4 ms·
I am a former executive of a large famous company in the computer industry. AMA
- kyro 17y agoSome of these Ask Me Anything threads on Reddit are really fascinating, and often times, you'll get people who are/were heavily involved in the cs/startup/business industries. I'm not sure if you guys view these sort of submissions as spammy, so I've tried to not submit every AMA thread that I find relevant and interesting. Anyway, lots of interesting information in this one.
- dkokelley 17y agoI think this comment by the exec may be relevant. (He is talking about his thoughts on starting a company, which he is a part of now.) "A cool technology or product is not a company or a business. A real business is as much about sales & marketing as it is about product. Even if you have invented a flying moon car that runs on urine, if you can't sell it, you don't have a business. Do not start a business without a marketing person and a salesperson." You may not agree about starting with a marketing guy and a sales guy, but I think that if these are shoes you can't or don't want to fill, you must hire them soon.
- staunch 17y agoThis guy was hired right out of college and worked his way up in a massive corporation over 10 years. I would trust his opinions on starting a new company very little. There's no doubt he can talk to the talk. That's the primary mechanism for promotion in a big company. I would be very careful about mistaking his opinions for actual experience.
- mistermann 17y agoI concur....successful one trick ponies should be taken with a grain of salt.
- dkokelley 17y agoAlso keep in mind, he graduated with a CS degree, not a business degree, and he's in a small business now. "I was hired soon after college (computer science degree) and rose up the ranks from product development" So this guy started with a CS degree, hired into product development for a major tech company, and was promoted from there. I'm not saying that necessarily translates to starting a company, but I think his advice holds a little more knowing that he worked both sides of the equation (Product development and management).
- dkokelley 17y agoI apologize for the double post. I found this reply by Exec regarding his startup history. "Yes. Here's my startup track record. I started one that was a success and ran as intended. I started another that was a failure. Mistake: bad market timing. I joined another that was poorly run and I left after others refused to change. Later it failed as expected. I joined another that is on track to do well. I'm still at it. I'm involved in another that is on track to do well. I'm consulting. I evaluate other startups for myself and various investment groups routinely."
- allenbrunson 17y agoi haven't been to reddit in years. this is a lot more polite than i remember.
- wglb 17y agoSome of the subreddits aren't so bad--the programming one and the lisp one are two that come to mind[
- jrockway 17y agoSeriously? I have to go to the womens fashion subreddit to get away from the arbitrary fad-like groupthink on programming.reddit.
- ahpeeyem 17y ago"Once you have something that grows faster than education grows, you’re always going to get a pop culture." http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=1039523 http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=1039523
- jrockway 17y agoSo true. Redditors seem to take a certain pride in being uneducated. Better to spend months reinventing a square wheel poorly than to Google a bit and find a paper on how to design round wheels.
- justinhj 17y agoThe guy is eloquent and honest for a tech exec; I found myself upvoting most of his replies
- buckler 17y agoIn case you're unfamiliar with the IAmA series on Reddit (which I see is getting positive feedback from HN readers, needless to say), a 'starred' post such as this one means that the OP has verified his/her identity with a subreddit moderator. Just wanted to point out since this new process was implemented only few days ago.