Idea Generation - <AUTHOR> https://blog.samaltman.com/idea-generation <comment><USER2> > (By the way, it's useful to get good at differentiating between real trends > and fake trends. A key differentiator is if the new platform is used a lot > by a small number of people, or used a little by a lot of people.)

As a one-time founder, I feel embarrassed to have to ask this; but in the spirit of no-stupid-question and also that there's gotta be someone else wondering the same -- which one is the real trend and which one is the fake trend?

By way of interpreting sentences in a normal way, I would assume "used a lot by a small number of people" is the real trend and "used a little by a lot of people" is the fake trend (going by order of mentions in both sentences).

However, I struggle with this a bit. Dapps were used a lot by a small number of people as of a few years ago (think the cryptokitties trend), but it didn't exactly pan out as a real trend IMO. In other cases, yes, when early adopters love a product and use it a lot, that tends to become a real trend. On the other hand, Facebook apps in 2008 (when they were smaller apps like Superwall and such, before games took over) were somewhat "used a little by a lot of people" at the beginning. I think it wasn't until games took over where the "used a lot" (by a large number of people in that case) really took off.

<comment><USER3> There's two competing lenses of thought that bookend your struggle:

On one hand, Sam's point is basically described by Paul Graham's essay on "Narrow and Deep" ideas [1]. You want an idea to have a few passionate users rather than lots of lukewarm users, because there's an activation energy to building a habit and if you're only lukewarm you're not going to get over it. As PG put it, "Sum that reaction over a whole population, and you have no users."

On the other hand, you have Geoffrey Moore's "Crossing the Chasm" [2]. This has the critical observation that early adopter & mainstream populations are different. About 10% of the population has an early-adopter mindset: they will try anything _because_ it's new and cool. Those are the people Sam says you should be hanging out with in this article. But your experience with them doesn't generalize, because _most people don 't think like that_. Most people are self-interested and have short attention spans: if it doesn't deliver clear value to them with minimal hassle, they aren't interested.

The set of world-changing products really exists in the intersection of these two worldviews. Products that had lots of passionate early adopters but failed to cross the chasm include Lisp, LiveJournal, RSS, VR (both times), and cryptocurrency. Products that aimed for too mainstream a market and only had lukewarm users include WebTV, grocery delivery, and smartwatches. In between are products like the iPhone, where the PDA market had been sitting in early- adopter limbo since 1991 but technological changes finally made it practical, or YouTube, where streaming video had been in early-adopter limbo since RealAudio in 1997 (?) but cell-phone video, Flash, and easy web uploads made it practical in 2005.

[1] [http://www.paulgraham.com/startupideas.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/startupideas.html)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_Chasm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_Chasm)

<comment><USER4> >grocery delivery

I think the USA implementation is poor not the idea is bad. Here Finland K-ryhmä[1] did really nailed implementation and it is like 10x better than going to the supermarket. My mom and aunt both in their 70 started using this separately and both are saying they are not going to back in supermarkets after covid19.

[1] [https://www.k-ruoka.fi/kauppa](https://www.k-ruoka.fi/kauppa)

<comment><USER5> That's interesting - I live right next to a K-Market and I'm not in a risk demographic so not had the need, but when I moved from the UK to Finland some 10 years ago one thing I missed was that the UK supermarkets at the time had excellent online delivery systems (they're buckling under the strain of the current crisis due to surge in demand, but back then they worked well enough). Finland didn't seem to have anything equivalent until recently, which I thought was more due to geography, population density and other factors that just didn't make it economical for the K and S chains.

<comment><USER6> Supermarket delivery in the UK has been fantastic, much better than Finland. I think you are right about the population density, and also the amount of competition between 8 large supermarket chains in the UK, vs the near cartel like situation in Finland.

<comment><USER5> Another example would be automated checkouts - that came much later in Finland compared to the UK. I think there's a good point there that the duopoly stifles innovation, plus there's just a much smaller market and less pressure to scale up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I have always found that entire scenario very odd. How are you a start up founder if you don't know what you want to start up?

I always look at that like a soldier jacked up on adrenaline wearing an arsenal of ammunition ready to destroy the enemy having forgotten to ask who the enemy is or where they are. Lost. Maybe if they just start spraying ammo at everybody the enemy will suddenly make themselves known and something will stick.

This entire scenario is completely at odds with Indie Hackers who continually stress to refine a good idea until you have both revenue and product/market fit before quitting your day job. This advise is well suited to people who have the reality of personal finances and time constraints, so I guess there are some people who have unlimited funding and time to burn in search of something they should already have.

<comment><USER8> I am sceptical too but it's not an unusual idea to think that perhaps you can just put smart people together and they'll work something out.

God knows that much of that attitude is often lauded on HN for other things.

<comment><USER7> Kind of.

I am entering my fifth military deployment so I can speak to the nature of spontaneously formed teams of strangers. Intelligence is largely, but not completely, irrelevant. You learn to identify that a team is strongest due to a mix of good discipline and putting the proper personalities in the correct positions and then codifying a single common purpose. I recommend reading the book _Good To Great_ for further examination.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Having failed the startup game my fair share of times, I've found a more reliable way to come up with good ideas is to let others who need something give you ideas. Work in a specific industry long enough that you learn about the trade and type of problems and solutions needed.

I currently focus on providing services to ecommerce companies, and I get to hear all the time about their pain points and things they wish they had. It's given me a lot of ideas for products to work on and the bonus to that is I already have established relationships with my market, making it much easier to iterate, build case studies, and sell.

A lot of the demographic on HN is engineers. That is an industry. You can start with asking your engineer friends and colleagues what painful engineering problems they face, why nothing they use is good enough, and what they wish they had to fix it. If you find enough people saying the same thing, then you've found a potential market. And luckily engineers are early adopter too.

<comment><USER10> > Work in a specific industry long enough that you learn about the trade and > type of problems and solutions needed.

The problem with this is that the recent grads with effectively no practical experience to speak of can't start startups with VC funding and dreams of grandeur this way. But I agree that this is the best path to start a company that's actually likely to succeed based on actual long-term profitability and legitimate problem solving.

<comment><USER11> This is how you start a real company with actual potential that investors will love.

But it doesn't feed into the Silicon Valley career mill. So it doesn't get talked about.

SV's assumption is that you want to "get signed" and start your path. Acquihire by acquihire you build a career. Some outliers get rich and motivate the others.

The whole thing is a self-sustaining finance market. Failed founders provide the workforce, outliers provide the funds. And the mill keeps turning.

(the real winners are GPs and LPs, the VCs are just as much hamster wheel runners as the rest of us, just later in the career)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > YC once tried an experiment of funding seemingly good founders with no > ideas. I think every company in this no-idea track failed.

We were a no-idea company in the S12 batch. We ended up starting Streem [1], which was acquired by Box in 2014 [2] and ended up integrating and becoming Box Drive [3]. While we didn't build an enduring company, I'd say it was a moderate success by some metrics.

YC had two no-ideas in S12 and another one or two in W13 before they shut the track down. Unclear if that's enough data to spot a trend, but YC is smart and likely had other data to back up the decision. Looking back, it was a painful process to go from "no idea" to what eventually became Streem. I don't think I'd ever go and decide to start another company without an idea in the future.

[1] [https://lifehacker.com/streem-offers-unlimited-cloud- storage...](https://lifehacker.com/streem-offers-unlimited-cloud-storage-and- streaming-for-1563536464)

[2] [https://venturebeat.com/2014/06/16/box-acquires-streem-so- yo...](https://venturebeat.com/2014/06/16/box-acquires-streem-so-you-dont- have-to-keep-filling-your-local-disk-with-cloud-based-files/)

[3] [https://www.box.com/drive](https://www.box.com/drive)

<comment><USER13> Didn't ycombinator pick a number of startups with bad ideas or non-ideas and encouraged them to pivot? Or encourage new teams to form around a different idea?

For example Reddit's original team wanted to do a "My Mobile Menu", and also Aaron Swartz pivoted from Infogami to merging with Reddit.

I would almost count this partially under the "no idea" category.

<comment><USER14> There's plenty of YC Companies that have changed their idea during YC, or pivoted completely during the program (I think Daniel Gross pivoted twice?)

I think YC expects most companies to modify what they are doing during the program.

But all of these things are very different to taking someone on board with no idea at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> In my view, business ideas are formed out of life experience. They happen as a consequence of observing situations, working in specific industries, engaging in certain hobbies or entertainment.

I am confident that if I were required to make a dedicated effort to 'develop a startup idea' that was absent life experience, success would require more good fortune than if it were coming from a synthesis of experiences, observations and innovative thought.

YC already did an experiment, as Sam notes, that points to the need for some type of fertile idea space that gains nutrients from ones life experience. I've had a bunch of ideas, each more or less fleshed out, and some actually acted on. I stumbled on all of them because I was trying to solve a problem that I had personally experienced.

</comment><comment><USER16> Look, you don't even need an "idea" for your startup, much less one based on some ethereal "trend" you should try to catch.

What you need is a goal and a vision for an improvement to something that people want. Take any current service, and try to figure out what metric people are _really_ using to evaluate it.

Now think about what it would take to 10x that metric. I'm stressing the _really_ because that's where you have to do some folk anthropology and try to understand what people really want.

If you think people eat food to maximize calories, providing them with 10x calories would sound like a good thing, but that's probably not what's happening. Maybe what you want to figure out is how to have 10x calories / dollar.

But people don't just eat food for calories, they also eat it for the nutrient mix. What would be the perfect nutrient mix? Does it need to be custom? Can it be done at a good cost? (that's kind of what Soylent has been doing)

Food is also one way we experience some of the most varied sensations: can you make something that's both incredibly nutritious, and that expands people's palates?

Food is also built around social experiences, how can you improve the social experience of cooking and eating together? What's the metric? What does 10x that metric look like?

Can you 10x along those 3 axes at the same time? Are there trade offs? Can you overcome them?

I'm just using food as it's an obvious need/want everyone recognizes (low on the Maslow pyramid).

But that can apply to literally anything, as long as you dig deep enough to figure out the underlying need/desire/want.

And that way you can quit trying to find random "ideas" based on trends that are just at the surface of things.

Jeff Bezos (and a bunch of other people) said it before: don't try to think of what's going to change, think about what's _not_ going to change. People's desires are one of the most stable thing you can build on. Figure out that bit and you'll find a bottomless well of ideas.

</comment><comment><USER17> > YC once tried an experiment of funding seemingly good founders with no > ideas. I think every company in this no-idea track failed.

How many people did they try this with? Most startups fail, so it will be interesting to see whether they funded enough of these. I think there's a rule of thumb about the upper limit on a probability that isn't observed, but I can't remember what it is.

As for generating ideas, the founders I've come across have tended to know some industry well enough to understand some of the problems. Often this is very specific industry stuff, including understanding which experts are needed and what customers to focus on.

Of course there's plenty of people who have grown up in some industry, but I think the other ingredient you need is enough general knowledge about business to be able to put some pieces together: how to get funding, what a corporate structure is, how to do certain mundane things like pay taxes. The intersection can be smaller than you think, because a lot of corporate types are comfortable where they are, plus they feel (rightly or not) that the job is providing a fair bit of the business infrastructure they need to use their expertise.

<comment><USER18> I thought that entrepreneurs-in-residence at VC firms are the equivalent of this idea of funding exceptionally capable potential-founders (many who seemed to have been past founders) with no ideas to execute in the current period.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> _The best ideas are fragile; most people don't even start talking about them at all because they sound silly._

I hear this expressed quite a lot and there's certainly some truth here. I think it can be quite misleading though.

Many good ideas also just sound like pretty good ideas and turn out to be great businesses. Not every idea has to be completely crazy sounding. Perhaps this is even more true in B2B software / boring industries.

VCs and Accelerators are incentivised to encourage the craziest "moonshots" because that's how they make money. If you're just looking to get rich selling software you don't need to go to mars.

</comment><comment> eigen-vector This goes hand in hand with writing. (Good) Writing involves thinking deeply about an idea or a topic. Many good writers appreciate critical feedback, this involves getting your ideas validated or invalidated.

It is quite easy to be in an environment of smart people thanks to the internet. By thinking deeply about a problem or ten, trying to write a clear essay on it helps with this.

</comment><comment><USER20> > It's important to be in the right kind of environment, and around the right > kind of people.

That seems like the buried lede in the blog post.

I don't know Sam or have any window into his motivations, but he seems to be (at least obliquely) addressing the current HN debate about whether fully remote is equivalent in efficacy to in-person for creative work.

Without taking a stance in that cat fight, he is making the (IMO sensible) argument that creativity requires a particular type of human environment, regardless of whether that is remote or not, and social isolation from your professional peers isn't such an environment. Of course, he goes further to suggest that a creativity-fostering environment requires a particular kind of professional peer group.

</comment><comment><USER21> Ideas become better when refined. Sometimes over the course of _years_. You can assemble a larger composite idea under the umbrella of a single vision, comprised of many smaller ideas.

There's of course a balance to be struck depending on the idea's scope and urgency. Both may change with refinement.

Idea generation is both a learned skill and intrinsic to a person's circumstance and psychology. Ample unstructured time, low amounts of stress, and an affinity for day dreaming tend to help. Over time you grow to actually enjoy deep thinking as recreation.

I've noticed whenever I'm focused on a particular idea, it kind of forms a lens that shapes my world view. Anything I then encounter I view as a puzzle piece, which my mind attempts to reconcile into the larger puzzle that is the foremost idea in my mind at the time. It's a very similar dynamic to PG's musings on the subject.[0]

[0] [http://www.paulgraham.com/top.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/top.html)

<comment><USER22> > Ideas become better when refined.

Agreed.This is why execution is more important than idea. Why? Because most ideas aren't born great. They evolve and progress. That's part of execution. The process of taking a good idea and make it great.

<comment><USER21> I think trying to say one is more important than the other is a false dichotomy. They are both very important.

It's true that ideas tend to dramatically evolve as a result of execution. Likewise execution affords an opportunity for refinement that simply isn't there prior. I'd argue it's a different kind of refinement though from what you get while you're still in the green field stage.

Thinking and research on their own—over the course of a very long period of time—offer insight that isn't easily gleaned under the high-stress environment of execution. A different kind of insight or refinement, if you will.

It's worth noting that there are entire professions where the majority of what they do is think. Physics and philosophy come to mind. Why thinking is valued so little in tech by contrast, I don't know.

<comment><USER22> My benchmark: Good execution of a 7 idea will beat bad execution of a 10 idea.

As mentioned, the idea isn't static. The idea is more of a process. And processes are driven by (quality of) execution, and team.

I'm not dismissing the value of idea. But it's generally over-valued. You'll do better starting with a good idea and making it better than you will waiting for a great idea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> From my somewhat limited experience, working as a consultant (management, etc.) is great for identifying problems, and subsequently coming up with ideas (solutions).

Reason is that you work very closely with companies, often many different in the same sector, and get to see all the various aspects, quirks, and flaws at nearly every level of operation. Just the act of getting exposed to all this, can work as a great catalyst for ideas and brainstorming - much better (imo) than just sitting around and trying to think up something, where one can easily fall for the "solution looking for a problem" trap.

Now, unfortunately, most people can't just walk into those jobs - and you're not there to brainstorm solutions for every flaw you see. But if you ever get the chance to be in such a position, do try it out.

A lot of profitable entrepreneurship revolves around "boring" business problems.

</comment><comment><USER24> > The most common question prospective startup founders ask is how to get > ideas for startups. The second most common question is if you have any ideas > for their startup.

You really can't come up with a better set up to an episode of Silicon Valley.

 _" I Want to start a start-up! But I have no idea what to start or how to start it. Can you tell me everything I should do?"_

</comment><comment><USER25> > YC once tried an experiment of funding seemingly good founders with no > ideas. I think every company in this no-idea track failed

...coinbase was a 'no idea' startup

<comment><USER26> Were they not even interested in bitcoin in some way? If not, good counterexample... but if they were, I think saying something as vague as "we're going to do a bitcoin company" around then would count as an idea, probably even a tectonic shift one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is a hard topic to theorize (essay-ize).

The retrospective view is somewhat illusionary. It's hard to capture what really happened att. I think a lot of the insight is in the first few paragraphs. Ideas in the "startup idea" sense, aren't one idea. They're a lot of ideas had over time. AirBnB couldn't have given their idea, like Tolkien couldn't have given middle earth to another writer.

Spotting trends is similarly hard, and similarly treacherous. Retrospective examples (eg mobile phones) seem way easier than they are.

One major pitfall for spotting trends is timelines. The whole 90s dotcom bubble, in hindsight, was mostly wrong about timelines. Browsers are important platforms, and controlling one does kind of make you "a microsoft." Moving early and grabbing market share is very important. Online markets do tend to be winner-take-all. They were just 10 years early.

</comment><comment><USER28> How do you manage your ideas? I'm using a combination of Google Sheets, Notion, and a notebook. I rate each idea in Sheets using colors and I keep Notion and a notebook for research so that I don't think about an idea twice.

<comment><USER29> I find this odd. Have you worked on any of those ideas?

<comment><USER28> Oh yes. And it feels good to go back and mark an idea as done!

Whenever I have a thought, I write it down. If I got that thought again, I might do a quick Google search and then give a rating to the idea. If I kept constantly thinking about it, I start researching it.

The research part might take maybe an hour a week. The other steps don't really take much time.

I find this to help with procrastination or losing focus.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Ideas aren't the primary issue. Execution is the main problem. Our amazing brains are fantastic at creativity and thinking in new ways, and coming up with all sorts of fantastical ideas. Some practical, most not.

But our same day-dream happy brains are absolutely terrible at helping us execute on those ideas. Finding the most effective and efficient ways at making ideas come to fruition. And the millions of ways that an idea, no matter how great it may sound, may never come to pass.

This is a "how to day dream better" post. Which maybe some people need I suppose.

But I'd rather see a "how to make your dreams a reality" post.

</comment><comment><USER31> > A good question to ask yourself early in the process of thinking about an > idea is "could this be huge if it worked?" There are many good ideas in the > world, but few of them have the inherent advantages that can make a startup > massively successful. Most businesses don't generate a valuable accumulating > advantage as they scale. Think early about why an idea might have that > property. It's obvious for Facebook or Airbnb, but it often exists in more > subtle ways.

This reminds me of David Heinemeier Hansson's talk at Startup School waaayyy back.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CDXJ6bMkMY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CDXJ6bMkMY)

The gist: funders tell founders all the time to catch a wave. Go big or don't bother. The reason is that the funder must have a big payoff and small outcomes don't cut it.

But there's plenty of room for a small, well-run company with no aspirations of getting bigger. I believe the analogy was: best Italian Restaurant in the city.

The other advantage of thinking smaller than "huge" is that success is so much more likely because the competition tends to be less intense.

Maybe the author and I have a different idea of "huge," but the examples suggest otherwise.

If you're looking for a community that embraces the small startup idea and has developed a lot of material for exploring it, check out Microconf:

[https://microconf.com](https://microconf.com)

<comment><USER32> I love this.

Just a few days ago I was reading an old thread on HN about "patio11's law" (The software economy is bigger than you think)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23162651](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23162651)

The comments are great and they talk about these non-venture companies that are quietly churning out 10s of millions or maybe 100s of millions of dollars.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I don't know how it works for other people but I don't search for really great ideas, really great ideas find me. And once they latch on they don't let go.

Most things I would classify as "really great ideas" are emergent patterns in industries I know very well. Also, most of these are not abstract product ideas _per se_ , you can usually see a direct and plausible path to generating large quantities of revenue and profit.

</comment><comment><USER34> The problem I see is 9/10 startups have stupid ideas but manage to pocket millions before the company crashes and burns. How do you get ideas like that will let you live well, but not necessarily be a good business? Doing sensible businesses just isn't viable in SV these days.

> Stay away from people who are world-weary and belittle your ambitions.

OK maybe that just is me.

</comment><comment><USER35> I touched this subject in another discussion a few days ago briefly. Here is what I've learned over the years:

People keep repeating that you should work on ideas that solve problems that you have yourself. Now given some time on your own, it's natural to start looking at your problems and seeing how to solve them for yourself and potentially others and make a profit along the way. If you want a sinister spin on this, nothing sells better than fear or hope.

But this is HN and as far as tech people go, our instinct is to solve problems that are given to us. And often when we have problems on our own, we come up with a solution and don't really think about it twice. I was recently talking with someone about a project they had at their work and how their company paid something like 3 million euros to another company to build a "platform" for them. And given that their company isn't that large or doesn't have that many users (say 40k/month tops), that raised my eyebrow a bit. So I asked them to show me what that "platform" was. Long story-short, a website with a username and password registration, email verification, paypal subscription, which allows you to download a list of PDF's.

To a developer the whole concept sounds like a joke - anyone with a few months of experience can mash that up in two weeks. "Oh but we have so many users and traffic, it's not that simple."

Bruh... 40k users/month, 100 pdf's, ~2mb each is something a raspberry pi can serve without any issues.

The truth is, most tech people are very much detached from reality(granted that the mass of people is the reality and not the other way around). We try to fix problems which we really don't have ourselves and we over-engineer the crap out of them. And commonly this is the result of the so called "idea generation". It's easy to create a startup that solves a niche problem. But we often fail to acknowledge how tiny these niches really are. It's easier to sell something that costs 10000 euros to 10 people and make 100k as opposed to selling something for 5 euros to 20000 people.

The truth is, most people create 5 euro products which have a potential audience of 10 people, hence the reason why they make 50 euros as opposed to 100k. You can scroll through PH for days and keep repeating "omg, who needs this?!?!?"

I know I have. And truthfully I doubt many people have hit the 50 euro mark, not to mention the 100k.

But people make that mistake all the time. We are surrounded by people who will hook up an led to an arduino which will blink when someone mentions them on slack while they are watching a movie, while ordinary people are looking at a website which has payments and they think that's quantum physics. Tech people and ordinary people live in parallel universes at this point. The ideas we come up with are solutions to problems no one has. That's the reason why SaaS is proving to be a lot more successful strategy than B2C.

My take on this is that every time you come up with an idea, don't bother sharing it with your tech friends first. In most cases you will get a 50-50 positive-negative response. Find people who are completely detached from your world and have no idea what the difference between a USB and RJ45 is.

1\. Can you explain your idea in 4 sentences or less?

2\. Do they understand it?

3\. Do they have that problem?

3a(if Y on 3). Do they have a working solution, even if it takes 3 times the effort?

If the answers to those are:

1\. No

2\. No

3\. No

3a. Yes

Then don't bother. You will almost certainly fail.

<comment><USER36> Thank you for writing this informative note.

Question - How do you discover the issues a business is having? Similar to the PDF issue that you describe above?

<comment><USER35> That's a 3 million euro question, isn't it. Frankly I have no clue. And even though part of me wishes it did, it's not something anyone can do, even if given the chace. I wouldn't be able to look at someone in the eyes and ask for 3 million for something that your average 14 year old geek can mash up in a week. From what I saw, I'd argue the 14 year old would probably do a better job...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I think we need to have more founder-typing instead of prescribing everyone act like they can be good at everything.

It's much more important to find balance on your founding team than expecting to learn idea generation suddenly.

We need better tools for these different types to find each other. Creatives, executors, evangelists, etc can be different people.

</comment><comment><USER38> There are two kinds of idea generation: hole plugging and door opening. The former means you look for holes in current state of affairs and use available tech to plug it. The later means you invent something very new and open doors to entirely new opportunities. Former requires cheap short term less risky trials while later is usually more systematic long term expensive endeavors. Unfortunately startups have became synonymous only for the hole plugging even though door opening is an order of magnitude more rewarding. This is the difference between Twitter and flying cars. I hope there is YC like model that gets developed for door opening instead of keep fueling hole plugging through college dropouts.

</comment><comment><USER39> > the world changes so fast that the big incumbents usually get beaten by > fast-moving and focused startups.

I'm not sure this is as true as founders hope. Yes, startups take the lead when change occurs. But then they also take on all the risk, fight it out with similar startups, and a few years later often get purchased by one of the old incumbents. And in those purchases, some specific founders get rich, but many others fail, and many devs work quite hard and don't end up where they thought they would.

At the same time, the big incumbents get to just sit back and let other people fight it out, then re-buy their market share in the future.

</comment><comment><USER40> This post may be immoral if it hopes for the next big thing. I wonder if it does more harm than good for the world. If someone is to indeed invent the next big thing after the Mobile Phone, for sure they don't need this kind of motivational post. For "smaller" ideas, yes, read ahead. But think it is immoral to encourage a wide audience to shoot for the stars, and try big ideas that have a 0% chance of succeeding and 100% chance of causing lost time and effort, and even financial, social and personal hardship.

</comment><comment><USER41> > _It's important to be in the right kind of environment, and around the right > kind of people._

Namely, people who went to an elite school (which inevitably implies they have rich parents) and aren't going to burden your fledgling cash grab with any world-weary ideas about integrity. Extra points if no one involved in the project has any programming talent. That frees up lots of time for coming up with brilliant ideas.

</comment><comment><USER22> You need a safe environment. And you need people who realize the best idea is the one that most in the room will find a bit crazy at first.

The rest is time and iteration.

</comment><comment><USER42> My problem is, where to find these optimistic people that know about the field? I basically don't want to discuss my big ideas with colleagues, I just trust them as colleagues. Outside the company I don't have so much contact with people who are interested in start-ups, trends, etc. And corona is blocking the opportunity to visit some hacker spaces, meet-ups,...

</comment><comment><USER43> Here are some ideas but they don't seem any good:

Graham crackers with chocolate pre applied for making s'mores.

A racing league for bipedal robots.

<comment><USER44> Racing league for bipedal robots sounds like a good concept for a commercial/promotional event if you already have a bipedal robot company but it isn't something you would build a company around.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I'm sure this post is well intended, but it just pushes new founders into obvious, crowded categories like virtual conference and remote work SaaS. To find good ideas, founders need to go a lot deeper than asking themselves "what is different about the world today?"

</comment><comment><USER46> "These sorts of people tend to think without the constraints most people have, not have a lot of filters, and not care too much what other people think."

\- And have that murine sense of when to leave the sinking ship when this disregard backfires.

</comment><comment><USER47> > Finally, a good test for an idea is if you can articulate why most people > think it's a bad idea, but you understand what makes it good.

It seems that all reduces to find if you have some information asymmetry to take advantage of

</comment><comment><USER48> Well, I doubt Sam is really good at generating ideas based on his track record. He had great achievement of identifying good ideas, but that's different from generating them as the original thinker.

</comment><comment><USER49> Legit surprised Sam didn't recommend using an AI to generate ideas. :P

<comment><USER30> Are you sure AI didn't generate this article?

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Another means: have really high standards. It'll make you better at spotting when something ought to be easier to accomplish. You'll instinctively feel irritated by the fact that it isn't.

</comment><comment><USER51> Utterly banal gibberish that might have excited the imaginations of money- hungry Stanford grads 15 years ago, but this type of fluff has not aged well.

</comment><comment><USER52> Frustrating article -- I have several killer ideas (and ideas for decent execution paths for them as well,) but I tend to get pigeon-holed as "just an idea guy" and generally invalidated..

So I've tried to learn to program to execute them myself, but that's a slow, long process, I'm an excellent Project Manager but a B- programmer, plus trying to wear every hat in a company is not exactly fun.

I've seen so much talent wasted on such poor ideas over the years, it's frankly unbelievable, and it never seems to change.

/endrant

<comment><USER53> I think your skill is really valuable. I am the opposite end of the spectrum. I'm an engineer and I think a decent programmer and a creative guy but when it comes to generating business ideas I'm just dead as a zombie.

<comment><USER54> Ditto. That or I have a great idea, and then go and realize someone else is doing it and has been in business for years.

<comment><USER52> That doesn't mean it's not a good idea.

There was MySpace before Facebook, 2nd mover advantage and all that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Am I the only one with a list of over 1000 ideas that would all become billion dollar companies if I just had the time to do them all?

<comment><USER56> Nope. These idea generation posts don't make any sense to me - I have too many ideas, most of which would at least be successful small businesses if I put a couple years into them. The difficulty is in focusing on one, to the exclusion of others.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> ideas beget ideas. yeah, waves tectonic shifts are real. and hyper-iteration begets ideas. & filters good ideas from bad ones.

</comment><comment><USER43> So what are some good ideas right now?

<comment><USER58> Disrupt elder care. COVID is showing how much of a disaster that is in its current state.

Could start by setting up some kind of IoT auditing system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> Sometimes ideas are easy to find.

An idea? Okay: Setup a _software as a service_ Web site to solve quickly all traveling salesman problems with fewer than, say, 1 million cities, and everything equivalent in computational complexity to them.

First difficulty: To write the server side software, basically are asking for an algorithm that shows that P = NP, and now we have had some decades to conclude that so far no one knows how to do that (with a _von Neumann_ computer, but maybe could get a solution using a quantum computer).

Well, for positive integer n <= 1 million, consider the traveling salesman problem on n cities. Without loss of generality, assume that n is a prime number (with factors only 1 and n). Then embed this problem in ..., and notice that ..., and then apply ..., exploiting special case ...! Right!!!

Lesson 1: This idea was super easy to find!

Lesson 2: What it takes to make this idea work is something new, and, if we get a solution, that would contradict the observation that there are no good new ideas because all the good ideas were thought of long ago.

Lesson 3: Finding an algorithm that shows that P = NP is challenging, but with that algorithm would have one heck of a strong _technological barrier to entry_ and a contradiction to the claim that it is easy to copy a startup!

My real point: Have two lists. List A has the problems that plenty of people would pay big bucks to have solved. List B has the tools for solving problems. Pick a pair from lists A and B where the tool from B solves the problem from A.

Next, if there is no suitable tool in list B, then do some research and find one. If can't find a tool for the problem from A, then pick another problem from A and try again to do the research to find the needed tool.

The research need not be as challenging as proving that P = NP. But broadly one way to find "good ideas" is do some research that yields a tool that enables solving a problem from list A that has been sitting there for a long time unsolved due to the lack of a suitable tool from list B.

That is, one way to find a "good idea" is to do some research.

If we are restricting to having von Neumann computers do the data manipulations, then we can notice that the manipulations are necessarily mathematically something so that an enabling tool and the research are about forced to be in applied math.

It might also be sufficient to use some of the math on the shelves of the research libraries, math that so far has been neglected by the information startup culture.

Possible _psychological_ issue: It may be that we frequently see good problems to solve but right away, within a few seconds, implicitly, maybe even unconsciously, reject solving the problem as a startup idea because we don't see a suitable tool for a solution. Well, then, slow down a little on the rejection step and consider some research or just what is already in the research libraries. Uh, there's a lot in the research libraries!</comment>


Voice and the uncanny valley of AI - <AUTHOR> http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2017/2/22/voice-and-the-uncanny-valley-of-ai <comment><USER2> Having developed and sold virtual agents for Watson, this is one of the major issue I faced. I had to make it clear to our customers (and especially to the sales and marketing teams) that agents only work in a narrow domain, whose boundaries would need to be clear to the user. But often that got lost in translation and expectations were never met (especially in the early days of Watson when our PR was out of control).

This said, it's not as limited as the author makes it. There are classes of open requests that can be handled directly from content (i.e. not like an expert system or IVR but more like a very smart NL search) without having to identify a precise intent. The Jeopardy system was a perfect example of that, and Google is now able to answer many question types (not just factoids but also questions with long answers like how-to) directly from the content.

Dialog is the real limiting factor. Right now most dialog in production is scripted, with some smart feature like slot filling, but still much closer to an expert system than a statistical example based system.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm not sure uncanny valley is the right term for this though I see the analogy.

Rather, I think it's yet another case where success (or at least impressive advances) in a narrow domain gets conflated with something much broader. Because if a human can do A they're clearly at least on the cusp of doing B and C too m

In the case of our digital personal assistants they've actually gotten pretty good at voice recognition, at least given certain parameters of accents etc. But what that means is that they're good at recognizing appropriate wizard incantations and taking the corresponding action. Get off script? It's worse than talking to one of those outsourced call centers we all hate.

<comment><USER4> I'd say he is spot on with the analogy. He's describing a situation where the actual solution to the problem at hand (a quality Voice experience) is just the opening of a door to a much more complex charade than originally understood. I spent a decade becoming an expert at creating digital doubles of people - where the term "uncanny valley" originates. In the 3D-graphics-person situation it is very similar. Once one develops a method of generating a likeness of someone, it's not right because the model does not have the real person's hair; then after creating their hair, the human model needs clothing models of the style that person would actually wear. But it is still not right because the character does not exhibit the specific facial expressions the real person uses that are characteristic of their personality. After that is their characteristic body movements, how they stand, sit, how they idle. This is very similar to the issue with quality Voice - it is not just creating a Voice, just like it is not just creating a 3D model, but it is in fact creating a model of reality the software holds, which is then query-capable by external humans and the software model itself as that self-conversation within the software is necessary to fulfill the simulation, and finally generate an experience piercing the uncanny valley for both voice and avatars. But it is going to require 2-200 times more computational capacity than we are throwing around now. The devil is in the details.

<comment><USER5> Uncanny Valley is about knowing somethings is off even though it's almost impossible to see what and feeling eerie about it.

I don't see the analogy here and as a user of Google home with my entire family it's never been anything closely to what uncanny valley is about.

<comment><USER6> There is another usage I've seen in AI discussions involving the uncertainty of the gap between current tech and general AI, and the chance we may cross it accidentally.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> IVR - mentioned but not described in the article. It stands for interactive voice response, which is the industry term for phone trees of all things.

Interesting tidbit which could have benefited from fleshing out in the article, especially since it so accurately describes the current state of voice assistants.

</comment><comment><USER8> I remember when voice recognition was barely usable (90-00's) then all of a sudden within the last decade voice recognition started showing up and it was amazingly good. Siri can understand most of what I speak to it even while driving with music in the background.

What are the successful algorithms that made this leap forward possible ? HMM's ? Neural networks ? more data/compute ? What changed since Dragon NaturallySpeaking in 1997? Can anyone recommend overview papers/blogs on this topic I could use to get up to speed ?</comment>


What if we all become one big brain? - <AUTHOR>

Thinking about privacy, today it ocurred to me, that this concept might get completely abandoned in the future. What would happen, if we all become one big brain, where everybody has full access to everybody elses information? Apart from feeling weird at first, would there be any serious downsides? <comment><USER2> If there is only one big brain, "WE" won't exist anymore. There will only be "I". In Richard Dawkins'book, The Selfish Gene, he explains how organisms are only vehicles for the genomes within them and how genomes tend to compete for resources and how they could be described as essentially "selfish". For that reason alone, it is very unlikely that "we" could turn into an "I". On the other hand, genomes are just another way to transmit information, and mankind has created other kinds of information, entirely separate from biological processes. Maybe it will be that information that may give rise to "One big brain" but it will be a whole new species, if it is allowed to exist, unless we learn to live along symbiotically. Even then, once an artificial species emerges, others may emerge too (see Tom Ray's Tierra experiments) and those may exist entirely separate lives from the symbiosis.

<comment><AUTHOR> > it is very unlikely that "we" could turn into an "I".

We share more and more every day. And the ones who participate in the sharing benefit. I remember when some people said "i will never own a mobile phone. i don't want to be reachable all the time.". They all have smartphones now. Todays kids not only have mobile phones, they have internet connected phones with cameras. And share their experiences online. Tomorrows kids will have google glass or an antenna implemented in their head. Realtime streaming their experiences into the heads of others.

What will stop this process in your opinion?

<comment><USER2> Humans just can't get along. There are wars and conflicts all the time. Racial hatred, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, wars, misandry, misogyny, economic inequality, religious fundamentalism, ideological fundamentalism, nationalism, political fanaticism, etc... (Writing this list makes me very depressed.) All of those can be explained by the selfish gene theory. Hate and greed are in our DNA. People do share everything, but there are crackers who disclose private information, people who disseminate revenge porn, fat-shamers, "slut"-shamers, online bullies, critics and cynics. That is the world we have today.

Sure, we have recently developed ways to transfer thoughts brain-to-brain, but the issues that may arise in the short term if we were to link separate consciences directly are more likely to be classified under the "disorder" category than under the "superpower" category. What if you woke up and had thoughts that weren't yours but from the other person you linked to. Imagine having memories of their past trauma, their first kiss, memories from the pain from the people they lost, memories from the abuses they suffered, the names they were called, the shame they felt. Will you be mentally strong enough to be able to compartmentalize those foreign memories as actually being not part of your lifetime?

Try this: try to remember the last time you checked out a place on Google street view. Have you ever tried clicking along a road so that you could get to see what was in the surrounding area?

Now as you are remembering this, do you remember only the scenery or can you also remember actually looking at a monitor and using your pointing device and keyboard? I'm willing to bet that you only remember the scenery and that those memories you have of those street views could be very similar to memories of places you actually visited, minus the sounds and smells, but you do have to make a conscious effort to differentiate between virtual memories of a scenery and memories of the places that you last visited.

Just visit a few foreign cities (Taipei, Seoul, Akihabara, Lima in Peru ) on Google Street view to try it out and think about what I wrote in a few days, you'll see what I mean.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Imagine having memories of their past trauma, their first kiss, memories > from the pain.

By that logic you would have predicted that the internet will not happen because "who wants to read all that shit".

<comment><USER2> No. I read lots of stuff all the time. But would you really like to carry the memories of someone whose limbs were blasted off by an IED, or someone who was a subject of waterboarding in Guantanamo? How about living the experiences of one of Ariel Castro's victims? Or feeling the thoughts of a lonely woman trapped in a bus late at night with eight men in India? How would you emerge from feeling every bit of pain, humiliation and despair that they went through? Count me out.

<comment><USER3> >How would you emerge from feeling every bit of pain, humiliation and despair that they went through?

You'll probably avoid letting it happen again. You'll remember it before raping, maiming, or torturing someone. You'll remember it before letting someone else get away with it. You'll probably treat the victims a little better as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I personally like to think of the human race as a giant super computer with local caches in brains and quite slow information transfer. It even has bad/malfunctioning cores.</comment>


34th Chaos Communication Congress (34C3) Tuwat - <AUTHOR> https://events.ccc.de/congress/2017/wiki/index.php/Main_Page <comment><USER2> Don't miss the Fahrplan, the timetable: [https://events.ccc.de/congress/2017/Fahrplan/](https://events.ccc.de/congress/2017/Fahrplan/)

Talks will be streamed. German language will be translated...

Plan some extended viewing time, because there are lots of interesting sessions.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> [https://www.reddit.com/r/de/comments/7me52u/34c3_startet_in_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/de/comments/7me52u/34c3_startet_in_leipzig/)

</comment><comment><USER3> FAQ: What is the meaning of tuwat?

<comment><USER4> The motto of this year's edition of CCC, as shown here:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_Communication_Congress#C...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_Communication_Congress#Congresses)

It will probably be explained in the opening talk.

EDIT: also, maybe this?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuwat_language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuwat_language)

<comment><USER2> German: Tu wat, tu was, mache was

->

'do what'

->

do something, be active, change things

1981 the left/alternative scene in Germany was thinking about the use of computers in society (police, companies, ...). There was a TUNIX congress. The 'tuwat' note in the TAZ newspaper invited to a meeting, which was kind of the foundation of the Chaos Computer Club... which was the birth of the hacker movement in Germany. tuwat is the motto calling people into action and to change the society with projects, meetings, a club, a congress, ...

<comment><USER5> And TUNIX has the double-meaning w/ unix and do nothing (nix is nothing in german slang)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Should you care about Visual Studio 2010? - <AUTHOR> http://www.itjoblog.co.uk/2010/02/visual-studio-2010.html

<comment><USER2> I care about Visual Studio 2010 because it has built-in support for F#.</comment>


Ask HN: A similar forum/news aggregate site, but mostly for math, physics, CS? - <AUTHOR>

As the title says. Looking for a HN alternative with intelligent user base minus the stories about Snowden and NSA, tablet reviews, JS frameworks, anti-procrastination articles and latest gossip about programmer celebrities.<p>Yes, I know about Reddit, and no, I'm not happy with it. <comment><USER2> I wish I knew.

As it stands, I can keep my queue full via sites like High Scalability [0], Research at Google [1], Arxiv [2] and a long list of "Architecture at X" blogs that post sporadically.

On HN I probably spend more time scanning the "new" queue here than the Front Page. Plenty of quality submissions never gain traction.

Obviously, that's just content. I don't have a solution for the lack of community.

0: [http://highscalability.com/](http://highscalability.com/) 1: [http://research.google.com/](http://research.google.com/) 2: [http://arxiv.org/](http://arxiv.org/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Quite a few clones have been popping up. Here's the latest: [http://theidler.org/](http://theidler.org/)

You can find the HN source or create your own. It's definitely worth a shot.</comment>


The Digital Materiality of GIFs - <AUTHOR> http://digitalmateriality.com/ <comment><USER2> Over 60 MB of GIFs on that page according to DevTools. The Fight Club GIF alone is 9 MB.

It's a terribly inefficient format, but I think a lack of free and open video formats (and editing software) is partly to blame for its meteoric rise.

Also: video is harder to share and is typically recompressed on every upload, reducing quality.

<comment><USER3> GIFs are so stupidly easy to use and distribute that I sometimes can't wrap my head around how convenient the format is.

A while ago, I tried to be a good nerd and convert some GIFs to HTML5 video, and I crashed and burned pretty hard: [https://ndarville.com/asides/webvideo/](https://ndarville.com/asides/webvideo/).

I gained a new appreciation of GIFs that day.

That said, it would be great if we got a compromise where browsers can load only the first frame of the GIF and play the reminder on click or touch to save all the loading and data—on both sides, really.

<comment><USER4> In the linked page, FOIT = "Flash of invisible text", when the user briefly sees empty space while the webfont is loading. I had to look that up.

[https://css-tricks.com/fout-foit-foft/](https://css-tricks.com/fout-foit- foft/)

<comment><USER3> Oh yeah, that's just quoted text from the original article, which deals with the phenomenon: [https://ndarville.com/blog/2015/12/04/web- fonts/](https://ndarville.com/blog/2015/12/04/web-fonts/). It's not directly relevant to the aforementioned article. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> >57 requests, 28,189.09 KB

I don't believe any new animated gifs should be made, except for animations such as pixel art. They are inferior in every way to html video. The success of webm on sites like 4chan are evidence that gifs offer no advantage in terms of portability, ease of sharing, or features.

<comment><USER6> Except videos carry along with them the presumption of audio content.

<comment><USER7> Also, no auto-play (or at least, no inline display) on iOS.

<comment><USER8> That's a really big one for me. When I'm in 'silly consumption mode' I tend to just avoid anything that opens up as a video. I really wish there was an alternative to GIF for this use case though...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've saved the .webm of a converted "gifv" video on Imgur before, then reposted it to Tumblr. Works just fine—but the result doesn't _quite_ get the same controls a Tumblr-converted gif does.

Really, sites just need to have a way to differentiate these types of video uploads and treat them with looping-animation UX, rather than video UX.

An easy solution would be to come up with an alternate extension for saving these videos, that other sites can recognize. This would be similar to, for example, the way iTunes knows to treat an MP4 container as an audiobook if it's an .m4b, or as a ringtone if it's an .m4r.

Another solution (and better, in my opinion) would be an extra wrapper/container document format _around_ a video file, prepending at least a new extra magic number to allow mime-type differentiation via libmagic. I'm honestly surprised that "gifv" isn't already such a container-wrapper document format. Note that such a format doesn't _need_ to be recognizable as a video on your computer (although support probably would be added soon enough); it just needs to be able to be reuploaded to other websites. (You could also add an extra chunk to e.g. an MKV container that, when present, would change its detected mime type—but this would restrict gifvs to only ever being MKVs. Might not be a bad thing to standardize on a video container format.)

Of course, the solution that requires no community buy-in is to just come up with a way to heuristically detect "silent short video file" on upload, and treat anything that fits those criteria as an animation rather than a video.

</comment><comment><USER10> >GIFS are a dumb, limited file format, and in the end this is why they are important:

>They do not belong to anyone.

This may be true now, but for the majority of its lifetime GIF did not belong to everyone, due to Unisys's patent on LZW.

<comment><USER11> thank goodness for expiring patents.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This site was most certainly not designed with a fullscreened browser on a 30" monitor in mind</comment>


Microsoft Ponders UV Password Tattoos to Protect Pacemakers - <AUTHOR> http://www.switched.com/2010/04/17/microsoft-ponders-uv-password-tattoos-to-protect-pacemakers?icid=sphere_blogsmith_inpage_engadget

<comment><USER2> The problems with these types of techniques is that they don't necessarily improve security, but they do add complexity.

In current medical devices that support so-called "distance telemetry," the implanted device is bonded with a base device using "proximal telemetry." Proximal telemetry works only at distances of a few centimeters or less and tends to be limited by the sensitivity of the receivers within the implanted devices. Only after the authentication and key exchange has occurred in the proximal mode is the distance mode activated, which then affords the users several meters of freedom.

The assumption is that a person who can stay close enough to the patient for the length of time required for the devices to bond is implicitly worthy of access. This is the same assumption that has served the industry well for the past few decades, although before the distance devices, the entire session would be conducted in proximal mode.

The bigger risk, as I see it, is that an attacker could successfully impersonate an already-bonded device. In that situation, neither proximal bonding nor UV passwords would help.

</comment><comment><USER3> Makes me think of mandatory ID tattoos. I realize that's a leap, but that is what first came to mind.

<comment><USER4> The paper actually brings this up.

"The use of UV ink may be of less consolation to those patients who associate tattoos with their use as involuntary identifiers. In the holocaust, identification tattoos reminded prisoners no longer controlled their own bodies. Giving the patient a choice of whether or not to use micropigmentation, the type of encoding to use, and some control over the process that generates the encoding should help to address these concerns."

<comment><USER5> Also note, IIRC tattoos are forbidden in judaism ([http://www.myjewishlearning.com/practices/Ethics/Our_Bodies/...](http://www.myjewishlearning.com/practices/Ethics/Our_Bodies/Adorning_the_Body/Tattoos.shtml)) and possibly other religions. (Although there's a halachic "out" for forbidden practices where the intention is to save lives, so this might be negotiable for medical emergency access to a pacemaker.)</comment></comment></comment>


FBI repeatedly overstated encryption threat figures to Congress, public - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/fbi-repeatedly-overstated-encryption-threat-figures-to-congress-public/2018/05/22/5b68ae90-5dce-11e8-a4a4-c070ef53f315_story.html <comment><USER2> How is this legal? Wray just lied to Congress. Sure, the FBI has an excuse that they simply overcounted, but when you make no effort to correct your previously erroneous count, and it clearly is in your advantage to keep citing the old figure, I don't think you can claim that you made a statement that was, to the best of your ability, true.

<comment><USER3> Making speech illegal is very dangerous ground, so while I agree that this looks suspicious I'm in the end happy that "don't lie to Congress" is being handled with soft gloves. There is also an abuse potential in _accusing_ people of lying, that this lax enforcement reduces.

/cynical/ if you could get easily prosecuted from telling Congress "incorrect" information, it might be predominantly used against lone whistleblowers who had ended up on the loosing side of a very effective information squashing campaign. That's just one example of how such a law could be abused if it was over-enforced. /end cynical/

<comment><USER2> Lying to the federal government or while you're on trial is not protected under free speech, as far as I'm aware.

<comment><USER3> There are many places where lying is against the rules - and proving that an incorrect statement is a lie is equally impossible in all of them. As a result it's protected speech in practice. (The courts could make it easier to convict, they have chosen this standard of evidence for a reason.)

<comment><USER4> How is lying different to any other crime of intent in this regard?

<comment><USER3> It's possible that other crimes of intent are also unenforceable. If the law says, "between two identical actions and circumstances, you are in violation for the one with bad intent," then lawyers will probably be able to prevent any conviction (outside of someone getting on the news and announcing their hatred for humanity!). If the law says, "because we want to discourage this intent, this specific action is illegal under these circumstances," then it will work the same way as any other criminal law (it will be possible to assemble evidence and get prosecutions even against skilled defenses.)

<comment><USER4> People do get convicted of murder and perjury, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> EDIT: AAaand... they changed the photo! What I say below is still _slightly_ true of the current photo, but you should've seen the original one. Here's a copy somebody cached of it:

[http://wat-if.com/fbi-repeatedly-overstated-encryption-threa...](http://wat- if.com/fbi-repeatedly-overstated-encryption-threat-figures-to-congress- public/)

\</comment><comment>

Check out the contrasting body language in the photo. Wray looking smug, practically _sauntering_ (reminds me of this: [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/strutting- leo](http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/strutting-leo)), not a care in the world. On the left is someone from the Capitol Police, much lower-ranked, who actually worries about and protects things for a living and probably doesn't get as much sleep as he should.

The first guy could stand to be a little more like the second, since at least in theory he's the "top law enforcement officer in the land" and a supposed protector of law and order. In reality he's presumably an expert at playing politics, doing favors, and stretching the truth to get an advantage, such as... hey, this article. Not to mention that spying on people, I suspect, has a lot less to do with guy-on-the-left/protecting-people concerns than it does with guy-on-the-right/political-jockeying concerns.

<comment><USER6> The top enforcement officer in the US is the attorney general, to whom the FBI director reports.

I wouldn't read too much into the body language. Newspapers choose whatever relatively recent pictures they have, coupled with _some_ relevant features (leading to those great pouty-face photos whenever there's bad news for the person involved).

<comment><USER5> Ah you mean "scandal face." Yeah those are a hoot.

And yeah I'm not necessarily trying too hard to link the photo to this news in space and time; just taking it on its own, and extrapolating. I rarely pay this much attention to the art.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm always bothered by the sense of entitlement. A warrant just says they're allowed to infringe someone's 4A rights in order to look for and seize evidence. It's not a _promise_ that they'll find and be able to use whatever it is they're looking for.

And I don't think the FBI has ever stated that they dropped or lost a case due to crypto.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm having a hard time speculating about what phones are "encrypted cellphones" by this count. Are they counting iOS devices with a strong passcode or is there some other functionality they're specifically "having trouble" with? I find it hard to believe they're talking about Phantom and specific-application "cryptophones."

<comment><USER4> They're talking about ordinary phones. Before full-disk encryption became common, it was usually trivial for law enforcement to access data on phones, laptops and other devices physically seized under a warrant. That's often impossible now that data is encrypted at rest by default.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI–Apple_encryption_dispute](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI–Apple_encryption_dispute)

<comment><USER8> If that is the case, why are there only 2000? The conditions must be more complex than that. Unless 2000 is nearly every phone they touched in that time period?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> News Flash!

Executives of US federal government entity lie to executives of another US federal government entity!

Videotape at ten! Tune in!

</comment><comment><USER10> A government agency that cant even count properly wants to control a back door key to swaths of private communications. Let that sink in.

<comment><USER11> "FBI: Federal Bureau of Investigation, aka the Downtown Gang. Very good at breaking up used car rings. Kind of confused on anything more complicated. Fun to jerk with. Not fun when they jerk back."

From Stratfor's leaked Glossary of Useful, Baffling and Strange Intelligence Terms [1]

[1] [https://wikileaks.org/IMG/pdf/The_Stratfor_Glossary_of_Usefu...](https://wikileaks.org/IMG/pdf/The_Stratfor_Glossary_of_Useful_Baffling_and_Strange_Intelligence_Terms.pdf)

<comment><USER12> Thanks for this. It's great.

<comment><USER11> You're welcome! I have read it a dozen of time, I never pass an occasion to post it :-)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


DBX - <AUTHOR> https://www.dropbox.com/dbx

<comment><USER2> Dropbox are in an interesting position- they're practically a "cloud utility". Like if ConEd invited me to "discover the possibilities when you use electricity", I don't really know what I'd get out of a Dropbox conference. It does file syncing. They have an API that allows you to sync files. Right. Either the topics would be so specific that they'd all repeat each other, or they'd be so broad that they would only tangentially touch on what Dropbox does.

That said, there isn't an agenda so i can't find out.

<comment><USER3> Sounds like someone was hired in the PR/Marketing team and this was the result of their effort.

 __ _"Dropbox has how many users? Wow! We should have a conference! imagine if we just get 1% of the users at the conference! Imagine if we charge those attendees $350! WOW - I am a marketing GENIUS!"_ __

<comment><USER2> Well, Dropbox bought Mailbox, which hints that they are keen to 'consumerize' at least some of their business. Which I'm wary about- like when my cellphone provider makes an app to view my bill, the results are invariably awful. There's a lot to be said for focusing on your core competency, but I can understand the desire to not be another "dumb pipe".

<comment><USER4> being the best dumb pipe is better than being a mediocre value adder imho.

<comment><USER5> IE Google Fiber, and all the excitement that's generating.

<comment><USER2> Google aren't just a dumb pipe provider, though. They've gone from utility to consumer and back to utility again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't like the copy or the lack of content on the site.

The phrase "request an invitation" seems self-aggrandizing and conceited, as if one is supposed to beg for the elite privilege of being "invited" to give them $400. It's purchasing a ticket to a conference, not applying for an American Express Black Card. Their diction shouldn't pretent otherwise.

As for getting people to "apply" for this $400 ticket, they appear to have nothing in the way of information or any hints as to what will occur at this event. It just seems odd that they expect people to "apply" for tickets without any knowledge of the actual conference.

<comment><USER7> _The phrase "request an invitation" seems self-aggrandizing and conceited_

To me, it's a classic example of using social proof to create the idea that this event is sought after and valuable. See "if the line is busy, call again later" instead of "operators are standing by."

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> $350? I'd like to at least get a peek at what's going to go on that day before sinking that kind of money into this.

<comment><USER9> Your time should be a lot more valuable than that, so even if it was free you should evaluate what Dropbox is worth to you. If your work depends on Dropbox in some manner, it will most likely prove worthwhile.

<comment><USER6> " _Your time should be a lot more valuable than that, so even if it was free you should evaluate what Dropbox is worth to you._ "

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Are you stating that the price of the conference is irrelevant and that one should only consider the time investment. If so, I disagree. Although $350 might be negligible to some, it is not to most people. The price of the ticket is probably going to be cost- prohibitive to most, and certainly elevates the decision of purchasing one out of the realm of triviality. To most people $350 is a major expense that requires thought, and to many, it's an expense that might prove prohibitive.

To the overwhelming majority of people, money and not time is limiting factor in their lives.

<comment><USER10> He's saying that, if you're reading HN, your day rate is probably much higher than $350. Hence, the conference might not be worth the price even if it were free.

<comment><USER11> Yeah, but I still do my own yardwork no matter what my day rate is. Some things about money you do based on principle, like not shelling out $350 without knowing what you're buying -- Warren Buffett wouldn't do that, why should I?

<comment><USER12> I think you're both saying that $350 is too expensive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Here's the blog post about it: [https://blog.dropbox.com/2013/05/introducing- dbx-dropboxs-fi...](https://blog.dropbox.com/2013/05/introducing-dbx-dropboxs- first-developer-conference/)

It's also rather sparse on details, but the line about being the first to see Dropbox's new products as the most important thing seems to indicate an intention to use the conference as an announcement platform.

Edit: TechCrunch is also reporting[1] that you'll be able to interact with the Dropbox API team:

> Dropbox tells me the three focuses of the one-day conference will be > learning about newly launched features on its platform, giving developers a > chance to meet and get help from Dropbox API engineers and designers, and > highlighting what third-parties have built on top of Dropbox so far.

[1]: <http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/06/dropbox-conference/>

<comment><USER14> Meh, doesn't seem worth paying $350 just find out about new Dropbox products when it'll probably be on Hacker News the same day they make the announcement anyway. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> "People create more than a billion memories, thoughts, and moments in Dropbox every day."

Interesting copy. If you replaced "Dropbox" in that sentence with Facebook, it would work just as well.

Maybe that's Dropbox's endgame? An emphasis on "moments" rather than "files"?

<comment><USER16> I'm curious about the accuracy of the statement. That implication is people _intentionally_ upload/share over a billion files every day?

Given that dropbox is more of a sync service, I'm curious if that number more accurately reflects the number of files shared total or perhaps the number of sync events that occurred?

If people are actually uploading & sharing >1B files every day, Dropbox is immensely bigger than I had thought. Instagram, for example, sees 40M photo uploads per day.

<comment><USER17> That doesn't seem unreasonable at all. There are plenty of power users like myself who do pretty much everything in Dropbox, and there are also plenty of tiny little files created every day that can count towards that.

For example, deep down in my Dropbox I have a Code directory, which has plenty of other folders for most of the personal projects I work on. If I create a rails project, that puts in a bunch of basic files which can easily count for 100. I initialize a git repository on there and that can generate a few hundred more files. All of those add up quickly.

Here's the results of a few commands showcasing the size of my personal dropbox, and I'm sure there are other power users who are similar to me.

ls -aR Dropbox | wc -l

74397

du -sh Dropbox

32G (Just to note, .dropbox.cache accounts for 10G)

<comment><USER16> Right, so it's the latter -- People are using dropbox as an automated rsync. Which is fine.

It's just fundamentally different than people sharing over a _billion_ memories and moments each day, I'd argue their tagline is very misleading.

<comment><USER18> Their tagline does say "create" rather than "share".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Why should I fork over $350? Because you're Dropbox? C'mon. Gimme some idea of why I should bother going...

<comment><USER20> Do you need a keychain maybe? Perhaps a plastic cup that is cheaply screenprinted?

<comment><USER21> Anything in that vein would certainly help more than just: "Come spend $400 watching something you can read online ten minutes after it happens"

<comment><USER22> Much like any conference.

However most conferences are good for networking, not sure about a very specialized dropbox one however...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Amazing UX design. These Dropbox designers have really stepped up their game. Try resizing the browser window or submitting a blank form. It's the little things that matter.

<comment><USER24> The font is kinda awful here on Chrome/Win7.

<comment><USER25> That's a general problem with chrome on windows rendering sites with custom fonts. It doesn't have directwrite, unlike Firefox and IE.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Clicking on the boats on this page makes them sink.

<comment><USER27> Odd analogy to tie-in to your event registration page. Sinking ships?

<comment><USER28> "Play in our sea and we can sink you"

<comment><USER29> Bit early to become Twitter? :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Clearly the conference is organized by ignorant younglings.

DBX is Dolby X - a Dolby noise reduction system for audio recordings, from the late 70s and onward. We had a separate box in my dad's audio stack that essentially had just one push button on a panel. That button was called DBX and it caused an audio signal to get mangled if it was recorded and de-mangled when it was played back. Good old analog times :)

<comment><USER31> dbx is a company and a noise reduction format. It competed w/ Dolby. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dbx_(noise_reduction)>

<comment><USER30> A-a-and you are correct.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Am I the only one who thought DBX was Dropbox's new ticker symbol? :)

<comment><USER3> They don't even own DBX.com... which is the trend these days. They should be trying to get it with all their money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I agree with a lot of the commenters here. If your website doesn't explain the conference clearly then there's no predicting the crowd that will be in attendance. People are basically gambling on the fact that this will be worth their time.

</comment><comment><USER34> If that's 1 billion new objects created every day, then I believe that puts them somewhere in AWS's top 1 customer.

<comment><USER35> Not necessarily if you take data deduplication into account. (You don't upload files they recognize the fingerprints for.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I thought they were announcing their IPO and a ticker symbol in a dramatic way. I was disappointed that it's just a conf.

DBX looks to be available as a ticker symbol and I hope it will make a good ticker symbol for them someday.

</comment><comment><USER37> If you open up the "join us" modal and then click outside the modal, you get a orange box that says join us and requires you refresh the page to get back to where you were.

<comment><USER38> Not true. I'm visiting with Chrome 26.0.1410.65 and clicking outside the box does close it.

However, clicking on 'request an invitation' without completing the form does make it do a nice little dance :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> You can't tell if $350 is expensive or not if you have no idea of what you are getting for it. I wouldn't go to the conference even if it was free and 2 meters from home.

I need a basic idea of what's going on there, and the main advantages. Usually, I go to a conference to listen a little, and socialize as much as I can. Different kind of conferences, different people. I discover other people who have other crafts.

Well, maybe it's just me.

</comment><comment><USER40> Seems expensive for a single day event that will likely require travel, unless of course it's targeted at SF devs.

Great design though!

</comment><comment><USER41> Here I was thinking this was their stock symbol and they'd gone public all of a sudden.

</comment><comment><USER42> Why do people have to pay to attend these conferences? What is dropbox, or any company for that matter, going to give away or share that is so much more valuable than the price of the tickets?

<comment><USER43> It's less about the money and more about filtering for people who are serious about attending.

Just like WWDC or F8, I'm guessing you'll get to speak with engineers and designers at Dropbox to get a sense of where the platform is going. If you're building products on top of Dropbox, this is invaluable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Is DBX going to be dropbox' stock symbol?

</comment><comment><USER45> The design of the page is actually not that bad. We like it :)

</comment><comment><USER46> I prefer adb.

</comment><comment><USER47> $350 is a filter not the basis for a "profit center".

<comment><USER48> If I could upvote this more than once I would.

It limits the number of people who are going to show up and ensures that there is some level of interest by all in attendance. Even if 1000 people go to the first conference, that is hardly a big money maker — $350,000 disappears quickly with costs associated with hosting the conference.

They will make money, but it's hardly a boondoggle. The real benefit for Dropbox is getting 500-1000+ developers all in the same location sharing ideas, creating, giving them feedback, etc. A few days of a conference is worth months of emails/tweets/HN/etc — in both directions.

Those complaining about the price probably don't have any business interest in Dropbox and are unlikely to attend — which should suit everyone just fine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> What a useless link title. Was it submitted that way, or did the overzealous moderators get to it?

<comment><USER50> I agree. It's like the opposite of a typical Reddit link title.

<comment><USER51> Reddit headline:

<Superlative adjective> <Emotionally charged adjective> <Popular noun> <Politically charged context>

HN headline:

<Single noun that is completely meaningless without context></comment></comment></comment>


MtGox files for Bankruptcy Protection - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/WSJ/status/439333233013309440 <comment><USER2> so it goes</comment>


Facebook's new teens-only app Lifestage turns bios into video profiles - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/19/facebook-lifestage/ <comment><USER2> Another Snapchat Stories clone. But!

" _it mimics the way Facebook was originally launched — school by school_ "

" _you select your high school, and will then see the video profiles from people at your school or ones nearby_ "

" _While technically anyone can download Lifestage, anyone 22 or older will only be able to see their own profile. That 's because it's built for high schoolers to learn more about their classmates. A quick swipe lets you block and report people too in case anyone sketchy tries to creep on the kids._"

This gating is really interesting and mimics the feature of Snapchat that makes it so that all interaction is friends-only-by-default. This is crucial because other social networking and/or popularity apps are usually public-by- default or encourage it heavily by the nature of the content (Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, Vine), which extends popularity contests globally, and separately, makes unsavory interactions with strangers more likely.

In other words, it's possible that this particular set of attributes, which keeps it grounded in the immediate, existing peer group of teens, will result in its long-term success.

</comment><comment><USER3> reminds me of an old parent trying to pretend that they understand their teenage kids. fb is going to be irrelevant to the next generation. i always tell people that their death is going to be by 1000 cuts the same way that yahoo did.

there are already several very successful social apps/products (snapchat, pinterest, twitter) that aren't owned by fb and there are going to be many many more in the coming years that will each divert a small bit of attention away from fb. eventually it will all add up. ironically many of these social apps/platforms are going to be inspired by wanting to follow zuckerberg's success and are going to turn down acquisition offers (see snapchat).

i genuinely think that they should follow google's lead and invest in areas outside of their core product. creating their own cell phone network (like how google is with internet service) would be a great investment for them. this will allow them to continue to mine people's data while also expanding their product line, and thus reducing the damage that the future social apps are going to do. keeping all their eggs in one basket is a terrible long term strategy.

<comment><USER4> How did you manage to equate this simple act of kindness to Facebook's entire future strategy?

<comment><USER3> This was the first line in the article.

"What if I figured out a way to take Facebook from 2004 and bring it to 2016?"

It's dead obvious that they're trying to stay relevant to younger users.

A better question - how did you equate this product launch with an act of kindness?</comment></comment></comment>


Partners at Teehan+Lax, the Design Firm Behind Medium, Join Facebook - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/01/16/partners-at-teehanlax-the-design-firm-behind-medium-join-facebook/

<comment><USER2> > "In a lengthy post explaining the move, Teehan+Lax partner Jon Lax explained > their motivation for selling to Facebook..."

They are not selling the company, they are closing it, as stated in their own announcement:

"Since we wouldn't be selling the company but instead several of us taking on specific roles, we needed to go through a process of individual reflection and consideration."

and

"Although, we were ultimately not acquired by Facebook, this framework helped us, and key members of our company, make the decision to join Facebook."

[http://www.teehanlax.com](http://www.teehanlax.com)

</comment><comment><USER3> Source story here as well: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8898968](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8898968)</comment>


Reality check: Intel's $50-$100 WiMAX bundle - <AUTHOR> http://www.thestandard.com/news/2008/06/18/reality-check-intels-50-100-wimax-bundle

<comment><USER2> We can hope. Maybe the thought of this will make ISPs reconsider metered hosting.</comment>


Ask HN: Whats your litmus test on whether to pursue a business idea - <AUTHOR>

Even before putting up mock landing pages and buying traffic to see how it converts, how do you first filter your ideas and decide which one to pursue?
I have a business idea like every other week and I apply this quick 3 question test to see if I should spend more time research it or not.
1. Do I feel the pain of the problem myself?
2. Is this a universal problem?
3. Am I able to solve this problem?
Interested to see your versions of a litmus test. Would also be great to get feedback just in case I've missed an important question.
P.S I wrote more about my thinking at my blog pragmaticstartup.tumblr.com <comment><USER2> Apart from litmus test, do due diligence:

> Who else claims to solve the same problem? Examine them.

> How do those people who are unaware of specific solutions to the problem > solve it?

> In theory is it easier to implement your solution, or to upgrade an existing > solution?

> What are related problems?

> What's your user acquisition plan? (TechCrunch is not)

> Talk about your idea, both other developers and normal people.

</comment><comment><USER3> #1: Will people pay for the solution....

(not do they say they will pay, WILL they put their money where their mouth is)

</comment><comment><USER4> For me the first question is usually enough, with the power of statistics I know that if I have this problem somebody else should have too and be aware of that fact.

The trick here is make the rest of the market that isn't aware of the problem, aware of it.

</comment><comment><USER5> I usually make a spreadsheet to figure out if I can make any money on it and the adjust the prices and customer numbers and marketing cost until I figure out if it's worth while to invest additional time.

</comment><comment><USER6> Very informative post,

I try to see if its feasible to do.</comment>


Ask HN: What are the best Cyber Monday deals for hackers? - <AUTHOR> So far I've seen:
https://www.skillshare.com/home -- only $0.99/3 months. Has some good stuff about writing.
https://justinjackson.withcoach.com/cyber-monday-book-bundle -- marketing for developers bundle
http://bitfountain.io/p/bitfountain-all-access-black-friday-bundle/?coupon_code=BLACKFRIDAY16 -- iOS training bundle
Can you guys share some deals for hackers here? <comment><USER2> Moesif is offering over 50% off on yearly plans for their API debugging service today.

[http://on.moesif.com/cyber2016-plans](http://on.moesif.com/cyber2016-plans)

More on Moesif: [https://assets.moesif.com/docs/5e47hqj](https://assets.moesif.com/docs/5e47hqj)

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://maitreapp.co/](https://maitreapp.co/) \-- 40% Off Viral Waiting List Software. 'cyber-monday' is the code.

</comment><comment><USER4> [http://getsyrup.com](http://getsyrup.com) | they have some really good deals, especially today

</comment><comment><USER5> All Springer Computer Science eBooks are $9.99. Google "springer cyber Monday"

</comment><comment><USER6> Namecheap are doing dollar domains for cyber monday. I usually buy about five or six at this time of the year with frivolous keywords like issomethingcool.com whattimeisit.com etc

I _never_ renew these BTW

</comment><comment><USER7> </comment>


CryptoMood – Description - <AUTHOR> CryptoMood app helps traders to make better investment decisions with crypto sentiment analysis tools that use artificial intelligence and data from 50,000+ sources to uncover early trading signals.
Cryptomoods' market sentiment app analyses the latest data from 10+ News aggregators, 4 Social Media Networks, 50,000+ News sources, 100+ trading and crypto blogs to help crypto traders with:
 Detecting the direction in which the crypto market will move.
 Identifying whether market sentiment is strong or weak.
 Exposing a possible reversal ⏪ of the crypto market.
 Deciding to trade, hold position or exit position.
CryptoMood applies and enhances the Neural Networks used for FOREX trading to cryptocurrency trading in order to provide comprehensive real-time views of the crypto market sentiment.
ℹ Features of this app
 Massive Data Mining
We process data from 50,000+ News sources, 10+ News aggregators, Twitter, Facebook and 2 other Social Networks, 100+ trading and crypto blogs
 Natural Language Processing and Understanding
With the help of NLP & ML, Cryptomood's sentiment analysis tools can accurately analyse text and measure crypto market sentiment
 Advanced Artificial Intelligence Algorithms  (Market Impact Analysis)
Our crypto sentiment analysis tools use high complexity artificial intelligence algorithms to analyse market sentiment and uncover crypto trading signals
 Whale  Movements and Tether Emissions
To analyse crypto market sentiment, track the largest crypto wallets' movements and significant cash-crypto conversions <comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your question. We estimate that our sentiment data predicts market movements correctly in most occasions. Although sentiment is a strong enough factor to judge market movements, we do not recommend relying solely on 1 source. Thus, when making our trading decisions, we form our choice by taking different aspects in mind.

</comment><comment><USER2> So if the sentiment is good do you trade in it? I get the selling shovels in a good rush but how confident are you in your own product?</comment>


Spies to be allowed to break speed limit under changes to UK motoring laws - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25703725

<comment><USER2> I wonder if their cars will be marked? Otherwise what is to stop them getting pulled over like everyone else.

<comment><AUTHOR> Almost no one is "pulled over" in the UK for speeding. You get caught by a speed camera and a letter with a fine and possible court summons drops through your letterbox a few days later.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> If you get pulled over how do you get out of the ticket without being outted as an agent?

<comment><USER4> Accept the ticket and have it squashed later?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How can I get into publishing? - <AUTHOR>

I have an idea that I'm researching, however I have very little context to go on, so I thought I'd reach out to see if anyone had any insights.
With the number of self-published eBooks out there, I think there might be a market for a digital publishing company that handles editing, distribution and publicity. I look at awesome companies like the Pragmatic Bookshelf and No Starch Press and wonder if there's room in the market.
There seems to be very little information out there on running a publishing company, and even less so on one that doesn't do physical media. What problems might I face? Is there an MVP for this type of thing? Perhaps I need to self publish my own work and build a process around that? <comment><USER2> You have correctly identified that editing, distribution, publicity are problems for self published authors mostly because they don't have the money or will to pay for these services. All of these currently are fixed/upfront costs invested into a book before you know the level of sucess it will have. If your company pays for these work they have to get paid back, which is going to have to come out of the sales stream from the book which creates a selection bias problem.

If you can crack the problems around the cost for providing services or how to pre-sift through books for a population more likely than average to have above average sales that would give you a way to engage in what you've described.

There are lots of Books about running a publishing company but no websites. I'm working on a publishing focused startup and have been in the industry for the previous five years.

</comment><comment><USER3> If there are not relevant discussions at:

<http://absolutewrite.com/forums/index.php>

I suspect you could start one.

These people are in the space:

<http://www.pdf-publishing.com/>

I used their Drumlin to DRM some study guides I wrote few years ago. The Drumlin product is here:

<http://www.drumlinsecurity.com/index.html>

I will say that they appear to have their roots in publishing and are using technology to further their domain expertise rather than trying to work the problem the other way. A lack of publishing domain expertise is, in my opinion, likely to be a major hurdle for certain types of work. For something like Scribd, not so much.

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome resources, thank you.

I haven't given thought to DRM. Books that I buy typically aren't DRM'd, and honestly the only ones I've seen are usually textbooks.</comment></comment>


Surviving in the Post-Indie Bubble Wasteland - <AUTHOR> http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com/2014/06/surviving-in-post-indie-bubble-wasteland.html

<comment><USER2> _Calling a game an "indie game" is like buying a six-pack of beer on sale and offering it to your friends as "on-sale-beer."_

Having once found a ridiculously low-priced case of Olympia Beer (while living in Olympia, Washington, no less), bringing it back to the house, and remembering the resulting truly awful hangovers, I have to comment that while "on-sale-beer" isn't a genre or a brewing style, it is definitely a notable _category_ to look out for. (And avoid.)</comment>