Hacker News: built on more than good software
10 April 2026
Every developer who sees HN thinks, “I could build that in a weekend.” And they’re right; they absolutely could. In fact, I’d assume they’re pretty shite at their jobs if they couldn’t. What they couldn’t build in a weekend // month // year // probably ever, is the thing that makes Hacker News actually work. And that ~thing is not the software.
There’s this concept called googlyness. Legend has it, if you want to work at Google, you need a certain set of traits, apparently referred to as googlyness.
To build the next Hacker News, and make a success of it, you’re going to need hackernewsness, something possibly far more elusive than googlyness.
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