Tell HN: Winners of Apply HN for YC Fellowship 3 - <AUTHOR> Last month, we decided to reserve a few spots in the next Fellowship batch (F3) for the Hacker News community to decide who they'd like to fund. Startups applied publicly via HN and the community "interviewed" and voted for their favorites.
Context:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11440627
We ran a poll for the top applications and the voting was so close that we decided to fund one extra startup. Here are the winners:
AutoMicroFarm (264 points): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11454342
Feynman Nano (208 points): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11443122
Casepad (200 points): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11452884
I've talked to the founders of these three startups on the phone already and I'm really excited about working with all of them. We've disclosed all the vote totals in the original poll thread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11615639). Of course, the application that got the most votes isn't on the final list and we'll discuss that in the thread below.
We received 343 applications via Apply HN and over 1700 comments were generated across those posts. I was quite impressed by the quality and depth of the discussions on these applications and really loved the moments when HNers would take the time to provide quality feedback to the founders on their applications.
Thank you to everyone for participating in our little experiment. It takes a lot of bravery put your passion out there to be judged publicly and it takes a remarkable community to treat that courage with kindness and respect. It makes me very proud to be part of HN.
While we haven't definitively decided whether we'll do this again at this point (we'll want to see how the companies do in the batch), I'm delighted and optimistic about what the community accomplished here.
We've already received a lot of great feedback from many of you on how to do this better, but please feel free to share more below. <comment><USER2> I've had a bit longer to think about this than the rest of you -- I discovered that the vote totals were being inadvertently leaked earlier today -- and I have to say that I'm impressed with the quality of the results. Leaving pinboard out of the picture[1][2], I think the voting selected a group of companies with tremendous potential: AutoMicroFarm has the potential to develop scalable technology which completely changes how food is produced, Feynman Nano has the potential to save hundreds of thousands of lives, and Casepad has the potential to make a huge industry dramatically more efficient[3].

I hope YC does something like this again in the future, but I'd suggest a different approach: Rather than asking HN to help select _startups to fund_ , I'd suggest asking HN to help select _startups to interview_. This would solve the problem of needing an out-of-band mechanism to determine if an application is "real" or not; worst case, YC would end up paying travel expenses for some companies they decide not to fund. I suspect that the advantage of having extra eyeballs ensure that they don't overlook promising startups[4] would easily justify this -- not to mention the possibility of saving YC lots of time on in-house reviewing.

The one biggest danger I see with this is the potential for vote brigading; I suspect that we would have had more of that if it was announced at the start that votes would be a significant deciding factor. One possible way of solving this would be to limit voting choices, e.g., ask each person to pick one out of a small subset, so who only turn up because they want to support a particular candidate would usually end up filtering themselves out. I suggested this to Dan, but he thought that there wouldn't be enough voters to make this feasible; I'm not sure I agree with him.

Obviously I have no idea how this experiment is being viewed from YC's perspective -- and it sounds like YC won't know how they view it for a while yet either -- but as an external observer I'd say that this was a very interesting and very successful experiment.

[1] I'm sure that most people who voted for pinboard did not do so because they thought it would be a good investment. This gets back to the "it's not really clear what YC is trying to accomplish with YC Fellowships" problem which I've mentioned in earlier threads, but the original call was to "fund startups", not "fund your friends".

[2] I think that YC could gain a lot by creating some other mechanism to bring people like Maciej into the system -- something like an "honorary YC founder" status. But I don't think funding is the answer here.

[3] I'm a Canadian and not particularly familiar with the US legal system; but I've seen enough of it to know that (a) there's a huge amount of money there, and (b) they desperately need an infusion of technological competence.

[4] I'd be interested to know if any of the three had applied to YC via the normal route: Did HN identify good startups which YC missed, or would YC have funded these three anyway?

<comment><USER3> > I'm sure that most people who voted for pinboard did not do so because they > thought it would be a good investment.

I voted for Maciej fully believing that he had no intention of building a billion dollar startup and just wanted the 20k. That said part of the reason I voted for him is that I thought it could could be a good opportunity for YC anyway, albeit risky, in addition to just being entertaining.

I also think they made the right call not to fund him, given Kevin's explanation.

<comment><USER2> If this had been "YC is giving away money! Pick someone you think YC should give $20k to!" then I would _absolutely_ have voted for Pinboard. And I would have submitted Tarsnap, too.

But they were looking for more than that, so I voted based on the question they asked -- who should they _fund_ , not simply who should they _give money to_.

<comment><USER4> And yet I bet you voted with the expectation that winners would be chosen based on the criteria laid out in the original ApplyHN post.

<comment><USER5> If it's unsurprising that YC picks based on their gut and not on any hard criteria... it shouldn't be. Surprise, almost all white dudes again!

<comment><USER6> This entire ordeal has shown us the thin skin of VCs and VC culture.

If HN/YC wanted to do the right thing, they should have taken some time to assess removing Pinboard BEFORE voting ended. Instead, what they did was game their own system: They likely sensed Pinboard could be trouble from the beginning, but hoped they would not win. They attempted to achieve that result by letting the voting play out, and THEN disqualified Pinboard when the voting results were not in their favor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I voted for Pinboard as a member of this community, even when I likely would not have voted normally, because Maciej is a smart, charismatic founder who I knew would do something brilliant with the opportunity. I'm sure there are many HN members who voted similarly, which very well might look like a comparatively odd pattern.

I'm sad that the community choice was not allowed to be made by the community, and doubly sad that the majority of us who voted for Pinboard, in good faith and within the spirit of the event, will not be able to enjoy what Maciej would have done.

Congratulations to the winners, nonetheless; this wasn't their fault.

<comment><USER8> Seconding this. I voted for Pinboard because A) I use and genuinely love the service, and I was excited to see what Maciej could do with the money and B) because Maciej's statement of semi-purpose:

> I am hoping to attract a certain protest vote of the silent majority who > enjoy this community, but are uneasy about the values of its founders and > more broadly, Silicon Valley.

accurately reflects my feelings towards HN/SV, and I think having a dose of skepticism in the fold would be good for YC.

<comment><USER9> Pinboard & the community should just do it without YC/SV.

<comment><USER4> I anticipated this outcome by becoming profitable eight years ago.

But I still want my $20K.

<comment><USER10> I'm trying to figure out a way to articulate why "I still want my $20K" seems to me.

The way this whole thing was handled stinks, and I'm sorry you got screwed by a poorly thought-out "contest." But it seems like the YCF deal isn't solely about the money -- they're trying to find companies to _work_ with. Honestly, did you... want that? Or just the $20,000 that keeps getting mentioned?

<comment><USER4> YC's values are so diametrically opposed to my own that I thought it would be interesting for everyone to have me go through the program.

As for my demands to get paid, I had a clever idea about how to use the money, and I'm miffed that I won't get a chance to do it.

<comment><USER11> You're saying (a) YC's values are diametrically opposed to yours, (b) your call with Kevin wasn't successful, and (c) YCF isn't designed for companies like yours—but _adhering rigidly to the original guidelines_ you still ought to get your bag of cash.

Basically you tried gaming the system, with your fanbase who voted for you despite your comments like "I will go through YC like a bowling ball," and now you're protesting that YC won't let you. You don't even like YC. May I ask, out of curiosity, why you're doing this?

<comment><USER4> It's odd to criticize me for gaming the system given the name of this website.

<comment><USER12> Tell me about a time you hacked a system.

<comment><USER13> I think you should realize that pinboard's very nature and existence is a wonderful hack of the SV and "web 2.0" mindset and ecosystem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The original hypothesis was:

> If Hacker News could fund startups, what startups would it fund?

The answer was clear and overwehlming: The people chose an understated business model helmed by a charismatic leader who they passionately believe in. We choose an antiestablishment founder over the status quo.

You asked the question and you didn't like the answer. It's your house so you're within your rights but I can't say I'm pleased with the way this was decided.

<comment><USER15> The question also came with a few stipulations, and the winner did not like them.

This was never about pleasing the HN community.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> You know, it is ironic that the 1 industry funding innovation (venture capital) is the 1 sorely lacking any innovation at all. It's always just the case of former-founders pooling their cash into a fund, then asking for more money from pension-funds, etc. and they then become "X fund" or "Y Capital" or "Z Ventures", etc. The game always follows this type of rotational pattern but...

Based on that, I'd like to tell you guys at Y Combinator that even though you are very entrenched in the happenings of the Valley, you are also probably the only VC-like company doing innovative and risky things like this.

I don't think I've ever heard of a VC or other-type organization funding companies based purely on a pseudonymous-community of "up" votes.

With that being said, at least we will see someone attempt to commercialize small-scale aquaponics, so something good/interesting did come out of this experiment. And not to be biased, I hope the other 2 do just as well.

<comment><USER10> I can't tell if this is too harsh, but it seems like you're praising the contest that was advertised, not the one we got. They _didn 't_ fund companies "based purely on a pseudonymous-community of 'up' votes." When they realized the community wanted something too risky for them, they bailed, and picked the "winners" themselves.

<comment><USER17> It turns out when you let people pseudonymously vote for things you get research vessels named Boaty McBoatface and similar (which I think would be awesome BTW [http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/03/22/world/europe/boaty- mcbo...](http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/03/22/world/europe/boaty-mcboatface- what-you-get-when-you-let-the-internet-decide.html) )

<comment><USER18> FWIW, that wasn't the issue in this case. We knew about that possibility and planned for it and even called it by that name. But Kevin and I decided not to treat Maciej's application as a troll. The earnest comments he posted were what convinced us of that, and I don't think we were wrong there.

I admit to being flummoxed by the combination of trollish and serious elements --it basically does a denial of service on my brain; if it were stage hypnosis I'd be squawking like a chicken. But I'm starting to think one could have taken all the jokes out of this and much the same thing would still have happened. If that's so, then the troll aspect is a red herring.

<comment><USER2> _I admit to being flummoxed by the combination of trollish and serious elements--it basically does a denial of service on my brain_

For very good reason: Trolls often pretend to be serious, but serious people pretending to be trolls is incredibly rare.

<comment><USER19> This sounds like something Paul Graham would say. It's only missing the words "it turns out that".

<comment><USER2> Now I'm blushing.

<comment><USER4> I think you're just drunk.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm afraid the whole process lost all credibility. Please, do not repeat it. It's just disenfranchising for the community as a whole: it doesn't matter what we vote for, if YC will decide on their own as they would normally do.

<comment><USER21> This summarizes why this all rubs me the wrong way. YC already has a well- oiled machine that vets startups. The whole point of the YCF was ostensibly to try something new. If you're only going to give money to people after an "interview" which can be the sole eliminating factor, what's the point of a popular vote at all?

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I've thought about this a bit and see where both parties are coming from.

For Kevin, due to the "trollish" behavior of Maciej during this competition, Kevin was (validly) very suspicious of Maciej's intention for participating in the program. Of course previous history of Maciej rallying against all YC stands for did not help assuage the fears :)

For Maciej, the rules are the rules. he (fairly) believes you do not have to like someone to keep your end of an agreement.

Here's my position. As this is an EXPERIMENT, YC should have taken the risk. Worst case, they would have had to kick him out of the program. But everyone will see they have been fair. Seen to be fair is a quite important.

I have "clashed" with Maciej before [1] however, i see him as some one who only has a hard bark and will be quite cook in person or once you know him. Dont't be too worried Kevin.

Of course, your house your rules. But still..

I hope YC can rescind and take Pinboard in (I know... I know..:).

[1] [http://oonwoye.com/2011/03/09/maciej-of-pinboard-in- nigerian...](http://oonwoye.com/2011/03/09/maciej-of-pinboard-in-nigerians- demand-an-apology/)

<comment><USER2> _For Maciej, the rules are the rules. he (fairly) believes you do not have to like someone to keep your end of an agreement._

Except that he's inventing rules ("whoever gets the most votes wins $20,000!") which were explicitly not there, while ignoring other rules ("Can I ask people to upvote my submission? No.").

<comment><USER22> Fair enough.

But like someone said re: raising money from VC (was it PG?) don't listen to the reason, listen to the answer.

Kevin is uncomfortable with Maciej and took his decision based on that. As it would not seem politically connect to give that as his reason, he began looking for "good reasons" to justify it.

Is this conflict that can keep dividing us worth the 20k to YC? I would guess no.

They could and should sort this out. Kevin should understand that these HN YCF coys "belong to the community". If Maciej goes in and try to mess it up the community will (as my people say) "treat his fuck up".

<comment><USER2> _Kevin is uncomfortable with Maciej and took his decision based on that. As it would not seem politically connect to give that as his reason, he began looking for "good reasons" to justify it._

My interpretation of events is rather different: Maciej cheated and got caught, but Dan and/or Kevin were concerned about the reaction if the submission which received the most votes was excluded based on the vote- rigging alone; so they went out of their way to try to find a way to include him anyway.

<comment><USER19> Even on tilt the way you are right now, you know this isn't true, and that this was a very slimy comment to have written. I'm surprised.

<comment><USER2> _on tilt the way you are right now_

I got increasingly irritated with his faux innocence as the evening progressed. I should probably have stopped around midnight.

 _you know this isn 't true_

My turn to be surprised. Which part isn't true? It seemed true to me when I wrote it at 2 AM, and it seems true to me when I'm reading it again now at 8 AM (curse these early morning meetings!).

<comment><USER19> Is there a way for us to have this conversation without each of your comments adding to the list of specious accusations you're making? There's nothing "faux" about his innocence.

<comment><USER2> Ok, you win. As the evening progressed, I got increasingly annoyed with _the way that he gave every outward appearance of acting like a dishonest troll, despite the fact that he is actually as pure as the driven snow and never had anything but the best interests of YC at heart_. Happy?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I would like to thank everyone for the feedback and the discussion.

I've been plugging away at CADWOLF for a while now to get an MVP going and I am really just a few weeks from a solid code base. The feedback I got let me know that I was headed in a valid direction. This whole experience was great.

On a side note, I'll be referring to the company as "the one that came in fourth" for a while. I also may be setting a record for YC rejections. Is there a solid number on that somewhere?

<comment><USER24> Can't wait to see what you come up with. I encourage you to apply to YC ... But make sure you are able to communicate what you are doing ;)

<comment><USER23> Thanks, I've got 3 or 4 YC rejections and now 2 fellowship rejections (single founder). Finding a co-founder in Houston is not easy.

I believe that my YC applications were better written than the very limited writeup we got here, but I should revisit that before I release the robot army to avenge me.

<comment><USER24> I slightly disagree with how you think you have written. The problem is that HN and YC are highly technical. Most of us already know that web based CAD/numerical analysis is invaluable... What everyone is trying to figure out is YOUR approach. And there was not enough detail in it. You are constantly focusing on the bigger picture - which everybody has already granted.

You're in what I like to call "the nuclear fusion problem" \- how the hell do you think you can pull it off ?

If I were you, I would talk about the innovation in the JS based symbolic solver (and that's pretty much what I would focus on from an implementation POV) and how you will use THAT to disrupt several industries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I've been sitting here trying to digest everything that has happened since we applied for this endeavor. And while we're disappointed we didn't get many votes, it was a proud moment for us to be among the top 20 companies out of so many that applied. I really mean that. We never thought our platform, that hasn't even launched yet, would get this much attention and we thank EVERYONE who voted for us.

The feedback we got from this process was very valuable and we even got some great beta users signed up. However, we likely wouldn't go through something like this again.

This was a bit of a distraction for us to be quite honest. We spent a lot of time working to craft a great pitch and responding to the feedback we got (despite some obvious trolling) in the best way we could.

I get why some people are/were upset though. Anytime you include such a robust community into a decision making process, you're just asking for trouble. You're not going to please everyone and even if everything goes the way you thought, you'll still be met with skepticism. This is especially true for a site like HN in which there are clear "regulars" who understand the nuances within this community.

I'm not saying that's a bad thing. I've been an outside observer for a long time and get tremendous value from the posts here. It's a site I check regularly many times a day.

All-in-all, it's an indictment of the community when you witness how the process plays out. This is not dissimilar to our own US presidential race happening today. You get people that say dumb shit, people who make outlandish claims, and people end up feeling disenfranchised. Long live democracy! :)

</comment><comment><USER26> Even though Krewe wasn't chosen, I'm grateful for the opportunity to participate in this.

I really wish I had the opportunity to "re-pitch" Krewe. I was one of the first to apply, and I don't think I did it in the right way. It was clear from the comments that people had a really poor idea of what it is. So my suggestion for next time: have founders fill out a form so everything gets formatted correctly.

</comment><comment><USER27> What I find disappointing about the conversation here is that, in typical HN fashion, many people just assumed that this _experiment_ was like one of those contests where you sign the legal "terms and conditions." As if the process was simply mechanistic.

As I understand, this could not be further from how this works. It was always obvious to me that votes would only be one objective factor among many subjective factors.

The discussion around Pinboard was somewhat polarized and tended to focus on the wrong aspects. I was partly guilty in that, but it's not great when the question mark is over whether or not you're serious, rather than over your business (having a question mark over your business is totally fine! that's the right kind of risk). And it was always obvious to me that the YC partners would do a final pass on selection.

<comment><USER19> It's comments like this that are the reason YC's communications here are so upsetting. Pinboard isn't a joke. It's how the guy pays his rent. Not only that, but it's a valuable and important service. I use it every day. Less than I use Google, but more than I use Wikipedia.

<comment><AUTHOR> No one communicated that Pinboard, the company, was a joke. I feel quite the opposite.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11441978](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11441978)

<comment><USER19> I think you mean to say, "no one intended to communicate that Pinboard, the company, was a joke."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Tom from Utiliz here. While dissapointed to miss out we were pumped to get into the final 20. The Q&A was enlightening and enjoyable. Good luck to the winners and thanks to Kevin and Dan.

<comment><USER29> I am a little surprised not to get into the top 20 as my submission got more votes and comments (and I thought they were quality ones) than AutoMicroFarm but their product sounds awesome so I wish them the best.

I'm also thankful to YC for doing this and to the people who took the time to read and comment on my business. That extra runway and the YC advice would have been a nice bonus though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Brodlist would like to deeply thank Kevin and Dan for doing this. It not only gave us great feedback but we found it a lot of fun as well. The winners deserve their spot and I'm looking forward to seeing great things come from all three.

Thanks again, guys.

</comment><comment><USER18> A word about why Pinboard is not included. We spent a long time thinking about this, since the original application did sound trollish, but comments like [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11442027](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11442027), [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11590386](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11590386), and [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11590315](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11590315) made us think it was also serious. Had we thought it was merely a joke, of course we'd have disqualified it. We'd referred to that as the Boaty McBoatface scenario when planning the experiment and deliberately included a measure of moderator review as a way of filtering such applications out. But we wanted to give the benefit of the doubt. We like Maciej's writing as much as the rest of HN does, think Pinboard is a fine company, and Kevin was excited by the prospect of working with it. So we decided to include it in the runoff, knowing that its pre-existing popularity would probably make it a winner. That last part isn't necessarily a bad thing; popularity is a good property for a founder and company to have.

But then two things happened. First, Kevin and Maciej had the good-faith conversation described at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11441978](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11441978), and Kevin reluctantly concluded that Maciej doesn't want to participate in the program as intended. I don't know the details and can't speak for Kevin, but that's his call to make as the partner who runs YCF, and I know he hoped and expected it to go the other way. Getting into a YC batch isn't a cash prize—it's a close working relationship, and that's something that has to be right on both sides or it won't work. Both Kevin and I wanted it to work (if we hadn't, we'd simply have dropped Pinboard from the runoff and said why), and I felt sure that a good-faith conversation would be enough to bridge any remaining gap. It turned not to be, which is disappointing.

Second, we found evidence of vote brigading, something we'd disqualify others for. I don't believe that Maciej organized a voting ring (actually I don't believe he'd give it a second's thought), but when we dug into the data we found that the votes for Pinboard look dramatically different from the votes for the other startups. I presume this is the effect of Pinboard's (deservedly) large audience being asked to promote the post, e.g. at [https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/727255170594131968](https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/727255170594131968) and [https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/719599297604390912](https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/719599297604390912). We didn't know about those links earlier; we only found out about them from user complaints after the runoff was posted. But we would and did disqualify people for soliciting votes on a small scale, so it wouldn't be right to allow soliciting them on a large one.

We're sad about this. As I said, Kevin and I both really wanted it to work--I thought it would be good for HN and Kevin admires Pinboard. We also appreciate that humor and irony and "a variety of publicity stunts" ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11443463](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11443463)) are Maciej's style, and he was simply practicing it. That part is not a problem--as readers, we enjoy it too, and creative cleverness has always been prized on HN. I both take Maciej at his word that he wasn't trolling and Kevin at his word that he tried to find a way to accept Pinboard into YCF and in the end just couldn't.

We're going to have a community discussion about things that didn't go so well with this first Apply HN experiment, but I'm not sure I'd put this in that category. I'm glad that we chose to believe the serious parts of what Maciej posted. I think it was the right call, I still believe them, and under similar circumstances would do the same again. It's not always easy to tell the joking bits apart from the serious bits, but that goes with the territory.

<comment><AUTHOR> Regarding Pinboard, the simple answer is he won the votes, he won the poll, but he made me feel uncomfortable in the end. I went into my good-faith phone call with him very much wanting this to work out and I was disappointed to come out of it tense and with less energy than when I went in. It's touchy feely, I know, but the truth.

The thing with YC is startups can't do the program in a vacuum. Even with the remote nature of the Fellowship, the founders affect the partners they work with and the other founders they work alongside, both in their batch and among the alumni community. We made the decision to call all the startups we'd consider taking on through Apply HN and make a decision on fit. I know that's changing the rules at the last second, but we didn't realize this until Pinboard entered the fray. I'm actually grateful for the head's up. Like all our experiments at YC, we design them to adapt as things happen, and they certainly did here.

I made the same phone calls with the other founders and they felt completely different. I wasn't looking for gratitude or devotion or deference. My minimum was connection, my ideal was simpatico—evidence that I could spend a lot of time with the founder, which is what's needed to make this relationship work well. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a good rapport with Maciej. Regardless of the vote situation, I'd make the same decision.

Maciej is clearly brilliant and quite witty and knows how to build and direct a passionate following. Pinboard is unique and I'm glad it exists. More opinionated software should exist in the world. Even though we couldn't find rapport together, I sincerely wish him and his startup the very best.

<comment><USER31> "He made me feel uncomfortable" is like slide 3 of every "unconscious bias" training workshop ever. As we slowly try to claw our way out from a deservedly terrible reputation in our industry, high-profile retentions for, basically, "lack of culture fit" send a dark message to every person in existence who fears they might not leave you "energized".

I realize it's inadvisable to wade into this discussion, but this just leaves me indignant and disappointed on behalf of my whole industry and profession.

<comment><USER32> This is the Achilles's Heal of YC's application process. The human "culture fit" test, where in (literally) just a few minutes they evaluate the founders as people.

The reason this experiment was so interesting was that it would bypass their biased human filtering and let in people based purely on their merit.

Not accepting Pinboard undermines the entire experiment. Pinboard could likely be a huge company with YC's help, and it would be fucking hilarious to watch.

Let Pinboard in and do the experiment again. He's smart and he's not crazy. Any founder able to win the votes is someone you can work with. Consider it a diversity program, which it would be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Hi guys. Alex from Gresham Dollar (now Greshm Dollar) here. It was a pleasure to share my project with all of you. Great questions and lively discussion from the HN community. Thanks to all of you who participated.

Thanks to HN and YC for putting this together. I doubt I would have been noticed if I'd applied in the conventional way.

Congratulations and good luck to the three startups who are getting funded!

Back to work.

<comment><USER34> Keep at it. Your idea is crazy in the best possible way and I truly hope it works out. I voted for you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I'm really rooting for AutoMicroFarm. I'm in the process of moving from the Triangle area, with a large interest in aquaponics. It's very surreal how similar our paths could have been...

</comment><comment><USER36> How did YC not see this Pinboard thing coming?

Obviously when you put something valuable up to an internet vote someone, somewhere is going to manipulate the results in some sort of fashion. Did anyone honestly think the opposite was going to happen? Did people honestly think the internet was going to play fair for the first time in history? That an online vote was going to be taken seriously?

And how do you respond like this after Maciej explicitly said it was a protest vote? How could you not see this turning Maciej/Pinboard into a martyr? You're only adding fuel to the fire and proving everything he says about Silicon Valley right.

This whole thing was played so obviously wrong from the beginning it feels like a publicity stunt. How can people who practically control this industry understand the internet so poorly? I'm honestly at a loss for words.

<comment><USER2> _Did people honestly think the internet was going to play fair for the first time in history? That an online vote was going to be taken seriously?_

Of course not. And if you read the original announcement, it was very clear: "to answer one question I know will come up: Upvotes are an important factor but they're too brittle to rely on exclusively; doing so would encourage the wrong kind of trying to game the system."

Maciej tried to game the system, and got the answer he deserved: "Nice try, but we told you that we weren't going to let you do that". Actually, I think he got more than he deserved: If I had been in Kevin's place I wouldn't have bothered with the ad-hoc phone interview.

<comment><USER36> From that same post:

 _So we 're going to gauge community interest both by upvotes and comments, and in case of doubt I'll make the final call—or better, figure out a way to put the final call to the community._

Pinboard was the most discussed entrant as well as the highest voted. I also don't think it's foolish of me to think that a ranking based on "discussion" or "comments" is just a glorified poll with more subjectivity, and just as vulnerable to manipulation (if not more).

It was also implied a value judgement would only be made in case of doubt, seems like Pinboard was doubtless the front runner. Very unfortunate they didn't manage to put the final call to the community though.

As an aside, i'd just like to echo how odd it is to see people on _Hacker News_ advocate against people gaming the system

<comment><USER2> _Pinboard was the most discussed entrant as well as the highest voted_

I'll concede that it could be misunderstood, but I'm sure that by "comments" they meant the _content_ of the discussion, not just the _number of comments_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Congratulations to everyone who made the final 20 and especially to the three winners. It was a really interesting, if some what flawed, experiment. Being able to get access to the raw pitch data is really invaluable.

</comment><comment><USER38> Offering Pinboard $20k but NOT a YCF slot seems like the most unambiguously correct thing to do. Sadly, I do not have $20k to give.

(and then the correct thing for him to do is either politely turn it down, or donate it to a charity or something of mutual agreeableness)

<comment><USER2> I disagree. Offering him $20k would simply be rewarding him for being obnoxious. I refuse to accept that he honestly believed that YC was running a $20k contest to see who could solicit the most votes via twitter, but that's exactly what he's pretending that this was.

<comment><USER20> As opposed to a $20k contest to see who could solicit the most votes via word- of-mouth in the Bay Area? Because that would have been totally fine, of course.

 _> rewarding him for being obnoxious._

What about rewarding _honest HN community members who voted for him in good faith_? Ignoring their wishes is a big slap in the face; we've been reminded that we're all just plebes and real power will always lie with Big (White) Men and their gut feelings.

<comment><USER2> _As opposed to a $20k contest to see who could solicit the most votes via word-of-mouth in the Bay Area? Because that would have been totally fine, of course._

Of course not. But I haven't seen any evidence that anyone was doing that.

 _honest HN community members who voted for him in good faith?_

How many such people exist? I don't think anyone knows. Unfortunately the vote spam which he solicited via twitter overwhelmed any other signal.

Even if this was supposed to be entirely decided on the basis of votes -- which is explicitly not what was planned from the start -- when people cheat they normally get disqualified. You don't say "this Olympic athlete took steroids, but maybe he should keep his medal... after all, he might have won even without the drugs".

<comment><USER39> > > _honest HN community members who voted for him in good faith?_

> _How many such people exist?_

 _raises hand_

Hi, my account is 3000 days old today, only a little less old than your own. I went back and checked and it turns out that I didn't vote for Pinboard, but that's largely because I hadn't been active on HN in quite a while and I didn't think it was necessary. I did voice support for Maciej in the comments there.

I genuinely wanted to see him go through the program ("like a bowling ball through a python"), and not just for entertainment purposes. I think it would have been a valuable cross-pollination for everyone involved.

I've generally felt that HN -- and to a greater degree, YC -- aren't particularly welcoming towards people like me. I got fed up enough that I wrote a news reader to mine HN for articles just so that I wouldn't be tempted to visit HN as often, and when that broke a while back, I never bothered to fix it. Literally the only reason I'm here now is because Maciej mentioned it on his Twitter account. I've always been an outsider here. Seeing YC accept another, more successful outsider would have been nice.

This fiasco has all the scent of cliqueish hostility towards Maciej, you have been non-stop and relentlessly accusing him of being a troll (and you're smart enough to know better than to claim to know someone's psychology better than they do over the internet), and the results stink like a US election.

<comment><USER2> _raises hand_

To be clear, I'm not saying that such people do not exist. I'm saying that there's no effective way to estimate their number.

<comment><USER40> Sure there is. The way has been outlined by `beeboop' and `killwhitey' in this thread, and subsequently by myself. The question have not been answered: if the concern is vote-brigading then the correct result can be determined by looking at accounts that are more than 30 days old.

If the outcome is the same then the twitter-promoting explanation is simply a smokescreen.

<comment><USER2> There are plenty of people with old accounts who would not have voted for pinboard -- or, for that matter, even been aware that there was a poll happening -- if he had not actively solicited votes on twitter.

<comment><USER39> ...I was about halfway into rebutting this when I realized, you know what, you're right.

I would not have cared at all about some contest on HN for a YC acceptance if it weren't for him mentioning it on Twitter. In fact, I would not have even known it was happening.

And now that I've seen the way both HN and YC has handled this throughout, including the attitude you've had towards his application since the beginning, I wish that he hadn't mentioned it on Twitter at all and my nearly 6-month- long streak of forgetting that HN exists had continued unbroken.

We could probably keep sparring over this, but the results are clearly not going to change and HN does not look any more like a community I want to be a part of than it did so many months ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> How many points did Pinboard get?

<comment><USER41> Vote totals are live again on the runoff thread: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11615639](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11615639)

<comment><USER8> Tiny difference in the count, really.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Feyman Nano is not doing anything new or innovative. In the materials world this is old technology with a very old spin.

</comment><comment><USER43> Feynman Nano sounds awesome - anything with the potential to save lives is fantastic. Good for them!

</comment><comment><USER44> I didn't see this set coming outside Casepad. Interesting. Will be more interesting to see how they do from here on out. One little benefit was that I had never heard of aquaponics until now. That's really neat stuff.

</comment><comment><USER45> Vishal from WedWell here. Really appreciated the input from everyone who commented, and the votes. We're charging forward. Hopefully you'll see us in the next YC round ;)

Overall liked having an open forum for people to give feedback on our idea. We used some of that feedback to evolve the product, we even got some new clients from HN.

Changes for next year? I'd love the final run off to be a bit more like the final four, where you pit one start-up against another until there are only a few standing. Then YC can pick from the cream of the crop.

Thanks again

</comment><comment><USER46> Congratulations to the winners!

</comment><comment><USER47> Disappointed not to see Pikii!

</comment><comment><USER48> Here's some great feedback: how about we let the winners win and the losers lose?</comment>


Vim-vertical: Get around 2-dimensionally in vim - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/rbong/vim-vertical <comment><USER2> I learned vim about two years ago and have been using it ever since, and at the time I learned it I learned all the neat combos for moving your cursor ("w", "5w", "b", "^", "$", and many other actually complicated ones besides).

As clever as these motions are though, easymotion simply blows them out of the water and there's no reason to use them. With easy motion it only takes as long as it takes your eye to move to where you want to move and you're there...you really can't beat that.

In some cases of course easymotion isn't enough because the place to which you need to move isn't on screen. So far all files I edit are short enough that I can scan the whole thing relatively easily by just holding down "J" or "K" (which I have mapped to "10j" and "10k")

<comment><USER3> vim-sneak[1] is a less bling-bling alternative to easymotion. I originally wrote it to address the sub-optimal valley between Vim's built-in near- distance (f, t, ...) and long-distance (/) motions. It also tries to avoid the hesitation that easymotion introduces, by avoiding the need to select a label if the first match is correct.

[1] [https://github.com/justinmk/vim-sneak](https://github.com/justinmk/vim- sneak)

<comment><USER4> There is a Spacemacs layer with nearly the same functionality called evil- snipe which binds s and S.

<comment><USER5> Isn't it more accurate to say there's an elisp package called evil-snipe which does this? The spacemacs layer didn't write the functionality, it's one example of how to configure it.

<comment><USER6> Yes, it sure is. But in the context we're talking about: Vim and Vim users, I think mentioning it as a Spacemacs layer is an acceptable offense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I find vim-sneak works well for me, as it tries to extend "vim's natural language" so to speak.

[https://github.com/justinmk/vim-sneak](https://github.com/justinmk/vim-sneak)

Otherwise relative numbers and gj/ gk work well enough for me when it comes to moving vertically to a position I can see on the screen.

</comment><comment><USER8> Has the author heard of gj and gk?

<comment><USER9> My immediate first thought. Although, the Vim is large and our brains so very small.

<comment><USER10> It's worth reading the description again in that case, and following the examples in the screenshots. It's not doing the same thing.

<comment><USER9> If I understand correctly, I can gj down a few times and get the same general effect, without having to install something.

For me there's a tension between a growing number of very specific features and my ability to remember them all. These days I opt for minimal vim addons, as there's usually a good enough way to get something done by default.

But for people who need exactly this sort of thing, this thing is exactly the sort of thing they'll like.

<comment><USER10> Yeah, gj is similar in the same way that you can press l a few times instead of e. (I've mapped j to do the same thing as gj anyway as I want to navigate the physical screen, not honour lines as indivisible entities).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Many editors have an Easy Motion plugin:

[https://code.tutsplus.com/tutorials/vim-essential-plugin- eas...](https://code.tutsplus.com/tutorials/vim-essential-plugin-easymotion-- net-19223)

I believe Sublime, Emacs, and Atom all have one.

<comment><USER3> Yep, and all of them have "blind spots" or lack attention to subtle details, because the authors didn't use Vim for very long, if at all.

<comment><USER12> Try'na make your own then?

<comment><USER13> I think he did ;)

[https://github.com/justinmk/vim-sneak](https://github.com/justinmk/vim-sneak)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> tldr;

> Many times, I have been at the end of a line after editing it and needed to > go to a nearby long line.

</comment><comment><USER15> I find this better solved by vim-columnmove:

[https://github.com/machakann/vim- columnmove](https://github.com/machakann/vim-columnmove)

</comment><comment><USER16> i'm happy with :relativenumber and classic motions + marks (eg ma + 'a)

</comment><comment><USER17> How long does it take to learn the Vim way of navigating so that you do not have to think when doing it, like the fingers move by themselves ?

And how much time do you save, compared to placing the cursor using the mouse?

<comment><USER3> It's not really a matter of saving time, but eliminating friction (context- switches). Editing is a chore, and fiddling with text while taking notes, or debugging, or thinking about a problem, has a cost.

It's also quite alarming to reach a level of proficiency where you can make non-trivial edits _without looking at what you 're editing_, and know that the edits are correct. Again, this avoids context-switches.

That's why Vim is so focused on precision ("do exactly this") rather than DWIM ("Do What I Mean [usually]": the emacs/IDE approach).

Certainly whether the ramp-up cost is worth the "payoff" is debatable, but for me, editing text became so irritating that my initial experiments with Vim were driven from pure exhaustion after years of blub-craft.

<comment><USER5> That point about "do exactly this" vs DWIM is interesting. As an evil user, I didn't think of it that way, but I can definitely see where this is true.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm pretty happy with just

:set nu

:20 # go to line 20

<comment><USER10> Some people even like:

:set rnu

<comment><AUTHOR> alright, this solves my problem much better

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the other suggestions for vertical movement. I think /? and vim- vertical is all I need.

</comment><comment> a-b First of all, I want to say thanks to both authors Vim-vertical and vim-sneak for trying to do something useful for Vim community.

Therefore, I think that it's quite a bad idea to use any of this plugins. The reason is that the most powerful Vim's concept is text-object and such shortcuts ruining muscle memory and mixing core technology understanding.

IMHO easy-motion gives excellent text-object visualization which helps me to understand text structure better.</comment>


Use PHP as a Proxy to Dropbox for Serving a Static Website - <AUTHOR> http://konstruktors.com/blog/web-development/4447-php-proxy-dropbox-host-static-website/ <comment><USER2> You can do the same with Google Drive and there's even an official documentation: <https://developers.google.com/drive/publish-site></comment>


Ask HN: Help me find a domain for my weekend project? (fitness related) - <AUTHOR>

Hi,
Two days ago, as I was wondering for the n-th time why I don't go to the gym as often as I wished, I stumbled upon an article providing 16 tips (http://zenhabits.net/get-off-your-butt-16-ways-to-get-motivated-when-youre-in-a-slump) to get motivated and reach those type of goals.
Based on that read, I decided to create a service which provides you with most of the tips. It's a "virtual coach" that emails (spam?) me every few hours asking whether or not you worked out yet. If you did, write a simple log of my workout. If not, you'll get another email a bit later in the day to remind you again. Along with every email comes a new motivational quote. Finally, every time I post my workout, it becomes publicly available to my facebook friends also using the service. Similarly, I can see when my friends keep their promises.
Now that the site is "almost" ready with the most basic set of features I wanted, it's time to come up with a name for it. But I can't think of anything satisfying which is not already registred. Any suggestions?
Also, if you'd like to check out the service (in development), here it is: http://stormy-shelf-5900.herokuapp.com/ - Remember, it's still under development and very rough (started 2 days ago). Any feedback about the site is welcome too. Thanks! <comment><USER2> I would go for Workout Instructor (domains are available expect .com). Using a dash they are all available. It seems that your service is quite rigid and spammy, and instructor is the word that comes to my mind when I think of those adjectives.

[http://www.123-reg.co.uk/order?domain=www.workoutinstructor&...](http://www.123-reg.co.uk/order?domain=www.workoutinstructor&search=SEARCH&ajax_enabled=true) [http://www.123-reg.co.uk/order?domain=www.workout- instructor...](http://www.123-reg.co.uk/order?domain=www.workout- instructor&search=SEARCH&ajax_enabled=true)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the suggestion!

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Went for <http://www.eFitBuddy.com/>

</comment><comment><USER3> fitnize dot [...]

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the suggestion</comment></comment>


CSS Solar System Model - <AUTHOR> http://codepen.io/hugo/pen/hriGl

<comment><USER2> I just crashed in the sun because of you! Thanks!</comment>


Sex Worker Says She's Made 'Close To $1 Million' From Silicon Valley - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfgate.com/technology/businessinsider/article/Sex-Worker-Says-She-s-Made-Close-To-1-Million-4435771.php

<comment><USER2> Why the hell would you ever use your credit card for that kind of transaction? I would never visit a prostitue, but if I did, I sure as hell wouldn't hand her my credit card.

<comment><USER3> I thought the same thing until I watched the video. It looks like she categorizes the business as "consulting", which both justifies the prices and irregular schedule of visits and charges.

Those who pay for her services see a record of purchasing a consulting service on their credit card. Though this seems clever, she will technically have PII data on all of her customers if she is somehow caught in the future, but the chances of someone like her being caught may be smaller than most.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> \+ Hey do you take paypal? \- Yeah...actually I do... \+ Nice...so let's bump phones and then bump uglies! \+ Oh...can you put "consulting fee" in the notes....this is a business expense...

</comment><comment><USER5> Sounds like a startup opportunity, or does craigslist already have it covered?

<comment><USER6> Craigslist has been out of this game for a few years now, after gov't pressure. [http://www.wired.com/business/2010/09/craigslist-adult- congr...](http://www.wired.com/business/2010/09/craigslist-adult-congress/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I see she accepts Square. I wonder if she accepts Bitcoin.

<comment><USER8> Brilliant question. How is prostitution impacted by bitcoins? If anonymous payment is possible, how would people be prosecuted?

<comment><USER9> Bitcoin is too geeky for them, and probably worse than cash because they'd need to get their money back through an exchange like MtGox. With exchanges being required to register as MSB's/MTA's, the government might be getting records of all cash people withdraw. Even if the government doesn't get the data, the money has to come out through a bank.

I guess they could do prepaid CC's, but still the prostitute would have to be pretty geeky to want to deal with the hassles involved. Do those prepaid CC's work for everything? I tried to use one to make online purchases once and it wouldn't work.</comment></comment></comment>


Nigel Farage – The Speaker - <AUTHOR> http://mindfulpresenter.com/mindful-blog/nigel-farage-the-speaker

<comment><USER2> Whether you like or agree with them or not, David Cameron, Nick Clegg, Ed Milliband and Nigel Farage all know how to speak in public. Some, arguably better than others, but with their individual styles each can give a good performance when the pressure is on.</comment>


Painkillers such as aspirin 'do more harm than good' for chronic pain - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/aug/03/painkillers-such-as-aspirin-do-more-harm-than-good-for-chronic-pain <comment><USER2> Painkillers are a massive plaster over complex inflammatory issues modern medicine can't yet properly diagnose and treat. (affordable) Doctors don't have the time to do a deep investigation into root causes. As a result you get an outgrowth of snake oil salesmen and quacks along with legitimately well intentioned holistic healers building the alternative medicine industry. Most people with chronic conditions end up bouncing around in the second space until they get lucky or never find anything and suffer on painkillers for years before they die young. We really could do better.

<comment><USER3> We have these things called opioids that are extremely effective at treating severe chronic pain but people decided weed was good enough because they saw John Oliver talk about it and that convinced them that depriving junkies was more important than ensuring patients be able to easily access the most effective medications.

<comment><USER4> I have chronic headache, caused by some kind of vascular dystonia (still can't be properly diagnosed). I would say, opioid-based painkillers is a terrible way to treat chronic pain on a long-term scale. Not to mention harm it cause to your liver (especially when medicine has Acetaminaphen as one of components), all opioids have tolerance - sooner or later it would stop helping you, until you bump into maximum daily dose. Also, all opioids have withdrawal effect. Imagine yourself flying from one country to another, there's no way you can bring any strong painkiller with you, unless you want to be accused of drug trafficking. You have to bring prescription with you, see a doc in other country and buy medicine, it may take up to week. All this time you're going to experience pain AND withdrawal effect.

I would not say about others, but I sincerely hope that soon would be available medical marijuana without affecting cognitive abilities, allowing you work, drive etc.

<comment><USER5> The effectiveness of chronic opioids for pain is really patient and disease dependent. My SO has chronic abdominal and widespread somatic pain diagnosed with autoimmune small fiber polyneuropathy (by biopsy) and also chronic intermittent small bowel obstruction (diagnosed by gastrografin small bowel xray, thought due to peritoneal adhesions). Local surgeons refuse to try to lyse adhesions. But opiates have been helpful and remain helpful 8 years into the disease process. They are pretty much the only thing that helps (have tried pain psychology, acupuncture, physical therapy, occupational therapy, several antidepressants, lyrica, gabapentin, celiac plexus block).

So persons with chronic (apparently incurable) disease with pain that responds to opioids <should> have access to the medication that helps. Maybe only 1/100 or 1/500 persons with chronic pain caused by an underlying disease do have a good response to opioids, apparently that was not your experience -- but please don't deny others the benefit of a medication that is helpful because you found it unhelpful!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I usually lurk but this post is relevant to my personal situation, and inspired me to voice an anecdote.

I was born with chronic polyostotic pain caused by a post-zygotic mutation. Because my physical disease is plainly visible, my pain wasn't dismissed so easily unlike others. Unfortunately, I have a life long history of "chronic pain treatment" to show for it. I was 12 years old when I experienced my first withdrawals from opioids, served from a brown bottle as candy flavoured syrup. Today, I've had the experience to try many other analgesic medications including Cannabis but to no avail. Almost nothing helps reduce my suffering.

My opinion isn't popular but I'm not convinced that opioids are useful for treating anything but acute pain because it exacerbates the mental health aspects of chronic pain. The only medication that raised my quality of life, isn't marketed for treating pain and wasn't prescribed to me for treating pain. The only medication that helps me live any appreciable life worth living, is the phenethylamine-class of stimulants used for treating ADHD, mine being marketed under a branded french name meaning liveliness. This accidental discovery has been the closest thing to a miracle for me.

I can't substantiate any of my anecdotes with academic sources but I've personally found that CNS-depressants like opioids or Cannabis increased my sensitivity to pain, while CNS-stimulants decreased my sensitivity. My chronic pain is forever eternal, but now it doesn't dominate my life. I can now live a more active life, with far greater mood and energy than ever before. If my chronic pain flares up, I take an NSAID with a proton-pump inhibitor and be done with it. I'm satisfied with this combination, and I actively refuse any prescriptions for opioids or Cannabis. My tolerance for pain is greater than ever, much to the horror of those poor nurses working in the ER. When I first met them, they couldn't believe the fact that I wasn't begging for pain relief after seeing my X-rays. Now that we're on a first name basis, they understand that it's business as usual for me.

I hope my history has helped someone, or sparked an intellectual curiosity. This is my first post, and I hope it meets the comment guidelines. I do not wish to elaborate in detail about any specifics, and I'm not promoting any medication in particular. I'm simply sharing a life's worth of struggles, and a life's worth of findings. Happy hacking, comrade!</comment>


Migrating from Mastodon to Pleroma - <AUTHOR> https://icyphox.sh/blog/mastodon-to-pleroma/ <comment><USER2> It's pretty amazing Alex made that Mastodon to Pleroma migrator. Moon had some early scripts that didn't work out so well and he ended up loosing them anyway. Seems like an insane amount of work. I still maintain both a Mastodon and Pleroma server. I'm not sure if I'll ditch one eventually.</comment>