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

Letter To A Young Programmer Considering A Startup

al3x.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 162 posts

Re: Letter To A Young Programmer Considering A Startup

#81

Post by obstacle1 »

205guy wrote: post #42

I feel the OP raised 2 strawmen: 1) Many jobs are at startups now, and those startups are roughly similar, therefore it's not cool anymore ("is the novelty even there"). That is just bad logic. It may be that startups replicated high pressure low gratification corporate jobs, but that's not inherent in the argument that there are more startup jobs. It could also be the case that the tech economy has really shifted fr…

1) The author isn't arguing that. He is objecting to the portrayal of startups as more free, open, and fluid than traditional enterprise. Unless I'm bad at reading the author didn't even mention the ratio of startup:traditional jobs, so that isn't relevant. And the objection wasn't to the fact that all startups are roughly equivalent (which was, though, a point made). The objection was that startups are roughly equivalent to traditional enterprise in structure, form, and execution (i.e. Super Cool Startup is just as non-free, non-open, and non-fluid as Enterprise Shop Inc., and this is systemic). The equivalence comes from the startup scene having been wholly co-opted by a system (VC-istan, anyone?) that amounts to traditional enterprise (formulaic, mass-producing, repeatable templates). This is a textbook binary deconstruction: the startup/corporate dichotomy as it exists in popular consciousness is false.

Food for thought, see pg's comment in this thread: apparently there is now a formula for creativity and rebellion. Questions: if you can formulaically rebel, how is that rebellion? By definition your 'rebellion' is deterministic -- how is that possible? If 'creativity' can come by formula, what are you creating? The 'new' is just a function of what you already knew, i.e., it already existed. So the 'new' is by definition not new at all.

2) Again, the author didn't make this point. He argued that people considering taking a startup job should consciously look through popular delusion and consider the bad with the good. There was no mention that one should or shouldn't take a particular kind of job.

Re: Letter To A Young Programmer Considering A Startup

#82

Post by duaneb »

hkmurakami wrote: post #12
michaelochurch wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are also plenty of startups that don't value or recognize technical skill and where it's easy for a junior engineer to get hired. Those are terrible as well, because (a) they'll make you stay mediocre and (b) you end up learning the wrong lessons.

like that HN'er's story of wiping a production DB accientally and the company (a social gaming company) blaming him and bullying him into resigning. (instead of asking why they had given a Jr. Dev write access to production in the first place)

Giving the Jr Dev access wasn't the problem; your site should be Jr Dev proof (i.e. have backups). If that wasn't a problem, then they only have themselves to blame for investing in someone they obviously didn't want.

Besides, just because you're inexperienced doesn't excuse stupid behavior, and I'm struggling to think of how one might accidentally drop a database after logging into a production environment—I would suspect that people were already lax about it if a Jr Dev was doing it.

Re: Letter To A Young Programmer Considering A Startup

#83

Post by datalus »

samfisher83 wrote: post #40

In some professions this guy would be considered young. Its kind of amusing to read. He has made it so even though there is some bitterness in his writing, he has obviously benefited from the system, and unlike being a struggling actor you are making some bank at a startup with a potential to make it big. Compare that to making ends meet as a waiter.

Any idea how old Alex is? My guess is late 20s to early 30s, which makes me wince at the title.

Re: Letter To A Young Programmer Considering A Startup

#84

Post by triplesec »

This is a great cautionary polemic to those who may jump in without understanding what they really want. I'm sure it has flaws, but the intent of the author seems to be fair and careful warning to the unthinking. Fine advice, and if you still want to do a startup having analysed this piece, then you're in the right business!

Re: Letter To A Young Programmer Considering A Startup

#85

Post by sillysaurus »

ibdknox wrote: post #80
pg wrote: post #54

"Yet, there is no enduring formula for creativity and rebellion." This is a fine sounding statement, but it's false. We've been accumulating and refining techniques for having new ideas for centuries, at least. Leonardo da Vinci mentioned several in his writings.

The word "formula" is very important in his statement - yes we have techniques for coming up with new ideas, but we do not have a formula for it. A formula produces a consistent and reproducible result. If we actually had such a thing it'd be the real-life equivalent of a magic lamp; make a wish for a new idea about x and out it comes. The reality of the situation is far too messy for such a clean solution to exist.…

make a wish for a new idea about x and out it comes.

Isn't that a description of a YC RFS? It's still too early to tell whether RFS works or not, but it's almost precisely what you've described.

Re: Letter To A Young Programmer Considering A Startup

#86

Post by sliverstorm »

ritchiea wrote: post #76
sliverstorm wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about when you work at a no-name software shop to make ends meet while you pitch to VCs to get your own startup off the ground? The analogy may be more apt than it first seems! ;)

This kind of comment makes me wonder what percentage of HN has zero idea of what's it's like to be legitimately broke/poor. Even if you're joking, since you include the winky face, what about actual poor uneducated people who will never have a chance to work in a no-name software shop?

What does that have to do with anything? I'm just bemusedly thinking of the parallels between the kid who moves from Small Town, USA to be a star in Hollywood, and the kid who moves from Small Town, USA to make it big with his own startup in SV.

"No-name software shop" was probably the wrong choice; a closer tech analogue to waiting tables to fund that acting dream would probably be working IT/helpdesk.

Re: Letter To A Young Programmer Considering A Startup

#87

Post by ibdknox »

sillysaurus wrote: post #85
ibdknox wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The word "formula" is very important in his statement - yes we have techniques for coming up with new ideas, but we do not have a formula for it. A formula produces a consistent and reproducible result. If we actually had such a thing it'd be the real-life equivalent of a magic lamp; make a wish for a new idea about x and out it comes. The reality of the situation is far too messy for such a clean solution to exist.…

make a wish for a new idea about x and out it comes. Isn't that a description of a YC RFS? It's still too early to tell whether RFS works or not, but it's almost precisely what you've described.

I guess you could make the million monkeys argument, but that's just playing with the law of large numbers. The original statement was intended to apply to a single person or at most a small number of individuals.

Even beyond that though, I'm not sure that "ask for ideas" (which is all the RFS is) could really be construed as a formula for creativity. It's a mechanism for surfacing creativity that springs from elsewhere.

You'd have to ask PG whether or not the RFS stuff has really been that helpful. From my experience in YC, the most "successful" companies had nothing to do with the RFSs.

Re: Letter To A Young Programmer Considering A Startup

#89

Post by jongraehl »

pg wrote: post #54

"Yet, there is no enduring formula for creativity and rebellion." This is a fine sounding statement, but it's false. We've been accumulating and refining techniques for having new ideas for centuries, at least. Leonardo da Vinci mentioned several in his writings.

If you broaden the original statement, it's wrong, but "no enduring [single] formula" is a near-tautology. Alex must mean that if you're not creative and sharp, you won't prevail in the marketplace, which of course is likely. But clever folks can benefit from formulas, checklists, and exercises.

One could manufacture prompts all day - imagine yourself displacing incumbents by doing something new (or just doing it in a new way) - how is that happening? How are they fighting back? Why can't they stop you?

It's intrinsically motivating to win, and though you can enjoy winning in ways that aren't proved by economic measure, everyone understands market success.

Re: Letter To A Young Programmer Considering A Startup

#90

Post by bcbrown »

duaneb wrote: post #82
hkmurakami wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

like that HN'er's story of wiping a production DB accientally and the company (a social gaming company) blaming him and bullying him into resigning. (instead of asking why they had given a Jr. Dev write access to production in the first place)

Giving the Jr Dev access wasn't the problem; your site should be Jr Dev proof (i.e. have backups). If that wasn't a problem, then they only have themselves to blame for investing in someone they obviously didn't want. Besides, just because you're inexperienced doesn't excuse stupid behavior, and I'm struggling to think of how one might accidentally drop a database after logging into a production environment—I would s…

If I recall correctly, he was developing a new feature, and the only way to test his work was by creating and dropping test tables, on the production db. One day he dropped the wrong thing. I don't think he had any technical or academic background, and there was no oversight.
Post reply on HN