transactions which require POS machine at mom/pop shops.

Here he might find people with all those things except for the motivation to become one.

Wealth, relatively small population and homogeneity (cultural/religious/economic) does make a lot of difference, See: Qatar.

US might be wealthier (I've not vetted this statement) but it still doesn't have many of the above.

Even if you apply Norway's policies to any other country, it will not magically become as prosperous as Norway.

It's a resource-rich nation, highly homogenous and part of EEA. Norway is able to ship low-value hazardous work to poor European countries without paying for their welfare/infra expenditure. Imports janitors and healthcare (the work which local aren't willing to do like wiping the ass of disabled people) workers from East Europe.

It's equivalent is of Uncle scourge swimming in gold and attributing his wealth to his ability to swim in gold.

Open your doors for third world low skilled immigrants then we'll see how much progress Norway is able to retain.

Rich people don’t have to decide a damn thing to end up on top, just do what you’re told, work hard, and go with the flow; have your quarter-life identity crisis after you get your MBA and take that VP job at GS

It's so true as a rich man, I never needed to study much. If I need to make a deal, I ask my rich friends/family members for a referral to a lawyer, most of the time the lawyer itself is a member of the extended family, at least that's what it feels like. So, if the task is outside his expertise, he recommends me a very good person. They completely dissect the problem and analyze it from multiple angles, I find their insights helpful much like the insights from Hacker news members.

Same way, we know most bankers by their face in our city. If I even see the slightest mark on my skin, I ask my family doctor and they offer me best recommendation.

Once upon a time I applied for a credit card but I defaulted on payment, not because of lack of cash but because I never studied how a credit card works. So, what I did? I just hired a guy with employment contract set out to prevent such losses due to high interests on a credit card etc... He works with my financial planner now.

If you read through my comments, you'll see how dumb I really am. But navigating life, making friends, marrying a beautiful woman is a lot easier for me than understanding credit card rules.

My sympathy with people who are stuck with same issues as me. In my family also there are only a few truly smart people, rest have inherited most of their wealth.

In the US, one serious medical crisis can simultaneously make you exhausted and unable to think straight while plunging you into poverty that is nigh impossible to escape.

In Europe, we've don't have healthcare issues - it's free here.

Still, the people are unhappy and poor. Society as a whole is a lot more equal tho, I've friends who are very poor and ones who are very rich and I never sensed a discrimination.

If you're not going to choose your life partner and you are being forced, what kind of life it is.

Then why are there efforts to force economic equality through taxation which also affects a human being accustomed to certain ways in their life?

If you want to punish the rich, I've suggested a vastly superior way which is unlikely to be gamed.

If it's true then...

Obviously, if a person's brain is affected by poverty, the market isn't going to offer them the equal opportunity when that opportunity can go to the person (rich) whose brain is not limited by poverty.

UBI won't help them much! They'll still feel poor even if they've money to meet the absolute basics for a good quality of life.

I think a possible solution is to make it a law that a marriage is "must" and "can only" take place between a rich and poor person.

That way you can keep forcing equality at generation level till inequality is eradicated.

Achieving equality completely at "economic level" isn't possible unless you get done with the social signaling and things like class which can even stop a poor but smart person from rising faster to the top rung.

Retire before burnout.

After meeting many successful tech startup founders I realized, they retired before having their first serious burnout.

It's very true.

Many developers in the west having higher disposable income than their not so lucky counterparts who might be able to rival them in absolute skill.

But those developers want to spend more time with the family.

Remote work has not taken off even if we assume it's more profitable for a company to hire cheaper staff in low COL. This might mean that lots of the things in a startup has to do with maintaining a perception of smart geeks are working on a difficult global problem.

There is an arbitrage opportunity here by hiring ghost developers from low COL locations (similar to ghost writers). Why not support developers from low COL? That's what creates global economic equality right which egalitarian society always strives for.

So, if anyone comes to your office you'll have people looking seriously absorbed by the difficult problem but the real work will be done elsewhere, in return, you get peace of mind and more time with your family. Instagram pages and blogs will be lush with happy tech employee faces and "long stories of slaying tech demons".

Is this happening?

There are many areas where you can create opensource projects, for example, SaaS subscription management platform with plenty of payment, tax, fraud detection plugins.

Last time I heard there are so many SaaS indie developers forced to add WHMCS, amember pro or Woocomerce/Shopify for collecting payments using crypto, stripe, and PayPal. I mean, these platforms aren't for SaaS!

Then offer a hosted version which implements high availability, load balancing, robust failproof backups.

Most developers start their projects in areas which are unlikely to pay off, I don't blame them for this as it's something they find interesting but we shouldn't expect the market to pay for our interest.

Half of being a manager is managing other's behaviors to produce a great product.

No! you are doing it wrong. Research shows that it's hard to change others behavior.

The other half is managing your own behaviors -- i.e. being consistent with your communications and consistent in your behaviors.

While this is in your hand but you are subject to the same limitation as your team members.

Furthermore, managing people is not about making them agree with you but to use a framework of short-term incentives to align long-term goals.

We use conversion pixel.

Isn't Google and FB going to auto-optimize our ads based on machine learning and data sources which also include weather

This is why after incorporation, you should transfer the rights to all code, trademark and other Intellectual Property to the company to prevent the situations like this.

These conflicts should be resolved by the board.

SilverPush

Use ultrasonic inaudible sounds for tracking you

Your TV ads could play these beacons to which your phone is actively listening.

Or websites and physical places could play them.

See: https://techcrunch.com/2014/07/24/silverpush-audio-beacons/

Most of my work seems to be boring CRUD work

Ditto! I operate a consultancy which does this for every company, most of which are non-profits. We do CRUD apps on nearly zero profit margin.

High tech fun stuff

We've another ad tech company, where we are writing lots of Rust and Go code. And some auxiliary products which are lot more fun.

I think it's quite difficult to find everything at once place.

They don’t share knowledge (especially software patents)

Can you explain how they do not share knowledge?

They only incentivise defensive, litigious behaviour in the market.

1. A patent grants you a right

2. If someone threatens your right, you are going to defend it. Or are you suggesting that we should not use legal methods to defend our right? Any right? Or just patent rights is the exception you propose?

3. If you threaten other's right and they threaten yours, you have a way to negotiate at a table outside the court and save society's precious resources.

I still don't see how it's bad. Please enlighten me.

+ I do think patents prevent a race to the bottom.

Imagine if everyone had the same process, the only distinction would be the amount of output you can get per employee (as the employee compensation is one of the biggest cost) or marketing/brand (another big expense category) or customer service. Companies might end up exploiting employees or blatantly misleading their customers in order to attract the business.

First two of which are detrimental to society at large and not the optimum uses of the available resources.

Third of which, the improved customer service is a plus. But the user perception of better customer service is not exactly better customer service. But yea incumbents are often not willing to provide better customer service when there is a moat (guaranteed value), I've experienced this first hand with companies like Facebook Ads, Google Cloud etc.... some of them have improved now while some still suck.

I do not think patent stop disruptions from happening.

If you create a new process which is vastly superior to the old process without infringing existing patents, you can do that.

If you improve a patented process, you can sell it to the company owns the patent but they might not pay you the best price as they have the monopoly and they do not need to.

We need some mechanism (law?) to facilitate a fair payment for an improvement over an existing patent to avoid monopolistic exploitative practices. If an organization can truly benefit from an improvement and is in position to make a fair valuation and payment, IMHO it should.

I realized this when at a company.

The guy recommending the bonus was bit generous (really good at attributing bonus to the person who put in the hard work barring other bias) and the guy handing out the bonus was the one who battled hard to reduce every bonus as the company had hired him to limit the unnecessary bonus to employees.

Every employee thought that he is the one fighting management to get them their bonus and got lots of love/respect and the generous guy got nothing.

Amazon does profit off the listing is my assertion. Without Amazon, listing's ability to damage at scale is limited. Can't we argue that it is one of the partners in crime?

If Amazon can profit off a listing then why shouldn't it be held liable for the damage caused due to the listing? If Amazon has already put up an agreement which frees them from liability then it sounds like, "Ok, I'll be with you in your good time but I'll walk away as soon as you have a misfortune" like an unfaithful life partner.

Of course, I know this is by design. But is it ethical?