I actually was always better at English than I was at math (much better). I even won an NCTE writing award in high school, and found math difficult. But I studied physics in college because I'm someone who can't stand BS and don't like the way English is taught at the college level. The idea of pure, simple truths deeply appeals to me.

But I feel even writing this is heresy. Maybe I'm just being a smug STEM type and I don't appreciate the world of literature. Maybe I just don't get it. But I went into college wanting to understand things, and making a game out of extracting hidden meanings from books just didn't offer anything I was looking for.

It's completely possible to honest, assertive and kind at the same time. I see this false dichotomy all the time: "be honest and make enemies" or "be silent and watch a project tank." There's a third option: be frank and kind. (And yes, there are environments where no form of honesty, gentle or harsh, is welcome -- smile, put in your 40 hours and try to find employment elsewhere.)

If you're constantly angering people with your honesty, the problem is not with your honesty but with your people skills. You need to cut the pity party and take a hard look at your communication habits.

I think a lot of the ideas about how China isn't capable of innovation for cultural reasons is frankly rooted in racism. Not long ago they were a developing country, and they are rapidly, rapidly getting up to speed. If you were raised by subsistence farmers, you can rise above that but it's hard to become a technological prodigy.

But there's a whole generation of Chinese people being raised in a modern, prosperous economy, and I don't see any reason why they shouldn't be capable of the same contributions that Western students will make.

Yes, I worked at a place where both of those things were true.

Switching some services out to a service (in this case, Azure functions) saved my company like $10k/mo, too.

Well, that's what the article is arguing against. No one is saying you shouldn't start your question with hello. You should just say, "Hello X, I was wondering..."

You can literally say, "I wrote the book on that."

What they're REALLY paying for is knowledge from other companies. A person who has worked at Google and other innovative shops has (hopefully) learned a bunch of great processes, and will (hopefully) implement them at their new workplace.

So an area like the Bay Area is filled with collective knowledge because there are great companies there, and all that talent is jostling around.

Boo hoo.

I'm doing a startup and I feel we need to establish a basis for equity distribution before we get too deep into the project. My partner is hesitant to sign a formal agreement before we get a good sense of who's putting in the most work, as we're all still in school in different places in the world. Would it be possible to sign an agreement that would establish a basic range of equity: like no one partner can get less than X percentage until we are about to get funding and sign an official agreement?

He's insisting we wait, but perhaps if we get something in writing it would be something that could hold up in court. I trust my partners - I do - but I think it's wise to establish something from the very start.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2671586

Points: 2

# Comments: 1