A few years ago building an app or a website was enough to get you a job at a lot of different companies. But it’s not like that anymore. We just have too many qualified candidates to take a chance on someone with limited in-depth technical experience. This is 2016 not 2012.
A collage sophomore envisions a dystopian future when hiring is based on formal education and not practical qualifications.
The Instagramers were lucky. That’s not to diminish what they accomplished. Systrom found someone willing to put out serious money for his startup. It’s every founder’s dream, but the reality for too few in the consumer space.
Enterprise technology has minted many more millionaires. Instead of hoping to score with some new awkward digital tribadism—think Instagram meets Pintrest, optimized for Google Glass—try building a company to solve a real problem with real innovation and serious intellectual property. One that attracts customers, not just users. One that will employ people, make money and maybe even pay income taxes.
Much needed perspective on Instagram's acquisition.
DISCLAIMER: I run a paid bookmarking site. Every morning I wake up and dive into my vault of golden coins.
Pinboard's developer on free web apps. Since I've been finally hit by the problem of vanishing free services, I now have more sympathy for his argument.
What I haven't mentioned on any of my blogs yet is that to enable me to do this, I used a (legal) drug called Modafinil, also known as Alertec or Provigil. In the startup world, where everyone is driven to get more things done than fit in the day's waking hours, the topic of using so-called "cognitive enhancers" surfaces every once in a while.
A first-hand detailed account of the usage of a “smart-drug” Modafinil, with predictable conclusions.
He and other video game executives in Europe say the culture of collaboration on strategy is typical of European startup management as well as European game play, as opposed to a more capitalistic winner-takes-all game style in the United States. “We work very much with each other rather than against each other,” he said. “We believe in competition--but more in competition with competitors, not in competition inside the company.” And he may not be alone in such philosophies.
On the corporate culture of my employer.
I need to be able to log into a secure web portal and see my medical records, what immunizations I’ve had, who my doctors have been, my insurance information, and I need to be able to share this if I change doctors. Instead of filling out the same form for 30 minutes every time I enter a doctor’s office, I need to talk to a real person about my health problems and keep track of how I’m solving them.
The article lists few big problems that are still waiting to be solved. It ends with rather pessimistic conclusion, but the list itself is an interesting one.
That’s the way it has to work in a knowledge organization. You don’t build a startup with one big gigantic brain on the top, and a bunch of lesser brains obeying orders down below. You try to get everyone to have a gigantic brain in their area, and you provide a minimum amount of administrative support to keep them humming along.
I wonder who are Joel Spolsky's readers: programmers or CEO's...
The world is full of ideas that can be executed with 10 to 20 hours per week, let alone 40. The number of projects that are truly impossible unless you put in 80 or 120 hours per week are vanishingly small by comparison.
37signals is out there again to fight the suicidal startup ethos.
I will only give a job if:
- I can fire you, if I want to.
- If VAT goes down to at least 20%, better yet 15%.
- If the state takes away "only" 30% of your money.
- If higher income is not exponentially punished.
- If the state punishes corruption instead of decent companies.
An inflammatory post about realities of starting a business in Hungary, that made a splash on Hacker News. It's starts with some outrageous statements, but it's worth reading on till the end. The perception of the article seems to depend whether readers were coming from Eastern Europe or Western countries.
Whoever started the TED Women’s conference is pathetic. Which would you rather say you spoke at? TED? Or the TED Ghetto?
Any article taking a stance in the “women in tech” debate is guaranteed to provoke the accusations of sexism from the other side. This one is no exception. By now I should have learned to avoid paying any attention to this subject.
