4 ms·

Silver bullets

77 points by tlb 12y ago

tadmilbourn 12y ago
"Now here’s a great paradox for you: If a silver bullet did exist, it would probably take the form of the realization that silver bullets don’t exist." -- Mind blown for the day :-)
ylhert 12y ago
spot on. there is no substitute for hard work
- increment_i 12y ago
  Or, put another way, for those lacking familial wealth or connections, there is no choice but hard work.
  - pariya 12y ago
    Hard work, resourcefulness and imagination...
lostphilosopher 12y ago
If you're interested in this topic, might I recommend: No Silver Bullet: Essence and Accidents of Software Engineering, Frederick Brooks (1987) - http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~cah/G51ISS/Documents/NoSilverBullet.html http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~cah/G51ISS/Documents/NoSilverBulle... No Silver Bullet Refired, Frederick Brooks (1995) Both can be found (along with lots of other good ideas) in The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering, Anniversary Edition - http://www.amazon.com/Mythical-Man-Month-Software-Engineering-Anniversary/dp/0201835959 http://www.amazon.com/Mythical-Man-Month-Software-Engineerin...
jkot 12y ago
Silver bullets do exist, I just found 10 different sellers on Ebay. But steel is probably more effective.
- kefka 12y ago
  It's good if your enemies are vampires. Aside that, not much.
birken 12y ago
> Press flowed effortlessly, funding fell from the sky > Looking in from the outside, I could only assume they possessed secret advantages that I lacked access to. Those secret advantages were just relationships with journalists and investors :) I made the same mistake you did, where I conflated press and funding (especially early stage funding) as signals of some startup skill that must be critically important for success. Incidentally, it was the Exec trajectory that broke me out of that thought process. When they launched, they raised a massive seed round and seemingly got press every week, and I assumed our company (somewhat a competitor) was in big trouble. But it turns out their product didn't work, and all the press and funding they had gotten didn't magically imbue them with any of the hard won insights our company had made. Customers don't care about press, they don't care about your funding, they don't care about your growth. They care about you delivering them a product they want, and there are no shortcuts for that.
- JimboOmega 12y ago
  Incidentally, potential employees often don't care about this stuff, either. It's important you have funding enough to pay them, bur dropping names of investors/board members, or sending links to techcrunch articles just doesn't impress.
  - Kalium 12y ago
    I see this sort of name-dropping a lot from recruiters who understand that it impresses those with no startup experience. "We've been on TechCrunch! Sequoia invested in us!"
    - JimboOmega 12y ago
      Uggh, yes. I did have one recruiter even excitedly email me tech crunch links over the next few days as they got "more press". I also "enjoy" name dropping like: "Someone on our board was like employee #17 at Amazon! He may have even talked to Jeff Bezos once!"
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
rusbus 12y ago
Silver bullets are actually only to kill vampires. The expression most people are looking for is "magic bullet".
- mpdehaan2 12y ago
  Werewolves. For vampires you usually want to stake them through the heart. Mixing those up is a good way to get a vampire or werewolf to laugh at you. Source: I asked a werewolf one time while he was drinking a Pina Colada at Trader Vic's
  - poloniculmov 12y ago
    Silver will harm vampires, but it will not be a one-shot kill. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SilverHasMysticPowers http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SilverHasMysticPo...
- zerocrates 12y ago
  The figurative usage of "silver bullet" isn't necessarily as old as "magic bullet," but it goes back at least to the 1950s. Plus, "magic bullet" usually has a medical connotation owing to the early use of the term by Paul Ehrlich. More importantly, though their range of effectiveness seems to have expanded over the years, silver bullets are traditionally used against werewolves, not vampires.
- twic 12y ago
  Aren't magic bullets only good for killing US Presidents? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-bullet_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-bullet_theory
ezl 12y ago
Really loved this post when I read it the first time: http://www.bhorowitz.com/lead_bullets http://www.bhorowitz.com/lead_bullets Same vein.
- jobu 12y ago
  Yeah that post has one of the best quotes ever: "those silver bullets that you and Mike are looking for are fine and good, but our web server is five times slower. There is no silver bullet that’s going to fix that. No, we are going to have to use a lot of lead bullets."
rudolf0 12y ago
This is a good writeup, but is anyone else getting really sick of the term "silver bullet"? I have been seeing it everywhere since 2013, and the "there's no silver bullet!" truism is growing very trite very quickly.

77 points by tlb 12y ago

"Now here’s a great paradox for you: If a silver bullet did exist, it would probably take the form of the realization that silver bullets don’t exist." -- Mind blown for the day :-)

ylhert 12y ago

spot on. there is no substitute for hard work

increment_i 12y ago
Or, put another way, for those lacking familial wealth or connections, there is no choice but hard work.
- pariya 12y ago
  Hard work, resourcefulness and imagination...

lostphilosopher 12y ago

If you're interested in this topic, might I recommend: No Silver Bullet: Essence and Accidents of Software Engineering, Frederick Brooks (1987) - http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~cah/G51ISS/Documents/NoSilverBullet.html http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~cah/G51ISS/Documents/NoSilverBulle... No Silver Bullet Refired, Frederick Brooks (1995) Both can be found (along with lots of other good ideas) in The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering, Anniversary Edition - http://www.amazon.com/Mythical-Man-Month-Software-Engineering-Anniversary/dp/0201835959 http://www.amazon.com/Mythical-Man-Month-Software-Engineerin...

jkot 12y ago

Silver bullets do exist, I just found 10 different sellers on Ebay. But steel is probably more effective.

kefka 12y ago
It's good if your enemies are vampires. Aside that, not much.

birken 12y ago

> Press flowed effortlessly, funding fell from the sky > Looking in from the outside, I could only assume they possessed secret advantages that I lacked access to. Those secret advantages were just relationships with journalists and investors :) I made the same mistake you did, where I conflated press and funding (especially early stage funding) as signals of some startup skill that must be critically important for success. Incidentally, it was the Exec trajectory that broke me out of that thought process. When they launched, they raised a massive seed round and seemingly got press every week, and I assumed our company (somewhat a competitor) was in big trouble. But it turns out their product didn't work, and all the press and funding they had gotten didn't magically imbue them with any of the hard won insights our company had made. Customers don't care about press, they don't care about your funding, they don't care about your growth. They care about you delivering them a product they want, and there are no shortcuts for that.

JimboOmega 12y ago
Incidentally, potential employees often don't care about this stuff, either. It's important you have funding enough to pay them, bur dropping names of investors/board members, or sending links to techcrunch articles just doesn't impress.
- Kalium 12y ago
  I see this sort of name-dropping a lot from recruiters who understand that it impresses those with no startup experience. "We've been on TechCrunch! Sequoia invested in us!"
  - JimboOmega 12y ago
    Uggh, yes. I did have one recruiter even excitedly email me tech crunch links over the next few days as they got "more press". I also "enjoy" name dropping like: "Someone on our board was like employee #17 at Amazon! He may have even talked to Jeff Bezos once!"
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

rusbus 12y ago

Silver bullets are actually only to kill vampires. The expression most people are looking for is "magic bullet".

mpdehaan2 12y ago
Werewolves. For vampires you usually want to stake them through the heart. Mixing those up is a good way to get a vampire or werewolf to laugh at you. Source: I asked a werewolf one time while he was drinking a Pina Colada at Trader Vic's
- poloniculmov 12y ago
  Silver will harm vampires, but it will not be a one-shot kill. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SilverHasMysticPowers http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SilverHasMysticPo...
zerocrates 12y ago
The figurative usage of "silver bullet" isn't necessarily as old as "magic bullet," but it goes back at least to the 1950s. Plus, "magic bullet" usually has a medical connotation owing to the early use of the term by Paul Ehrlich. More importantly, though their range of effectiveness seems to have expanded over the years, silver bullets are traditionally used against werewolves, not vampires.
twic 12y ago
Aren't magic bullets only good for killing US Presidents? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-bullet_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-bullet_theory

ezl 12y ago

Really loved this post when I read it the first time: http://www.bhorowitz.com/lead_bullets http://www.bhorowitz.com/lead_bullets Same vein.

jobu 12y ago
Yeah that post has one of the best quotes ever: "those silver bullets that you and Mike are looking for are fine and good, but our web server is five times slower. There is no silver bullet that’s going to fix that. No, we are going to have to use a lot of lead bullets."

rudolf0 12y ago

This is a good writeup, but is anyone else getting really sick of the term "silver bullet"? I have been seeing it everywhere since 2013, and the "there's no silver bullet!" truism is growing very trite very quickly.