

I am a former executive of a large famous company in the computer industry. AMA - kyro
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/9t05i/i_am_a_former_executive_of_a_large_famous_company/

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kyro
Some of these Ask Me Anything threads on Reddit are really fascinating, and
often times, you'll get people who are/were heavily involved in the
cs/startup/business industries. I'm not sure if you guys view these sort of
submissions as spammy, so I've tried to not submit every AMA thread that I
find relevant and interesting. Anyway, lots of interesting information in this
one.

~~~
g__
I Was also an Illegal E-Mail Spammer for 5 Years. I got Caught. AMA

<http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/9ebku/>

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dkokelley
I think this comment by the exec may be relevant. (He is talking about his
thoughts on starting a company, which he is a part of now.)

 _"A cool technology or product is not a company or a business. A real
business is as much about sales & marketing as it is about product. Even if
you have invented a flying moon car that runs on urine, if you can't sell it,
you don't have a business. Do not start a business without a marketing person
and a salesperson."_

You may not agree about starting with a marketing guy and a sales guy, but I
think that if these are shoes you can't or don't want to fill, you must hire
them soon.

~~~
staunch
This guy was hired right out of college and worked his way up in a massive
corporation over 10 years. I would trust his opinions on starting a new
company very little.

There's no doubt he can talk to the talk. That's the primary mechanism for
promotion in a big company. I would be very careful about mistaking his
opinions for actual experience.

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dkokelley
Also keep in mind, he graduated with a CS degree, not a business degree, and
he's in a small business now.

 _"I was hired soon after college (computer science degree) and rose up the
ranks from product development"_

So this guy started with a CS degree, hired into product development for a
major tech company, and was promoted from there.

I'm not saying that necessarily translates to starting a company, but I think
his advice holds a little more knowing that he worked both sides of the
equation (Product development and management).

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buckler
In case you're unfamiliar with the IAmA series on Reddit (which I see is
getting positive feedback from HN readers, needless to say), a 'starred' post
such as this one means that the OP has verified his/her identity with a
subreddit moderator.

Just wanted to point out since this new process was implemented only few days
ago.

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justinhj
The guy is eloquent and honest for a tech exec; I found myself upvoting most
of his replies

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allenbrunson
i haven't been to reddit in years. this is a lot more polite than i remember.

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wglb
Some of the subreddits aren't so bad--the programming one and the lisp one are
two that come to mind[

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jrockway
Seriously? I have to go to the womens fashion subreddit to get away from the
arbitrary fad-like groupthink on programming.reddit.

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ahpeeyem
"Once you have something that grows faster than education grows, you’re always
going to get a pop culture."

<http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=1039523>

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jrockway
So true.

Redditors seem to take a certain pride in being uneducated. Better to spend
months reinventing a square wheel poorly than to Google a bit and find a paper
on how to design round wheels.

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Dellort
I take issue with the "So true" statement. It's either true or false, not a
degree of true or false. That would be fuzzy logic or something and that's
just bullshit.

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jrockway
English has idioms. "So true" tends to mean "I agree".

