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Ask HN: What is the most useless project you have worked on?

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Re: Ask HN: What is the most useless project you have worked on?

#791

Post by roncesvalles »

adityaathalye wrote: post #526

This passage from The Tao of Programming comes to mind. BOOK 7: Corporate Wisdom https://www.mit.edu/~xela/tao.html [7.1] A novice asked the Master: "In the East, there is a great tree-structure that men call 'Corporate Headquarters'. It is bloated out of shape with vice presidents and accountants. It issues a multitude of memos, each saying 'Go Hence!' or 'Go Hither!' and nobody knows what is meant. Every year new n…

It's all fun and games until one of those useless branches decides it will try to make itself useful by making your life harder, for no other purpose than to show that it did something.

Re: Ask HN: What is the most useless project you have worked on?

#792

Post by roncesvalles »

psnehanshu wrote: post #95

Worked for a client via freelancing. Built 3 projects, all failed. He likes to follow the trends, first SaaS, then crypto/blockchain, and now AI. He apparently raises money, pays himself and builds bullshit projects. That's it. But while doing so, he does everything to look like a legit startup. Ngl, he was my first major client with whom I gained a lot of experience, but it doesn't change the fact that he is a hype…

I would wager most of the startup world is like this. VCs can be exploited. Yes, 99% (or whatever) of startups fail, but a good number of them were never intending to "succeed". It was always just about getting a paycheck for the founder.

If you ever go to a seed stage VC info session (such as Antler's), you will see that the vast majority of attendees are just unemployed people looking for a job.

Re: Ask HN: What is the most useless project you have worked on?

#794

Post by joshuahutt »

jmole wrote: post #456
joshuahutt wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How could you, in such a case?

I don't know, and maybe there was no solution. Just offering a different perspective.

Some things seem inevitable. I've really run myself through the wringer trying to figure out "what could I have done to achieve a better outcome for everyone involved."

I guess success and failure are both group efforts.

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