Hacker News: Sam_Odio

New comment by Sam_Odio in "Google Doc Templates for Startups"

Sam_Odio — Tue, 13 May 2025 18:07:57 +0000

I thought the same (“corporate junk”) early in my career... then I had to start getting dozens/hundreds of people to execute in a coordinated fashion against a defensible plan...

New comment by Sam_Odio in "Google Doc Templates for Startups"

Sam_Odio — Fri, 09 May 2025 22:07:25 +0000

Interesting - these have exactly the design polish I'd expect from working at FB, Twitter, DBX, etc... From what I've seen most of the people I've worked with at those companies care more about the quality of my thinking than the polish of my docs.

Paul - great work. Was thinking of doing the same. I'd love to collaborate on some sort of shared resource/repo of docs like these (github?) and contribute a few of my own.

New comment by Sam_Odio in "Why does Britain feel so poor?"

Sam_Odio — Fri, 04 Apr 2025 13:43:24 +0000

Why Britain doesn’t build (worksinprogress.co) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36477481

New comment by Sam_Odio in "My legal last name prevents me from completing my Twitch affiliate onboarding"

Sam_Odio — Sat, 08 Mar 2025 05:29:51 +0000

https://xkcd.com/327/

New comment by Sam_Odio in "VC Fund gives money back, says the market for mature startups is too weak"

Sam_Odio — Wed, 02 Oct 2024 15:33:17 +0000

Wonder if CRV is reacting to the same underlying trends causing Warren Buffet to sell stock (e.g., Cape / Shiller PE ratio is close to an all-time high)...

New comment by Sam_Odio in "What I Learned Working for Mark Zuckerberg"

Sam_Odio — Tue, 20 Aug 2024 01:28:50 +0000

> That particular right to flexible mistakes applies only to him.

Not true.

Source: worked for Zuck.

Feedback wanted: I open-sourced a Mac Terminal helper (Grammarly for Terminal)

Sam_Odio — Thu, 15 Aug 2024 13:59:21 +0000

A few friends and I have been frustrated by the lack of AI assistance in Mac Apps. So we built something (this time for the Mac Terminal). It runs alongside your terminal and dynamically fixes errors in your command line usage. There are several other AI-enabled terminals and shells, but nothing that quite did what I wanted. I'd love feedback!

A video walkthrough is here: https://www.producthunt.com/posts/shellmate

Codebase here: https://github.com/srosro/deepspring-shellmate

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41256142

Points: 3

# Comments: 1

New comment by Sam_Odio in "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (December 2022)"

Sam_Odio — Thu, 01 Dec 2022 23:19:35 +0000

Dropbox | Full-time | Remote North America

I work with Drew (the DBX CEO) on 0-1 bets at Dropbox. I'd love to chat with former founders/early employees passionate about project management, task management, calendaring, or the intersection of the above products with ML/AI. Send your LinkedIn to odio+vip@dropbox.com.

I worked for Elon Musk in the early days of SpaceX

Sam_Odio — Fri, 04 Nov 2022 23:07:06 +0000

Article URL: https://www.businessinsider.com/working-for-elon-musk-spacex-workplace-culture-twitter-jim-cantrell-2022-11

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33475301

Points: 49

# Comments: 98

New comment by Sam_Odio in "U.S. transition to 988 suicide and crisis lifeline begins Saturday"

Sam_Odio — Sat, 16 Jul 2022 21:28:21 +0000

This is an special problem for the uninsured that struggle with mental health.

A close friend struggled with bipolar. She was uninsured and making close to minimum wage…calls to suicide prevention hotlines resulted in thousands of dollars in new bills from ER visits and even involuntary psychiatric care.

She was struggling to pay rent. Being discharged in effectively the same condition as before but with new debt she wouldn’t be able to pay off for years…the medical bills for involuntary psychiatric care were their own special sort of crazy.

See https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp.2020.2...

New comment by Sam_Odio in "Show HN: I ranked news websites by speed"

Sam_Odio — Wed, 29 Jun 2022 01:38:31 +0000

For those that believe Brad's take on Wikipedia's content isn't adding a fair amount of value...

Presumably, if Legiblenews takes off and doesn't add value, Wikimedia is free to compete with it. Wikimedia could form a for-profit company that donates more of user revenue to the foundation and feature that company on Wikipedia. Therefore, for the foreseeable future, Wikimedia effectively retains the option to copy & crush Brad's side-project. And if Legiblenews takes off Wikimedia does nothing at all...they will still almost certainly receive more $$$ than the current state of the world.

In that way, Wikimedia is outsourcing innovation to Brad, who Wikimedia is well-positioned to copy/compete with in the future, and being paid to do so. While Brad loses money.

I'm not 100% sure who is on which side of "fair," but ultimately if it complies with Wikimedia's license I'm good with it. And if you don't like it, why not start something better?

The Webb Space Telescope continues to progress, despite insider skepticism

Sam_Odio — Wed, 26 Jan 2022 00:43:50 +0000

Article URL: https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/01/whats-left-for-the-webb-telescope-now-waggling-mirrors-turning-on-instruments/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30080211

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by Sam_Odio in "Tax Planning 101: Buy, Borrow, Die"

Sam_Odio — Sat, 26 Jun 2021 07:28:41 +0000

Paying back debt requires income, which is taxed.

In this example you continue to incur new debt, but at a rate not more than the growth rate of your assets.

New comment by Sam_Odio in "Tax Planning 101: Buy, Borrow, Die"

Sam_Odio — Sat, 26 Jun 2021 07:26:12 +0000

In this example you will always have more in assets than you will borrow, so any new borrowing will be well collateralized. So yes, you can do this.

Arecibo Has Collapsed

Sam_Odio — Wed, 02 Dec 2020 02:07:50 +0000

Article URL: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/arecibo-observatory-radio-telescope-puerto-rico-collapses-cable/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25272497

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by Sam_Odio in "Executive order expected to suspend H-1B, other visas until end of year"

Sam_Odio — Sat, 20 Jun 2020 19:01:46 +0000

> there's a valid reason as to why it's being done (to prioritize Americans out of work)

The "Fixed pie fallacy" [1] is probably both one of the most important tenants of modern policy-making, yet it's rarely explicitly discussed or debated.

Cyclone_, your thinking relies on this fallacy, namely that if one person is working a job, that's one less job available. [2]

In reality, there is quite a bit of empirical research that indicates when people work (especially highly skilled jobs like in tech), it does not reduce (and may even increase) the jobs available to others [3].

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy 2. https://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/07/opinion/lumps-of-labor.ht... 3. https://siepr.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/publications/...

Swarms of Mass Destruction: The Case for Fully Autonomous Drone Swarms as WMD

Sam_Odio — Wed, 03 Jun 2020 22:04:53 +0000

Article URL: https://mwi.usma.edu/swarms-mass-destruction-case-declaring-armed-fully-autonomous-drone-swarms-wmd/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23409411

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

New comment by Sam_Odio in "Landlord-friendly, self-install solar and battery kit"

Sam_Odio — Thu, 28 May 2020 15:08:35 +0000

When I read these comments I'm left wishing we could be a more supportive community when peers try something new. I hope we can find a way to support Niko.

It saddens me that many engineers don't start projects for fear of embarrassment from forums like these.

My first startup failed for all sorts of legitimate reasons. My second startup sold to Facebook for millions. And all of them sounded like a bad idea at the start.

Let's not be a modern slashdot and miss the forest for the trees. What if Niko or someone here is successful? How will history judge the incessant critiques?

No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.

New comment by Sam_Odio in "The impact of sleep on eyewitness identifications"

Sam_Odio — Thu, 05 Dec 2019 22:42:01 +0000

Interesting thesis, but...

> The prediction that participants in the sleep condition would have greater discriminability compared to participants in the wake condition was not supported. There were also no differences in reliability.

New comment by Sam_Odio in "U.S. police may now be able to access online DNA database records"

Sam_Odio — Sat, 16 Nov 2019 15:52:37 +0000

Most cases are not caught because there is a direct march, but because there are multiple distant relatives that match and allow detectives to triangulate the suspect. Final confirmation is done w/ direct testing after probable cause.

Faking your own dna has little effect on this process of triangulation and can easily be identified as you won’t share expected traits with relatives.

Good luck...