Addo – Online Giving for Churches - <AUTHOR> http://addo.io/

<comment><USER2> Great work. I'll be keeping a close eye on this.

I think the tagline "Grow your church community and increase giving" doesn't feel quite right. Specifically, "increase giving" sounds a little bit ... greedy, maybe? Every church I've been in recognizes that money is useful and necessary, but there's always that fear that people will feel like they _have_ to give in order to be a Good Christian.

I'm not really sure how to improve the tagline, but perhaps you could focus on what money enables. The pain-point isn't that churches want more money, it's that they want to be able do more, help more, serve more.

<comment><AUTHOR> Chad - big thanks for your comment. I struggled on a tagline, but I think you nailed it. Focusing on "what money enables."

After reading it more, its awkward to put money and church in the same phrase, especially for churches.

<comment><USER3> >>its awkward to put money and church in the same phrase

I have attended churches that would disagree with that sentiment. :)

Can you tell us what the ADDO name means?

<comment><AUTHOR> Addo means "to give" in latin.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Firstly, I'm not the target market as I have nothing to do with churches. But I think the page probably needs to show more information before the signup. Description, diagram, screenshots, etc. I'm not even confident that I know what it does - accept donations I guess? Some sort of church CRM? Does it do something that other charity/donation sites don't do?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey prawn, appreciate the feedback.

Awhile back I built a tool for my church to accept donations online. I later learned that 85% of donations in churches are given offline, and most churches don't interact with their members (or future members) online effectively. Enter Addo.

Key v0.1 features:

1\. Accept donations via Dwolla, where transaction fee is $0.25. Way less than other payment processors.

2\. Super simple "dashboard" showing donations in intervals (weekly, monthly, etc.)

3\. Members can check their giving history, and update account info.

I'm currently fleshing it out for other churches to use. The landing page is pretty bare, but I hope to have more info up by end of week.

<comment><USER5> royce, if you're ever interested in connecting your data to an online accounting app for nonprofits (with integrated fundraising CRM and payroll), I'd be happy to chat!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Interesting to see new entrants to the church market. I built a similar product marketed specifically to churches - [https://simpledonation.com](https://simpledonation.com)

Here are some of the things I've learned:

Building the technology is the easy part. Stripe/Balanced (and all the other payments APIs) have made it easy to do a payment startup.

Customer acquisition and sales is the hard part.

1) Decisions are made by committee and for normal sized churches (< 500 attendance) the decision maker is not on staff. Therefore repeatable, cost- effective customer acquisition is really, really hard. Only a few channels are available.

2) The buyers are generally not business thinkers. I've tested different sales pitches, asking "would you rather have a service grow your top line by 10% OR cut costs by 15%?" Most say "cut costs" which is actually a net loss. Meaning: sales is consultative and educational and you have to sell it to over and over to every person on the committee.

3) Churches have a tough time justifying $50/mo for a SaaS service. The margins are too thin to make a lot of money in transaction rev. e.g. I processed $30k last month and made ~$300. You need a ton of volume for the math to make sense.

There are churches like Newspring (hi Joshua!) that are run differently and understand the values of technology. Most of the 300,000 evangelical churches in the US are not like that.

</comment><comment><USER7> Is this open to non-church religious organizations?

I have a friend who is a rabbi of a small but extremely cool, open orthodox synagogue on the Lower East Side (he's also a former web developer) He's done crowd funding before for the synagogue, since the building is historically important. Due to the fact that the congregation is open to whomever showing up, compared to other orthodox synagogues on the LES, he has an extremely tech literate crowd.

It might be a good match if it works for not-churches.

<comment><AUTHOR> shanac - I'm currently focusing on religious organizations. Even though it may work, the usage will feel most comfortable to churches.

Its definitely something to consider after I ship. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm a pastor (and former geek) and I would love to see more info on your landing page before handing out an email address.

Not sure if my congregation is ready to go "online giving", but the organization I belong to may be interested. Is this only suitable for church congregations, or would a church organization (state level) be able to use it?

<comment><AUTHOR> heyo simon! Totally understand. This is primarily for church organizations to manage tithes, offering, and interaction with members. But church congregations (members) will have limited access too.

There's a great infographic that breaks down whether online giving is right for your church. Check it out: [http://i.imgur.com/WLysi7d.png](http://i.imgur.com/WLysi7d.png)

I'm going to update the landing page with more info here shortly...

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm not much of a churchgoer these days, but growing up Episcopalian I have nothing but respect for folks for faith.

Is it cool if I send this to some of my non-techie friends/family? One of your comments says that you haven't really shipped yet, so I'm not sure what your target audience is at this point.

edit: for what it's worth I also think chad_oliver and blankenship nailed it with their comments/suggestions.

<comment><AUTHOR> heyo - please share with family/friends. I'm rolling out v0.1 very soon.

about the edit: agreed.

<comment><USER10> Site needs more info. Is this a startup? Or is it a non-profit?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think is has a lot of potential. Two suggestions:

1\. Consider adding more information to your landing page. It's just a little too sparse at the moment.

2\. Online giving can be a sticky subject, so I would suggest adding some scripture and exegesis to your landing page that can help people be at ease with it.

<comment><AUTHOR> \- Good call. Adding more info to the landing page now.

\- I like the idea of scripture. It'll probably be something I do with a more fleshed out landing page.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Will this be useful for mosques, synagogues, temples, etc?

<comment><AUTHOR> short answer, yes. Although, I'm assuming early adopters will be Christianity based.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is cool! I've been thinking about doing something like this for a long time.

<comment><AUTHOR> Glad you like it. Anything specific you think I should address?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Much addo about nothing?</comment>


Why Has Knol Survived Google's Orphan-Project Killing Spree? - <AUTHOR> http://www.alleyinsider.com/2009/1/why-has-knol-survived-googles-orphan-project-killing-spree-goog/page/1 <comment><USER2> Cutts discussed Knol just yesterday on his blog. He points out that the project is far exceeding Wikipedia's growth during the same age of the project.

This is a long haul project for Google. Their strategy has long been use Search as the base, see what users are searching for or going to, and begin building your own competitor to that market. They did it with Google News, and other projects. Knol is their entry into the competition with Wikipedia, something which isn't going to be won in the short term. So this is a project, like Google Reader, they're investing in and letting run.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you deal with recurring payments? - <AUTHOR> How do you guys handle payment for your SaaS?
There are quite a few options, from plain Stripe/Braintree to layers on top of them like Chargebee/Quaderno or full solutions like paddle/fastspring.
Granted that the needs might be different if you are in Europe like us with all the special VAT handling. <comment><USER2> I'll throw in one vote for writing your own billing system if possible. It doesn't have to be complex if you're not dealing with an existing legacy system or regulated industry. I process over $500K/year of SaaS subscriptions with basically just this:

* An accounts table with a paid_through column to identify when each person should next be billed

* A payments table into which you insert one row per payment for accounting/metrics

* A website form that submits to [https://spreedly.com/](https://spreedly.com/) to tokenize payment information; the token is all you store

* A 100-line cron job that selects all the accounts whose paid_through date is in the past, then charges their subscription against their payment token, sends receipts or dunning mails depending on whether the charge went through, and updates the paid_through dates

Coupons, discounts, etc can be accommodated just by adding some columns and tweaking the billing script's SQL query. The payments table is sufficient information to calculate all the valuable SaaS metrics from your database as well -- CLTV, MRR/ARR, churn rate, etc.

Integrating with Spreedly instead of directly with a payment provider means you can change processors without changing any code -- your choice of payment processor becomes just another token.

<comment><USER3> What happens if the script dies after charging, before updating paid_through?

<comment><USER2> That's never happened in 12 years, but if it did, one of two things:

(1) I'd notice that I got fewer payment receipts than I expected that day, and go fix it by updating their paid_through date in the database. You'd be able to log in to your payment processing account to see whether the charge went through or not, so there's nothing unrecoverable about this situation.

(2) That customer would notice first, send an e-mail, and I'd have to apologize before fixing it.

Not a very concerning situation.

I'd be much more concerned about, say, vendor lock-in with an external billing provider that could terminate service or change terms on a moment's notice. Like all the "PayPal/Stripe froze our account" horror stories, or when Recurly dramatically increased their prices without grandfathering anyone in early in their history. No such concerns when you own the billing code, and don't store your customer info only with your current payment processor.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'll echo what others said: run your own.

Using a SaaS-based recurring billing solution has its drawbacks:

* You are limited by the features offered by the provider for your pricing schemes (for example, most only offer basic forms of usage-based billing)

* You don't have direct access to your data (analysis are limited by the types of reports the provider offers)

* Vendor lock-in: it's extremely difficult to move to a different provider (for example, you need to cancel subscriptions in provider A and re-start them at the right date in provider B to avoid double billing)

That being said, don't write your own! It's not as easy as it seems when you need to deal with multi-currency support, pro-rations calculations, timezones, etc.

5 years ago, we built Kill Bill ([http://killbill.io/](http://killbill.io/)), the open-source subscription billing and payments platform:

* The platform offers a lot of billing schemes out of the box, but you can extend the logic (via plugins)

* Because you run the software, data belongs to you

* Payments are still delegated to a third-party gateway (Stripe, Braintree, etc.) which can take care of the PCI complexity

* For taxes specifically, you can either calculate them yourself or integrate with a third-party solution (e.g. AvaTax)

</comment><comment><USER5> Keats, Thanks for mentioning Chargebee. Krish, cofounder of Chargebee here.

We support card data portability (we also use Spreedly to vault card as a service but we pay for it as an infrastructure) and in the case of Stripe we directly vault it in Stripe, as they do a great job of being friendly with customers and supports portability as well.

Apart from very detailed subscription management use cases, we enable hundreds of small things that come up as you grow beyond the first 50 customers - invoice based payments, coupon promotions for sales, credits (cash vs. promotion credit vs. proration credit) that finance cares about, detailed invoicing, accounting integration flow, taxes etc., while enabling pretty much everything with API as well.

Most of our customers find our product most useful once you grow beyond the 2 member founding team as the needs grow but you don't want to build spend your time building internal systems.

We share a lot of customers with Stripe / Braintree - Freshdesk, Study.com, Soylent etc.,

We also put a lot of focus on our customer support to respond within an hour for most queries and we generally deal with detailed use cases from non- technical members of team and we assist them.

This is a key area of focus for us, as that frees up a lot of developer distraction to address queries, as and when the cases arises. For an essential service like billing I believe it adds a lot of value, so we have built everything around having a very good customer support.

Happy to answer any questions.

</comment><comment><USER6> I've used plain Stripe for SaaS product payments with two products (most recently [https://assertible.com](https://assertible.com))

Stripe is very simple and has a very high quality API. They recently made some improvements to their dashboard for subscription management.

I've never used a service on top of Stripe for handling payments but I'd love to hear what others use.

<comment><AUTHOR> The main issue I see for us with plain Stripe is the EU VAT handling. If we could add a VAT field on the stripe checkout, that'd be neat

<comment><USER7> The other issue I saw with EU data is the EU privacy laws about where the Stripe data is stored. Stripe don't mention about where they store data in their privacy statement ([https://stripe.com/gb/privacy](https://stripe.com/gb/privacy)).

However as far as I can tell - Stripe stores no customer details except for email and information that would be on a card.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Hi there! I'm Carlos, founder of Quaderno ([https://quaderno.io](https://quaderno.io)). Thanks for the referral, Keats.

I built Quaderno two years ago because I was tired to deal with payments, invoicing, accounting, and tax rules (specially now when there are more and more digital taxes worldwide) in my past projects. My goal was to automate the whole accounting process for any SaaS.

Of course you can use your own billing system, but as Josh from Baremetrics say, "the danger in building internal tools is not that it saves an insignificant amount of cash, but that if stifles future cash" (Full article: [https://baremetrics.com/blog/build-it-buy- it](https://baremetrics.com/blog/build-it-buy-it)).

If you have any questions about Quaderno or how to manage payments for SaaS, please let me know. Happy to help.

<comment><AUTHOR> What would you say are the big differences between you and Chargebee?

<comment><USER8> Chargebee is focus on subscription management. Quaderno is about accounting automation. We work not only with subscription based businesses but with any kind of digital businesses

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Ahh, the buy vs build debate. Disclaimer, I work for [https://www.chargify.com/](https://www.chargify.com/), another provider of recurring billing software in the same space as Chargebee.

We see this question asked a lot it really boils down to resources and what you want to spend your time on. Yes, it is pretty easy to build a basic system with a gateway such as Stripe or Braintree but there are two main problems: 1. It does not scale well (your needs will likely increase) 2. Building and maintaining your own system takes away from focusing on your product (and it is not a core competency)...

As Krush said, there are "hundreds of small things that come up as you grow." By using a best of breed tool, most of these things are available out of the box with little to no dev work needed such as testing plans, coupons/promo codes, taxes, reporting/analytics, billing portal for customer account management, a portal for your support team to see/edit account history/info, system emails, dunning management, and so much more.

The price for billing software like Chargify is minimal compared to the time saved building and maintaining your own system. In fact, the money saved by leveraging our dunning features alone have proven to provide a 4x return based on the monthly cost of Chargify's software. So not only does it save a lot of resources, it provides an ROI.

We have a ton of people that come to us after building their own system, and wished they implement Chargify in the beginning. But it is never too late!

Happy to answer any specific questions.

</comment><comment><USER10> Chargebee is good because you can swap backends (Stripe/braintree/paypal/authorize.net) without changing any code. So if your account gets nuked or you want to switch merchants for whatever reason, it's no problem.

@dangrossman mentioned storing cards in spreedly. I'm pretty sure chargebee does that already on the backend.

<comment><USER7> Stripe stores card details - so Chargebee has no real benefits here.

The ability to switch payment gateways doesn't seem like a massive one any decent system will allow this - e.g. Shopify, WooCommerce.

Chargebee does look like a very good option though. Stripe seems quite sensibly limited on what you can store in their system.

Also Chargebee pricing seems quite reasonable rather than requiring transaction percentage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> write your own, they arent terribly difficult to code, and you will have more control over your finances, fraud scrubbing and the likes. plus you save a ton in fees as you grow.

</comment><comment><USER12> I use gocardless in the UK. Highly recommended.

</comment><comment><USER13> PayPal works fine. I'm US-based

<comment><USER14> I eagerly await your blog post. May it be as interesting as Notch's was.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> We use recurly at botmetric.com</comment>


Unpaid Internships: Bad for Students, Bad for Workers, Bad for Society - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/05/unpaid-internships-bad-for-students-bad-for-workers-bad-for-society/256958/ <comment><USER2> Do we have a good economic narrative for unpaid internships outside of naturally abusive talent driven industries (music, film, journalism)?

Do internships just fall in this hole where you'd like to have an office wench but can't quite justify it in a budget, or is it entirely a made up social convention where older generations are extracting rents from new graduates?

At any rate, the effect seems pretty clear to me: unpaid internships are huge drivers of inequality. They obviously limit opportunities for social mobility towards people that can be subsidized, or otherwise have access to liquidity. There's something really insidious about pushing people away from increasingly wide classes of cushy jobs they're otherwise perfectly capable of performing.

Startups: pay your (non technical) interns minimum wage, at least. It makes me kind enraged to see this start to happen in our industry.

<comment><USER3> "... unpaid internships are huge drivers of inequality."

I believe that they can be, but as someone who actually had an unpaid intern (and who eventually got said intern a job at the company where we were working), let me make a case that they do not have to be exploitative.

I personally enjoy teaching, and have taught at two different universities. In addition to simply being a rewarding thing to do, it is a good way to get even better at whatever you are teaching.

So when I was the production manager in charge of making a bunch of marketing sites for small insurance agencies, I called up one of the local universities. They were quite happy (after some conversations with their faculty) to send me a student who was getting ready to graduate and who was interested in creating content for the web.

I didn't expect the intern to get any actual work done, just to kind of try and work through some of the projects that we were doing. The work that I was giving him was pretty much the same work that the paid staff were getting, and although we actually did end up using elements of his designs he was much slower and had a much smaller skill set than someone I would actually hire.

However, after a semester of working with us, his markup, scripting, and associated skills were a lot better. In addition to his own efforts, I spent time structuring his work assignments in ways that built from one topic to the next, and was available to critique his work in ways that he found useful.

So, this relationship was mutually beneficial: he is more skilled than he was, has at least some work experience to put down (other than food service), he received course credit (IIRC), and got a picture of what the inside of that kind of agency looks like.

For our part, we got a very small amount of marginal work, and for my personal part I improved my own scripting and CSS skills, in addition to simply enjoying working with folks who are learning.

Now, if we were just trying to fill a minimally skilled position with someone who was an employee and skim by calling them an "intern" instead of "an exploited worker", that would be different.

But I believe it is possible (though perhaps not likely) that unpaid, non- exploitative internship relationships can exist.

<comment><USER4> Ok, so you didn't exploit that worker. Congratulations.

But what about the other kid who may or may not have been more qualified than the kid you hired, but couldn't afford to work for free?

<comment><USER3> Well, what about the folks who also couldn't afford to go to the school that the guy was going to?

I mean, ultimately, the big obvious problem of capitalism is that the upkeep of labor is pushed onto the laborer... almost to the point where (to a very small extent) it could be possible that forcing labor to pay for its upkeep while exploiting it for profit is a defining characteristic of capitalism.

While I find it to be an interesting discussion, unless you want to decry systematic problems, you're really not going far enough with your "what about".

And we don't have to do everything within that system, do we? I mean, isn't direct action a good response to large, systematic problems?

"Wait, what are you saying? Employment should be predicated on the employer giving the employee an adequate monetary reward in exchange for an adequate monetary reward for the employee? And if either side isn't getting their adequate monetary reward, the job shouldn't exist? This is a radical concept!"

No, my point is that an internship is not a"job", interns shouldn't be treated like "employees", and that I was trading, based on my experience as a both a teacher and an expert in the content area for a personal reward of getting to teach for a bit.

When internships are equivocal with jobs, they are exploitative. I agree with you and the linked article on that.

What is not exploitative is when there is an actual exchange of, say, useful information and pedagogy in a system where you can't learn techniques without making stuff, especially in a way that privileged the growth of both a specific person and a larger workforce.

<comment><USER4> Sorry, what are you saying? Capitalism is an imperfect system, therefore we should stop trying to make it better? I mean, of course capitalism has systemic problems. And many of those are the result of an education system that rewards those who are already well off. I think banning unpaid internships would go a long way towards making capitalism a better system.

<comment><USER3> Fair enough.

But I am not saying that we shouldn't make it better (though if it would ceases to function in favor of some yet unnamed better thing, I will be much happier than if it were merely "better").

However, once you want to talk about freedom in the labor market, it should be pretty clear that there is none at all: what about me? Through no fault of my own, I can't afford to commute into a city, so I occasionally lose work and make less than I otherwise would.

But since we really can't do much about these systematic issues on an individual level, I can respect your stance towards banning unpaid internships outright: seems like an okay idea to me.

I am not saying that we should make reforms.

I am saying that it's possible to modify how capitalism operates by means other than banning practices, that is, by improving what people are doing with unpaid internships by 1) not treating them as labor in any sense and 2) not making their exchange about money.

Or if you prefer, why internships at all: why not abolish the whole concept of underpaid, low skilled labor and -only- hire "employees" at a real rate while working on helping them gain newer and better skill sets?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't buy the argument that unpaid internships are immoral because they disadvantage the underprivileged. Higher education systematically disadvantages the underprivileged, especially at US tuition rates. Does that make going to Harvard unethical? There is clearly a supply/demand mismatch in some industries, and unpaid internships are a symptom, not the cause.

I get defensive when the issue of unpaid internships comes up because I did an unpaid internship in High School, learned a hell of a lot, and was able to use it to gain well-paid internships throughout college.

<comment><USER6> Honestly comparing an unpaid internship in _High School_ is no where near the same as requiring 20-somethings in college and university to work for free. I also did the unpaid internship thing in high school (which turned in a paid job) and I did a fully paid internships in University. I could not afford to work for free as an 18 year old on my own.

It's amazing that in a country with a minimum wage it's still possible to hire people for a job for free.

<comment><USER5> I'm not saying anything about requiring 20-somethings to work for free. I couldn't have afforded to work for free in college either. I agree that it's a different situation.

My point is that I was able to make an informed decision to take an unpaid position, and it benefited me. Had it been a paid position, it either wouldn't have been offered (the department didn't have a lot of money) or would have gone to someone else with more experience. So when people advocate for unpaid internships to be banned, I get frustrated, especially when they say it's for the intern's benefit.

Don't get me wrong, it absolutely sucks that it's possible (market-wise) to hire university grads for nothing, but banning unpaid internships doesn't solve the underlying market problem. And I'd argue that it doesn't increase social mobility, either, since floor/ceiling prices tend to encourage nepotism.

<comment><USER6> There's currently high unemployment -- could we not eliminate that by making the minimum wage be zero? I'm sure lots of currently out of work individuals would take the opportunity to work for nothing for the off chance of getting a paying job in the future. Isn't that exactly the same thing?

I don't believe it's a market problem, it's a social problem. You have this pool of ever increasing free labor not because of the market but because it's now _necessary_ to intern to get a job. If an employer has to choose between someone who will work for free or someone who won't because they can easily get a paying job at Starbucks, who are they going to choose?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Unpaid internships seem to be rare for programmers...

\- Programmers of any sort who can get the job done in demand. There are more people who want to pay them than programmers available.

\- Even inexperienced programmers add value - sometimes a tremendous amount of value. It's not too hard to find a non-critical, short term project that would still be very useful, and the intern starts adding value on day one. So employers are less likely to "do without" if it turns out they have to pay.

\- Software interns have a better unpaid internship than the one you're offering - founding their own company. If a recent grad with programming ability is getting outside financial help (the kind that a parent might give to a recent grad doing an unpaid internship in the entertainment industry), that programmer can just try creating an app and seeing how to turn it into something financially viable. They might fail (they probably will fail), but will the experience be worse than a year of not getting paid at a bigco? (It depends, but a lot of companies in high tech would be impressed with someone who took a real crack at creating a financially viable product).

I do occasionally see postings for unpaid cs/engineering internships, posted on campus bulletin boards. They are almost never from actual, high tech companies. These postings generally come from industries accustomed to getting the free interns (publishing, fashion, and so forth) - you know "gain valuable industry experience by writing extenstions in python for our CMS). It feels good to see these posts go up later offering a bit of pay (though still generally much lower than the interns could get elsewhere).

<comment><USER8> Internships are for people with a knowledge about, but not direct experience in some thing. That can apply as easily to programming as it can journalism.

<comment><USER7> It can apply to journalism, but as easily as programming? It's hard to say, this is an interesting question. I think it boils down to this: how easily can a person from the outside gain experience in a field?

There's a wide spectrum here. In software, it has become (especially in recent years) extremely easy to write and release an application to the world. Web sites, wireless apps, and so forth. So if you're going to work "for free", you really don't need to join a big organization to get that experience. I'm not saying there couldn't be benefits, but you could almost look at a startup as an unpaid internship working for yourself with massive upside.

On the other side of the spectrum you might find something like surgery. I heard about a man who knew how perform a procedure on infants, who was later discovered to not possess the right credentials and licensing. He had "learned by doing." I guess you could view much of medical school and residency as a non-paid (or low paid) internship in a field where many people believe it would be unconscionable to sidestep the normal training.

How hard is it to just launch your own fashion line, create your own "journalism" experience by starting a blog, and so forth? The world is opening up - certainly it's getting easier and easier to create, market, and distribute without the permission or help of a large organization. I think software is at the forefront, but certainly other fields are opening up as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Why should students who aren't able to get paid internships be denied the right to have an unpaid internship? I would not be where I am today were it not for unpaid internships.

Some people would be helped by mandating all internships be paid, but these are not the people who need the most help. The people who need the most help are the ones that would be cut off from any chance at early work experience by such a system.

The idea of everyone having a paid internship is nice, but many places will simply stop offering them if unpaid interns aren't an option.

Also, no one is forcing these students to work anywhere. Yes, market forces drive them towards an internship, but there are many internships in the market.

If unpaid internships were banned or otherwise made illegal, companies could still bring in students as volunteers, which are unpaid. They would still get the same experience and be in exactly the same position, except now they are no longer eligible for college credit and certain legal protections. How is that a better system?

Are there any compelling arguments why unpaid internships should be made illegal? If not illegal, then how should/could they be reformed?

</comment><comment><USER10> I got paid during my internship and when I later started a company we always paid our interns.

I think as a general rule internships should be paid simply because if the company can't afford to hire an intern then they shouldn't be having one in the first place.

I realize it's a nice way to get some help for your struggling business and if someone really want to get in to a place that isn't looking for interns then it makes some sense.

<comment><USER11> I agree completely. To be honest I don't even understand how it's legal (I'm in the EU). I think through some kind of academia-related loophole.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Organisations have decided that this specific set of internships aren't worth paying a wage for. Workers have decided that they are worth their time, for the experience/foot in the door they gain.

If you ban unpaid internships, companies won't offer the positions anymore (as they have decided their value is zero), which means people seeking them won't be able to obtain them.

Sounds like everyone would actually be worse-off.

<comment><USER4> You mean _a sizable subset_ of workers have decided they're worth their time. I think it's worth bringing up Maslowe's hierarchy of needs. If you can't afford to eat or pay rent, the experience you're getting is among the least of your concerns. If your food and rent situation is taken care of beforehand (and it's almost always done so by someone else), _then_ you get to base your decision on whether or not the time is worth the experience.

<comment><USER12> This dilemma applies to everyone. If you can't afford to do what you want, then earn money doing something else until you can. Alternatively, do both at the same time, using your earned money to simultaneously subsidise your time doing the other thing.

It's also possible that you decide this unpaid experience is just not worth it after all, in which case you can get a job that actually pays.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is odd: just today I've posted our internship projects and they are all for paid positions.

And actually nowadays all students are forced by the University to have a short internship and it doesn't have to include a wage!

But I've decided to pay the students anyhow for 2 simple reasons:

* I want good students to apply. We are a small company.

* I want students to care more about the internship than just showing up and do the minimum.

</comment><comment><USER14> Are internships with The Atlantic paid or unpaid?

Edit: According to this article: [http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/04/06/atlantic-publisher- ta...](http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/04/06/atlantic-publisher-takes-stand- on-intern-pay-who-will-follow/) all atlantic interns are paid.

<comment><USER15> I worked for Atlantic Media (this is a throwaway), and based on my experience there, that organization is harmed just as badly by its low-paid internships as it would be if they did not pay at all. A significant portion of the drudgery is performed by interns, and the company is very reluctant to hire new people. And they get away with it because of the bright-eyed college kids who will do this for low-pay. Few to none of the interns come back for a permanent position.

The corporate attitude at Atlantic Media is that people are generally expendable, and that the staff on-hand will pick up the slack when pissed off employees walk out the door. So most of the work there is performed by underpaid interns and underpaid, disgruntled employees.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Feel free to comment, I want to hear what other people think on this issue.

I think there is nothing inherently wrong with unpaid internships. If the market price for your work is low enough to only compensate experience gained, that's perfectly fine. What's wrong with the system are more generalize than that, and there are two problems that causes it. I would break it down to A) industrial organizational problem and B) market downturn (and to an extent upturn) + inefficiency and lagging effects.

Part A is more about the over abundance of certain firms in the market supply- demand that makes it very difficult to pay interns. Since I've never worked as a unpaid-intern before (it might happen soon though :/), correct me if I'm wrong, but most of them are either in marketing, legal assistant positions, or journalism. Marketing firms that do not offer paid internships are usually small agencies that are barely able to survive on their own; same thing is true with journalism; the whole legal market has wage flooring that artificially reduces the supply of laws and therefore law firms. It seems to me that these industries needs to better allocate and either become more competitive via innovation, and people going into those industry might want to reconsider their path.

Part B is more on the fact that labor market is inherently inefficient, and in a recession, it exaggerates the underlining problem in part A. This is why we are starting to see more unpaid internship instead of flat wage cuts.

</comment><comment><USER17> I was an unpaid intern at a lobbying office last summer and will be an unpaid congressional intern this summer (both DC). However, my college has given me a stipend (sort of merit based) so I can end up net positive on the summer.

I certainly wouldn't be able to afford this if it weren't for the stipend (though I'd probably do it for less and just break even or slightly negative). The biggest thing that I think is different for my intern experience from what I hear about the horrors about unpaid interns is that I get money like a paid intern, but have the expectations of an unpaid intern. The people I work for aren't paying me, so they can't expect too much labor out of me. As far as they're concerned, their payment is in experience, so I basically got free reign to do (or watch other people do) many things that might not be productive, but I found interesting. The anecdotal evidence of my friends with paid positions had to really earn their pay and don't have anywhere near the freedom that I did. It's plausible that I just found a good internship last summer (no fetching coffee), but I would say that I personally benefited from being paid by my college and not my employer.

</comment><comment><USER18> As a Junior who is going to be interning with _undisclosed large internet company_ this summer, I think that much of the problem and reason for unpaid internships is that there are few jobs in the industry of choice for these interns. Being a double Major in Computer Science and Business Economics I can clearly see the economic forces at play(and really anyone should). These unpaid positions are springing up in industries that are often shrinking, or do not require overly talented skill sets to operate in. It's unfortunate for the workers, and I'd like to say they should be standing up and saying "no", but given the realities of their industries it may sadly be in their best interests to work for free.

Had they simply looked ahead when enrolling in college, they could have seen that majoring in something like journalism, while enjoyable would lead to brutal competition and low wages. This isn't a situation all interns face, when those in finance, computers, and a few other majors are capable of demanding $25-$35k of compensation for 3 months of a summer internship, it becomes clear this is problem affecting only some industries.

</comment><comment><USER19> is this really an issue in the tech industry? I'm studying in austria, absolved an internship in germany, got paid quite well and so did all my fellow students (internships all over europe, US, australia).

<comment><USER11> Here in the Netherlands, from what I gather, it's the norm, yes. My gf did all of her internships for free, and the place I work at now pays something like 200 euros/month to their interns, which comprise almost half of our staff. They do pretty great work, too - definitely comparable with what a full-time employee produces.

Comparing it to the one internship I did while at university in the UK, where I worked at UBS for a summer and was paid enough to buy bottles of champagne at a bar on pay day to celebrate and go shopping at Harrods, it seems pretty unfair.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> In most cases, an unpaid internship is probably a bad idea. But individuals should be making that choice based on their unique set of circumstances and goals. Individuals should be free to make a choice whether or not the experience they gain, the connections they make, the resume blurb, and whether getting their foot in the door is worth more to them than their free labor. In most cases its probably a bad idea, but in some cases some people might see the opportunity as worth their effort.

IMO, the issue here is that labor laws prevent companies from offering unpaid internships that involve something that a business can actually benefit from or that can conceivably displace a paid employee. Ostensibly created to prevent exploitation, these labor laws actually create exploitation by effectively forcing an unpaid internship to be an exercise in busy work for any company that actually follows the law.

</comment><comment><USER21> One premise of this article is faulty. They presume that you can only accept an unpaid internship if you're from a wealthy / privileged family or whatever. But that's not true. There's no particular reason you couldn't, say, work an unpaid internship 8 hours during the day, and work a second job at night, busing tables, washing dishes, working as a barista at Starbucks, or whatever. Plenty of people already work 2 jobs to make ends meet, so a college age kid with (hopefully) minimal living expenses could very likely manage this.

Note that I'm talking summer internship, when school is out, of course. I'm not proposing one should go to school, work a real job and work an internship.

This is also not to refute the idea that unpaid internships may be bad for other reasons... I'm just arguing against the idea that they're bad because they are only available to the children of the privileged.

<comment><USER22> Carrying on two jobs is technically possible but it would still be remarkably difficult and I think unrealistic to do this. The argument that the system overly benefits the wealthy is still valid.

<comment><USER23> Realistically many single parents work two or even more jobs to make ends meet.

<comment><USER24> That's because the alternative is homelessness. The alternative to an unpaid internship is taking a job you don't like. Not nearly as powerful a motivator.

<comment><USER25> Well no. The alternative to an unpaid internship, for most of the people actually stuck in unpaid internships, is unemployment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> More interesting than the topic I think is their method of creating three daily articles. Ask for comments, sort the comments into pros and cons, then publish each on subsequent days with minimal commentary, and no pay offered to the people who actually crowdsourced the writing of the article.

</comment><comment><USER27> Who gives a crap? Honestly: If you do not like the idea of being an unpaid intern, then don't be one.

What's not a worthwhile opportunity for you might be an opportunity to someone else.

Am I missing something? Seems like unpaid internships affect me and my job/economy as much as someone else eating a donut affects my weight.

<comment><USER4> Honestly, if you don't like reading articles that complain about interns who aren't paid, don't read them. What's not a worthwhile opportunity for you might be an opportunity for someone else.

In all seriousness, unpaid internships benefit no one other than the employer who gets free labor and the few students who have enough money to not care whether they get paid or not. They're not good for paid workers who now have to start salary negotiations with the other side upset that they even have to pay them at all. Nor are they good for the economy, which needs more consumer demand. And they certainly aren't good for students who are well-qualified, but can't afford to not get a pay check.

Help me understand how unpaid internships _aren't_ a mechanism to keep the rich rich and to keep the poor from becoming productive members of society. Seriously.

<comment><USER27> A good unpaid internship is the beginning of an apprenticeship: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apprenticeship>

If the internship does not lead to future employment at the same organization, then it might at another organization.

A bad unpaid internship should go unfilled because the intern is not gaining anything from it.</comment></comment></comment>


Chromebooks surge at business in 2013 - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57616317-94/chromebooks-surge-at-business-in-2013-researcher-says/

<comment><AUTHOR> Microsoft seems to be sad state than it appeared before. 2 of top 3 laptops during holiday season on Amazon are Chromebooks: [http://phx.corporate- ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&p=irol-ne...](http://phx.corporate- ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1886961&highlight=)

Holiday Best Sellers (Amazon.com only):

Laptops: Samsung Chromebook; ASUS Transformer Book; Acer Chromebook</comment>


The Welcome Optimism of "Star Trek: Picard" - <AUTHOR> https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-welcome-optimism-of-star-trek-picard <comment><USER2> Isn't the permits that the federation has been corrupted? I haven't watched it but I thought that was the premise.</comment>


My history with Forth and stack machines (2010) - <AUTHOR> https://yosefk.com/blog/my-history-with-forth-stack-machines.html <comment><USER2> It's a bit unfortunate that this article is one of the most circulated accounts of a "failure" of applying Forth to a real-world problem. The author learned a little about Forth and was fascinated. He then wrote his own implementation and struggled mightily with it. Ultimately he was disenchanted.

I think the heart of the problem is that the rudimentary ideas of forth- a stack, some stack-shuffling words, some arithmetic, control flow, and that's about it- are appealingly simple, but not _enough_ of the language:

>"I figured I didn't need the more interesting metaprogramming stuff for my first prototype programs, and I could add it later if it turned out that I was wrong. It was wierd to throw away everything I originally liked the most, but I was all set to start writing real programs. Solving real problems in the real world. It was among the most painful programming experiences in my life."

Imagine reading the first chapter of SICP without prior exposure to Lisp, excitedly writing an interpreter for the parts of the language you'd seen so far, and then feeling your enthusiasm slowly slip away into dismay as you attempted to use that stunted fragment of a language to get work done.

Forth can be small, and simple, but the real gems of the language are a bit subtle. The many implications of CREATE>/DOES. Abuses of manipulating the rstack. Striking a balance between parsing words, named locals, global variables, vocabularies, and other tools to minimize twisty stack shuffling. Bending the rules at the right times.

<comment><USER3> I am fascinated by forth and stack machines. It reminds me of Donella Meadows' Leverage Points, when you change your paradigm from data in registers to that in stack, the architecture becomes simpler.

Can you please suggest any reference which explores forth in depth and goes into the subtleties. I am starting out on the Leo Brodie books.

<comment><USER4> These are "old" references, as a lot of Forth references seem to be but I enjoyed them during a Forth phase. The standard advice, and I agree with it, is write your own Forth, maybe more than one. If you're comfortable in any platform's assembly language I would recommend starting there, even if it's "old". This depends on your own history in computing but I found a C64 emulator convenient for this. Old PC emulators have load/save abilities to the host file system, and what I loved was a simple memory model, memory-mapped hardware features, and a simple ISA. i.e. a system you can hold in your head all at once, contrasted with modern handhelds or desktops.

Two books: (I really enjoyed the first one, multiple times)

"Threaded Interpretive Languages", by R. G. Loeliger.

"Stack Computers: The New Wave", by Philip Koopman.

Two short papers: (maybe not profound, but they're short and available online)

"Handling Multiple Data Types in Forth", by John J Wavrik. [https://www.math.ucsd.edu/~jwavrik/pub/11_jfar.pdf](https://www.math.ucsd.edu/~jwavrik/pub/11_jfar.pdf)

"Literate Programming in Forth", by Peter Knaggs. [https://rigwit.co.uk/papers/literate.html](https://rigwit.co.uk/papers/literate.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I love Forth and and have implemented it (well, not compliant) twice (Z-80 and C) back in the day for fun.

Postscript should get a mention, as its a related surviving stack language (though higher level - but in the spirit of the article, for a very domain- specific purpose), even if printer drivers do all the coding. Though they changed most of the word names to protect the innocent: [http://hyperpolyglot.org/stack](http://hyperpolyglot.org/stack)

(And lest we forget display Postscript a la Sun NeWS - boy that was fun stuff! - still the coolest way to write your own desktop widgets)

<comment><USER6> Speaking of NeWS fun - I remember playing tricks on a colleague by logging into their display server using psh and manually tweaking the transformation matrix for a terminal window so that it _very_ gradually rotated as he was using it. Of course, as it was NeWS (actually HyperNeWS) everything just worked until the rotation became _really_ obvious.

<comment><USER5> NeWS was so ahead of its time -- and the vector-based approach and the lack of color made it a please to work with and look at.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I didn't really appreciate Forth until I found Jonesforth [0], a very well- documented Forth implementation in a single x86 assembly file. You can read it from top to bottom and gain a pretty good understanding of how a Forth can be implemented.

[0] [http://git.annexia.org/?p=jonesforth.git;a=blob;f=jonesforth...](http://git.annexia.org/?p=jonesforth.git;a=blob;f=jonesforth.S)

<comment><USER8> I agree! I found jonesforth's literate source so exciting that I went off and implemented FORTH 83 in Julia. Sadly though, Jonesforth doesn't implement create/does...

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Forth programmer from the late '70s here. It was great for self-contained "smart" instruments. (I worked on a magnetometer at UCLA.) But, unfortunately, I never had occasion to work with it again. But, it was definitely one of the most "out there" languages I ever used...

<comment><USER10> Would you say that we will see more usage of Forth in the coming 5G age?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The further down I read this the more tremendous it gets. The author has an insight which matches my observations:

> What does this say about Forth? Not much except that it isn't for me. Take > Prolog. I know few things more insulting than having to code in Prolog. > Whereas Armstrong developed Erlang in Prolog and liked it much better than > reimplementing Erlang in C for speed. I can't imagine how this could be, but > this is how it was. People are different.

People are different. Programming is building a model in your head then transferring that to a set of machine actions. (See "Programming as theory building", [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10833278](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10833278) ) It appears that different people's head-models are _radically_ different, and that what they find easy is different.

This renders discussions about "intuitive" moot, because it's no longer universal. To whom is it intuitive? You can define a target audience and survey them to find it out, or you can guess that what's intuitive to you is intuitive to others - but you can't guarantee it will be intuitive to everyone.

Further down:

> This is Forth. Seriously. Forth is not the language. Forth the language > captures nothing, it's a moving target. Chuck Moore constantly tweaks the > language and largely dismisses the ANS standard as rooted in the past and > bloated. Forth is the approach to engineering aiming to produce as small, > simple and optimal system as possible, by shaving off as many requirements > of every imaginable kind as you can.

This appears to be the key to the productivity claims: junking requirements along the way. That also matches the broader experience of software engineering: you can be very productive writing for yourself at one end, but on the other there are colossal state megaprojects that never work because the requirements are incoherent and immovable. Hence "agile": what agile really provides is an opportunity every week or two to chip away at the requirements until something deliverable is decided upon.

> MD5 presents a few problems for programming a Green Arrays device. For one > thing it depends on modulo 32 bit addition and rotation. Green Arrays chips > deal in 18 bit quantities. For another, MD5 is complicated enough that > neither the code nor the set of constants required to implement the > algorithm will fit into one or even two or three nodes of a Green Arrays > computer.

That is .. not for everybody.

<comment><USER12> That's a great point about the term "intuitive". Our intuition is based on our own experience, so it is necessarily different for each of us. But we can at least unite around shared experience, our cultural heritage and language. User interface idioms (double tap to zoom), videogame tropes (there is a button you hold to run), or typical standard library calls (here is how to fmt a string) all correspond to communities that know them. The beauty of learning lisp, forth, ML, prolog, verilog is not only that you grow your intuition but also that they help you better reflect on the boundaries of your knowledge and its finite extent. So much disagreement online is simply because we come from non- overlapping communities that use the same words to describe different bound experiences.

<comment><USER13> Stuff you had to learn, like all the examples you gave, isn't "intuition".

Intuition refers to some sort of understanding that arrives without reasoning or evidence.

Very little is actually intuitive. Someone once said that the only intuitive user interface is the nipple. But babies have to learn how to latch on; if it's so intuitive, why do we have breastfeeding clinics?

Humor may be intuitive. Why does a three-month-old chuckle when someone sneezes? Nobody taught them that it's supposed to be funny, or what funny is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I seriously recommend any programmer to spend an afternoon with FORTH. It gives you a whole new perspective about how to write programs and use computers.

For me, it was a more intense experience than learning Lisp (besides Lisp being really cool!).

<comment><USER15> Using Lisp changed how I program (so did Prolog and OCaml for that matter). But Forth and APL changed drastically the way I _view_ programming: If we understand it as communicating our intents to the machine using a language, then abstraction should be nothing more but a function of features, performance and the number of tokens employed.

Say you "refactored" our code by implementing a design pattern straight from the GoF book, yet the number of tokens somehow increased? Sorry pal, no approval for your PR from me.

<comment><USER12> It is the craziest thing, isn't it, that programs are meant to be both read by humans and executed by machines which operate at significantly different time scales than us?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > Forth is not the language. Forth the language captures nothing, it's a > moving target... Forth is the approach to engineering aiming to produce as > small, simple and optimal system as possible, by shaving off as many > requirements of every imaginable kind as you can.

This has been something on my mind recently: I feel like as a software engineer I spend a lot of time working with abstractions designed to contain complexity, and I really appreciate it when I find the rare few that do so successfully (or get the buzz from having done so myself!).

But there's something even more appealing and satisfying about simplifying the model of the problem so that it's more elegant where that's possible.

</comment><comment><USER17> The first useful programming language I created was a Forth-dialect in Common Lisp [0].

While understanding Forth was key to even getting me started, since I finally found a thread I could start pulling, something that looked doable from where I was standing; it's pretty obvious I never went all in with the Forth-way.

I've since created several languages [1..] exploring the border between Forth and Lisp, or between control and convenience. And I'm still undecided. Just reading this article about Forth set my mind going in that direction again.

The fact that it's possible to do so much using such simple tools is like a riddle that keeps tickling my brain. And from a theoretical standpoint I find the stack abstraction more beautiful than registers, the same way an ordered set outshines a hashed one; because they're analog, full spectrum, without gaps and extra complexity to cover them.

[0] [https://github.com/ricelang/lifoo](https://github.com/ricelang/lifoo)

[1] [https://github.com/ricelang/snabl](https://github.com/ricelang/snabl)

[https://github.com/ricelang/cixl](https://github.com/ricelang/cixl)

[https://gitlab.com/sifoo/snigl](https://gitlab.com/sifoo/snigl)

[https://github.com/codr7/g-fu](https://github.com/codr7/g-fu)

[https://github.com/codr7/cidk](https://github.com/codr7/cidk)

[https://github.com/codr7/lila](https://github.com/codr7/lila)

</comment><comment><USER18> One of my hobby projects awaiting some free time is an OS. I figure that since Forth is so easy to implement that I can just build a simple Forth implementation for a CPU, then write a Lisp implementation in that Forth — then if I ever want to port my OS, it's relatively simple.

I think that this would be a nice way to avoid the unsafety issues with Forth: keep the unsafe code compartmented away in the relatively small Forth kernel, while all the high-level stuff is written in a language with sufficient safety guarantees.

I imagine that a Forth purist wouldn't be terribly fond of that approach. Probably from that mindset a full Lisp implementation is overkill. But from _my_ mindset a full Forth system would be difficult to reason about. Maybe folks who implemented programs in Postscript or NeWS would disagree.

Now all I need to do is retire, inherit a legacy or win the lottery (although first I'd have to _play_ the lottery) …

</comment><comment> denton-scratch "Parameters and results passed implicitly on a stack."

The word the OP was looking for was "explicitly".

<comment><USER2> "explicitly _on a stack_ " in the sense that Forth directly exposes the presence of the parameter stack to a programmer, in contrast to the stack that, say, a C program uses.

" _passed_ implicitly" in the sense that Forth definitions do not require a programmer to explicitly state which arguments are passed in and which results are yielded. (although many Forth programmers provide "stack pictures" in comments by convention.)

<comment> denton-scratch OK, I see. I consider myself corrected.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> tl;dr:

> What does this say about Forth? Not much except that it isn't for me.

\- - - -

If you're interested in Forth read "Thinking Forth".

[http://thinking-forth.sourceforge.net/](http://thinking- forth.sourceforge.net/)

<comment><USER20> The greatest Forth book is _Forth on the Atari - Learning By Using_ by Winfried Hofacker. It's an old book, published in 1983 in Germany, but the concepts it embodies are timeless. Available as a PDF [http://www.atarimania.com/documents/FORTH-on-the-Atari- Learn...](http://www.atarimania.com/documents/FORTH-on-the-Atari-Learning-by- Using.pdf) but I have an original copy :-)

<comment><USER21> If ever there was a time to say "Don't judge a book by its cover"...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I like that article primarily for the chain of insightful comments at the end. I think my conclusion after reading it the first time was that it takes every bit as much time to really "get" forth programming as it does any of the highly opinionated paradigms -- be it functional programming in a pure language like haskell, logic programming in prolog, or true OO in Smalltalk.

The deceptive ease with which you can write your own implementation lulls you into thinking that you really get it when you've written an interpreter/ compiler. But true cultural, idiomatic forth requires a paradoxically deeper understanding than writing the compiler can give you.

I think the author drew and settled his conclusions too soon.</comment>


Why Mahalo employed a felon hacker - <AUTHOR> http://calacanis.com/2009/03/05/why-i-employed-a-felon/

<comment><USER2> There are things that I don't understand about this story.

I don't understand why Calacanis' choice was between firing his trusted CTO and retaining a convicted computer felon.

I don't understand how Mahalo could have checked any reference, let alone 3-5, and not found out that Schiefer is one of the most famous computer felons in California.

I don't understand why Calacanis is characterizing something that Schiefer did in 2005, in his mid-20's, as the actions of a "stupid kid".

I don't understand how Calacanis arrives at his estimation that Schiefer did only 0.0000001% of the damage he could have with his botnet. Schiefer stole random Paypal accounts and used them to buy things, and passed stolen Paypal accounts on to his acquaintances. What's the "worse" thing you can do with a botnet? At least the DDoS extortion botnets target gambling sites, and not your mom.

For that matter, I don't understand how Calacanis can equate what Schiefer did to the dumb things lots of teenagers do on computer networks (and, for that matter, on conference room floors). Schiefer wasn't a "hacker". He's a carder.

(As a side-note to Calacanis: sniffing people's passwords at conferences? Also illegal!)

Calacanis says Schiefer was supervised in his work at Mahalo. Is there someone who isn't supervised there? I don't understand how Mahalo believes they had the capability to supervise someone who can manage a 250,000-host botnet.

Unfortunately, I do understand why Calacanis thinks he doesn't handle sensitive information. He doesn't see the link between tens of thousands of email-password pairs and those people's bank accounts. Just a wild guess, but I'm thinking the guy who steals the Paypal accounts out of bot-infected Windows boxes can make that leap.

This is just such a weird post. I guess I can understand not seeing "contrition". But Calacanis seems proud that this happened. It's just head- explody weird.

<comment><USER3> Re: "choice was between firing his trusted..."

Option 1: fire him (good PR), 2: Fire him and fire the guy who hired him (overkill PR stunt), 3: keep both (bad PR)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Calacanis' reaction is an interesting one. As he states himself it was the risky, not socially acceptable, decision to make. His telling of the story makes it seem that he made the right decision. I would agree. A little grace, which by definition can only be shown to someone completely unworthy of it, is encouraging. I am fascinated by my own reaction when I read stories like this. Why is it that justice waived produces such a positive response in me? I think it is because my experience shows that I too need grace more often than not. Whether its something as small as being allowed to turn in an assignment late, or a boss who overlooks a broken rule that they had every right to enforce, I need a measure of grace on an almost daily basis. So to Mr. Calacanis: Thank you for reminding us that there is grace out there when we need it.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm sad to think that they would have cut him out of the process if they had known.

I sort of hate our culture which demonizes anyone who has ever been prosecuted by the justice system and quickly shuffles them into a corner of "people who we can't legally round up and gas but are just as worthless". It's really unhealthy to think that decent, worthwhile people can't ever make mistakes in judgement (and learn from them!) and to presume that the law is always morally correct. It's really a great disservice to the idea that we are trying to rehabilitate people.

<comment><USER2> Rehabilitate people? He was sentenced _this week_. The investigation started in 2005; he didn't even cop a plea until 2007. I'm all for rehabilitation, but if you can't make a judgement call not to put a convicted computer felon in a sysadmin role when he's still pending sentencing, when can you? The relativism here is just dizzying.

<comment><USER5> This particular case makes sense, it's the same as not hiring someone because they are definitely going to have to quit relatively soon, especially if they knowingly withheld that information. However, the article and its title strongly suggest that if he were an ex-convict, they would have cut him out of the process with no second thoughts. Of course all ex-cons are subhuman murderous animals!

That's what I'm really annoyed about, so maybe this situation really just doesn't fit, but I still felt it had to be said.

<comment><USER6> When do you know that somebody can be trusted again? Serious question - I am not sure about the best way to go about it.

A spontaneous feeling would be that maybe someone should earn the trust somehow, so I wouldn't necessarily simply put them in a position where they can do the same things they did before. (Like not employing child abusers in child care). Anyway, it is hard to tell without knowing more about the person in question.

<comment><USER7> Trust: hard to earn, easy to lose and impossible to get back.

<comment><USER8> That's a problem with our society.

One can only have a morally superior attitude that denies the restoration of trust if you imagine that you'll never make a mistake.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Turning a hiring mistake into linkbait -- you stay classy, JCal.

<comment><USER10> Ok, that was completely unjustified. How did he turn it into "linkbait"? He has stopped blogging except for the occasional post which he deems enough to re-post to his blog. It seemed like a very insightful entry showing compassion and understanding for others -- something your comment was not.

<comment><USER9> Oh, please. Jason Calacanis does not need my compassion.

It seemed clear to me that the title was deliberately worded to be provocative. This is a common characteristic of linkbait.

Given Calacanis' past history of search engine spamming, I'm far less forgiving with him than I would be with someone else. Forgive me for "misinterpreting" his intent.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Actually, people with a criminal past (or general oddities that are looked down upon by corporate americal) are often a good choice for a small startup trying to save money. My company often would be someone's 'opportunity' to prove themselves after a major setback in life.

They are motivated, willing to work for cheap, and appreciate the opportunity so much more than someone 'willing to take a paycut' to join your startup. And when times get tough they will be your most loyal employees.

In a startup where cash is tight and the outlook is 'hazy', an employees loyalty is priceless.

<comment><USER12> 'My company': Care to share which company that would be?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Humorous that a search company doesn't run a search on their hires but still believes they have a "rigorous hiring process".

</comment><comment><USER14> The whole story looks like it's been voted down to -2. The low contrast line needs to be drawn somewhere.

<comment><USER15> Seriously. I'm tired of this. Does anyone know of a Greasemonkey script that can turn all low contrast into black?

Calcanis just took years away from my eyes with that color.

<comment><USER16> Readability: <http://lab.arc90.com/2009/03/readability.php>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Not that I am against giving people a second chance (and hey, abused youth and all), but to explain it by saying we are all criminals anyway so it is no biggie doesn't really raise my level of trust.

<comment><USER2> Every year, more than 130,000 people are convicted on felony charges for basic drug possession, a crime that hurts nobody and which is by a commanding majority of surveyed public opinion regarded as a crime that should not actually be a crime. All of these people are going to fail the criminal background checks applied across a good swath of the Fortune 500.

That's a clear injustice.

Is this?

<comment><USER17> I think Google is in the fortune 500. Anyway they seem to go out of their way to not treat basic drug possession as a black mark. I interviewed there, and on the application form they had a question like "Have you ever been convicted of a crime (do not include basic drug possession)?"

<comment><USER2> It's good to know Google is reasonable about this, but you should consider that the overwhelming majority of possession arrests/convictions are misdemeanors. But the ONDCP had a breakdown (from several years ago) of _felony_ convictions for possession; over 130,000. Companies are probably less tolerant of felonies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I wonder if he feels differently about point #16 in his famous "How to save money running a startup" ( [http://calacanis.com/2008/03/07/how-to-save-money- running-a-...](http://calacanis.com/2008/03/07/how-to-save-money-running-a- startup-17-really-good-tips/) ) from last year:

16) Don't waste money on recruiters. Get inside of linkedin and Facebook and start looking for people -- it works better anyway.

<comment><USER19> Have you dealt with many recruiters? I seriously doubt that most recruiters would have done a better job in this situation.

<comment><USER20> Second that. It's a miracle if the recruiter has actually read the entire resume (beyond searching for keywords)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Bravo Jason, I'm glad you let John keep his job; we need more understanding and forgiveness in this society. We're all human we all make mistake.

Just one question, Why use John real name in your post? That is one more Google entry into poor John record book.

</comment><comment><USER22> how can you skip doing a Google search when you are employing someone?

<comment><USER23> The only reason is because it was 1997 when they hired him

<comment><USER24> Mahalo was founded in 2007.

<comment><USER23> I was making a joke... you know... with Google not-existing back in 1997 :-(

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Knowingly having a hacker in an organization is a very difficult predicament. Yes people should be given a second chance, but is it worth all the possible negative press. I would not have kept him on. I don't know the guys though.

<comment><USER26> I don't think that your incorrect usage of "hacker" is going to win many good feelings here on "Hacker News".

<comment><USER2> Rekindling the "hacker" vs. "cracker" debate will probably earn you even fewer good feelings.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I know 'innocent until proven guilty' and all that, but I'm still pretty surprised that a judge would allow someone who is about to go on trial for computer fraud and hacking find work at a computer company and use the internet.

<comment><USER28> Are shoplifters banned from shopping?

<comment><USER29> In many cases they are banned from the stores where they shoplifted -- both by the company explicitly, and sometimes restraining orders are filed with the local municipality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Not running a Google search on a job candidate is actually a reasonable thing to do. The fact that the name matches with a felon, or that people have posted nasty accusations, is no evidence of anything.

</comment><comment><USER2> Has this story hit TechCrunch yet? It's huge news everywhere else.</comment>


Driigo. A fast new homepage. - <AUTHOR> http://www.driigo.net

<comment><USER2> LOL.. page doesn't load. That IS fast.

Error 105 (net::ERR_NAME_NOT_RESOLVED): Unable to resolve the server's DNS address.</comment>


The Scalable Vector Extension (SVE) for the ARMv8-A Architecture - <AUTHOR> https://community.arm.com/groups/processors/blog/2016/08/22/technology-update-the-scalable-vector-extension-sve-for-the-armv8-a-architecture <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12335374](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12335374)</comment>


Show HN: Get discreet job interviews with your LinkedIn connections - <AUTHOR> http://www.jobrupt.com/?d=hn

<comment><USER2> _You are interested in a job interview with them, if they 're too_

Best not to truncate "they are" in this instance.

 _Select anyone with whom you are interested in a job interview. It is anonymous and private; your connections will not see you are interested unless they are too._

I don't get it. How will they find out I'm interested? Surely there needs to be a separate system for employers to register interest in people who they would willingly interview? The current format suggests that they would have to also use your site and select ME as someone THEY want to be interviewed by which makes no sense.

How do I select people I would willingly interview? How will I ever find out if another user wants me to interview them?

So many questions.

<comment><USER3> >The current format suggests that they would have to also use your site and select ME as someone THEY want to be interviewed by which makes no sense.

How does this make no sense? I think the idea is to save both parties from having to express premature rejection to the other.

<comment><USER2> I'm a hiring manager. There are a number of connections on LinkedIn that I would happily interview if they expressed interest. There are also a small number of connections I would love to interview me for a role at their company. The current model does nothing to allow me to differentiate.

<comment><AUTHOR> You are right in pointing out the asymmetric nature of job interviews, namely "You may want to work for this person" vs "You may want to hire this person".

In the current model we wanted to keep things simple and leave as much as possible to them to decide or know. With a check box, we may ask them to select exactly what they want with this particular person.

Do you think, for every selection, asking whether you want to hire or you want to work for a particular person is really necessary, or is it enough to leave this to them, of course with a certain risk of misunderstanding in some cases. I would be pleased to hear your opinion.

<comment><USER2> I certainly believe that being given the option would be a significant improvement. How you execute that appropriately is better answered by a UX expert which I'm definitely not!

<comment><AUTHOR> Initially we implemented hiring and applying as the same action, assuming our users would implicitly know how they position each other. After a week of feedback, we now allow you to choose to select to hire or get hired by someone.

We appreciate your feedback.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> >Help us spread the word [...] _make the first move towards a job interview in a discreet way._

That might be a bit contradictory.

Also, it's not clear from your website – do you contact the people I select in step 1 out of band (by e-mail or something) and ask them if they are interested in interviewing any of their LinkedIn connections? How does this actually work, end-to-end?

If you're relying on my contacts also signing up for jobrupt, then, to a close approximation, that's never going to happen.

In a two-sided market like this, and with the anonymity constraint on top, it's really hard to see how it can succeed. Some ideas:

Focus on a niche you can target to get reasonable usage [1][2] (ideally >50% of users who might be selected, but at least 10% might be good enough).

Provide a concierge-type services to job-seekers – track down the people they select then find out if they are offering jobs (its possible but not clear if this is already what you are doing.)

[1] [http://joel.is/post/39659497239/how-to-gain-traction-in- two-...](http://joel.is/post/39659497239/how-to-gain-traction-in-two-sided- markets)

[2] [http://cdixon.org/2010/08/21/the-bowling-pin- strategy/](http://cdixon.org/2010/08/21/the-bowling-pin-strategy/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the great feedback.

We don't contact people in your selection or connections. We want to focus on the small verticals where there is a high chance of match, like academicians, senior executives, developers, kernel developers etc. By spreading the word, you don't mention your selections. But if that still disturbs you, to be seen on jobrupt, you better not spread the word as privacy comes first.

Thanks for the great ideas on focus, niche, getting traction etc. They are great hints going forward.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> So this is basically speed dating for job interviews ! This is how most speed dating events work (atleast in London) - you indicate your interest in the other person anonymously and if they 'like' you back, the system sends out an email to both.

This kinda breaks when someone ends up clicking 'like' for everyone they met at the event ! This someone in your case will be recruiters who'll use the information to hunt probable passive candidates.

So in search for discreteness, the job-seeker would end up falling prey to the game of head hunters.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the comparison and feedback. You are right with the risk, but we have some soft limits for selections as an anti-spam measure. Also in our case the set of people are not finite but open ended.

Someone today suggested using it for intracompany hiring in large consulting companies like Accenture etc.

This is still experimental, we don't definitely aim to be a mainstream tool. We just hope it will benefit some people in some situations.

<comment><USER5> Sorry if the first comment sounded a bit discouraging. I think you folks have made a great start and would be on the verge of a breakthrough.

Good luck and I hope it works! :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Any comment is always better than 'No comment' . I appreciate your feedback.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Ok, let me play the devils advocate here.

We get the point, I guess. People will feel less "desperate" in the eyes of the contractor, since they obviously also showed their interest. But at the end of the day, and this is why I will keep my skepticism for now, the contractor has many many more seekers out there who are willing to do the job, than the other way around.

Honestly, in a competitive market, this feel too weak from the contracter's point of view. I you want a job, show it properly that you can do the job well, not bitch around playing some sort of social game, trying to play hard to get or whatever. Tl;Dr: There's no time for this shit.

On the other hand: Great! Like a "Bang with friends" for job hunting! You get matched with whoever is looking for similar talents/positions, and then you evaluate the other part, whereafter you either secretly show your interest or not.

If the normal way is the hard way, this is the curling way where it doesn't hurt as much to get dissed, because maybe they just didn't notice you, right? But hey, you'll never know because you're too much of a pussy to find out.

My two cents.

<comment><AUTHOR> I hope that side would serve some small, highly skilled circles, such as Ruby Developers, Kernel developers, Ember.js people, Academicians, Corporate software sales people etc. We plan to keep out headhunters, contractors and other mass-hiring entities.

The idea is to select whom you want to work with and leverage your connections in addition to other methods.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think it's horrible that the only way to log in is via antisocial networking. It's only one step removed from being a facebook login. If you want it to be discreet, make it anonymous (email address only).

<comment><AUTHOR> Currently there is only LinkedIn signup available. But we plan an email signup going forward. Mainly we need you to be able to see and select connections, which is easier on LinkedIn. In email it is only possible through a list of emails entered by the user. That's still a good option with some small caveats. Thanks for the feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> So far this morning we've had two Show HN's with similar titles:

"Job searching/hiring turned upside down"

and

"Show HN: Dating turned upside down - Tomonotomo"

I'm wondering if this is just a coincidence or its the same person/entity. They both use cheesy stock photos on their landing page and have very similar layouts.

<comment><AUTHOR> Actual I entered the second one, after seeing Tomonotomo's title first. I liked it as a nice expression of their ideas, and wanted to reuse it, so no coincidence indeed. But we are not at all related. Sorry if that was disturbing in any way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is cool, but I'd be worried that it wouldn't line me up with enough of the right jobs. For that reason, I still prefer mightyspring for anonymous job searching. A big part of the problem is matching the right people with the right opportunities, and their algorithms are a lot more robust.

<comment><AUTHOR> You are absolutely right in pointing out Mightyspring. They help especially when you focus on what you want to do. In Jobrupt's case, the focus is on 'with whom you want to work'. It may be your ex-boss or ex-employee, your ex- colleague, your classmate, your competitor, your customer, your service provider etc. Mightyspring definitely deserve their place, Jobrupt is just a different and additional type of job search tool. You don't need to choose one or another, you may use both.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I sort of like the "discrete" part, but what happens when the manager at your current job logs in and feigns "interest" in you, just to see if you're looking?

<comment><AUTHOR> Your manager will not know anything unless you also select her/him. And if you both select each other, that's just a re-validation of your synergy :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's Tinder (gotinder.com) for the job search!</comment>


The Hard Raise - <AUTHOR> http://avc.com/2016/10/the-hard-raise/ <comment><USER2> This is a great lesson to learn. I've had people disbelieve me when I've told them some of my most memorable and important conversations have started off with someone telling me I was wrong. Being able to discuss, defend, and articulate a point a view with someone who passionately disagrees with it teaches you how your point of view is perceived and received by others.

It is of course a less useful experience when someone disagrees with you but they cannot articulate why. I will try to probe disagreement to understand their point of view at least as well as they do in order to understand why we disagree.

A hard raise is just such a protracted disagreement in some sense.

<comment><USER3> >my most memorable and important conversations have started off with someone telling me I was wrong

OT: I just had a conversation like this that was one of the most enjoyable conversations I or my partner had had in a long time. We sort of had an unspoken agreement where she was just going to challenge everything I said and force me to explain / defend all of my positions as we wandered all over various political and cultural topics. It was a blast!

We were at a party, and people kept checking in, like they were worried we were in a fight or something, which was kind of funny.

<comment><USER4> > We were at a party, and people kept checking in, like they were worried we > were in a fight or something, which was kind of funny.

An ex-GF and I were once declined admission to a bar in Manhattan because the bouncer heard us having a very animated (but amicable) disagreement about one issue or another. "Y'all can't come in here if you're drunk and fighting".

We were mildly tipsy and debating with a bit of passion (something we did all the time and both quite enjoyed). Some people just don't understand that you can strongly disagree with someone without being angry or "fighting".

<comment><USER5> Ohoh, I grew up intellectually "play-fighting" my brother like this. I was always a battle of who could outwit the other. I could make my mother quite unhappy but we were having a blast. Now I do the same with my brother in law, we're trying not to laugh as we try to intellectually bring the other off- balance. It's the most fun I can have but people around us keep thinking we're in a fight or something and tell us to stop.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> 13.91x return. It doesn't appear all capital was called, but assuming it was, on a $100m fund the return is is $1,391m.

Assuming 2/20 economics for the partners, that's $278.2m returned to the partners.

2% MGMT fees would be 2m/year over 10 years ($20m), but that probably had nuance (drawdown after $x years, or % of called capital) and/or had to be paid back, so let's ignore that.

Assuming Brad and Fred each split the carry 40% 40% (and 20% for other people) that's about $100m return to each of the two major partners.

Nice return for delivering a great LP shareholder return on a reasonable timeframe.

</comment><comment><USER7> Whenever I read such things I like to think about what a seriously contrarian investment thesis would look like today. My guide is always what I, personally, would consider completely insane. Here's a few:

\- Bet on large-scale _increases_ in employment in the USA and other developed countries in the next 10-15 years.

\- Bet against Apple and the Apple model (very polished vertically integrated silos) and its dominance in the market.

\- A big long bet on the music, film, or media industries.

I don't have the spare cash to make significant plays but if anyone else is looking to lose money (or make tons) betting on something looney there you go. :)

Here's one I remember thinking about years ago and considering crazy:

\- Betting on oil prices going down, or on energy _abundance_ vs. scarcity.

Years ago I was convinced that energy was going to get more expensive for the foreseeable future for fundamentally inescapable physical reasons. Obviously lots of other people were too because lots of people proceeded to lose their shirts on it. Fortunately I was not in any way invested in this thesis.

<comment><USER8> I think we will see a general increase in the power of the media industry over the next 10 years. Prices have bottomed and as AI gets better at predicting individual tastes we should see an increase in perceived value by consumers which should increase both consumption and prices.

Oil is going to go down in price as other sources of energy become cost competitive and start to dominate the energy mix. There might be an energy shock due to supply disruption, but oil will never reach $150 a barrel again unless we get some massive inflation.

At this point everyone has given up on the idea that central banks printing lots of money causes inflation. If you want to be contrarian bet on massive inflation occurring in the next few years.

<comment><USER7> Yup. Your last point on inflation could dovetail with the increased employment "crazy thesis" I suggested. A bull labor market would flood a lot of the QE cash on the sidelines into the economy. Another factor would be the emergence of an "organized labor 2.0" that uses the Internet to coordinate... like think Uber meets AFL-CIO and powered by game theory and deep learning. Bull labor markets are highly inflationary.

\- On the Apple "polished closed silo" model:

The conventional wisdom is that UX is everything. But a new generation or two is growing up today that is "digital native" and has grown up using computers of every kind. Might this generation of digital natives actually have _less_ need for super-polished UI/UX hand-holding and inversely a greater desire for the increased freedom and versatility that comes with a more heterogenous open environment?

Anyway this is all a tangent with nothing to do with the original post. :)

<comment><USER8> >Anyway this is all a tangent with nothing to do with the original post.

But it is lots of fun to talk about - since when do we have to let the topic constrain the conversation :)

On the topic of inflation there is so much money sloshing around that it is really hard to know what will happen. It really is unprecedented so we can't rely on the past to be a good predictor of what will happen in the future.

<comment><USER7> I'll say this on inflation: housing, tuition, health care, and several other things are insanely expensive relative to wages and the rest of the economy. You can't have a market with no buyers. Two possible outcomes: (1) these deflate until they are reasonable, and (2) the _rest_ of the economy inflates until these are reasonable.

Given the amount of money sloshing around and the stickiness of esp. real estate prices, (2) may be more likely. My kids may know a country where everyone makes six figures and a starter house is... well... still $750k.

Of course central banks and governments are not as dumb as people think. This is likely the _intended_ outcome.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> _> But that fund, USV 2004, has been one of the very best venture capital funds ever put together. The numbers are public because many (most) of our investors are public pension funds who have freedom of information act (FOIA) obligations to report the performance of the funds they invest in. At that time (early 2000s), the big VCs in the bay area were kicking out FOIA obligated limited partners out of their funds. That was a huge win for us and we got a bunch of those FOIA obligated LPs into our fund._

To contrast, Sequoia Capital is a famous example of a VC that doesn't allow LPs with FOIA obligations.

Wow, I looked at Fred's linked pdf from the Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund and saw some amazing IRRs:

\+ Union Square Ventures 2004 fund +67.0%

\+ Union Square Ventures 2008 fund +22.2%

\+ Union Square Ventures Opportunity Fund (2010) +63.8%

\+ Union Square Ventures 2012 fund +27.2%

The Oregon table doesn't have the funds' total sizes. Fred volunteered that info in a different comment:

[https://www.cbinsights.com/blog/union-square-ventures- teardo...](https://www.cbinsights.com/blog/union-square-ventures- teardown/#comment-1521929070)

<comment><USER10> Can someone explain these numbers? I looked at the spreadsheet:

It looks like they put 25m in to the USV 2004 fund, and it became 294m. The financial terms are not familiar to me at all.

<comment><USER11> In short, IRR is yearly rate of return. i.e. If 25mm becomes 50mm in 12 months, then the IRR (yearly rate of return) is 100%.

Try searching up something like 'venture capital IRR explanation' and you should get more details.

<comment><USER12> So if $24 million becomes $26 million in one month, they say it's 100% IRR? Even though it's only up 8.3% and it's just as likely to go back down?

<comment><USER13> The footnote on the document says "Investments held less than three years generally have TVPIs and IRRs that are not meaningful, and are therefore labeled NM", and most of the post-2012 funds are labeled as such.

IRR as a concept is used for any sort of investment, eg. if you buy an advertisement that will let you sell $X/month in additional product, you can calculate an IRR from that. It's used to compare different ways to invest your capital. You absolutely can use it over short durations (this is how the payday loan & credit card businesses operate - they compare the returns from loan fees vs. the cost of bad loans), but typically you want to use it on realized gains & losses, i.e. ones that have been converted to hard cash. On unrealized gains, you can run the calculation, but understand that uncertainty in payoff will be magnified by the time scale on which it operates.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> That's really inspiring. Sometimes, in the middle of a hard raise, you question it all. In the middle of the dark night, sometimes the worst part is not the darkness but the feeling that it may never end.

Fred deserves where he's gotten, not just because he's a great guy and a smart VC, but for having the fortitude and persistence to take it to the end. It makes me recommit, rededicate myself to my own hard raise, which may not end as well, but I can ensure won't end from giving up.

</comment><comment><USER15> What's the difference between early...

 _One of the reasons hard raises can turn into great performers is that they often mean you are doing something others aren't doing, you are early to an opportunity and others don't see it. That certainly was the case with USV 2004. That's the contrarian bet in action._

and way too early...[1]

 _Beware of "way too early". It hurts and it keeps hurting._

[1] [http://avc.com/2009/04/only-ten-years-too- early/](http://avc.com/2009/04/only-ten-years-too-early/)

<comment><USER16> Well, there's two different kinds of timing.

One of them, which the OP was about, is about investing. "Be Fearful When Others Are Greedy and Greedy When Others Are Fearful" as Warren Buffet said. It's the contrarian timing - it's investing when nobody else wants to (because everyone thinks that the tech bubble burst and tech is dangerous and/or tech has been captured by a few big players in the 2004 case).

Then there's the timing of a specific product, which requires hardware, software, etc, to be just so. My favorite example there is video streaming (which YouTube came to dominate). Google Video was what, 6 months later? And there were how many before that were sunk because of the tangle of codecs and other things required to view video over the internet before there was enough flash penetration? (Or consider Apple Newton vs. Apple iPhone).

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This articles how information transparency (FOIA) can boost overall market, even if individual players may not find that compelling (e.g. Sequoia Capital).

Similar past examples:

1\. Employment at will. Individual company may be in disadvantage, but it is one of the main advantage of Silicon Valley ecosystem.

2\. California Labor Code 2870. Tl;dr: Any IP created in your spare time on your own equipment in area unrelated to employer is always yours. A lot of companies may prefer simple assume all IP is their while you work there, but it can't hurt startup creation.

Future hypothetical examples:

1\. Information transparency of VC market. It gotten better, but still a lot of things are private. It creates informational asymmetry that favor incumbent power players than newcomers.

2\. Limited access to investment opportunities. Very, very few people can invest to VC. Likely way less than 0.01% of global population can do it. Even if you are wealthy individual there is no way to give $10k for 10 years to any top-tier USA VC.

What if there would be equivalent of stock exchange for VC/startups. Likely it would have very limited liquidity and very different rules, but it may bring economy growth on next level.

</comment><comment><USER18> Seems almost tautological that if there's not a ton of frothy money chasing a limited pool of assets, it will both be hard to raise money, and you'll get better returns because of less investment competition.

<comment><USER19> It's not tautological, because there is normally a good reason for the raise being hard. Obviously, there are exceptions, such as in this case. However, I'd be surprised if the returns are particular strong if you look at _all_ VC funds that had a hard raise. In many of the cases that ended badly, one would look back and say, "Well, of course that was a hard raise. The thesis was flawed." But that's exactly what people were thinking who turned away USV, before they had the benefit of hindsight.</comment></comment>