Top all-time · #5118
South Park Commons
Company blog · blog.southparkcommons.comstartups
South Park Commons is the company blog at blog.southparkcommons.com, writing about startups. Since 2022, 15 different Hacker News readers have linked it 43 times, most often “What is -1 to 0? A Philosophy of Ideation”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-30, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (3) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
Essays from South Park Commons on maintaining engineering velocity as companies scale, brainstorming with LLMs, and dropping QA teams. Commenters link them as background on these topics.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 3 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
SPC is a home for the most talented founders and technologists exploring what's next. Our members turn the chaos of possibility into the clarity of conviction.
Most-linked posts?
- What is -1 to 0? A Philosophy of Ideation4 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2023-10-11
- Success Is Not Your Own: What Matters Most as an Engineering Leader3 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2022-08-24
- Startup engineering hiring anti-patterns (2021)3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2022-08-24
- South Park Commons Founder Fellowship Applications Open3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2023-02-07
- Move fast or die: Key startup lessons2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2022-08-23
- Starting Companies in a Market Collapse2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2022-08-23
- A CTO should be technical2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-09-19
- The Near Future of AI Is Action-Driven2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-11-16
- Atlas Winced: Starting a Company Is Harder Than You Think2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-02-28
What Hacker News says?
> Every company can't have the best engineers. They cost too much and they're a finite resource. Your argument assumes there is an efficient market for engineers, and it also assumes that an engineer’s productivity is independent of the company environment. There are multiple counterexamples of startups that have built great teams for cheap money. There are many reasons why great engineers can be underpriced or unde…
Comment linking /startup-engineering-hiring-anti-patterns/
on “How to maintain engineering velocity as you scale”Submitted A CTO should be technical as a story · 600 points
HN discussionI don't know a case study but I was personally told by 2 different founders who had 100MM+ exits that their startup ideas were formed (at least partially) from brainstorm sessions. One guy even pointed to me the library where they had the whiteboard session which led to the idea that they exited in the end. The SPC also have a blog that proposes brainstorming from -1 to 1: https://blog.southparkcommons.com/how-to-go…
Comment linking /how-to-go-from-minus-1-to-0/
on “LLMs are not suitable for brainstorming”Submitted Move fast or die: Key startup lessons as a story · 125 points
HN discussionAn article about Facebook's reason for no QA with some of the mitigations: https://blog.southparkcommons.com/move-fast-or-die/ A bit recent to have affected Yahoo - but it sells a good story. We would celebrate the first time someone broke something. Let anyone touch any part of the codebase and get in there to fix a bug or build a feature. Yes, this can cause bugs. Yes, that is an acceptable tradeoff. We had a shar…
Comment linking /move-fast-or-die/
on “Maybe Getting Rid of Your QA Team Was Bad, Actually.”Submitted Startup engineering hiring anti-patterns (2021) as a story · 112 points
HN discussionSubmitted Move Fast or Die: Key Startup Lessons as a story · 18 points
HN discussionSubmitted SPC Founder Fellowship applications open, terms still $400k for 7% pre-idea as a story · 10 points
HN discussionSubmitted Atlas Winced: Starting a Company Is Harder Than You Think as a story · 5 points
HN discussionSubmitted Anti-Patterns in Startup Engineering Hiring as a story · 5 points
HN discussionSubmitted What is -1 to 0? A Philosophy of Ideation as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Atlas Winced: Starting a Company Is Harder Than You Think as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Startup Engineering Hiring Anti-Patterns as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Startups building Workflow products for other Software Startups – Beware as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Success Is Not Your Own: What Matters Most as an Engineering Leader as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Success Is Not Your Own: What Matters Most as an Engineering Leader as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Near Future of AI Is Action-Driven as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Starting Companies in a Market Collapse as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted CTO Should Be Technical as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted $400k pre-idea Founder Fellowship application closing soon as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted What is -1 to 0? A Philosophy of Ideation as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted South Park Commons Founder Fellowship Applications Open as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted $25K grant for side projects from South Park Commons as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Near Future of AI Is Action-Driven as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted How to Succeed as a CTO, Part 1 as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Trusting Your Agent Is Overrated as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted South Park Commons Requests for Curiosity Summer 2026 as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Entering the Post-Prompting World as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted What is -1 to 0? A Philosophy of Ideation as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted What Is -1 to 0? A Philosophy of Ideation as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
