skowmunk

Difficult is not impossible.

And most of than not, nothing that is really worth,... is easy.

"....mature sciences deteriorate into ideologies...."

That is true.

Thinking about why this happens.... could it be the vanity of people that causes this? Sticking to ideas or practices because its 'their' ideas/practices/traditions (irrespective of if they have been passed down or been indoctrinated themselves) instead of looking at the logic behind them or their relevance to the present or future or a situation? and then decide if they should be still held on to or not?

What if we define 'ideology' as the thought/belief equivalent of 'tradition' as 'tradition' is to practices/rituals - both being 'holding on to something' irrespective of its relevance? I guess that would make both of our statements mean absolutely the same.

What a shame.

What would have happened if the head honchos at Blockbuster had copied the models of netflix and redbox as soon as they came up in the market, and aggressively pushed them? or acquired them agggressively? (doesn't it happen all the time in the tech industry?)

What awesome leverage they would have had to make these models work successfully for them, with their already existing relationships with the studios?

They must have never read the book 'who moved my cheese' or never put those principles in practice even if they read it.

Wonder what personal traits prevented them from seeing these new biz models as mortal threats.

Though I had meant it in a different way, I do agree with the similarity you have pointed out, regarding organization of both religion and science in general.

Regarding the questioning aspect:

I would say that all religions originated out of questions, they were early attempts at science (that is,.. attempts to answer questions on natural phenomena and the unknown - at that time), but over time they just evolved into ideologies that no longer tried to answer phenomena.

Why I say this?

without going into a monologue - all current religions, monotheistic or polytheistic, were predated by earlier polytheistic versions which were more or less dominated by deity worships. The deities were more often than not the powerful and frightening phenomena that people couldn't explain back then. It wasn't different from culture to culture neither, the Norse had their Thor and Hindus had their Indra, both for thunder, the Egyptians had their Ra(sun god) and so on.

If the ancients had better tools for the analysis of phenomena, I am sure they would have come across better conclusions, just like JJ. Thomson would have come up with a better model than the watermellon model for the atom, if he had better tools for investigation.

Whichever religion it is, the typical one or the atypical, whether the threat is of eternal punishment or something else, it all boils down to whether one chooses to succumb to those threats or not.

There is already such a religion: Science.

That is tough, been trying the part time route for almost a year. Realized, if nothing else, the delays in implementing would obsolete the idea.

A year ago when I started, there were just 2 major competitors to mine, after a year of working on it part time, now there are half a dozen more good competitors. Not trying to be a skeptic, and I also had other factors against me.

Finally I have decided to quit my job soon and focus on the start up full time, Otherwise I am sure the one I am working on now won't even have a sliver of a chance at success.

hmm, somehow it seems, your view is based on a blind skepticism of new technology than facts. I could be wrong, and wouldn't mind being proven wrong if its based on reason, lets see.

Can you list some things that take more time now than before? Things that take more effort now than before?

yup, I happen to be a newbie.

And I appreciate and welcome the consideration to educate (no sarcasm intended, mean it).

right, moreover the folds can give additional sound damping too. and I wouldn't have to spend that princely amount on those noise canceling headphones.

you are an angel.

Do you think that 1 inch space in between the curtains and the wall can provide some extra thermal insulation too? and save me a bit more money on the aircon expenses?

I guess you did your homework right!

Based on your location (Turkey) this is what I would do if I were in your shoes:

Rather than decide on yes or no based simply on the terms (which might appear ridiculous to those in US), I would check the track record/references of the company.

Do they use these terms to drive the programmers as slaves? or is it simply a defensive strategy (in response to local job market/legal environment) meant to ensure employee productivity and stability in the company?

Obviously its a no-no, if it is the former and an ok-yes if it is the latter.

-----------------------------

Why I say this: (the long of it for those interested) (All these refer to developing companies with high growth rates, high inflation, high competition and low number of truly qualified professionals - this is the reality of their job market/legal/economic environment)

Such contracts are often common in developing countries, where the turnover rates are ridiculously high. ( how about employees jumping every 6 - 12 months as sort of a norm among the non-mncs? - for a different reality)

Often, some employees join a company, complete training for a few months and then jump to another company showcasing that training. And latter companies often don't hold it against the employees for jumping so soon, because they dont' have to spend time and money on getting that employee trained - this is the nature of competition in those countries.

It is also a sort of protection for the company so that employees come in, get to know their good ideas (if they are worth) then just jump to other companies with those ideas or start their own companies based on them - the legal protection against this is ridiculously low or non-existent in almost all countries (even the democratic ones) except for those in NA/EU and Japan.

There is also this problem of prospective employees putting up fake certifications and experience, and claiming higher salaries in many developing countries. Systems to verify educational and occupational records of prospective employees are almost non existent, if at all.

Fyi,I am not pointing fingers at the employees, they are also under tremendous pressures to maintain a decent standard of living in environments subject to very high inflation ( against the typical 1-2% in the US, how about around 10%? and those are the 'official' rates which are often watered down for the international press). So they have to keep getting higher and higher salaries to maintain the same standard of living. Often that job hopping is the best way to ensure that increasing salary.

Either way, good luck.

Not trying to be an asshole here, but love pushing logic.

I would definitely agree that the importance of experience can never be emphasized enough. The more the better, always.

But, even if one were to over simplify this, at the least, it is a trifecta of experience, planning and the complexity/scope of the task/goal.

If one were doing what the facebook team did at the start, a bunch of friends, coding non stop for days on end, bringing in formal planning would be the most idiotic thing. (but if one were to be anal about it, even that takes some ad-hoc, seat of the pants planning - what features to have, what algorithms to develop, blablabla)

But for the same facebook to keep growing at 500 mil users +, providing increased features (not to mention, deciding what features to provide in the short, mid or long term) while employing geographically distributed teams, it is impossible to go without planning. Make note, I mention 'planning' not 'plans'.

The same goes with what a team of one is trying to accomplish, depending on the complexity and scope of the goal with respect to that person's relative experience.

As Eiserhower said, "plans are useless, but planning indispensable" (or something like that). I can go on explaining why those words are so meaningful, but that did be a monologue and I am trying to get out of that habit :)

I would say that every rule has exceptions. And the degree of exceptions to each rule may vary from rule to rule. But if one were to eliminate all rules that has at least one scenario where it could be considered as an exception, this world would have no rules at all.

If one were to make a list of all scenarios where a one line rule has exceptions, one would have long documents like 'Terms and conditions' instead of easy to comprehend one line rules that would provide reasonable guidance in a majority of situations.

Thats why it is good to apply a bit of wisdom in applying a rule/advice to a scenario and see if that rule applies to that situation or not, irrespective of from whom that advice comes from and not follow them blindly.

Hmm... would it make more sense if the question used "... perceived as arrogant?" instead of just "arrogant?"?

(disclaimer: I am not a hard core programmer, if I were modest I would call myself a beginner)

I have been long perceived as arrogant and an aloof person, while I think I am not really one. Over time trying to analyze the root cause for this (it is a big problem as it interjects into developing personal relationships) perception and reading books and listening to audio books, I realized that there are some other aspects of me that cause this perception. some of them being:

1) Shyness (one of the reason - shy people avoid eye contact giving rise to the perception to others that they don't care about others and by default tag you as arrogant)

2) bad conversation skills - going into monologues ( when you are not into the habit of back and forth conversation style and go into monologues (being highly passionate about some topics doesn't' help either :)), the other party can think that you don't care to listen to others and can tag you as arrogant)

3) giving unsolicited advice ( I have received a hell lot of great advice over years from so many different people that is simply too valuable to put a price on. sometimes, in a misplaced and idealistic view of returning the favor, I used to go about giving unsolicited advice to friends and acquaintances, sometimes putting the value of 'enlightenment of another perspective' in others' problem solving over my relationship with them. I think it gave me lot of tags of being "arrogant", " What does he think of himself?", "he has got a chip on his shoulder" over the years and drained away many possible friendships)

Good thing I have started working on these three and hopefully should be better off in the future in the social aspects.

But coming back to the point, if the programmers that adn37 had in mind when posing this question are the shy type with poor social skills, I think it is highly possible that they may have come across as being more arrogant than they really are. Just one possibility.

Other, than that, I think the incidence of arrogance among programmers is as likely or not, as in any other professions.

Thanks for posting it.

Very nice article. I agree with it very much. End of the day its the "I" or "you" that needs to change.

And that's true, it's the habits that needs to change and one needs to have a long term perspective for success in changing them. Its possible to change them, but definitely takes patience, determination and continued effort (in spite of breaks) over time.

I often find it funny when people read books on self improvement and say, "hey this book has nothing new". I keep thinking "if you have made a habit of whats in the earlier books and not just read them, you might not have needed to read this new book"

Cheers to all those out there who want to develop better habits! yaaaaaay!!!

There is nothing wrong with wanting to be a small set up if one is comfortable with that set up. But if the idea of somebody who wants to keep it small is really good, even if he wants to keep it small there may be soon competitors who are ready to copy the idea, put more money and send the small shop to kingdom come.

Sometimes, nay, I change it to every time (especially in the tech industry) size is the best defense against competition (Actually it is size and what advantages it brings along with it)

For a company with a really good idea, if it does not grow really fast enough, it soon becomes blood for the sharks, not the future shark.

Thats the beautiful thing about Google, they so quickly executed the finance aspects (book building IPO), the people aspects (freedom to experiment and generate ideas, free food) and the monetizing aspects (search based ads) of their business, to enable them to keep growing at a breath taking speed. If it hadn't and just kept growing at an attractive pace, but not a furious pace, they would have been bought of by some other tech biggie or attracted more serious competition long back.

And whats wrong with the adage "Aim for the stars and you can at least fall on the moon" (or something like that)

Beautifully put and written. Thanks for sharing your experiences.

I agree about the idea generation (along with the rest of the article), its not as tough as one thinks it out to be. Being open to more information from whatever source one can get it from, books, videos, customers, friends, etc is the first step in idea generation.

This is the way I like to put it:

Given the same level of creativity or intelligence, a person with more information can come up with more ideas than the one with less information.

Another way I like to put it (my 'understanding' of how to increase the rate of innovation):

If a hypothetical innovation/solution (idea) needs 10 points of information (now don't take the 'points' in a literal sense, its a metaphor) connected in a particular pattern (the points together with the pattern, constituting the 'idea/innovation/solution'), given two people or teams with equal intelligence or creative capability, the team which already has 8 points of information will have a better chance of making that innovation or finding that solution than the team with just 5 points of information.

Because the first team/person has to creatively find out where or what just the other 2 points are while the second team has to creatively find out about those 5 missing points. The odds are definitely in favor of the team with 8 existing points of information and just 2 missing points.

Of course, this is a theory/principal that assumes equality of all other resources to make a point.

End of the day, information rules.

Am in a similar boat, most of my trusted friends who have given me good advice over time and could be good co-founders are not in the IT/CS area. ( What to do, I am from Mechanical/Industrial Engineering background)

The two friends who are extremely capable in this area of IT/CS, one of whom has a high interest coming on board with my start up, both have heavy constraints with family, requirement for financial stability and visa regulations.

In this case, I would disagree with PG' statement that not having friends as co-founders is a mark of no-confidence.

Yep, thats good to know there are people who have the wisdom to know when to bend or break their own rules.

Somehow the word 'rules' is more constraining, 'guidelines' seem more apt.

I am big fan of consistency (not saying I am), makes for great team members, employees and advisors.

But consistency with no regards to the outcome or circumstances, thats plain crock!

Thanks for posting it. It was morale boosting for me as I am currently a single founder. Does give me hope in spite of the heavy odds I know that are against me :) ( at least with respect to YC funding, not for the long term prospects though)

I do agree that one can't wait to build the perfect team to start a project. If one knows enough experts experts in the required domains for the project, has good working rapport with them, by all means build a team with them. But if you don't know such people, then just get on with it. You will likely meet such experts at least for your next project if not for the current project

At the same time, from experience, I would have to agree with the Big P, that he is right about the chance of success being low for single founders. (Provided it is not an absolute statements and is instead a generality, there are alwasy exceptions)

Startups require lots of decisions that can make or break a company if not done right, often done very fast. And the right decisions are mostly a result of comfort or reasonable enough grasp of different domains such as finance, technology, programming, customers/marketing, to just name a few, and applying loads of common sense on that grasp.

Its very rare to have one person who has enough of a grasp on these different domains to not just be comfortable making decsions on them quickly enough and under ennormous stress, but keep making GOOD decisions critical to the sustainance and growth of the company. Yes, one can learn them fast, but then its a matter of can one person learn them fast and deep to keep making continuously quick and reasonably good decisions while still working on the development.

Thats why teams can often be more successful. Teams can access expertise on differnt domains of differnt team members(if that was the basis of builing the said team). Even if they do not have the domain expertise, the learning can be delegated to different team members and more can be covered than one person can. And there is nothing more beautiful or capable than a highly integrated and coordinated team that can move and react together to changing circumstances and keep delivering.

But thats just one side of the team coin. Along wtih bringing strengths to a team, team members also bring their weaknesses to a team. Unless the team has a way to deal with those weaknesses or have enough rapport with each other to recognise those weaknesses and find solutions to them, the weaknesses can just outweigh the strengths causing the failure of that team.

Not to mention, what about the other dynamics, ifs and buts that a team brings in? Do they really have one unified vision that they can stick to inspite of ups and downs? Can they stick together when the vision has to be modified? And so on...

I wonder, if PG and the team at YC, have any metrics/analysis on how many of the past founder teams have failed due to bad team dynamics inspite of great ideas.

(Feeling sheepish for the long post, Couldnt' help expressing myself on this topic)

And it takes planning to ensure that you have all the different types of warm clothing that may be required to face as many of the possible conditions on that mountain as possible.

Of course, there are limits on how much you can take, and planning can help determine those limits (so that you don't end preparing for the tail ends of a distribution of possible scenarios and end up carrying a heavy burden).

There is always a give and take relationship in preparing for possible scenarios and the resources one can afford to spend for those possibilities.

I agree. It is never black and white, and the applicability of any rule or principal also depends on the context.

A small company cannot afford to do planning like that of a billion dollar company.

A billion dollar company cannot afford to plan like a small company (that is, not do much of planning). And for both, the folly always is in waiting for completing the perfect plan, before acting, because there is nothing such as the perfect plan.

Note: 'Afford' as not just in money terms, but the risk of taking the extra time to plan.

awesome idea, may be I can hose in the air with an air compressor and that should help overcome air flow issues too.

nah, I will just reverse the vacuum cleaner, air compressor's too expensive and that's better utilization rate for the vacuum cleaner too.

hung flat against an exterior walll just to block out noise

Plain brilliance at work!

The work so far has been mainly testing, about to get programmers and its going to be quite busy. One of the issues is this office is in India in part of a city with high noise pollution, high enough that it comes into the office.

The other issue is that the staff expansion plans would soon make the current office a tad small, in which case I would have to incur expenses for moving to a bigger office. So, it is also about stretching out the usability of the current office with a one time expense.

Abt the Bose, the new ones (QC 15) are quite good in noise canceling (the construction does look quite cheap). Tried the QC 3, 2 years ago, didn't find them helpful enough, so I returned them. But the new ones are so good that I am keeping them, and this is from a guy who hardly ever buys $300 gadgets. You might want to check out the 15s

I use them more for noise cancellation than for music, hmm.. for a simulated private office environment :)

Very nice article, thanks for posting it. It helps that it comes from first hand experience.

It gives a good picture of some of the challenges I may be facing in the future. I guess I should get cracking on some planning for these issues.

Checked out fotoblur: many of the black and whites are plain dead gorgeous - I am partial to black and whites :).

Its a great site, giving exposure to talented artists from around the world. I hope you will keep taking it higher and higher.

Hey mgkimsal, thanks for the opinion.

Is there any particular sort of whitenoise that you found better?

Where do you get your whitenoise, CD, download, etc?

I have been an extroverted kid, then became big time shy and timid as a teen and now getting out of it.

From experience and observation, I would say, you being shy and timid so far doesn't mean you have to be like that forever or you will be like that forever.

Yes, you can definitely improve, there is no magic pill, just get yourself into social situations with crowds, try to open out and learn from errors, you may stumble sometimes, you may embarrass yourself sometimes, but none of them are going to kill you.

You can even use your embarrassment as funny stories later.

But don't wait to work on your social skills and then pledge, use this exposure itself as a tool to increase your social quotient.

Make and surround yourself with some understanding friends but relatively more extroverted people. It can help.

Good luck.

Thanks for informing. May have some useful suggestions, will leave it on gantto.com.