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961.
HN will be down Saturday morning while we switch servers
225 points by pg 14y ago|118 comments
962.
by pg 14y ago
I was skeptical about this idea (as I was about Airbnb) till I saw how YC alumni reacted to it. They all seem to want to use it.
963.
by pg 14y ago
No, you're confusing expressions with metanotation. Using infix metanotation to describe Lisp semantics is a convention that goes back to McCarthy.
964.
by pg 14y ago
The mistake here is the "everyone." I agree that infix is easier for some math, but otherwise I genuinely prefer prefix, and I'm not the only one. So the question now is, are those of us who have no problem with prefix notation merely a ra
965.
by pg 14y ago
What investors care about is how many people used the site last week, not how many people have accounts.
966.
by pg 14y ago
You're over it.
967.
by pg 14y ago
Their content? I don't think even Quora would claim that. And how exactly is creating an account taking off one's shoes before entering? I would not be contributing anything to the Quora community by creating an account. I'm not depriv
968.
by pg 14y ago
You answered your own question in the next sentence. If we were bad at picking people, how could we have become the equivalent of getting a Supreme Court clerkship in 8 years?
969.
by pg 14y ago
There are so many mistakes here I don't know where to begin. For example, we're actually very skeptical of people from Google, and in fact of people who've worked at any big company for more than about 18 months. The question I care about m
970.
by pg 14y ago
I realize people aren't supposed to care about their own credentials, but we've noticed at least one legitimate use of them: to convince third parties. E.g. if your cofounder's parents or spouse had previously been pressuring him to stop w
971.
by pg 14y ago
The difference between the two cases is that in a startup, your customers determine whether you're successful, and they are not in fact "willing to accept the credentials." The only thing being funded by YC automatically gets anyone is a fi
972.
by pg 14y ago
YC is only arbitrary to the extent we are stupid, and though we certainly do make mistakes in deciding who to fund, we have some fairly smart people expending a lot of effort on the problem; I don't think we simply fund whoever's best at tr
973.
by pg 14y ago
How does someone merely creating an account contribute to the community?
974.
by pg 14y ago
I think Adam's mistake here is to go too much by the numbers. He presumably has numbers that show that Quora ends up net ahead if they force people to create accounts to read answers. He grew Facebook very effectively by following the num
975.
by pg 14y ago
Yes, this is the same story.
976.
by pg 14y ago
M
977.
by pg 14y ago
"Please don't post on HN to ask or tell us something (e.g. to ask us questions about Y Combinator, or to ask or complain about moderation). If you want to say something to us, please send it to info@ycombinator.com." http://ycombinator.com
978.
by pg 14y ago
The first time he applied, it was not for Dropbox but for an SAT prep service.
979.
by pg 14y ago
Last time I calculated, the odds were about 1/5 what they'd be with 2 or more founders. But talking about the odds is misleading, because this pool is a mix of a large number of people for whom the chance is zero and a small number for whom
980.
by pg 14y ago
Yeah, actually I think he probably meant "PG" and not PG. But by the time I realized that, someone had replied to me, and I don't like to delete comments with replies.
981.
by pg 14y ago
Do you really think we are so ruthlessly mercenary? Actually I thought it was a good idea.
982.
by pg 14y ago
Argh, yes. Updating that page is near the top of my todo list.
983.
by pg 14y ago
Drew was a single founder the second time he applied.
984.
by pg 14y ago
Better.
985.
by pg 14y ago
"I’ll be wearing a black suit." That should have been enough to make anyone suspicious.
986.
by pg 14y ago
Depends how many total founders there are, and whether the one we were dubious about was CEO. I don't think we'd fund a co if we didn't like the CEO. Whereas if there were 3 founders and we disliked one who wasn't the CEO, it probably wou
987.
by pg 14y ago
Allow me to give you an illustration of how things work within YC: How would I know? Ask Kirsty.
988.
by pg 14y ago
Sort of, except we started out self-funded too. So it's really like going back to the way things used to be.
989.
by pg 14y ago
When people are from another country we usually notice this first in the video, which is among the first things we look at. And yes, my heart sinks somewhat when the people in the video have such strong accents that I can't understand them
990.
by pg 14y ago
One, Olga Vidisheva.

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