BC TECH
Saved by @zmbnski

Some people really benefit from hearing advice that everyone knows, for the same reason we keep schools open despite every subject in them having been taught before.

In that spirit, here's some quick Things Many People Find Too Obvious To Have Told You Already.

 Your idea is not valuable, at all. All value is in the execution. You think you are an exception; you are not. You should not insist on an NDA to talk about it; nobody serious will engage in contract review over an idea, and this will mark you as clueless.
Technologists tend to severely underestimate the difficulty and expense of creating software, especially at companies which do not have fully staffed industry leading engineering teams ("because software is so easy there, amirite guys?")

Charge more. Charge more still. Go on.
The press is a lossy and biased compression of events in the actual world, and is singularly consumed with its own rituals, status games, and incentives. The news necessarily fails to capture almost everything which happened yesterday. What it says is important usually isn't.
Companies find it incredibly hard to reliably staff positions with hard-working generalists who operate autonomously and have high risk tolerances. This is not the modal employee, including at places which are justifiably proud of the skill/diligence/etc of their employees.
The hardest problem in B2C is distribution. The hardest problem in B2B is sales. AppAmaGooBookSoft are AppAmaGooBookSoft primarily because they have mortal locks on distribution.
Everyone in Silicon Valley uses equity, and not debt, to fuel their growth because debt is not available in sufficient quantities to poorly capitalized companies without a strong history of adequate cash flows to service debt.
Investors in venture-back companies are purchasing a product. It is critically important to understand that that product is growth. The reason tech is favored as an asset class that it appears to be one of few sources of growth available on the market at the moment at any price.
The explosive growth of the tech sector keeps average age down and depresses average wages. Compared to industries which existed in materially the same form in 1970, we have a stupidly compressed experience spectrum: 5+ years rounds to "senior." This is not a joke.
The tech industry is fundamentally unserious about how it recruits, hires, and retains candidates. About which I have a lot more to say than could fit in a tweet, but, a good thing to know.
If you are attempting to hire for an engineering position, greater than 50% of people who apply for the job and whose resume you select as "facially plausible" will be entirely unable to program, at all. The search term for learning more about this is FizzBuzz.
Software companies in B2B which aspire to growing quickly will eventually spend more on sales and marketing than they do on engineering. You can read S-1s of successful IPOs and calculate the ratio; it is sometimes 2X++.
The chief products of the tech industry are (in B2C) developing new habits among consumers and (in B2B) taking a business process which exists in many places and markedly decreasing the total cost of people required to implement it.
There is no hidden reserve of smart people who know what they're doing, anywhere. Not in government, not in science, not in tech, not at AppAmaGooBookSoft, nowhere. The world exists in the same glorious imperfection that it presents with.
Significant advances shipped by the tech industry in the last 20 years include putting the majority of human knowledge in the hands of 40%++ of the world's population, available on-demand, for "coffee money" not "university money."
Weak-form efficients market hypothesis is a good heuristic for evaluating the public markets but a really, really bad heuristic for evaluating either technical or economic facts about tech companies, startups, your career, etc etc. Optimizations are possible; fruit hangs low.
Startups are (by necessity) filled with generalists; big companies are filled with specialists. People underestimate how effective a generalist can be at things which are done by specialists. People underestimate how deep specialties can run. These are simultaneously true.
Most open source software is written by programmers who are full-time employed by companies which directly consume the software, at the explicit or implicit blessing of their employers. It is not charity work, any more than they charitably file taxes.
The amount of money flowing through capitalism would astound you. The number and variety of firms participating in the economy would astound you.

We don't see most of it every day for the same reason abstractions protect us from having to care about metallurgy while programming.
CS programs have, in the main, not decided that the primary path to becoming a programmer should involve doing material actual programming. There are some exceptions: Waterloo, for example. This is the point where I joke "That's an exhaustive list" but not sure that a joke.
Technical literacy in the broader population can be approximated with the Thanksgiving test: what sort of questions do you get at Thanksgiving? That's the ambient level of literacy.

Serious people in positions of power eat Thanksgiving dinners, too. Guess what they ask at them.
Salaries in the tech industry are up *a lot* in the last few years, caused by: a tight labor market, collapse of a cartel organized against the interests of workers, increasing returns to scale at AppAmaGooBookSoft, and the like.

Investor money *does not* pay most salaries.
This concludes, for the moment, an off-the-cuff list of things which would otherwise be too obvious to bring up in conversation.

Meta thought: you radically underestimate both a) how much you know that other people do not and b) the instrumental benefits to you of publishing it.

More from Patrick McKenzie

Patrick McKenzie
Patrick McKenzie
@patio11
If an employer is willing to be abusive to you prior to hiring you, when you have maximum leverage and they are maximally incentivized to play nice, I think that gives you *extremely actionable* signal as to how they'll treat you when you're working there and dependent on them.

For candidates: evaluate prospective employers accordingly.

For startups employing e.g. engineers: given that your candidates should evaluate you accordingly, be *extra special* careful to operate like professionals with regards to e.g. interviewing, offers, and negotiation.

"Can you be more explicit about 'abusive' here?"

Not without violating a confidence, but as someone who has been on hiring side of table and is a capitalist, there are *clearly* things you could do which would be "sharp operating, but we're all sharp operators" in some contexts.

Hiring employees is often not one of those contexts. The nature of the relationship, the asymmetry in power, and the social contract strongly counsel you to be a lot better there than you are minimally required by law / contract.

A thing which aesthetically frustrates me is that a lot of the things I've heard companies do here serve *no legitimate business purpose.* In some cases it's getting tens of dollars of advantage. TENS! On an engineering candidate!
ALL
Patrick McKenzie
Patrick McKenzie
@patio11
This lunch is 500 yen ($4.80) at Sukiya, a Japanese fast food restaurant which belongs to a category with about three big competitors.

I love the aesthetics of this category and they’re under remarked upon.


I think people underestimate QSRs in terms of social utility, but Sukiya et al describe themselves as mission-oriented enterprises. I believe this is largely sincere, and goes back to the 60s and 70s, when the clientele was primarily manual laborers who had migrated to work.

Japan was not a rich nation at the time, and day laborers in particular were both unlikely to be able to cook for themselves and unlikely to have much of a food budget, and so the chains sprung up offering an honest-to-goodness cooked meal delivered in under a minute for cheap.

This heritage continued over the years, even after Japan became a much more wealthy nation, and these chains function as social support and dignity for folks in diminished circumstances.

They also are a wee bit of a cartel, and I appreciate the aesthetics of the cartel:

Back when I was first in Japan, in the mid 2000s, there was an increase in the price of beef.

And the heads of the three chains got together, and decided that the price of the basic beef bowl needed to increase, but given the economic circumstances how could they hold the line.
FOOD
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Patrick McKenzie
Patrick McKenzie
@patio11
A thread on HN about bad code in legacy projects both makes me think how little we've learned as a discipline over the years and, honestly, how little credit we give ourselves for some pretty major

Fun going down this list and thinking: "Hmm, plausible at a well-run modern software shop", "Hmm, possible, but requires implausible tradeoffs", "Literally disallowed by languages", and "If you were to attempt doing that our test suite wouldn't let you merge."

I think we as an industry celebrate (not quite the right word) failure too much and don't celebrate success nearly enough. There is no DailyWTF for competent execution, word of which generally stays pretty local to the source while incompetence passes into legend.

Alrighty let me try to thread the needle on being the change I want to see in the world while not giving away anything that will get me in trouble:

Ruby has wonderful developer ergonomics. Typed languages are easier for machines to guarantee the correctness of. We built a type checker for Ruby (and I believe it is slated for OSS release sometime).

c.f.
TECH
Patrick McKenzie
Patrick McKenzie
@patio11
Most software founders, particularly in B2B, need to get radically better at sales. @Steli , who is the best person for explaining the scrappy stages in the beginning and then building out a team with scripts and processes, wrote a guide to:

For technical founders it is irrationally, obscenely hard to reverse years of programming (ba dum bum) that sales is a value-destroying activity. Sales is CLEARLY a value-creating activity, contingent on you have a value-creating product.

The world will not drop what they are doing to adopt your work. This is particularly true in B2B, where simply building a better mousetrap won't overcome the activation energy required to get people with additional non-mice problems to prioritize changing mousetraps today.

This is very non-obvious for founders because founders are not often people who *want* to be sold to. We often come from a background where trying out tools is a bit of a fun hobby. We like looking at all the options, making charts, and ripping out partially complete tests.

"This week I unsuccessfully trialed four software options for automating that thing that has been killing us. Our actual production process remains the same as last week. Don't worry; this was a great use of time." is not a thing you want to write in a progress report to manager.
TECH
Patrick McKenzie
Patrick McKenzie
@patio11
So the cryptocurrency industry has basically two products, one which is relatively benign and doesn't have product market fit, and one which is malignant and does. The industry has a weird superposition of understanding this fact and (strategically?) not understanding it.


The benign product is sovereign programmable money, which is historically a niche interest of folks with a relatively clustered set of beliefs about the state, the literary merit of Snow Crash, and the utility of gold to the modern economy.

This product has narrow appeal and, accordingly, is worth about as much as everything else on a 486 sitting in someone's basement is worth.

The other product is investment scams, which have approximately the best product market fit of anything produced by humans. In no age, in no country, in no city, at no level of sophistication do people consistently say "Actually I would prefer not to get money for nothing."

This product needs the exchanges like they need oxygen, because the value of it is directly tied to having payment rails to move real currency into the ecosystem and some jurisdictional and regulatory legerdemain to stay one step ahead of the banhammer.
CRYPTO

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Daniel Johnson
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Here’s a SPAC thread covering some basics for new followers. I will pin this to my profile if you want to share to anyone interested in SPACs.

SPAC timelines consist of these stages:
IPO – SPAC raises cash and begins trading as a unit. The cash is placed in Trust.
Searching phase – After IPO, the SPAC management team looks for a company to merge with. This is typically 24 months but can be shorter depending on the SPAC

LOI/Rumor – A letter of intent is announced publicly or Bloomberg/Reuters etc. breaks news of a rumor that a SPAC is close to a deal with a target.

The LOI/rumor stage does not always happen, most go straight to a definitive agreement. Rumors should only be considered to have value if from a trusted news source, internet rumblings are pure speculation. During this stage, a deal can still fall apart and not be signed.

Definitive agreement (DA) – deal officially inked. The SPAC begins filing paperwork with the SEC to have the merger approved to take the target company public. This process typically takes 4+ months after the DA is announced.
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Guillaume Chaslot
Guillaume Chaslot
@gchaslot
The YouTube algorithm that I helped build in 2011 still recommends the flat earth theory by the *hundreds of millions*. This investigation by @RawStory shows some of the real-life consequences of this badly designed AI.


This spring at SxSW, @SusanWojcicki promised "Wikipedia snippets" on debated videos. But they didn't put them on flat earth videos, and instead @YouTube is promoting merchandising such as "NASA lies - Never Trust a Snake". 2/


A few example of flat earth videos that were promoted by YouTube #today:
https://t.co/TumQiX2tlj 3/

https://t.co/uAORIJ5BYX 4/

https://t.co/yOGZ0pLfHG 5/
TECH , FLAT EARTH
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Matt Wallace
Matt Wallace
@MattFnWallace
Hey, who wants to read a story about @Upwork fucking over freelancers in order to upsell their clients on unnecessary services the clients don't want and can't afford? Strap in!

So after my marketing agency closed I started freelancing again. A marketing company that wanted to work with me only hires freelance writers through @Upwork. So I signed up. I wasn't thrilled about it, but that's who they contract with and it's their marketing company.

I've been receiving regular assignments from this company, thru @Upwork, for over a month now. I've written dozens of articles for them. My work has been exemplary. I've been handling repeated rush jobs and delivering. The client was and is very happy. That's coming from them.

While I was wrapping up several assignments this week I was contacted by the marketing company. They asked if I had taken a new full-time job and wasn't available anymore. It seems @Upwork's talent group told them I was no longer available to take assignments.

I was very surprised. Nothing had changed on my end. I still needed the freelance work very much. I told them so. So the marketing company pressed @Upwork and were told there were "compliance" issues that were preventing the marketing company from giving me any more work.
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Colby Fayock
Colby Fayock
@colbyfayock
Next.js has taken the web dev world by storm

It’s the @reactjs framework devs rave about praising its power, flexibility, and dev experience

Don't feel like you're missing out!

Here's everything you need to know in 10 tweets

Let’s dive in 🧵


Next.js is a @reactjs framework from @vercel

It couples a great dev experience with an opinionated feature set to make it easy to spin up new performant, dynamic web apps

It's used by many high-profile teams like @hulu, @apple, @Nike, & more

https://t.co/whCdm5ytuk


@vercel @hulu @Apple @Nike The team at @vercel, formerly Zeit, originally and launched v1 of the framework on Oct 26, 2016 in the pursuit of universal JavaScript apps

Since then, the team & community has grown expotentially, including contributions from giants like @Google

https://t.co/xPPTOtHoKW


@vercel @hulu @Apple @Nike @Google In the #jamstack world, Next.js pulled a hefty 58.6% share of framework adoption in 2020

Compared to other popular @reactjs frameworks like Gatsby, which pulled in 12%

*The Next.js stats likely include some SSR, arguably not Jamstack

https://t.co/acNawfcM4z


@vercel @hulu @Apple @Nike @Google The easiest way to get started with a new Next.js app is with Create Next App

Simply run:

yarn create next-app

or

npx create-next-app

You can even start from a git-based template with the -e flag

yarn create next-app -e https://t.co/JMQ87gi1ue

https://t.co/rwKhp7zlys
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James Felton
James Felton
@JimMFelton
The Phantom of Heilbronn (or how for 16 years the German police hunted a serial killer who didn't exist)

(Thread, non sweary version here: https://t.co/iDOIhaFgIT)


Between the years of 1993 and 2009, police in Heilbronn, Germany were tracking just about the most elusive serial killer since Ted Cruz.

Known as the Phantom of Heilbronn, or occasionally The Woman Without A Face, she was implicated in so many crimes that the police eventually put out a reward of €300,000 for any information leading to her arrest.

The case that brought her to the media's attention and earned her two ridiculously badass nicknames

(honestly, if you don't want people to do murders you're going to have to come up with less glamorous nicknames - what's wrong with Jack Shitshispants or the Zodiac Cuck)
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1/ new essay: What's next for marketplace startups? Reinventing the $10 trillion service economy, that's what. Co-authored with @ljin18 https://t.co/fgKbrHTnH5. A short thread 👇

2/ Marketplace startups have done incredibly well over the first few decades of the internet, reinventing the way we shop for goods, but have been less successful services. It's bc services are complex, subjective, fragmented, and often in real life. Makes it hard

3/ There's been 4 major eras at making the service economy work online. The Listings Era, the unbundled Craiglist era, the Uber for X era, and the Managed Marketplace era


4/ Each era has added more value than the last, and utilized technology innovations, from internet to social / "read/write web" to mobile. The "Unbundling Craigslist" era was particularly epic at generating startup ideas


5/ The problem is, all the low-hanging fruit has been picked off. The techniques that got us to here won't get us to the next phase. So we have to do some pretty different things. That's why "Managed Marketplaces" have been a big deal - hire folks as W-2s, certify quality, etc.
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foone
foone
@Foone
You want to know something about how bullshit insane our brains are?
OK, so there's a physical problem with our eyes: We move them in short fast bursts called "saccades", right? very quick, synchronized movements.
The only problem is: they go all blurry and useless during this

having your vision turn into a blurry mess every time you move your eyes is obviously not a good idea, so our brains hide it from us. Now, imagine you're an engineer and you have this problem.

You've got some obvious solutions you could do.
1. make the vision go black during movement. (Some VR games do this!)
2. just keep showing the last thing we saw prior to movement

both are good options with different downsides, but OH NO. this is assuming everything makes sense and is chronological and (regular) logical.
Your brain does neither of these options, really.

first, it basically puts your visual system on "pause". You're not seeing blackness or even nothing, you're just not seeing period.
then when you finish your saccade, it shows you what you now see at the new position. and then it pretends it can time travel.
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Jig's Patel
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How to trade on Expiry day with Nifty straddle?
(System trading on Expiry)

Triple straddle is one of the best and accurate methods for expiry day

If nifty trading at 15720 then will sell three straddles above 50 points from ATM, below 50 points and ATM.

Ex.
Sell straddle 15700(ATM), 15650(ATM-50), 15750 (ATM+50)

Stoploss of 80% on every leg and run your trade till 3 PM

Once SL hit in any Leg just keep holding other leg till expiry with SL (Never or less chance to hit both SL on expiry day)

Trading timing at 9:20 the Morning
ALL , STRADDLE BACKTEST , STRADDLE
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SK
@sk_diary1
Prasanna Venkatesa Perumal #temple -Gunaseelam,Near Trichy,TN #Thread

Gunaseela Mahatmyam,a chapter of Bhavishyottara Purana describes greatness of this place.

Venkatachlapathi of Tirumala Tirupati appeared b4 Gunaseela Rishi here,so Gunaseelam is known as Ten(South)Tirupati


Prasanna Venkatesa Perumal is in a standing posture with 4 arms holding sankha & chakra in the upper hands.The lower right hand is in abhaya pose,blessing devotees &left hand is in kati hasta,resting on waist.

A sceptre(senkkol)rests on right shoulder,with which this murti is believed to cure people affected by mental illness.These patient stay here for a period-48 days& participate in poojas&most of them get relieved of their problems.There is a temple run Mental Rehabilitation center

#storytimethread -As per Sthala Puranam,existence of this temple is due to efforts of Gunaseela Rishi, a disciple of Thalpiya Maharishi.
Thalpiya Maharishi along with his disciple Gunaseela Rishi once went to Himalayas.On his way back, Gunaseela Rishi stayed back at Tirupathi.


He was so wanted to have darshan of Venkatachalapathy in Gunaseelam near his asharam & bless the devotees.

He came back, bathed in the Cauvery,took blessing from his guru &undertook severe penance here in his ashram in Gunaseelam.
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ArmaniTalks \U0001f399\U0001f525
ArmaniTalks 🎙🔥...
@ArmaniTalks
Make them irrelevant > Hold a grudge

Holding a grudge is the easy thing to do.

But holding a grudge is not the right thing to do.

A grudge puts poison in your body & rewires your subconscious mind.

You consume the poison & destroy your reality while your attacker sleeps like a baby.
LIFE