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Comment by swatcoder | Hacker News Reader

This is a forum where people respond well to practical explanations from thoughtful founders.

I don't know if the OP got what they needed from this reply, but I assume I'm not alone in being impressed by the humility and candor of the response and developed much greater affinity for Kagi from some of the specifics of what were said.

I want more companies to have communicative, principled management that invites a sustainable base of like-minded customers/partners and fewer companies that pretend they can please 7B people by radically changing their product every 3 months.

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Interesting take. It is valid and don't take my alternative interpretation as suggesting otherwise.

I owned a business for 18 years. For 15 of those years it was my primary source of income. I valued feedback, tried my hardest to solicit as much of it as possible, and always took it to heart (though I had to always try and glean statistics from the sum of all feedback so that I was never spending resources on minority opinions).

What I read from the user was that the company created an optics problem. It wasn't whether the company was losing money or not, it was just that the user is choosing to support that company because they want a really good search engine, and the optics of divesting the company's resources into multiple projects makes it appear as if it could be the case that not enough focus is being spent on what really matters to that user.

What I read from the founder was that the optics issue went completely over his head and a complete dismissal of the user's concerns and feedback, along with a doubling down of the decisions made.

It's not a good look in my opinion. Even though the founder was polite and didn't say anything inappropriate, I would NEVER have responded to a customer of mine like that.

You sound like a very good businessman, and a reasonably astute interrogator of user feedback. I wish there were more businesses with people having those traits at the helm!

I get OP's take, but freediver is essentially saying that Orion and their other ventures are a part of the vision. To OP and others, it may seem like a side-mission or a waste of resources, but I trust the guy bootstrapping the company with his own money.

Hell, Orion is the first Webkit browser where FireFox and Chrome plug-ins work on iOS. If may seem like a misstep, but I see it as calculated. If Kagi search hopes to ever take on Google and Chrome, they need their own champion.

It's a stretch to justify paying for search, but I do it. To find out I actually pay for a bunch of stuff I don't care about when search is still a work in progress, naw bro, I'm good. I don't go to a restaurant that has a partial menu to fund a race team. Cool that was your reason for opening the place, you sunk a ton of money into something you think it super cool, but I'm actually here for the food and ignored you don't have fryers yet when I thought that me eating here was supporting them coming, not something else.

You are both right. Freediver laid out the vision, and some users are saying the vision isn't what the paying users are paying for. As someone who ran a business like this, GS is telling Freediver this should probably be something to give extra attention to and consciously decide is it the company the vision or the search product people are paying for?

How is this different from Hershey funding a school for orphans from its profit, or Microsoft funding Internet Explorer with some of the price you paid for Windows (theoretically), or any business that uses income from its stable products to fund new products? The only thing I can think is that you are not actually satisfied with the product (search results for a month) and so in your mind you are funding R&D of the product you would like (better search results for a month). In which case, getting upset is understandable, but assuming my analysis is correct, the mismatch is that you aren't buying for the product they are actually selling.

I think GP's point was that Kagi's not a stable product, yet.

If this if your reaction, you may not know how a bunch of companies work.

...such a weird response given freedivers announcement of "thinking out of the box".

The vision of a company shouldn't be much of a concern to paying customers of an existing product.

> It's a stretch to justify paying for search, but I do it.

I think therein lies the problem for many people. If you're already at a stretch to justify paying for search, any deviation from your assumption of the correct decisions from the company will be magnified.

> pretend they can please 7B people

I think the most positive aspect of freediver's response is the implied dismissal of the above. - that their stubborness is genuine, not a more robotic, seemingly hollow, response of concern. As a marketing approach, I'm wondering if maybe that would give you less reach and more impact in general.

.. and then the founder decided to harangue the author in email. Guy can't seem to stop stepping on his own dick.

https://hackers.town/@lori/112255132348604770

Yeah.. I can understand where the author's coming from not wanting to be on a call or get emailed by the founder, but this is such an immediate assumption of bad "fatih" on their part, and a tactless way of communicating that, that I don't consider it a great look for the author.

I'm not even arguing people should assume good faith until proven otherwise (I don't think we should, generally). Just that being so steadfast in one's assumption of bad faith is unwarranted.

Surely, many of us maintain a blog where we publish personal reflections, often discussing new technologies we test or try to use. It would truly be a nightmare to personally engage with every business owner, developer, or investor.

If this were an occasional occurrence, I would agree with you, but it seems to happen systematically. Perhaps it's an exaggerated and counterproductive way of reacting.

People have the right to hold different opinions without feeling compelled to try to convince others of their own views or to be persuaded by others' opinions. Accepting that people can have differing viewpoints demonstrates respect for diversity of opinion and individual freedom of thought.

The concept of accepting different opinions without trying to convince each other implies respect for intellectual autonomy and freedom of thought for each individual, while still encouraging open dialogue and constructive engagement __when appropriate__.

This was difficult to read. Not a hint of empathy on that thread.

It really does call into question everything in the origt blog post. The emails from the CEO are such a breath of fresh air. Even the typos are endearing. It reads like an immediate, frank, unfiltered reaction, giving an honest expression of his values. and he didn't lose his cool while being repeatedly taunted by the blog author who only wanted a one-way attack amd the last word without listening to a rebuttal.

I think you can read that thread in multiple ways depending on your previous experience.

As a woman who’s had bad experiences with men before, this kind of “no you owe me your time” behaviour usually triggers a “get away from this guy; fast” kind of response.

This doesn’t mean Kagi is necessarily bad or that this was what Vlad intended, but it does for sure reduce my faith in the project. Not enough to stop paying for Kagi, but I’ve definitely gone to the “raise shields, power phasers” stage.

That's fair I guess. That's not meant flippantly, but I don't have that experience so I can only guess. However isn't it best to assume good faith in a non threatening situation?

If this is a regular "trigger point" in real life, I can understand that as a knee jerk, but there's no danger or need for immediate reaction via email, so why judge through that lens once you've identified you're doing so?

IMO the author did himself no favors publishing this email thread.

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