3 ms·

But also, don't. The world is chock-full of unstable, insecure, incomplete apps, services and technologies. Our desire to be first to market, or to practice ext

But also, don't. The world is chock-full of unstable, insecure, incomplete apps, services and technologies. Our desire to be first to market, or to practice extreme continuous improvement via rapid iteration and rapid feedback creates motivations which, in some ways, are antithetical to the moral imperative we as engineers should all feel. That of creating technology that is secure, private and stable. We don't need another password breach, we don't need another growth metric driven app the belies the privacy invasions that power that growth metric. Make old ideas better, make new ideas mature.

artful-hacker 6y ago
I think you are right, but when you take your time how do you beat the company that just Zooms through, ignoring security, privacy, and stability, eats the entire market share, and leaves the secure, private, and stable apps to fight over scraps?
- tjs8rj 6y ago
  I think a major consideration is building what matters. Clearly, evidenced by Zooms continued dominance in spite of these scandals, these privacy issues aren’t breaking to customers. While obviously not moral, the current environment seems to reward “get big fast, then take a breath to clean up the mess before other catch up”, by then the damage to many has already been done, but your company is huge and ate the rest.
laurent92 6y ago
Internet is a Kondratieff cycle: It’s a long economic cycle. 40+ years. - At the beginning, you innovate, and there are 100 car manufacturers in your city (Lyon, France) and every employee can build a car from A to Z. - Then you mature. You need to build the petrol station in every corner of the city, and put pollution everywhere especially on cathedrals (and passwords spill all over the place). Employees have a scope and become replaceable, but at least it’s a skill that _can_ be taught at school so you build schools to output a nation’s worth of engineers, not PhDs. - Then it concentrates. You still make more and more cars every year, but legal requirements rise and less than a dozen manufacturers per continent make it, it is extremely capital-intensive and return on investment is around the interest rate. Employees have a mundane job, there is even a job description, which would be an insult to most of the previous generation. - Then global warming comes and you need to remove petrol stations and cheat on tests to prove that you comply to regulatory emissions. Startups are at phase 2. Regulatory burden is so immense that the only way to comply to SOCs/PII/Health/GDPR requirements is to build inside of AWS. The job is becoming 1. either work for Atlasssian or Amazon 2. or be independent and built a toy inside their containers, with pre-approved APIs that insurances cover you for. Your comment is a sign that we’re entering phase 3: It’s hard to launch a startup and comply by the correct security and redundancy requirements, the talent has to be great, funding is absolutely necessary to have enough lawyers and designers, it’s capital intensive but still has excellent potential growth. But soon, launching a startup will be as hard as launching a clothing brand: You’ll need support from stars to get famous, advertising power of the soap industry, and you’ll only make 4% above market rate.

artful-hacker 6y ago

I think you are right, but when you take your time how do you beat the company that just Zooms through, ignoring security, privacy, and stability, eats the entire market share, and leaves the secure, private, and stable apps to fight over scraps?

tjs8rj 6y ago
I think a major consideration is building what matters. Clearly, evidenced by Zooms continued dominance in spite of these scandals, these privacy issues aren’t breaking to customers. While obviously not moral, the current environment seems to reward “get big fast, then take a breath to clean up the mess before other catch up”, by then the damage to many has already been done, but your company is huge and ate the rest.

laurent92 6y ago

Internet is a Kondratieff cycle: It’s a long economic cycle. 40+ years. - At the beginning, you innovate, and there are 100 car manufacturers in your city (Lyon, France) and every employee can build a car from A to Z. - Then you mature. You need to build the petrol station in every corner of the city, and put pollution everywhere especially on cathedrals (and passwords spill all over the place). Employees have a scope and become replaceable, but at least it’s a skill that _can_ be taught at school so you build schools to output a nation’s worth of engineers, not PhDs. - Then it concentrates. You still make more and more cars every year, but legal requirements rise and less than a dozen manufacturers per continent make it, it is extremely capital-intensive and return on investment is around the interest rate. Employees have a mundane job, there is even a job description, which would be an insult to most of the previous generation. - Then global warming comes and you need to remove petrol stations and cheat on tests to prove that you comply to regulatory emissions. Startups are at phase 2. Regulatory burden is so immense that the only way to comply to SOCs/PII/Health/GDPR requirements is to build inside of AWS. The job is becoming 1. either work for Atlasssian or Amazon 2. or be independent and built a toy inside their containers, with pre-approved APIs that insurances cover you for. Your comment is a sign that we’re entering phase 3: It’s hard to launch a startup and comply by the correct security and redundancy requirements, the talent has to be great, funding is absolutely necessary to have enough lawyers and designers, it’s capital intensive but still has excellent potential growth. But soon, launching a startup will be as hard as launching a clothing brand: You’ll need support from stars to get famous, advertising power of the soap industry, and you’ll only make 4% above market rate.