Hacker News Reader

This is a very good anecdote, and helps us understand that 'shit' is in the eye of the beholder.

If it solves a real problem, and allows companies to do 'xyz' , maybe it doesn't matter if there are bugs and glitches here and there.

If there is only 'one kind of car' and that's all anyone knew, nobody would mind that there were always leaky oil issues if the alternative was 'horses'.

View on HN

It's a terrible anecdote, it's only redeeming quality is that it's based on a true story.

We could have fired Chris and replaced him the next day. We should have. We will never be able to know or quantify the loss accrued to Chris's irresponsible behavior. We got lucky.

It costs nothing extra to write correct bug-free code if you know how, and bug-free code will always be preferable to buggy code.

Indeed.

The YC application has a question along the lines of "why is the thing you're building so compelling that customers will tolerate a buggy product?"

Reply on news.ycombinator.com