Untitled topic • Hacker News Board

Re: undefined

#11

Post by albrecht » Wed, Jul 04, 2007, 4:07 PM UTC

especkman wrote: post #9

staunch wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...why purely engineer-driven start-ups fail: no business sense. I'm not sure how you managed to draw that conclusion. His bonus point is that the CTO didn't even do work, that's hardly engineer-driven. And they had a Stanford MBA, who was apparently a drain during product development. Most successful technology startups are engineer-driven. Google is the ultimate example of just how far a couple engineers can go wit…

Who was it at Google who had the sense to clone Overture's business model, I wonder.

An MBA. The average MBA isn't the kind of person you want, but a really bright MBA can be a game changer if they stay out of your hair.

Re: undefined

#12

Post by jmtame » Wed, Jul 04, 2007, 6:00 PM UTC

ericwan wrote: post #10

I actually got an hiring email from a Stanford MBA who's working out of the Sequoia a month ago. Curious to know if it's the same company/person. =)

Doubt it. There are other companies in Sequoia, and we haven't been there a full month. I could probably tell you who it was though ;)

Re: undefined

#13

Post by paul » Wed, Jul 04, 2007, 7:59 PM UTC

albrecht wrote: post #11

especkman wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who was it at Google who had the sense to clone Overture's business model, I wonder.

An MBA. The average MBA isn't the kind of person you want, but a really bright MBA can be a game changer if they stay out of your hair.

Nope. Also, it's not a clone in any meaningful sense.

Re: undefined

#14

Post by ericwan » Wed, Jul 04, 2007, 10:33 PM UTC

jmtame wrote: post #12

ericwan wrote: post #10

I actually got an hiring email from a Stanford MBA who's working out of the Sequoia a month ago. Curious to know if it's the same company/person. =)

Doubt it. There are other companies in Sequoia, and we haven't been there a full month. I could probably tell you who it was though ;)

I saw your redesign of Jawed's homepage, and I got forwarded by Jawed to this Stanford MBA...=) I didn't get back to him as I think as a hiring email they should at least tell me briefly about their idea instead of just throwing the big names.

Re: undefined

#15

Post by jmtame » Wed, Jul 04, 2007, 10:59 PM UTC

ericwan wrote: post #14

jmtame wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doubt it. There are other companies in Sequoia, and we haven't been there a full month. I could probably tell you who it was though ;)

I saw your redesign of Jawed's homepage, and I got forwarded by Jawed to this Stanford MBA...=) I didn't get back to him as I think as a hiring email they should at least tell me briefly about their idea instead of just throwing the big names.

Wow, small world huh? ;)

Re: undefined

#16

Post by Tichy » Thu, Jul 05, 2007, 1:51 PM UTC

I think it is stupid to look down on business types just because they don't know the difference between JavaScript and CSS. The customers probably don't know either, and they don't care.

They shouldn't be "grilling" you, though.

Re: undefined

#17

Post by Leon » Thu, Jul 05, 2007, 3:10 PM UTC

ragav wrote: post #4

Some good points. I know the NASA thing was meant to merely underscore a point but I've seen this comparison so many times that it bugs me and I wish folks would stop using it. The average NASA sw engineer develops a ridiculously low number of lines of code a year (I think I read something like less than 100 ines). A 6000 line patch has 2500 page spec. The dynamics are vastly different than in any commerical software…

I've interned at the NASA software testing facility (IV&V) for a couple of years. Their practices for V&V are really quite amazing and thorough, and even more so for validation of unsupervised neural networks.

It very much puts to shame conventional software practices for software assuredness. The fast company article mentioned seems to only glance at the level of complexity they employ to consistently obtain correct software.

Re: undefined

#18

Post by far33d » Thu, Jul 05, 2007, 3:58 PM UTC

paul wrote: post #13

albrecht wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An MBA. The average MBA isn't the kind of person you want, but a really bright MBA can be a game changer if they stay out of your hair.

Nope. Also, it's not a clone in any meaningful sense.

AdWords was invented by Eric Veach, formerly of Pixar, wasn't it?

Re: undefined

#19

Post by Jd » Thu, Jul 05, 2007, 4:25 PM UTC

The integrity thing is huge. I left a startup about a year ago for the same reason.

Re: undefined

#20

Post by thetest » Thu, Jul 05, 2007, 10:33 PM UTC

jmtame wrote: post #15

ericwan wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw your redesign of Jawed's homepage, and I got forwarded by Jawed to this Stanford MBA...=) I didn't get back to him as I think as a hiring email they should at least tell me briefly about their idea instead of just throwing the big names.

Wow, small world huh? ;)

Someone with the initials of a city 45 minutes north of palo alto?