Top all-time · #1951
Leo Polovets
Personal blog · codingvc.com · on HN as lpolovetsstartupsbusiness
Leo Polovets writes Coding VC, a personal blog at codingvc.com about startups and business. Since 2013, 40 different Hacker News readers have linked it 164 times, most often “Which Technologies Do Startups Use? An Exploration of AngelList Data”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-05-22, and you can follow it by feed.
VC from an engineer's perspective. Click to read Coding VC, by Leo Polovets, a Substack publication with thousands of subscribers.
Most-linked posts?
- Which Technologies Do Startups Use? An Exploration of AngelList Data5 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2014-08-07
- How to De-Risk a Startup5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2016-10-27
- Startup Cargo Cults: What They Are and How to Avoid Them4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2016-09-28
- Three Mathematical Models for Building a More Valuable Company3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2017-01-20
- Cash Management for Early Stage Startups2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2023-03-06
- Notes from Priceonomics' 2017 Content Marketing Conference2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2017-11-22
- How to De-Risk a Startup (2016)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-02-09
- Spell. It. Out2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-07-28
- Deep Tech Companies Are Built Different2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2026-05-22
- Analyzing AngelList Job Postings, Part 1: Basic Stats2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2014-09-09
What Hacker News says?
Here are a couple of articles that might help with regards to calculating your equity payout: https://codingvc.com/valuing-employee-options https://medium.com/@jamesseely/eshares-option-value-calculat... I'd also really encourage you to talk to the founders of the company about this and ask them to walk you through their model for how much you should value your equity. Our advice to founders is to walk every employe…
Comment linking /valuing-employee-options
on “Ask HN: Pros and cons of working at a startup in 2018?”Submitted Startup Technical Diligence Is a Waste of Time as a story · 287 points
HN discussionWhy don't we look for some concrete information? According to the statistics reported by https://www.codingvc.com/which-technologies-do-startups-use-... , Java looks like the fourth most commonly used language in the startup world, and its usage is not particularly well correlated with success. Both Ruby and Python are more popular than Java, AND are better correlated with how good the company is. Your odds of being…
Comment linking /which-technologies-do-startups-use-an-exploration-of-angellist-data/
on “IT Runs on Java 8”Submitted How to De-Risk a Startup as a story · 240 points
HN discussionI was a software engineer for 10 years (first 10 engs at LinkedIn -> first 10,000 at Google -> first 10 at Factual). After that I was about to start a company but fell into venture capital instead. Here are a few things I've learned about business from the VC side that I didn't appreciate very much when I was an engineer: 1) Customers don't care about the technologies you're using, the elegance of your XYZ algorithm…
Comment linking /the-art-of-profitability
on “Ask HN: Best business advice for software developers”Submitted Thought Experiments to De-Risk Your Startup as a story · 215 points
HN discussionNot OP, but the slides here give a really great answer to that question: https://www.codingvc.com/saastr-2017
Comment linking /saastr-2017
on “Startups I Want to Fund”Submitted The 100-Hour Rule as a story · 202 points
HN discussionI fully agree with this. I wrote a related post a few years ago called The 100-Hour Rule (in contrast to Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000-Hour Rule). It's at https://www.codingvc.com/the-100-hour-rule/ . It takes tons and tons of time to be world class at something, but very little time to go from newbie to better than almost everyone else. The key is wanting to get better and then pursuing that in a deliberate, thoughtful…
Comment linking /the-100-hour-rule/
on “95th percentile isn't that hard to reach”Submitted When is a dollar not a dollar? as a story · 150 points
HN discussionI did some research on salary/equity grants last year and published a blog post on the subject. The dataset was most Silicon Valley job postings on AngelList (at that time). Based on my data, $60k salary is very much on the low end (i.e. 10th percentile of salaries). .5-1% equity may or may not be low-end -- it definitely depends on company size. That said, you will almost never see >1% equity once you get past the…
Comment linking /analyzing-angellist-job-postings-part-2-salary-and-equity-benchmarks
on “Ask HN: What up with these startup salaries?”Submitted The Art of Profitability as a story · 146 points
HN discussionI've found it very worthwhile to have a blog ( https://www.codingvc.com/ ). Some of the benefits: * My blog helped me differentiate myself and build a name for myself when I shifted from coding to venture capital. For context, I had no VC network at all when I got into the business, but a few good posts led to cold emails from strong VCs and founders, and a higher response rate to my own cold emails and twitter DMs.…
Comment linking /p/how-to-de-risk-a-startup
on “Ask HN: Is having a personal blog/brand worth it for you?”Submitted Analyzing AngelList Job Postings, Part 2: Salary and Equity Benchmarks as a story · 98 points
HN discussionAs a VC, I strongly agree with all of these tips except for the one about tracking opens. Like most people, I don't love being tracked. I especially agree with the first tip about a cold email's goal being to pique enough interest to get a positive reply. The goal is not to convince someone to write a check on the spot by writing a 10-page email -- that's an unattainable goal and no one is going to read a cold email…
Comment linking /what-movies-can-teach-you-about-pitching-to-investors
on “How to Cold Email Investors [video]”Submitted Startups are Risk Bundles as a story · 65 points
HN discussionAn aside to this article: along with thinking like an investor, you can also reach out to investors who will often be willing to help with your job search. For example, as a seed VC there are now about 80 companies at various stages that my fund works with. If someone emails me and says, "I'm a good engineer who wants to join a Series A startup in SF or Oakland that has characteristics X, Y, and Z," there's a good c…
Comment linking /using-investors-to-find-the-ideal-startup-job/
on “How to Choose a Startup to Work for by Thinking Like an Investor”Submitted Common Startup Timing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them as a story · 53 points
HN discussionAny chance the original post you're talking about was http://codingvc.com/why-this-why-now-why-you/ or http://blog.asmartbear.com/five-whys.html ?
Comment linking /why-this-why-now-why-you/
on “How to Pitch Your Company”Submitted Tit-For-Tat Office Hours with a Seed-Stage VC as a story · 43 points
HN discussionDoesn't answer everything but does give you some real world ranges to consider: http://codingvc.com/analyzing-angellist-job-postings-part-1-... (was posted to HN a few days ago I think).
Comment linking /analyzing-angellist-job-postings-part-1-basic-stats
on “Lecture 18: Legal and Accounting Basics for Startups”Submitted Location and a Startup's Likelihood of Success as a story · 28 points
HN discussionThe Effect of Location on a Startup's Likelihood of Success https://codingvc.com/the-effect-of-location-on-a-startups-li...
Comment linking /the-effect-of-location-on-a-startups-likelihood-of-success
on “China won't be luring foreign tech talent any time soon”Submitted Inefficiency Yields Opportunity as a story · 28 points
HN discussionCheck out the 100h rule. https://www.codingvc.com/p/the-100-hour-rule A lot of professionals are not in the 10,000h range and a few 100h is more achievable.
Comment linking /p/the-100-hour-rule
on “Ask HN: 10k hours rule to master anything. Could I switch career when I am 43?”Submitted Which Technologies Do Startups Use? An Exploration of AngelList Data as a story · 24 points
HN discussionIt's interesting to see different approaches for tech due diligence (tech DD) work well. Point Nine is considered to be a very strong European seed fund and they've invested in a lot of great companies. I'm not sure what they do for tech DD (the first line in this article says this calculator is not part of their process), but based on the article I'd guess they do a significant amount of it. My experience has been…
Comment linking /why-startup-technical-diligence-is-a-waste-of-time/
on “Tech Due Diligence Calculator”Submitted Spell. It. Out as a story · 23 points
HN discussion> Traction gets you in the door, the big future gets you the check Interesting. Would you say this is just a more focused way of describing what Leo Polovets has been writing about on codingvc.com, or do you think there is a practical or philosophical difference in what YC looks for? https://codingvc.com/how-to-de-risk-a-startup/
Comment linking /how-to-de-risk-a-startup/
on “Last minute tips for YC Interviewees”Submitted Recent Startup Trends as a story · 21 points
HN discussion
