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

Whistling Into a Tape Recorder: What the East Coast Doesn't Get About Startups

dangrover.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 53 posts

Re: Whistling Into a Tape Recorder: What the East Coast Doesn't Get About Startups

#21

Post by dangrover »

benblodgett wrote: post #16
3am wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's perpetually annoying that people make this an East Coast/West Coast thing (as if "East Coast" can even be generalized about... I'm sure Atlanta has a much in common with NYC as Mountain View has with Eugene). It's very small sample set of people to make any kind of good judgement, and seems to just be catering to stereotypes.

Yeah I am also constantly annoyed by this, I work out of a coworking space in the lower east side with tons of technical geniuses. It doesn't matter where you live, but who you associate with in that area.

What co-working space is it? Can I check it out? :D

Re: Whistling Into a Tape Recorder: What the East Coast Doesn't Get About Startups

#22

Post by asmithmd1 »

api wrote: post #19

I ran into a toxic mentality on the East Coast where there was a class division between "thinkers/leaders" and "doers," and doing automatically placed a person into a lower class. The idea was that execution is for little people and ideas and "leadership" are for big people. I met a bunch of over-stuffed narcissistic and ineffectual big people who could sell like crazy and drum up endless interest by way of their ivy…

I hate that divide also, either you are a manager (the most exalted status being a manager of managers) or you are an "individual contributor" WTF does that mean? Isn't everyone an individual contributor up to and including the president of the US?

Re: Whistling Into a Tape Recorder: What the East Coast Doesn't Get About Startups

#23

Post by MBlume »

I realize this is mostly irrelevant, but can anyone confirm/deny the Elfman claim?

(It occurs to me that you'd have to be a fantastic whistler to manage some of, say, the spiderman score. Also, I'm pretty sure the guy invents percussion in his basement.)

Re: Whistling Into a Tape Recorder: What the East Coast Doesn't Get About Startups

#24

Post by rsingel »

I love that this showed up the same day as the post about how Alexis Ohanian built reddit.

For those that don't know, Alexis doesn't code.

And he and Steve are from the East Coast.

But who am I to bash another good round of technical vs. non-technical Hacker News flaming?

Re: Whistling Into a Tape Recorder: What the East Coast Doesn't Get About Startups

#25

Post by earbitscom »

krschultz wrote: post #9

Is it just me or does the non-technical co-founder really get killed by most blogs? I have been approached a couple of times by friends with 'ideas', they just need a programmer to build it for them. I respectfully declined each time and remain friends with these people. None of them ever got anywhere with their ideas. They never quit their day jobs, they never read the right blogs and books (even if I suggested, and…

This is the best articulation I've read on this debate, which I usually find filled with arrogance and condescension. Our company is what it is today because of our technology team, but by the time we found them we had money in the bank, boxes on boxes of CDs from record labels, an amazing advisory board (most of whom we cold called), and a blog with thousands of readers. We had mockups, all of our licensing agreements, and the list goes onm. Being a founder is about doing what it takes, and it takes a lot more than just building technology.

Re: Whistling Into a Tape Recorder: What the East Coast Doesn't Get About Startups

#26

Post by edwardcapriolo »

This might be like the third blog I have read about the east coast 'doesn't get' or 'can't do' startups. The last article said the east coast could not make a facebook. Check your facts. Facebook started on the east coast.

Anyway onto this article. How can you call yourself humble when your saying someone else 'doesn't get it' or 'cant do it' That does not sound humble to me. Other then that there is no substance to your argument.

Here is my prospective:

On the west coast, your startup fails, go work at another startup, get a real job at a profitable company, that fails, sleep outside in a tent.

On the east coast your startup fails, get a real job at a profitable company, or freeze to death.

Re: Whistling Into a Tape Recorder: What the East Coast Doesn't Get About Startups

#27

Post by planetguy »

MBlume wrote: post #23

I realize this is mostly irrelevant, but can anyone confirm/deny the Elfman claim? (It occurs to me that you'd have to be a fantastic whistler to manage some of, say, the spiderman score. Also, I'm pretty sure the guy invents percussion in his basement.)

I'd imagine it's an exaggeration of some aspect of his real creative process. I wouldn't be surprised if he does whistle into a tape recorder while watching a rough cut of the film, I'd just be surprised if that's all he does.

Actually it seems like a damn good way to write music for a film. First you figure out the basic themes at leitmotifs that you want to use. Then you watch the film a few times and whistle or hum basically how you want the music to go, so that you can match the music to the moment on a second-by-second basis. Hand over the tape to an assistant and let them worry about turning this vague musical shape into the outline of a complete score; once you've got the score you can worry about the details.

Re: Whistling Into a Tape Recorder: What the East Coast Doesn't Get About Startups

#28

Post by aaronblohowiak »

krschultz wrote: post #9

Is it just me or does the non-technical co-founder really get killed by most blogs? I have been approached a couple of times by friends with 'ideas', they just need a programmer to build it for them. I respectfully declined each time and remain friends with these people. None of them ever got anywhere with their ideas. They never quit their day jobs, they never read the right blogs and books (even if I suggested, and…

>Most aren't ready to be co-founders, technical or not.

I think this is the crux of the matter. Most people aren't ready to be co-founders.

Re: Whistling Into a Tape Recorder: What the East Coast Doesn't Get About Startups

#30

Post by smd80 »

planetguy wrote: post #27
MBlume wrote: post #23

I realize this is mostly irrelevant, but can anyone confirm/deny the Elfman claim? (It occurs to me that you'd have to be a fantastic whistler to manage some of, say, the spiderman score. Also, I'm pretty sure the guy invents percussion in his basement.)

I'd imagine it's an exaggeration of some aspect of his real creative process. I wouldn't be surprised if he does whistle into a tape recorder while watching a rough cut of the film, I'd just be surprised if that's all he does. Actually it seems like a damn good way to write music for a film. First you figure out the basic themes at leitmotifs that you want to use. Then you watch the film a few times and whistle or hu…

It's not in the slightest bit true about Danny Elfman -- in fact, it's farther from the truth in his case than any other film composer I can think of. With the amount of synth and guitar that Danny performs himself, he actually has up to half his tracks laid down by the time the cue is getting approved by the director. Not only is he not outsourcing the composing, he's not even outsourcing the performance except where he needs to. And he's certainly not fiddling around with a tape recorder when he has a $100k+ Pro Tools rig in his studio.

All film composers have different processes, and it's true that few of them take on the details of notation, and all of them have teams that they work with. But you're absolutely right that that's a good thing, because that's how film music works: Turnover is extremely short (sometimes as little as a couple weeks to write an hour of music), notes on the page are not the product, and specialization allows the process to move forward and the job to get done.

This blog post irks me in part because it's an unkind rumor, and in part because it's a completely inept metaphor.

Post reply on HN