Uh Oh. The dreaded [Pic] virus is spreading from the front page of reddit.
A picture can say a thousand words! I wonder if your response would be the same if Phoja was a YC startup?
The whiteboard photo is scribbly, but doesn't suggest more complexity than most small projects. Actual software projects (I'm not talking about Flickr clone #60,255) are incredibly complicated.
I don't see what's so complicated about that whiteboard. Half the boxes are unnecessary to the point at hand, which is how perforce does bugzilla integration.
It doesn't have to.
But most software people tend to design solutions starting from "best practices" and address every imaginable problem ("what if X and Y happen while Z is going on?") so they often end up with complicated stuff. Whereas, if you start from scratch and focus on the most efficient way to address only the main problems, it can be brutally simple.
This reminds me of a game with the Boston Celtics down by a point with 2 seconds left. K.C. Jones, the coach, drew up a play that looked something like this white board. Larry Bird erased the board with his hand and said, "Get me the ball." They got him the ball. He shot. They won.
Sometimes you just gotta code like Larry Bird.
10 PRINT "LARRY RULES"
20 GOTO 10
RUN
Acquisition offers will be entertained: (288) 555-0153
Phoja looks like a nifty startup. Any one got stats or info on them?