Visionary leadership left the company? And arguably it lost its soul and excitement. I genuinely thought when Marissa Mayer was brought in as CEO and announced they bought Tumblr for $1.1 billion in cash, I thought she could actually turn Yahoo! around - that she understood platforms and holistic systems; perhaps she did but her hands were tied, and then they made terrible decisions like banning porn on Tumblr - so bureaucracy, politics, and arguably the ad industrial complex and "mainstream" pressures (perhaps like billing/financial system being used as a tool to suppress freedom/sexuality/porn because they've not been successful politically) were pressures her or the Board of Directors couldn't counter.

Then Google came along and was a better search engine, for a time, that was a traffic leak for Yahoo! - and then Google has now devolved; I also thought Google had a good shot at competing with Facebook, but whomever's pulling the strings there, the launch of various platforms, they don't seem to understand it can take 5-10 years after the MVP of a product is launched for it to mature - but for whatever reason their executives or managers haven't been comfortable pulling the trigger, arguably because anyone with that entrepreneurial spirit just takes their idea and gets funding and owns a large portion of whatever they've done; but then you can never develop a full breadth, holistic ecosystem, that can grow into every crevice, nor as broadly, or nuanced as possible - so they're stuck being Search, Gmail, Calendar, etc.

I'm quite certain I've figured out the foundational MVP facilitating an "infinitely" growing system and that would allow 3rd parties to integrate, however I have severe chronic pain that messes up my executive function, so it's difficult for me to actually self-direct and execute - I'm stuck mostly in a low activity, stream of consciousness and go-with-the-flow life of routine - otherwise I would try to launch my plans, which I've done plenty of UX/UI for, as that is simple enough that somehow bypasses higher executive function (moving a pixel and then responding via visual feeling of it isn't complex) - but organizing to turn that into adequate specs to get solid estimates or fixed price quotes for work is extremely difficult to me.

On January 11th I do have a surgery that may or may not reduce my pain by 50%+, may or may not improve my executive function, ... I've even attempted to write draft "Show HN:" posts to explain what I am doing, the starting feature sets, the reasoning behind the design decisions I've made - but it just gets too complicated too quickly for me mentally then to be able to organize further or polish it. I think I have the perfect domain name for it too: ENGN (engine), what makes me smile every time I notice it in my layout/mockup of it is in the search input box it says "Search ENGN". My username on HN actually is an older incarnation of a plan I had, loceng being a short form of "local engine" - and ENGN being from engine, a name I brainstormed after Tumblr sold for $1.1 billion - and I realized that eventually I'd want to try to do my "local engine" idea but that that was too long for a brand name. Fortunately engn.com was for sale at the time, I can't remember if it was $2,000 USD or $4,000 USD - either way, not a bad price for a 4-letter .com that's pronounceable to something with meaning.

I've wanted to write a book too - on health, health systems, and on these systems we're talking about here. I'm 38 now and I taught myself to program when I was 11, learned SEO at 15, evolved to design as I'm more creative and programming became mindnumbing to me, and eventually thought I'd need (or want) VC money - so I started engaging on Fred Wilson's of USV.com's blog - AVC.com - so I have plenty of self-taught experience. The problem is even going back to my shorter or longer writings, or comments of mine on HN or other, it's nearly impossible for me to try to do the organization of it all - to compile parts, etc.

Maybe this surgery goes well and I can begin to do more, or maybe it doesn't; I've tried to hire people or get help over the years but 1) no one has been willing to engage enough as I'd need due to my executive dysfunction, and maybe that's a moot point as 2) it's extremely difficult for me to even manage someone or an ongoing project - whereas I could explain things and direct if people are initiating, if others are directing the conversation, then I could respond - but otherwise I can't do normal oversight and management any longer.

The most accurate odds I can give that this surgery will help (piriformis syndrome, my sciatic nerve goes through the piriformis muscles, rather than around it - so there's constant compression + that's worsened with use/engagement of the muscle) is 50/50. There's a high probability that this surgery t's not related to the primary source of my pain, which is from LASIK eye surgery I did 7 years ago - I got arguably the worst of the worst symptoms: central sensitization and hyperalgesia - a hypersensitivity to pain, where all sensations, pain especially, is amplified to as what seems as strongly as possible; and why I must highly limit my activity level as any little stresses on body, likely even normal natural muscle use which causes micro-tears, then compounds the problem and will take many days of very low activity to return to a still difficult-dysfunctional baseline. But perhaps there's a high probability that the sciatic nerve having been compressed for most of my life, my mind, nervous system, could handle that level of pain/sensitization - but then the damage to the cornea that happens in 100% of LASIK surgeries was what finally broke the camels back.

If this surgery doesn't go well, doesn't help - which it took me 1.5 years to even find a surgeon who does this type of specialized surgery - then I'm afraid I may end my life because this pain, the lack of productivity, of being stuck, of quite little social interaction overall - HN is likely the most stimulated my mind gets, only possible to write this fluidly when it's been at least 3 days of eating a very low inflammatory diet and very low activity level - and only if I've been mostly inactive, primarily sitting, since waking and getting out of bed - to not trigger any pain in my body. Anyway, it gets boring, repetitive.

I've thought of trying to find an Elixir/Phoenix/React/etc developer or agency on Upwork before surgery and try to struggle to get them on at least developing the initial foundation of ENGN, but aside from the struggles I listed above that I'll encounter, it also will cost additional money - and I've not worked in 5 years, I've spent $250,000+ on stem cell treatments to heal old high school football injuries, that I didn't even know I mostly had and only weren't tolerable after LASIK made my nervous system super hypersensitive - and to pay for this surgery my mother is taking $27,000+ USD out of her retirement; I'm in Ontario, Canada, but the healthcare system has been practically useless to me. Even if the foundation for ENGN would cost just $5,000 to $10,000 to get the ball rolling in terms of starting to get users to signup and bringing in revenues - it's more money, but even thinking about that additional stress would put on my mother, then adds to my already overwhelmed nervous system - so there's plenty of resistance there to overcome on its own. There's also always the potential I'd somehow hire a bad contractor or agency, bad in one or many ways, and then the MVP wouldn't get finished - primarily because of my own incompetency-dysfunction, and then I will just be reminded, again, of how stuck my life is and how it barely moves forward - personally or professionally.

I'm living a version of the Groundhog Day movie that keeps repeating itself, except where I'm in pain, and so far where I can tell people my story and ask as many people as possible to help and nothing happens. It's why last thing I try is this surgery, though I am supposed to do another PICL stem cell treatment - where they treat tissues inside of my neck - the first one did reduce my neck pain and migraine some - for whiplash related issues, in part from football - because they only treat one side of the tissues, not all of the tissues, the first treatment - and so the second treatment they target the remaining high yield tissues. But I'm certain I'll know after the surgery if there's any improvement or hope that my life can start to become different, and even though there is a stromal stem cell treatment that was developed at University of Pittsburgh - that had very successful human clinical trials, that were fast tracked under compassionate grounds in India, to heal/regenerate deeper corneal tissue for severe scarring and chemical burns - the ETA for it being FDA approved was 5 years to be clinically available in the US, perhaps less time before available in India, but I'll have nothing else significant treatment wise for further pain reduction to look forward to in the near term after getting this surgery - and so why I'm afraid I won't be around much longer if it doesn't help much.