Spotify raises $1B in debt with devilish terms to fight Apple Music - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2016/03/29/stream-with-the-devil/ <comment><USER3> Not sure why it's so devilish. They basically raised $1B in cash on a 20% discount, no valuation cap. Basically, they're agreeing with the investors that they can't figure out a valuation for the company -- so they're deferring that until an IPO and have the public market sets the valuation.

There's a lot of bellyaching here about the dilution for the existing shareholders. But I don't see how that's any different from an equity raise -- you're still diluting.

Now, the risk with convertible debt is that there's no valuation FLOOR so the company is betting on itself to execute -- and if they miss expectations, that's a problem.

The different lockup period is a bit of a concern, but the reality is that no institutional investor can sell a 10% (or whatever) stake in a public company overnight. So they capture a little bit more upside but it's not that material in the scheme of things IMO.

<comment><USER4> > the reality is that no institutional investor can sell a 10% (or whatever) > stake in a public company overnight

They can, however, sell much of it during the 3 month head start they will have over everyone else.

<comment><USER5> Sure, but isn't this whole deal premised on the notion that if investors want to head for the exits 3 months after the IPO, Spotify (and its employee shareholders) are fucked anyway?

I agree it has to have some diluting effect, but if this capital is the difference between a successful IPO and a failed one, I'm not sure how you argue it represents a loss of value to employees.

<comment><USER6> If 80+% of your assets are in just one company you don't control then you really should be heading for the exits.

Google quickly hit 6x there IPO, but if you had say 5 million at IPO and nothing else then selling 1 million of that would have been a really good idea. Or at least getting a put option to sell near the IPO price.

Granted, you must pay taxes ect. But taking 20% off the top is generally a really good idea.

<comment><USER7> Who said 80% of any of the investors assets are in just one company?

<comment><USER8> My first rodeo, my existing options were worth about $40k on buyout day. That's chump change, even counting inflation, but I was a kid so that more than doubled my assets. Everybody was pretty happy. Five months later we were all almost under water, and half our raises were more stock options (I don't know what kind of psychadelic drugs come up with that plan). Nobody was happy and productivity tanked. And still we were doing a better job than our new masters. By the end of the lockup period our options were worth 60% of the strike price.

In the end I learned the hard way about a bizarre strategy for keeping your company going. First, have a high valuation. Second, find a small company with liquid assets. Third, buy out the company with a stock swap and only a little cash. And now you have more capital on hand so you can lie to your investors for a few extra months.

Not that I'm bitter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Jesus Christ, that's not clickbait, those really are devilish terms. It's debt, they lose $200MM of shares at the time of IPO, and they very well could end up paying 15% interest yearly on this. And when the IPO happens, if it follows the general IPO trend and tanks at first, it's very possible TPG and Dragoneer will want to get out -- dumping 1.2 billion of Spotify onto the market and absolutely destroying the share price three months before employees can sell.

Let's say they have a $8.5 billion IPO and they decide to sell: suddenly, 15% of their company was just dumped onto the market. There's no way they could survive that.

<comment><USER10> Is there any kind of business case for this - besides what looks like blind panic?

Spotify raised $500m last year. Now it seems to think it needs to nearly double its existing > $1bn funding/debt pile so badly it's willing to settle for a loan-shark mugging.

I'd guess the money isn't needed for new customers - more to stay afloat long enough to have some hope of getting to IPO and allowing the investors to get some of their money back before the office burns down.

Spotify would literally need to double its subscriber base to make this debt viable, and that doesn't seem likely.

<comment><USER11> They clearly believe that they will die without this, and the wound taken allows them to survive.

<comment><USER12> I rather suspect they know they will die without this, and the more astute also probably realise they will die with it, but in the interim they can continue to draw good salaries and bonuses.

And for the institutions in the loan agreement that are banks, all they're doing is some extra book keeping to raise the money involved.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> "TPG and Dragoneer can sell their shares just 90 days after the IPO, before the 180-day lockup period ends for Spotify's employees and other investors."

Among many the bad terms disclosed in the article, IMO this is probably the worst - basically, this right is a license to cash out and torpedo the company within 3 months (just the right amount of time to see how the market reacts to Spotify's first earnings call as a public company..), leaving the other investors (and employee common stock holders!) with greatly devalued stock.

Of course they have a disincentive not to do this: if they did start to sell after 90 days, the stock would start plummeting before they could sell all shares, so the last shares that TPG/Dragoneer sell would be worth much less than the first bucket of shares, but if they do sell it means that things are very, very bad and they'd rather cut their (20% discounted...) losses, and will be much, much better off than the other investors and employees 3 months later.

godspeed Spotify!

<comment><USER14> Surprise surprise, employees lose out again. But I guess they were already in danger of getting nothing if this is the deal management struck.

<comment><USER13> Ya - sucks. I said this in a comment below, but also relevant here: capital > labor

<comment><USER15> Well, in this particular case employees wanted to play the capital game. It's not a nice game it seems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Spotify waste so much money on their employees, who effectively do very little. I know a designer who has been there 2 years, basically sits in meetings and gets sent to different countries, and has added nothing to their portfolio. Yet gets reviews and raises and bonuses... Then there's all the parties they host for their employees, etc.

It's not a company I would invest in if I had any money to begin with.

Also that's not to say they all do nothing, some of the talks I've listened to from their Engineers are fascinating and have learned heaps. But it was a shitty decision to ditch the desktop app and rewrite it with no functionality .

<comment><USER17> The modern desktop app is at a point where it's pretty solid, but I still miss that old 0.80.x branch or whatever the final non-chromium verison was.

But you know what? Google doesn't have a desktop app for Google Music. Amazon doesn't have a desktop app for Amazon Prime. Apple doesn't have a desktop version... so yeah, despite the fact that Spotify's only-one-in-the-business desktop app isn't perfect, it does exist... (and I do use it every day between Android and two desktops and I think it works pretty ok)

<comment><USER18> Pretty solid is a bit of an exaggeration in my case.

About once a day, my MacBook's fans start spinning like crazy. By now I know... oh, it's "Spotify Helper" stuck in a loop again, lemme force quit it.

Before I reinstalled, instead Spotify would show me "there's a new version!" every single day, seemingly without upgrading anything.

These serious quality issues, plus the horrifying visual ads (for playlists and new albums) make Spotify a product I kind of love to hate.

I mostly dig the iOS version though.

But I'm still angry with how these services transform the idea of "music player" into "streaming client hooked into the commercial music industry."

<comment><USER17> * I use PC, which runs it flawlessly.

* I pay for my streaming music which has no ads so I don't get a freebie AND complain about advertisements (really man...?)

<comment><USER18> Nice that it works well on PC for you!

Yeah, I'm a paying Spotify customer and have been for years. You misunderstand which ads I'm talking about.

<comment><USER17> I guess I do misunderstand which ads I'm talking about since I have an ad-free experience.

<comment><USER18> I mean this stuff: [http://i.imgur.com/qb36KVA.png](http://i.imgur.com/qb36KVA.png)

<comment><USER17> That is called "Content".

Hilariously, this exact website could not stop fawning over Apple Music's nearly identical curated, editor-created or automatically generated content.

Personally, I love the Spotify curated content.

I listen to my Discover Weekly every single Monday and very often choose one of their regularly changing playlists when I'm not listening to my own lists.

<comment><USER18> I don't claim to represent this website and I didn't fawn for a second over Apple Music...

<comment><USER17> If we're playing the "who claimed what game" then I didn't claim you represented this website nor did I claim you fawned over Apple Music.

I was providing what I found to be humorous context regarding the content you derided as advertisement (I'm a bit surprised that curated channels of music are ads to you, do you think that television "Channels" are advertisements for television content too ??)

<comment><USER18> Okay...

Well, I just don't understand why it's hilarious that "this website" liked Apple Music's curated stuff, as a context for me not being a fan of Spotify's curated stuff. To me it's just like, a bunch of people liked this one thing, and now I dislike this one other thing, ha ha?

Here's Spotify's Chief Revenue Officer glowing about the advertising potential of their curated playlists:

> "Music is an integral part of life, day in and day out," said Jeff Levick, > Chief Revenue Officer, Spotify. "Our new targeting solutions based on rich > behavioral insights combined with our global footprint in 58 markets give > brands unprecedented ways to reach streaming consumers."

[https://press.spotify.com/se/2015/04/16/spotify-launches- pla...](https://press.spotify.com/se/2015/04/16/spotify-launches-playlist- targeting-for-brands/)

Sure, I pay to avoid the actual jingles, but the playlists are still part of their advertising program. And yeah, I think placing these suggested playlists in my visual field every time I launch the app constitutes a form of advertising.

Mostly though I just have a visceral aversion to the copy they use. They give me the same bad feelings as when I look at billboards or hear radio jingles. Right now it's suggesting me to "go out and own this day like if you were boss of the world." I would prefer to use a Spotify client without this stuff.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This doesn't seem that surprising.

      2014 Revenue: $1.3 billion (up 45% from 2013)
      2014 Net Loss: $197 million (up from $68 million loss in 2013)

That's a lot of money to be bleeding and losses are increasing even as revenue grows. If you wondered why they got terms like this, that would explain it. You can call it getting "strategic resources" if you like, but I call it running out of cash.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/09/business/media/as- spotify-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/09/business/media/as-spotify- expands-revenue-rises-and-losses-deepen.html)

<comment><USER20> Is this because their product offering is not as good as their competitors? I switched to Spotify over services like streaming radio (Pandora) and cloud music storage (Amazon Music) a couple of years ago. Haven't looked at the competition much since. I heard that Apple Music, the one potential competitor I was considering switching to, was buggy. I've been frustrated with Spotify bugs in the past but have found that I've adapted and most have been removed, so I never switched. Are the quality of the services really represented in the company's valuation?

<comment><USER21> I discontinued my Spotify service about 18 months ago because I went through the process of deleting my Facebook account, and the backend Spotify account was linked to it.

It turned into a pretty unexpected ordeal, I had to call Spotify customer service, they asked me if I could reactivate my Facebook account just for this, have them "fix" it, then deactivate again, etc. At the time Spotify Linux support wasn't very good either (don't know about now).

Anyway, I switched to Amazon Prime Music because I was already a Prime customer and figured that paying nothing beyond the Prime subscription was perhaps better than paying $8 or whatever Spotify's rate was then.

I am really glad that I did it. Amazon Prime Music has consistently worked extremely well for me on iPhone and iPad and in browser. With standard AT&T 4G service, even here in rural Indiana, I have no trouble streaming from Amazon when I go running.

The major downside is that their music catalog is not as comprehensive as Spotify. But I've found that there are only a handful of artists that I really love which I can't listen to yet on Amazon (Beirut being the one that I really miss).

The catalog is very large though. They have any type of music you're looking for, from country-western to African to the latest and greatest unheard-of indie artist. They just don't have exhaustive coverage of all of them.

If you are an extreme audiophile type and you really need to have completely exhaustive coverage of every possible artist, then Amazon won't work for you. But if you try out Amazon and find that it mostly covers the artists you enjoy and you don't really need the exhaustive coverage, _and_ you happen to subscribe to Prime, then it's a great option.

Full disclaimer: I am not a fan of Amazon in general, but I am a fan of good products, and for casual music streaming from most, but not all, artists, I think Amazon is probably the best service available right now.

The way I break it down:

Spotify --> You require on-demand access to absolutely every imaginable artist, you enjoy heavy integration with social media clients.

Apple --> You may want to purchase the music, house it in iTunes, and own fully offline copies (not just caching, which other services can do too).

Amazon --> You're more casual about it than either of the above cases and you already have Prime. You either mostly listen to Top 40 stuff, or else for the less common stuff, you verify ahead of time that Amazon offers a catalog in that area that's good enough for you. You probably don't care about owning the music, but you still can purchase it via Amazon if you want to.

<comment><USER22> Spotify doesn't have every conceivable artist. They do have a fairly comprehensive coverage, but until recently they didn't even have Rammstein.

They are probably the best still in the business, but the only company that had everything, including the really obscure indie artists, were Grooveshark. Though expecting Spotify to have obscure Filk songs about 40 year old scify is probably asking too much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> How can early employees defend themselves? What stock structures, if any, fight against this? Is there nothing possible common stock holders can do to protect themselves aside from pray the founders have some shred of morality?

<comment><USER24> Note that the founders interests are aligned with the early employees, they are all taking an equal haircut. Either (a) the founders are sacrificing themselves for the sake of the company which means they were already in dire straits or (b) they actually believe that this will be a net positive for the value of common shares, e.g. by avoiding a down round.

Well, actually, (c) the founders have lost their controlling interest and are being strong-armed by early investors, but early investors' preferred share privileges are usually not very helpful by this point.

<comment><USER25> > Note that the founders interests are aligned with the early employees, they > are all taking an equal haircut.

I disagree. The founders definitely have an important stake in the outcome but _they_ stand to get very wealthy if it works out and early employees will - <USER2> most cases - make back a premium on the lower wages they took because of stock options (which you should never do) and the extra hours they put in to make the company a success.

Note that simply because of the asymmetry between the potential pay-out the goals are not aligned.

Superficially, yes, they are aligned because if the founders get nothing the employees will also get nothing but employee options are not the same as vested founder shares and employees could easily be 'under water' based on the value of their options being lower than the amount of money they left on the table by choosing this particular employer rather than a more established one.

So for founders the incentive to gamble is much higher (all-or-nothing), in fact I'd argue their goals are roughly the same as early (seed round) investors rather than early employees, once they decide to take on venture capital. The pressure will be on to go home-run-or-bust.

Note that the deal outlined above is exactly one of those. Conservative founders running a profitable business would not gamble like this, but since it doesn't matter any more the only way they will get anything out of this is the home-run and what's good for the employees is no longer relevant to the management that inked this deal (for employees it might actually be better to jump ship at this stage because the 'bust' scenario is a lot more likely with this much pressure than without).

<comment><USER26> I don't understand where you're saying that employees aren't also going for a home run or bust outcome. That's exactly what they signed up for when they took that job instead of with a more established company.

"Bust" is the most likely outcome when you sign up to work for a startup, so unless their goals/wants have changed I don't see why they'd want to jump ship now.

<comment><USER25> The Spotify that raised it's initial round has a completely different risk profile than the Spotify that exists today.

Employees as a rule are not looking at the company in the same way that investors and founders do. If you have evidence that employees as a rule understand the amount of risk involved and that they understand fully that the most likely value of their stock options is zero then I'm definitely all ears. But that's usually not how it's being sold.

In fact, it is sold along the lines of 'we're not going to pay you your market rate _but_ you have quite a bit of stock (in reality .000001% (or some other rounding error)) if you work really hard for the next 4 years YOU TOO WILL BE RICH. But the number of employees that actually do end up like this is small. Still larger than the number of founders but the founders really will be rich, the employees are lucky if they make up for their lost income.

Of course some employees will be more savvy than others and will negotiate a wage that reflects the reality of start-up life but more often than not the employees accept (substantially) below market wages in return for a bunch of empty promise. Feel free to blame them for not being informed, but to claim they have 'the same incentives' is definitely not the case in my experience.

<comment><USER26> I don't think blame is relevant, they haven't done anything wrong, just potentially not ideal for themselves. If you're coming from the point of thinking that you know better than the employees on how to achieve their goals, and that they shouldn't be gambling their time hoping for a hugely successful company, then your argument does make sense.

However if that's the case, it looks like you've just used a lot of words to effectively say "Accepting equity as payment for working at a startup is a poor decision so therefore employee interests were never aligned with those of the founders".

<comment><USER25> > If you're coming from the point of thinking that you know better than the > employees on how to achieve their goals, and that they shouldn't be gambling > their time hoping for a hugely successful company, then your argument does > make sense.

I'm perfectly ok with it _if_ employees were actually given all the relevant bits of information and if they actually were aware of all the potential outcomes. There is a lot of selling going on here that I'm not ok with.

And yes, I've used a lot of words to say exactly that. Thank you for putting it more concisely, the risk:reward ratio for employees and founders is vastly different. Founders 'risk everything' but looked at in a different way founders risk just as much - their time, and the potential upside for a founder is much, much larger than for an early employee.

Oldest game in town.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is significant. It shows a do or die attitude and a fact that many companies at this level are not self-aware enough to recognize; that their competition (Apple) will kill them, or, they will dominate this space.

Will be interesting to see how this plays out.

<comment><USER28> It helps that Apple Music has been relatively terrible from the start. I fully expect them to get significantly better, but after Rdio died (RIP, and I got over my mourning) I did the Apple Music trial plus a couple months. Both the wife and I found it incredibly difficult to navigate and understand. Spotify has been much, much better.

That said, Apple Music is only going to get better, and fast.

<comment><USER29> It's odd to me how Google Music is not often mentioned. It is either Spotify or Apple Music. I quit Spotify years ago when Google Music started, having never really cared for Spotify.

<comment><USER30> Same here. I switched to Google Music via their $1 intro offer, and so far haven't bothered to look anywhere else. They throw in an ad-free YouTube, so Google's offering is strictly better in that regard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> The value seems OK if there is a good IPO (>10 billion) in the near future. I think the issue is now Spotify largely HAVE to IPO quickly and successfully. This is a big risk as with the current bear market that could easily deteriorate further creating a situation where the business would be better waiting for for a few years. And they are now cornered into not taking an IPO, or not taking it at great cost.

And I wouldn't put it past Goldman to use background influence to delay the expected listing to get themselves ever favorable terms by adding a few years to the process. I'd be interested to know the cap on the share price discount that goes up 2.5% every extra six months. And what would happen in a private buyout? Is this deal a poison pill against not listing from management? Possibly management want to ensure this listing happens largely no-matter what markets do.

Maybe I'm a skeptical person but it seems there could be rationale to this deal we dont see. I know Spotify are struggling to compete on the growth of paid subscribers. Maybe this is managements way to get a profitable exit before the struggling financials really show and markets get more rational on unicorns.

<comment><USER32> IPO during difficult times are a sure way to bust the valutation. Especially if you IPO after peak growt.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I have no idea about financial terms so not commenting on that, but as a product Apple Music doesn't even compare with Spotify. Apple Music is garbage. I made it 3 days into their free 3 month trial before moving on to try Google Play Music. Google's isn't bad, but for me Spotify is clearly the best of the bunch (curated playlists, great discoverability, lots of variety). Apple Music was really buggy both on an iPhone and Windows PC using iTunes. You can't just play all top songs nonstop, playback randomly stops, it's slow and just feels clunky navigating around.

Only reason I tried out competitors is to try and save money, but after my trial with Google Play Music I'll just commit to Spotify at full price.

</comment><comment><USER34> * 1 billion in convertible debt * 20% discount, no cap * discount increases by 2.5% every 6 months after the first year * 10% interest * converts when Spotify IPOs * 90 lockup after IPO (instead of 180)

</comment><comment><USER35> This is a pretty horrible deal. I'm glad I don't have to work in that industry, it's basically a strip mine that's leaching off toxic waste into the environment now.

<comment><USER36> I can't tell if you're using a convoluted metaphor or you meant to comment on the fracking article that's also on the front page right now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> > _By raising debt rather than equity, it doesn't have to worry about poor > signaling from a down-round raised at a lower valuation than the $8.5 > billion it set in June 2015._

How is the signaling from this any better? It still plainly reveals that the previous valuation is not representative of reality. The only difference is that we don't have another imaginary number to outright replace it with. And can we all agree to stop parroting valuation numbers based off investors buying preferred stock?

<comment><USER3> There is no valuation in this round. There is no cap. It's just a discount off of a valuation in the future. I would imagine the conversation was "the market is gyrating so much we can't agree on value" so let's defer the valuation until later, and we'll give the investors a 20% (and possibly larger) discount once the public markets establish a valuation.

I don't see a signaling issue here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Is it really just Apple? They have money to throw around, but not a well received product yet. Meanwhile, there's Play Music, Youtube Red, Soundcloud, Pandora, Bandcamp..

Things could change, but right now I think Google is more competitive because they offer two bundled services that are both superior in design (IMO). If Soundcloud can survive financially, they are very competitive for those seeking music discovery.

<comment><USER39> You're right, I think people severely overlook Google Play Music when they talk about online streaming services. It's close to the same price as all the competitors, but the music library is much more thorough. I listen to some semi-obscure music and I've had trouble finding some of the bands and albums I like on Spotify and apple music, but I've never not been able to find an album on either Play Music or YouTube. Plus ad-free videos on YouTube mobile is a very nice extra feature

<comment><USER29> > I think people severely overlook Google Play Music when they talk about > online streaming services.

I just mentioned this above. It always seems to be Spotify this or Apple Music that. Play Music works great, and is even better that I'm grandfathered in at $7.99/month beta price.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> It's going to be a huge bummer if Spotify goes out of business -- I pay for Spotify Premium, I absolutely love it, and their clients for Linux and Android are fantastic. I have a strong suspicion that Apple is not going to let me listen to music on the devices I own.

<comment><USER41> > I have a strong suspicion that Apple is not going to let me listen to music > on the devices I own.

You're probably right about any Linux devices, but there's an official Apple Music app for Android you can install right now: [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apple.andr...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apple.android.music&hl=en)

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> At this scale, debt is always bad option. There are not many company in the world which can repay more than 1billion$ with interest. The demand of debt at this level is so low, that either they should be doing it at pretty low interest rates or not at all.

<comment><USER43> It's debt but it's pretty clearly meant to convert into equity not be re-paid.

<comment><USER44> Spotify will never be worth enough for that converted equity to be worth the cost.

<comment><USER43> Well if they ever IPO at all, it sounds like these guys get 20% off the IPO price so have a decent gain built in no matter what Spotify is worth at that time. Assuming the description in the article is correct.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Maybe they should have added an Apple Watch app when the watch was released. I've paid for premium for over 2 years but switched when I got my watch because there was no app for Spotify (only third party apps that don't support offline listening and don't integrate very well either). Anyways, I'm now glad to have switch to Apple Music because they seem to have more content (at least more content I like) and their radio algorithm is way better. There are some major flaws with Apple Music but all in all, the experience is just better IMO.

If Spotify were to improve these issue maybe they could get more paying customers but these improvements should not cost $1B.

<comment><USER46> It's a pity that they didn't make an app for the Apple Watch but I think if you put yourself in their shoes then you might be be able to figure out why they would not choose to do that. I'm thinking it's not a large market, it probably has a high proportion of Apply loyalists, and it's supporting a competitors product.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> One company I worked for used credit cards to make payroll instead of going for another round of funding. Weirdly, that worked out for them, and they sold with a profit (for everyone that had stock).

<comment><USER48> Credit cards work if you are evening out cash flow. For example, if you have a good rate of receivable collection but variation in the timing of payment credit cards are way less hassle than other approaches like factoring or doing something like taking venture financing, which tends to come with pretty onerous terms.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Box survived something like this, although they're below IPO price.

</comment><comment><USER50> I find this (Apple directly competing with apps on its platform) mentally disturbing as it reminds me of 15 years ago when Internet Explorer 4 was sued ( [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp). ) because it supposingly broke antitrust law(s).

<comment><USER51> Why disturbing? Apple is not preventing competition, they are encouraging it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Can anyone honestly enlighten me as to why Spotify matters? I've used it once and never got past finding anything to listen to while on SoundCloud I was drawn in without even thinking about it and have nearly 60 songs that I wouldn't have found otherwise. Not trolling, I want to find what they offer since I hear about them in the news way more than SoundCloud.

<comment><USER53> See, I personally never understood SoundCloud … it's completely opaque to me and I don't understand how I would even begin to use it. I simply don't get it.

But I also mostly use Spotify to listen to music I already know and sometimes get recommend stuff I like, but that's not the primary function.

Maybe our music listening habits are just completely different? I don't think there is anything wrong with Spotify or SoundCloud, I just think different people have different preferences.

<comment><USER54> SoundCloud (and MixCloud, not related) offers a lot of home-created content, but maybe more importantly, provide longer live and studio mix sessions by well known (and lesser known) DJs.

<comment><USER53> Ah, I suspected something like that. I think I'm just not into that scene, so that's completely meaningless to me.

If you are into that it's probably exactly right for you and something like Spotify would be a poor fit to your needs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Streaming music requires money to pay royalty fees. The more users listen, the more money Spotify owes to record labels, artists, writers, and others who make music possible and accessible.

It's an art (not a science) to deliver a service (for next to free), while making a profit after paying royalties.

Spotify raising a billy debt round doesn't surprise me.

</comment><comment><USER56> _" By raising debt rather than equity, it doesn't have to worry about poor signaling from a down-round raised at a lower valuation than the $8.5 billion it set in June 2015."_

Anyone care to explain what this means?

<comment><USER57> If they raised it as equity, they would have to give away a percentage of the company - which gives a 'valuation' to it.

So, if they raised $1B for 10% equity, the valuation of the company's worth would be $10B.

To avoid this hassle entirely, they raised it as 'debt'. The reason being, if they had to give away more than 8.5% of the company for the $1B, the company's valuation would have gone 'down' which can give off a bad vibe/look.

<comment><USER56> Thank you!

So, "down-round" == reduced valuation, and "poor signalling" == consequent bad vibe?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> Why would Spotify need $1B? Is most of this money used to license content?

<comment><USER59> > ... [out of] €1.08bn of revenues, €882.5m (£636m) was spent on royalties and > distribution costs.

[http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/may/11/spotify- fi...](http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/may/11/spotify-financial- results-streaming-music-profitable)

<comment><USER58> Are they prepaying the royalties? Or subsidising?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Paid on-demand streaming is such a crappy business that it's outsold by _vinyl records_. Selling music downloads is a real business, but streaming, not so much.

<comment><USER61> Digital Locker is the way to go. Who, in their right mind, thought is was fine to pay for a "download". Valve understood that early and look where the gaming distribution industry is at: all the big players have the same digital locker solution, which is really just selling a license and offering the download part for free.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> How do vesting and lockup periods mix tax-wise ? Say I have options at $8/share, the IPO is $10, but the stock is at $7 at the end of the lockup period.

</comment><comment><USER63> I don't think Spotify can compete against Apple on this. Spotify's only revenue stream IS music, and they don't even make revenue from that. Apple and Google, on the other hand, have several cash cows that will keep them afloat if their Music services fail (which I doubt they will). Apple could afford to throw in super cheap monthly subscriptions (say, $4.99/month) to Apple Music with every iPhone/iPad/MacBook purchase and recoup the losses through additional product sales. Spotify doesn't have that option right now.

</comment><comment><USER64> I really like the "for you" section in apple music, but I'll probably switch back to Spotify because of the $5/month student offer.

</comment><comment><USER65> Would Spotify able to at some point simply just pay off the debt by issuing more stock or raise money from an alternative source?

<comment><USER66> Sounds like that doesn't seem likely. They are just going to wait for IPO to happen so that the debt converts, effectively deferring valuation to the market.

</comment></comment><comment> enahs-sf Coming soon: S-1 filing.

</comment><comment><USER67> Woow really fight against Apple Music? There is nothing to fight against!</comment>


Show HN: Watch Agents – Curated Vintage Watch Dealers - <AUTHOR> http://www.watchagents.com <comment><USER2> I have a small request :-) Can you aggregate their inventory so it can be searched? I would love to find a dealer near me with the watch of my dreams.

</comment><comment><USER2> Is there a way to find the ones near me?

<comment><AUTHOR> Most if not all are online dealers (will ship to you), but I can definitely add in locale in the future! Thanks for feedback.</comment></comment>


Inception Ripped-Off Scrooge McDuck & The Beagle Boys - <AUTHOR> http://videogum.com/208132/caught-inception-ripped-off-scrooge-mcduck/remakes-and-spinoffs/

<comment><USER2> I mean, it should have a big "Thank you, Philip K Dick" in the credits, too. That would be nice - movies with acknowledgements?

Honestly, it's not a direct remake or sequel to anything, and that's enough for me to give major points to originality :)</comment>


Japan set to ban entry from the U.S. as early as next week - <AUTHOR> http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/13252339 <comment><USER2> With all these provisions: if you've decided it would be a good idea to do, why not do it now? If it's a good idea now, it's going to be twice as good of an idea in three days. And it's going to be four times as good of an idea in six. Etc. Over and over again the organs of governments announce decisions that would be a good idea today that don't come into effect until a few days from now. Which means that the harm done will be doubled/tripled/... by the time the rule goes into effect.

I mean I don't like this. I think Japan is great and I'm an American so this is a little embarassing. But if the Japanese have decided this is good to do, they should have done it yesterday. The next best time would be today.

(I do wonder if it's not quite a bit too late for restrictions like this to be effective. Japan already has 1200 cases, and I have heard they have a US-like approach to testing -- that is, it's shit. Unless they are magically different from every other country, the disease is already spreading in communities there. They will ultimately be forced to take the same steps that all other countries have taken to stop the virus, and that includes controlling the movements not just of foreign nationals/Americans, but also their own citizens, into and out of the country.)

<comment><USER3> >The restriction applies even to Japanese nationals returning from the United States.

That's probably the answer. Some amount of heads-up is owed to Japanese nationals. A Taiwanese friend was in a similar situation w.r.t. Taiwan closing borders. Uncertainty of timeline and parameters can be incredibly disruptive for citizens trying to travel back to their home country. They might not have permanent lodging in the U.S. (students, tourists, visiting scholars/scientists and more).

<comment><USER4> >That's probably the answer. Some amount of heads-up is owed to Japanese nationals.

Why not ban foreigners immediately, then ban nationals a few days later?

<comment><USER5> Can they ban Japanese citizens from entering the country? It would be against Charter rights (what people in the US may call constitutional rights) here in Canada. I would be surprised if it would be different in Japan.

Regardless, if they ban foreigners, it may become a moot point. With not enough people travelling to and from, flights get cancelled and people get stranded, unless the government provides evacuation flights.

EDIT: This was the gist of Canada's plea that everyone gets back home while they can.

> _Airlines have cancelled flights. New restrictions may be imposed with > little warning. Your travel plans may be severely disrupted and you may be > forced to remain outside of Canada longer than expected...We recommend that > Canadian travellers return to Canada via commercial means while they remain > available._

[https://twitter.com/FP_Champagne/status/1238876190460477442](https://twitter.com/FP_Champagne/status/1238876190460477442)

[https://globalnews.ca/news/6677983/coronavirus-canada- travel...](https://globalnews.ca/news/6677983/coronavirus-canada-travel- abroad/)

<comment><USER6> India did this two weeks ago, with a 48 hour notice and I was quite furious about it. Closing borders to foreign nationals is one thing, but closing borders to one's own citizens is violating a fundamental right. I had my brother and mother visiting me and had to rush them to the airport and get them on the next flight back to India to ensure they get back home before the deadline.

Furthermore, the announcement was made by the minister of health on Twitter and hours later an undated announcement appeared on their website. As unprofessional as it gets. Decisions like these are usually made by the Ministry of external affairs, whose twitter account I was following in anticipation of something like this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I mean, I can't speak to how widespread the news is but Australia and NZ have already closed their borders to all foreigners. Europe has done the same, Peru etc etc. Should come as no surprise to anyone that Japan has done the same. If anything it has done it very late in the game.

Majority of the spread for unaffected countries is going to be inbound from the outside... In Australia, the inbound cases for corona from the US were like 50% of the total inbound. Which lead me to believe that the US is in more trouble than the US figures stated given the proportion and lack of testing.

<comment><USER8> Atlest they didn't close borders to their own citizens, that's what some countries have done, and I feel is a terrible thing to do, closing doors on one's own nationals.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Not too long ago a headline like this would be absolutely massive news. Now it barely even registers. Crazy times...

<comment><USER10> I wonder if this pandemic will have long lasting effects on international travel. It seems possible that going into the future stricter health screening may become routine and certain travel restrictions may stay in place for a prolonged period of time. Same goes for certain other measures I guess.

<comment><USER11> As a potential counter point - pandemics are generally rare. And are hard to test at airports for until it's too late.

Also you can't test for every disease, especially new ones. The best you could do is a several week quarantine on all incoming travelers I would think?

<comment><USER12> Do you think it's going to be viable moving forward to quarantine as standard operating procedure?

<comment><USER13> Tourism is incredibly popular and makes up something like 10% of the world GDP. An outcome that permanently ends international tourism is very unlikely, especially given the number of previous pandemics that haven't caused that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Japan is not anywhere close to the first to do this.

Many countries in SE Asia have pretty much banned _any_ foreigner from entering. If you are a foreign resident, you go into quarantine for 2 weeks.

<comment><USER15> The fact that Japan is only banning US travelers, instead of banning all foreigners, is pretty newsworthy.

<comment><USER16> Nope. Over 30 countries are banned: [https://www.nytimes.com/article/coronavirus-travel- restricti...](https://www.nytimes.com/article/coronavirus-travel- restrictions.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I looked into additional entry ban countries since other posters here seemed to wonder about non-US countries.

"As of March 27th

Foreigners who have been in the following countries in the prior 14 days: Iceland, Ireland, [EDIT]Andorra, Italy, Iran, Estonia, Austria, Netherlands, San Marino, Switzerland, Sweden, Spain, Slovenia, Denmark, Germany, Norway, Vatican, France, Belgium, Portugal, Malta, Monaco, Lichtenstein, Luxembourg.

Additionally, Hubei and Zhejiang provinces in China, as well as holders of passports from these regions.

Also a bunch of regions in South Korea (大邱広域市,慶尚北道の清道郡,慶 山市,安東市,永 川市,漆谷 テ グ ケイシヨウホクドウ チヨ ンド キヨンサン アン ドン ヨンチヤン チ ルゴク 郡,義城郡,星州郡,軍威郡 ウィソン ソンジユ グンウィ)

And lastly, passengers on the Westerdam cruise ship.

Source: Japan Ministry of Justice -- [http://www.moj.go.jp/content/001316538.pdf](http://www.moj.go.jp/content/001316538.pdf)

<comment><USER18> I'm a bit surprised they are letting people from China in at all. Wouldn't a blanket ban like they are doing with the USA just be easier and more reliable to implement?

<comment><USER17> My understanding is that new cases of the virus in the coastal cities of China are quite low, and that they have a heavy handed testing/monitoring system in place with personal accountability given to the party reps stationed in each residence complex.

Also, Japan-China will always have trade and geopolitical considerations, for better or for worse. Lots of Japanese companies have offices and manufacturing plants in China that they'd like to continue operating as well as they can.

<comment><USER18> They've shut off zhejiang, which is the richest coastal province and the heavy weight of trade...not to mention it abuts shanghai. I'm guessing that travel between japan and China is effectively disabled along with the rest of the world, given that even if a Chinese wanted to visit japan, they are looking at a 2 week quarantine on the way back, perhaps also on the way there.

<comment><USER17> Ah good point sorry about that.

You're right about 2 week quarantine when a traveler gets back to China. Also I believe inter-province travel is quite restricted right now adding to said difficulty of travel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Part of 3 Blue 1 Brown's excellent latest video simulates travel restrictions and suggests they're not very effective: [https://youtu.be/gxAaO2rsdIs?t=777](https://youtu.be/gxAaO2rsdIs?t=777) . However, that was only for cutting travel between all communities by a factor of 4, rather than completely banning travel between two particular communities / countries.

<comment><USER20> Do you mind giving a tldw on what effective measures look like?

<comment><USER21> Watched it, no surprise regarding effective measures:

\- Good hygiene, especially after going to relatively crowded areas, ex. your local grocery

\- Reduce the frequency of commute to said areas

\- Social distancing

The video is worth a watch though, I would recommend it if you can spare the 25min.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Anyone know what Japan's policy is regarding U.S. military service members stationed / on shore leave in Japan?

That seems like a potentially serious back door for covid-19 spread. Especially given the tight quarters on naval vessels.

<comment><USER23> "Pacific Fleet orders 14-day gap between port visits for 7th Fleet ships during coronavirus outbreak" [1]

See PDF file titled "CNFJ Liberty Restrictions effective March 25, 2020". Looks like liberty is limited to on-base. [2]

[1]: [https://www.stripes.com/news/pacific/pacific-fleet- orders-14...](https://www.stripes.com/news/pacific/pacific-fleet- orders-14-day-gap-between-port-visits-for-7th-fleet-ships-during-coronavirus- outbreak-1.620641)

[2]: [https://www.cnic.navy.mil/regions/cnrj.html/](https://www.cnic.navy.mil/regions/cnrj.html/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I have been watching the Cuomo NYS briefings for the past two weeks. This is what leadership looks like. He fucked up early with the "we won't shut down the economy" bit but has come around. Similarly, Gov. Pritzker of Illinois has been on top of this, apart from his fuckup of allowing the primary elections to to go through putting people on top of each other to maintain a regular election cycle.

Mike DeWine has been the gold standard in kicking the primary election down the road. Elections should be held by mail-in ballot, I have been doing it in Illinois since 2004. Why Illinois decided to have a bunch of people crammed together in the Lincoln Park library last week boggles the mind and will be a stain on Pritzker's and Illinois otherwise reasoned response to this health emergency.

<comment><USER2> Cuomo is what talking a big talk looks like. Leadership is SK, Taiwan, S'pore, and yes, even China. Solving problems is leadership. Posturing is something else, and it's what Cuomo's been doing.

<comment><USER24> He is responding to the crisis in his state. He is:

1\. Publicly acknowledging the factual state on the ground. 2\. Explaining what his administration is doing to combat the crisis, including his asks from the Feds for his foreseeable needs. 3\. Calling up retired healthcare workers to address a soon to be overtaxed medical situation. 4\. Attempting to prevent panic as NY state and NYC are the U.S. epicenter of this emergency by calling in federal resources to address the apex of cases in his jurisdiction.

What counter examples can you cite as a better response to this issue?

<comment><USER2> > What counter examples can you cite as a better response to this issue?

The ones I cited in the comment you replied to. China, Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea.

Like, I honestly can't think how Cuomo could do worse without actively trying to. He is observing the situation and doing all the obvious things any right- thinking person would, if they were totally unable to make any predictions, had no expert advisers, and were limited to reacting to only a point in time snapshot of reality.

The only reason he doesn't look like the biggest disaster of governance in the history of the state is because both the guy above (Trump) and the guy below (De Blasio) are even more foolish. Anchoring effect at work, nothing more.

Results matter. And the results are that this state already has nearly twice as many cases per capita as Italy, which is a widely acknowledged catastrophe. And we're way behind them on implementing lockdown.

<comment><USER24> Apart from those examples cited:

1\. Are relatively homogeneous populations, unlike say NYC. 2\. Have a long term behavioural and a culture of wearing masks in public due to pollution and recent experiences of epidemics such as SARS or MERS. 3\. Are relatively authoritarian societies unlike the free-wheeling freedoms that U.S. citizens experience.

Why would you use them as counterexamples to what the U.S. population should adapt to in short course? It is almost as if you picked the populations that are accustomed to social controls and regular mask wearing, which is very effective, and use that as a dig against a novel approach being applied to the U.S. or indeed the rest of the world outside Asia as being the norm.

<comment><USER2> NY will probably end up being the most severely affected by this virus out of any state/province-level governing region in the entire world. We will cross 3k cases per million residents tonight and growth is still climbing. You are simply not going to be able to convince me that the guy in charge is doing a good job, no matter what kind of reasons you bring up r.e. homogeneous populations or whatever. That's post-hoc rationalization as far as I'm concerned. Results matter and that's all there is to it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> No surprise here; Americans aren't taking as seriously as they should while Japanese people are very clean and highly protective of their health. Hopefully people are still allowed to go back to Japan if that's where their home is and only travel for pleasure or business is banned.

<comment><USER26> Japanese people are also not taking this very seriously. People in Kyoto and Tokyo were out in large numbers last weekend, no social distancing measures visible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Doesn't logic dictate that all international travel time and from all countries be stopped for a few months?

<comment><USER22> One improvement over a full travel ban would be mandatory government-run 2-week(?) quarantine every time someone arrives from abroad.

<comment><USER28> Australia is now requiring a 2 week hotel isolation

<comment><USER29> Except the hotel is in the middle of the city, and there are other non- quarantined residents living in the same hotel who are almost certainly going to get sick. I think the correct solution is what Vietnam has done -- convert military barracks into a quarantine centers so that suspected cases cannot infect the general public.

This is also much better than the self-isolation policy that they had until a few days ago (because food and other basic services are provided to the isolated people, so there's no risk of people coming into contact with others when trying to get groceries delivered).

<comment><USER30> Australian here: It's not a given that the other hotel residents are going to get sick.

The quarantine residents are bussed in directly from customs / border control and isolated to separate parts of the hotel.

Their rooms are locked down (they don't get the key), they don't get in room cleaning (they can get their laundry and fresh supplies dropped off / picked up in a controlled way from outside the room periodically), and they get room service delivered / picked up outside the room. Staff have/are being trained in performing those duties.

All paid for by the government, too. It's not ideal for anyone, but for the community at large it's the best possible policy given how many new infections were coming from inbound travellers.

It also works well for the hotels which have very high vacancy rates due to lack of tourists.

<comment><USER29> I'm also Australian. I was referring to the previous decision to put everyone from the Norwegian Jewel into the Swissotel right in the middle of the Sydney CBD[1]. The brand-new policy you're referring to was announced only slightly before I posted my original comment (I wasn't aware of the change at the time and thus wasn't referring to it).

[1]: [https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/health- problems/cor...](https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/health- problems/coronavirus-australia-quarantined-cruise-passengers-complain-of-no- fresh-air-or-sunlight-in-sydney-swissotel/news- story/6498701f0b5683c1f0eec317e84ba993)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Seems normal since we are now the epicenter. I welcome it since this sort of decision might wake up our decision makers on where we really are.

</comment><comment><USER32> if i was any given country i would have banned entry from all other countries 14 days ago!

airports, shut!

</comment><comment><USER33> They have people pulling the emergency button on the subways if someone if coughing.

</comment><comment><USER34> I would think the only people traveling to Japan these days are Japanese people. I wonder if the ban would also include people with Japanese passports.

<comment><USER35> I was due to fly to and from the UK in April with a ticket purchased months ago, I won't have been the only one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> As a Canadian I think there's a pretty strong possibility that we get the virus under control while it still rages in the US for quite some time. I'm not really sure what that will mean.

<comment><USER37> I have seen this mentioned, but I'm honestly now sure why Canadians think this.

What special measures did Canada take early on? What makes Canada exceptional compared to the US who at least banned some flights?

The only difference is that the media doesn't absolutely despise Trudeau, but we're effectively the same. The US is actually surpassing us in testing at this point and some of our most populous provinces have multiple day backlogs in their testing. Our population isn't quite all Florida, but Vancouver very much acted like the Florida of Canada up until just recently. Sure, we can smugly point to our healthcare system, but our healthcare system hasn't scaled to anywhere the capacity the US has in regards to testing.

Don't get me wrong, I hope you're right, but I am not sure where the Canadian smug exceptionalism comes from in this case. From a policy perspective we're basically the same as the US.

I'm actually kind of worried we'll get it worst here because in January we were in active denial: "the real pandemic is racism" mode. In February we were shipping PPE from our own reserves to China to help them out. In March, we took the "enhanced" screening measure of giving travellers a pamphlet in the airport. We are so comically behind the curve that our only consolation price is to look at the worst of the US media for consolation that maybe we won't have it so bad.

It wasn't until the global markets took a nose dive that Canada really realized this might actually affect them.

<comment><USER38> I don't really understand this either. As someone who's in Seattle, it seemed like BC lagged 2-3 days behind every action taken in Washington (e.g. closing schools).

I keep seeing Canadians say their response was magnitudes better but I don't see why.

<comment><USER17> Even if BC lagged Washington by 2-3 days in Earth Time (so to speak), this likely translates into faster-than-Washington response with respect to where they were at on the virus incident growth curve.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Seems like a logical decision. Japan has managed to avoid a massive outbreak so far.

<comment><USER40> Not anymore. Tokyo is already [edit: entered the hockey-stick part of] an exponential trajectory as of around 5 days ago.

[https://stopcovid19.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/en](https://stopcovid19.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/en)

Every press conference ending with Koike (Tokyo governor) or Abe (PM) babbling along with no material countermeasures being announced has been making me feel all the more dreadful. They needed to have already shut down everything long ago. We will be joining the world's other major outbreak cities in a week or two.

<comment><USER41> The interesting thing is that like many people, they guessed that a lot of people would be contaminated during the 3-day weekend a week ago (great weather, cherry blossoms, and last carefree moments for people who will start their first job on April 1st). It's not innocent that Abe called for postponing the Olympics just before that weekend. Koike could have asked the parks and popular venues (department stores) to be closed a week ago, but instead only asked people to refrain from going. What was poised to happen happened, and the number of infected people exploded half a week later.

<comment><USER42> We haven't even seen the numbers from last weekend.

It takes on average 5 days for infected people to show symptoms, and they only test once you have fever for 3-4 days (I can verify this first-hand), then 1-2 days for the test results to come back. That 9-11 days average.

We will see a spike later this week based on last weekends warm weather and hanami.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> My only question is: "Why hasn't the world done this two weeks ago?"

The US is failing to test on a massive scale, and the outbreak has been growing exponentially, week after week. Control measures are being taken, but on an inconsistent, fragmented basis.

<comment><USER44> The US is currently testing ~100k people each day:

[https://covidtracking.com/us-daily/](https://covidtracking.com/us-daily/)

The failure at the beginning was not to have capacity ready. The huge US medical system and its very, very large medical industry has finally gotten pointed in the right direction in regards to testing.

<comment><USER24> I was tested this past Thursday and came back negative yesterday. Two weeks ago I was exhibiting the classic symptoms. Last week I had five days of noticeable shortness of breath, lethargy, sinus infection and a dry cough. I wanted to get tested a week ago this past Monday but did not meet the criteria. Now I am awaiting the availability of serological tests to see if I have the antibodies. I pulled the kids out of school on March 10th, ahead of our local district closing on March 13, and we have been self-quarantined since then. If I had the virus, the recent testing would likely not measure me as a positive case due to low viral expression.

The fact that the U.S. did not have widespread surveillance testing since mid- January is criminally inept. China bought us eight weeks of ramp-up time which was bungled by our Executive branch who was more worried about the economy and stock market reaction than people's lives.

Historically, this will likely go down as the largest failure of public health management in U.S. since our founding. After this passes, there needs to be large scale accountability for the CDC, FDA and the Executive branch that has brought us to the collapse of public health which will likely cost millions of U.S. lives.

<comment><USER45> China bought us eight weeks of ramp up time? Was that before or after suppressing information about the issue for almost two months including getting WHO to claim there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission in January?

<comment><USER24> Reliance on the WHO is insanity given their kow-towing to Chinese political pressure. The U.S. intelligence agencies were on this in January.

See [https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/25/coronavirus-worst- intel...](https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/25/coronavirus-worst-intelligence- failure-us-history-covid-19/)

See also [https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/us- intellig...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/us-intelligence- reports-from-january-and-february-warned-about-a-likely- pandemic/2020/03/20/299d8cda-6ad5-11ea-b5f1-a5a804158597_story.html)

We had 56 days (8 weeks) to prepare. To ramp up masks, gowns, ventilators and possible treatments such as hyrdoxycholorquine/Z-pak as a treatment despite the lack of double blind peer reviewed data. This is an unmitigated disaster brought on by a failure of national leadership.

On that note, I am watching Dr. Who "The Talons of Weng-Chiang" on PBS in self-isolation to distract me from the unfolding horror that is our hospitals.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Japan has had a low infection rate because of their strong mask-wearing culture. Western countries are experiencing higher rates of COVID-19 infections compared to Asian countries because of the West's aversion to wearing masks. Please help me spread this message [http://www.maskssavelives.org/](http://www.maskssavelives.org/)

<comment><USER35> I don't know how many times this is going to come up on these page but this is unsupported by any study for the kind of masks people actually wear and for a non-clinical setting, and anyone who has spent any time here will know it's rubbish.

Just last night my wife was telling me about a conversation with her work colleagues about masks. She wears one per day, one to work and the same one for the way home - this is already going outside the bounds of any study I've read. Her colleagues told her that she must be rich to use that many masks, they use the same one for two or three days in a row.

Just one of the many anecdotes you can hear and confirm with your own experience if you're ever here. I have others, the ones about coughing and sneezing behaviour in public will make you shudder.

<comment><USER47> Even if a mask doesn't protect a person sneezing into your face from transmitting the virus to you, that hardly means that it is 100% ineffective otherwise... and hospitals wouldn't be clamoring for them if they were ineffective ([https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/why- would-...](https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/why-would- hospitals-forbid-physicians-and-nurses-from-wearing-masks/)).

With just a bit of common sense you can reason that masks absolutely do help prevent the spread of the virus:

1\. A strong mask culture in dense areas means that even _sick_ people will be incentivized to wear masks, which is known to be effective in limiting transmission. Studies on airplanes have shown that a sick person wearing a mask can stop the transmission on a plane. ([https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23968983/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23968983/))

2\. The mask prevents you from touching your mouth with your hands, and reminds you to not touch your face.

3\. Many people in Japan wear masks to prevent stuff from their own mouths going into other peoples' faces, and not for the commonly assumed selfish reasons for wearing one that Americans keep focusing on.

4\. The effectiveness of masks is not binary. Recommendations against using masks probably come because

a) people are probably doing other things that are already higher risk than not wearing a mask and

b) there is a shortage of masks.

Some more tidbits cited from the study: _Less efficient face masks (e.g., surgical or medical) also decrease exposure to aerosols of droplet nuclei to a lesser (8–12 fold) degree than N95 masks (36), and they provide protection against larger droplets. We did not determine the type of mask worn by the passengers; presumably, individually acquired masks represented a mixture of N95 and other less efficient masks._ ([https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23968983/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23968983/))

<comment><USER35> I'll take this in parts which I always think looks aggressive but I assure you it's not. We're all concerned and want the best :)

> that hardly means that it is 100% ineffective otherwise

It may not be 100% ineffective for a single event, it needs to be effective over the entire period of use.

Point 1, yes, sick people should wear masks. This is already known. Most people aren't sick.

> 2\. The mask prevents you from touching your mouth with your hands, and > reminds you to not touch your face.

If you've worn one or watched people on the train in Japan or across Asia you'll know this isn't true at all. People are forever readjusting it.

> 3\. Many people in Japan wear masks to prevent stuff from their own mouths > going into other peoples' faces, and not for the commonly assumed selfish > reasons for wearing one that Americans keep focusing on.

They wear them for many reasons, and they're people so they're just as selfish as Americans or anyone else, and that's certainly my experience.

4b is certainly true. 4a is partly true because if people aren't going to use masks correctly - and they don't - then there really is no point to them other than to deny people access to them by those who really need them, and in settings that studies really have shown a positive effect.

<comment><USER47> > > that hardly means that it is 100% ineffective otherwise >It may not be > 100% ineffective for a single event, it needs to be effective over the > entire period of use. Point 1, yes, sick people should wear masks. This is > already known. Most people aren't sick.

I don't see the logical reasoning behind why it _has_ to be effective over the entire period of use. The whole rational behind curve flattening is that we do as much as possible to _reduce_ transmission. So being partially effective will still reduce the number of transmission and the _chances_ of transmission.

Plus by normalizing mask usage more sick people will be encouraged to use masks because it is socially acceptable. A lot of people don't use masks even if they are sick because 1) lack of testing to confirm coronavirus and 2) embarrassment over using a mask because it is weird. It's easy for someone to decide to wear a mask or quarantine if they know they have Covid-19, but if they are just sick or mildly sick, or even asymptomatic, the decision to wear a mask or quarantine is much harder because they have to balance their other needs with the chances that they may just have the common cold.

> If you've worn one or watched people on the train in Japan or across Asia > you'll know this isn't true at all. People are forever readjusting it.

Seeing as how there is a physical barrier over your mouth I don't see how you cannot use common sense to see that it is true. Not to mention my cited research study uses it as a potential reason why the masks were shown to be effective.

> They wear them for many reasons, and they're people so they're just as > selfish as Americans or anyone else, and that's certainly my experience.

I guess this is a matter of opinion, so I can't really argue that _you_ don't believe it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> I have a very bad feeling that Japan is going to be ravaged by this pandemic.

[https://mobile.twitter.com/motokorich/status/124383121986899...](https://mobile.twitter.com/motokorich/status/1243831219868991488)

"Abe: "If an explosive spread of infection is already occurring right now, we cannot tell immediately. By time we have numbers in 2 weeks time, speed of rise in number of patients could no longer be controllable." _Yet he announced no specific measures to prevent this scenario_."

<comment><USER48> Downvoters might want to read that full Twitter thread. You may not appreciate the potential gravity of what I've italicized above, but there are comments in the thread from people who do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Reconsidered my opinion:

I agree with a reply below. The primary determiner of how well a place responds to Covid seems to be their experience with SARS, and possibly other infectious respiratory diseases like TB.

<comment><USER50> I'm not sure how you came up with this, Singapore and Hong Kong meritocratic? They're both oligarchies where all the land and influence in the city is owned by a few powerful families. Also the fact that excluding Vietnam all of these countries are either islands or have a single land border (don't think a lot of people are coming into South Korea from North Korea?) probably makes controlling the disease a lot easier.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Okay... but why specifically the United States? Shouldn't they ban entry from just about _every_ nation right now? Did the article just fail to mention existing travel bans for other nations?

The US has a very high number of confirmed cases, but it still pales in comparison to many other nations in terms of percent of population. Banning international travel is a reasonable precaution, but why specifically the US?

I can't help but feel like many politicians around the globe have been focusing more on political chess first and the wellbeing of their citizens second.

<comment><USER16> From [https://www.nytimes.com/article/coronavirus-travel- restricti...](https://www.nytimes.com/article/coronavirus-travel- restrictions.html)

As of March 15, Japan has banned entry to foreign travelers with Chinese passports issued by Hubei and Zhejiang provinces, as well as those who have visited regions in China that have been affected by the virus, South Korea, Iran or Italy within the last 14 days.

On March 18, Japan added two provinces of Switzerland, four states in Spain and the entire country of Iceland to the list. The ban will become effective at midnight on March 19.

The government said that starting March 21, travelers from 38 countries would need to self-quarantine for 14 days in facilities approved by the Japanese authorities.

Those countries include the 26 members of the European Schengen countries, as well as Ireland, Andorra, Iran, Britain, Egypt, Cyprus, Croatia, San Marino, the Vatican, Bulgaria, Monaco and Romania.

<comment><USER51> Thanks. I wish the article provided that context.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> This would've been a good idea before Chinese New Year for those coming from China but the Japanese government, in its infinite wisdom, didn't want to miss out on the money all those tourists bring.

At least they've done well suppressing the true number of cases until the Olympics was cancelled. Even if it should've been bloody obvious they have been lying, most of the rest of the world - as per usual - decided that the Japanese government is trustworthy because Japan football fans take their rubbish home, or anime, or some other nebulous reason.

<comment><USER52> Any sources/links indicating that the numbers are VASTLY different than communicated on the news?

<comment><USER35> The numbers would surely come out in a study later in the year, if not next year, as they do for other kinds of cover up here[1][2] or simply because it's hard to find out as it's happening in such a short time over such a large area during a pandemic. Personally, I'm basing it on:

\- The propensity for cover ups to happen (even on a small scale, it's part of the culture of maintaing _wa_ )

\- The strange lack of testing while the Olympics was still a possibility

\- The ease with which deaths could be covered up given the system here and things like the already mentioned kodokushi deaths

\- The many anecdotes of people being turned away for tests[3]

\- The knowledge that Japan and the Japanese are not special, so their position as an outlier must have _some_ reason beyond "they wear masks" (how did wearing masks help in China?) while there are barely any measures to prevent transmission in place

\- I like Ockham's Razor

[1] [https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2015/06/kodokushi-in- agi...](https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2015/06/kodokushi-in-aging-japan- thousands-die-alone-and-unnoticed-every-year-their-bodies-often-go-unnoticed- for-weeks.html)

[2] [https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/07/31/national/crime-...](https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/07/31/national/crime- legal/osaka-police-failed-to-report-81000-crimes-between-2008-and-2012-probe/)

[3] [https://www.reddit.com/r/CoronavirusJapan/](https://www.reddit.com/r/CoronavirusJapan/)</comment></comment></comment>


The War For Talent - <AUTHOR> http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/03/the-war-for-talent.html <comment><USER2> It may just be me, but I don't see this "war for talent". I live in San Francisco and have worked for 3 companies since moving here. I am a damned good frontend engineer, like learning and playing with new tech, very opinionated and dedicated to good product design, and sure I would be an asset to any company that wanted to hire me. I've also had experience with trying my own startup (failed) and even been part of a team that got a YC interview.

Despite all of this, any time I have interviewed with some of these companies that claim to be in a war for talent, that's not the impression I get. I always end up meeting and talking to people that are looking for CS students who happen to know HTML.

Some random Facebook engineer wasted a half an hour of my time trying to get me to write a function to calculate a square root approximation method. Another interview asks me how to figure out which one of 100 bottles of wine has poison in it using 10 mice. Seriously, WTF?

At no point have these people who say they desperately want a frontend engineer actually asked _anything_ remotely touching the job skills I possess. Want super efficient pages? Well constructed js? An innovative solution to a hard frontend problem? A high performance html5 app that looks native on a phone? Apparently not. These guys just want more CS engineers like themselves and not people that have acquired the best knowledge by years of working in the field.

I work at a big name media company now. When they interviewed me a couple years ago, they got it. They knew what they were looking for and what they actually needed. I work with some awesome people. Sometimes we butt heads because I care a lot about what I build and sometimes big corporate decisions are bullshit, but that's ok. The team I work with is smart and capable and we get shit done.

And guess what? We aren't all CS graduates. We taught ourselves and built careers for ourselves. We learned everything we know the hard way, by actually doing it.

<comment><USER3> The question about mice seemed sort of neat to me at first. I figured the desired solution was splitting the wine into two groups, taking the group that turns out to be poisoned, and then recursing.

Then I came up with an alternative solution.

Step 1: Kill 9 mice.

Step 2: Have the mouse drink from a wine bottle.

Step 3: Wait to see if he dies. If he dies you found the right bottle. If he doesn't take the next bottle and go to step 2.

<comment><USER4> He left out that there's a time limit. You have a party with guests coming over in 10 minutes, and it takes 5 minutes for the wine to kill the rat (in any dosage amount). Given those constraints, how do you do it?

It's a fun question, but the best response I've heard to this is, "Move. You're never going to get laid with rats at your place during a party."

<comment><USER5> He's testing if you can think in binary. Label the bottles of wine with binary numbers, 0000001 to 1100100. Give the first mouse every other bottle of wine, the second mouse every bottle of wine with a 1 in the 2's place, the second mouse every bottle with a 1 in the 4's place, etc. If a mouse dies, the poison lies in one of the bottles it was given. If a mouse survives, there is no poison in any of the bottles it was given. Since every combination of mice is associated with a unique bottle, you can read off the digits formed by the dead and live mice to determine which bottle it was.

And then hope none of your guests call the SPCA.

<comment><USER6> Given the constraints (10 minutes total, 5 minutes for poison to kill), you can also divide the wine into 10 groups and assign each group to each of the 10 mice. The mice then drink samples from every bottle in his group, and after 5 minutes, the one that dies has the group with poison in it. You then assign each of the rats a bottle from this group, and then see which one of them dies. If they all live, then the remaining bottle is poisoned.

Granted, your solution is better, but you can solve this problem without binary tricks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Okay, so New York has hipster traps:

<http://www.jwz.org/images/hipster-trap-560x795.jpg>

New Jersey has guido traps:

[http://www.thehighdefinite.com/wp- content/uploads/2011/03/je...](http://www.thehighdefinite.com/wp- content/uploads/2011/03/jersey-shore-trap-32459-1300473027-15.jpg)

And now Silicon Valley has developer traps:

[http://www.avc.com/.a/6a00d83451b2c969e2014e5ff76eed970c-500...](http://www.avc.com/.a/6a00d83451b2c969e2014e5ff76eed970c-500wi)

</comment><comment><USER8> The most important things for me as a developer:

\- Money (I have a family to care about)

\- 'Interestingness' of the job: does it require creativity? Do I have ownership? Can I start things from scratch, or do I have to maintain an ugly overcomplicated buggy code full of EntrpriseEntiytyManagerConfigurationFactoryFacadeIntefaceBean-s created without any philosophy behind?

Hardware setup is not that important for me. Never was.

Also there is no war for talent yet. Firms in Silicon Valley did not realize yet that there is talent in other parts of the world for much cheaper than in Sillicon Valley. When the real war will begin, I hope we will gain access to better opportunities here in the east than now. (Now they mostly resort to the east if some noncreative work should be done. (So called 'offshoring'.))

<comment><USER9> > Hardware setup is not that important for me. Never was.

Maybe that's because you've always had a decent hardware setup. I once worked for a company where the clueless management decided to save money by having fewer workstations than developers, and our department had to make sure they all looked in use, otherwise a management snap inspection might take even more away.

<comment><USER10> You could look that on the plus side and start doing a bunch of pair programming. I have started doing bits of pair programing and found it to be very productive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Don't play their game. If you are a great dev, ask for what you are worth (100-150 an hour). Or get solid equity. Or start your own company.

Don't be fooled by cheap gimmicks. You can buy your own Dr Pepper.

<comment><USER12> 100-150 an hour? I have 6 years of experience and I can hardly get more than $70 an hour in NYC. Maybe I'm not a "great" developer.

<comment><USER13> I was also making around 70$ to 80$ an hour. I decided to get in to Wall St (Investment Banks/Hedge Funds) and now I am able to make more than 100$/hour. In NYC, other than finance industry, I haven't seen anyone paying more than 100$/hour.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Wishing for a "talent-detector": I could make billions.

Seriously, how can you call it a war when the territory is so poorly delineated. Searching for "talent" is like capturing neutrinos. So shouldn't it be termed a "Crapshoot for Talent" or "Gold Rush for Talent" or such? Add to that the interaction problem (an excellent worker in one environment may wither in another).

Metaphors matter! Choose your weapons carefully. Oops, sorry, it isn't a war! Choose your garden shrubs carefully.

<comment><USER15> Google, FBook, etc in particular are fighting over some key execs and senior engineers, as well as the flow of new grads from key universities like CMU and Stanford.

That's the war. For most industry engineers, its a crapshoot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's interesting how much the high-tech industry that made remote and distributed working possible is still bound to a locality.

Outside Silicon Valley, and outside the US, there is _also_ a lot of talent, which would dream of earning even half of what a Silicon Valley developer does, but cannot move there for some reason.

Ample opportunity here for smart companies.

<comment><USER8> Yes. If anybody is interested: For example offering half of Sillicon Valley salary to developers I could find the brightest 10-20 programmers from my country. I am well connected amongst developers. (Hungary is a 10million people country.) Just give me a very hard 'test', I will give that or something similar to hundreds of developers, and choose the best 10. If you offer higher than market salary, money makes miracles.

<comment><USER17> TopTal does this: <http://www.toptal.com/> . You should contact them if you're interested.

<comment><USER8> Thanks, I will contact them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> It is probably just me and my overly pessimistic and cynical point of view, but sometimes I think this "war for talent" is basically synonym for "search for very good engineers willing to work 70 hours a week for less than 100K" (or something like that). I do understand the need to for these creative idea (good setup, etc.), but unfortunately these tweks and ideas work only and only after salary is good, challenge is there, and team is great.

And there is one more problem: some of startups struggling to hire very good engineers are not aiming big - the prevalent business model is: we hope to be acquired by Google/Apple/Facebook/Intuit etc. Stories of Digg, Reddit, and Delicous don't inspire a lot confidence for engineers to join these companies.

</comment><comment><USER19> No matter how much a company is willing to spend on gadgets, everyone seems to stick with that same $100 Ikea desk.

<comment><USER10> Have you tried asking for a different desk? They end up with the same ikea desk because no one cares about it that much.

<comment><USER19> I actually like those desks, I just think it's funny.

<comment><USER20> Who cares that the desk costs $100 if it does an excellent job as a workspace/computer desk? I'm a huge fan of the Ikea Galant desks to the point where I bought myself one for home to go along with the $700 chair I have (similar situation to what is shown in the Tasty Labs picture).

I didn't buy it because it cost $100, I bought it because they are JUST ENOUGH desk to make an excellent workspace and they are height adjustable. I will never use a non-height adjustable desk again, full stop, and there aren't many other options for height adjustable desks that are anywhere near reasonable in price (and that is coming from someone who didn't blink when buying a $700 chair).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> there is no war for talent. It is just a market that started to favor seller a bit (smart buyers buy in a buyers market by the way). When i recently "came up on the market" (laid off), 2 companies gave offers under the asking price, one din't make the offer at all as it was "above the range", and another company (that i even didn't hope to get into) offered ~15% more than the asking price was and of course i'm happy to be there now.

</comment><comment><USER22> ... while on this side of the ocean i couldn't even accept a position at a northern europe bank because i can't afford relocation at the moment, and everyone tells me people are hiring like crazy in NY/SV. Life can be bull sometimes :(

</comment><comment><USER23> I may not have a cinema display, but many in my company do. When I started, I had a brand new HP desktop. A few months later I got a brand spankin new Macbook Pro when I started doing Mac development. I would expect AT LEAST what I see from the picture at any serious software company and I live/work in mid- michigan. We don't have to put our monitors on cardboard boxes either.

</comment><comment><USER24> Looks like they're offering up a Macbook, a cinema display, a red Swingline stapler, and Dr. Pepper in the photo. #devporn

<comment><USER25> ... and an Aeron chair!

<comment><USER26> Given how selective joshu claims to be in hiring, would be surprised if he turned down a developed who requested a mac pro and 3 x 24" or 30" monitors for both home and office, in addition to a macbook pro or macbook air.

A $20k pimped out setup or two is still less than a recruiter would charge, and hopefully about the same as the value of a developer's work to the company in 1 week.

I think Asana has the right idea, just letting people pick whatever they want within a $10k or so budget. There is some value in having commonality (spare parts, support, chargers), and I'd be surprised if anyone wanted anything except Apple or Lenovo laptops and high-end desktops with big monitors.

<comment><USER27> Valuing a developer's one week of work at $20K is a bit much (~$1M per year?). Also, I'd question the judgement of developer who thinks a $20K pimped-out setup, a Mac Pro and three 30" displays at both home _and_ office, in addition to a laptop, is necessary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I wonder if there's a point where the talent wars in the Bay Area could actually affect pg's view that the Valley is the best place for a startup. I know that Jason Calacanis has talked about how it might now make sense to do your development somewhere else.

<comment><USER29> Finding good talent elsewhere is non-trivial, but with some care it is much easier.

We're currently doing our development in WA (one founder), NH (lead developer, almost founder), and IL. If we get into one of the Bay Area programs, I'll move to CA for the program, and probably then some.

The reason for the move isn't for development talent, it is for networking opportunities and mentoring opportunities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Getting standard-issue equipment _that you need to do your job_? I don't disagree with the overall premise but getting a computer isn't that unusual and you need one anyway.

I think 37signals gets it (more) right. A company credit card with which you can buy any training or educational materials you need to become better at what you do or to help you with your work. Now _that's_ a perk. (Though a personal secretary/PA to handle all of the non dev BS would be even better..)

<comment><USER31> That was taken out of context. We get developers whatever they want. We only posted it to be funny.

<comment><USER30> Oh, right. But yeah, I wasn't picking up on you or Quora, more Fred's interpretation of a banal reality - I'd hope _any_ company would get their developers this sort of kit! :-)

<comment><USER31> Indeed. However, the hiring part IS brutal. We interviewed 90-something people, made one offer.

There's a huge difference between engineers and developers.

<comment><USER32> What makes the difference between the one developer you would hire and the 89 engineers you wouldn't?

<comment><USER31> I want to hire engineers, not developers.

Engineering is the negotiation of constraints. Developers write code. You need to be both.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> This goes back to the popular post about Reddit being down to one developer. The war for talent comes down to a) having the resources to pay for top talent - Google or b) cool and fun concepts to work on which have enormous potential - Hipmunk. Getting hooked up with nice hard wear is great but at this point it seems expected as everyone pretty much does it (except for the bootstrapped start-up).

</comment><comment><USER34> Does this "War for Talent" mean that I don't have a hope of acquiring talent through outsourcing? I just looked (briefly) at the Philippine job boards, and unless I'm doing something SEO heavy, there didn't seem to be too much there.

</comment><comment><USER35> Heh, Mr. Wilson forget to mention that a primary qualifier for getting headhunter cold calls is quality/quantity of comments on HN.</comment>


Maps are Broken, for Some Definition of Broken - <AUTHOR> http://sigusr2.net/2010/Jun/22/maps-are-broken-for-some-definition-of-broken.html

<comment><USER2> Interesting fact: you can choose a random element from a sequence of unknown size in a single pass. The cost is having to always iterate over the entire sequence, and generating O(n) random numbers instead of O(1).

The algorithm is quite simple:

        var choice = elements.First()
        var n = 1
        for e in elements.Skip(1):
           n += 1
           if rand(n) == 0:
              choice = e

The algorithm is correct because, at each stage, each of the preceding elements is chosen with probability 1/n. The invariant is maintained because the next element is chosen with probability 1/(n+1) and therefore scales the preceding probabilities by n/(n+1) giving 1/(n+1).

</comment><comment><USER3> HashMap is implemented as a dynamic array, and you could probably get "good enough" random performance from accessing the underlying array, picking a random element, then iterating over that bucket and picking a random element. In the average case this will be pretty much constant time.

I'd be a little worried about the randomness of the distribution, but if you need a proper random distribution, you shouldn't be using a map.

</comment><comment><USER4> HashMap (unlike treeset) itself doesn't provide an order guarantee. So can't you just grab the first element from the entrySet and use that?

But I think the bigger problem is trying to use a Map in the first place when maybe a different data structure will solve the problem better.

<comment><USER5> I of course didn't talk about why I'm using a map, but as an example: consider redis. It's a giant hash table, and it allows you to pick a random key.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> In his hypothetical "using imaginary iterator() on AbstractMap" O(n) solution, he's overlooking that the Set returned by keySet() has an iterator, and doesn't involve any reallocation/copying. So randomKey() can be:

      int index = random.nextInt(map.size());
      for(String key : map.keySet()) {
        if(index==0) return key;
        index--;
      }

Abstractly, maps aren't the right structure for quick/constant-time random- choice. He could possibly choose an internal implementation that was better at offering random-choice, but that's unlikely to be the optimal implementation for other map uses. He could maintain a parallel structure during inserts that allows constant-draws later. Or do one array shuffle after all inserts, before all draws (if that fits the usage pattern).

 _(edit: code corrected per replies below)_

<comment><USER5> I did overlook that, so yes, this should work properly. Thanks!

One thing to note is that Random.next() is protected, so it's gotta be random.nextInt(map.size()).

<comment><USER6> Sorry to have referred to you in third-person; wasn't sure you were reading this thread. Thanks for the correction; I've changed my code fragment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Maps have an entrySet() method that returns a set of key-value Entry objects you can iterate over. Is this what you were after?

<comment><USER5> keySet() is more appropriate. I just want the key.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> If you want random elements, why don't just store it in a simple array?

</comment><comment><USER5> Thanks everyone for the responses. I'm a Java n00b.

</comment><comment><USER9> If you want random access to a map you should write your own implementation. This is a bit like complaining that random access to a linked list is too slow.

Choose appropriate data structures for the task at hand, no one data structure will fit every use.</comment>