The Patent Pledge - <AUTHOR> http://paulgraham.com/patentpledge.html <comment><USER5> It's not immediately clear to me whether this solves any part of the current problem. But on reflection, I believe I understand the motivation here.

Big companies that use patents as a revenue stream (MSFT, IBM, etc.) typically bide their time and bring a patent lawsuit once a new company is established and there is blood to drain. It's the threat of such a lawsuit in the future that can negatively impact investment in a startup, as the right collection of patents could conceivably capture much of the economic surplus of a new venture. Alternatively, a big company might use the threat of a patent lawsuit, now or in the future, to push a young company to agree to an early acquisition.

The pledge doesn't seem to have much impact on these scenarios, even if a big company were to follow it rigorously.

Most of us, I believe, would prefer to see companies make a stronger commitment: "No first use of software patents" [period]. Google hasn't made this pledge, but to the best of my knowledge, they've acted in this way so far. It does seem in line with "don't be evil."

That said, I think I see what PG is going for here. He wants companies to make a pledge that, at a minimum, allows a new product or service to be tested on the market. That way, if it gathers traction, it will attract investment despite the threat of patents, and the new company will be able to mount a reasonable defense.

Perhaps more importantly, though, by allowing the product to succeed first, even in a modest way, it makes the offensive use of patents worse PR for the big company. Killing a successful product with patents is no longer an abstract issue. It takes away from customers and the market something very real.

<comment><USER6> If you want to start a movement, you can't aim too high initially, or you just stall. The patent pledge in its current form is at least fairly easy to swallow. If it sticks, it will have the effect of making patent suits against competitors seem more dubious, which would in turn prepare people for more exacting versions.

How far ultimately would you want to push it? I honestly don't know yet. Patents may have some utility. It's a very complicated question. I've read a lot about the history of technology, and I can't say for sure whether things would have gone better or worse without patents. The topic seems to be one of those where on average the strength of people's opinions is inversely proportional to how much they've studied the problem.

<comment><USER7> Well, it stinks when you try to do something good and then catch a bunch of crap from people doing nothing, for not doing enough. So I don't want to do that.

But here's the thing - while this is good, the Intellectual Ventures of the world are actually wining and dining congressional aides and maxing donations. The financial industry got that patent carve-out a couple months ago that _only applied to their industry_. Until tech people get into the game, full- court press in DC and get actual job creators and moneymen in front of congressmen telling them that this stuff destroys jobs, they're not going to be represented.

You're not obligated to go on a personal crusade on this, and it sounds like a big hellish pain in the ass that would be a net loss for you personally and for YC by entangling you in politics. But until someone does, people in favor of patent reform are going to be unilaterally disarmed.

Maybe some sort of industry lobbying group for small tech biz that's not beholden to the big corps would be effective. A small amount kicked in by some of the major angels/VCs, and a limited lobbying mission of "stuff that everyone can agree to" which would certainly include abusive patent use.

<comment><USER8> That is the precise point of this initiative. Since lobbying for reform is timely, not going to make immediate change, and ultimately becomes a war of finances, the goal is to bring consumer awareness to the issue and create an environment where being on the pledge list is a big benefit to companies. It also puts those companies together on a team for this issue, which may lead to other "rules" that help force the change. Since it's not targeting patent trolls with actual products, you may even end up in a situation where large companies on the list decide that the only people they litigate against are those who are inhibiting innovation from others. For example, Bump won't license its patent to any companies not on the list. Basically, stop blocking innovation, or be blocked.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, since posting I realized that a list of pledgees is exactly the kind of list you want if you're going to form an industry association based around this issue. So good on pg in general.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I disagree that this will help, because the established companies the pledge would apply to are a secondary problem and mostly seem to fight each other (has Microsoft asserted patents against a startup? has IBM? has AT&T? when they asserted patents it was against multi-million dollar businesses!). The primary problem is patent trolls (see e.g. lodsys / intellectual ventures) for whom this pledge could be considered self-harm.

I will quote myself from [ <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2855835> ] here for another solution, one that actually can _easily_ go through government (except for the intense lobbying against it by whoever enjoys the current patent regime); you can read there for some discussion if it is interesting. Quoth myself (with minor editing):

Intellectual "Property Tax". Have everyone declare the value of their intellectual "property" (patents, copyrights, trademarks) - each and every item, for that year, on their tax return, and have them pay 1% of the value as "IP tax", per year.

Clarification: you can set a different value every year. The value may drop to zero because a competitor's patent solves the problem better; or it may go up because it becomes essential to something that becomes commonplace.

That amount is what one pays for a compulsory license or if successfully sued, and up to 3 times that for willful infringement, per year -- and no more. (But of course, a patent owner can always negotiate a lower payment, as is done with music recordings that have compulsory license agreements)

All of a sudden, everyone has an incentive to state a reasonable value for their patent. Copyright catalogs that are not being published (old music recordings, old books, old movies) would be assigned 0 value by copyright holder, to avoid tax - which means anyone can freely make a copy. If they believe -- at the end of the year -- that someone is making a profit at their expense, they can set the value as high as they want at the end of that year, pay the tax, and sue the profiteer.

Simple, elegant, and coffer filling.

edit: put missing link

edit: added clarification about setting value each year anew.

<comment><USER10> Everyone will game the IP tax by valuing it at pennies -- after all, they may not directly be using it may not have a fair market value before they take someone to court.

As a real-life example of people gaming these types of taxes, people buy expensive (>100K USD) cars in europe directly (i.e. taking delivery in stuttgart) to save on the sales tax: driving it around for a bit ensures that the car is technically "used" when brought back here, circumventing new car taxes.

<comment><USER11> I haven't thought through OP's proposal, but your objection is covered - <USER2> valuing a patent at pennies, a company would cause compulsory licenses/willful infringment penalties to also be worth pennies.

<comment><USER10> No but the taxes would have to be paid only after a successful patent case. The point is that the patent has no real market price until the first successful willful infringement penalty. Until that point, the price is arbitrary.

<comment><USER9> Until _before_ a patent case. The taxes are what gives you the ability to sue (and a limit to the damage you can be awarded), and there is no guarantee you will win your case of that your patent will not be invalidated.

Again, you have to pay the tax _before_ you can sue, and then you can only sue for the value reflected by the tax for that year, no more (and you are still subject to invalidation, etc).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> PG, was this pledge created in response to litigation you have experienced with YC companies?

There doesn't seem to be much evidence companies with fewer than 25 employees are getting sued unless there's something left unspoken here.

I think it would be more constructive to begin the discussion of what patent reform should resemble so that companies and individuals can show support for it. Some kind of software patent working group that can put forward a vision that everyone can get behind. If enough people and companies come to support a way of thinking then it will slowly affect current behavior and ultimately shape the legal framework of the future.

Even if it was a problem that companies smaller than 25 were being sued for patent infringement, I'm not sure the legal litmus test should be how many employees are at the company.

<comment><USER6> IIRC none have actually been sued, but one has been sent a letter saying they're violating a competitor's patent. What made me start thinking about this idea was a combination of that letter, this story:

<http://k9ventures.com/blog/2011/04/27/modista/>

and the fear that YC applicants working on education software have of the notoriously litigious Blackboard.

<comment><USER13> Interesting, it looks like Blackboard has their own interpretation of a "patent pledge," but it only covers open-source and non-commercial software.

[http://www.blackboard.com/About-Bb/Patents/Patent- Pledge.asp...](http://www.blackboard.com/About-Bb/Patents/Patent-Pledge.aspx)

<comment><USER14> They did this because of the outrage from the Moodle community over some of these patents.

There was talk of a formal attempt to get some of them overturned but this pledge took a lot of the heat out of the outrage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> AlexBlox asks in an earlier comment: " _does publicly stating this pledge bust any opportunity to double back (i.e. it is more legally binding than just a pledge?)_ "

A court might well hold a company to such a pledge, on a theory of "equitable estoppel." This type of defense to an infringement charge is always highly fact-specific; here's an example of a case in which the defense succeeded:

A patent owner accused a manufacturer of eyeglass frames---which it had previously sued for infringement---of infringing other patents. After back- and-forth correspondence---in which the manufacturer denied infringement---the patent owner went silent for three years. In the meantime, the eyeglass manufacturer expanded its marketing efforts for the products in question.

The trial court held that the manufacturer was not liable for infringement, on grounds that the patent owner's actions, in view of all the circumstances, had misled the manufacturer into thinking it would not be sued. The appeals court found no error in this holding [1]; it explained that:

" _In the context of patent infringement, the three elements of equitable estoppel that must be established are:_

 _(1) the patentee, through misleading conduct, led the alleged infringer to reasonably believe that the patentee did not intend to enforce its patent against the infringer;_

 _(2) the alleged infringer relied on that conduct; and_

 _(3) due to its reliance, the alleged infringer would be materially prejudiced if the patentee were permitted to proceed with its charge of infringement._ "

[1] Aspex Eyewear, Inc. v. Clariti Eyewear, Inc., 605 F. 3d 1305 (Fed. Cir. 2010) (affirming summary judgment in favor of accused infringer), [http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/images/stories/opinions- orders/...](http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/images/stories/opinions- orders/09-1147.pdf)

<comment><USER16> In that case, what's stopping large company X from forming a shell company of one employee which performs services for X using patents held by company Y which has made such a (potentially legally-binding) pledge?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Here's another proposal that doesn't rest on social pressure, the effectiveness of which I fear Paul overestimates.

Start a non-profit coalition with the following rules:

(1) All patent disputes between members will be resolved by binding arbitration. The arbiters are a panel of domain experts (not lawyers!). There is no presumption that an issued patent is valid.

(2) If a member of the coalition is sued by a non-member, the other members of the coalition make their entire portfolios available for a defensive countersuit. When a member's patent is used to defend another member, the former is compensated by the latter on terms set by arbitration.

(3) There is no restriction on using one's own patents to sue non-members.

It would also be stated policy, at least in the areas of software and business model patents, that the arbiters would be directed to apply a very high standard of obviousness, so that most issued patents would be of little use in an arbitrated dispute.

Could such a thing work? No voluntary system can address the patent troll problem, as trolls have nothing to gain by joining it. But for practicing entities, it seems to me that membership in such a coalition could be beneficial, by reducing the likely number and expense of patent disputes.

<comment><USER18> It is my understanding that this was pretty much exactly the pitch for Intellectual Ventures, and now they have sunk to aiding and abetting trolls.

<comment><USER19> Is IV a non-profit? I think this idea might actually work if you dissuade the profit motive from corrupting the initiative.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> One line from this essay has me a little worried...

"A clumsy parasite may occasionally kill the host, but that's not its goal"

This came up in a previous discussion on HN where I made essentially the same point. As someone pointed out in response, a parasite can get away with killing off the host as long as there's somewhere else to go next. In fact, a parasite could wipe out an entire species as long as it can make the jump to something more resilient.

it was just a short aside, but here's a link the the thread...

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2760148>

</comment><comment><USER21> > Please join them!

Paul, there is a major oversight here. The site <http://thepatentpledge.org/> doesn't even have a contact form. Also, you may want to make the links nofollow.

<comment><USER22> Yeah I noticed the same thing. Should the companies email pg directly?

<comment><USER23> Maybe they should put an announcement on their own websites, and pg will update the site accordingly?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Patent trolling big companies is just as unethical as trolling small ones.

PG: Red Hat, a multibillion dollar business, already has a working patent pledge - they won't use patents except defensively against people who attack them first. Copy that and use it.

<comment><USER22> I disagree. Patent trolls often just aim for a comparatively meager payout for licensing from their victims, who are usually too small to be able to afford the much more expensive option of taking it to court (and perhaps winning). Therefore a loophole in justice.

<comment><USER25> This is exactly right. Tragically, it is cheaper to settle a baseless lawsuit than to win it. It makes business sense to give trolls money.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> My personal pledge is that as a programmer I refuse to work for any company that goes on the attack with software patents, this obviously includes Apple and Microsoft. I also refuse to participate if asked by my company to help create a patent, I am willing to be fired over this.

Since good programmers are a scarce resource if enough of us took this pledge it could really start having an effect.

<comment><USER27> The problem with that worldview, is that Patents play a number of very important defensive and value creating roles in a small company, that is not related, whatsoever, to their use in an offensive (in both senses of the word) manner.

See: <http://paulgraham.com/softwarepatents.html>

In particular:

"We do advise the companies we fund to apply for patents, but not so they can sue competitors. Successful startups either get bought or grow into big companies. If a startup wants to grow into a big company, they should apply for patents to build up the patent portfolio they'll need to maintain an armed truce with other big companies. If they want to get bought, they should apply for patents because patents are part of the mating dance with acquirers."

<comment><USER26> That's the type of pragmatic individual reasoning that collectively just perpetuates and reinforces the current system. If we can't rely on government then the only way to change it is by being unreasonable.

<comment><USER27> The thing about being a leader, or a bellwether, is that you need to walk outside the mainstream, be just a little bit crazier than your colleagues, but not so crazy our out of the mainstream that you leave everyone behind.

PG's position is clearly not in the mainstream of the business world (though, one might argue that, if anything, he's more conservative than his hacker audience) - but he's close enough to their interests that he may encourage followers. Or not. That's always the risk of being a leader - you may step out, and people may not follow.

He does speak to their interests which is, "If you want to hire great developers, you should align your corporate ethos with the best and brightest that you want to attract" - and, in general, large companies virtually never, ever, sue _small_ companies for _software_ patents - so they have little to risk.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> PG suggests that this won't stop the trolls but it might deter more traditional companies.

Does anyone have stats on who is doing the most damage to early companies? Given the press, it's easy to think that trolls are the biggest offenders by an order of magnitude. Is there data that suggests otherwise?

<comment><USER29> Indirectly, this pledge my also help to slow down the trolls. Trolls buy up patents in order to sue or resell. Startups have no money to pay up, so the only option is to resell. But, if a potential acquirer has pledged not to use patents against small companies, buying them off from trolls wouldn't make for a good public image. As a result, trolls won't press on the patent holders, at least until they are acquired by a company that is capable of paying the bill.

<comment><USER9> ... thereby making it cheaper for trolls acquiring patents, like Intellectual Ventures, as there is less market for the patents -- but not slowing them down.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Because it's one line and because its implications are that important:

For quantities you can count (windows, money, people...), the word is "fewer." For quantities you can't, the word is "less"

The pledge should read: No first use of software patents against companies with _fewer_ than 25 people.

<comment><USER31> No.

Your formulation is not incorrect, but pg's is correct as it stands. The word "less" has been used in a range of English dialects for both countable and measurable things, for more than a thousand years. See e.g. [http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003775.h...](http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003775.html) for some excellent discussion on this issue, and actual corpus data to back it up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I have a PG question for PG: what problem does this solve?

I see 2 problems currently.

1\. Microsoft suing Android makers, and other similar examples, where large companies burn billions of dollars of our economy over something pointless.

2\. Patent trolls like Intellectual Ventures and their shell companies suing startups.

How does this solve either of these problems? Who really needs this?

<comment><USER33> It solves the chilling effect of patents on startups. Many startups have avoided entire domains because of patents. Large enough companies can negotiate reasonable license terms or fight patents in court, but small startups cannot afford the risk of a dispute.

<comment><USER34> > It solves the chilling effect of patents on startups

How?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> From the <http://thepatentpledge.org/> website -

\---

These companies have agreed to be the first to publicly renounce aggressive use of software patents on small companies. Please join them!

A Thinking Ape, Airbnb, Bump, CarWoo, DailyBooth, Disqus, DotCloud, Greplin, Hipmunk, Justin.tv, Loopt, Songkick, Stripe, Weebly, Wepay

\----

I think the whole YC gang is going to promote this aggressively, which means a strong network effect. Remains to been seen what happens outside this network.

<comment><USER36> Do any of these companies have patents that they could use aggressively?

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> The content of the pledge seems to indicate that there are a lot of (or at least some) cases where large companies are suing very small companies (< 25 people) over patent infringement. Is this the case? I've only heard about the patent litigation between the tech giants, and not anything about small firms getting sued by larger ones. Are there any recent/high profile examples of this that I missed? Or is it just something that goes unreported?

<comment><USER38> The recent This American Life ep "When Patents Attack" ([http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio- archives/episode/441/w...](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio- archives/episode/441/when-patents-attack)) started with a segment on a startup called Fototime, which was very small (certainly under 25 people) and had to settle a patent suit at great expense. (As part of the settlement agreement, they aren't allowed to say how much; only that it was just short of what would have caused them to file for bankruptcy.)

<comment><USER39> Fototime was threatened by a NPE (aka troll); I can't imagine this pledge could have helped them.

<comment><USER38> True.

Incidentally, for those who are curious, the three patents used against Fototime (as well as more established companies like Flickr) can be found at <http://www.google.com/patents?id=uiAPAAAAEBAJ>, <http://www.google.com/patents?id=0J8DAAAAEBAJ>, and <http://www.google.com/patents?id=-QEWAAAAEBAJ>. The first two actually feel substantial and specific (probably _too_ specific for Fototime to have been infringing); the third one is just a simple database schema and a flowchart, which is madness (though it, too, is so specific that it's unlikely that anyone was actually infringing).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> This is ultimately not a helpful avenue to pursue. Asking companies to please not abuse a favorite group of companies (in this case startups) is not a solution to this problem. It's very similar in my opinion to the patent exceptions being carved out in congress right now for the finance industry (their favorite group of companies). We need to be striving to help everyone with patent reform, not just our favorite types of companies.

</comment><comment><USER41> I appreciate the good intention of this proposal, but it doesn't really make so much sense. Tech startups are small businesses, but their goal is to grow. With that pledge you could only grow up to 24 employees, and what then? You're ready to be slaughtered?

This problem needs to be fixed at its root, with a different law.

</comment><comment><USER42> So if a company grows beyond it's sub-25 people are they expected to then license any technology they're infringing on? Could this lead to an even bigger penalty if the company is made aware that they are infringing when they are small and doesn't act on it when they grow, thus willfully infringing?

<comment><USER38> I think the idea is that if the company is successful enough to have grown to 25 employees, it stands a better chance of having access to competent legal counsel and other resources. The penalty might be bigger in monetary terms, but smaller in terms of making the founders' lives a living hell.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> This is a "spirit of the law" with no "law".

PG's solution, while elegant and functional for individuals, will fail for corporations.

We have a spirit-of-the-law in America with regards to being a citizen: you pay taxes and receive benefits of living here. Corporate persons are, one would imagine, also party to this spirit of the law, yet they not only ignore the spirit, they find ways around the tax laws on a regular basis.

Even if companies were forced to comply with this by law, they'd just find away around it. Sub-25 person shell companies making up large corporations. Who knows.

The fundamental problem is the same as with the rest of corporate personhood: we have given corporations the rights of individuals but they lack the implicit ethics and social peer pressures which result in moral behavior.

</comment><comment><USER44> PG, you're absolutely right - IP is a real problem, that so far no one has decided, but I think Moon have also another one side - limits to 25 will run to huge number of small startups that can not be grow more then 25 peoples and this is can stops investment from venture capitalists. I think, we dont need draw a line between huge and small startups. We just need another patent system - transparent and work well as we need. At first, we need to know, was gived a patent on our inventions or not - by few clicks. At second - we need to know, what kind of invention and claims for it was pended but still have not sugessted. At third, we need to see all climes of concurents patents - because we are allways can invent another one claims, and build on them ower new products, that we can protect. I think we can solve this problem - <USER3> technicians, we are much easier to prepare a bill and after appeal to members of Congress or the legislature with a request to meet our demands.

We need to change the whole system. Obtaining a patent should be a simple thing as buying a domain name or product in the online store. Now, placing an order, we practically give it to the blind - we do not know if already issued a patent for the same invention or is it the same invention is filed by someone. We do not know this and therefore has a great chance that in six months we will letter of refusal and then we just lose time. This is I'm think about. And, IP and Patents is a strongly related to my startup, I'm will apply to YC W12.

</comment><comment><USER45> Several have already pointed out that this pledge doesn't address the top biggest issues with the patent system: Non-Practicing Entities (trolls) and 'weaponized' IP litigation.

It would be more interesting if someone with the necessary legal muscle could design an effective and legal "IP shelter" from the U.S. patent system . The structure would be some series of foreign companies/organizations that could claim immunity for internet products as they would be 'foreign' and therefore not infringing. There are obviously many legal and tax issues that make this difficult (PCT, not viable for physical products, etc). However, if it could be designed and then templatized, much like Series funding documents have become, then it would allow any startup, but especially ones that attempt to tackle traditionally hostile industries (MAFIAA), to exist in a 'safe haven' away from the utter nonsense that US intellectual property has become.

Even if it creates some $X burden on startups, I am sure that most startups would be willing to pay this expense if it takes the risk of an Armageddon- like legal suit out of their startup picture. It would also be a forcing function on the US legislature due to loss of prestige and possibly revenue (imagine if the next Google incorporates in Canada and only a subsidiary works in California due to patent concerns).

</comment><comment><USER25> This pledge boils down to "shine light on bad actors", but I doubt it will change any behavior. Only rent-seekers [1] want software patents to exist, and you can't decrease their reputation any more, it's already 0.

The S. Ct. already had their big chance in Bilski to dial back software patentability, and they blew it. Our only hope is Congress. (/me shudders hopelessly)

And to anyone suggesting we abolish patents completely: they increase societal utility in many sectors, most notably pharmaceuticals.

[1] lawyers and trolls.

<comment><USER26> I'm not so sure pharmaceuticals are an example of good patents. Most of the patented research is actually paid for by taxpayers through the NIH, and then paid for again by patients through exorbitant prices for 15 years. Then there is the problem of people in the third world dying because of the high prices charged by patent monopolies.

<comment><USER46> The patent monopolies are partly there to offset the very high costs of getting FDA approval, which are there in order to ensure safety and efficacy, to prevent people from dying from unsafe pharmaceuticals. And this causes people to be unable to afford drugs that could have kept them from dying, because the prices need to be high to pay for the testing.

I'm not sure what the right balance is between caution and cost in FDA drug trials, but I think that the procedure should probably be made less rigorous (and long, and expensive) than it is today.

<comment><USER47> The U.S. FDA desperately needs to adopt the EPA's window sticker model. You can market an inefficient car, but it has to have a window sticker that tells the customer exactly what they are getting into.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> This is a nitpick but I think the pledge should read "No first use of software patents against companies with _fewer_ than 25 people," since people are countable:

<http://englishplus.com/grammar/00000214.htm>

</comment><comment><USER49> I'd like to see a different Patent Pledge.

One where software engineers pledge not to participate in formal patent creation. Because ultimately, all of the software patents out there were 'authored' by a software engineer. You have to have the person that actually invented the new implementation on the document.

Sure, your employment contract says that any IP you create on your employer's dime is owned by your employer. And so, sure, they could go out and pursue a patent for some new implementation that you invent. But you can stand up and say no, that you won't participate in the _'patentization'_ of your work (ie the formal, legal work to obtain the patent).

And without your involvement, it would likely fail. It certainly makes a statement internally and externally, at least.

How does this work? Well, you can make that commitment - in writing and verbally - when you join a company. Or you could simply state as much, formerly, in an email to your boss and superiors tonight when you get home.

With the software engineering talent market what it is anyone but a dope-shit code monkey has the leverage to dictate terms.

<comment><USER47> _Well, you can make that commitment - in writing and verbally - when you join a company._

With most employers, the statement is "For a period of one year after leaving employment, I will review and sign all documents needed to attain intellectual property protection for work done in the scope and course of employment."

<comment><USER49> Yes, exactly. Which is why you would redact that line and tell them you can only sign the contract without that clause.

In the current climate NO software engineer should be signing any employment contract handed to them without making some change - there is tons of opportunity to leverage better terms in the current market.

<comment><USER27> dotBen - do you work in Silicon Valley? Unless you are a CxO, there is almost never any modification of the employment contract, and certainly never any surrounding the IP elements at a VC funded company of any stature.

In 95% of the cases, if you won't sign the contract as provided, it's a deal breaker and you aren't hired. I'm not saying there aren't exceptions for special cases. And, clearly for non VC funded companies there is more flexibility - but the employee contract in the valley is pretty much an immutable template.

<comment><USER49> ghshephard - yes I live and work in SF and Silicon Valley and have done so for 6+ years.

I always dictate my own terms on contracts. I advise others to do so too.

Have you tried to hire engineers in Silicon Valley? I've heard of employees who've negotiated $50k cash signing bonus, 8 weeks holiday a year, a personal assistant to do their grocery shopping, agreement that the founder will personally invest $300k in the employee's future startup (these are separately, not the same contract).

Good engineers can get whatever they want.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I like the idea of pledging, though there may be some variance (what if a startup violates a startup, margin is high, the technical innovation was real, etc?) That being said, there is a lot to be said in simplicity.

I'm no lawyer - I have to ask the logical question - does publicly stating this pledge bust any opportunity to double back (i.e. it is more legally binding than just a pledge?)

</comment><comment><USER51> The purpose of patents, as I understand it, is to propose a compromise in order to promote innovation: the company which publicly discloses its non- obvious innovations through a patent is granted a MONOPOLY RIGHT by the government, and enforced by the courts, to prevent anyone else from implementing this invention without paying licenses. (Depending on the country, they may be forced to offer licensing, or not.)

In the software industry, patents are unnecessary. Because whatever is patented, even if it is not obvious WHEN patented, it (or a variant of it that falls under the patent) nevertheless becomes OBVIOUS to lots of people a mere 3-4 years later. Therefore, we can easily explain how a 20-year monopoly has wound up HURTING the industry rather than helping it. Companies implement an invention WITHOUT rummaging through new patents that come out every year. It is obvious that most of the stuff implemented in the software industry was arrived at in a different way. Non-practicing entities can sue those who actually implemented the invention 3-4 years later. Meanwhile, those who implemented it, get hit with a suit.

Therefore, patents have now become a tax on innovation.

I repeat: the inventions were not obvious AT THE TIME THEY WERE PATENTED. And, those who ultimately implemented them DID NOT READ THE PATENTS in order to get the idea for the invention. Therefore the system is not serving its purpose.

Patents are an exchange between the inventor and the public. The inventor discloses how an invention works, and in return gets a monopoly for 20 years so that no one else can implement it.

In open source, the IMPLEMENTOR not only discloses a theoretical thing but actually builds it AND releases all the inner workings of it, AND others can build on top of it. So we get the upside with no monopoly. Why do we need the latter, then, if so much innovation happens without it?

</comment><comment><USER52> I suppose it would be a good start, but the self-interest in this proposal stinks a bit. What's the distribution of employee numbers in companies in which Y Combinator has a stake?

<comment><USER6> Actually most of the value of our portfolio consists of companies with over 25 employees.

<comment><USER53> Of course, the bulk of the valuation is in the startups that have grown enough. You still have vested interest to protect startups while they are small, this is when you add most value anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> The only problem I see with patents is the legal process (legal bullying). It should not take 2 years and $1 million to prove your innovation does not conflict with another patent. That's ridiculous! Ideas & companies are killed by the threat & cost of going through a lawsuit, not by the threat of actually losing a law suit. That's why so many companies would rather pay a fee to use a patent than actually go through a lengthly lawsuit to fight the patent owner. (See Microsoft & many phone manufacturers.) It's called legal bullying, not patent failure. It doesn't just happen in the school yard anymore. PG is simply trying to get the 6th graders to stop picking on the kindergartners, so the kindergartners can play safely in their own playground.

</comment><comment><USER55> See also <http://www.paulgraham.com/softwarepatents.html>

</comment><comment><USER56> 1\. Large companies aren't on this list and are unlikely to put themselves on the list. There is no competitive advantage to be there.

2\. There's a presupposition that small companies are somehow better then large companies. I can say that a company like Lodysys is likely under 25 people. You don't want to put yourself in a position where you have agreed not to be agressive with any company based on their size. Many of the Inc. 500 are under 25 people.

I'd rather see a simpler pledge.

> We will use our patens defensively, not offensively. > (Optionally) > We > will license our patents only to others who will use them defensively.

<comment><USER57> Agreed. You're the first person I found on this thread who seems to share my belief that simply white listing every company with 25 employees or under (based on headcount alone) is extremely naive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Not a bad idea...like Paul said, it's a start. Here's a comment that I read from some user on Slashdot regarding the Apple vs Samsung/Motorola patent dispute that summarizes my feelings:

"Look, you pack of fucking navel-gazing fucktards. Put down the fucking guns, agree to pool your resources to buy sufficient hookers and Caribbean vacations for Congresscritters to have the existing patent system tossed out the door. We get it that you all sort of started out accruing vast numbers of patents, some good, some bad, some absolutely fucking moronic, in no small part to fend off attacks from each other and from evil little patent trolls, but look at how it's complicating your lives. You couldn't roll out a steaming turd without someone somewhere trying to claim you infringed on a patent they own.

Apple, you're now one of the biggest companies around. If anyone can afford the required number of prostitutes, golf club memberships, or whatever it is those corrupted evil bastards in Congress have an appetite for. Google, come on, you could help out here, same with Samsung. Then you can, you know, compete on the quality of your products, rather than trying to stuff newspaper down each others throats in what can only be described as the bonfire of the idiots."

</comment><comment><USER59> I am sure there are a thousand reasons that these ideas would not be feasible, however I have been thinking of two other approaches towards software and business process patent reform. (1) would be to shorten the time that a patent is valid to 1 year . Give the Company who 'invents' (and goes through the patent process) a small head start, however in today's quickly changing world, I think that this shorter time-frame is more proportionally in-line with the R&D investment of these types of processes. Patents that protect the Physical items (that in general are more costly to develop and take a longer time to implement due to the more expensive and time consuming manufacturing processes) the protection would remain longer (engines, chip-sets, medicines, etc) I think that these shorter term-limits will shake out the patent trolls, yet still allow a patent holder some opportunity to leverage their work and license to companies that could not wait the 1 year, however after that, it is all about execution. (2)Perhaps another approach (and much less realistic) would be to keep the existing term limits, but have a prix-fixe license fee schedule/menu for all software and business processes. There would be a few Tiers of patents (i.e. Class 1, Class 2, Class 3, etc). You would apply to a patent (and a Class) and the license fees would spelled out for the annual license fees. Perhaps the Amazon 1-Click Patent would be Class-1 (i.e. "pretty darn obvious" and the fees would be $100 per year), etc. Anyone willing to pay the fee could license the patent (no one can be denied). This would also stop hoarding, and would allow people with legitimate inventions to monetize their investment, however still allow those that feel that they can execute to also move forward an innovate.

</comment><comment><USER60> Afer reading the story about Ugmode/Modista, a suggestion for any start-up facing this problem in the future: GET THE WORD OUT ABOUT YOUR PROBLEM!

1\. Escalating embarrassment of like.com could have soured their potential acquisitions and forced them to settle. 2\. If lawyers hear about your problem, they might help you. If you had the ability to reach every lawyer, professor and law student in the country, you would find someone. (Maybe not someone great, but someone who can at least avoid a default judgment and keep you in the game for another couple of years, and possibly emerge victorious.)

n.b. You do not need, or, probably, want, a patent attorney to litigate a patent case. Patent attorneys do tedious stuff with the PTO, courtroom litigators convince judges and juries. Nor do you need a lawyer from your city or state. You could have some kid fresh out of law school in Alabama dialing in to Northern District of California judicial teleconferences and filing your motions electronically.

\-- Former patent litigator who would have liked to help, if he'd heard about this

</comment><comment><USER61> I think this is a good idea in theory, but the patent trolls are ruthless as ever. Their primary motivator is making money, and I doubt they'll stop their actions.

On the flipside, if this can garner public pressure against the trolls-- and perhaps some real action in changing the laws, I think the world would be a better place.

Keep it up Y Combinator!

</comment><comment><USER62> Having just listened to the "When Patents Attack!" podcast today ([http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/07/26/138576167/when- pat...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/07/26/138576167/when-patents- attack)), I question how this addresses what I saw as the fundamental challenge with patent trolls -- shell corporations. These companies are spawned as needed to sue the alleged patent infringers. Since the shell companies are just a bunch of lawyers and the ownership of a patent, there's little in the way of assets to counter sue for (i.e. there's not much for the suing entity to lose). I don't think these guys will be swayed by a moral or ethical argument either. And since these shell companies don't employ coders, well, I don't expect it will impact who coders decide to work for.

</comment><comment><USER63> Potential problem: I suspect many patent troll companies are small (<25 people), and the patent pledge could potentially prevent companies from taking preemptive action against these trolls. I don't think this is a dealbreaker, but it's a probably unintended consequence which should be drawn out.

</comment><comment><USER64> I think you could come up with some sort of patent truce, you use a search engine that finds overlapping patents. The truce comes with a constitution/trust that declares some metrics for that search engine. Any patents that go over that metric are not to be used for litigation by members of the truce.

You can require members of the trust to invest in the trust at level relative to market cap. Breaking the trust results in loss of the assets/cash invested. The trust can also fund a defense pool/lobbying budget to protect the interests of the trust. Namely that members outside of the trust cannot successfully litigate on patents the trust hase agreed are frivolous.

edit: obviously transparency, open membership and some high profile members are useful for such a plan.

</comment><comment><USER65> Companies with less than 25 people are relatively unlikely to have sufficiently deep pockets to attract patent attacks in the first place. And trolls, of course, won't care about the pledge. Nice idea, but doesn't seem that useful to me.

</comment><comment><USER66> Why not just have all companies pledge not to settle frivolous patent suits? The way the trolls make their money is by realizing that its cheaper for these companies to settle than to duke it out in court. The lawyers don't even care if you aren't infringing because it really doesn't matter. The trolls survive because people aren't willing to fight it out against them and they can pick on the weaker and smaller companies. If everyone said at the outset, "I will fight to the death a frivolous patent suit with all of my resources" the trolls would run out of easy targets.

</comment><comment><USER67> There are millions of programmers in the world and most of us don't like patents. That should be enough to prohibit them by consensus. If we don't raise our voices in our own field, nobody else will do it for us.

I applaud that move.

</comment><comment><USER68> The thing is, does software innovation happen in companies? Yes, but also no: universities and free software also play a role.

Patents are largely a problem of companies buying government. But what about the people?

</comment><comment><USER69> This might usefully and reasonably be expanded to cover an individual or a non-profit of any size including universities, as well as a small company, in parallel with the Patent Office's definition of a "small entity" for reduced fees.[1] Companies suing universities for patent infringement for doing research is similarly problematic for innovation.

And, I think the intent would be served equally well by getting rid of the restriction to software patents.

[1] Although the small entity rules define a small company as a maximum of 500 employees, rather than 25.

</comment><comment><USER70> I think this is a great idea and that it will prevent pledging companies from engaging in patent abuse, but I wonder how many large companies will bother to sign up for it. I imagine that if Apple/Google/MS all just take a pass that they won't catch much flak for doing so.

I wonder though if we could make the whole thing more effective by also adding an underlying threat to the pledge:

That any company, patent pledging or not, who violates the <25 rule will have their talent actively recruited away by those companies that have pledged.

</comment><comment><USER71> Have any lawyer-types looked at this? IANAL, but I kind of doubt corporate lawyers will allow this even informally. For any target that a big company would want to sue, I'm pretty sure that going through with this pledge would leave the company vulnerable to a _laches_ defense (basically, "You should have sued me _before_ I invested billions in this") once the little startups aren't so little anymore. If I'm talking nonsense, anyone can feel free to correct me. It will be cool if this works.

</comment><comment><USER72> From what I understand, the key points of software patent reform would be (a) significantly raise the bar of "non-obvious" and (b) shorten software patent lifetimes. The related issues of small companies being at a disadvantage (due to economies of scale with litigation and patent portfolios) seems rather orthogonal.

Since this pledge would only address this issue of secondary importance, which seems a lot less salient to the public, I can't imagine it getting off the ground.

</comment><comment><USER73> People make crappy products then slap patents on them so no one can compete with them. For the greater good of society this should be illegal, competition breeds innovation right, if you make something crappy, you should welcome someone else to make it better, after all, if it was something you actually used, YOU would want it to be the best, no?

Also, patent trolls that create patents for ideas they have, and are completely incapable of executing.

Software patents are crap.

</comment><comment><USER74> >Technology companies win by attracting the most productive people, and the most productive people are attracted to employers who hold themselves to a higher standard than the law requires.

The problem is, the ones doing the suing (like blackboard which PG mentioned in a comment elsewhere) are the weaker companies with a lot to lose (as mentioned in "Are Software Patents Evil") who probably aren't attracting the best people to work for them anyway.

</comment><comment><USER75> pg is concerned with startups, and I am too. But I think a lot of the rest of the world is concerned about what's going on between, say, Apple and HTC.

</comment><comment><USER76> I'm a fan of the declared, taxable value of patents rather than making an arbitrary pledge that could result in a surprise attack.

My main concern is that the knowledge of a small company possibly infringing on IP (regardless of whether you feel patents exist or not) greatly disrupts the acquisition options by a larger company, as they would devalue the smaller company based on expected patent licensing/legal attacks.

</comment><comment><USER77> Does anyone else find the pledge hard to read/interpret? I think I read it 3 times before the meaning sunk in. Granted, I hadn't read the rest of PG's article yet. Short and memorable (e.g. "Don't be evil") might be better. My suggestion: "[Insert company] won't sue companies with less than 25 people for patent infringement." It ain't perfect, but that's what I got.

</comment><comment><USER78> "when established companies with bad products use patents to suppress small competitors with good products. This is the type of abuse we may be able to decrease"

This is not abuse. This is the purpose of a patent. It gives you the ability to be as shitty as you want and still be the only gig in town. Society says "wow you're terrible, but thanks for letting us all know how you did it!"

</comment><comment><USER79> Just a relevant anecdote from the trenches -- a friend of a friend was a co- founder in Israeli start-up and they were approached by a Redmond company with an investment inquiry. An inquiry which was backed by a patent that would've been used to sue the startup should they not enter negotiations. And so they "negotiated" and in the end took the money. The end.

</comment><comment><USER80> I'm worried that this pledge would legitimize software patents on some level.

Even if the road to a software patent-free world is a long one I think it's better to pursue that than compromise this way.

What if a company hires its 26th employee? Is that an invitation to litigate?

I commend Paul Graham on at least trying to contribute his ideas but I think we need to think more on this.

</comment><comment><USER81> Volunteerism doesn't work when there is too much money at stake. How much has that green consumer really done for the environment without assistance from a carbon tax? Like calls for conservation, this is well-intended, but a distraction from the real problem, which is that the patent system is badly engineered for innovation.

</comment><comment><USER82> I also hope the patent pledge site will progress towards discouraging companies like that of Like.com by including instances of how they shamelessly killed Modista. Like PG, I am still ambivalent about patents (though mostly believing they are bad), but clear cases of misuse like these need to be emphasized and publicized.

</comment><comment><USER83> ''The patent pledge is in effect a narrower but open source "Don't be evil."''

I get 'narrower' but what does 'but open source' mean here?

</comment><comment><USER84> Why should small companies deserve special protection? If the current patent system is just, let them sue anyone big or small. If the system is broken, they shouldn't be suing big companies either. How about a pledge not use ridiculous patents to sue anyone? That may be way too vague, but that would make more sense.

</comment><comment><USER22> Speaking of patents, (although this is a month old now) I recommend everyone listen to the show This American Life did covering patent trolling: [http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio- archives/episode/441/w...](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio- archives/episode/441/when-patents-attack)

</comment><comment><USER85> The problem with this pledge is that any company that would make the pledge and stand by it already isn't a patent threat.

It's the companies that would make the pledge and break it or not even make the pledge at all that are the problem. Beyond a little peer/public pressure, this pledge does very little to address those companies.

</comment><comment><USER86> I was checking the source code for <http://thepatentpledge.org/> and noticed a reference to favicon.ico which is not there (returns a 404 Not Found): <http://thepatentpledge.org/favicon.ico>

</comment><comment><USER87> What about as a further peer-pressure type 'good citizenship' patent thing - <USER4> voluntary pay $x per patent in your portfolio to a non-profit which uses money to search existing patent-base and seek to preemptively invalidate invalid/frivolous patents. You could have a little badge on your website or some such.

</comment><comment><USER88> Is there a way for other companies to make the pledge from that site? Or is this limited to friends of PG for now?

</comment><comment><USER89> Great idea pg but what exactly does it fix? After you have 26 employees they will take you down like before the pledge. What can a company with 26 employees do against a arsenal of lawyers and patents? Do you think after having 26 employees you should have enough money to counter the attack?

</comment><comment><USER90> Jennifer Urban and Jason Schultz are developing a legal construction called the DPL (defensive patent license) to solve this problem.

[http://www.google.com/search?q=defensive+patent+license+DPL&...](http://www.google.com/search?q=defensive+patent+license+DPL&tbs=qdr:y)

</comment><comment><USER91> Great stuff! I would add my company, but there is not point - I have no patents!

I think until we see Microsoft, Google, Oracle and Apple on that list it wont be worth much.... and if we do see Apple on that list, would be believe them? and would they care if we didn't believe them?

</comment><comment><USER39> Do non-trolls really bring patent cases against small companies? A company of <25 people probably doesn't have the cash to make a financial settlement worthwhile, and if a small company has a good product it'll have >25 people soon enough.

</comment><comment><USER8> PG - Could this lead to companies on the list agreeing not to license their patents to patent-unfriendly companies? Seems that could do a lot to pressure bigger companies into leaving smaller companies alone.

</comment><comment><USER51> I agree with pg, although I am concerned this might take away from the urge to reform software patents the real way:

I would propose to eliminate software patents, or limit their time frame to 2 years. The industry moves way too fast and 17 years is way too long. I know pg wrote that "if you are against software patents, you are against patents", but consider this: the 17 years are completely out of proportion to how quickly the software industry moves. And the pace at which they are submitted is simply too great for the patent office to do anything appropriate in most cases. When we apply the patent trade-off to it, you get a negative result, not a positive one.

The patent trade-off is essentially that the company discloses their "secret" invention to the public, in exchange for a 17 year MONOPOLY (enforced by the government) on so much as implementing this invention in any context.

In software, innovations such as "in-app purchases" or "one-click buying" may not be obvious in 1997, but a couple years later they become "incremental improvements" that are pretty obvious to everyone. In fact, OPENNESS (open source, especially on the web with HTML, CSS and Javascript) has been the biggest driver of innovation, and not patents. Clearly, there are other motivations besides having a monopoly, and those motivations don't need the patent system at all. In contrast, they are being stifled by the patent system.

No one read the lodsys patent in order to "invent" in-app purchases. They were just bloody obvious to implement when the time came. Almost any experienced practitioner in the art would have said it was obvious when they were introduced. Then Lodsys came out of the shadows and demanded money.

My point is that the very purpose of patents is being undermined. It is supposed to promote innovation, by letting companies feel safe disclosing their "trade secrets" and "secret inventions". In reality, though, these inventions are extremely obvious to everyone when they are introduced a couple years later, and all software patents accomplish is the downside of the compromise: namely, a patent troll (a company that never implements anything, but just files patents) actually comes out and leeches money from those who DO implement the innovation.

That makes innovation more expensive, and patents become like a tax on those who actually IMPLEMENT ideas -- which we all know is much more important than merely HAVING them. For up to 17 years anyone implementing this will have to pay, and is the industry better off? Not at all. It moves so fast, that in a couple years, what was patented by a troll becomes the next obvious step. Software patents for 17 years are not benefiting society.

</comment><comment><USER92> Can someone clarify for me, what does "no first use" mean? Does it mean you can't sue a small start-up for being the first to use a patent you already own?

<comment><USER23> I understand it as "we will not fire at you unless fired upon".

</comment></comment><comment><USER93> The number thing is abusable. Witness facebook still operating under the SEC's 500-person limit:

[http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/01/03/facebook-and- the-500-...](http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/01/03/facebook-and- the-500-person-threshold/)

I'm not aware of any measurement method that any moderately smart rules lawyer (aka anyone who's played more than 5 hours of a strategy video game or pen and paper RPG) couldn't figure out a way around.

<comment><USER94> One way to frame that is "This is abusable. All you risk is the NYT writing an article trashing your behavior." The 500-shareholder rule is fairly obscure among laypeople, and pretty much only popular among people who litigate the cases it creates. So someone patent-trolling might suffer even more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER95> Its a bandaid where a bazooka is needed... but its an epsilon of improvement in the right direction.

</comment><comment><USER96> From the companies that pledged so far, how many actually holds any patents?

</comment><comment><USER97> I'd like to see a site for crowd-sourced prior art. That would be cool.

</comment><comment><USER98> As far as I know, pledges are legally worthless.

</comment><comment><USER99> I'd love to see an rss feed on the pledge site.

</comment><comment><USER100> Anyone know how many employees Lodsys has?

</comment><comment><USER101> It's the Gentleman's rule for patents.

</comment><comment><USER102> I think it solves everything unless patent trolling.

Here is why. Well let's say Microsoft marks its name into the current patent pledge because it's so green to be in the patent pledge even in its current form.

So now, it is the same as always, Microsoft will not be able to pursue ANY company which SEEMS to be a STARTUP at a given time from the point of view of the mass. Do you understand? Microsoft can't say: "Hey! Are you dumb? This company has 26 people so I can sue them. Don't troll me fools!" Hello the greenness… That's too late! The goal is to be green, nobody care about the strict truth. I think even a hype company with 500 people can be safe with the current patent pledge.

And probably it may even overtake the patent framework. It may be almost a "don't sue a startup" pledge.:d

</comment><comment><USER103> >Already most technology companies wouldn't sink to using patents on startups. You don't see Google or Facebook suing startups for patent infringement.

You would, however, see Facebook sue startups for using the word "book" in their website name.

<comment><USER104> Just as you saw Google suing startups for naming themselves "<X>oo<Y>le" when they were search-related in any way. And as you see every competently run company, everywhere defend its trademarks.

Trademarks and patents are very different things.

[http://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-tells-booble-to- ce...](http://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-tells-booble-to-cease-and- desist/222/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER105> That's cute.</comment>


CEO who boosted salaries to a $70,000 min now renting house 'to make ends meet' - <AUTHOR> http://www.geekwire.com/2015/ceo-who-boosted-salaries-to-a-70000-minimum-now-renting-house-to-make-ends-meet/

<comment><USER2> Makes sense; 70k isn't nearly enough to own/maintain a property. You absolutely need dual incomes and it looks like this guy is single.

<comment><USER3> Depends on where you live. I know plenty of people that own and maintain property on a single 40k salary.</comment></comment>


Onboarding Kits of Forward-Thinking Companies - <AUTHOR> http://cactushr.com/blog/2016/11/04/onboarding-kits-of-forward-thinking-companies/ <comment><USER2> I can't click out of your websites popup titled "Need HR and Business process expertise" on my Android Tablet. Also, your website blows chunks with all these top & bottom bars.</comment>


Golden Rules from Business Visionaries - <AUTHOR> http://www.life2point0.com/2005/12/golden_rules_fr.html

<comment><USER2> Good post. It never hurts to refresh on the big picture of these things. Richard Branson's stuff is always great.</comment>


$100M/Year to Shut Down: The Rise and Fall of CountryOutfitter.com - <AUTHOR> https://www.starterstory.com/stories/country-outfitter <comment><USER2> This is actually an excellent anecdotal account of how you can go from wage laborer to partner of a 9 million dollar company, and then watch the business explode because FB decided to put the Berlin Wall between you and your millions of fans.

A cautionary tale but also one of excitement and success! Pretty interesting to me. I think I wouldn't quit my day job :)

</comment><comment><USER3> After a "life-changing partial exit for the founding team" I'd never work again. -- And that's probably why it will never happen to me in the first place.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is very honest revenue.

<comment><USER5> thank you! we appreciate the time you took to read it</comment></comment>


Django Book 1.0 online - <AUTHOR> http://www.djangobook.com/en/1.0/

<comment><USER2> Python was the first language I ever loved. And I've defended it, and especially its whitespace for block structure, more times than I can count. (One Perl programmer I know can't mention Python without describing it as "that whitespace language", and I couldn't understand why until I saw some of his, ahem, "creatively indented" Perl code. I'm so anal about indentation that I really never noticed.)

But eventually I realized that whitespace is an Achilles heel in one context: using Python as an HTML-embedded template language---unfortunately, a very important case. Seeing this Django book, and finally understanding how they solved the template-language problem with Python, appears to confirm this intuition. They solve it the same way all Python frameworks solve it: they introduce a separate, template-specific language.

This is one big reason why I love Ruby, and Rails. Because Ruby uses an "end" keyword, it works great as an HTML-embedded language. This means that, in Rails, you _always_ have a full-strength language at your disposal, and never have to use a watered-down template language.

It's possible that Django is awesome nonetheless---it does seem to be attracting some first-rate hackers---and I could certainly be convinced to switch, but being able to use embedded Ruby will keep me firmly in the Rails camp for the time being.

<comment><USER3> Not using/allowing Python code in HTML templates is a deliberate Django design decision. We created Django in an environment where the designers didn't know Python (or much programming, in general), and it was much simpler to explain a simple template language than to teach them Python.

Aside from that, there are some nice benefits to having a separate template language. One benefit is the extra level of security -- a designer can't bring the entire site down by making a syntax error in the template. And there's the benefit that it encourages you (rather firmly!) to separate logic and presentation. In my Django applications, I'm never tempted to give templates any logic that isn't strictly presentation-related.

Then there's stuff like the template system's automatic HTML-escaping, which we just introduced in the Django development version. Sure, I guess you could do that with a pure-Python-syntax template system, but it seems like you'd end up hacking things substantially to get that to work.

And, finally, if you don't care for Django's template language, you don't have to use it. The whole framework is just Python, after all -- import whatever external libraries you want to import.

<comment><USER2> As Mike Vanier has noted (<http://www.paulgraham.com/vanlfsp.html>), "LFMs [languages for the masses] deliberately restrict the abstractive power of the language, because of the feeling that users 'can't handle' that much power. This means that there is a glass ceiling of abstraction; your designs can only get this abstract and no more." In this context, the Django template language appears to be an LFM. In Mike's nomenclature, embedded Ruby is an LFSP (language for smart people).

It may be that an LFM is the right design decision in some contexts. For others, an LFSP is better. For my purposes (and please forgive the pretension), I prefer an LFSP. And, while you can use an LFM in Rails (e.g., the Liquid template language), I don't see how you can use an LFSP in Django ---at least, because of whitespace, not the LFSP called Python.

<comment><USER4> Well, it doesn't just appear to be an LFM, it was explicitly designed as such.

I don't think that the Python syntax is an inappropriate choice to be used as a fully enabled template language - you could bolt on <% end %> tags with a preprocessor that indents automatically pretty trivially. Such a template language just doesn't exist yet.

<comment><USER2> Read the quote again: that's the canonical definition of an LFM. It's a language that restricts the user's power, not by accident, but _by design_.

<comment><USER4> Sorry, I meant that the authors themselves say that it's designed as one - i.e. there's no 'appears to be' about it.

But not only was I unclear, in hindsight it was a total nitpick to boot. :)

<comment><USER2> Ah. Gotcha. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The collaborative way this book was made is quite impressive. More books should be wikis or blogs in their infancy.

</comment><comment><USER6> That color scheme _still_ has got to go. Django needs a design that at least _approaches_ reasonable aesthetic sensibility.</comment>


Rare Photos of the Soviet Bomb Project - <AUTHOR> http://nuclearsecrecy.com/blog/2012/07/27/rare-photos-of-the-soviet-bomb-project/

<comment><USER2> > Much of the text is a rote repetition of what has been known for years — > with some historical weirdness, like repeat using of "we" to mean the USSR, > which is not the most encouraging thing for Russians to do

I can sort of see why that's not encouraging, but what other pronoun would fit?

<comment><USER3> Why use a pronoun at all? Why not use the noun "USSR"? It always freaks me out a bit when people use "we" to describe e.g. a team they supported in a sports game. Feels a bit strange to give up one's identity like that.

<comment><USER2> There's a bit of a difference between saying "we scored a goal" when talking about a soccer team, and "we put the first man into space" when talking about the nation you were born in.

(Full disclosure, I'm a Russian living in America, lived here for 18 years now and I still sometimes say "we" when speaking about things the USSR has done.)

Although, I suppose for a work of historical reference, they should be taking a more neutral tone, but we're a pretty proud people :)

<comment><USER3> It just feels odd - to me - to use the word "we". And psychologically, I'm sure it has an impact. I've noticed people will say "we won!" (when they mean the team they supported won), yet it is "they lost!" (when they mean the team they supported lost). Such psychological trickery with identity can't be healthy.

Even the whole supporting a team thing seems strange to me. When watching a sporting even I applaud individual players regardless of the team, and make comments about the team strategy and overall game, but it's not that important to me who won other than how it will affect the interestingness of future games. Supporting countries is even stranger because it just all feels so tribalistic.

<comment><USER4> _I've noticed people will say "we won!" (when they mean the team they supported won), yet it is "they lost!" (when they mean the team they supported lost)._

I've noticed no such thing- people seem to say "we" in both cases in the majority of times, in my experience. They often take losses to heart very strongly.

 _Even the whole supporting a team thing seems strange to me._

There's nothing wrong with that, but honestly, if you're starting from such a point of being unable to relate, it isn't worth examining in much deeper detail.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > Sarov has been the site of a big Russian Orthodox monastery for centuries.

Sounds like Anathem.

<comment><USER6> A Bazian math with nuclear praxis? Dangerous!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> While the book seems interesting enough, the blog post feels bit overly opinionated. Or maybe the book itself is like that?

<comment><USER6> The book is certainly opinionated — it's state-produced propaganda.

As for the blog post — it's a blog post. It's opinionated in the sense that making fun of Stalin's tetchiness carries an implicit opinion, but other than that, there are few opinions expressed.</comment></comment>


Do You Have to Be a Genius to Be a Developer? - <AUTHOR> https://www.crondose.com/2016/10/do-you-have-to-be-a-genius-to-be-a-developer/ <comment><USER2> Genius or Smart is an attribute of ideas/solutions and not of people.

<comment><USER3> Thank you for pointing this out. Employees in a company, like children in early education, really ought to be judged by their accomplishments rather than from some arbitrary benchmark; or, worse yet, from some cult idea of the "genius" (more commonly referred to as the "10x engineer" or "ninja" in SV parlance).

If one has a history of smarty pants contributions, &c then we may be justified in calling them intelligent. :)</comment></comment>


Sequoia gives away $21M investment in Finix as it walks away from deal - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/09/sequoia-is-giving-away-21-million-to-a-payments-startup-it-funded-as-it-walks-away-from-deal/ <comment><USER2> "it's hard to understand why it felt compelled to give away $21 million — money that institutions like Stanford and hospitals give to Sequoia to invest on their behalf."

Does not seem that hard to understand to me. They led the round, that means other investors are in on the deal as a result of Sequoia. If they had taken the money back, they would have lost the trust of other investors in future fundraising rounds that they lead and left the other investors in Finix in a bad spot with a lot of capital in a company that is now, presumably, $21m short of their needs.

$21m is nothing compared to the loss of trust in Sequoia that pulling the funding would have caused.

<comment><USER3> Sure, but wouldn't it have made more financial sense for them to maintain some kind of position? Even if they gave up their board seat for the conflict of interest reasons, I would imagine that Sequoia has some kind of obligation to their investors to get some kind of return on that $21m.

<comment><USER2> No, because the conflict of interest wasn't the board position, it was that there is perceived to be a single pie that Finix and Stripe are trying to eat from. They have an obligation to help Finix get a bigger piece of that pie and an obligation to Stripe to do the same.

For their investors, their more important obligation is to protect their existing gains in Stripe instead of the $21m they put into a newcomer "by mistake."

<comment><USER4> Many other investment holding companies such as mutual funds own stock in competitors that are both trying to eat a single pie. It's not necessarily a problem as long as the investor maintains a "Chinese Wall" between their holdings and manages each one independently.

<comment><USER2> I don't have all of the answers but my guess is they have something in their deal with one or both parties that doesn't allow this. My guess is it is with Stripe and, after learning of the investment, Stripe immediately reached out with a "hey guys, WTF" email and this is Sequoia's way of exiting the mistake quickly.

<comment><USER5> That's my guess too. I'm guessing there was a provision attached to the Stripe investment precluding any investment in competitors. Sequoia may not have seen Finix at a competitor but Stripe did.

And if that's the situation, the startup shouldn't have to suffer because the lead investor messed up. Pulling out but letting the startup keep the money and get the board seats back is really the only correct move.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The framing is weird here.

It makes it sound like the deal fell through but Sequoia still gave them $21M to be nice.

In reality, they had already given them the money in exchange for a board seat/equity/etc. When they realized they couldn't continue this relationship, the only option was to relinquish the half of the deal they could control. They probably couldn't get the money back even if they wanted to, and there's no way they'd attempt to and risk their reputation.

It makes sense for Sequoia and their LPs (Stanford, etc). They put $18 million into Stripe at a $100 million valuation, and Stripe is now worth $35Bn and growing. Sacrificing $21M to not hurt a relationship with Stripe is a rounding error for them.

<comment><USER7> And as a startup raising capital, you'll still consider Sequoia. They didn't screw Finix at all, here.

<comment><USER8> $21m worth of lemons into lemonade.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Unbelievable. _Due diligence_ for Series A rounds is pretty comprehensive. How in the world this process, especially in such a solid VC firm as Sequoia, could miss a potential significant conflict of interests is beyond my understanding.

<comment><USER10> This is the part that baffles me. Surely someone at Sequoia would have asked Stripe what they felt about the deal before it closed?

<comment><USER11> I haven't explored what exactly it is that Finix do, so this is just shooting from the hip, but a few possibilities:

(1) It wasn't immediately apparent without getting deep into the weeds that they competed with Stripe;

(2) Finix pivoted in a manner that caused them to compete with Stripe more directly;

(3) There was a controversy at the beginning about whether there was a conflict, and someone broke the tie and decided it wasn't enough of a conflict to worry about, and then someone else at Sequoia gained more influence or proximity, or reconsidered something they were previously sure of, and the balance tipped in the other direction.

<comment><USER9> I have no comments on (2) & (3), though they sound a bit too speculative. However, (1) does not make sense to me, since _due diligence_ , pretty much by definition, should have included _" getting deep into the weeds"_ (especially for Series A and, even more so, by a prominent VC firm).

BTW, kudos to you for your December 2018 blog post on bootstrapping (the relevant HN discussion does not disappoint either).

<comment><USER11> Thank you, that's really kind of you!

<comment><USER9> My pleasure! Feel free to get in touch, whenever you feel lonely professionally or otherwise - will be happy to chat.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Maybe they are trying to avoid a conflict of interest in preparation of Stripes IPO? Giving up 21 million might be better than losing the chance to participate in a large IPO if you're kicked out due to violating a non- compete. I am no expert in VC, maybe someone with more experience can chime in?

</comment><comment><USER13> I would wager that this is because Stripe openly complained with them and demanded a public dissociation if Sequoia wanted to be eligible to invest in future rounds of Stripe.

They try to spin this like it's a good thing for Finix, but the reality is that every other VC in the world will now wonder what dead bodies are hiding in the closet there.

If I would be Finix I would heavily focus on profitability and taming whatever demons you have inside the company to avoid going to capital markets for a very long time.

</comment><comment><USER14> VC's "skin in the game" is interesting.

EG the $21,000,000 they just "gave away" will need to be paid back to investors before Sequoia partners see any of their carry / performance fee.

On a $100,000,000 fund the VCs have a performance fee of something like 20% of the profits on every $1.00 over $100,000,000 they send back to investors.

Yes this is house money, but it's still real skin in the game for the partners who just evaporated at least $4 - 5m in potential fees on other investments to maintain the integrity of their brand.

<comment><USER15> Having looked at the some of the guys who work there and their net worth, I think they'll survive,to say the least.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> > Finix has told TechCrunch before that, unlike Stripe, it doesn't think of > itself as a payments company but rather a payment infrastructure company. > Most notably, it likes to note that it doesn't take a percentage of > transaction fees but instead charges customers a monthly software fee, along > with a sliding fee associated with the number of payments they process. Yet > Stripe has a product, Stripe Connect, that operates much the same way and > has since its debut in 2013.

Ehhh... sounds (and looks) very much like a clone of Stripe to me. And saying, "we're different because we are infrastructure", is just icing on the dishonesty cake. Not sure why Sequoia would ever have invested in a copycat to Stripe in first place.

<comment><USER17> >Not sure why Sequoia would ever have invested in a copycat to Stripe in first place.

may be 21M is just a pocket change handled by junior associates there. The "copycat" part was probably learnt by the seniors much later and from Stripe people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> So absurd, Finix's site even mimics Stripe's.

<comment><USER19> Its literally the same layout and styling...

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> ...and I wait, and wait for Stripe "clone" for adult industries that is more user-friendly than competitors in this field. Yes, I know that everyone is afraid sex, and VCs are terrified of legal struggles. But there's such a huge niche to fill in for some bright and brave minds. :)

</comment><comment><USER21> Abandoning equity is relatively common, but not like this. Usually its because a VC cannot realize a capital loss until it abandons (or sells) the equity of a worthless company. Finix raised $35m about a month ago. There's no way Sequoia thinks they're worthless already.

</comment><comment><USER22> The design, look and feel looks like a copy of stripe's website.

</comment><comment><USER23> Imagine if they instead invested $100K in 210 startups that have been working their ass off :)

I realize, of course, that they couldn't do that in this case. But anyone who says governments have waste versus the private market never considered the sheer amount of waste in large corporations :)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19921386&p=2](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19921386&p=2)

<comment><USER24> Whenever I hear about some startup going under after absorbing millions I always wonder the same, "if only they'd invested that $75 million in 75 judiciously chosen companies"...

Of course the people making these clearly poor investment decisions have perfected their justifications.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> That's a sure way to scream "ulterior motive" at the top of your lungs. I doubt anyone is buying the PR as written.

</comment><comment><USER26> I am surprised to see this could really happen - Wondering what would happen to the partners and associated led this transaction. Did anyone find out something about this? I couldn't at least through the article.

</comment><comment><USER27> There's something more going on here I think.

<comment><USER28> Likely good lawyering on the part of Finix. If Sequoia could recover the investment, it would. $21M is not a joke even to them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I don't understand why they couldn't have just held onto the shares and given up the board seat / preferred rights.

</comment><comment><USER30> I thought their whole pitch was to be an "anti-Stripe" that lets you own your own payments platform

<comment><USER31> Are you saying a "Stripe killer" is not a Stripe competitor?

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I mean, considering Sequoia's net worth, $21M is tip money for them.

</comment><comment><USER33> I wonder if Finix should have raised the issue? Article oddly remiss.

</comment><comment><USER34> I have a theory that this is just the scape goat for what is really a desire to decrease funding during the corona virus panic. Not that being over leveraged in payments companies is a good thing but it might not be the primary motivator here.

</comment><comment><USER35> Kind of crazy they couldn't find somebody to swap with

</comment><comment><USER36> Props to the Sequoia partner who led PR for this.

</comment><comment><USER37> Change the title to Finix please.

Sequoia is giving away $21M to Finix as it walks away from deal

</comment><comment><USER38> God I hate clickbait.

<comment><USER39> That site is one of the most annoying ones I've been to in a while. It makes me agree to their tracking, and if I want to customize what trackers I allow then I have to click on each individual tracker from a list of around 20 or so to go to their site and disallow. There's not a chance I'll be going through that much work to look at that site.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Do rich kids learn programming? - <AUTHOR>

I'm curious if people from rich family background go to learn programming and computer science or most CS / programmers come from middle class or lower. <comment><USER2> Strange question.

Of course "most" programmers come from middle class or lower, as "most" people are probably in your definition of middle/lower class.

What's your definition of "rich"?

If you consider "rich" to be in excess of $100 million net worth, and private jets and stuff like that, then ya, maybe @nick2 is right.

If you consider "rich" to be in excess of $200k/year salary, and up to $10 million net worth... guessing there isn't a huge trend one way or the other. But the general bias is probably towards the middle/upper class vs people who are in the very lower class. Since having some resources (internet, computer, education) is needed.

</comment><comment><USER3> As a middle-class father of teenagers, I've looked into game development summer camps (which sell out pretty quickly each season) and sadly concluded that these are primarily a rich kid indulgence. Obviously, most middle class families can't afford the fees but they'd be pocket change to wealthy families and provide a place to send Johnny or Jane while Mom and Dad go on European holiday.

Digital Media Academy : [http://www.digitalmediaacademy.org/](http://www.digitalmediaacademy.org/) * $1000-$2000 1 or 2-week course

iD Gaming Academy : [http://www.internaldrive.com/idga/](http://www.internaldrive.com/idga/) * $3,599-$3,799 2-week course

The bitter irony of these programs is that while they probably represent merely "fun, free time" for rich kids, the same skills could be life-changing for average or poor kids.

</comment><comment><USER4> Also curious about this topic but not much useful info will come from this thread, it will be anecdotal at best.

My anecdote: grew up poor, started programming to build my own games as my family couldn't afford new hardware. Built systems out of scavenged parts and learned a lot about code optimization. Dev is the key factor that lifted me from poverty in suburban England to a middle class life in NYC (and hopefully beyond, should luck pan out).

Most of my peers appear to be from middle/upper middle class backgrounds, but the (faux?) egalitarianism of tech would suggest that the sires of the genuinely rich wouldn't flaunt it as everyone in this industry "made their own success", right? ;)

</comment><comment><USER5> Upper middle class kid here. I've made a throwaway to avoid blacklisting, because money does weird things to everyone.

Sure, I'm not in the 1%. But I'm from a well off family. In my room alone I have 6 computers: a Macbook Air, an iMac, a high-end Ultrabook, two Windows 8 tablets, and a low-end HP Notebook running Ubuntu. Also a Raspberry Pi and an Arduino.

I love programming. It isn't taught at my high school, so I have taught myself since 3rd grade by reading textbooks on my own. I'd list my GitHub, but as I said I don't want to be blacklisted.

So yes, I code. And I enjoy it.

</comment><comment><USER6> No, it would be a waste of time. When you have the money you can hire a programmer to do it better and faster than you can ever do it. Programming is a skill that takes many years to become really good at.

<comment><USER7> Could you pinpoint a single founder who did this? Non-technical and technical cofounders combos do not count.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> A poll would probably work better for this

</comment><comment><USER9> Bill Gates was from a well-off family.

<comment><USER10> So was Mark Zuckerberg. If you don't come from a well-to-do family its hard to turn down a million dollars for a side project.

Look at the founders of Google, who came from middle class families, and would have been more than happy to sell Google in the early days for even 1 million dollars.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I believe they do as long as it makes them understand the world and business they are in, not for becoming a programmer unless thats what they want to do.

</comment><comment><USER12> Depends on your definition of rich and poor.

</comment><comment><USER13> Because pcs used to be expensive?</comment>


SourceTree now has 650,000+ MAUs - <AUTHOR> https://blog.sourcetreeapp.com/2015/02/25/were-just-getting-started-with-sourcetree/ <comment><USER2> I do find SourceTree to be an important part of my toolset. For minor commits and status I use the command line, but whenever I need to work on something important on a large project I like the overview a GUI can give. Especially when I decide to juggle razor blades with interactive rebases and cherry picks. Though I still have to dive into the reflog occasionally... :)

And stree makes it so easy. The easy hunk inclusion is excellent etc. Whenever I spot a dodgy commit by someone they usually have done it via command line and not checked properly what they are including in the commit.

I just wished they would make a linux client for the 50% Im on my linux box. I tried a lot of alternatives: Tower, GitG, SmartGit, etc. Whilst admirable they are either too basic, not polished enough or lack some basic feature I depend on. Hopefully they will get better or Atlassian releases a Linux client.

<comment><USER3> I've found the gui tools that come with git are actually the closest thing to SourceTree, and I'm tempted to switch to them because they're open source and work everywhere:

git gui (for staging and committing, including selecting lines to stage, which is in the right-click menu) gitk --all (commit graph of all branches, switching checked out branch)

The main negative is a weird gui toolkit and some weird gui conventions (e.g., in "git gui", you click the _icon_ in the list of files on the left to stage/unstage the whole file)

<comment><USER4> agreed, git gui and gitk are a really good combo. For the most part I use the command line and sublimegit. git gui is hard to beat when I am staging hunks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> SourceTree went downhill after the last major UI overhaul and never really recovered. I used to love it for more involved commits (picking apart lines and hunks, etc), but now it's slow and clunky, even on nice hardware.

<comment><USER6> Fully agree, they made a lot of nonsense changes, and from what I heard, it was the same on Mac (I'm on Windows).

Unfortunately, I don't really find a good GUI alternative that I like either ...

<comment><USER7> Git Tower is by far the best GUI I've used for git. It's not cheap ($59), but absolutely worth it, IMO.

It's fast, it's regularly updated and supported, and it's powerful enough to do complex stuff (rebases, merges, cherry-picks, etc).

[http://www.git-tower.com/](http://www.git-tower.com/)

<comment><USER6> That's a mac app though, and I'm working on Windows :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I feel like SourceTree actually only maps every Git command with a button, nothing more.

Contrast this with Github for Windows/Github for Mac. These applications are trying to make getting startet with Git easy. If you're using Git with a GUI, that's the way to go, not with a toolbar full of obscure buttons.

<comment><USER9> Anyone more than the simplest app with only one developer will quickly require more than what the GitHub app provides. Whatever issues you run into, when you Google and you haven't learned git, you'll have no clue. I like the mapping of git commands: I can use the CLI, but I have a tool that makes that workflow faster, rather than hide it from me because it's too hard.

However, for a tool that lets you quickly commit and push, which is what the Github app is ideal for, Gitbox is very nice (Mac only however).

<comment><USER10> SourceTree is that app: you know how git works but you don't want to fiddle with CLI commands and text output limitations. 99,5% of the everyday workflow is covered by a nice GUI.

Alas atlassian decided to go after the "Github App - no clue of git" population by "simplifying" the UI in 1.9. It's my impression that that move backfired hard in the existing SourceTree user-base.

<comment><USER9> To be fair, I haven't used 1.9. These days I'm mostly in Tower, which felt like SourceTree with some added features (the way it does stashing is pretty nice)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I find Sourcetree to be a pretty great product, with some negative marks here and there. I use it on W7 and OSX and find the "tabbed" interface of Windows versus the separate windows of OSX much easier to work with, especially on large products.

Some issues I have: \- The app does have some lag at times. I really wish the app would update with local changes and remote changes much faster. Commits can also take some time. \- I know how to use the application, but it could really use some better explanation/help around some features. For example, how to set up SSH keys and how branch/merge/stash/tag work. This would make Sourcetree much easier to learn for new users.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm finding I work well with TortoiseHG. I've tried SourceTree but haven't seen any advantage to it. Is there something special which might make it worth learning?

</comment><comment><USER13> I don't have much experience with SourceTree, but I've found SmartGit/Hg to be a great UI for dealing with git repos. It handles my ssh keys (and even windows auth for TFS) like a champ, and has a really great view for looking at the logs of different branches and merging.

For someone who spends some time every day in git, the license was well worth it.

</comment><comment><USER14> How does SourceTree compare to gitx? I've still to find a suitable alternative to gitx, which is light-weight, lets me visualize branches, and stage hunks. That's really all I need in a git gui.

</comment><comment><USER15> It is crazy they still don't have a Linux version!</comment>


Big Data? - <AUTHOR>

Why are people okay with big data? Why would you allow your hard work be stored on Facebook's servers? Why isn't it the other way around? You store your information, and they are allowed to access your information? <comment><USER2> Because it's more convenient, of course.

If you want to help turn things on their head, the folks working on <http://freedomboxfoundation.org/> could probably use lots of help.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think your post should be 'personal data', not 'big data', but that doesn't answer your question. But maybe I'm not understanding what you mean about your 'hard work'. I think you're talking about your personal information, but maybe I'm confused.

You could store your personal data locally, but would you back it up? Would it always be accessible when you need it? What about when other people need it, like your photo in a feed.

So local storage won't work. You could store it on your own personal cloud, but is it really personal? Somebody needs to run that service for you. That means somebody has access to your data, and every other service would need to be able to connect to that service. That is essentially what Facebook,iCloud,SkyDrive,etc. provide. Facebook just happens to have a front- end that you can interact with directly as an entertainment service and they can sell advertising based on you accessing your and your friends information.</comment>


A 'Self-Aware' Fish Raises Doubts About a Cognitive Test - <AUTHOR> https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-self-aware-fish-raises-doubts-about-a-cognitive-test-20181212/ <comment><USER2> This research would benefit from studying the AI debates in computer science, to catch up on 50 years of philosophical analysis on the complexity of intelligence.</comment>


Why It Really Sucks To Be An App Reviewer For Apple - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-why-it-really-sucks-to-be-an-app-reviewer-for-apple-2012-7

<comment><USER2> Apple's employees are forced to spend lots of valuable time "sitting there looking at things that may or may not be d*cks all day long."</comment>