Top all-time · #1713
Caterina Fake
Personal blog · caterina.netculturestartups
Caterina Fake writes Caterina.net, a personal blog at caterina.net about culture and startups. Since 2007, 42 different Hacker News readers have linked it 55 times, most often “Name: Illegitimate”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-01-14, 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 Caterina Fake's blog, written by a Flickr co-founder, for posts on work habits, startup advice, engineering talent across cities, and a Northwest Airlines system that deleted her tickets.
- Recommended for · 1 comments
- Called a "favorite" for the post about being unable to fly on Northwest Airlines after its system silently deleted her tickets.
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.
Most-linked posts?
- Name: Illegitimate3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2011-02-14
- It's a bad time to start a company2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2007-03-02
- Appalled by Sexism in the Valley? Meet the Tech Bros of Finland2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-03-30
- Working hard is overrated2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2009-09-27
- Great Engineers - where are they?2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2010-01-16
- Want to be an entrepreneur? Drop out of college2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2011-01-24
- Want to be an entrepreneur? Drop out of college.2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2010-04-29
What Hacker News says?
My favorite along these lines: http://caterina.net/archive/001011.html Flickr cofounder Caterina Fake couldn't fly on Northwest Airlines because their system silently deleted her tickets.
Comment linking /archive/001011.html
on “An employee, whose last name is Null, kills our employee lookup app”Submitted Make things as a story · 243 points
HN discussionThis reminded me of this blogpost Caterina Fake wrote after discovering a similar tool a while back [1]. As others have mentioned here, this should be seen in context. I applaud governments trying to make explanations for official procedures or legal questions clear, concise, and understandable to laypeople no matter their educational background. I applaud striving to make one's explanations as clear as possible. Bu…
Comment linking /2020/08/02/vocabulary-loss-and-the-narrowing-of-understanding/
on “Hemingway Editor”Submitted The Twitter Advertiser Exodus as a story · 217 points
HN discussionAll I’ve heard is they have a misogynistic culture. As an example: https://caterina.net/2019/03/29/appalled-by-sexism-in-the-va...
Comment linking /2019/03/29/appalled-by-sexism-in-the-valley-meet-the-tech-bros-of-finland-2/
on “Blind software development at 450 words per minute (2017)”Submitted Working hard is overrated as a story · 160 points
HN discussionForgot to post my comment here last time: http://caterina.net/wp-archives/98#comment-7988 I can only comment from my experiences in Berlin,Germany but what I ve found here that many people here read books / watch movies of “How to…. ” or someone’ story to sucess and use it as a carbon copy of how to suceed. I think people like to hide behind big names, like if you criticse them ” well Bill Gates did that” so like tr…
Comment linking /wp-archives/98
on “Make things”Submitted Name: Illegitimate as a story · 134 points
HN discussionCaterina Fake, working hard is overrated http://caterina.net/archive/001196.html > Much more important than working hard is knowing how to find the right thing to work on. Paying attention to what is going on in the world. Seeing patterns. Seeing things as they are rather than how you want them to be. Being able to read what people want. Putting yourself in the right place where information is flowing freely and int…
Comment linking /archive/001196.html
on “Startups Are Hard. So Work More, Cry Less, And Quit All The Whining”Submitted Want to be an entrepreneur? Drop out of college. as a story · 44 points
HN discussionI know from experience the difficulties an unusual name can bring, but Quora hasn't called me out just yet. I value their desire to build an authentic community, but other sites have grown without resorting to this sort of tactic. Fakes eventually are known based on their posts. Speaking of fakes, Flickr cofounder Caterina Fake has had all kinds of problems due to her (real) last name: http://caterina.net/archive/00…
Comment linking /archive/001011.html
on “Quora To Oddly-Named Users: Papers Please”Submitted Killing the Abraham as a story · 35 points
HN discussionor a Fake name... http://caterina.net/archive/000622.html
Comment linking /archive/000622.html
on “Expert Exchange gets narky after snub from Q/A site review”Submitted How to innovate using existing technology as a story · 27 points
HN discussionWorked for Caterina :) http://www.caterina.net
Comment linking /
on “Tell YC: Summer 08 decisions out”Submitted Caterina Fake shares some Hunch data as a story · 24 points
HN discussionCaterina Fake on how there are great engineers everywhere: http://www.caterina.net/archive/001215.html she also touches on some cultural differences between NYC and CA: But what NYC is actually missing is not engineers. In NYC you can find lots of great engineers, visual designers, and great publishers and contributors to social media. But in CA I seem to find far more people with multiple skills - engineers who blo…
Comment linking /archive/001215.html
on “Why You Need to be in Silicon Valley ”Submitted Anonymity and Pseudonyms in Social Software as a story · 21 points
HN discussionI'd like to see a list of recommendations like this for entrepreneurs or would-be entrepreneurs in college (something like http://www.paulgraham.com/mit.html ). I wonder what Caterina Fake would say about Joel's list ( http://www.caterina.net/archive/001234.html ), assuming the hackers he's speaking to are also entrepreneurs?
Comment linking /archive/001234.html
on “Advice for Computer Science College Students”Submitted Illegitimate Name as a story · 21 points
HN discussionAfter reading this I went to find the post from Caterina Fake about Bizdev 2.0 (dead permalink here: http://caterina.net/archive/000996.html ) but Chris Dixon summarizes it well by saying that good BD cannibalizes itself sometimes in this post: http://cdixon.org/2010/08/28/good-bizdev-cannabilizies-itsel...
Comment linking /archive/000996.html
on “Are APIs making Biz Dev obsolete?”Submitted Caterina Fake (Flickr founder) joins Hunch as a story · 15 points
HN discussionCaterina Fake: http://www.caterina.net/archive/000965.html
Comment linking /archive/000965.html
on “"Come back with an idea that you can do quickly and that you can take public or get acquired within 12 to 18 months."”Submitted Great Engineers - where are they? as a story · 14 points
HN discussionCaterina Fake, the co-founder of Flickr, was recently in the Finnish news due to her negative experiences with trying to immigrate to Finland. She also wrote some recommendations to Migri (Finnish Immigration Service) for attracting talent to Finland. https://caterina.net/2020/12/19/recommendations-for-migri/
Comment linking /2020/12/19/recommendations-for-migri/
on “Thousands apply to be a Finn for 90 days in migration scheme”Submitted Dumbing Us Down as a story · 10 points
HN discussionThere are similarly many blogs/books about working a "normal" work week or day (and some about less than "normal"). http://www.caterina.net/archive/001196.html http://37signals.com/svn/posts/893-workplace-experiments http://www.amazon.com/4-Hour-Workweek-Escape-Live-Anywhere/d... But, I think that having passion and drive for your cause is more important than counting hours. Most people will and do burn out from lon…
Comment linking /archive/001196.html
on “Ask HN: Working Hours of Actual Startups?”Submitted The Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) as a story · 10 points
HN discussion'... Given a choice, a truly smart person would prefer to work for a cool starup vs Yahoo! Brickhouse. ...' Probably making the choice of sticking around for the stock vesting period. If you are ever asking yourself a question about someone, especially web/software related go to the source [0]. Here is what 'Fake' had to say not long ago about startups v's the SoftCo's of the world ... '... Having worked at startups…
Comment linking /archive/001049.html
on “What's Caterina Fake doing in Yahoo!”Submitted It's a bad time to start a company as a story · 10 points
HN discussion
