News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Hard Startups by jedberg on Wednesday February 26, 2020 @05:37PM (#22428207)
It's 1/2 way between. Back in the day all the big "tech" firms had long term R&D. You could spend years working on tech with no commercial viability as long as you could keep making better demos. You were most likely an employee with a PhD and a pension.

But then wall street started demanding quarterly growth and they all cut their R&D departments.

Think Bell Labs or Xerox PARC.

Re:Hard Startups by saagarjha on Thursday February 27, 2020 @04:50AM (#22431979)
> Back in the day all the big "tech" firms had long term R&D.

Isn't this true of many large companies today? I don't see Alphabet making any returns on X anytime soon.

Re:Hard Startups by aogl on Wednesday February 26, 2020 @06:35PM (#22428697)
I wonder how different interviews were back then by comparison.
Re:Hard Startups by brandmeyer on Wednesday February 26, 2020 @08:04PM (#22429342)
Reputation. Who you knew and who knew you.
Re:Hard Startups by jedberg on Wednesday February 26, 2020 @08:49PM (#22429593)
And by extension, where you got your PhD and who your advisors were and who they knew.