rlucas

15 ms·

91.
by rlucas 8y ago
Agreed with a caveat (from a VC perspective, mind you). 99% (schematically) of new businesses should indeed optimize for flexibility. But, if you judge yourself to have a real shot at the >> $100M exit, then optimize for that path and
92.
by rlucas 8y ago
TL;DR: optimize only for monotonically increasing, vanilla terms for 24 months runway at a time. As a VC and an entrepreneur, various times over the last 19 years, I will say this to entrepreneurs in good faith: 1. Your core competency is c
93.
by rlucas 8y ago
That's absurd. 1 point of the company at a given stage might be 5-10% of the total investment that the VC makes (given that VCs typically shoot for 10-20% of the company). The VC is doing, give or take, the same deal 10-20x in a portf
94.
by rlucas 8y ago
Browser fingerprinting for ballots -- how many bits of entropy on a long ticket? Not hard if you've got 10 or so multi-way contests or 20 or so ballot measures.
95.
by rlucas 8y ago
Netflix is most definitely a marketplace, more akin to the App Store than I think you're giving it credit for. Netflix shows a wide variety of content to the buyer, the buyer pays and consumes certain (but not all) of the content. The
96.
by rlucas 8y ago
Even if a story is set within imperial (or republican) Rome, the whole idea of an ascendant Rome is based on the colonies and provinces. So showing the Roman upper classes (or even the wealthier urban merchants) being "Romans" me
97.
by rlucas 8y ago
Having looked at getting Accurint and Clear back in 2013, I can tell you the process is not trivial but not comforting either. On the non-trivial side: I was doing a startup where we sublet from a law firm. We had an on-site audit by someo
98.
by rlucas 8y ago
"Optimized for happy-path" is true, but it also reveals something pretty neat about the American financial / business climate. "Default trust" actually works in our economy. And because of that, friction can be low
99.
by rlucas 8y ago
The bank itself is probably not doing the KBA; they're buying and integrating a KBA dialogue solution from one of the vendors. So might be the same software / font / question bank at work.
100.
by rlucas 8y ago
By that logic -- kissing a depressed person could just as well be a cure for their depression. Cheer up! (Pucker up?)
101.
by rlucas 8y ago
Please read some intellectual history of the period between around 1870-1914. The modern nation state was newish, industrialization was newish, a sense that “decadence” was feminizing or draining nations of their vigor was adopted by myopic
102.
by rlucas 8y ago
Interesting, sort of a Spolsky-esque "leaky abstraction." It's easy-ish to reason about rights of corporations when they are groups of your own citizens. When you poke through the veil to ultimate beneficial ownership it&#x27
103.
by rlucas 8y ago
In fairness, the stock market doesn't operate "like the stock market," if by that you mean reliably reward a value pick, either. The first order of business in these things is certainly to spot the overlay/value pick&#x2
104.
by rlucas 8y ago
In the Anglosphere at least (US, AU and others?) harness and jockey racing are both bet in the same way. Harness is shown alongside other racing in Off Track Betting and sportsbooks.
105.
by rlucas 8y ago
Banks (almost?) never want to repo and own a property. In most situations the bank 1. spends a bunch of opex to work out / sell off the property, and 2. has to remit any excess to the borrower. There are predatory operators known col
106.
by rlucas 8y ago
This is a good synthesis here -- downloading and trusting a key over HTTP is folly, but then, so is trusting much of anything that "just works." If the whole PKI approach is to work, client has got to get trusting that public ke
107.
by rlucas 8y ago
You and all your colleagues should be aware of the Medical Information Bureau and IMS health. Despite all of the kabuki theater about HIPAA and black covers on clipboards and whatnot, every single medical fact that is even considered for pa
108.
by rlucas 8y ago
The article doesn't propose "optimizing" for users with some form of limitation (connectivity, device, personal disability). It proposes not excluding them by optimizing only for the maximal case. Your point about hand cod
109.
by rlucas 8y ago
Simpler WeWork version: 1. Borrow short. 2. Lend long. It works until it doesn't. Normally, though, the people who do this are banks, so we regulate with capital requirements and protect smallholders with deposit insurance. When the pe
110.
by rlucas 8y ago
Bans can work and Pigouvian taxation can work. Horses for courses. In Seattle we've banned the cheap plastic bags that blow around and get stuck in trees. There are many, many fewer tree-stuck-plastic-bag-ghosts to be seen around now
111.
by rlucas 8y ago
Its probably better to say that “Sears” is literally the board who hires the executive leadership. The execs have a lot of discretion but ultimately they are taking their marching orders from the board. In turn the board was supposed to ser
112.
by rlucas 8y ago
Your point is well taken when extremes occur (public purse ultimately probably backstops both unemployment and pensions via PBGC) but it’s important for readers to know that’s not the normal case even in a bankruptcy. Unemployment is struct
113.
by rlucas 8y ago
It's very unlikely that regulators and smart money would smile upon "wrapping" VCSH or similar corporate bond fund and trying to transform it thereby into a demand deposit account. A bond fund like that, even with a relativel
114.
by rlucas 8y ago
Ooh, now do the predicate nominative!
115.
by rlucas 8y ago
Important glaring factual error here. Under securities law, ALMOST ANY kind of deal to trade money for an intangible where the buyer expects to profit from others’ work is a security. Exchange listings having nothing to do with it. Nothing
116.
by rlucas 8y ago
Please change the title here — the ruling was in preliminary motion practice and was no way dispositive of the “case.”
117.
by rlucas 8y ago
No, you've got comparative advantage crucially wrong. If country X can produce food a bit cheaper/better than you, but produces shoes much cheaper/better, then you end up growing at least some of your own food and importing
118.
by rlucas 8y ago
In the US, Congress enjoys the Speech and Debate privilege, meaning pretty much the same. It's even in our (written, unlike the UK) Constitution.
119.
by rlucas 8y ago
You can't just handwave "useful" as an explanation for why location-based SERP discrimination is desirable. It is "useful" for me to be on the phone with someone in Cleveland and describe how to find something on th
120.
by rlucas 8y ago
Now imagine that such a neurotype is an environmentally-mediated part of the phenotype, not a strictly hereditary trait. Maybe it's called "Amazing Grace," or maybe it's called a principled commitment, or maybe it's

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