buffalo uses dominion scoreboard software so not really

1. in the beginning, browsers didn't have download statusbars
2. firefox got a browser statusbar extension. it was configurable and worked well
3. chrome cloned it without options and it didn't work as well

4. firefox realized chrome was faster and more secure at everything and therefore dropped extensions
5. now firefox doesn't have a download statusbar either

6. someone reimplements download statusbars in firefox's new web-extensions format. it's terrible because of the inherent limitations of the significantly less flexible and powerful extension format

7. CHROME WINS! (with its terrible download statusbar implementation which can't be fixed by users, because No Options and No Skins and No Extensions)

this is where we are now

How should one approach System Design questions during an interview?

Here's the step by step guide:

🧵👇🏻

System design interviews are generally open ended discussions. There's no one right answer.

The main focus in this round is to see your thought process and whether you'll be able to design a minimal system keeping future scale in mind and by following the standard principles.

Know that many interviewers deliberately make it hard to see how you approach a given problem.

You cannot possibly design a complex system in 1-2 hours which engineers usually take months to years to design, develop and build.

So this is how you should approach this round:

1. Clarify the requirements: As mentioned earlier the questions are generally very open ended. So you need to ask a lot of question to set the scope clear for the discussion.

Example: "Design an application like Twitter"

Twitter has a lot of features like:
- Post tweet
- Home timeline
- Profile timeline
- Analytics
- Likes
- Retweets
- Following
- Bookmark
- Trending etc

You get the idea!

now that's a title screen

foolish people like to quote that "science says there are only two genders". This is incorrect.

Science instead says that in addition to the regular genders, there are 25 Science Genders, shown here. (tag yourself I'm Skull)

I have no idea how to continue with this game.
I clicked a bunch of things and the game just pauses for a second, except when I clicked electron it animated and then was replaced by... something

Quarky & Quaysoo's Turbo Science!

Turbo Science is like regular Science, but FASTER

oh I see

is this Gizmos and Gadgets but by Sierra?

There is real opportunity to:

- scale a HoldCo
- focused on a portfolio of software & digital-forward assets
- serving niche and/or traditionally sleepy verticals

A playbook to follow...

But first... why is there opportunity?

- software is eating the world (& APIs are eating software)
- there are great product opp's for those who know where to look
- theres no real competition
- SaaS/subscription is the best delivery model out there (build once, sell twice+)

And why now?

We’re entering what I call the ‘Deployment Era’ ... where more traditional (sleepy) businesses will increasingly leverage software/tech to improve their model

And the best part is... we're on the front-end of riding this longer-term wave

So what does this mean?

Software (& other digital-first products) will eat more of the ‘traditional SMB’ stack

But most aren’t focused here bc it isn’t sexy or cool…

Which is where the opp is for those who have the right deal nose & know what to build & for who

There is big opportunity to build/scale in overlooked places...

Where you can build/acquire assets that have the best econ delivery model (SaaS/sub), w/ low competition, where you have an inside edge/know everyone in industry, & can do it when no one is looking