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I'm not defending whiteboard interviews, but I don't think it's a secret very very few candidates answer the questions from real experience. Rather, it's obvious the main approach to dealing with whiteboard questions is to read up and memorize the stuff before an interview.

To what extent are companies using whiteboards to test who is serious about getting the job? And who is willing to put in extra time and occasionally do unpleasant extra work?

Again not defending whiteboards, and I can think of ways to improve it especially for the more experienced engineers. But all else being equal in terms of two candidates experience and skills and fit; the candidate who was able to memorize things just for the sake of the job, who did research and who came prepared etc. Well that candidate might have the upper hand when making the hiring decision.

Right or wrong, companies do want to test for things besides current programming skills, like being a team player and do things that aren't easy or enjoyable. 80/20 rule maybe applies. How else to test this stuff if companies decide it's important?

I agree this was very interesting especially if it really only included just the brand name and the company's customer list:

> "Nasty Gal preparing to sell its brand name and other intellectual property for $20 million"

Was any remaining inventory included? Were the social network accounts included?... It's hard to judge a $20mm deal without knowing more info. But $20mm buys a lot of ads and other marketing campaigns. Also brands that target more specific age groups often have their brand name goodwill overvalued when bought. These companies must introduce themselves to a new younger batch of customers at a much higher cycle rate, which is hard to calculate for younger companies. There is a price for a brand name and a large instagram following, but $20mm (about a dollar per instagram follower for Nasty Gal) sounds very high.

One of the KUM sharpeners from here. Using 2 stage blades helps:

https://pencils.com/product-category/sharpeners/

Another option buy an X-acto knife (watch youtube videos how to sharpen a pencil with a knife if needed). It's the best way to sharpen a pencil to the way you like it but it takes time. I usually just use the KUM.

Great recommendation. For those folks balking at the $850 price, I agree it's very expensive. But a decent synthesizer is going to start around $500 anyways and it goes up very fast from there (synths can easily cost +$3000 with full size keys). The OP-1 is not ridiculously pricey when compared to competitors products.

I wanted to suggest another option that is much less expensive and worth checking out if you are interested in this type of music is Teenage Engineering Pocket Operators [1]. These are just a fun instrument/toy to play around with and they only cost $50! From the same company too...I wouldn't say the Pockets are a "best-design thing" but I do think they are an easy and inexpensive way to start messing around creating your own music on a hardware instrument before deciding on a bigger purchase like a $1000k synthesizer. The website is great and has sample sounds of each model:

[1] https://teenage.engineering/products/po

This person knows their pencils. I agree. Second the Palomino recommendation.

It's all relative but I wouldn't call the Blackwing 602 "ludicrously expensive"...they cost about $1.50 per pencil.

Though maybe you are thinking of the vintage Blackwing pencils. Blackwing used to be made by a different company (Eberhard) decades ago. These older vintage Blackwing pencils if you can find one cost like $50 today. Still the new ones being made are about $1.50 and are great too.

I get what you're saying. Though I'm not sure baseball is the best example here as baseball is kind of broken right now. Look at the strikes, bargaining issues and communist cartel of baseball team owners needing to cooperate to keep it together, just barely.

Other industries have similar development programs like pro baseball's farm and minor leagues. But all these are getting difficult to maintain. Pro baseball teams supporting minor leagues isn't what it used to be and they have become harder to afford. Still I agree there are many lessons to take from what baseball does well and not so well.

I do agree a lesson from baseball is that the best in journalism should be highly paid for their work. Journalism needs to continue to attract and retain talented professionals who are compensated competitively. This is harder than it might sound though. Professional baseball players don't really have their salaries paid for by wealthy folks; rather players make a lot of money because of MLB television and media rights in the billions of dollars. Players play 162 games on television every season so TV commercials and expensive TV cable packages is what pays for baseball.

One big advantage if the endowment model can be pulled off and funded as a source for journalists income is it could in theory help minimize the corruption and pandering to advertisers at the higher levels of journalism too.

For the most part I agree. Some version of this has been discussed for years: basically a non-profit, non-commercial, bipartisan, transparent, independent, professional journalism organization(s) using an endowment or donation-based funding model seems to be one of the best options at the moment.

The cynics and trolls will attack the idea that it's impossible. Ignore them of course, it is possible but it will not be perfect, and it must be open about it not being perfect. The pragmatists have the more valid pushback: implementing such a solution is still too difficult, too expensive, it will take too long and it may crowd-out remaining journalists who are still in business while discouraging other solutions coming forward.

I think it can start small. It has to. But the seeds how this could work can be seen in organizations like C-SPAN, National Public Radio and Wikipedia (Yes, Wikipedia is also not perfect but it's pretty damn good and arguably better than for-profit journalism right now in terms accuracy and staying close to the center on stories). Expanding on those models has potential if support for doing so can be rallied and the idea can be paid for.

Who knows, this could turn into a US version of Pravda, if it even gets off the ground. Maybe. But when current journalism is already a biased disaster still going out of business, what's the harm in trying a little experiment and giving other options like this a try?

This is an odd editorial. The author stretches to explain how Zuck's Manifesto released this week could destroy journalism. But then she provides evidence that journalism is for all intents and purposes already dead. She cites a (possibly inflated) prime time news audience size of ~3 million people, and 1.5 million digital subscribers for the NYT...So less than 1% of America are using these previously major sources of news. How did that happen guys?

I'm the last person you will find defending Zuck or Facebook (which I do not use and have deleted other apps as facebook buys them). But this Atlantic article felt like a desperate plea for charity of some sort, and preferably cash since the Chan-Zuckerberg Empire has so much. This is yet another editorial complaining about themselves but the author does not offer an alternative idea for journalism to avoid its own demise. Why and how would she? Journalists don't seem to understand business at all and are scared to try.

In just 3 months since the election, journalists and many people in this country seem to have forgotten how biased, incompetent, clueless, fake and corrupt even the "real" news organizations are today. There was no mea culpa in the article for these issues, just a misguided complaint. The pre-internet old days were not so perfect either if anyone reads history...can anyone explain why newspapers, these supposed bastions of objectivity for communities, even endorse political candidates? Is that a newspapers job?

This whole situation reminds me of another time there was a Harvard guy's looong manifesto that no one had the patience to read in full and it was on a very similar topic...the news industry was running around like a chicken with its head cut off back then too [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski#Industrial_Socie...

I didn't read a complaint about premature acquisitions in between these lines. Though sama may feel that way about certain promising startups. I don't know.

I think he says what he means here; these largest companies "have powerful advantages that are still not fully understood by most founders and investors." And it's compounding. Given that, I think being a bit more cautiously considerate and unpresumptuous about these issues as well as on any views or insights one might have makes a lot of sense.

Basically this is a shitshow still in progress. There are startups that in hindsight had a too early, under-valued liquidity event. And there are many many startups that turned down acquisition offers never to see that many zeros offered again (I think Pebble just sold under these conditions). Whoops.

Also don't forget how a startup's risk profile and internal planning changes dramatically when/if an acquisition offer is turned down. Too early is not the problem here. If Amazon or FB wants to buy you and you say no, well good luck. Competitor risk is a real business cost and it can weigh you down no matter how fast you may be growing. If anything I see uneasiness more than complaint as the playing field has warped where hills are now mountains only giants can cross. The rulebook has changed too, startups aren't even playing the same game as large tech companies anymore. As the letter suggests, startups can play at the fringes and margins, then maybe try to sneak into grown-up business land but this is increasingly, laughably unlikely if you model it. What is more likely is startups miscalculating how big and lucrative their idea is and they are screwed, or they miscalculated how fast and easy Google can crush their prospects once Lar and Serge notice what you're up to. The options are lose now or lose later, with only the rarest of startups as exceptions unless someone or something steps to address the underlying structural realities.

All these companies have mission statements. Whether a potential hire, potential investor or anyone else chooses to believe or be cynical about that mission is something else. Seems like there's always a spectrum among employees from the kool-aid drinkers to momentum-seeking remoras just hitching a ride. Still, even when an employee is skeptical or cynical about the company's stated mission initially; the more time someone works somewhere have you not seen man's search for meaning kick in...an employee often will create their own mission why they are there, real or not.

It's hard not to be impressed by what the Gates Foundation is doing. I don't think they get the full recognition they deserve sometimes, maybe because much of their work is abroad in the poorest countries in the world.

Hard to fathom the number of people out there in the world thankful and who owe their lives to the foundation choosing to help their community or their cause.

With that said and not to diminish the good work. It is sad and eye-opening more progress has not been made on these issues.

I think when you really look at the numbers, besides seeing the positive trends one can also see how truly difficult, large and complex these problems are. The foundation has $50 Billion dollars! And Bill can get pretty much any world leader or other billionaire CEO to take his phone calls. Yet, sorry that is not enough not even close. The foundation has to focus on very specific issues and even then it hasn't "gotten to zero" where it wants to (though Polio is close, down to 37 cases). Private foundations can only do so much, the scale of these problems really requires the cooperation of governments. I'm not sure what can be done on that or what that means, just a bit breathtaking how governments can help people or really screw things up on a scale nothing else even comes close to.

I understand this is very new. As more people visit the site hopefully a lot of feedback will stream in for you. I'm just one person so I can't really suggest what you should add, only where I found things wanting. If you aggregate feedback from visitors and do your A/B testing or whatever system you use, that should point to the right places to make changes.

For example: Your landing page says "You can do whatever you want with them". Imagine a person not familiar with any of this stuff, I could imagine such a person asking themselves, "what can I do with them?" and "what's the catch?"

For someone familiar with online currencies and/or basic income, I could imagine such a person clicking around and finding no info or evidence of a back-end infrastructure that would support this idea. Nor is there any explanation how you expect to give away something every day and have users or vendors want to accept such a thing for something they do know the value of. Play all product launch games you want, but you are asking for people's real first and last name and their email, I don't see experienced early-adopters giving this up without more proof of concept and knowing more about you guys and your plans.

I wish you a lot of success, just wanted to point out two groups of users who might be more apprehensive to sign up and why.

There's a much longer answer to this that factors in your savings, what your resume looks like and minimizing the chances of this happening to you in the future.

Two immediate pieces of advice:

1. Shore up relationships with your colleagues and get their non-work contact info if you don't have it. Make this network stronger. Former colleagues can recommend you and pull you in at new companies they get hired at. They can also refer you to job openings they know about but aren't pursuing. It's one step of many, but people can get caught up in worrying and applying elsewhere, they forget about this network of colleagues right in front who can help each other. Keep in touch, check in, ask for leads and referrals if you are still looking, offer them if you have them.

2. Don't freak out. But if you are really worried, since 20% of staff are staying for now so: A laid off employee can ask management if they can stay and help for a few more weeks at reduced pay and while he/she looks for something else. I don't recommend doing that, looking for a job can be a full-time job. Never hurts to offer and ask.

TL;DR No. Caring about your customer isn't killing your business. Actions Steps are: 1. Stay Focused 2. use online tools like live chat and a CRM 3. Create an internal and external FAQ thing.

The "Actually" in the title should have been enough of a red of flag to not click. I did anyway. The article is long. 3x longer than needed I think and wasting people's time will drive them away. Article also includes a recommendation to read some Gary Vaynerchuk book. That says all you need I think, but your mileage may actually vary.

This looks really interesting. I think I get what you are trying to do. Just want to give a bit of feedback:

Even after clicking through "Learn More" and your FAQ, I still wasn't sure what this is or how it works. I am familiar with online currencies and basic income, so I would imagine a visitor to the site less familiar with this stuff would be even more confused.

I get it's an "experiment" and TNSTAAFL and it's still very new. But maybe a sample explanation of how a new user might sign up, receive coins and then use them somewhere would help clarify things.

No offense here. But what kind of startup consultant are you that needs to come on Hacker News to ask how to start such a relatively simple business?

If you are having trouble with this question, I can tell you startups deal with similar customer acquisition and how to launch questions, but 10x harder. So I don't follow, are you a technology consultant with experience in specific hardware or software technologies or is this general business consulting you hope to sell?

My experience is similar that adding to these tools starts to diminish usefulness. I use a 4-point sheet that sort of resembles SWOT analysis and I think that is about as far as it can go for me. Also worth mentioning what and when these tools are relevant, for coffee shop meetings or initial/weekly KPI meetings a "back of the envelope" type tool makes complete sense. But whether a founder or an investor, at some point it's worth a deep dive into each piece of the puzzle to really back up initial thinking with more info and data (market research, user feedback, comp discounting, sanity checks, etc.)

I don't disagree. I enjoy reading business history as well. But there is definitely a large number of people who either believe in or are open giving a chance to a new "West Coast business" approach.

I think "West Coast business" originally comes from a football term, but idea that a new silicon valley-style business approach has overtaken the old "M7 MBA" thinking has evidence. Like journalism is experiencing now...things may have changed.

Don't most businesses fail regardless of how much money they raise? What is a true breakthrough anyway? Has it gotten harder to keep secrets from competitors in the shadows? Can you an ambitious company raise money and hire the best people still without a PR-hype-machine going full speed ahead? What does success even mean these days, are founders and VCs trying to IPO big businesses or sell expensive secondary shares and cash out a bit?

I agree, most of these business will fail. While I don't participate in the hype, I can understand the thinking behind pushing for a super-funded startup strategy that attracts talent, strategic investors and that can hang with competitors since I.P./courts cannot be relied on.

Not a bad heuristic tool and set of questions. I think the 3rd step Economic questions are the most difficult for new founders and where people get tripped up:

Are your costs viable?...What is the effort for a user to switch to the product?...Is it easy for a competitor to copy the startup’s ideas?...How might user adoption grow?...etc.

Potential founders see some startups bootstrapping costs very early and see other startups unprofitably burning dosh for years and years even past their IPO (eg hello Twitter, with Snapchat about to join them).

Competitor risk analysis can be paralyzing for a new founder who reads the news. Google, Facebook and Amazon et al. can essentially build anything they want. While copycat startups can pop up overnight. Sure the big guys might buy you, but they might also build themselves or acquire one of these competitor startups that started after you. 1st means nothing anymore. Even the example doesn't really overcome Google as a competitor. Competitor risk can be very subjective and VC forecasts are not much better than founders here - this is the easiest area to disagree on and get pushback on.

Honestly these 1-page biz planning tools are fine for college kids learning about startups. Or for VCs keeping their public profile active. But before VCs give a founder real money I think most VCs do a set of "common sense tests". This is what this is, a version of a common sense test for a founder. If you're overly optimistic as a founder while not having thought out potential future scenarios Plan A thru Plan C that would fail a common sense test.

Seems like the stronger your idea, your I.P. or your team's technical skills, the less common sense needed, you are worth mentoring even though you don't get it yet. Still do a common sense check regularly...