AskHN Digest

1. Ask HN: Do you still use search engines?

Top comment by wavemode

Search is primarily a portal - you know a particular resource exists, you just don't know its exact URL.

You hear about this new programming language called "Frob", and you assume it must have a website. So you google "Frob language". You hear that there was a plane crash in DC, and assume (CNN/AP/your_favorite_news_site) has almost certainly written an article about it. You google "DC plane crash."

LLMs aren't ever going to replace search for that use case, simply because they're never going to be as convenient.

Where LLMs will take over from search is when it comes to open-ended research - where you don't know in advance where you're going or what you're going to find. I don't really have frequent use cases of this sort, but depending on your occupation it might revolutionize your daily work.

2. Ask HN: I'm an MIT senior and still unemployed – and so are most of my friends

Top comment by Aurornis

Truly sorry you feel this way. For what it’s worth, this was common for people graduating into the 2008 financial crisis, too. It’s actually unusual that we went for so long without another period of contraction.

From last time around: The people who kept pushing and took any job, anywhere turned out okay. This translated to a lot of people taking jobs below what they expected to get or having to move when they didn’t want to, but it was ultimately temporary.

The people I knew who turned cynical, let negativity take the wheel, and checked out of the job market struggled much harder to get back in.

You’re early in your career. This current period of turmoil doesn’t mean that much, even though it feels like everything right now. Keep at it, work a little harder than your competition, and put a little more care into your applications and it will work out. Stay away from the doom spirals on Reddit or Blind. Uninstall those apps (and others) if they’re making you worse.

3. Ask HN: Where do you reliably find worldwide remote jobs?

Top comment by Nextgrid

In addition to the (real, but somewhat overblown) downturn in tech, the main problem is that hiring is fucked. Both sides are in a scam/fraud arms race.

Getting a job through the front door is basically impossible now - and if you want to try, you will need to lie and do all the dirty tricks your competition does, and even then, your conversion rate will be minuscule.

An alternative is either to go through your network (where people you know can vouch that you are real and not just a monkey slinging ChatGPT'd resumes from a boiler room) or in-person (which is immune to a lot of the boiler-room scams and thus you have more chance your application will actually be considered).

4. Ask HN: Has anyone quit their startup (VC-backed) over cofounder disagreements?

Top comment by fzwang

I used to work in VC and have seen a few examples of this. Every case is a little different, but from what you've described I'd focus on salvaging the co-founder relationship. Conflict like this is totally normal. IMO, a pivot is when you change directions based on new information. It sounds like you're not pivoting, but lost. If you haven't already, addressing this head-on and having a candid conversation about being lost would be beneficial. Think of it as an exercise to possibly strengthen your relationship via conflict. Few other thoughts:

1. At this early stage of the business, the core asset is really the co-founding team and their relationship. Conflict is very much normal, but how you resolve it is important. You should be able to articulate your co-founder's concerns. For ex. she might feel the pressure to show "progress" to your investors.

2. It takes a lot of time and energy to build a good working relationship. Moving onto something else might seem like a good idea at the moment, but you could be right back with the same issue with another co-founder.

3. If you do decide to move on, end the relationship as amicably as you can. Note that this is not necessarily the "quickest" route, but it'll help keep your reputation intact.

Edit: spelling.

5. Ask HN: Why is uptalk intonation so prevalent in ChatGPT voices?

Top comment by slillibri

They are still working on a realistic vocal fry?

6. Ask HN: What books have been worth your time?

Top comment by tetris11

Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice series.

Culture, gender identity, hive mind, all rolled up into one extremely dense universe with a rich history told through warfare and cutting remarks, humanising potentially inhuman central characters with a vague number of limbs.

It takes ten pages to get used to the dense yet clipped writing style, but once it clicks, you cannot put the book(s) down: the plot moves forward at breakneck speed.

7. Ask HN: Is Hacker News avoiding criticism of Trump?

Top comment by tomhow

In the past week there have been:

7 submissions with "Trump" in the title, and over 100 comments in the thread:

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastWeek&page=0&prefix=tru...

9 submissions with "Tariff" in the title, and over 100 comments in the thread:

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastWeek&page=0&prefix=tru...

Apart from perhaps LLMs, no other topic has had anywhere near as much discussion, and the stories and comment threads are full of criticism.

You may not be seeing them because because they often get pushed down the rankings due to the flamewar detector, user flags and software penalties that are applied to submissions about politics and mainstream news.

If those mechanisms weren't in place, the front page would be dominated by flame wars about U.S. politics every day, which is not what the majority of the HN audience wants.

The intention of HN is to be a place to discover and discuss different topics that engage intellectual curiosity.

But the stories, discussions and criticisms are definitely there, and are getting plenty of exposure on the front page.

8. Ask HN: How will the tariffs affect investor funding?

Top comment by toomuchtodo

IPO window is closed/dead for at least the next 3-6 months. Both Klarna and Circle have paused their upcoming IPOs. Even the corporate bond market is seizing up at the moment. Uncertainty is toxic to long term investment.

https://www.marketplace.org/story/2025/04/08/why-has-the-cor...

https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/stock-market-tariffs-trade-... | https://archive.today/iKHbX

9. Ask HN: What made your favorite manager so great?

Top comment by billy99k

Mine had just the right balance of tech knowledge, business knowledge, and could play politics. He never threw me under the bus and defended my role to all upper management. He would also push back on ridiculous ideas and dead lines.

You could also pick up the phone and call him night/day and he would try to help you in any way that he could.

When we were acquired, he advocated on my behalf and made it known that the new company would still need me to maintain our existing systems. I'm still here 4 years later and he has since been fired.

He has FU money (he never has to work again at 59) and couldn't keep his mouth shut when a new director was leading us on a path of destruction, so the only logical conclusion was to get rid of him.

We are now friends and talk at least once/month.

10. Ask HN: For the privacy minded, How do you prepare for gadget Border Searches?

Top comment by OrbitalShotput_

Bruce Schneier recently reached out to the general community looking for solutions to this as well

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2025/04/cell-phone-op...

Adding context on the image thing-

I have old 32 bit apps for some of my hardware cameras / other devices that attach to Android Phones, that will not be backed up with all their settings, and that worries me as even though I've extracted their APKs for preserve, each install requires reaching out to a server for first activation and one day there won't be a response when the companies that made those hardware cameras end support - and I won't be able to do that first activation which is all they need.

A Full image theoretically would make this a non-factor- but the built in Backup method for Android doesn't do this. This would be the same if had the Apple variant of these cameras. And while things like TWRP exist which could attempt it fully- that involves unlocking the bootloader which is what one does not want when there is a chance of a casual forensic search.