The post on why medium.com could have been profitable as a lifestyle business but since it took VC money, it should resort to spamming users with recommendations etc
I can answer "describe a time when you failed" without getting sued or fired. So, no, it's not equivalently fair. Ask tough questions, sure. Feel free. This question passes beyond "tough", though, clear to "out of bounds".
The questions is easily answered without getting sued or fired. Candidates are asked to describe projects they've worked on. If my question is out of bounds so is that one. After all a candidate might be sued by his employer for divulging too much about the company's internal knowledge.
One doesn't ask "name a person you reviewed negatively," of course. That would be out of bounds.
And you can never be sure what questions will be asked from you during an interview, especially, since the only thing job description says is "Rockstar frontend Engineer"
How many of those have you done? It's usually basic JavaScript / CSS / HTML / responsive design, performance, accessibility. You don't hire a plumber by asking him about the make of his hammer.
I've been using this exact analogy the other way around about hiring in IT. First screening is usually some HR drone scanning your resume/cv for buzzwords.
HR: So, I see on your resume you have been building houses for a decade. This is a good foundation for the work we are doing.
Applicant carpenter: Yes, all sorts of houses. Done both interiors and prep for concrete pouring. Fiddled a little bit with wiring on a job where the electrician needed some help.
HR: Uhu. Yes. What vendor did you use for your tools?
AC: Pardon?
HR: Well, we have secured a really good deal on tools from Stanley. Are you familiar with their hammers?
AC: (puzzled) uhn, sure. I'm not too sure what I used on my last site. For me a hammer is a hammer. It has to be a really crappy tool not to do it's work.
HR: Thank you for coming in. I think you should expect a call from us sometime next week. (marks the checkbox, Not familiar with tools)
Coding is usually based around learning the solution we are employing. It's a very boring problem if the solution is known beforehand. It's now knowing the tools that make you effective, it's being able to learn them that is valuable about a knowledge worker.
You don't hire a plumber by asking him about the make of his hammer.
You might if all the nails you have could only be used with a certain make of hammer and if learning how to use a different hammer efficiently could take several month.
Let's not get carried away, but that's the result of your own choice to accept vendor lock-in. Like having to hire only authorised service providers. Most companies I've known are smart enough to avoid that and just hire good generalist developers, and the interviews will be shaped accordingly.
Yes. In today's search engines, I cannot give you a blacklist and say filter out these results. If I am looking for tutorials, I cannot say no video results. If I am looking for market research, I cannot filter out news websites from the links. For personalization, I cannot give google any suggestions on what I absolutely do not want to be included etc.
blekko had these features, and almost no one used them. The google guy who teaches advanced Google searching says that almost no one uses Google's advanced search, either. So if this is a viable niche, you'll have to figure out how to find these users...
Very interesting! Is the main problem really finding the users or could it be developing an interface that makes it easy enough for users of varying technical abilities to occasionally use?
Government runs hospitals in every town but only poor people use them(though they put up with bribes here). Rich and middle class typically use private health care as its generally better. Private health care in cities is excellent even by western standards. In towns, its decent. Poor also turn to private hospitals when time is important or when government doctors fail. One thing government does well is giving vaccines to new born and infants.
Also, many times, you just walk up to a pharmacy and ask the pharmacist for a medicine instead of talking to the doctor. Saves money and time
For some of us in Bay area, we pay $5000 in rent, utilities, day care etc. I, by and large can't optimize on these things. I can only optimize on groceries, restaurant eating, vacation/weekend outings and few things like that. So, I hope these personal finance apps remove rent, utilities, day care etc from their analysis.
Also, one feature I would pay for is this. When I am entering a Walmart or Target or Whole Foods, it should warn me that I spent 'x' amount on groceries last week and that I should keep my spending below $y to stay within budget. Somehow, I see this feature missing in all apps I see so far.
Yup, Penny tries to focus on your discretionary spending since that's where you have the most agency. She tells you both your non-bills spending (assuming bills are mandatory) and your total spending, so you can get a sense of your spending that isn't basic needs. We also have spending goals which are curated to be mostly discretionary spending (eating out, department stores, etc).
I think the parent was stating that it'd be neat (if possible) if Penny detected your location and flagged you with an geolocated alert at that point. Like a giant "really?! Target again?! You just spent $20 here yesterday!" (If it already does that or if I'm misinterpreting, please forgive!)
I've had a project on the back-burner for a while which tried to embrace this notion that most of your day-to-day transactions are outside the scope of optimization. Instead of importing all the transactions into view, it only showed transactions in categories where you were trying to change (or measure) spending behavior. If, for example, I don't intend to change my home water consumption... then in the context of personal finances I really want that left out of my tool.
W.r.t askwhale.com, seems like it is a mashup of Quora/Reddit and video based Q&A. Given that there is greater friction in video compared to text based Q&A sites, who would be interested in contributing this?
Apparently people with iPhones. This feels like forcing an album release on tidal. I get it, you're promoting your product, at the expense of your other product.
