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I tend to invest in people and the people behind this seem really solid, and they’ve been remarkably open about their stack and how things are built. It all se

by atonse 6y ago

I tend to invest in people and the people behind this seem really solid, and they’ve been remarkably open about their stack and how things are built. It all seems very well engineered. I worry more about them getting acquired quickly (which is deserved for them but not so much for their customers)

mrkurt 6y ago
I'm one of those weird people who thinks the world would be better if acquisitions didn't happen. Some of my best work is gone from the internet because a large company acquired it and let it rot.
pdimitar 6y ago
Could you clarify what you mean by "I invest in people"? I found it quite fascinating but I might be misinterpreting or projecting. Is it "I invest in people with sound business ideas", or "I invest in people whose approach has historically shown their company will do well", or is it something else?
- atonse 6y ago
  I just mean that rather than just seek out technologies for the sake of technologies, I seek out people that I respect and see what they're tinkering with, or what they've built, and how they arrived at solutions to many of the problems that most of us face. There are certain people whose skills and judgement I respect, that I feel I know well enough about how they reason about things (as well as you can know following them on the internet), that if they're saying this thing is good, I trust that. One example is Yehuda Katz, who was a ruby on rails and jQuery core dev team member, now spends most of his time on Ember.js. I may not always agree with him (although it's rare) but I have found that his approach to engineering is just really well-rounded and well-reasoned. So you can totally see how he arrived at his conclusions. Like why to even put time into working on something like Ember.js, rather than joining yet another core team. Another set of folks are the Hashicorp founders – over the years their approach to the industry and how they build out their solutions has really resonated with me. So I tend to trust just about anything they build. Similarly, I feel someone like tptacek isn't just a security nerd but is able to articulate where the importance of security fits in with an org, with users, with businesses, with tradeoffs, etc etc etc, and seems to have a clarity in communication that I admire. Similarly, the fact that they are able to so confidently explain every aspect of their stack shows that not only are they proud of what they've accomplished, that they don't feel this is going to hurt them competitively. And the more I read about the stack, the more I keep nodding my head and just smiling at the sheer elegance in how they built it out. And I am actually someone who never really got on the Heroku bandwagon. It just never felt right. So I'm looking forward to really trying it out.
  - pdimitar 6y ago
    And now I am sad because I've never met a person like you, even if many other people told me that I am exactly such a kind of guy -- a tinkerer and a critical thinker who rejects some of the status quo and is seeing it as the bad mess that it is and doesn't pretend otherwise. I completely agree about Hashicorp btw. They are for me one perfect embodiment of the philosophy you outlined: they challenge the current preconceived notions and are severely pushing back against too much complexity. Same for clarity in communication. Thinking about it, in my 19.5 years of career, I spent the last 3-4 much more in improving my articulation than improving my programming. The latter kind of started happening automatically due to the former. Felt quite pleasantly surprised by that. So, thank you for existing, really. The world needs more people like you.

by atonse 6y ago

mrkurt 6y ago

I'm one of those weird people who thinks the world would be better if acquisitions didn't happen. Some of my best work is gone from the internet because a large company acquired it and let it rot.

pdimitar 6y ago

Could you clarify what you mean by "I invest in people"? I found it quite fascinating but I might be misinterpreting or projecting. Is it "I invest in people with sound business ideas", or "I invest in people whose approach has historically shown their company will do well", or is it something else?

atonse 6y ago
I just mean that rather than just seek out technologies for the sake of technologies, I seek out people that I respect and see what they're tinkering with, or what they've built, and how they arrived at solutions to many of the problems that most of us face. There are certain people whose skills and judgement I respect, that I feel I know well enough about how they reason about things (as well as you can know following them on the internet), that if they're saying this thing is good, I trust that. One example is Yehuda Katz, who was a ruby on rails and jQuery core dev team member, now spends most of his time on Ember.js. I may not always agree with him (although it's rare) but I have found that his approach to engineering is just really well-rounded and well-reasoned. So you can totally see how he arrived at his conclusions. Like why to even put time into working on something like Ember.js, rather than joining yet another core team. Another set of folks are the Hashicorp founders – over the years their approach to the industry and how they build out their solutions has really resonated with me. So I tend to trust just about anything they build. Similarly, I feel someone like tptacek isn't just a security nerd but is able to articulate where the importance of security fits in with an org, with users, with businesses, with tradeoffs, etc etc etc, and seems to have a clarity in communication that I admire. Similarly, the fact that they are able to so confidently explain every aspect of their stack shows that not only are they proud of what they've accomplished, that they don't feel this is going to hurt them competitively. And the more I read about the stack, the more I keep nodding my head and just smiling at the sheer elegance in how they built it out. And I am actually someone who never really got on the Heroku bandwagon. It just never felt right. So I'm looking forward to really trying it out.
- pdimitar 6y ago
  And now I am sad because I've never met a person like you, even if many other people told me that I am exactly such a kind of guy -- a tinkerer and a critical thinker who rejects some of the status quo and is seeing it as the bad mess that it is and doesn't pretend otherwise. I completely agree about Hashicorp btw. They are for me one perfect embodiment of the philosophy you outlined: they challenge the current preconceived notions and are severely pushing back against too much complexity. Same for clarity in communication. Thinking about it, in my 19.5 years of career, I spent the last 3-4 much more in improving my articulation than improving my programming. The latter kind of started happening automatically due to the former. Felt quite pleasantly surprised by that. So, thank you for existing, really. The world needs more people like you.