Yes! YC calls them "scenesters", but the reality is that often you don't know if you're cut out for the gig until you actually do it, so lots of people have to experience it first-hand to realize they don't actually want the job.
+1 on the site being lower value than it could be for repeat founders with previous successes, but who still want to build things with other people with extensive experience and a track record.
You could argue that if you're in that situation you should be relying on existing networks to propel you into your next thing, but sometimes you want a new start or things just aren't aligning time-wise with your former allies.
The majority of folks on the site have never done a startup before and are entirely unproven in a startup context, or have a couple of short stints that they unfortunately didn't learn much from because the thing never gained any traction, so they did "1 year experience 3 times over". Doesn't mean they're not potentially great startup material, it's pretty hard to get something to take off. But, it's still a pretty risky bet for someone who wants to derisk partners a tad more.
There was a similar case in Italy regarding its own version of the 90s satanic panic, which led to dozens of kids separated from their parents, parents committing suicide from shame and grief, an overall travesty of justice. Until Pablo Trincia made a podcast out of it and conducted an investigation the case was considered closed. The podcast entirely overturned it two decades later, reuniting many of the kids (now adults) with their legally estranged parents and sending a bunch of people to jail for intentional malpractice: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/polis/2021/08/04/investigative-podca...
Incredible work with this article. I didn't realize experiences like that were even possible in the browser without a whole company backing the effort.
> We're in the desert? Do the stereotypical Arabic singing sting!
It's interesting you say that because Hans Zimmer specifically said in an interview they tried their best to dodge the cliche' middle eastern musical tropes in this soundtrack. Perhaps they didn't go far enough for some people.
Are there any examples of successful companies out there with no Twitter presence? I've always wondered if the downsides of being exposed to the Twitter outrage machine as a brand are greater than whatever a company and their staff have to gain. Curious if anybody's ever attempted that experiment.
I had the same happen to a mid-tier brand portable bluetooth speaker that was charging from the wall outlet on my night stand. Burst into a massive chemical flame right next to me, splattered the wall with molten plastic. It took me a few seconds to understand what was happening, at first I assumed it was my SO playing a really dumb fireworks prank on me. Took a few good inhalations of whatever black smoke came out of it while trying to put the fire out with a pillow. I was very, very lucky that this happened while I was in the same room, and not out at work with nobody at home to put out the fire. It would have easily caused a building-wide fire.
The company behind it offered to replace the product with whatever I wanted from their store as long as I signed a "I won't sue you" form and sent them the unit back for investigation. They said it was a manufacturing defect. I wasn't feeling like spending months or years in litigation, so I took the offer (no batteries this time) and moved on with my life. No regrets since.
The reality is that we're all surrounded by these ticking battery timebombs, and we're all at the mercy of manufacturing quality control and luck. Ever since that incident I never charge any new device unless I'm sitting next to it for a few hours, just to make sure nothing of the sort happens without my supervision. I realize it doesn't accomplish much, since these issues often happen hundreds of hours into the device's regular operation, but it gives me a false sense of safety.
I got bitten by a fake SNES Classic off of ebay a few years back. I was super excited to play Super Mario RPG on the real thing, only to find out that it was running with all sorts of glitches due to how the clone device had been designed, to the point where it was unusable. I suppose it's a pretty good scam since the thing goes for $200+ these days and I'm guessing it's some kind of a low powered android device on the inside.
Haven't quite figured out how to play those old classics again.
The physics of music comes up a bunch in music production. When working with different waveforms, filter types and specific bass frequencies, you always have to make sure you know what your spectrum looks like, or you'll have phase issues, or you won't hit the desired levels for each instrument and so on. You end up staring at fundamentals and harmonics a lot in order to get the timbres and the mix you have in mind.
It took me about 3-4 separate attempts over the last 15 years to get music, and only this last couple of years I was finally able to crack the music notation, music theory, and music production nut. I'm by no means pro-level, but I can follow along and have a mostly intelligent conversation about anything musical and audio-related now, and also put out my own tracks that are based on this shockingly broad set of concepts that you can pick up as you're learning the world of music.
I had to attack this from every possible angle because I had practically the same experience as you. What ultimately worked for me was a combination of a piano teacher, going through the Adult Piano books, doing a few music production programs (including some online university ones) and surrounding myself (virtually) with people writing music regularly. Eventually, although through many ups and downs, it all made sense.
IMO the hardest part is having to scale the massive wall of terminology and basic concepts you have to grasp in order to speak music theory. Notes, durations, keys, chords, intervals, scales, modes, music notation, meter, various modifiers you would find on a sheet of music, etc.. in addition to being able to actually play those physically in the real world... It's a ton. You don't need any of it to actually write music that people will like, but if you want to feel like you can at least communicate about it to other humans, it really helps.
I would be surprised if that was the case. Picking on Bezos specifically does a better job at creating drama, than by pointing a finger at a giant faceless organization.
It got you to click, and to create engagement for this article, I wasn't aware of this product's existence and I likely wouldn't have been if not for the clickbait headline that got it to surface. That's a successful marketing endeavor right there.