Startup Grind

If this were to be offered by an actual company (a first party solution), there are some features that'd be expected that make the problem space a lot harder. Here's an "intro to search" article that's a good read, and I'll use it to highlight some of the things that'd be different in a first party solution - https://medium.com/startup-grind/what-every-software-engineer-should-know-about-search-27d1df99f80d

(See the "Theory: the search problem" section)

Size: This is only indexing ~500k public repos. A first party solution would be expected to index all of it, public and private.

Indexing speed: This can take up to a few days to index. A first party solution would be expected to have a much lower index latency - seconds to minutes.

Query language: This can (and does) have its own simple query language. A first party solution would need to have support embedded into and not break backwards compatibility with the current query language.

Context-dependence: A first party solution would be expected to index private repos as well, and now the query context (logged in user) becomes another variable in an already multi-variate problem space.

Latency: Gets harder with scale, and a first party solution would likely provide a SLA/SLO around latency.

Access control: Same issue as context-dependence, with private repos being included.

There's also unknown but likely considerations around compliance and internationalization, which are quite tricky problems.

Note - I don't mean…

And this is exactly the ugly place where reality collides with the way we wish things were. I worked for a guy once who could put together a story so plausible that someone close to you would invest way more than they had any reason to or should, into the venture. He would not tell a single outright lie and the "truth" would be that if all the things that needed to happen, did happen, the business would in fact be a great investment. He would have a sold your parents so hard that they are probably getting their friends to come in on the deal too. And when all the money was gone and your parents were destitute, he would have an iron clad story about how it was not his fault, how your parents knew that things could go wrong, and that risk was all part of the equation. He would be untouchable as far as a fraud prosecution goes.

Remember the 'startup story' we read here? [1] This CEO convinced his employees to cover payroll, you don't think he couldn't convince your mom?

I hope you (or someone you care about) never experiences a really good con artist first hand because it completely shakes your belief in humanity to the core. These people will take everything you have if you let them, and they will do it without hesitation. This is how it goes;

Your family member or friend calls you to tell you that they just got in on a really good deal. They are going to be rich and you can be too. They will tell you how this company their new friend is the owner/CEO/president of has…

I don't care about them being too open or not. My issue is with them pushing sensational content because it's good for their bottom line. IMHO Alex Jones should have a place to post his male enhancement promotional videos, but if a platform is curating the content and decides to recommend it to everyone because it increases time on site and engagement then they should be responsible for that choice.

I have a consumer app and met with some of the early investors in the top social media companies. They all only cared about DAU/MAU, time in app and user growth. All of them recommended books like Hooked (https://medium.com/startup-grind/nir-eyal-why-you-are-addicted-to-facebook-slack-pinterest-468a86eb562), to help us design something that's more addictive, or anything from BJ Fogg (https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbes-personal-shopper/2021/10/05/best-ethernet-cables/?sh=5bedbdd13a51), who had founders of Instagram and Snapchat as his students. A few of them even tried to get us to hire the new hot thing, Dopamine Labs (https://www.builtinla.com/2018/01/11/dopamine-labs-boost-user-engagement), who promised to have "AI" to get users addicted with custom notifications.

I used to think that behavioral psychology was bullshit (my GF studied psychology too), but being exposed to it in the industry there's no denying that some of it works. There's a reason why all headlines are clickbait now and all thumbnails on youtube and netflix are of weird facial expressions…

I traded a Toyota full size pickup truck in for my first Tesla, a Model S, because that's all they made at the time. I'm looking forward to closing the loop, trading that Model S (with almost 110k miles on it after driving cross country in six years) in for my Cybertruck. It's ugly, I love it, I don't care what it costs.

The most popular vehicle in the US? The F150. Sell to younger people who want trucks, but want an electric truck. Same reason Harley Davidson spun their Livewire bike out to its own brand: old people riding Harley's didn't want it, and that persona is dying out. So you have to create a new brand to cater to the persona you're targeting.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/02/ford-pickup-remains-americas-top-selling-truck-for-45th-year.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/27/harley-davidson-spins-off-livewire-in-1point8-billion-spac-merger.html

https://medium.com/startup-grind/people-dont-buy-products-they-buy-better-versions-of-themselves-2ce85fdb5ff1

It may have had only a tiny effect but considering the election could have swung either way with 100,000 votes in the right states so who knows.

https://medium.com/startup-grind/how-the-trump-campaign-built-an-identity-database-and-used-facebook-ads-to-win-the-election-4ff7d24269ac

https://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trumps-new-attack-strategy-keep-clinton-voters-home-1476221895

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-27/inside-the-trump-bunker-with-12-days-to-go

a.) identifying Clinton voters and sending negative Clinton ads based on race/gender/policy reversals(by Clinton) to make them consider voting for anyone else, or not voting
b.) identifying voters who were on the fence and sending them ads for Trump + identifying geographic clusters in swing states and sending Trump there for campaign rallies

Upvote manipulation doesn't work on Hacker News because both the voting ring detector is strong, and flagging is significantly more powerful and serves as counteracting force to upvotes and serves as a check to submissions which legit aren't good for the site. (both of these are in contrast with Product Hunt, which turns a blind eye to voting manipulation and asking-friends-for-upvotes-but-not-explicitly is often recommended as a promotion strategy on that site: https://medium.com/startup-grind/my-startup-launch-on-product-hunt-was-disappointing-ff5c8e70860)

There is also a Hacker News "growth hacking" tactic of linking to /newest on Facebook/Twitter instead of linking to the submission directly to avoid the voting ring detector, which also doesn't work and is blatantly obvious: http://i.imgur.com/08pAFOw.jpg