leelin

25 ms·

181.
by leelin 17y ago
This isn't so clear cut for me. In many endeavors, it is far easier to copy than to invent. Patents and the entire field of IP law exists to give innovators and creators more incentives to take on risky or costly projects that ultimately
182.
by leelin 17y ago
Wow, Kevin is amazingly good at articulating what makes YC work. In particular, most people forget the "forced 3-month move" to Mountain View which, among many other things, frees you from obligations (girlfriends, side gigs, friends in th
183.
by leelin 17y ago
I'm guessing as a collective the HN community might be even more frugal than a grab bag of economists, and it was computer science minds that hacked casinos for far more by researching card counting. :P Btw, casinos are getting wise to the
184.
by leelin 17y ago
Personally, I think the more wealth and brains we have in the country the better, but $100K seems cheap enough to invite lots of shady cases. I could start the "Visa Arbitrage Angel Fund" that only makes $100K investments into startups with
185.
by leelin 17y ago
I like the "I am not these Trevor Blackwell's" section. Without the clarification, champion MTG Trevor could have convinced me he was Anybots Trevor.
186.
by leelin 17y ago
YC definitely does not dictate company / domain / product names "from above." There is not much mandating or micromanagement at all, or else it would feel more like an incubator.
187.
by leelin 17y ago
The alum network of other founders is helpful for technical expertise, startup advice, introductions, morale boosts, and idea exchanges; so consider in your decision the number of alums and where they ultimately reside. In YC's case, there
188.
by leelin 17y ago
Poor guy, but I like his section on "4 key elements of a good puzzle." As I was reading it, I recalled the era of awful job interview brainteaser questions that were so ubiquitous until most HR departments started to ban them.
189.
by leelin 17y ago
http://www.craigslist.org/about/bulk_posting_interface Note there are only a very limited number of supported categories.
190.
by leelin 17y ago
I'm not sure a team of say 10 devs would come up with a unanimous stack rank of their co-worker's productivity. From my own experience, everyone would probably agree on #1, #2, and #10, but most people put themselves at #3 and the person th
191.
by leelin 17y ago
Is Y Combinator not an ambitious, challenging, and impressive enough startup?
192.
by leelin 17y ago
Wait, it's very easy to borrow at short term rates (3M LIBOR) and then receive fixed long term rates (30 Years). It's called an interest rate swap. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interest_rate_swap And no, simply receiving on 30Y swaps is
193.
by leelin 17y ago
The second half was a very verbose way to say "it's hard to start a marketplace." Fair enough. It's hard, but there are success stories all the time. Karma + pay-to-be-seen + leverage-blog-fame is one set of infinitely many jump-starting g
194.
by leelin 17y ago
On internal yardsticks: "Would you prefer to be the greatest lover in the world and known as the worst, or would you prefer to be the worst lover and known as the greatest?" Which one is supposed to be better? Some people ar
195.
by leelin 17y ago
Can't edit my orig post anymore: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadweight_loss Deadweight loss from monopoly pricing power.
196.
by leelin 17y ago
The only winner here is the scalper though. Even if true, we only say that after the fact when all the risk in the trade is gone and the profits banked. The trade could have gone badly and wasted the scalpers' time and money. If I
197.
by leelin 17y ago
Because then the very wealthy scalper has a monopoly, and the monopoly power allows for profit-maximizing pricing, which causes dead-weight loss. It's better the scalper sell 50% of the tickets at 10x (and let 50% rot) than all of the ticke
198.
by leelin 17y ago
True, but as much as we HATE those guys who line up for the first Xbox360 / Wii / Playstaion 3 trying for the ebay flip, they are technically not doing evil. The ebay flippers allow MSFT / Nintendo / PS3 to charge $1000 on launch day so tha
199.
by leelin 17y ago
I won't defend all of finance / trading, but maybe this analogy will satisfy you. Think of sports tickets. There is massive inefficiency in the primary market, meaning tickets you buy directly from the arena or on TicketMaster. One ineffi
200.
by leelin 17y ago
Maybe this isn't as reactive as you think. I noticed just in the last few days CL blocks any listing containing the string "bit.ly" (a net good for CL users). Try creating a post and you will get an error on the screen where you normally
201.
by leelin 17y ago
He's done more good through his site and the $$ he generates off his site ... than you, me and the next 100 people who read this combined. Careful, the right combination of 100 HN readers might throw a monkey wrench in your ca
202.
by leelin 17y ago
The MLS pains are a symptom of the broader question, "do we still need human realtors?" Sadly, Foxtons US is dead ( http://www.reuters.com/article/bondsNews/idUSN27422652200709... ) and ZipRealty has been around for 7+ years without revolut
203.
by leelin 17y ago
TC write-ups of the last seven batches in order (most recent first): http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/19/silicon-valley-elite-fl... http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/18/y-combinator-demo-day-s... http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/14/y
204.
by leelin 17y ago
Wow, good find jedc. Of all the times I've checked faq.html, I never thought to view the source! A commented-out company seems to mean that the startup officially launched at one point but is now acquired or gone (sometimes reincarnated).
205.
by leelin 17y ago
Academic researchers have shown that anonymized data can be correlated with other data to identify people. Very true. Just in the last year or so, the credit reporting agencies figured out how to match anonymized subprime mortgag
206.
by leelin 17y ago
You guys are hilarious! I guess my 1990s Geocities upbringing is showing itself.
207.
by leelin 17y ago
I actually bought that book about 3 years ago. While I found the book entertaining and full of interesting anecdotes, the focus was on IT programming and less about quantitative finance (which is what interested me). I also remember the bo
208.
by leelin 17y ago
Did you guys happen to do much mingling in the waiting area just before or just after your interview? We got to the interview super early and ended up chatting with Kate (we asked her how to get to In and Out), Skysheets Dan (saw his demo),
209.
by leelin 17y ago
As I was reading, I was so sure the big lesson was going to be: Pros don't want to all-in coin flip against a no-name amateur. Therefore, a startup should compete against big companies by taking the battle away from the incumbent's comfort
210.
by leelin 17y ago
Weird, if anything my experience was the opposite, almost too little management. Maybe his experience was exclusive to the way things were run at Juno as opposed to the trading side of the business.

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