Twitter fame? That's like saying Carmack was just trying to cash out his Facebook fame.

Cantrill and Frazelle both have created software used by millions.

> Cantrill and Frazelle both have created software used by millions.

And yet here they are building a sever hardware company??

> That's like saying Carmack was just trying to cash out his Facebook fame.

Thats an absurd analogy. Carmack is responsible for arguably the most important advancements in video game design. Specifically for code he personally architected and wrote.

For example - Frazelle is one of 1300 contributors (currently 13th in terms of # of commits) to Docker core. Not to diminish her contribution, but these individuals are contributors, not single handed creators (which was implied), of "software used by millions".

For the record - I enjoy Frazelle's content and personality. I wish her the best, but the commentary here is near cultish.

While I'm not very fond of the cultish commentaries, bashing them as soon as they announce their new venture isn't any better.

I think they have some merit and know a thing or two about computers.

Not sure why you're responding to me specifically, but I agree with your general premise, but disagree with your specific characterization.

The general criticisms here are warranted and I think are constructive enough that they'd be beneficial to these founders and others seeking to do something similar.

That's the point. It doesn't matter what they did previously or who they are. The current product can only be judged on it's merits.

It absolutely does matter... someone with a track record of success will and deserves to get the benefit of the doubt when starting something new compared to someone with a poor track record or no record at all.

Its a biased population? Self-selecting? A track record may be 'somebody who was at the right place at the right time'. A track record of winning the lottery, for instance, doesn't mean squat.

A track record means, at bottom, that they had no disqualifying traits.

I agree, but also “no disqualifying traits” is more valuable than you are giving it credit for. If you want to use the scarce signals available to judge the prospects of a very new startup, biasing for founders with no disqualifying traits is probably not a bad start. There’s a reason YC, TechStars, etc all explicitly say they invest in founders more so than product ideas.

Sure. But the number of that kind of person, number in the thousands. Then hundreds of thousands.

Ironic you should pick winning the lottery, because it absolutely DOES mean squat. For instance, the only person I'm aware of with a "track record" of winning the lottery had a system to consistently win the lottery. Had you given your money to him you'd be rich.

https://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/this-couple-found-a-math-...

The track record of Software startupers/leaders/influencers/whatever going Hardware, boasting with overconfidence before even starting, is abysmal.

WRT to Frazelle, are you referring to her contributions on the Docker team as "creating software used by millions"? If so, that seems disingenuous, or perhaps she was more of a core contributor than I realized? If not, what software are you referring to?

Carmack had 5 or 6 game engines under his belt before any social media even existed.

Usenet was one of the first social networks, and Carmack posted there in the 1990s

what software used by millions have they created? Solaris is nearly dead, and Joyent utterly failed to go anywhere.

> Joyent utterly failed to go anywhere

Joyent was acquired by Samsung, and it's not one of the bullshit acquisitions that destroys the projects/products — Samsung is now using Manta/Triton (and ZFS on illumos/SmartOS) at their massive, massive scale.

https://www.joyent.com/blog/samsung-acquires-joyent

Docker Dtrace

Isn’t it usually a red flag when the announcement of a startup talks about who the founder(s) and investors are before the product? Am I seeing shades of Theranos here? Why not focus on how far along the product is or the viability of the idea?

Seems like waporware. Unless their idea of rack hardware is bending sheets into racks it not very clear how they would suceed. It's not clear at all what they want to do acctually. Maybe selling kind off custom computer rack servers with vendor lookin? Like IBM mainframes? Except not doing the advanced chips inhouse.