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Au Revoir

blog.docker.com

171–180 of 305 posts

Re: Au Revoir

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> being hugged to death Whenever I read about this I can't help to think that people don't make a good use of a load balancer like HAProxy in front of their web-servers. Even if it's a single server behind the load balancer. There's this sweet spot where your server is handling requests as fast as it can but if you cross above it everything halts. To make it simple, this usually happens when one or more hardware reso…

You might be able to climb the ladder with a meta-post. Just do a write-up on how to host a front page post on a Raspberry Pi and tune the headline for the right audience. "This Site Can Handle 1,000,000 Connections on a Raspberry Pi" If you could collect data from the experiment and do a postmortem, that'd be great, too.

> postmortem

Hehe, why so negative?

Re: Au Revoir

#172
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a reason why most startups don't go big - burning vision is not even close to being the right formula for success. Running a company of 10 people is VERY different from running a company of 100, which is VERY VERY different from running a company of 1000. Just like precious few individual contributors are comfortable with and able to contribute meaningfully in this wide range of environments, it doesn't make…

> Running a company of 10 people is VERY different from running a company of 100, which is VERY VERY different from running a company of 1000 IMO thats a classist lie that keeps people in their place. Any reasonably smart CEO can learn his way from 10 - 10000. Yes, (s)he may not be capable of 10k on day one, but they can grow along the way.

> Any reasonably smart CEO

Sorry but this is extremely naive and I'm sorry that your naïveté has caused you conclude things which are simply not true.

This is a very strong assumption, and a lie that is peddled by the media (Zuck is the greatest example of this) to create a novel story. I'm not saying it's impossible, it's just a dangerous assumption.

For the record, I've interviewed over 75 software founders (CEO/CTO) and I can tell you right now that there is nowhere near even 50% of them who have the ability to scale their companies.

Furthermore, there is a reason many of my clients (PE investors) replace management teams who cannot scale businesses and when they do, they reap financial awards as a result. So my conclusions are based on following the money...

Re: Au Revoir

#173
post #33

Like a lot of tech folks, I've only interacted with Solomon on the internet, but in probably every interaction, I've come away from it feeling smarter, or more capable, going all the way back to the very early days of Dotcloud. I understand the realities of working in a corporation, and the demands on C-level executives, but it's hard to imagine any company that is improved by his departure from it. Fare well, Solomo…

Very excited to see how this new C-group executes.

Probably one of the best departure messages I've ever seen.(especially with that image)

Re: Au Revoir

#174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No way is it a lie. The kind of people who enjoy running a company with a ragtag group of 10 employees in the early days are rarely the kind of people who will be able to effectively run a 10000 employee operation. If you’re growing fast there is no time for on-the-job training as CEO. You need to be effective immediately or else you are only hurting your company’s growth.

It's funny, because I absolutely agree with your assessment. But then I started a couple of thought experiments. How about the reverse case? Would, say, Meg Whitman or Satya Nadella, for example, be able to act as a CEO or co-founder of a small company, say But then I thought about Bill Joy, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and, well, you hopefully get my point. Which is, even thoug…

I think the phrase you're looking for is "exceptions that prove the rule". For every CEO that took a company from nothing to 10k employees, there are so many more examples of the opposite that you can't even begin to name them. You're able to name the exceptions because there are so few exceptions.

Re: Au Revoir

#175

I'm getting a 504 Gateway timeout. Is the HN hug of death really affecting such a huge site?

blog.docker.com runs Wordpress, and the domain points directly at an ELB. Unless they are running some caching layer (behind that ELB but in front of their wordpress processes), they may have to scale out a lot in order to handle traffic spikes, and they may be limited in their ability to do that by DB capacity.

Re: Au Revoir

#177
post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably a little bit like a Cessna pilot trying to land a 747. I'm sure the plane can almost land itself, and ground control can talk you through it, but wouldn't you rather have someone who has done it before?

Eh, most 747 pilots have probably flown a number of smaller planes before. Having a number of hours in a small plane in no way disqualifies you to fly bigger planes. Also in this case they aren't only the pilot but also the constructor of the "plane". (That said while most pilots started small not all Cessna pilots should go on to fly passengers or even cargo.)

It's your closing parenthetical that's the important point here.

Re: Au Revoir

#178
post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably a little bit like a Cessna pilot trying to land a 747. I'm sure the plane can almost land itself, and ground control can talk you through it, but wouldn't you rather have someone who has done it before?

Eh, most 747 pilots have probably flown a number of smaller planes before. Having a number of hours in a small plane in no way disqualifies you to fly bigger planes. Also in this case they aren't only the pilot but also the constructor of the "plane". (That said while most pilots started small not all Cessna pilots should go on to fly passengers or even cargo.)

> (That said while most pilots started small not all Cessna pilots should go on to fly passengers or even cargo.)

Unless I’m mistaken, that was actually the point being made; you made it again for him.

Your argument was going the other direction.

Re: Au Revoir

#179
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Running a company of 10 people is VERY different from running a company of 100, which is VERY VERY different from running a company of 1000 IMO thats a classist lie that keeps people in their place. Any reasonably smart CEO can learn his way from 10 - 10000. Yes, (s)he may not be capable of 10k on day one, but they can grow along the way.

What on earth makes it a “classist lie”?

The appeal to marxist ideals is deliciously ironic in maerF0x0's comment.

Re: Au Revoir

#180
Back in 2011, Solomon was nice enough to get lunch with me along with a few other DotClouders to talk me through some scaling issues my startup was stressing over. They were all super knowledgeable and helpful. We were able to get a handle on things thanks to their advice. Thanks so much and best of luck!
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