tomasien

16 ms·

121.
by tomasien 11y ago
At least the ostensible point was that an accelerator that tells you it can help you get into YC is not telling the truth. FWIW there's an incubator in my hometown that takes 0 equity that has had an amazing track record of getting com
122.
by tomasien 11y ago
As always with these things I think it's important to remember that for both the company and the worker, every situation is different. There are tradeoffs that both make when deciding to move from 1099 to W-2 and vice-versa. The implic
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by tomasien 11y ago
I would guess that you have it in reverse. Best guess would be Advice, Urgency, Capital, and Networking so I guess not strictly reverse.
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by tomasien 11y ago
There's a lotta grumbles about Sam and YC taking this stance at VCs these days. FWIW I think it's about right but SO hard to judge.
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by tomasien 11y ago
Plan on it! There are definitely some nuances to TS specifically that it is very appropriate to discuss on an individualized basis. I've had friends go through all the major and a few minor accelerators now, so I think I have a pretty
126.
by tomasien 11y ago
FWIW if anyone is evaluating doing a Techstars program, I'm more than happy to talk about my experience or help you find someone from the program you're considering - just reach out! tommy at alloy dot co
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by tomasien 11y ago
That is true - all voice related interfaces are best exemplified with travel. STT for example is best when you're alone and can't use your hands aka driving. TTS is best for the same set of situations, so listening to articles on
128.
by tomasien 11y ago
FWIW I think TTS is a bad interface. That said, IBM Watson is getting pretttty good. Check it out, they're willing to work with startups too.
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by tomasien 11y ago
Love the Bitcoin/VISA analogy. Wrote about it here: https://medium.com/shekel-magazine/odd-bedfellows-the-strang... Can 100% understand why some people may hate that future for Bitcoin, but I think the parallels a
130.
by tomasien 11y ago
Almost everyone on this thread is referring to removing the check-in functionality as the death of Foursquare as a consumer product. Y'all - Foursquare did that because it was not just dying but basically dead. The change allowed them
131.
by tomasien 11y ago
DEFINITELY do not stop your search for a third party at Basecamp. Basecamp has re-organized their company to make Basecamp better so it is worth keeping an eye on them (and worth giving them the benefit of the doubt) but Basecamp is absolut
132.
by tomasien 11y ago
Interesting! I never get FB messanger messages but I know from the numbers that obviously it's huge.
133.
by tomasien 11y ago
Snapchat is the most important social network right now among my friends. I'm 27 (so not core Snapchat demo but close) and very few of my friends work in tech. It's massive. Instagram and Facebook are both close, but if something
134.
by tomasien 11y ago
With you on inheritance, that seems like a great place to start. It would have no impact on startups and would have a great effect on the corruptive forces behind generational aristocracy. I've been thinking a lot about PGs assumption
135.
by tomasien 11y ago
Whether or not the bailout was a good idea wasn't at issue. It's whether tax dollars are still tied up in the company or not and therefore whether the taxpayer has a right to judge the behavior of the company in that lens. At leas
136.
by tomasien 11y ago
Good point! Very good point - I still think investing in innovation is the only thing that makes sense for GM, the reason the auto bailout worked out is because Ford*, for example, did and is crushing it. http://www.nytimes.com&#
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by tomasien 11y ago
The bailout was massively profitable for the government and every penny has been repaid. Investing in innovation is exactly what a company like GM should be doing and our tax dollars are in no way involved in this. Edit: didn't make mo
138.
by tomasien 11y ago
You don't know a SINGLE person who got into finance because they wanted to be rich? I find that shocking. I work in finance (fintech, but but serving mostly traditional finance) and outside of those working for financial inclusion&#x2F
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by tomasien 11y ago
That's one of the reasons I like it. It's too controversial and complex a topic to be prescriptive about it, but it's such an important topic that it deserves to be laid out clearly and plainly. That's what PG is so good
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by tomasien 11y ago
Just FYI for anyone clicking this link, this is a link that sets it to show the worst reviews on Glassdoor, not a random sampling. I wasn't that familiar with GD beforehand it and confused me.
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by tomasien 11y ago
I can see this getting useful if you either are integrating unnecessarily complex APIs or a massive number of fairly simple APIs. Neither Slack nor Facebook qualify, but I'm assuming this company is betting on the growth of the IoT (wh
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by tomasien 11y ago
Oh that's right
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by tomasien 11y ago
He's making fun of Hillary Clinton for saying she'd close any school than wasn't doing better than average, which taken to its logical end, means closing all but 1 school.
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by tomasien 11y ago
It's likely that none of those "need" (by any definition) to have a chip or be connected to the internet, but that doesn't mean that they won't or that you won't find a lot of utility and/or joy in the fac
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by tomasien 11y ago
I'm not sure we need #2 - we need companies to be better about not forcing their employees to exercise options when they leave the company and we need employees not to exercise options early to minimize the taxes they may have to pay i
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by tomasien 11y ago
If you strip away all the logically questionable parts of this story, there are 2 really important takeaways: - Companies: don't make employees exercise options when they leave the company. I love the new "10 years to exercise&quo
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by tomasien 11y ago
Clearbit uses this as an example in blogs, etc
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by tomasien 11y ago
It's Clearbit - and btw way more data than this is available on you based on an email address. Scary in a lot of ways for sure.
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by tomasien 11y ago
Getting a job at Google as an engineer is ridiculously hard. The guy that wrote Homebrew couldn't even get hired even though 90% of their engineers use his software. https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/60868201620
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by tomasien 11y ago
Hipchat is awful and Slack is phenomenal. I mean I know that probably isn't what you want to hear but it's so hard to describe it any other way. UX/integrations/apps/speed/etc might all be the answer but it was

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