We demand BuzzFeed pay out earned paid time off to its recent laid-off employees - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@BuzzFeedNewsStaffCouncil/letter-to-buzzfeed-pto-layoffs-f79d9c857a21 <comment><USER2> There's just one paragraph missing.

If PTO isn't paid out on termination, then PTO cannot be safely accrued.

The undersigned should state that this behavior leaves them with no choice but to draw down their PTO balance, perhaps starting a specific day next week.

But I wonder if the employees that weren't in a state which requires paying out PTO balances had _expected_ to be paid their PTO balance? Usually this is one of those things that's addressed in the employment contract.

<comment><USER3> The US is just nuts. Are you saying that your earned but unused PTO doesn't _have_ to be paid out to you when you're laid off but is rather at the discretion of the employer? How is that justifiable in any way? Does the bank owe you accrued interest when you close your account or is it up to them to pay it? Why would it be different for PTO?

<comment><USER4> At my first job in US I had about a year and a half of unused PTO accumulated. I gave my two week notice like a good team player I was and then left on the agreed upon date.

I obviously didn't get any of the PTO paid to me and in retrospect realize that I could have just taken my last two weeks off with the same outcome.

I was so sure that there must be some law that would force employer to pay out unused PTO, that I haven't even thought about researching it in advance. This was a rude "welcome to United States, bitch" awakening for me.

<comment><USER5> How does one accrue a year and a half of paid time off?

Don't most companies cap it at 5 days or something?

<comment><USER6> A place I used to work set it at 160 hours, got bought, then changed it to 80 hours, everyone made a big enough stink by threatening to take off during critical times. They changed it the cap to two times your yearly accrual rate which put the cap somewhere between 240 and 400 hours depending on your seniority. The cap was nice but it was almost impossible to use that much leave with the amount of job responsibility you had. You could sell your hours but it had to be agreed on at the beginning of the year and the payout spread out across the year so there was no way you could get a quick influx of cash.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Maybe they BuzzFeed's remaining employees should unionize to keep this same shit from happening to them.

<comment><USER8> Another company tried that: "News workers unionized. Days later, they were jobless. Was it payback?" [https://www.theguardian.com/us- news/2017/nov/04/dnainfo-goth...](https://www.theguardian.com/us- news/2017/nov/04/dnainfo-gothamist-union-ricketts-shutdown)

<comment><USER9> See also Mic,[1] which laid off its entire editorial staff in response to the formation of a union (but prior to a contract being signed).

For counterexamples, see Vice,[2] which negotiated a nearly 30% pay hike in their first union contract, and Slate,[3] whose editorial union recently negotiated a $51,000 starting salary with annual pay increases.

Note that a union is not a guarantee against layoffs. See [4]: the Huffington Post recently lost 15 of its unionized employees to a layoff. On the upside, they were contractually guaranteed severance pay - because they collectively bargained for it.

[1] [https://www.businessinsider.com/mic-layoff-bustle-union- labo...](https://www.businessinsider.com/mic-layoff-bustle-union-labor)

[2] [https://gawker.com/vice-writers-get-a-union-contract- with-a-...](https://gawker.com/vice-writers-get-a-union-contract-with-a-big- raise-1771276669)

[3] [https://wwd.com/business-news/media/slate-media-editorial- st...](https://wwd.com/business-news/media/slate-media-editorial-staff-union- deal-1202965162/)

[4] [https://twitter.com/HuffPostUnion/status/1088524725259628544](https://twitter.com/HuffPostUnion/status/1088524725259628544)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This seems like an excellent thing to ask for the next time they're negotiating a contract.

But it seems a bit late to complain about the terms of a contract after said contract has ended.

<comment><USER11> That's pretty much the classic mistake individuals make when dealing with businesses though. There's no reason to restrict yourself to the legal system and terms of a contract if you think you have leverage enough to do better.

<comment><USER11> See:

[https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/28/media/buzzfeed-layoffs- pto/in...](https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/28/media/buzzfeed-layoffs- pto/index.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> read your contract when you get hired, people. You shouldn't expect anything more than what's guaranteed right there in front of you.

<comment><USER13> The funny thing is a lot of people think the company they work for cares about their wellbeing.

When you realize they don't care about you, they will feel it. And your pay will go up. I guarantee.

<comment><USER14> You mind elaborating on this? Are you saying the mentality is to just show up, do the job within the allotted day then head home, knowing the company doesn't owe you thing, no matter how many extra hours you put in?

<comment><USER15> Seems like a good idea to me. Why go above and beyond when the company won't do the same for you?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Why, why do so many "trendy" companies shit on workers rights?

<comment><USER17> Because just as individual contributors change employers a lot, managers also change employers often enough that the reputation of mistreating workers doesn't stick to anything.

My own employer recently hired a handful of senior HR folks from Uber. They started after I joined. I hate it, but what can I do? I know they were _present_ at Uber during Susan Fowler's very strange year; I don't know if they were actually the people making decisions. And if I preemptively quit, what is my guarantee that the next place will be any better?

<comment><USER18> Talk to the person that hired them, and see what sort of references they came with.

<comment><USER19> I really can't imagine that unless you're a senior manager yourself. Most likely the answer would be a surprised and more or less sensibly worded "it's none of your business".

<comment><USER20> That's even assuming you know whose responsible for hiring them, which you don't, unless you work in a 5 person company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The company I currently work at uses the term "awarded" instead of accrued for PTO. This is their way of justifying not paying out unused PTO at termination (ie. it was not "earned" therefor they don't have to pay it out).

</comment><comment><USER22> There really needs to be more national level laws around PTO. Like my current employer has a policy to pay it out, but recently they've decided to cut our maximum rollovers from 6+ weeks (150% of accrual) to 1 week maximum from year to year. First world problems but this year I'm going to be taking a ton of days off.

I mean sure they can do that, but why can't we just have a set rule and stick with it?

</comment><comment><USER23> i thought this was the law?

Edit: oh only in CA

<comment><AUTHOR> It's worth noting many CA BuzzFeed employees (including myself) signed the petition.

<comment><USER24> Max, what is your take on what's going on? Would love an insider's perspective, to the extent that you're comfortable with giving it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Other BF employees on Twitter (and recently-laid off employees) attest to the current mood better than I can. [https://twitter.com/search?q=https%3A%2F%2Fmedium.com%2F%40B...](https://twitter.com/search?q=https%3A%2F%2Fmedium.com%2F%40BuzzFeedNewsStaffCouncil%2Fletter- to-buzzfeed-pto-layoffs-f79d9c857a21&src=typed_query)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Even though buzz feed is awful and just contributes to cultural obesity, they should pay people accrued pto. This is a lowlife move.

<comment><USER26> yep i fully agree with you

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> A company does no more than what's required by the law. I'm not sure I can get upset about that.

<comment><USER28> Can we get upset at the (lack of) law?

<comment><USER27> Yes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I've worked for many companies that don't pay out accrued PTO - PTO at those companies was use-it-or-lose-it. But I also understood that going in, and I understood that when I read the employee handbooks and explanation of benefits.

It seems folks might have overlooked that bit of their employment. California is obviously a large exception. However, if an employer doesn't state that you get a particular benefit, or fails to explain how a benefit is managed, the onus falls on the employee to understand what they're signing on for. To expect otherwise drips of entitlement.

<comment><AUTHOR> One of the issues here is that PTO isn't always easy to use.

> No one at BuzzFeed told me not to use PTO. I had a lot saved because I was > busy and wanted to be there for my team.

[https://twitter.com/FranBerkman/status/1089675336407752704](https://twitter.com/FranBerkman/status/1089675336407752704)

> I have worked more holidays than I can count, and have gone on tough > reporting trips where I've worked 16-hour days for days in a row.

> I have about a month's worth of comp days as a result. If I'd been laid off > Friday, I wouldn't have gotten paid for it.

[https://twitter.com/juliareinstein/status/108967206892331417...](https://twitter.com/juliareinstein/status/1089672068923314176)

<comment><USER29> Yes, that all boils down to accountability for one's own choices. They made poor choices, that's just what it is. Now they're clamoring for something that wasn't promised to them. There's a degree of responsibility that these folks are tossing out the window in favor of entitlement.</comment></comment></comment>


Joining a Different YC - <AUTHOR> http://blog.ycombinator.com/joining-a-different-yc <comment><USER2> To date YC has not shown a good understanding of the life sciences. It's not just about a regulatory burden, but the premise of breaking away from academia, of somehow finding a magic bullet and commercializing it, and assuming that biology is somehow like software is flawed. Sure the barriers to entry may be lower, but most science is a slog. There are very few home runs. Next-gen sequencing was a huge breakthrough and happened very fast by life science standards. The drivers came both from academia and industry and by all means it worked really well and remains highly innovative.

I completely buy that a different model of funding will help and could be successful. I just don't have a good understanding of whether there is a good understanding of the real scientific challenges and the implications.

<comment><USER3> What is your evidence for the claim that, "YC has not shown a good understanding of the life sciences"? (and what evidence will change your mind?)

Our biotech investments are currently all too young for something huge like an IPO, but many are continuing to grow and prosper. For example, Ginkgo just raised a $45M Series B: [http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/23/ginkgo-bioworks- takes-on-zy...](http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/23/ginkgo-bioworks-takes-on- zymergen-with-45-million-in-series-b-funding/)

<comment><USER2> If you go ask scientists that work in the life sciences, most (at least the ones I know) will say that there are much more fundamental problems that we should be tackling.

Synthetic biology is super interesting, and maybe that is the right space for YC to play in, but it's not the needle mover that the tech crowd thinks it is going to be. Trying to understand the mechanisms of GNRH receptors and developing lead candidates that could be potential therapies is just not as sexy as synthetic biology. Would you fund something in that space?

But this is where my head just starts spinning

"I'm going to help our biotech startups find the partners and tools they need to make wetware at software-like speeds."

That's not going to happen. It's not how biology works in a lot of others, and you lose a lot of credibility when you say that. Unfortunately, a lot of founders say that as well. I forget the name of the company, but there was a recent algorithms startup that made it sound like they were (a) going to change pharma with their methods, and (b) what they were doing was new and unique. None of which was true.

YC (and others) can do a lot here, but I feel you go in without really understanding the space or the pitfalls. A lot of biotech fails not because of the business model, but because biology hard, the human body is unreliable and illogical, and because our understanding of the science is flawed.

I'll get off my soapbox now :-)

<comment><USER3> If you know great scientists solving important problems, please encourage them to apply :)

That said, great research projects do not necessarily translate into great startups. People doing fundamental research with no clear path to market likely aren't a great fit for the program at this time.

<comment><USER4> Your problem is that great (life) scientists solving important problems have no interest in (or need for) YC. They'll just go to Noubar Afeyan, Bruce Booth, or Bob Nelsen.

<comment><USER5> Mmmmm. Flagship (Noubar's shop) mostly incubates it's own companies (same with 3rd Rock) and uses VC partners as founding CEOs -- so if you are a missionary founder it's not really a fit. In general the pharma VC ecosystem is way more "professional executives"-minded. It's a stark contrast to tech venture ecosystem that goes for young founder leadership. So if you are a great, recently graduated life scientist solving important problems and want to build your own company I'd still consider YC.

<comment><USER4> I don't think that young founder-driven companies make sense in biotech. Young founders do well in tech because business model innovation requires contrarian thinking, which young people (who are naive and lack preconceptions) are more likely to do. Also, software engineering can be learned at home for very little money, on one's own, even at a very early age.

In biotech, once the technology has been developed, the innovative component has largely been completed. And it's the top scientists that have the institutional knowledge and non-dilutive funding to make that happen. The reason there are so many unmet needs in healthcare isn't for lack of trying or a lack of original thought in the top academic research labs - you can be sure that Bob Langer isn't just trying to up his h-index.

That said, you are right that a recent graduate won't be able to found a company in that model. That's mostly irrelevant though, since recent graduates are rarely capable of creating scientific breakthroughs on their own.

<comment><USER5> Who do you think is doing the hands-on work in Bob Langer's lab that leads to that scientific breakthrough (hint - it's not Bob). No reason that recently graduated PhD/postdoc can't start a company built on their work. The pharma VC ecosystem has a blind spot for these sort of founders - I'm glad YC is an option for them.

<comment><USER4> > No reason that recently graduated PhD/postdoc can't start a company built on > their work.

Except for the minor problem that any IP generated through their work is owned by the university. And if the IP's valuable, it typically flows straight into the hands of Flagship, Polaris, Third Rock, & co. The professor might have a say in what happens to the IP, but the students and postdocs have zero leverage with the TTO. And how could they? They are replaceable cogs in the machine (and often in the US on a student/work visa) - Bob Langer is not.

<comment><USER5> I won't go down the pharma IP rathole, but I don't think this problem is intractable. There are many inventions that aren't CRISPR where TLO is happy to have the student who invented it run with it. Funding is a much bigger limiter than IP in my experience.

<comment><USER4> > There are many inventions that aren't CRISPR where TLO is happy to have the > student who invented it run with it.

And my original point was that Paul Buchheit's request that "If you know great scientists solving important problems, please encourage them to apply" was unrealistic. YC isn't going to get the crème de la crème of scientists or scientific innovations - they're getting what's discarded by the TTOs.

To be more precise, nobody's going to get the top scientists (they're going to go right back to their labs) and the biotech VCs are going to get the top innovations (for which they often have an informal licensing option with the inventing professor before the academic research even begins). There's a record amount of funding in biotech right now, but why spread it evenly? Might as well just run dozens of trials in parallel for therapies derived from a single technology.

<comment><USER5> You do seem to have it all figured out. I'm glad YC is running the experiment, guess we will need to see how it plays out.

<comment><USER4> I apologize if I sound overly negative, but I have expended significant time and energy exploring this idea maze ([http://cdixon.org/2013/08/04/the-idea- maze/](http://cdixon.org/2013/08/04/the-idea-maze/)), only to hit one dead end after another. I left for greener pastures (software), but I wish you and the rest of the YC biotech founders the best of luck.

<comment><USER5> Yeah it is a little ugly in pharma particularly. But I'll take the good luck :) If you come through Boston happy to give you a Ginkgo tour sometime.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I woek in a uniersity lab.. But I'm here less than a year.

In some ways investing in science is a good thing. But there is a big difference between "industry" where some of our post docs go to work on for profit medicine and the academic labs.

Why give money to a university? Well some pays for overhead you are going to have anyway. For all its problems, the fact that a lot data is published (pubchem and pubmed) is good for society as a whole. The for profit side doesn't do that to the same degree.

The equipment side of things I think is where hopefully YC can help. Right now overpriced equipment, "robots" with software that barely works (Microscopes that use proprietary image formats....). I even saw a USB dongle for software access of the really expensive microscope. welcome to the 90s.

<comment><USER7> > For all its problems, the fact that a lot data is published (pubchem and > pubmed) is good for society as a whole. The for profit side doesn't do that > to the same degree.

I work in a pharma lab, and I can tell you that a great deal of the work we do relies heavily on work done by university labs to point toward the right pathways to target.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I may be naive/ignorant (I do have an Electrical Engineering B.S.), but hardware really seems like it would benefit from an experience / innovation sharing like this. It seems like hardware is at an inflection point w.r.t. large portions of it being backed by shareable / FOS software (e.g., 3D-printing blueprints; hardware/software platforms like Tessel, Beaglebone, Arduino; etc...), and adding a little fuel to the fire like this really seems like a potentially huge payoff. Pardon the connotation, but it's like domesticating a rare, but extremely useful wild flora, and growing it in mass while disseminating the process so others can grow it as well. Very exciting.

Would anyone with recent hardware prototyping experience care to comment on whether the above reflects their own experience?

<comment><USER9> It does. Hardware startups need more experience than software startups, because there are more moving parts (contract manufacturers, component makers, distributors, standards bodies) and because mistakes are harder to fix. It helps a lot to have one guy (Luke) spend half his time keeping current with everything, and half his time disseminating this to startups as they need it.

Another factor is that when dealing with big companies (like most contract manufacturers and component vendors,) a single early-stage startup has no leverage to negotiate good deals, but a community of startups does.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> For biotech, I'm interested in understanding why YC would be a better choice than the SBIR/STTR route.

<comment><USER11> Money is among the least useful things YC gives. There are a lot of ways to get money; good advice and a strong community are very hard to find.

<comment><USER12> Advice on how to build a scaleable web company is not universally applicable on how to build biotech companies.

<comment><USER11> Advice about how to create a good startup turns out to be more generalizable that I originally thought. The hardest problems--mostly around people--are more similar than they seem.

<comment><USER12> > The hardest problems--mostly around people--are more similar than they seem.

That's a good point and reflects my own experience. But I'd be hard pressed to generalize what I've learned in my career in IT/IT related start-ups and take that and apply it to say a company that creates a new medicine or one that tries to commercialize some new medical instrument. The sales avenues in that domain are radically different from 'just' IT based start-ups and just like I wouldn't see a bio-tech person run an IT firm the reverse probably holds true as well, ditto for advice to such management.

I recently had a long and in-depth look at an organization that sells a lot of physical goods on-line and even in that case there was so much domain knowledge wrt to the retail portion of it that without a CEO with significant knowledge in that particular field they wouldn't have stood a chance.

Anyway, you're doing pretty good so far, can't wait to see you prove me wrong :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13>
      > My job is to help our companies make hardware people
      > want faster and better than ever before.

That took me a few seconds to parse correctly. So you're making "hardware people" want faster and better _what_? Oh, it's hardware _that_ people want...

<comment><USER14> >Hardware people

The PC way to refer to robots.

<comment><USER15> Wouldn't that retroactively make meat-bag people "software people"? Love it.

<comment><USER16> Wetware, surely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Interested to see changes around how quickly the "regulatory and logistical differences" can be overcome specifically in the biotech industry.

</comment><comment> chris-at Science needs to happen for the sake of science.

If you do science for the money you will soon run out of fish.

<comment><USER7> In the US, life science is done both for science and for money. Any non-human research or basic research are done with funding avenues outside of corporations. All drug discovery and the vast majority of scientific instrumentation and tools are produced by for-profit institutions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> If YC keeps going this way one day it might become a new kind of university.

</comment><comment><USER19> Could someone explain the title? If this is a "different" YC, what was the original?

<comment><USER20> _The YC you know created a new model for funding early stage startups. The YC I joined is creating a new model for innovation._

If I had to guess, the original focused on software whereas the new YC will be open to more long term, hardware-oriented companies. But it's not entirely clear.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> "Why give half of the money you raise to your university when you can rent lab space for hundreds of dollars a month?" \--- very good point!

<comment><USER22> Respectfully, it's a terrible point.

In practice, it doesn't work this way, and universities are much, much more than a monetary resource:

\- unrestricted access to cross-disciplinary expertise

\- access to a huge recruitment pool

\- access to SBIR/STTR grants (with far fewer strings attached as compared to VC funding)

\- scientific/technical credibility and legitimacy

\- access to bleeding-edge equipment that cannot be purchased

While it's true that scientists often know little about entrepreneurship, this is a prime example of VCs knowing little about science. Reasoning in terms of cheaper lab space is penny wise and pound foolish.

<comment><USER21> I strongly disagree with your assertion. The real question is —— all things being equal (equivalent monetary amount, recruitment pool, legitimacy, etc.), for a given start-up today: would it be better to join YC or a given universities partnership program for start-ups?

I truly believe it would be better to join YC for the following reasons:

1) Capital. In terms of capital resources. YC will most likely be able to help raise a given start-up more many than a university because the primary purpose of YC is that, while that is not the case for universities.

2) Cross-disciplinary expertise. Granted this may be an advantage that universities have over YC. But, it's much easier to recruit faculty as YC venture backed start-up than as a non-YC venture backed start-up, unless there are contractual obligations that skew incentives towards the universities themselves.

3) SBIR/STTR. SBIR stands for Small Business Innovation Research, while STTR stands for Small Business Technology Transfer. They are both congressionally mandated programs so that "….domestic small businesses can engage in R&D that has a strong potential for technology commercialization." Nothing precludes a given start-up from not getting SBIR/STTR funds. In fact, an organization like YC helps bolster the case that the technology in question can be commercialized.

4) Scientific/technical credibility and legitimacy. Yes, YC is not a research university, and will not bring that level of "scientific/technical" credibility and legitimacy. But, they do offer credibility and legitimacy for partners, users, VCS, etc. In addition, most founders that are tackling a scientific/technical problem, usually have experience in that field, and bring a degree of scientific/technical expertise.

5) Bleeding-edge equipment that cannot be purchased. The cost/quality/risk really depends on the industry. For example, contract-research organizations (CROs) are common place for big companies and small companies throughout the pharmaceutical industry. In this case, CROs play the function that a university would in conducting/publishing the research.

<comment><USER22> I see your point, and even partially agree with it, but I think you're making a few flawed assumptions along the way. I'll try to respond point-by-point:

>all things being equal (equivalent monetary amount, recruitment pool, legitimacy, etc.), for a given start-up today: would it be better to join YC or a given universities partnership program for start-ups?

There are two things here, but I'd like to address the contention that all other things are (or might be) equal. My entire argument rests on the fact that "all other things" are _not_ equal. If all other things were equal, YC would undoubtedly be a better deal, but they're not, so it isn't (for us, of course).

>1) Capital

I was admittedly unclear in my previous comment, but in my own experience, the university does not directly help with fund-raising. Rather, it grants a legitimacy that aids in fund raising via other means (STTR, specifically, but more on that later).

Yes, YC can help you raise much more capital than federal grants or university funds, but this is by and large a non-issue. University partnerships grant you access to equipment and personnel, both of which drastically ease the financial burden, so less money ends up going much further -- I've done the math, so please hear me on this point! :)

>2) Cross-disciplinary expertise

Respectfully (and I mean it -- it's easy to come across as a jerk on the internet and it's not what I mean to do), this is completely back-asswards. Establishing a partnership with a university laboratory is first and foremost an exercise in proposing an interesting research project to interested parties.

At the administrative level, the university turns towards its faculty to judge the merit of the project before any serious deliberation takes place, so you have to have a strong _professional_ relationship with a faculty member before approaching the university. Much like VCs, scientists are weary of projects that oversell and under-deliver, so good researchers -- the ones who consistently publish meaningful, interesting results -- want to work with someone they know personally or by reputation. By and large, they're untrusting of VCs, and they will be sure to mention this to the university administration. The result is that you'll either get someone far less competant to sign on, or end up working with someone who's not too terribly invested but wants the latest flux capacitor for his lab.

But all of this is really besides the point, since "access to expertise" doesn't imply hiring or recruiting. It means you can knock on any door of any department and ask for help on an interesting problem.

One lures researchers with interesting work, and this means you need domain- specific knowledge, not money.

>3) SBIR/STTR

STTR explicitly requires that your startup be partnered with a nonprofit research group, so actually something _does_ preclude a startup from getting research funds without a university partnership (or equivalent). YC is for- profit, and does not qualify.

Regarding SBIRs, a bit of context is needed. SBIR operates in three phases:

       - Phase 1 is for the exploration of technical merit or feasibility of the technology
       - Phase 2 is for expansion of phase 1 results, and evaluation of the *potential* for commercialization
       - Phase 3 is for moving to market.  No funds are allocated for phase 3 and, in fact, external funding is required to benefit from SBIR mentorship.

YC can clearly help with phases 2 and 3, but now we return to the crux of my argument: I can get funding in phase 1 with no strings attached. YC, to my knowledge, cannot provide this.

Moreover, SBIR/STTR are obvious examples. There are a great deal of public research grants that are only accessible to private institutions having partnered with a university, so again, we can get funding that ends up costing us less.

>4) Legitimacy with respect to investors

Your point is well-taken, but a university can do this as well and, again, with few/no strings attached. Business depts/schools love this kind of stuff.

>5) Bleeding-edge equipment

I now realize you probablycome from a pharmaceutical background. I know little about pharmaceutical research, so you're probably right.

For the rest of us, my point stands: universities often have unique equipment that simply isn't available on the market.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>=

In an attempt to be more constructive, here's a short, mutable list of what it would take for me to consider YC:

1\. Very favorable terms relative to the sum of money being invested. I'm not willing to sell 10% of the company's shares for $1 million when $100k will ensure that those very same 10% sell for $5 million in one year.

This is especially true given that such deals almost always involve preferred shares. It's a poor deal for me.

2\. Strong guarantees of research independence. We know more about the science than YC does, and culturally speaking, scientists are very untrusting of private funds in this respect. If one is not careful, private backing can quickly degrade legitimacy. I have no reason to believe that YC doesn't provide such guarantees, but it's important to me, so I'm mentioning it.

</comment><comment><USER23> I know he emphasized biotech in the blog post, but I got the impression that he would assist general startups that incorporate some kind of hardware in their product. So it could be biotech or something like Anki or the Myo armband by Thalmic.

</comment><comment><USER24> I like the cheeky "Luke Iseman upvoted this post" at the bottom

</comment><comment><USER25> I'd personally like to see a startup at YC trying to figure out how to spread the YC model/ethos beyond Silicon Valley.

</comment><comment><USER26> congrats Luke!

</comment><comment><USER27> > Over the next decade, you'll see some of these entrepreneurs create > companies at YC that rival Airbnb's social (and financial) impact.

I think this sentence is interesting. It kind of hints that they use the term "AirBnB" internally as a short-hand way of saying "Our most successful company". He doesn't mention AirBnB anywhere else in the post, and this sentence expects the listener to understand the implied context.

<comment><USER28> I find it odd that AirBnB is consitently pointed at as a resounding success when, alongside Uber/Lyft/TaskRabbit/the now shutdown maid service, it simply relies on literally breaking the law and hoping that you'll make enough money to change the laws. Granted, AirBnB doesn't have the same "fuck the worker" mindset as the others, but I still feel like the "sharing econony" is far from an established sure thing. Then again, if you own stock in AirBnB I doubt it matters at this point.

<comment><USER29> Airbnb has the "fuck the neighbors" mindset. Interesting way to think of the inherent evilness of different companies. Google and Facebook have the "fuck user privacy" mindset. Microsoft has a "fuck competitors up" mindset. This is fun.

<comment><USER30> I recently went travelling and used it. An old woman opened the door to the apartment building for me when the lock was giving me trouble, then was then confused then concerned that she didn't recognize me.

I used it once before, in Barcelona, staying in the flat of a wonderful couple who we got along well with and it was like visiting relatives.

This time, it felt like we were saving a buck, and the owner making a buck, by scaring old ladies. I guess it's back to hotels and hostels.

<comment><USER31> I too have had some mixed experiences. A B&B in Rome, where the host had elegantly decorated our room, provided fresh flowers each day all whilst respecting our privacy.

Contrasted with a flat in residential block where one of the neighbours started shouting loudly at my girlfriend, I do not speak French (she is fluent) and didn't have any idea if things where about to get violent.

It turns out the previous guests had been making lots of noise late at night, being tourists we where of course staying up much later than we would normally. It's embarrassing having someone complain about your sex noises.

Another time we simply couldn't find or contact the host. Airbnb did not help in this matter at all. Contrasted to a friends experience on NYE when a booking.com room turned out to not be available, he ended up in the Shangri La hotel. It's clear AirBnB doesn't help you when things go wrong. As such I'd never use them for an important visit, or a visit during an event.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Wow, the American attitude is strong with you ;). Looking forward to see what the SN-ratio of all these strong statements is!

edit: As I am beeing downvoted:

"you'll use many of these in your home or neighborhood within the next 12 months" -> I doubt I have used "many" yc-products from the total last batch in the past 12 months.

"Over the next year, you'll see us introduce several features that make YC the best place in the world for people who want to make something new. Over the next decade, you'll see some of these entrepreneurs create companies at YC that rival Airbnb's social (and financial) impact." -> That's very nice, but it has nothing substantial to back it up!

All I want to say is: yc does not need to sell hot air.

<comment><AUTHOR> While I have no idea how many _you specifically_ will choose to purchase, a majority of the hardware startups in our current batch will have product for sale via Amazon and other channels by summer 2016. This sounds strong given the history of hardware companies, but our current batch is not comprised of average hardware companies;)

<comment><USER33> > a majority of the hardware startups in our current batch will have product > for sale via Amazon and other channels by summer 2016. This sounds strong > given the history of hardware companies...

with all due respect, it sounds weak in the history of hardware companies, because no hardware company worth $10 billion - and there are many - had any point in its past when it could go from a standing start to shipping product for millions of people's homes in 12 months.

You might think this means that your companies are above-average. I disagree. I think it means that you pass on most $10 billion plays in order to fill a stable with people who have picked something they are ready to ship within a few months.

More power to them, and they have real companies with real traction. But to say it sounds strong given the history of hardware companies is to ignore both history and the power law.

I have the utmost respect for the support YC gives to these hardware companies, but would never apply with a historically ambitious one. This is very unlikely to change any time soon. Still I hugely support the push toward supporting hardware companies!</comment></comment></comment>


30 Days to Liftoff: Day 1 - <AUTHOR> https://uppy.io/blog/2019/03/26-30daystoliftoff-day1/ <comment><AUTHOR> Uppy 1.0 is being prepped for launch on April 25. There's much still to do and we're gonna be writing about that every day, for the next 30 days</comment>


Once Again: 1981 Video Predicts The Death Of Print Newspapers - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/04/1981-video-predicts-the-death-of-print-newspapers/

<comment><USER2> Look hard enough and you'll find a prediction for every eventuality.</comment>


Spotify New HQ in Stockholm – Paying $1.38M a Month in Rent - <AUTHOR> https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2017/12/15/spotify-stockholm-headquarters/ <comment><USER2> $823/sq. meter = $76.45/sq. foot.

[https://www.wired.com/2014/09/silicon-valley-offices-are- stu...](https://www.wired.com/2014/09/silicon-valley-offices-are-stunningly- priceyjust-like-the-workers-inside-them/) from 2014 says:

> In Mountain View, for example, the home of Google, the price of office space > is more than two-and-a-half-times the national average: nearly $97 per > square foot, versus just less than $35. In Palo Alto, the suburban enclave > where Facebook was born, office rents top $88 per square foot, with a > vacancy rate below 4 percent. Surprisingly, office rents in San Francisco, > home of the $3,000 one-bedroom apartment, are low by comparison, coming in > at $60 per square foot.

</comment><comment><USER3> Note that engineer salaries are much lower in Stockholm than in the Bay Area. So them spending that amount of money on new office space is not really significant.</comment>


Quilt.js - A JavaScript Library For Backbone.js Declarative Views - <AUTHOR> http://pathable.github.com/quilt/ <comment><AUTHOR> via: [http://www.functionn.in/2012/12/quiltjs-javascript- library-f...](http://www.functionn.in/2012/12/quiltjs-javascript-library- for.html)

looks like a nice JavaScript library which takes a new(?) approach to adding functionality to Backbone.js applications via HTML attributes and not by writing JavaScript code. Going to try it out during weekend and see how it holds up.</comment>


Call Centers May Know a Surprising Amount About You - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/that-anonymous-voice-at-the-call-center-they-may-know-a-lot-about-you-1483698608 <comment><USER2> The YC funded startup NextCaller ([https://nextcaller.com/](https://nextcaller.com/)) provides much of this information too, and it is available from Twilio for $0.10 per lookup.

The extent of the data available from a phone number is a rather frightening. I'm surprised we haven't heard more about services like this from privacy advocates. Here's a sanitized lookup of a friends number (which is actually a Google Voice number):

[http://pastebin.com/GUEaTBtD](http://pastebin.com/GUEaTBtD)

<comment><USER3> They should figure out how track the number of times someone has asked to speak to a manager or supervisor in the past. If the caller is an outlier and shows habitual tendencies towards doing so, the call could be routed directly to the call center's elite special operations division.

<comment><USER4> >elite special operations division

That's the one with people who are really good at pretending like they're the manager, right?

<comment><USER3> Sure, why not.

<comment><USER5> I mean, it's not like I actually care how many people the person I'm talking to manages; I just want someone who can resolve my issue.

<comment><USER6> Right. The goal isn't to find a real manager, the goal is to bypass the "I'm not a manager" excuse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Yet I have to repeat all the information I just meticulously keyed in by hand and confirmed with the computer 20 seconds prior.

I'm always dismayed when it's clear the person on the other line is manually entering the string of digits that I just also entered by hand.

<comment><USER8> I used to make ivr software. Usually there's a few different systems involved in a single number, and you may even be transferred between numbers. It's all held together with painters tape, so many places for a bad transfer.

When it worked, we could get everything based on caller ID without having to ask, yet "security"

<comment><USER9> It is important that the caller provide some information for authentication purposes. Just because someone uses your phone (or spoofs the number) doesn't mean that they should be able to make changes to your account.

Lots of companies outsource their IVRs. And everything is all too often cobbled together in a just-make-it-work-right-now fashion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I dislike this intensely. Presumably poorer people can look forward to longer queues. Richer people might prefer to talk to the best agents at solving problems over the agents that "show results with high-income callers".

I forsee, and hope for, some pushback against the increasingly egregious abuse of our info in the name of selling us ever more crap. I'm quite glad I've joined little online up to my real name, though google have probably figured too much out.

<comment><USER11> They could also _not_ solve the problem. If someone isn't going to buy a lot more from you, doesn't talk to people who will buy a lot from you, and are unlikely to go to small claims court why give them an RMA? If some of your merchandise was damaged in the warehouse, why not bin that for people who have less recourse according to your market research?

In the distant past an unethical person running a store could do those types of things to people from a family that was usually picked on in a small town or to people whose ethnicity or race meant that they wouldn't be believed if they reported that a store was acting in bad faith or not honoring their terms.

I agree with you that it is a terrible thing to do, though I think it is more of a return to the old normal compared to recent past, rather than something entirely new.

<comment><USER12> ...and they will defend against any accusations of discrimination or abuse by saying "no PERSON here did anything wrong -- we use a fully automated AI Machine Learning logistics system that optimizes our warehouse and delivery operations. We don't know why it picks which items to give to which customers"

This is the Unfriendly AI that people like MIRI should be worried about.

<comment><USER13> Ironically, it seems that even if Friendly AIs were the default state in our reality, malicious actors (like advertisers) would iterate on them until they get an Unfriendly one...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Not really news, I'll share exp with giant monopoly Telco:

Both Cust svc and collections: high $$ spenders routed to special agents and treatment.

Any elected official was PMT. Permanent no treatment. Never contact or disconnect for any reason.

Credit scores used to route and treat accts

Repetitive "anything's" were flagged and those flags were attached when call presented to agent.

Goal was to minimize talk time. Reduce refunds (DAKs). Route to proper language.

Make Spanish language assumptions using a) vowel as last letter or npa/nxx if known.

Tons of tests and controls. But removing avoiding "clutter calls" was driver

<comment><USER15> _Make Spanish language assumptions using a) vowel as last letter_

Surely the algorithm was more sophisticated than that? Otherwise people with Italian surnames were in trouble. E.g. Jay Leno, Al Pacino, Frank Sinatra, etc. would be greeted with "¿Que pasa?"

And that also meant you were on the wrong side of "associates" of the Mafia. E.g. Gambino, Gotti, etc.

<comment><USER14> Actually it was that way. Once the language was known the flag was set.

We laughed (and argued) at the implications. The few Italians working in that tech part of the company would scream loudly.

It was more of a problem with acquisition direct mail and billing statements. Messaging on the outside of the envelope was often simply guess work as to the language.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > Next, Afiniti wants to take its technology from the call center to the > retail world. It is working on facial-recognition software to identify > customers when they walk into a store so the system can send the best agent > over to talk with them.

That's super creepy. I'm kinda glad I habitually wave away store workers who proactively approach me. The only response I can think of to stuff subtle manipulation like this is increased skepticism of these kinds of day to day interactions, which is pretty sad.

I wonder if some kind of anti-discrimination/racial profiling case could be made against such systems, to get them banned or at least curtailed?

<comment><USER9> I too find that really creepy. Yet at the same time it seems inevitable. After all, is it really so different than going to amazon.com and seeing a front page tailored to your purchasing habits? Or even different from an employee recognizing you and asking if you are back to buy the widget you were asking about last time?

<comment><USER17> Yes, it is vastly different in effort. People walking up to me are wasting my time, and distracting my thought flow. I never even register items on the front-page of a site because I know they are irrelevant to what I'm looking for.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm thinking it is time to have phones "deny by default" and flip the sharing model around. Same with addresses of any kind.

If a business wants my phone number, the transaction should be: hey $COMPANY, YOU tell ME the number you will call from so I can whitelist that number (and remove it later once our business is concluded).

Why should it be so easy to sell and share and link up personal information? At every step, individuals should have the equivalent of a revoked key at their disposal to prevent sharing.

<comment><USER19> I've blocked at least three different numbers from Comcast because they keep trying to upsell me. I hope they never have a legitimate reason to call be-- they'll never get through on account of their previous abuse.

<comment><USER20> I absolutely loathe comcast. They're the only ISP in my area and they operate accordingly. Their range of offerings has a huge gap, so either you pay too much for a slow connection ($45/mo for 6mbit) or go up to the next level and pay too much for more than most people would need ($85/mo for 75mbit). Recently when I begrudgingly had their service installed, I didn't rent any of their equipment, but they still charged a $100 equipment rental deposit. Last time I had their service, I had issues getting online at all, and probably spent ten hours total on the phone with them. Their agents were friendly and promised me the world, but they never fixed anything or kept their promises. Either they didn't care, or they didn't have the authority. I dropped them and went without a wired connection (used a couple gigs of cell data a month) for several months.

If the modern web could serve me text articles without including 1500kB of javascript and advertisements on every pageload, I'd be happy to just stick with cell phone tethering. :|

<comment><USER18> Honestly, to avoid data consumption, I think you are perfectly justified in installing multiple ad-blockers on your phone and even setting up router-level domain blocking.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm trying to think of the last time I called a company for personal reasons where a call center would have sent me to an agent (as opposed to just getting a receptionist). I think I had to call Steam once a few years ago to verify myself to get my account unlocked. Years before that, I had to go through the gauntlet of calls necessary to actually convince the cable company that no, I didn't want their cable service any longer.

Am I the odd man out? I guess that 30+ years of having to call in for something every now and then and the pain that always involved has soured me on the whole experience. I doubt that getting an agent that knows I'm a fan of Godzilla movies or whatever other nonsense they will grab from my social media sites will actually help the experience in any meaningful way.

<comment><USER22> The cable co doesn't want to make it easy to unsubscribe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Hmm reading this article gave me closure about all those random people from India, Vietnam and certain South American countries that I sometimes get as a Facebook friend suggestion. A friend (a good source) once told me that if a person looks up you on Facebook then Facebook consider it as a "potential" acquaintance.

</comment><comment><USER24> Not really news!! Facebook knows it all!!

</comment><comment><USER25> Is anybody doing this for investing? Couldn't you use social media to track when people join or leave a company and determine whether the company is healthy based on the quality of the employees it employs using their estimated net worth, market value of their house, where their kids go to school, etc.?

<comment><USER26> I do a talk called "social media for social evil" where I talk about these aspects.

When I advise companies working on a major new initiatives and hiring for those, that they ask employees not to update their Linked In for a few months, don't mention the company on social media, etc. It means competitors are slower to see the change.

I've been writing about it off and on for ~10 years too: [http://caseysoftware.com/blog/tag/trouble](http://caseysoftware.com/blog/tag/trouble)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> paywall...

<comment><USER28> Incognito mode under chrome using the WEB link above doesn't seem to work anymore. Am I doing something wrong?

<comment><USER10> Worked for me in same conditions. I'm running uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger that may have affected it.

Doesn't always work lately though - I sometimes get the snippet and sign in to read prompt.</comment></comment></comment>


Chrome 85 rolling out: 10% faster page loads, collapsible Tab Groups, PDF editor - <AUTHOR> https://9to5google.com/2020/08/25/chrome-85-mac-windows-stable/ <comment><USER2> For Linux users, it seems that 85 also unfucks screen sharing in multi-monitor setups, at least for X11.</comment>


Black Hat: GDPR privacy law exploited to reveal personal data - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-49252501 <comment><USER2> Makes Identity Theft much more harder to survive. By the time a victim realizes, the damage would've been done. Also it will be harder for the victim to contact every organization he interacted with in his entire life.

</comment><comment><USER3> Duplicate of [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20646540](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20646540), isn't it?

<comment><USER4> That one hadn't gotten significant attention yet (and it's been longer than a day) so the duplicate software passed it over. But we've merged this thread into the earlier submission and let it take over this slot.</comment></comment>


Show HN: DrawWith.Me - Free Drawing and Sharing with WebGL - <AUTHOR> http://drawwith.me/

<comment><USER2> I would recommend allowing people to draw without signing up. Or at least provide a demo that people can use before signing up.

Why not have the drawing pad on the homepage? That way you won't lose people, like me, who could not be bothered to sign up because it involved filling in a form.

Maybe have a save button and when they click on that force them to save. That way they have an incentive to sign up because otherwise they will lose their painting.

<comment><USER3> Here is my user interaction: "Ooooo, new thing to try out. This looks like fun. Wait, I have to sign-up? What will be my return on investment fun-wise for this sign-up... Not sure, back to Hacker News."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hey HN! We just officially launched with a big set of updates we pushed last night. We'd love your thoughts and feedback.

Here's and example of something an early registrant made with our tools: <http://drawwith.me/kyle/23-Can-I-be-Frank-with-you%3F> . And our update just made a number of improvements to the drawing tool.

We'd like to bring high quality drawing/image editing tools to everyone for free, and make it easy to create and share using them. Let us know your thoughts!</comment>


Dynamic jquery loading for 3rd party services - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/736705 solves the problems of dynamically loading jquery if someone else includes your code and you want to use jquery but you aren't sure if jquery is maybe already on the page.<p>thought i share it because it solved a lot of problems for me. <comment><USER2> This is nice. I've crafted one in coffeescript for a bookmarlet I made. It checks version as well, and allows multiple and scoped jquery versions:

<https://gist.github.com/724103>

It was inspired on this one in js: <https://github.com/danielribeiro/jQuery- Quarantine>

<comment><AUTHOR> nice! i was thinking about the version issue and thought about how to jail a jquery obj only ro your function scope... gonna read into this, simplify it and update my code :D</comment></comment>


Brin: Two Google Operating Systems May Become One - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/182784/brin_two_google_operating_systems_may_become_one.html <comment><USER2> Perhaps they're just afraid of looking like they're from 1997 when they propose a slimmed-down cheap computer that can only browse the web and run Java applications, and is heavily reliant on servers for its functionality.

(For the youngsters, this idea was called the "Network Computer", and was heavily promoted by Sun, Oracle, and Netscape.)

<comment><USER3> Do you know why this idea didn't take off when promoted by Sun, Oracle and Netscape?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Both have ARM support, so it's not completely unfeasible... still, merging to projects of such magnitude seems like it could be a tough challenge. Not that I know anything about such things.

</comment><comment><USER5> I would take this to mean the stock Android shell may end up looking more like Chrome OS's browser-centric UI in the future.

<comment><USER6> The article seems to be suggesting the opposite, that Chrome OS will eventually be subsumed into Android, or made into "Android Lite."</comment></comment>


My New Startup: House Chat Monkeys - <AUTHOR> http://darrint.wordpress.com/2007/10/02/we-wont-call-you-we-wont-email-you-we-wont-bother-you-period/ I'm trying to sell homes by taking lead generation, a dirty game, and turning it on its head. <comment><USER2> I like it. And this is a very lucrative market to get into.</comment>


KB4480116 and KB4480970 failure getting access to MDB database - <AUTHOR> https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/kb4480116-and-kb4480970-failure-getting-access-to/d701b681-2491-4891-baf6-e3a25b5d2bb7 <comment><AUTHOR> This Winodws update (jan 8) breaks a lot of applications with MDB-backend in production.</comment>


The Developer's Guide to Audit Logs / SIEM - <AUTHOR> https://workos.com/blog/the-developers-guide-to-audit-logs-siem <comment><USER2> This article suggests that there should be separate data collection systems for: analytics, SIEM logs, and performance metrics.

The article mentions the CEF (Common Event Format) standard but not syslog or GELF or other JSON formats.

[ArcSight] Common Event Format [PDF]: [https://kc.mcafee.com/resources/sites/MCAFEE/content/live/CO...](https://kc.mcafee.com/resources/sites/MCAFEE/content/live/CORP_KNOWLEDGEBASE/78000/KB78712/en_US/CEF_White_Paper_20100722.pdf)

GELF: Graylog Extended Log Format: [https://docs.graylog.org/en/latest/pages/gelf.html](https://docs.graylog.org/en/latest/pages/gelf.html)

Wikipedia > Syslog lists a few limitations of Syslog (no message delivery confirmation, though there is a reliable delivery RFC; and insufficient payload standardization) and also links to the existing Syslog RFCs. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syslog](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syslog)

Are push-style systems ideal for security logshipping systems? What sort of a message broker is ideal? AMQP has reliable delivery; while, for example, ZeroMQ does not and will drop messages due to resource exhaustion.

Developers simply need an API for their particular framework to _non- blockingly queue and then log_ structs to a remote server. This typically means moving beyond a single-threaded application architecture so that the singular main [green] thread is not blocked when the remote log server is not responding.

SIEM: Security information and event management: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_information_and_event...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_information_and_event_management)</comment>


Improving Workflow Efficiency: A Case Study on Target Corporation - <AUTHOR> https://financialwolves.com/improving-workflow-efficiency/ <comment><USER2> They waste even more than that -- almost $7,541,244 and 33 cents -- by having their bathrooms 20 meters down the hall instead of installing urinals in their cubicles.

Seriously, though, my work has a 15-minute sidewalk loop that doesn't even go anywhere, and employees who go on a daily walk are more productive because of that. Besides the cardio, vitamin D, and sleep cycle benefits, people make friendship bonds and solve bugs while walking together. This office setup probably reduces turnover and health insurance costs by more than the stated amount.

</comment><comment><USER3> The buildings are 4 blocks apart but there aren't many buildings the same height as those two between them (maybe the Radisson and Marriot). Obviously some of the more significant buildings on the Minneapolis skyline. The answer is obvious.

Gondola.

[https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/a3ye7g/boston-toronto- edm...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/a3ye7g/boston-toronto-edmonton-new- york-are-building-an-urban-gondola-cable-car)

[https://www.curbed.com/2017/9/21/16340394/urban-gondolas- cab...](https://www.curbed.com/2017/9/21/16340394/urban-gondolas-cable-cars- cities)

[http://www.bbc.com/future/gallery/20190103-the-rise-of- the-u...](http://www.bbc.com/future/gallery/20190103-the-rise-of-the-urban- cable-car)

<comment><USER4> At work we joke about zip lines between buildings

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Way way too many significant figures in that final number. Where is the 20% number coming from? You're sure there arent any virtual meetings? Or that there arent efficiencies that come from a split headquarters that could be worth more than 5 million bucks? What about the cost of fixing the issue - building a new office headquarters is gonna cost way more than 5 million. And why would a company with billions in income even care about a 5k inefficiency?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah I suppose that's true. The cost to build or consolidate is definitely there, but Target is always gong to need a corporate office. Having separate offices is an annual thing. Seems like they should bite the bullet and just consolidate.

<comment><USER5> There isn't any way that its going to be worth the return on investment though. Especially considering the 5 million dollar figure is calculated based on the amount of time "wasted" by commuting to meeting. People in corporate headquarters are not producing a quantifiable output per second like someone on an assembly line, so it doesn't even make sense to calculate a cost by counting the time it takes to walk. Basically, this whole thing sounds like it's trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wouldn't consider Apple, Facebook, or Google to have a "consolidated work campus". All three are spread across many suburban office buildings, even spread across multiple cities. Maybe some financial firms in New York are consolidated in one building?

</comment><comment><USER7> Meh. Waiting for the counter-argument that Target has healthier employees and pay out less in health insurance because of it. (Though I just made that up. I wonder if it's true.)

</comment><comment><USER8> Many assumptions were made in coming up with this number.

</comment><comment><USER9> Is this some kind of sick joke?</comment>


Coming soon: chicken meat without slaughter - <AUTHOR> http://www.israel21c.org/coming-soon-chicken-meat-without-slaughter/ <comment><USER2> There are plenty of mushrooms that can substitute for meat, it's just that none of them are being commercially produced.

If you had Calvatia Gigantea grown in the right soil and properly prepared I doubt many people would be able to tell the difference between that and chicken. Same with Laetiporus sulphureus, but grown on logs.

Similarly I doubt many people would be able to tell the difference between beef jerky and jerky made from Grifola frondosa, even in a side-by-side comparison.

<comment><USER3> I suspect this stuff cannot be commercially viable, otherwise someone would have done it by now. Though, I'm a vegetarian of 22 years and have never heard of either of these things. It sounds cool, and I'll probably seek some out now, but it's certainly not well-known. I've used portobello mushrooms, and several kinds of Asian mushrooms, for substitution in various dishes, but never considered them indistinguishable (or even all that similar) to meat.

But, given the incredible and fascinating (and delicious) variety of mushrooms and fungi, I am more than willing to believe there are lots of food options that haven't been explored.

<comment><USER2> > I'll probably seek some out now

Join your local mycology group in spring. Every city has one, and you can either Google for yours or look them up on the NAMA website. A lot of their websites look like the group may be defunct, but they are mostly still active -- it's just that the average age in these groups is going to be like 60, so the sites just don't get updated often. (Though most of the younger folks in these groups tend to be software developers, go figure.)

Anyway they'll have at least one walk every weekend, and if you go on half of them then you'll know how to safely identify and cook with most of the basic edibles by fall. You'll probably learn a bunch of edible plants as well, especially during the slow season between when the morels finish and when the summer mushrooms start coming up.

There definitely are a lot of things that aren't commercially viable. But probably even more that just haven't been commercialized. E.g. there are tons of foods that are eaten in Asia, Africa, and South America that aren't commonly consumed in the U.S., and sometimes that has to be with growing conditions, but more often than not it's just a marketing thing.

Regardless, what I'd say is that you're not a real foodie unless you own a couple dozen field guides, because at least for the foreseeable future that's the only way you're ever going to get to try a lot of the best foods available in your area.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Related question since this is an Israeli foundation. What do jews and muslims think about the kosher / halal-ness of eating cultured pork if there was such a thing?

I.e. do they consider the animal itself dirty, or its inherent genetic structure?

<comment><USER5> I'm sure there's no consensus at all. Rabbis have spent millennia debating and reinterpreting their scripture.

I once heard that it's possible to make kosher pork — the literal proscription against pork is that Jews are not to eat from animals who have a cloven hoof. But if you take a baby pig, suspend it from a harness, feed it to maturation but never let it walk on the ground, its hooves will remain uncloven and thus it's fair game.

You will find many, many (probably most) rabbis who disagree with this particular conclusion, but the point is that the whole culture has a fascinating legacy of picking apart the rules that would make any lawyer proud.

<comment><USER6> > But if you take a baby pig, suspend it from a harness, feed it to maturation > but never let it walk on the ground, its hooves will remain uncloven and > thus it's fair game.

What???????

You got it backwards! Pig is not kosher because it doesn't chew it's cud.

To be kosher you NEED split hooves.

> but the point is that the whole culture has a fascinating legacy of picking > apart the rules that would make any lawyer proud.

That part's quite true. The more intense and involved the study the better, so do not think of this as "loopholes" but rather as study to the smallest detail.

<comment><USER5> huh! well yeah it was a pretty daffy story, thank you for correcting me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Slaughter has never been the negative side of raising animals. It is in fact, the slaughtering of an animal that teaches us to respect it, to honor its life given, and ensure that we provide as humane a life and death as possible.

Distancing ourselves from the hard work of growing, raising, and killing our own food creates an enormous gap in cultural awareness about where our life energy comes from. This is clearly seen with the impact of industrial farming.

Widening the gap IMO is the wrong direction to go. Of course, we will go there because we are human and we can. But I fear for the consequences as we distance ourselves further and further from the natural world.

Garbage in, garbage out.

<comment><USER8> I'm pretty sure most people would disagree with you. People who choose vegetarianism for conscientious reasons don't do it because we've distanced ourselves from our sources of meat, they do it because we slaughter and torture an unthinkably large number of living beings in order to get a chicken bacon sandwich.

Some people lament what you're talking about, and they do it equally for raising livestock as well as growing and harvesting our own fruits and vegetables. That growing distance between us and our food production is certainly an issue, but it's the infinitely lesser one compared to the violence of meat consumption.

Given that humans crave the types of food they crave, I don't see lab-grown meat as anything but a pure win for science, humanity, and all living beings. In my mind, it's an achievement on par with fire, the wheel, electricity, antibiotics/sterilization, and the internet.

<comment><USER7> I certainly understand this POV, as I once held it, until living and working on an off-grid farm.

My point is that the abhorrence towards animal slaughter has more to do with the industrialized process, and the poor treatment of animals because of mass market demands, then the fact that animals are killed. Animals can be raised and killed in a humane way, and doing so teaches us about the natural cycle of life, a reminder of our mortality.

We can certainly choose to abstain from that cycle. But as you say, humans crave the foods they crave. I will venture a guess and say that lab-grown meat will not satisfy that craving. Like GMO tomatoes, it may appear all the same, but beneath the shiny appearance of a solution will be a vacuous gap in substance. We can erode our "food pyramid" with cheap, artificial solutions, or we can do the real work of (1) creating sustainable, humane food systems, and (2) educating people about healthy diets and thus curbing the global craving for flesh.

Lastly, what will happen to all the chickens, pigs, cows, etc of the world? Like horses, they will become domestic novelties. People like me will raise them and give them a good life, while their world population shrinks to negligence, until eventually, they are forgotten to extinction, but for the symbolic names of their imitation meat. "Chicken" will be a brand, an algorithm that only slightly differs from the "Steak" algorithm.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As someone who feels he should be vegetarian but is ultimately not into vegetables enough to actually do it, I'm all for this. Put it supermarkets and it'll be the only meat I'll buy.

<comment><USER10> Eat at a good vegetarian restaurant, you'd be surprised with the amount of tasty non-salad dishes that can be made without meat. Where I used to eat there were fantastic lasagnas, various kinds of pasta with various sauces, and some classical "meat-centered" dishes with seasoned "soy beef" to emulate meat -- which of course comes nowhere near real beef, but isn't all that bad. Lots of salad too, of course. If you're lactose intolerant then you'd probably have to cook your own dishes using lactose-free dairy products. If you're vegan than I wouldn't know what to recommend.

<comment><USER3> Most reasonably large cities have at least a couple of really good vegetarian restaurants, and some have a couple of really good vegan restaurants. Asian restaurants are historically the strongest on this front, but, I've seen an upsurge in the past decade in much broader options (I've been vegetarian, occasional vegan, for 22 years).

But, almost any Asian restaurant has tofu options on the menu that are probably vegan and are probably delicious. I'm back to traveling full-time (I did it for four years in a motorhome, and have hit the road again in a travel trailer), in very remote locations, and small towns almost _never_ have vegan or vegetarian restaurants. So, I go for Chinese, when I want to go out. There's nearly always at least a couple of delicious options on the menu. Honestly, I would choose tofu over meat in almost any Asian dish. It's just a nicer texture when prepared well and picks up the flavor of the dish.

<comment><USER11> The "almost any Asian restaurant" _really_ depends on where you are. Especially Chinese, because of the massive regional adaptations of Chinese food (e.g. the same "Chinese" dishes in California, London, Oslo or Beijing can look and taste like entirely different dishes - I still find the constant presence of oranges in a lot of "California Chinese" food hilarious, for example).

I live London, and while I have no interest in vegetarian food, the few times I've been out with vegetarians to Chinese restaurants in London for example, it's been an exercise in frustration to the point that I won't do it again, because many places you'll ask if disk x is vegetarian, get told it is, order it and find out that it's full of shrimp or covered in fish powder, or cooked in animal fats, and when you bring it up with them they're confused and appear to not understand that this means the dish isn't vegetarian... I've been to Chinese restaurants where finding _any_ vegetarian dishes other than plain boiled rice has been almost impossible.

(as for tofu.... I'd rather starve; I can stomach it in small quantities in addition to something else, but I can't handle it as a meat replacement)

<comment><USER3> Yes, I've heard this is true in some non-US locations. In the US, you generally only need to worry about eggs and fish sauce, or beef/chicken broth in soups, and I've rarely (maybe never) had trouble getting a vegetarian or vegan meal in a Chinese restaurant anywhere in the US, Canada, or Mexico. I do often ask for clarification about whether a dish has fish sauce or eggs, and if I can get it prepared without, but I've never had a dish appear with shrimp that didn't advertise it had shrimp; given the price of seafood in the US, restaurants like to brag when a dish has seafood in it. I also never order soups at unfamiliar restaurants unless they are explicitly labeled as vegetarian or vegan.

Thai and Vietnamese restaurants are more likely to have fish sauce in almost everything, though they're usually happy to make a vegetarian version. Korean restaurants seem tricky, as there's almost never anything vegan on the menu, but bibimbop can be ordered without meat or egg, even if they don't offer a tofu version. But, none are as consistently easy to order from as Chinese.

I've been told that when traveling abroad, in some regions in Asia (including some parts of India), saying, "I'm Buddhist" will help the wait staff and chef understand what you mean when you say "vegetarian". I don't know exactly where or whether this is entirely accurate, since millions of Chinese are Buddhist and not vegetarian. I've never used this one weird trick for getting an actual vegetarian meal, but I've heard it from a few older vegetarians who have traveled a lot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Chicken Little comes home to roost.

[http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=1002](http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=1002)

</comment><comment><USER13> I am not a cook / chef, so I don't know exactly how to translate my understanding to proper words here. A lot of people prefer fresh meat over frozen meat for the true flavor of the meat. The meat produced from a lamb running around all day vs from a lamb confined in a tiny space are very different. If you just want meat like cheap McDonald hamburgers, cultured meat is probably okay (assuming the scientists are able to add taste to cultured meat, last I read a few years back they said the meat taste like plastic [1]...). Also looking at the meat produced in the lab, the meat look gross...

[1]: [http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/201...](http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/08/lab_grown_meat_will_never_taste_right_it_s_a_waste_of_time.html)

<comment><USER14> Some of the most desirable traits of beef could actually be easier to reproduce in a controlled environment. I could imagine that once perfected, steaks produced in this way might be exceptionally tender.

<comment><USER13> Ah tender is the word. I am not sure, we have to see. My gut says there will still be some difference in tenderness and in the flavor of the meat.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I get that lab meat is largely considered a transcendent technological solution to the ethical dilemma of slaughtering livestock, but at the same time I can't help but think that this dooms chickens and cows to obsoletion and eventual extinction.

<comment><USER16> I think the demand for real chicken/beef will go down but there always will be people who buy "organic", "real", etc.

<comment><USER17> I'd love to see existing meat subsidies moved to either vegetables or lab- grown meat. That would certainly help to further shrink the market of people who need the "real" stuff.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> Paul-ish Will the lab grown meats have the same nutritional value as meat from animals?

<comment><USER18> Lab grown meat _is_ meat. It's chemically identical to what you get from an animal, but it's grown in a Petri dish instead of a cow. The nutritional value is _exactly_ the same.

<comment><USER19> The "meat" you buy at the store is a hunk of muscle, fat, blood vessels, blood, nerves and connective tissue, and it's saturated in the myriad of vitamins, nutrients and other substances consumed or created by a living being.

The "meat" created by this reactor is just a pile of muscle fiber. They extract a single kind of stem cell from an animal, coax it into becoming a muscle fiber, and grow lots of those fibers. Just muscle, fed by only what's in the gel it's grown on, no fat, no vasculature, no connective tissue, and without any of the substances an animal produces in other types of cells.

It's not just missing a lot, either. It also has at least one thing added that "meat" doesn't necessarily: antibiotics. There's no immune system in a hunk of replicated muscle fiber, nor is this lab currently growing the tissue in a sterile environment, so it _has_ to be treated with antibiotics.

If you were to print a nutrition label for a pound of meat from the grocery store, and a pound of what this lab grows, not much on those labels would match up. Even the protein content: muscle fiber forms protein through exercise, but this slab of cells in a dish has never walked to a trough. How are they working around that? Watch for their patent filings.

<comment><USER11> > Even the protein content: muscle fiber forms protein through exercise, but > this slab of cells in a dish has never walked to a trough.

Protein, _in the form of muscle fibre_ is formed following exercise as a result of signalling triggered by the breakdown of muscle fibre. Exercise is only responsible as the trigger. There's no conceptual reason why we can't emulate that part of the process too.

The question is if we need it - our body needs to amino acids, and they at least have been shown to be present in similar quantities in in vitro grown muscle cells. So if this "meat" can be made to taste and feel sufficiently like "natural" meat, then there may be no point to simulating the growth of "real" meat (which would also e.g. require a simulated circulatory system).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is great. Currently I cook a lot with seitan which is great for a meat substitute but boy do I miss juicy beef burgers sometimes.

</comment><comment><USER21> In the long run, I think fake meat (both the in vitro stuff and the industrial stuff) has serious disadvantages over foods properly prepared from whole ingredients whose ultimate form happens to be vegan.

If that's true, I figure why not go straight for the endgame and help people get their hands on that stuff. Lots of space for innovation there.

<comment><USER17> I'm interested in this from the animal rights perspective. I don't doubt that a breakthrough in this area would help us bring about a drastic decrease in animals slaughtered for consumption so I welcome it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> They don't mention how they get the fetal bovine serum used to grow the meat.

</comment><comment><USER6> This announcement is a little early. They should wait till they actually start working on it.

Or maybe this is really actually a call for volunteers to work with them.

</comment><comment><USER23> There's so much to good meat: fats, amino acids, natural flavors, curing, etc. I suppose to the McNugget crowd, this will be awesome.

<comment><USER3> Antibiotics (and the antibiotic resistant bacteria we now enjoy because of the ocean of antibiotics used in meat farming), hormones, environmental destruction on a scale only matched by the fossil fuels industry, and increased risk of a number of cancers and other age-related diseases.

The vast majority of meat consumed is not "good meat", by your definition, and never will be. Consumption of good meat by all the meat eaters of the world is not ecologically or economically feasible. It is irresponsible to pretend that it is.

It's worth discussing what makes "good meat" good, but it's not useful to imagine a world where several billion people can eat organic grass-fed beef every day, because that way lies destruction for all of us.

<comment><USER23> I didn't say any of that. You and another commentator are stuffing words into my mout...er comment.

A more relevant point would be along the lines: Why bother? I'm 99% vegan myself. Not because I care about animal suffering (which I do) or because I care about the impact on the planet and global warming (which I also care about), but because I LOVE non-meat foods. They are cheap, easy to acquire, and delicious.

This obsession with making fake meat seems like a terrible idea to begin with. It's like saying we all really want meat. We all don't because it's a terrible addiction and obsession.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'm looking forward to trying the real-life implementation of "ChickieNobs" from Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake.

</comment><comment><USER25> If artificial chicken meat is successful - it would dramatically reduce chickens population.

</comment><comment><USER26> But what about the actual shape of the cut of meat? I doubt if I buy a cultured thigh of chicken I'd get it with the skin and bones, for some reason, although my biotechnical knowledge is lacking. These things are essential for cooking so a future where all out meat is literally just large slabs of flesh would be unenjoyable.

<comment><USER27> That's a narrow view of cooking and ejoyable.

<comment><USER26> I disagree. It's certainly not the only thing I cook, but I do cook it a lot, and the skin and bone are necessary in many of my recipes to make the dish as flavorful as possible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I am the descendant of a countlessly long line of meat eaters. I'll stick with the slaughter version, it has worked well thus far.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

<comment><USER3> You're also the descendant of a long line of either oppressors or oppressed (white in America=long line of oppressors). You aren't using that to excuse stealing land from your Mexican neighbor, today, I would hope. So, why use that as a reason to continue the environmental and ethical disaster that is eating meat?

If you want to keep eating meat because you just don't care, say so. Don't excuse it with "the way my great granddaddy did it", because there are plenty of things about the way great granddaddy did it that are morally repugnant to us today. Unless you are also supporting slavery/segregation, returning to no legal interracial or LGBTQ marriage, a world without child labor laws, a world with no vote for women, etc. you really shouldn't use that excuse.

<comment><USER10> >the environmental and ethical disaster that is eating meat?

I'd say there is arguably no environmental _disaster_ in meat production, and even if there is, the mere act of eating meat does not imply in it, it would depend on the amount of meat eaten per person and the production scale required to supply that. The ethics of it depends on who you're talking with. Your position is not "the righteous one", it might be "the right thing to do according to X school of thought", but never an absolute ethical truth.

<comment><USER17> If we have a healthy, satisfying alternative - the ethical question of "Is it acceptable to kill or harm individuals unnecessarily?" has a very clear answer no matter who you're talking with.

<comment><USER10> "unnecessarily" -> it is already unnecessary to eat meat, thus unnecessary to kill animals. Anyone can live a perfectly healthy life being a vegetarian, it's even cheaper depending where you live. Thus, by your logic the question "is eating meat nowadays ethically wrong?" should have "a very clear answer no matter who you're talking with". Which obviously is not true.

You mention "healthy, _satisfying_ alternative". You accept people eating meat nowadays because according to you it is more satisfying than eating the current alternatives (even though it's not necessary!), so you should always accept the eating of meat (or hunting of animals) as long as people _want_ it over whatever alternative exists.

Furthermore, people will always think differently. What is ethically wrong to you is not to me and vice-versa.

<comment><USER17> Show me a person who genuinely believes killing others unnecessarily is acceptable and we've got much bigger problems than the ethics of meat. The problem isn't getting people to agree with moral axioms. It's getting people to be consistent with their application of them.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


What Will California Ban Next? - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-will-california-ban-next-11566158511?mod=rsswn <comment><USER2> _After running late for your flight after a 30-minute security line only to have TSA confiscate your Fiji water bottle, you'll now have to stop at a crowded water fountain to fill your own metal flask. Or buy an overpriced glass or aluminum bottle at the concession stand, paying another 10 cents for a bag. And your teeth will chatter if you drink through a paper straw. Of course you could risk dehydration instead: Men lose up to a half-gallon of water during a 10-hour flight. Oddly, you can still buy sugary drinks in plastic bottles at SFO; only healthy, calorie-free water is banned in plastic. You can't make this stuff up._

What stands out about this tirade -- and why we need to call it a "tirade" \-- is the complete absence of any mention of opposing factors. As in, you know -- the reasons why plastic bans are being proposed in the first place. Instead we are told that the idea of banning them just "brainless" lunacy that "you can't make up."

What a nice, simple world the author seems to live in.</comment>