1
New
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 372 posts.
2
3
On the Exponential View
The following is the text of a talk I gave in San Francisco on December 1st, 2016.
4
Bionic Office
Well. That took rather longer than expected. We have, finally, moved, into the new Fog Creek office at 535 8th Avenue, officially ten months after I started pounding the pavement looking for a repl…
5
Inequality and Skin in the Game
(Chapter from Skin in the Game)
6
The threat of technological unemployment
There is a widely reported threat to our economy: robots are going to replace human workers. It is nothing new... In 1930, Keynes, the famous economist introduced the term "technological unemployment"... We are being afflicted with a new disease of which some readers may not yet have heard the name, but of which they…
7
No tipping means better business
Friendly and helpful customer support that goes above and beyond. We help you get the perfect domain name.
8
GCE vs. AWS in 2016: Why You Shouldn't Use Amazon
Foreword This story relates my experience at a typical web startup. We are running hundreds of instances on AWS, and we’ve been doing so for some time, growing at a sustained pace. Our full o…
9
Why Are Medical Ultrasound Systems So Inexpensive?
Hackernews linked to a Medium post on ultrasound devices today, entitled " Why are Ultrasound Machines So Expensive? " which, being my cor...
10
Tool AIs want to be agent AIs
AIs limited to pure computation (Tool AIs) supporting humans, will be less intelligent, efficient, and economically valuable than more autonomous reinforcement-learning AIs (Agent AIs) who act on their own and meta-learn, because all problems are reinforcement-learning problems.
11
12
20 years ago, Apple bought NeXT
On Dec. 20, 1996, Apple announced that it had purchased NeXT: Apple Computer, Inc. today announced its intention to purchase NeXT Software Inc., in a friendly acquisition for $400 million. Pending regulatory approvals, all NeXT products, services, and technology research will become part of Apple Computer, Inc. As…
13
Learning from a Year of Security Breaches
This year (2016) I accepted as much incident response work as I could. I spent about 300 hours responding to security incidents and data…
14
15
Bootstrapping a SaaS Startup from Scratch
No co-founders. No funding. No connections. No customers. No — you’re not nuts.
16
Strategy Letter I: Ben and Jerry’s vs. Amazon
Building a company? You’ve got one very important decision to make, because it affects everything else you do. No matter what else you do, you absolutely must figure out which camp you’…
17
Ten Years at Google
Today marks my ten year anniversary as a Googler. I arrived with very little; just a suitcase, a backpack, and my pet mouse . Google took care of everything, from finding an apartment, to providing free food, Internet, and transportation. Google is more than an employer, it is a home. Filled with geeks, and makers…
18
19
20
Why are the Microsoft Office file formats so complicated? (And some workarounds)
Last week, Microsoft published the binary file formats for Office. These formats appear to be almost completely insane. The Excel 97-2003 file format is a 349 page PDF file. But wait, that’s not al…
21
22
One More Sign World Is Shrinking – eBay Is for Suckers
If you live in an economy where officials are corrupt, contracts are hard to enforce, and trust is scarce, everyday transactions are burdensome and time-consuming. If you don’t want to get scammed,…
23
Opendoor, a startup worth emulating
OpenDoor has a unique yet high-risk approach to residential real estate; that’s a great thing, both for its prospects and for society.
24
25
Great Problems: An Epidemic of Rent-Seeking
America follows the path of late Rome: Fortunes no longer arise from creating new wealth, but via exploiting privileged relations with the state.
26
27
28
Milking the iPhone
It feels like cracks are forming at Apple's edges. The company is straining to push out hardware updates. Supply issues are getting worse. Apple is reportedly moving away from selling beloved products like stand-alone displays and wireless routers. Meanwhile, Microsoft, Amazon, and
29
Anil Dash Is the New CEO of Fog Creek Software
For the first time since Fog Creek Software was founded more than sixteen years ago, we have a new CEO, Anil Dash.
30
Architecture astronauts take over
It was seven years ago today when everybody was getting excited about Microsoft’s bombastic announcement of Hailstorm, promising that “Hailstorm makes the technology in your life work t…