It's kind of ridiculous that some mod or admin must've hidden this post because it's now missing from the front page.
Anyone figure this out? Can't find it in new nor in the first 4 pages.
A note I sent to YCombinator
11–20 of 67 posts
Re: A note I sent to YCombinator
#12Re: A note I sent to YCombinator
#13These are some great insights, and well worth the read. I think that at a core level, many of us -- especially in the managerial world -- understand that working people to death, especially technical people, never works out well. The adage of "work smarter, not harder" is absolutely correct. Just like it's better to write five lines of algorithmically beautiful code than a hundred lines of obfuscated spaghetti, it's…
What you call crunch time is what I call poor project management. I started out as the managing editor of a daily newspaper. We shipped an entire product every day. We never slipped, we never missed a daily deadline… Just like every other daily newspaper. And there was never a OMG OMG crunch time as the daily deadline neared. If you manage a project correctly, when the deadline arrives you'll be sitting around telling jokes and admiring your work. I've done it many times. It can be done and it is not that difficult.
Re: A note I sent to YCombinator
#14Doug I know I'm just a silly fanboy -- but I'd be curious about what else you got to see at apple during that era, and any other insights you have on startups...
Hi Michael. I think that Apple in those days is a field that is well-plowed. folklore.org is a particularly fun site.
Start-ups? Business is business. it can be as high-stress or as peaceful as you decide to make it. Software development, these days, is often dysfunction practiced as an artform. :-) Give SCRUM a shake, and waterfall drops to the floor, quivering in embarrassment. Add your examples here. My best development advice is solve the hard problems first, not last. If there are no hard problems, look again. If all parts of the development process are equally difficult, then it should be fairly easy to estimate time to complete...to over-simplify...
This has worked through-out history. Alexander The Great attacked the enemy line at its strongest point, with well-rested, fired-up troops, who knew the battle would be fierce but short. Ditto Patton and Colin Powell. And Karl Rove perfected going at an opposing candidate's greatest strength; a lesson learned by the Obama campaign…thank goodness. :-)
Re: A note I sent to YCombinator
#15Doug I know I'm just a silly fanboy -- but I'd be curious about what else you got to see at apple during that era, and any other insights you have on startups...
Hi Michael. I think that Apple in those days is a field that is well-plowed. folklore.org is a particularly fun site. Start-ups? Business is business. it can be as high-stress or as peaceful as you decide to make it. Software development, these days, is often dysfunction practiced as an artform. :-) Give SCRUM a shake, and waterfall drops to the floor, quivering in embarrassment. Add your examples here. My best devel…
Okay, one last thing. Richard Branson, a business genius, said "Praise people and they flower; criticize them and they wilt." So praise and cheerlead and mentor relentlessly. And, like the best baseball managers, put people in positions where they can succeed. I could go on... :>)
Re: A note I sent to YCombinator
#16These are some great insights, and well worth the read. I think that at a core level, many of us -- especially in the managerial world -- understand that working people to death, especially technical people, never works out well. The adage of "work smarter, not harder" is absolutely correct. Just like it's better to write five lines of algorithmically beautiful code than a hundred lines of obfuscated spaghetti, it's…
I love your words "...five lines of algorithmically beautiful code..."; this beautiful functional minimalism is what engineering is really all about; and it solves problems not only in the present but also in the future. And code that isn't there runs really fast and never has any bugs...
Re: A note I sent to YCombinator
#17These are some great insights, and well worth the read. I think that at a core level, many of us -- especially in the managerial world -- understand that working people to death, especially technical people, never works out well. The adage of "work smarter, not harder" is absolutely correct. Just like it's better to write five lines of algorithmically beautiful code than a hundred lines of obfuscated spaghetti, it's…
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Re: A note I sent to YCombinator
#18It's kind of ridiculous that some mod or admin must've hidden this post because it's now missing from the front page.
This is kind of disheartening. I found it on the front page and saved it so that I could read the discussion later. I've gone through the same thought process while evaluating job offers at start up companies and would have been interested to hear the other side of the story from the employers.
Re: A note I sent to YCombinator
#19This is only one problem. Someone needs to teach programmers how to think about business, themselves in business. I talk to non-programmers and they all get it. I talk to programmers and only 1 in 10 (or fewer) seem to understand. Only 1 in 100 (or fewer) want to do something about it.
Re: A note I sent to YCombinator
#20It's kind of ridiculous that some mod or admin must've hidden this post because it's now missing from the front page.
I'm not saying what did or didn't happen but enough flags will kick something off of the front page reasonably quickly, it's not necessarily mods or admins.