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Career & Management

The most popular blog posts about career & management on Hacker News. 351 posts.

2011
188

The Rands Test

It's hard to pick a single best work by Joel Spolsky, but if I was forced to, I'd pick The Joel Test. It's his own, highly irresponsible, sloppy test to rate th

192

Experts often end up where they started as beginners

Experts often end up where they started as beginners. If you've never seen the word valet, you might pronounce it like VAL-it. If you realize the word has a French origin, you would pronounce it val-A. But the preferred pronunciation is actually VAL-it. Beginning musicians play by ear, to the extent that they can play

194

How Thomas Jefferson prepared for meetings

Here's an interesting historical anecdote from Karl Fogel's Producing Open Source Software on the value of preparing for meetings. In his multi-volume biography of Thomas Jefferson, Jefferson and His Time, Dumas Malone tells the story of how Jefferson handled the first meeting held to decide the organization of the…

197

Applying to YC as a Single Founder

In a comment I made on Hacker News , I expressed my desire to write an article about the differences and misconceptions between being a single-founder and having co-founders. This is not that article, but it is related. The application for YC W12 is open, and in response to my comment I received a few emails asking…

198

Don't give bullshit advice

I chatted with a young guy last night about his new startup idea. He’s got a vision for a social commerce app with a few cool spins on it. As I listened to him, I was thinking about how I had heard this exact pitch half a dozen times before. I also knew I had a lot to offer him in terms of help. I have a good friend…

201

Fire the workaholics (2008)

Jason Calacanis wants you to save money for your startup, so he has come up with 17 tips on how. The intention is good. Working lean is great and means you probably won’t need outside money. And there’s some good stuff, like don’t buy Microsoft Office and skip the phone system. Bu…

207

A hacker's guide to college

In most professions, a college degree is a prerequisite for a job, even if doing the job doesn’t strictly require one. Your degree is used as a proxy to figure out whether you’re qualified because there is no better measure: “Oh, he went to a good school, he must be smart. Let’s bring him in for an interview.”