7 ms·

having been an early employee and founder of a few startups and then working at a few larger companies, most people who only ever worked at FAANG have no idea h

by m_ke 7mo ago

having been an early employee and founder of a few startups and then working at a few larger companies, most people who only ever worked at FAANG have no idea how much more productive tiny teams with ownership are.

spacecadet 7mo ago
This. Hell even a company that is 100 people or more. Ive seen companies just grind to snails pace around 80-90 people and then still scale to 400-500 and then it's impossible to really do anything meaningful. I have tried to test for this in interviews over the years but ultimately I just end up disappointed. At this point I don't even look, just work in small independently organized groups or coops.
baxtr 7mo ago
I love tiny teams. I hate big corp. Big corporations are full with people who love to entertain 20+ people in video calls. 1-2 people speak, the other nod their heads while browsing Amazon. I wouldn’t be sad if those jobs vanished.
- ffsm8 7mo ago
  Well, you should be terrified of those jobs vanishing I think. All of these people will consequently be on the job market competing for your opportunities. Yes you may feel superior to their capabilities - and may even be justified in your opinion (I know nothing about you beyond this comment)... But it'll still significantly impact your professional future if this actually happens. It would massively impact wages at the very least Your viewpoint is incredibly short-sighted and not actually realizing the broad effect on the industry as a whole such a change would bring.
  - baxtr 7mo ago
    Maybe I’m naive but I’m not terrified about the future at all. Every efficiency wave made life better for humans. Why should this one be different? Assume many people lose their jobs. This in turn means companies will have higher margins. Higher margins attract more competition. More competition means lower margins since some will use the lower costs to offer lower prices. Lower prices increase quality of life for everyone. People who lost their job might be able to pick up doing something they actually enjoy…
    - SkyeCA 7mo ago
      > People who lost their job might be able to pick up doing something they actually enjoy… It's more probable they lose everything before ending up with a worse job that pays less.
    - heavyset_go 7mo ago
      Throughout history, what were once middle class and artisan professions were increasingly automated and tons of people and their families ended up in poverty until they died. We just gloss over them and villify the ones who tried to do anything about it (the ones that weren't executed also died in poverty).
      - baxtr 7mo ago
        You need to be careful with these things. Such exaggerated narratives are the reason people are afraid. during the Industrial Revolution many artisan and skilled trades lost their livelihoods. And yet, while many people did suffer serious short-term hardship and wage collapse, most did not simply remain in lifelong poverty, because over time industrialization created new types of employment and average wages eventually rose. You don’t want to go back to before the Industrial Revolution. Do you?
        izacus 7mo ago
        [flagged]
        tomhow 7mo ago
        > Because your ignorance is painful. It's not acceptable to attack a fellow community member like this on HN. The guidelines make it clear we're aiming for better than this: Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes. Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
dirkc 7mo ago
I have a theory that when you have 2 developers working in synergy, you're at something like 1.8x what 1 person can do. As you add more people you approach 2x until some point after which you start to decrease productive. I don't think that point is far beyond 5.
- rhogar 7mo ago
  This is very close to the thesis, or at least theme, of the essays in The Mythical Man-Month, Fred Brooks. Some elements are dated (1975), but many feel timeless. Brooks law “Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later” is just the surface of some of the metaphorical language that has most stuck with me: large systems and teams quickening entanglement in tar pits through their struggle against coordination scaling pains, conceptual integrity in design akin to preserving architectural unity of Reims cathedral, roles and limitations attempting to expand surgical teams, etc. Love a good metaphor, even when its foundation is overextended or out of date. Highly recommend.
- BurningFrog 7mo ago
  My experience of pair programming is the opposite. In a pair I get maybe 4x as much done as when working alone. Mostly it's because when we hit a point where one person would get stuck, the other usually knows what to do, and we sail through almost anything with little friction.
  - sdf2df 7mo ago
    There's that but youre missing a lot of variables. E.g. if one of you had perfect sleep and the other didn't the individual with perfect sleep will perform better for longer. I don't get why people try to simplify - you're removing important details that determine performance and therefore output. This leads to false conclusions.
  - dirkc 7mo ago
    Maybe the multiplier is 4x and by the time you have a team of ten you're back down to 2x? My theory is a bit of a hyperbole and I don't know what the multipliers would be? But I know that many times you can move quick when you're small. And to your point, a single person can easily get stuck, I know that applies to me many times.
sghiassy 7mo ago
Been a startup founder - work at Meta currently. AI is making everyone faster that I’ve seen. I’d say 30% of the tickets I’ve seen in the last month have been solved by just clicking the delegate to AI button
- bubblegumcrisis 7mo ago
  How did you decide to work at Meta? I'll be honest, just the idea of working there makes me feel like vomiting. For me, they are bizarrely evil. They're not evil like, "we're going to destroy our competition through anti competitive practices," (which they do), but "let's destroy a whole generation of minds." And now with the glasses. I mean, jeeze. Can there be a stronger signal of not caring for others? It's as if Meta sees people as cattle. Though I think a lot of techies see humans as cattle, truthfully. What was your rationale? I guess this question is out-of-the-blue, and I don't mean for you to justify your existence, but I've never understood why people choose to work for Meta.
  - qweiopqweiop 7mo ago
    I feel the same - would I like a meta paycheck, sure, but I couldn't look at myself in the mirror knowing what the company I'm giving my work to does to people's brains (not just the young, though that is the most reprehensible).
  - rybosworld 7mo ago
    I've always attributed it to people being very good at convincing themselves they aren't one of the bad guys. A big paycheck makes it even easier to ignore to what you are a part of. Where livelihood is concerned, rational individuals with strong morals can do irrational, and immoral things (e.g., work at the Palantir's of the world). TLDR: incentives don't just shape perception, they form it
  - m_ke 7mo ago
    Guess who is running product and other related functions at OpenAI and Anthropic now
  - 7mo ago
wek 7mo ago
I'm excited about Agents helping many tiny teams succeed. There has been hype around the "who will be the first solo founder to a billion" but I am hoping for many small teams to succeed and I think this is the more interesting story. I agree its in the 2-7 person range. The challenge for those teams is distribution. They will crush at building, but I'm not sure how they can crack distribution. Some will, but maybe there is a way to help thousands of small teams distribute.

by m_ke 7mo ago

spacecadet 7mo ago

This. Hell even a company that is 100 people or more. Ive seen companies just grind to snails pace around 80-90 people and then still scale to 400-500 and then it's impossible to really do anything meaningful. I have tried to test for this in interviews over the years but ultimately I just end up disappointed. At this point I don't even look, just work in small independently organized groups or coops.

baxtr 7mo ago

I love tiny teams. I hate big corp. Big corporations are full with people who love to entertain 20+ people in video calls. 1-2 people speak, the other nod their heads while browsing Amazon. I wouldn’t be sad if those jobs vanished.

ffsm8 7mo ago
Well, you should be terrified of those jobs vanishing I think. All of these people will consequently be on the job market competing for your opportunities. Yes you may feel superior to their capabilities - and may even be justified in your opinion (I know nothing about you beyond this comment)... But it'll still significantly impact your professional future if this actually happens. It would massively impact wages at the very least Your viewpoint is incredibly short-sighted and not actually realizing the broad effect on the industry as a whole such a change would bring.
- baxtr 7mo ago
  Maybe I’m naive but I’m not terrified about the future at all. Every efficiency wave made life better for humans. Why should this one be different? Assume many people lose their jobs. This in turn means companies will have higher margins. Higher margins attract more competition. More competition means lower margins since some will use the lower costs to offer lower prices. Lower prices increase quality of life for everyone. People who lost their job might be able to pick up doing something they actually enjoy…
  - SkyeCA 7mo ago
    > People who lost their job might be able to pick up doing something they actually enjoy… It's more probable they lose everything before ending up with a worse job that pays less.
  - heavyset_go 7mo ago
    Throughout history, what were once middle class and artisan professions were increasingly automated and tons of people and their families ended up in poverty until they died. We just gloss over them and villify the ones who tried to do anything about it (the ones that weren't executed also died in poverty).
    - baxtr 7mo ago
      You need to be careful with these things. Such exaggerated narratives are the reason people are afraid. during the Industrial Revolution many artisan and skilled trades lost their livelihoods. And yet, while many people did suffer serious short-term hardship and wage collapse, most did not simply remain in lifelong poverty, because over time industrialization created new types of employment and average wages eventually rose. You don’t want to go back to before the Industrial Revolution. Do you?
      - izacus 7mo ago
        [flagged]
        tomhow 7mo ago
        > Because your ignorance is painful. It's not acceptable to attack a fellow community member like this on HN. The guidelines make it clear we're aiming for better than this: Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes. Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

dirkc 7mo ago

I have a theory that when you have 2 developers working in synergy, you're at something like 1.8x what 1 person can do. As you add more people you approach 2x until some point after which you start to decrease productive. I don't think that point is far beyond 5.

rhogar 7mo ago
This is very close to the thesis, or at least theme, of the essays in The Mythical Man-Month, Fred Brooks. Some elements are dated (1975), but many feel timeless. Brooks law “Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later” is just the surface of some of the metaphorical language that has most stuck with me: large systems and teams quickening entanglement in tar pits through their struggle against coordination scaling pains, conceptual integrity in design akin to preserving architectural unity of Reims cathedral, roles and limitations attempting to expand surgical teams, etc. Love a good metaphor, even when its foundation is overextended or out of date. Highly recommend.
BurningFrog 7mo ago
My experience of pair programming is the opposite. In a pair I get maybe 4x as much done as when working alone. Mostly it's because when we hit a point where one person would get stuck, the other usually knows what to do, and we sail through almost anything with little friction.
- sdf2df 7mo ago
  There's that but youre missing a lot of variables. E.g. if one of you had perfect sleep and the other didn't the individual with perfect sleep will perform better for longer. I don't get why people try to simplify - you're removing important details that determine performance and therefore output. This leads to false conclusions.
- dirkc 7mo ago
  Maybe the multiplier is 4x and by the time you have a team of ten you're back down to 2x? My theory is a bit of a hyperbole and I don't know what the multipliers would be? But I know that many times you can move quick when you're small. And to your point, a single person can easily get stuck, I know that applies to me many times.

sghiassy 7mo ago

Been a startup founder - work at Meta currently. AI is making everyone faster that I’ve seen. I’d say 30% of the tickets I’ve seen in the last month have been solved by just clicking the delegate to AI button

bubblegumcrisis 7mo ago
How did you decide to work at Meta? I'll be honest, just the idea of working there makes me feel like vomiting. For me, they are bizarrely evil. They're not evil like, "we're going to destroy our competition through anti competitive practices," (which they do), but "let's destroy a whole generation of minds." And now with the glasses. I mean, jeeze. Can there be a stronger signal of not caring for others? It's as if Meta sees people as cattle. Though I think a lot of techies see humans as cattle, truthfully. What was your rationale? I guess this question is out-of-the-blue, and I don't mean for you to justify your existence, but I've never understood why people choose to work for Meta.
- qweiopqweiop 7mo ago
  I feel the same - would I like a meta paycheck, sure, but I couldn't look at myself in the mirror knowing what the company I'm giving my work to does to people's brains (not just the young, though that is the most reprehensible).
- rybosworld 7mo ago
  I've always attributed it to people being very good at convincing themselves they aren't one of the bad guys. A big paycheck makes it even easier to ignore to what you are a part of. Where livelihood is concerned, rational individuals with strong morals can do irrational, and immoral things (e.g., work at the Palantir's of the world). TLDR: incentives don't just shape perception, they form it
- m_ke 7mo ago
  Guess who is running product and other related functions at OpenAI and Anthropic now
- 7mo ago

wek 7mo ago

I'm excited about Agents helping many tiny teams succeed. There has been hype around the "who will be the first solo founder to a billion" but I am hoping for many small teams to succeed and I think this is the more interesting story. I agree its in the 2-7 person range. The challenge for those teams is distribution. They will crush at building, but I'm not sure how they can crack distribution. Some will, but maybe there is a way to help thousands of small teams distribute.