5 ms·

And to me this is the essence of hacking and hacker culture, not “how do I create MVP from my idea and become an entrepreneur” or “this and that in company XYZ”

by tikej 6y ago

And to me this is the essence of hacking and hacker culture, not “how do I create MVP from my idea and become an entrepreneur” or “this and that in company XYZ” mindset. So glad to see people doing silly things that in fact require skill. This is why I come to hackernews. Keep up great work with this wonderful attitude!

skrebbel 6y ago
I see your point and I agree with it. But I also want to remark that in many ways, building a company is also a silly thing that in fact requires skill. I mean, I'm pretty sure I'd be way richer right now if I had just taken a job at some bigco. Or kept doing consulting. I don't feel that what I'm doing right now (building a startup because I can) is fundamentally different from my demoscene past (coding computer graphics because I could). Sure, some startups make some people obscenely rich, but the vast majority don't :-) It's not too different from art or AI hobbying or gaming or game modding in that sense.
- alexeichemenda 6y ago
  > But I also want to remark that in many ways, building a company is also a silly thing that in fact requires skill. It is - Tikej's point isn't that it's not a skill - but rather that it's not the right place to share these. Think of the difference between a "Startup News" and "Hacker News". Hacker news used to be very deep on tech topics, now those deep topic have become more rare.
  - littlemtman 6y ago
    Hopefully I could bring you a deep tech topic !
  - owlninja 6y ago
    Very true, but it is hosted by ycombinator which exists to fund startups.
  - bravura 6y ago
    I remember an early pg quote where he noted that being a hacker isn’t supposed to be limit to coding or tech even, but all topics that hackers are drawn to and can ply their hacking in. Social hacking to bootstrap a userbase is a on-topic as far as that quote is concerned [edit: errant autocorrect]
  - edouard-harris 6y ago
    Interestingly, Hacker News used to be called Startup News in the early days.
    - BrandonM 6y ago
      Indeed, we’ve come full (half?) circle. IIRC, it was renamed to Hacker News in part to discourage meta-discussion on intellectually stimulating posts, questioning why the front page had so many posts that weren’t about startups. Now we are instead discussing startup post fatigue.
      - dang 6y ago
        You can see the reasoning here (Aug 2007): https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html. Basically, pg got bored reading about nothing but startups.
        ximeng 6y ago
        Interesting the idea that the original plan was that your votes count for more if you vote for the right kind of stories. Would seem to create an echo chamber effect where what’s already popular stays popular and new stuff doesn’t.
        dang 6y ago
        It's impossible to say without trying it, and we never did. (Edit: actually I remember a conversation with pg where he said he did experiment with it, but dropped it. I don't remember why though. Maybe I'll ask.) You could make the opposite argument: the "right kind of stories" includes being unpredictable (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20unpredictab&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...), so up-weighting votes from users who are good at picking those would lead to a less predictable, more interesting front page. Conversely, the median vote tends to be for the same few hot topics, leading to a more samey (as well as more sensational) front page. My bet is that it wouldn't change much either way, because the problems with voting seem to flow from the voting mechanism itself, not from which users are doing it. Internet upvoting is the ultimate reflexive reaction, which excludes reflection, and reflection—the slower cognitive process which considers something before reacting to it and is thus able to see something new—is the quality that picks up on uncorrelated bits and makes for good taste. (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20reflective%20reflex&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...) If that's true, then instead of trying to squeeze more signal out of upvotes we should add a new mechanism that encourages reflection over reflexivity. Flagging is closer to that than voting is, so something like an up-flag might be worth trying: i.e. "this deserves extra attention because of how good it is".
  - woah 6y ago
    Hacker News has always been the message board of the most famous startup accelerator out there.
- ehnto 6y ago
  I imagine the OP is just bored of the generic startup technology churn cycle. It can feel as though the majority of "tech stack" articles on HN are just Yet Another Web Application Tool. We have solved making web applications so hard that we have ascended to meta-tools, tools that manage our tools or use our tools for us. It is refreshing to be reminded of the myriad of ways computers can interact with the world! I recently refreshed my love for technology by getting into 3D printing, it's nice to have a tangible result for my efforts behind the keyboard. The machine is surprisingly rudimentary as well, and reminds me of old school CNC machines, so it's relaxing in the way driving a classic car can be. You can understand all the parts and their purpose intuitively, as they operate in the real world.
littlemtman 6y ago
Thank you very much !
Erlich_Bachman 6y ago
Comma.ai which is used in the demo is a for-profit company that makes a sellable product.
- littlemtman 6y ago
  Yes the comma two https://comma.ai/shop/products/comma-two-devkit https://comma.ai/shop/products/comma-two-devkit. If you have a newer Honda, Toyota etc. you can try it in real life ! Won't be working on your Aviato car, I am sorry :)
  - nunja 6y ago
    But please don't try it on a real road. Find a spot where it can't endanger fellows. It's possible to find those places.
    - dicknuckle 6y ago
      There's hundreds of people using these on public roadways. Check out the official Discord and the various Community Discords centered around it.
      - commaai 6y ago
        Over 1,000 people just today. A couple thousand every week. In addition to running on a laptop, openpilot also runs on a phone for easy mounting in your car. https://github.com/commaai/openpilot https://github.com/commaai/openpilot
        Miraste 6y ago
        Your FAQ says Comma "openpilot performs the functions of Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) and Automated Lane Centering (ALC)" and my 2020 Corolla is supported-but it already has those features. I read through the site and I don't see the value proposition. Is it that Comma does a better job of it?
  - 6y ago
smt88 6y ago
Not sure why you need to put down entrepreneurs while praising this kid. Hacking a company together is really hard. Like tech hacking, it requires intelligence, creativity, and persistence. There's no reason we can't read about and respect both on this site.
- kick 6y ago
  The concern is in the appropriation of the term 'hacker'. He's not putting anything or anyone down, he's saying that this is hacking, and MBA posts of acronym soup aren't. I think his implied conclusion is probably wrong-ish (both are arguably right for HN, even if I vastly prefer this), but he's right in that this is hacking.
  - rapind 6y ago
    One could argue WeWork hacked unicorns.
    - toofy 6y ago
      One could argue anything they like, it doesn’t mean their argument (or sophistry in general) leads to a better acquiring of knowledge through discussion. In my opinion, the gp’s discussion is one worth having.
  - ilrwbwrkhv 6y ago
    100% agree. Winamp was a hacker's application. iTunes is a company's application.
- ddevault 6y ago
  Startup culture is basically the opposite of hacker culture. As kick hints to, the term has been appropriated. This site has been dubiously hackish from the start.
- enos_feedler 6y ago
  Hacking together a product takes intelligence, creativity and persistence. Hacking together a company takes empathy, honesty, respect, humility, etc. It's about the people and building a team. I don't associate this with "hacking" at all.
renewiltord 6y ago
Ugh, so obnoxious.
umeshunni 6y ago
WSJ had an interesting article the other day about why there are fewer startups now - https://www.wsj.com/articles/six-theories-on-why-fast-growing-startups-seem-to-be-disappearing-11588986419 https://www.wsj.com/articles/six-theories-on-why-fast-growin... tl;dr is that people are now more motivated by the idea of being an entrepreneur than by having a great business concept.
- holografix 6y ago
  I think Scott Galloway has some very valuable input on this topic. I might do it a disservice by trying to to;dr it here but basically there is very little if any room for innovation left when the big monopolies are currently very efficient in “featuring” your whole startup and through economies of scale (not having to turn a profit) they’ll eliminate you from the market it acquire you if they like the talent.

by tikej 6y ago

skrebbel 6y ago

I see your point and I agree with it. But I also want to remark that in many ways, building a company is also a silly thing that in fact requires skill. I mean, I'm pretty sure I'd be way richer right now if I had just taken a job at some bigco. Or kept doing consulting. I don't feel that what I'm doing right now (building a startup because I can) is fundamentally different from my demoscene past (coding computer graphics because I could). Sure, some startups make some people obscenely rich, but the vast majority don't :-) It's not too different from art or AI hobbying or gaming or game modding in that sense.

alexeichemenda 6y ago
> But I also want to remark that in many ways, building a company is also a silly thing that in fact requires skill. It is - Tikej's point isn't that it's not a skill - but rather that it's not the right place to share these. Think of the difference between a "Startup News" and "Hacker News". Hacker news used to be very deep on tech topics, now those deep topic have become more rare.
- littlemtman 6y ago
  Hopefully I could bring you a deep tech topic !
- owlninja 6y ago
  Very true, but it is hosted by ycombinator which exists to fund startups.
- bravura 6y ago
  I remember an early pg quote where he noted that being a hacker isn’t supposed to be limit to coding or tech even, but all topics that hackers are drawn to and can ply their hacking in. Social hacking to bootstrap a userbase is a on-topic as far as that quote is concerned [edit: errant autocorrect]
- edouard-harris 6y ago
  Interestingly, Hacker News used to be called Startup News in the early days.
  - BrandonM 6y ago
    Indeed, we’ve come full (half?) circle. IIRC, it was renamed to Hacker News in part to discourage meta-discussion on intellectually stimulating posts, questioning why the front page had so many posts that weren’t about startups. Now we are instead discussing startup post fatigue.
    - dang 6y ago
      You can see the reasoning here (Aug 2007): https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html. Basically, pg got bored reading about nothing but startups.
      - ximeng 6y ago
        Interesting the idea that the original plan was that your votes count for more if you vote for the right kind of stories. Would seem to create an echo chamber effect where what’s already popular stays popular and new stuff doesn’t.
        dang 6y ago
        It's impossible to say without trying it, and we never did. (Edit: actually I remember a conversation with pg where he said he did experiment with it, but dropped it. I don't remember why though. Maybe I'll ask.) You could make the opposite argument: the "right kind of stories" includes being unpredictable (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20unpredictab&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...), so up-weighting votes from users who are good at picking those would lead to a less predictable, more interesting front page. Conversely, the median vote tends to be for the same few hot topics, leading to a more samey (as well as more sensational) front page. My bet is that it wouldn't change much either way, because the problems with voting seem to flow from the voting mechanism itself, not from which users are doing it. Internet upvoting is the ultimate reflexive reaction, which excludes reflection, and reflection—the slower cognitive process which considers something before reacting to it and is thus able to see something new—is the quality that picks up on uncorrelated bits and makes for good taste. (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20reflective%20reflex&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...) If that's true, then instead of trying to squeeze more signal out of upvotes we should add a new mechanism that encourages reflection over reflexivity. Flagging is closer to that than voting is, so something like an up-flag might be worth trying: i.e. "this deserves extra attention because of how good it is".
- woah 6y ago
  Hacker News has always been the message board of the most famous startup accelerator out there.
ehnto 6y ago
I imagine the OP is just bored of the generic startup technology churn cycle. It can feel as though the majority of "tech stack" articles on HN are just Yet Another Web Application Tool. We have solved making web applications so hard that we have ascended to meta-tools, tools that manage our tools or use our tools for us. It is refreshing to be reminded of the myriad of ways computers can interact with the world! I recently refreshed my love for technology by getting into 3D printing, it's nice to have a tangible result for my efforts behind the keyboard. The machine is surprisingly rudimentary as well, and reminds me of old school CNC machines, so it's relaxing in the way driving a classic car can be. You can understand all the parts and their purpose intuitively, as they operate in the real world.

littlemtman 6y ago

Thank you very much !

Erlich_Bachman 6y ago

Comma.ai which is used in the demo is a for-profit company that makes a sellable product.

littlemtman 6y ago
Yes the comma two https://comma.ai/shop/products/comma-two-devkit https://comma.ai/shop/products/comma-two-devkit. If you have a newer Honda, Toyota etc. you can try it in real life ! Won't be working on your Aviato car, I am sorry :)
- nunja 6y ago
  But please don't try it on a real road. Find a spot where it can't endanger fellows. It's possible to find those places.
  - dicknuckle 6y ago
    There's hundreds of people using these on public roadways. Check out the official Discord and the various Community Discords centered around it.
    - commaai 6y ago
      Over 1,000 people just today. A couple thousand every week. In addition to running on a laptop, openpilot also runs on a phone for easy mounting in your car. https://github.com/commaai/openpilot https://github.com/commaai/openpilot
      - Miraste 6y ago
        Your FAQ says Comma "openpilot performs the functions of Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) and Automated Lane Centering (ALC)" and my 2020 Corolla is supported-but it already has those features. I read through the site and I don't see the value proposition. Is it that Comma does a better job of it?
- 6y ago

smt88 6y ago

Not sure why you need to put down entrepreneurs while praising this kid. Hacking a company together is really hard. Like tech hacking, it requires intelligence, creativity, and persistence. There's no reason we can't read about and respect both on this site.

kick 6y ago
The concern is in the appropriation of the term 'hacker'. He's not putting anything or anyone down, he's saying that this is hacking, and MBA posts of acronym soup aren't. I think his implied conclusion is probably wrong-ish (both are arguably right for HN, even if I vastly prefer this), but he's right in that this is hacking.
- rapind 6y ago
  One could argue WeWork hacked unicorns.
  - toofy 6y ago
    One could argue anything they like, it doesn’t mean their argument (or sophistry in general) leads to a better acquiring of knowledge through discussion. In my opinion, the gp’s discussion is one worth having.
- ilrwbwrkhv 6y ago
  100% agree. Winamp was a hacker's application. iTunes is a company's application.
ddevault 6y ago
Startup culture is basically the opposite of hacker culture. As kick hints to, the term has been appropriated. This site has been dubiously hackish from the start.
enos_feedler 6y ago
Hacking together a product takes intelligence, creativity and persistence. Hacking together a company takes empathy, honesty, respect, humility, etc. It's about the people and building a team. I don't associate this with "hacking" at all.

renewiltord 6y ago

Ugh, so obnoxious.

umeshunni 6y ago

WSJ had an interesting article the other day about why there are fewer startups now - https://www.wsj.com/articles/six-theories-on-why-fast-growing-startups-seem-to-be-disappearing-11588986419 https://www.wsj.com/articles/six-theories-on-why-fast-growin... tl;dr is that people are now more motivated by the idea of being an entrepreneur than by having a great business concept.

holografix 6y ago
I think Scott Galloway has some very valuable input on this topic. I might do it a disservice by trying to to;dr it here but basically there is very little if any room for innovation left when the big monopolies are currently very efficient in “featuring” your whole startup and through economies of scale (not having to turn a profit) they’ll eliminate you from the market it acquire you if they like the talent.