No, PG is just jealous of my "arrogance/self-confidence" so every once in a while if I say something people give me points for, he goes on a down-modding binge and cuts my karma in half. If it creeps up again, then eventually I just get sent to the "showdead" group.
I will now be starting my 4th account ... kinda funny because if I had all my accounts' karma accumulated sans the 30-40 point downmodding binges, I think I'd be at about 4-500 by now.
But the mere thought that I piss him off enough to distract him from more important matters brings me more joy than his downmodding of all my comments sessions will ever bring him, so I persist.
They are masters at presenting information properly in terms of visual layout. But the stuff always struck me as ... how to say, "fashionista" in that it makes a fetish out of obsessing over details that have almost no yield value, ie, their impact in the final scheme of things on your finished work result is minimal, if at all.
But just in case you didn't realize that using the right sort of bullet point or putting one option to the left of the other was the be-all end-all of life itself, they constantly remind you with their writing, which to me varies wildly from intuitively useful, if not always applicable outside their own companies, to vastly oversimplified in ways that make me suspect they tend to gloss over the complexities that can be found in other people's businesses.
It's almost like they're saying, or at least I'm hearing, "Look - we made this very simple neat looking to-do list - why can't Microsoft make a whole operating system this neat and simple? They must be stupid or something! That's why we rule!"
Try (if my understanding of what you're trying to do is correct): "I'd like to link a database full of terms with well-defined meanings to a graphics rendering engine so when I type "The dog runs in the green field" I get an instant green field with a dog running through it."
Let me see if I get this: you want a database filled with words, and the words linked to a graphics rendering engine, so that if someone wrote, "The mighty oak between the streams that cuts through the green field" ... hypothetically you would be able to translate that into actually seeing an image of what the sentence describes?
So, you want to invent a new programming environment based on common language structure to ... make video games / virtual reality based on text descriptions?
I find it funny how in a programmer's mind it's "my idea" and why should they work on "my idea" ... but if it takes off and there's any money to be made, all of a sudden all the results are "theirs" and why should they "share" any subsequent results with me?
So if the results haven't happened yet, it's just my idea. If the results = lots of money, it's all theirs to share with me as they see fit.
To paraphrase you, you can't really blame me for being cautious with programmers, especially if this thinking is typical of what goes on in their minds, right?
This was an interesting post; thanks. The tricky part for me is it's apparently not obvious in a perception way, (at least not for others, to me it seems so obvious I can't believe it wasn't done years ago), but once you "get it" then it's easy and obvious to get.
You may be right about the "good enough" part. Good enough with huge marketing seems to win quite often in the marketplace.
Well, in general you're right. I just found the above poster's post (to which I responded in length) unbelievably obnoxious and pretentious. When it's the coding part, it's, "Why should "I" work on "your" idea ..."
And yet, if there are any financial results, all of a sudden all the results of "my idea" are 100% his, and all of a sudden it flips and becomes, "Why should "I" ... share "my" results with you?"
So when it's just an idea, it's mine. When there's money to be made, all the money belongs to whoever coded it and it's up to him to "share" any money made off my idea. But that's only if there's money to be made.
It just seemed incredibly beyond belief and revealed the kind of thinking that makes me reluctant to discuss it openly with programmers. Like there's no real money on the table yet, but even hypothetical proceeds are automatically his property to share with me as he sees fit.
It's like, if this is how it is when the money's not real yet, I can only imagine what it would be like if it was really on the table ...
> You spent 6 years on this idea with nothing to show for it[red flag]
I wouldn't say that. For example I have some practical insights into how to apply it that is apparently worth millions/time for a major company to just explore it. and that in turn is based on the belief that there will be a huge market for it in the near future. So I'd that's not quite "nothing" ... although it's hard to put a figure on it.
As for the "couldn't convince anyone to join you" ... well, in NYC people either: 1) work on their own dream startup projects, so I never even get to discuss my thing becasue they're too busy sharing theirs ... 2) go to work for i-banks, Google, or now, Facebook. Bit hard to find programmers who ask you to compete with the terms a well-funded company like that puts on the table.
> "dreaded idea guy that wants 99% equity
Funny thing - I never approached anybody with anything near thos terms. I always said I just wanted what everyone else in the primary group got. So if it's me an 1 other guy necessary, 50-50. If it's me, 3 programmers, 2 other guys doing who knows what, and 4 whatevers, 10% each. I'm not the one with the reluctance to share.
> I would at least call them to see where they are with their research.
Do you imagine they'd share that with me though? Like, "Oh, hey, I just found out about something I wasn't supposed to find out about. BTW, what exactly are you guys up to and how far did you get? I won't tell a soul, I promise!"
> An idea alone does not make a killer startup imo -- execution is very important.
Aaaah - but if I blurt the "what" to someone who can do the "how", then they have the "what" and "how" which means my negotiating leverage = 0 and I'm dependant on their good-will. Just to give you an idea of why I'm reluctant, see some of the above posts where people say things like, "If I partner with you and do your idea, why should I share the results with you?"
The only thing I would say with regard to something I can't figure out is that while I couldn't care less if this gets copied, and in some ways prefer it, if I was first to deploy, I'm not in a position (yet) to deploy first and I'm just trying to get as many things lined up as possible to increase my advantage before "blurting it out". I may find an ally, but I may inspire 3 competitors who now have the idea AND the technical ability I lack to put it together faster than me. Can't find a solution to this conundrum.
Well, they could be motivated and interested, but I doubt they have the experience, otherwise they would have, with their resources, started a long time ago.
About the do it better part, a bit harder. They have resources, but if they're just now starting to figure out what to do ... I know exactly what to do, but ... kinda hard to do it. So far it's a draw outcome wise, but they're making nice salaries doing something I like, meanwhile I lose interest in my gig while I spend more and more time doing this as a side project for free.
That might work. If it doesn't, I'll threaten to publish everything online for free, thus negating their own efforts and rendering their money spent into a black-hole of no return.
Or ... Or ... OOOORRR - you just gave me another idea in a way: What if I go up to BigCo and THREATEN to publish it online for free, thus rendering their money spent on research/subsequent patent-based revenue streams completely useless? Just walk up to IBM and say, "I know what you guys researching, here's what you'll discover, now pay up or I'll write a white paper and just put it on the internet ... or mail it to Microsoft or whatever!"
And since the legal departments of most major corporations use game theory in analyzing transactions, their lawyers would easily tell them it's in their favor to pay me what I ask for just to get me to agree to shut up.
That's just crazy enough to possibly work. I wish I could up vote you like 20 times for inspiring this thought.
Well, these are good points. I guess I could do the evangelist part or let someone else do it, but really I think it could speak for itself. As for the article in your link, I could be wrong since I'm not him, but something tells me his reputation had something to do with that "I got my application built for $12,000" equation.
Even if the market hasn't changed yet, I'd say that them devoting brainpower/budgets into looking into it full-time might meand that they, too suspect it may change this way. Quite honestly I can't believe it didn't change this way a long time ago.
I will now be starting my 4th account ... kinda funny because if I had all my accounts' karma accumulated sans the 30-40 point downmodding binges, I think I'd be at about 4-500 by now.
But the mere thought that I piss him off enough to distract him from more important matters brings me more joy than his downmodding of all my comments sessions will ever bring him, so I persist.