dohertyjf

That's fair, but that also doesn't necessarily mean that people are moving out of urban areas. Also, if you haven't noticed, NYC is still VERY dense (I used to live there). You could also make the argument that the mean center of the US has moved because there are a lot more people in the US now than there were in 1910 (I dont think anyone would argue against that) and more people have moved West as cars have become more prevalent and air travel is much easier. Therefore I don't think your argument stands.

I'll also present you with this about apartment construction now driving the economic recovery, not single family homes (disclosure: I work for rentals site hotpads.com, owned by Zillow) - http://time.com/102822/housing-apartments/

It was grey and lousy when I was there too :-) Still a lot of cyclists including my old coworkers.

I'd dare say we could fit 4 bikes in a much smaller place too. It's not the size of the place that's at debate here though.

Interesting points for sure. At some point I just say that sweating after a commute is something we have to deal with (same as getting fat by driving a car :-)). I'd rather bike and be sweaty than fat and driving a car (yes, I know not all car commuters are fat, but in generalities...).

The separated thing is super interesting to me. Obviously we couldn't do it on all streets, like the very skinny SF ones you talk about (I live near many of them in the Lower Haight). On those, which are not major thoroughfares, mixing bikes and cars is fine. But when it comes to a 4-6 lane street like Market St (or some in Chicago), separated makes sense. The traffic will go around if the street is less amenable to them. It's the same argument as taking down a freeway through a city. SF did it both at the Embarcardero (well, that one was by natural causes aka an earthquake), but then also at Octavia. Traffic slowed, neighborhoods revitalized. Studies have been done showing that taking these down doesn't greatly increase driving times, and often the traffic driving them doesn't actually stop in the city that they pass through. Instead they pollute the air and leave. Strong argument for taking them down, IMO.

But I've digressed. I agree there are challenges and never a one-size-fits-all solution. But there are solutions that are not currently being put into place that benefit the vast majority.

</rant>

I'd like to hear that argument too. Also, there are a lot of people who prefer cycling over even decent public transit. Doesn't apply in SF, but does in NY/Brooklyn.

Not if more people committed to riding bikes...

" People have been moving out of dense cities for 100 years now."

Data to support this? Every study I've seen recently shows that people are moving INTO cities, not out of them.

Wow really? You spent 4 weeks in London and never saw a cyclist? Were you out in the suburbs? I spent a bunch of time in London and saw a TON of cyclists in central London. Many of them took the train out to where I was staying too (outside Brixton).

I also don't buy the "small apartments" thing. We live in a 650sq ft apartment and have 4 bikes hung up on our wall. Where there's a will, there's a way.

I both agree and disagree with you. As a bike commuter in San Francisco, which is a much more bike friendly city than New York where I used to commute to Union Square from Park Slope, I definitely experience the "traffic too fast" thing. I am lucky to have an office now where I can store my bike in our office (we have dedicated bike parking inside on the 11th floor where our office is), but I also know that is rare. However, it does make it more likely that I'll ride to work (and do every day).

Regarding getting to work sweaty, why not ride slower? Sure, you might live in a hotter place than I do, but if you reduce your speed you'll sweat less. I think many of us on bikes are still getting out of the lead foot mentality of driving a car.

Traffic too fast can be controlled. Traffic too slow? That's one that can be solved by separated bike lanes. Look at the Netherlands and how they solve it. I personally hate the combined bike/traffic sections of Market St in San Francisco. Those are the most terrifying 7 blocks of my commute.

Ultimately AS a marketer, I'd agree that the point is to sell you something when you like my brand. It's inherently self-serving, but that doesn't mean that a brand can't bring you joy and satisfaction through their interactions with you online.

IE I like GoPro on Facebook. Ultimately they want me to buy a $400 camera and all the accessories, but they also inspire me with images and photos to get me outdoors enjoying things I also love.

So...complicated thoughts are complicated.

Check out meetup for interesting things happening. You can find people immersed in their laptops at any coffee shop in the city, especially SOMA.

But yes, since the weather will be nice you should get outside. Rent a bike, go to the GG Bridge, Twin Peaks, etc. It's a beautiful town.

How do I know? I live here and work in FiDi in tech. I've yet to meet a VC at a coffee shop.

San Francisco, New York, Seattle, Lincoln NE, Irvine CA

Zillow and its numerous business has a lot of openings, including engineering jobs in San Francisco and Seattle. Salary is very competitive, amazing benefits, great company to work for that is investing in growth and hires only the best.

Full list of jobs - http://www.zillow.com/jobs/openings/

This!

You win. That was hilarious.

Hence why Square was invented...

SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY

Are you arguing that someone should say it's wrong/offensive?

I submitted the article. I found it fascinating as a marketer myself. However, I'm also a recovering porn addict. I haven't looked at pornography since 2006. Did I find porn harmful to my life? Absolutely. Am I going to say that others shouldn't have the right to look at it? Nope. Am I going to recommend that people not do it because it will skew their view, wrongly, about what sex is really like? You betcha.

That said, I'm not against this company building their user base in this way. They've gone to where the users are, whether we want them to be there or not.

That's not necessarily the point though. While they did initially come up with the idea because pornstars are some of their brand advocates, they realized that it's much cheaper and cost-effective to advertise there as opposed to a NYT or WaPo that has just as many readers, but is also noisier.

Comic Sans to a summons. Now THERE's an idea!

Ahaha this was amazing. Too bad HN won't let it hit the homepage :-/

I don't think that's the point. The point is that Google isn't differentiating between a business profile and a personal profile well.

You make some good points, Austinz. I start with the thought of "What kind of life do I want to live?" and then go from there to figure out how much I need to make to make it happen. Then, any money made above that goes into savings or investing or back into a side project. The goal, for me, is to get to the place I want to be and then I will never go out on my own without the business to support it.

I think what you say about toxicity is really interesting. If it's not toxic, it depends on the person if they want to put up with it.

I'm slowly learning which one I am. I think I can put up with it, but I don't want to.

It's an interesting thought and I wonder how many of us who make money on the Internet and spend our days working for smaller companies will actually end up working for corporations. But, we should also note that you can keep working on side projects while working for a big corporation. This also is not the end of the world, depending on who you are. Some, that will kill their soul. For others, it's a great way to have stability and also get to work on what you love.

That said, it's not the end of the world. A big company can afford many things - incredible monetary backing to ship new things, a large support ring, and also stability. I've often railed on the choices of our parents to live in suburbia, but the older I get I realize that I could see myself living in a decent sized house with some land.

Thanks to Ryan for writing the post and getting this discussion started.

I know you're speaking in broad generalizations, but you should read some of Rand's stuff before passing judgment on him. He's written some amazing stuff on Moz - http://moz.com/community/users/63#posts

Full disclosure: I'm a Moz associate and a personal friend of Rand's.

I still find it amazing that people respond with a "thanks for favoriting" tweet. I get it when someone shares out your link, but favoriting? Who really knows why someone has favorited - it could be so that they remember it later, so that it pushes to their Pocket or Instapaper account (via IFTTT), or a multitude of other reasons.

And yes, I agree with @ultimoo that Twitter needs to do something about this.

I laughed out loud at this:

The Facebook Platform is a shape-shifting, chimeric shadow of suffering and despair, a cruel joke perpetrated upon honest men and women at the brutish whim of bloodthirsty sociopaths sick with bilious greed and absent mercy or decency. Developing for the Facebook Platform is picking out the wallpaper for one's own death row holding cell, the cleaver for one's own blood sacrifice.

I love this part -

"Maybe people get tired of building houses for other people. Maybe people want to build their own houses. They sure as shit have the necessary experience. More houses should be built by people who’ve been through the experience..."

I think that's what a lot of programmers/marketers/entrepreneurial spirits feel. Eventually, we want to build our own thing.

Where are you located?

Out of curiousity, what if they did the same thing as you, or a very similar thing? If you serve scientists with lasers (how Austin Powers of you), and they serve scientists with lasers, what would you do?

Fair point. Updated comment.

Building off the history of, yes. The history of openness and transparency, not becoming an admin on DMOZ for the sake of a link from one of the strongest domains on the Internet.