Top all-time · #1340
Sriram Krishnan
Personal blog · sriramk.com · on HN as sriramkstartupscareer
Sriram Krishnan's personal blog at sriramk.com covers startups and career. Since 2011, 52 different Hacker News readers have linked it 71 times, most often “Building something no one else can measure (2017)”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-07-15, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (12) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Sriram Krishnan's collection of PDF memos from tech companies, such as Zuckerberg's Unity email, Sony's music catalog memo and Microsoft's Zero Defects memo, as primary sources on company strategy.
- Recommended for · 3 comments
- Cold-email post called helpful; Goldberg music memo an interesting prediction; Packard speech worth reading.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 12 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Writing, memos and notes from Sriram Krishnan.
Most-linked posts?
- Building something no one else can measure (2017)4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2020-02-23
- Zuck VR / AR strategy and One [pdf]4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2021-10-28
- How to Write a Cold Email4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2020-09-14
- Zero-defects code – Microsoft Memo 1989 [pdf]4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2021-01-26
- Building something no one else can measure3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2017-04-24
- Famous Memos2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2019-10-20
- /memos/goldberg-music.pdf2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-01-12
- Internal Memos2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-02-10
- PowerPoint pitchdeck for PowerPoint development [pdf]2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-10-21
- Comments from VCs on why successful companies wouldn't work2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-11-29
What Hacker News says?
It's unsurprising though. There was a leaked Sony memo that showed that most of profits come from back catalog and most of their losses are from new artist development. The memo: https://sriramk.com/memos/goldberg-music.pdf
Comment linking /memos/goldberg-music.pdf
on “A Man Who’s Spending $1B to Own Every Pop Song”Submitted Advice for Marissa Mayer from an ex-Yahoo as a story · 474 points
HN discussionThis is the 'Zero Defects'[1] mode of development. A Microsoft department adopted it in 1989 after their product quality dropped. (Balmer is cc'd on the memo.) 1. https://sriramk.com/memos/zerodef.pdf
Comment linking /memos/zerodef.pdf
on “We stopped roadmap work for a week and fixed bugs”Submitted Group chats rule the world as a story · 267 points
HN discussion[OP - I posted the tweet] If you liked this, you might like my collection of business memos here. https://sriramk.com/memos I remember this particular memo very well as I was at Microsoft at the time and it felt so unfair to see the reaction to what you expect any good CEO to do.
Comment linking /memos
on “Bill Gates on Windows Usability (2003)”Submitted Secure your browsing using a home VPN as a story · 114 points
HN discussionThere are some Zuckerberg emails exposed as part of some subpoena process where he describes why Unity was a valuable asset to build Meta's AR/VR business. He goes on a lengthy argument about why owning Unity will create a value flywheel that could accelerate Meta's business by doubling down on Unity's engine as a core technology for building games and other AR/VR experiences: https://sriramk.com/memos/zuck-unity.pd…
Comment linking /memos/zuck-unity.pdf
on “AppLovin offers to buy Unity Software in $17.5 bln deal”Submitted Windows: The next killer application on the internet (1994) [pdf] as a story · 85 points
HN discussionUltimately casting is an ineffable creative skill. Execs find it increasingly harder to trust in the simple skill of artists as the piles of money get bigger. Hence they invest more and more money into 'safe' and more measurable areas like name-recognition, special effects, and marketing. Eventually it ends in disaster though, hundreds of millions of dollars can only go so far to save bad story-telling, and the effo…
Comment linking /memos/katzenberg.pdf
on “Disney, Warner, Comcast, and Paramount are contemplating cuts, possible mergers”Submitted Famous Memos as a story · 24 points
HN discussionThey already considered it in the past, in fact Mark penned an email explaining why and how it would be beneficial to their broader ambitions to own more of the stack as a hedge for the future of computing. You can read more about it here: https://sriramk.com/memos/zuck-unity.pdf https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/13/facebook-mulled-multi-bill... It will likely happen at some point, if not by Meta than it'll be another…
Comment linking /memos/zuck-unity.pdf
on “Mark Zuckerberg braces Meta employees for ‘intense period’”Submitted On testers and testing as a story · 23 points
HN discussionAlot of executives must believe it's due to piracy. A lot of people think it's because they're woke. It's not even that - they're just bad movies. I watched Moana a few times and realized they're making fundamental story mistakes. Characters never resolve their conflicts, jokes are prioritized over theme, and important character traits are shown too quickly to the point where you can miss it if you blink. We really…
Comment linking /memos/katzenberg.pdf
on “Several Piracy-Related Arrests Spark Fears of High-Level Crackdown”Submitted Hearing from Yahoo employees - what should Marissa Mayer do next? as a story · 12 points
HN discussionMicrosoft rather famously tried this[1]. And it seemed to really help them. I've worked places that have tried it, too. It does work; in my experience, it literally always improves software quality. But I think it is like how pretty much all diets work, at first, but not over the long term. It becomes unsustainable, as the pressure to work on features grows. Continuing with my diet analogy, I now think of it like bu…
Comment linking /memos/zerodef.pdf
on “Ask HN: What would happen if we prioritised all bugs over all new features?”Submitted API lessons learnt from Microsoft's cloud platform (ex-Windows Azure API guy) as a story · 9 points
HN discussionBoth Apple and Meta would love buy Unity, but my understanding is that regulators likely wouldn't allow it. If you haven't seen it already: https://sriramk.com/memos/zuck-unity.pdf
Comment linking /memos/zuck-unity.pdf
on “Unity’s New Pricing: A Wake-Up Call on the Importance of Open Source in Gaming”Submitted Lessons learnt from shipping APIs for Microsoft's cloud platform (2011) as a story · 8 points
HN discussionhttps://sriramk.com/memos/elop-burning-platforms.pdf
Comment linking /memos/elop-burning-platforms.pdf
on “Where to buy a non-Apple, non-Google smartphone”Submitted Sriram Krishnan On leaving Microsoft as a story · 7 points
HN discussionThis might help: https://sriramk.com/coldemail
Comment linking /coldemail
on “Ask HN: How do you reach out to someone to confirm a response and network?”Submitted Group Chats Rule the World as a story · 6 points
HN discussionWhile not directly related, fellow readers might also find the memo titled "Dave Goldberg on music"[1] to be an interesting prediction around the future of music as it comes to streaming. As a bit more background, it was a memo sent to then-CEO of Sony Entertainment Michael Lynton by Dave Goldberg[2] who was most recently known as CEO of SurveyMonkey but had been the Director of Marketing Strategy at Capital Records…
Comment linking /memos/goldberg-music.pdf
on “Streaming Is Changing the Sound of Music”Submitted Exec 101 – First 30 days as a story · 6 points
HN discussionIt’s two problems. 1) Don’t hire mediocre people. We knew this new VP was terrible. But the guy being promoted was impatient and wanted someone to take over. 2) Upper management and the board must not forget the reason why the company exists, and put profit ahead of the mission. Otherwise you end up with 1980s GM, or the Boeing 800 Max. Read this speech by Dave Packard, a founder of HP. https://sriramk.com/memos/pac…
Comment linking /memos/packard.pdf
on “How a startup loses its spark”Submitted The celebrity guide to never getting hacked as a story · 5 points
HN discussionSubmitted Building something no one else can measure (2017) as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Building something no one else can measure as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Competence and responsiveness as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted How to Write a Cold Email as a story · 3 points
HN discussion
