Most cited
Posts that commenters keep linking to, ranked by how many different people have cited them in Hacker News comments. 1,308 posts.
Tech Industry & Business
Any year
Don't build your castle in other people's kingdoms (2021)
In the past couple of months a couple of big social media sites have changed their terms or introduced suspicious paid plans and it has caught content creators off guard.
WeWTF, Part Deux
So, the mother of all party crashers took a dump in the We IPO punch bowl. The crasher? Math. The autopsy will show the shelving of this IPO was death by S-1.
The TikTok War
How TikTok exposed Facebook’s blindspot, thanks to its Chinese roots, and why those Chinese roots make TikTok a genuine concern.
Facing reality about the EU is a core requirement for good management
Writing at the end of the world, from Hveragerði, Iceland
How to be a consultant, a freelancer, or an independent contractor (2009)
This is a series of pages that guide you through the creation and operation of a successful consulting business. I’ve written this after running a fairly successful consultancy business in the mid-90’s and reviving this business in 2008. I’m primarily active in software, so some of the things in here will be skewed in…
Forget privacy: you're terrible at targeting anyway
I don't mind letting your programs see my private data as long as I get something useful in exchange. But that's not what happens. A forme...
A High Frequency Trader's Apology, Pt 2
In a previous post I discussed the mechanics of HFT. If you haven't read it, go read it now. Now I'll discuss it's social utility and cost. About the title Many people were misled by it, and this wasn't my intention. I was merely alluding to the book by Hardy …
Money Laundering and AML Compliance
A brief overview of what money laundering is, what financial institutions do about it, and why.
Crypto trading firm Alameda Research might be insolvent
The hedge fund's finances appear to rest on the same scheme that destroyed Celsius Network. Will it work out any differently for Sam Bankman-Fried?
How Y Combinator Started (2012)
On March 11 2005, Jessica and I were walking home from dinner in Harvard Square. Jessica was working at an investment bank at the time, but she didn't like it much, so she had interviewed for a job as director of marketing at a Boston VC fund. The VC fund was doing what now seems a comically familiar thing for a VC…
And if only 1% of those people...
Derek Sivers official site. Thoughts on philosophy, culture, self-improvement. Author of Useful Not True, How to Live, Hell Yeah or No, Anything You Want.
Facebook is a Ponzi Scheme
Quill Grid: The Starlink for AI becomes a network. An optional, opt-in distributed AI grid where idle Quill One devices share spare capacity, earn credits, and donate AI hours.
Something Is Rotten in the State of Cupertino
Who decided these personalized Siri features should go in the WWDC keynote, with a promise they’d arrive in the coming year, when, at the time, they were in such an unfinished state they could not be demoed to the media even in a controlled environment? Three months later, who decided Apple should double down and…
Don't Shave That Yak (2005)
The single best term I’ve learned this year. I want to give you the non-technical definition, and as is my wont, broaden it a bit. Yak Shaving is the last step of a series of steps that occur…
Joel on Software: The new Fog Creek Office
Remember the Bionic Office? Fog Creek moved in there in 2003. After a couple of years we had outgrown the first office so we expanded to take over the whole floor. By the time our lease ran out in …
VC Insanity, Explained
…or, why VCs do what they do (Note: this post also appeared as a guest post on Techflash) VC behavior sometimes looks insane, but generally it’s just sound economics. It’s crazy but true: if you know how a VC gets paid, you can pretty much read their mind. Here’s a few examples: VCs don’t actually seem to want to take…
The Next Mission
Slides for the brief talk that I gave at a Harvard seminar on privacy and user data organized by John Taysom last week.
Selling pickaxes during a gold rush
programming, philosophy, history, internet, startups
Martian Headsets
You’re about to see the mother of all flamewars on internet groups where web developers hang out. It’ll make the Battle of Stalingrad look like that time your sister-in-law stormed out of afternoon…
Joel on Software: Exploding Offer Season
If you’re a college student applying for jobs or summer internships, you’re at something of a disadvantage when it comes to negotiation. That’s because the recruiter does these negotiations for a l…
Reflecting on 18 Years at Google
I joined Google in October 2005, and handed in my resignation 18 years later. Last week was my last week at Google.