7 ms·

FWIW: You could have written essentially the same (fairly value-free) article about a buddy or four of mine, who have roughly the same lifestyle, with the finan

by patio11 14y ago

FWIW: You could have written essentially the same (fairly value-free) article about a buddy or four of mine, who have roughly the same lifestyle, with the financial support being a software business.

scarmig 14y ago
It's a useful data point, but owing to patio11's unique situation, his friends are probably very non-representative of the general population. Though, it's also important to keep in mind the opposite bias: if someone happens not to live the described lifestyle, it's also fairly possible that that non-transient person also doesn't have a representative sample of the general population among his or her friends. It seems difficult to even design a way to scientifically study this and how widespread it is, too.
- tptacek 14y ago
  The idea that Patrick's situation is unique is one of the dumbest and most damaging emergent memes on HN. Patrick is literally the textbook story of how to get to this point without having a unique circumstance. He started from the worst job in software, and clawed his way out with (all due respect to Patrick) possibly the least technically ambitious product in the history of commercial software development. Cut it out. The difference between you & Patrick is literally just "desire to be like Patrick".
  - scarmig 14y ago
    There is a world of difference between saying it's impossible to accomplish what he has and saying that he, at this moment, has developed a place for himself that relatively few people, even here on HN, have. The former is obviously wrong, just as much as the latter is obviously right.
    - tptacek 14y ago
      The point is that if Patrick can do it starting as a Japanese salaryman, you can most probably do it from whatever position you're starting from even more easily. Obviously, most HN'ers haven't established for themselves the career Patrick has. My point addresses why that is. I'm arguing here with the same mentality that says 37signals advice only works for 37signals, "because they got to start with a hugely successful blog".
      - scarmig 14y ago
        I suspect that there's not much difference between what you're saying and what I believe: I also suspect I didn't phrase my original meaning clearly enough, because I think we're speaking at cross purposes. No disagreement with what you're saying, but I was attempting to talk about who Patrick is likely to know given A, not how difficult or easy it is to achieve A if you commit to going down that route.
  - chc 14y ago
    > He started from the worst job in software, and clawed his way out with (all due respect to Patrick) possibly the least technically ambitious product in the history of commercial software development. I don't mean to disagree, per se, but I don't think this is exactly a fair statement. Making a successful business out of selling bingo cards to teachers on the Internet is actually pretty ambitious as far as I can tell. Yes, the bingo card production itself is basically RNG on Rails, but that isn't what made him successful. I could put up a precise clone of Bingo Card Creator and it wouldn't even pay for its hosting. Put another way: If I picked some crappy niche and put up "Hello World" attached to a built-in algorithm, do you really think I'd do as well as he did? (I don't think desire is the difference, as I certainly desire for that to be true, in much the same way I desire for ice cream to not have any calories.) He did an amazing job with practically nothing — do you really disagree with that? It's obviously not impossible, but it's certainly not normal or the preceding statement wouldn't be true. Painting it as impossible is wrong, but trivializing it has the opposite effect of what you want: It makes it look more impossible than it is, because it isn't actually trivial.
    - tptacek 14y ago
      Put another way: If I picked some crappy niche and put up "Hello World" attached to a built-in algorithm, do you really think I'd do as well as he did? $$\ $$\ $$$$$$$$\ $$$$$$\ $$\ \$$\ $$ |$$ _____|$$ __$$\ $$ | \$$\ $$ / $$ | $$ / \__|$$ | \$$$$ / $$$$$\ \$$$$$$\ $$ | \$$ / $$ __| \____$$\ \__| $$ | $$ | $$\ $$ | $$ | $$$$$$$$\ \$$$$$$ |$$\ \__| \________| \______/ \__| You missed only two extra details: * Keep at it for a year or two, in your scarce spare time, and * Carefully study how best to present your offering to your target market
      - chc 14y ago
        Oh, snap. I just got ASCII-arted by tptacek. You know what? I'm going to do this, just so I can settle this once and for all and be right on the Internet. I'll throw up a crap product, work on it like five hours a week, and we'll see how far in the hole I am from hosting costs. Incidentally, it's the second part ("Carefully study how best to present your offering to your target market") that I believe to be tremendously difficult and that I don't believe I will have much chance at. From where I'm standing, one of three things happens: 1. You get lucky and happen to be very good this. 2. You get lucky and happen on the right approach without actually being good at this in general. 3. Your product earns back nearly 10% of its expenses.
- graeme 14y ago
  I think Patrick's point is that his friends are not some kind of transient scam artists.

by patio11 14y ago

FWIW: You could have written essentially the same (fairly value-free) article about a buddy or four of mine, who have roughly the same lifestyle, with the financial support being a software business.

scarmig 14y ago

It's a useful data point, but owing to patio11's unique situation, his friends are probably very non-representative of the general population. Though, it's also important to keep in mind the opposite bias: if someone happens not to live the described lifestyle, it's also fairly possible that that non-transient person also doesn't have a representative sample of the general population among his or her friends. It seems difficult to even design a way to scientifically study this and how widespread it is, too.

tptacek 14y ago
The idea that Patrick's situation is unique is one of the dumbest and most damaging emergent memes on HN. Patrick is literally the textbook story of how to get to this point without having a unique circumstance. He started from the worst job in software, and clawed his way out with (all due respect to Patrick) possibly the least technically ambitious product in the history of commercial software development. Cut it out. The difference between you & Patrick is literally just "desire to be like Patrick".
- scarmig 14y ago
  There is a world of difference between saying it's impossible to accomplish what he has and saying that he, at this moment, has developed a place for himself that relatively few people, even here on HN, have. The former is obviously wrong, just as much as the latter is obviously right.
  - tptacek 14y ago
    The point is that if Patrick can do it starting as a Japanese salaryman, you can most probably do it from whatever position you're starting from even more easily. Obviously, most HN'ers haven't established for themselves the career Patrick has. My point addresses why that is. I'm arguing here with the same mentality that says 37signals advice only works for 37signals, "because they got to start with a hugely successful blog".
    - scarmig 14y ago
      I suspect that there's not much difference between what you're saying and what I believe: I also suspect I didn't phrase my original meaning clearly enough, because I think we're speaking at cross purposes. No disagreement with what you're saying, but I was attempting to talk about who Patrick is likely to know given A, not how difficult or easy it is to achieve A if you commit to going down that route.
- chc 14y ago
  > He started from the worst job in software, and clawed his way out with (all due respect to Patrick) possibly the least technically ambitious product in the history of commercial software development. I don't mean to disagree, per se, but I don't think this is exactly a fair statement. Making a successful business out of selling bingo cards to teachers on the Internet is actually pretty ambitious as far as I can tell. Yes, the bingo card production itself is basically RNG on Rails, but that isn't what made him successful. I could put up a precise clone of Bingo Card Creator and it wouldn't even pay for its hosting. Put another way: If I picked some crappy niche and put up "Hello World" attached to a built-in algorithm, do you really think I'd do as well as he did? (I don't think desire is the difference, as I certainly desire for that to be true, in much the same way I desire for ice cream to not have any calories.) He did an amazing job with practically nothing — do you really disagree with that? It's obviously not impossible, but it's certainly not normal or the preceding statement wouldn't be true. Painting it as impossible is wrong, but trivializing it has the opposite effect of what you want: It makes it look more impossible than it is, because it isn't actually trivial.
  - tptacek 14y ago
    Put another way: If I picked some crappy niche and put up "Hello World" attached to a built-in algorithm, do you really think I'd do as well as he did? $$\ $$\ $$$$$$$$\ $$$$$$\ $$\ \$$\ $$ |$$ _____|$$ __$$\ $$ | \$$\ $$ / $$ | $$ / \__|$$ | \$$$$ / $$$$$\ \$$$$$$\ $$ | \$$ / $$ __| \____$$\ \__| $$ | $$ | $$\ $$ | $$ | $$$$$$$$\ \$$$$$$ |$$\ \__| \________| \______/ \__| You missed only two extra details: * Keep at it for a year or two, in your scarce spare time, and * Carefully study how best to present your offering to your target market
    - chc 14y ago
      Oh, snap. I just got ASCII-arted by tptacek. You know what? I'm going to do this, just so I can settle this once and for all and be right on the Internet. I'll throw up a crap product, work on it like five hours a week, and we'll see how far in the hole I am from hosting costs. Incidentally, it's the second part ("Carefully study how best to present your offering to your target market") that I believe to be tremendously difficult and that I don't believe I will have much chance at. From where I'm standing, one of three things happens: 1. You get lucky and happen to be very good this. 2. You get lucky and happen on the right approach without actually being good at this in general. 3. Your product earns back nearly 10% of its expenses.
graeme 14y ago
I think Patrick's point is that his friends are not some kind of transient scam artists.