paul

29 ms·

211.
by paul 12y ago
No. That's not just evil, and most likely illegal, it's stupid too. It's too easy for something like that to leak, and the damage would be enormous.
212.
by paul 12y ago
How ironic that the thought police choose to flag a 1984 inspired tool :)
213.
by paul 12y ago
This is very exciting. More great companies in YC = more value for the whole YC community!
214.
by paul 12y ago
I find it has more to do with clarity of thought, and in my experience the top founders all have it.
215.
by paul 12y ago
I think you're imagining "communication" to mean inspirational TED talks or something, which is really just one very specialized case. I've spent quite a bit of time talking to Larry, Sergey, and Zuck, and in my experien
216.
by paul 12y ago
The ability to communicate is the first thing that I look for in a founder. It's difficult to get customers, raise funding, hire employees, and build a substantial company if you aren't able to communicate in a concise and effecti
217.
by paul 12y ago
At the time, the server was probably about 30 feet away, so network latency wasn't a big issue :) The article gets the timeline wrong though. This anecdote happened very early in the development of gmail -- it was rewritten several tim
218.
by paul 12y ago
The (current) top comment says: In his recent book "Capital in the 21st Century", he's done something very big. He's pointed out that capitalism is flawed -- that inequality is not an unintended result, but rather an inh
219.
by paul 12y ago
I don't know what you are asking. The skill I'm referring to is capital allocation, and the capital that is growing is necessarily invested in something other than a savings account.
220.
by paul 12y ago
If capital allocation is a skill/talent like most other things, then we should expect to see some people consistently outperforming the general population (just as we would expect a professional basketball player to consistently outper
221.
by paul 12y ago
I'm curious, what tests do you use to check how acidic your tissues are? How have you changed your diet, and what impact did it have on your body's acidity?
222.
by paul 12y ago
In the early years of yc, people said there weren't any good companies. It took years for Dropbox to become Dropbox. There are actually a lot more great founders and companies now, but it will be years before you realize it. That'
223.
by paul 13y ago
Is anyone tracking how much money miners are pulling out of bitcoin on a daily basis? I assume they have to sell some fraction of their earnings in order to pay for hardware and power. This should create a constant downward pressure on the
224.
by paul 13y ago
You shouldn't think in terms of "open slots". We accept all of the companies that seem like good bets, and we don't know how many that will be until interviews are complete. Teespring coming in with a million in revenue
225.
by paul 13y ago
It would be easier to answer your question if you provided more concrete examples. The only businesses I can think of that are strictly "can technology of this caliber actually exist?" are ones that likely violate the laws of ther
226.
by paul 13y ago
And if $14k is all you got, you would be correct. I feel like this is a test that screens out founders who don't understand value.
227.
by paul 13y ago
Thanks Walker! I love telling people the story of how some investors scoffed at Teespring on demoday -- I remember one person asking why they were even there. It shows why it's still possible to make a lot of money in this business, an
228.
by paul 13y ago
Where there are security vulnerabilities, I'd rather it be the NSA exploiting them than someone else. The fact that Huawei support engineers have so much power is much more troubling.
229.
by paul 13y ago
Obviously Africa is a huge and incredibly diverse place, but listing all of the countries in which Zidisha is currently working in the headline is kind of impractical. Julia (the founder of Zidisha) certainly isn't naive to the realiti
230.
by paul 13y ago
Oops. Fixed! I've never been good with that 140 character thing :) thanks
231.
by paul 13y ago
Part of what I like so much about YC is that we are open to entrepreneurs from anywhere in the world. In fact, the latest batch has founders from 23 different countries: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/41189712057
232.
Help me distribute $100,000 to new entrepreneurs in Africa(paulbuchheit.blogspot.com)
220 points by paul 13y ago|87 comments
233.
by paul 13y ago
That's a great story, with a rather tragic ending. Everyone should read it.
234.
by paul 13y ago
It's unfortunate that many people here seem to think that success is something achieved in single step, as if one day he wakes up and cancels his food stamps because he's suddenly a billionaire. This is a very debilitating attitud
235.
by paul 13y ago
I love that PG thinks in historical terms. It's exciting to view yc as an institution that could outlive all of us, just as the great universities have.
236.
by paul 13y ago
I think in many cases great founders would make terrible employees. Imagine trying to tell Steve Jobs what to do.
237.
by paul 13y ago
I'm making a different point.
238.
by paul 13y ago
If Linus always did things the "right" way he wouldn't have invented git (or Linux). Sometimes, it's important to be obstinate.
239.
by paul 13y ago
I didn't mean it as a judgement. It's just the reality that some procedures and areas of the hospital reimburse at much higher rates than others, and it's often unrelated to actual expenses. This isn't random speculation
240.
by paul 13y ago
There's no comparison. I don't think it's possible to understand parenting without actually being a parent. I certainly wasn't able to understand it before, and I thought more as you do now.

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