reason

I follow Andreessen and a few of the other a16z folks on twitter, and every day they are tweetstorming what appear to be very insightful opinions and predictions on a whole slew of industries. And then I wonder if these guys are actually orders of magnitudes more intelligent than me and others, and have truly valid and well thought-out opinions, or if a good amount of what they say is nothing more than speculative bullshit that's hardly contested due to their reputation and success.

I've got enormous respect for them, too, but I'm beginning to think that the breadth and depth of expertise and foresight they display shouldn't be taken too seriously.

Fascinating in what way? The guy is smart, successful, and he deserves what he's achieved. That he's found the opportunities he's capitalized on isn't his fault.

No disrespect to Sam in any way -- he truly seems like a brilliant guy with a chorus of influential people behind him -- but I've been on a successful-person wikipedia binge as of late, and it's become very, very clear that a person's upbringing almost determines whether or not they're going to be successfull, which saddens me. I grew up to some very close-minded parents who severely limited my growth, forced me to fulfill their every wish, I couldn't get into a top school, and yet I've always held onto a bit of hope that maybe one day I'll be as great or as brilliant or intelligent as Sam et al. But that hope is quickly vanishing the more and more I read about these individuals' backgrounds. Successful parents (who were likely encouraging, supportive, and open-minded), great schools, achievements at early ages, etc, all seem to be a common thread, and trying to kickstart things again past your formative years seems futile. I don't mean to rant or derail the topic, and apologies if I do.

What exactly is the point of this post? If it is truly to help the people at Rocketr better position their product, then I would think the 100+ comments in the original thread provided more than enough feedback. In fact, this article adds nothing, and I suspect you did this to help boost your 'web presence'.

I'm done with HN and this 'scene' for a while. Everyone seems to be more concerned with flailing their e-dicks around to establish their personal brand, without actually giving a genuine fuck about helping out others. Plus, this whole "I'm passionate about startups and I'm just blunt with my advice" attitude is getting really tiring.

More and more frequently I think about people actually doing meaningful stuff out there, and very rarely are they blogging, publicly critiquing others, trying to get their name out there online. I think I'm going to follow in their footsteps.

Rocketr: I think you guys received all the feedback and more that you asked for yesterday. I'm sure you guys were taken aback by the response to your article, but you seemed rather accepting of the advice. Ignore this fluff piece and don't take it personally. This guy really doesn't care about helping.

So long, HN.

I don't want to be that guy, but as someone in the medical field, I take issue with OCD being thrown around so casually as a good thing to have. It's a legitimate mental disorder that can cause its sufferers a lot of turmoil.

I absolutely get what you guys are going for, and you seem like a fun bunch, but I'd be a bit more sensitive about using terms like that. It'd be like someone saying "We're looking for ridiculously good programmers, like autistic good."

I cannot stand their new aesthetic.

I saw a demo of Metro on a tablet at the Microsoft store a few weeks back and was really, really turned off. Why are the app squares of variable sizes? The guy accessed a settings menu out of nowhere. I was so confused I had to ask him to show me how he did it. There were no indications, cues, hints, etc, that would've led me to believe the menu was there. This isn't only limited to the settings menu.

I don't want to turn this into an iPod/iPad vs. WP8/Surface debate, but the first thing that popped into my head after I walked out of the store was "Jesus, my mom would have a hell of a time learning how to use that." She's a pro with her iPad, and it'd take her a very long time to reach that same level of savviness with a tablet running Metro.

Metro isn't designed for the average person. There's nothing that directs you, there are no consistent UI elements that carry on throughout the design. Every app the guy opened was designed differently. With iOS, I at least have the top (and often bottom) nav bar to guide me. I, a guy who's been playing with computers for years, was utterly confused and put off from Metro.

I think they've got a long way to go if they plan on seeing the same adoption of their WP8 phone that the iPhone has seen. I'm not sure if that's what they want, but I assume they do.

Something about this just doesn't seem legitimate.

Also, in the fine print at the bottom:

"The images on this website are examples only. Actual products may not contain the same design or functionality as featured on this website. "

It happens with almost every one of his posts.

Off-topic, but you've been awfully critical and quick to judge as of late, Thomas. You've already shot this company down without seeing the product.

Looks like someone's trying to get another corporate employee fired through criticism and a lack of practical advice.

This isn't about Apple, though. This is about Jony Ive. And although people here might know who he is and what influence he's had over the years with creating such iconic designs, I highly doubt that the every day person on the street knows.

This is simply about him gaining public recognition. Nothing more.

Congratulations to him!

Although people will often credit Jobs with the creation of Apple's products, it's great that Jony is getting recognition here. I can't even imagine the amount of time and effort he and his team must've put in to developing their designs.

With the industrial design of products like the iPhone or MacBook, every single dimension must be precisely calculated. There's no "eh, it's a bit off, but that'll do" like what we may do with web apps. The number of concepts and iterations they must've gone through is staggering, I'm sure.

Edit: It's sad to see only two other commenters recognizing Ive's achievements. It seems now that almost every single accomplishment posted to HN is questioned, overanalyzed and criticized out of what is likely a place of envy. We don't need your commentary on the social ramifications of knighthoods. If that's your reaction to a post like this, then you need to seriously reassess your perspective.

Watching the webcast is exhilarating. Humans are fucking amazing.

Yeah, what a wild ride it must be for him right now. Suppressing the urge to feel envious is proving to be increasingly difficult.

Yes, and that time constraint is due to biological processes that can be planned for ahead of time.

Except that having a child is a readily achievable goal that anyone can reach at any time they choose to. The decision to have a child, whether at a younger or older age, is almost entirely up to the two consenting adults.

Hoping to strike it rich before the age of 45 is pretty much the complete opposite.

I really don't like the message of this post. I think the arbitrary expectations people in the startup world place on themselves do a great deal of harm.

I actually regret being exposed to the startup world at such a young age of 17/18. I became totally obsessed with everything startups, especially the stories of newly christened millionaires at ages not much older than mine. I eventually began setting some ridiculously lofty goals for myself that I've failed to meet time and time again, and it's contributed heavily to my often feelings of failure and low self-worth.

So how about this: Instead of rushing to do something before a completely fabricated deadline, chase opportunities with the intent of trying your best and the understanding that no one event or missed deadline renders you a failure or means that you've missed out on life.

Yeah, almost felt like he was trying to brag under the guise of "transparency".

How does that have anything to do with improving the iPad's existing type functionality?

Plus, my mom (and I assume many, many others) has completely switched over to an iPad and manages all of her emails on it. I'm sure she'd appreciate better editing features. I myself use my iPad to do some light email managing when I'm out, and I too have issues with how tedious editing text is; so an improvement is more than welcomed.

I felt The Lean Startup could've been written in one-fourth of the amount of pages Ries used. There was a lot of fluff to wade through and I kept thinking "Come on, come on! Where's the good stuff? Where are the principles and case studies?" Perhaps I took the book a bit too seriously and had high expectations going in – I took notes and was really intent on studying the book – so perhaps one would get more out of it if used for more casual reading.

I'm not sure if I'm in the minority here, but I just cannot have music pumping into my ears when I'm trying to focus. I do a lot of self-talking when I'm trying to learn or work out a problem; so if I just can't hear my 'head voice', I can't get a single thing done.

No, it was actually EtherPad. The link to it obviously does not work, unfortunately.

It's almost as if you don't deserve to be an entrepreneur if your goal isn't to change the world.

People in this space live in a thickly-lined bubble if they think something like Evernote is changing the world. Wisdom is not suddenly bestowed upon you because your note-taking service was recently valued at $1+ billion.

I have always had a really hard time heeding to the advice of rich people who tell you what all the right and wrong reasons to become an entrepreneur are, especially when they start preaching about how it's not about the money, but about the journey.

Also, "don't do it"? I'm sure companies that are having 100x more of an impact in this world than Evernote will ever have were started by people who very bluntly went against that sort of advice. Steve Jobs' "Stay hungry, stay foolish" comes to mind, and I'll side with his blissfully ignorant optimism any day.

Right, so, no counterargument or evidence being provided from Kickstarter is OK in criticizing them, and any evidence that this person may have a history of causing similar types of drama is 'uninteresting'?

You're persistent in asking people to be civil towards Rachel, yet are completely fine with the bashing of Kickstarter without giving them a chance to make their case.

Sounds reasonable. Guess what? Kickstarter isn't just an institution outlined by a few hundred federal documents. They're run by real people!

Before this gets out of hand: PG, I think it'd great if you added another HN guideline that states that people should wait to hear both sides of an issue before stating their opinion, especially when it comes to these premature PR 'blunders'.

Edit: Downvoted? Nice, guys.

Add me, guys. My username is 'reason'. I'm up over in the top left corner.

Something interesting happens if you set all the variables to 0.

You know, that's a question I think about quite frequently. Companies like MS and Google have all the money in the world, and yet it seems they are not able to hire teams of designers that can really nail a usable interface. I play with my Android phone and at times wonder who came up with the interaction flows, OS patterns and conventions. It really boggles my mind. I am inclined to say that they feel the market doesn't demand of them good design.

That is of course an assumption I'm making, but one that's come from years of using HN. More recently there was the article about the girl from Pakistan who received technical certification and sadly passed away. There was a good amount of comments that took a fully rational approach to assessing her credentials concluding that what she'd done was not worthy of praise. That seemed terribly inhuman, and I feel people of this community are more prone to act that way.