[dang]

That would be great, but there's a structural limit: people running successful startups don't have time to write about it, while people who have wound down their companies do. When a company is going strong and HN sees a post like this, it's usually because they're hiring :)

[kolpa]

That's a bizarre claim. Writing about the company is one of the big PR tasks of a CxO or SVP.

As you noted yourself, blogging is a form of marketing.

[dang]

It's an empirical claim. I'm not seeing the articles!

I spend a lot of time giving feedback to people about how to appeal to HN's audience. Authors tend to be founders only for very-early-stage startups, such as the ones you see in Launch HNs. The authors from larger companies tend not to be founders or even execs. My sample is biased, of course, but if founders and execs of successful startups were writing informative articles about how they run their startups, readers here would be interested and we'd surely see them posted.

[jeffreylees]

Absolutely. If a going concern can't make time for blogging and other similar ventures, they're not staffed appropriately for their success!

[Bromlife]

That's a pretty stupid claim.

[dang]

Please don't name-call or post shallow dismissals here. Those are two of the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

[Semirhage]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17420230

Aren’t you kind of the one lowering it?

[enraged_camel]

>>people running successful startups don't have time to write about it

This is both offensive and incorrect. Offensive because it implies that if someone manages to find the time to write about how they are running their company they probably aren’t successful. Incorrect because the startup world is in fact full of leaders who do manage to find the time to write about how they run their companies (kalzameus comes to mind).

[eropple]

Patrick works at Stripe.

Before that, he consulted and ran a bingo card creator.

I love the dude and his advice has been invaluable to me--but it has been invaluable because he is not a guy who has run startups, he's a guy who's had to make a buck.

[bdcravens]

Plus it seems his output (on his blog and here on HN) has decreased quite a bit since he moved to Stripe, so this validates what happens when you get busy.

[newbie912]

Although a big part of his job is writing about similar topics, so you could also say he's still doing the same thing, only posting to a different end point and getting paid. That too is success.

[enraged_camel]

Running a bingo card creator qualifies as a startup.

Unless of course we are using the ultra narrow HN definition of a startup.

[eropple]

No, we're using the tech-industry definition of a startup.

I don't run a startup, either. I make money.

[dang]

The offensive bar sure gets lower these days! I'm surprised the point is controversial. It would be great if you were right; I'm just not seeing the articles. This one stood out as an exception. Also, we all love both Patricks but the one who runs Stripe doesn't blog anymore (does he?) so I think I get Stripe in my column on this.

[volaski]

it's offensive only because you choose to be offended, it actually tells more about yourself than parent.

> people running successful startups don't have time to write about it, while people who have wound down their companies do

tell us what kind of mental gymnastics you have to go through to go from above statement to come up with such a twisted interpretation as "it implies that if someone manages to find the time to write about how they're running their company they probably aren’t successful". Since it's HN, I'm sure you can show how you came to that conclusion, in logical expression.

[bdcravens]

patio11 (Patrick McKenzie of kalzumeus.com) hasn't blogged on his personal site since September 2017. His current blogging seems today to support Stripe's business objectives, as he publishes to their site.

[enraged_camel]

I am well aware. I am referring to pre-Stripe.