Hacker News: karl11

New comment by karl11 in "A city-building game in which the city would prefer you didn't"

karl11 — Sat, 10 Oct 2026 22:01:56 +0000

I think that may be exactly the point.

New comment by karl11 in "Spain Orders Blacklist of Palantir from Public and Private Companies"

karl11 — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 20:58:48 +0000

Interview is gold, he is right.

New comment by karl11 in "It doesn't matter if it works"

karl11 — Fri, 19 Jun 2026 01:04:10 +0000

Only losers think it doesn’t matter if it works.

New comment by karl11 in "Business Owners Are Worst Clients"

karl11 — Sun, 03 May 2026 16:57:16 +0000

Business owners carry a lot more stress than salaried employees (generalization but directionally true). They also don't have a "boss" that can fire them. Those two things are likely the reason for a higher likelihood of bad behavior.

New comment by karl11 in "Say No to Palantir in Europe"

karl11 — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 16:49:26 +0000

I don't think there has ever been a company so poorly understood (willfully or otherwise) as Palantir. They make a software platform, it does not come with any data, does not come connected to any datasources, etc. You can literally sign up right now for a trial and see this for yourself. It looks the same if you were to purchase a license. This headline might as well say 'Say No to PostgreSQL' or 'Say No to Excel' or 'Say No to Salesforce', etc. Wild.

New comment by karl11 in "Generative AI coding tools and agents do not work for me"

karl11 — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 03:09:26 +0000

There is an important concept alluded to here around skin in the game: "the AI is not going to assume any liability if this code ever malfunctions" -- it is one of the issues I see w/ self-driving cars, planes, etc. If it malfunctions, there is no consequence for the 'AI' (no skin in the game) but there are definitely consequences for any humans involved.

New comment by karl11 in "OpenAI is Visa – Buttering up the government to retain a monopoly"

karl11 — Fri, 27 Dec 2024 00:30:22 +0000

Taylor Lorenz? Don’t forget your Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect as you read this…

New comment by karl11 in "The PayPal Mafia is taking over America's government"

karl11 — Wed, 11 Dec 2024 14:20:11 +0000

This article is basically nothing more than a headline - there is nearly zero reporting attached to it...

New comment by karl11 in "Show HN: I've Built an Accounting System"

karl11 — Thu, 19 Sep 2024 14:51:18 +0000

Lack of manual journals would be a non-starter, I am actually not clear how a business could possibly run their books without manual journals.

An example: you make something that uses 5 inputs. I have inventory and cost of goods sold accounts for each of those inputs, but my invoices out to customers only reference the final product. This is where ERPs add insanely complex inventory management solutions. However, the simple way to deal with it instead is to use a manual journal to reconcile your inventory and cost of goods sold accounts monthly or however often you like.

New comment by karl11 in "Obituary for a quiet life (2023)"

karl11 — Sun, 14 Apr 2024 13:59:10 +0000

Check out the movie "Perfect Days"

New comment by karl11 in "Show HN: Dropbase – Build internal web apps with just Python"

karl11 — Tue, 05 Dec 2023 20:53:13 +0000

It's because every small business has this problem and need, and there are a lot of small businesses. But selling technology to small businesses is extremely hard.

New comment by karl11 in "Why you shouldn't join Y Combinator"

karl11 — Fri, 13 Oct 2023 13:45:49 +0000

From the outside looking in, it seems to me that the biggest benefit of YC is the people you get to meet and build relationships with along w/ the advice and feedback and accountability to focus on the things that actually matter to growing a business. These are lessons and relationships that will carry through even if you decide that VC-backed hypergrowth isn't for you and you want a small lifestyle business. Joining YC does not preclude you from doing things differently, but it does provide access to some amazingly smart and capable people that would be hard, if not impossible, to replicate somewhere else.

New comment by karl11 in "Ask HN: Do you still use a hand held/desktop calculator?"

karl11 — Thu, 03 Aug 2023 13:35:59 +0000

HP-35s in RPN mode

New comment by karl11 in "Spotify reducing employee base by about 6%"

karl11 — Mon, 23 Jan 2023 15:05:39 +0000

Revenue is irrelevant when looking at savings, you have to look at net revenue or gross margin. Majority of Spotify’s revenue goes to record labels. If you are making -40mm / yr then a $90mm swing is a huge deal.

Also, can’t just look at salary - employees cost a lot more than their salary. 10% employer tax, health care, other ancillary benefits, IT equipment / space, etc. A $150k salary probably costs the company $250k all in.

New comment by karl11 in "Supreme Court Overturns Roe vs. Wade"

karl11 — Fri, 24 Jun 2022 15:34:34 +0000

The thing about abortion that most people seem not to understand is that the debate is fundamentally about answering "when does human life start?". One side believes it starts at conception, which equates any abortion with murder. The other side believes it starts at some point after that, which makes abortion up to that point a women's health / rights issue. Irreconcilable, but also toxic when the two sides never talk about what they actually disagree on, but instead call each other murderers or anti-women's rights or whatever.

New comment by karl11 in "California’s economy may seem healthy. Just wait for the next recession"

karl11 — Sun, 22 May 2022 19:32:21 +0000

There is an old saying about biting the hand that feeds you…

New comment by karl11 in "No one cared about my spreadsheets"

karl11 — Thu, 17 Feb 2022 01:33:29 +0000

I love the irony in all the comments here criticizing his spreadsheets and arguments by people who have clearly not read the book or looked at the spreadsheets.

New comment by karl11 in "Nobel Peace laureates blast tech giants and warn against rising authoritarianism"

karl11 — Sat, 11 Dec 2021 22:40:11 +0000

Just to make sure I understand this — the argument is that in order to combat authoritarianism, Silicon Valley companies should censor more content?

New comment by karl11 in "Malwarebytes' privacy VPN is Mullvad in a shady trenchcoat"

karl11 — Mon, 11 Oct 2021 12:26:03 +0000

Seems no different than Costco's Kirkland Signature brand. Private labeling something as your own that is made by someone else (and not disclosing who) is not really a new concept.

New comment by karl11 in "Hospitals lift curtain on prices, revealing giant swings in pricing by procedure"

karl11 — Wed, 22 Sep 2021 20:47:17 +0000

I bet that this ends up resulting in higher prices. Once hospitals know what the others are charging, it is more likely to cause the cheaper ones to raise their prices than it is the more expensive ones to lower them. Medical care is a scarce good and (mostly) the end consumer is not footing the bill directly, either for the care or the insurance.