How the food lobby fights sugar regulation in the EU [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://corporateeurope.org/sites/default/files/a_spoonful_of_sugar_final.pdf <comment><USER2> This also shows the true evil of the TTP and TTIP trade deals: corporations can sue any government if their laws affect the corporation's profits. Pure evil. The article has the example of Mexico being sued for their protective laws.

<comment><USER3> It's not just evil, I presume in the future there will be civil wars because of that - people who'll have enough vs. corporations.

<comment><USER4> I'm cutting past the corporation talk and going straight to the premise. It's one that we need to reject.

The article starts off with the premise that we are currently suffering a health crisis. This is insane. It's an extreme, hyper-negative point of view. We live in the safest times in all of human history. If you're not living in a shanty town without running water and suffering from dysentery, you're doing pretty well. If your sitting in your climate-controlled house in suburbia, sipping your soda thinking "Man, I'm killing myself with this sugary drink", you are choosing to be miserable. You have decided not to enjoy the wonderful world in which we live. You have decided to focus on an oblique health threat that starving humans through out history have dreamed about. Exporting that self-imposed misery to others is impolite at best if not pure evil.

With this kind of hyper-negative thinking, we could advance medicine to the point that we become immortal with eternally youthful regenerating bodies, but we would go hunting for a way for french fries and sodas to still be evil somehow. Like these things are some sort of modern day werewolf.

The premise is laughable at best. Dangerous at worst. It's neither sane nor healthy to think like this.

You mention civil war. The war here would boil down to the noble cause of killing people to protect us from the health threats of sugar. That's insane! We must reject this thinking.

<comment><USER5> It's practically modern culture to be negative about everything. When there are two equally probable outcomes I've noticed that people tend to lavish on the negative one to exclusion and treat people with positive outlooks as annoying, chipper, ignorant, or immature. It's odd. My theory is that positivity requires some claim of responsibility over the outcome while negatively allows one to divorce themselves from it.

<comment><USER6> I also think it's human nature. Humans are always looking to better themselves. Take someone from 1900 and bring them to 2016. They would think they are living in paradise...for a while. Then they would get used to it and start thinking about everything that's wrong and how to fix it.

Now, on the plus side it's that drive that improves the human condition. But it comes with a lot of negatives too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> About 6 weeks ago I stopped ingesting sugar, to the extent that is practically possible. No candy & cakes, no sweet drinks and very diligent reading of labels on the non-obvious stuff. I do eat fruit but not processed into juice.

Dropped 4 kg, everything tastes better, no energy drop at 4pm and the cravings disappeared within first two days. Friends report similar results.

This was also much easier than my previous attempts at "cutting down" sugar.

<comment><USER8> Yes dropping sugar is the first step. But then after a while, you want to take it further, and you start exercising. And suddenly, you need sugars again!

<comment><USER9> Anecdotally, I completely disagree. I've been eating a ketogenic diet (less than ~20 net grams per day) almost exclusively since May 2013 and have been lifting for the last 8 months and haven't needed for any carbs. While it's possible after a certain level some well-timed carbs can help you lift heavier than without, those won't be the kinds of sugars most people are eating. But, since I'm not looking to become a body builder I'll probably never need to worry about that.

<comment><USER8> Well, you have to admit that a ketogenic diet is something else entirely. That is impressive, I personally don't know any people who could stick to it for such a long time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I despise the corn lobby more. They ensure the high tariffs on imported sugar in order to protect the corn prices to produce corn syrup instead of using raw sugar. Only the US has soft drinks made with HFCS simply because of the tariff on imported sugar.

<comment><USER11> Accord to the movie Sugar Coated (on Netflix here in Canada) and Dr. Lustig there is no meaningful difference between HFCS and normal sugar -- they are equally quite bad for you. Switching from HFCS to cane sugar will achieve nothing I believe if you keep the sugar intake the same.

What I believe happened is that at the same time HFCS came on the market there was also a larger push to put sugar into a lot of things in place of fat.

Thus the introduction of HFCS seems to correlate with the North America weight problem but the North American weight problem also correlates with the increase in sugar in our diet -- and I understand from Sugar Coated and Dr. Lustig that is the causitive correlation.

<comment><USER12> weight-wise sugar has only half of fructose, and fructose is main offender. So yes, too much sugar is bad, but if you compare gram to gram, fructose is worse.

<comment><USER13> As far as I understood, "high fructose" in HFCS is only high relative to the corn syrup that was hydrolyzed, but not processed with isomerase, i.e. essentially compared to corn syrup with no fructose at all.

Most commonly used HFCS varieties contains 42% or 55% fructose [1], which compares well with 50% in sucrose.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_fructose_corn_syrup#Compo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_fructose_corn_syrup#Composition_and_varieties)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> It's "interesting" to see the same methods that the tabacco lobby used are used again. We as a society haven't spent the past time in defending ourselves or our institutions any better then back in those days. Sad Indeed...

<comment><USER14> I wonder what point of view libertarians have on issues like this one. How can we regulate this without government intervention? what can we do to counter- balance the marketing power of those corporations?

<comment><USER15> Just don't buy sugar products.

Without a government, a corporation can only be strong, when their customers are spending enough money. With a government a corporation can grow out by regulations/subsidies. Regulations are destroying small competitors, not the big corps themselves.

<comment><USER16> That requires humans to be perfectly rational like a homo economicus [1], but in reality people aren't.

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

<comment><USER15> No it don't. You're free to choose unhealthy products, but aren't forced to choose them. Just live healthy and promote your lifestyle to other persons, that is the best thing you can do for yourself and for any other person without harm.

<comment><USER14> > You're free to choose unhealthy products, but aren't forced to choose them

It's not that simple. For instance, kids aren't free to choose what they eat or drink and they can't make rationale decisions. Many adults lack the proper information and so on...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm not sure if there should be a tax on sugar. But I definitely think that products should have a large visible colorful graphic on the front showing the amount of sugar content.. separate from the basic black and white nutritional info label.

<comment><USER18> In the US sugar is listed without a DV% as well. People might reconsider a Milky Way if they knew it had 70% of your daily recommended added sugar intake (per the article's 45g).

I LOLed at [https://www.milkywaybar.com/nutrition](https://www.milkywaybar.com/nutrition)

> MILKY WAY® is a delicious and indulgent treat that can be enjoyed as part of > a balanced diet and healthy lifestyle.

Why lie? It's heavily-processed, high-fat, high-sugar candy. Of course it's unhealthy, there's nothing inherently wrong with that.

<comment><USER19> No one would reconsider a Milky Way if they knew it had 70% of the recommended daily sugar intake. The people who care about sugar intake avoid Milky Ways and similar candies already.

IMO one great labeling victory has been restaurants that put calorie info on menus. Some of that has been by regulation, but regardless it's a good move.

<comment><USER20> > The people who care about sugar intake avoid Milky Ways and similar candies > already.

This may be true, but this statement is also missing the (possibly large?) group of people that simply have no benchmark in their mind for how much sugar is acceptable.

I've read several competing articles about daily limits to added sugar, and the number I have in my mind is 80g/day max. Given that a teaspoon of sugar is roughly 4g, this amounts to 20 teaspoons of sugar per day! I've wondered if nutrition labels listing sugar in terms of teaspoons instead of grams would help people visualize exactly how much sugar they are consuming.

I would agree that those who care about sugar intake probably will avoid Milky Ways, but I'm also concerned that if we don't have a % DV on sugar, people will perhaps assume that there is no ceiling. _Why do we have % DV for fat, carbs, etc., but not sugar? Hmm, well maybe it 's that no amount of sugar you eat today will harm you_.

As a curious experiment, walk down the street and randomly survey people for how many grams of sugar they think they should limit themselves to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I cut back my sugar intake for half a year (bread, chocolate, sodas, etc.) and felt worse, my digestion becoming more erratic and irregular. Right now, I am enjoying a couple of pieces of delicious chocolate while laughing about the people who demonize certain classes of food. We know embarrassingly little about our digestion. Who knows, in 30 years we will say proteins are the devil and then we go back to hating fats. You have to go absolutely crazy on sugars to cause diabetes. We are talking about 'regularly skipping meals and then compensating by eating a couple of chocolate bars' crazy.

</comment><comment><USER22> Look up Dr. Lustig's talks and articles for more in depth explanations on the effects of sugar on physiology.

<comment><USER23> The known fraud? Sure, look him up.

<comment><USER24> Would you care to elaborate on that? Googling "dr lustig fraud" brings up mostly what looks like fabricated "debunking" articles from things like "The Scam Report".

<comment><USER23> "Googling it brings up things I don't like so I'll call them fabricated". What is fabricated about it exactly? This is a man who directly lies all the time. He claims "sugar is toxic" and "sugar is poison". These are both outright lies, and not claims any respected scientist would make. The data doesn't even support his modest claims, much less his poison lies. [http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/01/29/the-bitter-truth- ab...](http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/01/29/the-bitter-truth-about- fructose-alarmism/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The purpose of sugar is to have a spoilage-resistant renewable commodity capable of filling and refilling cargo ships to a net wealth density greater than most any choice having similar features at the time, over three hundred years ago.

To put this in perspective, that was about the same time that colonies in North America were being founded also by multinational corporations for the benefit of multinational corporations, often funded by venture capitalists among the royalty of Europe.

Sugar is a truly fungible material, exchangable at prevailing rates in any port. A single type of cargo that could pay its own way just about anywhere, allowing relatively greater voyage flexibility, in a world where logistics has always played a significant part.

While being the trader's or marketer's dream; concentrated chemical crystals which are habit forming in some way, with everyone everywhere being a potential repeat retail customer for "life".

The enthusiasm for this wealth from many different directions would be expected to have yielded very effective lobbyists to officials around the world for many generations by now. Once consumption has leveled to the sustainable growth rate, excess gains can more likely be made through manipulation.

Centuries of that has ended up supporting very strong plantation-type economies, often to the destruction of large numbers of a variety of different species, with human suffering very prominently included.

Continuous removal of wealth from Haiti, mandated long term US-Cuban non- relationship, and loss of Everglades wildlife by the millions are just some of the obvious casualties.

You, the consumer make it all possible.

It's not just for sweetening your coffee in the morning.

Now don't get me started on coffee . . .

</comment><comment><USER26> White sugar is crack. Highly addictive, creating fidgets who can't focus for 5 minutes chasing the next instant gratification. White sugar and wheat shake up one's blood sugar like no other.

On the one side, I am wondering that people are still consuming sugar—the last years more and more news/facts/studies pop up putting sugar in the right light. On the other side, addicted people usually say about their drugs that they make them feel good and that they are not addicted and keep consuming. But one big problem that it's quite hard to resist sugar. It's key ingredient of most products in a super market.

<comment><USER27> There is no link between high sugar intake and hyperactivity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Actual title:

A spoonful of sugar: How the food lobby fights sugar regulation in the EU

</comment><comment><USER29> I don't feel very comfortable with this "anti-sugar" campaign. In a recent past, the villain was fat, now is sugar. I don't think both of them is the problem, the problem is a life without sports and workout. And sugar is the best energy source for the brain, as far as I know.

<comment><USER30> Fat was made the villain with faulty statistics.

Sugar, on the other hand, is very obviously bad for you. It causes type 2 diabetes, it causes caries, and it also suppresses the feeling of satiety. Reducing your sugar intake is the easiest way to get into better shape.

Exercise is important, but it won't undo all the damage. E.g. if you heavily drink and smoke, no amount of exercise will undo that. It's the same with sugar. Exercise won't undo all those insulin spikes.

It's true that we need glucose, but we need it at a slow and steady rate. We don't need it at a rate which causes a massive insulin response. If your body actively combats the amount of sugar in your bloodstream, you apparently overdid it.

Non-processed food without added sugars is a good way to get a little bit of sugar over the course of several hours. The absorption rate is delayed by fibers. That's why fruits are fine while juice isn't.

The big problem with avoiding processed food is that it's really inconvenient. Cooking, just like exercise, takes time and effort.

<comment><USER31> > _Sugar, on the other hand, is very obviously bad for you_

No, _excess_ sugar is bad for you.

<comment><USER30> Given that it's so easy to overshoot your daily sugar budget, you should just try to avoid sugar in general.

E.g. if you eat some premade pasta sauce and some slices of toast, you're probably very close to exceeding your budget. So, it would be a good idea to not have a can of pop or some cookies.

Anyhow, if you only eat veggies and meat, you'll do just fine. The big problem is the _added_ sugar found in most processed foods.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Some assembly required - on writing assemblers - <AUTHOR> http://www.dadhacker.com/blog/?p=1051 <comment><USER2> For those that might actually want to write an assembler: [http://homepage.mac.com/randyhyde/webster.cs.ucr.edu/RollYou...](http://homepage.mac.com/randyhyde/webster.cs.ucr.edu/RollYourOwn/index.html)

Pretty interesting stuff, actually. Particularly when you see what's possible, e.g.: [http://homepage.mac.com/randyhyde/webster.cs.ucr.edu/HighLev...](http://homepage.mac.com/randyhyde/webster.cs.ucr.edu/HighLevelAsm/index.html)</comment>


Everyone Has a Wealth Number. What's Yours? - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-30/everyone-has-a-wealth-number-what-s-yours <comment><USER2> Interesting idea. At our firm we talk in commas (e.g. "that's a 3-comma person")

But their bottom end of the scale is woefully wrong. The difference between zero dollars, and negative 100,000 dollars (such as some homeowners in 2009) is immense. To crowd them all as "-2" is, well, a bad fudge. Bloomberg should and can do better than this.

</comment><comment><USER3> If goodwill could be valued as an asset, it would far outnumber actual exchangeable assets.

</comment><comment><USER4> Congrats to Bloomberg on discovering Worthington's Law: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6WEo9Ix_7Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6WEo9Ix_7Q)

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm a man, not a number.</comment>


Blackstone Entrepreneurship Network - <AUTHOR>

I'm hopeful but skeptical.  Thoughts?
http://www.blackstone.com/cps/rde/xchg/bxcom/hs/news_pressrelease_6811.htm <comment><USER2> I'm curious and cautiously optimistic. If CED is going to be involved, I hope they plan to send their members some more detailed information on what this is going to entail, how it will affect CED members, etc.

Sadly, when I hear things like "Governor so and so and Representative What's-his-name were present" as though that was a big part of the event, my default assumption is that this is just going to turn into another round of crony-ism for the benefit of those well-connected corrupt enough.</comment>


Thanks to Quora, now you can't read anonymously - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2012/08/01/thanks-to-quora-now-you-cant-read-anonymously/#HB2 <comment><USER2> Quora is in the same boat as FB (and to a certain extent, Twitter)

They think that the experience of their largely 20-something staff is anything short of revolutionary.

A bunch of kids running a digital media company with questionable morals and no connection to digital history. I will delete me Quora account. So far I have gotten little value from it. Time for it to have no data on me.

Deactivated!

Edit:

I followed up with an email to email@example.com asking them to delete my account and data.. will see what happens. I dont like the idea of a limbo account that can be reactivated/mined.

I'd prefer to have it deleted.

<comment><USER3> apparently you have to e-mail email@example.com to get your account deleted completely. That in itself is reason to delete your account btw. It speaks volumes of their regard for users and their privacy.

<comment><USER4> First I'm manually deleting all of my answers, then I'll ask Quora to delete the rest. I've had bad experience with deleting accounts in the past, where my content would remain on the website even though my account was gone. And not having an account, there's nothing I can do about that data afterwards. I want to be pretty sure that all my Quora content is gone.

Fun fact: There's no way to get a list of your anonymous answers on Quora. They don't show up on your profile at all. All you can really do is browse through your list of followed questions and manually check each one to see if you responded anonymously.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Quora has gone the way of expert-sexchange, showing up in Google search results for interesting questions, but then overlaying/replacing most answers with blur and "sign up to read".

Borderline SERP cloaking, to say the least.

<comment><USER6> > Quora has gone the way of expert-sexchange, showing up in Google search > results for interesting questions, but then overlaying/replacing most > answers with blur and "sign up to read".

This shit doesn't fly with Google. Delivering different content to Google bot and the user coming through search makes Google looks like a fool, since the user is unable to find the content he searched for. That is why expert- sexchange shows answers at the bottom when Google is your referrer.

If Quora is pulling up this shit, Google will penalize it. I think it's more likely Quora is simply hiding content behind css.

<comment><USER5> It looks like what they are doing are obfuscating with CSS.

See for example: [http://www.quora.com/Bayesian-Inference/How-do-Bayesian- algo...](http://www.quora.com/Bayesian-Inference/How-do-Bayesian-algorithms- work-for-the-identification-of-spam)

The answers are in a span with class "blurred_answer", which has css styles: "color: transparent; text-shadow: 0 0 7px #777". Which in effect makes the text completely unreadable to humans.

This is just one step above "color: #fff; background-color: #fff".

Scummy.

<comment><USER7> I don't see missing or blurred text in your example,

[http://www.quora.com/Bayesian-Inference/How-do-Bayesian- algo...](http://www.quora.com/Bayesian-Inference/How-do-Bayesian-algorithms- work-for-the-identification-of-spam)

I checked with two different browsers (Opera and Firefox under Windows).

Could this mean that the Quora PR machine is up in full swing trying to undo damage (at least in the case of specific links that people cite)?

<comment><USER5> Did you scroll all the way down? Still blurry here: <http://imgur.com/Bbifs> (on google chrome)

Although I see in the html source there are some html comments "googleoff". I've never heard of those before.

I guess "googleon"'ing the first answer is enough to get google juice while staying within the letter of rules, it's still really spammy.

(Plus, how does that play with other search engines?)

<comment><USER7> Yes, you're right, I can see the blurring in certain cases now.

If I go to the link you cited directly it is not blurred.

But I if search for "How do Bayesian algorithms work" in Google, then click the link that Google finds, then it _is_ blurred.

Once you get the blurred Quora page, then even going to the link directly will get you a blurred page. If you delete all the Quora cookies, then it'll be back to being readable (non-blurred).

Interestingly, if you use Google's encrypted service ( <https://encrypted.google.com/> ) to search for "How do Bayesian algorithms work", you'll get a non-blurred Quora page.

<comment><USER8> IIRC, https sites do not send referer, so that makes sense.

<comment><USER5> https sites sends referers only to other https sites (even crossdomain), but not when navigating from https to http.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If you would like try and get your account deleted, send something like this to email@example.com

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

Please can you delete my account.

I'm unhappy with your recent changes that would allow anyone to see the topics I follow and read.

My registered account is set up at <email address>

Please can you send me confirmation when you have done this. Many Thanks.

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

I've fired an email off. Re: <http://www.quora.com/How-do-I-delete-my-Quora- account>

<comment><USER10> Why didn't you deactivated the feature?

<comment><USER4> In my opinion, it's not enough. It should not be enabled by default, and it should not exist at all. Services like Quora should not introduce changes that compromise the privacy of accounts that already exist. If I hadn't seen this submission on Hacker News, I wouldn't have known about the change.

<comment><USER11> Completely agree. Facebook paved the way for this bullshit. If they would charge $1/month they would beat Facebook's revenue/user rate and could skip the advertising headaches and the pressure to be slimy.

<comment><USER12> This wouldn't be a good idea for either service, see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effects>

I doubt that this is related to making money.

<comment><USER11> Why wouldn't it be a good idea? It works quite well for the industry cited as the canonical example in the link you gave.

<comment><USER12> A huge number of people would drop off of FB, and would never try quora, if they charged. Fewer people on each makes each less useful to each potential new user, and to every existing user, causing more people to drop off.

<comment><USER11> At some point the pressure is on to _join_ , however, because everybody else is on it. Like having a cell phone: people expect to be able to reach you, so you are pressured into having one (even some old buggers who swore they never would finally succumbed).

So while I agree there would be a loss, I'm not so sure about "huge." Would people be pissed? Yes. Would there be backlash? Absolutely. Would it open the door wider for a competitor? Probably. But they would be making honest money, more than they are now, and could innovate.

I may be wrong about its chances for success, but to me it's not obviously a failing move.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Early last year, when I was starting to get into using Quora, I stopped using it abruptly when I realised how limited their privacy features are.

Basically, I wanted to contribute quite heavily to the Depression topic. I'm a sufferer and I wanted to be able to help other people. But on Quora you have a choice of answering a question either Anonymously or as yourself, the problem with answering as yourself is that all your activity gets published to the feed of people who follow you, and with Quora being heavily integrated with Facebook I wasn't comfortable with this.

Which meant I was forced to answer questions anonymously, which I was equally uncomfortable with. I felt like I couldn't make an valuable contribution if I was hiding behind anonymity each time.

I don't mind people knowing things about me, which is why I don't mind saying this here, using my real name, but that's very different to being willing to shout from the rooftops.

I emailed Quora to suggest being able to decide what information gets published to the feed on a per-topic basis. I didn't get a response, which is hardly surprising, but if basic privacy-controls are outside of their plan for the site, I can't be part of it.

<comment><USER14> > I felt like I couldn't make an valuable contribution if I was hiding behind > anonymity each time.

Why is that?

<comment><USER13> Because I feel part of being a community member is having a recognisable name, even if it's just a pseudonym, so just being "Anonymous" isn't sufficient for me.

Names are important because they allow you to build reputation (ignoring actual reputation algorithms for now). So if a particular question comes up, a user might think "I wonder what Joey Joe Joe thinks about this" or "Let's see what AmazingFace82's answer to this question is".

In the case of any community that's fundamentally about self-improvement, for example the Depression topic, it's useful to see how an individual's contributions change over time. Do they become more positive? What solutions did they try, which ones were most effective?

<comment><USER14> I think anonymous discussion is still valuable, but I agree that it's often much less valuable when you can't see the individual's comment history.

In my view pseudonymity is usually the best solution - with real names or complete anonymity only occasionally being preferable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Well, I don't think its about the money. Its a desperate move. Heres my theory on what happened:

Quora was started by an elitist group. They made content policies that were very elitist (similar to HN in a way) emphasizing quality and trained their early adopters to vote only the VERY BEST of content.

They then moved away from the gated status and allowed others to enter their community. The new-comers were however not as qualified to write as the old user base and obviously most of them never got any upvotes for the content they created. So the new users got programmed to believe that up votes are scarce on quora and therefore they themselves stopped up voting on quora.

Well the only problem with this was, up voting also meant sharing. So by training users to not up vote in a way, they cut off their sharing. So now old content stopped circulating and that explains why most people think quora is dead.

To solve the problem of content circulation slowing down, which would heavily impact the discovery of content, Quora first launched a feature called 'Boards' some time back. (Even though this invited comments on how Quora is just copying pinterest). That probably got the engine up and running for some while.

However this still did not fix the problem. I think the most popular board on Quora has something like 5000 followers. Thats it! So the content is still not circulating well.

So then they came up with the Views feature - a feature turned on by default and which would convert every view into a vote and could turn on their content engine back up again.

What people don't get is - The guy who started eHow is an investor at Quora. It has always been about long tail content, getting traffic for long queries on google, content circulation etc...

Quora is not innovative at all, there is no great model there.

Its just eHow done more cleanly.

<comment><USER16> Except it's written by users, so it's really Yahoo Answers with real names.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I essentially deleted my account a long time ago, which involved unsubscribing from _every single question_ , and anonymizing _every single comment_ I had ever made. It was the only thing close to deleting my account, and yet I still see my content, follows, and upvotes there. Gaining a sense of privacy is an abstruse and opaque task. And I'm sure that's intended.

One of the things that really bothered me was that I could tell who had made a thread about a sensitive or taboo-ridden subject[1], although this was not at all obvious to the person who posted the question. The site creates the impression that you are - sort of - anonymous when asking a question, but have to explicitly choose to anonymize, when you post an answer.

To think that this company raised at a $400M valuation in April pisses me off.

The concept of privacy can quickly get very semantic, but I think Steve Jobs summed it up perfectly:

        Privacy means people know what they are signing up
        for.

        — Steve Jobs, D8 2010.

Anyone in their right mind will see that Quora don't give two shits about privacy - probably because the abolition of it helps their business model.

[1]: In the list of portraits of people following a question, the first of the portraits is the person who posted the question.

</comment><comment><USER18> The greatest thing about Quora is that it doesn't really "exist" outside of the valley. I stayed in Georgia for 3 months. Everyone in the startup scene out there (except for my friend who runs a successful website) doesn't know what Quora is. When I explained it to them, they thought they could get the same answers from Google.

To an extent, they are correct. I'm getting tired of these self-entitled startups who think they are running the show.

<comment><USER19> "get the same answers from Google" - well, I signed up for a Quora account out of curiosity some time ago and started receiving their weekly emails, which generally I delete or unsubscribe from with most companies but something about Quora's community has kept me subscribed, for example answers to questions such as 'What wass it like to grow up insanely rich' and 'What is it like to lose an Olympic event'. I checked my account and the default is still No for "Allow others to see what content I've viewed in feed" but I'll certainly be considering deleting my account should this be activated without my consent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Headline: Thanks to Quora, now you can't read anonymously.

Reality: Quora launched a feature called "views", announced to everyone upon logging in that it was automatically enabled, and is disabled with three clicks from any page on the site.

I wasn't particularly happy when I was opted in, and immediately turned it off. Then, after a few hours, I turned it back on and saw that it was actually a pretty useful feature to see how people were getting to my content. I noticed that a few of my followers were "connectors" of Quora, through which half or more of my views on an answer came. This, I feel, is useful and relevant information.

Yes, being opted into a less private setting is unsettling, but I trust Quora at least as much as any other company. This is the first time I've been opted into anything, their settings are incredibly easy to figure out and are granular, and I trust the people that run the site.

I'll add that this seems to bother non-users more than people who actually use the site regularly.

<comment><USER21> My reality: Quora links are 100% useless to click.

I don't have an account there. I never intend to have an account there, because the only thing I've used it for is to get answers(or more context) to the occasional bizarre coding issue I've run into at work. I've never felt the need to post anything.

So no, it doesn't matter what new "feature" they added. They have effectively killed their entire product for me.

<comment><USER22> I think your opinion is pretty much worthless then. We're talking about how a change impacts the value of Quora to users. You didn't like the old version, don't like the new version, so why comment?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is misleading, as you CAN read anonymously if you disable the feature.

Personally, I read stuff for amusement or interest all the time that I would not want a large portion of my acquaintances knowing that I read, and certainly not without explanation. For instance, if I read an article about child abuse and get curious about the age of consent in Massachusetts, I don't want that showing up to random acquaintances in my feed anywhere.

Enabling this feature surreptitiously and without an opt-in is insanely stupid and insensitive to users. Given that Quora has very good support for anonymous questions and answers, you'd expect them to be more savvy than this.

</comment><comment><USER24> I'm going to sound like a broken record here, but Quora users are the product, not the customer. Quora wants to make money and they can make more of it by showing everyone who is looking at what. If they can go to advertisers and say, "See, we know every single question people are interested in, so you can get better value out of your clicks! We show this information to everyone, so we have no problem letting you tailor your placements to exact criteria."

Then they can charge more. It's simple as that.

Quora was a darling. It was started from the inside. We didn't expect this one did we?

Why oh why do we keep creating content/value for random people we don't know when we could create a blog on our own website? When we could create a product that has value to us and others and benefits us in a direct and measurable way?

Creating that content is work. Answering those questions is work. It takes time. It takes energy. It takes concentration and value away from work that benefits YOU.

OMG, I'm doing it right now!

<comment><USER25> It's more than just creating content, it's communication. Quora's end of the bargain was to maintain a quality platform for the exchange of ideas.

I never got pass the real name policy.

I think a mistake is that these services are either built without a clear development strategy, or the development strategy doesn't jive with what the users expect from the early growth phase.

<comment><USER11> I think the pressure becomes overwhelming when you are playing with other people's money; that is, when you get investors. There is only one question to ask: how can we make more money? It's usually phrased differently, but that's ultimately the question.

We see this repeatedly with "free" products. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'd forgotten what Quora was, or that it had existed. Now I'm very glad that's the case, since I wouldn't want to have to stop using something I actually liked.

</comment><comment><USER27> This is stupid.

What's more stupid is their desperation for you to interact with their site. I went to remove my unused account, and this is what I got when I typed www.quora.com:

<http://d.pr/i/WcMl>

You'll notice that I couldn't do anything else - I "had" to choose 5 extremely broad subjects that I'm supposed to be interested in, in order to be able to view my profile. I selected 5 subjects randomly, and...

<http://d.pr/i/P7ex>

Only after that they kindly allowed me to view the main page and my profile. I deactivated my account, and won't ever click on a quota link again (and would add them to my spam list so they won't show up in my Google results).

<comment><USER28> If you don't email firstname.lastname@example.com it won't get deleted though. Make sure you do that as well.

<comment><USER27> Thanks for pointing that out. Is that a robot on the other end (which deletes the account if it contains "delete" or so etching like that in the subject field), or you have to talk to a human and ask them to delete it?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> To me, the fact that Quora feels it needs to share passive views means they're failing to get enough people to actively engage with their content.

If I don't care enough click a button, either A) I have no meaningful opinion, B) I don't want Quora to know what I think, or C) there's a "problem" with the button.

Quora, if you're going to just make assumptions about why I'm looking at an answer, you will very often be WRONG.

(views disabled)

</comment><comment><USER30> Honest question, why is Quora still relevant? I thought after the initial hype for what ever reason their traction is gone (as expected). They are nothing but a glorified version of yahoo answers. HN, Reddit and Stackoverflow do a better job at what they do.

</comment><comment><USER31> One thing I can't understand with this "real name" stuff - why can't sites like quora charge a one time fee, like Metafilter? When people pay real money, you know who they are, they are less likely to troll, no? This has been successful with Metafilter, why can't other sites copy this? It'll also be another (small) source of revenue

</comment><comment><USER32> I really have the feeling we're all merely getting sold to advertisers. Where are the real innovations from tech people? It is not about "social interaction", in many ways it's only about getting as much data from the user as possible, to sell it.

I can't say how much i hate the "social trend" in this era of the internet boom.

"Yeah, our Product is a ripoff of Product X (proof concept, existing since 2000) BUT WE ADDED SOCIAL TO IT, ZOMG!!11"

What's bugging me even more is the fact, that there're so many stupid VCs who think they'll invest in the next big thing and support stupid ideas, too blind to see real innovations.

<comment><USER33> > I can't say how much i hate the "social trend" in this era of the internet > boom.

It angers me greatly. I attribute it to tech going mainstream in a big way. It waters down the entire industry. Worse, it feels like it has slowed down R&D because everyone's so complacent with what we have.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> The immediate solution is simple: Settings -> Views: Allow others to see what content I've viewed in feed: No (yes) -- change to no.

It's creepy and disrespectful that they would turn this on by default and it looks extremely desperate which makes me doubt quora's financial stability. Which in turn makes me not want to spend time contributing to it (not that I've made many contributions).

But this is the sort of thing FB would've done in their place... So I don't know, maybe their staff simply has no understanding of how people feel about privacy.

</comment><comment><USER35> One thing that stuck out to me in the article is the whole concept of "anonymous reading."

When did the need to make the distinction of anonymous vs non-anonymous reading arise? Anonymity was assumed for something as simple as picking up a book or a newspaper. It sounds as awkward and unnatural to me as taking an "anonymous shower" or anonymously picking my nose. Pretty scary that we're headed down this path where fewer and fewer things are private.

</comment><comment><USER36> This is bad, bad juju on Quora's part. The Facebookisation of Quora is something that makes my Spidey sense go off as well. Forcing "real" names. Forcing reads into the public without warning. Lots of "hey, we're the coolest social startup on the block."

Quora is overrated. They need to get it together, dial down the hype, and show some freaking humility. To do that they'll need to stop abusing the users they have.

</comment><comment><USER37> This is disturbing. I hope this will not become a trend.

<comment><USER38> I don't think it will spread too much.

Nothing would kill Facebook quicker than then implementing this, for example.

<comment><USER39> Agreed. I'm on the verge of leaving facebook, I've been for quite some time. Their stupid change in chat (people know when you read what they wrote) almost made me quit, but Chrome extensions to disable it allowed me to stay.

With such a move, I would not stay one day longer on the "service".

<comment><USER40> It's boiled frogs all the way down!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Although I don't have a Quora account, I definitely won't be signing up for one after hearing this news.

I dislike the idea of passively sharing information. In my opinion, sharing should be a conscious decision the user makes, not something that the user is tricked or forced into.

<comment><USER42> How are you tricked or forced when you're told what's happening upfront and told how to stop it if you don't like it?

It's not like the proverbial hyperspace bypass paperwork, it's literally 3 clicks.

I swear guys, some of you have both very oversensitive outrage modules and a broad definition of deception. That goes to most everyone in this thread.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Off topic I guess, but to me Quora seems to have passed it's peak for updates to topics which I find interesting, unfortunately. I was not an early adopter, and joined when the gated-community phase ended, selected my topics and enjoyed quite a few good answers. A week later I opened it up on a train ride, but the content had not changed at all.

And, perhaps more tellingly, in each topic the few scraps of fresh activity each time I've opened the app since have been from exactly the same users.

</comment><comment><USER44> You can turn it off, but then you can't see who viewed things. (Similar to how LinkedIn and OkCupid work with anonymous browsing.) And if you really want to see I'm sure you can do so via another account. (I think it is possible because okc and linkedin hide private data but quora hides public data.)

Instructions: [http://www.quora.com/Views-on-Quora/How-do-I-turn-off-the- Vi...](http://www.quora.com/Views-on-Quora/How-do-I-turn-off-the-Views- feature-on-Quora)

<comment><USER45> This move by Quora pissed me off, but the only reason I'm keeping my account is because they allowed me to turn it off.

Quite an effective way to destroy some goodwill they'd built up with me over the past couple of years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Not entirely unrelated: today on Facebook I noticed there are groups I can't browse without the group creator knowing which posts I have seen and which posts I haven't.

[https://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=409719555736128&in_co...](https://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=409719555736128&in_context)

It might not be new but it was the first time I noticed it (and I immediately left the group without thinking about it for even one second).

</comment><comment><USER47> I don't really understand why someone who has knowledge worth sharing would just give it away to a private entity like Quora who will then make money off your contributions.

If you do want to share knowledge for free (which is of course laudable), there are plenty of other large, well-established websites that are free and open and will remain so in the future. Or you could just set up a personal/community website of your own.

</comment><comment><USER48> Quora seems nice but I cannot possibly feel comfortable with their policies, even before this. I can only participate very selectively because of this. I like the service and it has traction, too bad their invasiveness thresholds are too lax for me to accept.

I'd rather just pay a small quantity to be honest. I'm not sure if an alternative site working on subscriber money would be feasible.

</comment><comment> angry-hacker Why Google doesn't penalize them for serving different content to google bot and to humans?! How can thy get away with it... I'm sure many people who work for Google and are part of team that has authority to make those changes have seen it..?-

</comment><comment><USER49> What value does this have over, say, an anonymized view count? While it's nice to know that people have seen what you've written, does their identity really need to be known?

<comment><USER50> Perhaps it is more attractive to advertisers then to users. Demographic tracking etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Recent changes that Quora has made to their interface ( several UI dark patterns implemented to get people to automatically share / integrate with FB / Twitter ) as well as this move of hiding answers makes me believe that they are desperate, not confident. I had high hopes for Quora from the beginning but have been continually let down to the point where Quora seems like ExpertsExchange 2.0 now.

</comment><comment><USER52> Not all views are shared. [http://www.quora.com/Views-on-Quora/Which-of-my- views-will-a...](http://www.quora.com/Views-on-Quora/Which-of-my-views-will- and-which-views-wont-be-shared-through-Quoras-Views-feature/answer/Sandra-Liu- Huang)

If you are too afraid to visit that link, try this one: <http://pastebin.com/T2s9Vjxn>

</comment><comment><USER53> There is space for competition in that area. StackExchange is pretty good, but since they don't allow questions with subjective answers, they basically exclude themselves from the vast majority of the market share. Then there is quora, yahoo answers, ... There is certainly enough space for a few good startups.

<comment><USER54> StackExchange leaves a lot of open opportunities even in the areas they focus on. The objectivity mantra means they'll ban "best programmer jokes", perhaps understandable, but oddly they'll block questions like "best database for X, best book on X" as being "Not Constructive". (I could understand "subjective", but I can't see how it's not useful data.)

So when I see things like this, it makes me think there's surely an opportunity and the opportunity falls squarely in Quora's lap. But depending how they execute on it, they might still be leaving the space wide open for others.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> That headline seems unnecessarily incendiary, since it tells you in the last paragraph how to opt out.

</comment><comment><USER56> I was curious so I just had a look with my (fake name) account and the option called "Allow others to see what content I've viewed in feed" was set at "No". I don't recall ever playing with that setting so this may be a recent change on their part to avoid the backlash.

<comment><USER57> Mine was also 'No', but then I visited the homepage (<http://www.quora.com>) and closed the notice there about the new Views feature... which toggled the setting to 'Yes', without any message to that effect.

So try viewing the homepage and then check the setting, or closing the fewture notification... it may then be 'Yes'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> I've never signed up to Quora, but the last time I visited, it looked as though I was logged in which I assumed was via my Twitter cookie. (I don't have a Facebook account.)

It's not happening now so possibly was part of some A/B test.

That coupled with this passive browsing would be a step too far.

</comment><comment><USER59> This is one of the reasons I keep fake accounts, including on quora, FB and Twitter, to read the content. Due to the fake name in the quora account, I don't have edit privileges, which is perfectly fine with me as it is at most a minor inconvenience at times.

</comment><comment><USER60> I do not have a Quora account, but I understand their move and it may not be all bad. There are 3 ways how a company may handle user passive privacy:

1\. Not collect any information (in this case who read what article) at all. Obviously that company would be at a big disadvantage, having no access to a useful set of signals.

2\. Collect the information and use it for their own goals.

3\. Collect the information and make it freely available.

If I understand the article correctly, Quora went from strategy #2 to #3. From my perspective, this is a positive move. In case #3, users are aware of what is happening with their private information and may log out if they do not want to be tracked this way. It is way better than living in peaceful ignorance as in case #2. Also, the company cannot sell the private info, because it is publicly available.

<comment><USER61> > Also, the company cannot sell the private info, because it is publicly > available.

Uh. Maybe you don't understand why people don't like it when companies sell their data.

It's because it ends up in the hands of every shady marketing agency and intelligence organization on earth. Making it public just means that these parties can get it with no barrier to entry.

See: Usenet, where any email address that's ever touched it is supposedly under constant siege by spam.

<comment><USER60> Maybe I have expressed myself not clearly enough, so once more: I prefer the collected information to be public because then it is clear to everyone that it is being collected and many more people are aware of the implications. I think it is better than when the same kind of information is being secretly sold while users have a false feeling of privacy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> Friendster did the same thing. Look where it is now. <https://www.google.com/search?q=friendster+who+viewed+me>

</comment><comment><USER63> Non-anonymous passive sharing discourages curiosity and experimentation by giving them boundless potential for embarrassment. It's hard to imagine worse long-term damage to users' humanity.

</comment><comment><USER64> Just thought I'd point out that the method they used for the obfuscation is a simple CSS rule. It can be quite easily disabled with the developer tools, an extension or a proxy.

</comment><comment><USER65> Hate this update from them. I think what have they done was a EPIC Fail in their part.

</comment><comment><USER66> I wouldn't mind this feature if it were totally opt-in.

</comment><comment><USER67> It can be turned off easily. No sweat !!

</comment><comment><USER53> Just use a fake name :)

</comment><comment><USER68> Quora, you fucked up.

</comment><comment><USER69> I've learned to go with the flow and trust them when they make changes like this. My first impression is usually to want the 'old Quora' back but once I get used to them, the changes do nearly always improve the experience. I would imagine this will be the same.

They are very skilled at interpreting needs and desires we didn't know we had and quickly correcting themselves the times they do make mistakes (like the recent notification spam issues).

edit: lol @ downvotes. Unacceptable to not be a Quora hater I guess...

<comment><USER70> _very skilled at interpreting needs and desires we didn't know we had_

This is basically the same line that I use when I'm mocking targeted ads and joking around with friends about how thankful they should be for them. If your edit wasn't there I would have guessed this was a level aka fooling someone w/ sarcasm or non-serious remark.

<comment><USER69> It's also the same line people use when they describe why Steve Jobs was so brilliant.

There is a difference, however, in explaining away unpopular changes as being this and actually being good at it. Quora is actually good at it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> Genuinely never understood the hype or money behind this.

It's just ExpertSexChange all over again

</comment><comment><USER72> Yes you can. With a little hack [http://assente.vega9.com/it/how_to_bypass_quoras_text_hiding...](http://assente.vega9.com/it/how_to_bypass_quoras_text_hiding_for_unregistered_users)

</comment><comment><USER73> Well as Eric Schmidt said, "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." ;)

[http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2011/01/21/top-10-the- quotable-e...](http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2011/01/21/top-10-the-quotable- eric-schmidt/)

<comment><USER74> Bullshit.

That quote is based on the (false) premise that privacy is there to conceal illegal/shady activities. It puts you in one of two groups; You're either guilty of something and have a reason to hide it, or you're not guilty and have no reason to hide anything. It doesn't include the possibility that you might not be guilty of something but may still want to keep something hidden. I'll give you an example. You might NOT want to give your phone number when you register on some social website because you don't want that data used for marketting purposes.</comment></comment>


Shared Mobility Principles for Livable Cities - <AUTHOR> https://www.sharedmobilityprinciples.org/ <comment><AUTHOR> The most interesting bit was highlighted by Matt Levine [1]:

 _10\. WE SUPPORT THAT AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES (AVS) IN DENSE URBAN AREAS SHOULD BE OPERATED ONLY IN SHARED FLEETS.

Due to the transformational potential of autonomous vehicle technology, it is critical that all AVs are part of shared fleets, well-regulated, and zero emission. Shared fleets can provide more affordable access to all, maximize public safety and emissions benefits, ensure that maintenance and software upgrades are managed by professionals, and actualize the promise of reductions in vehicles, parking, and congestion, in line with broader policy trends to reduce the use of personal cars in dense urban areas._

As he points out:

> Yes that's right, in the driverless-car future, Uber will be lobbying cities > to forbid you from owning a private car that might compete with Uber. Cars > need to be in "well-regulated" fleets to "ensure that maintenance and > software upgrades are managed by professionals." You wouldn't want an > unregulated amateur to be in charge of a car's maintenance! That would be > anarchy.

[1] [https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-02-05/wells- far...](https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-02-05/wells-fargo-must- be-better-before-it-gets-bigger)</comment>


$1299 entry-level MacBook Pro now features 8thgen Intel processors, Touch ID Bar - <AUTHOR> https://9to5mac.com/2019/07/09/1299-entry-level-macbook-pro-now-features-8th-gen-intel-processors-touch-id-and-touch-bar/ <comment><USER2> This isn't the story—the story is that Apple killed two machines today:

\- The non-touchbar MacBook Pro (RIP, function row)

\- The 12" "MacBook" (which I adored, largely because it was so tiny)

What's strange is that it appears that this was a streamlining effort—but if you get into the weeds and look at the "base" model 13" MacBook Pro, it's not the same machine: it has two Thunderbolt ports, rather than four, despite sharing the same moniker as the higher-end MacBook Pro. Go up a model, and you get four for more money along with the better processor, which isn't immediately clear, either.

That means it's got fewer thunderbolt lanes, as well, which is a classic nickel and dime move that's going to make it even more confusing given most people just buy the base model.</comment>


Show HN: A command line tool that aims to replace It'sLearning - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/michaelmcmillan/ItsLearningCLI

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi!

Just wanted to show off something I've been fiddling with the last couple of hours. It's a commandline tool written in node that aims to replace it'slearning (education-platform which sucks).

Feedback appreciated, especially for those who use it'slearning.

<comment><USER2> I have used itslearning and I wonder if your app is a frontend or a complete system including frontend and backends.

(The part about auth gives this impression while the part about replacing leaves a wholly different impression. )

<comment><AUTHOR> I can see how that is misleading - sorry! It's basically a client which connects to It'sLearning over https. What its replacing, to be clearer, is the webinterface.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Can someone give me some context on what the hell is itslearning.com

It is like blackboard?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry. It'slearning is a platform for students and teachers. It's equivalent to blackboard, just worse.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Non-technical entrepreneurs, why don't you learn to code? - <AUTHOR>

It seems like the best-case scenario (as opposed to finding a technical co-founder on whom you will perpetually be dependent). What is so overwhelming or infeasible about learning to code that quite a number of "business people" avoid it like the plague? <comment><USER2> This is an only slightly related observation, but coding is something you generally have a knack for. Half the kids in my CS classes don't qualify as coders in my book. If you get to your fourth semester in a CS program, and you've never programmed in anything but Java, you obviously don't have the drive to teach yourself something just because you find it interesting.

Back to the topic at hand. With some exceptions, if you haven't taken the plunge and taught yourself how to code by now you probably don't have the interest and drive to get good at it. As I said, there are exceptions. Some people catch the coding bug and off they go. But otherwise, it's just not their thing.

</comment><comment><USER3> In my experience as a self taught coder and also as a teacher of many coders, learning to code is easy but learning how to code efficiently and effectively is hard and takes many years of practice.

Every now and then (just for fun) I look back at the code I wrote 10 years ago and just think 'Ugh ... did I really write this' ?

More to the point, building a robust product (think: bug free) requires a significant amount of coding skill - I seriously doubt that anyone would be able to achieve this from scratch (at least, not within a reasonable time period).

</comment><comment><USER4> Actually, my current plan is to learn to code. I dreamed that plan up at least a year ago. So far, I haven't learned a thing. I'm apparently a "patient" person...well, not really. I'm probably actually one of the most impatient people you will ever meet. But my impatience means I will often stick it out to do something in a way that makes sense t me rather than try to take some short-cut if it is clear to me that the short-cut is a case of "you can't get there from here". Since I don't think getting someone else to write my code will get there, why bother? I'll either figure out how to code or come up with some other solution for accomplishing my goal. But most people don't think in the long time frames I seem to think in.

Still, I have hopes someone will accidentally inject coding into my brain, like the programs they downloaded to Neo's brain in The Matrix. :-D (Yes, it's possible for the right person/right approach/right situation to make a huge difference in that regard and mentoring is part of how I learned HTML and CSS. So while I am being whimsical, I am not merely joking.)</comment>


We tried to hustle our way into YC after we got rejected - <AUTHOR> https://veed.io/blog/rejected-from-yc/ <comment><USER2> I don't want to be a jerk to kids in their early 20s who are bootstrapping their startup idea, but reading this account would actually confirm for me why this team wasn't ready to be accepted into YC or a similar program.

A big part of the onus of the original product, at least, as it was launched, was that it was "watermark free" and the way it was "sold" to end-users was that it was a free service. Now, I can understand the initial rationale here -- you want to get users, you start with free, and assume you'll pivot to paid options/add-ons at some point or get sponsorship or other revenue streams, or pretend it's still 2009 and that startups with no revenue can obtain ridiculous valuations and then be acquired by Yahoo or whatever.

The problem is, it's no longer 2009 and investing strategies have changed. Revenue has replaced users as the important growth metric for lots of investors. (There are exceptions, I'm aware, but this is a general trend we've seen over the last few years. Don't worry founders, the pendulum is bound to go back in the other direction in another few years.)

Now, I don't know what the team's original business plan was for this service, but based on the YC letter, it appears that they said "we'll start charging eventually" and that led to the question about why you aren't already trying that now, when you have 35,000 MAU. A fair question -- and one that really represents more of a question about business plan rather than lack of MRR.

But the team read this as "if we can show MRR, we can prove we're ready" \-- except that wasn't and isn't the problem here. Yes, it's impressive that the team was able to hack together a payment gateway and offer a pro product in a weekend and obtain $500 in revenue (should be noted that this isn't recurring and it won't be clear what the actual recurring revenue is for several months), but the fact that it was done so haphazardly, and honestly, for what looks like the wrong reasons (it wasn't about "this is best for the business" it was about "this will get us into YC"), is the biggest red flag.

If you want to change a fundamental part of your product (no watermarks) and make it a pro feature to entice users to pay, you're welcome to do that. It may or may not work for existing users, and it's possible there are better ways to extract revenue/add value. The truth is though, this was an idea done at the last minute to try to secure placement in an accelerator, it doesn't appear to be born out of actual business rationale for the product.

<comment><USER3> This read like a business school professor. All young businesses are a fluid experiment "out of business rationale" is a hindsight fluff statement. If rationale informed effective product then a lot more people were successful.

Additionally, odds are that the best thing for the business (and founders) would being admitted to YC over any product change they could possible make.

They had non zero odds and I think it was a clever plan all things considered. If YC is looking at founders above everything else and less product, these young dudes seem to be cut from the cloth.

<comment><USER2> > If rationale informed effective product then a lot more people were > successful.

That's not necessarily true, as plenty of businesses fail because they don't have a business plan for their product. The world is littered with great products that failed because there was no business plan or the business plan wasn't sustainable. Obviously, having a business plan doesn't make a successful product (and I never one intimated otherwise), but in this case, the feedback from YC was about the business and not about the product.

>Additionally, odds are that the best thing for the business (and founders) would being admitted to YC over any product change they could possible make.

If by "best thing" you mean "could raise money to fund the product in absence of a business plan" \-- you're probably right. Getting into YC or a similar accelerator would make raising money easier for sure. But getting in doesn't guarantee funding or success in any way shape or form.

>They had non zero odds and I think it was a clever plan all things considered. If YC is looking at founders above everything else and less product, these young dudes seem to be cut from the cloth.

I disagree that they had non zero odds. They were rejected and given a reason why. The response to that rejection didn't actually answer the critique by YC (and the founders don't seem to have understood what that critique was). You're right that the product doesn't always matter when it comes to who gets funding, but in this case, being "clever" just further proved that they didn't actually understand that core feedback, which is wholly independent of product.

Look, I hope these guys try again. I also hope they take up the offer for office hours and take that feedback into perfecting their business model and their product strategy so that they are more successful next time.

<comment><USER3> >That's not necessarily true, as plenty of businesses fail because they don't have a business plan for their product. The world is littered with great products that failed because there was no business plan or the business plan wasn't sustainable. That observation is a long horizon observation. In the short horizon most businesses tend to stagnate and die because of interest and growth. Unless theyre trying to grow an organic biz overtime (which applying to YC seems to signal otherwise) going and getting in the ecosystem would be by far the largest upside to the biz and more importantly the entrepreneurs.

> Combining the non-zero and best thing for the biz.

These are kids who by being in YC get expert observation and access to a network that they would take a decade to build. The only scenario in which not getting in is better is if they strike some insane gold pocket and they are physically too busy to participate in YC. They had YC as a captive audience and there was precedent for flexibility, thats non zero.

same same. I hope this serves as the intro to a story titled "The time YC almost made another $5b."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> So, that's the dichotomy of YC.

YC is an accelerator, and as such, needs to accelerate /something/. If you join too early, then it's almost a distraction to getting the product out and talking to users. However, hit the sweet spot and YC is an invaluable resource to help you grow.

On the other hand, YC opens the door to so many opportunities and great people, that even if you're too early, the net result is still a pure positive for your career and startup.

<comment><USER5> Hey Dom, we worked together directly when you were in YC, and I deeply disagree with your assessment that having progress helps a startup succeed in YC.

The worst case scenario is a newly accepted YC startup with a little bit of traction... just enough traction that they aren't willing to change ideas/markets and not enough traction for them to actually know they have product market fit. It's the uncanny valley of product-market fit. These companies with a little bit of progress can spend months or years of their life chasing what they later realize was a mirage.

When a new YC company enters the batch with very little or no traction (and can move incredibly fast) they will longterm outperform companies accepted with small traction most of the time. Based on the hundreds of companies I have personally funded at YC, speed is the single most predictive variable of if a startup will succeed - not traction at time of accept.

<comment><USER4> Hey Dalton, thanks for the answer, that's fair. I totally agree that in the long-term, moving and failing fast is a net positive for both founders and YC. I wonder how different the YC three-months experience is between founders who have product-market fit vs the ones who don't? It seems like there's a "cadence" to the program highly focused on growth culminating to demo day?

<comment><USER5> Tons of examples of no traction/fast moving teams out-performing, ie Brex pivoted and had no growth or traction at demo day and it worked out pretty well for them :) [https://twitter.com/daltonc/status/1138952277404790784?s=21](https://twitter.com/daltonc/status/1138952277404790784?s=21)

Doing YC at their early state was perfect because it was the perfect environment to come up with an idea like Brex.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Dalton OP here, appreciate your input here, Thank you.

Moving fast is something we are working at hard at. From a technical and creative perspective.

Correct me if I am wrong. When you say moving fast, do you mean being nimble and quick at pretty much everything, with the goal to find product-market fit?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's great that YC provides feedback on why they don't accept (some) companies. However, it's a bit disappointing to see that not having MRR is a reason to reject a company. It seems like a lot of the successful YC companies were accepted way before they were anywhere to close to revenue -- and some were even working on a completely different product when accepted.

My hope is that MRR is sufficient, but not necessary for acceptance!

<comment><USER7> Maybe I just don't get the Silicon Valley culture, or perhaps I'm missing something fundamental, but let me just get this straight:

1\. Startup has no revenue whatsoever, but ostensibly have good product. They go pitch to investors and get rejected, likely because they have no revenue.

2\. They hack around for 1 (!) weekend and get their MRR to $500. Five hundred bucks. They now go back to investors and say: hey look, we now have revenue (peanuts really), can we get funding please?

In what world would those $500 be expected to make a difference? How is that a proof of anything? I expect even really inept startups can somehow pull together $500 revenue from friends and family.

I suppose I just don't get how $500 in revenue could be seriously considered the tipping point between rejection to acceptance for investment?

To my layman reasoning, this is incredibly naive, but I'd like to be proven wrong.

<comment><USER8> Having $500 in MRR proves two things:

1\. The product is something that people will pay for

2\. The team can sell it, at least a little bit

Both are huge validations of a startup

<comment><USER7> That's the thing. In my mind $500 proves nothing. Well, it proves that you can get $500 a month. I think it says zero about the actual ability of this business to become a success.

Put differently, if I believe in the idea behind a startup, I'm willing to overlook the fact that they have no rapid growth yet. If the idea is not enough to convince me, a miserable $500 is sure as hell not going to make a difference. It's too little in too short a time. It says zero about customer retention or satisfaction, etc. It's akin to taking two data points, zero revenue and $500 MRR and then extrapolating the growth. Nobody but a fool would believe such a metric.

If they went away, hustled hard for 2-3 months and got to say 50-100 paying customers (with that number consistently growing), good reviews or some feedback that customers actually like the product, I'd be more inclined to think of it more than just a fluke.

<comment><USER2> I'm 100% with you.

And honestly, seeing something like this would make me less confident in a startup, because as I said in another comment, the impetus for charging seems to be completely tied to getting accepted by YC, rather than trying to build revenue for the business. "Let's just hack our way to $500 then we can show we have revenue and the objection they listed will be moot and we'll get accepted."

The better move would be to have a solid plan for a pro product, start charging, be able to show growth in paying users, and then reapply for the winter YC class showing those data points.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> At first I was with them, but when they summarized at the end I think they missed the underlying point of the feedback.

The feedback was "why have you waited so long" not "this was too early for you to apply"

The fact that the founders bent that around in their heads after changing their actions, to me, indicates they aren't quite getting what the email implied.

But what do I know, I've never gotten in to YCombinator or launched a successful startup.

<comment><USER10> I might have missed the point too, could you expand a little?

<comment><USER9> This is obviously speculative, I'm not in anyone else's head.

I interpreted that they were concerned about the thinking that went in to making the decision not to begin charging people sooner.

I felt supported in that interpretation when the founders ended the article by saying perhaps their company was at too early a point for the program.

The feedback seemed to imply they were too far along to have not started charging, so interpreting that to mean they were not far along enough could mean the feedback was responded to with direct action but the underlying thinking remains unchanged.

Like I said, I have no idea if I'm right, but if I am then the last conclusion paragraph validates the YC interviewer's concern that there's a deeper problem about how the company is being approached.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > In March, we submitted our application, and kinda forgot about it.

> Two months later we got an email saying that a partner would like to speak > to us.

This is a tangent, but I want to share something about my YC interview experience for anybody ever in this position.

I filled out my application in February for the NYC interviews. They passed on me for the early NYC interviews, but ~2 months later I got an email for Mountain View interview.

During my interview, I was asked what my revenue was two months ago, and what it was last month. When I gave my answers it created immediate disarray between the three interviewers.

I walked through my numbers and could tell something was visibly wrong, but time was ticking and I had to steer back to the product, vision and growth.

When I got my rejection email, the lead-in reason was that the revenue wasn't clear (and to clarify, we are doing VERY well with revenue growth).

A bit perplexed, I went back to my application and realized what had happened. The YC application asks for "what was your revenue last month, two months ago, three months ago, etc)"

The partner was trying to get me to talk about what caused a 100% revenue spike (and again, we're not talking about small revenue here) between February and March. But when filling the answers out in February, those questions are anchored to December and January. That spike was just onboarding customers.

As I personally had to live through the hell of onboarding these customers from December to January, it never occurred to me that he was asking about that spike while looking at my "last month" and "two months ago" revenue.

I read my application a lot the week leading up to my interview. It never occurred to me change my answers to realign with the two month gap between when I filled it out and when it was accepted. I'm not sure I would even do that now, knowing what happened.

So the upshot is this: if you fill out your YC application well in advance, be prepared to speak to your financials (and company as a whole) both as are they are today, but also as they appear in your application, because the answer to "what was your revenue last month" is different depending on whether the partner is referring to your application, or the last calendar month.

<comment><USER12> That seems like it was a failure of the interviewer to ask the right (or any?) clarifying questions.

<comment><USER11> Possibly, but the onus is on the applicant to drive through things like this, not the interviewers. Again, nobody in the room had the luxury of understanding what was happening at the time. Hopefully my experience can help others.

<comment><USER12> Nah, there's definitely an onus on VCs not to miss out on a super hot startup because they mixed up two months because of a bad comparison of two times expressed in relative terms.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> missiveapp.com and conferenceBadge.com, my two startups, have both been rejected at the interview phase. Our yearly revenue for both now stands in the 7 digits. We are still just a team of 3 + 1 employee, 100% bootstrapped. Life is good. My advice, keep pushing!

[https://missiveapp.com/](https://missiveapp.com/) [https://www.conferencebadge.com](https://www.conferencebadge.com)

<comment><USER14> Apropos of nothing, this little marketing page is pretty great -- [https://www.conferencebadge.com/why-use-conference- badge](https://www.conferencebadge.com/why-use-conference-badge)

<comment><USER15> so, it took anna 10 hours, and lets assume anna gets paid 25 dollars an hour, so a cost of 250 dollars. Shelley, used the conference badge, and at 1.79 for the fully shipped version of the badge, it will cost 582 dollars. So, essentially, Shelley paid 332 dollars for QR codes and convenience.

Is it worth it? probably. but maybe not.

<comment><USER16> I think this depends on one-off vs long term. If this group is going to be doing 2~3 conferences a year, learning how to print labels yourself or is valuable skill. You might even have a designer on your team that could work with a local print shop (allowing a personal relationship and even last minute badges so you're not handwriting last minute speakers).

There's a one time cost of learning all that stuff, and then each year you just reuse those same templates and skills with a new logo/graphics from your design guy.

If this is something your team/volunteer group/etc. rarely does, then it's probably worth just paying conference badges. It's a trade-off.

If it's a non-profit thing, consider open souring the process and CC licensing the designs to help others doing the same thing.

<comment><USER17> I organise conferences as a hobby, and I've been manually doing mail merge on badges for the past few years.

It takes me anywhere between 5–15 minutes to set things up, and my biggest annoyance throughout the process is dealing with CSV character encodings.

I think the main value the service provides is that it provides "guaranteed" next-day delivery. My print shop gives me a fair amount of crap for not sending my badges to print a few days in advance.

On the other hand, it's so much less work for organisers to print blank white boxes, and let attendees fill in their own preferred names at check-in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Check this out: [https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/18/here-are- the-85-startups-t...](https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/18/here-are- the-85-startups-that-launched-today-at-y-combinators-w19-demo-day-1/)

Many YC startups don't charge anything. Here is one that seems still to be figuring stuff out ([https://www.54gene.com/](https://www.54gene.com/)). One that seems to be figuring out who and how much to charge ([https://ultralig.ht/](https://ultralig.ht/)). In fact, I'd like that someone goes through the startups and deduce how many of these are making any money or have strategies to make any money.

Here is what I think is going on: YC is trying to be polite (bullshitting) about the rejection. They won't straightforward tell you: You suck. Or you are not sexy enough to be in bed with. And it's fair enough. When was the last time a potential hookup told you they won't have sex with you because your face is ugly or you have an ugly belly.

YC probably picks up on intuition. You can't judge a dog for 10 minutes. They are using subconscious cues based on their experience. They are looking for founders. The startups with high MRR are probably suckers for scaling that made it at monetizing a product to market. YC takes them (expensive %7 for cheap mentoring) because they can afford that.

You can't change the built-in neural networks inside YC brains. They might be going against their intuition on the diversity front because data has suggested they should or they are trying to look cool.

What this team did is basically show up next morning and have a black t-shirt because they figured out that I don't like guys in white t-shirts. That's not going to make me like them. Probably hate them more. It shows lack of consciousness and maturity. This is not a government position with cold requirements where you need to check the boxes.

<comment><USER19> The fact that many YC startups don't charge anything doesn't mean that _this_ startup has a good reason not to be charging. I think the assumption that YC gave them a BS reason is absolutely unwarranted.

Personally, I love the hustle. It was absolutely worth a shot, and by the next batch they'll have a lot of data to show. Most _great_ first-time founders have no idea what the hell they're doing, and it's totally forgivable for them to have waited a bit longer than necessary to start charging. They responded to feedback from smart people who know what they're talking about, and are moving ahead.

<comment><USER20> Yeah, I got the impression that YC didn't see why they weren't charging for what they had since it is a liked and a viable product with a pretty simple way to make revenue.

I hope these guys do well, I like the hustle also!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> These founders haphazardly threw a new paid feature into their app just to try to impress the YC team? They should have taken the time to do market research and do it right rather than risk alienating their user base. I wonder if getting rejected was a big enough blow to their ego that they couldn't see clearly, just like college applicants will go to top ranked colleges with no concern for the price or the risk/reward profile of that decision, but instead so that they can brag about being the best. YC is "the best", but that doesn't make it right for every startup.

<comment><USER22> They took the feedback to heart, built fast, and got paying users! Where's the big mistake there?

I think one of the good things about YC, is if you try to optimize for getting into YC, you're actually building your startup in a constructive manner.

<comment><USER23> They might have just killed their MAU growth potential

Imagine if FB had a premium plan in 2008, they wouldn't have made it.

In this case it probably makes sense to charge early on, but it doesn't look like they did much research on the decision

<comment><USER24> They did get advice from some of the most experience startup investors in the world. Who's biggest question was why they hadn't started charging users. Taking advice from highly experienced people is probably better then trying to do your own research.

How would you even research such a decision if not ask very experience startup founders and investors?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I wonder if the results thus far actually validate the concerns raised by YC ("hard to know whether people are willing to pay")? $250 MRR strikes me as rather low for 35K MAU - assuming that's 50 users it's just over a 0.1% conversion rate, and a little over 2 weeks in I'd expect most of those monthly users to have come across the option to pay at some point by now. Nonetheless, wish you guys the best of luck in figuring out the monetization!

</comment><comment><USER5> I would recommend "hustling" for a period of time _before_ the interview, rather than as a reaction to the outcome of it :)

</comment><comment><USER26> Thanks for sharing your YC story!

Some personal experience: I applied to YC for 8 times over the past few years. Got one onsite interview (late 2017). Got rejected. I documented that onsite interview experience here: [https://broadcast.listennotes.com/my-y-combinator- interview-...](https://broadcast.listennotes.com/my-y-combinator-interview- experience-w18-c12e6d98c1d0)

Probably YC is not a good fit for everyone. I stopped applying to YC since then. My small startup is doing well now, so I'm happy :)

</comment><comment><USER27> I kinda wonder, if you believe what's missing in your platform is a single feature that can be implemented in 2 days, do you really think YC wouldnt realize that too?

So this is likely not the reason for the rejection.

I would have _even more_ worries about these founders after this stunt because it shows a lack of self awareness and strategic insight.

I'm in no way affiliated but Id guess YC is looking for foundational advantages and paradigm changing ideas in their companies. You can't pivot to those in 2 days.

<comment><USER28> I think it's not about the technical implementation of the payment feature (as you say, that's not that hard), it's about if anyone would use it (i.e. if anyone would pay).

Before they implemented the feature it was unclear if anyone would pay, after they implemented the feature it was clear that at least some people would pay.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Sort of an aside but it's really impressive to see the level of care the YC team puts into the feedback provided in the email. It would be easy to just have a generic rejection. Considering the number of teams they are interviewing, it's even more impressive. Kudos.

</comment><comment><USER30> I don't think this looks very good for them. They suddenly added watermarks over their videos to 'encourage' users to sign-up. A pro plan with _added_ value would have been more considerate, or even a full switch to paid users with a notice period.

They are also displaying company logos under 'Trusted by thousands globally' that obviously are not paying customers since they didn't have subscription plans before.

</comment><comment><USER31> Your goal shouldn't be to get into YC in a year. Your goal should be to not need YC in a year.

<comment><USER32> YC is just the gatekeeper to a network of wealth and expertise in scaling. I guess no one really _needs_ it, in the sense that you can look up how to scale.

But if you're a VC-style company, and you're trying to grow fast (and if you're not you do not want to go through YC) then your business model is by definition "EAT ALL THE MARKET".

If you're an early stage company, even if you can bite off a big chunk of market, it's fairly certain the YC old boys network can help you bite off another big, non-overlapping chunk.

Anywhere in the sub-$100M valuation range, that's probably worth 6% just in terms of getting out in front of other growing competitors (or competitors-to- be). It doesn't change your path, but it changes the dates on the graph.

That's assuming you are a VC-mindset company (centralize revenue streams around a few owners, grow fast, get liquid).

There are other kinds of companies who "will not need YC soon" but mostly those companies shouldn't want YC in the first place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> How many of those paid subscriptions are the result of people stuck in the middle of editing projects that they suddenly could not finish because of the watermarks?

</comment><comment><USER34> > We had positive feedback from YC...

There was a time when I thought positive feedback from a VC meant something. 2 startups and $16M in VC funding later I've realized that it doesn't. Having a VC tell you your startup is awesome is like having your mom tell you your startup is awesome. They have no incentive to be honest with you and every incentive to have you walk away with a positive impression of the firm.

Founders REALLY need to stop looking to venture capitalists for validation of their business. Your metrics are all the validation you need, especially if those metrics are profit or revenue. Putting confidence in the feedback of a VC can cause you to ignore warning signs.

Even if they write you a huge check, it doesn't mean you have a good business. All it means is that you are good at fundraising.

<comment><USER35> This is a really great comment. Positive feedback from any third party, VC or otherwise, is information that can be factored into your own 'model' of whether your business is a good one but it seems to me the overwhelming factors ought to be either the real numbers you mentioned and your own (hopefully) more complete and considered analysis of your market and opportunity, using the information and hypotheses that only you have.

Positive feedback is nice but it should have zero effect on whether or not you pursue a business idea - if you weren't going to pursue the idea without it, there are probably fundamental reasons for that, that should probably override the reasons behind the positive feedback anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> This kind of feedback is not to be taken at face value. YC says very clearly that the point of the interview is to judge the quality of the founder(s). Whatever excuse they invent to write in the rejection email is really nothing more than that: a polite excuse.

They don't feel that they can be frank and just say: _" We think you're probably bad founders based on the fact you have been very slow to charge customers."_

Just remember that they're attempting to judge the potential of a team of human beings in 10 minutes. Realize how fundamentally flawed (and demeaning) that concept is. It's quite possible, and even likely, that their interview selection process is worse than random chance.

Of course, they think they're good at picking. But this belief is based on the theory that the companies that they don't pick will succeed even without YC's help i.e. that there would be an embarrassing anti-portfolio.

Since many of YC's most successful founders acknowledge that they wouldn't have succeeded without YC, that theory is obviously bunk.

IMHO the YC application and selection process is reasonably good. It's something approaching a crowdsourced process. The interview is them injecting their egos into the process, to the detriment of themselves and founders.

The problem is perpetuated because the people that do luck their way in are then immediately convinced that the system works. After all, it did select them, it must be pretty darn good. This is the destructive power of ego.

Someone could beat YC at selection simply by copying them and removing the interview part of the process (i.e. just accept the top N applications). Crowdsourcing is going to most closely approximate the customer point of view, and that's what ultimately matters for startups.

It's okay that YC is kind of bad at their core function. They're still good enough to stay in business and it's their prerogative. It's just a shame that they're not improving and that there isn't anything better, yet.

</comment><comment><USER37> There are tons of video editors, all the way back to Adobe Premiere. OpenShot, which is free and open source, isn't bad. What do these people have that they don't?

(Yes, it's "in the cloud". So?)

<comment><USER38> I almost can't believe I had to scroll this far to find a sensible comment.

Honest question (as someone very ignorant about the business world), why do people spend money on this stuff? And why do so many people (based on the comments here) act like it's OK to create such products (i.e. products that bring literally nothing innovative or useful to the table)? By OK I mean ethically, considering that there are so many more pressing problems in the world.

<comment><USER39> > And why do so many people (based on the comments here) act like it's OK to > create such products (i.e. products that bring literally nothing innovative > or useful to the table)? By OK I mean ethically, considering that there are > so many more pressing problems in the world.

Just to be clear, I want to understand that you're asserting:

1) It is morally unethical to create a non-innovative product

and

2) It is morally unethical to work on something other than "a pressing problem" in the world, as you define pressing problems

?

Or are you saying,

1) In a world with "more pressing problems", it is unethical to work on something as low-value as a non-innovative product

?

And for context: what projects do you feel are ethically acceptable ways for people to spend their time on, and what do you do?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> "venerable" should be "vulnerable", and Mountain View is mis-capitalized in a few places... :-)

<comment><USER21> There's a "where" that should be a "were"

<comment><USER41> a "the" instead of a "their"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> They should put this much hustle into the business for the sake of the business, every week. Not just one weekend for YC.

<comment><USER43> Besides the point that the article doesn't indicate they don't, that amount of hustle might not be maintainable in the long run.

<comment><USER44> Starting a business gives you a broad enough diversity of things to do that you can sustain 90 hours per week dedicated to the effort for a long, long time.

Coding burnout? Refine your pitch deck and cold call materials. Designing burnout? Pick up the phone and sell. Isolation burnout? Go pitch at a local pitch event or find advisors at a business plan competition.

When you switch focus like this, you free up exhausted parts of your brain and body to give them a chance to recover without disconnecting from your startup, and you get a cross-pollination effect, where each of these activities informs one another very nicely.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Hmm. Some rapid development. I wonder if they wrote test cases for the subscription functionality. When they had that test-payment gateway go to production, did they add safeguards to prevent that from happening again?

I mean, it seems like an impressive story, but when I read it, all I see is potential technical debt.

I don't think I'd like to be back in startup culture. I really like solid testing, and I hate moving so fast that we don't create that safety net.

<comment><USER45> This sounds a bit like "Taking out a loan to pay your medical bills is imprudent financial advice".

On the surface it might be true but it doesn't matter if the alternative is you (or your startup) dying. Ultimately only the authors know their circumstances and the trade offs they have to consider.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Raise from another VC (if you need) and keep moving. Don't raise if you don't need to, obviously. Like dating, if they don't want you, it's their loss. Hounding them will only make you sound needy, and unfortunately people (especially investors) are wired to give to the people who least need it, in general.

</comment><comment><USER47> Anyone else get the impression that this team is more excited about getting into YC than building a successful business?

</comment><comment><USER48> > Over the space of a year, we had a 60% MoM Growth Rate, 35K MAU and a great > team!

I smile when I read "X% MoM growth" and the starting numbers are obviously very little. I think it's a BS metric when presented this way.

Besides that, congrats on hitting 35k MAU. Not a small feat.

</comment><comment><USER49> I hope you start making enough money before next YC round that you don't need to sacrifice a percentage of your company to investors - remember vc funding should be a last resort, not a goal.

</comment><comment><USER50> I thought YC main thing was growth not revenue. Why did they get rejected for revenue? Also making someone fly overseas for a 10 minute interview to get rejected really sucks.

I hate the all day interview, but if you are coming from overseas then maybe give them more than 10 mins.

<comment><USER51> The flying overseas for a 10 minute reject interview shows they don't value your time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Too much emphasis on YC - there are others

</comment><comment><USER53> why stop with YC? There are other VCs that might pull the trigger, no?

</comment><comment><USER54> cool video editing tool!

</comment><comment><USER55> great read

</comment><comment><USER41> this ticks all the buttons, ha

</comment><comment><USER56> > kinda forgot about it

At least you didn't ended loosing one of your dragons because of it.</comment>


Oculus founder Palmer Luckey's defense startup is now making attack drones - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/03/palmer-luckeys-defense-start-up-anduril-developing-attack-drones.html <comment><USER2> Do other A16z companies mind being associated with this?

</comment><comment><USER3> How does it destroy other drones? Collision?

</comment><comment><USER4> If you could invent the perfect troll entrepreneur this guy would be it. Figure out what people think is wrong, unethical, or illiberal and start a company on it.</comment>


Www. Is Not Deprecated - <AUTHOR> https://www.yes-www.org <comment><USER2> The two technical reasons listed by the author:

(1) Cookie prolongation to subdomains as a safety measure (I don't buy the performance issue -- if cookies harm your performance, you misuse them)

(2) Cannot use CNAMEs on @ (the domain itself) in the DNS.

I completely buy (2) because it can make certain setups less flexible. And I don't want to give the NS to some CDN (as it is required (is it?) when using Cloudflare).</comment>


Crowdsourcing, Linked Data, Humans, and Machines: Rediscovering a Lost Treasure - <AUTHOR> http://behind-the-enemy-lines.blogspot.com/2011/06/crowdsourcing-and-discovery-of-hidden.html

<comment><USER2> Crowdsourcing is still almost languishing in the niche. Applications like this gives visibility to crowdsourcing as a viable, new and hopefully completely revolutionary computing paradigm. Kudos to Panos!!

<comment><USER3> I think attractive profits will attract. Perhaps more slowly than it should, but.. I suspect there's more movement here than is obvious. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Cannot find mentioned Wired article.

<comment><AUTHOR> It is not available on the web. It is in the print edition, and in the iPad version of the magazine. You can download the scan if you want to read it. I guess they make the articles available online a few days later than the print edition.</comment></comment>