What are the biggest engineering mistakes that a tech company has made? - kevintb
======
stephenbez
Knight Capital lost $440 million dollars due to a bug and went out of
business.

[http://money.cnn.com/2012/08/09/technology/knight-
expensive-...](http://money.cnn.com/2012/08/09/technology/knight-expensive-
computer-bug/)
[https://www.sec.gov/litigation/admin/2013/34-70694.pdf?page=...](https://www.sec.gov/litigation/admin/2013/34-70694.pdf?page=5)

------
madamelic
Putting a service's status indicator on the service.

------
mvpu
I'd best most would fall into "not handing insane user inputs". Remember the
recent S3 outage? [http://www.recode.net/2017/3/2/14792636/amazon-aws-
internet-...](http://www.recode.net/2017/3/2/14792636/amazon-aws-internet-
outage-cause-human-error-incorrect-command)

------
stephenbez
Mark Zuckerberg: Our Biggest Mistake Was Betting Too Much On HTML5 (for
mobile) [https://techcrunch.com/2012/09/11/mark-zuckerberg-our-
bigges...](https://techcrunch.com/2012/09/11/mark-zuckerberg-our-biggest-
mistake-with-mobile-was-betting-too-much-on-html5/)

------
LarryMade2
Just about any co that partnered with some big tech co. to try to boost their
product sales. Especially when the tech co. is trying to win favor for their
#2 (or lower) industry product.

------
rajeshp1986
Does product mistakes count?

Google : Social & Chat applications.

Google+, Hangouts, Allo, Duo

Other than core products, Google made lot of mistakes(both engineering & non-
technical) in all the products.

------
mattbgates
Google was a great example of what it means to focus on what you're good at.
Trying to be something you're not and have no business doing will result in
embarrassment and failure, as seen with Google Plus. Facebook is good at
social networking. Google is good at search and development.

Google actually helped me to understand this important point: You and I will
never ever create another Facebook. Sure, we can create smaller community-like
platforms, but there is no reason for us to believe that we can be greater and
better than Facebook. And we don't have to be. There is no sense in
pretending. There's not even a sense in trying. Therefore, find smaller
projects to work on, and specialize in them. There are a great many things
that Facebook cannot and should not do. There are a many great things that you
and I cannot and should not do. But then, there are also a great many things
that we can do!

Before this, I used to get upset and it probably prevented me from even
wanting to start projects or come up with ideas. I was always thinking big:
"How do I create something like the next Facebook." Once I set this mindset
aside and focused on the smaller picture of just developing useful apps, and
getting them out into the world, it made things better.

I had finally realized I was completely focused on the wrong thing. There are
many things that Facebook is not good at and there are things Facebook is good
at. There are many things Facebook cannot do simply because they are not in
the business to do it. There are things that Facebook also implemented into
their platform that just doesn't get as much use or attention as it should.
Those little flaws in the system are the things the "little developers" can
take over and specialize in.

I created [https://mypost.io](https://mypost.io) which is an easy-to-use
platform that lets you put up a webpage on the Internet in seconds. I posted
it on Hacker News
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10552168](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10552168))
and it got absolutely no attention at all. And other than telling Twitter and
a few Facebook friends about it, it has had no advertising or media attention.
Yet somehow, the entire world is using it. By "the entire world", I mean
people from around the world. Not thousands of people, but a few hundred at
least. I've seen people from Russia, Brazil, Australia, Germany, and Japan
using it. How did it get around the world within a year? To date, there have
been over 2,500 posts created. Might not sound like a lot, but I'm not
Facebook and I didn't spend any money advertising it. I could have spent more
money and time advertising it, but it was just a fun platform that helped me
understand what people like and whether my applications were useful or not. I
mean, I really just created it for myself, as I do all my web apps. I simply
share it with others and if they enjoy using it and find a use for it as well,
than that is a success to me.

Lesson learned: Stop developing apps for other people. Develop them for
yourself and make it user-friendly in the process. If you find it useful, it
is more than likely that others will find it useful as well. Either keep it
free or figure out how to monetize it and make a little money for your
efforts. That is what I am in the process of testing and learning now: How
much will people pay for something they find useful?

------
peterchon
having non-technical founders making technical decisions.

------
good_vibes
Twitter: Limiting self-expression to 140 characters.

------
brudgers
Netscape rewriting its code base.

~~~
CCing
Why ? any source from founders ?

~~~
brudgers
[https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-
should-...](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-never-
do-part-i/)

~~~
Pica_soO
Good as new. Who knew, that this is as good as dead.

------
getpost
The Windows Registry

