Top all-time · #4034
Mike Rowe
Personal blog · mikerowe.comcareerculture
Mike Rowe's personal blog at mikerowe.com covers career and culture. Since 2015, 18 different Hacker News readers have linked it 21 times, most often “Walk me through this “Safety Third” thing (2020)”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-30, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (15) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Mike Rowe's posts on 'safety third', the idea that safety is never first and risk must be weighed, plus pieces on jobs and the skills gap. Commenters often call them insightful.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 15 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
mikerowe.com, Michael Gregory Rowe is an American television host and narrator, actor and former opera singer best known for his work on the Discovery Channel series Dirty Jobs, Deadliest Catch, After the Catch, Somebody's Gotta Do It - Mike Rowe introduces us to people who perform unique jobs in hi
Most-linked posts?
- Walk me through this “Safety Third” thing (2020)7 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2021-02-24
- /2022/03/the-origin-of-safety-third/3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2023-05-22
- Reasons to Stop Ignoring the Skills Gap3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2016-09-05
- 'Dirty Jobs' Mike Rowe Meets the Koch Brothers2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2016-09-04
What Hacker News says?
Another one of his shows, Somebody's Gotta Do It is also worth a watch http://mikerowe.com/shows/somebodys-gotta-do-it/s308/
Comment linking /shows/somebodys-gotta-do-it/s308/
on “The San Franciso Fire Department makes its own wooden ladders by hand”Submitted 'Dirty Jobs' Mike Rowe Meets the Koch Brothers as a story · 113 points
HN discussionNo, safety is part of the marketing. If people think the planes are safe, then they'll fly on them & customers (airlines) will buy them. If people think they're not safe, then they won't fly on them and airlines won't want to buy them. If someone is actually injured then there's liability, but that's usually a tiny drop in the bucket compared to the potential marketing effects of safety incidents. To Boeing, planes…
Comment linking /2022/03/the-origin-of-safety-third/
on “Boeing missing key elements of safety culture: FAA report”Submitted Reasons to Stop Ignoring the Skills Gap as a story · 84 points
HN discussionNot to be a jerk but I'm going to sound like a jerk, but know it is from a position of love: linked lists and arrays are both fundamental data structures. At the very least you now learned about them. I want you to read this: http://mikerowe.com/2015/08/otw-rejection/ And let me relate to you: I get turned down for jobs all the time. It is not because of capricious reasons that I wish were the case, but it's because…
Comment linking /2015/08/otw-rejection/
on “The US digital service”Submitted Walk me through this “Safety Third” thing (2020) as a story · 26 points
HN discussionThis reminds me of this odd sticker I once found that read "Safety Third". I thought it was pretty hilarious, and eventually learned that it was part of this odd movement about fifteen years ago regarding the same thing as this article. More here: https://mikerowe.com/2022/03/the-origin-of-safety-third/ I put the sticker on my laptop, and once got confronted by a confused and possibly angry worksite manager who saw…
Comment linking /2022/03/the-origin-of-safety-third/
on “Drift towards danger and the normalization of deviance (2017)”Submitted Walk me through this "Safety Third" thing as a story · 3 points
HN discussionMike Rowe is often an interesting one to follow for this kind of information, regardless of one's political leanings. http://mikerowe.com/2016/02/stopignoringskillsgap/
Comment linking /2016/02/stopignoringskillsgap/
on “Suicides in Rural America Increased More Than 40% in 16 Years”Submitted The Origin of Safety Third as a story · 2 points
HN discussionThis is a great little piece, and I'm glad I saw it, and I wouldn't have seen it at all had it not been at the top of HN (despite the fact that most of what Mike Rowe writes somehow lands in my Fb feed), and I even agree with I think something like 98% of what it says. But it still feels like an almost textbook example of what shouldn't be on the front page of HN. Something Mike Rowe writes about the importance of t…
Comment linking /2016/02/stopignoringskillsgap/
on “'Dirty Jobs' Mike Rowe Meets the Koch Brothers”Submitted Charles Koch, Vocational Education, and the Prison Industrial Complex as a story · 1 points
HN discussionYou are assuming all regulations are reasonable. In the case of safety it is possible some are not reasonable. There is actually a level of safety vs risk we are willing to take for a given activity. ( Think actually getting into a car ). Mike Rowe has a great take on this and it seems like an interesting way to look at risk intersections as they pertain to 'reasonable' regulations. Regardless if those regulations a…
Comment linking /2020/03/walk-me-through-this-safety-third-thing/
on “A controversial shipping law is swaying the price of gas”Reminds me of this insightful article: https://mikerowe.com/2020/03/walk-me-through-this-safety-thi...
Comment linking /2020/03/walk-me-through-this-safety-third-thing/
on “"Security is our top priority" is meaningless”This is why safety is third. https://mikerowe.com/2020/03/walk-me-through-this-safety-thi...
Comment linking /2020/03/walk-me-through-this-safety-third-thing/
on “Value of life”On safetyism in general I really like the "safety third" post by Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs fame. People who criticize safety culture get harshly shamed as immoral and irresponsible, but in reality there are always trade-offs to consider. We should keep our minds open and not assume that contrarian statements are ideologically driven. https://mikerowe.com/2020/03/walk-me-through-this-safety-thi...
Comment linking /2020/03/walk-me-through-this-safety-third-thing/
on “Why Covid-19 Is Here to Stay, and Why You Shouldn't Worry About It”Safety third. https://youtu.be/Km8XxRCuCho?feature=shared And from another of his articles: "Safety is never really first. No company, no nation, and no individual exist for the primary purpose of being safe. Sensible people understand that risk is a part of life, and that no amount of compliance will ever eliminate the inherent dangers that come from being alive." https://mikerowe.com/2020/10/off-the-wall-safety-th…
Comment linking /2020/10/off-the-wall-safety-third/
on “Safety First”Not everybody should code -- Mike Rowe's "Don't Follow Your Passion" [0] is a great example explaining why. That said, I have a son and he's learning coding (I write code for a living). I also encourage him to learn plumbing, woodworking, mechanical repairs, electronics, cooking, cleaning, painting, caring for animals, etc blah blah blah. He knows what gen AI is and how to access it; he knows it's a tool, a novelty…
Comment linking /2019/12/dont-follow-your-passion/
on “Ask HN: Parents who control their kids' education, when do you introduce LLMs?”Have you actually read his description of "safety third"? He doesn't appear to be shilling for anyone. Rather the opposite. https://mikerowe.com/2022/03/the-origin-of-safety-third/
Comment linking /2022/03/the-origin-of-safety-third/
on “Mike Rowe's warning to white collar workers 'The robots are coming' for your job”Mike Rowe on safety third: https://mikerowe.com/2020/03/walk-me-through-this-safety-thi...
Comment linking /2020/03/walk-me-through-this-safety-third-thing/
on “Tesla Recalls 2M Cars to Fix Autopilot Safety Flaws”For economics and economy-related cultural topics, I really like NPR's Planet Money ( https://www.npr.org/sections/money/127413729/planet-money/ ). The episodes on average are really short (anything from 6 to 20 minutes) so they're great for a quick passtime. The polar opposite would be Dan Carlin's Hardcore History, with each episode seldom less than four hours. But with a fantastic narration and historical researc…
Comment linking /podcast/
on “Ask HN: Podcast Recommendations?”
