
Billionaire SAS co-founder keeps on coding - naish
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9138264/Billionaire_SAS_co_founder_keeps_on_coding
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omouse
Whoever wrote the article is an ass:

 _Although still a desktop software product, JMP is so robust today that the
latest, version 8, can display graphically millions of rows of data._

Although?? It's a desktop software product because the desktop is _powerful_.
The personal computer you have under your desk is a very powerful machine.
It's a shame that a lot of software moves as slowly as molasses and isn't
coded with performance in mind.

:/

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christonog
SAS institute is one of those rare companies where the founders did not sell
or go public, but still created a hugely valuable business. Just comes to show
that there are other routes you can take with your startup and be successful
with enough hard work and preserverance.

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brandonkm
In addition to this, SAS institute is an absolutely great place to work. All
the employees there that I've talked to love it, are super dedicated and have
no desire to work anywhere else.

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bbgm
In a similar vein, I've always admired D. E. Shaw. who still publishes single
author theory papers.

[http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/110562316/abstrac...](http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/110562316/abstract)

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TriinT
Quoting David E. Shaw:

 _"Maybe it was because I was in the financial field. It's a zero sum game.
You cannot make money unless someone else is losing money. That's one of the
reasons why I like science: it doesn't work that way."_

Source:
[http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080116/full/451240a/box/1.ht...](http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080116/full/451240a/box/1.html)

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ncarlson
> _It's a zero sum game._

That's embarrassingly false.

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TriinT
Much of derivatives trading is indeed a zero-sum game. Let us not get into
financial discussions, because it has been done before. Joe Smith has saved
money for many years, and company X wants to expand their business. Joe Smith
invests in company X by buying stocks, company X now has the money to buy some
more machines and hire some more people, make more money, and Mr. Smith gets
the dividend each year. And they live happily ever after...

Thing is, D.E. Shaw was not in the long-term investment business... and I
doubt he's that ignorant about Finance. I mean, his hedge fund is quite
prestigious...

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fauigerzigerk
It's still an open question whether short term trading is a contribution to
finding the right price for something and thus helping to make the system as a
whole more efficient. I don't know whether that's actually the case. It may be
in some cases and not in others.

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10ren
It does provide liquidity.

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fauigerzigerk
It does, so the reasoning would be that if an asset is actively traded that
provides an incentive to invest in it because you know there's a place to sell
it if you want to.

This seems plausible, but of course, it comes at a cost. Part of that cost is
that for smart people it can be more lucrative to trade something than to make
something.

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eru
But if they can provide more value by trading than by making, why should you
value making above trading?

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fauigerzigerk
I don't. I just questioned whether they actually do provide more value by
trading or if it just appears that way during a financial bubble.

Don't forget that the sole purpose of trading is to finance making. Trading
has no intrinsic value. It's the bureaucracy of capitalism ;-)

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eru
That sounds an awful lot like the greek philosophers who did not hold
merchants in high regard.

Making is ultimatively just pushing atoms (or ideas), too.

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fauigerzigerk
I'm just making a difference between the goals and the means to achieve those
goals. The goal is to produce the goods and services we want. Trading is a
means to do that efficiently, similar to computing.

Computing, just as trading, has no intrinsic value. It has value only insofar
as it achieves its goals. I doubt that trading has been achieving its goals in
the most efficient and effective way possible recently.

In 2007 the financial industry in the US made 70% of all corporate profits.
Obviously, something was out of balance and it's rebalancing now. Part of that
rebalancing will no doubt be a shift of labor away from that bloated financial
services sector.

I don't think this critique should be taken as offensive or disparaging at
all.

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eru
Yes, I agree it was out of balance.

No offense taken.

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mallipeddi
What does it mean when the article says "perhaps we can credit it to his
Midwestern roots for his drive"? I've never lived in America long enough to
understand the differences between Americans from different parts. Anyone
willing to give me a crash course?

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olefoo
The short version:

People who grow up on farms or in farming communities are widely supposed to
be honest, plain spoken, unassuming and religious.

People who grow up in the big cities of the east coast are expected to be
cunning, devious, greedy, atheistic and untrustworthy.

People who grow up in the affluent suburbia of the west coast are generally
thought of as creative, decadent, and prone to inappropriate cultural
exploration, believing in strange gods, making love to trees, etc.

In reality these regional stereotypes are as misleading as any national
caricature.

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njharman
I thought it had a lot more to do with the puritan/protestant work ethic than
farming.

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revorad
_"SAS makes all of the money. JMP is the fun product," Sall said._

This guy is my new hero!

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aditya
Interestingly,

 _An executive vice-president at SAS, Sall remains JMP's chief architect,
running a team of 100, including 20 developers_

What are the other 80 people on the team doing if not writing code!?

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dejv
QA, support and probably a lot of pre-sales support kind of roles?

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wallflower
In Michael Lewis' "The New New Thing", he describes how Jim Clarke, Netscape
co-founder was up at 3AM scribbling math equations on how his mega-yacht could
have a convincing CG nautical compass. The book has a picture of this crumpled
napkin, which is fascinating.

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b-man
On the same note, queen's guitar player, Brian May, is also an astrophysicist:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_May#As_an_astrophysicist>

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designtofly
This is a good article that describes the company (SAS) and their culture:

<http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/21/sanity.html>

