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Comment by quickthrower2 | Hacker News Reader

> or alternatively, a dev tools startup

I have notice a lot of dev tools startups on YC. Since a dev tool startup is sort of a "busman's holiday" [1] for geeks, it sounds like a really attractive proposition. Get funded to do something that is pure programming, for other programmers.

[1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/busman%27s_holiday

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I'd bet that YC would love to fund fewer dev tools, but there's a bias towards who applies to YC in the first place. It's not that YC isn't well known outside of tech circles, but they are especially well known in tech circles, and that affects who applies.

They can choose what they fund right? There might be some element of "Kelly criterion" to it though, so if all you have is tech tool ideas, it is still worth investing an a proportion of them.

As someone who roughly fits that mold: I do love it, but I’d never describe it as a holiday :)

The phrase means that something isn't a holiday. Despite linking to an explanation of it, the grandparent does not seem to be using it correctly.

To take a break from a FANG or other corporate job, and do a low-key start-up thing with the gang, and greenfield some code instead of bug fixing maintenance work, while working remote from a beach in Hawaii or somewhere sounds like a holiday to me!

Exactly. Working from a beach isn't for me (too much sunlight and sand, and "i could be surfing :-(") but yes the rest of it. Especially the deep work of not working in a typical business.

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