techculture

( ) Pictured: everipedia santa monica HQ Human culture is a straight line — as we travel from the west to the east, things become more contained and less interesting. is not nearly as important as we travel east. Technology In my entrepreneurial experience, I started a company in NYC (Rap Genius) and another one in LA (Everipedia). Rap Genius is a billion dollar company, and I have a lot of equity in it — but I still think Rap Genius is a failure. Even though it is the definitive internet lyrics platform, it never became the universal knowledge annotator that it could have been. It is a billion dollar company, not a trillion dollar company. is going to be a trillion dollar company — we are building the cryptocurrency platform for all knowledge and social networks — it will be the “crypto facebook”. I think that the main reason why Everipedia will succeed, and Rap Genius will fail, is that the companies were started in NYC — the fakest tech city in the U.S. — whereas Everipedia was started in LA — the “Minority Internet Paradise.” Everipedia I’m not going to get into SF or Silicon Valley because it’s just plain-old weird. They have a lot of huge hit companies like, but they’re still way too beta. Also, I never started a company in SF. And finally, I think cryptocurrency will bring Silicon Valley to its knees, their centralized institutions like Facebook and Google singing their swansong, with LA becoming the more dominant crypto-powerhouse. NYC Sucks The first funding Rap Genius ever got was from Y Combinator in 2011. Although my cofounders, and , were living in New York before YC, I always hoped that the of the office would be in California. Tom Lehman Ilan Zechory future In late 2011, I was in for a rude awakening. Tom and Ilan disappointted me deeply:, they said they were going back to nyc to get an office. Their excuse was because a lot of nyc investors had invested like . We also got an LA beach house in Malibu, however, and I split the year between nyc and LA. Ben Lerer There are no good tech startups in NYC. The biggest hit of all time is Tumblr, which is an underwhelming piece of shit where the hipster CEO took his billion dollars and throws lots of cocaine parties now. He never even cared about his own platform. No one in NYC has a trillion dollar tech vision. One major, literal problem having a tech office in NYC is that the buildings are very tall and the internet is slow. In my experience, all of the office internet at Rap Genius was a cheap, shitty experience. When the internet is slow, workers have a hard time getting inspired — nobody discovers a trillion dollar vision. I’ve been involved with crypto since 2013. 5 years ago, there was no city like NYC that was as backwards as crypto — pretty much all NYC tech entrepreneurs would poo-poo the idea. Nowadays, it seems NYC has finally caught up and bit the crypto bullet — they are becoming fairweather fans, but there seems nothing sincere in the tech. There is an impressive NYC crypto-company called , except, Consensys doesn’t actually build anything. They have relationships with big corporations but they are, in fact, totally fake. Consensys is a metonym of the NYC crypto-tech scene, and, indeed, the whole tech scene. I don’t think crypto will have any success in nyc because, why would the crypto economy be welcomed in the city of the dirty centralized finance overlords? It just doesn’t make any sense. Consensys LA is Chill In 2012, right after Ben Horowitz invested in Rap Genius, he had us over for dinner at his house. It was one of the earliest times of us just hanging out, shooting the shit — opportunities that would become countless in the next couple of years. At that dinner, I told him one thing: “BEN: you need to invest in Tinder and Snapchat”. I knew Tinder and Snapchat would blow the fuck up, and I was particularly proud that they are LA companies. At the time, lots of people seemed to think that LA tech was mediocre, but I had not seen anything approaching consumer internet like Tinder or Snapchat from SF or SV for several years — since Instagram, actually. Ben said no — he actually said he’d been pitched both by Tinder Snapchat in the previous several months, and the valuation was too high. and In this respect, Ben paid a sore price for not taking my advice — and for disrespecting the LA tech scene. Unlike NYC and (I’ve heard) SF, LA doesn’t have a lot of tall buildings, so there are lots of spaces with fast internet. LA is like Silicon Valley — it is low-rise, so it’s good for the internet. I met the “Persian Zuck” cofounder of Everipedia, , at UCLA in 2015 and it is a pretty sick hacker school — better than Stanford. Stanford has rich snobby kids, where as UCLA has middle-class hacker thugs. Our CTO and our lead blockchain developer both come from UCLA as well. Sam Kazemian Persian Zuck and I were long-obsessed with cryptocurrency. I was an early bitcoin investor, and he mined bitcoin to pay his tuition in college. But it wasn’t until a year after Everipedia’s launch that we turned the “crypto-wikipedia” — an integration of the site with IQ tokens and cryptocurrenty — into our $30 million raise. There are a lot of cryptocurrency lions in Los Angeles because the city marches to its own tune. Cryptocurrency is a huge technology, but for some reason, people in SF/SV are somewhat alienated to crypto because they know, deep down inside, that it’s going to eat their own lunch. Cryptocurrency will eventually turn centralized Silicon Valley institutions like Google and Facebook into a pillar of salt: it’s only a matter of time. One of our fundraising mentors is the cryptocurrency genius . He’s based in LA, and now, Puerto Rico, which reminds me of LA. His Venice pad is probably the most baller house in the canals, and he has a giant unicorn floaty that he purchased from his neighbor with ethereum. If Everipedia’s President, Sam, is the “Crypto Zuck”, then Brock is definitly the “Crypto Peter Thiel”. Brock Pierce Tinder and Snapchat, LA’s big powerhouses, aren’t involved in crypto at all. It’s a shame! Especially with Snapchat, crypto could have given them the edge to overcome Facebook. Affirmations One time, before our $30M raise, we even flirted with the idea of moving to Palo Alto with Everipedia — in 2016, Sam looked at Mark Zuckerberg’s “Facebook House” near Stanford where they threw cocaine parties, like the one portrayed in the film “The Social Network”. In the end, however, Los Angeles was our home. The security deposit of the Facebook cocaine house was too high, and we raised $30 million to build a major crypto platform: something that is, indeed, anathema to Silicon Valley. It was time to stay in LA. One one last thing: Everipedia is representative of Los Angeles because our staff encompasses a lot of weird races. No big city is “Minorityville U.S.A.” like Los Angeles — it is something that makes the city a great representation of both the internet and crypto. The world be becoming borderless, and Los Angeles is at its cutting edge. Everipedia just moved into our first commercial office in Santa Monica, at 201 Wilshire. It is across the street from the Bungalow. If you want to come check out the biggest LA tech company — the crypto Facebook, bigger than Snapchat — then please get involved in our community and make an Everipedia page. It is the CRYPTO FACEBOOK y’all — and nobody can build this trillion dollar company like Los Angeles can…..

“Startup Wasteland” vs “Minority Cryptoparadise”: Hacker Tech Culture in NYC vs LA

Software Regression Testing: Enhanced Regression Strategy and Zero Defects

সফ্টওয়্যার রিগ্রেশন টেস্টিং: উন্নত রিগ্রেশন কৌশল এবং শূন্য ত্রুটি

Software-Regressionstests: Verbesserte Regressionsstrategie und Null-Fehler

Pruebas de regresión de software: estrategia de regresión mejorada y cero defectos

Tests de régression logicielle : stratégie de régression améliorée et zéro défaut

सॉफ्टवेयर रिग्रेशन परीक्षण: उन्नत रिग्रेशन रणनीति और शून्य दोष

ソフトウェア回帰テスト: 強化された回帰戦略とゼロ欠陥

소프트웨어 회귀 테스트: 향상된 회귀 전략 및 제로 결함

Teste de regressão de software: estratégia de regressão aprimorada e zero defeitos

Регрессионное тестирование программного обеспечения: расширенная стратегия регрессии и нулевые дефекты

Yazılım Regresyon Testi: Gelişmiş Regresyon Stratejisi ve Sıfır Hata

Kiểm tra hồi quy phần mềm: Chiến lược hồi quy nâng cao và không có lỗi

软件回归测试：增强回归策略和零缺陷

I have been a product designer for nearly a decade now, and most of these years I spent in San Francisco. This period encompasses the gained experience at such tech giants as Twitter, Lyft, and Meta. Yet, in the last couple of years, the vector of my development has changed both professionally and geographically: from Big Tech, it switched to a smaller startup, and San Francisco became London. Such a rapid shift gave me some insights into working as a designer in certain conditions, simultaneously making me realize that being in a profession in no way depends on the place where you live or work. The Tech-Immersed Life in San Francisco There’s a certain energy in San Francisco that’s hard to articulate but immediately palpable to anyone who's spent time working and living in the city. Here, nestled between the Pacific Ocean and Silicon Valley, is the epicenter of tech innovation – a city that has embraced the future like no other. For many years, this was my world. Working in the beating heart of the tech industry, I was surrounded by the most innovative minds, cutting-edge technologies, and groundbreaking ideas. Tech permeated every part of life here, from the tables at restaurants and bars to the job descriptions of even non-technical roles such as lawyers or HR personnel. I would often say it felt like we were living five years ahead of the rest of the US, with things like ordering food or cabs by apps being constantly beta throughout the city over the years. However, even as I reveled in this energetic and innovative environment, a desire to explore beyond the familiar and venture into new territories started to take root. San Francisco, fondly referred to as the tech capital of the world, is an incubator of cutting-edge innovation and creativity. It's hard to describe the energy that pervades the city, especially when you’re involved in the tech scene. There's a sense of relentless pursuit, of constantly challenging the status quo, and a genuine belief in the power of technology to transform lives and reshape the world. It's like living in a bubble, a tech bubble, where every conversation, every social interaction, and every moment is somehow influenced by or linked to the tech industry. Yet, after several years immersed in this tech culture, I began to crave a different perspective, a broader worldview. That's when London beckoned. So, after years of designing experiences at some of the most globally recognized tech companies, I decided to venture out and swap the iconic Golden Gate Bridge's picturesque view for London’s historic skyline, teeming with centuries-old architecture punctuated by modern skyscrapers. The decision to cross the Atlantic was motivated by a quest for new experiences, personal growth, and the desire to offer my young son the opportunity to grow up in a truly global city surrounded by diverse cultures and histories. London’s Unique Blend of Tradition and Innovation Swapping San Francisco's tech-dominated landscape for London's diverse cultural and professional tapestry was both refreshing and challenging. I moved to London to work with Meta, and in doing that, I had to make the decision to work on smaller projects within the company, as most of the core projects in the big tech companies will be kept closer to HQ. The transition wasn't just geographical; it also marked a shift in perspective, a transition from a tech-dominated bubble to a city where tech was just one among many thriving sectors. In London, I found a city steeped in history and tradition yet brimming with innovative ideas and an unmistakable entrepreneurial spirit. London’s tech scene was certainly alive and growing, but not quite at the scale you would have encountered in San Francisco. The city's rich banking history had a profound influence on its tech landscape, with a burgeoning number of fintech startups making their presence known. This was a marked difference from San Francisco's tech company diversity, where you’d find startups ranging from self-driving cars to healthcare tech to social media platforms. Here, London’s past and present intertwined to give birth to a unique tech ecosystem, one that combined the city’s financial acumen with its digital ambitions. One of the most significant changes I experienced moving from San Francisco to London was the emphasis on work-life balance and personal time. In San Francisco, the line between work and personal time was often blurred. The fast-paced, always-on tech culture had a way of seeping into your personal life, turning what should have been leisure time into an extension of the workday. You can hardly have a conversation in a bar, restaurant, or cafe without overhearing the table next to you, talking about their latest round of fundraising, sprint frustrations, or startup ideas. Contrastingly, the work culture in London's tech scene, though influenced by the American paradigm, has a tinge of the European values of your own personal time being more integrated into professional life. This means an emphasis on work-life balance, more flexible work hours, and comparatively generous provisions for personal time off, including holiday entitlements. The British working culture champions the belief that happy, well-rested employees are more productive and creative, and thus it places considerable emphasis on providing employees with space for relaxation and rejuvenation. In addition to the work-life balance, the diversity in London's tech scene was something to marvel at. While San Francisco certainly draws its own diverse set of people to come and create things, I have found London's tech industry is a massive melting pot of different industries, cultural backgrounds, and professional experiences. This mix of perspectives brought a unique flavor to the city's tech scene, one that enriched the design process and broadened my horizons. Even though I had shifted from a world-renowned tech hub to a city with a burgeoning tech scene, I didn’t feel like I was moving backward or stepping down. On the contrary, London offered a unique blend of tradition and innovation, a chance for my family life and professional life to come together and create something exciting and sustainable for the stage in life I am in. This gave me the opportunity to expand outside the bubble I had grown to know and focus on giving my son access to world-class education, culture, diversity, and experiences beyond what I could find in the Bay Area. Learning and Evolving on a New Path The change in scenery also brought along a change in my career trajectory. After years of working for big tech companies, I felt a pull towards the start-up scene. I wanted to explore new paths in technology at smaller companies while having the security of a visa that allows me to take chances on younger companies. So, I made the transition from big tech to a startup. Leveraging my big tech experience at a startup required a shift in mindset. While big tech offered a wealth of resources and the chance to impact billions of users worldwide, startups required more agility, flexibility, and a hands-on approach. At a startup, I had the opportunity to wear multiple hats, to be both a designer and a decision-maker. The impact of my work was immediately visible and tangible. And the skills I had honed at big tech – understanding user needs, data-driven design, and collaboration – became invaluable in this new environment. Reflecting on my journey from San Francisco to London, from big tech to a startup, I’ve realized that while the settings may change, the fundamental principles of design remain the same. The core skills I developed at big tech were all equally relevant and valuable in a startup environment. As designers, we’re not defined by our geographies or by the size of the companies we work for. Rather, we are defined by our ability to understand people, to empathize with users, and to leverage that understanding to create meaningful and impactful experiences. Whether it's in San Francisco or London, in a tech giant or a budding startup, the goal remains the same: to use design as a tool to improve people’s lives. From the relentless energy of San Francisco to the historic charm of London, from the big tech giants to an innovative startup, my journey so far has been an exciting ride. And as I continue to traverse this path, I carry with me the lessons from each experience. After all, design is about more than just creating attractive interfaces or seamless experiences. It's about understanding people, cultures, and societies and using that understanding to create products that make a positive impact on people's lives. And that, to me, is the true beauty of being a designer – the ability to influence, inspire, and impact lives, no matter where you are in the world.

From San Francisco to London: A Designer's Tale of Two Tech Hubs

It struck me recently, how big tech has countered the tech staffing crisis; not by making meaningful long-term contributions to resolve it, but by going to more extreme lengths to secure the talent pool that already exists. Relocating people from all around the globe, generous packages, etc. Also on a recent trip to MIT, it seemed to me that their outreach schemes (at least the ones we learned about) all focused on nurturing the brightest kids. People who were going to do pretty well in life regardless of the opportunity to spend some time on an MIT scheme. They focus on the few. Not the many. But we need many tech literate people, not just a few genii. It seems to me there is one clear way to resolve the tech staffing crisis; open the industry up to a more diverse mix of people. It is a perverse thing that we have a staffing crisis and yet systematically exclude vast swathes of the population from tech, particularly programming, because of the way the topic is taught, and the way the industry is run. We as individuals in tech must take responsibility for this because big tech and academia alone won’t. The following are my suggestions on how we can improve diversity in tech, and hopefully in turn ease the staffing crisis. I appreciate these are not easy things to do, as if they were they would have been done already. But we are running out of easy options, and we still have an issue. So perhaps it’s time to start thinking long-term. Accept that we currently fall short of diversity It seems a lot of people in the industry are not willing to accept we have a diversity problem, and are happy to take the modest improvements that have been made in the last decade to mean that nothing else needs to be done. We need the people in power to understand that this is not the case. I was once guilty of this mindset and thought that tech was a wonderfully welcoming place for everyone. But what I found was, when you stop spurting your own narrow experience and really start listening to those of others it becomes clear, tech is not a great place for everyone. The bottom line is that generally speaking, women, the neurodiverse, and minority groups, at best can be described as having a much harder time (comparatively) than the majority of men do. Yet these people make up over half the population! Don’t assume everything is great for everyone in tech, just because it is for you, and put the work in to understand how and why others might struggle. Get girls into tech at a younger age Working on outreach programs recently, a message I have heard repeatedly from teachers is that by the time kids get to secondary school, the gender divide in tech already exists. Computers are still very much seen as a boys’ toy and not a thing for girls. We need to address this at a young age through outreach and more female tech teachers and role models. We must work out how to break this perception that computers are a boys’ toy. By doing this we stand a chance of improving the number of girls partaking in technology at the secondary, and university levels. Improve how we teach coding to make it accessible At school, my maths teacher laughed at me when I suggested that I was interested in computing. While I have gone on to be vindicated, she was right about one thing; I would have never made it onto or through a computer science course. As an undiagnosed neurodivergent, the school was not equipped to teach me maths, and universities were not equipped to teach me computer science. There are lots of people with brilliant minds, who struggle to learn through conventional academia. These people should not be discarded as worthless. Taking myself as an example, I had to teach myself through trial and error how to program. Through countless code alongs, books, podcasts and conferences. 10 years of professional experience in the field, I am only now studying a computing degree, and in year two the process is nothing more than a box-ticking exercise. I know the material so it’s easy, but I could not have been taught it by formal academia. Not everyone is as stubborn and bloody-minded as me, and I have witnessed many try and give up when teaching themselves. It seems to me at the moment we continue to teach the “top tiers” of students about computing. We must ensure everybody has the opportunity to learn and tailor the methods for learning to everyone. Improve the culture to retain women and minority groups Getting a more diverse mix of people into tech is one problem. Keeping them in the industry is another altogether. One reason? Tech culture, but dev culture in particular can absolutely stink. As an industry, we have created a culture of shame. Don’t believe me? Consider Cunninghams law. Say you are stuck on a coding problem, and need a little help. Cunningham’s law states, that the best way to get the correct answer is to post the wrong answer. Somebody will (attempt to) correct you, and will rarely do so kindly. People, but developers in particular are much happier to correct, than they are to actually help. Another example is code reviews. Listen in to one in the average dev team and you can expect to hear cries of ‘Who the hell wrote this’ And the old chestnut... 'This needs rewriting completely' Even though your code is demonstrably working through a suite of automated tests and is obtaining required speed metrics, rest assured there will always be somebody on hand to scold you and tell you how you should have done it. If you are not a super confident person, it can be very hard to survive your early years working in this environment. You are expected to eat a lot of crap and smile while doing so. It’s only when you start to have success and prove yourself, that you realize not to take it personally; a lot of people are just dicks. To the uninitiated, this can be hard to swallow. It causes people to question what their opinion is worth compared to this super confident shouty individual who seems to know so much more than them? I believe a key reason we do not retain people. This is a sad thing, as the truth is; whether you have a doctorate in computer science, or have just finished your first code camp later in life; your opinion is valuable and can make a difference. Adjust working practices to make tech more accessible Flexible working hours are not just for sleeping in, that said if your staff member needs a lie-in and it allows them to put in a solid seven hours of work that day, what’s the problem? A flexible working day allows people to schedule work around their own needs. E.g., the need for a lie-in, managing their Mental Health or childcare requirements. If you want the best out of people, you have to allow them to manage their own needs ahead of work and trust that they will repay you in kind. If you want a diverse mix of people in a team, this is not optional. Starting early so you can finish early to take care of the kids? The team can learn to work around it. Longer lunch break to exercise in the sun in the winter; sounds like a good idea. Build your business to allow your staff flexibility and you will not only enable diversity in the team, but also attract better talent and make your existing staff happier too. Start Listening (and hearing) Truly I can only speak authoritatively about being a neurodivergent in tech who was (and still sometimes is) made to feel like he has ‘idiot’ written across his forehead. I can only relate my struggles to the other groups I have mentioned in this article. But if we really want to improve diversity in tech, we need to make an environment in which people feel comfortable sharing their experiences, and for people in positions of power to listen, attempt to understand, and assist in addressing them. Also Published Here

Diversity Can Solve the Tech Staffing Crisis

If you’re seeing this interview draft, it means you’ve recently published on HackerNoon . For this reason, we would like to help the community get to know you better as well as find out some writing tips from you. a story that the community found interesting and/or valuable While this template is automatic, our interest in the answers below is genuine and our human editors (and some cyborg wannabes) will review it before publishing. So let’s start! Tell us a bit about yourself. For example, name, profession, and personal interests. My name is Denise Holt. I’m an entrepreneur, a tech-geek girl at heart, and an artist. Currently, I’m Partner to MNFT Studios, XR Smart Technology Accelerator, Creator & Sole Artist of Crypto Women Dailies Sentient NFT collection, Chief Strategy Officer of SchoolCoin, and Advisor to Fintech World Group. Interesting! What was your latest Hackernoon Top story about? My latest published piece is the final article to a four-part series titled, Why the Spatial Web Demands a New Protocol. This series does a deep dive into the new internet protocol HSTP (Hyperspace Transaction Protocol), along with its formatting language, HSML (Hyperspace Modeling Language), discussing how it will enable a network of Smart Spaces, including all data and entities within — physical people, cities, buildings, objects, and their digital twins. Bridging all emerging Web 3.0 and Extended Reality Technologies together, this new network creates a smarter world by adding context and intelligence to every encounter for a seamless, interoperable, and unified system. Basically creating the next level protocol for the Internet of Everything. This final submission in this latest series discusses the IEEE core standards currently in development. Do you usually write on similar topics? If not, what do you usually write about? Yes, my writing is mostly focused on the transition into the Spatial Web. Main Topics: AI, AR, and XR Technologies, Smart Tech, IoT, DLT, and the Decentralized Internet. Great! What is your usual writing routine like (if you have one?) The subjects I am writing about are pretty massive, so I’ve been consciously separating them out into Series groupings instead of one-off articles. My goal is to take these complex topics and try to break them down into language and format that is easy to digest and understand. So, that’s really where my thought process is while writing at the moment. Being a writer in tech can be a challenge. It’s not often our main role, but an addition to another one. What is the biggest challenge you have when it comes to writing? If I’m being honest with myself, these days, it’s distraction and device addiction that is the biggest challenge with writing, and really with everything - even sleep. I find myself picking up my phone randomly and constantly for no good reason. I’m trying to be very mindful about combatting that urge. What is the next thing you hope to achieve in your career? I see this as the most important work I could be doing at this point in time - being an educational voice for this transition into these future technologies. Wow, that’s admirable. Now, something more casual: What is your guilty pleasure of choice? It’s Christmastime as I’m answering this, so I’d have to say my guilty pleasure is my homemade peppermint fudge. LoL …  It’s so dangerous, I only make it once a year. Do you have a non-tech-related hobby? If yes, what is it? Art/Painting. My digital art is tech, yes, but I also paint in oils and acrylics. When I am able to do that, it is the ultimate feeling of FLOW for me. What can the Hacker Noon community expect to read from you next? My next Series will focus on The Era of AI in the Spatial Web. For the first time in history, we have the roadmap for achieving Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), and it’s coming faster than most people realize. What’s your opinion on HackerNoon as a platform for writers? I LOVE HackerNoon! The tech culture here feels like friends and family, and the platform is so writer-friendly. The support HackerNoon offers to new writers is unparalleled. The opportunity to get real eyeballs on your posts is truly democratized, even if you are new. I just haven’t seen that anywhere else. Thanks for taking time to join our “ ” series. It was a pleasure. Do you have any closing words? Meet the writer Thank you so much for the visibility and opportunity your platform has given me.

Meet the Writer: Hacker Noon's Contributor Denise Holt, Futurist, Advisor, Founder

DeFi is a term that has been buzzing around recently. It is not alone in this though as it would seem like formal institutions like big tech, Hollywood and even governments have integrated the social media culture of using hashtags and evolved them into buzzwords. Acronyms and conjoined words like AI, web3, DeFi and many more are floating around in the ether, permeating everyday conversation. Geeky is the new cool apparently. Long live the texplosion! See what i did there? But even though this permeation of the tech culture into daily life is informative and cool, we face the real risk of these important terms wearing away into the nothingness of overused cliches which everyone uses but not many can give a simple explanation to in everyday terms. Fraudsters everywhere rejoice!? Such widespread adoption of these not so understood buzz words only seems to be benefiting fraudsters who have already leveraged on this underinformed-craze-for-the-new-and-cool to fill their illusive pockets, by launching one new scam after the other. Even on the “invincible” blockchain, several scams and hacks have already been reported with people loosing large sums of hard earned currency to the vacuous space of the software world. This phenomenon is not new however. Like all promising new frontiers in history, people seem to have developed a rather naive trust for anything tech related. We never stopped searching for the cure all did we? The aisle of life! The holy grail! The new world! The wild west! The dotcom boom! Decentralized finance!? At least the wild west was kind of honest. In all these great quests, people risked a lot to win the great boon that was promised but in many cases informed people just used the idea to make themselves richer off the more gullible folk. DeFi runs this real risk! Hence, it is imperative for people to be well informed on the actual promise of DeFi and not the hype. This can be achieved with a good, day to day understanding of what it really is. So, lets anchor the waiving flag of our mindset, dancing on the winds of information age experience to the deep rooted pole of basic, day to day understanding. The concept of DeFi DeFi which is short for “Decentralized Finance” basically means financial services without middlemen. It is known as transparent or trust-less banking because of the lack of middle men. The middle men being eliminated here are banks and other financial institutions. Wondering how this is possible? One word; software! Creating software involves using programming languages to write algorithms - step by step procedures of doing things - for computers to work with. The fact is that most jobs involve doing repetitive tasks. Financial service jobs too. Hence, in decentralized finance, we teach computers how to do finance jobs like creating currencies (cryptocurrencies), stock exchange (Decentralized exchange), foreign exchange (cross chain technology) etc., then we access these services through apps known as Dapps (Decentralized apps). People can then transact directly with anyone around the world without need of any middleman. Cost saved and stress minimized, everyone seat back and sip your tea. Yay!? But who will regulate these transactions you may ask? Smart Contracts on Blockchain Technology! More buzz words right? I’ll explain. The Blockchain is a public digital ledger which keeps record of all financial transactions related to it and Smart Contracts are executable protocols in software form which govern how transactions occur on the blockchain. These two run the show in the world of DeFi. Well, together with the programmers who build them right? (Wink wink!) But enough with the introduction. What will a DeFi world look like in day to day living? How will we ensure that we are not just moving ourselves from the control of financial institutions into the clutches of even less regulated programmers? Come with me, and imagine! Imagine the world of DeFi Imagine a bank of the people where the rules of running it are suggested by experts and are voted on by the general public over the internet. In such bank, anyone can mint, save, lend or deposit money, and anyone can trade stock following the set rules. Then these rules are coded as algorithms by programmers to build a software system and the code is made publicly available, so that anyone can learn a programming language and verify it. Solves the problem of programmer dishonesty right? Mostly at least. The system is then made available for public use. The system we just imagined is what is known as decentralized banking and such method of developing software is known as open source development. The individually mintable currencies are cryptocurrencies. The governing rules of the system written as algorithms are known as smart contracts. Smart contracts are the building blocks of decentralized finance. Now imagine a software program that keeps record of all transactions on the software system for accountability and regulation. That is, a digital ledger of the decentralized banking transactions. This kind of ledger is what is called the block chain. Now imagine that we have several of this digital ledger, each with its own currencies and banking protocols. An issue then arises because each ledger and it’s financial tools are isolated, and each is limited on its own because people want to enjoy the benefits of all the ledgers without having to register on each and every one. They may also want to convert currencies on one ledger to currencies on another ledger for one reason or the other. Hence, the need arises for the ledgers to become linked together. Imagine that this is accomplished and the software system becomes a network of systems. This network of systems imagined is known as cross chain technology. Now, imagine that several apps are created to allow people connect to this network of software systems with financial services and digital records, and transact with each other on a peer to peer basis. The makers of the apps compete with each other for users like banks, by offering benefits e.g., users can get interest by depositing currencies on a particular app. Also, because the users are now on a network, groups can be formed to make collective decisions that will influence the functioning of the network. The apps just imagined are known as decentralized apps or Dapps, gaining interest on crypto deposited on Dapps is known as yield farming and the groups formed to influence the functioning of the network are known as Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs). Finally, imagine a software tool that allows you build such incremental system with possibilities of the continuous future updates just demonstrated and think of an overall name for everything we just described. Substrate is one of such software tools that helps you create the financial network just described and if you’ve followed keenly to this point, then congratulations sojourner, you just toured the idea of Decentralized Finance (DeFi)! Why you should be enthusiatic about DeFi It will create a transparent financial system It will minimize the cost of financial transactions It will minimize or eradicate financial malpractice by financial institutions It will minimize or even eliminate the need for paper money which wastes resources It will democratize financial services It will create a fair playing field for everyone to benefit from financial services Why you should not be naive about DeFi Digital infrastructure can be hacked or tampered with Anyone can create Dapps or offer finacial services on the network which creates room for scams Jobs will be taken away from people working with traditional financial institutions Conclusion DeFi is a promising new frontier currently being developed that could radically transform how people transact around the world. With all its possible benefits, it is important for people to embrace such promising technology but it is also imperative that they properly understand the many ways such technology can cause problems. DeFi seems to be a double edged sword. And a double edged sword must be handled carefully to properly wield it in doing the most good.

Imagine DeFi Simplified

Am I a “real” Software Engineer yet? This question has haunted me for years. And it seems I’m not alone. Many people experience this same insecurity. They desire to know if they’ve Are they finally made it. good enough? While “Software Engineer” is the standard title handed out by employers, many in the software community have different standards. To new programmers joining the field, especially those without CS degrees, it can feel like the title is safeguarded - only bestowed on the select that have proven themselves. Many people refer to this sense of deficiency as , though it goes by many names. Developers experience it in different ways and have differing reactions. To some, it can be crippling, but others might not notice it whatsoever. Impostor Syndrome In this article, I’m going to recount my own ordeals with Impostor Syndrome. While I don’t pretend to have a cure, I hope to shed some more light on the topic and help others who are dealing with it. All the comments I’ve shared are real comments I’ve found on the internet. Not all of them were directed towards me, but I’ve heard similar remarks. I’m sure you have too. Note: When it all began For me, it started in July of 2016. I had started studying web development as a New Years Resolution. I wasn’t satisfied with my career at the time and was looking for a change. A common origin story that I’m sure many people can relate to. I focused on front-end development, as I had heard that HTML, CSS and JavaScript were easy to pick up. I spent my evenings after work parsing through Treehouse, Lynda, and Codecademy tutorials. The first three- months of 2016 passed by like this. By April, my notebook was full of thorough notes and my GitHub contained a few static sites. But I wasn’t satisfied. I wanted to sink my teeth into a larger project. That was when I decided to , who was a product designer. For my skill level at the time, it wasn’t an easy undertaking. I struggled a lot and it took the better part of four months to complete. create a portfolio site for my wife It’s important to note that while working on my wife’s website, I did my best to surround myself with tech culture. I watched YouTube videos, listened to podcasts, and read blog posts from experienced engineers to keep myself motivated. I daydreamed what it would be like to stand in their shoes. To have a job at a tech company, work on the latest technology, and write “Software Engineer” as my on tax forms. made it all look so glorious. Occupation Silicon Valley That’s why I couldn’t have been happier when my wife’s website went live in July of that year. I had done it. I had made my first real website that was going to receive real traffic. Could I finally start calling myself something of a ? Software Engineer “Web development isn’t real programming” Not according to the Internet: “Web development isn’t real programming”, “JavaScript isn’t a real programming language”, and “a front-end developer isn’t a Software Engineer” were all phrases I heard often. While I was determined to change careers, I was also self-conscious. I couldn’t shake the thought that the naysayers were right. If I’d had a Plan B or a stable career to fall back on, I might’ve given up right then and there. Fortunately, I didn’t. For better or worse, I had no other career or skills to fall back on and I had already invested too much time. So I trudged on, with the sunk cost keeping me afloat. I spent the next 18 months studying software development full time. I quit my job and moved in with my in-laws — which was a journey in-and-of-itself. I put everything I had into my career move. I studied Ruby, Node, and some Go and built some small web apps. By January of 2018, it had been two years since the start of my career switch and I had learned a great deal. I knew the fundamentals, I could program in multiple languages, and I had started contributing to open-source projects. I also had a decent portfolio to show for it. I was excited to finally call myself a Software Engineer. “Not so fast,” said the Internet. At this point, I had dealt with many doubters. While it still didn’t feel great to hear criticism, I had learned to ignore it for the most part. Furthermore, I had an Ace up my sleeve. There was one final step I could accomplish to put all the doubts to rest: Getting a job. Yes, a software engineering job. The holy grail. I would have the title, the paycheck, and the acclaim. No more self-doubt. Only deserved validation from an employer. And that’s what I did. I started interviewing in early 2018 and signed my first offer letter by March of 2018. My official role was “Software Engineer”. That was that; the hunt for acceptance was finally over. From bad to worse At least that’s what I thought. It seemed the gate-keeping extended even into the realm of employment. But it was over. I was a Software Engineer — I had the W4 papers to prove it. The moment I stepped into the office for my first day on the job, all my worries would disappear. But that wasn’t the truth. Who knew that adding obligations and deadlines would make one’s insecurities worse, not better? My anxiety hit a fever pitch the moment I arrived for my first day of onboarding. Slack conversations I didn’t understand. GitHub repositories with thousands of lines of code I didn’t comprehend. Development tools I had never heard of or used. My first week on the job was a whirlwind of stress. Don’t get me wrong, I was thrilled to be surrounded by such experienced engineers. My team was full of some of the smartest engineers I’d ever met and they were incredibly understanding. They mentored me and ramped me up to speed. But it was still intimidating as hell. Many of my coworkers had advanced degrees, some had been programming since they were teens, and others were core maintainers of large open-source projects. And who was I? Some guy who learned to code because it looked cool on TV. I felt out of place and the feeling didn’t disappear. My thoughts began to resemble the negative comments that I had worked so hard to prove wrong. How the hell did I get here? Was it luck? Did someone make a mistake? I realized that I didn’t need Reddit to point out my inadequacies — I was quite capable of that myself. It’s true that, with time, I became more familiar with my environment. I began to understand the Slack conversations, the code became more familiar, and I learned how to use the various tools. And yet, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was a stranger in a foreign land. Every mistake I made only served to prove that point further. I anticipated the day that I made one mistake too many and someone finally asked, “How on Earth did you get hired?” That fear consumed me. I began reading whitepapers, frequenting Hacker News, and taking classes to get a Computer Science degree. All in the hopes that I would finally feel like I fit in. That I was a “real” software engineer. But none of it worked. Luckily, I found something that did. Finding my solution The solution that I found for myself was simple yet terrifying. Talking. I had to talk to someone. I couldn’t keep it bottled anymore. However, I was too nervous to ask any of coworkers a question like, “Have you ever felt like a fraud?” Instead, I started with my close friends. But I soon found myself discussing the topic to anyone I could, including coworkers and teammates. Because the more I talked and listened, the more I realized I wasn’t alone. As it turns out, impostor syndrome is so common that it has become a cliché! Many professionals at the top of their careers experience it. , , and even . It was comforting to find out that I was in such good company. Furthermore, when talking with a close friend, he said something that struck a chord with me: Tina Fey John Steinbeck Albert Einstein “The only time impostor syndrome is bad is when you don’t have it. Feeling like a fraud is a sign that you’re learning. Having anxiety in a new and uncomfortable environment is perfectly normal. The trouble comes when you feel like you know exactly what to do and how everything works. If you find yourself in that situation, you aren’t learning anymore.” It was in that moment that I realized impostor syndrome wasn’t something to fight or ignore. With the right mindset, it can be a tool. That may sound like some feel-good BS, but public speakers employ a similar trick to convert anxiety into excitement. This isn’t to say that my insecurities have magically disappeared. Far from it. Whenever I’m given a new project to work on, my panic makes an unwelcome return. My heart rate spikes and my mind conjures up fantastical feats of failure. However, I’ve learned to interpret this nervous energy as a sign that I’m learning and pushing myself to new heights. When my manager gives me a complicated task, it means that they trust that I can get it done. I may need to ask for help, research the topic, or simply go for a walk to cool my nerves, but I know I’ll get through it. I still make mistakes all the time and that will never change. It’s all a part of the process. After all, no one knows everything, not even within their own speciality. Dan Abramov doesn’t know flex-box and David Heinemeier Hansson still looks up ActiveRecord methods he wrote himself. If perfection was a feasible goal, Stack Overflow wouldn’t be as popular as it is. Am I a “real” software engineer? So after all this time, am I a “real” software engineer yet? LinkedIn seems to think so. The better question is, “Does it matter?” I haven’t always been passionate about tech and I lack the enticing origin story of a Rockstar Engineer. But I’m here now and I’m here to stay. So to those in the tech community who have strong opinions about my title, call me whatever you want. A software engineer, programmer, script kiddie... My title no longer matters to me. What matters is what I do. And what I do is use code to solve problems and architect solutions to make peoples’ lives better. Best of all, I’m damn good at it. Also published at https://medium.com/free-code-camp/am-i-a-real-software-engineer-yet-a0f38a2248c0

Dealing With Impostor Syndrome as a Software Engineer

When building a startup, you have many options for software development. Whether you hire a team of developers, outsource to an agency, or find a CTO. While all of these options are viable, if you find a CTO with the right tech expertise, you’ll have gained a key player to help you succeed. But remember, if you pick the wrong CTO you won’t survive long — you may not even make it to launch. I bet you keep hearing that “Finding your dream CTO is not easy”. It’s true; it takes a lot of time and commitment. That’s why many founders spend years looking for the perfect person for the job, myself included. When I first started founding startups, I experienced the hurdles of finding a CTO first-hand. Over the last 14 years, I have built many projects. It took me more than 30 months and more than 300 headaches before I found the right guy for the job. But when I found him, he nailed it. And he kept on nailing it. Usually, the conflict is: You want to start building your MVP as soon as possible, so you might feel tempted to commit to the first decent option you find. On the other hand, you know this is one of the most crucial decisions you will make as a non-tech founder. There are certain traits to look out for as you try to find a CTO. Many wannabe CTOs will display the same characteristics. This includes overpromising and underdelivering on a massive scale — but more on that later. I’ve taken my experience building six startups, advising dozens and , and identified the vital qualities every CTO should embody. working with many startup founders at Altar.io Before I list said qualities, it’s important to point out that of them are vital. The fact is, your Robin needs to have it all, not few or most, but all. all Here is the structured process that will help you find a CTO for your startup: 1. What to look for in a CTO Passion Responsibility Tech Expertise Commitment Founder’s Alignment Leadership Skills Management Skills 2. Where to find a CTO 3. Alternatives To Finding a CTO What to Look for In A CTO Passion Your Robin should be more passionate about your idea than you are — or at least come a close second. To be sure you’ve found your CTO remember: passion is an essential trait highly correlated with the tenacity needed to traverse the dark alleys of the startup journey. Every startup faces hurdles. Unless you find a CTO that has a passion for your company; during the storms, you will be navigating the challenges alone. Before I move on, it’s essential to understand the market dynamics. We are currently in reversed HR dynamics as it pertains to finding CTOs and developers: the talent picks the company — not the other way round. This is due to more demand than supply. For example, last year for every five developer job postings, only one was filled. So, if you find a CTO who’s good at what they do, chances are he’s already in a job, earning well. For example, A typical CTO salary in the US is between per annum (as of April 2020 — before bonuses & benefits). $204,957 and $285,891 Given this, you get my perspective when I say: Your CTO will most likely be taking a considerable salary; working on a project they enjoy. You will be asking them to drop all of that for your early-stage idea. It’s what you have to do. But there is no way they’re going to give up a lucrative job for your startup unless they’re genuinely passionate about your idea, I mean obsessed-passionate (otherwise he’s just crazy or faking it). It’s even harder to find someone at the right time who will drop their lucrative position and work just for sweat equity, no salary. If he’s willing to do this, it shows how passionate about your vision. My Advice: Be sceptical about a seemingly good candidate that doesn’t put up a good struggle to leave their position and join your crew — they may be overstating their worth. Be prepared that it’s going to take time to find a CTO with this level of passion; the odds are slim, but not impossible. I spent six months trying to find a technical co-founder. The closest I got was Tom. He wasn’t a CTO but had the 5 years of experience I was told a co-founder needed. He was very busy, when I asked him to leave his job if I secured investment, he had second thoughts. Whilst he wasn’t a CTO on $244k, even the average developer salaries often are too good to give up! Dudley Gould Founder & CEO Audapio Responsibility Passion is great but can make people blind. Make sure Robin is still sober enough to make responsible decisions. With great power comes great responsibility. It’s important to find a CTO that is a responsible professional before onboarding them as your partner in crime. My Advice: Test your potential CTO by asking for a simple deliverable. It should be something not too complicated, and you should give them a feasible time frame (again, if you are not sure on this, ask an unbiased techie friend). It could be a piece of a technical challenge, but it could as well be a roadmap, budget estimate etc. If they don’t deliver, it’s a huge red flag. It brings into question the trust you can give them with your business — from both a responsibility and commitment perspective. Tech Expertise Make sure you’re talking to a real Robin; you may find an inexperienced guy behind that mask. You will find many wannabe CTOs. Your CTO must have the depth of knowledge to make the right technical decisions for your startup. This requires evaluation. Of course, if you don’t have a technical background, you think, “Ok, but how do I evaluate the tech expertise”, don’t worry I have a precise way to deal with that (which I will go into later). Remember the importance of this point: — such as incorrect or substandard code and unwise technology choices — to name but two. if your CTO lacks expertise, it can lead to bleeding ‘technical debt’ You should find a CTO who is, at the very least, as good at their job as you are at yours. You should be equals, working in different disciplines, towards the same goal. My Advice: Study your potential CTO’s portfolio and ask an unbiased expert (who is exempt from your search) to validate the quality of their previous work. Ask your candidate to elaborate their tech rationale on technologies, architecture and infrastructure. Alongside this, ask a . Some agencies will give you their insights on which technologies, architecture and infrastructure you should follow at a lead stage — without any cost. Benchmark: software development agency to do the same thing Commitment Can you imagine a part-time Robin? Me neither! You and your CTO will face many hurdles together on the road to success; if they don’t fully commit, your success will get further and further out of reach. As I’ve talked about in a previous article, there is nothing worse than “getting married” to a CTO or technical co-founder who’s not fully committed. You will end up living in the “mistress syndrome”. This occurs when your CTO has another full-time job and ends out treating you and your startup as a “side-gig”. This will result in you committing to your company more than them— creating an imbalance in your relationship that is harmful. My Advice: You should have a CTO that is prepared to commit as much as you. You should coordinate with your CTO and make sure you agree on the business’ milestones: the deadlines on the creation and delivery of your MVP, product iterations etc. It’s essential to reach common ground before you plan "the wedding"! Founders’ Alignment You and your Robin should agree on a plan before taking justice to the streets; you don’t want to face the Joker unprepared. This point is highly relevant if you are bringing your CTO on board as your technical co-founder. You will spend many hours working directly with your technical co-founder. So it’s crucial that you first like the person you onboard. Secondly, you should be able to trust this person with your money, ideas & business. It really will become a “business marriage”. As I mentioned, it may take years to find a CTO for your startup. If you think you’ve found them, your expectations must be aligned. You should agree on: Product/company roadmap Co-founder equity split & salaries Work culture You will both be responsible for balancing the needs of the business, technology and even product; now and as your team grows. Therefore the overall paths you both envision for your startup have to coexist. By no means will you agree on everything 100% of the time, which is why it’s essential to have those lines of communication open. Conversely, you don’t want someone who “sweats the small stuff”; when you and your CTO discuss every minute detail. I like to call this an “atomic relationship". In my experience, it will result in using all of your energy and time discussing the wrong topics, taking attention from those that do. My Advice: Discuss all the mentioned points (Product/Company roadmap, equity split & salaries and work culture) before you make any kind of commitment. As in any relationship, be ready to discuss contentious points and, at times, prepare to compromise. Don’t waste your time with someone who gets stuck in the unnecessary details. As much as we would all like to admit, myself included, that energy is infinite, it is not. Leadership Skills It’s important that Robin leaves the Batcave and can assemble a league of citizens to help clean up Gotham. There are many , and a few stereotypes to boot. One of the most popular being that they share a disposition for sitting alone in their “cave” accompanied exclusively by seven monitors, a coffee machine, half a dozen red bull and very little light. archetypes of developers For developers, these archetypes are ok; your CTO, however, is a different thing entirely. You need to find a CTO that can strategically build, grow and lead the technical team in-line with the company’s goals. Excellent leadership skills are vital if they’re going to inspire and motivate your technical team. You could have the best technical talent on the planet but, as with most things, if the leadership isn’t there, the team will be ineffective. Keep in mind that great developers don’t always make great CTOs. There is a famous occurrence in IT teams where, through promotion, you lose a great developer and gain an awful boss. You need to know if your potential partner has the soft skills to be a great leader. My Advice: Ask them about the skills they want in their team. If they only reply with hard skills and machine-related soft skills, treat it as a red flag. Someone that only looks at hard skills will never be a good leader. The right leader knows that: People are at the centre Healthy communication is vital for a healthy team Wrong communication skills will undermine your team’s performance If your potential CTO only focuses on technical skills, they’ll never be a good boss. Management Skills Robin has to commit to results, but if he makes promises he can’t keep, your credibility will be at stake. Equally as important as leadership skills are management skills. What I mean by this is your CTO’s capability to evaluate the timeframe and effort needed to build your product. Most developers are very, and when I say very, I mean optimistic, about the time it takes to build a product. very In my life, I’ve seen crazy things like projects taking 500% the estimated time and cost. You must find a CTO who is realistic, or you will end up with considerable deviations in deliverables as you build the product — resulting in an increased time to market and unexpected costs. This allows you to discover your potential partner’s ability to forecast time to build; as well as their ability to spot the . These are the points in the web development cycle where it’s more likely to “hit an iceberg”. Talented CTOs and developers should, almost instinctively, identify these critical points. critical points My Advice: Ask your candidate to estimate the time to build, without bringing the idea of “critical points” to their attention. Alongside this, ask a . Most agencies worth their salt will offer this service in the form of a free quote or similar. software development agency to do the same thing There are two red flags to look out for here: The first is if the agency spots the critical points and your potential CTO doesn’t. The second is if your potential CTO’s time has difference from that of the agency. Anything 50% is acceptable as it’s not an exact science. more than 50% up to If they fail this small test, it could point to much more substantial time management issues; as well as pointing to a lack of experience. Where to Find A CTO For Your Startup The dark streets of Gotham can get lonely without a partner in justice. It’s essential to find a CTO with the above qualities, but it’s also crucial to look in the right places. There are two paths to looking for a CTO, the and . offline approach online approach Offline For the former, you will see many suggestions to attend as many tech meetups as possible. You should pick your meetups wisely. If you go to every meetup with the word tech or startup in it, you will waste valuable time and energy. My Advice: It’s better to pick meetups based on your niche and industry (for the sake of energy and time management). As a non-tech founder, you need to be careful when talking to potential CTOs. As with developers, they’ll often drop buzzwords and jargon into the conversation, making them look like geniuses. You must have to translate the industry language. enough tech knowledge Online There are also some online platforms dedicated to connecting entrepreneurs and tech professionals, here are a few to get you started: CoFoundersLab AngelList Indie Hackers Co-founders subreddit Co-founding threads on & Discord Slack I see these sources as a way to grow your network, but as any other online community, you can get easily lost with the amount of content and opportunities. My Advice: Try this approach if you couldn’t find the right person in the offline world (or if a global pandemic hits). I would recommend limiting your time on this research (a reasonable 15 days max). Otherwise, you might fall into the infinite net-abyss. Alternatives To Finding a CTO For Your Startup You may not have found your Robin yet, but don’t worry; there are other superheroes out there who can help you serve Justice. As you’ve followed, it’s fair to say it ain’t gonna be easy to find a CTO. There are many successful startups, however, that build their products before onboarding a CTO. You can fully outsource your MVP to an , for example. agency Or you could try to find a where you bring on an experienced freelancer to act as your CTO. This method will give you more time to find a CTO that is right for you. “CTO as service” They will give you precious help on strategy. As well as helping you build and manage your team. Honestly, both outsourcing software development and CTO as a service are . As I’m sure you’re aware, time to market matters. If you lose momentum waiting for the perfect CTO, you risk a competitor taking your place on the market. viable options to consider Wrapping Up Despite its challenges, finding the dream CTO is by far the most idyllic option as you build your startup. While there is no formula to find a CTO, there are specific steps you can take to put yourself in a position to succeed: Tap into your network to try and get a warm introduction Find someone as passionate about the project as you are Check they don’t become “passion-blind and is responsible enough to take charge of your startup’s tech decisions. Make sure they have the right expertise for startup. your Ensure they’re committed to the project and aren’t treating you as a “mistress” to their real job Align your expectations; make sure you like them and can trust them. Don’t just hire a great developer, hire a great leader. Make sure they’re is realistic in terms of how long it will take to build the product and that they can identify the critical points. If you can’t find a CTO for your startup, don’t panic. There are plenty of startups out there who didn’t start with a CTO. Consider: to get started (ensuring you ). Outsourcing to an agency choose the right one Building a team of developers yourself (just make sure you create a ). balanced team with diverse personalities Finding a CTO as a service Finally, don’t rush into a marriage with a CTO. Finding a CTO is a critical business decision, and you need to be sure you’ve picked the right person — I hope this article has given you some clarity on the process. Good luck! This story was originally published here .

Startup Founders: Finding the CTO (Robin) to Your CEO (Batman)

* Not least of which: Hacker Noon's new Open Trello Roadmap for Writers. This content was originally published in the form of a newsletter to Hacker Noon's global community of over 12k contributing writers. To join that list, get published on Hacker Noon . Hey there, Hacker 👋 You're receiving this email because at some point between now and , For that, both our whole team and a better internet at large is grateful for your contribution! Independence Day you wrote and published a story on Hacker Noon . We thought it best to start Thanking You — our global network of 12k+ contributors — with this new monthly email, designed to better connect our writing community, particularly in these certifiably batshit times . We hope you'll hit reply and let us know what would make this email valuable to you every month. Until you do, we hope you enjoy Hacker Noon's first new and super exclusive contributor newsletter. really " Without further ado..." 🎁April Commits Things our devs did to make your day better. Just paste a url into a new line in the editor and hit enter. There are a few additional options with CodeSandbox for showing specific tabs. 🚀 You can now embed CodePen and CodeSandbox projects into your stories! READ AUSTIN'S Q1 2020 FULL PRODUCT UPDATE 🐈 ICYMI More key HN Knowledge you might've missed in light of, well, everything. Your Hacker Noon stories — now also distributed via Google News . #TheBestPlaceForTechProfessionalsToPublish Houston, we have Hacker Noon wallpapers . Plus, for Apple users - if you’re running on mojave or later, you can use the .heic files where the wallpaper will change according to the time of day! ☀️ 💻 GET YOUR WALLPAPER ON IMGUR TODAY . We're also kind of big-ish on GIPHY Arthur (who you'll meet later) recently got waaay into creating cusom gifs for the Hacker Noon account, and, well, our giphy's been blowing up, in a good way. 🌏 Back To The Internet The Most Viewed Content Published on Hacker Noon in April by Best Programming Languages to Start Freelancing in 2020 @yassine-rachid by 19 Little-Known Programming Myths @momchil by Python for Data Science: How to Scrape Website Data via the Internet's Top 300 APIs @scrapingdog by — unique views: Pornhub Growth Hack During Coronavirus Pandemic @TRXMan 11,861 by How I Solve Problems as a Developer @jure by Top Python Resources for Beginners @cyrilmichino by How to 10X Your Code [And Your Salary] @momchil by CromaApp: My First React Native App After 7 Years of Backend Developmen t @kamalkishor1991 👾 Pixelated Faces This month's featured contributors. and recipe creators but mostly he's too busy publishing record high numbers of your story submissions for Hacker Noon each week, as our in-house (well, in-Ukraine, technically) Software Development Editor. @arthur.tkachenko really needs to finish his platform for foodies READ ARTHUR'S LATEST STORY 🍔 but then she discovered a latent talent for high-brow journalism at the intersection of tech, culture, politics, and current affairs. "Real journalism" or not, @linh still let's us make her content accessible to readers for free, forever on Hacker Noon. @ linh used to be the COO of Hacker Noon READ LINH'S LATEST STORY 😷 Keen to get your own face pixelated by Hacker Noon's head of creative? to stand a chance to be one of next month's featured contributors. Submit a top tech story within the next week and tag it #pixel-face ENTER THE #PIXEL-FACE RACE 👾 🐛 Oh and one last HUGE Announcement We're terrified of the worms likely to crawl out of this can, but... You can now have your say on one feature our devs have agreed to deploy next month! We're opening up the roadmap process just a teeny tiny bit: if there's a fix/innovation/feature that'd change your life as a Hacker Noon Writer, we want to know about it. 🔥 A DD YOUR BURNING FEATURE TO OUR TRELLO That's it from us at Hacker Noon Editorial this month. We hope you like our new Contributor Newsletter! Feel free to let us know in the comments. Cheers, from Natasha Hacker Noon

15 New Reasons to Add 'Hacker Noon Writer' to Your Tinder Bio 💦

The Axial Age saw the independent rise of multiple societies, each with their own set of religious and cultural practices. The silk road arguably marked the end of the Axial Age, connecting these previously isolated cultures together in a network that traded not only goods and germs, but also ideas. And the door was forever opened to the challenges of multicultural exchanges. It’s obvious that the digital age has done something similar—connecting the world’s societies in unprecedented ways. It’s enhanced our ability to exchange goods and ideas too. And we’ve felt the excitement as well as the growing pains along the way. For several years now, artificial intelligence has promised us new possibilities—a lighter burden with greater resource efficiency. But this is against the backdrop of an internet that has turned out to be a tool of social interaction. Computers are of course computing, crunching numbers and executing tasks humans aren’t so good at. But it turns out that these computations are meant to enable our sociality. Computers don’t just crunch numbers, they crunch numbers to figure out who to connect with whom, what prices to set on goods, how to get people from point A to point B, which crowd-sourced entries are true or false. It is inevitable that in mediating social processes, AI must make ethical judgment calls. And it is also clear that AI simply reflects the values inherent in its datasets and imbued by its programmer. We now layer on top of this that only a very small fraction of the population today will program AI, that only a very small fraction of those algorithms will wind up being used in production, and that only a very small number of those will be used in the tech monopolies which serve the vast majority of the population around the globe. This means that the values of a particular subset of people will be making ethical judgment calls for others who may not share those ethical principles. Do we care that Silicon Valley, arguably one of the most liberal places in the most liberal countries in the world, and Chinese giants, like WeChat and TaoBao will be systematically arbitrating the world’s values? How do we begin to deal with these digital multicultural exchanges? Anthropologists have had to create their own frameworks for understanding and evaluating cultural differences. They provide helpful tools for beginning to think about these tough questions. First, we must begin with trying to understand how we make sense of other cultures. We can all recognize that we are biased observers, we have been raised in a culture which evaluates other cultures through the lens of our own. At least for those of us in the West, anthropologists have identified at least three main ways to compare cultures and their values: universalism, evolutionism, and relativism. Each have their strengths and weaknesses. Richard Shweder and Edmund Osgood Universalism Universalism is a mode of thought which makes sense of cultures by finding and highlighting similarities. This is naturally attractive, because if we can find common ground, perhaps our cross-cultural difficulties will evaporate. We can create AI that will operate based off of universally agreed-upon principles. The difficulty with this approach, however, is that identifying universals involves looking at higher-order similarities, and discarding evidence which indicates that cultures are meaningfully different. For instance, psychologists have noted that fairness and justice are values in every society. That may be so, but psychologists mean this rather abstractly. Justice does not play itself out in the same ways in every culture, and so the very concept of justice comes to be vacuous in a universalist respect. Americans pride themselves on their pursuit of equality, and may shudder at the concept of a caste system. Yet other cultures may be quick to note that we deny minors the right to vote, and defer many of their medical and social decisions to a designated guardian. Anthropologists note that to other cultures, the difference between castes may seem as obvious to them as the difference between children and adults does to us. Justice may well be in every culture, but the universal concept of justice is so abstract, that it is meaningless until particular cultural practices provide us a working concept of what is meant by justice—a point at which our elusive similarities slip between humanity’s fingers. Even within the same country there is vast disagreement about how to implement moral principles. As I have , algorithmic fairness is troubling partly because common ideas about “fairness” have been proven mathematically incompatible with one another. written before Algorithms which predict recidivism in order to aid in rehabilitative sentencing can either have equal risk score cutoffs across races and genders, or their predictive errors can be equal across races and genders. But both cutoff scores and error rates cannot me made equal simultaneously. Which algorithm is most “just?” Can a universally, ethically-acceptable algorithm exist? It seems dubious, at best. Evolutionism At the realization that universals may rarely be meaningfully implemented, some might be tempted to take an evolutionary stance with regard to understanding cultural ethics. That is, some might be tempted to say that one culture’s values are more “correct” or morally “right” than others, that the favored morals have emerged because the society or culture is more advanced in some way. Certainly, many Silicon Valley companies, whether wittingly or not, take this approach. Hate speech on the basis of sexual orientation, skin color, gender, or religion is identified by these companies as wrong—while the definitions of hate speech and the groups protected from hate speech privilege progressive American values. Sharia law which condemns homosexuality and which promotes violence against homosexual and non-binary individuals clearly operates out of an alternative ethical framework from the liberal individualism expressed in the US. Twitter, Facebook, Google and the like suspend accounts and flag content which promotes these ideologies. They are taking a moral stance, one which suggests that these tech companies believe their moral ideology is superior. As a citizen of the US, I strongly disapprove of Sharia law—but how do I defend that my position is the right one? Likewise, China’s social credit system is heavily criticized in the United States for the presumption that the government’s values are superior in some way. Although we rarely blink at the removal of hate speech online, many of us in the US think that China’s sort of algorithmic moral babysitting is the stuff of dystopic movies. It beckons recollections of atrocities that occurred under authoritarian regimes, like Stalin’s or Hitler’s. I don’t need to spend much time explaining why the evolutionary approach to programming ethics into AI is as appealing as it is problematic. We think some morals are better than others, they just happen to be our morals. Relativism The third main way we tend to make sense of other cultures is to think of them relativistically. That is, to presume that no one culture is better than another—they are simply different but equal. This kind of an approach is attractive to postmodernist mindsets which like to use phrases like “my truth” or “your truth,” as though what is right and good for one person does not hold up universally. Again, this approach is both useful and problematic. It is admirable to be able to recognize the dignity of each culture, and it’s attractive to be able to respect rich histories of ethics and morals of others. It also rescues us from the moral colonialism which is the natural extension of evolutionary approaches to morality. That being said, this position means we also cannot take a hard moral stance—we cannot claim that one culture’s morality is better than another. In terms of our AI, this position is likely to allow cultural norms to dictate which ethics are implemented in a given circumstance. One highlights these differences. driverless car dilemma study In eastern countries, let the self-driving car kill the young just as much as the old, and kill the unlawful while sparing the lawful. In southern countries, let the self-driving car kill the obese and spare the fit, and kill the homeless and spare the wealthy. In the western countries, let the self-driving car stay its course, killing whoever is in the way and sparing whoever is not—unless of course, there are different numbers at stake, in which case kill the few to spare the many. But there is something nauseating about the thought of calling all these ethical algorithms different but equal. Something about their moral implications draws us to claim that we think some of these moral values are better or worse than others. And here we find ourselves at the beginning, hoping to grasp onto some sort of a universal value set. And indeed, sometimes we can find a fruitful point of agreement. Most people value human lives over the lives of dogs and cats. Most people value more lives over fewer lives. And yet, these pieces seem to be a drop of water in the ethical ocean AI is facing We know that the vast majority of algorithms are not universally morally palatable. Additionally, these decisions are happening behind the protection of tech monopolies’ NDAs. We often don’t know the ethical fabric of AI unless someone happens to audit a specific algorithm, an employee whistle-blows, or someone brings a lawsuit for discriminatory treatment. Who’s watching the watchmen? I'm building out the infrastructure of the dWeb with ERA . If you enjoyed this article, I'd love to connect with you on Twitter !

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