Top all-time · #6163
Adam Marcus
Personal blog · blog.marcua.net · on HN as marcuastartupsprogrammingcareer
Adam Marcus writes N=1 (marcua’s blog), a personal blog at blog.marcua.net about startups, programming and career. Since 2009, 13 different Hacker News readers have linked it 30 times, most often “Data diffs: Algorithms for explaining what changed in a dataset”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-30, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (2) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Adam Marcus's blog for posts on building databases and on his work on a large-scale data extraction workflow at GoDaddy, which was later published at a databases conference.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 2 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
I’m the Co-Founder and CTO of B12. Before that, I was Director of Data at Locu, a startup that was acquired by GoDaddy. I went to grad school at MIT’s CSAIL. One time in Jerusalem I ate a whole tub of hummus on my own. I don’t regret that day.
Most-linked posts?
- Data diffs: Algorithms for explaining what changed in a dataset3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2022-02-20
- Show HN: What Would Hacker News Say?2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2011-02-04
- Ayb: A multi-tenant database that helps you own your data2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-06-25
- Autodata: Automating Common Data Operations2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-02-07
- Notes from Startup Bootcamp2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2009-10-12
What Hacker News says?
You may find MIT's Database Systems course helpful, the labs consist of building several db components in Java (and the prof is Stonebraker, of Postgres fame): https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-compu... https://youtu.be/F3XGUPll6Qs http://blog.marcua.net/post/117671929
Comment linking /post/117671929
on “Let’s Build a Simple Database (2017)”Submitted MIT Database Systems (6.830) TA Course Notes as a story · 72 points
HN discussion(Author here) Thank you! This blog post speaks a bit more to how it works: https://blog.marcua.net/2026/05/05/figmimic . Credit to Figma for capture.js. This bookmarklet just packages/surfaces the library for easy use.
Comment linking /2026/05/05/figmimic
on “Figmimic – A bookmarklet to copy any webpage into Figma as editable layers”Submitted How to archive a website that's shutting down soon as a story · 38 points
HN discussionI don't know of any formal case studies, but Adam Marcus and myself (two devs on the project) worked on a large-scale workflow at GoDaddy where we automatically organized data extraction experts into hierarchies of review. That work actually got published at a Databases conference: see Adam's nice summary here: http://blog.marcua.net/post/128120315677 On the research side of things, the flash teams work by Daniela R…
Comment linking /post/128120315677
on “Orchestra: An open-source system to orchestrate teams of experts and machines”Submitted Data diffs: Algorithms for explaining what changed in a dataset as a story · 21 points
HN discussionI took notes: http://blog.marcua.net/post/211390022/startup-bootcamp-at-mi... . Hope these help someone!
Comment linking /post/211390022/startup-bootcamp-at-mit
on “MIT Startup Bootcamp (live @ justin.tv)”Submitted Data diffs: Algorithms for explaining what changed in a dataset (2022) as a story · 16 points
HN discussionhttps://blog.marcua.net/ The content has varied over the years, but in the past few years, I've used the blog to explore side projects outside of work. This has allowed me to separate my primary responsibility at work (manager/unblocker/collaborator/prototyper) from my personal interests in hacking.
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Could you share your personal blog here?”Submitted Notes from NoSQL Live Boston as a story · 14 points
HN discussionSubmitted Show HN: What Would Hacker News Say? as a story · 11 points
HN discussionSubmitted Notes from Startup Bootcamp as a story · 8 points
HN discussionSubmitted SQL Diffs, “Why did this happen?” “What changed?” as a story · 5 points
HN discussionSubmitted An N=1 guide to pursuing startups after grad school as a story · 5 points
HN discussionSubmitted Claude Code and core dumps: Finding the radio stream that hosed our servers as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Maintaining control of our data with personal databases as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Data diffs: Algorithms for explaining what changed in a dataset as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Authorize, Don't Authenticate as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Four questions agents can't answer as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Review: A bookmarklet to generate coding agent-ready code reviews as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Ayb: A multi-tenant database that helps you own your data as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted What would Hacker News say? as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Northeastern presentation to junior engineers in the age of AI as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted B12 3.0 – A decade of helping customers build their home online as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Mentoring junior engineers in the age of coding agents as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Rich: Enrich your CSVs with new columns using an LLM as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Ayb: A multi-tenant database that helps you own your data as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Autodata: Automating common data operations (2021) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Autodata: Automating Common Data Operations as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Roundup of papers about Twitter at the WWW 2010 conference as a story · 1 points
HN discussion