skmurphy

[delayed]

They confer advantage over many weeds according to the article.

I think the meaning was "why did you write this?"

It's hand curated verbatim extracts designed to encourage HN members to read the full article. The clickbait title does not provide accurate context for the article which details events from 1990.

Reasonable people may differ and your mileage may vary. What were your key takeaways from the article?

I left out the points about shortcomings of Bourlag's wheat and the value of genetic diversity in a population. But my focus was to encourage people to read an article I found significant.

On a side note I don't use AI to craft HN comments beyond sometimes using Grammarly to check them for basic errors.

key points about wheat Gross (the Italian farmer) discovered in 1990 his attic:

+ It fared better during droughts, growing so tall that it overshadowed the weeds. It didn’t need fertilizer or herbicides.

+ It's height can be a liability. Heavy winds, rains and hail can make the tall stems flip over before the grain ripens, ruining harvests.

+ Working with the lab of Teofilo Vamerali, Perobelli determined that the grain was Triticum turgidum—literally “swollen wheat” in Latin. Known in English as “poulard wheat,” it had originally evolved in what today are Turkey, Egypt and other nearby Mediterranean countries. And searching agricultural references, Perobelli found that it had been grown in Italy, too, until farmers shifted toward higher-yield commercial varieties. That solved the mystery of the seed bag stashed away in the attic: It had survived because Grossi’s grandfather saved some of the heritage grains.

He makes a key point in the FAQ section:

"Q: So when am I supposed to do my own job?

Answer: First, remember that your job, like all others, sits within a network of jobs - the output of others jobs is required for you to be able to do yours, while the output of your job is used as an input into other peoples' work.

Second, this focus-on-others'-success can be defined broadly: other people require you to do your job well so that they can use your output to do theirs well, so one basic requirement of ensuring the success of those around you is to make sure you do your own job well! See that guy over there next to you? Is he writing some code or working on some project that you're going to be dependent on? If he screws up, it's going to mess you up, right? Well, think about your own project - if you totally botch it, aren't there other people who are also depending on you to do it well and if you don't, their success will be inhibited? Well, don't let them down! Do your job well!"

It's been posted before https://hn.algolia.com/?q=http%3A%2F%2Falgeri-wong.com%2Fyis... but I came across it again after curating it in 2011 and was impressed by Yishan Wong's fundamental insights.

This October 2026 roundup lists online events for bootstrappers including Bootstrappers Breakfast and Lean Culture.

There are also in-person Bootstrapper Breakfast meetings in Las Vegas, San Francisco, and Silicon Valley.

These events are for “entrepreneurs who eat problems for breakfast.”®

Estimates are tricky but it seems like there is a rough consensus that CCP cumulative carbon emissions will pass the US between 2035 and 2050. The calculation that matters for global impact is total emission levels. We only have one atmosphere. While decision making that affects the total is a mix of individual and governmental, in a totalitarian state government decisions outweigh individual ones by orders or magnitude.

I did not realize your primary concern was saving US consumers money. If that's the case then my question is irrelevant. The original article was focused on global carbon emissions, which was the context for my question.

what's your forecast for crossover point of total carbon emission from coal China vs. US?

Shouldn't it be more about absolute impact? Tell me when you think the crossover occurs and US exceed Chinese use?

Selene Law: "Make no mistake: China is still by far the biggest CO2 emitter in the world”

from https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-countries-that-consume-... top 10 coal burning nations:

Consumption in exajoules ranked by 2025 use

   1 China 92.24 55.6%
   2 India 23.07 13.9%
   3 US     8.73  5.3%
   4 Indon  5.15 3.1%
   5 Japan  4.36 2.6%
   6 SA     3.65 2.2%
   7 Russia 3.56 2.1%
   8 S.Korea 2.86 1.7%
   9 Vietnam 2.57 1.5%
  10 Türkiye 1.79 1.1%

Some jobs were not possible without the tool. Two examples:

Water filtration / sewage management in a city

Electric illumination transformed everyday life, improved working conditions, etc..

I think you are ignoring technology as infrastructure having a transformative impact on life expectancy and quality of life.

No: here are a few examples

fire suppression: alarms, sprinklers, halon, fireproof and fire resistant materials

agricultural breakthroughs (e.g. Green Revolution)

life support (e.g. oxygen, anesthetic, NICU, insulin)

low cost clothing (compared to pre-Industrial Revolution) unlocked a lot of possibilities for people.

Microsoft and Jane Street are paying for AI out of profits, so that cash flow looks more sustainable than investor dollars flowing to frontier labs via VC-backed startups. But it's a good point that some of Microsoft's spend may also be the result of VC investment in startups. I guess the fundamental questions is if either OpenAI or Anthropic can find a sustainable model. Probably, but not in their current configuration.

The "we help you fire your people" messaging has been a catastrophe but there have clearly been breakthroughs in code generation with more to be discovered.

I suspect AI becomes more like the steam engine, the railroads, or electricity, transforming society but leaving it fundamentally recognizable. Reasonable men may differ.

I agree, the headline lacks the nuance of what Zitron includes in the footnotes. What is your estimate of concentration risk of AI use in VC-backed startups? Do you think there is more enterprise use that is not captured and it's more like 40% or 20%. I am not trying to be argumentative, I am trying to get a sense of other viable alternatives.

Key points

Concentration risk is any single exposure or group of exposures with the potential to produce losses large enough (relative to capital, total assets, or overall risk level) to threaten a financial institution’s health or ability to maintain its core operations. (from https://ncua.gov/regulation-supervision/letters-credit-union...)

80% Of OpenAI And Anthropic’s Enterprise Revenues Come From 1% Of Its Customers, Which Skew Heavily Toward AI Startups Subsidized By Venture Capital

Anthropic and OpenAI Are Dependent On Artificial Revenue Driven By Unprofitable Venture-Backed AI Startups For Billions Of Dollars Of Revenue

“If Something Cannot Go on Forever, It Will Stop.“ Stein's Law

Conclusion:

"There is plenty of international talent that can and should be leveraged in the appropriate places and the proper ways. There are many instances where you’re going to want to hire a leading expert in a technical field. But most jobs, the qualifications are a core technical and subject competency combined with diligence and a willingness to learn. [..]

We need to encourage a corporate mindset that believes in the importance of building up the American talent pool to tackle not only the challenge in front of them but the array of challenges that the future will bring."

Related earlier post by Mark Atwood: https://markatwood.substack.com/p/america-is-an-idea-not-an-...

This September 2026 roundup lists online events for bootstrappers including Bootstrappers Breakfast and Lean Culture.

There are also in-person Bootstrapper Breakfast meetings in Las Vegas, San Francisco, and Silicon Valley.

These events are for “entrepreneurs who eat problems for breakfast.”®

Key comments reported in article:

Gupta, a distinguished computer scientist from Harvard, is a serial entrepreneur and currently a partner of Y Combinator. Before joining YC, he was the co-founder and CTO of Reveries Labs. The controversy that he landed in stemmed from his comment on JD Vance's post."If an American corporation needs workers, it should hire and train Americans," Vice President JD Vance wrote on X, reacting to the Donald Trump administration's new H-1B visa fee.

"in a win for the woke left DEI is back," Ankit Gupta commented, suggesting that if Americans have to be hired because they are Americans and not because of their skill, then it is DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inlcusion) only.

As Gupta defended the H-1B hiring by Silicon Valley, he asked one commentator: 'what elements of H-1B immigrant culture do you not like? is it the willingness to work long hours? Or perhaps the education focus of their children?"

Gupta has locked down his tweets so the his remarks and the replies are no longer available.

Key takeaways: Founders should treat meetings as crucibles for getting facts, perspectives, and potential courses of action on the table for a full and frank discussion that results in a working consensus. Some advice bootstrapping founders managing the dynamics of a team meeting with four to sixteen people. A two- or three-person conversation will also benefit, but there is a phase transition that seems to occur at four to five people up to about 16 for dealing with significant decisions.

+ Address issues promptly but prepare: sleeping on it and putting your thoughts in writing can often make for a more productive conversation.

+ Listen and check understanding: ask clarifying questions and accurately summarize what you heard to confirm shared understanding.

+ Stay calm and respectful, and avoid defensive responses. Take a break to maintain equanimity.

+ Keep your statements brief and on point. Don’t interrupt, and don’t repeat yourself unless asked to clarify.

+ Don’t suggest solutions until you have a rough consensus on a problem or need.

+ Don’t select a solution until you have evaluated at least two alternatives to the status quo.

+ It’s OK to disagree on the situation or a course of action in any one conversation or sequence of conversations: commit to finding a workable solution.