petesmithy

These folks at The Onion are too good .. I clicked this thinking it for a moment that I’d missed an egregiously-named real tech company and this was a serious article. It’s been a while. Well played!!

Shadow Divers (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9530.Shadow_Divers) - story of amateur deep sea divers who discover a sunken German U-Boat and spend years trying to get into it. Genuinely riveting story, absolute nutters operating at the edge of what’s possible (and what should be done?).

Additional context for Americans: we basically don’t have guns in Britain. The most dangerous thing these guys did was nearly get run over by the stalker fleeing in his car.

this ^^ I'm afraid; I used to do feedback for everyone if they got to phone interview or beyond; it's time consuming but I thought it would be a better candidate experience; maybe 1/4 people were grateful and positive about receiving feedback, but 1/4 people get argumentative and it can get really personal; now I just say something generic like "we had a lot of strong candidates" and everyone just moves on

"Default Alive" - http://www.paulgraham.com/aord.html

"pre-product market fit" - links to a list of resources: - The only thing that matters by Marc Andreessen https://pmarchive.com/guide_to_startups_part4.html - What is “product/market fit” by Emmett Shear: https://twitter.com/eshear/status/1155180521485242368?lang=e... - Andy Rachleff on “How to Know If You’ve Got Product Market Fit” https://greatness.floodgate.com/episodes/andy-rachleff-on-ho... - How Superhuman Built an Engine to Find Product/Market Fit by Rahul Vohra https://firstround.com/review/how-superhuman-built-an-engine... - The real product market fit by Michael Seibel https://www.ycombinator.com/library/5z-the-real-product-mark... - Jeff Chang's blog - specifically his take on retention as measure of PMF https://www.growthengblog.com/ - Sequoia's Doug Leone discusses PMF https://streamable.com/rm7pr7 - Dalton Caldwell & Michael Seibel discuss PMF https://youtu.be/UqKzpLqXuI0

"Series A Milestones" - links to a private resource available only to YC founders

"Save your startup during an economic downturn" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OVSTWozvfY

I get what you're driving at, but have you considered that sports teams, athletes are also optimising for 15+ year long careers (or even a long season)? Sports teams help players avoid over-training, over-competing, picking up injuries and burning out. Then there's managing the psychological side (keeping on winning, bouncing back from losing) which athletes are also not expected to look after 100% on their own. Finally, there's just simple personal mental health. So it can't be true that a great sports org is constantly driving marginal gains 24/7/365 with every athlete every day the way you describe.

4 day work weeks just look sensible to me. A massive privilege, for sure, given most people will still have to work 5+ days a week for the foreseeable future. But honestly the difference to my life (for the periods of time I've pulled it off) of having a 3- vs a 2-day weekend is ... transformative. And I'm better at my job for it.

A 4-day workweek arguably puts MORE emphasis on everyone in the company knowing exactly what they need to be doing. The company needs to be better run, to take advantage of the productivity boost of happier/better rested/more motivated employees 4 days /wk.

SEEKING FREELANCER | London | Remote or partial on-site in London getcoconut.com

iOS contractor for 3-9 month full-time project email pete@getcoconut.com

The bit that you can still see (ie. mobile app, website) is owned by Warner now actually, acquired by them in July 2017.

The bit that Ticketmaster/LN 'acquired' in 2018 was, by then, just a vehicle for the lawsuit related to this hack/other anti-competitive/monopolistic behaviour.

There are never any future guarantees of liquidity, so take this opportunity.

I get that this shit is hard but who thinks that saying "[o]ur in-house attorneys will shift to have the option to become preferred providers in our professional services network" is ok?

This is such a gross way of putting it.

This isn't a publicly listed company ffs, just say what everyone knows it means: "our startup's Plan A performed unexpectedly so some of our great colleagues, who believed in us and worked hard for up to 2.5 years, are losing their jobs, and this sucks, but based on what we all learned, including thanks to the valuable work the in-house guys did, we're kicking off Plan B today".

This is bad advice. No one should have all their (paper) net worth tied up in one investment. Selling secondary shares is just sensible, even assuming you believe in your company.

Alex Ferguson would do the same, and reporters would curry favour with him in order to maintain access. This is just bully-boy press relations.

For all those looking for new development and data science roles in New York: check out my new startup The Round NYC.

(I previously co-founded Songkick.com, YC s2007)

theround.com

We're putting 100 of New York's top tech teams in one room on 16 April in Brooklyn.

It’s like a totally honest meetup: just the hiring/getting hired bit! We do this already in London as Silicon Milkroundabout.

For our first New York event, we will host 100 teams including Vimeo, Moat, Managed by Q, Karhoo, Interworks, Cloudreach and Voodoo.

There's space for up to 1,000 experienced software developers and data scientists, but spots are by invitation or application only.

The event is insanely cool. If you get in, you get access to the actual team members (founders, CTOs and the engineers themselves). For kicks we throw in a free bar, free daycare, free coffee, free snacks and live art.

If you're a developer or data scientist in New York, apply for your ticket today and I'll be in touch asap to let you know if your application has been successful .. It would be awesome to meet as many fellow HNers as possible!

Pete Smith

(hit me up if you have any questions: pete@theround.com)

you seem threatened and unsettled by a woman whose reaction to sexism in her industry (building a platform for herself from which to fight it) demonstrates intelligence and strength of character

and you used a throwaway YC account to lob words like "militant" and "anti-men" -- when no balanced, serious person would use these words to describe femfreq

so bye bye, you silly boy

and good luck navigating the adult world, with which you seem to be struggling a bit

>>My advice? Given bad choices...

...get fired up, quit your job, and go into politics.

Agreed.

great to hear it!

do you think you'll find a new job as a result?

i agree that that kind of transparency would be amazing for candidates. tough to get all startups to sign up to a public declaration of their runways, however!

but it's usually possible to get a straight answer if you ask as part of the interview process

at songkick we've always been honest about runway, certainly with later-stage interviewees

if a startup who is making you a job offer refuses to answer the runway question, that says something about their general attitude to transparency across the whole team

cheers peter

the event brought so many great London tech start-ups together..

i had great fun doing this interview -- we were all on a real high at the end of the event, and sam asked some great questions

the event goes from strength to strength!

He has a British passport. He was born in Uganda of South African parents, spent his childhood in the Netherlands, "also lived in Stanford, California, Berlin and London", and studied at Oxford and Harvard. He currently lives in France. He should stay there :)

This guy should stick to writing about sports.

Although I agree that the English value both 'winging it' on limited knowledge, and banter / witty repartee. But that is regardless of background.

Excellent :)

err, not just about visas -- i don't believe i have to move 5,500 miles and 8 hours' time difference from home to succeed.. :)

there are big plays in the ~200-company portfolio

Hey - which venue? We'll check it out.. Pete Songkick

I really like this guy's articles... But he seems to have two styles: 1) When he doesn't have much time he'll bang out an amusing, readable rant. 2) When he gives himself space, he writes better than anyone else on TechCrunch. More of 2) !

We (Songkick, yc s2007) have a floor of a warehouse just up the road from Silicon Roundabout. There are about 8 startups based at our place (including Habit Industries, also yc s2007). This post gives a really measured, non-sensatinal view of what it's like to start up in London. We're really enjoying building Songkick here.. It's changed for the better even in the two years we've been starting up. Btw - we have deskspace going at our place - see here: http://www.gumtree.com/london/17/50884217.html

Songkick is hiring.

We're based in London, Ruby on Rails (but if you're good, we'll help you make the switch), great team, growing rapidly.

Currently looking for: Junior Dev, Application Dev, QA Lead.

Due to need to get these roles filled we're favouring EU-based candidates, but if you're elsewhere we will be hiring throughout the year so get in touch regardless. We do sponsor visas, and already have a very international team. No remote working, however.

See http://www.songkick.com/info/jobs