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So, the difference between a "hacker" and an "engineer" has always been this idea that the engineer is designing something which is principled at all levels, wh

by drostie 10y ago

So, the difference between a "hacker" and an "engineer" has always been this idea that the engineer is designing something which is principled at all levels, whereas the hacker is putting together something which works in the most obvious cases but doesn't necessarily cover all of their bases. In practice, I think we all know that a little of both is best; ideally you can throw something together with copy-paste programming to sign a new client, say, and then you can rethink it from the ground up once you've got that proof that someone needs it. Hacking is much cheaper than principled design. What I'm taking away from this article is that this is also true at the CEO level. Conrad sounds like a hacker's philosophy, writ managerial. If there's a regulation that your browser spend 52 hours on a web page, here's a script to make your browser browse that web page for 52 hours, clicking aimlessly among the pages. You're welcome; you've got other crap to do. Or, if you don't have a license to sell this thing -- well, you still seem to be able to sell, so let's just do it the way that works for now, as a proof-of-concept, and we can always do-it-right later. And that's not a bad thing! It works great for software! But it looks from the article that therefore the hiccup that the company faced was somewhat predictable given the personality of the CEO. It's hopefully an instructive lesson for any venture capitalists who don't already realize that you need that both-hacker-and-engineer versatility up-top. Because it's the exact sort of hiccup you get when your software team is hacker-only and always put under pressure to get more done, but never under pressure to do it right. Eventually the code spaghettifies to deal with all of the real-world problems, and the sooner you can catch it before it becomes a hairball, the better. My job right now is, I maintain a big data processor. I can freely testify that there are still a ton of quick hacks that are stuck in various places. But every week or so, I get a little downtime -- and when I don't spend that peeking into Hacker News, I spend it trying to modularize the hackery and then swap in carefully-reasoned modules for quick-hack modules. I implore other software engineers to do the same; and I will definitely start thinking of more management-level decisions this way, in terms of "quick clever hacks" versus "careful design."

badloginagain 10y ago
The thing that I picked up from the article wasn't so much that there was hacky managerial solutions, but that there was gaping operational holes in the company. This meant that the hacky solutions never got fixed. A lot of early-stage companies have been known to engage in grey-area practices to hit that growth factor. Reddit, for instance, faked a bunch of early users to make it look like people were using it. But if it came out today that a large percentage of Reddit's users were faked, it'd be a huge blow to the company. This becomes even more critical if you're dealing with any government/regulatory body- you're legally bound to fill these gaps before "plausible deniability" can't be used.
jsprogrammer 10y ago
>If there's a regulation that your browser spend 52 hours on a web page, here's a script to make your browser browse that web page for 52 hours, clicking aimlessly among the pages. You're welcome; you've got other crap to do. There is no such regulation. The regulation is that anyone selling insurance must spend at least 52 hours going over the technical details of their industry. Zenefits incredibly conflated this with "only your browser needs to appear active for 52 hours".
- drostie 10y ago
  I guess "regulation" was the wrong word because that gets into the legal aspect of it; I meant purely the programming side, "we won't give you this certificate unless our web app's counter for you hits 52." "Oh, well, I'll make something that clicks your app's counter for my employees!" Obviously, yes, this fell foul of the actual regulations, which were not "the web app's counter hits 52" but rather "you need to spend 52 hours looking at this stuff."
- stale2002 10y ago
  That's basically what the real life effect of the regulation was though. The "online course" that people had to take was kind of a joke, and most people in the industry think it is an outdated formality. Crossing all your Ts and dotting you Is in this industry is of course important. Even if something is a stupid formality, you should still do it. But let's not kid ourselves over how much "useful" information was probably in that course.
beamatronic 10y ago
I applaud you for taking the initiative to continuously improve the system you're responsible for. These kind of values seem to be hard to find these days. Serious question, do you also enjoy working on/tinkering with old cars? I have a few data points where I've found that people who do enjoy working on/messing with cars are also the same kind of people who do what you do. If this is true, it's something you can look for in interviews.
- drostie 10y ago
  I would love to work on old cars if I were not living paycheck-to-paycheck. However if I had the free money, well before I started tinkering with old cars, I would probably start scheduling vacations in eastern Africa. I'm not sure what exactly I'd be doing there, but I figure someone's got to have wiring issues or plumbing problems or a broken tractor or something -- anything that I could put my Applied Physics degree towards. Right now I've got a tutoring side-job; that's basically similar. My work boils down to the fact that I like people and I try to help them with whatever skills I've got.
  - jpm_sd 10y ago
    Off-topic, but you would probably enjoy volunteering for Engineers Without Borders (http://www.ewb-usa.org/ http://www.ewb-usa.org/).
    - drostie 10y ago
      Thanks for the reference! Sounds like it'd be really fun.
ghock 10y ago
"Conrad sounds like a hacker's philosophy" I think I agree with your overall point, but not really with this phrasing. Say you apply the hacker concept to food. You can make some cool food at home while bending the rules and everything is fine, but if you open a restaurant and make all your customers sick as a result, then you're just a bad chef. Hackers hack hacks. Bringing a hackers mindset to something else means that you can see when a hack is appropriate, not that you "hack" things that aren't. It's like this popular quote... "Rebels learn the rules better than the rule-makers do. Rebels learn where the holes are, where the rules can best be breached. Become an expert at the rules. Then break them with creativity and style". Not "Be lazy, claim rebel".
tedmiston 10y ago
With the Series B round, my startup began actively managing tech debt. When an engineer finds something major we create a Jira issue, user story style. The head of product (a technical person) prioritizes a blend of product features vs tech debt for each sprint. Usually that's 10-25% tech debt, which includes mostly non-critical but beneficial refactoring as you described. It's worked well for us.

by drostie 10y ago

badloginagain 10y ago

The thing that I picked up from the article wasn't so much that there was hacky managerial solutions, but that there was gaping operational holes in the company. This meant that the hacky solutions never got fixed. A lot of early-stage companies have been known to engage in grey-area practices to hit that growth factor. Reddit, for instance, faked a bunch of early users to make it look like people were using it. But if it came out today that a large percentage of Reddit's users were faked, it'd be a huge blow to the company. This becomes even more critical if you're dealing with any government/regulatory body- you're legally bound to fill these gaps before "plausible deniability" can't be used.

jsprogrammer 10y ago

>If there's a regulation that your browser spend 52 hours on a web page, here's a script to make your browser browse that web page for 52 hours, clicking aimlessly among the pages. You're welcome; you've got other crap to do. There is no such regulation. The regulation is that anyone selling insurance must spend at least 52 hours going over the technical details of their industry. Zenefits incredibly conflated this with "only your browser needs to appear active for 52 hours".

drostie 10y ago
I guess "regulation" was the wrong word because that gets into the legal aspect of it; I meant purely the programming side, "we won't give you this certificate unless our web app's counter for you hits 52." "Oh, well, I'll make something that clicks your app's counter for my employees!" Obviously, yes, this fell foul of the actual regulations, which were not "the web app's counter hits 52" but rather "you need to spend 52 hours looking at this stuff."
stale2002 10y ago
That's basically what the real life effect of the regulation was though. The "online course" that people had to take was kind of a joke, and most people in the industry think it is an outdated formality. Crossing all your Ts and dotting you Is in this industry is of course important. Even if something is a stupid formality, you should still do it. But let's not kid ourselves over how much "useful" information was probably in that course.

beamatronic 10y ago

I applaud you for taking the initiative to continuously improve the system you're responsible for. These kind of values seem to be hard to find these days. Serious question, do you also enjoy working on/tinkering with old cars? I have a few data points where I've found that people who do enjoy working on/messing with cars are also the same kind of people who do what you do. If this is true, it's something you can look for in interviews.

drostie 10y ago
I would love to work on old cars if I were not living paycheck-to-paycheck. However if I had the free money, well before I started tinkering with old cars, I would probably start scheduling vacations in eastern Africa. I'm not sure what exactly I'd be doing there, but I figure someone's got to have wiring issues or plumbing problems or a broken tractor or something -- anything that I could put my Applied Physics degree towards. Right now I've got a tutoring side-job; that's basically similar. My work boils down to the fact that I like people and I try to help them with whatever skills I've got.
- jpm_sd 10y ago
  Off-topic, but you would probably enjoy volunteering for Engineers Without Borders (http://www.ewb-usa.org/ http://www.ewb-usa.org/).
  - drostie 10y ago
    Thanks for the reference! Sounds like it'd be really fun.

ghock 10y ago

"Conrad sounds like a hacker's philosophy" I think I agree with your overall point, but not really with this phrasing. Say you apply the hacker concept to food. You can make some cool food at home while bending the rules and everything is fine, but if you open a restaurant and make all your customers sick as a result, then you're just a bad chef. Hackers hack hacks. Bringing a hackers mindset to something else means that you can see when a hack is appropriate, not that you "hack" things that aren't. It's like this popular quote... "Rebels learn the rules better than the rule-makers do. Rebels learn where the holes are, where the rules can best be breached. Become an expert at the rules. Then break them with creativity and style". Not "Be lazy, claim rebel".

tedmiston 10y ago

With the Series B round, my startup began actively managing tech debt. When an engineer finds something major we create a Jira issue, user story style. The head of product (a technical person) prioritizes a blend of product features vs tech debt for each sprint. Usually that's 10-25% tech debt, which includes mostly non-critical but beneficial refactoring as you described. It's worked well for us.