mathattack

661 ms·

7801.
by mathattack 15y ago
Interesting article. Reminds me of one of the lessons from Soul of a New Machine: forced scarcity can breed creativity. Too much money allows you to defer hard decisions for too long.
7802.
by mathattack 15y ago
Seems like it sold at ~ 20x EBITDA and a little over 2x sales. Expensive by the first metric; cheap by the second. Revenue is ~180k per employee - low for an established company. The weak EBITDA makes or tough buy for a PE firm, who might
7803.
by mathattack 15y ago
Am I the only one to think that # is low? :-)
7804.
by mathattack 15y ago
The price seems very cheap for a software firm: just over double revenue. With risk management being so important for banks now, I am surprised. Are they more of a consulting firm with software attached?
7805.
by mathattack 15y ago
I see a core kernel of truth here, "You will be more effective if you understand the job of the people using your work products." In design, this means creating something useful as well as art. It spans many industries: - Colocating design
7806.
by mathattack 15y ago
The should/shouldn't argument is really about Free Riding basic research. For most companies this problem means deferring basic rEsearch to govt. Both directly (funding research) and indirectly (IP protection and care policy) governments
7807.
by mathattack 15y ago
This isn't that new of a concept. Parents have been lamenting kids being lazy (and too much time in front of the computer, though that's not really being lazy!) since the start of time. Relevant to this discussion is Silicon Valley Snake O
7808.
by mathattack 15y ago
Thank you for the comments. I appreciate your insights as an academic living through this. Even still, I have to respectfully disagree. I'll grant that the economics in most textbooks starts with the assumption of homogenous buyers and se
7809.
by mathattack 15y ago
I think this line captures my sentiment: "What’s likely to happen in the daily deals space, analysts have said, is that a handful of industry leaders will rise to the top, while smaller or niche efforts fade away." There isn't room for a do
7810.
by mathattack 15y ago
I agree with All the points about hiw government sponsored research (including all public school research) Should be free or near free. The unanswered question is "Why is the market failing?" A couple unmentioned ideas: - Until recently, tu
7811.
by mathattack 15y ago
My impression is software budget overages are too common to be called Black Swans. According to Taleb, there are two kinds of Black Swans. One comes from underestimating the uncommon event. (Example: Having three ten-sigma events in a w
7812.
by mathattack 15y ago
For better or worse, many things happen in Wall Street as a continuation of market convention. Why do people use Bloomberg rather than email? Why is Sybase the standard? Why is so much done in Excel? There are a half dozen reasons for each
7813.
by mathattack 15y ago
Exactly! Groupon is good for some but not all. Same with Network TV advertising. Same with newspaper coupons.
7814.
by mathattack 15y ago
Very interesting. It's clear that Groupon is willing to dedicate a lot of pre-IPO capital to the project. Facebook probably figures that it's not worth giving up being profitable to do. At least not yet. In many cases the second or third
7815.
by mathattack 15y ago
And this comes from Groupon's hometown. Ouch! My impression is that Groupon works better for brining in incremental revenue. A prior HN post on skydiving captured this very well. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2654788 What I mean
7816.
by mathattack 15y ago
Some thoughts: 1) In addition to technical skills, look for values and fit. Is this someone you want representing your firm? Is this someone you want to share 2000+ hours a year with for the next few years? 2) Do your best to have each
7817.
by mathattack 15y ago
Many folks are viewing this from the wrong angle... This is a serial entrepreneur. Guys like this rarely stay at big companies. Take this from the point of view of a potential entrepreneur - wouldn't it be great to have a guy that's done
7818.
by mathattack 15y ago
This article has an economics spin to it, which is interesting as only insiders seem to understand how much mathematics is required in that field. Greg Mankiw lays out a similar defense of mathematics in what we might assume to be a more l
7819.
by mathattack 15y ago
Indeed. It appeals to the hacker ethic. And the Green ethic. But not to the SUV and Strip Mall ethic. Or the Zenga (sp?) tie ethic.
7820.
by mathattack 15y ago
Very interesting. One point on firing senior executives - in many cases it's the first time the executive ever failed. Silicon Valley is perhaps the only exception, but this is precisely because exits are handled well. Being good at sepa
7821.
by mathattack 15y ago
I have to admit I feel like his letter was more like Lou Gehrig than Michael Jordan. I wish him the absolute best.
7822.
by mathattack 15y ago
From anecdotal experience, it does seem like Portland is drawing a lot of talented folks. It is definitely a "bike to work, complain at city hall and drink obscure beer" crowd, but is that such a bad thing?
7823.
by mathattack 15y ago
Interesting. One can argue that equity valuations are too high but these firms should be able to survive a downturn. They have profits and are not too dependent on other startups as customers. This is a big departure from 2000. Most of
7824.
by mathattack 15y ago
It's obvious, but why don't we do it more? When I was younger I would (snail) mail my favorite athletes with a self-adressed stamped envelope (do these exist any more?) asking for an autograph, and most would reply. Or they had people to r
7825.
by mathattack 15y ago
Great series. There are plenty of reasons to be skeptical of small values. The statistical significance probaly won't be there except for high volume sites. There is a paradox - AB is better for big changes, but those changes could also b
7826.
by mathattack 15y ago
10 minutes in and I can say this is a great website! I hope it has the depth to match. Great work Zach!
7827.
by mathattack 15y ago
It certainly makes ycombinator's performance seem all the more impressive. What is left out of the equation is the opportunity cost of Angel/VC time. And benefit too. The caliber of advice and strength of networking has a huge impact on f
7828.
by mathattack 15y ago
Interesting. # of patents is a very misleading metric, in the same sense that # of lines of code really doesn't tell you much about quality. My intuition on the purchase is not that each patent is worth ~ 2/3 of a million dollars (~17K pa
7829.
by mathattack 15y ago
The signal to noise ratio of Steve Blank is very high. I like this idea a lot. In the past I have been involved with firms who have done this on two dimensions: managerial competence and industry knowledge, or content knowledge and proce
7830.
by mathattack 15y ago
I wish I had something profound to say other than, "Thanks for posting."

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