The First Rule of Microsoft Excel: Don’t Tell Anyone You’re Good at It
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Submission timeline
2007–2026One slot for every year since HN launched. Height is that year's peak points; orange marks a 100+ point or 50+ comment breakout. Select a bar to open its strongest thread.
First comments on top threads
HN comment orderYou know who's awesome at Excel? Martin Shkreli. You know, the Wall Street asshole who's in jail now? A while back, someone told me "hey, dude, there are these videos on YouTube where Martin Shkreli uses Excel, and they're fucking magic. It's like the first time you watched someone who's really good at Vim. " It's true: [0]. Say what you will about that little heartless douchebag, he's fucking awesome at using Excel. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFSf5YhYQbw
https://archive.ph/Mrybd
When I do forensic gigs, I use Excel for inspecting and presenting timelines. When you colour-code the entries, and then sort them by different metrics (eg: computer file MAC times, plus external coinciding timed events known to the investigation) you get a really good idea of what was happening in and around any of the suspicious activity points. What activities preceded a file's existence? What preceded the last time it was accessed? It's not perfect since that evidence is pretty…
The first top-level comment from each of the four biggest threads, in HN’s own order. Excerpts are shortened; open a comment for full context.
- Breakout years
- 2
- Total points
- 973
- Total comments
- 631
100+ points or 50+ comments
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
Every submission
| Date | Title as submitted | By | Points | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-10-05 | The First Rule of Microsoft Excel: Don’t Tell Anyone You’re Good at ItFirst breakout · Best thread | sonabinu | 678 | 413 |
| 2021-06-02 | The First Rule of Microsoft Excel–Don’t Tell Anyone You’re Good at It | amrrs | 9 | 2 |
| 2022-10-24 | The first rule of Microsoft Excel: Don’t tell anyone you’re good at itLatest 20+ point return | metadat | 286 | 216 |