startingup

15 ms·

91.
by startingup 18y ago
The 14 out of 80 number is for those who have done a Series A or later round. I assume that doesn't include additional angel funding (beyond YC) that some of the 66 out of 80 may have received. Is that correct? It would be good to get gross
92.
by startingup 18y ago
The cost/benefit of giving up equity or taking VC funding is highly personal, situational decision. The correct answer is "It depends". The folks that YC funds, by and large, have no business experience at all, so it is likely well worth it
93.
by startingup 18y ago
All business is about adding value, so that your output is bigger than your input. The most important input in a tech company is human labor. Google is the most efficient at this game today, as measured by how they transform their human lab
94.
by startingup 18y ago
Let me be a contrarian here. I have both a Mac and a Windows PC right here on my desk. I use the Windows XP machine far more often (and not because of any apps I cannot get on a Mac). Before you flame me as a Windows nut, keep in mind that
95.
by startingup 18y ago
I am a libertarian, and we are in agreement on most of your economic points. Having said that, I have to say that libertarians don't support the imperial thinking that has permeated Washington in the last 20-30 years. Take the current wars.
96.
by startingup 18y ago
Here is the quote from your article: David isn't mistaken in saying you should start a company to live off its revenues. The mistake is thinking this is somehow opposed to starting a company and selling it. <i>In fact, for most peop
97.
by startingup 18y ago
Sorry I was out all day, so couldn't respond. I was reacting to the comparison of property management company to your putative "company management company" (which eventually gets revealed as a typical public company in your essay). That was
98.
by startingup 18y ago
Companies are not apartments or houses, companies are people . You don't have to worry about motivation, energy levels when you are dealing with houses. You cannot "optimize" people - even talking about what is optimal is meaningless when
99.
by startingup 18y ago
But knowingly looking the other way makes me uncomfortable - "knowingly looking the other way" is what is really involved here. Legal issues aside, there is an ethical question involved (regardless of your opinion of RIAA). Civil disobedie
100.
by startingup 18y ago
This is a great post. Summary: build companies for the long haul, forget exit, build excellence. I agree entirely. I love technology but I get turned off by the excessive short-termism that plagues the valley from time to time ...
101.
by startingup 18y ago
What bothers me about both justin.tv and scribd (as an occasional angel investor, though not in anything related to those sites) is the mass of copyrighted content. I am not sure what PG feels about sites whose business model depends on ill
102.
by startingup 18y ago
If you are already set on doing it, don't worry about the fact that YC didn't or wouldn't accept you. Go ahead and launch whatever it is you wanted to launch, iterate, and see what happens. In any event, there are companies out there that h
103.
by startingup 18y ago
I said "Hackers and Thinkers" just to illustrate the point that we tend to overemphasize our own particular areas of interest. Hacking and thinking don't have to go together - as an example, PG is a thinker who writes essays, but there exis
104.
by startingup 18y ago
Well, in that case, the title of the book "Hackers and Painters", overstates the connection. As a programmer who has had some success and money (and not a painter, not a musician, in fact, not well-endowed in any of the arts, but with a fai
105.
by startingup 18y ago
"persistent, stinging loneliness" I vividly remember that phase of my life. I would not want to live it again. It was a combination of shyness, geekiness, being a foreigner in a new land and persistent rejection arising out of the first 3.
106.
by startingup 18y ago
A rough equation: Macro = Language level customization (for example, you want to mix two different languages, like HTML + Java or Java + SQL etc and still make the resulting code very readable vs using quoted strings all over the place) Thi
107.
by startingup 18y ago
Paper from Google Research in a related area: http://www.cs.nyu.edu/web/Research/TechReports/TR2007-903/TR...
108.
by startingup 18y ago
PDF here: http://www.umiacs.umd.edu/~vikas/publications/raykar_AISTATS...
109.
by startingup 18y ago
The long term consequence of "exit strategy" at work here. Yahoo "exited" way too soon, and the founders never really had any chance to shape the company. CEO Koogle assembled Yahoo (one of the smaller parts being ViaWeb) and Semel tried to
110.
by startingup 18y ago
There isn't a huge difference between $33 and $37 for a really motivated party to walk away. Microsoft had decided, for whatever reason, most likely the fact that Yahoo is such a reluctant target, leading to huge integration issues, to wa
111.
by startingup 18y ago
I am a libertarian capitalist, and I agree there has been a government-inspired (Fed-inspired, really) transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich. Let's say you are a smart hacker and I offer you this "deal": you put in $15K, I will lend
112.
by startingup 18y ago
They are not random fluctuations. Federal Reserve policy had a lot to do with both food prices & the financial system. Read libertarian economic literature to understand how the US and world economy have been fundamentally warped by t
113.
by startingup 18y ago
Except that "big success" is a lot rarer than it seems. Mundane success (and a few millions) is actually a lot easier to achieve - practically any very hard working, reasonably intelligent person can get there within 10-15 years, and that
114.
Ask YC: (Contrarian) Is this a great time to start or what?
1 points by startingup 18y ago|1 comments
115.
by startingup 18y ago
Something about this article didn't sit well with me (as with others, judging from the comments). It felt awfully like "Too many YC companies are out there looking for that $300-400K, but not enough takers, so the VC system sucks" kind of a
116.
by startingup 18y ago
I disagree Google had a number. It was clear from many stories that they were really not interested in selling at all, so they would throw around some outrageous number ( knowing it was outrageous), so nothing would happen. Calling such
117.
by startingup 18y ago
I basically agree with the Soros thesis. The fact that it has dire implications for many of us should not blind us to the reality of an out-of-whack global economy. To give one indication of the scale of imbalance, global reserves of dollar
118.
by startingup 19y ago
This is not as irrational as it sounds. In our own personal lives, we make decisions like this. As an example, I haven't in recent memory visited a ultra-cheap ethnic restaurant (though I go to more expensive places), because I am worried a
119.
by startingup 19y ago
A great post. I remember the criticism of Java circa 1997. It has come a long, long way indeed. Tangentially, this is a reason why many (very smart) programmers stick to "blub" like Java. In practical every day reality, the investments in V
120.
by startingup 19y ago
It is foolish to make any very general statements about "India" (just as it would be to make very general statements about "America"). Too large an entity to make generalizations.

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