Talks Hacker News recommends
Every talk in the HackerTube list, best-scored first. The score counts the number of different months in which someone on HN recommended it, so a talk people kept coming back to for years outranks one viral thread.
- 17 HN recommenders 18 months 2013–2026HN recommends it repeatedly as one of the best and most entertaining programming talks, and as the talk that makes the Y combinator click, even for people who do not use Ruby.
- 19 HN recommenders 18 months 2016–2024A Andor Gafotas · talkHN repeatedly calls it the best in-depth introduction to IC manufacturing, a sense-of-awe talk by an independent engineer, while wishing for an updated version.
- 13 HN recommenders 17 months 2018–2026HN repeatedly recommends it as a master class in limited-palette pixel art and palette cycling, from an artist behind Loom and Monkey Island.
- 15 HN recommenders 16 months 2017–2025S Видео с мероприятий {speach! · talkIt is HN's standard answer to why Python cannot easily get much faster, and is recommended by people who work on JITs and alternative runtimes.
- 15 HN recommenders 15 months 2015–2025HN treats it as a top-tier programming talk for learning refactoring and for the wrong-abstraction principle, recommended repeatedly over a decade.
- 16 HN recommenders 14 months 2019–2024It is HN's favorite pitch for Elixir and the BEAM, credited with convincing many people to adopt them.
- 14 HN recommenders 14 months 2022–2026HN treats it as the canonical talk on software complexity, shared constantly and recommended to every programmer regardless of language.
- 11 HN recommenders 15 months 2012–2025HN commenters repeatedly recommend it as the talk that finally made quantum mechanics click, especially for programmers.
- 16 HN recommenders 14 months 2015–2025HN commenters repeatedly name it as the best explanation of the JS event loop and the first thing to watch before tackling async code.
- 15 HN recommenders 14 months 2015–2026HN's go-to recommendation for colormap and color-perception questions; commenters call it funny, brief, clear and a favorite talk.
- 16 HN recommenders 14 months 2019–2025The most-recommended balanced take on systemd, from a BSD perspective, handed to anyone caught up in the systemd debate.
- 15 HN recommenders 13 months 2019–2026Y You Gotta Love Frontend · talkThe most recommended introduction to Svelte, credited with sparking its adoption.
- 9 HN recommenders 13 months 2017–2026HN repeatedly recommends it as a talk that changed how people model data, with ideas that apply well beyond Elm to any typed language.
- 7 HN recommenders 11 months 2017–2025HN repeatedly recommends it as an entertaining, mind-opening talk on allocator design and composable generic programming.
- 12 HN recommenders 12 months 2018–2025Praised as a brilliant, deadpan and inventive hardware hack, and a good starting point for Tom7's videos.
- 13 HN recommenders 11 months 2020–2024R Rob Walling · talkIt is the go-to talk HN commenters recommend to anyone asking about bootstrapping, SaaS pricing, or choosing bootstrapping over VC.
- 13 HN recommenders 11 months 2007–2015HN returns to it for years as an inspirational talk to send to graduates, founders and anyone at a career crossroads.
- 12 HN recommenders 13 months 2018–2025It is HN's most frequently recommended starting point for quantum computing because it avoids pop-science hand-waving and needs only basic linear algebra.
- 12 HN recommenders 12 months 2013–2025G grapefrukt · talkThe go-to recommendation on game feel and polish, cited by HN as one of the best talks for anyone making interactive things feel good.
- 13 HN recommenders 12 months 2012–2025G GoogleFOSSSydney · talkHN returns to it for years as an elegant introduction to writing a lexer that is easy to follow even without a parsing background.
- 11 HN recommenders 12 months 2017–2026HN repeatedly recommends it as an amazing talk that derives the essence of Lisp and shows miniKanren-style program synthesis.
- 12 HN recommenders 11 months 2018–2024T The Artificial Intelligence Channel · talkHN regularly calls it mind-blowing and recommends it as an introduction to Levin's work on bioelectricity and regeneration.
- 12 HN recommenders 11 months 2014–2024HN treats it as the canonical talk on simulation testing and a mind-blowing example of how far rigorous testing can go.
- 9 HN recommenders 11 months 2016–2026HN repeatedly recommends it as the deepest public look at how iCloud Keychain and Apple's device and cloud security are designed.
- 11 HN recommenders 11 months 2018–2024D DevTernity Conference · talkHN repeatedly calls it the best talk on testing, and many say it changed how they approach tests, mocks and the meaning of a unit.
- 12 HN recommenders 11 months 2013–2025R Rui Oliveira · talkIt is HN's go-to recommendation for the case that programming environments should give instant feedback, and it appears in nearly every thread on live coding, visual programming or developer tools.
- 12 HN recommenders 12 months 2011–2025HN repeatedly names it the best resource on API design, a staple answer to any 'how do I design an API' question.
- 10 HN recommenders 11 months 2014–2023HN commenters cite it as the talk that convinced them of immutability and functional programming.
- 12 HN recommenders 11 months 2017–2026J Joey Reid · talkHN treats it as a classic, near-mandatory talk on how programming tools and paradigms stagnated and which older ideas deserve revival.
- 10 HN recommenders 11 months 2014–2025D Dutch Game Garden · talkA perennial recommendation for anyone learning game feel and juice, praised for showing concrete steps that turn a bland prototype into a satisfying game.
- 4 HN recommenders 10 months 2017–2021HN people cite it constantly as the clearest explanation of normalization of deviance and how complex systems drift toward failure.
- 12 HN recommenders 12 months 2019–2025M Metosin · talkHN treats it as the standard answer to why FP isn't mainstream and why languages succeed.
- 16 HN recommenders 10 months 2019–2025HN treats it as the best real-world AAA example of ECS and game netcode, and cites it constantly in discussions of data-oriented design.
- 14 HN recommenders 11 months 2018–2025HN commenters send people to it whenever nulls, Maybe/Option or static typing come up, as a thoughtful dissent from the type-system orthodoxy that changes how some people model data.
- 12 HN recommenders 11 months 2019–2025L Living Web Farms · talkHN commenters call it their favorite introduction to regenerative agriculture, and several say it changed how they garden or farm.
- 10 HN recommenders 11 months 2019–2025C Clojure/north · talkHN repeatedly recommends it as a fantastic demonstration of procedural, OOP and FP approaches to the same problem, and of functional core and imperative shell.
- 10 HN recommenders 11 months 2012–2023HN commenters frequently recommend it as an eye-opening case against heavy porn use, though it is contested science.
- 8 HN recommenders 11 months 2018–2025A perennial HN recommendation for outage and postmortem threads, praised as funny, educational and one of the best postmortems anyone has seen.
- 10 HN recommenders 11 months 2011–2017A perennial HN recommendation whenever lobbying, SOPA, taxes or political corruption come up, with several commenters saying it changed their views.
- 14 HN recommenders 12 months 2020–2025D DevGAMM · talkIt is the standard link in HN threads about software decay, lost knowledge and fragile technological civilization.
- 12 HN recommenders 10 months 2010–2024T The Qualcomm Institute · talkRecommended for years as the best technical introduction to memristors from the person who found the physical device.
- 9 HN recommenders 10 months 2018–2026HN commenters recommend it as a pointed critique of philanthropy and win-win thinking, delivered inside Google itself, and cite it across threads on wealth, tax and tech power.
- 9 HN recommenders 10 months 2010–2017Repeatedly called one of the most useful talks on building organizations and managing creative teams.
- 12 HN recommenders 10 months 2019–2025It is the standard recommendation for anyone puzzled by unexplained benchmark changes from tiny code edits, and for learning about causal profiling.
- 9 HN recommenders 9 months 2018–2022H hitch archive · talkHN invokes it in nearly every content moderation and censorship thread as the most eloquent case for free speech.
- 10 HN recommenders 11 months 2012–2026P powerfuloutlet · talkA staple on must-watch lists, recommended as a starting point for Kay's thinking and for why software is often poor and ahistorical.
- 12 HN recommenders 11 months 2019–2025A AmericanRhetoric.com · talkRecommended often as a clear explanation of why the US system is built to be slow and why gridlock protects minorities.
- 10 HN recommenders 10 months 2017–2026HN treats it as the standard starting point for Game Boy emulator writers and homebrew developers, with several calling it one of their favorite talks.
- 6 HN recommenders 10 months 2017–2020Repeatedly urged on people choosing a stack, as a case against heavy SPA complexity and for shared web and native code.
- 11 HN recommenders 10 months 2014–2026B Bill Pugh · talkHN considers it one of the best technical talks ever and cites it in discussions of language design, small cores and extensibility.
- 10 HN recommenders 10 months 2018–2026HN considers it a classic, hilarious and sobering talk on ML inscrutability and tech hubris, often rewatched.
- 11 HN recommenders 10 months 2018–2026HN treats it as the standard one-hour teaser for the book and recommends it for its deep-modules thinking before buying or reading the book.
- 6 HN recommenders 10 months 2012–2019K killab66661 · talkCited repeatedly to rebut 'just don't use Facebook' arguments and to explain why tracking becomes hard to escape at critical mass.
- 10 HN recommenders 10 months 2016–2022P Paul Stringer's Mobile Tech · talkHN recommends it as an engaging overview of programming history and an argument for professional standards, citing the agile manifesto section and the claim that software has advanced little since the 1950s.
- 11 HN recommenders 11 months 2018–2024HN recommends it, long as it is, as an eye-opening rant on software complexity and why systems became so complicated.
- 9 HN recommenders 10 months 2018–2026HN repeatedly cites it as the definitive explanation of SwissTable, the design behind Abseil, Rust's hash map and Go's maps.
- 10 HN recommenders 10 months 2017–2026HN's go-to link in typing debates and for talk lists, and several call it their favorite programming talk even for non-Clojure users.
- 10 HN recommenders 9 months 2014–2025HN repeatedly recommends it as the definitive explanation of why Java evolves cautiously and why compatibility matters in language design.
- 12 HN recommenders 9 months 2019–2025The go-to recommendation for learning DynamoDB data modeling, with many saying it made access-pattern-driven design click.
- 11 HN recommenders 10 months 2016–2024M MIT Club of Northern California · talkHN points to it as the grounded, approachable explanation of why REBCO magnets changed the outlook for fusion.
- 13 HN recommenders 10 months 2013–2026M Mladen Mijatov · talkHN treats it as the definitive, funny and educational answer to why X could not be fixed, and links it in almost every Wayland vs X argument.
- 10 HN recommenders 10 months 2013–2022Frequently recommended as an influential talk on decoupled, testable architecture, though some commenters push back on Martin's TDD advocacy.
- 9 HN recommenders 9 months 2018–2023HN treats it as the go-to explanation of ECS, valuable even for people who don't use Rust.
- 6 HN recommenders 10 months 2014–2022The go-to talk showing how Erlang let a tiny team run a massive messaging system.
- 7 HN recommenders 9 months 2021–2026S SIGGRAPH Advances in Real-Time Rendering · talkHN treats it as the definitive deep dive on Nanite, admired for the engineering ambition behind pixel-sized triangles and compute-driven rendering.
- 12 HN recommenders 11 months 2014–2024HN returns to it constantly as permission and method for thinking deeply before coding, and as an antidote to always-working anxiety.
- 11 HN recommenders 10 months 2009–2020A classic recommended to people learning JavaScript, even though some find it dogmatic and dated.
- 9 HN recommenders 9 months 2012–2026HN points to it as the definitive, entertaining account of Sun's fate under Oracle, and quotes its Ellison lawnmower advice whenever Oracle behaves badly.
- 9 HN recommenders 8 months 2007–2023HN repeatedly recommends it as the iconic explanation of why git is designed as it is and why distributed VCS beats centralized ones.
- 9 HN recommenders 9 months 2015–2026A Alexandre Franco · talkHN recommends it as a talk whose advice on simplicity and avoiding unnecessary work applies well beyond games.
- 9 HN recommenders 10 months 2014–2024HN repeatedly names it among the best programming talks, loved for its craftsmanship message that complex tooling can hide simpler solutions.
- 9 HN recommenders 9 months 2015–2025Commenters repeatedly cite it as the talk that reframed how they think about caching, derived data and event sourcing.
- 9 HN recommenders 9 months 2015–2026The canonical recommendation whenever percentiles, tail latency, load testing or averages come up, described by some as life changing.
- 8 HN recommenders 9 months 2015–2024HN recommends it as the canonical presentation of 'functional core, imperative shell' and a practical answer to unit versus integration testing.
- 13 HN recommenders 10 months 2016–2024A perennial favorite, recommended as proof that expressive modern C++ can compile to efficient code even on tiny retro hardware.
- USENIX ATC '21/OSDI '21 Joint Keynote Address-It's Time for Operating Systems to Rediscover Hardware12 HN recommenders 9 months 2021–2026Repeatedly recommended as a revelatory talk on how little control the main OS has over modern SoCs and PCs.
- 8 HN recommenders 9 months 2016–2022Frequently recommended in threads on nutrition, cancer and veganism as a science-focused case for plant-based diets, with at least one commenter saying it made them go vegan.
- 12 HN recommenders 9 months 2013–2025Recurs in threads about RSI, accessibility and voice coding as the go-to demo of a custom spoken command language.
- 8 HN recommenders 8 months 2015–2024HN repeatedly cites it as a striking example of Common Lisp used to push the frontier of science, and as one of the most inspiring tech talks.
- 6 HN recommenders 9 months 2008–2024HN has recommended it for years as the most useful and entertaining talk on sleep, often to people struggling with tiredness or productivity.
- 9 HN recommenders 8 months 2021–2026It is one of HN's most frequently recommended programming talks, cited whenever people debate complexity, simplicity and abstraction, and valued well beyond Clojure.
- 9 HN recommenders 9 months 2014–2022HN treats it as a must-watch classic for writing Pythonic code, though somewhat dated for modern Python.
- 7 HN recommenders 9 months 2014–2025HN programmers recommend it, and the Jai series that followed, for the game-industry view on replacing C++ and for watching a language being invented.
- 10 HN recommenders 10 months 2016–2025HN treats it as the canonical talk for the case that vanilla Vim goes a long way and plugin dependencies are a burden.
- 12 HN recommenders 9 months 2015–2026C CreativeMornings HQ · talkHN regulars send freelancers and consultants to it whenever clients don't pay or contracts come up.
- 8 HN recommenders 9 months 2013–2026HN cites it repeatedly as the root-cause argument that money in politics must be fixed before other issues, and as background for his Mayday PAC.
- 10 HN recommenders 9 months 2016–2024HN returns to it in every versioning and API stability debate as a challenging, contrarian talk worth watching.
- 9 HN recommenders 9 months 2016–2025HN treats it as the definitive, engaging talk on hash table internals and Python dict ordering, and recommends it in tech-talk lists.
- 9 HN recommenders 9 months 2015–2026It is the go-to talk HN points to for data-oriented design and hardware-aware performance thinking, despite Acton's blunt style.
- 9 HN recommenders 9 months 2012–2024HN commenters call it one of the best security talks and the standard introduction to LANGSEC, which they use to argue for simpler, well-specified input formats.
- 11 HN recommenders 9 months 2009–2017For over a decade HN has pointed people asking about stress, focus or meditation to this as a restful and approachable introduction to mindfulness.
- 8 HN recommenders 9 months 2017–2025E Eskil Steenberg · talkHN recommends it as the one long programming video worth watching, a provocative and influential take on C.
- 9 HN recommenders 8 months 2015–2026HN regards it as an entertaining and eye-opening introduction to why logic and functional programming are connected, and it is a frequent pick in favorite-tech-talk threads.
- 10 HN recommenders 9 months 2013–2025HN recommends it as a key Hickey talk on system design that changes how people think about distributed state and interfaces.
- 11 HN recommenders 9 months 2016–2026Offered in nearly every Agile or Scrum complaint thread as the authoritative take on what agile was meant to be versus what it became.
- 9 HN recommenders 9 months 2012–2025The canonical recommendation for learning Go concurrency, praised as entertaining and clarifying when to use channels versus mutexes.
- 3 HN recommenders 8 months 2019–2024N Nysnø Klimainvesteringer · talkFrequently linked as a sobering, data-grounded counterpoint to techno-optimism about decarbonization and green growth.
- 8 HN recommenders 8 months 2012–2025HN returns to it repeatedly as the canonical argument for simplicity and against premature abstraction, and several commenters say it changed how they write code.
- 8 HN recommenders 8 months 2016–2023HN recommends it as a favourite tech talk full of good ideas from forgotten 1980s software, worth watching in full.
- 9 HN recommenders 9 months 2014–2025HN calls it the famous talk for understanding why React rejected separation of concerns by technology and for newcomers puzzled by JSX.
Showing the 100 best-scored of 1432. Use search to find the rest.
Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.