alexwolfe

I didn't know that only YC Alumni can post jobs and I'm guessing I'm not the only one, thanks for pointing that out.

I think we both agree this job posting is not very appealing especially considering the amount of positions currently available for developers. Most good developers I know do just as much if not more screening than the companies hiring them. I know a number of companies in need of good developers that have great working environments. I think its important for people hiring to be respectful and kind if they are serious about attracting good talent.

I think its important to keep in mind this is very tech specific and generalization and doesn't refer to the life style or atmosphere of either being the same.

Many of the engineers/designers tend move around all over the bay area. Also, the investors are the same for a great portion of these companies as well.

It's just easier to refer to it as "The Valley", although it's technically not correct.

I think most would view this as some kind of joke or scam. Knowing that anyone can create a line graph and a gmail account I would have no reason at all to think this is a real company.

Anyone growing that fast shouldn't be afraid to post a real email address, just doesn't add up for me.

If this is some kind of style or joke I think it is better served to save that for when your having coffee. As laid back as our industry is, most would like to consider themselves professionals. This job posting doesn't seem very professional on any level.

Every designer I know will tell you it take much longer and requires much more difficulty to make something complicated look very very simple.

Most peoples reaction to something designed very well is: "oh of course you do it like that, how would you do it anyway else".

But this is naive thinking, there are plenty of ways to design and most are not simple. The beauty of the iPad is that people understand it at a glance, that is incredibly profound. I think it is really unfortunate that the writer of this article took the stance that they undesigned it, simply wrong. They intelligently designed every aspect of this device which is exactly what his diagrams point out.

Apple's computers, tablets, phone, iPod, all look very unique and were certainly designed not undesigned. All of these objects are man made and inherently require design for them to take shape.

I found that little list surprisingly refreshing and inspiring. It's really easy to beat yourself for not being "there" yet. This list is a good way to keep yourself grounded, thanks for sharing.

Some good advice and wisdom in this post. Getting rich from a startup is a lottery, I've personally worked for many over the last ten years (most fail). What isn't a lottery is your time and how you use it. If you do something that makes you happy every day, you don't need to win the lottery to be successful. Nice article.

You haven't made a strong case for why this is bad advice in spite of the overwhelming comments showing why this is good advice.

I suggest rereading the article again. If you still don't understand what the point is, try rereading again.

The whole point is trying to figure out that part for yourself. If someone told you exactly how to do it then you wouldn't learn much would you? You need to try it with 1 ipod not bulk and see if you can make a profit. It is difficult, it is challenging, that is the point. How do you think you get good at something by taking the easy way?

The point is to try and figure out how to make a profit on your own. Its not to ask someone else how they did it and just copy it. If you copy someone elses homework it does not make you any smarter, you gotta do the homework yourself.

Don't be so afraid to fail. If you try it and your not very good, its ok! Just try again and again, you'll improve. But looking for someone to give you the answer for this is not a recipe for success, its cheating yourself out of an opportunity to learn something new.

His eBay comment was about getting good at the skill of selling things and making money. He does not advocate this as a business but rather a way to practice. It is not risky at all. He tells you to buy 1 iPod and sell it. When you sell it buy another and repeat the process until you feel like you improved your messaging, sales pitch, pictures, etc. Worst case scenario you get stuck with 1 iPod. How is that risky? Did you think he was advocating this as a business? He's not, just practice.

Also, if you don't like him that's fine but why not still try to learn something? The reality is in life they are going to be plenty of people you don't like, plenty. If you can't learn from others because of your own personal bias you're going to hold yourself back big time.

I'm not sure if you even read the article. At the end of almost every point he specifically points out the lesson.

Example - "There's another lesson in here: Charging for something makes you want to make it better. I've found this to be really important. It's a great lesson if you want to learn how to make money."

Do you just not like this guy or something? There is no hand waving going on. Just trying to learn something from a successful businessman who's willing to share his experiences.

I think there is a lesson in there somewhere, perhaps you're just missing it. Instead of trying to counter his points, try extracting what you can from it. In the long run this will help you a lot more than just pointing out things you don't like.

Visually it looks very interesting (similar to flipboard) however it sounds like from the ultra negative comments that the experience may not be ideal. Changing it to a scrolling version of the same layout opposed to swiping could probably alleviate a lot of the pain felt here.

I'm interested in what technology you used to scrape the articles from Hacker News? There is no official api so it would be interesting to hear the process you used, Thanks!

Oh man the 80's were really something. This is some seriously nerdy (but great) footage. One thing they weren't short on was vision, seems like that was in abundance (along with hair) back then.

Not sure if this is really breakthrough stuff. Gladwell finds that a minimum IQ and hours practiced is what translates to becoming good, great, etc.

This article states that once you have achieved that level than talent starts to matter. Uh, yah. I think we are all aware from simply watching professional sports that at a certain point the practice can only help so much. To be a Lebron James you not only need practice but a unique level of god given talent. Natural talent is why we have legends in every field of professionals. This is not really a breakthrough or news to most of us.

Unfortunately colonization with conventional spaceflight is not realistic. It would be far easier and exponentially cheaper to try to colonize the dessert than any moon or planet in our solar system.

However, if we can figure out a way to travel very quickly without the use of fossil fuels than things start to get interesting.

This is sound advice, forget the big job boards, write companies directly. People love hearing a sincere email about why you want to work at their company. Set yourself apart by doing a little research and it will pay off big time.

Besides, many good jobs are not even listed on the big job boards.

Everyone in any field has had help or inspiration from others. I'm just not a fan fo Malcom calling this tweaking, its is demeaning to everyone who's ever done anything. If Steve Jobs just "tweaked" things and wasn't and inventor than what does that say about everyone else in the world?

Its easy to take shots at someone after the fact, the reality is that maybe he wasn't everything people thought he was. He might not have been a sweetheart to work with, in fact he may have been a jerk. But, lets not kid ourselves into believing he didn't do that much and was just some tweaker at Apple, I call BS. Apple was basically dead when he returned, dead. It must have been a little more than tweaking to make it the most successful company in the world.

"The visionary starts with a clean sheet of paper, and re-imagines the world. The tweaker inherits things as they are, and has to push and pull them toward some more nearly perfect solution."

Malcom fails to realize by his definition everyone would be a tweaker. Henry Ford - tweaker, Einstein - tweaker, Jobs - tweaker...

I think its clear who the tweaker is and it isn't Einstein, Ford, or Jobs.

Some articles speculated they were nuclear testings sites. In one picture you can see what looks like an explosion with surrounding fallout damage. However there are quite a few different structures so who knows.

What an extremely negative review, it oozes negativity!

I was really worried after reading this that my Kindle Fire was going to suck. But when it arrived slowly but surely I started thinking that this article was over critical, lopsided, and just wrong. The Kindle Fire is a great product, I really like it. But don't take my word for it or Marco's, just look at the sales over the next few months to a year. If his article is anyone even remotely close to being true the product will fail miserably over the next year, I predict that won't happen, in fact I'm fairly certain it will do quite well.

I would have much preferred to here what you can do with this $199 one hand tablet than a page full of everything someone doesn't find perfect.

I think the idea of the fold might means different things to different designers. "Above the fold" is really "Your first Impression". If you have a good first impression, chances are you'll stick around, if not you might leave.

Regardless of what a user does afterwords (such as scrolling or clicking) we can all agree that the first experience is "Above the fold". Just another way of thinking about it. I agree that if you have good content users can and will easily scroll to see the rest.

I think the author of this fails to realize that you can teach a lot of things but not attitude. You can't convince someone to be passionate about your pet project, not gonna happen. All the begging and reasoning in the world is not going to change their mind. If your so fired up about whatever it is that your doing, find other people that are fired up about it too. If you can't find those people then be more reasonable with people who are building your dream.

The whole, if you want to be rich is really strange too. How about being successful, I think that is a better goal. Success is not having a ton of money, no life, and being a slave driving prick, its about being good in all areas of your life. Believe it or not there are many people out there that would pass up the chance to be rich if it meant they would be absolutely miserable at work everyday.

And finally, no matter how hard you work, how many hours you put in, you can still fail. Its tough to realize that but it happens every single day in the tech world. Once you realize being overly consumed, frantic, and obsessive doesn't guarantee success, you may discover a different way of working, a better way. Be happy with your life dude, that's something you can bank on no matter how much money you make. Otherwise the joke is really on you.

Facebook started with $17,000 investment from a friend and was a dorm room project, not a company. When trying to beat someone it is probably a good idea to see how they got to where they are at. Steady growth over time works. Dumping a shit ton of money into something and saying its going to the the "X" killer doesn't.

The laughing stock is not Bill Nguyen, its the VC's that gave him the money. If you walk in a room and say Color and they laugh, they should really be embarrassed. How many of these same people wanted to get in on this deal before it launched? The really funny thing is that there will be someone else that comes in with a great deck and grand illusions of how they will be the next Facebook, the VC's will pump this person with money too.

Hmmm, you want someone to spend 5 days coding for your browser when you could spend 1 minute to upgrade. Nice.

I think the real take away should be that we are all flawed as human beings. No matter what we do, how much we achieve, how great we become, we are still human and very imperfect.

There are certainly some detestable people on this earth, I wouldn't put Steve Jobs in that category even if I didn't agree with his treatment of others. There are much worse people out there, he simply had many faults.

I think its good you don't want to be like Steve Jobs, be yourself. If you hold yourself to a high standard of morality, even better. But don't judge someone completely based off this book, its hard to know what someone felt or thought unless you walked in there shoes.

Also, never buying another Apple product is a little short sighted. Jobs, while a great visionary, is hardly everything Apple. There are many many talented, hard working, brilliantly creative people that helped Apple become what it is today. I think it is human nature to want to point to a leader, a genius, "the man". The reality is that these products were created from the collective genius of many, not one person.

Anyways, my two cents.

There are a million great people people out there that you don't know who aren't lucky. Having money doesn't make you great, being great makes you great.

I do think that the harder you work and the the more opportunity you give yourself to get lucky the better your chances are to be successful. But believe me, luck plays a huge part in everyones life no matter how smart or great you think you are.

Who determines who is actually worthy 20 million or a billion? In every case there is a tremendous amount of good fortune, luck, and incredible timing.

Anyone who thinks they deserve that much more money than someone else because they are just a better human being needs to get a reality check. Its really about being fortunate. The Chef certainly has just as much right to his 20 mil as all the other guys that cashed out. Again, its not about just talent or brains, its about luck.

Not sure how this memo addresses the complaint of employees being strong armed into relinquishing their stock options. Seems like a very vague and general message that didn't offer any real insite.

Why wouldn't you be able to, it's a good framework with plenty of options. Not to mention the designer/developer can always add/customize on top of it.

Nice collection.

Last time I checked, Unions were legal. For that matter not liking a company is legal too. Not wanting to work for someone, also legal. My friend not wanting to work for someone I don't like, also legal. Not liking a companies policies, ummm also legal.