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841.
by ced 19y ago
Sounds like a funding proposal. He makes a lot of strong claims regarding his own abilities. Fun quote from McCarthy: "My own opinion is that the computers of 30 years ago were fast enough [for AI] if only we knew how to program them."
842.
by ced 19y ago
Maybe Google is priming itself for an aquisition by the DoJ. There's gotta be some kind of technological solution to the problem of data centralization and privacy, without sacrificing usability. Maybe desktop software will make a comeback
843.
by ced 19y ago
Startups should probably wait until they are successful before saying "And YC rejected us". Saying it early doesn't really mean anything.
844.
by ced 19y ago
"Maybe that's fun if you don't have anything better to do, but when you're actually trying to accomplish something it can be deadly." Doesn't that also apply to, eg.: reading Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs? Surely, when y
845.
by ced 19y ago
Sure. My point was that the "worst case" might be worst than selling right now. Holding out for fuck you money is sometimes a bad decision. I wish I had built Friendster, of course.
846.
by ced 19y ago
Yes, but the article is specifically about what one could do with all that money. And his answer is, more or less: buy a Mercedes. I'm not even arguing against that. I mean, most companies make money by providing a useful service to peopl
847.
by ced 19y ago
Sure. What does that have to do with what I said? Maybe I come off as morally smug, or something... I should be more careful about it. I meant to say that I feel much more motivated by reading rms's dream to cure HIV ( http://news.ycombin
848.
by ced 19y ago
Oy, is that really the ideal we're supposed to aspire to? The American Dream? Think about how many people in need one could help with 1 million per year...
849.
by ced 19y ago
Or end up with Friendster.com
850.
by ced 19y ago
This: http://searchengineland.com/061229-084131.php says that Google maps has less than half the marketshare of MapQuest. I'd love to see an article explaining why that is. First mover advantage?
851.
by ced 19y ago
College and the Steady Job are still the safest path for the vast majority of people. Risk-taking is not in everyone's blood. Most want a sense of security. Artificial or not.
852.
by ced 19y ago
Just how stereotypical are we talking, here? That's not the high school girl VC that PG described. The guy even said No to their product.
853.
by ced 19y ago
Yeah, but Charles Schultz could sell his copyright for more money because the new holder knew that it would still be valid for a long time. Though, there might be a case to be made that we'd all be better off if copyrights could not be sold
854.
by ced 19y ago
Sounds like they are trying to reimplement the web.
855.
by ced 19y ago
- Once a copyright expires, the physical medium encoding the work (book, CD, etc...) becomes a commodity, which anyone can replicate. Under good competition, the profit from selling those should be very small. Even moreso in the digital age
856.
by ced 19y ago
Copyrights and patents don't exist to protect their inventor. They provide an incentive for people to create IP, which is beneficial to society. Extending IP rights tends to increase the incentive. On the other hand, works in the public dom
857.
by ced 19y ago
In general, if a startup fails, that's part of the deal. The entrepreneur loses thousands of hours of work. He doesn't owe anything to his investors. What's different about Evan's story that compelled him to repay them?
858.
by ced 19y ago
True... And not having lazy evaluation encourages one to write Matrix.CalculateDeterminant() rather than Matrix.determinant, as it should be. But I don't think that has to do with reuse.
859.
by ced 19y ago
While we're on the topic, PG mentions in one of his essays a few languages with a "reputation for succintness": Forth, Joy, Icon. They are all tiny blips on my radar, popping up once every year in some obscure article. Does anybody have exp
860.
by ced 19y ago
"Haskell enables code reuse by not allowing side effects" As an onlooker, I wonder: is reuse in Haskell fundamentally better than reuse in another language where the programmer avoids (or clusters) side-effects?
861.
by ced 19y ago
This works when you want to revolutionize a field, but a lot of the web is much more incremental. Experience should be an asset. Look at Jobs.
862.
by ced 19y ago
TechCrunch is more of a news site than a site for critical analysis. I think it's nice to give every website the benefit of the doubt, that everything will be fixed soon enough.
863.
by ced 19y ago
Honestly, that's just the image I had, but I could be wrong. I was also inspired by Richard Hamming ``You and Your Research'' "Age is another factor which the physicists particularly worry about. They always are saying that you have got to
864.
by ced 19y ago
One factor is that anyone who has the mojo to start a company at all will probably do it sooner in life than later. And few people will start more than one succesful company. Arguably, the same thing happens in science. Great fundamental d
865.
by ced 19y ago
hmmaa, I don't like what I wrote (upmodded? why?) If ever YC started abusing their spring chicks, the argument would deserve to be brought up, but since YC alumni seem very happy about the deal they got, it's all rather pointless. Ah, la la
866.
by ced 19y ago
Sure, your advice and connections are worth more than the 15K. Let's say they're worth 100 thousand. Then, you're giving away 115K in exchange for x% of the company. x would still be negotiatable in a normal setting. Some startups are worth
867.
by ced 19y ago
"If people turn us down," PG says, "as far as we're concerned they've failed an IQ test." Has anyone read Axelrod's The Emergence of Cooperation ? Looking at the above quote with that book in mind, I'd say that PG is trying his best to est
868.
by ced 19y ago
I'm not so sure about this veto thing. If there is even just one guy in the team who is really picky about, eg.: personality, then it won't work. Long interviews are definitely worthwhile, though.
869.
by ced 19y ago
I think he was not saying that he had the next Google; just that most startups have similar screening processes.
870.
by ced 19y ago
It reads a lot like Google, with the gourmet chef and the catering to hackers. Only the outcome is radically different.

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