
Ask HN: What has HN given you? - jxub
I wonder what opportunities, interesting insights, or otherwise has this community given to you. Thanks for the answers!
======
callmevlad
Nearly 5 years ago, a few months after being rejected from YC and a few weeks
from being essentially bankrupt (my daughter had an unexpected surgery while
we had only catastrophic health insurance), my brother and I posted a Show HN
about Webflow
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5407499](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5407499)).
It was our last-ditch attempt to show a proof-of-concept to the world before
going back to our old bosses to ask for our jobs back.

Thankfully, the post took off - we were #1 for most of the day, and over
25,000 people signed up for our beta list in the several days after that post.
This helped us reapply to YC with a lot more confidence and traction, and we
were able to get into the next batch.

Webflow ([https://webflow.com/](https://webflow.com/)) has since grown into a
profitable business with close to 1,000,000 users all over the world, billions
of website requests served, and close to 60 team members in over 14 countries.
I'm pretty sure none (or very little) of this would be possible without HN and
the community here, and the super positive reception our post had.

Today, we're on a mission to enable more people to create powerful software
without having to learn how to code - we probably have decades to make that
vision a reality, but we're on a decent start in large part thanks to our
launch on HN.

A HUGE thank you to the community here!

~~~
mazumdar
Nearly 5 years ago, a few months after being rejected from YC for the first
time, I came across your Show HN and started using Webflow to build a mockup
of my product's sign-up page (I did not know how to code at that time).

Over the next 2.5 years, I reapplied to YC five more times. I interviewed
twice in the second round. I eventually got rejected every time. From the
ideation stage, to $1M in revenue, YC has an application of mine for every
milestone in between (until I did not need to raise money anymore).

My company, Y Athletics ([https://yathletics.com](https://yathletics.com)), is
a profitable business with no investor funding and 7 figure revenues. We've
delivered products to over 25,000 paying customers all around the world. We
don't solve problems, but we create some amazing products that people want.

This post about Webflow made me nostalgic as it was during that time that I
started to read HN religiously (and now I discovered that Vlad and I applied
and were rejected in the same batch as well). My first landing page was made
on Webflow. I learned how to code using Codeacademy. My first 100 users came
from a comment I posted on an Ask HN thread
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6617551](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6617551)).
Seeing others building their startups inspired me to continue building mine.
My company would probably not exist if it wasn't for HN. Thanks for
everything!

~~~
rkuykendall-com
Sorry if you've answered this elsewhere before, but what's with the logo? It
almost looks like an exact copy of Y Combinator. Was that the case when you
were applying?

~~~
hanspeter
The only resemblance is that both are a "Y". It's not the same font and it's
not the same colors.

------
sytse
It gave me a job, a company, and a sense of purpose. In 2012 I did a Show HN
for GitLab.com
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4428278](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4428278)
Today we are 1800 contributors and a company of 220 on a mission to ensure
that everyone can contribute.

~~~
ne01
You only got ~60 upvotes?

Interesting, I always thought the number of upvotes for a Show HN post
correlates to its future success.

~~~
duck
Dropbox had about 60 if I remember right (109 now) -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863).

~~~
CamperBob2
Wow, those comments are _awesome._

"For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite
trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and
then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem. From Windows or Mac, this FTP
account could be accessed through built-in software."

I wonder how many other ten-figure business models can be developed from
comments that begin "For any Linux user, this is totally trivial," or "Um,
have you _looked_ at the pricing for Amazon S3?" or "LOL, this problem was
solved 20 years ago by XXXX at YYYY."

~~~
avip
This is such a classy HN comment. "For 0.01% of the population, this is
trivial to do by X, which is extremely complicated, and does not work at all,
and evidently even the commenter himself had never done that"

~~~
minimaxir
It should be noted that HN in 2008 was a _lot_ different than it is now.

~~~
toyg
Nah. Just the other day there was a big thread on how easy it is to run your
own VPN on AWS and why should one ever pay for a glorified web proxy?
:facepalm:

------
rdiddly
A place to hang out (as it were) on the internet that is...

...connected to the tech scene

...ad-free

...not a "social network" in the usual data-harvesting sense

...slim, fast-loading, not riddled with bloat and bullshit

...not plagued quite so badly as the rest of the society "out there" by
certain degenerate tendencies in what passes for discourse

...more interested in ideas and substance than in what color car the ideas and
substance drove up in (and other black magic)

That's really it - that's enough. I didn't get anything cool like a job, but I
know there's loads of info here for that too!

~~~
el_benhameen
There’s a lot to be said for the “slim, fast-loading” bit! HN is my go-to “is
my internet connection at all functional?” web page. And when T-Mobile cuts me
off when I run over my data allotment each month, at least I can read the
comments.

~~~
jdminhbg
Even better for that purpose is neverssl.com. As the name implies, it’s http-
only, so misconfigured WiFi portals will still intercept and load their
captive login page.

~~~
Quenty
I use example.com which is also guaranteed to not be https. If I'm asking
someone else to type the URL in, it is easy to say "example.com" and know they
can spell it correctly. It's also very light weight.

~~~
ficklepickle
I use www.com because it's the shortest to type non-https site I know of.

------
tevlon
1,5 years ago, i was suicidal
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13051611](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13051611)).

1 week after posting this. I got a visit from the police. Apparently, someone
gave them the ip and it took them a week to locate me. They wanted to take me
to the hospital to check if i had mental problems. Of course they couldn't
force me to go. I assured them that i would fix my problems and make a
therapy. It was a wakeup call for me.

Fast-forward to now: I am working in an e-commerce company in switzerland. I
almost have no debts (last payment in may 2018) and my coworkers are like
family to me. My life turned 180 degrees.

THANK YOU, STRANGER i owe you a lot!

~~~
TAAndreas
Great to see you here again and particularly great to hear these news! I was
already relieved to see your HN submission in May and now I see that was the
time when the first public contributions after your AskHN appeared on the GH
profile you used here (What I didn't see is that you already used reddit again
only some 3 weeks later)

The reason I contacted the police was that I wanted to delegate taking care of
this to professionals. I'm not a psychologist and what I think might be a
reasonable approach to helping out in such a situation actually might or might
not be. (People seem to have very different approaches here from "I feel you
bro" through "Hey it's not that bad" to "You can be really proud of x, y and
z" and up to "C'mon, stop whining!" and even "It's actually your fault")

I'm very glad to see that this seems to have been the right decision. I wasn't
too confident about it at first, b/c police really didn't leave a professional
impression. When I read that post I was at work and my wife and kid were at
home. They were quite shocked (and the neighbors probably somewhat "excited")
that KriPo showed up at our place. Turned out, I was also right not to trust
their research capabilities. I literally[1] stalked the sh*t out of you and
sent them a good dozen of profiles together with your name, (work) phone
number and address and the letter to your ex, her profiles &c. That may sound
creepy but I actually really wanted to make sure they have all the information
they need to reach out to you as fast as possible (I expected it to take
minutes, not a week). Turns out doing so was both right and wrong: They really
seemed not to be skilled investigators, but to the extent that some days (!)
later they called me and told me they couldn't open the links.

So after that I really wasn't that full of confidence what concerns the
police, so until I saw your HN submission in May I always thought about
calling you but didn't really know how you'd react.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16403671](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16403671)

~~~
tevlon
hi TAAndreas

you are right, the police was not very professional and it might have ended
badly. Luckily it didn't. First i was scared that my ex send them to me and i
was in trouble (althoug i did nothing illegal). Then i was relieved that it
was about my post on HN.

Reading this made me uncomfortable, but also happy. A Stranger from the
internet cared (about my life) and took action. I got 80 messages on that
thread. Most of them were upliftig. But taking action is another level. Thank
you for that! Faith in humanity restored.

You could have reached out to me directly. I would be happy to have a coffee
with a fellow HN and "talk about it". I'd rather talk to a stranger with an
open ear than a psychologist who listens because he/she gets paid for it.

If there is anything i can do for you, you can contact me at:
tevlon84@gmail.com .

You did the right thing.Thank you!

~~~
SadAnon
I am glad that this story had a happy ending. Mine did not.

Due to an online misunderstanding, a person with good intentions reported to
the police that I was a danger to myself. What followed was one of the worst
experiences of my life.

What seemed almost like a SWAT team appeared at my house. I was pulled out of
my home in handcuffs in front of my neighbors. I begged and tried to explain
the misunderstanding but no one would listen. The police said it was the
responsibility of a psychiatrist to decide whether I needed to be hospitalized
and that I seemed fine but they couldn't make that decision. After spending
hours alone in a concrete cell, when the psychiatrist finally came to talk to
me, she assumed I must be dangerous because the police had taken me away from
my home.

While I was handcuffed and sobbing, she told me that "just to be careful" and
for my "own good" I was being forcibly put into a mental hospital for
observation. I spent a night locked in a ward full of psychotic people and
drug addicts.

Thank God one of my relatives was able to contact the hospital and convince
them it was all a misunderstanding. A different psychiatrist evaluated me and
I was immediately released.

I still have PTSD about the incident. When I hear a knock on the door,
sometimes my heart races because I am scared it is men with gun who will take
me away. I have had many, many nightmares about being locked inside the mental
ward. I thought my life was over.

When I got home, my life was not ok. My neighbors saw the police response to
my house and all stopped smiling or talking to me. I was so ashamed. This
incident is still on my record and it makes it impossible for me to pursue
certain jobs.

I am not saying you should never send the police to the home of someone you
are worried about. However, you should only do it if there are NO OTHER
OPTIONS for expressing concern. Stories like what happened to u/ tevlon are
the exception not the rule.

~~~
ma2rten
I am sorry that this happened to you. I can imagine how traumatic that must
have been. Have you considered talking to a lawyer to get damages and/or
remove this incident from your records?

I do want to point out that tevlon was in Germany. That explains why the
outcome was so different.

~~~
SadAnon
I talked to multiple attorneys. The jobs I am talking about involve security
clearances and it does not seem like the true fact of the incident can be
erased for such purposes.

I can petition to have certain legal consequences removed -- like my right to
buy a firearm for hunting. This still would not erase the incident from the
government database.

I can explain that it was a misunderstanding and show how I did not
technically deserve what happened to me. However what I said was still very
stupid and not something I ever want anyone else to read. It was my mistake
for writing it but the consequence will follow me forever in this small way.

------
garry
I found out about Y Combinator through HN in 2007. The big thing I learned
from PG's essays and the links on HN were that I could start a company myself,
and that there were lots of smart people like me who had done it and were
going to do it. It gave me the confidence to quit and start working on
something.

The next year I applied and got in with my startup Posterous. We built that to
a Top 250 Quantcast site, and Twitter ended up buying it. In 2011 I joined Y
Combinator as a designer in residence, then investing partner through 2015. In
2015, I started a $125M Seed VC fund (Initialized Capital) with Reddit
cofounder Alexis Ohanian, who interviewed me in 2008 to get into YC.

So I literally wouldn't have done any of those things and probably would have
stayed on at Palantir as a software engineer in 2007 if I had never seen
Hacker News.

~~~
sizzle
This is inspiring thanks for sharing

------
arkis22
I've been through a lot of web communities. HN is easily the most
intellectual, respectful, and diverse. The simple reason is that we like to be
here!

In the same way that it takes a village to raise a child, your understanding
of the world around you is drastically deepened by various points of view. I
don't expect to find a better village anytime soon.

~~~
opportune
I'm very curious as to whether there are any other communities on the web that
are as generally "high quality" as HN (bonus points if those communities are
tech-focused or tech-adjacent). Anybody got any links?

To date HN has the highest (consistent) quality of any online community I've
encountered

~~~
hobofan
lobster.rs[0] is pretty good for tech (specifially software development)
topics.

[0]: [https://lobste.rs/](https://lobste.rs/)

~~~
corobo
My first impression:

"Deldo is a sex toy control and teledildonics mode for Emacs"

------
fnayr
For me the coolest thing about HN is the breadth of experts here for any (even
niche) tech field. This allows for in depth understanding of new products
(when someone who actually worked on the team making it is here) or calling
out conspiracy theories about why some company shut down some product (because
they have inside knowledge and can actually explain the reasoning).

I can't count how many times I've read 'I work on the team that built that'
with some new insights or opinions just sitting nested in a comment chain 4
levels deep.

~~~
trishume
A few of my favourites:

Low level optimization - nkurz BeeOnRope dragontamer

Programming Languages - pcwalton jordwalke chrisseaton

Other people who work on well-known things that comment frequently:

jblow (The Witness, Braid) phire (The Dolphin Emulator) pizlonator
(Webkit/JSC)

I made a web app just so I could subscribe and read all their comments via
RSS: [http://hnblogs.thume.ca/](http://hnblogs.thume.ca/)

~~~
opportune
I would add Radim (Gensim, Data Science)

I was pretty excited when he responded to my comment one time

~~~
disgruntledphd2
Hadley Wickham (R & beautiful API's for data stuff) once replied to my comment
about buying a dead tree copy of his book and recommended the HTML version.

------
alexk
I put my name in a co-founder wish-list doc from HN [1] in 2010.

Many folks have reached out, some were pitching their ideas and others just
wanted to get in touch.

One guy, Ev, said that he was going to write a new email server. I thought it
was a bit funny (who wants a new email server in 2010?) but pretty cool at the
same time so I decided to join.

That's how I ended up as a founding engineer at Mailgun (YC W11) and later on
co-founded gravitational.com (YCS15) with same folks, Ev and Taylor, my best
co-founders and friends from HN.

So thanks HN and YCombinator!

[1] [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Sygd1fhGYRS-
ZvRP0IVV...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Sygd1fhGYRS-
ZvRP0IVV6rf3OUyED9_b6Da4tVWdS08/edit?toomany=true#gid=9)

~~~
smhg
Great to learn about this. Thanks for mentioning!

Do you think it still has the same usefulness? It looks quite chaotic to shift
through ~8 years of unmaintained information. Back then I can imagine you
could basically contact everyone on the list and see what happened?

~~~
alexk
I was amazed by how many great people have reached out, I was not expecting
that at the time. I think part of it was due to the fact that list was
relatively small and time relevant. I think that monthly spreadsheet published
in “Who is looking for a co founder” thread will be very useful, especially to
folks who have limited access to usual networking events (for example I was in
Russia in a city with very small startup scene).

------
swombat
Saved a life.

About 5 years ago a friend was kidnapped by Indian police on behalf of their
parents who were trying to gain custody of them, in India, on a Friday
evening. By the time they landed in Delhi on Saturday, HN had helped me and
another prominent user here find a lawyer to take the case. When the case was
heard first thing Monday morning the lawyer demolished it and this friend
regained their freedom (and has had it since). Whilst I cannot be sure what
would have happened if the case had gone the other way, I think it could
easily have ended in this friend's suicide.

HN has helped me in countless other ways but this one trumps them all I think.
You don't get much more tangible than actively saving someone from abuse and
possible death.

~~~
jacquesm
Sounds familiar. Thank you Daniel, for all you've done.

In case anybody is wondering about what this refers to:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4739649](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4739649)

------
omgbananas
I learned about Bitcoin here when it was just a whitepaper, but didn't
recognize the opportunity then.

A year ago, another user mentioned Monero so I looked into and discovered it's
more "bitcoin" than Bitcoin and bought what I could.

I'm not a millionaire, but it sure has helped me financially, so I'm really
appreciative that I took advantage of that opportunity.

EDIT: and for something a little more intrinsic: Everyone's experiences on
different things. I've read lots of great comments on raising kids, and hope
to take advantage of that shared knowledge when I have a family.

~~~
kbenson
Tell me about it. I remember when it was single digit dollars, and it was a
curiosity, but it didn't hold my interest.

Then it was double digits, and I was like, "huh."

Then is was somewhere around $40, and I thought "maybe I should get a couple?
But money's kind of tight, maybe later."

Then it was over $100, and I thought "surely this can't go much higher? This
definitely isn't the time to buy."

I thought that same thing when it hit over $300, and over $700, and then over
$3000, and then when it was well over $15k.

I've learned a valuable lesson. I'm far too risk averse to invest in something
like this, because I'm _still_ not sure I could convince myself to invest even
though it seems to have hit a bottom and is climbing again.

~~~
snowwrestler
I looked at bitcoin very early, when it was pitched as digital currency free
from the problems of fiat money. My impression was that the proponents did not
understand currency and that bitcoin would make a terrible currency.

As it turns out, I was right. But by being right, I missed a huge speculative
windfall. While it would have been nice to make a bunch of money for nothing,
I don't really have regrets because my decision was sound at the time.

I still wonder whether the early bitcoin marketing was uninformed but they
lucked out... or if the early proponents knew it was a terrible currency, but
that they had to sell it that way early in order to inflate the speculative
bubble.

~~~
godelski
Most people I know invested in still talk about it as a currency. We talk
transaction rates and all that, but they are still convinced it is the "money
of the future." So I think a lot still luck out. There are clear market
manipulations. But that's why I still stay out. I do not see it as a missed
opportunity.

~~~
gota
Maybe I'm project the experience of people close to me and my own, but it
helps to not feel left out that we have jobs in somewhat valued careers with
somewhat guaranteed future employment.

I've been noticing that the more fragile the professional situation, the more
people seem to regret or actively join the (already at full speed) bandwagon

~~~
godelski
I definitely see this correlation too. But I equate it to "I should have
played on the craps table, tons of people just won." The part that bothers me
is that people consider those that played that table as smart. And those that
didn't play the table as dumb. Hindsight is 20/20 and there are still clear
reasons to be wary of cryptocurrencies.

------
slovette
HN, for me, is all about the comments.

I’m always shopping for new perspectives or opinions that I haven’t seen yet
that maybe give me a clue on how to do things better.

People tend to give a lot of perspective in-between the words they’re writing.
How people use, feel about or otherwise think about ‘things’ (products or
services).

That’s the gold here for me. Learning how people see the obviousness that I
also see, but in their own unique ways.

Helps me build better stuff.

~~~
Cytronex
You're missing out. Most of the interesting comments are shadowbanned.

Reddit is much better for open discussion. 10x better.

~~~
Kluny
The strict moderation is a feature for me.

~~~
acct1771
I just wish I could choose to see what was removed, somehow.

Do you feel that'd impede on your experience, that being possible? Genuine
question.

~~~
wglb
In your profile, there is a choice called "showdead". If you set that to yes,
you see those comments.

~~~
acct1771
Shadowbanned is not the same as downvoted/dead, unless I've missed something.

~~~
dang
It's the same. If you turn on 'showdead' you see all comments by banned users
as well as comments killed by software, user flags, or (more rarely)
moderators.

There's such a thing as deleting a comment, in which case it's no longer
visible even with showdead turned on. But only the author can do that.
Software never does it, and we never do it unless the author asks us to.

------
tarruda
It indirectly funded my work on a personal project - Neovim - for nearly two
years.

The work was actually funded through bountysource, but without the momentum
gained by my post HN
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7278214](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7278214)),
which stayed in the front page for more than 12 hours, the bountysource
campaign may not have been successful.

HN had a major impact on Neovim being a successful open source project.

~~~
stfwn
Thank you for your work! Neovim was really the first tool that got me hooked
on the CLI.

It led me down a path that _really_ paid off in terms of how much I learned:
about using nvim, customising it with a dotfile - a skill that turned out to
generalise really well-, then about version control from the command line,
learned to use Docker because it seemed useful to Dockerize nvim at the time
(?), I rented a VPS to be able to run nvim on a tablet, well then I had to
learn about the structure of Linux..

It just went on and on, and it's still going on! To most here on HN these are
elementary skills, but you have to start somewhere. And I started with Neovim.

Thank you!

------
sunjain
Best thing about HN are the quality of posts and the comments. No politics,
mainly focused around technology and intellectually challenging posts. It
gives you idea of technology trends, and how others are handling challenges
similar to yours - something equivalent of going to a conference, but without
going to a conference. Some of the comments here are even better than the
article and when you combine both, you get a complete perspective. You learn
not only technology but how to lead people, how to(and not to) run a company
based on what/how you absorb from HN. It's the quality of comments that makes
it better than any such site/forum out there. I still remember a comment -
which was almost equivalent to a dozen books, around why some people are
successful - something to the effect that it is not that we lack information,
or lack access to information but the fact that our mind is so full of input
that we don't act on what we already know we need to do. Very few other
places, I've found such thought provoking comments.

~~~
iforapsy
That sounds like a very interesting comment that I'd like to read. Would you
happen to still have the link to it?

~~~
sunjain
sorry. I don't have that link.. the main post was either about usefulness of
internet or about secret behind most successful people in tech - not sure
which one precisely.

~~~
abhishekjha
Any idea about how far back it was?

------
Thriptic
It got me into programming. One day I was trying to VPN into my workplace, and
I started experiencing network connectivity problems which were very rare. I
went on FB and asked if anyone else was experiencing connectivity problems. A
friend of mine who was a developer linked me to a post on HN where the service
degradations were being discussed.

I had never heard of HN and went back to the front page. One of the first
links on the front page was a submission advertising the fact that Coursera
(which I had also never heard of) was just launching a data science course
track which also covered machine learning. I was in pure bio at the time, but
I had heard about machine learning and data science at work and thought they
sounded very cool but would be unapproachable to someone without a strong math
background. When I saw the link, I said "oh fuck yea I should totally look
into this!". I checked out the course track, learned basic R, and have never
looked back. I've now fully transitioned into development and out of bio :D

HN also inspired me to launch my own company, which I never even thought of as
an option until I started spending time on this site.

~~~
miketery
What are the challenges in bio like compared to tech industry interms of
innovatation, opportunity, or otherwise? I'm considering transition in that
direction.

~~~
Thriptic
Are you going from bio into tech or tech into bio? Also what exactly are you
interested in doing? Both of those domains are very broad.

~~~
miketery
From tech to bio. Primarily diving into the processes involved with DNA, RNA,
and proteins (i.e. following CRISPR hype).

~~~
Thriptic
If you're interested in dealing with the wet lab side of these processes, the
biggest immediate challenges will be amassing the underlying domain knowledge
and credentials. Unlike in tech, industry labs care a lot about formal
credentials, and it will be hard to find a real research position without at
least a masters or PhD in the field. Ignoring credentialing, the biggest
challenge is that you're trying to develop products in a space where the
systems you're working in are not fully understood yet. This means that there
is a lot more underlying uncertainty in everything you work on. You're also
entering a highly regulated space if you're talking about therapeutics, which
impacts development processes, timelines, and costs. There is a ton of room
for innovation in the space and CRISPR is hot new tech, but expect everything
to move substantially slower than in tech.

If you want to be a developer who works on bio-related problems, that's a
totally different story. Frequently developers in bio are not as good as what
you would find at a big tech company, so there is very high demand for people
who know what they are doing and who also have the domain XP to understand the
problems.

I would be happy to chat about it more in depth sometime.

~~~
miketery
That would be great. My understanding is very shallow, last bio class was in
high school. But I'd be applying for admission in ~September or self learning
on the side. My email is my username at gmail.

------
antirez
HN is the nearest thing to a tech community you can have if you live in a
place where there is no much IT scene. This site allowed me during half of my
career to have somebody interested in the things I care, to talk, exchange
ideas, and read very smart things from random nicknames that often I wish I
could know in person.

~~~
ultrasounder
Thanks a lot for Redis!!!

------
tyingq
Silly, but some self assurance. I'm mostly anonymous here, so my job history /
pedigree doesn't weigh into anything.

But, I still manage to be in the middle of meaningful discussion, and
contribute something worthwhile here and there. Even got a few thank-you notes
over a 2 year period.

Tldr: Helps with imposter syndrome.

~~~
rroriz
For me, its the other way around: I think I'm ok with my job history/pedigree,
and when I check HN, it feels like I'm the dumbest person in my area. It seems
like I'm not even trying.

~~~
tyingq
I probably should have considered that perspective. To be clear, I often feel
behind on my current state vs HN comments. Was mentioning that, for certain
topics, I felt like a big contributor. I don't expect to always be on top, but
(very) occasionally feeling like a thought leader here was encouraging.

Great observation, and appreciate it.

------
westoncb
It was a kind of fuel while I worked at a grocery store trying to build some
software that I thought would be game changing (it was a new kind of text
editor that would break documents into interactive 'tiles' around grammatical
boundaries[0]). Eventually it was on the front page here and I got tons of
feedback, most of it good; and while I wasn't fortunate enough to get funding
or anything, it's been a big part of why I've been able to get some pretty
good/interesting work.

And, one day I'll post another project here and the world'll love it and all
my problems financial and otherwise will be solved forever and all of humanity
will live happily ever after etc. :P

I also have learned lots more about programming languages and various other CS
topics than I likely would have without HN.

[0]
[http://symbolflux.com/projects/tiledtext](http://symbolflux.com/projects/tiledtext)

~~~
spondyl
I also poured over HN while working dead end retail for 3 years. It quite
literally sent me into the mental health system.

I picked up a heeeap through osmosis, did a dev bootcamp for web dev/JS/React,
spend a year being rejected from places, did almost nothing but self study +
Github projects at the same time, self learnt Python and it finally paid off
this past October with an offer.

I started my position as a graduate Site Reliability Engineer this last Monday
since it's my employers inhouse program where grads rotate 4 times (ie
frontend, backend, mobile) in the first year before settling into a position.
Personally, I have 2x 6 month rotations of SRE and Cloud Data and it's very
exciting!

Come to think of it, I've still been meaning to write a post about all the
"junior" positions I was rejected from. It really sucks when you're starting
out.

One startup who I did a test with, and never got a response, actually went
bankrupt earlier this year which was a weird feeling.

------
vjeux
Got me a job at Facebook. I posted a weekend project while at school in 2011 (
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2478751](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2478751)
) and someone at Facebook reached out to me to interview there :)

------
git-pull
HN gave _The Tao of tmux_ a lot of valuable feedback, as well as readers.

Here is the Show HN post:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13022062](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13022062)

That day, I got tons of pre-orders. The email notifications kept piling up.
Book wasn't even done yet.

It's available online for free: [https://leanpub.com/the-tao-of-
tmux/read](https://leanpub.com/the-tao-of-tmux/read), and also in DRM-free
ebook format: [https://leanpub.com/the-tao-of-tmux/](https://leanpub.com/the-
tao-of-tmux/)

------
spython
HN got me into dancing.

Around five years ago there was a thread about books that changed your lives.
Someone wrote about Impro by Keith Johnstone - an introduction to
improvisational theater interspersed with a lot of personal stories. I read it
and fell in love with the honesty and the new view of social interaction the
book offered.

I found a dance theater studio near me - the closest thing to impro theater
that was available - and went there. It was there that I met some of my most
important friends and developed practices that I use to this day in my
artistic projects as well as in interaction design.

Thanks, unknown HN user!

~~~
ThrustVectoring
"an introduction to impro theater interspersed with a lot of personal stories"
seems like a technically accurate but misleading description of the book to
me. I struggle to capture the essence of the book, but I'd add that it shows a
lot of insight into creativity, relationships, and the human condition.

~~~
spython
You are right, and it is indeed quite hard to describe this book. It is less
monolithic, more like a collection of short stories each offering unique
insight into a topic.

Here is one of my favorite stories from the book:
[https://books.google.de/books?id=j0n2DAAAQBAJ&pg=PT15&dq=%22...](https://books.google.de/books?id=j0n2DAAAQBAJ&pg=PT15&dq=%22I+once+had+a+close+rapport+with+a%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjuu6fqtLLZAhUrAsAKHdVjDhkQ6AEIKDAA#v=onepage&q=%22I%20once%20had%20a%20close%20rapport%20with%20a%22&f=false)

------
thestoicjester
About 6 years ago, I posted an article I wrote about my experience on the app
store[1] and somebody (now a good friend of mine) reached out and asked why I
wasn't living in silicon valley. Long story short[2] I ended up moving to San
Francisco less than a month later and I've been here ever since. That was
unexpected.

[1] -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2705440](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2705440)
[2] -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4424592](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4424592)

------
koopuluri
In 2016, I came across a Show HN for a laptop powered by your Android phone
(called Andromium at the time, now Sentio). I thought the idea was amazing,
went over to their office, met one of the founders, and the other soon after.
They gave me a shot working for them in a partnerhips / growth role, even when
I hadn't had any experience doing that kind of work before, but had a strong
desire to learn. Can't express how grateful I am to have met that bunch and
worked with them for almost a year. So much learning. Lifelong friendships.
And I was able to see from up close the challenges of delivering a hardware +
software product from both engineering and a distribution standpoints.
Definitely influenced my current path. I’m working on a product now that I’m
excited to ShowHN in a few weeks.

Back in my 2nd year of college, when I first found HN, I was inspired by many
cool projects that were posted here. Within a year, I decide to take the
plunge to build an app from scratch. Ended up taking a lot longer than I had
thought (didn't realized how complicated a simple looking app could be), so I
skipped a semester and continued to work on it with a friend. It was a great
learning lesson that gave me the confidence to try and build out ideas when I
had them and see what would happen, rather than just sit around hoping someone
would build things that I would want to use.

Lastly, I admire the culture here that focuses on creating actual value and
doing things rather than chasing status. That has been a huge influence for me
- as someone who was very influenced by social pressures and craving for
status during high school, and early college (e.g. getting into a top college,
getting a job at one of the “top” 5 tech companies), I believe I’ve slowly
shifted towards valuing actual work that creates value for others in a
meaningful way and caring less about other proxy symbols of “success”. I have
a long way to go, but I’m grateful to have been exposed to thoughts and a
culture that pointed in this direction, during a time when my mind greatly
craved the opposite.

Thank you.

------
wheresvic1
Unfortunately, I only found out about HN a couple of years back in 2016. I had
been looking for such a community for an incredibly long time and somehow I
used to always wonder how some of my colleagues knew what was the latest in
the tech scene.

Anyways, when I first joined, I fell into a bit of a depression due to the
impostor syndrome :(. Fortunately for me, I had quite a few other changes
happening in my personal life so I was able to snap out of it and focus on
using the platform to learn and grow rather than be intimidated.

I had also recently started blogging in 2015 and I remember submitting one of
my articles (it was about using gmail with mutt) to HN. It hit front page for
over 100 points) and it was one of the most thrilling moments of my career!

I went on to get a few more submissions on to the front page and HN also gave
my the confidence to launch my side project which also hit the front page:
[https://ewolo.fitness](https://ewolo.fitness)

A big thank you to everyone on here :)

------
distortedlojik
I get to feel very stupid, but in a comforting, always learning way. I have a
PhD in HPC and HN always humbles me with the depth of knowledge contained by
the community.

------
kelukelugames
It motivated me to make stupid github projects for Internet points. A couple
of them got voted to the front page and one even got flagged killed.

Examples:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12071405](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12071405)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10968004](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10968004)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10296461](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10296461)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10198391](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10198391)

~~~
zaqplm
I second your pronunciation tracking site. There are often trivial syllable
mispronunciations endorsed by a community that if surfaced to the attention
make significant improvement in speech clarity. What is more interesting than
the not-obvious mistakes(that you cited as examples) is that there is a
repetition(pattern) of pronunciation mistakes specific to a group(or all non-
natives).

For instance:
[http://ijleal.ump.edu.my/images/volume4/IJLEAL004.SHAK_et_al...](http://ijleal.ump.edu.my/images/volume4/IJLEAL004.SHAK_et_al.pdf)

I would like to make this work.

------
zitterbewegung
That being critical doesn't mean necessarily being mean.

Knowledge about a bunch of new things that I wouldn't know.

Inspiration to try and do new things.

But, most importantly 7000+ pretend internet points and something to do when
I'm bored.

~~~
arca_vorago
Very much this. I am pretty passionate, but I've learned more about civil
discourse on hn than just about anywhere else, mostly because of dang. At
first I really resisted the non-user approved positivity rule change, but it's
forced me to reevaluate how I approach disagreements online in general. (Even
in irc)

It's also been a place for me to vent a bit as a senior sysadmin, and learn
quite a bit about how much I don't know.

~~~
zitterbewegung
Actually I started being less mean on my criticism because I thought that
everyone would welcome the criticism with open arms when I was naive. Instead,
now I try to complement people first or point out the good parts and highlight
the bad.

I found that this started to bleed into my real life and at the end of the day
it made me grow as a person.

------
ioddly
Probably the best advice I've gotten on here is from reading 'patio11 and
'tptacek posts on how to bill for consulting work. I don't have a particular
comment as they've written it many times over, but it's really changed the
game for me.

~~~
xor1
Do you have links to any of these posts handy?

~~~
ioddly
There are lots with good advice (worth searching site:news.ycombinator.com
tptacek/patio11 billing/consulting/etc), but the main thing is to stop billing
hourly, here's one:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1880096](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1880096)

------
mywacaday
One of the few places that still makes me go wow. 80% of the time I'll only
read the comments for the insights, love the general positivity and sense of
wonder that the community brings to a wide range of topics that I would be
unlikely to come across otherwise. Thank you all!

------
duck
Beyond learning a lot of stuff that I don't think I would of been introduced
to and/or thought about looking for, it has given me 8.5 years of my favorite
side-project to date with
[http://hackernewsletter.com](http://hackernewsletter.com). With it I've met a
ton of folks and the best company to work for that I could of asked for.

~~~
aspHax0
Now that HN has their own weekly newsletter, how does yours compare?

~~~
duck
As _dang_ mentioned, not sure which one you're referring to? That said, it is
doing well and keeps growing. Hit 55k total subscribers this month.

~~~
aspHax0
[https://blog.ycombinator.com/category/newsletter/](https://blog.ycombinator.com/category/newsletter/)
[http://ycombinator.us7.list-
manage1.com/subscribe?u=6507bf4e...](http://ycombinator.us7.list-
manage1.com/subscribe?u=6507bf4e4c2df3fdbae6ef738&id=547725049b)

Those are the ones I'm referring to. But I'm glad to see there's still some
growth on this! I'll definitely subscribe and look into it.

~~~
karimf
I think that newsletter is for the blogpost, not for HN threads and comments
summary like in [http://hackernewsletter.com/](http://hackernewsletter.com/).

------
yesenadam
Great question. So far.. links to so many interesting websites, books, papers,
blogs—mostly linked to in comments and in AskHN. (And then, maybe even more,
the sources mentioned in turn by all those.) _Way_ too many really. Already
I'm thinking of having a break from here for a while to actually _read_ all
those books (have read some..e.g. just the other day got _Crucial
Conversations_ thanks to a mention on here, started reading it with my
housemate, it's going to transform our lives—at home and work, everywhere—for
sure, and already has helped) and to concentrate solely on what _I 'm_ doing,
rather than the endless stream of fascinating leads on here to new stuff. But
I've got more in a few months on here than I would in many years elsewhere.
It's fascinating reading the comments too, usually—typically far more than the
linked articles. Thanks so much.

~~~
TheLML
any great books in particular that you would suggest of those you've read
already?

~~~
yesenadam
Oh that's hard to answer, sorry! - I didn't keep a record of which things I
got from here or elsewhere, or from mentions in the stuff I learnt about here.
Or from searching topics I learnt about on here. And I was checking out
everything I could get from "best programming/mathematics books" lists online
for a couple of years before coming here regularly. Youtube videos too - e.g.
Matt Might's "Winning the War on Error: Solving Halting Problem, Curing
Cancer" and Rich Hickey's talks were..elevating; Julia Evans, Doug Crockford I
probably heard about on here. I googled quite a few AskHN lists of fav books,
books that changed your life, books you wished you'd read earlier, books you
wished your co-workers had read etc and looked at anything that sounded
interesting. Sorry I can't be more specific. Well, what is great depends on
the reader too. Good luck!

------
noonespecial
When I see tech stories or headlines in mass media that seem important I
always jump on over to HN to see what's really up.

The commentary here is just invaluable. 10 minutes reading the comments here
is worth a hundred mass media news stories.

------
_Chief
Impostor syndrome. jk

Without HN, it's impossible to quantity how much tech/dev news I'd have missed
out on. Plus, the comments are often even more insightful than the actual
posts.

~~~
swah
Not entirely false though. I do miss coding (actually playing with the
computer) as I did in the 90s, alone and without comparing to anyone else, or
thinking something was already done and my efforts were futile..

------
yters
I like HN because despite the liberal bias (IMO) responses to my conservative
views are often decently thought out. Of course I get the down-votes too, but
it helps me maintain my martyr complex. Best of both worlds.

~~~
opportune
Out of curiosity, have you found anywhere on the internet that is both tech-
focused and does not have a liberal bias? I'm sure you could find places that
lean libertarian, but I don't know of anywhere that I would consider
traditionally conservative

To add to your point, I feel that the conservative views on this website are
also generally intelligent and thoughtful, even though I mostly disagree with
them.

~~~
yters
Yes, the uncommondescent blog is heavily conservative, and science and tech
focused. But, in general there is a correlation between tech and liberal or
libertarian. But this is because that crowd tends to eschew the time consuming
obligations that accompany a lived out traditional conservative viewpoint,
which would prohibit one from heavy online participation.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
I don't think it's about time constraints, there is plenty of conservatism
elsewhere on the internet. Possibly it might be age related.

~~~
yters
There are the Breitbart and Fox News message boards, but that's mostly an
older crowd with much time on their hands. The 20-30 conservative crowd is
probably busy raising families and being involved with their communities.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
Presumably the 20-30 liberal crowd is also busy raising families and being
involved with their communities.

------
petethepig
Gave me a great job that I took 4 years ago after posting in "Who wants to be
hired?"[0].

It's particularly a big deal for me because I also moved from Russia to the US
as a result, which is something I always wanted to do.

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7970405](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7970405)

------
ridgeguy
I'll dodge specificity and just say I value HN for commentary by thoughtful
people who contribute information and opinions on matters that interest me,
but for which I have less than expert chops. This covers a wide range of
topics.

And even in those few domains where I might possibly be an expert, I
occasionally get turned around by HN commenters or the stories they submit.
That keeps me growing.

I'm deeply grateful for the quality of the HN community and to HN for
maintaining it.

------
bane
About 8 or 9 years ago I was coming out of megacorpland into a software
startup where I was hired as a principal, payed mostly in options etc. I was
terrified and really had no idea what I was doing. I accidentally happened
upon HN one day and ended up lurking for something like 4 years -- the
information content was so compelling. Not even just the tech news feed, but
the comments were a treasure trove that provided so much context and guidance
that I _needed_ to help understand what exactly it was that I was trying to
do.

In a sense it provided too much information as I started to develop mental
models for how the business should be working, and started to measure us by
the information I learned from this community. We managed to grow pretty
rapidly, then like many startups went out of business all of a sudden. But the
long perspective HN gave me made me not feel as bad about it as I might have.

Instead I took what I learned, became a hard negotiator, and with the skillset
I learned from crashing a startup into the sea excelled at my next megacorp
job, then my next startup job, and now sit in a great position for a medium
sized R&D firm. HN provided the context and perspective that really enabled it
all and for that I'm forever thankful.

These days I mainly use it to keep on top of the shifting sands of tech trends
and find that just by reading HN every day for 20-30 minutes I can usually
keep up or a bit ahead of my technical staff in a fairly broad swath of areas.
Which is nice because I don't really have the time these days to do it all
myself.

------
indescions_2018
The YC seed accelerator model remains the most effective blueprint for
generating startups from ideas. Pay heed to the lessons contained herein. And
the keys to the kingdom will lie well within your grasp ;)

Also. HN is a phenomenal user experience on Mobile Web (Android/Chrome).
Superlative readability. Lowest possible bandwith to informational value
ratio. And a never-ending well of mental stimulation and ethical provocation.

~~~
inteleng
Generally, "highest possible value/bandwidth ratio" would better connote a
positive intent. Agreed on both points!

------
stuaxo
Contributed to my internet / procrastination addiction.

But in amongst the many things I've read about that are essentially wasting
time, there have been some interesting tech too.

------
vinrob92
We posted our product, Manypixels
([https://www.manypixels.co](https://www.manypixels.co)) there last week (I
wrote an article on how we scaled it to $15k in MRR). The article got on the
first page of HN and got us about 50 new subscribers ($10k in revenue)

------
jhuckestein
I have been reading HN regularly for 10 years. It has taught me everything I
needed to know to get started. I applied to YC 4 times, got rejected 3 times,
crashed one startup and ultimately found my current cofounder through the YC
community.

HN is not perfect, but I am incredibly grateful for everything it has given
me. Like so many here, I couldn’t have done it without Hacker News :)

To this day, the advice I give anyone who wants to get into technology or
starting a company is to read everything on HN for 3 months and to look up all
the things you don’t understand.

------
ficklepickle
HN kinda saved my life. I have lurked since about 2015. In that time, I have
learned so much, which has been a big confidence booster.

I never felt like I belonged anywhere before I found HN. I don't post much,
but I love reading all the different opinions in the comments. I don't know
anywhere else where there is (largely) civilized debate about such a wide
range of fascinating topics.

------
quizbiz
I rather not try to dig up the best specific opportunity or lesson learned
from my nine years here. HN promotes the positive and entrepreneurial mindset
necessary to have an impact on the world, however small that impact might be.

Paul Graham set excellent example early on. Upward mobility from curious,
resourceful, and already successful people deciding to help one another.

------
b3b0p
I would not have gone, been invited, or had the opportunity to attend Startup
School 2010. I would have not met Alexis, Chris from Reddit [0], briefly meet
Paul Graham [1], nor met Dr. Chrono (YC W11) founding team (Hi Katelyn,
Michael, and Daniel!).

Not to mention the quality of posts and resources I have learned about from
reading comments. My reading list will last me until retirement.

[0]
[http://chriskaukis.github.io/Alexis_Ohanian_and_Christopher_...](http://chriskaukis.github.io/Alexis_Ohanian_and_Christopher_Slow_of_reddit.jpg)

[1]
[http://chriskaukis.github.io/Paul_Graham.jpg](http://chriskaukis.github.io/Paul_Graham.jpg)

------
sethammons
I first learned about Go here. It inspired me to learn more about the
language. Myself and two others worked to get it adopted at work, where it has
become the main language there, which makes my daily life much more pleasant.

The other thing HN has given me is a large time sink. I spend far too much
time reading comments here.

------
ArmandGrillet
Everything. Got my current job by helping someone on HN, got the motivation to
go abroad by reading HN, inspired weekly by HN articles and comments.

Seriously, internet without Hacker News would suck. The community,
administration, and ranking of the articles are just great to keep up to date
with the tech field.

------
yowlingcat
Lots of pros and cons, but those mostly reflect on myself. Coming out of
college in '11, I had spent the past few years of my degree on HN constantly,
very eager to work for a startup. Ended up working for a couple ones which
went belly up pretty quickly, and quickly learned some life skills flavored
cynicism. Tried my hand at cofounding a startup, got screwed over by my
cofounder right as we were about to close our $1M seed, went into a spiral of
depression. Realized that I was not the first or last person this happened to,
and found the strength to ask for help, lawyer up, find a new job, etc. At
that point, I was still only a year and a half out of college.

After that point, I began to work at funded, solvent mid sized firms for the
past few years with increasingly higher amounts of salary and responsibility.
It's now more than a couple years later, and although I've still got
complaints with my current job situation, I've built up the skills to find a
new job that will make me happier, the perspective to appreciate the journey
I've been on in my past few, and savings to buffet some changes. At some
point, I'm sure I'm going to try and take a side project full-time, but in the
meantime, I'm pretty content making my career changes at my own pace, with my
own agency, and with gradual results I'm happy with.

HN has provided a great forum to allow me to break through the reality
distortion fields so common on the job (especially at startups) and make sane,
levelheaded decisions. Lots of folks here have made the journey from student
to engineer to founder, and I hope to one day join them! I'm beyond excited
for when the right time comes for me to begin the next phase of my journey
bootstrapping a lifestyle venture. It's one of the main things that keeps me
going during shitty days at work, honestly.

------
Walkman
It changed my life. I found edw519's free ebook and after reading it, I jumped
out of bed and learned Python. He wrote that you don't need a university
degree to be a programmer. I believed that and I will be a senior developer
soon. Never been happier in my entire life, really!

------
movetheworld
A few years ago a colleague of mine showed me HN. It was like a new world was
opened to me. That may sound exaggerated, but it really felt great to always
read about top stories and innovative project here first.

In that time - when android was young - I made a little app for generating
passwords. I put it in the play store as an purchasable app without any
marketing what so ever. It got no downloads so I stated that in another HN
thread and some HN stranger bought the app and gave it a 5-star review, just
to help me out! That made me really happy and grateful, I won't forget that,
thank you, HN folks!

~~~
ahelwer
Your phrase "it was like a new world was opened to me" really took me back.
Before "the orange website" cynicism, before disillusionment with technology,
before deciding startups were a tool to exploit engineers. I remembered
finding HN in university - this weird non-web-2.0 website - and learning there
was so, so much more to know outside of the narrow computer science
curriculum. Things I first heard about on HN include:

* TLA+, now one of my main extracurricular technical interests

* The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, kicking off a tour of philosophy that seemed like simple intellectual exploration until I needed it most

* Conflict-free replicated datatypes. I loved their mathematical purity, noticed the CRDT Wikipedia article was a stub, decided to write it, and so got back into editing Wikipedia.

These plus countless other things I don't recall, some of which permanently
joined my amalgamated pool of knowledge and influence me in ways I don't even
know.

------
deepGem
While I don't have any direct benefits to enlist, I'm sure there are multiple
indirect benefits. I come here, when I am lost without knowing what to do. I'm
one of those who reads the comments first and then the articles. So HN acts as
a 2 layer curation filter. I came across Andrew Ng's course here on HN and
that was an eye-opener, changed my career trajectory. I've learned a lot about
parenting, entrepreneurship and startups. I don't live in Silicon Valley, so
for an outsider, HN is a good window into SV as well.

------
0x11
I've spent the past hour reading through just some of the unbelievable stories
in this thread, the whole time thinking, or maybe hoping, that someday this
community would somehow benefit me in such a meaningful way as well.

It just finally struck me, however, that one of the most significant changes
in my recent life and one that has made me feel the most fulfilled can be
traced back to reading a post on HN. In 2016 I read an something on here about
a new conpletely free software university in San Francisco called 42. A few
months later I was in SF learning/teaching myself to code in C alongside some
of the most brilliant people I've ever met.

If you'd have asked two weeks ago, HN, I'd have told you I was developing a
mobile app in React Native for a quirky company in Prague. If you ask today,
I'm unemployed and working on a website to showcase my skills. Either way, I'm
miles from where I started and never would have been here had it not been for
that post.

Thank you HackerNews.

------
DanBC
I got a few Amazon gift cards after some of my comments. That's always
amazing, and surprising. (And if someone created a cryptocurrency tipping
browser plugin for HN (that I can use on Firefox) I'd probably tip people
small amounts here and there.)

Someone got in touch about books for children and I got some nice
recommendations.

Someone else got in touch about some work they're doing around mental ill
health. It was fascinating, and it gave me some ideas that I wanted to
shamelessly steal.

I've got an appreciation of the difficulties of building for the modern web,
with competing demands from unclueful bosses / clients, vs visitors and users.
I still don't quite understand why text can't just be text, or why mobile
browsers have such terrible defaults for plain HTML pages.

I've got a bunch of useful links and I've learnt a lot.

I've managed to smooth out some of the rough edges, I think.

~~~
kebman
I was really tempted to just post my bitcoin address here .... :p :D

------
RoadieRoller
Freshdesk/Freshworks (Series F, $149M Total) CEO, Girish Mathrubhutham, has
penned down a memoir of how a comment on HN has enabled him start his startup
journey.

[https://blog.freshdesk.com/the-freshdesk-story-how-a-
simple-...](https://blog.freshdesk.com/the-freshdesk-story-how-a-simple-
comment-on-h-0/)

------
tzhenghao
I must say that the HN community has cranked my career trajectory up a notch.
Like many commenters here have said, this remains one of the healthier and
more intellectual online communities out there. I've learned many more things
here than I do during my day job, and it has continued to motivate me to do
better every single day.

------
kin
I joined in college and HN has always been a leading indicator of technology
for me. At first I was a lurker and around 2009 all I saw were articles on
Rails and Bitcoin.

Fast forward 5 years of time wasted by a young adult and Bitcoin becomes a
missed opportunity (I know, still wasn't, but how could anyone know for sure?)
meanwhile Rails hype plateaued here on HN.

Anyway, now anytime there's heavy mention of anything, I do my fair share of
due diligence and have been a lot more successful because of it. Thanks HN!

------
minimaxir
When I joined Hacker News in 2012, it was after a lot of reservation, as I
wasn't a uber-programmer with a CS degree and wasn't sure I could contribute
properly to the community.

In the many years since, Hacker News gave me the motivation to improve both my
writing and my technical skills, and gave me _confidence_ in my work.

------
cyanbane
absolutely nothing directly.

but

* besides pretty much the first five pages I hit every morning.

* a positive feeling towards the future because even though I may not understand every link on here, there are people that do. People that devote all of their time toward one thing small or big and that is a cool feeling knowing that people can make a living and follow their passion. If that's a startup that their only goal is to cash out and drive fast cars or their goal is to eat ramen every night and contribute to those less fortunate people. ALL OVER THE WORLD.

* a place to keep up with all the new things in my domain. Stuff I would never hear about on other sites.

* a broader sense of news. I know a lot of people don't like that not "hacker" articles get posted here, but I personally love it. I can't stand hitting much of the current news sites anymore and I enjoy seeing stuff pop up on here occasionally.

~~~
dang
(I fixed the whitespace formatting on your post. Hope that's ok. Bullet lists
are kind of hard to get right in HN markdown.)

------
luckystrike
I started reading HN when it was called Startup News, and it has changed my
life. I now live in a small village near the Himalayas, and run my startup
called Resumonk (along with my Co-Founder). We both work remotely, pay
ourselves well and have the freedom to live life completely on our terms. I'm
now living my dream and HN played a huge role in it.

Apart from the learning related to startups/tech, reading the views of all the
smart people here on a variety of other topics has made me a better person. It
has also given me insights on different cultures & people from different
backgrounds.

A big thanks to everyone who contributes here. Your words/submissions silently
might be having a great positive impact in some corner of the world. Please
keep sharing your knowledge & experience.

p.s. Also met my Co-Founder through HN when he did a 'Show HN' for Resumonk!

------
znt
This was around 7 years ago or so.

Found about Google App Engine on Hacker News. Ended up learning Python &
Django so I could deploy apps on App Engine.

A couple years later, ended up doing (rather high profile) a couple of
projects for Google itself.

Have been putting bread on the table as a Python dev since then.

Hacker News literally shaped my career, in a very very good way.

------
sukeesh
I did a show HN in 2017 for one of my GitHub projects.
[https://github.com/sukeesh/Jarvis](https://github.com/sukeesh/Jarvis) I now
have 900 stars, 47 contributors. More importantly, it taught me the open
source!

------
mooreds
Mostly for me it's a place to highlight interesting writing/content that I
feel should be read more widely. It's really fun to find someone's
heartwritten article, post it here, and, if it trends, have them mention it
excitedly on Twitter. (That's happened a few times.)

I also appreciate the discussions, though there are slacks that I'm on that
have deeper, more focused discussions.

It's also a great way for me to record links that I find interesting, even if
they get only one or two votes. (I also auto tweet all my HN links, so it
serves double duty.)

Finally, I appreciate both the range of the populace (in terms of viewpoint
and expertise) and at the same time the lack of fragmentation (as contrasted
with the other main internet forum I monitor, reddit).

------
gabythenerd
It got me interested in building software. I am currently studying with
Platzi, a Y Combinator Company that gave me a scholarship for a whole year to
learn about programming, personal branding and startups.

It has given me knowledge about interesting topics in the tech world. This has
made talking to interesting people a lot easier.

This is a little more personal, but it has given me hope of having a better
life in the future.

------
anonytrary
HackerNews gives me the freedom to say contrarian things without instantly
being down-voted to hell. HackerNews also encourages me to be level-headed and
polite. The mods here are mature and are relatively unbiased. I like this one
intellectual feed over Reddit's many frivolous subreddits. Does the subreddit
differentiation tend to attract low quality mods and users? Probably. But Idk.

~~~
amygdyl
If contrarian debate includes technical debate, I learned that I enjoy reading
the counter arguments for programming solutions that I'd probably not learn
about, if for any reason I am by experience or knowledge or style or ability,
the longer in tooth or lesser as is inevitable in this Cambrian explosion of
the web, if I'm going to instinctively assume that I would take another
approach to the similar goal. Learning about the depth and even shallowness of
the industry that touches large database installations has been most eye
opening, in a good way, to this fifth decade enterprise maven. This, and
comparing my experience with start-up in the early nineties, and generally the
sheer variety of voices, keeps me returning

------
Retroity
I'm fairly new here, but I've already fallen in love with the fact that
there's all sorts of interesting discussions going on here, allowing you to
find other's perspectives presented in a well written and respectful manner.

------
dkoubsky
Theres a lot of really intelligent people on here. To me, its often more
interesting to read their insights and debates on an article than the article
itself. HN always introduces me to new technologies and new ideas. I love it.

------
crystalPalace
HN has taught me what great comments and writing look like, introduced me to
cool and obscure tech, and shown me that everyone experiences imposter
syndrome. I'm especially grateful for getting a push out of my comfort zone
when I was job searching. I got an offer to do contract development work from
a post on HN which lead to starting a business and being a full-time, remote
developer. I've gotten several clients and job offers from blog posts that
have received attention on here and people have always been helpful and
respectful in the comments section especially in comparison to other sites.

------
natecavanaugh
This is incredibly modest in comparison, but HN has given me a great
understanding of just how smart people can be on any side of any issue, as
well as a desire to try to contribute in some way to that dialogue.

For me, when IRL it's incredibly hard to find, this has been a much needed
boon to my overall view of the world at large :)

------
nkoren
Made a "who's hiring" post a few years ago, looking for a presumably short-
term contract worker. Met the co-founder of my next company. Win!

------
neom
I like the smackdown when I'm out of line. Community here keeps you pretty
intellectually honest. Thanks HN! :)

------
cyberferret
For me - Lots of learning. I live in an isolated area, and work from home
alone, so there is a sense of community and sharing of knowledge that is
valuable to me. I learn way more about new technology and directions in
innovation on here than anywhere else on the internet. Signal to noise ratio
is still pretty good.

Also like that it is still a pretty civil and respectful community - I know it
is hard to ride that fine balance between censorship and freedom of
expression, and I think the mods here do a good job under trying
circumstances.

------
subcosmos
Hope <3

This is vague, but I love this community. I expect that in the future we will
accomplish amazing things together.

------
specto
Gave me the confidence to apply to a tech company and I got accepted, making a
much better living now.

------
danschumann
I posted something like "I'm a lonely founder, are there support groups?" And
got hundreds of comments, and a scholarship to a support group! (Courtesy of
Zenfounder)

------
m0th87
It gave me a spectacular job (CTO of a 150-person YC company) and several job
offers. I also hired quite a few engineers through HN. HN jobs (both the YC
job postings and the monthly threads) really work! It's no exaggeration to say
the site has shaped my life.

------
jere
About $2800 I guess. I never would have known about Stellar otherwise.

Beyond learning a hell of a lot, the most cherished thing was probably finding
out about microcorruption. That feels like one of the biggest accomplishments
of my life, I finished pretty early on, and it was fun!

------
deepaksurti
Through HN (and PG's) essays:

\- Insight to plan 1 year sabbatical (financially and technically)

\- Shipped a 3D game from ground up in that sabbatical, learn 3D graphics was
the objective of that

\- Got a scientific developer job as a result of that game, part of which was
to contribute to OSS Libraries

\- Now working as a freelance 3D graphics engineer

\- Introduced me to Lisp which I have used ever since to learn hard topics

\- Wrote a 3D asset kit for iOS, which is open source.

NONE of the above would have been possible at all without HN (and PG's)
essays. Thanks a million!!!

------
terrywang
\- high quality information & comments (including famous people that I'd never
meet in person or have a direct conversation/discussion) \- passion for
technology \- probably the current job plus an once in a lifetime IPO
experience \- a lot more ;-)

------
taurath
A sense of anxiety and an increase to my imposter syndrome despite having very
good personal skill set increases every year

------
CiPHPerCoder
HN has given me enough cynicism towards Silicon Valley culture to never want
to live there, and an appreciation for some of its residents that comment here
to believe that conditions can improve.

------
gdiocarez
I'm a drop out from school. All my technical skill are through asking
stackoverflow.com. Not until I found hacker news, I got the best tools to use,
have a community that supports the site. And overall, I never end the day
without opening it.

------
alexbecker
I found my first software engineering job through an HN hiring post by a YC
company. It was at a time when my life and resume were... not great. But I
could code, and that was enough for them. It was the only offer I got. I
became a software engineer, moved to the bay area, and my life turned around.
That company had its issues and I did not stay very long, but I would not be
where I am today if it weren't for that post.

------
byoung2
I found my current job (since 2015) working 100% remote in the whoishiring
thread, and I'm super grateful for that. Besides that, it's been my go-to
source for tech and startup news and great (sometimes frustrating)
discussions.

------
mindcrime
It's hard to nail it down to anything specific, but I've gained a sense of
community from interactions here, and have learned a lot from other posters
comments, and from the many awesome links that have been shared here.

The HN community is such a big part of my life that when I had a heart attack
a few years ago[1], one of the first things I did when I got to the recovery
room was post to HN. Of the people I wanted to talk to in that moment, a bunch
of strangers, most of whom I'll never meet IRL, were near the top of the list
(to be fair, I _did_ call my mom, my dad, and a few close friends first!)

I've also gotten a handful of emails from people commenting on or discussing
comments I've left here. Those are always appreciated.

Also, as others have mentioned, I would say that PG's essays have been very
influential to me. The famous "How To Not Die"[2] one is one of my favorites.

[1]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8550315](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8550315)

[2]: [http://www.paulgraham.com/die.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/die.html)

------
kvz
We shared news about our open protocol for resumable file uploads tus.io and
on a few occasions this hit the front page. We haven’t done anything else to
“market” it and so I’d say this was the single thing that gave it traction and
turned it into a success. Vimeo rolled out support for it in production last
week and we couldn’t be happier and more thankful towards HN as a platform to
discuss our inventions

------
EliRivers
The insight that a great many programmers, probably including myself, consider
their particular tiny tiny tiny subsection of the programming universe to
actually be the most common case by a large margin.

As such, I let "nobody needs X" and "everyone should use Y" and "why does Z
even exist" comments slide off me, except in the cases where I can genuinely
help someone expand their horizons.

------
quickthrower2
It's given me an eye on the tech world outside of my own country, and a sense
of opinion on things outside of my immediate coworkers.

On the dark side it does give me shiny object syndrome - wanting to read up
and know about a lot of things, and some inferior feelings as I see super
successful people here, however I am moving on and being happy just to be a
guy who enjoys coding, earning money for the family etc.

------
zintinio5
Coming from an under-represented demographic in technology, Hackernews has
really been my insight into the industry and helped me immensely with figuring
out how to get into it. Reading this website has honestly made me a ton of
money and steered my career. On the job, I think Hackernews also keeps me sane
by stimulating continuous learning each and every day. I really like this
little community.

------
agotterer
I believe it was sometime in 2008/09 I attended the first meeting of the NYC
HN Meetup in Madison Square Park (pretty sure the meetup is now dead). I met a
lot of amazing people from the NYC tech scene that I still keep in touch with.
We've helped each other start companies, find jobs, build things, and create
lasting friendships outside of work / tech. I miss those days...

------
vermasque
A job that I've had for years and 2 people that I hired via the "Who's
Hiring?" threads. Beyond that, a sense of what smart techies are talkin' about
via the headlines and some comments.

------
aj7
By studying posts, I inferred that a majority of AI research was conducted on
Nvidia cards, due to software infrastructure, network effects, and switching
costs. This stiffened my resolve to hold on to NVDA.

------
gkya
I've had tiny conversations with people like Alan Kay and Walter Bright here.
Now, I'm a humanities undergrad living in Istanbul with a soft spot for
programming and computers, so without something like HN, this sort of
interactions were impossible.

HN is bustling with domain experts and very smart people, lots of experience,
just the best kind of guys to rub shoulders with.

------
dotancohen
> What has HN given you?

You mean aside from the education, and the aquaduct, and the wine, and keeping
the peace. Oh, and the roads go without saying.

------
nsarafa
Besides a wayy better facebook new feed
([https://github.com/yczeng/hackernews-
newsfeed](https://github.com/yczeng/hackernews-newsfeed)). A feeling I'm not
so alone in my pursuit of learning as much as humanly possible about the world
of technology, startups, physics and everything in between

------
montrose
Incidentally, thank you for asking, jxub. It must encourage the mods a lot to
read stories like the ones I've read here, and being a forum moderator is
ordinarily among the most thankless of tasks.

~~~
jxub
You're welcome ;)

------
andrea_sdl
3 years ago I was reading HN, wondering what could be improved in my work. I
felt a little bit of burnout but nothing that extreme, yet I wasn't satisfied.

I remember that to me the solution was remote work. I dreamed of it and coming
from Italy it seemed like an impossible request.

I had this idea that even though our job might be good/great, our life isn't
defined by our job. I still think this today. Our life is what we do after our
job. Friends, family, travels.

In one comment a guy discussed the benefits he gained moving from the 9-5 job,
to a part time job. I thought about it for a couple of months and decided to
give it a go with my boss.

It went well, and even though I'd love to have the flexibility of remotework
right now I'm really happy about this choice. To me nothing is comparable to
being able to spend more time with the people you love.

Side effect of it: some other coworkers started evaluating part-time job as a
possibility to increase their quality of life, which is amazing :)

------
jressey
Learning about Ethereum when it was dirt cheap so I bought a bunch @ $20.
Giving me confidence to quit my job and move to a new city without one (I now
have the best job of my life).

------
destraynor
We launched Intercom right here on HN and while I wouldn't say "the rest is
history", I'm sure most folks here know the rest.

Fun fact here was our first post on it:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2718354](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2718354)

------
randall
I met one of my cofounders via hacker news, and was accepted into Y Combinator
shortly after thanks to this post on HN on new year's eve.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6993981](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6993981)

Change the trajectory of my life for sure.

------
sampl
Six years ago, I saw a job posting on HN—a YC farming startup was looking for
a designer. I joined the two founders, moved to Michigan, and learned more
about building companies, products, and teams than I ever imagined at the
start. I also met a bunch of people who became like a family.

Unexpected but priceless. Thanks HN.

------
tuxxy
Gave me my current job at NuCypher (YC16). I'm doing some cryptographic
engineering and building a decentralized KMS.

Honestly, it's the coolest and most fun job I've had to date and I couldn't be
more happy with where I'm at.

I got it all because I was browsing HN while eating some food. :)

------
keyle
HN gives me hopes about humanity every day; while the news give me dispair.

------
khazhoux
THE go-to place for technical news and reading material every day.

Though I do wish people would lighten up. You can't hardly post a joking
comment without the downvotes pouring in. Yeah, we don't want this to be a
meme palace, but it's ok to kid around every once in a while.

~~~
SamReidHughes
My joking comments rarely ever downvoted.

~~~
smoyer
I was so tempted to down-vote you!

~~~
SamReidHughes
I'd forgive you. You have to be willing to accept downvotes if you want to
make a joke. The joke has to be worth it.

------
sevensor
The opportunity to develop perspective and taste when it comes to programming
languages, libraries, and paradigms. I read "Can programming be liberated from
the von Neumann style?" for the first time because it gets posted to HN every
couple of months (the mods should automate it at this point.) I've seen a
steady drip of interesting discussions about and debates among proponents of
lisps and statically typed functional languages -- and at the same time I
witnessed the fall of Rails and the rise of one hot Javascript framework after
another. If it weren't for HN, I'd still be blaming myself for not doing OO
right, instead of coming to understand that OO is metaphor rather than
science.

------
Rapzid
I learned about an opening at an awesome company that I spent ~2 years at. It
was my first flat-ish org experience and I gained an amazing amount of insight
into how that works, and after I left the challenges their processes/culture
had evolved to address.

------
KozmoNau7
It's nothing majorly life-changing, like some of the other people in these
comments (and I'm a bit late to the party).

But HN has given me a mostly nerd/geek/hacker/science/generally curious person
focused news site that is simple and straightforward and doesn't try to track
me or otherwise infringe on my privacy.

It has also given me comment sections that are generally full of thoughtful
and intelligent comments, some of which I vehemently disagree with, but they
are intelligent nonetheless. This is a marked contrast to the comments on
Slashdot, where political rants and virulent racism/sexism/general
assholishness seems to be the norm now.

So thanks everyone, for being civil and respectful.

------
drawkbox
Everyday insights and knowledge from like minds, keeping up to date with new
tech/languages/standards.

I was also heavy in Python in 2006 and there was lots of Python focused
content. Proggit, reddit/r/programming was also big at the time and had a
similar feel.

Back in 2007 it made me go get my masters in software engineering because the
level of intellect seems more focused here, didn't need it but wanted some
challenges. I also finally jumped to game development which was my goal to
take on more challenges.

Ultimately HN is a time sink that pays off as a motivator. It is closer to the
old proggit than the rest of the web. I also love Paul Graham's essays.

------
rsoto
It has given me a lot of things through the years: lots of insight both on
things I'm interested into as well as things I don't pay much attention to,
quite a few interesting articles and entertainment.

But the thing it really stuck with me is inspiration: the endurance and
obstacles you must overcome to create a new product. The original post on
Dropbox[1] had a lot of naysayers: on how the problem is already solved, that
you have to install something, that is seems that is a solution looking for a
problem, etc.

1:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863)

------
pascalxus
I think it's awesome that hacker news doesn't ban people just for sharing
their works. It's one of the few places where you can share a link for a
solution that's relevant to the conversation/article at hand.

------
nailer
A business, a fulfilling job and some really happy customers!

At the beginning of 2015 I was waiting three weeks for GoDaddy to verify my
company for an EV HTTPS cert. I spent 6 weeks coding a very minimal version of
[https://certsimple.com](https://certsimple.com) \- it launched on the front
page of HN on March 16th
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9210908](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9210908),
got it's first customers on that same day and has become my fulltime career
for the last 3 years.

------
psyc
Mainly, early exposure to a wide variety of languages, libraries, and even
more obscure projects that I wouldn't have heard of, or not as early. Also, a
somewhat wider vocabulary for talking about many aspects of software.

------
frakkingcylons
I got my first paid internship through a Who's Hiring post almost four years
ago (March 2014). I'm so happy that I was able to break into this industry,
the financial stability and benefits have given me a new life.

------
nooron
I got my first job out of college through HN at a YC startup. I am still in
startups several years later and will be for a long time, hopefully. I am very
grateful for the opportunities I've found and cultivated from it.

------
hux_
HN used to be a daily source of nourishment. But today it is a source of
"informed bewilderment" like everything else on the web. Google the term.
Understand it's consequences on you and the people around you.

------
rozenmd
A deeper appreciation for groupthink.

~~~
PaulStatezny
Is this sarcasm? If not, can you elaborate why?

I’m genuinely curious.

~~~
innocentoldguy
HN is an echo chamber, to some extent. For example, try making valid
criticisms against Go or JavaScript and you will be downvoted without
explanation. I think HN would be better if it required an explanation in order
to downvote something. At least then it would be clear to everyone reading
whether the negativity was legitimate or not.

~~~
grzm
Many members find language wars boring. Most are already aware of strengths
and weaknesses of various languages. People have language preferences (I know
I do), and those vary from person to person. What’s more important is what
you’re accomplishing. If you bring up criticism when it’s not the topic of
conversation (for example, complaining about the use of JS on a Show HN),
people may downvote because it’s off-topic.

As for requiring comments for downvoted, search the archives if you’re really
interested in more discussion, but those that aren’t interested in leaving
comments are just going to leave junk comments if required, and then there
would be endless litigation as to what constitutes a valid reason.

As the guidelines request, just don’t comment about downvotes. If you’re
really worried about it, take some time to review the guidelines and look at
the behavior of other comments that are downvoted. Speculate to yourself why
they might have been downvoted. Improve your own comments taking that into
account. But in general, I suggest just not worrying too much about it.

~~~
innocentoldguy
To clarify, I'm not talking about language wars. I'm talking about legitimate
constructive criticism on threads about specific languages. My degree is in
writing, and I cannot stress enough the importance of criticism in achieving
one's highest quality work. Therefore, it seems to me, we would serve
ourselves better by considering constructive criticism with an open mind, and
working to make our languages better, than to up and down vote based on
preferences and emotion. A downvote offered simply because someone said
something about one's favorite language is no more intellectual or objective
than a commenter who writes, "<whatever language> sucks!" Both should be
scorned.

As you say, we all have our favorite languages (all of which have flaws). Mine
are currently Elixir and Elm. However, neither of those are perfect and those
imperfections can sometimes hinder me. Since, for me, the point of HN is
knowledge, it is unhelpful when a critical comment is downvoted, even though
it contains good information that would help me in choosing the best language
for my project, based entirely on team-sport emotions.

I'm sorry this got long; however, I also wanted to clarify, from my side, your
point about the mention of language in an Ask HN post. I did not criticize any
language. I was answering someone else's question, and simply used the
criticism of popular languages as an example. Yes, you could argue that their
question itself was off-topic, but since the point of HN, at least for me, is
knowledge, I did what I could to answer it. I'm not remotely concerned about
karma points, as you can probably tell from the age of my account vs. my low
karma score. I'm on "the spectrum" and tend to rub people the wrong way all
the time. I'm used to it and I don't expect to be treated any differently
here. My only criticism is that many of the downvotes are emotional and
unhelpful, and HN should do what it can to eliminate worthless downvotes the
same way it tries to eliminate worthless comments.

------
CyberFonic
HN is my main source of up to date news. The technical orientation and
relative absence of mainstream "noise" is well aligned with my interests. For
example I found out about Golang and Closure by reading HN.

------
zengid
This is going to get buried, but HN has given me a place where I feel at
_home_. It's community has just the right mixture of pragmatic empiricists,
tasteful dreamers, and unabashed nerds. Thanks y'all!

------
Dowwie
HN is a watering hole for well intentioned smart people. I have learned a lot
from the community and try to give back.

------
bouk
On HN I saw this post:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4156478](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4156478)
(you can see my comment on it too
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4157074](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4157074))

Through that I contacted the author, we became friends, hung out at the IOI,
and eventually he referred me to Shopify, where I've worked for the last 4.5
years. Because of that I also lived in Canada for 3.5 years. Quite a ride.

------
mentos
HN has given me confidence in my ideas. I've been able to take risks in my
communication with peers and pitch ideas that without HN's upvotes I would
have been too intimidated or insecure to share.

------
thinkingslow
Met the co-writer of my book on Hacker News which changed my life! (Was a book
on growth hacking that we first talked about on here)
Http://secretsaucenow.com - the book Austen Allred - the man

------
brianwu02
An introduction to a community that just so happens to be centered around
technology.

As far as my career goes, it has given me a wealth of perspective on the
different tools people are using to solve their problems.

------
roryisok
An experience of a community that is respectful, mature and is one of the few
places on the internet where I read the comments, and don't feel ashamed of
humanity afterwards.

It's also linked me to all kinds of interesting tech I would otherwise have
missed, which in turn, indirectly, helped me get a new job last year. I
probably never would have bothered learning Vue.js if there wasn't such a buzz
around it on here, and I got a job out of it.

Lastly, HN has made me nervous of using the word 'electron' in a sentence

------
cdiamand
The first few thousand subscribers to my side project. And tons of great
advice on how to improve it!

------
Azeat
Occasionally interesting reading because I'm not a computer programmer or
anything of the sort so I don't benefit from the tech job type of discussions
or opportunities.

------
paule89
I read about the new Raspberry Pi Zero here first. And was able to buy it
directly, to receive the first batch and had not to wait 2 months before the
next batch was available.

------
vfulco
Besides daily inspiration, I am constantly challenged and exposed to new tools
I can bring into my professional services business. Some outstanding clients
have found me in an indirect way after I offered a couple of unemployed
readers a free resume review (one of our business lines). I was able to help
others while growing my business even though pure marketing is verboten. It's
an invaluable community of generally upbeat do-ers and visionaries.

------
krrishd
I joined in high school, and several things came out of it:

\- I commented with feedback on a random product posted here several years
ago, and got an internship from them out of it

\- I met a few other high schoolers with similar interests, and was added to a
group called 'HS Hackers' that spawned the subsequent 'Hackathon Hackers'
group, from which I was referred to some defining internships, met a co-
founder, and met some of the more valuable people I know

------
quillo
A job, doing what I love, with conditions I never dreamed possible for someone
with poor formal qualifications but an insatiable desire to learn and prove my
value.

I am grateful.

------
nyae
Ask not what HN has given you, but what you have given HN

------
sebringj
I cannot find a better source for bleeding edge/trends/tips in programming
related and tech and just generally interesting articles. There just isn't any
other place that's better. This is the last stop when you find it as far as I
know. So it has given me a better sense of the world state of affairs as it
relates to me, every day and then I make decisions accordingly.

------
dcl
A gigantic inferiority complex

~~~
b0rsuk
I feel you. For any given subject there are 140 people who are an order of
magnitude better/more skilled/smarter than you, and can make much better
points in with less text.

On the other hand, remember the saying: "Aim for the moon. Even if you miss,
you'll end up among the stars."

I keep consoling myself that it's not just about having the most stat points
in a single skill. There are projects which can only be accomplished by jacks-
of-all-trades, or people who are knowledgeable about several domains. But it
requires good self-knowledge. For example, if you have an analytical mind,
like animals, have a sense of aesthetics, and patience, you can excel at
Origami.

~~~
smoyer
But here those 140 people will provide deeply insightful answers to your
questions.

------
chezhead
Since I live in an area that isn't very plugged into the tech world at large,
seeing blog posts aggregated on HN can clue me into some interesting
technologies -- I started using grafana and prometheus for something at work
and it ended up being the right choice that other coworkers would not have
figured out. Without HN I probably wouldn't know much about these
technologies.

------
lee101
most of our traffic and customers for our cryptocurrency trading stats
dashboard and prediction engine [https://bitbank.nz](https://bitbank.nz) come
from hacker news

Lots of interesting discussions and learning materials just like this post
here allow learning from great people and can sum up to have a great benefit
on your life/career

------
gandutraveler
It made me quit other social networks. I realised how much time I was waiting
on FB and other networks without any added value to life.

------
ivm
– kickstarted my app: at least $12k after Show HN

– inspired an idea for a future educational non-profit

– lots of insights, especially from non-tech articles I found here

------
HenryBemis
"What have the Romans ever done for us?"

In all seriousness now, it helped me become an amateur dev (1 app in Apple
store, 2 more on the way) and opened my mind to design principles, color
selection, and many more.

Plus it keeps my mind sharp with both interesting articles/posts but MORE
important, with the dialogues/comments. Truly positive and intelectually
stimulating.

------
axaxs
Why I like HN: I get caught up to date on newest tech news, the community is
the absolute best, and includes many people famous in tech history. It's not
the echo chamber of SV but more libertarian. And people will debate you
without namecalling, politics, or downvotes. It's like reddit for adults, and
I pray it always remains that way.

------
wglb
Got my first security gig by reaching out to someone here on HN.

Lots of high quality discussions here, with quite a range of experts. Where
else can you find more than one lawyer who is also a compiler developer?
World-class experts in small business, cryptography, breaking cryptography,
old war stories, and lively discussion on many topics.

------
flyGuyOnTheSly
The solace in knowing that true discourse need not be confined to real life
situations!

People can speak in a civilized manner on the internet.

------
b3lvedere
I gradually found out that a lot of tech news starts right here at HN. Great
responses as well. Very professional and very mature.

This may sound strange, but sometimes i feel like an stupid idiot around here
and i kinda like that, because i'm learning great new things. Sometimes i also
act like an idiot, but i hope i can apologise for that. :)

------
foxfired
Well I get to read well thought out arguments against things I firmly believe
in. Not just "your idea is stupid"

------
rblion
A sense of belonging with a group of people who are passionate about
technology, science, design, entrepreneurship.

I don't get that from reddit or people I know in real life.

I'm going to apply to YC S18. I didn't get in last year but I'm only 28 and I
have worked on every area of my life over the last year and feel ready to try
again.

------
Cthulhu_
Daily distraction from work, :p. But at the same time, I learn something new -
probably several somethings - every day; new technologies, expertises, etc.
Not much I'd use in my day to day job, but it's enough for me to have a basic
understanding of a broad range of subjects. Keeps me up to date, so to speak.

------
lug0r
HN gave me a link to a Bitcoin-Article back in June 2016. Well, i got
intruiged and gave it a chance. Thank You HN!

------
BooneJS
A reading list that I'll never be able to get through. Is there a service that
turns reading lists to mp3s?

~~~
sincerely
Do you not read faster than regular human speaking voice speed? (No shame if
you do, just curious)

~~~
BooneJS
Not at all; the opposite, I think. As a new Silicon Valley resident, I spent 2
hours a day in a car and have really been enjoying Audible. A few years ago I
found myself using Instapaper-to-Kindle. Now I need something-to-Audible. :/

------
gavanwoolery
Aside from all the other stuff, my interactions here have led to some great
"real life" friendships.

------
mightybyte
One of my comments got a job for someone else who I had never met. And it got
me a nice referral bonus. :)

------
rodolphoarruda
It showed me that there are other worlds beyond LAMP boundaries.

It also gave me new parameters for procrastination. LOL

------
mx1093472
I haven't done anything amazing like a lot of these people, but I sure enjoy
reading about them.

------
mindfulplay
The idea that startups are not for the few with the richest connections but
anyone with the will and drive.

Thanks HN!

------
tiuPapa
Inspiration...? I am quite new, have been learning to program less than a
year. And posts, comments on HN, even on this post itself gives me the
confidence to believe that I too make awesome things if I work hard, something
that I crucially lacked in my life until now.

------
intrasight
One day less of available work time every month. That is until I discovered
"noprocrast".

------
gigatexal
HN is really a novel place because amatuer developers like me can interact
with founders, 10x devs, and everyone in between without fear of mockery for
the most part. The feedback is very often constructive. For the internet in
2018 that's a feat unto itself.

------
mrmondo
1) News of new and potentially disruptive products and ideas.

2) The opportunity to read to insightful comments rather than always being
sucked into flame wars. It’s not always the case but it’s more pro-
constructive feedback and commentary than reddit, forums etc...

------
FrederikET
Despite being a new user have I used a bit of time in here. HN has given me
another perspective. It has given me a perspective beyond the large companies
like Google and Facebook. I'm blessed by all the small upcoming companies we
see in here!

------
mayurpipaliya
The way each one of you are changing the world, and sense of intellect our
community has is incredible.

I learned a lot by just reading through conversations here and in many other
threads over the time. HN is helping me become better version of myself.

Thank you to each one of you!

------
p0larboy
Submitted one of my first few article for my web dev blog, colintoh.com, many
years back. It hit the front page and it really encourages me to write more
until I didn't. Nowadays, the blog is used as both a personal dev resource and
a resume.

------
HipstaJules
It's my version of the the silicon valley since I'm in another country. I love
it

------
jkuria
A four month six figure consulting gig. Thanks HN.

------
artemisbot
Introduced me to CyberChef
([https://github.com/gchq/CyberChef](https://github.com/gchq/CyberChef)) which
has since become the open source project I contribute to frequently.

------
epberry
A sense of community even while living far from the valley. Thanks HN, don’t
ever change.

------
hprotagonist
I have a more thorough pinboard.in collection.

I discovered attrs here, which really has been very useful.

------
sp527
Spending time on HN has allowed me to keep in touch with the pulse of the tech
industry and the cutting edge in software.

Honestly, many individual sessions of delving into HN end up feeling like a
waste of time. However, there are enough indications of triggered thoughts
derived from HN posts/comments in my day-to-day to suggest that it's quite
valuable in the aggregate, over a sufficiently lengthy period of observation.

It's also quite useful at times to comment on posts (particularly technical
ones). I find that helps me refine my own thoughts and become a more
discerning developer and industry strategist through feedback.

------
rch
Two jobs that helped get me where I am now, plus knowledge and entertainment.

------
theparanoid
Honestly, not much. Mostly, it's reinforced my switch from programming.

~~~
shitgoose
from programming to what, if you don't mind me asking?

------
TuringNYC
A place to go for intelligent discussion after Slashdot lost appeal (to me)

~~~
stevekemp
Slashdot is still limping along, but it hasn't been a site I've visited for
many, many, years now.

I always feel somewhat nostalgic the rare times, like today, when I'm reminded
of it.

Slashdot, Kuro5hin, LWN, all used to be sites I visited daily. Now only LWN is
left.

------
obbobo
I created an account just to write a comment here. I've been a spectator for
years - I read comments on this site at least once a day. So many great
insights from smart people. I'm a big fan!

------
RobertRoberts
A place to discuss a technology related (generally) topics with mostly sane
and rational people. It's a joy to post and communicate here.

Edit: And it's a great place to find tech related news I care about. :)

------
mychael
Hacker News reminds me that there are lots of people much smarter I am.

------
bewe42
Access to an incredibly thoughtful bunch of minds which I doubt I could have
had otherwise. Many new ideas and helpful advice. However, it also is also my
number one excuse to procrastinate.

------
Kagerjay
absolutely nothing directly

Indirectly, I come back here usually everyday for the following reasons

\- Experts debating on topics with each other provides useful insights on
technology / industry trends, so I understand what things matter and what
things do not. \- Keep up to date with new emerging technology / practices \-
Some interesting project ideas that I star on github to revisit later \- Show
how little I know when I read an article and have no idea what its talking
about. Also, it helps expand my technical vocabulary

------
known
I extensively use HN to do
[http://www.netmba.com/strategy/swot/](http://www.netmba.com/strategy/swot/)

------
2_listerine_pls
A sense of dispair: still no idea which web framework to choose.

~~~
cloverich
I know this is tongue and cheek but if anyone out there really feels this,
there's two good directions to go: 1) Choose _any_ of your candidate
frameworks and gogogo. 2) Choose something like golang and learn to bring-
your-own-framework. Either way you'll come out _far_ ahead of where you'd be
if you'd spent your time just evaluating.

~~~
Intermernet
Now I'm going to write a web framework in Go called "gogogo" just to really
confuse future readers of your reply.

------
pat_space
Lots of great articles to tweet about

------
numbsafari
I've used HN to hire 4 engineers (mostly junior or mid-level) at three
different companies (one startup, two growth-phase) in two different states
(Maine and Pennsylvania).

------
losteverything
The joy of reading (comments)

Duckduckgo

A feeling of elite-ness as not one other person i know (jobs, family or
patrons) have ever heard of HN. It's my exclusive ivy-league braggard self
worth identity

------
thomasfl
HN has given me hopes and dreams about 10 years. I have not yet created any
unicorn company. But I have quit my job and started doing software development
as a freelancer.

------
jacquesm
HN has made me a much better writer. So thank you all for that!

~~~
swombat
All that time spent arguing with me wasn't wasted after all!

~~~
jacquesm
Fancy meeting you here. Was just thinking about you yesterday. Email inbound
:)

------
adrian_mrd
A community of like-minded nerds :)

~~~
pksadiq
> A community of like-minded nerds :)

Like minded nerds? No. I disagree[0]. :)

[0] [https://xkcd.com/309/](https://xkcd.com/309/)

~~~
adrian_mrd
Good point. How about: A community of (xkcd and non-xkcd reading) nerds and
non-nerds? ;)

------
randomsearch
Hearing about the latest tech just before my students mention them, so I at
least vaguely know what they’re using to build their projects. This occurs
uncannily often.

------
decision_tree
Knowledge and company for people building knowledge companies.

------
vladmk
It introduced me to a friend who was a friend of a friend that I didn't even
know who lived locally. As a result of that relationship this person met with
me and introduced me to his partner, his partner happened to refer a 50k
business deal. The butterfly effect ;) We didn't close the deal, but without
HN I'd never even be able to swing. This friend I made through hacker news
would also later speak at my meetup.

------
i_feel_great
I learned what to learn. Reading comments gave me tips on how to improve my
skills and experience. So thanks to all the nameless experts out there on HN!

------
rootsudo
A place to kill time while I debate what I want in life.

------
adjkant
A daily reminder of how far the tech community has to go socially and morally,
and hopefully a chance to help change that in a positive direction.

------
shujito
I've found mostly interesting things, very interesting things; and articles
and readables to feed my thirst for knowledge.

------
bad_user
Other than the ability to argue, nothing much, a time waste feeding into our
need for affirmation, like most social networking.

------
hemantv
Nice set of people to chat and comments are especially helpful.

Good reading list

Made me aware of silicon valley and startup when I was India, now I am here :)

------
Shivetya
a mostly politics free zone where interesting technical news and odd but also
interesting subjects could be discussed as well as expanded upon by people who
are good in the associated field.

I still think politics; especially US; appears too much. Some stories
submitted are little more than hit pieces but fortunately flagging does help

------
beeskneecaps
News addiction. But also an insane awareness of the latest tech that I’ve
leveraged at startups for the past decade.

------
focuser
A habit of checking HN every 20 minutes. :)

------
nottorp
All right... all right... but apart from better sanitation and medicine and
education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system
and baths and public order... what have the Romans done for us?

Sorry, it was the only thing i could think of when I saw the question...

------
rvo
Discovered Dropbox here. Also have gotten many interviews via the monthly
who's hiring posts.

~~~
dotancohen
> Discovered Dropbox here.

You've got to check out this new Hotmail thing.

------
zubairlk
It has broadened my horizons immensely and enabled me to think differently
about various problems

------
MichaelMoser123
HN told me that the world is larger than I thought and that I don't know that
much about it.

~~~
MichaelMoser123
... also HN seems to have developed a peculiar ranking system - in fact any
system of communication gets a ranking system. It seems that hierarchy is part
of human nature, isn't it?

------
werber
An online community where I almost always feel like the dumbest person in the
thread, priceless

------
omarchowdhury
An intellectual soil with respect to business, technology, history, economics,
and sociology.

------
benbristow
Some interesting links to click and discussions to read when I'm
procrastinating.

------
ndh2
By the way: Props to dang for making all this possible. HN is very lucky to
have him.

~~~
dang
Props to pg for making all this possible. But thank you.

------
gigatexal
A job. Applied to a position posted at the who’s Hiring and will be starting
soon.

------
sahillavingia
My entire career.

------
lolikoisuru
HN has given me a bigger disgust for tech than I thought I could ever have.

------
mynameishere
Nothing. And I've been here forever.

But what do you want? It's a message board.

~~~
eeZah7Ux
Seeing an old account being downvoted for being unhappy is sad.

~~~
eeZah7Ux
...and here come the downvotes to my comment. Good job HN.

~~~
dang
It's because you're breaking the site guidelines. Could you please read them
and not do that?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
kbd
Found my current job through HN's "Who is Hiring" threads.

~~~
hobolord
yeah I found my job through the "Who wants to be hired" thread

------
danso
I’ve bought a lot of books and tech based on recommendations made here.

------
michakirschbaum
An echo chamber to bolster my own paranoia and disconnect from reality.

------
sidcool
The good things include inspiration, ambition, talking to like minded people,
discovering great tech content etc.

The bad things include FOMO, addiction to HN, anxiety, low self-confidence.

The key is balance.

------
sunwicked1
\- A sense of community \- Knowledge \- A little less boredom :)

------
youdontknowtho
The sinking feeling that everything is not going to be OK.

------
nice_byte
Some posts I saw here inspired me to start blogging myself

------
adammcnamara
Community.

Inspiration to pursue big problems.

Inspiration to always be learning.

------
ramon
Hey guys, thank you all for sharing great stories but I stopped when someone
said it made me start dancing ;).

------
mathgladiator
a place to catch up on technologies, and to get a sense of where thinking in
various industries are headed.

------
cpfohl
Found my job through who's hitting

~~~
jxub
*hiring? ;)

~~~
cpfohl
Lol, yup

------
cosinetau
New questions to answer, daily.

Technically, a job, too.

------
newscracker
TL;DR — It's my daily dose. I come here for the variety of content and the
discussions. I very much admire how some people here write and put forth their
thoughts (the thoughts themselves are so valuable). I also like how this forum
of probably hundreds of thousands of users is polite and maintained that way
(wish I could do that elsewhere), and would love to pick the brains of the
moderators sometime.

\-----

a. Several years ago, I used to follow a handful of tech sites on a daily
basis. When I discovered HN, I still used it to go straight to the
articles/headlines that interested me, never looking at the discussions here.
Later, I switched to looking at the discussions, and _now the discussions are
where I start at everyday,_ and it's only after checking out the discussion
that I decide whether to visit the linked site or not.

b. I don't follow all the discussions here, and I do wonder how, with HN's
primitive interface, people keep up with nested comments and replies. So I
don't look at nested comments below two levels or so, and instead use the
comment collapse button ([-]), which for some reason appears only on desktop
browsers, to collapse comments and check the high level ones (this also means
sometimes missing valuable comments that may be in the replies).

c. I also end up wasting a lot of time because of HN (yeah, I know about the
profile options) and the links posted here.

d. On the negative side, there are some topics that I do avoid discussing here
because even the most liberal minded/rational people have some limits (please
don't ask me about this).

------
hkmurakami
Met a good friend through the site.

------
reitanqild
Changed my views on drug policies.

------
mxschumacher
outstanding signal to noise ratio and insightful comments. I read HN every day

------
BobCat
I think I'm shadowbanned here, so I don't really have much to say.

~~~
smoyer
I don't think you're shadowbanned here.

~~~
dang
They were, but I unbanned them after seeing the comment and looking at the
recent history. We garbage collect unnecessary bans that way, although it's
sporadic and ad hoc.

------
exception_e
Open source connections!

------
iampoul
25 karma and rising xD

------
tek-cyb-org
Food for my curiosity.

------
segmondy
Part of my link to the bay area without having to be there.

------
mar77i
Surprisingly little comic relief. It's almost sad.

------
fogleman
An audience.

~~~
donquichotte
Hah, just yesterday I have browsed your github again. It's my go-to resource
for clear and beautiful C, Python and go code. And Craft is awesome!

------
feralmoan
Aqueducts.

------
eggie5
2 jobs

------
peterbecich
It made me aware of Scala.

------
rishabhd
purpose, perspective & a penchant for tech in general.

------
core_dmped
Congratulations!

------
lotsofcows
Procrastination.

------
punchclockhero
skytorrents.in. Arguably life changing.

~~~
CosmicShadow
YES! I almost forgot about that, super valuable!

------
newnewpdro
A bad habit.

------
rado
Good advice.

------
lorenzop
anxiety

------
jes5199
internet addiction

------
glangdale
A taste for n-gate

~~~
henesy
This is the real answer.

------
tritium
Downvotes.

------
megaman22
Lots and lots of wasted hours arguing with people on the internet.

But it has also shown me a wider world, of smart people that have for various
reasons interpreted reality to come to wildly different conclusions. This
leads me to question my assumptions, and seek the reasons these other people
have come to espouse their beliefs. Sometimes I am persuaded, other times
there remains a deep gulf of experience or ideology, but in any case, it is
instructive.

Additionally, there are some members here that are incredibly informative and
I love the historical, under-the-covers insight they provide.

~~~
smoyer
I don't think "smart people" actually do too much "arguing on the Internet".
You reach a point where it's "debate" and over time, those arguing from
opposite extremes will tend to move towards the middle ground.

I personally never lose an argument - I'm either right or I'm wrong and learn
something from it. (the reality is that there are snippets of truth embedded
in most of my wrongness which is what kept me there to begin with).

------
sureaboutthis
Next to nothing. I scan for links and sometimes find one or two to my
interest. I might scan the comments to see if the link is being revered or
dissed before I visit. If I'm bored, I've made a few comments. Otherwise HN is
nothing more than a link list to me.

~~~
eeZah7Ux
Same here. The discussion rarely add something really useful to the topic
compared to what you would find by skimming through a book, an article, or by
doing your own investigation.

But it gave me a good, if sad, insight about crowd behavior. Write something
that people want to hear and you get upvotes regardless on how true or
insightful it is. Write something people don't want to hear and you get
downvotes.

~~~
sureaboutthis
I am proof of that today.

------
tajen
In 2011-2013, HN gave me the necessary understanding of business, enough that
I confidently quit my employer and created my own online app. I call HN my «
rogue MBA »:

\- Major: Patrick McKenzie

\- Minors: Non-factual knowledge, just a deep understanding of what is to be
expected when managing a business, good and bad patterns, dozens of failure
reports from other startups, why seed money isn’t necessarily a good thing and
the mere existence of bootstrapping, HN gave me an intuition that is hard to
describe but lead me to success.

\- And with HN I have a better source of news than IT journalism, which is
often 1 step behind, has their own interpretation and doesn’t have multiple
points of view like the comment section on HN.

I spent 2 years reading before my first comment, because I didn’t feel
legitimate commenting before creating my own startup. Now I’m a CEO ;) Thank
you HN.

------
justboxing
(mostly) political news-free content, but I'm here mostly for the comments,
'Show HN' and 'Ask HN' posts.

------
wcr3
A small, dingy window into the world of dyspeptic 40+ y/o's. And a few good
reads, here and there.

------
lisp_me_away
censorship

------
shitgoose
ever-deteriorating karma.

~~~
shitgoose
wow. you just had to do it...

------
dtzur
Irritable bowel syndrome

------
chris_wot
Lectured at for over 2 years that I knew why I was rate limited. Got told for
2 years that I made “low quality” posts. It gave me a sense on injustice. You
be the judge.

~~~
mancerayder
What's rate-limiting, being downvoted?

People get up and downvoted all the time. Why would that discourage you? A
person can't live life without being questioned. And I'd much rather be
questioned by smart strangers (even if I disagree) than argue with significant
others.

~~~
dang
When accounts post too many unsubstantive comments too quickly and/or get
involved in flamewars, we sometimes penalize the account by rate limiting it,
which means the software won't let it post as often. Actually it limits the
account to posting no more than a certain % of all the posts appearing on the
site.

When people ask us about this we're happy to answer, and to take the penalty
off if they commit to using HN as intended in the future. If we don't get that
commitment, though, we don't take the penalty off, and we put it back on if
they revert to their old ways. This is one of the software tools we use for
preventing the signal/noise ratio from getting too low here.

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20rate%20limit&sort=by...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20rate%20limit&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0)

~~~
mancerayder
That's very interesting. Thanks for the explanation.

I guess it's not happened to me.

Related question, how come sometimes comments can be downvoted or upvoted and
sometimes they can only be upvoted, even though they aren't greyed? I thought
it was whether I'd already contributed to the thread, then I thought it was a
relative karma thing, but I see later it's neither of those things.

~~~
detaro
Replies to you and comments that are older than 24 hours can't be downvoted.

------
Cytronex
Nothing but grief. I post my opinion here, and I get shadow banned. Every-
time.

As a developer -contract or fulltime- for the last 30 years, you would think
people would listen.

~~~
ColinWright
> _Nothing but grief. I post my opinion here, and I get shadow banned. Every-
> time._

Your assertion is that it happens to you regularly. Have you considered that
it's actually you, and maybe there is a way to express your opinion clearly
without getting shadow banned?

> _As a developer -contract or fulltime- for the last 30 years, you would
> think people would listen._

As an intelligent person, one would think you might learn how to adapt your
methods of expression.

I also know of occasions where people actually asked for advice on what they
are doing wrong and got genuinely helpful responses. Perhaps you could
consider that.

================================================================

Edit: To the people/person who downvoted - I don't care. I like HN, and I find
the comments mostly valuable and the discussion mostly civil. After spending a
lot of time on many forums over several decades I've come to the conclusion
that this is mostly because of the strong moderation. If people are being
shadow-banned here then there will be a reason underneath. They can complain
as much as they like, but it's likely that if they don't change then the
shadow-banning will continue. If they want to participate, and want not to be
shadow-banned, then they need to change their behaviour, and seeking advice is
often helpful.

So I stand by what I said, and in replying to the tone of the comment by
Cytronex, I stand by how I've said it.

~~~
lolikoisuru
>Your assertion is that it happens to you regularly. Have you considered that
it's actually you, and maybe there is a way to express your opinion clearly
without getting shadow banned?

Since he was already shadow banned for this exact comment and it's his very
first with this account I don't think it's on him.

~~~
ColinWright
> _Since he was already shadow banned for this exact comment and it 's his
> very first with this account I don't think it's on him._

One of us is mis-understanding things.

You seem to be saying that the account "Cytronex" is shadow-banned, but it
isn't, so I'm not sure what you're saying. This comment[0] has been downvoted,
and that makes the comment display in a light grey, but that's not the same as
shadow-banning.

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16410628](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16410628)

~~~
lolikoisuru
You'll see that the next comment he makes will be automatically dead. New
accounts get shadowbanned right away if any of their comments gets killed.

Speaking from experience and experiments here.

~~~
dang
That account isn't banned, and what you said about new accounts definitely
isn't true.

HN has a lot of anti-spam and anti-troll software. It's possible that you saw
some of its effects and drew an over-general conclusion.

You and anyone else are welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com if you have
questions about what's going on with your account. We're happy to answer
questions, and to roll back bans or penalties when people give us reason to
believe they will use the site as intended.

------
sunstone
HN gave me a hellbanned ID after my first half dozen or so comments. It's been
reversed now but I have no idea why it happened in the first place or why it
was revoked thereafter.

