Nobody's made the obvious point yet: It depends on what kind of business you're running. Some businesses benefit from lots of publicity and buzz, and have rea

Nobody's made the obvious point yet: It depends on what kind of business you're running. Some businesses benefit from lots of publicity and buzz, and have real barriers to entry. These are generally companies with teams, bigger than a one-man shop (though not always). If it takes months to clone your product and build the right expertise, you can be comfortable telling everyone about how well you're doing. Some businesses have very low barriers to entry, and the publicity they get in places like HN won't help them significantly grow their business. These businesses should STFU and crank. Then there are a bunch of businesses in the middle, where there's no right answer and the people leading the company have to make a gut call on the benefits of publicity vs. the risk of getting ripped off. It's business, it's not black and white, and you have to make decisions like this all the time.