Ask HN: Books about people who did hard things • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Books about people who did hard things

#451

Post by geocrasher » Wed, Jan 15, 2025, 2:43 PM UTC

adamc wrote: post #317

geocrasher wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An excellent read, no doubt. I've actually read it a couple of times. Ben Rich was a great writer.

Boy, I don't agree with that last. It's a pretty interesting book, but the writing is pedestrian and there are far too many asides and stories that detract from the main points. By way of contrast, I read it because it was recommended after I said I loved "The Soul of a New Machine" (Tracy Kidder), which really is an extremely well-written book, in the "every word counts" sense. "The Soul of a New Machine" is a book…

you have a point. how about this. s/writer/storyteller/

Re: Ask HN: Books about people who did hard things

#452

Post by jbullock35 » Thu, Jan 16, 2025, 9:45 PM UTC

silvestrov wrote: post #188

jbullock35 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's at least one huge respect in which tech is different, at least in the USA: worker compensation. In the book, Tracy Kidder writes repeatedly about how Data General (the company at the heart of the book) is proud of its austerity. It doesn't pay well. It's proud of having an ugly, austere, warehouse-like building. It puts its critical engineers in the windowless basement of this building. Kidder is describing a…

Is a windowless basement that much worse than the open officies of Facebook? I'd rather have a small room with silence than work in a well lit factory with tons of noise like this: https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/imag... There isn't any dividers or other stuff that blocks noise.

I worked there a few years ago. It was almost always easy to reserve a room if you wanted more quiet or more privacy.

Re: Ask HN: Books about people who did hard things

#453

Post by kortilla » Sat, Jan 18, 2025, 8:54 PM UTC

insane_dreamer wrote: post #438

kortilla wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You forget the massive benefit to everyone who shops there. It wrecked small businesses because the prices were lower for the same things.

So people were goi g hungry before Walmart came along? No, Walmart destroyed the local economies and so now people can only afford to shop at Walmart.

Yes, people quite literally did go hungry or got far worse food.

The local economies were shit before Walmart. There just happened to be a handful of small business owners that did well squeezing their community.

If Walmart didn’t offer better product/price ratios, nobody would have shopped there.

Re: Ask HN: Books about people who did hard things

#454

Post by kortilla » Sat, Jan 18, 2025, 8:59 PM UTC

insane_dreamer wrote: post #441

kortilla wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their food is absolutely cheaper for the same health value as comparable grocery stores. Walmart was amazing for low income families in small cities and rural areas.

> Walmart was amazing for low income families in small cities and rural areas. stop drinking the corporate Kool-Aid, my friend https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/12/walmart-pr... > In the 10 years after a Walmart Supercenter opened in a given community, the average household in that community experienced a 6 percent decline in yearly income—equivalent to about $5,000 a year in 2024 dollars—compared with h…

All that research indicates is that Walmart isn’t a good place to work. It doesn’t say anything about how much is saves you by shopping there.

I saw this first hand when Walmart showed up in my small city in the 90s. Everyone saved enormous amounts of money, complained about shopping there, and avoided working there because the pay was shit.

If you were low income and had a job outside of Walmart retail competition space, Walmart was a godsend. Think teachers, construction workers, etc.