40+ voice searches thrown at Google on Jelly Bean - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/100130762972482716067/posts/BN5qjTEN62r

<comment><USER2> (disclaimer: this is based on demonstrations I have seen - I don't have access to JB and thus I can only speak of Siri):

In many of these demonstrations I noticed one thing that was bugging me: Even though the voice recognition in Android seems really cool (I don't have JB yet), it doesn't give definite audible confirmation of the command in many cases and sometimes it even requires user interaction with the screen.

Now personally, I already believe that speech input is kind of a gimmick in itself (try using english voice recognition with my address book filled with german names...), I believe that to even have a chance to move from gimmick to useful feature, it must work without user interaction on the screen.

"Play <whatever band name>" followed by "beep" and the a button to press on the screen doesn't help me. A useful response to "play <insert band name here>" is "playing <insert band name here>" followed by actually playing it.

Or "call <some name>" - if you just get back "calling" or even just a _beep_ \- how would you know whether the recognition was successful or not and the correct name has been recognized?

Some commands on Android seem to be doing fine (the weather example), but others fail in one way (the play example seems to require user interaction on the screen) or another (the "turn on wifi" command doesn't produce any audible confirmation or error message - just the same beep sound as if it worked).

Siri, while it might not have as good a recognition as the Android solution, is much better in that regards: It always confirms your command. As such Siri seems moderately more useful as an additional input method whereas Android, by forcing you to look at the screen when inputting a voice command, reduces this to a gimmick and nothing else.

<comment><USER3> It appears that for queries that don't have direct "answer" type response and will perform an action it displays a progress bar with the query it understood. Presumably this is so that you can cancel the action if voice recognition was wrong.

It doesn't require any input though - I just tested it. Once the progress bar reaches the end (it seems to take ~7 seconds) it will complete the action.

<comment><USER2> That means that in case it mis-understood you that you have to wait ~7 seconds before you notice that it was wrong.

If it immediately confirmed like Siri, you would know right then and could re- issue the command.

<comment><USER4> Are you trolling? I understand you said in your parent that you don't have JB and are strictly going by the video and demo.. but how could you miss this? It's in the first minute.. multiple times.

You do not have to "wait ~7 seconds before you notice that it was wrong" so you can "re-issue the change". The result is displayed immediately. You can cancel the auto-action (which you first said didn't even exist), or force it through before the ~5 seconds (not ~7) elapses.

Go re-watch the entire video in the foreground, please.

<comment><USER5> I think pilif meant that you'd have to wait for the progress bar (about seven seconds) to finish before you noticed something was wrong. For example:

      "Call the Drake Hotel in Toronto."
      *bling* "Calling..."
      (wait seven seconds)
      "Hey, this is Drake. What's up?"

Versus what Siri does:

      "Call the Drake Hotel in Toronto."
      *bling* "Calling Drake Smith..."
      "No, wait! Stop!"

Think about using the voice commands when you can't see the device. Like when you're driving or running. It's useful to have the audible feedback in addition to whatever's displayed on the screen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I was impressed that most of these searches already work on regular google search (just tried them). I had no idea the knowledge graph could do those already. This is not only a great demo of android voice search. It's a great demo of google search.

<comment><USER7> However, at least some searches from the video seem a bit cherrypicked.

"How much is Angelina Jolie worth?" is throwing an answer: [https://www.google.com/search?q=how+much+is+angelina+jolie+w...](https://www.google.com/search?q=how+much+is+angelina+jolie+worth%3F) But "How much is Brad Pitt worth?" isn't: [https://www.google.com/search?q=how%20much%20is%20brad%20pit...](https://www.google.com/search?q=how%20much%20is%20brad%20pitt%20worth)?

"Fish species in Lake Tahoe": [https://www.google.com/search?q=fish%20species%20in%20lake%2...](https://www.google.com/search?q=fish%20species%20in%20lake%20tahoe) But "fish species in mississippi river": [https://www.google.com/search?q=fish%20species%20in%20missis...](https://www.google.com/search?q=fish%20species%20in%20mississippi%20river)

Edit: changed ".es" by ".com" in all the links.

<comment><USER8> I had to change ".es" to ".com" in all those links to get anything.

<comment><USER7> Oops, weird. Changed them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Google Now is awesome, but it's way worse at calling my friends than Voice Search was. It's like it doesn't index my address book.

The other day, I told my phone "Call Nico Thornley." Instead, it searched for "call me-so-lonely." Not the first time Google Now has completely botched a friend search either.

<comment><USER10> Voice search seemed to quit indexing contacts with the 2.1 upgrade. Which is too bad, since putting addresses in my contacts made it remarkably efficient for driving to a friend's house on a lark.

<comment><USER11> This is what pisses me off. We clearly have the capability for really obvious stuff like this to just work ("navigate to wendy's house"), yet it still often doesn't.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think these are great times to be a gadget consumer. Apple made the Siri interface 'mainstream', and Google is great at throwing brainpower at their own version of the interface. (I hope I'm not mistaken that Apple integrated the 'vertical list' interface first.) The fact that JB's dictation works offline whereas Siri needs a connection is the icing on the cake.

Same for the race to having better maps or the better browser.

<comment><USER13> What's the "vertical list" interface? Android had lists of results on voice search for while.

Is this what you mean? <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0L_IhqGcRM8#t=8m36s>

Here's the navigate by voice from nearly 4 years ago <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLXZ5BHeDFg>

Here's the original voice actions video by Google from 2 years ago <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGbYVvU0Z5>

Siri was introed 1 year ago?

I agree though, it's a great time to be a gadget consumer. I love Siri's conversational style. It actually doesn't seem too far off before I can actually start having a conversation with a computer though something like Siri which is both awesome and terrifying at the same time.

<comment><USER12> I meant that the interaction with Siri looks basically like a chatlog (conversational).

Here's what I misunderstood - I thought Jelly Bean was the same, but he would always just tap away the last item in the video so we don't see it. Maybe there is no scrollable backlog in Jelly Bean.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Anyone have a hypothesis on how Google's offline line voice recognition works? it definitely seems like they have moved more voice recognition work onto the client even in the online mode. My understanding of Google's approach to voice recognition was that it was big data dependent. This would make it hard to move to client devices....

</comment><comment><USER15> There is also this test of 1600 queries: [http://gizmodo.com/5922332/google- search-beats-the-crap-out-...](http://gizmodo.com/5922332/google-search-beats- the-crap-out-of-siri-in-1600-question-test) Final results is 86% to 68% for Google.

</comment><comment><USER16> Looks good - 1 hiccup: the calculations aren't rounded correctly. (time: 4.10)

Rounded to 2 decimal places: 11.65600 is 11.66 not 11.65 80.4672 is 80.47 not 80.46

Sorry to be pedantic...

<comment><USER17> I don't believe they're rounding at all, rather truncating.

<comment><USER16> Good point - however they should be rounding in this context.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> When I see 40+ voice search's by various accents, including Socttish - THEN I will be amazed.

</comment><comment><USER19> I assume that's over wifi? I'd like to see its performance over 3G.

<comment><USER20> On a related note, does the voice get intrepreted on the device, or on Google servers?

<comment><USER21> As of JB, it can do both. Though I believe the offline mode is only used as a backup if the network's acting up.

<comment><USER22> I wonder whether the offline performance is comparable?

If it was then surely you'd do all the voice parsing locally so I'm guessing that it's not. Unless anyone can think of another reason you'd push it through the servers?

<comment><USER21> Two factors:

\- online should have more training data and can be improved much more easily. Don't see that advantage going away.

\- power efficiency and/or speed. Sending 5s of audio across the net can be less strain on the device (esp. older ones) versus parsing the audio locally.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Well done, unfortunately all devices using this will be sued out of the market by Apple.

</comment><comment><USER24> what happens with jellybean when you make an appointment for a time slot and you already have one at that time slot?

</comment><comment><USER25> 212 is also the area code for Caracas, Venezuela ;)

<comment><USER26> It'll be interesting to see if the response changes based on localization (once this is available in more languages than US English, of course). Having the response to that query change if the locale is es_VE would be pretty slick!

Thinking about this, do systems like Android typically offer localization that specific?

<comment><USER27> Indeed; do questions about the Cardinals give different answers during football season? And if it's the time of year that people are playing both baseball _and_ football, does it distinguish by whether you live in St. Louis or Arizona?

Edit: or Vatican City?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> What's up with it showing directions to Moscone Center and then when he closes it there is something about Wooster College? I don't wanna call fake, but that's definitely strange… Then later on he asks a question about Wooster College

Edit: Also, he says "Where is that museum with Egyptian stuff in San Jose?" and after he closes it, it shows "where is the tallest building in the world"

<comment><USER26> From the link text on the post:

 _Disclaimer: the only edits I made were to cut time between each of my queries, as well as re-order some of the demos from the original order I recorded them in, so they would fit into categories. None of the queries themselves have been edited or cut down, and the sequences are intact. The processing time happened exactly as you see. This demo is made on the early build of Android 4.1 (JRN84D, takju build for Galaxy Nexus I/O edition), on a wifi connection. Consider this beta._

So what you're seeing are places where the queries were reordered.

<comment><USER28> Ah, I did not notice the cuts.</comment></comment></comment>


The Myth of Developer Productivity (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://nortal.com/blog/the-myth-of-developer-productivity/ <comment><AUTHOR> I'm currently struggling with our startup's CTO over this point. He is from BigMediaCorp and wants a way to account for our developer spend. Tracking story points is his method.

Hopefully I can argue the points in this excellent article successfully, before our culture gets too badly off course.</comment>


Why Android houses should give Google the 'fork you' - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/09/13/android_forking/

<comment><USER2> There many things wrong with that article.

First, you gotta wonder at Amazon's PR machine - without even a product demo or announcement, let alone a unit sold, they're already somehow Apple's #1 competitor.

Second, what Amazon has apparently chosen to do (the Nook way) isn't a "fork", but a UI skin like MIUI. The OS would be the same and would be compatible with all Android apps, but the graphics and the homescreen launcher different.

Third, you have to keep in mind the fact that not even Apple has been able to offer a Google-free product - maps, youtube and gmail integration are still a core, most-have part of iOS. An amazon tablet without Gmaps or navigation would be pretty lacking compared to the competition. The barrier to handset makers becoming full-fledged software and services providers is quite immense.

Having said all that, I think there's quite a bit of differentiation they could do without trying to out-compete Google at their core-competency. Android allows innovative new products to be built and handset makers have been slow to take advantage of this. Examples are Motorola's Webtop, Kyocera's dual-screen phone, HTC and Samsung's stylus-optional tablets, nVidia's Tegra Zone, SE's Xperia Play etc. If they focused on executing offerings like these rather than redoing Google's work, they could both differentiate themselves and still take advantage of all the great features that come with a Google- licensed Android.

</comment><comment><USER3> Fragmenting Android even further would only kill their competitvness. None of the developers want to go back to times when you had to build your app for each manufacturer's phones separately.

Forking Android would just push more quality apps back to Apples consistent platform.

</comment><comment><USER4> > _"the billion-dollar question is why mobile handset manufacturers bother to > play ball with Mountain View at all."_

If the smartphone revolution has taught us _anything_ , it should be that you don't just flip a switch and build a competitive smartphone OS. Microsoft and Palm both created very polished, capable, user-friendly and robust operating systems that have gone _nowhere_.

The Android situation isn't all roses for all partners. But there's a considerable amount of work involved in even _attempting_ a fork and a considerable amount of risk.

</comment><comment><USER5> It seems to me as soon as they forked it, Oracle would be suing them. Again, they would still have to pay for it. Maybe if they got together and purchased WebOS, that would be a more viable option. I wonder if Amazon has dealt with Oracle over the their fork of Android?

</comment><comment><USER6> Could the android houses band together and create their own fork with a shared software repository and a shared cloud? That could be a much better tactic than going it alone from a cost perspective.

<comment><USER7> That'd be a sideways move. The handset manufacturers are looking for a way to stand out. They need something that you can't get elsewhere. The problem is, none of them are really sure of what that "something" is. Simply moving to a non-Google version of Android doesn't differentiate anyone, it just creates a level paying field where handsets continue to become commoditized.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Or they could forget doing their own fork and snag cyanogenmod or one of the many great custom roms that build on the open source core.

Oh wait, Samsung already hired Cyanogen...

</comment><comment><USER9> How about phone manufacturers do both and see which sells the most phones (like they normally do).</comment>


Making tech for local biz's to sell gift cards during Covid, need full stack dev - <AUTHOR> We're building coronacarecard.com, which will allow any local business affected by the coronavirus to accept gift cards and tips from loyal customers during the COVID-19 shut-down.
We have a bunch of resources behind us including some back end devs, designers, AWS credits, a bit of grant funding etc. We're in need of one or two full stack engineers to help build out the MVP so we can ship and start supporting small businesses ASAP. Please be in touch if this is a project you'd be interested in helping out with.
email@example.com
Thanks! Mike <comment><USER2> Hi Mike,

I'm based in London. I'd love to help out. I had a similar idea I was mocking up yesterday when my sister pointed me to your post. I'd be optimistic alongside KPierce that there should be existing solutions that can be leveraged to get something out faster. I'll shoot you an email.

</comment><comment><USER3> There are solutions out there already. It will take a lot of time to get POS integration and work ou the bugs. I wouldn't reinvent the wheel.

<comment><AUTHOR> can you point me to what you think the best existing solution is? fwiw many local businesses do not have a modern POS, so we need to build something that doesn't rely on integrations.

<comment><USER3> I googled searched 'egift card for small business owners'. [https://giftcardsuite.com/blog/gift-card-suite- faq](https://giftcardsuite.com/blog/gift-card-suite-faq)

Not to sound inconsiderate, but I would suggest writing a blog doing research for people instead of making a tech solution. MVP can use existing tools. You will find that a lot of these small businesses have Square or Toast at their stores. Those are going to use a different service than the one I mentioned above. Its always tempting to build but it could take weeks before you can provide these small businesses with a tech solution and there might not be in the infrastructure to help them use the gift cards.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is going to be great</comment>


Creating a toilet bowl coating so slippery that 'human waste can't stick to it' - <AUTHOR> https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-wednesday-edition-1.5366329/engineers-create-a-toilet-bowl-coating-so-slippery-that-human-waste-can-t-stick-to-it-1.5366333 <comment><USER2> Talk about synchronicity. I was thinking only about a week ago about this very same problem.

My solution was much the same also. My solution was to temporarily drain the water, polish the porcelain with one of the those silicone furniture polishes leaving it smooth and slippery, and then refilling the bowl.

'Never anything new under the sun.'</comment>


Microsoft's Plan to Save Windows Mobile - <AUTHOR> http://windowsitpro.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=103415

<comment><USER2> They need to make this work, otherwise they'll never be able to catch up to the Android's, iPhone's and Maemo's of the smartphone world, let alone trying to persuade "smartbook" manufacturers to use WinMo7+ instead of some Linux variant...

I actually think it'll just be a long, uphill battle.</comment>


George W. Bush: The role-playing game - <AUTHOR> http://www.penny-arcade.com/report/article/george-bush-the-role-playing-game

<comment><USER2> I think the perspective is interesting but I'm not sure this is the best way to review complex decisions. It often times isn't so much a single decision but rather a chain of them that are taken after a major decision has been made that affects the outcome. I know that they want to brand Bush as a decisive leader but simply reducing the outcome in Iraq to the decision to invade or not is a little ridiculous. The criticism is both how the administration handled the entire planning and execution of the war and occupation combined with the decision to invade. Simply saying that decisions are tough without acknowledging the context they are made in is not only a short sighted but it isn't a great way to instill leaders who are ready to take responsibility.

</comment><comment> sjm-lbm Political comments aside, SMU offers a master's degree in game design[1], and actually advertises that program a fair amount. I actually think it's kind of neat to integrate a presidential library with other programs/departments in the university (assuming, of course, the game was actually created at SMU and not just outsourced, which is entirely possible).

[1] <http://www.smu.edu/guildhall>

</comment><comment><USER3> This kinda thing already happens at the Ronald Regan foundation's "Air Force One Discovery Center," where a similar video-advisors-choose-your-own- adventure system is used. The Jan. 14 2011 "Kid Politics" episode of this American Life features a school group visit there.

\- [http://www.reaganfoundation.org/education-class-visit- discov...](http://www.reaganfoundation.org/education-class-visit-discovery- center.aspx)

\- [http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio- archives/episode/424/t...](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio- archives/episode/424/transcript)

</comment><comment><USER4> Is this the museum that is opening on "mission accomplished" day? (seriously)

Sounds like it's right up there with the creationst museum for fantasy.

Will it explain why in the living heck we invaded Iraq but North Korea actually had nuclear weapons?

BTW they spent half a billion dollars on this museum. Really. What recession?

</comment><comment><USER5> Love the architecture.

<comment><USER6> Was that sarcasm? I don't see any architecture. Its just a bunch of pillars with a roof.

<comment><USER5> > Its just a bunch of pillars with a roof.

[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/da/The...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/da/The_Parthenon_in_Athens.jpg/800px- The_Parthenon_in_Athens.jpg)

<comment><USER6> I must correct myself. Its just a bunch of rectangular prefab concrete pillars, with a roof.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Why would you name a library after the dumbest president in the US history?</comment>


A compression algorithm designed for code simplicity - <AUTHOR>

https://bitbucket.org/tkatchev/yalz77
Fully standard platform-independent C++, only one C++ header with about 300 lines of code, and yet good enough to be useful for practical work.
Designed for those places where you don't want to integrate large, incomprehensible code bases you don't understand. <comment><USER2> clickable link: [https://bitbucket.org/tkatchev/yalz77](https://bitbucket.org/tkatchev/yalz77)

I find the title a bit confusing. I first thought this would simplify and/or compress code (minify).</comment>


Abusing the CPU's Adder Circuits - <AUTHOR> https://giannitedesco.github.io/2019/06/15/abusing-add.html <comment><USER2> I'll attempt a lay explanation of kernighan's trick without referring to hardware logic.

1\. Say your odometer is showing 146799. The next reading is 146800. If it is 146999, the next reading is 147000. Observe that if you run the odometer in reverse, all trailing 0's get flipped to 9, and the last non-zero digit is decremented. The digits to the left are unaffected. Let's do this in binary.

2\. Take any bitstring x, and focus on the last 1 bit. By definition (of 'last'), the bits following that bit are all zeroes. That is, x is of the of the form

       .....1,  .....10, .....100  etc.

3\. Now run the odometer in reverse. x-1 is of the form

       .....0,  .....01, .....011  etc.

Observe (a) the "...." part remains unchanged. Only the bits following and including the last set 1 are flipped. (b) the position of the last '0' in x-1 is the same position as the last '1' in x.

          x   = 10101100
          x-1 = 10101011

4 Bit-wise & the two. The "..." part remains unchanged, the trailing zeroes of 'x' remain unchanged. Therefore, only the last 1 of x is set to 0

        x&x-1 = 10101000

5\. In a loop, compute x &= x-1. In each iteration, it sets the last bit in x to zero. Count the number of iterations until x == 0.

</comment><comment><USER3> The lack of a popcount instruction in RISC-V has made many of us distrustful of the whole project. But if the Bitmanip extension goes forward, RISC-V could end up as the best-equipped ISA of all for bitwise operations.

<comment><USER4> Intel's PEXT and PDEP instructions are the #1 innovation to bit-manipulations. Its basically bitwise gather / bitwise scatter, some of the most flexible operations I've ever used personally.

Popcount is... ridiculously standard. Even GPUs offer 64-bit popcount. Bit- reversal is surprisingly useful in my experience as well (ARM and GPUs offer single-cycle bit-reversal). So I'm surprised to hear that RISC-V doesn't have popcount standard.

Bit-reversal is great because adder-circuits carry only goes in one direction. So all of the "least-significant set bit" tricks that are done can be inverted into "most-significant set bit" rather easily with just a bit-reversal. x86 is missing out on bit-reverse, while all other platforms (GPUs, ARM, and Power9) seem to have it.

I'm also of the opinion that multiply-xor-bitreversal-multiply is a very powerful hashing tool (multiplication by odd numbers is 1-to-1 bijective, xor is 1-to-1 bijective, bitreversal is 1-to-1-bijective... so a multiply-xor- bitreverse-multiply cycle can transform any number into a singular 'random' number across all 64-bits space). x86-fans don't get bit-reversal, but bswap can be used to largely the same effect for hashing.

<comment><USER5> Popcount is ridiculously standard as many US government computer contracts require chips that support that operation. Also popcount is very useful if you are doing cryptanalysis.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Without having a popcnt instruction it's faster to use a SWAR approach instead of that Kernighan trick.

[http://graphics.stanford.edu/~seander/bithacks.html#CountBit...](http://graphics.stanford.edu/~seander/bithacks.html#CountBitsSetParallel)

<comment><AUTHOR> Author here. Yeah, you can expect some more SIMD and SWAR articles from me in the future I hope. Was trying to keep it short and sweet :)

<comment><USER7> You are obviously already on top of the concept, but in the paper "Faster Population Counts Using AVX2 Instructions" we tried to give a clear explanation (with diagrams) of how it can be faster to roll your own popcnt using Carry-Save-Adders: [https://arxiv.org/abs/1611.07612](https://arxiv.org/abs/1611.07612)</comment></comment></comment>


Tech Giants Vow to Tackle Online Hate Speech Within 24 Hours - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-31/tech-giants-vow-to-tackle-online-hate-speech-within-24-hours <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11806386](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11806386)

</comment><comment><USER3> This is bad.

After all, much of what comes out of Donald Trump's mouth could be called hate speech. Much of right-wing talk radio could be called hate speech. While that's a problem, censorship isn't the answer.

What we need to do about hate speech from the Islamic direction is make Islam look silly. Religion needs to be laughed at and ridiculed. Some religions are very fragile in the face of ridicule.

<comment><USER4> >Religion needs to be laughed at and ridiculed.

One person's laughing and ridicule is another person's blasphemy, defamation, and hate speech. Better hope your appointed bureaucrats in Brussels and your corporate overlords share your sense of humor and don't want to be boycotted today.

<comment><USER3> _One person 's laughing and ridicule is another person's blasphemy, defamation, and hate speech._

Yes. Around 2011, the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation was trying to get the UN to push for worldwide criminalization of "defamation of religion."[1] That didn't happen, but it was a close thing.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation_of_religion_and_the...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation_of_religion_and_the_United_Nations)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hate speech is free speech.

I don't like how the article associates hate speech with the war on terror within one paragraph. Not a good sign for human rights.

<comment><USER6> I think it was on NPR hourly news this morning I heard a segment where the person they interviewed, someone in the EU in Brussels, implicated 'hate- speech' in causing the terrorist attacks in Paris. I'd never heard that line of reasoning and think it sounds pretty dangerous. Came off as sort of victim blaming to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> >Beyond national laws that criminalize hate speech, there is a need to ensure such activity by Internet users is "expeditiously reviewed by online intermediaries and social media platforms, upon receipt of a valid notification, in an appropriate time-frame," the companies and the European Commission said in a joint statement on Tuesday.

Your appointed bureaucrats in Brussels will decide what you can and can't say on the Internet, and if you're lucky, they'll just ban you if you step out of line.

How long until real, honest discourse goes back to Usenet, out of the reach of our corporate overlords?

</comment><comment><USER7> > "... there is a clear distinction between freedom of expression and conduct > that incites violence and hate."

Sometimes speech is clearly hateful or 'civil', but certainly it is well known there is not a clear distinction between those two categories; there is a large, debated grey area.</comment>


Apply HN: Hackinator – Allow hackers to invest in YC startups using code :-) - <AUTHOR> Every startup has very tight resources, and yet they often need to add really bright highly paid individuals to their team. Hackinator will allow brilliant hackers to provide code development (or other similar services) to YC startups in exchange for shares in these companies. Startups would be submitting posts such as: "Develop our Android app for 0.1% shares of our startup". Since the startup has been selected by YC, the hacker will be somewhat confident that the startup has good potential.<p>Note: I am already involved with a startup of my own, but I am gladly offering this idea to anyone interested in pursuing it. <comment><USER2> I would like to see a place where I can micro invest in YC startups. e.g $500 - 10k. If YC takes 7% for 120k. It seems 1k is worth about 0.05%. Its a bet a lot of us are willing to take. e.g I don't mind spending 6k on 6 startups on a year, which are YC vetted and are in the space I think is very lucrative.

Offering dev time is very hard, but as someone who has worked in industry for so long, we can definitely help with guidance and advice.

<comment><USER3> Startups shouldn't be handing out equity like candy. If you are asking for 0.05%, you better have a damn good reason to deserve it, because $1k is definitely not enough. Startups give 7% up to YC for way more than just 120k (network, brand name, etc). In fact if all you want is 120k, there are better ways to raise that money than giving up 7% to YC. So your calculation does not hold up, because the value of you as an investor is not the same as the value of YC as an investor. All cash is _definitely not_ created equal.

<comment><USER4> _If you are asking for 0.05%, you better have a damn good reason to deserve it, because $1k is definitely not enough._

To be clear, that's an easy 2mm valuation. That's also an incredibly tiny slice of the company, and that's also something that will get diluted to shit.

So, let's stop this meme that for an early-stage company that fractions of a point are somehow a big deal. That's how a lot of early employees--who do the _hard_ work--get screwed.

<comment><USER3> The OP is not talking about employee shares. He's talking about advisory shares, and maybe some 1099 work. What does a startup get out of that? Unless you're seriously qualified with relevant knowledge, why would a startup give precious equity to you? Sure it's "only" 0.05%, but it's still one more name on the cap table. And this attitude of "it's only 0.05%" is exactly what leads to the dilution you're talking about.

If a startup is valued at $2mm, they don't need your measly $1k. To make that worthwhile they would need to get $1k investment from dozens of different investors. And at that point they're no longer giving up "only 0.05%." Also, if they need an advisor, they can find one. If they need a contractor, they're not going to pay via shares, because the whole point of issuing options/equity is to align the long term incentives of the startup and the investor/employee. A contractor does not work long term, so there is no need to give away shares.

Also, the suggestion of the OP -- a place for investors to get advisory shares in companies -- already exists. It's called Angellist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Love the idea. Would definitely participate, for the right startup.

However, I think successful projects would feel more like open source projects on Github. "Develop our Android app for 0.1% shares of our startup" sounds more like a non-technical team or something written by a PM.

"Collaborate with our dev team to help us improve the performance of our Android app for 0.05% shares of our startup" sounds more interesting.

</comment><comment><USER6> What do you think about the past startup Assembly? [1] [2]

[1] [https://web.archive.org/web/20140914042728/https://assembly....](https://web.archive.org/web/20140914042728/https://assembly.com/)

[2] [https://vimeo.com/80927859](https://vimeo.com/80927859)

<comment><USER7> I think they failed for a couple of reasons. 1. not enough respect for the marketing side of things. 2. free labor only gets you so far need actual cash to be contributed. 3. equity plan needs laid out early so people don't feel like equity is going to be hoarded. 4. 3. needs to be more like a holacracy and a benefits corporation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This sounds like a pretty bad deal for the developer: Not only a really small percentage, but worth pretty much nothing when and if it is ever vested.

It would be better to just donate to an open source project.

</comment><comment><USER9> There are a few legal hurdles both from SEC and IRS. You will need to figure out way around them.

There are limits on maximum number of stockholders in a private company (IIRC 500+). Once exceeded, private company is expected to do SEC filings similar to public companies. Same issue with a private company accepting small investments from lot of investors (even if investor is accredited). JOBS Act might help here.

Any non-monetary compensation for services will be a taxable event from IRS viewpoint and taxes will need to paid by service provider. As stock value will not be much in very early stage, tax liability might not be significant unless IRS want fair compensation for services as the tax basis (not a tax professional).

<comment><USER7> I think you would need legal contracts and templates. Also, things could be handled possibly by royalty payouts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Interesting concept to help start-ups get essentially free labor but that's also its biggest issue. Shares are good and all but until there is an event in which a share holder can liquidate they're essentially worthless (there are obvious exceptions but only a few). Since a vast majority of start-ups fail this would amount to free labor.

Granted if the problem is interesting enough that could be okay but the percentage is going to need to be _drastically_ higher. Like 50% in my opinion.

> Note: I am already involved with a startup of my own, but I am gladly > offering this idea to anyone interested in pursuing it.

I feel like this isn't really in the spirit of Apply HN

</comment><comment><USER11> This wouldn't work for most startups. Product development in the zero to x stage prior to product market fit has loads of abnormalities that require bigger engagements.

As well handling the cap table these days is still troublesome.

The spirit of YC is embodied by founding teams that can build product and talk to users. This suggestion might not be in line with that spirit by giving away equity for product building without cash.

</comment><comment><USER12> Conceptually, I love this idea. A few questions:

1) How do you ensure that the work is valued fairly and that realistic expectations are set for scope, etc? When working for cash, these questions are resolved by market forces, but getting paid in something that is difficult to value, I'm concerned there's a lot of opportunity for unhappiness.

2) How do you ensure that the value doesn't get wiped out by liquidation preferences, or some future action dis-proportionally dilutes the value of the shares?

<comment><USER7> 1) I would think things could be put up for bid? 2)I think everyone has voting rights(plus legal rights think facebook co-founder). Plus you could have some pretty "contributor" terms drawn up in documents.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Using a lot of time of this concept.

It seems like the biggest hurdles are: 1: How do you messure the Development has value ? 2: Will you trust strangers ?

reg 1: Assembly worked with a Bounty driven system.

reg 2: Looking into Coop Companies it seems to be very common, that people knew each other in the beginning!

I would love to be part of a project doing expiriments with this thinking.

Note: Do you se any reason why salespeole couldn't be a part of this kind of business model

<comment><USER7> I think assembly used colored coins. I imagine some of it could be done managed with ethereum or block chain. Another possibility is an escrow service. As part of the base product.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think other resources need to be able to be offered besides work. Hosting, domain names, marketing. Marketing specially. Look at Uber over the life of a customer they probably make hundreds of dollars or more. They offer you $5.

<comment><USER7> I, also, think to solve a lot of it is supply and demand and dilution. put tasks up for bid.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> An enterprising guy named Ali Hamed is pursuing this model with coventure in NYC!</comment>


Turned Down for a Job at Groupon Over a Year After Applying - <AUTHOR> http://bennesvig.com/post/8715782820/groupon

<comment><USER2> I had the opposite awkwardness: I was "hired" at a company 8 months after I interviewed.

Needless to say I instantly "quit." Somehow they didn't see a problem with waiting that long, which further informed my aversion to working there. :)

<comment><USER3> I know someone who went through 9 months and 7 interviews (including flights to Chicago and other regional offices) with Cisco for a director-level position, and finally got turned down.

Some companies are simply amazing at how inefficient their HR is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Bluntly put, decent behavior is to have a 1-3 day turnaround on this sort of thing.

I sort of have a 2 week rule: if you can't send some sort of ACK in two weeks to me, your processes are sufficiently lousy that you've downgraded your desirability in my eyes; further, based on my experience, you're probably not going to respond after 2 weeks if you haven't, anyway.

At my current company, I think I completed the entire hiring round from my initial inquiry to hire in under 1 week. IMO, that's how it should be done!

A response with a 1 year lag is asking to be mocked on the Internet.

<comment><USER5> What about a place like Google? Would you make an exception for them? The most desirable employers are generally so overwhelmed with resumes they just can't do prompt follow ups.

<comment><USER6> There really shouldn't be exceptions regarding respectful behavior and courtesy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Look at the email headers. Maybe it was stuck in an smtp queue? (You laugh but I've seen mail recently delayed by 6 months. It still happens.) :)

</comment><comment><USER8> I absolutely HATE when companies don't reply to applications. I don't understand how or why they take so long, especially when the entire system has become streamlined with things like Jobvite.

A hasty rejection or progression is much appreciated. Mutual respect; showing a little bit goes a long way. Maybe its just me, but I guess I have a bit of an ego and a chip on my shoulder when companies (which I spend time researching and applying to) totally brush me off or don't reply after initial emails.

<comment><USER9> Companies may have to talk to five other people before they can decide whether to progress or reject your application. Those five discussions might take time to arrange and complete. Companies may have liked you enough to consider you for the position but if you're third in line, you need to wait for the first and second people to reject or accept the position, which may take a few days each time. Or a great application may come in half way through the process.

I agree with you that companies should keep you updated, but sometimes these things take time.

<comment><USER10> Recruiter here. I get back to everyone that applies, or at least try to. Current recruiting software doesn't have a good solution for dealing with all the different use cases that delay the hiring process. Combine that with high volumes of job applications and it becomes a real pain.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "If you can't respond in a reasonable time, then don't respond at all."

I disagree with that. It was their fault for not notifying you earlier, but I don't see how it is better to say nothing.

When I see that I did something wrong in the past, I try to apologize, even though the situation is far in the past (and even though it's sometimes hard and/or embarrassing).

<comment><USER12> Yeah... You're not talking about a form letter, though. I think the real point is that if they don't get back to you for a year, they should at least have someone write "Hey, sorry about that" by hand.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Look at it from a different perspective. Is Groupon now going back to old applicants because they're having trouble recruiting new talent? Groupon hasn't exactly been a cinderella in the news lately with their phony accounting metrics and questionable concerns about the viability of their business. Perhaps they have outgrown their employment base. Hard to imagine considering above 9% unemployment but just a thought.

<comment><USER14> I have to think it can't be that bad a place to work; they at least have a good sense of humor. April Fools' before last they did this awesome parody of Gilt: <http://www.groupoupon.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> HR was using an automated system that sent boilerplate e-mails. Nothing to see here, move along...

<comment><USER16> Yeah, that's the standard JobVite rejection message. I've usually gotten them within a week or two of an interview, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> When I achieve world domination, failure to follow up with candidates in a reasonable time will be punishable by summary execution.

I find it hard to put into words how infuriating this behavior is.

</comment><comment><USER18> My hate is reserved for excited HR types who volunteer a deadline for a reply and then not only don't keep it, never respond. Compounded if one of their colleagues (i.e., another on-staff recruiter at the same company) writes a month or two later to ask if you're interested in the same job.

<comment><USER19> I've had people tell me they do that because they 'want you to ask for the job.' ... Seriously? Coming to the interview, doing well, and showing interest wasn't enough? I now have to also expect you not to keep your word?

Forget that. If someone says they'll do something and then doesn't, that's a direct mark against their trustworthyness. Why would I want to work there?

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I have had a similar experience when applying for a graduate job in a satellite comms. company in London. I got a call literally eight months later, thanking me for my application and that its being considered. They claimed I would have an answer within the next month. They never called me back and I found a much better job in the mean time; out of courtesy gave them a ring to let them know I am not interested in the position (this is t+1 year since applying) - they told me a decision had not been met yet and were even 'angry' on me leading them on and not cancelling the application earlier.

</comment><comment><USER21> Similar experience with a certain agency - got a rejection letter months after I applied (because I didn't bother taking their coding test - which was a flash based test when I was applying for a non-flash position), followed by an email asking me for my updated resume not even a week later - both from the same HR person.

</comment><comment><USER22> My own experiences have shown me that the bigger the company, the more convoluted and delayed the hiring process. I've had the resume-interview-hire cycle happen the span of a few days at smaller firms. More recently, a larger company called me to offer me a position some three months after my interview, and the position offered wasn't even what I had interviewed for.

<comment><USER23> The only reasonable way to get hired by a big company is to have someone on the inside who can short circuit the process on your behalf. Last time I worked for a big company, the only person I dealt with was my future boss and he managed to circumvent the standard HR process and sneak me in through the back door.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Okay, I learned in an HR course that the HR job is composed of mainly 2 parts

(1) Quantitative, which includes stuff like payroll management, leave management, hiring (paper work part of it) and firing, etc ...

(2) Qualitative, which focus on 2 things, recruitment and motivation

It becomes obvious to me day after day that HR rarely does (2) correctly if at all

<comment><USER25> Of course an HR course would tell you that. In reality, HR is concerned with 2 things:

* Keeping the company from getting sued

* Everything else you said

The first bullet is about about 80% of their time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Probably has everything to do with their recent acquisition of their primary development contracter.

</comment><comment><USER27> Super quick rejections is all that great either as it would show that they didn't really take a close look at your blog, cv, cover letter, etc.

</comment><comment><USER28> Did you go in to interview or are you expecting a reply when you email email@example.com?

</comment><comment><USER29> I just got one from Facebook today. Must be at least 6 months old.

</comment><comment><USER30> I think he got his math wrong. Maybe he want 5/26/10?

<comment><USER31> He corrected his typo.</comment></comment>


Dropbox adds three-device limit for free users - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/14/18265574/dropbox-3-device-limit-free-accounts-plus-professional <comment><USER2> Back in time when I used Dropbox actively (~2014), I had one account for each computer. Reason was just seperation of concerns; I simply had a shared folder for all accounts. Today this seems a practical way to circumvent this new #no of device limit.</comment>


First online music player for iPhone with tons of music - <AUTHOR> http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/onlineplayer/id456614633

<comment><USER2> Um, the reviews say it doesn't play music.</comment>


Alphabet Loses $859M on 'Moonshots' in 2Q 2016 - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2016/07/28/business/ap-us-alphabet-moonshots.html <comment><USER2> I don't think it's right to equate R&D spending with "losses". Google makes a profit, not a loss, so technically it does not have losses. It has expenses, and among those, investments in future technology.

If all Google could do with their cash flow was pay a dividend, that would be very sad, and it would call for a much lower P/E ratio. This article completely misstates the facts.

Perhaps the way they break out their financial statements is confusing to someone without an accounting degree. Just because "Other Bets" is negative, a growing negative number in this case is a good thing. This is showing Google has more free cash to invest in growth and has good ideas they believe in and want to pursue. I would be worried if instead they were stockpiling cash. You would then have to ask, why can't they put it to work effectively?

Of course, everything they do that is making money is no longer an "Other Bet" by definition.

<comment><USER3> Playing devil's advocate here (a little) but imagine they took a few dozen million of that and, say, improved their development tool chains for Android (which are disappointingly flaky). Or another few dozen millions and extended the security updates for Nexus phones by a couple of years. That could grow their market share of both developer mind-share and consumers.

Moonshots maybe should come once you've mastered all your core products?

<comment><USER4> > Moonshots maybe should come once you've mastered all your core products?

Then they'll never come.

<comment><USER3> They mastered search. They mastered mapping.

<comment><USER5> Search has stagnated. Google has gotten scarily good at anticipating what I want to know, but conspicuously bad at answering hard questions. There's tons of room for improvement.

Similarly, Google Maps has added features that make it a better map, and it's a great place to find what time a store closes and what their phone number is. But it's been essentially the same service, with iterative improvements, for years. There's a world of possible uses for that data beyond what we imagine when we think of a map.

<comment><USER6> I suspect Google Search has not actually had quality regressions, but rather that your expectations have gone up over time without you realising it.

<comment><USER5> Yes, I might have phrased that poorly. Google Search still finds relevant web pages just as well as it did 5 years ago, perhaps better. It _certainly_ has leveraged the data it collects on me to suggest search terms in a way that's almost eerie.

But it's still a tool to find relevant pages, not a tool to find answers. It's made some progress with the semantic web and knowledge graph, but that still provides basic facts about people, places, and things. At its core, it's still a portal. It's still just a much better version of Excite. Search today feels like it did in 1997: a "solved problem" ripe for disruption. Google has the talent, technology, and data to produce something an order of magnitude better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Google's S-1 April 24, 2004 [https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1288776/000119312504...](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1288776/000119312504073639/ds1.htm):

RISK VS REWARD IN THE LONG RUN

Our business environment changes rapidly and needs long term investment. We will not hesitate to place major bets on promising new opportunities.

We will not shy away from high-risk, high-reward projects because of short term earnings pressure. Some of our past bets have gone extraordinarily well, and others have not. Because we recognize the pursuit of such projects as the key to our long term success, we will continue to seek them out. For example, we would fund projects that have a 10% chance of earning a billion dollars over the long term. Do not be surprised if we place smaller bets in areas that seem very speculative or even strange. As the ratio of reward to risk increases, we will accept projects further outside our normal areas, especially when the initial investment is small.

We encourage our employees, in addition to their regular projects, to spend 20% of their time working on what they think will most benefit Google. This empowers them to be more creative and innovative. Many of our significant advances have happened in this manner. For example, AdSense for content and Google News were both prototyped in "20% time." Most risky projects fizzle, often teaching us something. Others succeed and become attractive businesses.

We may have quarter-to-quarter volatility as we realize losses on some new projects and gains on others. If we accept this, we can all maximize value in the long term. Even though we are excited about risky projects, we expect to devote the vast majority of our resources to our main businesses, especially since most people naturally gravitate toward incremental improvements.

</comment><comment><USER8> I don't see anything wrong with this approach, especially since the company can actually sustainably afford to keep placing these bets.

And perhaps "bet" is the wrong word being used here. Usually with a bet in gambling terms, you either win big or you lose it all.

When Alphabet tries a "moonshot", they come away learning a lot about whatever problem it is that they were trying to tackle. They build expertise in-house, and they flex the idea muscle within the company. That isn't zero-value activity. In fact it's _very_ valuable.

$1B a year is a small price to pay for what could eventually spurn a sustainable $10B per year or $40B per year business in the future (self- driving cars, for example).

Now this is just me being optimistic. It could also very well be the case that the X division is horribly mismanaged and the moonshots fail for more nefarious reasons, but I'm willing to give Google the benefit of the doubt.

<comment><USER9> In addition, it's not like these bets have been pronounced dead. They're all still in play. It will be years before we know whether any were successful or not.

This is like someone betting $1000 on a game, and then calling it a $1000 loss up until the game is actually played (at which point it becomes indeed a true $1000 loss, or possibly a gain). It doesn't make any sense.

<comment><USER10> You could argue that Google Glass is dead.

<comment><USER11> Though to be honest, it was never intended as a consumer product. (But their marketing was conflicted.)

Wave is probably an even bigger disappointment: it would have done great as an enterprise product.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This article makes it sound like Google frittered away $1b on the "X" lab last quarter.

X lab includes self driving car, Goog Glass, Project Tango (editorializing here but Tango is badass!), more crazier bets (1)

Ok, some crazy stuff there - pretty pretty risky.

Wow $1b last quarter for that stuff.

Geez corporate responsibility grumble grumble, stupid silicon valley assholes snark snark.

But wait, spend 30 seconds doing research and in reality the $859m headline is actually referring to Alphabet's line item "Other Bets"

"Other Bets" includes Nest, Google Fiber, Google Ventures, and Verily among others(2)

Nest = iot + Tony Fadell (pre fallout) looked like a damn good way to beat Apple to a new important consumer market. Still holding out hope.

Google Fiber = fast speed is fundamental to Google's biz, heck they could probably look at this as CapEx. Please come to my 'hood!

Google Ventures = bought $258m of Uber stock @ $3.6b valuation. What's that a 20x so far? Pays for entire fund's lifetime by several multiples? Lots of other follow-rounds that make sense (3)

Verily = profitable healthcare division. (4)

So come on NYT spend 5 mins getting the story straight instead of writing a lazy click bait headline.

(1) [https://www.solveforx.com/](https://www.solveforx.com/)

(2) [https://www.engadget.com/2016/02/01/google- alphabet-q4-2015-...](https://www.engadget.com/2016/02/01/google- alphabet-q4-2015-earnings/)

(3) [https://techcrunch.com/2013/08/22/google-ventures- puts-258m-...](https://techcrunch.com/2013/08/22/google-ventures- puts-258m-into-uber-its-largest-deal-ever/)

(4) [http://www.recode.net/2016/4/13/11586102/verily-alphabet- pro...](http://www.recode.net/2016/4/13/11586102/verily-alphabet-profitable)

<comment><USER13> > "Other Bets" includes Nest, Google Fiber, Google Ventures, and Verily among > others(2)

The fact that most of those things aren't huge money losers undercuts your argument though. Nest is making money. Google Ventures is $300 million a year, Fiber invested $100 million in KC in 2013, meanwhile this segment was $3.6 billion in the red last year.

<comment><USER14> Yes, but they could* be taking write-downs on their investments in e.g. Nest.

*I haven't looked at their financial statements.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> There was an HN discussion earlier this week on Google X[0]. One important point made there, by snarf:

> Google X is mainly about the PR value around its image and > recruiting/locking up talent. Google would rather have smart people locked > up inside the company working on projects with a high probability of going > nowhere rather than having them going to a competitor, or worse, creating > the next major competitor.

0: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12150812](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12150812)

<comment><USER16> That entire thread is filled with snark/speculation and lacks any actual facts.

Is it that inconceivable that Google believes that one or more of these moonshots might actually take off?

<comment><USER17> Well I'm sure the people working on it think one might take off. But if you're taking the pessimistic view it doesn't matter if they never succeed as long as the smart people are kept busy working for them.

<comment><USER18> It's a clever argument that might convince certain purse-holders, who are optimistic or pessimistic about the success, that it's in the company's best interest either way. I don't think Google's under full control of the sociopaths yet that this sort of "locked up" argument is needed, or is felt internally by very many upper level managers. It's also just not a great strategy if you're worried about potential future competitors given that employees are free citizens, not slaves, and California has no non-compete laws. Industry (let alone tech industry, let alone Californian tech industry) is littered with successful offshoots started by individuals and teams who used to work together at one company, and quit or were fired en masse to start working on something else in the same domain, taking their experience with them and owing their former company nothing. Facebook's strategy of "buy any threat" is a lot more sound, even if it too is vulnerable when the threat refuses to be bought.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Subtly dishonest journalism in my opinion.

This article could just as easily be titled "Alphabet invests $859M on long- term projects".

In fact, that would be a more accurate title since that is precisely Google's intent.

<comment><USER20> There's nothing dishonest about it. It's a loss because these are explicit investments which haven't produced any earnings. When they produce any sort of revenue then their financial statements (and media reports of the financial statements) will say "Other bets showed an operating profit of $Xm". It's just a media report on a fact.

<comment><USER19> There's some intentional provocation going on with the title. Sure, it's _factually correct_ , but choice of words really pulls the truth one way or another.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > The cost for the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs was more than $25 > billion at the time more like $110 billion in today's world.[1]

Moonshots are expensive. Doesn't mean they aren't worth it.

[1]: [http://news.utexas.edu/2014/07/21/anniversary-shows-us- that-...](http://news.utexas.edu/2014/07/21/anniversary-shows-us-that-nasa- and-space-exploration-are-worth-their-costs)

<comment><USER22> Author of that article is like an apologist for excessive government spending. To me, if government did not spend that amount of money on space exploration, probably private sector would have achieved even better things faster with lower cost.

Besides, about the author : "..Wallace Fowler is the director of the Texas Space Grant Consortium.".

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is simply how moonshots work. You lose $50m 99 times in a row, then make $50b on the 100th time. (This is also very similar to how venture capital economics work.)

I think it's wonderful that Google pursues moonshots and that they have the cash flow to keep Wall Street investors from freaking out. I'm confident that one (or more) of their experiments will eventually make a huge impact on people around the world.

</comment><comment><USER24> "NASA loses $25.4B on 'Moonshots'" \- New York Times headline from July 29 1973

</comment><comment><USER25> > The money that Google spent on areas that have little to do with internet > search and advertising used to frustrate investors who wanted to see bigger > profits.

"Dear Hen, the process of laying eggs is too expensive and should be eliminated. Furthermore, we're expecting a 5% increase in golden eggs by the end of the year."

</comment><comment><USER26> Wall Street is short sighted and regularly see things by the quarter. Its long term outlook tends to be a year give or take. Alphabet needs more forward thinking investors who can see a payout that may not happen for a decade or more. While it has cool projects, the problem with X is that it doesn't seem to have a clear mission / message like SpaceX and Tesla where you are investing for more than just a profit. I could be wrong but they have a marketing / PR problem (in addition their other pre-exisiting ones).

<comment><USER17> Stock is up 4% after hours. I'm not sure which "wall street" strawman you are attacking, but it doesn't appear to be the one that actually trades stock.

<comment><USER26> ok, my criticism is directed towards Wall St analysts. I could be wrong but it feels like the vast majority of them see X as a money pit that's hampering Alphabet as whole. I've been hearing this for about a year now. If ad revenue wasn't up, the chorus would be louder.

<comment><USER27> I also don't know if that's entirely true either. After the earnings came out, it looks like quite a few Wall St analysts changed their recommendation to outperform, with a target price of 900+, and in general, it seems like many analysts all have pretty high target prices assigned to Alphabet.

<comment><USER26> Just because they like Alphabet as a whole doesn't mean that they like X. Am I wrong?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Google seems to be actively attempting to avoid the trap that Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, etc have fallen into. When you completely dominate a market, it can be tempting to optimize and be the best at serving that market. But the nature of tech is such that markets have a short lifespan. New innovations are constantly overturning old monopolies--just ask Microsoft. By investing heavily in high-risk, high-reward prospects, Google is insulating itself against future disruption.

If the display ad market collapsed 5 years from now, Google's investment in AI, self-driving cars, AR, robotics, etc. might be the difference between continued dominance and irrelevance. Tech companies rest on their laurels at their own peril.

</comment><comment><USER28> Interesting take on it, I would probably write the headline "Alphabet spends nearly $1B trying to find new businesses". Using the New York times logic nearly $15.3B was lost last quarter by startups[1] :-) But setting aside that Google's spending as much as 6% of the existing startup ecosystem, they are still not spending a material amount of their free cash flow of nearly $7B last quarter.

And I wonder Why not?

[1] [http://nvca.org/pressreleases/15-3-billion-venture- capital-d...](http://nvca.org/pressreleases/15-3-billion-venture-capital- deployed-startup-ecosystem-second-quarter-according-moneytree-report/)

</comment><comment><USER29> "Moonshot" is the Google term for R&D.

Google's R&D budget in 2014 wasn't even in the top 5: [http://www.neowin.net/images/uploaded/2014/12/screen_shot_20...](http://www.neowin.net/images/uploaded/2014/12/screen_shot_2014-12-03_at_9.28.59_pm_story.jpg)

Problem for Google might be that Wall Street may look at a word like "moonshot" and basically associate it with wasting money whereas if you call the same things R&D, it's something companies have been showing as an "investment"(not loss) for decades.

<comment><USER30> I don't think this is true for Google. The "Moonshots" mentioned here are pretty far from Google. It is in some sense R&D of course, but it is not R&D that will benefit Google as a company.

<comment><USER29> How do you reach the conclusion that it is not R&D that will benefit Alphabet? They make it pretty clear it is a high risk high reward R&D, meaning if they hit pay dirt, it can be massively profitable for Alphabet.

<comment><USER21> Notice that GP said Google while you said Alphabet.

If they pay off, it benefits Alphabet. Maybe Google (the search engine monetized through advertising) but possibly not.

<comment><USER29> I assumed GP meant Alphabet since public entity is Alphabet, not Google.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I am encouraged by this advertising companies attempts at designing cars.

The moonshot program seems to me to be either Google cementing it's position forever in the knowledge economy or a desperate scrabble for another hit.

If the latter is true, then I have hope for the future. It means that the giants - Google (+ Youtube), Amazon, Facebook - can fall. They are not on as strong a footing as it seems.

All it takes is...

\- One generation of kids to decide to eschew Facebook (or any product it buys)

\- Ad revenue declining or another viable internet business model to rise up and replace it

\- More efficient / free marketplaces

<comment><USER32> How is Amazon being mentioned in the same line as Google and Facebook? They don't rely as much on the ad revenue as the other two.

<comment><USER31> Each line of those bulletpoints was for a different company facebook, google then amazon

</comment></comment></comment><comment> eric-hu This article highlights the myopia of public investment. Other comments have mentioned the self driving car. That's a work still in progress, and likely has been a net loss quarter over quarter.

Highlighting the research arm's quarterly losses is like setting an FM radio to 10 Mhz* and then declaring there's nothing on air.

* FM Radio bands start around 80 Mhz in the modern world.

</comment><comment><USER33> All of humanity is going to benefit from these moonshots.

Sometimes, the original intent of a research program doesn't come to fruition, but there are a lot of downstream benefits and innovations that can be traced to the so-called "failed" research program. I believe that's exactly what's going to happen with some of these so-called "failures."

Even today, what Elon Musk has already done, is considered impossible for his companies to have done. (The car, and the backwards landing rocket.)

Here's to more moonshots from Google and Facebook! Salute!

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-

And here's Nassim Taleb on "inverse Turkeys" (i.e., positive Black Swans), from AntiFragile:

> Harvard Business School professor, Gary Pisano, writing about the potential > of biotech, made the elementary inverse-turkey mistake, not realizing that > in a business with limited losses and unlimited potential (the exact > opposite of banking), what you don't see can be both significant and hidden > from the past. He writes: "Despite the commercial success of several > companies and the stunning growth in revenues for the industry as a whole, > most biotechnology firms earn no profit." This may be correct, but the > inference from it is wrong, possibly backward, on two counts, and it helps > to repeat the logic owing to the gravity of the consequences. First, "most > companies" in Extremistan make no profit—the rare event dominates, and a > small number of companies generate all the shekels. And whatever point he > may have, in the presence of the kind of asymmetry and optionality we see in > Figure 7, it is inconclusive, so it is better to write about another > subject, something less harmful that may interest Harvard students, like how > to make a convincing PowerPoint presentation or the difference in managerial > cultures between the Japanese and the French. Again, he may be right about > the pitiful potential of biotech investments, but not on the basis of the > data he showed.

<comment><USER34> The thing is, the car and reusable rocket stages exist and are far more difficult to pull off than creating and running an ad-network.

I am not saying ad-networks aren't complicated and involved and require highly intelligent people, but I don't believe them to be comparable to what Musk is delivering.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> For the project for real, actual moonshots, we knew in quite good terms right at the beginning that the project was doable. Same for the Manhattan project. Same for GPS. Same for the SR-71.

So, right, there is a methodology. Get very far from that methodology and tend to get failed projects.

Sure, on some par 3 hole, there are a lot of hole in one shots, and only a small fraction are made by expert golfers with the rest from luck. Still, if picking someone to make a hole in one, pick an expert!

Sure, with luck, might get another successful mobile, social, local, sharing app, but luck is not very reliable!

</comment><comment><USER36> It's R&D expense. Nothing new here.

It only takes one of these moon shots to be successful to bring in extraordinary revenues, and Google has always been crystal clear that following such path was in their DNA.

<comment><USER37> I don't see it that way exactly. R&D is an investment. Hell, I'd consider calling it a pure capital investment, if not simply enhancing goodwill. If even one of those moonshots become successful those "sunk costs" will likely start streaming back.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I fear if such a view is prevalent, eventually focus might shift from 'solving problems that matter on scale' to 'how much money can I make out of this'. Hope research and innovation do not succumb to desire/pressure to grow revenue. I don't believe such projects cannot have any (indirect) monetary accountability. However, Investors should have a softer take on the outcome of these projects.

</comment><comment><USER39> Can't help but notice the bias in the title on HN. Sure, the company spent .8 billion on R&D. The revenue went up by 3.5 billion this quarter too, yoy.

</comment><comment><USER40> That is almost 20% investment on R&D - twice as good as other _good_ companies. That is why I would love to work for Google!

</comment><comment><USER41> A lot of times I feel like the instinctive reaction to the word losses is an image of Google stacking up a millions of dollars and burning it. That's not what happened - it went to people who used it to build things that would not have been built otherwise, in the hope that some of them might shape the future. Not really a loss to humanity.

</comment><comment><USER42> That's an interesting headline from the same company that posted a 21%/28% YoY 21.5B Revenue / 6B profit quarter.

</comment><comment><USER43> The people complaining about this better not be the same Thiel worshippers who constitute most of the Google hate here.

Thiel criticizes Google/Alphabet for hoarding any cash _at all_. A true technology company re-invests all its excess profit.

This "loss" corresponds to less than 7% of Google's gross profits in the same quarter.

<comment><USER44> I can criticise the headline (if that's what you're referring to) while hating on many things that Google do (advertising, crapification of the Web, TPP support, absolutely atrocious user support, a pathetic Android environemnt, from OS to apps to hardware/vendor dynamics.

But idiotic jabs on the fact that long-run investments in R&D haven't paid off immediately are pathetically stupid.

Do I contradict myself? Very well. No I don't!

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I had to look up [1] the etymology of "moonshot" and thought it was interesting.

moon shot, n.2 One might think, "1961, moon shot;" this word relates to the space program as this is the year that President Kennedy set out the great challenge to go to moon by the decade's end, but it doesn't, at least not directly. The space term dates to 1949. This moon shot is baseball jargon for a ball hit to a great height. But it's still 1961, so the baseball usage could be a figurative use of the space term, but the type of hit was made famous by L. A. Dodger Wally Moon. Undoubtedly the coinage is something of a double entendre, combining Moon's name with the astronautic term, but it shows that in etymology the obvious answer isn't always the right one.

[1] [http://www.wordorigins.org/index.php/site/comments/1961_word...](http://www.wordorigins.org/index.php/site/comments/1961_words/)

</comment><comment><USER46> This is why nobody plays the long game, because of crap like this spread around. Articles like this force people to play the 'quarterly' short game and we don't get as much long term research as we need as a species.

</comment><comment><USER47> Google operating costs are more than $5 billion a quarter. $859M is not that big.

</comment><comment><USER48> For that kind of money, you could build a new moon. I don't see anything positive about this kind of loss. If anything, it sounds like questionable accounting to reduce the cost of other profits.

<comment><USER49> It's not a loss though, they just invested some profits in R+D...

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> I wish they'd do something a long the lines of using all of their traffic data to design better lighting systems for cities. Gotta be able to do better than what is currently happening.

</comment><comment><USER51> We need more detail in financial statements. "Operating loss of $859 million in Other Bets" is not enough disclosure for a public company.

It's not research that spends that kind of money. It's attempts to buy market share by selling at a loss that do. Or existing businesses with a high burn rate that aren't profitable. That number includes Nest and Google Fiber, both of which are in production but perhaps not doing too well. Does it include Android? Google's various attempts to build and sell phones? Motorola?

<comment><USER52> Or it's just the cost of 3,000 engineers doing R&D work in this day and age...

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Good. Isnt that the idea? That's what Moonshots are. Plus its hard to see returns on a moonshot in a year. This is a long term investment.

</comment><comment><USER54> Is there a way to incentivize smaller companies to take these risks (relative to the scale of the company and assuming you have the manpower)?

</comment><comment><USER55> would it be legal to announce R&D as losses then buy back your own shares at a reduced cost?

</comment><comment><USER56> Quoting Edison here:

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."

</comment><comment> mite-mitreski Better to have `Moonshots losses` than some CEO/Board rip off stock buyback scheme.

</comment><comment><USER57> Alphabet INVESTS $859M on 'Moonshots' in 2Q 2016

</comment><comment><USER58> That's pretty much Amazon's profits in 2Q 2016.

</comment><comment><USER59> How much did Microsoft spend on their R&D?

</comment><comment><USER60> Has Peter Norvig retired?

</comment><comment><USER61> s/loses/invests

</comment><comment><USER62> AFAIK thinking out-of-the-box is prohibited in Corporations :)

</comment><comment><USER63> People are still starving in the USA on a daily basis, it's a mad world

</comment><comment><USER64> Why should any organization have net profits at all? "Loses" here is being used to mean "spent". You can't just keep stacking up cash forever. That would be pointless and stupid.

<comment><USER65> Net profits are how you pay shareholders dividends, which are often demanded, and the futurr promise of which are the root basis of how the company can attract money through IPO

<comment><USER64> That's a sort of quaint belief about the market but it's degenerated into straight up gambling. Let me put the question a different way: why should any company have positive retained earnings?

<comment><USER66> Because they're holding it offshore.</comment></comment></comment></comment>