Top all-time · #41
Steve Blank
Personal blog · steveblank.com · on HN as sblankstartupsbusiness
Steve Blank's personal blog at steveblank.com covers startups and business. Since 2009, 651 different Hacker News readers have linked it 1,274 times, most often “"Secret" History of Silicon Valley (2008)”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-24, and you can follow it by feed.
Sometimes recommended · 13 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers cite Steve Blank for Silicon Valley's government-funded history (Secret History), his startup definitions, and essays on founders, stock options and Google's culture.
- Recommended for · 13 comments
- Called excellent, awesome, classic, great and nice; Secret History called amazing and fun to watch.
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.
Steve Blank, Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Stanford, I-Corps, H4D Hacking for Defense
Most-linked posts?
- "Secret" History of Silicon Valley (2008)48 people · 71 mentions · first linked 2016-04-15
- The Elves Leave Middle Earth – Sodas Are No Longer Free (2009)47 people · 64 mentions · first linked 2016-05-05
- What's A Startup? First Principles.20 people · 23 mentions · first linked 2010-01-25
- The Secret History of Silicon Valley (2010)14 people · 15 mentions · first linked 2009-04-27
- The Elves Leave Middle Earth – Sodas Are No Longer Free (2009)14 people · 15 mentions · first linked 2009-12-21
- Startup Tools12 people · 15 mentions · first linked 2011-02-10
- 300 Teams in Two Years12 people · 14 mentions · first linked 2009-05-26
- Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple11 people · 16 mentions · first linked 2016-10-24
- The Elves Leave Middle Earth – Sodas Are No Longer Free (2009)10 people · 11 mentions · first linked 2016-12-08
- Epitaph for an Entrepreneur - Balancing Family and Work8 people · 9 mentions · first linked 2009-06-18
What Hacker News says?
In these regards, I think the US's unfortunately very hard to dislodge advantage is less the ships missiles & guns, and far more the "secret history of silicon valley" style signals intelligence gathering & processing. Very very specifically our massive massive government aggregators/analysis systems (not the focus of these amazing talks). https://steveblank.com/secret-history/ https://hn.algolia.com/?query=secret%2…
Comment linking /secret-history/
on “Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting”Submitted No science, no startups: The innovation engine we're switching off as a story · 724 points
HN discussionI hate blaming people and pointing fingers. It seems to me, that the current CEO, who was the CFO at the same company before, would be well advised to drop the "numbers & metrics" MBA mindset. Written five years ago but sadly still relevant: https://steveblank.com/2016/10/24/why-tim-cook-is-steve-ball...
Comment linking /2016/10/24/why-tim-cook-is-steve-ballmer-and-why-he-still-has-his-job-at-apple/
on “Disclosure of three 0-day iOS vulnerabilities”Submitted Startup Stock Options – Why a Good Deal Has Gone Bad as a story · 678 points
HN discussionI found it baffling, that someone manage to predict how that would work out: https://steveblank.com/2016/10/24/why-tim-cook-is-steve-ball...
Comment linking /2016/10/24/why-tim-cook-is-steve-ballmer-and-why-he-still-has-his-job-at-apple/
on “Email from Jeff Bezos to employees”Submitted Annual note to self: most of the world exists outside the tech bubble as a story · 596 points
HN discussionSteve Blank feels otherwise: http://steveblank.com/2011/09/15/the-pay-it-forward-culture/ You don't have to be Machiavellian to succeed.
Comment linking /2011/09/15/the-pay-it-forward-culture/
on “I was once a Facebook fool”Submitted How to Keep Your Job as Your Company Grows as a story · 584 points
HN discussionSteve Blank talks a lot about this history of Silicon Valley and how most of the original technology scene was started by DoD projects. https://steveblank.com/secret-history/
Comment linking /secret-history/
on “Google Workers Urge C.E.O. To Pull Out of Pentagon A.I. Project”Submitted Elon Musk Just Gave Europe a Reason to Replace American Technology as a story · 490 points
HN discussionSteve Blank has an awesome anecdote on this: https://steveblank.com/2016/09/07/working-hard-is-not-the-sa... "Our team knows this isn’t a 9-5 company. We stay as long as it takes to get the job done." “Let’s just wait across the street from your company’s parking lot and watch the front door." "a first trickle of employees left. I asked, “Are these your VPs and senior managers?” He nodded looking surprised and kept…
Comment linking /2016/09/07/working-hard-is-not-the-same-as-working-smart/
on “Founder to CEO: How to build a great company from the ground up”Submitted The Coming Chip Wars as a story · 484 points
HN discussionRelated: http://steveblank.com/2011/10/10/nokia-as-%E2%80%9Che-who-mu... "Nanny-Culture, Lack of Risk Taking, Not Sharing What makes Finland such a wonderful place to live and raise a family may ultimately be what kills it as a startup hub."
Comment linking /2011/10/10/nokia-as-%E2%80%9Che-who-must-not-be-named%E2%80%9D-and-the-helsinki-spring/
on “Steve's Google Platform rant”Submitted How the U.S. became a science superpower as a story · 480 points
HN discussionYou should check out 'The Secret History of Silicon Valley' Steve Blank (its author) did a nice job marshaling evidence for just how much the Silicon Valley of today has depended on technology advanced through big government programs. [1] http://steveblank.com/secret-history/
Comment linking /secret-history/
on “Philae has landed”Submitted Lying on your resume as a story · 460 points
HN discussionI wonder if there is some megacorp regression to the mean going on here. Google holds itself up as somehow special, and I think that it's right to be cynical about that today. I also think there was a golden age of sorts, back when real-world distributed systems were much more fringe, and Google was a legitimate trailblazer. Then, the spreadsheet number crunchers come in, and the elves leave Middle Earth[1]. [1]: In…
Comment linking /2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-earth-%E2%80%93-soda%E2%80%99s-are-no-longer-free/
on “Googler... ex-Googler”Submitted The Elves Leave Middle Earth – Sodas Are No Longer Free (2009) as a story · 458 points
HN discussionI feel like the Apple we've seen since Jobs died is exactly what I would have expected if someone let the designers run the show without a strong product manager to reign them in: Gorgeous and mostly user-friendly products, but slightly too caught up in their own cleverness instead of the actual needs of real users. I hope there's a chance to rectify that now - though I fear it won't happen until someone more vision…
Comment linking /2016/10/24/why-tim-cook-is-steve-ballmer-and-why-he-still-has-his-job-at-apple/
on “Jony Ive to form independent design company with Apple as client”Submitted Is the Lean Startup Dead? as a story · 432 points
HN discussionSo did Microsoft when Ballmer took over from Gates. Until suddenly they didn't any more. https://steveblank.com/2016/10/24/why-tim-cook-is-steve-ball... > If you think the job of a CEO is to increase sales, then Ballmer did a spectacular job. He tripled Microsoft’s sales to $78 billion and profits more than doubled from $9 billion to $22 billion. The launch of the Xbox and Kinect, and the acquisitions of Skype and Y…
Comment linking /2016/10/24/why-tim-cook-is-steve-ballmer-and-why-he-still-has-his-job-at-apple/
on “Welcome Chris Lattner”Submitted Why Entrepreneurs Start Companies Rather Than Join Them as a story · 419 points
HN discussionI don't know if it's an entitled fit. Getting rid of a small perk can sometimes just be that little thing that causes an employee to briefly put his head up and start thinking about why he's still working there. It's not something I'd quit over, but maybe something that might remind me to check the job boards this month rather than ignore them like usual. Steve Blank wrote [1] about this. 1: https://steveblank.com/2…
Comment linking /2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-earth-%E2%80%93-soda%E2%80%99s-are-no-longer-free/
on “Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?”Submitted Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple as a story · 397 points
HN discussionIt's also the Steve Blank definition. https://steveblank.com/2010/01/25/whats-a-startup-first-prin...
Comment linking /2010/01/25/whats-a-startup-first-principles/
on “YC’s Essential Startup Advice”Submitted Startup Stock Options – Why A Good Deal Has Gone Bad (2019) as a story · 361 points
HN discussionSteve Blank wrote about this: https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-ear...
Comment linking /2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-earth-%E2%80%93-soda%E2%80%99s-are-no-longer-free/
on ““Great resignation” wave coming for companies”Submitted The Elves Leave Middle Earth – Sodas Are No Longer Free as a story · 327 points
HN discussionI don't know how much correlation between the 'secret' history and the rest of SV's history but if you're interested Steve Blank covers the secret history nicely: https://steveblank.com/secret-history/
Comment linking /secret-history/
on “Google Urged the U.S. to Limit Protection for Activist Workers”Submitted The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed as a story · 304 points
HN discussion
