Dropbox S-1 - <AUTHOR> https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1467623/000119312518055809/d451946ds1.htm <comment><USER3> I'll just point out that the SVP of engineering, a former Microsoft exec, received $34 million in compensation, since joining less than 6 months ago.

For all employees that are considering joining a startup as rank-and-file engineers and putting in years of effort, remember that your compensation will be paltry compared to founders and top execs. When your work finally pays off, it will mostly pay off for them.

Good for you if you're OK with that extreme imbalance. But, I know too many people that discovered only upon an exit, that the financial reward was never destined for them.

<comment><USER4> If there's ever an Equifax scale breach at Dropbox, accountability will fall on the SVP of Eng.

<comment><USER5> You realize Equifax has had pretty much no consequences for their gross negligence, right?

<comment><USER4> Execs were forced to resign. Rank and file Engineers were not.

<comment><USER6> Once you've made $10M+, why would anyone care if they have to resign? Especially, when odds are they'll have another gig in no time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Tip: Never pay for Dropbox at $99/year. It's repeatedly discounted throughout the year at Dell's website for $60, and often also comes with a $25 Dell gift card. So effectively, its value is $35/year, and you can buy multiple codes, redeem them, so you'd be effectively paying in advance for as long as you want, at 1/3rd of the price.

<comment><USER8> Normally I would jump on this, but I like dropbox, I like the people there, and I like Drew, so I'm willing to spend an extra $30 a year to increase their revenue and keep them in business longer.

<comment><USER9> Sorry, what???

I mean, you're entitled to do whatever you'd like. But do you see the potential valuations being tossed around? "Drew" is worth tens to hundreds of millions.

I just have no idea why someone would find it not only worth it to take money out of their own pocket to further a corporation that has no need for the empathy we would normally afford to people (or small businesses, which "round down" to individual people or small groups), but would actually see value in sharing this thought process with everyone else. It's not like using a "deal" is unethical or illegal (like, say, piracy), the company in question (or a reseller taking the hit) offered it. Is this some kind of silicon valley flavor of virtue signaling?

If dropbox was a startup with 8 employees, especially one that didn't offer the near-commodity service (yes, I know UX etc matter here) that dropbox does, I would understand this. But that's so far from the case

<comment><USER10> Predictably irrational people exist! However, how is this different than a $30 donation? I think the real question you want to ask is: Why do people donate money to people who already have lots of money?

<comment><USER11> As you state, this comment equals to: "I like Drew, so let me make a donation of 30$ to Dropbox"

That's why I like economics so much. A lot of irrational behavior come simply from the fact that humans are usually terrible to understand the underlying economic transactions taking place.

One of my favorite irrational behaviour is the one in which people value object they got more than the equivalent price in which they could buy//sell that object.

For example: You have an old bottle of wine in your cellar, and it is now valued at 500$. A lot of people would simply put, never buy a 500$ bottle.

But if that bottle was your possession, most of the people would keep it and eventually probably drink it, being completely irrational in regards with the 500$ valuation.

<comment><USER10> > One of my favorite irrational behaviour is the one in which people value > object they got more than the equivalent price in which they could buy//sell > that object.

Art is also a good example. Art is globally unique, so what does it even mean for art to be worth $X? Seems like the only "value" of art is the price the next guy is willing to pay. The price is undefined until it's not.

On the other hand, if I have a _fake_ Van Gogh, I would not be emotional upon liquidating it because it _is_ fungible; some computer and printer somewhere can easily reproduce the piece if I ever need it again. In addition, the price is well-defined because fakes have a well-defined manufacturing cost associated with them. An authentic Van Gogh has an infinite manufacturing cost as the guy is dead.

<comment><USER9> This is actually a subject dealt with widely in the humanities. _The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction_ is a good start, for instance. It does seem odd for art to be valued by the market, but there are clear ways to construct standard valuation (based on utility, etc) around it.

      some computer and printer somewhere can easily reproduce the piece if I ever need it again [...] well-defined manufacturing cost

This is not as straightforward as some might think! Some people agree with you. Some don't. "Fake" is a spectrum as well. Is it a reproduction of an original work, or an original work falsely attributed to a particular artist? In the second case, if the quality is high and scholarship has emerged around that work, is it "less valuable" to own after it is revealed as fake (for one individual, not at market prices) or is it in a sense more interesting? Is it perpetrated to be real or simply a print? Even if it's an authentic creation of the artist, was the work been authorized outside of their canon in a less official way? What about photographs, and later editions of them (by either the artist themselves, their estate or family, a dealer, etc)? Check out Richard Prince and his "decertifications" of paintings.

Startups offering blockchain solutions to this landscape, of course, are emerging. But they face the same problem everyone does in that market: how can physical assets, and their movements, be indisputably registered to a blockchain?

<comment><USER10> > "Fake" is a spectrum as well.

I suppose this is true, very interesting. A piece (real or not or unknown) with history, can become (de)valued in its own right.

> how can physical assets, and their movements, be indisputably registered to > a blockchain

For example, I think VeChain and Modum use physical ID chips, but I don't see how they solve this problem. It seems like a tall order to create an injection between physical assets and digital ones. I could see how this would be done if the physical assets were fungible and centrally sourced, which is only going to be the case with certain physical assets.

How would people register those assets to the blockchain? No one in the world should be able to register my laptop, because they don't have it. It would need to be derived from physical measurements, but this is a can of worms because the measurements can change; physical matter is not immutable in the way that digital matter is. Coupling the two seems like a tall order, or maybe I am small minded.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I find the equity split between Drew (25.3%) and Arash (10.3%) especially interesting given @paulg's 2014 tweet that "Zero of the most successful YC companies have a significantly disproportionate equity split" [https://twitter.com/paulg/status/535588566978404352](https://twitter.com/paulg/status/535588566978404352)

<comment><USER13> It may have started equal at founding and changed over subsequent rounds. I know of a case where 4 founders started equal and differed by order of magnitude by the end.

<comment><USER14> How did this happen?

<comment><USER15> Many will sell some of their stock during a funding round to the new investor to take some money out and blow it on lambos.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I believe this is the first ever YC company to go public? If so congrats to YC as well as the team at Dropbox.

<comment><USER17> Curious why going public deserves an applause. Is being private a bad thing?

<comment><USER18> When you take investment money, it comes with the expectation that there will be a liquidity event. (going public, selling to another corporation) Being private is not a bad thing at all, in fact I would expect most entrepreneurs would prefer that their companies remain private. However you've accepted a faustian bargain once you take money from someone else. Going public is seen as the most desirable liquidity event, since the company still controls its own agency and you maximize choice if/when you want to sell your stake in ownership.

<comment><USER19> The bot has spoken.

The most important thing out of all, really, is funding through public market.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> From the S-1, looks like they will be excluded from the S&P500:

In addition, in July 2017, FTSE Russell and Standard & Poor's announced that they would cease to allow most newly public companies utilizing dual or multi- class capital structures to be included in their indices. Affected indices include the Russell 2000 and the S&P 500, S&P MidCap 400, and S&P SmallCap 600, which together make up the S&P Composite 1500. Under the announced policies, our multi-class capital structure would make us ineligible for inclusion in any of these indices, and as a result, mutual funds, exchange- traded funds, and other investment vehicles that attempt to passively track these indices will not be investing in our stock. These policies are very new and it is as of yet unclear what effect, if any, they will have on the valuations of publicly traded companies excluded from the indices, but it is possible that they may depress these valuations compared to those of other similar companies that are included.

<comment><USER21> If this ever becomes a concern, the class B shareholders can convert their shares 1 to 1 into class A shares. Once all class B shares have been converted, class C shares will also convert 1 to 1 into class A shares. This would then make the company eligible to be included in the S&P 500.

I imagine that the class B shares are nontransferable, which means that this will cease to be an issue once the founders have fully cashed out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm a fan of Dropbox, it's an excellent product. It's the only file sync product I've used in anger that I actually trust — I've had glitches of one sort or another with iCloud, Google Drive, OneDrive... never with Dropbox. It just works. Apple should have bought them, Jobs got it wrong ;-)

Dropbox Paper is also a delight to use, from a personal perspective. I've never used it on a team. I would be interested to hear whether teams of 50+ have successfully used it — it just doesn't feel ready for the enterprise in the way that Google Drive does/is.

I've not read this S-1 (perhaps it clarifies this) but Dropbox seems a little confused about positioning B2C vs B2B. Does it have a packaging problem? Can it have it both ways? It feels like it's trying to, but when I was a paying Pro user, I couldn't get away from the upsell on the site for me to move to the business package. Annoying.

Good luck to them though — they have killer design, a killer viral product and a loyal user base.

<comment><USER23> Apple did not get it wrong. Steve Jobs offered to buy (for a putative $800M) but Drew Houston said it was not for sale. Thereafter, Steve was reportedly to have said that Apple would crush them since Dropbox is a feature and not a product.

<comment><USER22> I stand corrected! I thought he didn't want to buy them for that reason, didn't realise he had made an offer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Seems like the move away from AWS to it's own infrastrucutre is starting to pay dividends. 33% GM to 67% in two years is certainly impressive!

<comment><USER25> Friendly heads up: "its" is possessive (like his or hers) whereas "it's" is a contraction of "it" and "is".

<comment><USER26> I really want to file this as a bug report in the English language.

       ENG-21238: Contraction for "it is" easily confused with possessive form of "it"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'm not surprised to see net neutrality mentioned as a risk factor.

 _Our platform depends on the quality of our users' access to the internet. Certain features of our platform require significant bandwidth and fidelity to work effectively. Internet access is frequently provided by companies that have significant market power that could take actions that degrade, disrupt or increase the cost of user access to our platform, which would negatively impact our business._

I wonder if you could make an argument that public SAAS companies have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to support net neutrality policy.

<comment><USER28> They could also call out the flip side though, right? Dropbox could negotiate deals with the ISPs to "box out" smaller competitors. Maybe it costs them upfront but it also solidifies them in the market.

<comment><USER29> > Dropbox could negotiate deals with the ISPs to "box out" smaller > competitors. Maybe it costs them upfront but it also solidifies them in the > market.

Yes, if you're a short sighted MBA that wants to encourage your own extortion

<comment><USER30> Well, either way, their competitors are icloud/onedrive/googledrive... box'ing-out isnt going to be a successful strategy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> The risk factors fail to mention their inability to offer any kind of end-to- end encryption. Or that E2E encryption is the differentiator that most of their competitors offer.

Dropbox (employees and trusted third parties) will always have access to your files.

Before you downvote.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. They can deliver more features and better performance as a result. Reliability is key, and it's certainly easier to understand what users need, and to develop, implement and debug new features, when you've got access to the files users are storing.

But eventually, end-to-end encryption will take hold. It took decades for HTTPS to become the defacto standard, but it did. Email is moving that direction (Proton Mail, Tutanota). Text messaging is moving that direction (Signal, WhatsApp?). And there's a number of Dropbox competitors that are growing fast because of better privacy and E2E encryption (SpiderOak, Tresorit, Sync.com, pCloud). NextCloud (open source self-hosted Dropbox alternative) also just launched end-to-end encryption.

These companies have been slowly solving the problems that Drew claimed were impossible when Edward Snowden dropped the bomb. Meanwhile Dropbox has been pouring dollars into marketing and a Microsoft Office / OneNote / Google Docs competitor (Paper).

Drew's response to end-to-end encryption: [https://techcrunch.com/2014/11/04/dropboxs-drew-houston- resp...](https://techcrunch.com/2014/11/04/dropboxs-drew-houston-responds-to- snowdens-privacy-criticism-its-a-trade-off/)

Dropbox risk factors (many unsolvable): [https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1467623/000119312518...](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1467623/000119312518055809/d451946ds1.htm#toc451946_2)

I use Dropbox and feel the product is still the leader in terms of features, but I see the competition catching up, with better privacy (end-to-end encryption) built in.

<comment><USER32> > _Email is moving that direction (Proton Mail, Tutanota)_

No it doesn't.

I've never heard of Tutanota, but Proton Mail is hardly evidence of anything. In fact the attack vector for email is very different when compared with other channels, as for email I'm not afraid of my email provider as I'm afraid of hacking attempts. Yes, I value security over privacy for email. Therefore I would trust Gmail more than I would trust Proton Mail.

Proton Email is also non-standard and is obviously not E2E encrypted when it comes to communicating with non-Proton recipients. If I actually wanted encrypted email, I would use GPG. It sucks from a usability point of view, but it's standard and for email that matters.

> _I use Dropbox and it 's still the leader in terms of features, but I see > the competition catching up, with better privacy (end-to-end encryption) > built in._

Curious, which competition?

I tried everything that I could find, because Dropbox has a high price and their online search didn't work well even after I upgraded to Pro.

Btw, it might actually be better to do an encrypted drive with [https://cryptomator.org](https://cryptomator.org) on top of Dropbox or Google Drive. It's definitely more reliable ;-)

Or in other words, if the service provider does not get access to your files due to encryption, then there isn't much value they can add. You can't have a secure web interface for encrypted files, you can't have online search. So might as well do application-level encryption and all you need is cheap and reliable storage.

<comment><USER31> _> Curious, which competition?_

I clearly outlined many competitors similar to Dbox that offer end-to-end encryption: (SpiderOak, Tresorit, Sync.com, pCloud). NextCloud (open source self-hosted Dropbox alternative) also just launched end-to-end encryption.

 _> Therefore I would trust Gmail more than I would trust Proton Mail._

Google: don't expect privacy when sending to Gmail: [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/aug/14/google- gm...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/aug/14/google-gmail-users- privacy-email-lawsuit)

Google terms of service: Our automated systems analyze your content (including emails) to provide you personally relevant product features, such as customized search results, tailored advertising, and spam and malware detection. This analysis occurs as the content is sent, received, and when it is stored. [https://www.google.com/policies/terms/](https://www.google.com/policies/terms/)

<comment><USER32> SpiderOak has a high price, has been very slow in my tests and their client doesn't work well. There have been reports of throttling on large uploads. Plus they've been stagnating. All of this is a symptom of them not being popular enough I'm sure, but that's not a good sign.

pCloud doesn't do 2-factor authentication yet, which is freaking important for your non-encrypted files at least. I asked them about it because I could not believe it and they said it's "on their roadmap". But ALAS my trust in them dropped to zero. The chances of implementing reliable encryption while not getting basic security straight are next to none.

Plus you cannot trust encryption that is not peer reviewed ;-)

I haven't tried NextCloud, but ownCloud is shit. It's really slow, could not handle the several hundreds of GBs I have stored and there have been situations of users losing their data. Plus I'm not inclined to host my own stuff, because that would get very expensive.

Actually you haven't mentioned the only real alternatives ...

(1) Resilio Sync ([https://resilio.com](https://resilio.com)) which I use, in combination with a cheap VPS with 2 TB of storage on it (time4vps.eu in case you're wondering, not affiliated)

(2) Syncthing ([https://syncthing.net](https://syncthing.net)), the open source alternative, which is OK, but hard to configure and Resilio does stuff out of the box, like encrypted folders

And I'm using Resilio Sync in addition to Dropbox. Well, I've actually migrated to Google Drive (on GSuite) this month, due to Dropbox Support pissing me off, but that's another story.

But the interesting part, which should be clear after a single day of usage, is that all Dropbox alternatives, except for Resilio and Syncthing, fail at the most basic task that users want, which is to reliably synchronize your files. Even the big guys, like GDrive or OneDrive, have an incredibly broken sync by comparison.

Just the other day I noticed for example how Google Drive can start deleting files from your local hard drive, only God knows why, in order to re-download them. And before that I dropped OneDrive because their client was freezing on my Mac, not to mention a couple of months back they weren't doing the one month file versioning thing, which is retarded in the age of ransomware.

<comment><USER31> So, between the two of us, we've now come up with a number of competitors working on similar products that include E2E encryption. We both agree that these competitors still have work to do, in terms of implementing features and fine tuning performance. But they're not standing still.

The fact that both of us are actively using at least one alternative, in addition to Dropbox, proves my point. That E2E encryption (alternatives that offer better privacy) could be a threat to Dropbox, if and when the alternatives become a viable total replacement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Is this the first company to go public that (almost) started/took-off as a "Show HN"? In a way, this is a big moment for YC, PG and this community. Is there a list of "Show HNs" that have become "big"? It would be very interesting to see.

</comment><comment><USER34> Interesting. Glad to see that a security breach is called out as one of the major risk factors on an sec filing.

      Our business could be damaged, and we could be subject to liability
      if there is any unauthorized access to our data or our users' content,
      including through privacy and data security breaches.

<comment><USER35> Considering their service is the safekeeping of others' data, I'd probably s/interesting/obvious.

Not putting your comment down, mind you. Most would probably find an infosec inclusion as a major risk factor "interesting" in that it just doesn't feel like infosec gets that kind of respect in the C-suite, but I'd like to think it's different in this case considering the offering.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Congrats to everyone at Dropbox! It has come far: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863)

<comment><USER37> I was hoping someone would find that. It is interesting how many negative and middlebrow comments were on that submission. As there are this one as well.

<comment><USER38> HN is generally very bitter. People here are quick to find faults.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Does this suggest they are in the 60-day roadshow quiet period before to the listing?

It's a good value buy for me. Dropbox and Spotify whenever they go public. These two apps I've been a paying member since I discovered them.

<comment><USER40> I've considered buying Spotify but I am unsure of future growth or long term profits. What do you see?

<comment><USER41> It'd be interesting to see if they had a similar moment of growth evaporating when Apple Music entered like Snapchat did when Facebook finally got a clone to stick.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42>
        Given the volume of our users, we do not track the retention rates of our individual users.
        As a result, we may be unable to address any retention issues with specific users in a timely manner,
        which could harm our business.

Isn't this measurement critical to understanding if the business decisions are in line with customer expectations and use-cases? I find it odd that such a key metric is not tracked, and having _more_ users should mean that it's an even more reliable metric to gauge features and releases.

</comment><comment><USER43> Rough numbers here because BOX hasn't reported full 2017 yet but:

        Dropbox 2017: $1107M Revenue
        Dropbox 2017 Paying Users: 11M
        ARPU: $100 [1]

        Box.com (Q4-16 to Q3-17): $479M Revenue
        Box.com (Q3-17) Paying Users: 9.7M - 10.2M [2]
        ARPU: $47 - $49 [3]

        [1] $1107/11
        [2] "over 17% of our registered users [57M] were paying users"
        [3] 479/10.2 to 479/9.7

<comment><USER44> Wow, I assumed that Box would've had a higher ARPU given it's focus on enterprise.

<comment><USER43> Me too. I'm trying to find better ARPU metrics to ensure I'm not misunderstanding that vague "over 17%" statement. As a company they tend to report "Number of Paying Customers" which are businesses and only occasionally reference individual user accounts.

Though simply looking at per user per month pricing:

        Dropbox for Business has $15, $25, and Enterprise
        Dropbox Individual has Free, $10, and $20
        Box.com has $5, $15, $25, and Enterprise

The math doesn't even really make sense though. Dropbox's ARPU is $8/user/mo whereas Box is $4/user/mo. Either the my math is wrong or Box offers some pretty steep Enterprise discounts that work out to <$5/user/mo.

<comment><USER44> I wouldn't be surprised if the enterprise discount is in fact <$5/u/mo. Seems like a simple conversation, "Why am I paying more per person even though I'm a large client?"

Digging deeper into Dropbox's finances is astounding too. They've added about $150m in additional revenue each year, while cutting their net losses by $100m each year.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> It's interesting that they use Paying Users & Average Revenue per paying user as their key business metrics. I find it simpler and closer to the reality than the MAU & ARR most other SaaS rely on these days.

</comment><comment><USER46> Must be nice to be Quintin Clark. Showed up in Sept of 2017 and was awarded $34MM worth of stock according to this S-1.

It looks like a healthy business. Congrats to dropbox.

</comment><comment><USER47> Amazed there's still no good permission settings on nested folders in dropbox.

Ran into this on a 4-5 year old project with multiple contributors and even on their paid versions, there's no good way to consolidate folders that have multiple "owners."

Seems like there has to be a better way to handle this - Google Drive takes care of it much better.

<comment><USER48> Dropbox Business supports nested shared folders now. Source: I evangelized it and worked on it.

<comment><USER47> But from different sources, etc?

I have a whole bunch of folders over the past 3-4 years that are "owned" by different people that worked for me. I tried to get them all organized under one subfolder and it's not allowed.

<comment><USER48> Two options depending on what you're looking to do:

1\. If you just want to personally organize shared folders you receive, you can always put them in folders in your account.

2\. If you're trying to create a nested shared structure, that's what dropbox biz does. You make your employees team members. The ownership issue becomes less tricky since the biz content is all "owned" by the biz.

As a dropbox alum, I'm not up to speed on all the latest nuances. You should chat with sales to see how it could work for you, or just try a trial.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> I have a lot of respect for Dropbox as they've created an awesome product and user experience that accelerated its niche.

But as with Twitter i'm sceptical of the long-term prospects (and hence the need for an IPO vs a trade sale) of single-feature/protocol companies.

Nice liquidity event for current shareholders but why should the public invest here? The product is becoming more commoditized with time as well as being an ever more tightly integrated feature with hardware/OS.

Box seems to have a lock on the enterprise market which feels like the better long-term strategy than being a consumer/startup brand.

The stated growth strategy in the S-1 is rather meh. Post-IPO they might go further down the Evernote route and expand in all possible areas, diluting the core product/brand.

<comment><USER8> > Box seems to have a lock on the enterprise market which feels like the > better long-term strategy than being a consumer/startup brand.

Yet box only makes about $48 per user per year, whereas Dropbox makes $111 per year. So either Dropbox has more enterprise than we think, or consumer is a lot more valuable than we think.

<comment><USER50> I know that Facebook moved to Dropbox from Box for internal use.

<comment><USER51> Let it be known that Mark Zuckerberg and Drew Houston are best friends. I know it might not be the main reason, but it is something to consider.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Do companies typically announce an IPO on a Friday, right before market close?

<comment><USER53> Looking at data from the last couple of years, it appears that filling on Friday is pretty common. (see ipomonitor.com for data).

      pbpaste |sort|uniq -c|sort -k1nr
        614 Friday
        436 Monday
        339 Thursday
        326 Tuesday
        283 Wednesday
          2 Sunday

<comment><USER8> Those two on Sunday are interesting. I wonder if they are data errors and were really Monday but in another time zone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Every-time, I read a 10-K or S-1 I imagine if humans evaluated their lives as companies do. Humanity will be better off. Every potential and risk to a good degree honestly evaluated.

</comment><comment><USER55> Interesting that there was no mention of IPFS / Filecoin in the Risk Factors, or any other risk of decentralized storage possibilites.

</comment><comment><USER56> It's interesting they have invisible small white text under images with embedded text so that you could do a text search.

</comment><comment><USER57> Reality check: Most enterprises aren't adopting Dropbox… and for good reasons

[https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/reality-check-most- enterprise...](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/reality-check-most-enterprises- arent-adopting-dropbox-greg-knieriemen/)

</comment><comment><USER58> Amazed by the R&D expense of $380.3M especially because I'm not aware of substantive innovations that they're bringing to market. How has / will that investment translate into new technology or a technically superior product?

<comment><USER59> R&D is probably almost all going to be salaries for engineering talent. It takes a lot of people to run your own end to end solution for 500m users. Remember, they are doing everything from software development to running data centers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Any ideas on how I can purchase with the underwriter price?

</comment><comment><USER61> nice work, Dropbox.

</comment><comment><USER62> I used to love Dropbox, but nowadays I have little use of it. Sometimes it just stops syncing and reinstallation won't fix the problem. And forcing API upgrade caused a lot of headache for me as a developer.

</comment><comment><USER63> Where do all the new shares come from in an IPO?

<comment><USER21> Same place that they come from when doing an investment round with VCs - <USER2> corporation issues new shares and dilutes existing shareholders.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> jxub called it on the Dropbox Foundation thread 2 days ago

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16428729](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16428729)

</comment><comment><USER65> Congrats YC

</comment><comment><USER66> only 1 in 50 users is actually paying? thats not good

<comment> martin-adams Except that 49 out of 50 are quite likely to invite friends into the Dropbox ecosystem through invites and shares of who can turn into a paying customer. Sure more paying customers is good, but may be cheaper than paying for advertising to acquire customers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> Just curious - how's a raw SEC filing preferable to a reliable article summarizing it in non-legalese, providing context with the competition, etc.

Other than lawyers and economists, does anyone ACTUALLY prefer this raw filing?

EDIT: Adding my preferred link: [https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/23/dropbox-ipo- form-s-1-prospec...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/23/dropbox-ipo- form-s-1-prospectus-filing-full-text.html)

<comment><USER68> I always find juicy information in the S1 that doesn't get reported on right away. Off the top of my head:

* Reliance and risks of Zynga in the Facebook S-1

* Customer acquisition costs in the Blue Apron S-1

* Growth specifics and positioning of algorithms in the StitchFix S-1

* Infrastructure costs in the Snapchat S-1

Besides, an S-1 filing is not written in legalease, it's written in plain language. One of the target audiences is street investors so it's meant to be accessible. I'm looking forward to digging into this one.

<comment><USER69> This is my biggest concern with the Dropbox platform summed up in the filing:

* Our business could be damaged, and we could be subject to liability if there is any unauthorized access to our data or our users' content, including through privacy and data security breaches.

They have made progress. They managed to get SoC II compliance for all of their offerings. They now offer HIPAA compliant hosting as well.

Not that long ago though (circa 2013) I remember a series of articles that made it clear that DropBox employees had access to customer data.

That spooked me enough to recommend folks pair it with [https://www.sookasa.com/](https://www.sookasa.com/) if they were going to use it.

<comment><USER70> Early at my days at Syncplicity, (a Dropbox competitor,) I specked out what was needed for true client-side encryption with no ability to decrypt on the server. It's very easy to do, from a technical standpoint.

(We solve the problem by letting our large customers run their own servers, with their own authentication via single sign on.)

The problem is that the user experience for client-side encryption is awful! Every shared folder will need its own key, and users would need to manage and share their keys outside of our system. That is not sustainable.

But then the major feature set breaks down. Want to access your files in a browser? Not with client-side encryption. Want to email someone a hyperlink to a file? Not with client side encryption.

The major lesson is that the world operates on trust. We can only stay in business if our customers trust us.

<comment><USER71> There's also no deduplication with client-side encryption.

<comment><USER72> Doesn't homomorphic encryption allow for this?

[http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7255226/](http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7255226/)

<comment><USER73> No. It doesn't.

<comment><USER72> Can you explain?

<comment><USER73> The whole point of encryption is that you cannot meaningfully compare 2 pieces of plaintext.

Homomorphic encryption doesn't change that.

The only way to compare plaintext is to decrypt the whole thing. So either you must trust a centralized org (like dropbox today), or you must trust a single centralized key (that could be done with homomorphic encryption).

(Also the best homomorphic algorithms still make small programs take days to execute)

<comment><USER74> Consider a scheme in which:

Each user generates a symmetric "user key", kU.

The plaintext of each file (or without loss of generality, block of data, etc.), pFile, is encrypted with a randomly generated symmetric key, kFile, producing the ciphertext cFile. pFile is also hashed with a cryptographically strong hash, producing hpFile. kFile is then encrypted with hFile, producing ckFile. The user encrypts pFile with kU, producing chpFile. Finally, the user takes the first N bits of hpFile (for N on the order of, say, 16 or 32), producing hpFileTrunc. The user then submits hpFileTrunc to the server.

The server is, semantically, just a list of 3-tuples: (cFile, ckFile, hpFileTrunc).

The server sees if it knows of the existence of records with the same hpFileTrunc value as the client's submission. If so, it returns them to the client.

The client then tries, for each record returned by the server, decrypting ckFile2 with the client's hFile value, potentially producing kFile. If this is successful, the client then decrypts cFile with kFile, producing pFile. Finally, it compares this pFile to the original. If it matches, a match has been found, and the client exits the loop. If not, (or if either of the two decryption steps failed), it continues to the next record the server returned. If there are no more records, the client instead submits the tuple (cFile, ckFile, hpFileTrunc) to the server, which stores it.

Finally (whether or not a match was found), the client stores chpFile locally, to be used when retrieving the file.

To retrieve the file, the user decrypts chpFile with kU, producing hpFile. They truncate hpFile, producing hpFileTrunc, and submit it to the server. They perform the same process described earlier to retrieve the matching pFile.

(Note: truncation may also be replaced by, or combined with, a second round of hashing.)

With this scheme, assuming secure primitives (authenticated encryption and hashing), I don't believe it's possible to learn any information about a file unless you already have its contents.

So the server can tell if you're accessing (storing or retrieving) a particular file if and only if the server knows what it's looking for.

TL;DR: you can totally construct a scheme that allows meaningful comparison of plaintexts!

But... this is probably a bad thing. Comparison of plaintexts is a vulnerability: the server being able to see who's storing a particular "bad" file has a real impact on privacy. And likely more subtle impacts, too...

<comment><USER73> The whole point is to allow for comparison of large plaintext files that are stored by many users. Think of mp3s, or large avi files, or, say, a linux kernel image, or ...

> The server sees if it knows of the existence of records with the same > hpFileTrunc value as the client's submission. If so, it returns them to the > client.

And by doing this, provides a way for clients to verify if any user on the file storage server has this file. So if I wanted to know if your mozilla thunderbird has a mail I have the source to, I simply try to store this and get these duplicate records.

Most people would consider this extremely unacceptable.

> The client then tries, for each record returned by the server, decrypting > ckFile2 with the client's hFile value, potentially producing kFile. If this > is successful, the client then decrypts cFile with kFile, producing pFile. > Finally, it compares this pFile to the original. If it matches, a match has > been found, and the client exits the loop. If not, (or if either of the two > decryption steps failed), it continues to the next record the server > returned. If there are no more records, the client instead submits the tuple > (cFile, ckFile, hpFileTrunc) to the server, which stores it.

Why would the client have the keys to files stored by other users ?

Unless you mean that you can only deduplicate within a single client, in which case that's of much more limited use (and I might add, your encryption scheme is way more complex than it needs to be).

<comment><USER74> > And by doing this, provides a way for clients to verify if any user on the > file storage server has this file. So if I wanted to know if your mozilla > thunderbird has a mail I have the source to, I simply try to store this and > get these duplicate records.

Yes. This is the reason you _don 't_ want this property (being able to deduplicate encrypted files)!

But you _can_ provide it, while still providing meaningful security against other attacks.

The client has the keys to files stored by other users because _the keys are the hashes of the plaintext, and the client can hash its own plaintext when it has the file._

(Note a trivial modification to this scheme, solely client-side, allows for certain files to be totally secure, with the cost of them being exempt from deduplication)

<comment><USER73> > The client has the keys to files stored by other users because the keys are > the hashes of the plaintext

Personally I find only people explicitly authorized have the key to be the whole point of security. And you're suggesting this as a solution to the problem that organizations providing file storage could see what files you're storing.

Under this scheme, it wouldn't just be that organization, but everybody who is a client, that could see what files you're storing (or at least verify if you're storing a particular file or not)

So I find your assessment:

> But you can provide it, while still providing meaningful security against > other attacks.

Very dubious indeed, especially given the context of securing centralized file storage, where the whole point would be to deny others access.

I mean it's a true statement, because you don't specify what "other attacks" are.

I posit that given that this system leaks the plaintext of your files I find it strictly worse than just giving Dropbox or Microsoft access to my files.

<comment><USER74> > Under this scheme, it wouldn't just be that organization, but everybody who > is a client, that could see what files you're storing (or at least verify if > you're storing a particular file or not)

You can do this today, with Dropbox or whatever else- anything that does deduplication, _if_ it saves bandwidth by not asking for files it already has.

You can't tell _who_ is storing a particular file- only if _anybody_ is. Does this leak information and impact privacy? Yes! But it still provides other useful properties.

If you have a copy of a file, you can see if _anybody else does_ \- a boolean value. (And if the server is malicious, it can tell who does (if it logs).) If you don't have a copy of a file, you can learn absolutely nothing about it.

So, for example, if a user uploads a, uh, personal image to the service- with Dropbox, _in theory_ (they likely have strong organizational and technical controls against this sort of thing, mind you) if the server is malicious they can view that image.

With this scheme, the server can't.

On the other hand, if you, say, save a file containing only your social security number- or a similar low-entropy value- the server can crack the hash and decrypt that file. That's the price you pay for being able to deduplicate.

(Perhaps one could only deduplicate large files- thus handling the case of movies, music, Ubuntu ISOs, large system files, etc. To implement selective deduplication- if you want a file to not be deduped, replace all uses of its hash with, instead, a unique random value to identify the file. Server requires no modification.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> Commentary on valuation:

1\. Box, a public company, is currently valued at $3.17B. It had revenues of ~$480M with a net loss of $150M in 2017 [1]

2\. In contrast, Dropbox had revenues of $1.11B with a net loss of $111M in 2017.

The higher revenues, and lower losses bode well for Dropbox. Objectively, that would value Dropbox in the $8B-$9B range, $1B-$2B short of it's previous $10B private valuation

[1]: [https://goo.gl/Agf5Xt](https://goo.gl/Agf5Xt)

<comment><USER75> Does this mean that investors in their $10B round lost money? Is this common?

<comment><USER76> Rumor was they had a weird liquidation preferences in that round, which made it more like debt. Something like a 2x floor and 3x cap. Not sure how that resolves in an IPO though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> "My YC app: Dropbox - Throw away your USB"

Apr 4, 2007

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863)

<comment><USER78> There's always that one guy asking why a product exists when it's "trivial" to spin up and manage yourself.

<comment><USER26> That comment is my personal favorite HN naysayer comment of all time:

 _> you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem_

Yes, absolutely _trivial_. Even a _child_ could do it. /s

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER79> Its been a while but those who don't know: Some years ago Dropbox kinda started here on HN

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863)

</comment><comment><USER80> Congratulations to them.

I don't really understand why anyone would use dropbox given the multitude of different offerings out there. I'm curious if anyone who uses them can give me a take on why I should use them. I currently use Google Drive + Google Docs and am very satisfied. I pay for 1 TB of storage for personal work / storage.

<comment><USER81> I know this isn't a very good answer for most people, but for me at least, I trust Dropbox way more than Google. I really dislike the direction and influence Google has on the Web right now, and I'm more or less ideologically opposed to them as a company (and in general, any giant monopolistic company).

I hate the fact that I have to "vote with my dollar," but in the end I just feel better giving my money to an "independent" company like Dropbox or Snapchat than to Google or Facebook.

<comment><USER82> I don't. Google provides way more for a lot less money. You can encrypt your own content on either providers. For GSuite you get literally almost every service you can imagine, include a phone number that you can make unlimited calls to/from landlines with using your computer.

<comment><USER81> It's not just about cost-effectiveness, it's about which company is making the Web a better place — and I see a lot of Google's activities actively moving in the wrong direction.

For me, it's more about the companies than the product (which, like I said, is probably an unsatisfactory criteria for most people).

Glad you're enjoying Google's services though :)

<comment><USER82> In a lot of ways making the world a better place is about cost-effectiveness, and honestly what is Dropbox doing? Are they the main contributor to Nextcloud? Yeah, Google isn't much better in that regard, but I can buy a descent $199 unlocked Android phone now at Costco, and have all of Google services integrated. They also provide a lot of descent open source tools. Have you tried Kubernetes? :)

<comment><USER81> > In a lot of ways making the world a better place is about cost-effectiveness

I think we just have different worldviews. Certainly economics are important, but I try not to boil everything down to dollars and cents.

And for sure, Google has done a ton of useful and interesting things that I'm grateful for. But they also contribute to undermining online privacy, and use their size to wield disproportionate power in politics, etc. etc.

<comment><USER82> The CEO of Dropbox is listed as a founder of FWD.us:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FWD.us#Keystone_XL_oil_pipelin...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FWD.us#Keystone_XL_oil_pipeline_support)

I agree that Google contributes to undermining online privacy, but I still don't see Dropbox doing more in that regard. I'm sorry, but I really am not a fan of Dropbox after my experience with them, so I am inclined to be a vocal critic of their service (or lack thereof).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER83> How big?

</comment><comment><USER84> .

<comment><USER85> They're saying they have essentially one revenue source. A lack of diversity in income sources is the risk factor. Compare to Microsoft: Various consumer software options, OEM OS licenses, government contracts, support contracts, physical hardware (Xbox), licensing for game publishers, Azure, etc.

Dropbox has one revenue source, and it's primarily fed by consumers (11 million at that, per this filing). A loss of 1 million users is a loss of 100 million in revenue for them, but doesn't correspond to a drastic reduction in their costs (due to the number of non-paying users).

</comment></comment><comment><USER86> Definitely gonna dig into this one.

</comment><comment><USER87> Will make a few billionaires.

<comment><USER88> Really? How many people own more than 10% of the company?

</comment></comment><comment><USER89> Mega.nz

<comment><USER82> Descent client yes, but honestly pretty terrible once you compare features. Versioning counts against storage, speed can be slow, questionable company...

</comment></comment><comment><USER90> The executive team each has a base salary of 400,000. That's a lot of money, with a 65% target bonus. That is so much money.

<comment><USER91> LoL. Many engineers at Google make more than that with their RSUs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER92> I like Dropbox but as a potential investor I would be a bit nervous about the online storage industry as a whole considering crypto-backed decentralized storage seems only 12-24 months away.

</comment><comment><USER93> I think Dropbox is a dying company, I don't know anyone that uses it in my circles except old people now, very similar to Facebook.</comment>


What not to name your spaceship - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2012/06/05/prometheus_icarus_ii_narcissus_what_not_to_name_your_spaceship.html

<comment><USER2> • Also, don't buy airplanes or spaceships manufactured by corporations with Daedalus in its name.</comment>


One does not simply learn to code - <AUTHOR> https://medium.freecodecamp.com/one-does-not-simply-learn-to-code-f25bacdc5b62 <comment><AUTHOR> I wrote this article to explore why anyone would ever think that learning to program is easy, their incentives behind doing so, and the effect on people new to the field.

</comment><comment><USER2> Learning to code was very hard for me. Here is my favorite explanation of the difficulties surrounding the journey. [https://www.vikingcodeschool.com/posts/why-learning-to- code-...](https://www.vikingcodeschool.com/posts/why-learning-to-code-is-so- damn-hard)</comment>


WeWork CEO, Adam Neumann, Stepping Down Under Pressure - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/24/business/dealbook/wework-ceo-adam-neumann.html <comment><USER2> Dupe. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21062180](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21062180)

<comment><USER3> Yes. Comments moved thither.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> As has been widely reported though, he'll still have the majority of the votes. Which will be interesting as he can still fire the board with said votes at a future date.

<comment><USER3> According to the article at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21062180](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21062180) (the main thread on this), that's not the case.

<comment><USER4> Yeah looks like this is a recent development. Seems like the governance issues are largely resolved then.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "How I Built This Episode WeWork: Miguel McKelvey" (Sep 3, 2018)

Host: Do you think all of this could just collapse one day?

McKelvey: You know it's a great question. One of the things we're holding onto very tightly is the feeling that we're still figuring it out every day... We'll have that learning curve forever which is what make it awesome.

I guess "awesome" is one way of putting it.</comment>


Why Can Pilots Still Shut Off Transponders? - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/18/opinion/out-of-control.html?hp&rref=opinion&_r=0

<comment><USER2> All systems on board an aircraft can be shut off for a number of reasons. In case of a power failure, the pilot must choose what functions are the most essential to the continued operation of the aircraft on the limited battery power remaining. A transponder may then become nonessential. Similarly, if it is faulty and is the cause of an electrical fire, power to the transponder must be able to be shut off.

</comment><comment><USER3> I can't read the article as it is behind a paywall. However as a pilot I can tell you that you are generally meant to turn off your transponder while taxiing on the ground. Also you shouldn't turn it on until you actually have a transponder code, as you'll be transmitting an invalid code (possibly conflicting with another flight).

Perhaps airliners should be made so that you can't turn off the transponder while in the air.

Also, we don't know if they did actually turn off the transponder or not.

</comment><comment><USER4> The normal transponder system is not designed to be on all the time. In light aircraft it's just a box on the dashboard like [http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/AIRCRAFT-B727-ATC-TRANSPONDER- P-N-...](http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/AIRCRAFT-B727-ATC-TRANSPONDER-P- N-G1492-/290975920931?pt=Motors_Aviation_Parts_Gear&hash=item43bf843323)

that you can turn on if you are flying into controlled airspace.

What I think they should have is a new system that pings the location and other data to satellites that can't be turned off and will work anywhere unlike radar transponders.

</comment><comment> bulte-rs One simple situation in which you would like to switch modes on the transponder (ok, so this is not technically shutting the transponder down) is when - for example - a loss of cabin pressure occurs. Since most (all?) commercial arliners will have to perform an emergency decent to somewhere around 10,000 feet it is dangerous for transponders to operate in TA/RA (Traffic Advisory/Resolution Advisory) mode and give climb or descend instructions to avoid other traffic. In this case pilots switch to a "squawk only" setting.</comment>


Ask HN: What is your note-keeping platform/method of choice in 2018? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> the Notes app native to Apple devices -- given that pretty much all my main devices (phone, laptop) are iCloud-integrated, the Notes app is just convenient, synchronized, and simplistic enough that the barrier-to-creation is very very low.

</comment><comment><USER3> I use notion.so and it's by far the best note taking app that I have ever used. No more botched copy-pastes with weird fonts or colours like with OneNote or Evernote. Notion.so forces a clean structure on all my notes and it works with markdown by default (you can also export markdown).

On rare occasions it might fail to get the photos from a copy paste'd article, but I can easily solve that with: fuckyeahmarkdown.com

There are a ton of other features that this web app (+desktop app as well) offers, but it would take a a long block of text to explain.

\- Kanban boards \- Unlimited subfolders \- Bookmarks \- To do lists \- Spreadsheets \- Templates \- Etc

I'm not going back to OneNote or Evernote ever again. They were so clunky for me that I wouldn't even go back to read my notes, especially on the horrendous OneNote web app. Not to mention that the infinite space/scroll (unstructured) approach by OneNote was actually a big headache for me due to the fact that I was writing my sections of text all over the place.

</comment><comment><USER4> Pen + paper/stickies for taking notes at my work station Google keep for anything I need to access from multiple devices

I've tried a seemingly endless list of note keeping techniques/apps. Always end up wasting time trying to perfect a workflow when it's just not a good ROI.

</comment><comment><USER5> I hope this doesn't come across as self promotion. I just wanted to share this single python script solution that I cooked up for myself.

[https://github.com/kiriappeee/mynotetaker](https://github.com/kiriappeee/mynotetaker)

It creates a markdown file that corresponds to the date you are making the note (so 2018-06-06.md) and adds a timestamp as a secondary header into the markdown file before opening the file in an editor of your choice.

I've gone over the top here and I have this directory linked to my Dropbox folder so everything is in sync. Whenever I need to jot something down I simply use `n` or `note` in the terminal, take down my notes and save it when done.

</comment><comment><USER6> Earlier I had used Evernote, then tried Simplenote and now I've finally settled on Standard Notes ([https://app.standardnotes.org/](https://app.standardnotes.org/)).

Standard Notes is dead-simple to use and the database is encrypted. Currently, I'm using a free plan, but considering to switch to the yearly plan.

Edit: I checked out notion.so but it seems somewhat complex to use. Maybe I need to play around for a while.

</comment><comment><USER7> My preffered choice is iA Writer - a markdown editor. Available for MacOS and iOS which stores the notes automatically in iCloud.

The most important thing for this is that it uses iCloud transparently for me. So I can also navigate to the iCloud folder with all my notes and 'grep' them in case I need.

</comment><comment><USER8> I use Agenda [0] on OS X and iOS. It is a hybrid between a calendar and a note taking app that supports markdown and syncs using iCloud

0: [https://agenda.com/](https://agenda.com/)

</comment><comment><USER9> Evernote still. Sometimes I go to stickies/pocket notebook but the ease of search/retrieval/accessibility once it goes digital there especially after a notebook goes full...makes it still worth it.

</comment><comment><USER10> I use the Bear app. It was a bit confusing figuring out how to organize my notes at first, but I love how it uses tags for everything. It's a lot easier than manually making categories and folders.

</comment><comment><USER11> Pen and paper, iOS/macos notes or iOS/web Dynalist. Sometimes I say it out loud or to other people for non essentials.

</comment><comment><USER12> I use Microsoft OneNote, I'm not entirely thrilled with it but it works okay and is cross-platform.</comment>


Ugh, Green Bubbles Apple's iMessage Makes Switching to Android Hard - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/ugh-green-bubbles-apples-imessage-makes-switching-to-android-hard-1539867600 <comment><AUTHOR> You cannot escape iMessage unless other users delete the group text thread. If they do not, even after you deregister, group texts will land in iMessage purgatory. I can't believe Apple hasn't been sued for this. The solution is for iMessage to ping Apple's servers to confirm none of the recipients has deregistered. If any one has, then fall back to SMS/MMS.</comment>


Start-ups and Legal Fees - <AUTHOR> http://indiestartups.com/startups/legal-fees-how-to-minimize-or-rid-the-expense

<comment><USER2> Many bay area law firms work for free for a while if they like your idea. They also hook you up w/ angels and VC's b/c they're not going to get paid if they don't. Ours have given many startup workshops where they bring in industry ninjas from various fields to speak. One of those people is now on our board of advisors. Lawyers can actually be a great way to get your foot in the door to the valley, and done right, should not be seen as a total cost sink.

<comment><USER3> for the benefit of YC community, can u pls provide the names of these lawyers or website to sign-up for such workshops ... thanks

<comment><USER2> Most major bay area law firms are happy to gamble on startups they like. Email me and I'll tell you more. Not sure it's my place to blow up my Lawyers on a public forum. I can certainly ask them if they want me too, but I'd rather not do it w/o permission. Like I said though, it's pretty common.</comment></comment></comment>


EOS Node Vulnerability Could Allow Attacker Control All Full Nodes on Chain - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.360.cn/blog/eos-node-remote-code-execution-vulnerability/ <comment><USER2> If they found the vulnerability a week later, it would be a disaster.</comment>


Stoic, Mental Health Tracker - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/20/y-combinator-stoic/ <comment><USER2> App is great but costs money. Screenshot all the quotes during the trial and get a $1.99 egg timer

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, good apps that provide value should cost money.

Edit: actually the app is free, there are some additional features that require paying, though.

<comment><USER2> Sorry I confused it with "stoa"</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is emailing list dead? - <AUTHOR>

Is it still worthwhile nowadays to create a mailing list to keep your customers updated with product news? Since you can achieve the same with Twitter follows and Facebook page. <comment><USER2> If your email has something interesting to say, then absolutely it's still worthwhile. It seems to be a growing area, at least from my perspective. It probably depends on the product, but most likely you'll get some value out of an email newsletter.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think the number of sites which still use mailing lists pretty much answers this question. If in doubt, follow the crowd. Depending on your users, you probably shouldn't assume they will be using Twitter / Facebook to keep on top of updates.</comment>


Metal Lathe Made from Scrap Auto Parts - <AUTHOR> https://flyingkmachines.wordpress.com/ <comment><USER2> For anyone who likes this sort of thing, the Dave Gingery workshop book series is a hoot! [http://www.gingerybooks.com](http://www.gingerybooks.com) In volume 1, you learn how to turn a 5 gallon bucket, some refractory cement, a shop vacuum, and a bag of bbq charcoal into a crucible furnace. In volume 2, you learn how to melt down your neighbor's screen door to build a lathe.

7 volumes total. Typeset on a manual typewriter.

My favorite Dave Gingery quote: "I spent half my life trying to figure out how to do a fifty dollar job for fifty cents. I spent the other half looking for the fifty cents."

<comment><USER3> Those books are amazing. I wound up building a forge, buying a crucible, and making some tongs out of strap iron.

One afternoon i had my mold ready. Fired up the forge, and melted down some aluminum. Then i realized how wildly unprepared i was for dealing with molten metal. i managed to pour a little bit, but that was a fairly dumb risk.

came up with a new plan for a side loading forge, smaller crucible and better tongs. Then i went and bought a little sherline mill.

The book on casting is amazing, and i have no doubt most people can build real tools. but it's going to take a long time, and it's going to take several tries to get anything worth anything.

I don't regret any of the time i spent on it. And perhaps i should have given it a few more weekends. i feel like i got far enough along to get a sense of the scale of what Gingery did. It's amazing. I think he undersells how much skill he built up over 50(?) years. And i think anyone attempting this will realize how painfully unskilled they are. But there's enough there. you can get there if you're willing to put in the time.

<comment><USER4> On the book front, I'd also recommend Foundations of Mechanical Accuracy by Wayne R. Moore. It's a great treatise on how you can measure things like one millionth of an inch, and has lots of incredible pictures.

[https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/foundations-mechanical- accura...](https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/foundations-mechanical-accuracy)

<comment><USER5> Looks good, but it's out of print.

<comment><USER6> [https://www.ebay.com/itm/FOUNDATIONS-OF-MECHANICAL- ACCURACY-...](https://www.ebay.com/itm/FOUNDATIONS-OF-MECHANICAL-ACCURACY-BY- WAYNE-R-MOORE-1970-FIRST-EDITION-NEAR- FINE/362572699593?hash=item546b0457c9:g:RXMAAOSw2RJcdZZH)

<comment><USER4> There are also a few pdf copies floating around that are acceptable quality.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> How many other aspiring machinists hang out here on HN? I have watched a bunch of youtube videos. Over the winter I worked with a guy who ran a small machine shop 3 CNC mills, 1 CNC lathe, a manual mill, a bridgeport. I found working in a shop so satisfying, even mopping the floors. The local makerspace has acquired a bridgeport and a small lathe (12x36) so I will be joining there soon.

Who has a home shop?

<comment><USER8> I have mini home shop if that counts. I don't have much room so I have a Sherline mill and lathe. I used to own a 3020 but I sold that and now I have a shapeoko 2. But to be honest I use my 3D printer a lot more. Subtractive manufacturing is just too expensive. A set of good end mill can cost as much as my Ender 3...

<comment><USER9> I run a company doing hardware R&D in China, after only basic shop experience in high school (my grandfather was a successful metal factory operator). It's a privilege being here because you can literally summons any component with a few clicks and a couple of days waiting, and costs for precise external fabrication in a wide range of processes are low. So far it's surprisingly hard to find competent multidisciplinary mechanical designers capable of working across processes. We offer a pleasant design office environment as an alternative to a shop floor, which means real estate is more central and quality of life for design engineers goes up. We find this more effective than a self-run shop and it means any design fabricated is known reproducible via outside parties. It has been such an education getting to grips with the production costs and prototype iteration expenses (time and money) on a range of materials and processes. I wish there were an up to date book on this, if there is I haven't found it. As an example, we don't use our own 3D printers because having someone else print, pack, and deliver guarantees engineers stay focused. When you see the big metal shops here, each aisle of machines is often 20 machines and 100+ meters long. They have enormous presses, sheet working areas, laser cutters, many CNCS (Italian, Japanese, German, Korean, etc.) ... it's awesome. Then there's the plastic factories ... massive injection gear sunk in to subterranean concrete grottoes and staggering galleries of client molding stretching hectares.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> When society fails and we all live in the dystopic now, I want this guy on my team.

<comment><USER11> That and Clickspring. He's got a ton of videos on making ancient tools and other stuff, well worth watching.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOw9WqMOHjA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOw9WqMOHjA) \- making files for his recreation of the Antikythera device.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> "Since cylinder bores are bored exactly parallel to each other and at exact right angles to the cylinder head surface, multimachine accuracy begins at the factory where the engine block was built."

My understanding is that this isn't entirely right. The block deforms under the combination of temperature and head bolt tension when fully assembled and in operation, and this is taken into consideration when machining the block.

When cylinders are re-bored there's supposed to at least be a mock head attached and fully torqued to spec to ensure correct results when assembled.

<comment><USER13> >When cylinders are re-bored there's supposed to at least be a mock head attached and fully torqued to spec to ensure correct results when assembled.

that's not usually true, and it'd be pretty difficult to achieve without a different jig for every engine.

When I spent time in the engine shop, we used a mag-table/mag-chuck for steel parts, and we used table vices/clamps for the rest of it. We would start with inspection and disassembly, move on to parts-holding, and then finally we'd bore/hone/surface, in that order.

There is a 'mock head' installed in that the piece is being held to the work surface, but other than that it's not typical to add more structure when machining -- it makes things much more difficult to move around.

For (very) high performance engines, some manufacturing processes require the engine to wear an external girdle before finish; but it's not too common elsewhere or in the aftermarket world.

For flow-benching head I've have seen the head bolted down like you're talking about, but for that they're trying to approximate an engine's flow.

<comment><USER12> Are Cummins B series diesel engines considered "very high performance" [1]?

While use of the torque plate in re-boring is apparently more optional than I thought, the point stands; these things aren't ncessarily square when unassembled and the original manufacturer of warrantied engines is going to take distortion into consideration when machining the new parts.

On an unrelated note; EVs can't take over fast enough, good riddance of all this archaic ICE junk.

[1] [http://www.engineprofessional.com/TB/TB031516-2.pdf](http://www.engineprofessional.com/TB/TB031516-2.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> That's an ingenious design, and I get building it as a hack, but old manual machine tools aren't that expensive. I have seen large (16"\+ swing 48"\+ travel) lathes sell for under $1000 regularly. A couple of observations about old machine tools.

1\. The manual machines are really only used by hobbyists anymore. This is less true for Bridgeport mills (almost every shop has one) and manual lathes. For one off jobs which are always needed in a shop, it's much quicker to perform on a manual machine vs a CNC. Manual lathes tend to have a larger work envelope than common CNC lathes.

2\. Price doesn't scale with machine size, often the opposite. Bridgeports are universal and in every shop, larger mills less so. A Bridgeport weighs 2000 lbs and sell for $1500-$5000, when you get into 6000+ lb manual machines, they sometimes sell for $500-$3000. The reason is that they are no longer used in production and they are too big for most hobbyists. Moving larger machines is much more difficult. North of 6000 lbs, it is very difficult to haul the machine without a CDL (CDLs are generally required when the trailer is 10K+). Riggers (the craftsmen who load the machine onto a trailer) and transport can cost more than the machine itself.

3\. Tooling (drill bits, lathe tools, mills, fixtures) is frequently much more expensive than the machine itself. Finding a machine with tooling is a really good call.

4\. There are great deals on machines in the midwest. I scan the detroit and chicago craigslist in particular.

5\. Kearney and Trecker milling machines are super cool. They are noted for being the pinnancle of machine tool engineering - all done mechanically [1].

6\. For lathes the top brands are probably Monarch and Axleson, followed by mid tiers like Clausing, Leblonde.

7\. For all machines, the machinist is more important than the brand of the tool.

8\. Avoid older CNC machines, parts are hard to get and expensive. I would be afraid of any CNC machine made before probably 1995.

9\. Rigging equipment is pretty cool and necessary for running any type of shop. People do all kinds of cool machine moves with combinations of pallet jacks (~$100 - lifts 5000 lbs), hoists, anchors, Egyptian rolling bars, digging bars, machine skates, and engine hoists. [2] [3] Hire a rigger though.

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

[2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx80iYfgXkY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx80iYfgXkY)

[3] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjksLl9xur0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjksLl9xur0)

<comment><USER14> Patience, a 9' pry lever, some iron pipe for rollers, and a stack of 2x6 cut offs will handle moving pretty much any machine around the shop. (A pry lever is a long lever with a pair of small sturdy wheels to act as a fulcrum and a short metal tang to jam under equipment. Mine gives me maybe a 2" lift for a 5' sweep of the handle, so something like a 30:1 advantage.)

Mostly it is just lift-pivot-lower repeated many times to walk a machine along. For longer distances I'll get it aimed right and up on rollers. For raising or lowering you need an assistant to put the cribbing in or out, but raising a ton of lathe 2 feet to work on the motor underneath is pretty easy, just always have secure cribbing in place so it can't fall.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> That's awesome! I wonder what kind of tolerance its able to work to.

</comment><comment><USER16> Needs some JB Weld

<comment><USER17> Bolting parts together is better because it means you can disassemble it for transport or maintenance. Perhaps surprisingly, this doesn't harm the performance. Lathes, and machine tools in general, are built for extreme stiffness, not extreme strength. Dan Gelbart has a very interesting demonstration showing how a weak structure can still have good stiffness:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtxA20Q-Uss](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtxA20Q-Uss)

The rest of this video series is also well worth watching.</comment></comment>


Offices Can Be Hell for People Whose Brains Work Differently - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wjvd9q/offices-can-be-hell-for-people-whose-brains-work-differently <comment><USER2> But the open office floor plans are suppose to stimulate communication, thus getting more done. WRONG! I'd rather work from home, than at the office.</comment>


Tesla quietly drops "full self-driving" option as it adds $45,000 Model 3 - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/?p=1396895 <comment><USER2> I've always criticized Tesla for the decision to add the hardware to every car, even before we knew they can't seem capable of producing a $35,000 model right now or before we knew how far away we still are from _safe_ full autonomy.

It just seemed obviously unnecessary to me to add thousands of dollars in cost to _every car_ in the hope that a small portion of the Model 3 owners would also later upgrade to get the software for it, too. Just focus on making EVs mainstream first and foremost Tesla. Forget the still 10+ years away autonomy gimmick.</comment>


Researcher: Array of Apple Apps Vulnerable to "Gotofail" Attack - <AUTHOR> http://recode.net/2014/02/23/researcher-array-of-apple-apps-vulnerable-to-gotofail-attack/

<comment><USER2> This and the fact that they didn't release the OS X patch at the same time as the iOS patch constitutes a total FUBAR: The mistake they made was so basic that one wonders why on earth some junior / non-sec developer was working on a critical security component. Heads should be rolling.

If I understood correctly, they were also intermixing tabs and spaces (the web view implied so), so they also have that problem. (Just require spaces and ban tabs automatically so you know there's no way anyone can fuck things up).

</comment><comment><USER3> Rule 59 from the Joint Strike Fighter C++ coding guide[1] calls out exactly this bug (with example bad code similar to Apple's bug): all if/while/for bodies must be enclosed in braces. Some other notable guides, like those frmo Google and NASA, do not require this. I thought it was a good idea before, and very good idea now.

[1]: [http://www.stroustrup.com/JSF-AV- rules.pdf](http://www.stroustrup.com/JSF-AV-rules.pdf)

<comment><USER4> It's a useless rule unless you have a tool that enforces it - because it is easy to violate without noticing.

If you have a style checker that enforces, then this rule is acceptably useful. However, if you already have a checker as such, why not have it check indentation (and multiple statements per conditional statement), and catch a larger class of bugs?

Personally, I think Google/NASA is right, and JSF is wrong.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm sure everything that linked against it is vulnerable, and as soon as we have an update, they'll all be OK.

I just wish the update were out now.

<comment><USER6> There's one major problem: software updater itself is vulnerable. So in theory the only way to get a clean system is to download a fresh, fixed installer via a channel that's not affected and reinstall. What a mess.

<comment><USER7> This is a problem only if updates are not signed.

<comment><USER6> No, it's not. The updater needs to know the correct signatures and it doesn't have a trusted way of retrieving them. Also, any previous update may have been malicious and replaced the updater. The updater may very well have embedded keys, but we don't know, so the secure option would be not to trust it.

<comment><USER2> That's not how signing works. Also, if the signing is indeed implemented correctly, then the updater cannot have been compromised earlier.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> like they said after kicking forstall out: teams will be working together much closer.</comment>


ACM censors linking - <AUTHOR> http://realtimecollisiondetection.net/blog/?p=101

<comment><USER2> Got an email reply from the ACM folks:

The issue here is copyright, not censorship. All of the author versions that were linked to on these pages are still available -- ACM explicitly grants individual authors the right to post their own versions of their papers on their own pages. All ACM bibliographic data, and tables of contents in the DL, are available without cost to anyone in the world. If you want the copy of a SIGGRAPH paper and an author has posted it, you can still access it without an ACM subscription. Also note there would be no problem with these pages if they linked to the ACM version of the papers. Other lists of papers, compilations that Ke-Sen Huang built (rather than copying the table of contents from a publication) are not affected. Furthermore, the SIGAsia2009 pages Ke-Sen Huang makes available are still there until the papers are available in the ACM DL in the interest of promoting the conference.

The copyright issue that applies is described in this link:

[http://www.acm.org/publications/policies/copyright_policy#Li...](http://www.acm.org/publications/policies/copyright_policy#Links)

" ACM treats links as citations (references to objects) rather than as incorporations (embedding of objects). Permission is not needed to create links to citations in The Portal (ACM Digital Library or Online Guide to Computing Literature). ACM encourages the widespread distribution of links to the definitive versions of its copyrighted works in the ACM Digital Library and does not require that authors obtain prior permission to include such links in their new works.

However, someone who creates a work or a service whose pattern of links substantially duplicates a copyrighted work should get prior permission from the copyright holder. One example: the creator of "A Table of Contents for the Current Issue of TODS" -- consisting of citations and active links to author- versions of the works in the latest issue of TODS -- needs ACM permission because that creator is reproducing an ACM-copyrighted work. If all the links in the "Table of Contents" pointed to the ACM-held definitive versions, ACM would normally give permission because then the new work advertises an ACM work. To avoid misunderstandings, consult with ACM before duplicating an ACM work via links."

</comment><comment><USER3> The ACM does have a reasonable legal argument that his pages duplicate the TOC. Collections/indexes of information are copyrightable so long as they so a minimal amount of creative discretion in their contents.

That said, I think it's clear the ACM's stance in attempting to limit and profit from the dissemination of its journals will ensure it is surpassed by other publication forums eventually.

<comment><USER4> Copyright does not prevent you from independently building a set of data that someone else has already built, it merely protects against copying their set verbatim.

<comment><USER5> Right but the ACM is the ultimate source of the data. They own the conference, the paper selection processes and hence the list of papers. It's hard to argue that this list was compiled without _ever_ looking at the ACM's list. It's a grey area for sure, and you could argue that if you go to the conference and simply observe the presenters and their paper titles, or even just ask the authors "Did you get a siggraph paper in? What was the title?" then that is _your_ data, but by the same logic I can go to the World Series and live-blog a play-by-play account of the game, which would surely get me sued. (Maybe people do this I don't know I don't follow sports, but I know that the leagues claim copyright over accounts and descriptions, regardless of whether they actually have those rights.)

<comment><USER3> Going to the world series of poker is slightly different as there's potentially a contract established between you and the promoters via your ticket.

<comment><USER5> I haven't been to siggraph, but for $1,175 ( <http://www.siggraph.org/s2010/for_attendees/registration> ) there's surely a potential for a contract between you and the ACM via your conference registration.

Also, copyright holders don't need to enter into a contract to assert their rights. You don't enter into a contract when you watch TV but you still don't get the right copy and distribute shows (or sporting events) that you watch.

<comment><USER4> _you still don't get the right copy and distribute shows (or sporting events) that you watch_

But you can make a page that links to the network's website where the TV shows are downloadable for free.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> See discussion here: [http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/a6tsm/acm_censo...](http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/a6tsm/acm_censoring_linking_to_publically_available/)

</comment><comment><USER6> Ok, I'm as anti-censorship as the next guy, but do we actually know _why_ the ACM publications board requested their removal?

<comment><USER7> Take a look at the pages that are still up (which are for non-ACM conferences). They are a list of the proceedings, with links to freely available copies of all of the papers. Presumably, these papers are on the authors' websites.

Note that the ACM copyright form explicitly _allows_ authors to put up a copy of their published paper on their own website. So, from what I can surmise, they requested he take down links to material that is freely and legally available.

<comment><USER6> Ah, I see. That does sound like the logical conclusion (and is just as icky as the poster suggests). But I'd still like to hear what basis ACM is using to, ah, "request" that the links be taken down.</comment></comment></comment>


Deals Missed - <AUTHOR> http://www.ovp.com/companies-we-backed/deals-missed.html <comment><USER2> Reminds me of BVP's hilarious _Anti-Portfolio_ [1].

[1]: <http://www.bvp.com/portfolio/antiportfolio>

<comment><USER3> What does it mean if your anti-portfolio looks far better than your actual portfolio?:-)

<comment><USER4> There are 1000s of startups on the anti-portfolio list. Only the winners are shown.

Investing in startups is hard.

<comment><USER5> Is it even better than random?

This anti-portfolio is so impressive it seems to suggest a strategy of investing a small amount in all but the stupidest rather than even trying to pick winners

<comment><USER4> Yes. Being better than random is a particularly low bar to pass.

<comment><USER5> Is it so hard to believe? We still put hundreds of billions into mutual funds that aren't better than random

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My co-founder and I were sitting in Coupa cafe two years ago with a couple of VCs who told us that the Youtube co-founders had pitched them right from the same booth we were were sitting at. "Did you invest in Youtube?", I asked, to which they said, "no - the idea seemed preposterous at the time".

"Well", I said, smiling, "you'll probably think our idea is just as preposterous, and saying you didn't take the jump like it's a badge of honor probably means your firm won't work for us".

<comment><USER7> YouTube has never been profitable. Google only owns it, because they can afford to, and because they believe it's the future of how people will consume video and TV (and I think they are right).

<comment><USER8> Correct, but as you perfectly know, VCs are not about building companies that turn profits; they are about exiting with more than they initially invested, regardless if someone will pay "more" because they company is really worth it, or because its just popular in SV in this exact moment.

If you dig into YouTube long and deep enough, you will see it being "too crooked to fail" kind of purchase (most Goog board was against it; one of the owners is a family of a big VC name in Valley, etc).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Sadly OVP, a Pacific Northwest institution, is winding down after 30 years. [http://www.xconomy.com/seattle/2012/10/11/exclusive-ovp- vent...](http://www.xconomy.com/seattle/2012/10/11/exclusive-ovp-venture- partners-nws-oldest-vc-firm-to-shut-down/)

<comment><USER4> Good thing too:

 _> [OVP] funds have returned -16.7 percent, -18.6 percent, and -11.9 percent, respectively, according to the most recent data posted online by the Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund_

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> VCs get many deals wrong. A deal missed is hardly a mistake. It's the deals won that are interesting to watch. If your chosen idea/team/model is unable to reach profitability even after you provided a $100m cash infusion - now that's something to be embarrassed about.

</comment><comment><USER11> I think it's nice for entrepreneurs to read these once in a while to remind themselves that VCs aren't perfect and that they are capable of accepting their mistakes. But in reading this article, PG's words about how ideas that seem flat-out crazy can have potential to succeed in a big way (Starbucks is the one in this article that rung a bell) is really evident.

</comment><comment><USER12> They're not very popular on HN, but there's a great sit-down discussion between Mark Suster and Steve Blank from a while back in which they touch on this topic, among others:

"Let me know the last time (traditional) venture capital led an innovation. [...] As an industry, venture capital is now being disrupted by new entrants rather than the existing players. Everybody from Dave McClure to Andreessen were outsiders who were entrepreneurs themselves." (<http://youtu.be/BUD2gxU5LPM> \- quote is at 49:30)

VCs are fast followers who are all racing to find hot ideas that have already started to take off, but it seems that most of them are no better at foreseeing and driving real innovation than even any of us.

</comment><comment><USER13> OP if you're looking to raise $ from OVP, I'd suggest you keep looking.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am aware they shut down (someone was lamenting how VC firms in the Seattle area are shutting down, the other being Frazier technologies) and was curious why so I went to their site. If you miss deals like those, it is inevitable that you have to shut down :)

Anyways, I also found this article: [http://www.xconomy.com/seattle/2012/10/11/exclusive-ovp- vent...](http://www.xconomy.com/seattle/2012/10/11/exclusive-ovp-venture- partners-nws-oldest-vc-firm-to-shut-down/)

<comment><USER14> Interesting article in xconomy. I hadn't realized that all three of their final funds had negative IRRs. That is a pretty challenging place to be.

<comment><USER15> Wtf is Seattle so weak for VC? It has a lot of rich people, mostly who got rich from tech. Ignition is nice (but do most of their investments in the Bay Area now, wtf), and I've never talked to Madrona but they seem to be the other one. If I were going to do a 30-50mm global fund, I'd probably base it in Seattle. Great for security, cloud, etc., with a great school (UW), successful local companies, etc.

<comment><USER16> Perhaps the folks who got rich from MSFT or AMZN simply never wanted to think about tech again.

<comment><USER15> Plenty of tech other than those two -- F5, McCaw, etc.

<comment><USER16> Sure, but based on what little I know about the Seattle tech scene, it seems like a common goal is to make a lot of money and then get out of the game entirely.

Contrast with Bay Area, where many people seem to love the game and aspire to be angel investors themselves one day.

This is just conjecture, there's likely some other reason.

<comment><USER15> Yeah, I get that from some Seattle people -- which seems really weird to me. If I didn't care about tech, I'd just do something like banking where returns are more predictable and to some extent easier. If I did care about tech (and do), I'd not want to leave just because I made a lot of money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17>
        The Internet boom was just beginning. Amazon had sales of $4M a year.
        We had a handshake on a term sheet with the CEO to put $2M into Amazon
        for 20% of the company (a $10M post money value). At the eleventh hour,
        some guy named John Doerr flew up and offered $8M going in for 20% of
        the company (a $40M post money value). Handshake? What handshake?

        To get even, we buy all our books at Barnes & Noble. We don't think
        Amazon has noticed.

</comment><comment><USER18> There seems to be so much capital floating around that a policy similar to YC but broader might be the best be for a well funded VC company - call it Pre- Angel.

Put in 30,000 dollars for 1 % of a company and option of ten. Startups must be incorporated, and have a one page business plan. Aim to get 50/50 balance of college grads and middle aged contractors. 30,000 is a year of ramen or a quarter or half year for a middle aged contractor. Long enough to get off the ground.

Then you have funded 10,000 startups for a 300 million fund. Rinse after six months and drop 3/4 of them. Then repeat for the remaining 3000. After that you have a stable of maybe 1000 startups now actually talk to them.

Is this just a dumb idea? I mean picking winners and crazy ideas is so hard why not ignore it ?

</comment><comment><USER19> Maybe if they'd taken just one of those deals, it would have been worth more than their entire portfolio.

</comment><comment><USER20> Nicely honest of them. A lot of people would not want their missed deals made public, much less put it on their website.

</comment><comment><USER21> Where's the google story? Originally they pitched it in terms of a digital library ...

</comment><comment><USER22> hilarious. "To get even... Oh, to heck with it, getting even isn't working."</comment>


We just released Setupkit V1.4 - <AUTHOR> We optimized the entire system to run smoothly. Also, we added an introduction tour for initiators of workspaces, 12 more additional pages and a fresh blog page.
Now it's very simple to register and to get started.
Check Setupkit V1.4: https://setupkit.com/product
Check out our new blog page: https://setupkit.com/blog <comment><USER2> This is not an "Ask HN" post.

You're in the wrong category.</comment>


Is Amazon Entering the Display Ad Business? - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2011/04/08/is-amazon-entering-the-display-ad-business/ <comment><USER2> AMZN: Buy (185.06 +0.15 (0.08%) Apr 8 12:59pm ET)</comment>


The Economy: Why It's Worse Than You Think - <AUTHOR> http://www.newsweek.com/id/140553/page/1 <comment><USER2> I'd like to think of this as a chance to rebuild some of that industry that we've so happily shipped overseas over the past three our four decades. Competition will force American businesses to either innovate or die, and I'd like to think that there's some hope that we'll choose the former option.

<comment><USER3> Perhaps we'll also roll up our sleeves and _make_ some stuff again, instead of being the worlds "office space" and letting the rest of the world do the building for us.

Americans were always so very good at making stuff. Rockets, cars, computers, _fun_ stuff. Seems all we make these days is weapons, fast food, and the same movie over and over.

<comment><USER2> That's what I was thinking. I have a feeling that Ford and GM will need to crumble like British Leyland did, in order for us to start building real cars over here again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> We are witnessing the end of the golden age of America being the extreme powerhouse.

I guess it had to happen. Maybe things will be better for us in the end. We really don't need a four-car garages and 80 hour workweeks.

(And nearly zero investment into serious alternatives to oil-based energy certainly didn't help this whole situation.)

</comment><comment><USER5> The economy is going to get very bad and it won't even get turned around for a couple more years.

As Buffet, the rich one, said "The recession will be far worse than eveyone expects".

Thank everyone that you know that took out one of those Liar Loans to help cause this mess!

<comment><USER6> Well, there were banks which developed, offered, and sold the financial products you now call "Liar Loans". And those banks did so in plain sight of governmental institutions supposed to do checks and balances. The whole system obviously didn't work as intended, so I doubt that blaming the customers will help much in learning from the mistakes that were made.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think the most convincing evidence I've seen to date that says we're in a real recession (probably too early to start using the "d" word but that may be coming sooner than we all think) is that the border patrol apparently apprehended some illegals a few weeks ago as they tried to sneak back into Mexico.</comment>