emmett

13 ms·

91.
by emmett 12y ago
Generally speaking, running double the number of samples requires approximately double the amount of work, maybe a little less since you're doing it in bulk. Are you really saying that going from 10 samples to 11 samples causes a doubl
92.
by emmett 12y ago
Keep fighting the good fight, Eliezer. To add on: Some words have valuable and specific meanings! We don't have a good substitute word for "exponential" that means the same thing. Please make an effort not to do this!
93.
by emmett 12y ago
How could YC possibly keep statistics on revenue for the entire portfolio? Sam isn't saying "we don't care about revenue", he's saying "we don't have any way to keep statistics on the total revenue of all
94.
by emmett 12y ago
No. The main requirement for a DMCA request to be valid is that it come from a real entity. If you sent them with a fake return address they wouldn't be valid DMCA requests anymore. That said, yes the DMCA can be abused. The check agai
95.
by emmett 12y ago
The DMCA doesn't say "use your judgement to decide whether you think a takedown request is valid or not". It says "you must prosecute all syntactically valid takedown requests, and if someone sends invalid ones they can
96.
by emmett 12y ago
Actually Twitch is a 100% pivot of Justin.tv. We took the entire team working on JTV, the platform, the cap table, etc. and pivoted to a specific vertical that had been promising on JTV. (I'm the CEO)
97.
by emmett 12y ago
Yes, if this was a very high volatility bet with a low payout that can't be easily repeated it might not be arbitraged away efficiently. But this should let you make predictions about literally every single company in the world if it&#
98.
by emmett 12y ago
Part of the sales process is taking the sales feedback and using it to improve the product continuously. If you're not doing that, you're missing the core point which is to improve the product.
99.
by emmett 12y ago
Don't bother with SEO or print advertising. Go find some actual people and convince them, yourself and in person, to try the site. Watch them try it. Ask them if they want to buy. If not why not. Expose yourself to that direct feedback
100.
by emmett 12y ago
Sure, they're extremely plentiful. Costco distributes food under the "Kirkland Signature" brand, competing with its own suppliers. Uber was started by using a towncar service and getting cars dispatched. They now hire their o
101.
by emmett 12y ago
Actually, the reverse happens far more often. If a company manages to insert themselves between you and your users, they can then work their way down the value chain and replace you as a supplier. It works both ways and typically the compan
102.
by emmett 12y ago
That kind of info (4 invites on average per user, 25% conversion rate) is THE critical information. If you want to talk about virality at all, the fact it's not in your presentation is a serious defect you should correct.
103.
by emmett 12y ago
Hey, just a quick piece of feedback on this. You define virality as "the percentage of users invited by other users". That's a very non-standard definition. Usually virality is measured as "the average number of new user
104.
by emmett 12y ago
Closer than California though, isn't it? One step at a time...
105.
by emmett 13y ago
It's easy for a startup to compete with google on compensation: just be a huge success. If you sell for $10 billion, a typical engineer with 0.1% equity will do well. A first employee with 2% equity will do very well indeed. But yeah,
106.
by emmett 13y ago
YC chooses applicants by rank-ordering the list and interviewing the top N candidates. Thought experiment: What's the difference between candidate N and candidate N+1? Likely, they are nearly identically good. What could you possibly t
107.
Twitch (YC S07) is hiring a Senior Web Engineer
1 points by emmett 13y ago
108.
by emmett 13y ago
You say the question is whether it contribute more. Obviously it does not, but that's not the question. The question is what produces the best community on the site. Vapid positivity can be easily ignored (and as you point out is often
109.
by emmett 13y ago
In fact, no. The same is not true of empty positive comments. A good place to read about the HN philosophy on what makes a bad comment: http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html (scroll to the comment section) As I write th
110.
by emmett 13y ago
You really pay full time staff in bitcoin? What happens when the value of bitcoin varies by more than 2x in a short period vs local currency? How do they afford rent? If you're just using it as a transaction medium (give them $6000 per
111.
by emmett 13y ago
Do you believe the opposite (that you must be very smart to be successful), or are you saying it's not nice to point out the (true) fact that it's not all that important to be very smart? I think "surprisingly" is the ke
112.
by emmett 13y ago
The kind of abusive comments you've been leaving on this thread are not really welcome on HN. Please stop.
113.
by emmett 13y ago
I'm the CEO of Twitch. We hire almost exclusively based on [programming skill] and [not an asshole]. Email me your resume (check my profile) and I'll either put you in touch with a hiring manager or let you know why. I can assure
114.
by emmett 13y ago
...yes. They are mostly startup veterans with 7+ years experience hiring and managing engineering teams. And very good programmers themselves.
115.
by emmett 13y ago
Empirically, you're wrong. Several of my friends have hired bootcampers to great success. Therefore, it definitely works for at least some of the graduates.
116.
by emmett 13y ago
Specifically you'd want to find other SV companies who weren't party to these negotiations (Netflix? Twitter? I didn't see a comprehensive list), since they'd be a pretty close to exact benchmark...
117.
by emmett 13y ago
Your point, true or false, is completely obscured by its first line. Please don't bring that kind of vitriol into our community here. It doesn't help convince anyone, but more to the point it grossly violates community norms again
118.
by emmett 13y ago
I found this page most incomprehensible, so I looked around. A reasonable summary of what they're trying to build here is "HyperCard for the internet", which is actually a pretty cool idea. This article had the best short sum
119.
Life At A Startup (part 2)(abstractnonsense.com)
33 points by emmett 13y ago|4 comments
120.
by emmett 13y ago
Improved crossreferences! The main problem with Rails docs today is that methods mention other methods by name, but there's no way to jump directly to that other method.

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