Notes for June 3rd 2023
- This week I received a letter from The Revenue Commissioners. It outlined an audit that would take place this month, and was terrifying. I've had stock (mostly just plain RSUs) over the last decade or so, and have always done my best to do the right thing, but always fear I wind up owing loads because the whole thing is so opaque. The letter was terrifying as it was worded aggressively, as the government tends to do. And then, later that morning I realised half of the people I know in tech have had the same communication. It stems from lack of proper accounting around ESPP schemes in tech companies, apparently. Enter tax accountant on my side... which actually wipes out a bunch of the ESPP value given the cost of the accountant relative to how much value ESPP drove.
- This week was a wild one at work. I recently took on the role (not an actual job) of Site Lead in our Dublin office, which acts as a dual HQ for the company I work for. And we had our first founder and C-level featuring all hands meeting in the office. Followed by happy hour. It went well, mercifully. Because going well means everyone enjoyed it. Going poorly means it's my fault.
- Reddit has announced pricing for API calls from third party apps. And they've absolutely blown it. They're seeking upwards of tens-of-millions from indie app developers who leverage the platform. Keep in mind, the entire platform is sustained by user-submitted content, and self-moderation from unpaid volunteers. This is much stupider than what happened at Twitter, and will ultimately kill the brand. Digg died a very quick death, so I can see the same happening here if they persist with this. I've said this before, but I never used Twitter, I used Tweetbot. I also don't use Reddit, I use Apollo.
- I also wonder if there's an opportunity for these indie app developers to band together to figure out something to host the content their apps tend to surface as an anti-reddit, that maybe has some cost associated for users; since a lot of app users (myself included) already pay some amount.
- I'm in a hiring sprint at the moment and the level of candidates has been unreal. I had an almost 100% hit-rate on linkedin outreach (helps I'm not a recruiter and the actual hiring manager, granted). That's never happened before. Pipeline is jammed so we had to stop new applicants to avoid burning ourselves out.
