Hacker News Reader

"The first ten years were about bootstrapping this network." Can somebody please enlighten me on what he means here? I had previously thought that "bootstrapping" is a term reserved by those who are developing with little resources?

Is there some other meaning that i'm not aware of?

View on HN

"In computer technology the term (usually shortened to booting) usually refers to the process of loading the basic software into the memory of a computer after power-on or general reset, especially the operating system which will then take care of loading other software as needed." So I'm assuming they are saying that they "creating the necessary software/infrastructure for the network to run on", rather than using it in the "bootstrapping a startup" sense.

Awesome.. OK that makes much more sense now, i knew i was missing something important!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com