Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What software engineers can learn from the rapid collapse of Fast

newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

461–470 of 482 posts

Re: What software engineers can learn from the rapid collapse of Fast

#461

Post by aaaaaaaaata »

brian_cunnie wrote: post #440
BigJono wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like way too far in the other direction at both places. Stuff like drinks and printers are basically noise compared to engineering payroll when you're paying people $250k a year. The lesson should be buy whatever the hell people want, just stop buying people until you need them. They're the expensive bit. 3 great devs can do about the same work as like 30 average ones. People massively underestimate commu…

> The lesson should be buy whatever the hell people want, just stop buying people until you need them. They're the expensive bit. Absolutely. We were frugal, but not to the point of self-sabotage. Our biggest expense was payroll, followed by the Cadence/Synopsys EDA software licenses. So, for example, no catered lunches or breakfasts, but if there was a customer or investor dinner, it would be expensed. We had good h…

Netgear and Cisco are kind of a security shit-show, but kudos in principle.

Re: What software engineers can learn from the rapid collapse of Fast

#462

Post by edmundsauto »

hinkley wrote: post #47
mwcampbell wrote: post #20

I think the most applicable warning for engineers when it comes to the actual work, as opposed to whether one should join a particular startup, is this: > Engineers calculated the load Fast had in needing to serve their traffic. The Fast button was rendered less than 500,000 times per day - rarely needed to ever serve more than a few requests per second. > One of the few warning signs engineers noticed is how Fast sp…

I would hope this problem doesn't exist at startups but I've seen it at entrenched institutions any number of time: If your boss's boss or peers signed a contract for $1m a year from Oracle, you're going to use Oracle even if Postgres is a better product. And the only way to use Postgres in this situation is if they don't know you're running it. Which puts you in the uncomfortable situation of wanting to say, "But Or…

I've never used Oracle, but from what I've heard it's a good piece of tech. If your boss is footing the bill for a BMW, why not drive it?

Re: What software engineers can learn from the rapid collapse of Fast

#463

Post by asda_ »

nazka wrote: post #457

I invested in Fast and removed all my position when it looked fishy. But the main problem of all that was all their hype about a « massive customer » they will have at the time. And close partner ship with them. And everybody speculating it was Amazon. Don’t do that. Don’t hype to the moon or it’s going to fall sooner or later to the ground.

You invested? As a VC? Something doesn't add up in your comment because Amazon literally invented one-click checkout. Why would they have Fast on?

Re: What software engineers can learn from the rapid collapse of Fast

#464

Post by asda_ »

sydthrowaway wrote: post #171

If I was a FAANG hiring manager, I’d tear up any resume from these get rich quick dollar chaser wannabes

So employees choosing the best offer for themselves is somehow wrong? I'm glad you aren't a FAANG manager with that attitude.

Re: What software engineers can learn from the rapid collapse of Fast

#465

Post by jokethrowaway »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #303
im_down_w_otp wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How on Earth did the company raise so much money with so few milestones of any kind being achieved?

> How on Earth did the company raise so much money with so few milestones of any kind being achieved? Fast pitched itself as taking the prudent path compared with e.g. Bolt. The latter went for big clients first. Fast started with small businesses. There were clearly other issues. But the closing era of cheap capital favoured the bold, and Bolt’s seizure of the fertile low grounds cut off Fast from its growth. Despit…

Going for bigger clients is the prudent path. Small clients require far more initial investments and the payoff will be much later.

We failed to raise money exactly because we had a bunch of small clients and not enough revenue. It was a prudent decision for the potential investors - but the main failure on our side was not to network enough with our current investors in order to get another friendly round of investment.

We had a competitor that was doing exactly the same thing (with worse metrics) that raised several millions a few months later, so it wasn't too far fetched.

VCs invest in a lot of baseless crap - sometimes the crap turns into gold and sometimes in order to be the chosen crap you need to know the right people.

Re: What software engineers can learn from the rapid collapse of Fast

#466

Post by FooBarBizBazz »

cormacrelf wrote: post #373
maybetoofast wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I joined Fast towards the end of last year. I didn't get as much exposure to the rest of the company as parent comment, but I'll say I saw a weird air of complacency and assumed success. I first ignored my instincts that something was wrong, but as I saw more of how the company operated, I became convinced that the single largest problem the company had was the culture. On the surface, I agree with the parent comment…

This whole thing is strange to me. It's targeted at software engineers, and the dominant theme is that you should be wary of toxic positivity and a number of specific indicators that you should be able to see from your desk as an engineer. The discussion in here is also focused on that. But if you are an early employee with equity, you are not just an engineer. You are, figuratively, a shareholder. One of the reasons…

Also --

"Toxic positivity" and ISOs/rights:

ISOs nominally give you "ownership" in the company, an extra incentive to make sure it succeeds. But you lose them within some time period after you leave (say, are fired), and there's no way to sell them during that time unless the company has gone public. So this thing that's supposed to make you an "owner" just makes you a hostage. It does not motivate you to take risks on behalf of the company, and it does not motivate you to speak the truth.

If they couldn't take it from you, then you'd speak the truth.

Re: What software engineers can learn from the rapid collapse of Fast

#468

Post by plasticchris »

alecbz wrote: post #446
plasticchris wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think options will trigger this as well, this is where the “double trigger” rsu came from.

As in, if a company as 500 (now 2000 I think) options-holders, the SEC will start regulating them as if they're public? I don't think that's true? Double-trigger RSUs are AFAIK just a way to avoid paying taxes on illiquid assets. The reason to shift from options to RSUs at all is (I think) that once the company's FMV gets high enough, the strike price and taxes due for the options will be so high that employees won't…

No but companies don’t want to risk that 2k of the options holders might exercise and force the issue so it’s functionally the same.

I thought it was common knowledge that fb started the double trigger thing to avoid this limit, and I heard something similar when a startup I was in converted options to RSUs.

Re: What software engineers can learn from the rapid collapse of Fast

#469

Post by pedrosorio »

meetups323 wrote: post #453
pedrosorio wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Meta > Sure, come as a Senior! That's not enough? Principal it is! Do you mean staff (E6, the level above Senior)? Also, no one is getting E6 offers 2 years out of college.

Not sure the specific title, just whatever was after senior. And I suppose it's more like 3 years at this point. Class of 2019.

So, over $500k per year? Not a bad deal for class of 2019

Re: What software engineers can learn from the rapid collapse of Fast

#470

Post by ergocoder »

ben7799 wrote: post #107
photochemsyn wrote: post #44

Wow, these numbers are like those from pets.com: > "During its first fiscal year (February to September 1999) Pets.com earned $619,000 in revenue, and spent $11.8 million on advertising." (Wikipedia) > "The company raised $82.5 million in a February 2000 IPO but filed for bankruptcy nine months later." (Investopedia) Fast rasied $102 million in capital and had $600k in revenue that year... Is Big Finance about to hit…

This does seem like a 1990s story. I'm just barely young enough to have missed it. Friends who quit school early were in on it. I don't know if this was the case at Fast but in a lot of cases back in the 1990s a lot of the engineers knew everything was screwed up.. and they just didn't care, the money was good while it lasted. The experience almost always helped people get ahead, no one ever gets punished for doing g…

I disagree that it looked like pets.com.

One key difference is pets.com is public and got money from common people.

Fast got money from highly sophisticated VCs. They all made calculated bet.

No VCs would tell you their deals have 100% success.

Employees that join are highly educated. They also know that it is a startup with high failure chance. Much higher than FAANG. Every educated person knows this.

And it is normal to be disappointed when a bet doesn't work out.

Post reply on HN