<rss version="2.0" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><channel><title>Hacker News: benmathes</title><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=benmathes</link><description>Hacker News RSS</description><docs>https://hnrss.org/</docs><generator>hnrss v2.1.1</generator><lastBuildDate>Thu, 09 Apr 2026 06:43:25 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://hnrss.org/user?id=benmathes" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"></atom:link><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by benmathes in "After outages, Amazon to make senior engineers sign off on AI-assisted changes"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>that many people likely live in different timezones, or have conflicting meetings, etc. etc.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 11 Mar 2026 20:32:17 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47341149</link><dc:creator>benmathes</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47341149</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47341149</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by benmathes in "Agentic Engineering Patterns"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>One model I've seen is moving the review stage to the designs, not the code itself.<p>I.e. have a `planning/designs/unbuilt/...` folder that contains markdown descriptions of features/changes that would have gotten a PR. Now do the review at the design level.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 04 Mar 2026 19:35:30 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47252660</link><dc:creator>benmathes</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47252660</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47252660</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by benmathes in "American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>in 2020 we lived through the extreme left's remedial lesson in public safety. Now we're living through the MAGA right's remedial lesson in trade policy.<p>(Most MAGA right know this, don't care, see tariffs as a hammer. But they are hitting all of us)</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 19 Jan 2026 18:53:47 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46682934</link><dc:creator>benmathes</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46682934</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46682934</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by benmathes in "A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>XKCD has a good video about this. The top of the water is remarkably safe, and a life vest would keep you up there! <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFRUL7vKdU8" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFRUL7vKdU8</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 27 Oct 2025 19:07:02 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45725015</link><dc:creator>benmathes</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45725015</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45725015</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by benmathes in "Show HN: Zenode – an AI-powered electronic component search engine"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I see the value here. The problem isn't just the search; it's the trust. The biggest hurdle for Zenode won't be the tech, but convincing an engineer that your AI's summary of a footnote is accurate enough to risk a $10,000 board spin. That's a high bar.<p>I'd argue the core value isn't just a better search or a faster reader. It's about providing a verified, reliable source of truth. This brings up a key tension: you say the AI isn't yet at your co-founder's level of accuracy, but is that precisely the level of confidence required to replace an engineer's manual check? How do you close that gap? You've got the data, but the trust factor is a different threshold?<p>I.e. maybe you've built the tool to make the problem faster, but the real win would be a tool that makes the problem safer? The killer feature might not be more speed, but rather a confidence score on every AI-generated fact, with a clear path to the source document so an engineer can verify it. It’s not about avoiding the document entirely; it’s about having a better starting point and knowing exactly what to double-check.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 22 Sep 2025 15:04:29 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45334471</link><dc:creator>benmathes</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45334471</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45334471</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by benmathes in "The last six months in LLMs, illustrated by pelicans on bicycles"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>"personal" doing a lot of work there :-)<p>(And I'd be envious of your impact, of course)</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 16 Jun 2025 21:41:38 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44293664</link><dc:creator>benmathes</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44293664</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44293664</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by benmathes in "MLB says Yankees’ new “torpedo bats” are legal and likely coming"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>With golf, there are other dimensions course designers could use to make the pro game less about distance. Tighter fairways, faster greens, etc.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 31 Mar 2025 21:52:35 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43540382</link><dc:creator>benmathes</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43540382</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43540382</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by benmathes in "MLB says Yankees’ new “torpedo bats” are legal and likely coming"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I suspect this may result in more pitches away to these batters so they have to make contact on the narrower end of the bat.<p>I.e. it's a move that may well have a counter move.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 31 Mar 2025 21:50:16 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43540365</link><dc:creator>benmathes</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43540365</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43540365</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by benmathes in "On Apple's Piss-Poor Documentation"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>descriptively: Apple has enough market clout so that it (implicitly) thinks developers will pay the time cost to overcome the lack of documentation and save apple the time it would take to write the documentation. The lever isn't good/bad docs, it's the market dominance apple has in controlling access to high-spend customers.<p>Similarly, MS was notoriously hard to dev on during MS's period of market dominance. It's a lot more dev-friendly now because it doesn't dominate as much anymore.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 13 Nov 2020 22:43:30 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25088447</link><dc:creator>benmathes</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25088447</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25088447</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by benmathes in "Y Combinator has lost its soul: A YC founder's perspective"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Well, sure, but then YC in the _present day_ is collecting value based on what YC was in the _past_.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 23 Jul 2020 00:34:46 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23923036</link><dc:creator>benmathes</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23923036</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23923036</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by benmathes in "Netflix: Removing client-side React.js improved performance by 50%"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I had a terrible time trying to find react performance _monitoring_. There's plenty of performance _troubleshooting_ once you already know what component is slow, but nothing that monitors.<p>Did I miss something? I see some `measureLifecycleperf` functions in the react source but those look like dead ends.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 30 Oct 2017 23:50:19 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15590040</link><dc:creator>benmathes</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15590040</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15590040</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by benmathes in "Benchmark Capital Sues Travis Kalanick for Fraud"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Uber has different share classes with different voting rights<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/12/technology/uber-chief-travis-kalanick-stock-buyback.html?_r=0" rel="nofollow">https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/12/technology/uber-chief-tra...</a>
---------------------------------<p>Even if a worker sells only 10 percent of his or her stock back to the company, that worker agrees to give Mr. Kalanick the voting rights to 100 percent of his or her stock. Each share of Class A stock comes with one shareholder vote, while each share of Class B comes with 10 votes.<p>Uber had 545.8 million Class A shares at the end of last year, which included 43.4 million employee stock options that had been issued, according to financial statements obtained by The Times. If all of the early employees who owned those options sold even a small part of their stock to Uber, Mr. Kalanick could control the votes of up to 43.4 million shares, or an additional 7.9 percent of that stock class.<p>Uber also had 459.7 million Class B common shares at the end of 2016, which included 9.9 million employee stock options that had been issued. If all of the holders of those options sold even part of their stock to Uber, Mr. Kalanick could control the votes of up to 9.9 million shares, or an additional 2.2 percent of that stock class.<p>Mr. Kalanick does not control those votes until he issues something called a “voting notice,” which requires the employee to vote all of his or her remaining stock in accordance with Mr. Kalanick’s wishes on all matters submitted to a vote of stockholders, according to the agreement. If Mr. Kalanick issued such a notice to a Class B shareholder, the stock gets only one vote a share, which goes to Mr. Kalanick.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 10 Aug 2017 20:15:31 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14983716</link><dc:creator>benmathes</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14983716</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14983716</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by benmathes in "TLDR Stock Options"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Hi Eric, Tiho, Marcus, etc.<p>This is a fantastic start. Yes, angel.co/clear was complicated. I hope you have better luck driving adoption.<p>What you are charting at the top is the <i>company</i> exit value. But the UI controls enter info tied to the <i>employee</i>. You should chart the <i>employee's</i> exit value.<p>You should also put the "or not*" controls  as totally optional toggles as an exploratory UI. I.e. the user can toggle "preference" and see what it does to their value.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 02 Jun 2017 15:42:12 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14470707</link><dc:creator>benmathes</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14470707</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14470707</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by benmathes in "Silicon Valley Needs Startup Drano"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Is that real return? (i.e. adjusted for inflation)<p>Or even better, is that comparative performance, i.e. 10% better than a vanguard index fund?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 12 Jan 2017 15:04:38 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13382713</link><dc:creator>benmathes</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13382713</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13382713</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by benmathes in "Bose Hearphones"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Some of the earliest work that Kahneman and Taversky (think behavioral economics or biases) stumbled upon that told them the brain was filtering/processing unconsciously and <i>incorrectly</i> was hearing focus. Different people would be able to recall strings of numbers played into each ear at varying levels of ability. The better you were at picking up more input streams, the better a bus driver, fighter pilot, or tank captain you would be.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 09 Dec 2016 20:37:33 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13141628</link><dc:creator>benmathes</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13141628</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13141628</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by benmathes in "90 Days and My Six-Figure Mistake"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Just have to put away 5k/month to afford a barebones downpayment... in 5 years.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 14 Nov 2016 22:01:10 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12953758</link><dc:creator>benmathes</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12953758</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12953758</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by benmathes in "90 Days and My Six-Figure Mistake"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>IIRC (8+ years ago), athenahealth was very open with internal data, as part of building an internal culture of honesty and trust. The Exec team walked the walk and showed us very detailed financial info during all-hands.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 14 Nov 2016 21:35:53 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12953576</link><dc:creator>benmathes</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12953576</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12953576</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by benmathes in "90 Days and My Six-Figure Mistake"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Fair. I went too terse with the title.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 14 Nov 2016 21:00:16 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12953313</link><dc:creator>benmathes</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12953313</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12953313</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by benmathes in "90 Days and My Six-Figure Mistake"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>That experience was the instigator. It's why I wanted to make the product.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 14 Nov 2016 20:46:28 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12953178</link><dc:creator>benmathes</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12953178</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12953178</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by benmathes in "Big Tech Companies Pounce as the Allure of Startups Fades"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>yeah, hence "at best". There are bigco's where you'll stagnate. There are startups where you'll only learn how to make CRUD apps in rails.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 14 Nov 2016 20:38:37 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12953120</link><dc:creator>benmathes</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12953120</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12953120</guid></item></channel></rss>