It is not an entirely foregone conclusion that the losses Microsoft incurred to break into an infamously cutthroat industry were a good idea from a business standpoint. To say nothing of whether 2013 Microsoft can afford to invest the kinds of sums it would take to break Apple and Google's hold on the market.
It's a get rich quick hustle by another name. Don't be fooled. Making money is work, it's always been work, it will always be work. Anybody who tells you different is a con man. I have done this thing he talks about and it ain't no free ride. I'm not going to go into detail because I'm not trying to sell anybody anything. Yes, you can do it. No, it's not easy. Most people will try it and fail.
There wasn't as much "lean startup" in this article as I would have assumed via the title. I don't know that I necessarily agree with the final assertion that the "lean startup" is dead. I honestly see, rightly or wrongly, a lot of VC's, YC included, moving towards a more lean and mean, revenue-centric model as capital markets get more conservative. Which is strikingly similar to a lean startup. Then the question becomes, if you're profitable, can the acceleration provided by VC capital push you over the top? Lean B2B plays aren't necessarily the kind of internet land-grabs we've recently seen out of the valley.
Their platform is ok. It jittered a lot, and I'm really not a big fan of the social graph, but some stuff is good, some stuff is bad, it's on the balance ok.
The problem is that they're selling advertising access to their people. That's all they're selling, via direct ads or graph access and 'sharing'. Impressions. Period. So there's a very natural friction between people who are investing a bunch of dev time and expecting their impressions for free and facebook, who doesn't want you to piss off their users with a bunch of spammy ads without at least paying them for it. So facebook is locking it down, little by little, and all the devs who were used to getting something for nothing are seeing their marketing vector dwindle little by little (unless you pay).
The whole 'review process' I found extra annoying, though. I will tolerate that shit from Apple, but not from facebook.
I... don't know if that blog response is going to achieve the goal it was intended to. At the very least, the CEO might spend some more time considering how being the boss affects what is or is not a funny 'joke'.
Indeed. Using "do this or you're fired" to get an employee's attention is disrespectful and manipulative, it's not funny - unless you are Michael Scott.
There have to be more creative ways to assert an important company initiative. Surely there is a more 'Fab' way.
A former acquaintance of mine (and noted scumbag) recently pulled this scam for a movie he made about (and with the backing of) a bunch of chiropractors. Raised over a quarter of a million dollars. He's since absconded with the funds to pay for his mansion/porsche, sent no dvds, and is now funding the sequel via Indiegogo.
I have always admired the man's ability to sniff out a good con, although the second film is having quite a bit of trouble getting a similar level of traction. I'm sure he'll be fine-- it's hard enough to get the government involved in regular fraud, let alone... whatever dubious legal standing funding a Kickstarter has.
I'm not old, per se, I'm probably at my peak marketability-- old enough that, if I were stupid, I would have washed out by now, young enough to be stereotypically perceived as vigorous. I can grow a nice lush beard and there's no gray in it yet.
The only real doomsday issue I ever ran into with older programmers was an increasing unwillingness (in some) to add onto their stack. The good news is that after the third or fourth new language you pile on, the next one gets a lot easier. If you know C, a lisp variant (although I prefer an ML variant), and a decent scripting language (I learned perl first, but I sort of hate it), you're not likely to get surprised by much. The programming hivemind really can't process new ideas all that quickly, so you rapidly gain exposure to the core ideologies that form the foundation of the fancy 'new' trends. And then you're just learning some syntax and getting comfy with a new API. Unless you get lazy, shit really does get a lot easier. But with tech, the next wave is inevitably coming, and you're either on it or under it.
"If you know C, a lisp variant (although I prefer an ML variant), and a decent scripting language (I learned perl first, but I sort of hate it), you're not likely to get surprised by much"
I think a person with that knowledge set might be surprised by this:
New programming paradigms emerge over time, and force us to rethink our approaches to solving problems. I think the key is not learning many languages, but learning many paradigms, and becoming skilled in the use of one paradigm before moving on to the next. Learning several languages with the same approach to programming is not as useful as learning several languages with completely different approaches.
