HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

josh33

263 karma · joined May 25, 2009

Love product management, physics, and music
submissionscomments
josh33··on Ask HN: Has anyone here turned around their life in their 40s?
Hi brother - just know you have intrinsic worth beyond what the world sees (or what you think the world sees). You have overcome lots of challenges in life to even get to your 40's; no one escapes challenges.

Might I recommend an outward approach? Look for an opportunity to serve someone around you and evaluate how you feel after that experience. The lift in your emotions will also power you to overcome the next challenge you are facing/will face.

I also strongly recommend therapy. It has literally saved my life. I had to bounce around to a few therapists before I found one that really resonated with me, but that external resource gave me a way to evaluate my life and decisions without my own bias.

josh33··on Tell HN: I have the perfect job, why is it not enough?
I appreciate the thoughtfulness and introspection in your question.

I have found that different types of activities bring me joy/energy/fulfillment, and others do not. Identifying which activities do this for me took a few years of thought, coupled with asking people who know me well about what they observe. I realized about 10 years ago that I'm most fulfilled when I'm teaching - literally leading a formal learning session with students. I find opportunities to do some of this in my work (I'm a co-founder with tons of autonomy in my role), but ultimately I've decided that my job is the means to open up more doors to teach. I'm getting an MBA to open the door to be an adjunct professor in business.

I share this because once you know what activities bring you joy/energy/fulfillment, you can rearrange your life to maximize how much time you spend doing those things.

josh33··on Zapier reached a $5B valuation with $1.3M of funding
Huge Zapier fan and user here. In fact I wrote an article on LinkedIn a while back about how many heads I think their product is saving us. And we have our own developers - there are just so many instances where using a service like this saves us the opportunity cost of building things for our own customers. Almost all of our use cases are around automating data connections for internal systems we use and love.
josh33··on No Shenanigans
Helped form these at my former company, so I'm biased. But the memorability and thoughtful definitions really helped these stick (to this day): https://www.entrata.com/company/values
josh33··on Stripe’s new funding round values company at $35B
Just want to say your Connect product is INCREDIBLE. Our company couldn't function (at least not well and at scale) without it!
josh33··on Dumber phone
I've had a similar approach for the past few months, but with some changes: - I have my wife manage restrictions; only she knows the passcode - I have Safari set to only a whitelist. This means when friends send me a link, I've got to get to a computer to open it. - I have no access to "unlimited" content: no app store, no news aggregators, no google - My home screen has primarily utility and "creation" apps (Drafts, Day One, Trello, etc) - I've turned off almost all notifications. Mail has no sounds, alerts, or badges. I do have badges and alerts on text messaging and slack, but am probably going to turn off slack notification completely. - I've yet to remove all games. I should. I've yet to remove Hacker News and Tech Crunch, but don't currently feel an incessant need to check those.
josh33··on The Dark Side of Doctoring
I'm a former healthcare administrator and just want to point out that many many administrators work much more than the 9-5.

I'm also working at a healthcare tech startup aimed at reduced the administrative burden to doctors, administrators and insurers of managing their patients at home, which is where the worst outcomes often happen.

Each segment we work with feels this burden, it is not isolated to the physicians.

josh33··on I was asked to crack a program in a job interview
The risk is if someone publishes a tutorial with the secrets on the web.
josh33··on Just how much is that 2% really worth?
Don't forget taxes will take a large chunk of any payout away. Sometimes as much as 50% when you factor in state taxes.
josh33··on The WhatsApp Story Challenges Some of the Valley’s Conventional Wisdom
"The Advantage" by Patrick Lencioni is also a great read on this topic of Organizational Health and how much it matters.
josh33··on Show HN: Review healthcare.gov plan prices in 1 click rather than 16
I hope you got paid $150mm to create that.
josh33··on Restaurant website traffic now 40% mobile
46% of apartment traffic is now mobile as well. I work for a company that hosts 10,000+ apartment websites and pulled the google Analytics that we aggregate across all of them.
josh33··on The Boy Genius of Ulan Bator
I lived in Mongolia for two years as a missionary and taught ESL at schools every day. The schools systems there are what you would expect from a 3rd world country but it never ceased to amaze me how many bright, gifted Mongolians that had innate desire to learn and improve their situation, even with very troubling situations at home.
josh33··on John Carmack joins Oculus as CTO
Ready Player One! - If you haven't read this, I highly recommend it.
josh33··on For 40 Years, This Russian Family Was Cut Off From All Human Contact
I lived in Sukhbaatar in Mongolia for a year and though the summers were great. Winter, on the other hand, freezes the condensation on your eye lashes so that when you blink you can't open your eyes without effort.
josh33··on Everything is my fault
A wonderful book that is similar in concept to this post is "Leadership and Self-Deception". I think the first part of the book: "Self-deception and the Box" is what Derek is describing here and he's working on getting out of the box.
josh33··on Launch Early, Launch Simple, and Test
Be aware that you will burn some customers and lose them. Customer feedback is a scarce resource that you can burn up before converting it to an asset.
josh33··on [dead]
Glad someone posted this. The comments on this post should probably get turned off though as the results in and of themselves are what is really compelling here. Commets will just lead to arguments.
josh33··on Elon Musk’s Mission to Mars
Process is not a replacement for thinking. It's a tool to be used as enabling repetitive tasks to be higher quality and allowing the doer to focus on higher thought.
josh33··on Google Maps' advantage over Apple Maps
This smells like a resume to apple from someone wanting to be hired. I can't fault that, but using link bait initially to score high on HN, getting on Apple's radar makes me feel used.
josh33··on Show HN: Everyday.me - a mobile app to record your life and store it forever
This comes from misunderstanding The Lean Startup.
josh33··on Protean Echo: Fuse all your cards into one for $80
This looks like a good solution if you have limited wallet space like in the twelve-south book book case for iPhone.
josh33··on FiveStars (YC W11) Picks Up $14 Million to Challenge the Loyalty Punch Card
Is Apple's Passbook a competitor?
josh33··on Craigslist, LinkedIn, Netflix, and others don't owe us anything.
Why the references to legislation? The free market can fix this IF the Craigslist experience really is bad. You might not be able to grow organically like Craigslist did but it is totally possible. Pay listers to post on your site. Offer something unique to the listers Craigslist can't.
josh33··on TED and inequality: The real story
I cannot up vote this enough. Value creation is key. One new theory I've been exploring lately is that, while people can value good and bad things (moral and immoral, sustaining and destructive, etc), the creator of value has a responsibility not only to give people what they want, but actually what they deserve. The distinction this makes can be explained with an example:

John makes software for law firms. His software has lots of bugs. John justifies this because he can make more money by adding features and isn't at risk of losing his cash flow because there are no competitors in his space. IMHO, John has an obligation to write better software simply because his constituents deserve it. I also think it could be warranted that he charge even more for it at this point. While I'm not sure bug-free software is a universal good, there are definitely products that ought to be better or not exist (pornography and cigarettes come to mind). The government should not have to regulate these.

josh33··on The average Greek is working a full 40% longer than the average German
That is called debt.
josh33··on The average Greek is working a full 40% longer than the average German
You don't need to regulate banks if you prove to them you are not going to bail them out when they are too loose in their lending practices. They'll go out of business or tighten their lending standards. The real problem here is banks the world over have convinced their people and their governments that having debt-financed possessions is the key to happiness and prosperity.
josh33··on Show HN: Wovyn, physical world sensors for developers
I think you're right about home automation. There is also potential for home analytics/intelligence as well. For example, water sub-meters on each water faucet could help conscientious water users conserve.
josh33··on Time To Get Past Facebook And Invent A New Future
Money is a receipt given for value created. I think you mean to say that dollars and pesos should be replaced, which I agree with to a point. However, giving up money, to a government, is like giving up sovereignty. How could a government fund wars or welfare if they couldn't print money.
josh33··on Why I use DuckDuckGo and You Should Too
App store link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/duckduckgo-search/id479988136...
Page 1 of 5Next →