From Yao to Mao

What Hacker News says

1. ketzuDec 2025
   Technically last year, but less than 365 days ago:

   * The Mom Test

   * The SAAS Playbook

   Actually in this year, the ones I remember the most:

   * Start Small, Stay Small

   * From Yao To Mao (more a series of lectures on chinese history)

   The most recent one I haven't finished yet but was surprised I liked:

   * Software Engeineering at Google

   Many more things described ring true or feel desireable, and I recognize too many of the anti-patterns from companies I worked for. Although, I also recognized the good things people were doing and started to appreciate them more.

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2. FooBarWidgetOct 2021
   Okay I've been watching your back and forths for a while now and you guys seem to deadlock. I'll add some verifiable data.

   Exhibit 1: "From Yao To Mao" by Kenneth James Hammond, history professor at New Mexico State University https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VMEFNcbR0o&t=8m30s This history lecture states that The Great Leap Forward actually achieved many of its goals. One famous failure was the famine. But you better listen to his very interesting explanation of that instead of reading a summary by me.

   Exhibit 2: life expectancy from 1850 to 2020. https://twitter.com/CarlZha/status/1439608272940519430?t=4-p... You see a couple of interesting things. From 1949 onwards, there was a steep gain. Even the famine only managed to slow the gain rather than reversing it. That same thread also refers to the Barefoot Doctor system which was a major contributor to raising life expectancy.

   Exhibit 3: Kevin Tellier, a very good China watcher (corroborated by another HN user in this submission), discusses the nature of Xi's power centralization. https://twitter.com/kevtellier/status/1441774309652025346 Rather than grabbing power for the sake of power, Xi's power centralization served a real purpose that is in the interest of the nation, namely removing entrenched interests that keep the country back. The problem of entrenched interests influencing policy is unfortunately an unsolved problem in many democracies.

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