November 29, 2025
Regrets, Rover, and Real Talk
Tell HN: Regrets. Think carefully about how you spend your time
Facing surgery, a founder bares regrets — HN floods with empathy, ethics, and dog energy
TLDR: A startup founder facing risky surgery shared deep regrets and an ethics confession, sparking a wave of support and a fiery debate on accountability. The community mixed empathy with calls to own past actions—and rallied behind the simplest plan: recover, reflect, and get a dog.
A gut-punch post on Hacker News from a founder heading into risky surgery sent the community into full heart-on-sleeve mode. The author confessed to wasted time, a haunting ethical lapse involving “banning and erasing” a young programmer, and a late-blooming love for dogs. The comments swung between open-armed compassion and a bracing ethics reckoning. The warm crowd chimed in with “Godspeed” energy and the rallying cry “We win or we learn,” while others locked onto the confession, calling it a mirror to tech’s tendency to exile dissenters. The hottest take: remorse matters, but accountability isn’t a donation basket.
Then the thread pulled a hard left into puppy propaganda. One commenter vowed, “Get a dog ASAP,” turning it into a meme-worthy pledge for recovery pics and a reminder that joy is urgent. Dark humor peeked through — “if not, you won’t care anyway” — mixing levity with existential honesty. Meanwhile, a softer chorus repeated that you only take with you what you’ve given: service, love, courage.
The big mood? Do the right thing today, because tomorrow is just another today. And while building companies isn’t building communities, HN itself briefly became one — messy, tender, and very online. This thread wasn’t just about mortality; it was a referendum on tech’s soul.
Key Points
- •The author is 38 hours from a surgery and has been told his chance of surviving the next year is better than 50/50.
- •He founded three companies, two of which succeeded, but recalls only a few truly meaningful moments from those decades.
- •He argues daily habits persist, cautioning against treating the present day as an exception that enables procrastination or overwork.
- •He recounts a 2015 involvement in efforts to ban and discredit a young programmer, including attacks using sockpuppets on Reddit.
- •He distinguishes company-building from community-building, advises kindness to animals, and reflects on the lasting weight of ethical decisions.