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Ask HN: Anyone doing some absurd stuff after getting laid off?

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71–80 of 136 posts

Re: Ask HN: Anyone doing some absurd stuff after getting laid off?

#71

I am happy with my current employer but I always liked Paul Graham's idea of not having a boss[0]. I had read it quite a while back but here's the gist of it: Paul mentions that we work best when we work in a group of 8-20 people in a flat structure like our hunter gatherer ancestors use to do. Each member have their own roles and responsibilities and each individual contributes the well being and future security of…

>This is very extreme take but imagine if companies are capped at 20-50 employees. Will it work? I think it will. What do you guys think? I don't think. I cannot imagine companies doing GPU, CPUs, Windows, etc. with just 20-50ppl.

Wouldn’t companies collaborate with shared interest and risk?

For me, it feels like corruption would be more the risk from a cap.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone doing some absurd stuff after getting laid off?

#74
post #73

Yes. I'm making a YAML to SQL converter here: https://yaml2sql.netlify.app . It's mostly for fun, useless for most of use cases.

Have a look at schema hero for inspiration. https://schemahero.io/

Thanks. I also love to extend the project to support ALL kinds of SQL.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone doing some absurd stuff after getting laid off?

#76
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh guys, it took 5 minutes just out of curiosity: https://github.com/thewopr

Actually, that's not my profile. My username doesn't align on github. My github profile is github.com/lawinslow

I judged by the timeline and mention of AI project among the stars... :)

Re: Ask HN: Anyone doing some absurd stuff after getting laid off?

#77
Not laid off but I quit my job 7 months ago to start my own company.

Just the admin of setting up and running the day-to-day has taught me a lot.

But the biggest lesson I learned is that I have the capacity to research and implement technologies new to me in relatively short amounts of time to make meaningful impact.

In addition, my confidence has improved and I am more likely to accept challenging work within my domain than ever before.

What I am doing running a small business is not cool in the context of the OP and the discussion, but it's cool to me in the sense that I did something I once feared and stuck with it.

Thanks for sharing, everyone. Really cool projects. Take care.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone doing some absurd stuff after getting laid off?

#78
Not laid off but on an extended sabbatical.

I'm working on a Rust library for SAT solving and other things informed by John Harrison's text on Automated Theorem Proving.

https://github.com/aetilley/harrison-rust

This is largely for me to to learn Rust, but I think it may have the potential to turn into something cool. Next on the todo list is optimizations to DPLL as the existing implementation is currently in its most basic form (I skipped optimizations there for the time being in order to move on to predicate calculus).

Re: Ask HN: Anyone doing some absurd stuff after getting laid off?

#79
post #39

I worked for several years as an independent contractor; when my last big project ended several months ago, I decided to take a sabbatical for the climate. So far that has meant spending more time with my kids, learning to compost, building some new raised garden beds, mending some clothes that I previously would've replaced, reading more books, and various other little things. I plan to start volunteering soon with…

Sounds sublime... connecting with nature, your family and your local community.

We don't really need much to have a good life.

Just wonder whether we'll be able to escape our current destructive economic and value system and move towards a more circular economic system[0] on time to keep global warming increase under 2C.

But for that our value system needs to change first... getting away from the 'more more more' value system and focusing more on what you wrote about. Would be great for example if we had a richer reuse and repair economy.

[0] Waste equals food https://topdocumentaryfilms.com/waste-food/

Re: Ask HN: Anyone doing some absurd stuff after getting laid off?

#80
post #2

Your employer doesn’t care about you the same way your parents would. Good employers care about enabling you to do your job effectively and efficiently. But it’s all transactional. Doesn’t mean that you can’t find an arrangement that’s good for both you and employer. But don’t ever think it’s like a family. Saves you a lot of frustration. See it for what it is.

It feels easy to think that it's the case that your employer and coworkers are a family. In my case, I stayed six years in my first job out of college - as did most of my coworkers (the company was pretty stable up until the very end, when I left). I made a lateral shift within the company, and also made it to senior, under their wing. The illusion started to come apart after a layoff (35% company-wide, 45% in my dep…

> It took some time to realize that it was mostly a manipulative attempt on their part.

Then again, there’re people that manipulate their family members. So I get why it’s confusing for some.

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