

What is Hacker News? - blantonl

This post is spurred by seeing the Hacker News guidelines this evening: [Moderator: feel free to remove this]<p>What IS Hacker News?  Is it a social site for startups? Or venture capital?  Is it similar to Slashdot (or was Slashdot once similar)?  Is it a combinator for startups? (No pun intended).  Or is it a more "elite" group of like minded individuals?<p>I am relative newcomer to the Hacker News scene, being a member for just under a year, but I've gained significant knowledge from those that participate here. I own and manage a well established Internet business, but with regards to Hacker News I struggle to understand who exactly Hacker News is designed for, and targeted to. Frankly, I suffer from an identity crisis at times.<p>I may need to be content with the understanding that I gain great perspective for my business by reading and participating here, but my curiosity still recommends that I ask this question.<p>Warm regards,<p>Lindsay
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pg
Hacker news is designed for and targeted at hackers. In the sense of the word
that means people who write code, not people who break into things. Other
people with similar tastes also like it.

Since it's run by YC and the initial users were mostly YC founders, there is
inevitably a startup spin to the stories that are popular here. In fact the
site was originally called Startup News. But it turned out to be boring to
have so much of a startup focus, so we changed the name and the focus to be
more general.

~~~
mortenjorck
What is a hacker?

A hacker is someone whose appetite for the universe is never quite satisfied.
The hacker seeks to understand: himself, others, what surrounds him, the tools
he uses, the things he enjoys, how things fit together. The hacker seeks to
build: ideas, means, practical applications, businesses, cultural movements.
Some build just one, some build them all. The hacker seeks to learn, to
experiment, to solve, and to learn again.

The male pronoun above is of course used merely out of grammatical tradition.
Hackers are male and female, young and old. Hackers are in Silicon Valley and
in the middle of cornfields, they are in industrialized countries and in
developing ones, they date back centuries before the term was coined and will
exist as long as does the human condition.

I guess that turned into something of a manifesto. But that's what I believe
is embodied in the spirit of the hacker.

~~~
hasenj
I think what you're describing is a more general class of people. Hackers are
the subgroup of such people, who are dealing mostly with computers and writing
code.

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mixmax
Everyone is here for a different reason. Some people love startups, some love
technology, some love programming. Some just like to learn new things.

If you look broadly at the topics, discussions and members I think it's
somewhat obvious that there's a common denominator in all of this. Hacker news
is a collection of intellectually curious people who enjoy interacting with
and being challenged by likeminded souls. This is evidenced by the generally
well-thought out comments, stimulating submissions and the tendency to
downvote comments that aren't interesting or add to the conversation.

Hacker news is simply a place where you can meet other people that value
intellectual integrity and a good conversation about an interesting subject
whatever that may be.

~~~
shib71
I'm mostly here for the technology / programming stuff, but I do appreciate
the entrepreneurial factor. It seems to bias the content towards ideas that
are potentially disruptive, as opposed to press releases and unfocused
technophilia.

~~~
caudipublius
"potentially disruptive"? Please elaborate. I find that the ideas mentioned
here stem from other ideas mentioned here in a mostly positive fashion.

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MaysonL
"Disruptive" here is being used in the sense that Schumpeter called "creative
destruction" the engine of capitalism.

In other words, an idea that has the potential to change the world, probably
in a way that will break somebody's rice bowls (while quite likely creating
some new ones).

Like what Craigslist and eBay have done to newspaper classified advertising.

~~~
dealova
Nice words ! One of the example
:[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1307646/iStet...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1307646/iStethoscope-
The-iPhone-app-replacing-real-thing-hospitals.html)

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jeromec
Hacker News was created by Paul Graham. You may also want to check out some of
his essays at paulgraham.com. Here is one which gives some background on why
he created Hacker News, and his thoughts on it as of Feb. 2009.

<http://paulgraham.com/hackernews.html>

~~~
da5e
I think HN still very much reflects the mind of Paul Graham and his range of
interests. Obviously he's an expert in startups, but he's also one of the best
practical psychologists I've read. And I think this is a site about the
mindset that produces programmers, entrepreneurs and people who like to do
difficult, mentally-challenging projects and be delighted by the challenge.

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KevinMS
It's a site for greedy nerds.

That's my honest opinion, can't mod me down for that, right?

~~~
Yzupnick
Me too. Except (and correct me if I'm misinterpreting you) while you see this
as an insult, I see it as a compliment. It is a site for people that are smart
and love to learn. It is a site for people that know what the want, and are
willing to take the risks to achieve that. It is a site for people that are
creative, productive, and try to produce things that the people around them
need or want. So yes it is a site for greedy nerds, and that is one of the
reasons I enjoy coming.

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amalcon
You really seem to have two different questions:

\- Why was HN created, and/or what is the guiding purpose behind changes?

\- Why do people come here?

The former can really only be answered by pg. I'd guess he finds it somehow
useful for YC proper. It gives a combination of PR (not quite the right term,
but the best I can think of) for YC and a source of information on part of the
applicant pool. Again, only a guess. It's also entirely possible that pg just
wants to create a good community.

I can give my perspective on the latter. I come here because the quality of
the frontpage links tends to be pretty high, and the (median) quality of the
comments is even higher.

~~~
hnal943
It's also a muse application for the design of arc, pg's new dialect of lisp.

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startupcomment
I dislike the term "hacker." It can and does have nefarious connotations that
demean the term. I prefer "programmer," "developer," or "coder." Why run the
risk of having someone misperceive your use of the term

~~~
hasenj
Because "programmer" or "developer" can include people from other programming
subcultures, like VB programmers and other types of coders who view coding as
just another profession for getting a salary, and/or tend to be merely
"consumers" of what Big Companies produce.

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c1sc0
Hacker News was born as a website for YC participants, grew up as a curious
little brat interested in all kinds of technical topics, then had a minor
identity crisis (hacker vs. entrepreneur) during adolescence, and now seems to
have settled in favor of taking the middle ground between hustler & hacker.

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grigy
Hacker News is what helps me to stay up to date with the latest news and
trends in technology, to hear interesting people, their opinions on various
topics, to find useful resources that help to do my work in better way.

Basically it's a fresh air that I need to breath every day.

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bokonist
Hacker News is a place to share news and discuss the world with technology
minded, intellectually curious people.

YCombinator is a seed stage venture capital firm. The founder of YCombinator
started and runs Hacker News, but there is no other affiliation.

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atentaten
I guess the confusion comes from the system being named "Hacker News" when the
content is rarely hacker-related. This struck me as somewhat as a misnomer as
well, but I've since gotten over that. . .

~~~
peteforde
How do you figure? I rarely see anything on the homepage that isn't of
interest to hackers.

~~~
_delirium
You'd have to have a _very_ broad definition; imo, about half the front-page
content on a typical day is hackerly. Much of the rest is just general-
interest news/politics/economics/business/motivation/self-help/etc. Not that
there aren't many hackers also interested in those things, but it's hardly
required, and many aren't. Not surprising, either, but I think it's a
particular slice of hackerdom. Since it was formerly called Startup News, it's
got more of the variety of hackers interested in the biz/economics angle, as
opposed to, say, the classic Bell Labs type of hacker.

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benthumb
It's reddit for adults.

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IdeaHamster
You know those stories you hear of the (by now) mythical "Homebrew Computer
Club" of yore?

...yeah, like that.

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klbarry
I read it because it has intelligent discussions relevant to anyone who works
with computers in business.

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albertsun
You might check out the guidelines for the site.

<http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html#>

~~~
WalterGR
"This post is spurred by seeing the Hacker News guidelines this evening"

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albertsun
That was edited in...

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blantonl
actually, it was part of the original comment

