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241.
by pg 13y ago
Our first advice is not even to talk to acquirers unless you want to sell the company now. It's remarkable how often founders who don't actively want to sell will talk to acquirers anyway, just to see if they'll make some of
242.
by pg 13y ago
Here is some more general advice: assume acquisitions are not going to happen, and that this whole conversation is probably a waste of time for you. Even if you tell them everything they want to know, they either won't make an offer o
243.
by pg 13y ago
You're probably judging from the site's appearance, which doesn't change much.
244.
by pg 13y ago
Right now the top priority is moving to a new server.
245.
by pg 13y ago
The main reason I haven't published a new version lately is just that I've been too busy working on YC itself. It would take a day of work to strain out the bits of code we don't want to publish, and I don't have any sp
246.
by pg 13y ago
The true hacker solves the right problem. Expired links are just the visible problem. The real problems are more subtle: users voting up fluff posts, nastiness in comment threads...
247.
by pg 13y ago
I'm not the only person working on it anymore. For the past year or so we've also had Nick Sivo (kogir), who handles all the systems stuff. And we also have a moderator who is a hacker and has written a bunch of code for identif
248.
by pg 13y ago
Closures, not continuations.
249.
by pg 13y ago
Actually we change things almost daily.
250.
by pg 13y ago
The improvements necessary probably require going back on some of those fundamentals Not at all. It's pretty trivial to replace code that uses dynamically generated links with code that doesn't.
251.
by pg 13y ago
It's not a single thing. There are multiple places that use dynamically-generated links. They make the source very simple. I've gradually replaced them in the most common situations. Replacing more is not in my top 10 prioriti
252.
by pg 13y ago
This is bigger news than most news stories you'll read this year, or this decade for that matter.
253.
by pg 13y ago
One of the best examples I know of is someone we hired at Viaweb, Jonathan Yedidia. http://www.disneyresearch.com/people/jonathan-yedidia/ He had a PhD in physics and then became a professional chess player (44th
254.
by pg 13y ago
It's not the trolls I care about so much as more moderate people who may have seen the fight from a distance and come away with the idea that YC is somehow sexist. Particularly women, because I want them to apply.
255.
by pg 13y ago
The second paragraph amounts to a sexist version of "I'm not racist! I have black friends!" Actually by pointing out the degree to which women run things at YC it's closer to saying "I'm not racist! I'm
256.
by pg 13y ago
Oops, I'll fix that.
257.
by pg 13y ago
No, it's just called a "safe."
258.
by pg 13y ago
There is one in HN. It's just not enabled, except for questions about YC applications.
259.
by pg 13y ago
I don't know the details. Nick Sivo is in charge of this stuff, and he'll post something about it. I know he thinks the root of the problem was a disk failure. The server got wedged, and when we rebooted, the file system was co
260.
by pg 13y ago
Terribly. But in those days you could barely target at all, and YC is a pretty niche product.
261.
by pg 13y ago
I forgot that was there. That was the landing page we made for some ads we tried running on Facebook way, way back, probably in 2006 or 2007.
262.
by pg 13y ago
No, that's not true. The keystrokes are played back at a constant rate with no breaks.
263.
by pg 13y ago
Not really. Vi is all I need. I could probably think of things I'd like but don't realize I need. E.g. controlling an editor directly with my brain, so I didn't need to type. Hard to say about the narrower question of whe
264.
From Erratic to Effective: The Story Behind the Zapier Blog in 2013(zapier.com)
63 points by pg 13y ago|1 comments
265.
by pg 13y ago
That could be. At least at YC there are comparatively few misunderstandings about what's expected of companies that take various kinds of investment. But if there are people out there who are unclear about what kind of company they w
266.
by pg 13y ago
If they were truly growing consistently at 20-30%/mo they should never have quit. 20%/mo is almost 9x a year. That's a fabulous growth rate. I'm guessing they meant they grew at 20-30%/mo for a while and then thi
267.
by pg 13y ago
Don't hire people. That is where startups spend all their money. Hiring too fast is doubly constraining. It increases your costs, and it also makes it harder to change direction.
268.
by pg 13y ago
That's true of mediocre VCs, but it's not true of top firms like Andreessen-Horowitz or Union Square Ventures. Those guys do a lot more than write checks.
269.
by pg 13y ago
They don't have the same kind of board power they used to, but they're still very influential. They are often more experienced than founders, and also, being older, more authoritative. And much of their advice is good. Especial
270.
by pg 13y ago
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHepKd38pr0

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