Chrome's EULA ridiculous - grants Google license to all the content you submit - <AUTHOR> http://tapthehive.com/discuss/This_Post_Not_Made_In_Chrome_Google_s_EULA_Sucks <comment><USER2> This is similar to the situation where, for at least a little while, the EULA for Safari on Windows only allowed its use on 'Apple-labeled' computers.

I find it oddly reassuring that companies don't pay any more attention to EULAs than users.

<comment><USER3> They probably threw it over the wall to an apathetic and clueless legal staff. Looks like Google took a server-oriented web application EULA and slapped it on Chrome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A new EULA has been posted...

<http://www.google.com/chrome/eula.html>

11\. Content license from you

11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services.

</comment><comment><USER5> For open source software the clause I found most odd was "10.2 You may not (and you may not permit anyone else to) copy, modify, create a derivative work of, reverse engineer, decompile or otherwise attempt to extract the source code of the Software or any part thereof, unless this is expressly permitted or required by law, or unless you have been specifically told that you may do so by Google, in writing."

The incompatibility of this is covered by clause 1.2, ". . . Open source software licences for Google Chrome source code constitute separate written agreements. To the limited extent that the open source software licences expressly supersede these Universal Terms, the open source licences govern your agreement with Google . . ."

It's still odd though.

<comment><USER6> yup...just proves the suspicion: the software guys just copy/pasted some boilerplate and inserted a few specific clauses without re-reading the whole document or double-checking what it really says.

The OP is correct, though: Google has an army of lawyers and should have caught this.

<comment><USER7> Google should spend ts considerable resources coming up with a "compiler" for legal docs. You just type in s few one line sentences describing the rights you'd like to have and the compiler checks for consistency errors and then generates a legal document (probably 100 pages long) filled with all of the right "magic words".

<comment><USER8> Google Law... now THAT would be an undertaking.

If Google's goal is to organize the world's information, law is definitely some of the most opaque information for non-specialists.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> sometimes i wonder if the executives ever read their own legal documents. i read every legal document i sign or agree to, because to not do so opens up risk. but before they're released, legal documents should be vetted by a number of people in the company, especially those who are technically inclined. it often feels like many legal docs, terms of use documents, aup's and what not are written by lawyers who really don't understand the essence of what they're doing.

and clearly, there is a class of lawyer who's testing the boundaries of intellectual property law. too little of this has been challenged and brought to court.

</comment><comment><USER10> Perhaps the dumbest thing of all is bloggers don't actually read up before posting blogs like this particular one. One of the developers debunked the idea, he listed when the browser communicates with Google ( here: <http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/google-chrome-communication/> ), and he insisted that they hold no rights in a public blog post that can be cited by any two-bit lawyer from the way-back-machine. Scandalous of them, huh?

</comment><comment><USER11> That's about as enforceable as signing away your first-born.

</comment><comment><USER12> My greatest surprise in all this is that people actually read EULAs.

</comment><comment><USER13> The official line right now is that the legal team at Google is aware of the situation and is taking a look.

Yay legal!

<comment><USER14> And where were they when this was written in the first place?

<comment><USER15> My guess would be that this EULA was derived from a boilerplate Google EULA with a search/replace done on it. Apparently, it's very similar to the Google Docs EULA.

<comment><USER16> Google own all my google docs?

<comment><USER17> Read before you freak.

Other than the limited license set forth in Section 11, Google acknowledges and agrees that it obtains no right, title or interest from you (or your licensors) under these Terms in or to any Content that you submit, post, transmit or display on, or through, the Services, including any intellectual property rights which subsist in that Content (whether those rights happen to be registered or not, and wherever in the world those rights may exist). Unless you have agreed otherwise in writing with Google, you agree that you are responsible for protecting and enforcing those rights and that Google has no obligation to do so on your behalf.

11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive licence to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This licence is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.

<comment><USER18> Google allows you to retain copyright over your content. That's great. So if you send a copy of your manuscript to your publisher using Chrome, you technically will always be "the owner." You can still earn royalties from your content, and enter into contracts with publishers or other parties that want to license your content.

But Google will still have a "perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive licence to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through" the browser.

Usually, when we own rights to something, it gives us the power to do all those things without being bothered by someone else.

So in layman's terms, this essentially makes them "co-owner" of your content. They can license it to others, collect revenues (albeit not technically "royalties") from its sale, copy it at will, alter it at will. They don't have to have your permission to do any of this.

And that's just the intellectual property side. Forget about privacy with regard to your personal life or with regard to trade secrets.

<comment><USER17> They actually don't have the rights to license it to others. They're not co- owners, nor do they pretend to be, hence "You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services."

But their license justly protects them from being sued because you uploaded a video to YouTube that became a hit, and then you decide you want to sue them because they're hosting a video you submitted but now want to charge people for.

You can't have your cake and eat it, too.

<comment><USER18> According to the Terms, Google has the right to "publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute," your book.

They also have the right to "make such Content available to other companies, organizations or individuals with whom Google has relationships."

Licensing by any other name.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Settle down. It appears they just used the default EULA that comes with all their "Services". They have since realized that they need a different EULA. You'll probably see a new (retroactive) Chrome EULA come out shortly.

</comment><comment><USER17> These are the universal terms of service that apply to all Google products: <http://www.google.com/accounts/TOS>. It's entirely reasonable given that it limits what they can use and it protects them against, say, Pepsi uploading a document on Google Docs then suing Google for hosting that document.

</comment><comment><USER19> Let's release Lawrence Lessig on these guys. That guy knows what it really means to "do no evil"</comment>


Dilution - <AUTHOR> https://blog.ycombinator.com/dilution/ <comment><USER2> > Remember that raising money is not success. Raising huge amounts of money > early on is very rarely how companies win (though it is sometimes how > companies lose)

I honestly think one of the reasons the company I worked for was successful was our inability to raise money while we were young, which forced a real discipline and creativity for how to do more with less. It also made us skeptical of investors and ensured we didn't base our internal feelings about the company based on what a bunch of incredibly fickle investors thought. This was important both when investors hated us, and perhaps more important when they switched and loved us.

And to the second point, I saw first hand how easy money made one of our competitors so cocky they had no chance of success, and another one got too much money and got distracted spending it all to actually make a core business that made sense.

Money is necessary and important, but having too much of it is also a risk that you need to take seriously.

<comment><USER3> Counterpoint: if you're running out of money, the next investor you try to raise from is going to be tough to negotiate with. If you have years of runway left, you're in control when talking to investors, when you have 6 months, they're in control. Another point is that when everything comes down crashing, as it did in 2008, and you can't raise money anywhere nor, in many cases, make a profit in the near future since demand for everything also crashes, then if you've squirreled away enough money, you don't have to fire anyone, nor close shop.

This is not to say that too much money can't cause the problems you mentioned. The cure is to keep the money in the bank and not spend it.

All of the above is what my employer did, not my own personal idea. (Also no VCs, these gut the company if it's neither public nor profitable in 5 years, or at least they used to.)

<comment><USER4> I like your idea (actually i practice it), but your investors aren't putting a lot of money in your hands so you keep it at the bank to them, right? They could do that for themselves.

By experience you don't need years on cash to survive in the long run, discipline and a business that makes sense is way more powerful.

But off course, months of runaway is necessary. More than that is luxury.

<comment><USER3> Investors put money in the craziest places, surely there's a public story stock right now that you think is inflated beyond belief and yet it trades at the price it does. It follows that investors will do crazier things than give you money to keep in the bank if you persuade them.

You tell them point blank, "we're hoping to make it big this year, but we aren't taking any risks and we're gonna keep enough cash in the bank for the 3 next years. If you don't like this plan, fine, you're missing a chance to buy a stock that's gonna shoot up 10x and here's why", and they buy your pitch, they're gonna beg you to take their money.

I'm not saying I can do this, I'm saying people exist who can, and there are markets where things are measured in years, and so you might want more runway because your progress is way slower than that of a YC-backed Internet monopoly wannabe.

By the way, MIPS Technologies was killed by genius investors who said "give us your $100+ million in cash or invest it" and a genius CEO who said "fine, you ain't gettin' nothin', I'm buying Chip Idea." It turned out that they didn't know how to run Chip Idea and ran it into the ground, and now they had neither money in the bank nor anything to show for it. This drove the company value down so much that Imagination bought it for $60 million (the patents were sold to a big CPU cartel for another $500 million, perhaps unfortunately as genius investors did not get quite the punishment they needed to learn anything.)

A CEO capable of persuading the board of directors to keep the money in the bank would have done better.

<comment><USER5> >you're missing a chance to buy a stock that's gonna shoot up 10x and here's why

that's not a positive pitch. The message sticks, whether you try to negate it or not, if resonating with expectation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Caveat: I'm a seed stage VC, so obviously I have a horse in this race.

I don't agree with this advice. Well, _in theory_ , I strongly agree that avoiding excessive dilution is ideal. But the suggested numbers (10% dilution for a seed round) feel very unrealistic to me. It's very hard to get far on that kind of money for a seed stage company. If anything, the proliferation of bridge rounds and seed extensions and series of convertible notes show that even after raising seed rounds, many companies need more capital to get to a series A.

It's also interesting to note that the 10% figure is coming from YC, which takes 7%. That's a considerable amount of dilution, too (and very worth it, IMO).

Finally, I've never been a founder, but I imagine if a company becomes enormous, I'd care less about whether my net worth was $200m or $250m as a founder. So the dilution seems less important than having enough capital for a successful outcome. I'd rather have 60% of a small exit than 80% of a $0 exit.

I do believe in constraints and good cash management, so regardless of how much founders raise, they should be conservative with spend until they have strong product market fit.

<comment><USER7> I agree. Ironically, this was the advice we got while going through YC (yours, not Sam's.)

Specifically: don't worry about valuation because success is binary. You either make enough money that you don't care too much about percentage or you make zero dollars in which case you don't care about percentage.

The idea of constraints helping to focus a team sounds true, as long as people have enough to not worry about money. Note that this advice comes from Sam, who literally got scurvy from eating too much Ramen while a founder of Loopt.

<comment><USER8> Does anyone else find this binary view of success to be... sad? I guess you could say that if your goal isn't "Uber or bust" then don't take external capital. Is there really no funding available for companies that just want to make relatively safe, modest bets and deliver relatively safe, modest returns?

<comment><USER7> You don't have to do Uber or bust, but don't ask for venture money without going for venture returns.

I do agree that there is a market opportunity to fund $50m/year businesses, but that's not what VCs are for.

VCs: Invest in 100 companies, 90 fail, 5 return capital, 3 return 10x, 2 return 100x | 2.35x return on capital over a 10 year period (hopefully)

Index fund: 6% yearly return | 1.79x return on capital over 10 year period

Traditional small business loans average 6-9% APR and have a higher failure rate than an index fund but lower than an index fund. Unfortunately, for startups, they require collateral and/or historical financials.

<comment><USER9> I never understood this logic. Investors want unicorns but it's not like they're going to hate you for only giving them a 5x ROI.

Most startups either fail or become small businesses. Investors are giving you money to fund a business that you own. Depending on the terms you can, and should, use that money for whatever you want.

Its the investors problem if 5x returns aren't good enough, not yours. Does the bank call you to complain that your mortgage interest rate is too low? No. They gave you the loan with what they thought was reasonable terms at the time. It's not your fault they gave you the money too easily.

You should be focused 100% on building a successful sustainable business. Investors can fuck right off if they push for risks that could turn their 5x return into 0.

<comment><USER10> That requires that you have board control. If investors control the board and you tell them to fuck right off, you will quickly find yourself out of a job.

<comment><USER11> Board control isn't the problem at seed. You'll usually have board control. But if you need another round of funding, the investors control the company.

If your seed investors are "name brand", and they pass and say, "Ah yes, they're very nice guys. Wonderful conscience, very punctual. Unfortunately I can't follow on, my capital's already allocated. I wish them luck.", you'd better have a plan for profitability.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "How do I spend this money?"

If you're asking yourself this question, you're not focusing on building your business. How to spend it becomes a distraction.

The converse also happens: for any business problem the easiest solution is to spend money. Leads? Leadgen firm. Hiring? Recruiters. Code? Outsource, or contract out. Testing? you get the picture.

Throwing money at a problem is a short term fix but fails to build competence at doing that thing. The lack of experience weakens your company in the long term. It's organizational muscle that didn't get exercised. It atrophies over time.

This might make sense for certain areas, but having too much money on hand makes it very tempting to solve all problems with this one hammer.

</comment><comment><USER13> Somebody please make this: like TransparentStartup [1] but instead of sharing revenue numbers the startup shares their cap table so that we can see how it changes over time after multiple rounds of fundraising.

I feel like seeing concrete examples of how the founders' share of their company changes based on the size/details of a fundraising round would be super useful for founders as they negotiate funding rounds.

Are there any companies currently sharing these details that I'm not aware of?

[1] [http://www.transparentstartups.com/](http://www.transparentstartups.com/)

<comment><USER14> I would love to see that along with the founder and early employee stakes broken down on the company side. This is all so easy when you read it on various websites and haven't actually done it on your own. Then you get in the driver seat and there's all this crap flying at you that doesn't fall into any one bucket. The guy who is critical to your business doesn't care how much equity he gets. The gal who is not as critical is ready for a cage match. The investor wanting to throw you 5 million makes the offer over a burger and a beer. The guy in the next town over wants pages of documentation for his $20,000.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Serious question here for people who know about this.

"I have recently seen several examples of companies doing pretty well and going out to raise B rounds with investors already owning 50-60% of the company. In all cases, they are having a tough time."

I know a company in this position. Not quite going out to raise a Series B, but lots of interest from current Series A investors in doubling down (doing an internal growth round).

What's special about this scenario is that the company is profitable and has millions in revenue and grew 1,200% since the Series A investment round just a couple years ago. But because the pre-Series-A financing was at depressed valuations, there is only 30% of stock for the common, and the founders/employees are (rightfully) worried about dilution. The cap table is clean, but the distribution is unfavorable.

In this case, could founders make a reasonable argument that Series A investors should buy out seed investors and angels rather than diluting the common stock holders further? It seems like secondary liquidity for the angels would be attractive to them, and I heard that when offering secondary liquidity for those seed-stage investors, one could do some sort of "stock- cash swap" that avoids dilution of the common. Anyone heard of something like this or have good reading material about it? It seems like an esoteric "third way" between Series A and exit.

<comment><USER16> That seems reasonable if you can find Seed investors willing to sell. The very fact that the new investor wants to put money in at a favorable valuation may be the type of thing that makes the seed investor think "this company might be getting hot" and decide they don't want to sell.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> A classic comment from the CEO of a startup I worked at during an all hands after a new round of funding, someone asked about dilution. The CEO (with a straight face) said, "you weren't diluted, the share price increased." The question was from one of the early employees. It was one more item that made a few of us who were already fed up about a few things leave before even vesting.

<comment><USER18> Could you link to some resources to help understand this kind of stuff? It's hard to navigate between all the numbers people at startup throw like it's always good things.

For example in your case why was it bullshit? It sounds like you potentially own less but it got more expensive.

<comment><USER19> >why was it bullshit?

It _probably_ was bullshit because to raise money the company will usually create new shares - and doing this will always make all existing shares own a lesser percentage of the company.

Fun example time! Let's consider a company with 100 shares in total (as printed physical IOUs). An early-stage engineer received 1 of those shares, so they own 1% of the company. Fast forward to the next all-hands meeting, and a founder says they just raised a new investment round. Common practice suggests that the new investors just bought 25% of shares/IOUs. But where did these IOUs come from, if there were only 100 and all are distributed already? In essence, the company just printed new ones, much like the government can print new money. In this case the company started with 100 shares, then printed 33 new ones for the new investors, and now those investors own 33/133 shares or ~25% of the company. And our early-stage engineer owns 1/133 shares, or their ownership got "diluted" to 0.7% from 1%. Perhaps. Or perhaps the company printed 500 new shares, and the new investors now own 80% of the business (500/600 shares), and the engineer owns 0.16% instead of 1%. This is what the engineer is asking: "by how much did I get diluted?". The founder is replying "you didn't", which is mathematically impossible if new shares/IOUs were created. Of course now the engineer's 0.7% is probably worth more in $$$, but that wasn't what they asked.

That's under typical conditions, but it's possible that the founder _was_ correct as long as the company did not print new shares. Two examples come to mind: (1) the founders sold some of their own shares to the new investors at a much higher price, thus keeping the total share count at 100 but implicitly increasing the price of the 1 share the engineer holds. This scenario is unlikely because it's seen as a bad signal - the founders are cashing-in and existing the venture. (2) The company had 100 shares, but only distributed 80 of them initially, so the new investors are getting their shares from the remaining unallocated pool. This means the total share count remains at 100, and the engineer still owns 1% with no dilution, and the price just went up and that's it. Having 10-15% unallocated for attracting talent is normal, but having ~25% unallocated for future fund raising is unnecessary complex and highly unusual.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> In other words, companies are taking investment later and later in their lifespan so founders need to be sure thy have some left many years and many rounds after they started. Capital is dirt cheap and desperate for return - and only getting cheaper.

</comment><comment><USER21> Tangential question: How do founders typically retain control of their company? I've specifically been told that it's wise for one person to own 51pct of the company and be CEO. However, with 20 pct of equity for investors and 10 reserved for future employees, this doesn't seem to leave much for cofounders who are potentially putting as much skin in the game as the CEO.

<comment><USER22> > I've specifically been told that it's wise for one person to own 51pct of > the company and be CEO.

Well, if that CEO puts up 51% of the capital that might happen. But otherwise the better formula is to be equals as co-founders.

<comment><USER21> From what I've read, from former ycombinator founders, that if one person isn't in charge then people get stuck in decision paralysis. And that for instance if three people are equal partners, its always a game of alliances and two people ganging up against the other one.

<comment><USER22> You are conflating ownership and the role of a CEO. Technically the CEO does not have to hold equity at all (and this is in fact common in many older family owned companies).

Decision paralysis is more a function of not having a clear path forward or having founders without aligned goals than anything else and those are serious problems that need to be dealt with but they do not need to be dealt with on an equity level.

It's much more to do with knowing which role fits you best.

Keep in mind that the CEO functions at the pleasure of the board if you have one and the stockholders if you do not and unless you plan on doing stuff that will go directly against the interest of other shareholders having control is rarely if ever important.

 _Far_ more important than the CEO having a controlling percentage of the equity is that the _founders_ have a controlling percentage (and if possible, a supermajority depending on your articles of incorporation and shareholder agreements and whether or not you have more than one class of stock).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This felt more from a VC perspective than a founder's one..

1\. VCs have portfolios and can talk about averages. As a founder, you're dealing with your particular reality, and as startup phases are inherently high variance... your terms will be all over the map, and not driven by your dilution aspirations. Oh, SaaS crashed this quarter and you lost your F100 account? Too bad for you. Bots are in? Sweet!

2\. I'm surprised by the dilution percentages here: I'm guessing they're for the top 10% or so, where everything already aligned anyway. Likewise, I'd expect it for something like a SaaS snack boxes -- stuff where averages and predictability make sense from day 1, not crazy bumpy tech etc. Otherwise, for example, VCs will fight HARD for their % minimums. So, 10-15% sounds like one VC at their absolute bottom... and therefore not normal.

3\. 7% might be what accelerators converged on... but that's high compared to F&F, angels, & specialized advisors in your field (vs "startups").

</comment><comment><USER24> In every VC pitch I've made in the past 5 years, they have all offered more money than needed/requested.

Maybe I over-corrected by choosing to bootstrap, but you can never own too much of your own company.

In the VC's defense, their funds are increasing at a rate disproportionate to the number of partners available to manage the investments.

VCs simply cannot focus on 100 $1M investments with 5 partners.

<comment><USER25> Do I understand correctly that every time you have pitched VCs in the past 5 years they wanted to give you money? If pitched to many VCs over the years and never been offered investment. The rest of you make it sound so easy

<comment><USER24> Sorry, didn't mean to trivialize the process.

More literally, for the all VC conversations _that got past due diligence_ , the negotiations simply fizzled out.

Dilution was only one of many factors. It _is_ a very hard and grueling process.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Bug fix: in an earlier version I used 12.5% and 20% as the rough targets for seed and A rounds. Then I decided to switch to 10-15% and 15-25% ranges. Somehow that change only partially got made, indicating 10% and 15-25%. Now it's fixed.

</comment><comment><USER27> I think it's a bit insensitive not to mention that at the seed stage most companies throughout the world cannot raise any money on any terms, period. (Literally: period.)

This includes companies with revenue and built product.

The rest of the advice is good and interesting - but it really is for companies that can raise in Silicon Valley.

</comment><comment><USER28> Am I the only one who cringes when entrepreneur uses the amount of raised money to introduce/describe himself?

"...during my career I have raised $100 million..."

Yeah? And how much value did you create?

</comment><comment><USER29> less dilution = good

money to do stuff = good

wise spending = good

these are all known things, i'm not sure this article actually digs much into how to balance them

</comment><comment><USER30> As a former serial startup employee (I used to be young an optimistic) I cannot count the money I earned doing crunch and being underpaid ...

Because I have none of it.

</comment><comment><USER31> The other consideration with raising a large round is that you are going to have a high valuation. If your company is awesome and growing really fast, this is no problem. However, if you overestimated your market and struggle to grow into that high valuation, you limit your options for a successful exit.

</comment><comment><USER32> Great post, I love it!

I definitely have an opiniosn.

I've raised money, couldn't raise money, have had friends that couldn't, have ended up having friends slogging through to become millionaires without any vc, and even turned down rounds hoping to get more.

Now when I look back and think "how would I do this now?" I come to two conclusions.

1\. If I want to own an idea as a business owner over the long term, then I don't care about investors. This is my Basecamp spidey sense and convictions. My happy path.

2\. My idea is great, I need some money. However.... Nowadays I'm thinking along the lines of "long term (hopefully,, but I suspect that most people don't care bs long term"", which is not SV or wall st friendly. I am seriously looking at non-profit.

Uggggh!

I've been through #1 a gazillion times and now, since I have a family and a diff outlook on life, I'm looking longer term.

But, how does the 'family dude' perspective conflict with the Uber perspective?

Growth is the altar that we all kneel to. The Iron Throne. But, it doesn't have to be this way. Granted, we all have Maslow's needs and that varies based on a number of factors (geographic, personal, etc). But in the end, what is our purpose?

Are we here to sustain sexual harassment via star pupils at Uber so they that their 'CEO' can grow? (At the expense of human beings?)

What is the point of growth or even exponential growth? Money? Riches?

Look, I think YC is better than not and I think that we - we tech people - need to lead the way because we 'can'. Thumbs up on riches, algorithms, and technology. These are awesome progressive things!

But, seriously, after going thru the vc grinder, seeing the cap tables of founders and everyone else and then THEN (stupidly) agreeing to this inequity.. Well, the fault is obviously mine but there is is (a lot) of fault with these pump and dump startups.

</comment><comment><USER33> I think the spectacular real time failure of Uber is going to drive a lot of those valuations down.

<comment><USER34> I think you're right but VCs have only themselves to blame for that fiasco.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Do startups ever pre-allocate blocks of equity for investors? I understand it's common to carve out N shares for employee options.

Say pre-raise look like this...

\- 30% for founders

\- 20% for employees

\- 50% for future investors

Then when raising initial funds, you sell 20% the total pie (40% of the investor block) of the company to investors, making the share split look like this...

\- 30% for founders

\- 20% for employees

\- 20% for current investors

\- 30% for future investors

When an exit occurs, any unallocated shares get split up among the existing shareholders using whatever formula is used to calculate how the money is distributed.

<comment><USER36> I did something like this with our company, but it doesn't really do anything other than make round share counts. All that matters is the proportions between shareholders, not the number of unissued shares.

<comment><USER35> Given what you know, would you do it again? My main thinking is that it's simply easier to reason about, especially when discussing the value of shares with non-investors.

<comment><USER36> I wouldn't preallocate for investors. It's too unpredictable. Employees, sure.

Is it that you want to be able to say to your team members, "you have X% in the worst case" ? I don't think it's practical to make such a statement if you're going down a fundraising path. At best you might be able give a near term worst case, based on the next round or two (e.g. apply the high side of Sam's seed/A dilution ranges). It's all guesswork though, and even with a preallocation you might need to exceed it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Diluting founders' equity is the least important point. A messed up cap table can make your startup uninvestable. It hurts the whole company, not just you, the founder. Which is why you mostly see these deals peddled by VCs without a track record.

Even if you can't get a different deal you might want to pass. There's just no point. Unless all you want is a salary.

</comment><comment><USER38> I think something needs to be said about context. Some ventures will be more successful by raising more / diluting more, while others the cash will just hurt. Some examples: hardware plays versus an AI startup.

</comment><comment><USER39> > raise $5 million on a $10 million pre-money valuation (selling 33% of the > company to investors)

How do these calculations work?

<comment><USER7> The pre-money valuation is what you are worth before the investment. So you're saying "we have a company worth $10 million" and the investor is saying "cool, let me give you $5 million."

So now you have $10 million in company plus $5 million in cash, so you are worth $15 million (that's called the post-money valuation.) The investor gets $5m / $15m—33% of the company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Money is simply wind in the sails.

<comment><USER40> The fact that I got voted down on this just goes to show the level of ability to understand reality HN has. HN is a bubble.

<comment><USER41> I didn't down vote, but your comment was banal and didn't add anything to the discussion. HN aspires to a higher level of discourse, as you probably know. Just glanced at your profile, you probably have a lot of insight that everyone would find interesting!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> _> Most founders' instincts seem to be to give too much equity to investors and not enough to employees._

Is this wrong? Investors don't receive anything for their capital but equity. Employees receive income, benefits, etc. that have to be factored into the equation.

<comment><USER7> It's absolutely wrong! Employees are the ones who put in the work to actually build the company.

As you said, investors only put in capital (and sometimes advice and/or intros.) Employees work full-time on the company, oftentimes for below-market rates (what they could reasonably assume to make in salary + benefits at larger companies.)

A company at any size is far, far, far more likely to succeed or fail based on its employees than its investors.

<comment><USER43> Employees also take more risk. Investors just lose money but employees lose years of their career if things go wrong.

<comment><USER44> Why would employees lose years of their career? While it's true that early work-ex in a company that eventually becomes Google is great to have, it's not exactly a black mark on your resume if you have worked in a company that didn't do well. You still got plenty of engineering experience.

<comment><USER45> Sadly, four years of "heroic effort at failing startup" doesn't look as good on the resume as "worked at Google".

<comment><USER43> A lot of startups aren't even technically very advanced so the only thing you may have learned is to work 80 hours per week without complaining</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Does extra mental effort burn more calories? - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/02/science/02qna.html?ref=science <comment><USER2> I don't think he's right. At least what he said doesn't match every other place I've researched this topic. For example: <http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=381608>

Which says it goes up by 50%, i.e. an extra 125 calories per hour. He says "But you do not engage that long in such an activity" - maybe he doesn't. But I think most of the people here do.

</comment><comment><USER3> "...so the brain uses roughly 300 calories.

"There are good, sophisticated studies that show that concentrated mental activity, like doing a difficult multiplication problem in your head, increases the glucose uptake to the brain," he said. By how many calories? Less than, say, 20 calories of the 300, he estimated."

If it's an _increase_ of 20 calories, then why is the total still 300?

<comment><USER4> Maybe I'm fooling myself, but I definitely notice/perceive the need for glucose after extended concentration. Whether from a longer respite and a good meal, or from a modest intake of something like soda. With the latter, though, it is difficult to keep from overindulging and inducing a sugar buzz/crash cycle.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, I agree. When I took long tests like the SAT or college final exams, I definitely noticed the drain. I needed some sugary drink/candy (or just beer) afterward, for sure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In a way, it depends on how we define mental effort. If you concentrate on raising your heart and breathing rates - which are physical, but then so in a sense is mental effort - you can significantly affect calorie burn.

<comment><USER7> Right, and if you decide to run a marathon or become an Olympic athlete, that mental effort is going to burn even _more_ calories. So I think it's clear that they're talking about calories burned by the mental activity, not calories burned by physical activity that was the result of mental activity.

<comment><USER8> I don't think that's what he meant. There is some evidence that with training some people can raise their heart rate or body temperature purely by thinking about it.

<http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2002/04.18/09-tummo.html>

<comment><USER9> I had one girlfriend who became like a furnace when she slept. She slept with no covers with the window open in January in Ohio. I had to strip down to just one sheet. Literally, it was like sleeping next to a space heater. So it is possible for the body to increase its metabolic rate.

<comment><USER10> For the purposes of temperature control in places with _extremely_ tight environmental requirements, the modelling assumption is that a human being gives off the same amount of thermal energy as a standard 100-watt incandescent lightbulb. When you check into the clean room, you turn off your bulb. When you leave you turn it back on. The bulbs also serve as a handy way to tell who is in the lab that day :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> No wonder I'm so fat. I'm suing the LOLCats for mental anguish/physical distress.

<comment><USER12> I'd actually like to see a controlled study on the effect of LOLcats on IQ. And the effect of reddit/digg/4chan (reddiggchan?).

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> If I have to decide between doing algebra or jogging to burn calories...I'll take a lap</comment>


Why is the Halting Problem so important? - <AUTHOR> https://cs.stackexchange.com/questions/32845/why-really-is-the-halting-problem-so-important <comment><USER3> I agree with the reply in that thread which points out that Rice's theorem is the real gem, of which the Halting Problem is just a particular specific instance.

Rice's Theorem is rather profound and relatively easy to understand - <USER2> that's really needed is a good grip on the mathematical interpretation of what a program _is_.</comment>


The 37signals Manifesto (original site from 1999) - <AUTHOR> http://37signals.com/manifesto <comment><USER2> Part of me deeply admires 37 Signals for their success, their people, and the quality of the work they do. Yet another part of me detests how they've always tried to sell themselves as some sort of movement, when in fact they're a business trying to make a buck, just like any other. Not that there's anything wrong with making a buck... let's just leave the "manifestos" to Marx and Engels.

<comment><USER3> They are just a business trying to make a buck, and sadly, that is what makes them somewhat unique. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube are "successful" and get a ton of press, but they've yet to make a profit. 37signals isn't afraid to charge for a product they know is great.

37signals is really good at making you realize how these web companies might not be the best business to get into. Could there be a bubble slowing building that will eventually burst?

<comment><USER4> This is silly. There are thousands of websites that make money. The difference is, they don't go on and on and on about it.

The unique part is 37Signals seems to concentrate mainly on PR. They're not the biggest or best, they just shout the loudest.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> From number 33:

 _Mankind constantly analyzes radio waves from outer space in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Since this analysis started, almost all of the signal sources have been identified. 37 signals, however, remain unexplained._

I couldn't find a list of these signals, or a reference to the number 37. The wikipedia entry for 37signals says it's a reference to signals discovered by Paul Horowitz: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Horowitz>, but none of the links have stuff about specific signals discovered. Anybody know where I could find a list and/or descriptions of these signals?

</comment><comment><USER6> From #31:

 _Yahoo - Simple and still the best._

Times have changed.

</comment><comment><USER7> My favorite part from sec 03. "Most people can't even figure out how to program their VCR"

<comment><USER8> Is this even true? I know _some_ folks who have (or had) trouble programming a VCR, but most didn't. So, aside from amusing anecdotal evidence, on what is this claim based?

The book A Small Matter of Programming suggests that people adapt quite readily to assorted complex systems (e.g. knitting patterns, baseball box scores) given a proper context.

This is not to argue for complexity, but that people will raise to the occasion if they think it worth it. Don't sell your audience short (but don't make things harder than they need be).

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I still remember first seeing this when they put it up. Not many pages I remember seeing for the first time like that, but they were onto something pretty original at the time - clean designer and pithy aphorisms cut against the "eye candy" grain of the late 90s. For example, Gabocorp's Flash site was considered pretty awesome at the time.. archive: <http://www.thefwa.com/flash10/gabo.html>

I'm pretty sure the site didn't _look_ as it's presented here though..

<comment><USER10> This is how the original 37signals site looked when we launched it in 1999: [http://web.archive.org/web/19991127121651/http://www.37signa...](http://web.archive.org/web/19991127121651/http://www.37signals.com/index.html)

<comment><USER11> Who did you end up hiring from your notice in the upper right hand corner?</comment></comment></comment>


The last great swine flu epidemic  - <AUTHOR> http://www.salon.com/env/feature/2009/04/28/1976_swine_flu/index.html <comment><USER2> You know, the dark entrepreneur in me can't help but feel like all this swine flu craze could be a great opportunity for someone to make some cash.

<comment><USER3> You can stock up on Indian generic Tamiflu in case of martial law. I'm not sure how you could sell it without getting arrested (or just having it seized). Craigslist probably wouldn't work.

[http://www.nicepricepharmacy.com/Products2.asp?ID=3543&T...](http://www.nicepricepharmacy.com/Products2.asp?ID=3543&T=a) (this was listed for $79 48 hours ago)

<comment><USER4> I bet one of the overseas pharmacies has an affiliate program.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's easy to be all cool about it, as long as you are not coughing.

I have a hard time believing that there might be a huge crisis, but that doesn't guarantee it won't happen. I bet the inhabitants of New Orleans never expected to be drowned (just mentioning another example of cases where modern life CAN be turned upside down).

Medicine doesn't seem to be very successful in stopping the normal (average) flu, so I am not sure how effective countermeasures against a really bad flu would even be.

As for politicians, I guess it is a difficult decision if a lot of lives are at stake. What is worse - being called out for wasting a couple of billions on catastrophe prevention for a catastrophe that never manifested, or being called out for letting a catastrophe with millions of victims happen? (Not sure how directly you could translate those billions spent on flu prevention to other deaths that could have been prevented, but you get the idea).

<comment><USER6> Well, uh, where's the avian flu (late years' scare)?

<comment><USER5> What do you mean? I have never heard of "avian flu". The last bigger scare I remember was SARS.

Maybe the current "scare" is all backed by the makers of Tamiflu, who earn lots of money by now. Possible - just saying that another pandemic could be possible, too. There are lots of diseases that medicine can't handle yet (HIV?).

<comment><USER6> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avian_influenza#H5N1></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Stitch Fix has confidentially filed for an IPO - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/28/stitch-fix-has-confidentially-filed-for-an-ipo/ <comment><USER2> I hope we don't have another Blue Apron on our hands. Amazon's fashion department is starting to get into this space. I hope Stitch Fix can stay afloat.

</comment><comment><USER3> The only profitable ecommerce company to IPO apart from Amazon and EBay.

<comment><USER4> And as mentioned, Amazon will eventually sidle into this market as well.

<comment><USER3> Amazon is going for a "Try and buy" thing, not a styling service.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wish them well. The idea of modelling styles using genetic algorithms is intriguing. It could be even more powerful combined with input from a fashion designer.

If I were Amazon I would buy them.</comment>


The problem with gmail.co - <AUTHOR> https://www.tablix.org/~avian/blog/archives/2016/03/the_problem_with_gmail_co/ <comment><USER2> I have all my bad email addresses forwarded to me. This is better than a bounce since I know immediately. The only issue might be that I accidentally see private email intended for someone else.</comment>


Penn Students Leave School to Launch Coursekit With $1 Million Seed Round - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/27/coursekit-1-million-seed/

<comment><USER2> Interesting. Great that theyv'e taken action. Not sure I would drop out of college for this though. However, currently using a blackboard like app, and having spoken to many friends using blackboard, it seems to be pretty crappy. If they can get a couple of schools like Penn to adopt CourseKit, its got some great potential.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is this idea really worth leaving school for? I know of at least a few competitors in this space, so it seems like a pretty big risk (even with $1M in seed funding) to drop out.

</comment><comment><USER4> Penn is a very "pre-professional" school, which is not a bad thing at all. Nonetheless, it's refreshing to see this for a change...

<comment><USER5> Penn Engineering has tie-and-dye shirts?! Trying too hard IMHO.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> That's only $333,333 for each student. About the cost of going to Penn in the first place.</comment>


Google is banned in Russia - <AUTHOR> https://reestr.rublacklist.net/rec/347822/ <comment><USER2> The title is misleading, they've simply banned a number of IP addresses that belong too Google, those IP addresses were used by Telegram[1]

1: [http://tass.com/economy/1001169](http://tass.com/economy/1001169)

<comment><USER3> Misleading or not, google.com is down from Russia.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Well on the bright side, they won't be receiving gmail spam all day.</comment>


VR First by Crytek - <AUTHOR> http://vrfirst.cryengine.com/ <comment><USER3> I worked with cryengine for nearly a year before giving up and moving on to UE4 where I already had source code access without being admitted to an incubator. Hopefully something good comes out of this initiative but I'm not holding my breath. When you start learning an engine or any framework the ecosystem and community are instrumental in making your life easier and getting some sort of camaraderie.

Just my 2c.

<comment><USER4> I've been working with UE4 for 2 years now and its been the 2 most exciting years of my life. The tools are great but the community is even greater. I've never felt more empowered to create.

UE4 has won this generation of game engines in my eye, I think crytek should take a step back and re-evaluate everything. Maybe they learn from UE4 and compete with UE5 in a few more years or maybe they boldly fork UE4 and add their value as a 3rd party fork/plugin.

I think the sunk costs are too large but I'd love to see Valve fork UE4 and put their engineering might next to Epic's. Would love to hear why this thought of mine is naive/misguided.

<comment><USER5> Valve is spending their resources on the Source 2 engine instead [1], which is used by their games. Also working on UE4 would be a severe lack of focus and the work on Source 2 would suffer. Only working on UE4 would mean that Valve's own games would suffer because Source 2 receives no love. Migrating all these games to UE4 doesn't seem to have a net positive effect either. It would be a gigantic amount of work and in the end they would have to start paying Epic for the licence. Also, Valve developers have intimate knowledge of the Source engine, which I doubt they have of UE4.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_(game_engine)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_\(game_engine\))

<comment><USER6> The better solution would be to acquire Epic.

Steam is a juggernaut sales and income producer for Valve, they can easily afford to buy Epic now. That would bring the engine tech, talent and community in-house, and eliminate licensing fees for Valve. There would also be a lot Valve could then do with the UE4 market in tandem with steam.

<comment><USER7> It would also reduce choice and competition on the market. Do you really wish so much for EVERYTHING to be owned by a few ultra-rich corporations?

<comment><USER6> Everything? You're being intentionally overly dramatic.

Choice and competition are forever being reduced or increased. Nothing can ever stop that gyration. It is in fact desirable at times for mergers to occur.

I have absolutely no problem with Valve buying Epic. Your premise rests solely on the notion that the combination would be bad due to the scale and consolidation it causes. I reject that entirely and contend it would be better for consumers.

I don't consider "ultra rich" to inherently be an insult or negative. Valve deserves all of their success. Hopefully they buy Epic, as they're an excellent ultra-rich corporation.

There are no by-gun-point cartels in video gaming such that another person or company can't compete. The dramatic fall from grace - and large red ink production - of Electronic Arts a few years ago nicely proved that. If Valve buys Epic and it doesn't work out to the benefit of video game consumers, another developer will step up and gain from the Valve failure, seizing a new opportunity, as has been happening in video gaming for decades non-stop and will continue to happen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Great idea! It'll really be good for universities to start developing the infrastructure for VR courses, which I would imagine could easily be prohibitively expensive without something like this. Interesting angle by Cryengine as well, it seems like the benefit for them is getting more new game devs to use their platform. I wonder what the story is behind using Bahçeşehir as their flagship school -- Turkey I can see, since there's a big push for technological literacy there right now, but I would think a school like Boğaziçi or Galatasaray would be higher up on the list.

<comment><USER9> Probably related to its founders.

Aren't they of Turkish origin?

<comment><USER10> The founders are German-born children of a Turkish family who migrated to Germany.

<comment><USER8> Ahh there we go. Still an interesting choice of university though, I would imagine some of the more high-profile schools would've been higher up on their list. Who knows what goes into those decisions though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> They're still in business?

Serious question.

I heard they went down, after the criticism about how they treat their employees.

Just wanted to know if it's still the old company or someone bought the name and tech and does his own thing now...

<comment><USER12> Current employee here. We are def in business, we had some money issues like others mentioned more than a year ago but things are looking much better now. We have a few projects announced, signed and in full development and the engine is getting a lot of love as well with some key new hires.

<comment><USER13> Is there anything you can say about Linux support ? I think you have announced several times that Linux support is active, but I have not seen any port of CryEngine games to Linux so far.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Am I the only one getting a distinctly dystopian (/cyberpunk) vibe from the video on that page?

I don't mean the text/content – just the general vibe of the clip.

<comment><USER15> The voice might be computer generated, if it is, it's really well done.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Is there anyone else here, who has used VR in the form of an HMD, that thinks this is all just a passing fad that will fail miserably? Can I note for a moment that this technology has been hyped since 2012 and we're only seeing the first consumer-facing products now? One of which is nothing other than Google Cardboard (GearVR) and one which is $600? The only real attempt at targeting consumers is coming from Sony, and it costs nearly as much as the console itself does. This is still decidedly a hobbyist market, and it doesn't look like that will change for another year at least.

But let's put the price of adoption aside for a moment and assume that at some point it will come down in price. Even then I can't imagine that the average household will be buying this.

For one, you wouldn't want to use an HMD in any context other than sitting alone in a room, and that's something that the nerdy hobbyist market doesn't mind, but to the average person it makes it nothing other than a novel toy. I keep hearing people on CNBC talk about how this year the Superbowl will be able to be watched via an HMD, and how this is the future of media.

Are they serious? Have they ever heard of a Superbowl party? I watch football around friends, and we enjoy good food and beers. It's a social event first, and a content event second. How does an HMD fit into that? It doesn't. And I think most media we have today (save for video games) are social events. I watched the Breaking Bad finale with friends. I watch scary movies with friends. And that's not to say that I don't sometimes watch things alone, but when content creators have to worry about accommodating both of these experiences, it's difficult to make the VR experience comparatively worthwhile. VR content is going to face the same fate as 3D movies do today.

It might be the evolution of video games. But that's a far cry from the hype that it gets.

I think that the evolution of Google Glass is what will really take off.

<comment><USER17> No I don't think it's a passing fad or will fail miserably - but I do know you're not alone.

Yeah - VR is expensive right now. Maybe the price will drop a little - <USER2> this is one of the reasons why it will be niche for quite some time.

I totally agree with you that I don't think many people will watch the superbowl in VR...but!

What I predict (take with pinch of salt) is that as the Oculus and Vive are delivered there will be the common realization of some of the limitations and problems with VR (motion sickness, people who wear glasses etc) and the popularity will go down a little - but long term this type of thing just has so much potential I can only imagine it growing in the long term.

Something I notice in your comment is that you seem to be assuming that you can't have social experiences in VR, I see social in VR as one of its greatest strengths. You could see your buddies in VR as legendary warriors fighting demons. Or maybe some of your buddies are the demons. There's a huge market for that type of thing (or there will be).

AR like Google Glass (HoloLens, Magic Leap...) is also going to take off. Eventually AR and VR may converge. Want presence and to be fully immersed? Switch to VR mode.

<comment><USER18> > people who wear glasses

Just as a sidenote, I recently purchased a GearVR headset for use with my galaxy S6 and the headset allows me to calibrate the diopter such that I don't even need to use my glasses (though it is also possible to use it with them, though I prefer without). I feel like this will be a must-have for any future HMD, as in my experience it solves the glasses problem entirely.

<comment><USER19> You are lucky you don't have astigmatism :)

Even with diopter adjustment, I still prefer to wear my glasses (oculus DK2 in my case). I should really look into corrective surgery (lasik, etc.) again...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The VR labs sound great, but maybe not enough to offer a material advantage.

The next stage of the game engine wars will be fought and won over how the developers extend the designer app with VR UI, enabling creating VR (or traditional) games/experiences from within VR.

I'm sure they're all already plotting this on the roadmap, even if they're not vocal about the specifics yet.

</comment><comment><USER21> Maybe this can help with the 2045 initiative?

[http://youtu.be/01hbkh4hXEk](http://youtu.be/01hbkh4hXEk)

</comment><comment><USER22> "Lead the way", "define the future"

Lot of assumptions given:

"Ground floor"</comment>


Method and apparatus to monitor and locate an electronic device using a secured - <AUTHOR> https://patents.google.com/patent/US6300863 <comment><AUTHOR> "Method and apparatus to monitor and locate an electronic device using a secured intelligent agent via a global network"

[https://www.coresecurity.com/sites/default/private- files/pub...](https://www.coresecurity.com/sites/default/private- files/publications/2016/05/Slides-Deactivate-the-rootkit-Sacco-Aortega- Ekoparty.pdf)

Slide 22:

"The Past:

o _US 6,300,863_ B1 Pat. Figure 8A

o Filed Mar 24 1998, Absolute Corporation

o Agent inside modem Option ROM

o Support for DOS Backdooring

See "Implementing and Detecting a PCI Rootkit", Heasman, BlackHat 2007""</comment>


Ask HN: Is there any use nowadays for a proprietary C compiler? - <AUTHOR> As a result of projects like gcc and LLVM, where their progress gets validated by a huge group of software engineers all over the world, a proprietary compiler, developed only by a single company, should not be able compete effectively (at least in my mind). Is this true or do these products provide some advantage? <comment><USER2> People are still apparently using Intel's C++ compiler despite all the free ones that are available. An overview of their compiler can be found here:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_C%2B%2B_Compiler#Overvie...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_C%2B%2B_Compiler#Overview)

Intel's compiler writers might have a competitive advantage because they have access to the people who designed the chips. Understanding their machine architecture better than anyone else in the world might enable them to generate faster machine code.

<comment><USER3> I don't understand how they wouldn't be better served contributing to gcc/llvm instead?

<comment><USER4> A closed source project can license other closed source technologies, can maintain trade secrets, set its own roadmap and not expend energy on open source community politics. For Intel this means technical decisions about their compiler about can align with future chip technologies and be tuned around undisclosed aspects of a chip's design.

GPL for GCC would make that difficult and LLVM already has an 800 pound gorilla of a corporate backing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Number of supported architectures. You'd be surprised for how many chips gcc (or any free compiler) just isn't available. But _every_ chip vendor will sell you a commercial bundle of IDE (most often eclipse...) + commercial compiler + their proprietary embedded OS for a few hundred or thousand dollars. This will most often produce usable code out of the box, without you having to mess around (too much) with linker scripts, startup code and other things a lot of embedded developers have a hard time to get it running.

Yes, the licensing is a pain in the butt, but if you get to start working on the actual code you are paid to develop a months earlier the $1000 spent are a bargain!

This could of course be remedied by more prople working on gcc (or any other free compiler). But as the majority of a compilers' users will not be willing to invest time to work on the compiler (because they get paid to ship their product), and frankly most of them will not be good in compiler writing. So a commercial company will invest a few man-months of their own, add support for some obscure chip in their proprietary line of compilers, and sell it for $1000/install to the few hundred people working in the (huge) closed source industry building control-systems for power-plants, motor-controls, cheap-IoT- remote-controlled-powerstrips, ...

</comment><comment><USER6> There is a competitive advantage in CompCert[1].

However, that advantage is only of benefit in certain spaces.

[1] [http://compcert.inria.fr/](http://compcert.inria.fr/)

</comment><comment><USER7> Yes, but you'll have to find a niche where gcc or LLVM don't make sense. Intel has a huge compiler group and insider architectural knowledge, and icc has a minuscule market share. I don't see a viable business targeting mainstream processors.

I was co-founder of a compiler startup that targeted high-performance, cost- and power-sensitive communications processors that were idiosyncratic and hard to program (e.g. split-phase memory accesses, explicit hardware threading and cache control, non-interlocked pipelines, massive SIMD and VLIW parallelism, etc.) Existing compilers for these architectures, if they existed, had abysmal efficiency of generated code.

I'm a little out of touch, but I don't know if this market exists anymore. I think the FPGA tool space is interesting and high-level synthesis tools is one direction to take compiler technology.

The other place compiler development makes sense is inside hardware companies doing new architectural development, e.g., Tilera, Adapteva/Parallella, etc. I ran into Andreas about a year ago and he said they were looking for someone to work on development tools.

You can think of query optimizers and schedulers for distributed computing clusters as the data center evolution of compiler technology in the Barroso, Hölzle warehouse-scale computer sense. I think there's definitely opportunities to innovate in that market. See, for example, the recent post about Baidu accelerating SQL queries with FPGAs:

[http://www.nextplatform.com/2016/08/24/baidu-takes-fpga- appr...](http://www.nextplatform.com/2016/08/24/baidu-takes-fpga-approach- accelerating-big-sql/)

</comment><comment><USER8> The obvious case is architecture support. A lot of embedded devices are not targeted by gcc and LLVM.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd say no. The days of closed source development tools are almost entirely behind us, especially for core tools like compilers. MS was the largest major holdout to this and even they are coming around.

This is a good thing.

</comment><comment><USER9> IAR and Keil compilers are reasonably popular proprietary embedded compilers.</comment>


Rognan robotic furniture for small space living - <AUTHOR> https://ikea.today/ikea-explores-future-living-for-the-many/ <comment><USER2> Wrong link, should be [https://ikea.today/rognan-robotic-furniture-for-small- space-...](https://ikea.today/rognan-robotic-furniture-for-small-space- living/)

<comment><USER3> How does a wrong link get this many upvotes?

<comment><USER4> Likely the add agency hired by IKEA to put attention on this got the link wrong but the likes they've arranged rolled in just the same.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've started to sleep on the floor (better said, on two or three blankets on the floor) a year ago because I've read somewhere it helps with back aches. The first week was weird and uncomfortable, but I got used to it quickly.

I've never slept that well (frequent sleepless nights before switchting to the ground) and my aches almost vanished.

I got rid of my bed since I didn't need it anymore and realized how much space it took (I live in a single room in a shared appartment). Now my smallish room seems so much bigger, I literally can't even use all that space efficiently (I live quite minimalistic).

Sure, this isn't for everyone, but overall I can't stop thinking that something I took for granted (everyone needs a bed, right?) is in fact nothing but an accessoire that, in retrospect, even decresed my quality of sleep, therefore even my quality of life.

<comment><USER3> Do you sleep in the same spot every night? I'm chuckling at the idea of you getting tired and just picking a random bit of floor within your house to lie down.

<comment><USER6> You have to bless the spot by circling it three times first.

<comment><USER7> There's a great spot by the window but i have to roll 90 degrees every 15 minutes to stay in the sun

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Do people really want to live in such slave dwellings? These futuristic minihomes keep popping up in media, but is this really the solution? The people I know who live in small apartments cannot even afford new furniture. I used to live in 25m2 and the last thing I wanted was these automatons.

<comment><USER9> In Stockholm and other cities in Europe, people are more than happy to live in tiny apartments around 30sqm that look like the one in the video. Examples in the best areas of Stockholm downtown: [https://www.hemnet.se/bostader?location_ids%5B%5D=925970&loc...](https://www.hemnet.se/bostader?location_ids%5B%5D=925970&location_ids%5B%5D=473448&item_types%5B%5D=bostadsratt&living_area_max=35)

<comment><USER10> until there is 0 risk of a fire on apartment X spreading to apartment Y, I don't think I could rest easy in an apartment with all of my stuff.

<comment><USER11> Modern building standards make it extremely likely a fire cannot pass between units (you can never realistically entirely remove it - people occassionally do things like hang sheets off balconies or store tanks of fuel etc). This is before we talk about how many fires are put out by fire brigades before they've fully destroyed a single unit.

Honestly - the risk of a fire in your own apartment is drastically higher than the risk of it being engulfed in a fire caused outside of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Why would it need to be robotic? If the friction on those tracks is low enough, then it should be possible to move the whole setup by hand.

<comment><USER13> Even with low friction, you probably need to apply brakes at rest to avoid having it to move uncontrollably at the wrong time. But certainly it could be manual.

By using a motorized motion, you have more freedom in the design, and you can likely move heavier load. Not everyone is necessarily fit enough to push, squat, or reach some part.

But this is a good point and I hope you can use the system without power, because it would suck to sleep on the ground because you have a power outage.

<comment><USER12> Braking could certainly be done without motors by requiring a handle to be squeezed while moving. With heavier loads I might see the point in using motors, but I think a few pulleys could do the trick as well.

My point is mostly that the robotic part seems to be slapped on to make the whole thing seem more futuristic, when in reality it is just a clever design for a folding bed.

<comment><USER13> Even if I don't want to be too cynical, it is probably easier to raise funding for robotic furniture than furniture on wheels...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Man the future looks depressing.

<comment><USER15> I see what you mean - but things like sofa beds and murphy beds have been with us for decades.

Is a motorised sofa bed any more depressing than a regular sofa bed? Or is it more the implication they see such furniture as a growth market?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I can't be the only one that lol'ed when they didn't dive into bed together. I see what you did there, IKEA.

</comment><comment><USER17> "Sir, are you classified as human?" "Negative, I am a meat popsicle."

Reminds me of Korben Dallas' place.

<comment><USER18> I think of his and similar styled apartments often. Clips for those who aren't aware [0] [1]. Bears resemblance to the Capsule Tower [2] [3].

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzOHhzk7zJ0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzOHhzk7zJ0)

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZFH4wCLVXY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZFH4wCLVXY)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakagin_Capsule_Tower](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakagin_Capsule_Tower)

[3] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXRJE2caPNY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXRJE2caPNY)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> > Cities are booming and at the same time living spaces are shrinking.

That's not necessary with the right allocation of shared spaces. Are workspaces "shrinking" because more people work in coworking spaces?

Designers should stop pretending that prison-cell living is something desireable, it's not.

</comment><comment><USER20> Wonder if the name is from the small Norwegian village [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rognan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rognan) and why they did go for that name

<comment><USER21> They always use Norwegian place names for their beds.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Has anyone any idea what standards might apply to autonomous moving part inside a home ?

I am not sure that it actually exists, but at some point, someone is going to be crushed by its moving furniture or trapped in the sofa.

</comment><comment><USER10> The irony here is if you have enough money to afford this sort of thing, why would you live in a small space?

<comment><USER15> Although the video depicts tiny one-room apartments, the second market for this is people who'd like some extra space without the cost and inconvenience of extending their house or moving house.

i.e. if you're willing to pay $2000 to get space for a home office or exercise space, that'll get you a pretty fancy folding bed - but it's a fraction of the cost of an extra bedroom.

<comment><USER22> You don't need something robotic but I expect folding beds (especially outside the most expensive cities) see a lot of use in guest bedrooms and similar. A traditional bed sort of locks a room into a guest bedroom function even if it's rarely used as such. Better to have a sofa bed of some sort and use it for whatever purpose most of the time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> "Hey Siri, retract the bed into the rear of the kitchen wall and spin the bathroom 180°."</comment>


Incanter now has standalone executables - <AUTHOR> http://data-sorcery.org/2010/06/12/incanter-executables/

<comment><USER2> Incanter is already a very high quality piece of software. If you do any numeric/statistical computing I highly recommend it. It was my primary motivation for learning Clojure, and it has not disappointed me.

In contrast, R is mature and polished, but leaves something to be desired as a language (at least to me). Clojure as a language (and by extension Incanter) has a degree of loving craftsmanship that makes it much more pleasant to work with. It's like a well-tailored suit; the details make all the difference.</comment>


Why the Supreme Court's software patent ban didn't last - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/features/2018/06/why-the-supreme-courts-software-patent-ban-didnt-last/ <comment><USER2> Wow, didn't realize software patents are alive and well. Regardless of what the SCOTUS rules.</comment>


Toolkit for Web Dev 2012 q1 - <AUTHOR> http://dalehurley.com/essential-toolkit-for-a-developer-building-a-site_20120419.html

<comment><AUTHOR> The web is amazing at the moment. Creating a polished application could not be easier. This toolkit is a summary of what you need to get started.

What is in your tool belt?

The most exciting part for me is I know it will be completely different in 6 months time. What are the next emerging technologies that has you excited?

<comment><USER2> TextMate, Sequel Pro, MAMP Pro, VIM, iTerm2, VMWare Fusion, Firebug, Scss, Compass</comment></comment>


Report: 110 people own 35% of Russia's wealth - <AUTHOR> http://bigstory.ap.org/article/report-110-people-own-35-pct-russias-wealth <comment><USER2> I would urge readers to refrain from the kneejerk reaction 'it's happening all over now'. What is happening in the Western world (rise of inequality due to skills being prized higher owing to technological change) is very different to what happened in Russia.

There a band of people connected to the government (first it was party apparatchiks, then friends of Putin) plundered resources owned by the state. And almost all of them have to do with stuff being pulled out of the ground.

<comment><USER3> It's fascinating that so many of them are ex-KGB. These guys would have been painstakingly vetted for their impeccable ideological purity before being recruited in the first place, let alone promoted. These were the ultimate guardians of the Communist system, and they turned hyper-capitalist overnight. I guess it's like we see in the West when holier-than-thou politicians are enmeshed in a corruption scandal but like everything Russian, executed on a grand scale. Have you seen the size of their novels?!

<comment><USER4> "... vetted for their impeccable ideological purity ..."

Rather, vetted for their impeccable ability to wax lyrical about "ideological purity." I'd suggest that these guys are personalities that learn how to survive in the current climate regardless what that climate happens to be.

<comment><USER5> _I 'd suggest that these guys are personalities that learn how to survive in the current climate regardless what that climate happens to be._

Well said. And that's a great skill to have. (I often wish I had more of it.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> China has a similar problem.

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2013/01/20/the- china-m...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2013/01/20/the-china- miracle-a-rising-wealth-gap/)

[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-05/china-approves- inco...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-05/china-approves-income-plan- as-wealth-divide-poses-risks.html)

This is frightening to social scientists in China who analyze society from a Marxist framework, especially those who have noticed that regional wealth gaps in China are greater than those in Yugoslavia before Yugoslavia disintegrated.

<comment><USER7> America has a somewhat similar problem. One family right now has more wealth than the bottom 40% of the American population combined.

[http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jul/18/business/la-fi-mo- wa...](http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jul/18/business/la-fi-mo-walmart- heirs-20120718)

<comment><USER8> It's not quite that similar. The 400 richest Americans control $2 trillion, or about 3-4% of total U.S. wealth. That means wealth in the U.S. is a lot less concentrated at the top than in Russia. To match Russia (accounting for population), the 200 richest Americans would have to own $19 trillion in assets, the average wealth would have to be about $100 billion and you'd see some trillionaires.

Looking at the net worth of the bottom 40% of the American population doesn't tell you much about the level of oligarchy in American society. You would expect a big chunk of the population to not have much in the way of assets, simply because the trajectory of peoples' lives is to build up assets as they age over time. See: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_in_the_United_States#Sta...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_in_the_United_States#Statistics). Indeed, things that are ostensibly good, say more people getting higher education or more job mobility, can push out the time when people settle down, buy a house, and start saving, thus increasing the number of people who don't have substantial assets.

The median family net worth of a household headed by someone under 35 is $10k, while it's over $230k for a household headed by someone aged 55-65. The "bottom 40%" category is also heavily skewed by education, with households headed by non-high school graduates having a median net worth of $30k versus $250k for households headed by college graduates.

The statistics indicate that the "bottom 40%" starts around $40k. How many people under 30 do you know that have a net $40k? With student loans and sky- high rents, I bet lots of silicon valley engineers are in that "bottom 40%" for reasons that have nothing to do with oligarchy.

<comment><USER9> Wealth statistics are tricky. As a thought experiment, I have always wondered what the numbers would be if everyone in the country had identical incomes of $50k/year. I have a feeling that 25% would accumulate debts and have zero total wealth. Even with perfectly identical incomes, the "wealthiest" person would have more wealth than the bottom 25% combined.

<comment><USER10> A recurring observation about wealth distribution is that if everyone's income & wealth were equalized, we'd soon return to the economic disparity & distribution we see now. Poverty/wealth is, on the whole, a consequence of _chosen behavior_.

I find it odd that those of us who make this observation, and follow it thru to its natural outcomes, are lambasted for the consequential opinions we hold thereon.

<comment><USER11> > Poverty/wealth is, on the whole, a consequence of chosen behavior.

That's very true, but an equally important factor is compound interest, which tends to amplify what might initially be very small differences in wealth. I once wrote an article ([http://arachnoid.com/example/#Compound_Interest_Example](http://arachnoid.com/example/#Compound_Interest_Example)) in which, as an example, at age 20 a prudent person invests an inheritance of $20,000 for his retirement at age 60, expecting to withdraw $45.00 each week for walking-around money. In the experiment, if the investor withdrew 38 cents more each week, he ended up flat broke at age 60. If he withdrew 38 cents less, he doubled his money.

Another factor is that being poor is expensive, there's no other way to put it. When a rich person uses a credit card, he gets a free 30-day loan. That service is being paid for by those at the bottom, who have a constant balance on their cards.

A poor person has to buy insurance for his house and car, because they're both on bank loans, and the banks require insurance (and the bank loans sometimes double the cost of the purchases). A rich person can buy things in cash, and then self-insure using his assets to cover accidental losses.

Let's face it -- overall, being poor is a very bad business policy. But the point is that an old adage about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer is backed up by simple economics.

<comment><USER12> >>> A poor person has to buy insurance for his house and car,

We're doing pretty good here if a poor person is implied to have a house worth insuring (implying either ownership or rental of sufficient value, containing sufficient assets) and a car, and is eligible for bank loans for both. In some countries, a person rich enough to have a house, a car and to qualify for bank loans for both is considered pretty well-to-do.

>>> A rich person can buy things in cash, and then self-insure using his assets to cover accidental losses.

I'm pretty sure most people, not only poor people, use car insurance. It's more convenient and usually (unless you drive exotic or super-expensive cars) cheaper than surety bonds that are usually required, and same with cash deposits (since cash deposited at DMV can't be used for anything else). For businesses having massive fleets, OTOH, it may make sense to self-insure since they get the same risk distribution as insurers, but without the middleman.

>>> overall, being poor is a very bad business policy

It's bad business, but you may have a lot of incentives for it, given that welfare subsidies and services you may get in many US localities pay more than minimum wage job and in some localities more than average wage job.

[http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/why-get- welfare](http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/why-get-welfare) [http://www.cato.org/publications/white-paper/work-versus- wel...](http://www.cato.org/publications/white-paper/work-versus-welfare- trade)

>>> rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer is backed up by simple economics.

It may be but it definitely is not backed up but what you said. The thing is that statistics that talk about "rich getting richer" makes you assume that same people that were rich 20 years ago got even richer now, and same people that were poor 20 years ago are even poorer now. In fact, nothing in this statistics point to it - what statistics can tell you is that some people were rich 20 years ago, and some different people are rich now, but it usually says nothing about how many of people rich today were rich or poor 20 years ago. It is completely normal for a person to be piss-poor while being a young student and become quite well established when retiring. Usually it comes from working hard and making a number of right choices on the way. Including, yes, saving diligently and having long-term view, which leverages the power of compound interest - but for this you need the right _behavior_.

<comment><USER13> > overall, being poor is a very bad business policy

>> It's bad business, but you may have a lot of incentives for it, given that welfare subsidies and services you may get in many US localities pay more than minimum wage job and in some localities more than average wage job.

Wait, what? If you have the choice of making more from welfare, than from a job, picking the (hypothetical) better financial option is an incentive for you to stay poor? How's that? If the alternative is to make less doing more work -- surely minimum wage is more of an "incentive" to stay poor?

(Lets not get into the discussion of "rich" welfare receivers and such, I'm just curious how you could see choosing the option to make more money as an incentive to stay poor, vs making less doing something else -- now if the person had the option to get a decent job, then that'd be diffrent?)

<comment><USER12> Simple: local maximum. If getting off welfare and into work implies immediate income loss, you are incentivized to stay on welfare, even if working would eventually make you better off, with time. If you are more inclined to respond to short term than long term incentives, you are stuck in a local maximum.

<comment><USER13> But there's no guarantee working would eventually make you better off? You're just taking that as a given. If there aren't any real prospect for higher pay -- then the issue isn't just "getting off welfare".

Better welfare (say free college or other education/training) might make a difference, however.

Now I agree that it would be good if people worked (if they are able) -- but in and off itself that doesn't make them better off.

<comment><USER13> For an example that (sort of) confirms my bias ;-), see:

[http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2006/07/art4full.pdf](http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2006/07/art4full.pdf)

"The likelihood of leaving low pay decreases dramatically as tenure in a low- paying job increases. Low- wage employment could itself decrease future wage growth if it causes workers to receive less training or skill development, conveys a negative signal to future employers, or provides access only or chiefly to weaker labor market networks. Significant numbers of stagnant low- wage earners could also be visible because of "sorting," as those individuals with lower employment opportunities remain low- wage workers. The latter finding indicates that, not only is earnings mobility a reality for a substantial number of initially low earners, but also there is continued poverty within a large subpopulation of workers."

In other words, it's not quite as simple as "work will always win".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> In Ukraine, the richest 50 people own 85%. Which is way more eye-popping.

[http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews%5Btt_n...](http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=33765#.UlbL3mTXiGo)

<comment><USER15> Well, because of the population difference, it's not "way" more eye-popping, though still more uneven than Russia.

Ukraine: 45.6M; 50 people = 0.0000012% own 85%

Russia: 143.5M; 110 people = 0.0000007% own 35%

<comment><USER16> It doesn't matter what the percentage of population is at those numbers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> By comparison, the top 400 people in the US have 2.5% of the US's wealth (using Forbes's 2010 numbers of $1.37 trillion for the top 400 households, and the Federal Reserve Board's $54.9 trillion US net worth)

<comment><USER18> This is an interesting presentation (and told in a powerful way) on the wealth distribution in USA: [http://www.upworthy.com/9-out-of-10-americans-are- completely...](http://www.upworthy.com/9-out-of-10-americans-are-completely- wrong-about-this-mind-blowing-fact-2)

<comment><USER19> This is a terrible website tricking me into liking it on facebook. Here's the video on youtube:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM)

<comment><USER18> Sorry. I guess my social media button filter is tighter than yours, as I didn't see Like-buttons at all. On top, the introduction on UpWorthy, mentioning the authors reaction when watching the story unfold, added anticipation for watching it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Bloomberg has a good rebuttal about the measurements used in this "study": [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-10/just-how-rich- are-r...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-10/just-how-rich-are-russia-s- billionaires-.html)

Additionally Russia's gini coefficient (income rather than wealth) puts the US as more unequal than Russia.

<comment><USER21> Perfect income equality is not an ideal, it's a marxist fraud used as ideological cover while the elites keep the "proletariat" held in intense but semi-equal poverty.

You should not get paid the same thing for different work.

If I work twice as hard as you at the same task, you should not make as much as I do.

<comment><USER13> > If I work twice as hard as you at the same task, you should not make as much > as I do.

If you're struggling to program something and I do it easily, you should be compensated for your incompetence?

Work shouldn't be defined by _effort_ but by results -- and that isn't always reasonable to quantify (which would be needed if it was to be the basis of a (fair) reward system).

I agree that "perfect equality" isn't an ideal (in pretty much anything). I do thing equal opportunity is a worthy goal, though.

<comment><USER22> you just haaaaad to bring up programming skills, didn't you. FINE. but it's not always programming that gets things done. sometimes its the determination in your veins not the dexterity of your mind that counts for the most. remember that.. remember that.

<comment><USER13> I'm sure even Ford would agree that working smart trumps working "hard" most of the time...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is what happens when you privatize massive industries without proper processes in place... Most of these people inherited billion dollar businesses when the Soviet Union crumbled.

<comment><USER24> The irony of this is that lack of 'proper processes' occurred because the new government had to do this ASAP, before the 'red managers' (actual management of properties in question), backed by labour collectives, assume control over the means of production in the country and reverse the 'democratization', privatization and whatever new shiny things reformists intended to do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> > The 35 percent of wealth that Russian billionaires > own is equivalent to > $420 billion.

According to Wikipedia, the wealth of Russia is $5.61T. What am I missing...?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_wealth#Statistics](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_wealth#Statistics)

</comment><comment><USER26> isn't that what happened when the IMF tried to transition the former sovjet union to a free market in record time?

also, isn't that why putin is so liked among a large portion of the people, because he brutally stripped away some of these guys wealths?(probably adding some to his own in the process)

<comment><USER27> Tzar transferring wealth from (and publicly humiliating and stripping them of all the privileges, etc...) non-110%-loyal to him rich people (who built their wealth by "stealing from people" \- in Russian mentality there is no other way to build a wealth) to the loyal ones is the national reality show in Russia. People there just love a "strict, yet just tzar".

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Most, if not all, of these people are criminals in the past, who'd been given decades in prison if properly investigated, but are now respectable gentlemen.

<comment><USER29> That's more than logical, considering that thousands of respectable gentlemen were serving decades in GULAG.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> To my mind,this highlights a flaw in free market theory. Obviously this scenario was not created by market forces. But now that the inequality exists, does anyone seriously believe a perfect free market economy, if implemented in Russia tomorrow, would act to substantially undo the resource distribution issue?

<comment><USER31> It proves the opposite at contrary.

Corruption is the enemy of free market. The article explains that this situation is due to Vladimir Poutine giving away taxpayer money in huge amount for control and loyalty. Doesn't sound like free market.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Those rich are personal friends of Putin or are connected to him. They don't produce any goods, they just exploit Russia's natural wealth. Russian economy survives just because of its oil and gas. It will completely lose its weight when it ran out of its black gold.

</comment><comment><USER33> The six Walmart heirs have more wealth than the bottom 42 percent of Americans combined.

<comment><USER34> How much of America's wealth is that?

<comment><USER35> Not much. A fraction of Americans have negative net worths. If you have no debts and a nickel in your pocket, you're worth more than all of them put together. It's an oft-used misleading statistic.

<comment><USER36> Also, if your net worth is -$0.05, you're worth more than all of those with less than you combined! Not only that but as someone with a net worth of -$10k, you too are worth more than the bottom 5% [1] of Americans combined as well. I guess a more interesting metric would be to count people with debt in these combined statistics as having nothing rather than having negative net worth, even if they do.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6527192](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6527192)

<comment><USER37> So you could craft a headline targeting the individual with the highest debt and still say "this greedy scumbag has more money than n% of the population combined", where n is the percent of people who have negative wealth.

<comment><USER4> Either you have logicked incorrectly, or I cannot read you. (I'll take the blame for the latter...) Care to clarify with some numbers?

<comment><USER38> He's saying that if you add up a bunch of negative net worths, eventually the sum is going to be very negative, even if each individual number was small. In particular, he's talking about the case where each of those numbers that you add up is individually smaller than your personal debt, but their sum exceeds your personal debt. Therefore, it looks like you are wealthier than all of those people combined (since your worth exceeds the sum of all theirs!).

<comment><USER39> Not to mention, that by having a negative net worth, you are a part of the bottom X%. But your debt is less than the sum of all debt, by definition. So 100% of Americans have more net worth (individually) than the bottom 5% combined.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Much like here. Different country, similar distribution of wealth. This supports an old adage about the difference between Russia and the U.S. -- in Russia, it's dog eat dog. Here, it's the other way around.

</comment><comment><USER40> Now _that_ is "1% of 1% of 1%", literally.

<comment><USER41> We are the 99.99%.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> So when people say that our growing wealth inequality in the US will lead to economic ruin, does Russia and China not refute that premise?

<comment><USER43> Would you want to live in Russia or China?

<comment><USER44> Well, I have a US passport (naturalized).

Yes, I want to live in China and I am actually going to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Those 110 people would seem to own 100% of their own wealth; what makes any of it "Russia's wealth"?

<comment><USER46> What a ridiculous thing to post. Most of these billionaires have epic mining or extraction concessions from the government of Russia, concessions that are the result of political favoritism and crony and nepotism. Many are former KGB who leveraged their political positions to profit off the chaos and rise of the greatest KGB opportunist of all-time: Putin.

These are the exact sort of people you should be attacking if you at all believe in a free-market and capitalist meritocracy.

<comment><USER45> > Most of these billionaires have epic mining or extraction concessions from > the government of Russia, concessions that are the result of political > favoritism and crony and nepotism.

The article is pretty terse, and doesn't go into detail on how anyone in particular acquired their wealth. It doesn't enumerate the particular 110 people and attempt to sort the ones who acquired their wealth via illegitimate methods from those who didn't.

It simply implies that there was some unified pool of wealth owned by an abstract aggregation called "Russia", and these 110 people have claimed tremendously disproportionate shares of this wealth, without any substantive evidence being offered that this is what actually happened.

Sure, perhaps the Soviet state controlled most of the wealth within its territory while it existed, but the Soviet state acquired control of that wealth by simply seizing it from its previous owners; can we be absolutely sure that none of those 110 were simply using the corrupt institutions of the subsequent Russian state to reclaim wealth that was properly theirs in the first place?

I'm not making any apologies for the Russian government here; it's entirely possible and quite probable that many people in Russia do indeed manipulate a corrupt political system in order to capture other people's wealth for themselves. What I'm criticizing here is the _article_ , which presumes, without arguing the case, that people owning large amounts of wealth is somehow itself evidence that abuse has occurred, and which implies through its wording that wealth originates, initially unowned, in some kind of aggregation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> In Soviet Union 35 people own 110% of the wealth.

</comment><comment><USER48> Disgusting tendency allover the world.

<comment><USER49> Schools need to empower and educate young people as to how to create wealth, and not just how to fit into a predesigned hole the labor market has ready for you.

Until that happens the relatively few people that 'get' wealth creation will always have the biggest slice of the pie.

<comment> guard-of-terra Most of those people did not create any wealth, they just got chunks of Soviet wealth in early 90-s.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> So it's a lot like the west.

</comment><comment><USER51> Lenin tried to push his "fair wealth distribution" ideas. We are all aware of results.

<comment><USER52> Not really. Leninist ideals went out the window when Stalin took over. The results you're citing aren't due to Leninism, but Stalinism.</comment></comment>