Top all-time · #138
Derek Sivers
Personal blog · sive.rs · on HN as siversphilosophywritingproductivity
Derek Sivers's personal blog at sive.rs covers philosophy, writing and productivity. Since 2020, 288 different Hacker News readers have linked it 483 times, most often “There’s no speed limit (2009)”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-18, and you can follow it by feed.
Sometimes recommended · 8 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Derek Sivers' short personal essays for his concise, memorable advice on execution, saying no, focus and writing. Commenters often quote one line from a post as a reference.
- Recommended for · 8 comments
- One commenter calls "Don't be a Donkey" a recommended essay; others say his "There is no speed limit" and "Hell yeah or no" pieces stick with them and that a po
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Derek Sivers official site. Thoughts on philosophy, culture, self-improvement. Author of Useful Not True, How to Live, Hell Yeah or No, Anything You Want.
Most-linked posts?
- There’s no speed limit (2009)22 people · 24 mentions · first linked 2020-08-31
- Simplify: Move code into database functions (2015)18 people · 20 mentions · first linked 2020-09-14
- Tech Independence17 people · 25 mentions · first linked 2023-04-21
- Ideas are just a multiplier of execution (2005)14 people · 18 mentions · first linked 2020-09-20
- Write plain text files12 people · 13 mentions · first linked 2022-03-01
- I'm a Slow Thinker10 people · 11 mentions · first linked 2022-07-16
- Relax for the same result (2015)9 people · 10 mentions · first linked 2020-11-24
- Books I’ve read9 people · 9 mentions · first linked 2020-09-21
- Find a good available .com domain8 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2022-06-08
- I assume I’m below average (2010)7 people · 11 mentions · first linked 2020-12-15
What Hacker News says?
I think you overestimate how much people want an actual truthful answer. I think people are often looking things up to silence a nagging voice in the back of their heads, or settle an argument to be able to move on. In those cases, no decision is riding on the answer, and a quick answer, even when factually incorrect, could be argued to serve the purpose just as well as (or better than) a slow but more correct answe…
Comment linking /off23
on “When did Google get so weird?”Submitted Writing one sentence per line as a story · 849 points
HN discussionThis is such a wholesome post. It also shows how much agency we can have in our local community. It reminded me of the Derek Sivers story[0] about the dancing man and the first follower when I read the part about the first person (Luke) joining them. [0] - https://sive.rs/ff
Comment linking /ff
on “Stoop Coffee: A simple idea transformed my neighborhood”Submitted Write plain text files as a story · 739 points
HN discussion>> I’ll contact someone if I loved their book or music or work. I’ll find a way to contact the author or the creator and say, “Holy shit. That was brilliant. I loved it. This was amazing. Count me as a fan.” >> I’ve done this about 20 times. I never got a response only once or twice, but the rest responded warmly. Many of these people have turned into friends. We actually call each other on the phone and shoot the s…
Comment linking /2020-04-email
on “Send someone you appreciate an official 'Continue and Persist' Letter”Submitted The day Steve Jobs dissed me in a keynote (2010) as a story · 683 points
HN discussionReminder that this is primarily a Silicon Valley / VC related and owned technology news aggregator. Fringe topics will stay fringe until they're hip (again?); currently non fringe from my intermittent read: - anything "AI" - retro computing (honest interest x mourning/cope in the non-deterministic agentic takeoff) - random topics that hit the zeitgeist Check out lobste.rs as well as SIG across forums, IRC, fediverse…
Comment linking /dance-lessons
on “Ask HN: Can we please limit the AI news flood?”Submitted Find a good available .com domain as a story · 677 points
HN discussionElsewhere, https://sive.rs/book/ShortSentences , Sivers recommends "Several Short Sentences About Writing", which is a perspective on writing that I'd not seen before. A useful read if you want to practice his present advice.
Comment linking /book/ShortSentences
on “Writing one sentence per line”Submitted There’s no speed limit (2009) as a story · 671 points
HN discussionYes, and the hyperlink for "vary the lengths of our sentences" in the linked-to essay goes to another essay, by the same author - https://sive.rs/book/WritingTools - which includes that Gary Provost "tour de force".
Comment linking /book/WritingTools
on “Writing one sentence per line”Submitted I assume I’m below average (2010) as a story · 376 points
HN discussionHi Derek! My implementation of your system is just a bunch of markdown files. The title of the file is a friend's name, the frontmatter at the top keeps info about them that doesn't change too often (ex: birthday, address, kids names), and each time I chat with them I add a section with an H1 title that's the date we chatted (ex: "# 2022-02-14\n"). My notes about the chat go under that heading. Based off of that str…
Comment linking /dj
on “A simple system I’m using to stay in touch with hundreds of people”Submitted Short URLs: Why and How as a story · 245 points
HN discussion(I'm the guy he refers to in that post.) If anyone reading this builds software like this, and releases it publicly, whether free or for sale, please let me know. I'd be happy to send people your way. Because of https://sive.rs/dbt I get a few emails a week from strangers, asking if my software is public yet, or if not, what else I would recommend. (And I might never make my software public. It's too tied-in to my n…
Comment linking /contact
on “A simple system I’m using to stay in touch with hundreds of people”Submitted How and why to make a /now page on your site as a story · 215 points
HN discussionSome good ones: http://avc.com/ http://paulgraham.com/ http://www.moserware.com/ https://believermag.com/ https://blogmaverick.com/ https://fs.blog/ https://juliagalef.com/ https://marginalrevolution.com/ https://nav.al/ https://sive.rs/ https://torrentfreak.com/author/ernesto/ https://vitalik.ca/ https://waitbutwhy.com/ https://www.lrb.co.uk/ https://www.metafilter.com/ https://xkcd.com/
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Favorite Blogs by Individuals?”Submitted Relax for the same result (2015) as a story · 194 points
HN discussionThis just seems like some more optimistic inverse form of siver's rule not to tell anyone and zip it https://sive.rs/zipit "Tests done since 1933 show that people who talk about their intentions are less likely to make them happen. Announcing your plans to others satisfies your self-identity just enough that you’re less motivated to do the hard work needed. In 1933, W. Mahler found that if a person announced the sol…
Comment linking /zipit
on “Do things, tell people (2012)”Submitted Smart people don't think others are stupid (2012) as a story · 129 points
HN discussionI've found Spaced Repetition (via Anki etc) to be great for remembering these things. Was originally turned on to this by Derek Sivers: https://sive.rs/srs
Comment linking /srs
on “Small programming tricks”Submitted How I Backup as a story · 115 points
HN discussionHe wrote about this recently: https://sive.rs/su
Comment linking /su
on “Find a good available .com domain”Submitted Japanese addresses: No street names. Block numbers (2009) as a story · 114 points
HN discussionDerek Sivers I assume I am below average : https://sive.rs/below-average It frees me up to try things and to give myself the time to stick with them.
Comment linking /below-average
on “Ask HN: What's the most life-changing blog post you've ever read?”Submitted $250k books sold, to save lives as a story · 114 points
HN discussionThere's No Speed Limit by Derek Sivers: https://sive.rs/kimo
Comment linking /kimo
on “Ask HN: What's the most life-changing blog post you've ever read?”Submitted Books I’ve read as a story · 108 points
HN discussionYour idea is just a multiplier on your execution: https://sive.rs/multiply I spent a lot of time thinking about ideas that were good or smart or made me feel smart. Could easily have been a lifelong chase with no real gains. Focusing on execution hasn't made me a millionaire overnight but it has helped me think about concrete things that are undeniably moving in the right direction instead of hoping to strike a "gen…
Comment linking /multiply
on “Ask HN: What's the most life-changing blog post you've ever read?”Submitted Memorizing a programming language using spaced repetition software (2013) as a story · 96 points
HN discussion
