paul

33 ms·

301.
by paul 14y ago
Can you honestly not tell the difference between Facebook and Geocities? Also, the fact that Dropbox and Facebook were "unoriginal" is exactly what made them seem like bad ideas at the time. I saw Dropbox present at demoday, and the main qu
302.
by paul 14y ago
It kind of depends on the question, don't you think?
303.
by paul 14y ago
This case was exceptional because of how late he was to apply. 90% of yc startups come in via the regular process, and nearly all of the companies that send gifts are not accepted into yc. But of course everyone is free to re-interpret the
304.
by paul 14y ago
This is the kind of thing I would have loved to do in high school. Alas, it was the early 90's, so I tried to write BBS door games instead.
305.
by paul 14y ago
This is wonderful. Their confident pessimism brightens my day :)
306.
by paul 14y ago
I bet that there's no measurable difference in this code. It just bugs me to see so much unnecessary complication based on blindly imitating an optimization that maybe made sense 20 years ago.
307.
by paul 14y ago
I'm skeptical that "hashing is much faster on an array the size of a power of two". Also, if memory is actually an issue, he should store hashes instead of full objects (assuming the byte arrays are more than 16 bytes).
308.
by paul 14y ago
You picked the perfect example to be wrong about :) Facebook ships every day, and in the early days they shipped continually because they were editing the code on the live servers (no revision control even). I doubt that anyone would have c
309.
by paul 14y ago
Again :)
310.
by paul 14y ago
False. It is not possible to register multiple variants of the same address. The reason you get misdirected email is because people are entering the wrong address in forms. You should see all the email that goes to paul@gmail.com :)
311.
by paul 14y ago
No, we don't administer IQ tests or anything. The point is that investors main interest is in finding good companies that will possibly be the next Google/Facebook/Dropbox.
312.
by paul 14y ago
Unless the top comment is also the very oldest, then by definition the order must have changed at some point. I do like the Vonnegut quote though.
313.
by paul 14y ago
Best from an investment point of view. I don't care about their IQ, education, etc -- I care about them starting successful businesses. Obviously we won't have the final answer for many years (big successes take about 5-10 years), but mysel
314.
by paul 14y ago
Ultimately, the real test of YC is in the quality of the startups that emerge from the program. I've been investing in YC companies since the second batch (W06), and I can easily say that the most recent batch was not only the largest ever,
315.
by paul 14y ago
The top comment has shifted place.
316.
by paul 14y ago
Growing to a billion users is harder than you think. There were many other social networks, including ones started at other top schools, but only one survived, and it was because they understood what makes a site like fb work.
317.
by paul 14y ago
How much of the upper management do you personally know? Have you actually met them, or are you just repeating the opinion of the hn mob?
318.
by paul 14y ago
Agreed. The growing levels of envy and cynicism on hn is unhealthy. Trashing other people's efforts doesn't make your own more successful.
319.
by paul 14y ago
Why would someone assume that revenue needs to increase 50x? Perhaps you're assuming fixed margins (which are currently close to zero). If they doubled their revenue without increasing expenses, they would have a P/E closer to 20.
320.
by paul 14y ago
It's the same currency actually. I haven't had any trouble using my dollars to buy cars, houses, etc.
321.
by paul 14y ago
As did I, but the defaults shouldn't be awful.
322.
by paul 14y ago
Well at least there's a giant red COMPOSE button, because every time I see a giant red button, I think COMPOSE! I'm hoping that they'll do another revision soon to make it look more like the recently updated G+ design, which actually puts s
323.
by paul 14y ago
It's not yet clear which venture will have a greater impact on the world. People here consistently underestimate the significance of democratizing the media.
324.
by paul 14y ago
Typically the fact that someone has more money would not be relevant, except in this case it's a discussion of capital allocation and a person (Andreessen) who is making a lot of money by being very good at capital allocation. It's like cla
325.
by paul 14y ago
If only this were a logic problem consisting of three boolean variables... But reality is complex, and so I do give some weight to authority. For example, if I had a question about evolution, I would automatically trust an answer from Dawki
326.
by paul 14y ago
Capitalism is a system for transferring money from those who are bad at allocating capital to those who are good at allocating capital. That's the magic of it. It also implies that people like Andreessen most likely have an above average un
327.
by paul 14y ago
The half they are giving away is money they would have otherwise taken as personal income, so it is in fact their own personal money. The other thing you should understand is that top VC firms such as AH (or YC) are not capital constrained.
328.
by paul 14y ago
Some changes are best made via a for-profit venture, and some aren't. I'm interested in both kinds of change, and that means that I'm involved in both worlds.
329.
by paul 14y ago
Would you rather that they compete over who has the largest yacht or the most jets? Think of it as a positive form of conspicuous consumption. Just as a business can be good for both the owner and the customer, charity can be beneficial for
330.
by paul 14y ago
My job is helping people start business, and I do it in large part because I think it's good for the world, so you don't need to preach to me on the benefits of business. The mistake being made by many here is concluding that since business

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