moocow01

Maybe someone knows of a solution but it would be great if SVN/version control was able to store a standard formatted version of source code and then depending on client/user preferences could reformat the file accordingly on checkout and then also be able to factor in / unformat when doing diffs/checkins. I feel like if it could work like this it would mitigate a lot the inevitable battles that take place over small things like formatting/etc. There are obviously things like variable names that it wouldnt be able to solve but at least nobody would be complaining about where Joe put his curly bracket. I guess you can do something similar with an SVN hook but its hard to get a seamless process.

Except when they "all" go bust. There is only so much VC money to go around and when that contracts open positions do too. We've been in a good period for a while but tech is also very cyclical.

Exactly because you really are not.

By the time you get diluted you effectively are a stockholder with way too much of your net worth locked into one likely extremely volatile company. If you are lucky enough to be in a succesful startup you still have to survive the inevitable whiplash when your liquidity frees up.

Ironically and sadly I have a couple old-timer friends who have been through IPOs where they have lost money on the whole damn thing mostly due to taxes and poor timing.

Id say your math is on par from a purely financial perspective.

While you touched on it, if you additionally factor in your pay from a per hour cost perspective the equation can get even more extremely lopsided. Many employees who frequent the startup world won't like to admit it or may not realize it, but the majority of employees who stick with startups incur a decent sized opportunity cost from a financial perspective and the hope is that that can be squashed at some point down the line with a home run exit (these are indeed rare). Your median (note the word median not average) big corp engineer is going to be financially better off than your median startup engineer employee.

So why do people do it? Some people find the environment to be fun and exciting - it usually involves more creativity and quick thinking than a big corp. Some people find that they can get a fancier title easier at a startup (ex. not too unusual to find a startup with a CTO who is few years out of college). Some people have to live in SF/NY and want to be apart of the scene. Some people want to have a big impact in their company and find it easier to do in a startup. Some people want to always have the chance to make millions no matter the odds.

If you're just looking at it primarily financially and you are level headed enough to not be woo-ed by Aaron Sorkin movies, the truth is that the math for the average outcome will never work out for startups (as an employee). Id say the best options are work for big-corp, start your own startup, or have a strong non-financial reason to join a startup as an employee.

Because technically its not very sound. Examples of where "minifying" (removing whitespace) could go wrong if done across any served HTML document...

1) pre tags - being that pre tags take into account formatting, removing whitespace is going to alter how the content is rendered

2) any empty tags - its becoming a thing of the past but there are many instances where browsers will render a tag with a single space inside differently than a tag with nothing inside. In other words, space within a tag may be intentional by the developer.

3) spaces inside attributes may matter - you could have an attribute on an html tag that say is data-whatever="1 2\n 3" and potentially reducing those spaces could be bad - depends upon what the developer intended

Additionally there are some other things to consider...

1) GZIP if used will make the impact of scrubbing out whitespace almost nonexistent

2) Most HTML served is dynamic, meaning that the HTML compression will need to be run on every HTML response - this could have some performance negatives. (If your just compressing static HTML once it should be fine.)

I'd agree that while I really dont have a full picture of the economics of the current startup atmosphere (does anyone?), the culture right now is a pretty strong indicator to me that things are going to stagnate or trend down. IMHO there is a pretty toxic layer of culture that has built up from all the hype that for the most part is adding negative value. I dont really give a crap if people think it fits their definition of a "bubble" or not - if the focus is not on providing tangible value to others, the market will eventually figure it out and value it appropriately. I think there is a large and growing segment of startups that view their business as existing to just bring value to themselves (although will obviously never be admitted) - business plans that stop at getting funding, comfy office suites, parties, etc. Part of this is getting driven by a segment of newly inspired newcomers that view startups as essentially just a cool atmosphere where they could get rich rather than what startups really should be to be successful ... a slog through utter absolute shit to try to do something that really matters to the people involved.

I think for the most part daily deals were a macro- experiment. Everyone jumped on board - startups, businesses of all shape and sizes, as well as end-customers with high hopes everyone would win.

I think what were finding out through the experiment is that it just isn't really sustainable for much of anyone. I dont know if that segment will be disappearing anytime soon but the model will have to adapt.

Thats not what I said... Im saying that you can throw money at a team of dedicated startup employees to level the playing field.

All the GOP has to do is establish a pot of money for political tech and be willing to take a risk on startups looking to service political campaigns.

Think of essentially the SpaceX competition but for political campaign tech for the GOP

I would argue that they just directed that money in the wrong direction. If the parties advertise money for campaign oriented tech Im sure the startup community will increasingly take notice and be willing to service any paying customer.

I lean Democrat but the GOP just took the wrong strategy this time around... they'll learn. If they can't find any good technologists that support their cause, pulling out a checkbook will reverse people's party alliances in an instant.

Believe me they'll unfortunately adapt.

From my perspective they have many more issues they need to sort out before this one to get themselves back together.

There is also a story that goes the other way... that as you grow older you realize its not worth working with those types of people. The last place I want to work personally is at a place stacked with narcissists all trying to figure out how they can prop up their own egos (while this does not define many startups it also unfortunately from my experience does define quite a few).

Life is too short to not be working with decent people.

That being said if you have the opportunity to work with some people who have been in tech for 20 or 30 years - become their buddy - you're more than likely to find out they are some of the smartest out there. When I was first out of college I worked at a place where the 2 guys I sat next to were 40 and 50 years old - they still are the best mentors/collaborators Ive ever had.

Thats a fair point but that can turn into a political shouting match pretty quickly so wont say too much about it. I think the difference there is your no longer talking about it in the context of core curriculum if only 25% of schools can afford to do it. I think programming as an elective offering is great. I actually think any type of learning is great but just trying to highlight the unfortunate reality of most schools in the current educational climate. There are so many constraints and pressures that educators are under and can make change very tough when everyone is just trying to keep their head above the water.

I think probably your best trajectory is to try to find ways teachers can easily integrate programming as apart of their current curriculum and subjects. Ex. "build a small program that finds all 3 angles of the triangle" for geometry class. It would essentially have to be simple for a non-technical teacher to integrate with low equipment costs.

I dont have all the details on the program in that the TC post is down but I think if you pitch it as "a curriculum to learn programming" you are going to to run into some very tough and potentially unmovable adversaries (ex. state governments).

I suppose its an enviable effort but I wonder if its out of touch with the true state of education. Insisting kids learn to code in the current educational climate should not be a priority in most American schools. You see most of us have blinders on whether we know it or not 1) we magnify the importance of programming and technology because we ourselves make a living from it 2) many of us are in a socio-economic bracket where we are not exposed to the average highschool environment (I'm not saying we are hoity-toity but if you live in SV or make more than 60k/yr you probably dont have a true grasp on it - consider yourself lucky)

Kids first need to learn logic, math and english at a certain baseline... every good programmer is probably quite good at all 3 of those foundational things - those skills are the enablers for unlocking programming in a basic capacity. The problem is that the average highschooler is struggling immensely to get to that basic baseline at the time of graduation. Additionally with the very real budget and over-capacity problems, when new core curriculum is proposed the first predicament is what is going to have to get axed in its place. Somebody is going to have to pick something to say goodbye to that is actually truly core learning. Yes Im sure we all have our favorites of what we think is non-essential core curriclulum but in reality our opinions don't count and to be a realist they probably shouldn't - only the opinions of the district, administrators, teachers and parents count in any real way. Additionally, when you put programming up against any part of the core curriculum (geometry, algebra, literature, etc etc) - most will axe programming - I probably would as well.

Anyone else getting a 404? ... seems ironic given the headline

I hear these types of questions about many web companies from time to time in that the assumptions is you just need a small bundle of folks to run the website but in reality when a business gains traction the website is just the tip of the iceberg in many cases. The number of employees needed can snowball as the business starts to take off... legal teams, finance, accounting, QA, HR, BAs, management, ops, etc - it all adds up to usually more than one would assume. Additionally the customer facing product can be a very small part of the overall tech solution in that developing needed internal tools and systems can require large numbers of employees.

Typically your biggest numbers are going to come from sales folks / account managers in that, as an example, if the business model allows for a sales rep to sustainably bring in 200k on an 100k salary you most likely are going to hire as many as you can get. Groupon is a good example of this in action although it obviously has not been as successful as they would like.

Yeah I think this is an issue for many people at Google in that everyone that I know that has worked for them recently (5 past co-workers... not exactly a fair survey) has overall been positive but negative on feeling overqualified for the work they end up doing. Its probably a symptom of Google being able to load up on so many highly qualified people with a limited amount of high-end, brainy work.

But isn't this essentially what the radio/podcast form of news essentially is?

Each station/organization curates information (in a similar way web-based reporters do) and then reports as much of it as their resources allow via someone reading/talking?

I'm not trying to beat up on their idea but I dont understand their competitive angle or what would cause me to use it over the huge amount of content out there.

Im going to try to not be overly negative here... but arent there numerous other forms of media that already do this in a pretty crowded market? NPR, radio, podcasts, etc? I guess I dont really get why I would use this in that the audio forms of news that I have to choose from are pretty vast and high quality.

You are correct that their is some privilege but depending on the situation the clean up / fallout of a failed company can really be quite bad.

Many times founders can be left with astronomical debt pretty much guaranteeing bankruptcy being the only way out. Additionally its not unheard for business loans to have a house on the line as collateral. This doesn't mean this is always the situation but is not as rare of a story as one may think.

Yeah these points are valid (although it should be noted that they align with the author's background - sorry the TripAdvisor mention made me curious)

I think they are more applicable to early career.

In my experience, connections and relationships are way more powerful than any of the stuff mentioned with the baseline that you are competent and relatively easy to work with.

Its probably NSFW but items 18, 31, 32, 33, 44, 45, 47, 49, 81, 98, 100 are pretty enlightening about the behavior of Bill Nguyen (I guess I should add 'if true')... very sad.

I suppose its a lesson for them in how real risk works. They traded in an opportunity with a high chance of making 200k for an opportunity with a very low chance of making 1mm+ and a very high chance of making much less than 200k. They ended up probably statistically somewhere in the realm of average which in reality should be of no surprise - its just unfortunate that it seems they didn't take many safeguards for when the most likely scenario occurred.

I think there is an unfortunate side to the way the tech media has turned into a machine at pumping out stories about all the big hits in that it gives a very skewed perspective of how rare true sustainable startup success is. That doesn't mean that it isn't worth pursuing but I think doing things like cashing in your 401k is incredibly foolish to be totally honest. I dont blame people for taking big risks being that most big success comes with big risks but make sure you are completely ok with what big risk truly means.

Worked in that environment for 5 years... I honestly never found a way. Now work mostly remotely.

I feel like I tried everything - headphones, locking myself in meeting rooms, being uninviting when people interrupted.

I wish I could tell you a story about how I figured it out but now I only take jobs that are at least semi-remote. I would consider a job where there are real offices for everyone but this seems to be increasingly difficult to find.

I'd talk to your boss about working remote 2-3 days a week and proving how much more productive you are during those days.

I think this misses the point of an employee handbook completely. Its meant for when things go wrong... employees are not looking at any company handbook on a day to day basis to figure out how the company runs and how they should act. They only crack it open when shit hits the fan and they need to know what to do...

- Think one of your co-workers is not performing up to par - might want to consult the employee handbook

- Think you might get laid off - might want to consult the employee handbook

- Wondering how much time you can take off - might want to consult the employee handbook

Employee handbooks are stuffy, boring and read like a dictionary. It is essentially a very light contract between the employer and employee - writing a contract about how there basically are no rules probably makes everyone feel like they are forward thinking but helps very little. Here are some tangible examples...

- There is no rule on vacation so my coworker "John" takes a lot of vacation. Hes pretty responsible about it but sometimes he's out and we really do need him - its begun to frustrate me a little. Is he about to be fired or can I do this too - Im doing a ton of work but would like to go to Europe for 6 weeks? (The problem here is that there is a very real limit on vacation - the limit is a magical number/level of output in the founders/investors/manager's heads and may depend on their mood day to day. What one's expectation of acceptable time off may not match anothers.)

- I like to wear unqiue clothes but now a couple coworkers have started to tease me in ways that are really starting to bother me. (As a side note I think this was part of what occurred with that Kixeye debacle while it was a vary extreme case.) Lets see what the handbook says... oh.

- "Tim" produces like crazy - the problem is that he is not big on communication and doesnt want to be apart of our meetings. Hes doing great work - its just not integrating with the direction everyone else is going.

It probably sounds like Im advocating for the other extreme where every detail is mapped out. Im not - it can be too extreme on structure but I dont think the other extreme is any better. In all honesty this would drive me away - it looks like a dream until money is low, stress is high, somebody is abusing something, or there is political in-fighting (which definitely can happen at small startups).

Just something to think about: the years that are most impactful on your retirement are when you are young. Id argue that he'll have a very hard time catching up through traditional means if he is young and things go south.

You definitely can but its going to be harder to be honest...

72k is going to essentially be 50k after taxes.

Housing will likely be between 1-2k per month. 1k Id say really is pretty close to the minimum currently (unfortunately) and would probably involve sharing an apartment. So if housing is 15-20k per year you've got 30-35k left for everything else which is 2-3k/mo for everything from insurance to 401k to food to electricity and all those things are somewhat more expensive as well and it goes pretty fast. You definitely are far from struggling but most likely wont be a able to be a power saver.

In my experience the costs were not worth it but many people stay for the job opportunities. For me making a good salary but not being able to save a lot seemed like being on an endless treadmill. The hope is that you get some stock options that materialize but it can be a tough place to optimize savings on salary alone. There are always lots of exciting work opportunities to pick from though.

Yes and probably more often than you think but it can quite difficult to diagnose from a top down perspective. It usually materializes in costs becoming too great but the underlying cause frequently is a rushed product that eventually costs too much to iterate on because of sloppy underpinnings. Its a delicate balance - you've got to get stuff out quick enough but also stable enough to make sure the next iterations wont become exponentially longer and more costly.

Outsourcing, high turnover, constantly changing requirements with unreasonable schedules all can lead to codebases that become too expensive to iterate on when the market demands more. Sometimes the only way out is to approach a complete rewrite which is usually a risky proposition.

Many times poorly coded products from the outside can have correlated symptoms of poor performance, bugginess, and slow feature development which are the cited reasons users may abandon the product.

PER UNIT should be appended to the title of this article.

Please correct the title - Entrepeurs is a pretty unflattering misspelling