After big layoffs SoundCloud founder says its strategy is to 'take back control' - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/12/after-big-layoffs-soundcloud-founder-says-its-strategy-is-now-to-take-back-control/ <comment><USER2> I can't help but feel badly for SoundCloud and their CEO. Over the years I've seen dozens of companies get to a point where its clear that the future is not what they had envisioned. It's that moment of facing reality of "If we were likely to win, we would have by now, but we didn't so really what is next for us?" It is that point where the investors have seen perhaps three or four internal projects that haven't pushed them into that accelerating growth point, and there really isn't enough money to go further. So the investors have said to themselves, "I'm thinking this one isn't a winner." Let's focus on some of the more promising companies in our portfolio.

The CEO is massively constrained in what they can say when a company reaches this point, so they all say the same thing, "We've got great things happening, really hated to have to let go some great people, we're aligning the company on this awesome plan to take us to the next level."

The alternative is saying "Nothing we've been able to think of to date has created a viable business. We're now at the point that we are losing money so fast that even our most optimistic ideas about what might work were beyond the point where we cross $0 and go negative. We're laying off a bunch of staff which will slow are burn rate enough to pursue both a "Hail Mary"[1] strategy and look for a way to liquidate the company and claim victory anyway."

Hedge funds and other private equity firms will come out and review what things they have and how they might be re-packaged or sold, internal investors will squabble over terms and conditions of bridge (aka Debt) financing to let them live long enough to get there, management will be constrained by this effort to focus mostly on selling the company and less on actually making it a viable proposition. It sets the clock, and when the debt financing runs out, everyone goes home sad.

But nobody ever says that. They say "We've got this new direction we are super excited about."

[1] "Hail Mary", made popular by quarter back Roger Staubach ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hail_Mary_pass](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hail_Mary_pass)) is a plan that conceptually can be successful but is probabilistically unlikely to succeed.

<comment><USER3> Do you think that employees stick around because the CEO/leadership says "we've got this new direction we are super excited about" and they would bail if they got "nothing... has created a viable business"? That is, are the employees who stick around happy to stick their heads in the sand as long as the leadership throws out the "we're excited" bone?

I would prefer the honesty about the hail mary and I would think most HN readers would feel the same, but I wonder if that's the norm and CEOs/leaders just can't/won't (shouldn't?) admit the reality regardless of how obvious that reality is.

EDIT: I should also say that I'd likely go to the mat for the person who's honest about the hail mary.

<comment><USER4> > _Do you think that employees stick around because the CEO /leadership says > "we've got this new direction we are super excited about" and they would > bail if they got "nothing... has created a viable business"? That is, are > the employees who stick around happy to stick their heads in the sand as > long as the leadership throws out the "we're excited" bone?_

I think you underestimate the capacity for people to delude themselves. Change is painful and a change that leaves behind a projects that you've invested heavily in is even more painful (sunk cost fallacy). Talking about the realities of the situation shatters that self-delusion.

You also fail to account for morale. We've all heard of tightly-knit teams who managed to succeed against incredible odds because they believed in what they were doing; the converse is much less talked about: teams that believe they cannot succeed, inevitably won't.

So, from a management perspective, it never makes sense to admit one is in a "Hail Mary" situation, even when it's patently obvious.

> _EDIT: I should also say that I 'd likely go to the mat for the person who's > honest about the hail mary._

Bluntly, why? Your family and your future retirement depends on your income and career success. If the prospects for success are that bleak, how does it make sense for you to take on that risk personally? "For the good of the company?" For your own sake, I would hope not.

<comment><USER5> The capacity for self-delusion is indeed great, but in my experience, the only people deluding themselves in a situation like that is management thinking they are successfully saving face. Which is really what it's about.

Employees know what's up. The people who just lost their job are plunged into chaos regardless, and the ones who are still part of the ride are now wondering when they'll be next. If management has shown they will keep up appearances right up until it becomes untenable, that teaches employees a very destructive lesson: you won't have any clue you might lose your job until it's already a done deal. That doesn't create peace of mind, it creates paranoia.

Worse is when such a restructuring is paired with lofty visions of how the new strategy is going to work out in 6 months or a year, often presented in a very long and painful meeting. All anyone really wants to know is what is going to happen next: how are the next few weeks going to play out, now that a bunch of people are no longer here, and everyone else has to pick up the slack regardless?

That's why you should respect people who are actually honest with you. Being given the information you need to plan for the future is far more important than pretending you don't need to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's a huge shame that SoundCloud is likely dying, because large segments of the music industry and literally entire genres of music are solely on SoundCloud. This may sound hyperbolic, but I feel like them shutting down would be the "burning of the Library of Alexandria" of 21st century music

<comment><USER7> As another mentioned, the Alexandria analogy is best applied to what.cd being shut down last year. Here's an article describing it.

[https://qz.com/840661/what-cd-is-gone-a-eulogy-for-the- great...](https://qz.com/840661/what-cd-is-gone-a-eulogy-for-the-greatest- music-collection-in-the-world/)

I wasn't ever a member, but it's clear to me that an immense body of knowledge was lost when it was shut down. Much more so than SoundCloud shutting down, unfortunate as that may be.

edit: anyone who was familiar, how did the categorization and documentation of what.cd compare to Discogs now? I find Discogs invaluable and immensely useful, but it certainly doesn't have the rigorous QC that what.cd had. Anyone can edit entries, and it's not infrequently that I encounter something incorrect.

<comment><USER8> The private torrent sites (What, and others that I won't name here) all tend to refer to Discogs as the authoritative source of catalog information. The difference is that while Discogs knows about metadata, it doesn't have any music.

I think I was depressed for a week when What shut down.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I wish they would partner with services like Patreon and flattr instead of limiting everything to a stupid subscription model. I imagine that many artists could get a lot more revenue through voluntary payment services than through forced subscription models.

<comment><USER10> Not gonna lie, I find it really amazing that I see really niche projects with three- or four-digit patreon income levels, things like that. I'm really glad that as a society we've found a way to support public goods directly.

<comment><USER11> SV Delos, known for their sailing videos, is pulling in $10k per video.

[https://www.patreon.com/svdelos](https://www.patreon.com/svdelos)

[https://www.youtube.com/user/briantrautman](https://www.youtube.com/user/briantrautman)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This seems strange, given that another article from TechCrunch today states that the layoffs bought them very minimal runway.

[https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/12/soundshroud/](https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/12/soundshroud/)

> Instead, sources at SoundCloud tell TechCrunch that founders Alex Ljung and > Eric Wahlforss confessed the layoffs only saved the company enough money to > have runway "until Q4" — which begins in just 50 days.

> A core question from staff during the all-hands was why there wasn't > transparency into the finances or a strict hiring freeze. The message from > management was that a hiring freeze would show weakness and lead to people > asking questions. That wasn't satisfying when the company ended up shedding > almost half its staff.

<comment><USER13> If they actually thought a hiring freeze would actually show weakness, then they deserve what they got. Not being transparent with employees basically shows these two aren't suited to motivate or lead anyone.

<comment><USER12> My take on the matter too, particularly the hiring freeze thing. Yeesh.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I am still waiting for some words from Fred Wilson, one of their loudest VCs. After he was worshipping SoundCloud in so many posts and glorifying the future of 'sound' for (too) many years I'd like to hear an update. A VC should not just hype a company when he invested but also comment on tough times.

Fred, what happened? What did you tell your LPs? Bad luck? Let's gamble on the blockchain now?

</comment><comment><USER15> The biggest problem is what the article touches on, loss of the best employees. They kept who they thought were key, but the best employees, the ones who really move the needle and have lots of other opportunities are out the door first.

Losing your best talent means time to market goes up for new products and quality goes down. It's also really hard to get top talent again. This makes a bad situation far worse and its why so few companies can recover.

On top of that, the investors are going to push for a sale or write off the company completely. It becomes toxic very quickly.

There's still time for SoundCloud, it still has value, but they have to make some good choices in the near term.

<comment><USER16> At the same time, Netflix discovered that keeping only the good one accelerate your time to market and productivity by a huge factor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I wish I could somehow archive some of their content. They have a serious amount of audio data and are the only source I know with annotations attached to specific seconds within a track. I've been thinking about building a music- generating neural network–something that may work especially well for electronic (and often instrumental) music that soundcloud has a lot of.

Unfortunately, they have limited their API access to approved developers, and I haven't even gotten a response after applying two months or so ago....

<comment><USER18> ArchiveTeam is discussing archival efforts I think, but I doubt they'd be able to get all of it, it's a pretty big dataset (several PB, I think).

It sounds like youtube-dl tooling works with soundcloud though, so you could write a crawler to at least archive your favorite artists' tracks individually.

Example: youtube-dl [http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/182804938](http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/182804938)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> They should start begging for money, Wikipedia style. I'd happily pay $50-$100 a year for a service I use for like 10 hours a day (I already pay di.fm something like that).

<comment><USER20> That's how charities, not businesses work.

<comment><USER19> It's a long standing model in the software world (freemiums, sharewares, etc). I suspect SoundCloud demographics won't withstand a mandatory subscription.

<comment><USER20> Right, but I was taking that from the CEO of MySQL. In a presentation (after they were sold) he mentioned that he once got a donation from Craig's List for $15,000.00 since they were big users of MySQL. It was at that point he realized the problem with their open source business model.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> They seemed to remove the in-browser recording feature so I stopped using it.

</comment><comment><USER22> Remember the employee you guys had that said "Comment timelines are neat but this is not enough to establish a working business"?

Find him/her - rehire him/her, and fire all of the fucking idiots that ignored them. They should have sold the idea to Google - at least then we might all benefit from it.

Instead, SoundCloud, and comment timelines, will be a neat idea strangled by poor leadership.

<comment><USER23> Dear lord, no. That feature is not ever anything but annoying.

<comment><USER24> I have actively spent a good amount of my free time finding or maintaining chrome addons to block that garbage. It's the most inane and vacuous product feature I've come across and that's ignoring that it used to be so badly optimised that changing the comment caused a noticeable browser slow down

<comment><USER23> On the other hand, it's really useful to know that DragonSlayer69 thinks 0:41 of this song kicks ass.

<comment><USER25> If you're a producer or DJ, it actually is incredibly useful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> AGAIN? All these companies saying come put your content here and then they fold.

I still remember mp3.com. I feel like we need some kind of distributed federated service for self-publishing music at this point.

</comment><comment><USER27> I've heard that slogan before. It didn't end well.

</comment><comment><USER28> I thought Soundcloud would truly become the 'Youtube of Audio'. But it seems to be trying to do too many things. Right now, there is no place on the internet where I could search a keyword and find relevant podcasts about a topic. Why can't Soundcloud do that? Just be the Youtube of podcasts, leave the music part to others.

<comment><USER7> Curious...why doesn't <any search engine> fit the bill? Not a podcast listener, so maybe it's not as simple as searching for music.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> well, laying off the most expensive part of SC + focusing looks like business is getting mature and practical, given the competition and turning from 'exciting new thing' into regular normal business.</comment>


Can intelligence be boosted by a simple task? For some… (latest n-back study) - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2011/06/13/can-intelligence-be-boosted-by-a-simple-task-for-some/ <comment><AUTHOR> Also on the latest n-back study: [http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/06/a-simple- exercise-...](http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/06/a-simple-exercise-to- boost-iq/) [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405270230443230457637...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304432304576371462612272884.html?mod=WSJ_LifeStyle_Lifestyle_11_1)</comment>


Fail Upwards - <AUTHOR> http://www.cstthegate.com/davetrott/2011/11/fail-upwards/

<comment><USER3> The don't-sweat-it-you'll-be-able-to-connect-the-dots-in-hindsight approach to life is both forgiving and encouraging in an almost avuncular way, especially when you're going through a period of intense personal turmoil that accompanies rejection. But then again, it suffers from a heady dose of survivorship bias.

And so the question begs, how do you know that you're on the periphery of a cul de sac, and all you need do is retrace your steps and begin with a clean slate? (This would definitely not have augured well for, say, an Airbnb. Then again, languishing in mediocrity or persisting in a stagnating job is like a slow death.)

<comment><USER4> It does feel a bit trite, but it lines up just fine with the classics:

 _Military tactics are like unto water; for water in its natural course runs away from high places and hastens downwards.

So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong and to strike at what is weak.

Water shapes its course according to the nature of the ground over which it flows; the soldier works out his victory in relation to the foe whom he is facing.

Therefore, just as water retains no constant shape, so in warfare there are no constant conditions.

He who can modify his tactics in relation to his opponent and thereby succeed in winning, may be called a heaven-born captain._

<comment><USER5> What's the source for that please?

<comment><USER6> "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The lost concept in anecdotes like this is opportunity cost; he was rejected from all those art schools and found success -- by some definition -- in going to NYC. The implication in the story is that success is binary, that you achieve it or you don't.

But he may've switched to advertising at any of those other schools. Or he may have stayed in fine arts and enjoyed even greater success that he can't even dream of now. But those opportunities were lost in favor of the path he took instead (whether by choice or not).

Arguably, if you end up happy and without regrets, you DID succeed. But not everyone has that same metric, and depending on your dreams there's a wide spectrum of possibilities. Being happy doesn't mean you couldn't have been even happier otherwise.

</comment><comment><USER8> I think this is pretty trite. He got pretty lucky, and happened to put in a lot of hard work to make good on it, and generalizes this to everyone.

Sometimes it's better to ignore the sunk costs and cut your losses - <USER2> everything is about 'never give up'.

<comment><USER9> Yup, agreed. Here's a great Freakonomics podcast on the upside of quitting that's quite illuminating: [http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/09/30/new- freakonomics-radi...](http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/09/30/new-freakonomics- radio-podcast-the-upside-of-quitting/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think there's a few underlying themes in this story:

1\. Don't let others get in the way of what you want to do. 2\. Rejection isn't the end, it's just a wall to climb over. 3\. (This message was definately between the lines) Success takes hard work.

I know a lot of people I applied to school with and eventually graduated with felt entitled to a position to the program or to a job after graduation. But these same people bumbled through school, never really caring or putting in the work to complete the project the way it needed to be completed.

I'm right there with the author in saying never give up, but not giving up takes a lot of hard work and you can't forget that.

<comment><USER11> > themes [...] wall to climb over

Urban dictionary (<http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fail> upwards) dates this term 2009.

I originally saw "fail upwards" in alpinist Mark Twight's writings[1] ten years before that: his sense is to keep going up and over the summit even when things have gone terribly wrong: you may no longer have the option to descend the way you came up.

[1] "Extreme alpinism" (passage can be found on google books)

<comment><USER12> <http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fail+upwards>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Probably the best thing I ever quit was my 4 months into my 12 month Honours year at university, I decided to change subjects. (Out of FPGA/HDL programming.. that just wasnt working for me)

Everyone I talked to told me I was crazy as they continued with subjects they didnt enjoy, but it allowed me to choose a subject I really loved and produce something way better than I could have on the original subject. Definitely worth it

<comment><USER13> Note: I also worked with plenty that did enjoy their courses, realised how snobbish that sounded.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Push until you fail - that last, highest place you got to is where you are best; to go one step farther is to enter Peter Principle territory, and you DON'T want to be there (at least not then). Then make the best of that position, and leap from there. The top rung of the ladder may be higher, but it's very hard to stay there - the next rung or two down is far more productive.

</comment><comment><USER5> I think a lot of folks are missing the point ... All he's trying to say is ... "Aim high"

</comment><comment><USER15> Key question: is it possible to fail upwards deliberately or is it just a matter of luck?</comment>


Cross-Platform UI in GitHub Desktop - <AUTHOR> http://githubengineering.com/cross-platform-ui-in-github-desktop/ <comment><USER2> I have to say, I miss the age of native apps. I understand that it's awesome cakes for Spotify, GitHub, etc. engineers to share JavaScript bits between devices. But it sucks for me as the user! The Spotify app (on my Mac) has become a resource hog over the years.

Same with Slack's Mac app. As beautiful as it is, there's just something that doesn't feel 100% responsive/right with a web-based app.

        "With separate code bases for OS X & Windows
        converging on a single design, we knew that
        sharing code would be essential going forward.
        Sophisticated as the graph is, implementing
        it twice would have been a significant burden."

How is it ever reasonable to prioritize _coding_ convenience over the end users' experience? This team set out to solve a cool engineering problem (code reuse) and forgot altogether that people are actually going to be using this stuff.

<comment><USER3> Thing is, by using a cross-platform drawing library like Cairo or OpenGL, a lot of this code could have been reused anyway.

It wouldn't have been as nice or expressive as Javascript though. But it also wouldn't have required hacks like stitching together a giant string to be `eval`', for example. So there's a tradeoff.

<comment><USER4> I haven't used the application (can't on Linux), but if the graph doesn't require user interactivity, using Cairo or some other software renderer (e.g. [http://www.antigrain.com/](http://www.antigrain.com/)) to just render the graph into a bitmap, would do the job faster and with less resource usage. Adding user interactivity on top of that shouldn't be a lot of work either.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I find it horrifying that on a Haswell i7 a chat app or a text editor STUTTERS. It's really ridiculous and sad at the same time.

<comment><USER6> For every clock your CPU gets, a developer will find a way to waste it.

Why is there so much interest in HTML + Javascript based normal applications? They are slow, the langauges are awful, but besides Qt they are the ultimate portability. So sacrifice all those hz gains and power efficiency to make the developer workload minimal.

<comment><USER7> I assume because developers approach it with a different mindset:

Theoretically all of this problems can and will be solved. The advantage would persist.

But agree. Reality looks often different

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I was wondering why the performance was so awful, and reminds me of Atom in it's slow startup...

This answers it all.

<comment><USER9> Yes, that's not unusual these days. I wonder if they even care when the user experience gets destroyed just for a bit less development time.

<comment><USER10> Does it web tech really have lesser development time? My experience is definitely the other way around, and I probably have put more hours in on the web side. Web is unbeatable for things like responsive UIs, but when you want pixel based it's hard to beat the development speed of Visual Whatever or Qt Designer.

<comment><USER9> Well, at least that's what I read all the time. I couldn't confirm it, too, but I always thought that's just because I'm perfectly fine with Qt. QML is also pretty good for responsive UI.

Maybe these companies prefer the web stuff because most developers know it anyway.

<comment><USER11> I think its because so many devs are trying to move away from C++. Qt really is great and its sad to me because its a much better solution than these crappy browser apps.

<comment><USER12> C++ isn't the only way to write native code.

<comment><USER11> Obviously. I was kinda dumbing it down to the fact that seems like many people are moving away from native.

<comment><USER12> Actually it feels the other way around, with Go, D, Rust, .NET Native, Swift and the upcoming AOT compiler on Java 10 (maybe).

<comment><USER11> Thats true, Rust and Go seem to have brought the popularity up a bit which is nice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Did I understand correctly? So they include the whole browser tech stack for a simple graph? Am I the only one who finds it strange - rendering text and polygons is not exactly rocket science.

<comment><USER14> _> So they include the whole browser tech stack for a simple graph?_

And they have the balls to post it on a blog with "Engineering" in its title.

Then again, this appears to be the new standard of doing things. We consider the browser to be today's operating system, and modern apps (Spotify, Visual Studio Code, Atom, etc.) bring their own operating system. Fire up your editor and jot down a quick note? Yeah, why not make coffee while it's loading. Back to the future, I guess.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> It'd be interesting to see something like Servo (browser rendering engine by Mozilla, written in Rust lang) possibly work with web views in a "native" app. This would enable rendering the view multi-threaded, like native rendering engines.

<comment><USER16> Agreed. Servo (or any other multi-threaded engine) will definitely be a game changer.

I'm curious - when is Servo going to be smacked inside Firefox? We need that lovely thing right now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Hopefully this means they will end up releasing the gui app for Linux too. While the command line isn't a problem for experienced developers used on a daily basis, it is a problem for those contributing who aren't the core developers.

</comment><comment><USER18> What are the power consumption implications of embedding a web component like this? Will this be harder on the battery than using native drawing APIs?

<comment><USER19> Yes. You have to start a webbrowser control, which reads the JS code and compiles it every time it runs, additionally the added sandboxing and abstractions (that are unnecessary in this case) also add to power usage and lower performance.

A better solution would have been something like OpenGL.

<comment><USER20> "better"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Cross platform would work on Linux.

</comment><comment><USER22> Since the app already bundles web views and resources, I'm curious to hear if they considered making it an Electron app, and if they did - why they decided to go with multiple native apps instead.

(I realize at least the OSX version probably predates Electron, still might have paid off to completely rewrite.)

<comment><USER23> That is something that we've considered. Both Mac and Windows clients predate Electron (but maybe not the initial versions of Atom).

Rewriting from scratch in an unfamiliar environment would have taken a lot more work. There are tradeoffs to both approaches, but using the existing native apps let us ship a less buggy release more quickly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'd like to know more about why the .NET WebBrowser control was deemed unworkable. Is the problem with the actual WebBrowser control provided by the IE engine, or just the .NET interface to it (presumably the one provided by WPF)?

<comment><USER25> The WPF browser control is pretty weak. You don't have great control over which rendering engine it will use (default is to go to IE 7 mode!) except via writing a registry key to switch it. It provides almost no bridge between the JS and native code as well. I haven't used CefSharp, but I have used Awesomium, which provided pretty good JS-C# bindings, so I assume CefSharp has at least working JS-C# bindings.

<comment><USER26> I've also had a great experience with awesomium which imo has a more powerful api than cefsharp, I'm curious why they chose it over awesomium.

<comment><USER27> I guess the reason is that they (Awesomium) don't provide an Open Source license like MIT or GPL. Instead Github Team choose CefSharp.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Yet another way to avoid using C++

</comment><comment><USER29> coffeescript? I thought by now they'd switch to a more advanced language (say, TypeScript or ES6+flow).</comment>


Ask HN: Why aren't you applying to Y Combinator? - <AUTHOR> There are far too many one-sided "here's why you should apply to YC" articles on HN.  I'd be interested in hearing why other startups (particularly bootstrapped ones) have chosen not to apply to Y-Combinator.<p>As for me, angel investing (call YC what you will) just has a creepy "bank strategy" feel to it - to make the most amount of money off those who have the least. <comment><USER2> Never say never, but I won't be applying to YC this time, either. I don't think my plans for my life or my company coincide with the trajectory their successes take, and could not in good conscience take their money without being able to guarantee that I would try my level best to arrive at a positive outcome for them. For example, I couldn't justify to YC or subsequent angel investors that I optimize my work habits for QOL rather than for growth, or that I am happy with 30% ~ 70% YOY growth, or that I prefer living in small town Japan to living someplace where there are plenty of top-notch engineers to hire and financiers to woo.

Plus, there is a wide range of probable outcomes where I feel on top of the world at age thirty and YC would count me in the fail column. (Say, a few hundred thousand in revenue, organic growth, a schedule close to mine today, and minimal desire to sell.)

If my plans change, I would probably apply.

<comment><USER3> Not disagreeing with you, but I think it is kind of amazing that a "few hundred thousand in revenue" would be considered a failure. It is a shame that it might be in some circles.

Say, $300,000 in revenue, and a %80 operating margin, would mean you're operating profit is $240,000. IF you're growing at %50 a year, and the company sells for 50 times earnings, then you've got a business worth $12M.

That's a success in my book!

<comment><USER4> Unfortunately companies only exit for 50 times earnings in Web 2.0 fantasy land. In the real world, it's closer to 2 or 3 times EBITDA(not revenue).

If I could build a business to $20K in revenue and flip it for a million I, and many, many others making a living online, would be a millionaire many times over.

<comment><USER5> An interesting recent example: [http://flippa.com/auctions/84185/11000month- Revenue-No--1-In...](http://flippa.com/auctions/84185/11000month-Revenue-No-- 1-In-Market-1500-Customers)

A 'lifestyle business' - but fairly "web2 buzzword compatible". And yet, according to the fairly believable numbers they made than $100K in _profit_ in their first year (and about that much LTM also) and sold for only $90K after 18 months.

That's a 'multiple' of only 0.9 ;-(

<comment><USER4> Interesting example, as the creator of that site, dangrossman, posted in this thread. You can ask him about the sale.

In that case, any smart buyer will instantly see that there is a sharp downward trend in revenue. Maybe the site is falling in the SERPS, new competitors have entered the market, or, worse, the target market is becoming saturated.

This explains the low sale amount.

Dan was smart to sell before revenue declined too much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> For me at least, here is why I don't think I'll ever be applying to YC

a) I don't need the $20k (and certainly not for the %age YC want to take - 6% for $20k = valuation of $333,000). In fact I don't even want to price a deal so early in the company lifetime.

b) I find myself introducing so many fellow entrepreneurs to contacts in my network that after 4 years in SF I probably have a large overlap of contacts (which seems to be a big draw).

c) YC seems designed to let a bunch of smart young guys(/girls) hack around in cheap accommodation eating ramen until they come up with something cool. I guess cos I'm almost 30, live with my partner and business minded I'd rather be clear with the problem I'm trying to solve and the business model to achieve success before I write much code. Pivoting is to be expected but it should be a 'get out of jail' card, not a standard MO.

d) I think it's hard to break out of the mould of being "a YC company" and stand on your own feet. A few have managed it but not many.

tl;dr: Perhaps ultimately I don't fit the mould of recent college grad with little money, low personal burn, probably not living in SF yet and little-to- no startup experience -- which seems to be the type of founder YC likes.

</comment><comment><USER7> I bootstrapped my business from nothing to paying myself six figures a year while in college. I have enough saved that I don't need outside investors. While the experience, advice and connections would be useful, I'm more on track for growing a lifestyle business than something that would return multiples on an investment in a short time.

<comment><USER4> I'm in the exact same situation, bootstrapped a business from nothing to low six figures in the first year. My company is growing steadily and profitable, but it's not really YC material and will never be a multimillion dollar breakout hit.

I've got a couple high-growth startup worthy projects I might pursue but even then, I don't think I would apply to something like YC. Honestly, I think I'm at a later stage in terms of growth than YC requires.

I'm already more than ramen profitable, and if I step it up and invest aggressively in growth for a webapp, I could probably raise an angel round fairly easily.

YC is good if you only have an idea/prototype. If you have a product with paying customers, a proven business model, and established customer acquisition channels, the value of YC is significantly less compared to the growing value of the share you would be giving up.

I would rather take the amount of equity YC asks for and divide it among my founding team/first employees.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> People get caught up on this "I don't need 20k." YC is like the best university in the world paying you to go to it.

Secondly, people make all kinds of assumptions about "I don't fit their model." The best way to determine if you fit their model is to apply.

If you have an inkling to apply, do it.

Finally, saying there are far too many one sided arguments in favor of YC is like saying "There are far too many people who are happy with their lives."

<comment><USER6> _"I don't fit their model." The best way to determine if you fit their model is to apply._

I don't belong in the army. I don't need to apply to determine if that is true.

I don't think taking drugs would be good for me. I don't need to try it to see if that is true.

etc

Give people the room to be able to make an informed decision based on prior knowledge without having to actually go test it out in reality to confirm it is correct.

<comment><USER8> I agree with your premise that one does not need to try something to know it is not for them.

However, you are making an apples and oranges comparison here. You don't apply to the military. You volunteer for service, and it is compulsory from there on out. You can't apply to take drugs, the act is self contained.

I am speaking to those people who have a desire or interest in applying to YC, but don't because they assume they don't fit the model. If you have an interest, apply, and find out definitively. If you don't have an interest, don't (much like your military example)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think YC is an amazing value for the talented hacker in the Midwest looking to break into the Valley. On the other hand, if you're already here and connected into SV, it's really expensive equity.

<comment><USER10> Being "well-connected" will only get you so far. YC helps you develop as an entrepreneur, among many other things unrelated to having the right connections. Even if you previously worked at a startup, that's still very different from founding your own company.

Also, I think a lot of people overestimate the value of their current network, and underestimate the value of the YC network.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> One of the comments state "I don't live in the US", which is my reason too, but let me elaborate a little.

Simply put, while YC seems great, it's just too expensive for me and my co- founders. There is three of us, and if only two of us engage actively in the process we would have to spend over $1200 just for getting to the interview (based on a quick Expedia search, and not including any car rentals, visa fees and the like); and if we get accepted, just getting us over there would spend at least 10% of the supposed YC investment.

It would be great if YC would open a European counterpart, but that don't seem likely as they have closed off even the East Coast one.

<comment><USER12> YC reimburses up to $600 according to their point 2 in the apply: <http://ycombinator.com/apply.html>

As another European, I would also love a European counterpart. But to me, applying to YC is not really about the money, it's about the advices, the networking and the press coverage that is hard to get when bootstrapping.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I would love to, but I really don't feel like they would take me seriously. I've been working on my indie MMO for over 5 years now. Not like that is exactly a new groundbreaking idea, though I do think it's an amazing game and so do my users judging by the consistently low and ever lowering churn rate.

</comment><comment><USER14> I don't live in the US.

</comment><comment><USER15> I would love to learn from YC and work full time on my startup but I have made life choices that mean it would not work for me. Mainly I spent too much money on a house and have a wife and child to support. So that means I need to keep my stable (as much as any really is) corporate job and work on my bootstrapped startup in my spare time.

Would have been nice to be more enlightened earlier in my life but now that hindsight just fuels my motivation.

</comment><comment><USER16> Kinda off topic but it's odd to see this post this morning.

Last night I had a dream where I spontaneously got on a plane to SF bay and loitered outside the YC offices where I social engineered my way in and pretended to be a founder.

PG was there just kind of hanging around and giving advice to whoever approached. I sat and listened for a long time and now I can't remember a thing he said. I'm sure my subconscious stored it all since that's probably where it came from anyway. Then I was suddenly in a gondola near the YC offices, over-looking the ocean and some mountains with a really majestic blue sky. My wife and a female YC founder were there with me and we were talking about how beautiful it is in California.

When I woke up, I had the feeling like maybe I should apply again and the first thing I see when I log on this morning is this post. I had firmly decided not to apply and told myself to just focus on the business.

Ignore the synchronicity or give it a shot...

</comment><comment><USER17> My business, bootstrapped from nothing, has multimilion dollar revenue. It is not in a hot, web 2.0 area, yet growing all the time.

Myself and my cofounder have families, kids and enjoy healthy life/work balances.

Finally, I have no plans of living in SV. I love Cali but I hated living in the Valley.

</comment><comment><USER18> ...because I don't have a startup.

</comment><comment><USER19> I'm too far along in my life to do the incubator thing. I have a wife and 2 kids and make about as much or a little more than YC funding would provide for me to live off of. I also have a ton of debt because of financial mistakes I made in my 20's that I'm paying for now in my 30's.

Fortunately unscatter.com is something I can bootstrap and build slowly. Also, by not being a part of an incubator I can work at my own pace, which means I have that time to spend with my girls, one of whom is only 3 months old.

Different strokes for different folks.

</comment><comment><USER20> As a response to angel investing being a "bank strategy", it seems obvious to me that most of the benefit of participating goes to the founders.

YCombinator gets 6%? That is peanuts compared the benefits you already know about, hardly exploitative.

I'm applying because the "bank strategy" seems to be on the other side of the table.

</comment><comment><USER21> All that support and knowledge is tempting, but I won't be applying. I'm currently in private beta and making very good progress with my product on my own by bootstrapping. It would also be incredibly difficult for me to move to another city and work there full time for a few months when

I have a full time job that pays my bills (which are MORE than what YN would give me as an investment AND I'd be giving up equity for it).

Plus, I have a 2-year old who still nurses (not open for debate, sorry). Basically he'd HAVE to come with me and assuming they'd even allow that, I'd also have to move my childcare with me (my dad) and he'd have to be away from his family too.

Plus, I have no immediate desire to find a co-founder and no plans to exit. All of these things may change and I'm open to that, but that's how it is right now.

</comment><comment><USER22> Going out on your own for many is about breaking out of systems and processes.. but joining YC can be perceived as becoming a cog in "the startup factory". I know in reality it's far from that! Just noting a slightly negative opinion I have observed from some entrepreneurial type people.

</comment><comment><USER23> I think the answer falls into two categories:

#1) Startups that don't apply 'cause they just don't want to

#2) Startups that don't think YC would accept them

#1 is fine - if you don't want to do something, don't do it

#2 is silly - let YC reject you; don't reject yourself (regardless of location, stage you're at, one co-founder can't make it, idea, etc.)

</comment><comment><USER24> YC has the beauty pageant problem. After the 1st round the judges are left with a room full of 10's, and the criteria becomes "so... do you have any other talents?" It's a nice problem for them to have and they deserve their success for a million reasons, but I'm not applying because I'm sure they could find applicants who are just as appealing that can _sing_ (MIT degree, prior startup success, already profitable, cofounder who's an identical twin, etc.)

There are other simpler reasons I wouldn't apply now--wife, 2 kids, and the Boston sessions are gone.

</comment><comment><USER25> After visiting a YC dinner and meeting several YC founders, the biggest turn off for me is the cult of personality around PG.

</comment><comment><USER26> I have the feeling that Y-Combinator is a great fit young engineers who build a web consumer product/app that monetize quickly. If you or your idea doesn't fit into the brackets than another path is most likely much more promising :)

</comment><comment><USER27> Reasons we're not: a) My cofounder has a family and can't move to SF for the season. b) We have more than a YC amount of cash on hand already.

Reasons we should anyway: a) Connections. b) Exposure. c) Connections.

<comment><USER23> I don't think those two reasons should keep you from applying. We have the same "issues" - but we still applied.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> For three reasons:

* We don't make the kind of software YC is interested in

* We don't need the money

* We're not in the US

</comment><comment><USER29> I can't anyone else who would make the overseas (aus) + life leap.

</comment><comment><USER30> well, one of my reasons is reasonable and other is not.

\- i'm very far away from the US.

\- my brother didn't agree with me on appyling to YC.

</comment><comment><USER3> 1) History of working for startups, and in every case, the VCs seriously damaged the startup with bad advice or strings tied to the money, which has left me wary of VCs. Further, I have been to a couple events in the bay area, including a YC sponsored one where I mingled with investors and talked to them about various business ideas. I've not gotten the impression that these people have the first clue. Not talking about PG or the other YC people, but just my general impression of people who represented themselves as working for venture capital firms. (and not angels, angels are a different breed I believe and I've had less contact with them.)

2) There simply is not much need for outside capital, as we have a large angel round worth of our own capital in the bank.

3) Strong impression that there is no chance that YC would take us. My co- founder has zero interest

4) YC is predicated on a certain set of assumptions about the type of business, and the priorities of that business. We don't share some key premises there. Namely, it appears that YC believes in betting it all on a short term, big reward, while we believe that a very quickly growing, profitable business will produce a better return for us, at lower risk.

5) As I mentioned we don't really have a need for outside capital, and the contacts YC would get us would primarily serve the purpose of doing additional rounds. Thus, in my opinion the increased risk of having to adopt a specific outside investors timetable, and operational style, along with the risk of having to follow bad advice, does not seem to be worth it, for money we don't need. While YC doesn't subject us to that risk directly, joining the YC program would be getting on that track....

<comment><USER31> 1) Angels and YC can't really even be mentioned in the same sentence as VC's. Totally different goals and alignments.

4) Not true, many counterexamples, most notably Wufoo.

Sounds like you're doing just fine on your own, though.

<comment><USER32> re: (4) - an anecdotal example does not imply intent.

Wufoo is a good PR case for YC in that it has contributed to the startup ecosystem a sustainable, profitable company that creates value. It's good to see.

However, YC cannot survive on happy thoughts. The fund and LPs need to see big returns for the wheel to keep turning, and growing happy sustainable businesses doesn't move the needle enough.

Realistically, YC probably needs to push out a mix of sustainable companies for good ecosystem PR, and a handful of home-runs that keep the LPs happy and the fund financially viable. To say that Wufoo is an "example" of YC's backing of neat sustainable businesses is to see half the picture.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Bootstrapping has some inherent disadvantages: you're working to pay the rent at the same time you're trying to build a successful product, so you have less time to accomplish what you really want to do, and less financial resources overall.

But if you can overcome these obstacles using proper time management, project scheduling and keeping fixed costs to a minimum, you'll end up with significantly greater equity and fewer fingers in your proverbial pie, in contrast to giving up equity and answering to your investors, however useful their input may be.

Bootstrapping a startup requires you have a real-world business model which actually generates revenue, which is more than many investor-backed companies can say. However, a profitable model is not necessarily a sustainable one. You could fill your schedule with client-contracted work and pay the monthly overhead and maybe yourselves too, but it's not the most sustainable long-term business strategy (unless you really want to be doing this forever.)

So you contract/consult to pay the bills, at the same time devoting a reasonable portion of your time to building your own products and looking for your "homerun."

<comment><USER3> Maybe you wouldn't call it bootstrapping, but someone whose in their mid 20s, who has been working as an engineer for startups for the past 5 years, could easily have saved $25,000-$75,000. IF you live cheaply and "bootstrap" by focusing on your startup %100 of the time and funding it from these savings you could easily have a 2 year runway there... assuming also that your co- founders have similar savings.

This is pretty much what I did, I saved money and now don't have to worry about contracts or client work, I can focus solely on the company and keep costs down as if I had taken outside investment.

<comment><USER34> I'm in this boat. Me and my co-founder had enough to live on while we worked on the product for the last 6 months. I did do some consulting one day a week for spending cash, but it was limited to that and never really caused a huge time-suck.

YC never really entered the conversation for us, I view YC as a place for people that fall into a "I have this idea I want to try, but if I quit my job I can't pay rent" type category, which wasn't me or the people I'm working with.

(edit to say that I'm not knocking the stated category, I'm really happy that YC exists)</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Stasher – global luggage storage platform - <AUTHOR> https://stasher.com <comment><AUTHOR> Creator here. I created this online platform that connects travelers with local businesses who can store their bags, fully insured.

Used to live between a couple major train stations so I made a little website to make some cash storing bags. It ended up spiraling into this! Happy to share any info/answer any questions and would love some UI/UX feedback - always want to make it prettier and easier to user!</comment>


Latest prototype self-driving vehicles cruising around Mountain View - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/+SelfDrivingCar/posts/3NuRpigxp4e

<comment><USER3> Was discussing self-driving cars with a few colleagues on a drive the other day, and a question came up:

Does anyone have a sense how the cars handle situations where traffic is being directed by a human, with hand signals, etc? I.e. a cop standing in the middle of the road, waving through cars through an intersection where there's been an accident, etc.?

We pondered a few scenarios -- are they reading the hand signals? Are they judging other cars' movement? What if it's not a cop but a crazy random person who jumps into traffic and decides to play cop? We humans are remarkably good at determining "soft" things like "that guy looks crazy - let's get out of here" vs "that's a cop, I better pay attention", etc. The rabbit hole gets quite deep here...

<comment><USER4> I actually ran into a simple example of a challenge like this. The power went out in mountain view a few weeks ago and a bunch of stop lights stopped working. I pulled up behind the self driving car which had stopped at the disabled light. Instead of treating the light like a stop sign, the car remained stop. After 5 or so seconds stopped at the light (there were no other cars at the intersection), I honked at them. I assume someone took manual control because it started to move right after.

While this situation could probably be addressed, it is a great examples of challenges these cars may come across.

<comment><USER5> > Instead of treating the light like a stop sign, the car remained stop. After > 5 or so seconds stopped at the light (there were no other cars at the > intersection), I honked at them.

There are many normal _humans_ who don't know what to do when the traffic lights are in a non-normal situation

The difference is that once a self-driving car is programmed for what to do, it won't get it wrong again.

Self-driving cars will get continually better and will eventually surpass human drivers simply because human drivers will never improve.

<comment><USER6> It handled it completely correctly. Lights being out is an exceptional situation where the usual rules of the road are suspended.

 _Sometimes_ it means "treat it as a stop sign", but _other_ times it means "turn the car around because ignoring the lights on this particular road would be positively suicidal". e.g. a level crossing.

Computers have no conception of danger, and so they don't get to decide what's dangerous and what's not.

<comment><USER5> Actually, in California, that isn't true. An intersection controlled by a traffic light converts to a 4-way stop when the traffic light is out.

However, even for your example of a level crossing, humans fail regularly. People regularly run into trains in Texas at a level crossing because the train has a long stretch of flatbed cars that someone missed at dusk or at night.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It looks like Google will be posting monthly reports of their self-driving cars from now on. Looks very interesting. See: [http://www.google.com/selfdrivingcar/reports/](http://www.google.com/selfdrivingcar/reports/)

<comment><USER8> Is it just me, or does this incident seems like it was made worse by the autonomous mode?

 _A Google Lexus model AV was traveling northbound on El Camino Real in autonomous mode when another vehicle traveling westbound on View Street failed to come to a stop at the stop sign at the intersection of El Camino and View Street. The other vehicle rolled through the stop sign and struck the right rear quarter panel and right rear wheel of the Google AV. Prior to the collision, the Google AV's autonomous technology began applying the brakes in response to its detection of the other vehicle's speed and trajectory. Just before the collision, the driver of the Google AV disengaged autonomous mode and took manual control of the vehicle in response to the application of the brakes by the Google AV's autonomous technology._

It looks like the Google Vehicle (GV) was traveling on El Camino (I'm assuming it had no stop sign), the computer saw the vehicle approaching (what should have been a stop) and hit the brakes. The driver took over (right before the collision) to stop the brakes from being applied and the car hit the _rear_ of the GV. With out the computer controlling the speed, I wonder if the GV would have cleared the intersection already?

Then again, depending when each event happened, maybe if the driver didn't take over, the GV wouldn't have been hit? Hard to tell.

<comment><USER9> How about everything would have been all right if the other vehicle stopped at the stop sign?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> One thing I've noticed seeing the Lexus cars drive around Mountain View is that they're incredibly cautious.

I wonder what will happen once they become more commonplace, and human drivers realize they can be incredibly aggressive around the self-driving cars - <USER2> them off, etc - and the self driving cars will happily accommodate the human driver, except with better reaction time and precision than a human driver could ever have.

<comment><USER11> Probably the cars will hit them. If you look at the disclosed accidents list that seems to be not entirely uncommon (even if it isn't the robot car's "fault")

That said, an algorithm that learns how to prevent people from cutting it off would be interesting indeed.

<comment><USER12> Which cars will hit which other cars? If a driverless car can avoid an accident, especially by stopping, it will.

<comment><USER13> Ahh, the halting problem :)

I think it will be a long while before we have fully autonomous cars which drive better than humans even in the edge cases.

<comment><USER12> It depends on what you mean by better. Dealing with an unpowered stoplight by stopping is one thing, actually colliding into something else is different. It is already becoming common for new cars to have features which keep collisions from happening.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> "The prototypes' speed is capped at a neighborhood-friendly 25mph"

What are the speed limits of the roads the car will be driving on?

<comment><USER15> I really wish all cars would drive 25 mph on residential streets. The big limiter on car travel time is timing of traffic signals and overall road capacity, not top speed.

It's very common around me for cars to be driving on semi-arterial residential streets (with official speed limit 25) at 55+ mph at 2 AM, which is both noisy and potentially unsafe: there's low visibility at night and at that speed it would be hard to maneuver out of the way if there was something moved into the road.

If we had smaller cheaper lighter-weight cars which maxed at 25 mph on residential streets, plus maybe some of those 15–20 mph electric bikes which are everywhere in China, plus fast, frequent, and reliable mass transit, there'd be little negative impact on routine chores and commuting, but huge improvements in pedestrian and cyclist safety.

<comment><USER15> Right now our infrastructure and zoning in the US is all optimized for upper- middle-class 25–60 year-old able-bodied adults, and really sucks for children, the elderly, sick or disabled people, the mentally ill, the poor, foreign tourists, etc.

Even among healthy young professionals, we optimize for everyone having a long commute, living spread apart, strictly separating shops from housing, etc., such that basic living pretty much requires hours of driving time every day. In better designed cities which are a bit more compact and have arranged the most common destinations more centrally, car trips are less necessary, on average are shorter, and smaller slower cars would be more practical.

I'd love it if I could drive around town in a electric golf cart type vehicle that only cost a few thousand dollars new and topped at 15 mph (perhaps slightly larger and safer than a golf cart, but that general idea), without getting honked at and run over by angry dudes in SUVs. That would be better than a bike for carrying my groceries or driving a few miles in the rain, but much cheaper and more convenient for most purposes than a full-sized car.

<comment><USER16> >I'd love it if I could drive around town in a electric golf cart type vehicle that only cost a few thousand dollars new and topped at 15 mph (perhaps slightly larger and safer than a golf cart, but that general idea),

They're called NEVs, and you can pick them up for a few thousand bucks. Electric, 25mph, cheap to insure, and fun.

<comment><USER15> The key part here is "without getting honked at and run over by angry dudes in SUVs".

<comment><USER17> Just get one and use it and don't let the arrogant bastards get to you.

After a couple of near-fatal bicycle accidents with asshole cars, I got a front and rear camera for my bicycle and always take up the entire lane I'm entitled to. I'll pull off to the parking lane and let people pass when there's space and the guy behind me is being civil. But I just completely ignore the assholes who honk and yell, even if there's ample space in the parking lane.

And I buy myself a beer for every honk or yell I get, so I can stay pretty zen knowing I'm going to have a good Friday night, instead of getting angry at SUV dude. And, you'd be surprised how rarely I get drunk -- most people are pretty decent :-)

(for context -- I ride on 25mph streets and my cruising speed on my normal routes is 20-25 mph, and my max speed is typically around 27. I accelerate pretty aggresively for a cyclist, and only moderately slower than I think is safe for a car on these roads, which have lots of houses and pedestrian traffic. The last guy who passed me immediately slammed his brakes when he realized I was already ~10 over and he was now doing 35 in a 15mph school zone... idiot.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> One way that Google can launch its driverless Uber is by using remote drivers that can take over once the program can't decide what to do...

<comment><USER18> It depends on the legal framework.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I don't mean to troll, but I really hope that that is not the final look of the car. Looks like one of those toy red and yellow cars [0]. Such an amazing engineering achievement deserves a more serious, futuristic look.

[0] [https://s-media-cache- ak0.pinimg.com/736x/2c/7b/4b/2c7b4b50b...](https://s-media-cache- ak0.pinimg.com/736x/2c/7b/4b/2c7b4b50b3e4cc44b0b4a7f341b419c6.jpg)

<comment><USER20> This was something that Elon Musk really got right with Tesla, he made it a point for his cars to have sex appeal. His model names are even S3X.

On the other hand I think this little car is probably going to be geared to the elderly or the disabled who would not be able to drive a regular car, so in that case sex appeal might not matter that much.

<comment><USER21> I think "cute and harmless" is actually the right approach for these cars, at least while they are in development. It is harder to project fears of unsafe, dangerous, menacing AI on something that looks likes a kid's toy.

Once autonomous cars are for sale and established in the market then I totally agree with you.

<comment><USER22> Reminds me of this: New Yorkers will help a cute but hapless robot get where it's trying to go: [http://www.tweenbots.com/](http://www.tweenbots.com/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Looks like the Howard.

</comment><comment><USER24> > the same fleet that has self-driven over 1 million miles since we started > the project

Of which only a fraction was in self driving mode.

They spent 1 million miles learning the model.

<comment><USER25> You are mistaken: "We've self-driven over 1 million miles" [http://www.google.com/selfdrivingcar/where/](http://www.google.com/selfdrivingcar/where/)

(The total miles driven in both manual and self-driving mode is closer to 2 million miles I believe.)

<comment><USER24> Ok, there was an article previously that I've misinterpreted. From their monthly report:

> Autonomous mode: 1,011,338 miles

> Manual mode: 796,250 miles

<comment><USER26> I asked why they don't include the miles their algorithms have trained on using simulated driving, and one of their safety drivers emailed me back and said they'd consider it.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Just how open will Apple allow Swift to be? - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/article/just-how-open-will-apple-allow-swift-to-be/

<comment><USER2> I think they even said in the keynote that they would be accepting community changes ("pull requests" in GitHub terms), so I'm not sure why the article doesn't have any reference to what was stated by Apple officially. Seems like FUD to me, but I could be wrong.

Edit: This Macworld article has the exact quote: [http://www.macworld.com/article/2932932/as-open-source- code-...](http://www.macworld.com/article/2932932/as-open-source-code-apples- swift-language-could-take-flight.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> The article also states this: "Apple stated, "Contributions from the community will be accepted -- and encouraged."

The question is what does that really mean?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Apple has open sourced a lot over the years [http://www.opensource.apple.com/](http://www.opensource.apple.com/) I don't understand why everyone acts like this is the first thing they've ever open sourced.

<comment><AUTHOR> The article cites such examples as Darwin, Webkit, and CUP--and what Apple has, and hasn't, done with them.</comment></comment>


How I Got My First 2000 Beta Users - <AUTHOR> http://startupbynumbers.posterous.com/how-i-got-my-first-2000-beta-users

<comment><USER2> For those that don't want to read it:

He posted on Hacker News and got up to #2 on the front page and got a lot of good suggestions. He then got mentioned on TechCrunch in the first paragraph of an article. He had to shut down invites due to technical issues.

Honestly, this seems pretty standard for getting those 2 things, only 1 of which was his doing.

He is very thankful to the HN community, though.

<comment><AUTHOR> Just to be clear, I haven't shut down invites due to technical issues. I want to implement a couple of changes before the next cohort arrives as I've had some user retention issues (the subject of my next post). These are being worked on and tested now so hopefully it won't be too long before I can start letting more people in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Your's truly just applied to be a beta user. The product looks awesome. I would love to try it with my app.

</comment><comment><USER4> I think that you have a really exciting idea on your hands. I can't wait until the product matures and you can offer some case studies of cool widget dashboards that people have assembled. That way, I can just copy their setups instead of having to wrap my brain around a new technology. Once that kind of thing is ready, I would love to receive an email blast about it on your newsletter. Thanks!

<comment><AUTHOR> Great idea re the case studies. The aim is to make the dashboard as easy to use as possible and use standard connectors to many services (authenticated via OAuth where that option exists) and have a "reverse API" to allow you to upload your custom data straight on to your status board also. I have a way to go to properly explain the potential benefits.</comment></comment>


The Machine Learning Reproducibility Crisis - <AUTHOR> https://petewarden.com/2018/03/19/the-machine-learning-reproducibility-crisis/ <comment><AUTHOR> "Even the original author sometimes couldn't train the same model and get similar results!"

</comment><comment><USER2> Facing this problem on a daily basis. Are there any open source efforts under way? Would like to contribute!</comment>


Dell XPS 15 2-in-1 review: Meet the child of Intel and AMD's unholy union - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/05/dell-xps-15-2-in-1-review-kaby-lake-g-makes-dells-good-laptop-a-bit-better/ <comment><USER2> Very timely because I was just considering swapping my 12" MacBook with the 13" XPS 2-in-1. Does anybody know if the 13" version will also be updated later this year?</comment>


Apple Bombards Patent Office with 28 "New" Mapping "Inventions" - <AUTHOR> http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2013/12/apple-bombards-patent-office-with-28-new-mapping-inventions.html

<comment><USER2> Are the quote marks, which are not present in the article title, really necessary here?

<comment><AUTHOR> If you know anything about the subject matter of these submission, yes. I couldn't find hardly any for which there isn't some prior art at least, sometimes a lot. I won't even get into the fact that most of these are software or UX pattern patents.

<comment><USER2> That seems like something the USPTO would decide.</comment></comment></comment>


Handshakes are silent, but hash rates on the HNS protocol just made some noise - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/panony/handshakes-are-silent-but-hash-rates-on-the-hns-protocol-just-made-some-noise-632afef01de6 <comment><USER2> Here's another good article on how to set up DANE/TLS using Handshake as your root of trust instead of CAs [https://medium.com/@ca98am79/how-to-view-dane- tlsa-websites-...](https://medium.com/@ca98am79/how-to-view-dane-tlsa- websites-on-handshake-with-firefox-f55eb1dd5be9)

The use-case above is what I'm most excited about for Handshake, because CAs are basically trusted backdoors — every time people browse the internet they need to trust that thousands of CAs aren't compromised and aren't responding to their local court orders around the world to issue bad certs.

</comment><comment><USER3> Interesting article, but not a fan of the intro paragraph. Why can't we just have technical articles without focusing on politics so much?

<comment><USER4> Hate being 'that person', but technology doesn't exist in a vacuum, and it's unreasonable to expect technologists to be completely apolitical.

<comment><USER3> Of course, if politics is actually relevant to the topic, it is fine to talk about the politics involved.

But taking something like handshakes and using that as an opportunity to talk about trump and/or inject your politics into an article is excessive.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are the best optimizations you have made? - <AUTHOR>

I recently added an index to a relatively large MySQL table that made a certain function go from taking about 15 seconds to less than 0.1 seconds. <comment><USER2> I have changed the terrible workflow of the team I'm into. This is a group of developers which development process was the following for more than 15 years:

1\. Programming with ultra-edit or similar on windows.

2\. Never use a library (like STL, boost, libxml, qt...). Big "not invented here" problem.

3\. Never thinking about design. Just getting the work done quick and dirty.

4\. Copying the code to a remote Linux machine and compile with aged make scripts nobody understands.

5\. Go through the whole development cycle without making a commit.

6\. Integrate the set of changes from different developers (a huge task in this stage).

7\. Not keeping track of bugs or tasks.

8\. One meeting each 3 or 4 months.

It has been a job of years (I'm just one more into the team, I'm not the manager and I am the youngest and the last to arrive). I have completely changed their mentality about the development, now they:

1\. use a modern I.D.E. (eclipse and qt creator).

2\. use an automated tool to sync their code against the remote machine (winscp).

3\. commit changes everyday and they integrate all changes everyday.

4\. use Trac to keep tracking of the issues and milestones.

5\. are starting to use the STL and they are willing to learn Qt and boost.

6\. are using Jenkins to automate the compiling and testing process.

7\. make code reviews and sometimes pair programming.

8\. We meet every two weeks to discuss the status of the project.

The question may be: how I made it?

Like two years ago I asked my boss to be the responsible for the configuration management (a part of the enterprise had already implemented good development practices, but in this enterprise my team is like an independent republic). So I wrote some practices that I believed fitted the team and begin to apply them one at a time. I was very flexible about them (anyway I don't have the power to force my mates apply them).

Later I talked to my boss again and I told her that I wanted to take more responsibility into the team, I told her that I consider myself a great developer and that I was being given only small tasks to make with the team or big projects to do by myself. She acknowledged and gave me the biggest project (in which I'm currently working). With this project I took my chances and began a big refactorization of the old code (believe it is bad as hell). I could add some design patterns and explain them a few more, add some libraries... I know they trust me now much more than before but also they think I am a bit burdensome with all these changes...

Not everything is shiny and colorful anyways. My boss got promoted with more responsibility and one of my team colleagues got the promotion to lead the team (the organization is very big and old fashioned I had not even a chance to get the promotion, before giving it to me all of my colleagues should be retired).

I am very proud of myself achieving this great change into this big and slow enterprise, this change in the mentality of my coworkers. And I do have been rewarded with salary raises. I have greatly boosted the productivity of the team.

I consider there is still a lot to do [my coworkers should be trained better to do their everyday work (improve their c++ skills, they OO design ability, get to know more tools...), add development metrics, static testing tools... ], but it is a bit frustrating and difficult continuing making changes without the "manager title" and having to fight every battle against my coworkers.

Now I have asked for changing my role inside the enterprise to the Security Team (after finishing my Master Degree in Information Security) where I believe I can improve it in the same way I have improved this team (every department has bad relations with the security team because the manager is very theoretical and un-pragmatic) so I am sure I will be handy.

Or maybe I will find a CTO or CISO position in an startup =)

Edited: grammar and typos...

Since English is not my mother tongue any corrections are appreciated.

</comment><comment><USER3> I worked for a hosting company doing loads of boring provisioning stuff on servers and the core network, not really a fan of repetition so I started to slowly learn coding and replaced probably 80% of the jobs with scripts. So in total I coded away most of my daily work, although there was plenty more to be getting on with ;)

<comment><USER4> Always love stories like this. I never realized the truth of the expression "Go away or I will replace you with a very small shell script" until I started writing shell scripts!

Stories like this can be inspirational, and they reinforce one of my favorite mottoes about computing: "Computers should work; people should think." Have the machines do the rote calculations, and free people to work on challenging creative tasks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Tweaked the caching layer for one of the busiest technology media site on the Internet. using only 2 varnish servers I was able to front millions of hits to 5 web back end nodes running wordpress. The configuration for varnish was tweaked so good that we even considered dropping Akamai.

</comment><comment><USER6> No specific examples, but all of my best optimizations as in biggest-speedup were of algorithmic nature that actually improved asymptotic complexity.

In terms of my favorite ones, it's probably a piece of C code using SSE intrinsics to speed up intersection checking for a voxel raytracer I've been playing with last summer. After about 1.5 days of hacking I've managed to shave about 50% off the rendering time per frame. Nice learning experience but completely pointless in the end. Since it was still way too slow for any practical use, I started rewriting it and eventually stopped halfway through.

</comment><comment><USER7> Rewrote a process which took 6 hours to finish to a process which takes 1 minute to finish by using some basic data structures (like a tree).

</comment><comment><USER8> SQL server, query taking 24 minutes to run on a good day, when going down hill wind assisted.

Made a few small alterations and got the query running in sub 1 second. Boss had to have the code vetted 3 times because he could not believe it.

You have to take into consideration that it was originally written by an absolute muppet, and then altered by an `database expert`.

</comment><comment><USER9> I take written notes in staff meetings when I see the same shit being discussed over and over again.

When the subject comes up again I say, "We've been through this before. Does anyone have anything new to add?"

Then we either pick up where we left off, or move on to more important issues.

</comment><comment><USER10> The best optimisation I made was rewriting 2,650 lines of C as a seven line shell script. The previous programming team had written a data transfer program with its own implementation of ftp. I just used the one that was already on the computer.

</comment><comment><USER11> Change my matrix library to a BLAS binding for machine learning. 150x speedup

</comment><comment><USER12> Just yesterday i made 2 slow MySQL queries perform nearly 100x faster by replacing the reckless JOINs with smart subqueries.

</comment><comment><USER13> Replaced a naïve very large chart-drawing function in an iOS app with an implementation that uses CATiledLayer.</comment>