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
Why Startup Hubs Work
October 2011 If you look at a list of US cities sorted by population, the number of successful startups per capita varies by orders of magnitude. Somehow it's as if most places were sprayed with startupicide. I wondered about this for years. I could see the average town was like a roach motel for startup ambitions…
So you want to be a consultant?
Or: Why work 8 hours/day for someone else when you can work 16 hours/day for yourself?
SaaS Pricing (2013)
SaaS pricing is a mystery to many developers. Here is how to do it better.
Domain Driven Design
Slides and video from my talk "Domain Modeling Made Functional with the F# Type System"
Bitcoin's Energy Usage Isn't a Problem. Here's Why.
Updated for 2023, this report is a deep dive on Bitcoin's energy usage and long-term scaling approach, with data tables and case studies.
Anthropic's "Profitability" Swindle
Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal ran a story about how Anthropic is “about to have its first profitable quarter,” specifically an operating profit, or EBITDA profitability: Anthropic’s revenue is set to more than double to $10.9 billion in the second quarter, an explosive rate of growth that will
Stock Series
If you are wondering whether to dive in, give a couple posts a quick read. You’ll capture the blog’s essence. If after reading those The Stock Series is appealing, you will very likely enjoy it all. If by the same token your reaction is, “This doesn’t feel right for me,” it very likely isn’t. Stock Series…
Good Software Takes Ten Years. Get Used To it.
Have a look at this little chart: [Source: Iris Associates] This is a chart showing the number of installed seats of the Lotus Notes workgroup software, from the time it was introduced in 1989 thro…
I Sell Onions on the Internet
Vidalia Onions to be exact. They’re classified as a sweet onion, and because of their mild flavor (they don’t make your eyes tear up), some folks can eat them like an apple. Most of my customers do. During a phone order one season – 2018 I believe – a customer shared this story where he ... Read more
We only hire the trendiest
An acquaintance of mine, let’s call him Mike, is looking for work after getting laid off from a contract role at Microsoft, which has happened to a lot of people I know. Like me, Mike has 11 years in industry. Unlike me, he doesn't know a lot of folks at trendy companies, so I passed his resume around to some…
The Tyranny of the Marginal User
why consumer software gets worse, not better, over time
The Machine Fired Me
It was 7am when my phone rang. Instead of an alarm, it was my recruiter disturbing me from a pleasant dream. It was too early for a phone call or to be caught off guard, so I did not answer. I went to
My Resignation from the Intercept
The same trends of repression, censorship and ideological homogeneity plaguing the national press generally have engulfed the media outlet I co-founded, culminating in censorship of my own articles.
We're Baking ‘Have I Been Pwned’ into Firefox and 1Password
Pretty much every day, I get a reminder from someone about how little people know about their exposure in data breaches. Often, it's after someone has searched Have I Been Pwned [https://haveibeenpwned.com/] (HIBP) and found themselves pwned somewhere or other. Frequently, it's some long-forgotten site
What I Learned Selling a Software Business
Some lessons learned in selling a bootstrapped software business. Relevant to buyers or sellers.
OpenAI Losses Increased Nearly 8X in 2025, with Spending Hitting $34B
Soundtrack: In Flames - Colony To further support my independent journalism, please subscribe to my premium newsletter. It’s $7 a month or $70 a year. If you’re subscribed to the free newsletter and logged in, you should see at the bottom right hand corner of your screen a little
DoorDash and Pizza Arbitrage (2020)
There is such a thing as a free lunch
Status as a Service
Editor's Note 1 : I have no editor. Editor’s Note 2 : I would like to assure new subscribers to this blog that most my posts are not as long as this one. Or as long as my previous one . My long break from posting here means that this piece is a collection of what would’ve normally been a series
Machine intelligence, part 1
This is going to be a two-part post—one on why machine intelligence is something we should be afraid of, and one on what we should do about it. If you’re already afraid of machine intelligence,...
Coordination Headwind: How Organizations Are Like Slime Molds
An emoji flipbook presentation by Alex Komoroske about how dysfunctional organizational dyanmics arise even when individuals are well-behaved