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Never put yourself in a position that will put yourself at risk if you make the wrong decision. We spent cash on everything. It's fashionable to make 'bet the company' decisions, but don't do it.

Joel Spolsky

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Joel Spolsky
Age: 59
Born: 1965
Born: January 1
Businessperson
Chief Executive Officer
Computer Scientist
Programmer
Software Engineer
Albuquerque
New Mexico
Avram Joel Spolsky
Everything
Cash
Make
Decisions
Never
Spent
Risk
Position
Decision
Company
Wrong
Fashionable

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Writing code is not production, it's not always craftsmanship though it can be, it's design.
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Design adds value faster than it adds cost.
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Last week I was listening to a podcast on Hanselminutes, with Robert Martin talking about the SOLID principles... They all sounded to me like extremely bureaucratic programming that came from the mind of somebody that has not written a lot of code, frankly.
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So if you want to get things done, you positively have to understand at any given point in time what is the most important thing to get done right now and if you're not doing it, you're not making progress at the fastest possible rate.
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Something is usable if it behaves exactly as expected.
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Shipping is a feature. A really important feature. Your product must have it.
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Good software, like wine, takes time.
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The secret of Big Macs is that they're not very good, but every one is not very good in exactly the same way.
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Common programmer thought pattern: there are only three numbers: 0, 1, and n.
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Full service brokers, in this day and age of low cost mutual funds and discount brokers, are really nothing more than machines for ripping off retail investors.
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People ridiculously overvalue aesthetics and beauty when evaluating products. It's one of the reasons iPods, and, for that matter, Keanu Reeves, are so successful.
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Beware of Methodologies. They are a great way to bring everyone up to a dismal, but passable, level of performance, but at the same time, they are aggravating to more talented people who chafe at the restrictions that are placed on them.
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I've been using Vista on my home laptop since it shipped, and can say with some conviction that nobody should be using it as their primary operating system - it simply has no redeeming merits to overcome the compatibility headaches it causes.
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If you can't understand the spec for a new technology, don't worry: nobody else will understand it either, and the technology won't be that important.
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Entrepreneurship boils down to the simple fact that a team of really smart people who can get things done are going to get smart, useful things done.
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Nothing works better than just improving your product.
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An idea isn't worth that much. It's the execution of the idea that has value. If you can't convince one other person that this is something to devote your life to, then it's not worth it.
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Listen to your customers, not your competitors.
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That's another flaw with performance-based rewards: They are easy for one of your competitors to top.
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Remember, just because Microsoft can do something, doesn't mean you can. Microsoft makes their own gravity. Normal rules don't apply to them.
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