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

Mistakes You Should Never Make

sethbannon.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 348 posts

Re: Mistakes You Should Never Make

#161

Post by WalterBright »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #88

That had to be a tough article to write, thanks Seth. The thing that really stuck with me is the 'technically true' aspects. Growing up in various places around the world I encountered a number of people for whom their motto was 'its only illegal if you get caught!' The advantages of this motto were very apparent as a teen, you could run a stop light at 11:30pm, there was hardly anyone around, and you could be home b…

My father once told me that what separates people from animals is that people have honor.

People without honor, well...

Re: Mistakes You Should Never Make

#162

Post by sbisker »

slg wrote: post #83

I know this is a minor point of the article, but as someone with a degree from Harvard Extension I need to weigh in on that part of the story. I hate people who make this lie of ommission. Harvard Extension isn't Harvard College or Harvard Business School, but it still provides a very good education with great flexibility at an even better price. However, there is a small minority of people that continuely try to pas…

The funny thing is that this lie would only work outside of Boston - in Boston proper, companies big and small see this all the time, and are very alert for it (in part because of the presence of successful Extension alumni at the firms).

Re: Mistakes You Should Never Make

#163

Post by dusing »

SheepSlapper wrote: post #20
octo_t wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is incredibly common behaviour amongst sales people. Or what is also common is 'oh, funny you should mention that, we have a team working on that feature as we speak'. 90% of the time it is fine, contracts tend to be organised for several months in advance, long enough for you to get a feature in place.

As a developer, I've been on the receiving end of "we promised the client we could do this, and they've already paid us, so get to it" more times than I can count... it's my least favorite salesman trait, by far.

We do this all the time for features on our roadmap, if a high level client wants to "sign up" and basically pay for the new feature we move it up in the roadmap.

Re: Mistakes You Should Never Make

#164

Post by mhartl »

afarrell wrote: post #142
pjungwir wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also took a few Harvard Extension School classes (mostly Greek and Latin, but also Distributed Computing). I didn't earn a degree, just took a few things that interested me. It's on my resume as Harvard Extension School, and I have to actively correct people who think it's more than it is. My jokey way of putting it is that HES "takes anyone with a credit card." What's really embarrassing is when someone introduces…

As long as you put "Extension School", It seems strange that someone would think you went to undergrad there. Then again, I ride the Ⓣ every day. Maybe people just have no clue what "Harvard Extension School" is.

People have no idea; once they see the "Harvard", they can hardly see anything else.

The confusion extends even to Harvard grads. Because of the mix at alumni events of Harvard College graduates, MBAs, JDs, MDs, Extension School grads, etc., sometimes the organizers print up name tags with the degree abbreviations on them. It does little good, though: I've had Harvard MBAs ask me what my "A.B." means. (It's an abbreviation for the Latin artium baccalaureus, pretentious Harvard-speak for "bachelor's degree". I.e., it means I "went to Harvard" in the colloquial sense of the phrase.) As far as most of them know, A.B. and A.L.B./A.A. (the Extension School degrees) might as well be the same thing.

Re: Mistakes You Should Never Make

#165

Post by Loughla »

larrys wrote: post #159
matwood wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting about your grandfather. Mine taught me a similar integrity lesson when I was a kid. Back when there were payphones I would always check them for spare quarters. One time when I was with my grandfather I checked a phone that has broken and dumped ~ $6 in change out. I pulled all the money out super excited about my find. He explained it wasn't mine and when we got home he mailed the local phone a check for…

"I asked him about his unwillingness to do what others have done (at the time it was drive faster than the speed limit on an empty road) " The above (parent comment) as well as your comment "I pulled all the money out super excited about my find. He explained it wasn't mine" ... well, I can't agree that it teaches the proper lesson, even to a child. Forgetting whether he is even right "it isn't yours" (I could argue…

"To me (and with all due respect to the parent commenters grandfather) when I hear things like this I think something is trying to prove honesty a bit to much and (once again not to imply the parent commenters grandfather is such a person) that is the type of person I actually watch out for sometimes."

99.9% of the time, that type of statement is more of a sign of your personality and less a sign of others'.

In reality, though, the main point that you missed is that in a world made of shades of gray, the only person you can ever truly rely on is yourself. If you don't have scruples and you don't have honor, you don't have anything.

That's the basic message. Trying to water it down with nuance and personal opinion about honesty in today's world is simply grasping for straws to justify choices made in your own life.

That's a lot more confrontational than I intended. Those are not meant to be the personal attacks they come across as.

Some people have honor in everything they do, they're good people. Some people have honor in only the major things they do, they're good people as well, but there may be some questionable choices when it comes to minor things like finding cash on the ground or speeding. Some people have no honor; avoid these people.

That allows for your nuance, but still allows for a code of honor. Kids need to be taught that. Act honorably, understand that not everyone adheres to your codes, and understand that even if they don't, they're not automatically bad people.

Re: Mistakes You Should Never Make

#166

Post by simonebrunozzi »

matthewmacleod wrote: post #13
methodover wrote: post #9

> In the early days I would often let potential customers think we already had a feature they wanted What. How is this even remotely acceptable? If discovered it destroys your credibility. Among your employees it destroys your credibility. If I was an employee and found out that this was happening, I'd be extremely upset. I wouldn't trust a thing you say. If you'll lie to customers, you'll lie to me.

What. How is this even remotely acceptable? If discovered it destroys your credibility. Among your employees it destroys your credibility. If I was an employee and found out that this was happening, I'd be extremely upset. I wouldn't trust a thing you say. If you'll lie to customers, you'll lie to me. Your optimism is endearing, but the vast majority of companies I've done business with do this. Often companies I've…

Unfortunately, this is true.

Re: Mistakes You Should Never Make

#167

Post by rdwallis »

larrys wrote: post #159
matwood wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting about your grandfather. Mine taught me a similar integrity lesson when I was a kid. Back when there were payphones I would always check them for spare quarters. One time when I was with my grandfather I checked a phone that has broken and dumped ~ $6 in change out. I pulled all the money out super excited about my find. He explained it wasn't mine and when we got home he mailed the local phone a check for…

"I asked him about his unwillingness to do what others have done (at the time it was drive faster than the speed limit on an empty road) " The above (parent comment) as well as your comment "I pulled all the money out super excited about my find. He explained it wasn't mine" ... well, I can't agree that it teaches the proper lesson, even to a child. Forgetting whether he is even right "it isn't yours" (I could argue…

I've chosen to never speed because it reduces my cognitive load.

Nobody speeds all the time. Even people who speed a lot will try to slow down for speed traps.

So everyone who speeds even those who speed only every now and then have to be constantly making a choice for when to speed.

They must constantly assess whether the benefits of speeding in this specific moment outweigh the disadvantages. There are dozens of variables: how much quicker will speeding be? will I be caught? is it safe to speed on this road at this time?

Much easier to ignore all that and just to drive below the speed limit.

Re: Mistakes You Should Never Make

#168

Post by keithpeter »

billmalarky wrote: post #132
methodover wrote: post #9

> In the early days I would often let potential customers think we already had a feature they wanted What. How is this even remotely acceptable? If discovered it destroys your credibility. Among your employees it destroys your credibility. If I was an employee and found out that this was happening, I'd be extremely upset. I wouldn't trust a thing you say. If you'll lie to customers, you'll lie to me.

It's called vaperware and it's part of a lean strategy (that way you only build what people actually want). It's extremely common, in fact I believe New Relic was founded using this type of strategy. Take this with a grain of salt because this is an old passing memory of mine, but I believe Lew Cirne called up business owners and sold a bunch of them on the original new relic product before even developing it. I don'…

"...I don't think it is necessarily unethical if you know that you can do it (so long as you can deliver before they start paying)"

So the salesperson/founder needs to have a good enough model of how the software works so that they know if a feature is relatively easy to provide, or if as another poster commented, it would require say a major change in a database design. I don't think it is necessarily unethical if you know that you can do it (so long as you can deliver before they start paying)

When I was being sold to, I developed a good ear for phrases like 'in development' or 'that is just a custom report'. We used put it all in writing &c.

Re: Mistakes You Should Never Make

#169

Post by malyk »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #88

That had to be a tough article to write, thanks Seth. The thing that really stuck with me is the 'technically true' aspects. Growing up in various places around the world I encountered a number of people for whom their motto was 'its only illegal if you get caught!' The advantages of this motto were very apparent as a teen, you could run a stop light at 11:30pm, there was hardly anyone around, and you could be home b…

The defining moment for me was one time when I was riding with my stepfather when I was 12 or so. We pulled up behind a truck that had a "Call us if this vehicle is driving badly" or the equivalent sticker and I blurted out how fun it would be to call and say the driver was terrible.

He immediately said something along the lines of "So you think it would be fun to get that guy fired?" and the impact was basically immediate. It was a lesson that actions have consequences, something that it seems like so few people seem to actually appreciate.

Re: Mistakes You Should Never Make

#170

Post by andrewflnr »

otterley wrote: post #84
jacquesm wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would result in mass unemployment in some sectors of industry. The problem is that as long as your competitor says 'yes' and you say 'no' the competitor will get the customer. Customers should be firing companies that provide false information during the lead-up to a sale. Then the sales people can stay employed and everybody comes out ahead.

> That would result in mass unemployment in some sectors of industry. Are you making an implicit suggestion that we should tolerate fraud because it employs people?

No, he made his actual suggestion quite explicit.
Post reply on HN