You don't really address the issue. I'll admit you're in a tough spot though, since there's no real way to disprove that you won't sell the data you collect about students. Maintaining trust will be important.
It appears your service is:
(a) an API that collects student data from schools and then parcels it out to school-approved educational apps that have paid for access to your gateway.
(b) an OAuth login system like Facebook/Twitter/Google login.
I'm not sure if this is correct though, since your website doesn't clearly explain this (it does have a picture of Magnus Carlsson playing chess in your office though, which is pretty cool).
So then I guess your business model is to become the middleman between educational software and schools? Educational software companies will pay you to sell their software in your educational app store, similar to how Apple and Google take a 30% cut in their app stores? (edit: I just read below that you also charge the vendors of the student database software). In exchange, apps get visibility to schools and streamlined access to student data, and teachers get a convenient system for installing educational software?
That sounds good. I have no idea what schools budget for apps and educational software, but I imagine it will increase if Chromebooks and iPads become more commonplace in classrooms.
The OP suggested the American economy is still in a recession, which is false. Not according to any obscure "technical definition" of recession, but according to the only widely accepted definition of the word.
> Over-aggregating and being pedantic about technical definitions adds nothing to the conversation
His post opens with a statement that is plainly false. Spreading misinformation (even unintentionally) is not a good way to contribute to a conversation either.
While you might find it pedantic to learn how to use words correctly, others may appreciate the opportunity to learn about subjects outside their area of expertise.
Pvnick ultimately makes a good point, but he quite unnecessarily loses credibility among anybody who knows what a recession is. Imagine someone telling you that "The best tablet is the Android" or "Git is a bad compiler." You're likely to consciously or unconsciously discredit whatever comes out of their mouth next.
These stories lead you to believe that engineering, as a profession, is broken. Like athletes and models, software engineering is one of the few career paths where your perceived value starts declining at a relatively young age.
If a developer's value truly increases faster than their cost over time, why are software companies engaging in age discrimination? We can all tell ourselves that these companies are shooting themselves in the foot in the long run, but do facts back this up? Presumably, if another company hired all these valuable experienced professionals, they'd wipe the floor with these companies staffed by cheap college grads. Why hasn't this happened?
I'm currently in my early 30s and working in a different engineering discipline, but I love programming and part of me would love to jump into professional programming. I interviewed at a few start-ups recently and got an offer for that money than I'm currently making. Ultimately, I turned it down because jumping into software this late in the game feels like possible career suicide. In my current occupation, senior engineers are valued and their accumulated knowledge and experience has demonstrated value.
By comparison, writing software the HN way feels like building on sand. It's fun how a new programming language or database or web framework is announced weekly, but in the end everyone is chasing a moving target. I enjoy this now, but I can see how I might eventually grow tired of playing this game.
I don't think Facebook, Google, Apple, Microsoft, etc., have consciously been creating/adopting different programming languages to silo their workforce and reduce the fluidity of the labor market, but that might be a side effect.
where he basically advocates cutting corners and doing the bare minimum. It shouldn't be the security executive's job to save a buck and brag about it, yet this is probably the precise mentality that allowed him to move up the ladder.
You should be able to get up and running with Go extremely quickly if your default language is C.
If there's a reason you must be using C rather than another language (require manual memory management, require code to be as fast as possible, etc.), then Go might not be applicable. Otherwise, Go feels like an updated C and I don't see a compelling reason not to invest a little time in checking it out for yourself.
> Honestly, if something can be run by Lucas Duplan or Evan Spiegel, it probably shouldn't be done and it certainly shouldn't be funded at the expense of something legitimate.
Wow, you really have an axe to grind with those two, don't you? Despite their issues, they became "public figures" by tapping into something people want, rather than by writing endless bitter diatribes about how the world is unfair for not recognizing their brilliance.
> Never mind that I am so much smarter than the person who set these little rules in place that I could claim that I invented the letter "Q" and they'd believe me.
You've very publicly defined yourself as a guy with a massive chip on his shoulder, who blames everyone but himself when he doesn't succeed. Good luck with that.
It appears your service is:
(a) an API that collects student data from schools and then parcels it out to school-approved educational apps that have paid for access to your gateway.
(b) an OAuth login system like Facebook/Twitter/Google login.
I'm not sure if this is correct though, since your website doesn't clearly explain this (it does have a picture of Magnus Carlsson playing chess in your office though, which is pretty cool).
So then I guess your business model is to become the middleman between educational software and schools? Educational software companies will pay you to sell their software in your educational app store, similar to how Apple and Google take a 30% cut in their app stores? (edit: I just read below that you also charge the vendors of the student database software). In exchange, apps get visibility to schools and streamlined access to student data, and teachers get a convenient system for installing educational software?
That sounds good. I have no idea what schools budget for apps and educational software, but I imagine it will increase if Chromebooks and iPads become more commonplace in classrooms.