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EternalFury

633 karma · joined May 3, 2012

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EternalFury··on 'The Golden Age of Silicon Valley Is Over, and We're Dancing on its Grave'
Something that has been concerning to me over the past few years is the shortsightedness at the national level.

Sure, a national endeavor for growth can include tax policies, broadband programs, educational reform, capital investments, flexible monetary policies, etc.

BUT, I think one of the most important and worthwhile goal should be the decentralization of high-growth job centers.

Setting up shop in Silicon Valley these days is ridiculously expensive. Besides, basing a large percentage of your high-growth businesses in an area that may be ravaged by a natural disaster at a moment's notice is clearly unwise.

Furthermore, the success of the nation should not be tied to the fate of Silicon Valley, or the fate of 3-5 major job centers. Hence, a national priority should be to decentralize this economic activity across the country.

There is no catch-22 here, contrary to what people say. ("We set up shop here because all the qualified workforce is here.")

With real estates, school expenses, public transportation capacity and urbanization reaching unsustainable levels, there is no doubt start-ups would benefit from setting up shop in less expensive areas, where their employees could live without mortgaging themselves to retirement or sacrificing the well-being of their family members.

EternalFury··on Facebook closes at $38.23 first day NASDAQ trading, above IPO price $38.00
It used to be "the sky is the limit". Now it is "the floor is the limit and the floor is $38". The Facebook baby bird broke out of its egg today. Next week, it must learn to fly out of the nest on its own. That should be a dinner and a show.
EternalFury··on Facebook closes at $38.23 first day NASDAQ trading, above IPO price $38.00
They got a lot of capital to play with. What they do with it will determine if they can build a business that is worthy of such a high valuation.

They are currently priced as if they were bound to run a highly profitable business. Now, reality must catch up with the dream and promises.

EternalFury··on NASDAQ:FB
You got it right, Chuck.

This is simply a transfer of wealth between Wall Street and Facebook's major shareholders. (not a broad base at all)

It was made possible because Wall Street believed every Facebook user would try to get in on the action in the open market.

It turns out retail investors and Facebook users didn't join the anticipated mania and now, the valuation of the company is what Wall Street made it out to be and not much more.

In other words, from here on, Facebook's valuation and Wall Street's ROI will solely depend on Facebook's financial success. Obviously, for Wall Street, this is much slower and much more work than having a stock take off on the basis of a mania.

If the financials don't turn up in the next few quarters, watch out.

EternalFury··on FB stock priced at $38/share on Thursday, raises $18.4 billion
Oh, you will be down-voted times and times again for even posting things like that. It's self-preservation, since a large percentage of current start-ups rely on similarly ad-driven pie-in-the-sky schemes where the best and only possible exit is a sale to Facebook or another large entity with more money than sense.
EternalFury··on FB stock priced at $38/share on Thursday, raises $18.4 billion
Greed knows no bound, clearly. This being said, my rent got jacked up $300 a month. I must leave this place before I start paying to work here.
EternalFury··on It Takes 6 Days to Change 1 Line of Code
I can relate to that. Maybe 70% of the defect corrections I make in our highly complex and optimized code base are less than 10 lines worth of code.

It can take between between 24 hours and a week to figure out what those few lines should be, though. And that is extremely frustrating.

EternalFury··on FB stock priced at $38/share on Thursday, raises $18.4 billion
LOL, glad to realize not everyone sees golden tulip bulbs.
EternalFury··on FB stock priced at $38/share on Thursday, raises $18.4 billion
These "poor" people have earned their cash-out time. Hopefully, it triggers a new VC monsoon in Silicon Valley so that newcomers can finally afford those > $1M houses. :)
EternalFury··on The Facebook Offering: How It Compares
It will fertilize the valley and help more tangible start-ups spring up. If all those new millionaires don't move to foreign countries to avoid paying taxes, that is.
EternalFury··on GM Says Facebook Ads Don't Work, Pulls $10 Million Account
LOL, and rain is wet. The day a start-up comes with a reliable way to measure the true efficacy of online ads, no one will want to invest a penny in them.
EternalFury··on Please Learn to Code
If "learn to code" means "learn that coding is a laborious profession", then yes, by all means, learn to code.

I am definitely wary of people who tell me: - "Why don't we..." - "We just need..." - "How hard could this be..." - "Quickly change it so that..." - "We can always change it later if it doesn't pan out..."

The disconnect between people who know how hard it can be and the people who assume it's as simple as talking about it is way too large as it is.

EternalFury··on Why we moved from NodeJS to Ruby on Rails
Thanks, very interesting. Good to know Rails can get there.
EternalFury··on Why we moved from NodeJS to Ruby on Rails
Does anyone know 1 major consumer-facing site that was able to scale with Rails?

I know Twitter kind of had to move away from Rails due to scalability issues.

GameBattles.com also had to back away from Rails after their uptime dropped to 80%.

I am not trying to tarnish Rails, I am just curious to learn about some success stories involving Rails at very large scale.

EternalFury··on No, I won't be your technical co-founder
If I may add a few other considerations...

1) Age discrimination

I am 40. You wouldn't believe how many "in urgent need of a tech co-founder" entrepreneurs recoil when they learn the fact. You won't fit in. You won't understand us. Blah blah blah...

Umm...I assure you, if I can deal with half a dozen programming languages in my sleep, if I can run a family, if I am strong enough to run 30+ miles a week (on top of weight training), if I can complete my day job without swearing or sweating, I CAN UNDERSTAND YOU and I WOULD NEVER JUDGE YOU based on your age alone.

I only care about what you got under your skull cap.

2) Do you know this? Do you know that? Can you solve that tricky trick we found on the Web this morning?

I don't care. If you have a problem, I will research it. Before you have 2 problems, I will have picked all the knowledge I need to give you 1 solution. It could be something I already know. It could be something I never heard about. I am a human being. Adapting is in my DNA and I adapt all the time.

3) We got this great idea/solution, will you help us build it?

I'm sorry, what is the GREAT problem (the GREAT problem someone will pay good money to address) you wish to solve?

Honestly, guys, ideas are a dime a dozen, particularly ideas in the consumer space where a business model seems to be optional.

What you need is knowledge about a tremendous pain/problem a lot of people want to spend money on solving.

4) Success is a conjunction of talents.

I have great respect for business people, sales people, consultants, customer service people, patent lawyers, finance gurus, etc. They all do things that are essential to growing a sound business. Things I should not do.

Everyone must bring something to the table and everyone must know and appreciate what everyone else brings to the table. Freeloaders sooner or later sink the ship.

EternalFury··on Why I'm thrilled Mark Zuckerberg is annoying the bankers
What he wears should not matter, except he has a dress code for people who come interview for a job at Facebook. So, he certainly deserves a ribbing for believing he is above his own rules.
EternalFury··on Gumroad raises $7 million from KPCB
Very cool. Hopefully, they'll be more successful than Flattr.
EternalFury··on The Maturation of Mark Zuckerberg
You shouldn't be worried about either.

Smoke and mirrors are always in stock.

EternalFury··on Interviews Can Be a Terrible Way to Identify Good Programmers
Ah, I am not alone!

Sure, simple tests to filter out people who clearly know nothing about programming are useful, but puzzlers and other ego-trip tests are useless.

I can hire better programmers by asking them to write an essay about any current piece of news.

The English language is the first programming language one should master. It's the one most useful to handle interactions with other human beings, and that's what makes the most important difference in any job.

EternalFury··on The Maturation of Mark Zuckerberg
The IPO is timely because there is no telling how long it will take for Facebook to become the next MySpace. It could be 6 months or a couple of years, or never, if they find some way to reinvent themselves before then.
EternalFury··on Inverse Fizzbuzz
There is a difference between dead simple problems and dead simple solutions. You can always come up with complex solutions to dead simple problems. And that's the biggest problem of all.

Also, very often, it's not software that does not scale, it's people working on the software. Clearly, there are relatively few developers in the marketplace who can master the most advanced software development techniques. In practice, "clever" code will be misunderstood sooner or later, its complexity will increase as "lesser" developers patch it down to a level where they can understand it, expand it and correct it. And so you end up with large balls of mud, initially clever code turned into tremendous sources of complexity.

If you look at the pillars of Internet, HTTP, FTP, telnet, IP, TCP, POP, SMTP, etc. There is 1 common factor between them: They are dead simple solutions to specific problems. And that is why they stood the test of time.

EternalFury··on Inverse Fizzbuzz
Cute. Now, back to reality, where 99% of the code is dead simple stuff that sticks around for years. I am really starting to believe it is a fault to be too clever in software development. Granted, the easier your code is to understand, the better it is for business.
EternalFury··on Why RubyMotion Is Better Than Objective-C
Why would you say it's better than Objective-C? Since anything it can do has to exist in the Objective-C framework offered by Apple, it is probably equivalent.

Also, let's not forget 90% of things that make money in the App Store are games. RubyMotion doesn't seem to do much to help you with that.

In other words, for Rubyists, RubyMotion is a thin wrapper around Objective-C classes that feels like home. For everyone else, it's an added layer that provides a thin sugar coating and not much else.

EternalFury··on RubyMotion - Ruby for iOS
I'll say this again: No programming language is fundamentally bad.

Bad programmers have a tendency to move from language to language, blaming their tools for their lack of skill.

This stuff is exciting.

EternalFury··on The secret guild of Silicon Valley
This article is slightly inaccurate. Members of the Guild are totally technology-agnostic.

We do not prefer C, C++, and Java over Python, Ruby, JavaScript or any other cool language of the week.

We LOVE to build things and solve problems. We LOVE to start with nothing and end up with something USEFUL to much more than ourselves.

In order to achieve our goals, we will pick up any technology or tool available, based on their suitability to the task. Coldly.

But, yes, we smile a lot when we see the way the business world and entrepreneurs repeat the same mistakes over and over.

EternalFury··on Want good programmers? Then pay them.
Smart individuals don't relish the thought of being saddled by hustlers who intend to ride them to the top of the mountain. Granted, you can't make everyone a co-founder, but there is quite a bit of leeway between that and token equity.

I get contacted all the time by start-up hustlers who tell me in detail what they expect or want. When I compare their "wild desires" to what I estimate they will contribute to building something from nothing, I am left with only one conclusion: They believe engineering/programming/technology is as trivial as blogging about your dream of becoming the next Mark Zuckerberg.

Sorry, fellas, but coding and talking are not the same thing. Coding and hustling are not the same thing either.

Another pet peeve of mine is people who contact me claiming they are looking for a technical co-founder. I go along and quickly learn they have already made all technical decisions and claim they have "90% of the code in place". In the back of my mind, I know why they say that: They just don't want to admit my contribution would be worth more than a single-digit percentage of their unborn company.

In the end, I can see through all that and I am not about to let anyone take advantage of me.

I am not alone either and all those smart individuals you need to build a successful company can see through it all as well.

Conclusion: 90%+ of all start-ups fail lamentably. Because too many entrepreneurs just want to get rich before anything else and it's hard to convince people to join you when you are so obviously self-centered.

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