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Justin and Jason discuss Sean Murphy’s extension to the Luck Surface Area, Gabriel Weinberg’s mental models, Uber’s impending IPO, how Jason is adopting a dog, the book Justin is writing called Founder First, the endemic nature of overengineering, the latest with the Math Academy program and software, why Jason is dabbling with cryptocurrency HFT, Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead, and Justin’s former life as a musician.
Hi Jason, Nomics might be worth looking at as a high-quality crypto exchange data aggregator. They have a free plan.
https://p.nomics.com/cryptocurrency-bitcoin-api
Hey Guys! I think the reason you haven’t heard from more of us lamenting your absence is simply that we respect what rich and busy lives you both have. It would be awesome to get back in the groove. We miss you!
Finding the balance between “quick and dirty” versus “slow and tidy” is the lifetime arc of any developer who wishes to work in a fast-moving space.
Something I saw in finance was that banks would pay twice as much to hire the best developers, then throw them into a chaotic environment. These devs would have been the most capable people in the world to build a beautiful, elegant, system, but their real value was being able to keep adding features while treading water in a sea of ever-increasing tech debt.
A similar skill set is required of startup devs, keeping things working while evolving the product.
Particularly challenging is managing non-founder devs, who can often feel conflicted. A completely valid thing if there is health and safety at risk but completely unaligned with the company’s goals if the only risk is something that might not be viable anyway won’t work perfectly. So there’s a management challenge to help them find the balance and assure them the goal is to get an answer, not deliver perfection. “Move fast and break things” was an example of giving this permission.
Agree with JohnH – Totally appreciate whatever time you have to keep taking us along on your tech journeys! I’ve been listening for years and still have you at the #1 spot in my podcast queue.
Also, about Justin’s trade of tech for services – I know you probably can’t get into details but I’m curious about how that is going – working out for both parties? is it interesting/fun or more typical web dev stuff? Lessons learned, etc.
Wow, what a wonderful surprise! You guys mentioned my friend Mark from !
Hey, I can’t believe I got a shoutout here! Very cool.
I was in Hack Reactor’s second class, so I think it was Jason’s 2nd time there when I saw him. He offered a “choose your own adventure” talk, where we could hear about Catalyst Academy, how he messed up his Google acquisition, how he built a semi-professional soccer team, or about how he was using Node at Uber.
I’ve basically been listening to the podcast every time I go out for a run or a hike or commuting for the past couple months. The crazy thing is I didn’t connect Jason the person I talked with in SF to the person on the podcast until after he started talking about going up to Catalyst Class (which was Hack Reactor’s name the first four weeks I was there)!
I went through the whole because there was a lot of stuff that resonated with me. I used to run a very ambitious brick and mortar language program for elementary school children, I did a lot of math at a young age (before abandoning it for foreign languages) and I now love coding and startups.
There’s another crazy fascinating thing about hearing extended conversation in real-time from 2010 to 2014. The predictions about Reddit, Tesla, Bitcoin, JavaScript frameworks, etc was fascinating, far more fascinating than it would have been to hear at the time. Also, these guys (along with patio11 and other past interviewees) were responsible for several HN threads I remembered reading years earlier.
Connecting the dots is fun. Looking forward to both Nugget and the paid version of Math Academy!
typo: I went through the whole Soundcloud feed because…
@Jason: The easily-found feed starts much later, but the Soundcloud feed starts at #70 with the Derek Sivers interview.
@Mark – This is how to get access to all the episodes – https://www.dropbox.com/sh/frnqzndys9j3vc1/P7jHgH0BQK
I should probably make a page widget that makes it easy to listen to everything from episode 1 onward.
@John Polacek – Still working out the details for the tech side of things but will keep you posted if anything interesting happens.
@All – Thanks for the kind words!
Hey, Warren! Just saw your comment. Definitely more luck surface area we met a couple years ago.
I gotta say, just for the purposes of this thread, it’s a bummer you’re doing your 300×50 blog on [warrenwong.org](https://warrenwong.org/) instead of one of those other fine domains I showed you was available. I couldn’t have gotten you warren.biz, but warren.guru was available 😉.
Justin, my man! Your initial assessment of Oasis was correct. They were banal and their whiney singing style grated every last nerve. Not to mention their absolute diva attitude. Of course, with deeper consideration, these are all the hallmarks a world-wide sensation makes. In any case, stick to your guns; they were awful.
But you know who’s fantastic? You are. Jason and Justin, all your fans are happy to be getting regular doses of you again. Keep it going!
Glad you guys are getting out more frequent episodes, I got into the habit of not checking for newer episodes, but I’m always happy to see a new one out.
Van Halen and the Brown M&Ms with David Lee Roth telling a bit of the story.
Very much enjoyed reading the refinement of luck surface area, thanks for the link.
@Justin: Looking forward to reading Founder First. Is “Unicorn Narrative” just a family friendly “entreporn”? Or is it distinct enough to have an article about it (assuming it’s not part of the book)?
Big fan GoT, never got into the zombie stories, which is perhaps seems a little weird given the modus operandi of Night King in GoT.
@Abe A@Danilo – Oh yeah! TZ is on-a-roll and we’re gonna be big one day 😉 Waiting for Jason to do show notes for the latest episode as we speak!