Hacker News: pjdemers

New comment by pjdemers in "Silicon Valley's tone-deaf take on the AI backlash will matter in 2026"

pjdemers — Thu, 25 Dec 2025 18:32:21 +0000

If the earth is one big tomato garden, maybe aliens will leave us alone. Also, native Americans were very aware that other groups of humans existed beyond their horizon, and some of the those groups were hostile to them. We have zero reason to believe there is anyone out in space hostile to us. In fact, we have plenty of evidence there isn't anyone at all out there.

New comment by pjdemers in "Is America's jobs market nearing a cliff?"

pjdemers — Mon, 01 Dec 2025 04:12:00 +0000

Back in the early 2000's I did consulting work with Home Depot's backend developers. Their office is the "store support center", which is in the NW suburbs of Atlanta. I remember the team as being very good, but surprisingly small.

New comment by pjdemers in "The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia"

pjdemers — Wed, 12 Nov 2025 18:56:12 +0000

Paying by card doesn't round, the amount charged is exact cents, or at least that's the way it worked last time I was in Canada.

New comment by pjdemers in "US air traffic controllers start resigning as shutdown bites"

pjdemers — Sat, 08 Nov 2025 23:45:02 +0000

There is no end game. He makes everything up as he goes along. When (if?) the shutdown ends, he will claim victory no matter what the outcome. If it doesn't end, he will still claim victory. He always wins.

New comment by pjdemers in "Air traffic controllers warn of 'tipping point' as US gov shutdown drags on"

pjdemers — Wed, 05 Nov 2025 21:47:22 +0000

>> senate will nuke the fillibuster.

No, they will not. They will make a deal, probably covering spending until the end of this year.

New comment by pjdemers in "Microsoft memo advises H1B employees to return immediately if currently abroad"

pjdemers — Sat, 20 Sep 2025 17:31:44 +0000

It will never last. There is a 0% chance even one company or person will ever pay this fee. Only an act of congress can change visa requirements, and it will never come up for a full floor vote. Ever. So it will be in legal limbo, and therefore can be ignored.

New comment by pjdemers in "Scammed out of $130K via fake Google call, spoofed Google email and auth sync"

pjdemers — Wed, 17 Sep 2025 17:00:13 +0000

I get 5 calls and texts a day about my Google and Coinbase accounts. So many that if either Google or Coinbase really did try to contact me, I wouldn't see it.

New comment by pjdemers in "Googler... ex-Googler"

pjdemers — Tue, 15 Apr 2025 15:55:03 +0000

The only retention bonuses I ever seen were to be paid in immediately, in full on involuntary termination. There was a "for cause" clause where bonuses don't get paid for termination with a cause, but the causes were listed in writing.

New comment by pjdemers in "How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?"

pjdemers — Thu, 10 Apr 2025 03:49:11 +0000

Darn right. Lots of smart, hard working, innovative people in China. And every single one of them would get on plane tonight if they could get a visa to live in US or UK (and a few other countries). So, which countries offer a better future for our children?

New comment by pjdemers in "Rules for Negotiating a Job Offer (2016)"

pjdemers — Sun, 06 Apr 2025 16:52:29 +0000

I've always asked for better non-monetary things in writing: title, spot on the org chart, automatic promotion soon, which parts of the product and stack I will work on, even as trivial as whether my desk will have a window. I state with constant certainty that those things are more important to me than a bigger paycheck. Most of the time I was offered far more money (in one case, 2 years pay signing bonus) in return for my agreeing to accept an offer with none of those things in writing.

New comment by pjdemers in "xAI has acquired X, xAI now valued at $80B"

pjdemers — Sat, 29 Mar 2025 16:13:08 +0000

I know for certain that in Virginia you can sell a house for any price you want, because I transferred one to a family member for zero. Of course the county's assessor had other ideas about the value for tax purposes, but the official deed was recorded at $0.

New comment by pjdemers in "Ask HN: Any jobs that don't force you to always be advancing career wise?"

pjdemers — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 18:13:01 +0000

there are lots of companies where promotions are very very rare. Find one. Look for companies where the current managers have been in their exact same role for 10 or 20 years or more.

New comment by pjdemers in "China tells its AI leaders to avoid U.S. travel over security concerns"

pjdemers — Sun, 02 Mar 2025 04:14:13 +0000

Given that most jobs in the US pay 10X or more what the same job pays in China, they are probably concerned that trips to the US will be one way.

New comment by pjdemers in "Inheriting is becoming nearly as important as working"

pjdemers — Sat, 01 Mar 2025 15:57:04 +0000

From the article: "Building enough houses in the right place is the single biggest action governments can take to restore the link between work and wealth" No greater truth can can be spoken about what's wrong with the economy in rich countries today.

New comment by pjdemers in "Why are corporations cutting managers?"

pjdemers — Mon, 06 Jan 2025 17:27:40 +0000

The same reason sports teams fire their head coach (or manager) when the owners want a change - because it is easy to replace one manager than an entire team.

New comment by pjdemers in "Calif. tech companies see laid-off workers as 'table scraps,' recruiters say"

pjdemers — Tue, 27 Aug 2024 18:03:28 +0000

My experience is that a list of employees ordered by (compensation/contribution) is created, sorted highest to lowest. Those nearer the top of the list are most likely to be let go, those lower on the list are most likely to stay. And, contribution != performance. Profitability (margin) and revenue growth of the product and team affect contribution as much as individual performance.

New comment by pjdemers in "Cautionary tale on using Chase bank for indie business"

pjdemers — Fri, 23 Aug 2024 18:02:54 +0000

I used to have a side gig as the CFO for a not-for-profit (an unpaid volunteer). Anyway, this organization was over 125 years old, associated with a larger organization 80 years older than that, and had the same primary bank for 70 years ... Anyway, my treasurer, who was very smart, insisted we keep enough cash to run for 3 months in a secondary bank. Just in case we were locked out of our primary bank.

New comment by pjdemers in "The real "Wolf of Wall Street" sales script"

pjdemers — Tue, 06 Aug 2024 19:57:28 +0000

Anyone serious about stock trading at the time knew who they were and what they did. They also advertised heavily in print. So anyone who stayed on the call for more than short time had some interest. I had coworkers who "invested" with them.

New comment by pjdemers in "xz has shown how a dependence on unpaid volunteers can cause major problems"

pjdemers — Tue, 02 Apr 2024 16:01:04 +0000

Well, with free products and services, our policy is "if you're not happy, we'll give you double your money back"

New comment by pjdemers in "You won't find a technical co-founder"

pjdemers — Tue, 02 Apr 2024 15:48:46 +0000

My experience with non-technical cofounders is: "We already have a CTO. However he/she is too busy/important/senior/all-of-these to build an MVP. What we need is someone to take our CTO's design and code it up, then become employee #1 for, all for 0.5% of the company."