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I have been alienated from the startup scene because I find that the current tech-startup scene is not about technology. Sure, when a startup gets big, it has t

by nadam 15y ago

I have been alienated from the startup scene because I find that the current tech-startup scene is not about technology. Sure, when a startup gets big, it has to deal with scale: this is a territory where some deep engineering is needed. But other than that it is not the kind of research and development I admire. A lot of influental people in the startup scene has not a clue what creative engineering is about. (Think about Tim Ferris as an extremity.) I know what social is. I know what a lean startup is, I have internalized some of the wisdom of Steve Blank and others. But I don't care about them now. I don't care about customer aquisition. I don't care about reelase early-release often. I am an engineer, and I am better at it than any of the self-help gurus out there. As an engineer I have my own internal thought processes which I have refined for years. I research and develop ambitious and deep technology. I think about the technology under the shower and on the train. Graphs, hierarchies, O(logn)-s, objects, classes and functions, (even conceptual) refactorings, sometimes even axioms and theorems are dancing in my mind all day. I have lots of TODO-s. I have new ideas every day. I know what to improve, I just need time, and I will improve those things. My motto is: TODO: 'optimize this further', 'TODO: figure this out', 'TODO: think about this from a new perspective', 'TODO: consider refactoring this in xyz way'. (I create a new GUI system in Javascript completely drawn on HMTL5 canvas. Kind of reinventing RIAs.) Engineering is important and brutally overlooked nowadays. Suprisingly few startups do ambitious deeply technical things.

revorad 15y ago
Startups are more about business than technical innovation. If you're more interested in hard engineering problems, it's probably best to seek those out wherever they may be, at a startup or not.
- nadam 15y ago
  I think there was an era when tech-startups were more tech focused from the beginning. Think about the beginning of Intel, Microsoft, Apple, Oracle, Borland, etc... (Even Google, but not Facebook.) On the other hand I don't want to complain. Ilove working on my side project. And I will try to create a business of it at a point. I just don't concentrate too much on that aspect at this point. I don't want it to distract me from R&D right now.
  - revorad 15y ago
    Of course there have always been some startups which seem to be more tech-focused. But, is there any evidence the percentage or absolute number of those has fallen? Surely, you've heard of Octopart, 10gen, Blekko, DDG, Heroku, Hipmunk, DirectedEdge, RethinkDB. These are just some off the top of my head. If you don't think they're solving hard problems (not in the sense of sharing lolcats at webscale), then we'll just have to agree to disagree.
    - nadam 15y ago
      " then we'll just have to agree to disagree." Oh, no, some of those are the companies that I am the most excited about in the current tech scene. I am not the kind of guy anyway who want to prove a point on this (despite the above 'rant'). I am just happy do discuss this. (I am an INTP and not INTJ). I don't have data on this, I just have a feeling that there were way fewer so called tech-startups 30 years ago, and according to some metrics (revenue, publicity) the ratio of highly-tech-oriented-from-the-start startups were higher. A thorough research on this would be interesting.
  - jtbigwoo 15y ago
    Microsoft's success was not about tech, though they had (and continue to have) plenty of good coders; it was about deal-making. You could also argue that marketing savvy and great timing had as much to do with Apple's earliest successes as the products themselves.

by nadam 15y ago

revorad 15y ago

Startups are more about business than technical innovation. If you're more interested in hard engineering problems, it's probably best to seek those out wherever they may be, at a startup or not.

nadam 15y ago
I think there was an era when tech-startups were more tech focused from the beginning. Think about the beginning of Intel, Microsoft, Apple, Oracle, Borland, etc... (Even Google, but not Facebook.) On the other hand I don't want to complain. Ilove working on my side project. And I will try to create a business of it at a point. I just don't concentrate too much on that aspect at this point. I don't want it to distract me from R&D right now.
- revorad 15y ago
  Of course there have always been some startups which seem to be more tech-focused. But, is there any evidence the percentage or absolute number of those has fallen? Surely, you've heard of Octopart, 10gen, Blekko, DDG, Heroku, Hipmunk, DirectedEdge, RethinkDB. These are just some off the top of my head. If you don't think they're solving hard problems (not in the sense of sharing lolcats at webscale), then we'll just have to agree to disagree.
  - nadam 15y ago
    " then we'll just have to agree to disagree." Oh, no, some of those are the companies that I am the most excited about in the current tech scene. I am not the kind of guy anyway who want to prove a point on this (despite the above 'rant'). I am just happy do discuss this. (I am an INTP and not INTJ). I don't have data on this, I just have a feeling that there were way fewer so called tech-startups 30 years ago, and according to some metrics (revenue, publicity) the ratio of highly-tech-oriented-from-the-start startups were higher. A thorough research on this would be interesting.
- jtbigwoo 15y ago
  Microsoft's success was not about tech, though they had (and continue to have) plenty of good coders; it was about deal-making. You could also argue that marketing savvy and great timing had as much to do with Apple's earliest successes as the products themselves.