Hacker News: ashalhashim

New comment by ashalhashim in "How to feed a dictator"

ashalhashim — Sat, 20 Jun 2026 03:02:13 +0000

These chefs are effectively being held hostage. One had his passport withheld. Another was executed for giving a kid a stomachache. This isn’t careerism.

New comment by ashalhashim in "How to feed a dictator"

ashalhashim — Sat, 20 Jun 2026 02:47:31 +0000

I ended up going back and reading the article. It’s not bad that it’s bad writing, it’s that the opening is sloppy and turned me off from reading the article instead of pulling me in the way a good lede should.

The subject is interesting, which is why I clicked the link in the first place. I might check out the documentary. But the misunderstanding/loose invocation of Arendt is a turnoff imo

New comment by ashalhashim in "How to feed a dictator"

ashalhashim — Sat, 20 Jun 2026 02:10:45 +0000

No, they did not. Arendt’s point about evil being banal is that the perpetrator’s behavior is motivated by the banal. A chef isn’t the perp. They’re adjacent to the monsters and they might be motivated by and fixated on the banality of doing great work.at most this is juxtaposition of evil and banality.

New comment by ashalhashim in "How to feed a dictator"

ashalhashim — Sat, 20 Jun 2026 01:53:55 +0000

> “It goes back to Hannah Arendt’s banality of evil a bit,” says director Andrew Neel. “These everyday things that are beloved to us, like food, can take on an entirely different dimension within the context of a dictatorship.”

That’s not at all what Arendt was writing about. She was writing about those who do evil things are rarely the “evil” monsters we imagine but rather bureaucrats motivated by things like promotions. Hard to remain motivated to consume an article after reading this in the opening.

New comment by ashalhashim in "Business Owners Are Worst Clients"

ashalhashim — Sun, 03 May 2026 16:42:36 +0000

I see another explanation. A generous take would be that digital marketing agencies generate mixed results. But many would have far worse things to say about the ROI these agencies produce.

I don’t know anything about the author’s agency, but I can imagine that if I were a small business owner and I allocated budget to them, I’d absolutely let them know how I felt if they failed to produce results. This would not be the case if I were a salaried employee at a larger business responsible for outsourcing digital marketing. It just doesn’t matter to an employee in nearly the same way.

I’ve been a founder and I’ve been in sales most of my career, I’ve sold to enterprises as well as to small business owners. This isn’t to say the author isn’t right. I just disagree with a lot of the comments on here about the inherently misanthropic nature of small business owners.

New comment by ashalhashim in "Bill Atkinson's psychedelic user interface"

ashalhashim — Fri, 11 Jul 2025 13:44:51 +0000

I assume this comment is trolling. But to be clear to readers, the link states psilocybin 50% increase in lifespan of human skin etc. not human lifespan.

New comment by ashalhashim in "Business co-founders in tech startups are less valuable than they think"

ashalhashim — Sun, 27 Apr 2025 21:51:31 +0000

The ideal business co-founder has to be strong in distribution AND eliciting product feedback. This is why the “MBA types” and ex-McKinsey consultants fare so poorly - they’re used to companies spending loads of money to hear what they think. As an early-stage startup founder, nobody gives a shit about your product and no one wants to hear what you think. Your job is to identify where demand is highest in the market and then turn that demand into dollars. They also need to be excellent communicators who understand or at least appreciate how much goes into building products.

For those reasons, the best business cofounders in my experience, are former salespeople (for b2b startups), demand generation marketers (for b2c), and product managers.

New comment by ashalhashim in "Qanat"

ashalhashim — Sun, 12 Nov 2023 05:04:09 +0000

“Cecil - No civilization in history has ever considered ‘chief hydrological engineer’ a calling.”

New comment by ashalhashim in "Time to Get Fit – An Open Letter from Altimeter to Mark Zuckerberg"

ashalhashim — Mon, 24 Oct 2022 18:26:10 +0000

Dear Operator With a Vision,

Please do more of the same thing that used to make me money and less of the thing that is risky.

Sincerely, Know-nothing Investor

Miami Is a Lie

ashalhashim — Sat, 20 Aug 2022 21:15:36 +0000

Article URL: https://twitter.com/rbranson/status/1560505791903281152

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32535191

Points: 11

# Comments: 2

New comment by ashalhashim in "Americans still think they can make money flipping houses"

ashalhashim — Sat, 09 Jul 2022 12:20:49 +0000

“Between 2006, the peak of the previous housing bubble, and 2019, average home prices have increased just 13%, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index. In that same time period, the S&P 500 rose 125%. In other words, stocks did 10 times better than real estate”

I can’t take an article seriously when it purposefully ignores what’s happened in the last three years because it negates the point it’s trying to make.

New comment by ashalhashim in "Uber and Lyft’s new road: Fewer drivers, thrifty riders and jittery investors"

ashalhashim — Sat, 28 May 2022 19:28:58 +0000

Taxicab companies don’t have to pay the Bay Area salaries of engineers, data scientists, MBAs, etc. nor do they have massive advertising and marketing overhead.

New comment by ashalhashim in "The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto"

ashalhashim — Wed, 24 Nov 2021 16:40:31 +0000

“Let me explain why crypto is bad by showing how it doesn’t fit neatly into the definitions of any of the monetary instruments that preceded it”

New comment by ashalhashim in "Why thieves love to steal catalytic converters"

ashalhashim — Sun, 21 Nov 2021 15:13:10 +0000

The price of a catalytic converter is much higher. My friend’s catalytic converter was stolen from her late 2000s Accord, and her car was totaled as a result.

New comment by ashalhashim in "TK Finance Dictionary: “SPAC”"

ashalhashim — Tue, 23 Feb 2021 00:50:05 +0000

The title of this post in his newsletter was “Financial Devil’s Dictionary.” Wonder why he changed it.

New comment by ashalhashim in "Ask HN: Why are we expected to train Google's NN for free through captchas?"

ashalhashim — Wed, 10 Feb 2021 20:58:56 +0000

Why would this be illegal?