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Recently, Microsoft announced its Edge browser will transition to using Chromium as its rendering engine. To say people in the tech industry have strong feelings about this is putting it mildly. The announcement added fuel to an ongoing debate around whether the market dominance of Chromium gives Google too much control over the web. Between Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge, Chromium-based browsers will now account for over 76% of desktop browsers worldwide—giving Chromium, and by extension Google, massive leverage in defining the standards for web development. Many are comparing Chromium's current popularity to that of Internet Explorer in the early 2000s, when Internet Explorer accounted for over 90% of all web browsers. What's fascinating about the rise of Chromium, however, is how different it is from the Internet Explorer era. The dominance of early-2000s Windows and Internet Explorer made it nearly impossible for other companies to build browsers—this was at the heart of Microsoft's 2001 antitrust lawsuit. Chromium, on the other hand, has created a reliable, open-source platform for many new browsers, creating a thriving ecosystem of stable browsers tailored to different audiences:
- Brave - A privacy-focused browser with the tagline, “You are not a product.” The browser blocks ads and trackers by default, claiming better performance and privacy as a result.
- Vivaldi - A project launched by Opera alums, Vivaldi is a Chromium browser that strives to be as customizable as possible. As it says on its site, “From the look and feel, to how you interact with your browser, every aspect of Vivaldi can be tweaked and customized.”
- Blisk - A browser built specifically for developers. Blisk allows you to simultaneously test your code on multiple devices, take one-click screenshots, and evaluate code via a built-in analytics dashboard.
The stability and popularity of Chromium are making it easier than ever to bring new, viable browsers to users. While many are afraid of Chromium's market penetration creating an Internet Explorer-esque monoculture, so far, we're seeing a whole new wave of makers shipping exciting new projects in the browser market.
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Engineers hate your take-home project—here's how to fix it
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Engineering take-home tests are a controversial thing. While some employers swear by them, just as many engineers believe they are disrespectful, lazy, and flat out refuse to proceed with interviews that include them.
The truth is: Take-home interviews are awesome, but they're really easy for startups to get disastrously wrong. A good take-home offers several advantages over other testing methods:
- It provides a more accurate work sample than whiteboard interviews or timed challenges.
- It removes the stress that unrealistically high-pressure tests—like timed challenges—induce.
- It creates easy benchmarks because every engineer should receive the same test.
Unfortunately, hiring managers often give out take-home projects that take days to complete, have no relation to the work an engineer will be doing at the company, and stress a potential engineer more than an algorithmic interview would. To create a take-home that engineers will actually complete, while still giving you a good measure of their abilities, there are three key principles to follow.
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Megatrends in tech and missed opportunities
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“Basically everyone has a plan until you get punched in the face, and as a startup, you’re going to get your face punched in. The important thing is ‘what do you do next?’” — Garry Tan
Garry Tan started Initialized HQ, a multi-stage fund, with Alexis Ohanian, one of the cofounders of reddit. The fund has grown tremendously over the past six years with nearly $1 billion under management, a team of more than 10, and investments in a few companies you might be a customer of, including Coinbase, Instacart, Algolia, and a bunch of others.
In this episode of Product Hunt Radio, he gets into his early years working as a software engineer, the story of when Peter Thiel tried to hire him away from Microsoft to join Palantir, the reason conflict management is an often-overlooked skill for founders, and which “megatrends” are creating opportunities for investors and founders in tech today.
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Hot startups hiring now 🔥
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