dcraw

My brother wrote an essay on how to work with "stupid" people (which starts with recognizing they're not stupid).

https://jasoncrawford.org/how-to-work-with-stupid-people

Awesome demo video!

Read The Phoenix Project, a book which fictionalizes this issue. As a novel, it covers not only technical and process steps, but most importantly how to talk through the negotiations and emotions that come up along the way.

https://g.co/kgs/Mq634e

Looks cool. You may like https://workflowy.com/

Sounds interesting, but not obvious to me. What are the dividends?

Most people seem to be evaluating this question on an egalitarian premise: what's best for the greatest number of people? On that premise, taking money from very wealthy people and giving it to others will always seems appealing (even though it destroys wealth).

But let's evaluate it from the premise of justice. By what principle can we remove control of these companies from those who created them? From those who have worked there and earned equity in them? From those who have invested in the public stock in order to fund growth and earn a return? By what principle can a government interfere with a private contract, one that has governed how a group of people work together for 15 or 20 years, and unilaterally break it?

The argument is that the companies have too much power. But what kind of power? Can they take money out of your paycheck without your permission? Can they prevent you from erecting a building on your property without their approval? Can they imprison you for failing to appear at a hearing?

There is a difference between government power and economic power. Government power is the power to compel, and it the source of the power is the army and the police, or, more bluntly, the gun.

Economic power is the power to create. The source of economic power is the value that is offered. Sometimes a business offers something so valuable that people shape their lives around its presence and start to take it for granted. These are the businesses we punish most.

Should we turn economic power into government power? The immediate implication is frightening. All three of these companies have well-staffed legal departments challenging the government's requests for private information about their users. Who will fight those requests when these companies are agencies of the executive office?

The long term implications are devastating. Who will create the next Facebook, Google, or Amazon with the prospect of working 20 years and having it taken by force, as punishment for succeeding too much?

And would a nationalized Google have created a self-driving car? Would a nationalized Amazon have invented AWS? Would a nationalized Facebook invest in high-speed internet for Africa? Nationalization destroys growth.

Economic growth follows economic freedom. The world has experimented many times, and the theory and the experiments agree—Venezuela is only the most recent tragic example. At the root of any other argument is a desire to redistribute wealth.

Alation (http://alation.com) - Redwood City, CA; Seattle, WA - Sales and customer success REMOTE

Looking for Full Stack and Backend Software Engineers, DevOps, Product Managers, Product Marketing, Digital Marketing, Sales Executives and Sales Development Representatives. VISAs welcome, though we can't relocate international candidates right now.

Alation is democratizing access to data by tackling one of the most universal challenges in analysis – the challenge of context. We analyze petabyte-scale data warehouses at companies ranging from retail to banking to pharmaceuticals to improve the way data is accessed. Alation has brought together an incredible team of engineers, designers, and executives from Google, Apple, Oracle, IBM, one-man startups and top schools. We have raised $32m and our customers include eBay, Square, Citrix, Pfizer, General Electric, and Tesla.

We've got a great product in a huge market with great people, and we have a lot of fun. Come join us!

https://alation.com/careers/ or send your resume to jobs@alation.com

30-minute talk about the problem we're solving by our head of product: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeY5VxdUa6Y

Alation (http://alation.com), Redwood City, CA (sales and customer success REMOTE)

Looking for Full Stack and Backend Software Engineers, DevOps, Technical Support Engineers, Customer Success, Product Marketing, Digital Marketing, Sales Executives and Sales Development Representatives. VISAs welcome, though we can't relocate international candidates right now.

Alation is democratizing access to data by tackling one of the most universal challenges in analysis – the challenge of context. We analyze petabyte-scale data warehouses at companies ranging from retail to banking to pharmaceuticals to improve the way data is accessed. Alation has brought together an incredible team of engineers, designers, and executives from Google, Apple, Oracle, IBM, one-man startups and top schools. We raised a $9m Series A, and our customers include eBay, Square, Citrix, General Electric, and Tesla.

We've got a great product in a huge market with the right people for the job, and we have a hell of a lot of fun. Come join us!

https://alation.com/careers/

30-minute talk about the problem we're solving by our head of product: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeY5VxdUa6Y

We had a similar problem and have made a lot of progress by reducing the size of changes submitted for review. We used to submit code only when we thought a feature was complete, and the median review was probably 1000 lines. Now we're closer to 100-200.

This has a ton of positive effects:

  - Reviewing code is much less daunting
  - Reviewers give more detailed feedback
  - Developers get feedback on lower layers (such as model definition) before writing a ton of code that depends on it
  - Reviews come quickly enough that developers don't need to switch to another project before continuing

It was a bit difficult to make this transition. We started out by explaining what we wanted to do (submit shorter diffs) and why, and people generally were on board. But most people didn't know how to do it. It's not as simple as submitting a diff whenever you write 100 lines of code, since the diffs need to be coherent. Here are some techniques we used:

  - Use feature flags to commit unfinished features to master/trunk without exposing them
  - Submit model changes as their own diffs, then API changes, then UI changes
  - As you work on a feature, pick out parts that seem ready for review, stage and commit them, send for review, then branch again from that point and continue working.  This takes a decent amount of git-fu, so train folks accordingly.

Another thing to note is that our reviews are not at all evenly distributed around the team. We have a team of 13 engineers, and it's probably an 80-20 split—80% of reviews are done by 20% of reviewers

Love this! Is there a way to trigger it to run when an event happens in my book?

Alternatively: rudo?

Alation (http://alation.com), Redwood City, CA

Looking for UI and Data Software Engineers, DevOps, Systems Engineers, Customer Success Lead, Product Designer, Demand Marketing, Content Marketing, and Sales Development Representatives. VISAs welcome, though we can't relocate international candidates right now.

Alation is democratizing access to data by tackling one of the most universal challenges in analysis – the challenge of context. We analyze petabyte-scale data warehouses at companies ranging from eCommerce to online radio to improve the way data is accessed. Alation has brought together an incredible team of engineers, designers, and executives from Google, Apple, Oracle, IBM, one-man startups and top schools. We raised a $9m Series A, and our customers include eBay, Square, and TripAdvisor.

We've got a great product in a huge market with the right people for the job, and we have a hell of a lot of fun. Come join us!

http://dataconomy.com/alation-unveil-their-google-for-data-f...

https://alation.com/careers/

Alation (http://alation.com), Redwood City, CA

Looking for UI and Data Software Engineers, DevOps, Systems Engineers, Customer Success Lead, Product Designer, Demand Marketing, Content Marketing, and Sales Development Representatives. VISAs welcome, though we can't relocate international candidates right now.

Alation is democratizing access to data by tackling one of the most universal challenges in analysis – the challenge of context. We analyze petabyte-scale data warehouses at companies ranging from eCommerce to online radio to improve the way data is accessed. Alation has brought together an incredible team of engineers, designers, and executives from Google, Apple, Oracle, IBM, one-man startups and top schools. We raised a $9m Series A, and our customers include eBay, Square, and Hipmunk.

We've got a great product in a huge market with the right people for the job, and we have a hell of a lot of fun. Come join us!

http://dataconomy.com/alation-unveil-their-google-for-data-f...

https://alation.com/careers/

Alation (http://alation.com), Redwood City, CA

Looking for UI and Data Software Engineers, DevOps, Customer Success Lead, Product Designer, Demand Marketing, Content Marketing, and Sales Development Representatives. VISAs welcome, though we can't relocate international candidates right now.

Alation is democratizing access to data by tackling one of the most universal challenges in analysis – the challenge of context. We analyze petabyte-scale data warehouses at companies ranging from eCommerce to online radio to improve the way data is accessed. Alation has brought together an incredible team of engineers, designers, and executives from Google, Apple, Oracle, IBM, one-man startups and top schools. Just announced: a $9m Series A, and our customers include eBay, Square, and Hipmunk.

We've got a great product in a huge market with the right people for the job, and we have a hell of a lot of fun. Come join us!

http://dataconomy.com/alation-unveil-their-google-for-data-f...

https://alation.com/careers/

Plugging my own relatively new podcast, Theory and Craft (http://www.theoryandcraft.fm)

Each episode we take a paper or topic from the research world and discuss how it applies to us as practicing software engineers.

Somewhat inspired by Adrian Colyer's Morning Paper (http://blog.acolyer.org/).

I'm also a big fan of:

* http://www.se-radio.net/ - hour-long interviews with solid guests

* http://giantrobots.fm/ - pretty wide array of topics (tech, design, business) covered by a Boston-based rails dev shop

* http://nodeup.com/ - Only NodeJS, well-produced, infrequent

Looking for UI and data Software Engineers, DevOps, Demand Marketing, Product Marketing, and Sales Development Representatives. VISAs welcome, though we can't relocate international candidates right now.

Alation is democratizing access to data by tackling one of the most universal challenges in analysis – the challenge of context. We analyze petabyte-scale data warehouses at companies ranging from eCommerce to online radio to improve the way data is accessed. Alation has brought together an incredible team of engineers, designers, and executives from Google, Apple, Oracle, IBM, one-man startups and top schools. Just announced: a $9m Series A, and our customers include eBay, Square, and Hipmunk.

We've got a great product in a huge market with the right people for the job, and we have a hell of a lot of fun. Come join us!

https://alation.com/careers/ or contact joanna.leon@alation.com

Alation (http://alation.com), Redwood City, CA

Looking for UI and data Software Engineers, DevOps, Demand Marketing, and Sales Development Representatives. VISAs welcome, though we can't relocate international candidates right now.

Alation is democratizing access to data by tackling one of the most universal challenges in analysis – the challenge of context. We analyze petabyte-scale data warehouses at companies ranging from eCommerce to online radio to improve the way data is accessed. Alation has brought together an incredible team of engineers, designers, and executives from Google, Apple, Oracle, IBM, one-man startups and top schools. Just announced: a $9m Series A, and our customers include eBay, Square, and Hipmunk.

We've got a great product in a huge market with the right people for the job, and we have a hell of a lot of fun. Come join us!

http://jobs.lever.co/alation or contact joanna.leon@alation.com

Alation (http://alation.com), Redwood City, CA

Looking for UI and data Software Engineers, DevOps, Demand Marketing, and Sales Development Representatives. VISAs welcome, though we can't relocate international candidates right now.

Alation is democratizing access to data by tackling one of the most universal challenges in analysis – the challenge of context. We analyze petabyte-scale data warehouses at companies ranging from eCommerce to online radio to improve the way data is accessed. Alation has brought together an incredible team of engineers, designers, and executives from Google, Apple, Oracle, IBM, one-man startups and top schools. Just announced: a $9m Series A, and our customers include eBay, Square, and Hipmunk.

We've got a great product in a huge market with the right people for the job, and we have a hell of a lot of fun. Come join us!

http://jobs.lever.co/alation or contact joanna.leon@alation.com

Alation (http://alation.com), Redwood City, CA

Looking for UI and data software engineers, campaign managers, and sales development representatives. VISAs welcome, though we can't relocate international candidates right now.

Alation is democratizing access to data by tackling one of the most universal challenges in analysis – the challenge of context. We analyze petabyte-scale data warehouses at companies ranging from eCommerce to online radio to improve the way data is accessed. Alation has brought together an incredible team of engineers, designers, and executives from Google, Apple, Oracle, IBM, one-man startups and top schools.

Just announced: a $9m Series A, and our customers include eBay, Square, and Hipmunk.

We've got a great product in a huge market with the right people for the job, and we have a hell of a lot of fun. Come join us!

http://jobs.lever.co/alation or contact joanna.leon@alation.com

Alation (http://alation.com), Redwood City, CA

Looking for software engineers, sales engineers/customer success, and sales development representatives. INTERNs, and VISAs welcome, though we can't relocate international candidates right now.

Alation is democratizing access to data by tackling one of the most universal challenges in analysis – the challenge of context. We analyze petabyte-scale data warehouses at companies ranging from eCommerce to online radio to improve the way data is accessed. Alation has brought together an incredible team of engineers, designers, and executives from Google, Apple, Oracle, IBM, one-man startups and top schools. We've got a great product in a huge market with the right people for the job, and we have a hell of a lot of fun. Come join us!

http://jobs.lever.co/alation or contact joanna.leon@alation.com

Alation (http://alation.com), Redwood City, CA

Looking for software engineers, sales engineers/customer success, and sales development representatives. INTERNs, and VISAs welcome, though we can't relocate international candidates right now.

Alation is democratizing access to data by tackling one of the most universal challenges in analysis – the challenge of context. We analyze petabyte-scale data warehouses at companies ranging from eCommerce to online radio to improve the way data is accessed. Alation has brought together an incredible team of engineers, designers, and executives from Google, Apple, Oracle, IBM, one-man startups and top schools. We've got a great product in a huge market with the right people for the job, and we have a hell of a lot of fun. Come join us!

http://jobs.lever.co/alation or contact me at dac@alation.com

I think it's similar to why people don't just set up an AWS box and cron rsync instead of using Dropbox. Or the same benefit as using Heroku over AWS directly. If you're not deeply familiar with server administration, there are a hundred or so snags in managing synchronization of code and data between systems, getting the remote system set up to run the same code as your local system, and managing all the runs and results.

You're totally right on the averages. I'll add the percentiles but maybe I can also make it extensible somehow.

I haven't thought about callback code at all... if you have any ideas or sample code to share, it would be great if you could create a github issue for it.

Thanks!

Thanks for your thoughts!

Yeah, the simplest thing to do would be to add the module name, which I may do. You can also pass a name parameter to the decorator.

Cool, thanks for the link. I like their logging support.

Looks interesting. Just a heads up that the video on the home page doesn't want to load for me. I'm getting a javascript error about the youtube frame trying to access the sayafter.me frame.

I'd love to know more about the plan, and the milestones you set for yourself. Without a product in market, how did you come up with feasible numbers to reach for?

Here are a bunch more questions just as fodder:

How much did you have to adapt your pitch based on the investor? Did you have multiple pitches, geared to things you knew about an investor going in? Or did you do more of your adaptation on the fly, based on the reaction of the investor?

How many nos did you get before a yes?

Where would you say you wasted the most time, and you would not pitch that type of angel, or not pursue that kind of introduction, etc, next time?

Thanks for the post, and looking forward to your follow up(s)!

It doesn't mean nothing. There's a range of equity that will be given away during any round. I don't know how high the variance is but it's probably less than 30% and more than 10%.

Life cannot be sustained without effort. Does real freedom entail freedom from the demands of reality? The question I have is, whose obligation would you say it is to provide a job that you consider good enough?