spaghetti

5 ms·

1.
by spaghetti 11y ago
Convincing yourself that future success isn't predictable is actually pretty easy. Regardless of how technically awesome someone is, there's a random variable that can dramatically affect one's future success: the candidate&#
2.
by spaghetti 13y ago
I have a few thoughts on this in no particular order: - It would be interesting if the top list gaming mentioned in the article was eliminated by replacing download or install count with something more meaningful like "frequency of app
3.
by spaghetti 13y ago
My experience participating in TopCoder SRMs (quick algorithm development competitions) has payed off quite a bit when it comes to white board coding style interviews (both as the interviewee and the interviewer). Just thought I'd share a f
4.
by spaghetti 13y ago
One option is essentially a programming test framed as a first quick milestone. Say the app is for taking and sharing photos and has a $10k budget. Start with a milestone for an app with a single button. When the button is tapped the user c
5.
by spaghetti 13y ago
Yes there are great developers and other professionals on Elance. Think about it from a developer's perspective: I can work at one company, on a relatively small variety of projects, probably maintaining some legacy code, with the same peop
6.
by spaghetti 13y ago
Milestones are great. However I like to have reasonably consistent prices. For a $4000 project you can have, say, four milestones with prices $500, $1000, $1000, $1500. This way the client can bail out after the first milestone if things ar
7.
by spaghetti 13y ago
Do salary deltas of even 100k make a substantial difference to the bottom line for large tech companies like FB and GOOG? Of course the difference is greater than zero but as a percentage of operating cost I imagine it's relatively small. M
8.
by spaghetti 13y ago
I like to partition companies with products that gain traction into two groups. In the first group are technically mediodcre founders who cobbled together a product that's almost unmaintainable. The second group consists of relatively exper
9.
by spaghetti 14y ago
I've never designed large-scale systems however I'm still fascinated. I wonder if LBs could learn over time which requests will probably take a while and which have large probability of being fast? Then the requests could be uniformly distr
10.
by spaghetti 14y ago
Probably nothing. I just find it interesting that an organization like Google with practically unlimited resources can't keep someone (who can probably get anything they want in terms of perks) around.
11.
by spaghetti 14y ago
I agree this is true for small companies. However Dropbox is not a small company by most measures. Also pg's remarks about how you couldn't acquire Dropbox or Airbnb for (some large dollar amount I forget) lead me to believe Google won't be
12.
by spaghetti 14y ago
Wow if he really did contribute a lot (which I don't doubt at all) then how did Google let him get away? I'd imagine his lifestyle there was pretty nice.
13.
by spaghetti 14y ago
Perhaps companies that have existed for less than n years?
14.
by spaghetti 14y ago
This is great Dropbox PR. Also I'd imagine DB Python developers are excited!
15.
by spaghetti 14y ago
Good point. I wouldn't formally require the SO. I'd just phrase the invite to make it clear that my SO and I would like to have dinner. If they have an SO but don't bring them that's another potential signal (could be good or bad).
16.
by spaghetti 14y ago
I was just thinking about this today. To interview a potential co-founder I'd have a meal with the person and their SO. Then I'd observe the dynamic between them. Does the potential co-founder treat the SO poorly? Or is it reversed? Ideally
17.
by spaghetti 14y ago
Airbnb should have a phone number that people who are renting out their homes can call 24/7 for help, advice etc. If they do have this why didn't the author use it?
18.
by spaghetti 14y ago
Good point about the lack of agility. Internal politics probably have a negative impact as well. I could see some team's feature going live for 1% of users then managers and other internal stake holders endlessly arguing about the measureme
19.
by spaghetti 14y ago
This astronomical user-base begs the question: why aren't you the most profitable company on the planet right now? You have the users, the money, the connections and the engineering talent. So what's the problem?
20.
by spaghetti 14y ago
I'm wondering about the two-year or similar contracts people signed when they purchased or obtained for free a 3GS? Perhaps there's a corner case when someone got a 3GS + 2 year contract just five months ago. Might be some backlash if the d
21.
by spaghetti 14y ago
What's a typical day like for a software engineer working in finance? I've worked in a variety of environments so I know that arrival times, perks, leaving time, meetings etc can all vary a lot. However I've never worked in finance or known
22.
by spaghetti 14y ago
I agree about the phone screen length. Whether you call it an interview or a screen it can probably be much shorter than hour with almost all of the benefits.
23.
by spaghetti 14y ago
I don't think engineers should ever spend their time asking Fizzbuzz. Engineers' time is valuable. And blocking off an hour for a phone screen can interrupt the day. If a preliminary code sample filtering step is used then engineers can jum
24.
by spaghetti 14y ago
Just want to point out that back-end improvements alone aren't sufficient to have Apple's Maps be on par with Google Maps. Adding something like Street View to Maps will require non-trivial updates to the iOS app (not to mention the colossa
25.
by spaghetti 14y ago
This sounds pretty cool! Are there any screenshots of the chess app available to non app.net members? I'd like to see what using an app in app.net looks like. If it looks good I'll sign up for app.net and start developing apps immediately.
26.
by spaghetti 14y ago
In my mind the labels "brilliant" and "jerk" contradict each other. When someone is truly bright they will realize how much can be gained from learning to interact with other people, building rapport with coworkers etc. These skills can be
27.
by spaghetti 14y ago
I think code reviews are fine as long as people are learning and building rapport with each other. When either of those are missing the reviews can be a waste of time and even detrimental to working relationships. YMMV to say the least. You
28.
by spaghetti 14y ago
It's good to distinguish between people who want to make a decent amount of money in order to live comfortably from those that want to make as much as possible in order to compete with their peers and perhaps make up for some self-esteem or
29.
by spaghetti 14y ago
How can the shift to mobile possibly reduce volume of FB usage? I see friends and family consuming Facebook trash dozens of times per day on their mobile devices. If anything FB consumption has gone up (at least from my perspective). Look a
30.
by spaghetti 14y ago
In my particular case I don't think there was an inventory limitation issue. Reason is websites with Adsense addressing the same niche were serving extremely relevant and targeted ads while my Android app with Admob just gets junk. The obvi

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