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Who is Nnamdi?
Personal blog · whoisnnamdi.com · on HN as whoisnnamdistartupseconomicsbusiness
Who is Nnamdi? is a personal blog at whoisnnamdi.com about startups, economics and business. Since 2018, 13 different Hacker News readers have linked it 29 times, most often “We will never have enough software developers (2020)”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-13, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (7) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link this blog for its "never enough developers" post, which cites data on high-ability professionals leaving STEM careers earlier, in discussions about tech careers and burnout.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 7 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Thoughts on technology, venture capital, and the economics of both
Most-linked posts?
- We will never have enough software developers (2020)6 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2020-10-27
- /high-retention-high-volatility/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-01-03
- Remote software developers earn more than non-remote developers2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-04-15
What Hacker News says?
Beyond pc explicitly admitting that they made the mistake you're saying they didn't, Stripe and other payment processors, especially internet payment processors, are extremely sensitive to economic forecasts. I can think of three obvious reasons that current market conditions would tell them to prepare for a macroeconomic downturn: 1) The housing market is the largest asset base in the world's wealthiest country and…
Comment linking /high-retention-high-volatility/
on “Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce”Submitted Remote software developers earn more than non-remote developers as a story · 377 points
HN discussionHere's [1] a data analysis looking into the phenomenon: "Professionals with higher cognitive ability drop out of STEM careers earlier and faster", "High-ability workers are faster learners, in all jobs. However, the relative return to ability is higher in careers that change less, because learning gains accumulate" [1]: https://whoisnnamdi.com/never-enough-developers/
Comment linking /never-enough-developers/
on “Aging programmer”Submitted We will never have enough software developers (2020) as a story · 366 points
HN discussionI didn't want to edit my original post, but this is also relevant to this discussion and came up recently. It echoes your observations. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31724942 https://whoisnnamdi.com/never-enough-developers/
Comment linking /never-enough-developers/
on “Tell HN: I have the perfect job, why is it not enough?”Submitted We Will Never Have Enough Software Developers as a story · 38 points
HN discussion> But if I was in my 20s or early 30s, I'd be looking to leave tech entirely and go into something else where experience is actually appreciated and valued. I'm in my 20s and think about this a lot although I already moved to management (with a lot of software development, still) as well. There's a great article [1] analyzing this problem (quotes from the article: "Professionals with higher cognitive ability drop ou…
Comment linking /never-enough-developers/
on “Leetcode has taught me that I'm a bad engineer”Submitted The Growth-Share Matrix of Software Development as a story · 6 points
HN discussionOK, so I am late to the party, but I have some thoughts. One, if you search for the word complicated on HN, the top hit is the same complaint from 2019. This isn't getting better. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20637849 Two, from the discussion in February, web development is literally the worst job in the USA for degree of change in complexity / lack of ability to build career capital over time. This is (and…
Comment linking /never-enough-developers/
on “Ask HN: Getting tired of complexity in web development”Submitted Developer Advocates Are Hiding in Plain Sight as a story · 3 points
HN discussionThe re-focus on SaaS as the only class of investment that can reliably generate returns and avoid zeros or capital loss is a very real trend. Would emphasize your point around services - SaaS investors are generally allergic to this stuff and prefer services to make up as little of revenue as possible. It's typical low margin and not seen to be very "strategic" (though this could be debated). SaaS is also much easie…
Comment linking /high-retention-high-volatility/
on “Sneak peek at future of SaaS investing”Submitted Why Don't VCs Index Invest? as a story · 3 points
HN discussionraises hand Early stage dev tools investor here, investing in technical tools for technical people. Focused mainly on seed through Series B. Portfolio: https://whoisnnamdi.com/portfolio/
Comment linking /portfolio/
on “Ask HN: Who Are the Investors on HN?”Submitted Remote Software Developers Earn 22% More Than Non-Remote Developers as a story · 3 points
HN discussionThanks for this super detailed video! I've seen some of your others in the past and always found them helpful. Yannick's video on this paper is great as well. If anyone is looking for a written walkthrough, I did a quick summary/explainer on my personal site: https://whoisnnamdi.com/transformers-image-recognition/
Comment linking /transformers-image-recognition/
on “Transformers for Image Recognition at Scale [video]”Submitted Age, Race, and Gender Affect Software Engineering Pay as a story · 3 points
HN discussion> I want to work with more people who LOVE software and find the development of machines and the code that runs on them as fascinating as I do. Unfortunately, its less and less these days. While I like software I'm beginning to see it as a rather bad career. While you make more money early in the career, you stop doing so rather fast and other jobs catch up quite quickly and surpass you. I guess there's always the e…
Comment linking /never-enough-developers/
on “Same Stop: Life after 26 years as a programmer for Apple”Submitted Companies Rarely Grow into Their Valuations as a story · 2 points
HN discussionPlease read https://whoisnnamdi.com/never-enough-developers/ You may need a change of career.
Comment linking /never-enough-developers/
on “Ask HN: Wanting to grow – what questions should you ask yourself?”Submitted Four Challenges Facing Developer Productivity Startups as a story · 2 points
HN discussionAuthor here An important distinction! I cover this and the overall methodology here [1] [1] https://whoisnnamdi.com/highest-paid-software-engineers-2020...
Comment linking /highest-paid-software-engineers-2020/
on “Age, Race, and Gender Affect Software Engineering Pay”Submitted Entrepreneur's Ruin, or How Not to Go Bust as a story · 2 points
HN discussionhttps://whoisnnamdi.com/ About 50 longer-form essays over the last ~5 years, mostly about venture capital, software, and developer productivity. Some interesting Hacker News discussions on a few: Remote Software Developers Earn 22% More Than Non-Remote Developers (377 points) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22935476 Why We Will Never Have Enough Software Developers (366 points) - https://news.ycombinator.com/…
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Could you share your personal blog here?”Submitted Meet Dev, the Highest-Paid Software Developer in America as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Taking Stock of the Seed Stage as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Tokens Aren't Fungible as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Stem PhDs are creating fewer startups than they used to as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Robinhood Traders Are Last to the Party as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted I think waitlists are a vanity metric as a story · 1 points
HN discussion