6 ms·

Sigh, these poll options seem to confirm to me just how myopic many HN and startup people are about the software world. Believe it or not, there is a LOT of sof

Sigh, these poll options seem to confirm to me just how myopic many HN and startup people are about the software world. Believe it or not, there is a LOT of software that gets written that either is not "web", or related to a startup. Additionally, the people that write it do find the content at HN relevant and interesting. I found myself at a party in SF on New Years at an apartment that housed a startup as well as its founders. While meeting someone there, the conversation went like this: "Oh hey, are you part of the company here too?" "No, I'm in a different startup" "Oh cool, YC?" "Yeah, what YC class are you?" "Actually, I'm not in a startup, I work for..." The guy turned his head and walked away. Sorry boys and girls, but you're not all Mark Zuckerberg just because you're doing the startup thing, and the rest of us that write code aren't relics of another era. Happy hacking.

jacquesm 16y ago
Would you wager there is more software written that is not web related and that it collectively makes more money than the stuff that is?
- treeface 16y ago
  How would you even begin to collect the data necessary to make an informed decision on this?
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    I'm aware of one side of the equation, many millions of dynamic websites. My wager would be that websites and web related stuff (also intranet) now makes up the bulk of the software written but that the money is still made on the other side.
    - eru 16y ago
      > websites and web related stuff (also intranet) now makes up the bulk of the software written [...] Are you going to measure by line or byte or syntax-tree node or similar? Are we going to include throw-away scripts? What about zeroth order functional programming (i.e. spreadsheets)? Anyway, I'd also wager that there's more money made outside of the web. (Though, how do we classify, e.g. Apple app-store sales?) For the wager about for what the majority of software is written, we'd need some clearer vision of what we're talking about before. Let's agree on some definitions (and an arbiter), then we can put up some odds and money.
    - stoney 16y ago
      But don't forget the many millions of business critical spreadsheets powered by VBA...
- staktrace 16y ago
  Yes, I would. Although it depends on your definition of "making money". Financial software, for instance, makes a lot of money. So does any software that contributes to the oil giants. Or any number of other industries.
  - spitfire 16y ago
    God. Apply some A/B testing for pricing in the Oil sector. patio11 I just found your next consulting gigs!! (I want 20%)
- cookiecaper 16y ago
  I am almost certain that non-web software brings in much more revenue than web software. There is a lot of niche WinForms stuff out there from no-name vendors that rule a given industry and companies pay a lot of money for that, and that's not even counting revenue from office suites, operating systems, financial management, and other desktop software that sits in every business. There are a few glaring exceptions like Google, but for the most part conventional desktop software sells much better than web software. Many web startups have no real monetization plan and are going nowhere fast, some inspired by attitude embodied in The Social Network's telling of "I don't even know what it is yet, how can we monetize!" I've actually had a friend tell me that his startup is not going to do anything to make money at first, because "like Facebook", they "just want to see where things go", or something like that. I think this attitude is pretty dangerous and misguided.
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    I agree with your assessment. And wish your friend much good luck for when - not if - he will try to find a job again.
  - thibaut_barrere 16y ago
    My thoughts exactly, and that works out of WinForms as well. Not sure how many here realize how many places rely on tools such as BMC Remedy, .Net etc! Funny point: the non-web companies I do freelancing for are totally ok with me using MongoDB, Ruby, JRuby or whatever does the job. They mostly don't care (in my case at least).
  - patio11 16y ago
    Close your eyes. Pick a direction randomly. Point. What are you pointing at? You're pointing at something that took over a billion dollars of software to get to your door. Software at the exchange, at the bank, at the office, at the factory, on the loading dock, on the ships, controlling the trucks, in the supply chain, running the register, in your car. No, web is not the last refuge of software, and $20/mo. is not a high price point.
    - eof 16y ago
- unoti 16y ago
  > Would you wager there is more software written that is not web related and that it collectively makes more money than the stuff that is? Absolutely. Software that runs warehouses. Payrolls. Manages inventory. Manages cash registers. Figures out how to optimize manufacturing across multiple vendors, multiple workstations. Robotics. Warehouse automation and robotics. Embedded systems. 3d rendering. Automated trading. Inventory control. Lot control. Pharmaceutical side effects tracking. Call centers, customer service... Each of those, and ten thousand more, are all not web related, and each one of those has large communities of developers bigger than hacker news that bend their minds each and every day to the tasks at hand, and they're mostly not web related. Obscene amounts of money change hands every year for creating, maintaining, installing, and customizing all of those kinds of software. Oracle's annual revenue is something like $100 billion, and it's just one player in a few of the above markets I mentioned. I'm not sure what SAP makes. But then also factor in the myriad of middlemen, integrators, and contractors, and it's a really large sum of money that goes into those things. Web type businesses get more buzz because there is far more comparatively easy low-hanging fruit for effort vs. reward with a typical web business than in the world of enterprise software. Things like supply chain optimization are comparatively more mature and hashed out than things like making people's lives easier with computers, or connecting people and information in new and enriching ways. There's still room for innovation in warehousing and so on, but the changes are more incremental, and you have to work harder for each advance than you do with web type companies. The progress still comes, and impacts our lives (witness Wal-Mart, lowering prices for everyone through awesome, difficult, supply chain optimization efforts), but it takes way more work to make a difference than it does with "web" businesses.
  - iman 16y ago
    Also don't forget about the game industry, which is something like $50 billion
  - duinote 16y ago
    right, oracle easily beats most of these so called web company. small ponds, people. one deal from these companies can feed a cool startup for 3 years.
  - 16y ago
- jast 16y ago
  Yes, Embedded software.
- route66 16y ago
  Just some personal observations which are anectdotal, but neverthelss give a hint: More than 2/3rd of the software companies our (web-related) company is collaborating with provide services which are not web related, they might use port 80/443 for webservices but not more. Casual observation of people around me reveals that almost no-one uses web based software at work. Instead all these companies they work for have invested their budgets into small, medium or large desktop or mainframe packages. At least 20 of the devices lying around the table I'm sitting at now are stuffed with embedded software. Somebody built these, someone else put a price tag on them. While it might be equally difficult to develop your customers when selling noWeb (hey!... quick, register domain...) software, the contact with the customers is closer leading to high retention. Moreover it's easier to server them well because you have more methods than just A/B testing to reveal the impact of changes. On previous jobs writing desktop/server-client software I never had the idea that web-based software would fit the customer better. At the same time I use a lot of web-based stuff without a monetizing strategy, meaning, they charge me nothing. 2ct.
  - dennisgorelik 16y ago
    I think lots of office workers use at least Google Search, which is web software.
- JoeAltmaier 16y ago
  Sure. But its labor-intensive. Like running a coalmining operation, vs finding a diamond on the beach. Where's the glamour in slogging along for years with a team, many of whom you've never met? Face it, this is a rock-star-wannabe site, and unapologetic.
coreyo 16y ago
Deloitte Consulting
leon_ 16y ago
That's why the "hacker" in Hacker News disturbed me at first. I believed this was more of a technical community and not a forum for future millionaires :) But with some cognitive filtering it's not that bad ...
dpritchett 16y ago
I recently had a (current) YC founder approach me online about interviewing for a job. He messaged me on Quora soon after I'd posted a spate of answers for a chic programming topic. We set up a phone screen the next day and then he silently hung up halfway through my answer to the first question. He'd asked "so are you a dev or a designer or what" and I guess "I configure and integrate custom enterprise software packages" was the wrong opening for me to use. I'm going to have to assume we wouldn't have been a good match.
- mgkimsal 16y ago
  How unbelievably rude of him. Even if you're not what he's looking for, he could have at least asked you for referrals. You'll probably never refer anyone to their product/service again after having been treated that shabbily (I know I wouldn't). Feels like you should name names, but even if you don't here, you'll probably do so when retelling this in person to other people.

jacquesm 16y ago

Would you wager there is more software written that is not web related and that it collectively makes more money than the stuff that is?

treeface 16y ago
How would you even begin to collect the data necessary to make an informed decision on this?
- jacquesm 16y ago
  I'm aware of one side of the equation, many millions of dynamic websites. My wager would be that websites and web related stuff (also intranet) now makes up the bulk of the software written but that the money is still made on the other side.
  - eru 16y ago
    > websites and web related stuff (also intranet) now makes up the bulk of the software written [...] Are you going to measure by line or byte or syntax-tree node or similar? Are we going to include throw-away scripts? What about zeroth order functional programming (i.e. spreadsheets)? Anyway, I'd also wager that there's more money made outside of the web. (Though, how do we classify, e.g. Apple app-store sales?) For the wager about for what the majority of software is written, we'd need some clearer vision of what we're talking about before. Let's agree on some definitions (and an arbiter), then we can put up some odds and money.
  - stoney 16y ago
    But don't forget the many millions of business critical spreadsheets powered by VBA...
staktrace 16y ago
Yes, I would. Although it depends on your definition of "making money". Financial software, for instance, makes a lot of money. So does any software that contributes to the oil giants. Or any number of other industries.
- spitfire 16y ago
  God. Apply some A/B testing for pricing in the Oil sector. patio11 I just found your next consulting gigs!! (I want 20%)
cookiecaper 16y ago
I am almost certain that non-web software brings in much more revenue than web software. There is a lot of niche WinForms stuff out there from no-name vendors that rule a given industry and companies pay a lot of money for that, and that's not even counting revenue from office suites, operating systems, financial management, and other desktop software that sits in every business. There are a few glaring exceptions like Google, but for the most part conventional desktop software sells much better than web software. Many web startups have no real monetization plan and are going nowhere fast, some inspired by attitude embodied in The Social Network's telling of "I don't even know what it is yet, how can we monetize!" I've actually had a friend tell me that his startup is not going to do anything to make money at first, because "like Facebook", they "just want to see where things go", or something like that. I think this attitude is pretty dangerous and misguided.
- jacquesm 16y ago
  I agree with your assessment. And wish your friend much good luck for when - not if - he will try to find a job again.
- thibaut_barrere 16y ago
  My thoughts exactly, and that works out of WinForms as well. Not sure how many here realize how many places rely on tools such as BMC Remedy, .Net etc! Funny point: the non-web companies I do freelancing for are totally ok with me using MongoDB, Ruby, JRuby or whatever does the job. They mostly don't care (in my case at least).
- patio11 16y ago
  Close your eyes. Pick a direction randomly. Point. What are you pointing at? You're pointing at something that took over a billion dollars of software to get to your door. Software at the exchange, at the bank, at the office, at the factory, on the loading dock, on the ships, controlling the trucks, in the supply chain, running the register, in your car. No, web is not the last refuge of software, and $20/mo. is not a high price point.
  - eof 16y ago
unoti 16y ago
> Would you wager there is more software written that is not web related and that it collectively makes more money than the stuff that is? Absolutely. Software that runs warehouses. Payrolls. Manages inventory. Manages cash registers. Figures out how to optimize manufacturing across multiple vendors, multiple workstations. Robotics. Warehouse automation and robotics. Embedded systems. 3d rendering. Automated trading. Inventory control. Lot control. Pharmaceutical side effects tracking. Call centers, customer service... Each of those, and ten thousand more, are all not web related, and each one of those has large communities of developers bigger than hacker news that bend their minds each and every day to the tasks at hand, and they're mostly not web related. Obscene amounts of money change hands every year for creating, maintaining, installing, and customizing all of those kinds of software. Oracle's annual revenue is something like $100 billion, and it's just one player in a few of the above markets I mentioned. I'm not sure what SAP makes. But then also factor in the myriad of middlemen, integrators, and contractors, and it's a really large sum of money that goes into those things. Web type businesses get more buzz because there is far more comparatively easy low-hanging fruit for effort vs. reward with a typical web business than in the world of enterprise software. Things like supply chain optimization are comparatively more mature and hashed out than things like making people's lives easier with computers, or connecting people and information in new and enriching ways. There's still room for innovation in warehousing and so on, but the changes are more incremental, and you have to work harder for each advance than you do with web type companies. The progress still comes, and impacts our lives (witness Wal-Mart, lowering prices for everyone through awesome, difficult, supply chain optimization efforts), but it takes way more work to make a difference than it does with "web" businesses.
- iman 16y ago
  Also don't forget about the game industry, which is something like $50 billion
- duinote 16y ago
  right, oracle easily beats most of these so called web company. small ponds, people. one deal from these companies can feed a cool startup for 3 years.
- 16y ago
jast 16y ago
Yes, Embedded software.
route66 16y ago
Just some personal observations which are anectdotal, but neverthelss give a hint: More than 2/3rd of the software companies our (web-related) company is collaborating with provide services which are not web related, they might use port 80/443 for webservices but not more. Casual observation of people around me reveals that almost no-one uses web based software at work. Instead all these companies they work for have invested their budgets into small, medium or large desktop or mainframe packages. At least 20 of the devices lying around the table I'm sitting at now are stuffed with embedded software. Somebody built these, someone else put a price tag on them. While it might be equally difficult to develop your customers when selling noWeb (hey!... quick, register domain...) software, the contact with the customers is closer leading to high retention. Moreover it's easier to server them well because you have more methods than just A/B testing to reveal the impact of changes. On previous jobs writing desktop/server-client software I never had the idea that web-based software would fit the customer better. At the same time I use a lot of web-based stuff without a monetizing strategy, meaning, they charge me nothing. 2ct.
- dennisgorelik 16y ago
  I think lots of office workers use at least Google Search, which is web software.
JoeAltmaier 16y ago
Sure. But its labor-intensive. Like running a coalmining operation, vs finding a diamond on the beach. Where's the glamour in slogging along for years with a team, many of whom you've never met? Face it, this is a rock-star-wannabe site, and unapologetic.

coreyo 16y ago

Deloitte Consulting

leon_ 16y ago

That's why the "hacker" in Hacker News disturbed me at first. I believed this was more of a technical community and not a forum for future millionaires :) But with some cognitive filtering it's not that bad ...

dpritchett 16y ago

I recently had a (current) YC founder approach me online about interviewing for a job. He messaged me on Quora soon after I'd posted a spate of answers for a chic programming topic. We set up a phone screen the next day and then he silently hung up halfway through my answer to the first question. He'd asked "so are you a dev or a designer or what" and I guess "I configure and integrate custom enterprise software packages" was the wrong opening for me to use. I'm going to have to assume we wouldn't have been a good match.

mgkimsal 16y ago
How unbelievably rude of him. Even if you're not what he's looking for, he could have at least asked you for referrals. You'll probably never refer anyone to their product/service again after having been treated that shabbily (I know I wouldn't). Feels like you should name names, but even if you don't here, you'll probably do so when retelling this in person to other people.