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Thanks for elaborating. You're right: the title is misleading. I changed the title to reflect what I meant to write about: "Want to learn about entrepreneurship

Thanks for elaborating. You're right: the title is misleading. I changed the title to reflect what I meant to write about: "Want to learn about entrepreneurship, as a software engineer? Sell something online". And yes, your point is a valid criticism on "selling advice" without having been successful the space you write about. It's also a reason why I'm trying to steer clear on offering advice on running or scaling a business - since running my own business, ironically. I made one exception so far on this, sharing my thoughts on the term 'creator'. [1]. I also noticed how writing about business topics pulls in people who want to succeed in a similar way, and can go down the "publish self help content" in ways that you described. It's not appealing to me. Appreciate the caveats on the publication! I'll also think of how to make it more clear to indicate my sources are direct and the information is "exclusive" without over using the "exclusive" part. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32233437 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32233437

PragmaticPulp 4y ago
Thanks for responding and being open to some healthy discussion. To be clear: I am a subscriber and I do recommend The Pragmatic Engineer to a lot of people, although with some of the context above. Looking forward to watching the newsletter evolve over time.
- gregdoesit 4y ago
  Thanks - I keep evolving the publication; The Scoop is barely a few months old and was (still is) a bonus addition to the long-form weekly articles. To quote or not to quote from other publications is an good question. Re-reading the last two Scoop issues, they both, indeed started with The Information quotes as you rightfully noted. I didn’t mark the information that was unreported outside my newsletter clearly either. The ones that were all based on directly talking with sources at companies - like the internal controversy on Slack access at Stripe, compensation rises and the Board's role at Adyen, the Meta PSC process as it’s playing out right now, the details on Google’s hiring freeze as confirmed with managers at the company, the Graphcore hiring freeze, reporting on the upcoming Apple hiring slowdown - and then sharing when Bloomberg shared information on the same two weeks later. Here is an un-paywalled The Scoop issue from two weeks ago [1] where the first article was, indeed referring to The Information as a source, the second news referencing Bloomberg - confirming earlier reporting - and the next six scoops mostly from my own sources. I don’t like the idea of calling out “exclusive” details, but I can also see how quoting from other sources can de-value this publication. Also, the reality as a on-person publication is there will be relevant news I won’t get to, but might still be relevant to share as a summary. [1] (removed paywall) https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/fff15093-0d83-41da-a5bd-cf31d8da7791 https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/fff15093-0d83-41d...
sanderjd 4y ago
Hey this is a great answer! Really nice to see a "yep my thinking has evolved over time in these ways", which always feels really rare to me.

PragmaticPulp 4y ago

Thanks for responding and being open to some healthy discussion. To be clear: I am a subscriber and I do recommend The Pragmatic Engineer to a lot of people, although with some of the context above. Looking forward to watching the newsletter evolve over time.

gregdoesit 4y ago
Thanks - I keep evolving the publication; The Scoop is barely a few months old and was (still is) a bonus addition to the long-form weekly articles. To quote or not to quote from other publications is an good question. Re-reading the last two Scoop issues, they both, indeed started with The Information quotes as you rightfully noted. I didn’t mark the information that was unreported outside my newsletter clearly either. The ones that were all based on directly talking with sources at companies - like the internal controversy on Slack access at Stripe, compensation rises and the Board's role at Adyen, the Meta PSC process as it’s playing out right now, the details on Google’s hiring freeze as confirmed with managers at the company, the Graphcore hiring freeze, reporting on the upcoming Apple hiring slowdown - and then sharing when Bloomberg shared information on the same two weeks later. Here is an un-paywalled The Scoop issue from two weeks ago [1] where the first article was, indeed referring to The Information as a source, the second news referencing Bloomberg - confirming earlier reporting - and the next six scoops mostly from my own sources. I don’t like the idea of calling out “exclusive” details, but I can also see how quoting from other sources can de-value this publication. Also, the reality as a on-person publication is there will be relevant news I won’t get to, but might still be relevant to share as a summary. [1] (removed paywall) https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/fff15093-0d83-41da-a5bd-cf31d8da7791 https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/fff15093-0d83-41d...

sanderjd 4y ago

Hey this is a great answer! Really nice to see a "yep my thinking has evolved over time in these ways", which always feels really rare to me.