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This would be why the ycombinator startup churner is bad. It is entirely focused on having people with no technical skills create companies that rely very heav

This would be why the ycombinator startup churner is bad. It is entirely focused on having people with no technical skills create companies that rely very heavily on a solid technical foundation. My 8 year old knows not to send sensitive information over unencrypted channels, and that email is completely insecure. Why are people who don't know this making sites like airbnb?

thesausageking 14y ago
It's not that they can't; it's that they don't care. Airbnb has a great engineering team who could definitely setup a more secure way to do this. The issue is that they only do things that will make them money. Until a lot of customers complain and hurts customer acquisition or revenues, they're not going to change it. This is exactly the MVP / "lean startup" approach: do the absolute minimum. It's a smart way to deploy capital. But customers of these kinds of companies should be careful but they're usually complete products (by design) and may have sharp corners. I normally stay away from buying anything from startups for this reason.
- papsosouid 14y ago
  By definition they can not possibly be a great engineering team if they demonstrate that they are completely and totally incompetent like this. "I don't care about doing important things correctly" is a statement of incompetence.
tatsuke95 14y ago
>"It is entirely focused on having people with no technical skills create companies that rely very heavily on a solid technical foundation." Disagree. I don't need to know how to send/receive encrypted information, just that I need it. Someone else can get their hands dirty on the problem. No "technical foundation" necessary, just common sense.
- papsosouid 14y ago
  Except that it requires technical skills to know that you need it. Your average joe off the street can have all the "common sense" in the world and still wouldn't know the risks involved.

thesausageking 14y ago

It's not that they can't; it's that they don't care. Airbnb has a great engineering team who could definitely setup a more secure way to do this. The issue is that they only do things that will make them money. Until a lot of customers complain and hurts customer acquisition or revenues, they're not going to change it. This is exactly the MVP / "lean startup" approach: do the absolute minimum. It's a smart way to deploy capital. But customers of these kinds of companies should be careful but they're usually complete products (by design) and may have sharp corners. I normally stay away from buying anything from startups for this reason.

papsosouid 14y ago
By definition they can not possibly be a great engineering team if they demonstrate that they are completely and totally incompetent like this. "I don't care about doing important things correctly" is a statement of incompetence.

tatsuke95 14y ago

>"It is entirely focused on having people with no technical skills create companies that rely very heavily on a solid technical foundation." Disagree. I don't need to know how to send/receive encrypted information, just that I need it. Someone else can get their hands dirty on the problem. No "technical foundation" necessary, just common sense.

papsosouid 14y ago
Except that it requires technical skills to know that you need it. Your average joe off the street can have all the "common sense" in the world and still wouldn't know the risks involved.