Viewing profile — spaghetti

Convincing yourself that future success isn't predictable is actually pretty easy. Regardless of how technically awesome someone is, there's a random variable that can dramatically…

I have a few thoughts on this in no particular order: - It would be interesting if the top list gaming mentioned in the article was eliminated by replacing download or install coun…

My experience participating in TopCoder SRMs (quick algorithm development competitions) has payed off quite a bit when it comes to white board coding style interviews (both as the …

One option is essentially a programming test framed as a first quick milestone. Say the app is for taking and sharing photos and has a $10k budget. Start with a milestone for an ap…

Yes there are great developers and other professionals on Elance. Think about it from a developer's perspective: I can work at one company, on a relatively small variety of project…

Milestones are great. However I like to have reasonably consistent prices. For a $4000 project you can have, say, four milestones with prices $500, $1000, $1000, $1500. This way th…

Do salary deltas of even 100k make a substantial difference to the bottom line for large tech companies like FB and GOOG? Of course the difference is greater than zero but as a per…

I like to partition companies with products that gain traction into two groups. In the first group are technically mediodcre founders who cobbled together a product that's almost u…

I've never designed large-scale systems however I'm still fascinated. I wonder if LBs could learn over time which requests will probably take a while and which have large probabili…

Probably nothing. I just find it interesting that an organization like Google with practically unlimited resources can't keep someone (who can probably get anything they want in te…

I agree this is true for small companies. However Dropbox is not a small company by most measures. Also pg's remarks about how you couldn't acquire Dropbox or Airbnb for (some larg…

Wow if he really did contribute a lot (which I don't doubt at all) then how did Google let him get away? I'd imagine his lifestyle there was pretty nice.

Perhaps companies that have existed for less than n years?

This is great Dropbox PR. Also I'd imagine DB Python developers are excited!

Good point. I wouldn't formally require the SO. I'd just phrase the invite to make it clear that my SO and I would like to have dinner. If they have an SO but don't bring them that…

I was just thinking about this today. To interview a potential co-founder I'd have a meal with the person and their SO. Then I'd observe the dynamic between them. Does the potentia…

Airbnb should have a phone number that people who are renting out their homes can call 24/7 for help, advice etc. If they do have this why didn't the author use it?

Good point about the lack of agility. Internal politics probably have a negative impact as well. I could see some team's feature going live for 1% of users then managers and other …

This astronomical user-base begs the question: why aren't you the most profitable company on the planet right now? You have the users, the money, the connections and the engineerin…

I'm wondering about the two-year or similar contracts people signed when they purchased or obtained for free a 3GS? Perhaps there's a corner case when someone got a 3GS + 2 year co…

What's a typical day like for a software engineer working in finance? I've worked in a variety of environments so I know that arrival times, perks, leaving time, meetings etc can a…

I agree about the phone screen length. Whether you call it an interview or a screen it can probably be much shorter than hour with almost all of the benefits.

I don't think engineers should ever spend their time asking Fizzbuzz. Engineers' time is valuable. And blocking off an hour for a phone screen can interrupt the day. If a prelimina…

Just want to point out that back-end improvements alone aren't sufficient to have Apple's Maps be on par with Google Maps. Adding something like Street View to Maps will require no…

This sounds pretty cool! Are there any screenshots of the chess app available to non app.net members? I'd like to see what using an app in app.net looks like. If it looks good I'll…