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xq3000

33 karma · joined January 20, 2012

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xq3000··on Ask HN: Engineers over 40: What is your career path?
A somewhat different path could be “architecture.”

I went from a software developer to a system architect, and then moved to director and VP but always in “architecture,” which definition could differ from company to company, in parallel to development management.

xq3000··on Trello is no longer free for teams
Favro and Zenkit are great alternatives with an offline mode
xq3000··on Ask HN: Idea for a new dating app
I’d say don’t do it. All idealistic dating apps seem to fail. At the end of it, the mating game is vain, sexual, and primal. No way around it.
xq3000··on HN, I need your advice, really badly
Unfotunately, this kind of situations are not all that uncommon. IMHO, there is a subset of people with those qualities that are drawn to startups. Take a “vision” or a “business” person with good social instincts and loosen their ethics and values and you will get yourself a little Machiavelli.

As I see it, you have a few moves: 1) Very gently distance yourself from that person until your relationship is strictly professional. Make sure they know as little possible about your personal life or work plans, projects, intentions, etc

2) Become more social and political yourself. It sounds like she’s been running the company and you just work there - you’d need to get your voice back. Cultivate your own direct 1:1 relationships with key employees, board members, and investors.

3) Try forming a subgroup within the company that is under your control and that can deliver some kind of independent and visible result. Do good work and make sure that more people know about it. But be very cautious about how you advertise those results

4) Figure out if anyone else is noticing her toxic behaviour. Your board and investors should be very interested in keeping the company culture healthy

5) Maybe there is a way to gently prompt a financial review by the board or investors?

If you do some of this for some time you should find yourself in a better position whether you decide to stay or leave

xq3000··on Ask HN: Should I change my Co from C Corp to S Corp?
In my experience, this is mostly a taxation question. Just do the math for both options and see which way you’d pay less taxes.

It used to be that an S Corp would be more efficent up until your total personal income/wages from all sources hits $120k a year or so. Only after that, a C Corp becomes more efficient.

* This is mostly about wages but if you also pay yourself dividends, you should factor them in too

xq3000··on Ask HN: Best architecture for offline-first, cloud-synced mobile app?
1) Couchdb

2) AWS AppSync Client (not Amplify) + AWS AppSync service + Cognito + a few Lambdas + some db

xq3000··on Erlang/OTP by Example
Cool site!

PS: Content looks cropped on an iPhone 7 nonmatter how you resize it

xq3000··on Ask HN: Any free e-mail clients with scheduling and tracking?
HubSpot Sales, free edition can do that
xq3000··on Ask HN: What are the best email marketing tools out there?
Drip. Mailchimp is overrated.
xq3000··on Ask HK: Why isnt there a cloud connected printer startup?
lob.com?
xq3000··on Early stage startup accounting software?
Xero. If Xero is too complicated or too expensive - Wave. If Wave is too complicated - an Excel spreadsheet just listing money in and out.
xq3000··on Scientists find massive reserves of mercury in permafrost
Does it mean that as the global warming progresses all that mercury will mobilize and Earth will poison itself...?
xq3000··on Today’s Version Control Tools Are Still Primitive
You are talking about much more than just version control here. And, yes, a web based IDE with web based workspaces is probably the way to go.

I think Eclipse Che is doing exactly that today and is production ready.

xq3000··on Ask HN: What books can teach me engineering management skills?
Pragmatic Programmers have a few titles on that: Behind Closed Doors, Manage It!, and Ship It!. They are all pretty good.
xq3000··on Show HN: the most intuitive iPad browser (built during SWPhilly in 2 days)
Pretty cool. Some fresh UX elements sort of in a spirit of Clear app(?)
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