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If Only I Knew This Shit in College
Written pieces, talks, and other bits by Zach Holman.
New
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 2,129 posts.
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Two Letters from Steve Jobs
During the 12+ years I worked at Apple I never met with Steve Jobs for work purposes. Of course like all Apple employees I saw Steve in Caffé Macs or walking with Jony Ive around the courtyard insi…
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"Attrition is a group statistic. It doesn't apply to me."
10 years ago I sat down with my brother. He was about to attend a high attrition special forces course. The vast majority of candidates drop out. Aren't you concerned about the failure rate? ...
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Why You Make Less Money
Have you ever had a conversation with a fellow technologist that you felt wasn’t quite at your skill level, and at some point you discovered that she/he makes $20,000 more than you do? $50,00…
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No, ZFS really doesn't need an fsck tool
(This blog entry has been recovered for the sole purpose of repairing a link in Hackernews. This blog entry is otherwise hidden on the website. 2026-04-13)
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Why is my TI-99/4A in Black and White?
My first computer was a Texas Instruments TI-99/4A. Longtime readers may remember a previous article where we implemented TI-99/4A BASIC as a Scripting Language for modern computers. Recently I got nostalgic for the actual hardware so I got my 99 out of the closet where it had been for a decade o…
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When Things Don't Work Out
I have said many times that early stage VC is a lot like baseball, if you get a hit one out of every three times, you are headed to the hall of fame. And if I look back over my career, and also over the track records of the firms and funds I have helped […]
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Why Asm.js Bothers Me
Please note that this post expresses my personal opinion and mine alone, not those of my employer or my teammates.
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The largest computer ever built
While cold war jets are an old interest of mine, almost everything built to fight the cold war fascinates me. All ages are characterized by madness; only a few have that madness captured in physica…
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The Positive Programmer
My thoughts on the negativity in the tech community, how I went from a miserable, negative programmer to a happy one, and small steps to get there.
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Take pride or fuck it
The blank, unblemished untitled.txt shimmering in your code editor can mean only one thing. It’s new feature time.
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21 Nested Callbacks
About 21 months ago, before I even knew what a callback was, I built my first webpage. In honor of its 21 nested callbacks, I think it's about time I finally take a second look at it.
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The power of the RSS reader
With the decreasing use of RSS readers over the last few years, which will probably be accelerated by Google Reader’s shutdown in July, many are bidding good riddance to a medium that they never used well.
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Hire talent, not five years with Java
Too often we see job requirements for development positions with a long series of bullet points: General Tech X everyone has heard about, 5 years Specific Tech Y that came out last year, 3 years Sp…
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Upside risk
Everyone claims that they understand the power law in angel investing, but very few people practice it. I think this is because it’s hard to conceptualize the difference between a 3x and a 300x...
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An idea for non-technical co-founders: try a service-first business
Non-technical founders often want to start businesses that rely heavily on a technical co-founder they dont have. I have an idea for these founders, try a service-first business instead.