Dropbox Hires Guido Van Rossum • Hacker News Board

Re: Dropbox Hires Guido Van Rossum

#151

Post by throwaway2048 » Sat, Dec 08, 2012, 5:07 AM UTC

shadowmatter wrote: post #130

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is Python being phased out?

Python wasn't phased out of consumer-facing applications because it was never in. Google has a lot of machines, but those machines receive a lot of traffic. Efficiency matters, and byte-for-byte, cycle-for-cycle, Java is more efficient than Python. Don't ask me why Google didn't throw lots of resources at making Python more efficient like they did with JS and V8. I often wonder that myself.

they did throw a significant amount of resources at python with the creation of unladen swallow. In the end i believe it was decided (due to GIL issues, and other language design choices in python) that it was never going to match up performance wise, so unladen swallow was canceled, and Google began to move away from python.

Re: Dropbox Hires Guido Van Rossum

#152

Post by nostrademons » Sat, Dec 08, 2012, 5:19 AM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #30

untog wrote: post #4

" the adventure found at a nimble 250-person startup like Dropbox becomes more tempting " What is the definition of a startup these days, anyway?

I suspect a "startup" is any company that is serving a market that has yet to prove it is viable. Many folks use that term to describe any privately held company that is growing into something much larger.

Or a market that is known to be viable with a product that is not yet known to be viable. I think most people would consider Tesla a startup, but cars have been around for a century.

Re: Dropbox Hires Guido Van Rossum

#153

Post by nostrademons » Sat, Dec 08, 2012, 5:22 AM UTC

theorique wrote: post #18

protomyth wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At 250 people, you would think you're a business and no longer a startup. Once you pass Dunbar's number you probably are no longer a startup.

That's a reasonable upper bound. Once the company is big enough to the point where you don't remember everyone's name, it's past the startup point.

That eliminates capital-intensive businesses. I think most people would consider Tesla and SpaceX to be startups, but Tesla has 3500 employees and SpaceX has >2000.

Re: Dropbox Hires Guido Van Rossum

#154

Post by nostrademons » Sat, Dec 08, 2012, 5:34 AM UTC

freyr wrote: post #97

untog wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a genuine question. To my mind, a startup has a small number of employees and not very much money. This is hardly the first time I've heard of a company with >100 employees described as a startup, so I'm interested to know what people's definitions are.

I once interviewed with a company that maintained a staff of According to Paul Graham, "a startup is a company designed to grow fast." By this definition, they didn't fit the bill. Dropbox might, depending on whether or not they're still in a rapid growth phase.

Well, it can get confusing when "a company designed to grow fast" doesn't, and yet still has enough revenue coming in to not die. I worked at a company that considered themselves a startup when I first interned there in 2004 (they'd been founded around 2002 and had just gotten their first 7-figure contract). When I left in 2007, it was apparent they were really a small business, they started calling themselves a small business around 2009, and they finally went out of business in 2011. I think headcount topped out at around a dozen in 2006 - it'd been around 7 at my first internship, and I think it was down to just founders when they went under.

Re: Dropbox Hires Guido Van Rossum

#155

Post by kamkazemoose » Sat, Dec 08, 2012, 5:50 AM UTC

SiVal wrote: post #149

bdesimone wrote: post #2

I'll be very interested to find out what role Guido will take up at dropbox. When someone like Matz/ Guido/ etc gets hired, what do their job responsibilities, for the community include exactly? Are language writer hires such as this purely symbolic?

This isn't just Dropbox deciding to hire Guido, it's Guido deciding to work for Dropbox and, perhaps most interestingly, deciding NOT to work for Google anymore. Surely a company the size (and type) of Google could come up with some pretty amazing projects for an engineer like Guido to work on if he got bored but, for some reason, Guido left. The reason could be something as boring as a big raise or a shorter commute…

It could just be that Google was too big. Maybe Guido just wanted to be the Big Man on Campus. Google is filled with brilliant/famous engineers. Dropbox is much smaller so going to a smaller company, he can have a much larger impact. Just a theory though, there are tons of possibilities.

Re: Dropbox Hires Guido Van Rossum

#156

Post by enneff » Sat, Dec 08, 2012, 5:53 AM UTC

RenegadeHero wrote: post #62

It always strikes me as odd when something like this happens. Guido is still working nine-to-fives and Drew never has to work again. Can someone tell me why a brilliant person like Guido isn't worth a billion dollars? Have tons of fancy cars and a fancy house? Has to work for another company?

Since when do language designers get rich? I can't think of a single person who got rich through language design.

Re: Dropbox Hires Guido Van Rossum

#157

Post by nostrademons » Sat, Dec 08, 2012, 6:10 AM UTC

pyre wrote: post #79

loganfrederick wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure someone like Guido is, at this point, not motivated by money. If there was a challenge he wanted to undertake at Google, I'm sure they'd give it to him already. He probably wanted to participate in growing another new tech company that has a lot of potential. That's an opportunity Google would find hard to counter.

Sorry, my statement was more generic. I wasn't trying to say that Guido is motivated by money, just that these are common ways to get someone to stay if that is indeed the issue that makes them want to leave. On the issue of challenges, maybe Guido has more pull on this, but there were recently some articles/discussion on HN about Google's hiring practices. They might hire you based on your PhD in databases, and then…

"It's possible that even Guido doesn't have enough pull at Google to overcome this."

I have enough pull at Google to overcome this, so I'd be pretty surprised if Guido doesn't.

Re: Dropbox Hires Guido Van Rossum

#158

Post by nostrademons » Sat, Dec 08, 2012, 6:21 AM UTC

kayoone wrote: post #94

RenegadeHero wrote: post #62

It always strikes me as odd when something like this happens. Guido is still working nine-to-fives and Drew never has to work again. Can someone tell me why a brilliant person like Guido isn't worth a billion dollars? Have tons of fancy cars and a fancy house? Has to work for another company?

because he didnt found or was an early employee of a highly successful startup, yet. Same is true for Linus and many other hacker heros, but its not a bad thing imo.

Linus Torvalds is at least a multi-millionaire; when RedHat and VA Linux went public, they each gifted him with shares in gratitude for inventing Linux, reportedly worth around $20M [1]. Some sources put his wealth at anywhere from $150M [2] to $1B [3]; his actual wealth would vary significantly based on when he sold and what he's invested in since, since those shares shot up 10x on IPO day.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Torvalds#Later_years

[2] http://hollywoodnose.com/net-worth/linus-torvalds-wealth

[3] http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2000/...

Re: Dropbox Hires Guido Van Rossum

#159

Post by nostrademons » Sat, Dec 08, 2012, 6:26 AM UTC

RenegadeHero wrote: post #62

It always strikes me as odd when something like this happens. Guido is still working nine-to-fives and Drew never has to work again. Can someone tell me why a brilliant person like Guido isn't worth a billion dollars? Have tons of fancy cars and a fancy house? Has to work for another company?

You shouldn't assume anything about the personal wealth of...well, anyone. There are rank-and-file, post-IPO engineers at Google sitting on multi-million-$ hiring/retention stock grants. The only difference is that there's no press release when your boss quietly prevents you from leaving for another company, or hires you away from another company. Most smart people, if given the choice, would rather that other folks not know that they're wealthy.

Re: Dropbox Hires Guido Van Rossum

#160

Post by mitchi » Sat, Dec 08, 2012, 7:19 AM UTC

shadowmatter wrote: post #91

Kilimanjaro wrote: post #24

Why Guido left? That's the question.

Speaking as an ex-Googler, when I left, Python was largely relegated to glue code, scripts, internal projects, and App Engine -- consumer-facing frontends were written in Java, and backends in C++. He probably wanted to move to a company where Python was more pervasive, and he felt like he could have more of an impact, given that he _is_ the BDFL.

Python is a cool language but performance is performance. This is why C++ and Java will continue their domination. So in the end, assembly language and optimization experts are the king makers?