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The Duct Tape Programmer
Jamie Zawinski is what I would call a duct-tape programmer. And I say that with a great deal of respect. He is the kind of programmer who is hard at work building the future, and making useful thin…
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The bar for success in our industry is too low
This weekend the New York Times published a piece called Using ‘Free’ to Turn a Profit. The piece focused on Evernote, a web-based and smart-phone based application for taking notes, snapping pictures, and storing stuff you want to remember later. The following critique isn’t about Evernote (…
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Aaron Swartz: How I Hire Programmers
There are three questions you have when you’re hiring a programmer (or anyone, for that matter): Are they smart? Can they get stuff done? Can you work with them? Someone who’s smart but doesn’t get stuff done should be your friend, not your employee. You can talk your problems over with them while they procrastinate…
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The Nerd Handbook
A nerd needs a project because a nerd builds stuff. All the time. Those lulls in the conversation over dinner? That's the nerd working on his project in his hea
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Be Relentlessly Resourceful
March 2009 A couple days ago I finally got being a good startup founder down to two words: relentlessly resourceful. Till then the best I'd managed was to get the opposite quality down to one: hapless. Most dictionaries say hapless means unlucky. But the dictionaries are not doing a very good job. A team that outplays…
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“Is PayPal good for your microISV business?” A short PayPal horror story
Dec 18 Update: This morning I was contacted by a PayPal manager from their fraud department who talked with me close to an hour. He went out of his way to apologize for their mishandling of my case. He told me that...
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Tony Hsieh's Email to Employees RE: Zappos' Sale to Amazon
Fast, FREE shipping on just-landed sneakers, boots, heels & more from your favorite brands. Now that's a win.
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How Tim Schafer Broke Into the Game Industry: A Legendary Cover Letter
(Not at my company of course. I would never hire somebody as unqualified as I was! I’m just lucky finding people smarter than me is so easy.) First, lets…
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Goodbye Google: "Visual Design Lead" leaves Google
Part 1 of 2 (here’s Part 2) Today is my last day at Google. I started working in-house at Google almost three years ago. I built a team from scratch. I was fortunate to hire a team of a very…
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Tom Williams: Hired by Apple at 14. His full story.
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.
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Alexis and Steve are leaving Reddit
Get the latest product news, company announcements, and user insights from the official Reddit blog.
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Joel Spolsky, Snake-Oil Salesman
If there is a lecturer in TCD’s CS department that doesn’t know of the problems and issues Joel just raised in his Capstone Projects post, they’re a rare bird indeed. But what Joe…
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Taming Perfectionism
An article that explores the idea of imperfect beauty - taming perfectionism with the Japanese art of Wabi-sabi.
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The “Interview” with Y Combinator That’s Not
So, in our last installment of the Y Combinator saga, we talked about applying. Since a handful of folks will be gearing up for their interviews shortly, it seems a fine time to move on to the next step in our journey.
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On Applying to Y Combinator
I’ve decided to do a mini-series of sorts on our Y Combinator experience. Â Originally I was going to fold everything into one ginormus post, but I think it better to break it up and focus on different aspects.
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How to be a program manager
Having a good program manager is one of the secret formulas to making really great software. And you probably don’t have one on your team, because most teams don’t. Charles Simonyi, the brilliant p…
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How I almost killed Facebook
It is a little-known fact that I nearly killed Facebook before it started. At least, that's what I like to think. Though, perhaps it was in...
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