5 ms·
I really find it discouraging that Sam Altman is at the top of that list. Most of his articles fall into two categories: promoting things that will make him mon
by cowpig 11y ago
I really find it discouraging that Sam Altman is at the top of that list. Most of his articles fall into two categories: promoting things that will make him money directly[1], or myopic musings/self-serving advice to people that will make him money indirectly[2].
Is the HN algorithm rigged in favour of things he writes, or does this community really get a lot out the things he says?
[1] http://blog.samaltman.com/asana http://blog.samaltman.com/asana
[2] http://blog.samaltman.com/the-tech-bust-of-2015 http://blog.samaltman.com/the-tech-bust-of-2015 made me laugh, for example
- possibility 11y agoSam owns YC, YC owns HN, what does it matter? The whole purpose of HN is to make Sam (and the other partners, and investors, and YC startups) money. Mindshare is incredibly valuable. It's advertising that doesn't totally suck.
- nefitty 11y agoThe point is that a lot of us lose sight of the bias inherent here. Sometimes I get lost in how great HN is, especially compared to similar online communities.
- pyrophane 11y agoHacker News is a bit of a misnomer. It doesn't, nor has it ever, served hackers. This is a site for the startup kids, and you either love it or hate it, but you gotta accept it for what it is.
- simula67 11y agoHacker News has its biases, but that does not mean it cannot serve hackers.
- dang 11y agoActually the better part of HN's audience isn't involved in startups and a sizeable portion (dismayingly sizeable in my view) is cynical about them. "Startup kids" is too dismissive. Some of the very best comments about startups come from grizzled veterans. Will ChuckMcM or Animats mind if I call them grizzled? Let's just pause to appreciate what incredible value they and others add to this community from the wealth of their experience. Than again, depending on your definition of "kid" there are "kids" on HN whose experience with startups is already impressive. Experience should perhaps be measured in iterations, not years. HN has many subgroups, including plenty of hackers. Plenty of purely technical stories make the front page. And the startup and hacker groups overlap. We get complaints about the balance whichever way HN trends.
- giancarlostoro 11y agoLots of hackers are well known for their vast knowledge of the tech scene including vague startups that nobody has heard of. I know I make 'hackers' sound like hipsters but labels are usually poorly representations of a generic set of traits, people just turn todays newer labels and magnify the worst of the worst. Coincidentally I never liked labels, but hacker and geek are things that gave me a piece of mind after scraping out of high school (mostly geek).
- mchahn 11y ago> It doesn't, nor has it ever, served hackers. Wrong. When I first lurked here a high-percentage of posts here were relating to startup concerns. The number have dropped dramatically over time. My non-hacker son-in-law who only knows finance was a hacker news reader a few years ago, hoping to learn tips about starting something up. He gave up due to the dwindling number of such posts.
- giancarlostoro 11y agoChecking out the people posting from his domain it's not just him spoonfeeding his own content to users, but a range of users actually of their own free will sharing posts they find interesting by him. Proof: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=samaltman.com https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=samaltman.com