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s1k3

302 karma · joined May 27, 2022

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s1k3··on Ask HN: Is it appropriate to ask a startup to let me see their cap table?
The range in equity grants can still cause problems. The reality is exposing this information only works against you and limits your ability to negotiate with employees if you know it will be exposed to others.

I disagree completely.

That being said I believe company’s and founders should be as transparent as possible but sometimes that can come at a price and so it’s not ideal to be completely forthcoming.

s1k3··on Ask HN: Is it appropriate to ask a startup to let me see their cap table?
The cap table can have sensitive information on it that might compromise employees and or investors or the founders themselves.

I don’t think being secretive about the exact details of the cap table is indicative of anything.

They should be able to tell you broadly how many shares there are and how valuable your equity grant is tho.

s1k3··on Where have all the laid-off tech workers gone?
Do you see the irony in your question yet? =P
s1k3··on TikTok Congress Hearing
Most people don’t even know what sideloading is, but more importantly it would kill the value of tik tok because the population would be gone and therefor the audience and the money.
s1k3··on U.S. home prices are the most unaffordable they've been in nearly 100 years
It’s not about optimizing it’s about cash flow. If you get a 500k mortgage today at the current rate of ~7% your monthly payment is about 3500/mo. That same mortgage financed 2 years ago around ~2% is a monthly payment of 1800. For the SAME house you are paying basically double the amount per month. This isn’t optimizing a few bucks per month it’s about not being able to afford the same house.

Every homeowner knows this and if they’ve ever had the incling to move int rh last year theyve done the math and realize it simply doesn’t make sense. People won’t move right now unless life forces them to.

s1k3··on U.S. home prices are the most unaffordable they've been in nearly 100 years
When the interest rate goes up that fast existing homeowners are less inclined to sell because their monthly payments will go way up buying a comparable house elsewhere. So you end up reducing supply when it happens so fast and so much.
s1k3··on TikTok Congress Hearing
I mean, they could do it. But it would be wildly unpopular among that demo.
s1k3··on Who becomes an entrepreneur? Insights from research studies
I literally just wasted so much money on a logo. Coulda used this post last week.
s1k3··on Amazon to lay off 9,000 more workers after earlier cuts
If you are talented you will have no problem keeping or landing a new job. The people that have trouble maintaining employment are the ones that are not very good. Tech is about as close to a meritocracy as there is in the US.

There is of course a lot of nepotism and politics but generally if you have talent you will be employed. There is simply too much demand for talented tech people.

The large layoffs are not good but they are course correcting and these companies are still actively hiring despite the billboard layoff announcements.

s1k3··on Give babies peanut butter to cut peanut allergies, study says
Well the opposite view isn’t really based on science , only in faulty risk mitigation. So is it riskier to let your kid go without knowing for a long time or is it better to test in a limited controlled window where you can react and adapt if something goes wrong.
s1k3··on Give babies peanut butter to cut peanut allergies, study says
We did the same. My wife was nervous but I’m like, it’s common sense.

We did hold off on honey until they were one due to the botulism risk tho.

s1k3··on Give babies peanut butter to cut peanut allergies, study says
The idea is you basically just touch their lips with a dab at first, so if there is any sort of reaction it isn’t life threatening. Then you increase a bit, etc.
s1k3··on The Social Radars: Conversations with Startup Founders
You know what I’d listen to is a podcast of just normal founders. I’d love to just hear about people like me, not the 1% on either side.
s1k3··on Roubini warns US bank failures, Credit Suisse contagion could spread globally
Blew up last week because they had to sell stock and explain why. Which is what she’s light on their liquidity crunch.
s1k3··on Meta plans to lay off 10k employees
This is true of every tech billionaire. They improved something that already existed.

Rarely if ever do they true novel inventors dominate the market because when the market doesn’t exist they have to create it, and also they’re inventors not necessarily business men.

s1k3··on Meta plans to lay off 10k employees
Managers write novels because employees complain about lack of transparency and communication. I promise you no manager wants to write some novel about how layoffs are good for company, but they just or they get skewered for not communicating.
s1k3··on Ask HN: What assurance do early startup employees have against dilution?
If you aren’t a founder or investor then your chances of making significant money at a startup via equity is very limited.

You WILL be diluted during every fundraising round and you will be subject to lockout periods. You may exercise your shares if you leave early but you take enormously doing that.

s1k3··on Ask HN: I have diagnosed ADHD and cannot work with Slack anymore – advice?
Step 1 - turn off all notifications, noise and badges. This will allow you to not be disturbed by interruptions.

Step 2 - if step 1 doesn’t work then shut slack down while working. Being reachable 100% of the time is insane. And the barrier for bugging is super low with Slack.

Step 3 - if 2,3 don’t work then use something like dispatch.do to prioritize all the junk and filter out all the noise.

Step 4 - it’s a you problem. Find a new job or seek professional help.

s1k3··on Scrum has failed the developers
Poor performing developers cannot be fixed with a process. This is a management problem. It’s up to the developers manager to properly motivate and course correct flagging devs.

Trying to push off HR problems on a software delivery process is the most dev take I’ve ever heard.

s1k3··on Airtable lays off over 250
Is notion eating their lunch?
s1k3··on Airtable lays off over 250
Calendly is nearly ubiquitous when scheduling meetings with people outside your office these days. They’re particularly useful in sales and product. Given the space their in and the market cap they have 3b seems in the ballpark. Of course I don’t know what their numbers look like but if they’re doing 300m revenue yearly it would line up…
s1k3··on Ask HN: What made programming finally click for you?
It never clicked for me? It just always made sense.

Maybe I’m still meandering around in the pre-click phase though and don’t know. Maybe one day it will click for me!

s1k3··on Startup Restructuring 101
Meh. Some of this advice is pretty common sense.

Some of it a little cut throat.

I don’t see anything in here that isn’t in a playbook I’ve seen multiple times, do you?

s1k3··on Tom Brady, Giselle Bündchen, Larry David Sued in FTX Class Action Suit
This is absurd. You don’t get to open the books of the company you are being paid to endorse. Nor should you be allowed to.

This is an insane suit and is hopefully thrown out right away.

I will say it again, absurd.

s1k3··on Amazon 'prepares mass job cuts' as sales slow
The cuts are coming from Alexa and e-commerce, right? I didn’t see any ya out AWS… maybe I missed it tho.
s1k3··on Ask HN: How do you start a startup in your 30s when you have wife/kids/mortgage?
I just did this. I had 2 very important things that helped me succeed in starting.

1. A supportive wife 2. A wife that can pay the bills while I take 0 salary to build something.

Without those 2 things I wouldn’t have been able to start.

As I’m sure you realize now that you have a wife and a child your free time is limited and at bad times. So if you want to actually be able to accomplish something you have to pull real time away from something else.

Your choices are 1. Your family 2. Your job.

You could try going part time and asking if your wife is willing to do an outsized portion of the family work but that goes back to (1) being critical. First and foremost you need a wife that will support you.

I know this probably isn’t helpful but it adds a datapoint for you.

s1k3··on Ask HN: Any pain points worth building an MVP for?
An IT dept may pay for it to use as provisioning software?
s1k3··on Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself
It’s an earnest attempt at staying as unbiased as possible. If you go into an interview believing one thing and structuring all of you questions with that supposition you are far more likely to get the answer you want as oppose to whatever the reality is.
s1k3··on Peacetime CEO / Wartime CEO (2011)
The analogy is apt because war is an existential threat for the nation. Similarly, competition is an existential threat to the business.

I don’t think this is about war being cool so much as competition in the market place can kill your business just like an invading army can conquer your territory.

It’s about then mindset that you should adopt. Do you suppose that it’s ok for a business to let’s it’s competitors take its clients and market share? No of course not. You have to fight to keep it and take theirs. If you are equally matched then you will likely find equilibrium in the market. If you aren’t then someone is going to get eaten.

s1k3··on Amazon 'prepares mass job cuts' as sales slow
Well it’s tricky right? Amazon had huge demand. If they didn’t hire during the pandemic then they can’t meet the demands of their customers. Performance degrades. Packages don’t deliver on time. They run out of stock. Is it preferable to provide shitty service to your customers or hire to meet those demands and then adjust to market realities later?
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