Hacker News Reader

Great list of working docs. Congrats Danielle & team.

raheemmon For Sale: Deep, Spacious Roswell Property, Once Occupied by a Missile

The military designed the missiles and the bunkers that housed them with the utmost urgency, working at a moment when the concern over national security was so severe that it bordered on panic.

raheemmon Goldman Sachs Recasts Its Reputation to Woo Tech Talent

"Why I'm Leaving Goldman Sachs" - http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/14/opinion/why-i-am-leaving-g...

How Goldman screwed its IPO clients - http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/opinion/sunday/nocera-rigg...

raheemmon A Long, Ugly Year of Depression That’s Finally Fading

So few people and places can allow for this level of vulnerability and authenticity. This post is going to help a lot of people.

I have even more respect for Rand and Moz. We can say Fail Fast, Fail this, fail that ... but this kind of writing is the true embrace of failure, learning, wisdom, humanity.

raheemmon Running out of savings just as getting close to traction

Yeah I gave the discount because in one transaction I could sell 50 subscriptions. Also the guy I gave the deal to had helped me quite a bit earlier on.

raheemmon Running out of savings just as getting close to traction

Yup I know. Just trying to make things work.

raheemmon Running out of savings just as getting close to traction

It's a loyalty app for online stores. Think airline miles for ecommerce stores.

raheemmon Fred Wilson: By 2020 Apple Won’t Be A Top-3 Tech Company; Google, Facebook Will

Re Apple, I get his point about their cloud offering sucking and hence they are losing out on the biggest trend. But Apple is also hyper-focused on user-experience and design, which is a huge strength.

What I really don't get is his claim that Facebook will be one of the top 2 tech companies? Really?! Why? Because they are riding the cloud wave?!! FB, the social network itself is so ready for disruption that I believe it'll be dethroned just as easily as MySpace was. It's just a matter of someone figuring Social Network 3.0.

raheemmon Bill Gates on track to own no Microsoft stock in four years

Most founders have a sense of entitlement to their companies and understandably so. In fact, it becomes a generational entitlement, as can be seen with family businesses and family fortunes.

Gates displays advanced thinking in divesting his entire ownership. I imagine it must have been a difficult decision to let go so completely. This is admirable.

raheemmon Ask HN: What is the most difficult tech/dev challenge you ever solved?

I loved reading these stories, and your writing style is excellent! Also, your approach to problem solving is a great reminder of how persistence is the underlying key. Please do write more if you can, it was such a pleasure to read. I'd pay $10 for a book full of your stories - exactly how you wrote it above.

raheemmon CEO complaints : employee not motivated after being fired

But he is getting paid to look for another job, instead of getting fired without any notice, which is the usual norm.

raheemmon CEO complaints : employee not motivated after being fired

Surprised at all the hostility towards the CEO. She did the right thing by giving him notice and paying him to look for another gig.

raheemmon AngelList’s Newest Experiment: a $25M Fund to Invest in Angel Investors

This is an innovation that is great for entrepreneurs. AngelList is certainly thinking out of the box.

raheemmon Knuth: Open Letter to Condoleezza Rice (2002)

DK's letter is from 2002. Which makes it even more admirable.

raheemmon Andrew Warner's Mixergy Celebrates 1,000th interview

Andrew congrats and thanks so much for making so many awesome interviews available for free. You are in a way responsible for my own evolution into startupland. I watched Dane Maxwell's two interviews on your site (among many others), which lead me to taking his awesome entrepreneurship course, which lead me to starting my own startup, and here I'm on the verge of going full-time with it. Will be relying on your interviews to continue to build & grow my startup and hopefully be interviewed by you some day :)

raheemmon Why I stopped being a voluntourist

Even though voluntourist may not be the most useful addition to a team, I imagine the money that is spent to travel and spend time in the volunteer country also helps the local economy a great deal. An unintended benefit but nevertheless helpful.

raheemmon Satya Nadella – Microsoft's CEO

If he focuses the entirety of MS on cloud and mobile, while offering some level of innovation, he will have done a good job. I think the real challenge is how do you make a company whose flagships are non-mobile and non-cloud products like Office and Windows go mobile and cloud? Those are massive institutional forces of inertia.

raheemmon Subscription Billing Startup ChargeBee Raises $800k From Accel Partners

Congrats ChargeBee! Will be checking you guys out for my startup's billing needs.

raheemmon Ask HN: Should I use Wordpress to power the front end of my Rails web app?

Hey, this is v. helpful! Thanks!

raheemmon Ask HN: Should I use Wordpress to power the front end of my Rails web app?

Im looking into moving the marketing page to wordpress. The app is most certainly not moving to wordpress. It's staying in rails.

raheemmon Ask HN: How to fire your co-founder?

Here is one way you could structure this. Create goals for him to reach. If he repeatedly fails to reach them, then you can ask him for compromises such as giving up equity, etc. If you do it in the right way (that is a win-win, helping him to make more contribution), then it can be worked out. If he repeatedly fails, then you can involve your board and work out a solution that is best for the startup.

raheemmon Ask HN: Should I use Wordpress to power the front end of my Rails web app?

The API exposure is a good benefit

raheemmon Ask HN: Should I use Wordpress to power the front end of my Rails web app?

Example, email users who joined in the last 30 days who have not used our service. That is something you need to build yourself for your specific product no matter what back-end you are using.

Exactly, that's a great example of why keeping everything in rails seems to make more sense.

EDIT: To clarify my app will remain in rails. Just trying to figure out whether my mktg site should be migrated away to wordpress.

raheemmon Ask HN: Should I use Wordpress to power the front end of my Rails web app?

I dont have any specific plugins. But the initial thought was that instead of coding up integrations with rails for various 3rd party marketing stuff, lets just use wordpress and save ourselves time.

raheemmon Start-up NY: 100% Tax-Free for 10 Years?

Better the tax breaks go to startups and new businesses than to bureaucracies and large corps.

raheemmon How to set priorities, create budgets and do PM in a no-manager company

True, this system could lead to the above. But it will more likely lead to leadership by competence. One of the great failings of traditional management is that so many incompetent folks become managers.

Another benefit of this system is that it allows for the natural evolution of teams and leaders. A good leader may not always want to lead. A good leader may want to follow sometimes. A system like this allows for that. And yet, it also allows for new leaders to mature and grow on their pace, without needing an official title such as "manager of X".

I'm curious on the kinds of hurdles they'll face. Old managers simply become new PMs? How will "boring" projects get done?

raheemmon Ask HN: I am crazy (but can you help?)

How come you are skipping NYC?

raheemmon My embarrassing picture went viral

Go ahead and have this conversation with her.