Outcide

Another (mostly) retired Unix sysadmin here. I never could make Python work in my brain, but last year discovered Svelte/SvelteKit and really like it. I’d always kinda hated on JS, but actually it’s pretty nice these days.

“dammit emacs” …

So I’m neither a marketing or sales guy, though I have done a bit of both.

What I’d say is that if you are trying to create a successful business / product … you need to be considering marketing/sales before you actually build anything. The classic tech founder mistake is to build something nobody wants. Or that costs more to produce/support than you can sell it for.

I’ve got a funny story about a dotcom era business I worked for, where an amazing tech team built this product that was miles better than anything our competitors were doing. We spent 18 months getting it all built out etc. And then the business guy came in and ran the numbers and pointed out to us that our return on investment was longer than the replacement cycle of our hardware. Oops …

Mostly I mean the assumption that’s easy and that you can just “do sales and marketing” after the fact. Sales people are too “sales” to work for free. :-)

I see tech people doing this to sales, marketing, and bizdev people sometimes as well. I’ve created this thing, it’s all done I just need someone to sell/market it …

I’ve done a lot of tech recruiting. Reference checks are invaluable, especially if you do them over the phone (instead of email/text).

People are wired to be honest, even about the faults of their friends. Tone of voice, pauses and side comments are often the most useful parts.

By the time you’re checking references you’re not normally trying to determine if the candidate is psycho or incompetent, you’re trying to figure out the specifics. Are they going to be a good fit for the team? How will they handle the stresses, structures, or freedoms of the role? What kind of support are they likely to need and can the team realistically provide it?

And to OP, yes. Absolutely, ask to meet with employees. Ask the hard questions, you’ll probably get surprisingly candid responses.

I’ve worked for several very, very rich men. The pattern I notice is that they always get surrounded by people who make sure that they never, ever hear “no”.

Imagine living in a world where every inane thing that comes out of your mouth, somebody immediately makes it their mission to try and make it happen. You no longer get any kind of useful feedback from the world and your opportunities to learn from feedback are greatly reduced.

I agree, I think in the end, it does make them crazy.

THIS SO MANY TIMES.

Thinking this through a bit more. It’s the server (eg. Signal) that sends the push notifications to Apple/Google. So turning off notifications on your phone presumably means that that Apple/Google doesn’t send them to your device. However they are presumably still be going from the server to Apple/Google (because how would Signal know that you’ve turned notifications off on your phone)?

I think it means that notifications aren’t sent, but it’s a good question.

Relatable. 🤣

On the other hand, recent studies have indicated that most copulatory vocalizations in women do not accompany their own orgasm, but rather their partner’s ejaculation. The study showed that the man typically finds the woman’s vocalization arousing and highly exciting, and that the woman herself is aware of this.

I reckon Alpine. Nice and minimal …

I’m offended, but then I had to acknowledge that I’ve been using Debian since 1995.

Some of it, yes. Some of it I already do for free.

Money matters, I gotta pay the rent. If I had to, I’d do whatever shit job to get by.

But once the basic scrap for survival and comfort is met, it’s not what motivates me.

Fantasque was my favourite before Recursive. Kinda miss it still …

+1 Recursive!

My experience is that people are often motivated by quite different things.

Money matters to me, but it’s not what motivates me to work. What motivates me to work is how worthwhile the work seems to me and how much I enjoy working with my colleagues. And yeah, that’s tedious, it’d be so much easier if it was all about money, but that’s not the way my brain works.

Thanks for sharing, really lovely to hear the stories!

/r/justguysbeingdudes

Thank you, that’s just what I needed today!