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9,100 | comment | nefele | 2007-04-05T06:52:48 | null | Paul,<p>I hope that despite the competition you will still be able to discuss some trends in the applications you get -- as much as YC is a serious business now, I suspect it's been an interesting sociological experiment for some people.<p>Regarding the larger number of groups you might accept, I can't help but wonder how YC will scale in the near future. You recently said that the number of unsuccessful startups in the first batch was very low, and it seems that you are getting an extremely self-selected pool of applicants to start with. If you can manage funding more people at once (I suspect time is the bottleneck), I'd venture a guess that you'll keep a 'success' rate way above the standard VC level.<p>And if you get to work with a few groups from overseas, I'd be keen to learn if you noticed any (cultural?) differences in their approach, or whether hackers are just hackers, regardless of their location... | null | null | 9,066 | 8,946 | null | [
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9,101 | comment | asdf333 | 2007-04-05T06:52:55 | null | I did a startup and recently got acquired. Here's what I did.<p>I say get disaster health insurance (30 bucks a month) screw cobra. its too expensive.<p>if you're in MA, i hear you can get universal health care and suck on the teat of the taxpayer. If you're in CA, Blue shield is cheap. If you want bang for the buck, I suggest Kaiser.<p>Also helped that my girlfriend is about to become a surgeon so she and her friends had me pretty much covered for normal stuff.
| null | null | 8,676 | 8,676 | null | null | null | null |
9,102 | story | epall | 2007-04-05T06:54:02 | YCFix: Greasemonkey script to remove upmodded YC News links | null | http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/8242 | 1 | null | 9,102 | 1 | [
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] | null | null |
9,103 | comment | asdf333 | 2007-04-05T06:58:05 | null | honestly it sucks. <p>specifically, the programming (types of shows available) sucks.<p>A big mistake they've made so far is to not open it up to whoever wants to broadcast. The resulting content is third-rate. They need to open it up to anyone who wants to stream content to make things interesting. | null | null | 8,780 | 8,780 | null | [
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9,104 | comment | semigeek | 2007-04-05T06:58:08 | null | We're already bootstrapping a few different ideas/products - so we'll keep on that path. Our reason for applying to YC was not for the funding, but more for the mentors, networking and for the chance to be surrounded by more young like-minded individuals; there's not much of that in Cleveland.<p>I like the idea of getting some space in Boston/SF and bootstrapping it with others - I'd be open to renting out a house with some fellow entrepreneurs for the summer and seeing what we can cook up. | null | null | 9,027 | 9,027 | null | [
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] | null | null |
9,105 | comment | semigeek | 2007-04-05T07:01:25 | null | PG,<p>What would be cool is if we could access the Application Page still and possibly see a status of the Applications (eg. Unread, Read, Reviewed, Rejected, Considered, etc) - and if Rejected, maybe a 1-2 liner from the YC Team.<p>It would take a little bit more time on YC's part, but from past experiences, the more communication that can be had between the entrepreneur and VC, the better - even on failed pitches there is something to be learned. | null | null | 9,066 | 8,946 | null | null | null | null |
9,106 | comment | markovich | 2007-04-05T07:10:14 | null | I didn't look, I didn't notice, and frankly, I didn't care. If I had ever wanted to upvote a comment, I'm sure I would have found quickly. | null | null | 8,926 | 8,926 | null | null | null | null |
9,107 | comment | rms | 2007-04-05T07:14:33 | null | I like news.yc | null | null | 9,093 | 9,093 | null | [
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] | null | null |
9,108 | comment | BitGeek | 2007-04-05T07:17:03 | null | This is a great site, and I think the more people are aware of the situation with Venture Capital, the more they realize that the real cost of it is not in loss of ownership of the company, but in increased liklihood that your company will fail. <p>Plus, these days, unless you're buidling a manufacturing plant for a medical device or integrated circuit, there is no reason to raise $1M. <p>Build it for $100k-$400k with angel funds and if its worth a damn, you'll be able to monetize it and grow. <p>You don't need superbowl commercials ot get your app out there anymore... you need a blog. You don't need to go into expensive deals with portal players-- you just need to show up at carefully targetted conferences. (Twitters performance at SXSW is a great example of this.)<p>
| null | null | 8,282 | 8,282 | null | null | null | null |
9,109 | comment | yaacovtp | 2007-04-05T07:20:14 | null | Did you try searching?
<a href="http://wiki.startupschool.org/doku.php">http://wiki.startupschool.org/doku.php</a> | null | null | 9,056 | 9,056 | null | [
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9,110 | comment | markovich | 2007-04-05T07:27:28 | null | You know, I really think we should organise something like this. Rent a reasonably large place for 3 months, we just get together and work in a shared environment, then move on. It would be great just so one can get ideas bounced off other technical people, and get some feedback.<p>Of course, it could also turn out real bad, cos the one guy gets funding, and the others don't so everyone is hating on him. And then then the two guys who are at the house and discover that they are working on exactly the same ajax online calender.<p>Or what about the guy who came in and was working on a tool to catalogue your finger nail clippings, and this suddenly changes to a remote folder sync tool as soon as this other guy demos his own great folder sync tool.<p>And to top it off, you film this whole thing, Justin.tv style! It'll be great. | null | null | 9,028 | 9,027 | null | null | null | null |
9,111 | comment | staunch | 2007-04-05T07:27:38 | null | I say it's suicidal because they're trying to create a completely new market for something called "web databases". Kraus talks about the virtues of riding waves rather than trying to create them, and I think DabbleDB could really utilize that advice right now.<p>The way they position themselves will influence the way the press covers them and customers view them. It might be the difference between mediocre and meteoric sales.
| null | null | 9,088 | 8,891 | null | null | null | null |
9,112 | comment | BitGeek | 2007-04-05T07:31:27 | null | Isn't that some amazing nerve? The Rick is offering the founder shares in his own company as compensation for not taking a salary! <p>The inherent assumption behind this asinine perspective is that "Preferred" shares are for VCs only... but the reality is that VCs offer nothing to warrant such preferences. Everyone who has put sweat equity into the company is just as much an investor, and is generally taking on more risk... but the VC expects to be given preferences because such terms are common, and they are common because too many startups cave because they are addicted to the cash.<p>Love that the liquidation preference is "only" 1X. The reality is that it is screwing over all the other investors in the company by saying that the VC goes to the front of the line, gets all their money back, and <i>then</i> gets the percentage of anything left over comensurate with their percentage ownership of the company. The implication being that employees have not actually invested in the company and if there's anything left over, then the employees and founders get some. <p>This is particularly insulting given that the liklihood of this preference being relevant is increased by taking VC money-- which in this day and age means forgoing almost certain profitability for a higher risk shot at hitting it out of the ballpark. <p>And the price for putting a bomb under your company and lighting the fuse? They get to be first in line when it explodes and the company is liquidated for much less than it would have gotten if it was a viable business.<p>An employee that puts in $100k worth of labor a year for five years and gets $50k in salary has invested $250k just as much as an investor who puts in $250k in cash.<p>The arrogance of preferences boggles the mind. <p>Nobody in YC should be looking for this kind of investment. Stick with angels. Give everyone common- recognize that investors who are only putting in money are fairly compensated by getting shares at a fair valuation. If they want liduidation preferences, they should pay for it- and thus be investing at a multiple of the valuation that common gets.<p>VC funding was made obsolete in 2000. You no longer need to have that kind of a burn rate.<p><p> | null | null | 8,858 | 8,858 | null | null | null | null |
9,113 | comment | staunch | 2007-04-05T07:32:07 | null | <i>"If each site only had one page/file how could I host an unlimited number of domains?"</i><p>You could generate them dynamically.<p>
| null | null | 9,086 | 9,077 | null | [
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9,114 | comment | mukund | 2007-04-05T07:41:17 | null | Is reply the right word in here? Request or Seek may have been appropriate. So they are confused at level 1. Just a curious thought as to why so many companies get funded just like that but realy valuable type ones struggle to get noticed. | null | null | 8,963 | 8,963 | null | null | null | null |
9,115 | comment | BitGeek | 2007-04-05T07:42:24 | null | I'm sure SF is a great social scene... but this seems cash inefficient.<p>For $2600 you could rent 2.6 houses in the Seattle area... and seattle ain't exactly cheap. Or put another way, you get a nice 2BR house to live in with a yard, <i>and</i> you get a 3BR house to use as the office.... all for the rent of an <i>apartment</i> in SF? | null | null | 8,820 | 8,610 | null | null | null | null |
9,116 | comment | zaidf | 2007-04-05T07:45:51 | null | Ah wouldn't that be one heck of a service:)<p>I spent an entire month past summer just trying to get the logo right for one of my earlier startup. It was a lot of fun though: I went to the art districts around Bombay and hired half a dozen street artists(from beggars to alcoholics) to make the same sketch followed by a gazillion revisions. The end product was truly worth it - if only it could be done by a logo design start-up, lol.<p>-Zaid | null | null | 9,082 | 8,963 | null | null | null | null |
9,117 | story | zaidf | 2007-04-05T07:53:23 | What is good PowerPoint design? | null | http://presentationzen.blogs.com/presentationzen/2005/09/whats_good_powe.html | 1 | null | 9,117 | 0 | null | null | null |
9,118 | story | noisemaker | 2007-04-05T08:01:31 | Research points the finger at PowerPoint | null | http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/04/03/1175366240499.html | 6 | null | 9,118 | 5 | [
9167,
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9,119 | comment | brett | 2007-04-05T08:02:07 | null | The whole site design screams:
"HOME AND AUTO INFO FOR YOUR TODDLER!!!" | null | null | 9,076 | 8,963 | null | null | null | null |
9,120 | comment | noisemaker | 2007-04-05T08:02:25 | null | I feel the title is too much of a pun, than a good indicator of what the story is about. But has some nice tips about how to use and compose a visual presentation. | null | null | 9,118 | 9,118 | null | null | null | null |
9,121 | comment | pg | 2007-04-05T08:06:41 | null | We already have some practice scaling. The first batch was 8 startups, and the most recent 13. I think we could get to 20 or even 30 without changing the model substantially. Beyond that we might have to hire people, or get alumni to help.<p>So far, foreign founders seem a bit more serious. Makes sense, because merely coming to the US is a big step for them. | null | null | 9,100 | 8,946 | null | null | null | null |
9,122 | comment | nandan | 2007-04-05T08:08:03 | null | Yes, but the videos are not there; only the audio recordings are. | null | null | 9,109 | 9,056 | null | null | null | null |
9,123 | comment | pg | 2007-04-05T08:09:27 | null | That's what we call it internally. | null | null | 9,107 | 9,093 | null | null | null | null |
9,124 | comment | noisemaker | 2007-04-05T08:15:44 | null | I think the larger issue is about getting user adoption. It is actually great case to have a situation where users overwhelm your service in a way that it outgrows a system such as this. If he ever gets that large, obviously there will be plenty of people looking to help him figure out how to make the storage portion feasible. <p>More interesting is the user experience. Creating something users can enjoy, agree with, and possibly part money for is a much more difficult problem to solve than figuring out to make large scale storage cost effective. | null | null | 9,001 | 8,863 | null | [
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9,125 | comment | noisemaker | 2007-04-05T08:17:31 | null | Great job guys, hope to see you get picked up in the next session. Keep me posted for the mac version. | null | null | 8,863 | 8,863 | null | null | null | null |
9,126 | story | pashle | 2007-04-05T08:28:29 | Viaweb/Paul Graham's First Business Plan | null | http://www.paulgraham.com/vwplan.html | 18 | null | 9,126 | 12 | [
9189,
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9,127 | story | ecuzzillo | 2007-04-05T08:36:02 | Kinds of hacking involved in startups | null | 10 | null | 9,127 | 14 | [
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9,128 | comment | ecuzzillo | 2007-04-05T08:40:56 | null | So, as discussed elsewhere, I'm not immediately planning on starting a startup, but I am in favor of the idea in theory. One thing that bugs me about it, however, is that one of the advertisements in favor of starting it is that you can get real, serious, no-kidding hacking done, in at least a quarter of your time, while you aren't running frantic errands. <p>That sounds pretty good to me. However, all the hacking I hear about in relation to startups is either a) UI design (e.g. Wufoo) or b) server scaling. Server scaling is about as boring and unhappy to me as you could get without mandating that it be in Java; UI design is better, but still not appealing. <p>There are obviously exceptions; search engines come to mind. But overall, the average successful startup seems heavy on nasty little problems and light on big, hard problems. Is this perception correct? Anecdotes for or against? | null | null | 9,127 | 9,127 | null | [
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9,129 | comment | rms | 2007-04-05T08:53:35 | null | This is great.<p>Where did the funding for Viaweb come from and did this plan help you get it? | null | null | 9,126 | 9,126 | null | [
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9,130 | comment | far33d | 2007-04-05T08:54:33 | null | I used zillow extensively while looking for my current home. This site sucks in comparison: it's a cheap knockoff without the brand recognition. | null | null | 8,963 | 8,963 | null | null | null | null |
9,131 | comment | ced | 2007-04-05T08:55:06 | null | Counterexample: Reddit was initially written in Lisp, and then rewritten in Python. For technical reasons. | null | null | 8,563 | 8,563 | null | [
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9,132 | comment | soeren | 2007-04-05T08:56:11 | null | The linked computers can be used for a kind of distributed storage system (like GFS). Say each user shares an amount of storage resources and can use a specific amount of storage of the system. If the users are willing to accept such a deal, you can reduce the cost of your own storage resources. A major problem of course is the reliability of the system. | null | null | 8,958 | 8,863 | null | [
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9,133 | comment | ced | 2007-04-05T09:08:17 | null | It brings back to mind pg's question: is multi-threading ever going to be abstracted out, and dealt with in the language implementation? I hope so.<p>BTW, does anyone know of a startup using Haskell or Erlang? | null | null | 9,060 | 9,060 | null | [
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9,134 | comment | mattjaynes | 2007-04-05T09:08:32 | null | Hopefully the videos will be out soon. I'll add them to this feed when they are. In the meantime, here's the podcast feed:
<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/Ycombinator-StartupSchool">http://feeds.feedburner.com/Ycombinator-StartupSchool</a><p>Note that currently the 2007 talks are from my lower quality recordings, but I'll add the official ones when they come out. | null | null | 9,056 | 9,056 | null | [
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9,135 | comment | mattjaynes | 2007-04-05T09:17:15 | null | Same here. Bootstrapping and self-funded at the moment. We're hoping to be selected for YC for the same reasons you mentioned. Seriously, it would just be an amazingly fun and educational experience to associate with like-minded hackers at the top of their game. | null | null | 9,104 | 9,027 | null | null | null | null |
9,136 | comment | pashle | 2007-04-05T09:23:08 | null | From what I've read, they got their first seed capital from an angel investor and friend Julian Weber, of about $15,000. He also happened to be a lawyer, so legal counsel was very accessible, if not free. This is somewhere in Paul's essays. Google around and you'll find more. | null | null | 9,126 | 9,126 | null | [
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9,137 | comment | ido | 2007-04-05T09:25:17 | null | How about a cheaper but still decent place to keep the costs down? I don't know about Boston but SF is hideously expensive. | null | null | 9,104 | 9,027 | null | [
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9,138 | comment | JMiao | 2007-04-05T09:29:04 | null | I couldn't agree more. Merely providing a new interaction and distribution framework isn't enough to revolutionize television. I'm not convinced on 100% user-submitted content, but Joost's current reliance on the big TV networks and production bigwigs for content is -- and has proven to be -- problematic.<p>I still give Joost a lot of credit for their work, but their solution, like TiVo, YouTube, and, to a certain extent, Netflix is only an evolutionary step in the bigger picture.<p>For now. | null | null | 9,103 | 8,780 | null | null | null | null |
9,139 | comment | tinkertim | 2007-04-05T09:37:08 | null | As a 32 year old owner of 2 failed and one successful startup, I can say without hesitation that this is by far the most insightful piece I've read on the topic. It was not just an essay, for me this was a trip down memory lane. Thanks to the author for a very insightful and enjoyable piece of literature, I hope to see this selected as its been submitted to Slashdot.
| null | null | 6,668 | 6,668 | null | null | null | null |
9,140 | comment | tinkertim | 2007-04-05T09:44:50 | null | I moved from Baltimore to Manila so that I could afford to pay my medical expenses in cash. By coming here, I've amplified my purchasing power ^2 and live more comfortably paying less. The birth of my daughter with complications and a c-section was just under $5000.00 USD, in a state of the art facility that rivals Hopkins itself (Google, "The Medical City Pasig City" to see it). A pediatric appointment costs me $10, medicine even less. I know my move was a little drastic, but it opened many doors. :) | null | null | 8,676 | 8,676 | null | null | null | null |
9,141 | comment | tinkertim | 2007-04-05T09:59:49 | null | A service that crawls a given URL and reports spelling or grammar mistakes would be relatively easy. The 'lynx' and 'spell' utilities inherent in most Linux distributions would suffice for the basics.<p>I think the service would be better marketed as a last line of defense against linguistic embarrasment. If the 'service' found a typo, punctuation (that would be a little harder) or grammar error on a given URL it could simply e-mail a designated contact, show the error in context and suggestions to correct it.<p>This would be useful only in situations where ajax based "as you type" correction (or more traditional regex post-posting) is not possible, or if a site blindly imported harvested content from other sources without human checking for such errors.<p>Given the ease of which this could be developed, I say .. go for it. | null | null | 8,971 | 8,971 | null | null | null | null |
9,142 | comment | andybourassa | 2007-04-05T10:03:47 | null | I love the very last line:<p>"Spending some money on advertising might also be a good idea."
| null | null | 9,126 | 9,126 | null | [
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9,143 | comment | JohnN | 2007-04-05T10:05:00 | null | Interesting take on the investment process by a YC'er | null | null | 8,995 | 8,995 | null | null | null | null |
9,144 | comment | bootload | 2007-04-05T10:14:53 | null | <i>'... 2007 talks are from my lower quality recordings ...'</i><p>though some of the comments, additions, cues over the talks are pretty funny | null | null | 9,134 | 9,056 | null | null | null | null |
9,145 | comment | andybourassa | 2007-04-05T10:16:11 | null | As either Alexis or Aaron of reddit said "it's just a website, it's just a list of links."<p>In building our startup I haven't come across any monumental, super mathematically/computer science involved problems, but it's still been extremely challenging and fun. I'd say the challenge/fun comes more from trying to do all the things you listed at once, instead of any one of them singularly.<p>If nothing else, CSS and IE will teach you patience. | null | null | 9,128 | 9,127 | null | [
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9,146 | comment | mattculbreth | 2007-04-05T11:00:37 | null | Go hang out on <a href="http://programming.reddit.com">http://programming.reddit.com</a> and I'm sure there are a bunch. | null | null | 9,133 | 9,060 | null | null | null | null |
9,147 | comment | vlad | 2007-04-05T11:03:07 | null | I love the paragraph stating the upcoming introduction of Java into Netscape will help the server generate the stores on a user's screen. Every programmer who've seen it, including Paul, must have laughed at that line later on. "Client-side Java taking load off the server? That's silly!" I believe Paul himself has said, in one of his other articles, that some startups failed during the dot com boom simply because they tried to create their businesses using Java.<p>That is, until last year. With the JavaScript (AJAX) technology saving CPU server cycles[1] by doing a lot of logic in the web browser itself, Paul's one paragraph predicting something he expected to occur within a few months now sounds way ahead of its time. Either that, or such technology has taken 10 years too long to brew. (Coffee reference!)<p>I would also like to read the business plans of crazy dot com companies which tanked immediately. It would be great to be able to contrast the two. I'm thinking those business plans probably used a lot of made-up words to confuse the investors. Paul's document is pretty succinct.<p>[1] as well as saving bandwidth and time, of course. | null | null | 9,142 | 9,126 | null | [
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9,148 | story | vlad | 2007-04-05T11:30:06 | Extreme Dot Com Survival Videos - 5 mins each x 13 founders | null | http://www.businessplanarchive.org/video/dotcomboomerang/?clip=zoglin&media=qt&band=high | 1 | null | 9,148 | 1 | [
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9,149 | comment | vlad | 2007-04-05T11:34:04 | null | Background: Sorry for the intrepid title, but Extreme Survival Stories is the actual name of the session! There are video links on the bottom of that page. I think this guy I link to first would make a great Startup School speaker.<p>Companies: Orbitz, Vibes, NVU, SurePayroll, PeopleFlow, WrestlingGear.com, InfoRamp, Peapod, and others<p>Location: Chicago, 2004 | null | null | 9,148 | 9,148 | null | null | null | null |
9,150 | comment | dageroth | 2007-04-05T11:40:42 | null | I don't think that a central authority is necessary for money to work, at least not in form of a monopolist. Actually the current systems are rather unsatisfying because a state can loose its credibility and thus the trust in its curreny quite fast, basically as soon as war looms on the horizon or it becomes apparent that it will default on its debt. In the last 25 years over 87 currencies crashed.
And because of the monopoly of the state on money the whole economy is usually going down along. For my part I would therefore abandon the monetary monopoly of the state and allow competition, allow companies to issue money. When they connect their name to the currency and have no legal power to make their money legal tender they will have a much stronger incentive to provide a good and stable money. Hayek wrote a fascinating treatise on the denationalisation of money, and with the ongoing globalisation sooner or later we will get used to juggle with more than one currency in our pockets. Second Life seems to be a step in the direction that companies start to issue private currencies and when states, especially in the developing countries, will fail to keep their currency stable chances are that they will be replaced by private currencies. <p>Equally interesting and probably easier to believe are gold backed currencies with competing private institutes issuing goldbacked money.<p>Still, its great to see people thinking about money in another way than just how to get it.
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9,151 | comment | vlad | 2007-04-05T11:41:56 | null | +1 on being able to specify a folder inside the dropbox as a "server" folder, which means it has it's own ftp address, user, and password settings. Anything dragged there is automatically synched with that account. I thought of this as well as soon as I read that post about Linux support, as this would work with shared hosting without expecting hosts to install dropbox on their linux boxes. And the data would be backed up as well automatically in a third place (the drop box.) And, you'd have access to retrieve an older version of a file. This basically replaces the need for FTP clients if you also add a way to chmod the folders inside the "server" folder. Sam is 100% right. | null | null | 9,081 | 8,863 | null | null | null | null |
9,152 | comment | jkush | 2007-04-05T11:47:39 | null | Heh. That's actually quite funny. | null | null | 9,076 | 8,963 | null | null | null | null |
9,153 | comment | vlad | 2007-04-05T11:48:41 | null | What about this on the download page (also good for a press release.)<p>Drop Box: Automatically safeguards even your biggest worries, so you don't have any!<p>What is a Drop Box?<p>Your Drop Box is a File Cabinet that Follows You Around Everywhere You Want to Go, Across Your Computers, or Across The Country.<p>Download and start using it today. (link goes here.)<p>Your Drop Box includes your own Secretary who Files and Photocopies Every Document You Make or Edit, So You Can See What Each Document Looked Like Yesterday, Two Days Ago, or at Any Point In Time. Did I Mention the Secretary and the File Cabinet are Fire-Proof and Wireless?<p>But, it's all digital. And, it's secure. And it's built to work between as many Windows desktops or laptop computer you use at NO EXTRA COST! See for yourself! (another link to the download.)<p>Or, access your files at work from a web-based interface! It's so flexible!<p>Q: Do I have to change how I work?<p>A: Absolutely not. Any file and folder (Word documents, spreadsheets, family photos, etc) you add to your Drop Box folder is automatically synchronized and saved remotely.<p>Q: What is the Drop Box folder?<p>A: It's just a special folder which will appear on your computer. Anything added to it is automatically saved, synchronized, and "dated" so you can go back in time!<p>Try it now! (another download link) It's safe, it's free, and you can use it on as many computers to share, backup, and keep archived file versions on, as you need to, by registering for just one account! | null | null | 8,952 | 8,863 | null | [
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9,154 | comment | wensing | 2007-04-05T12:12:12 | null | I really enjoyed reading this, especially given the fact that one of my lingering ideas has to do with catalog generation (but performed much more dynamically than Viaweb).
| null | null | 9,126 | 9,126 | null | null | null | null |
9,155 | comment | drop19 | 2007-04-05T12:15:59 | null | Work like hell on the idea and see if people want what I'm making. Re-apply in the fall if I still need the help.
| null | null | 9,027 | 9,027 | null | null | null | null |
9,156 | comment | mattculbreth | 2007-04-05T12:25:13 | null | If you do this aren't you missing out on all of the discussions about those stories? That's mostly the point here and at Reddit.
| null | null | 9,102 | 9,102 | null | null | null | null |
9,157 | comment | marcinc | 2007-04-05T12:33:05 | null | Or alternatively you spend 8 years in the military, 4 years in a big national Telco and then you're 33, with a family, and even PG saying you shouldn't start a startup. | null | null | 6,863 | 6,668 | null | null | null | null |
9,158 | comment | joshwa | 2007-04-05T12:54:22 | null | my bookmark is labeled "YCN" | null | null | 9,093 | 9,093 | null | null | null | null |
9,159 | comment | brlewis | 2007-04-05T12:55:41 | null | I have about 5 different backup plans. Problem is I need advice as to which one(s) to pursue. That's actually the biggest reason I applied. I would ask here and hope somebody good is in the mood to give free advice. | null | null | 9,027 | 9,027 | null | null | null | null |
9,160 | comment | brlewis | 2007-04-05T13:00:31 | null | This may be the first written business plan, but the first idea according to Founders at Work was to let art galleries get on the web. | null | null | 9,126 | 9,126 | null | [
9261
] | null | null |
9,161 | story | divia | 2007-04-05T13:03:26 | How to Get the Attention of a Venture Capitalist | null | http://blog.guykawasaki.com/ | 10 | null | 9,161 | 2 | [
9451,
9571
] | null | null |
9,162 | comment | markovich | 2007-04-05T13:03:31 | null | This the type of thing that is doomed to fail. And it _should_ fail, because filtering peoples thoughts through a machine will lead to everyone speaking the same online, when in real life people do not speak that way!<p>Blogs are real people with no editors. If you want correct grammar, and fact checked posts, read a newspaper.
| null | null | 8,971 | 8,971 | null | null | null | null |
9,163 | comment | brlewis | 2007-04-05T13:04:04 | null | Yes, you absolutely must expect someone in the startup to spend a lot of time on UI design. If HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) is not an area of interest to you, your role in the success of the product will probably be secondary. | null | null | 9,128 | 9,127 | null | [
9632
] | null | null |
9,164 | comment | brlewis | 2007-04-05T13:09:49 | null | That could actually be done. The title of the self-referential post could be put through some Bayes analysis to list likely recent duplicates. Those could be presented to the creator of the self-ref post giving a chance to delete right away.
| null | null | 9,090 | 9,049 | null | null | null | null |
9,165 | story | mattculbreth | 2007-04-05T13:13:03 | Internet startups [Tappity in this case] not costly to start | null | http://www.baltimoresun.com/technology/bal-bz.lowcost05apr05,0,1380998.story?coll=bal-technology-headlines | 2 | null | 9,165 | 0 | null | null | null |
9,166 | story | dawie | 2007-04-05T13:44:05 | I am addicted to YC News | null | 16 | null | 9,166 | 26 | [
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] | null | null |
|
9,167 | comment | BrandonM | 2007-04-05T13:51:10 | null | This reminds me of Paul Graham's comment about Powerpoint,<p>"the stated purpose of Powerpoint is to present ideas. Its real role is to overcome people's fear of public speaking. It allows you to give an impressive-looking talk about nothing, and it causes the audience to sit in a dark room looking at slides, instead of a bright one looking at you."<p>(from <a href="http://paulgraham.com/hiring.html)">http://paulgraham.com/hiring.html)</a><p>I for one would be happy to see it go by the wayside. In most cases, it makes for boring, formulaic presentations. When used properly, it can serve a good purpose, but most people use it for the purposes that pg stated. I preferred the time where people would instead focus on the speech itself, memorizing much of it. That made talks seem much more dynamic and interesting, in my opinion. | null | null | 9,118 | 9,118 | null | null | null | null |
9,168 | comment | dawie | 2007-04-05T13:58:03 | null | Maybe it will get me into trouble at work. If it does, I will just start a starup. Wait, I am starting a startup in any case | null | null | 9,166 | 9,166 | null | [
9169
] | null | null |
9,169 | comment | Alex3917 | 2007-04-05T14:01:59 | null | What about the site makes it most addictive for you? | null | null | 9,168 | 9,166 | null | [
9175,
9174,
9182
] | null | null |
9,170 | comment | BrandonM | 2007-04-05T14:02:03 | null | I would have to imagine that the interesting hacking comes into effect when, instead of writing the interface by hand, you abstract the interface into code that makes interfaces trivial.<p>In the words of Jeannette Wing, the two A's of "computational thinking" are "abstraction" and "automation"<p>(from <a href="http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/usr/wing/www/ct-short.pdf)">http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/usr/wing/www/ct-short.pdf)</a><p>In other words, interesting hacking occurs when you realize that a certain task can be automated (e.g. writing UIs or administering servers), you create a useful abstraction for it, and then you write the code that performs the task largely automatically.<p>This is why pg champions Lisp as a great language for startups: Lisp is perfect for building other languages because of its powerful macro facilities, among other things.<p>I guess what I'm saying is that "startup hacking" is as interesting as you make it. Sure, you can toil away writing similar code over and over again to create various facets of the UI, but the more interesting thing to do is to write the program that writes that code for you. | null | null | 9,128 | 9,127 | null | null | null | null |
9,171 | story | mattculbreth | 2007-04-05T14:02:05 | Why Not All Great Hackepreneurs Get Picked By YC (he offers a Plan B) | null | http://onstartups.com/home/tabid/3339/bid/1350/Why-Not-All-Great-Hackepreneurs-Get-Picked-By-Y-Combinator.aspx | 28 | null | 9,171 | 38 | [
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9281,
9569,
9202,
9350
] | null | null |
9,172 | story | BrandonM | 2007-04-05T14:04:40 | Can a language have Lisp's powerful macros without the parentheses? | null | 6 | null | 9,172 | 20 | [
9236,
9180,
9177,
9304,
9420,
9317
] | null | null |
|
9,173 | comment | mattculbreth | 2007-04-05T14:06:05 | null | Check out this thread <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=9171">http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=9171</a> for another idea of a backup plan. | null | null | 9,027 | 9,027 | null | null | null | null |
9,174 | comment | wensing | 2007-04-05T14:07:20 | null | The relevance of the content--its startup-centricity. | null | null | 9,169 | 9,166 | null | null | null | null |
9,175 | comment | dawie | 2007-04-05T14:07:56 | null | I think its because its so dynamic. I am always on here seeing whats new or what changed. It also helps that I am really interested in the content on the site | null | null | 9,169 | 9,166 | null | null | null | null |
9,176 | comment | Mistone | 2007-04-05T14:10:50 | null | i have to agree, I find my self checking in many times throughout the day. I never really got into Digg or Reddit because there was so much irrelevancy to the submissions and with so many users it never felt like your posts got much face time with readers. YCom News is focused, comments are honest and not to long, and you get the feeling that the people on the other end are smart and doing really cool things. | null | null | 9,166 | 9,166 | null | null | null | null |
9,177 | comment | BrandonM | 2007-04-05T14:11:37 | null | In a few of Paul Graham's essays and in some of my own experiences, I have found that Lisp is a very powerful language for hard programming problems, largely due to its powerful macro facilities. These macros give the programmer the power to create entirely new, domain-specific languages without too much difficulty.<p>I am currently a Master's student and I hope to eventually be a founder, and my question is the title of this submission. I can understand why some people would shy away from Lisp, but I also see how many upcoming programmers appreciate the power of Python and Ruby. I believe, then, that the next big language will be one that combines the macros of Lisp with the ease of use of Python. I think that such a language would be perfect for startups.<p>I am a glutton for punishment, so my graduate interests lie in programming languages. Here at Ohio State University, there is a language called RESOLVE that a lot of students don't like too much (it's built on top of C++ and is much too wordy), but it does have some interesting concepts built-in that I would like to put in a language of my own. In creating a new language, one of the things that would be first and foremost in my mind would be to ensure it had powerful macro capabilities, so I am interesting to hear your feedback on the viability of a language with powerful macros but fewer parentheses. | null | null | 9,172 | 9,172 | null | [
9422
] | null | null |
9,178 | comment | mattculbreth | 2007-04-05T14:13:02 | null | The absence of spam and drastically off topic material is a huge plus for the site. We've pretty much stayed on topic, and I think Paul has said they have human moderators whacking bad submissions or comments. The voting helps with that also of course. | null | null | 9,166 | 9,166 | null | [
9293
] | null | null |
9,179 | story | jslogan | 2007-04-05T14:14:47 | Here are eight reasons your prospect can believe in you and your business | null | http://www.jslogan.com/content/view/138/106/ | 4 | null | 9,179 | 0 | null | null | null |
9,180 | comment | inklesspen | 2007-04-05T14:29:00 | null | Yes, it can.<p><a href="http://www.livelogix.net/logix/intro.html">http://www.livelogix.net/logix/intro.html</a><p>Logix is built on Python and compiles down to Python bytecode, so you can use it with Python modules, but it has macros that I think are probably as powerful as Lisp's. It's meant for DSLs. | null | null | 9,172 | 9,172 | null | [
9267,
9201,
9185
] | null | null |
9,181 | comment | BrandonM | 2007-04-05T14:29:31 | null | At least where I go to grad school (Ohio State University), grad school does not cost anything. You either win a Fellowship, you teach a class, you help a professor with his research, or you do grunt work like grading papers and labs. In any case, tuition, fees, and 80% of health insurance is covered, in addition to a $1600-1850 per month stipend. That works out to a respectable $20k/yr.<p>If you do not get a Fellowship, you are expected to perform 20 hours worth of work per week (which you actually receive credit for), in addition to your time spent on classes and on your own independent research.<p>In other words, grad school is more like a low-paying job than a cost. You could make the case that you could be working a higher-paying job in that time, but then you are missing out on the flexibility of being a Ph.D., which allows the possibility of being a professor or getting hired for a pretty high income. Additionally, you have the opportunity to leave your mark on the field with your research.<p>Even more interesting is that Ph.D. work could lead you to your startup idea, as you unveil a new use of existing technology or a new approach altogether which leads to a money-making possibility. Furthermore, if you are exceptionally driven, you may be able to get some work done on your startup idea while attending grad school, because at least so far, I have found grad school to be significantly easier than my undergrad was, because I am taking less "real" classes. | null | null | 7,908 | 6,668 | null | null | null | null |
9,182 | comment | gibsonf1 | 2007-04-05T14:29:39 | null | The site has great <i>value</i> for the entrepreneur with both the content and the people posting - a winning combination. (I also admit to checking multiple times a day - usually between hard coding or architecture problems) | null | null | 9,169 | 9,166 | null | null | null | null |
9,183 | comment | startupguy | 2007-04-05T14:29:57 | null | The content has the highest signal to noise ratio of any other social content site out there. This is likely because the audience is more focused. | null | null | 9,166 | 9,166 | null | [
9307,
9357
] | null | null |
9,184 | comment | floozyspeak | 2007-04-05T14:30:25 | null | i have to agree as well, which is why i thought it was kinda like the new digg, course i dont really read digg any more. <p>what i find in yc news: inspiration, fresh, new, professional development, stuff to think about, its almost a good excuse for browsing vs say drudgereport, <p>i see alot more 2.0 newness mentions as well, i usually go to emilys hub for that<p>it feels more fresh, and i feel like it matters more than random dude check this out digg like stuff
| null | null | 9,166 | 9,166 | null | null | null | null |
9,185 | comment | mattculbreth | 2007-04-05T14:31:20 | null | Thanks for posting that. We're building a DSL for our users and this will get put on the stack of things to look into. We're Python hackers so it's a good find.
| null | null | 9,180 | 9,172 | null | null | null | null |
9,186 | comment | wensing | 2007-04-05T14:33:10 | null | I used to check YC News every time I exported a new .swf with the Flash IDE (because it's so horrendously slow and sometimes even crashes the IDE--I figured I'd make use of those 10-20 seconds [which unfortunately often turned into 5-10 minutes of web browsing--AAAA!]). <p>Now that I've removed that step from my workflow, I check much less often. :-) | null | null | 9,166 | 9,166 | null | null | null | null |
9,187 | comment | awt | 2007-04-05T14:34:58 | null | You really shouldn't do the parts you don't find interesting. Pay someone else to do those parts. I like internet startups -- imagine what it must have been like to own one of the first printing presses... that's what I feel like when I'm working on a website. Imagine you're writing a novel, except that you know what page every single one of your readers is looking at, and you can talk to them about the page. | null | null | 9,127 | 9,127 | null | null | null | null |
9,188 | story | ClintonKarr | 2007-04-05T14:35:27 | Do You Exist? A Frank Discussion of Web 2.0 | null | http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=286924&source=rss_topic10 | 1 | null | 9,188 | 0 | null | null | null |
9,189 | comment | supahfly_remix | 2007-04-05T14:36:56 | null | For one of my MSEE classes at Stanford, I took a business for engineers class taught by a local successful and retired software entrepreneur. I forgot his name. He was paralyzed in one arm b/c of a plane crash when piloting one of his own planes if that rings any bells to anyone. (Guess he was a better businessman than pilot! :) )<p>Anyway, he would always give case examples from his own experience, and his eyes would light up, making it obvious that this was happiest time in his life. His teaching this class was his attempt to relive his glory days. He never had a family (and was actually ousted from the company so had nothing there), and in a strange way, I think this class was his attempt to have one.<p>I don't know much about pg, but his viagen references remind me a little bit of this guy. We're all trying to have a legacy of some sort. I believe, though, that of the possible investments one can make with one's time, family is the best and longest lasting one. Keep that in mind, young-uns!<p><p>
| null | null | 9,126 | 9,126 | null | null | null | null |
9,190 | comment | brlewis | 2007-04-05T14:37:58 | null | Summary: If you don't get to be a YC founder this time, come work for his startup on his ideas. Same location, same time period, same money, very different role IMO.<p> | null | null | 9,171 | 9,171 | null | [
9200,
9191
] | null | null |
9,191 | comment | mattculbreth | 2007-04-05T14:39:03 | null | Yeah, that sounds about like it. Not hugely appealing to me but I've enjoyed his blogs posts and maybe it would work for some folks here.
| null | null | 9,190 | 9,171 | null | [
9207
] | null | null |
9,192 | story | jamiequint | 2007-04-05T14:42:48 | YC Summer 2007 Applicants - What did you apply with? | null | 1 | null | 9,192 | 2 | [
9194,
9534
] | null | null |
|
9,193 | story | sharpshoot | 2007-04-05T14:43:24 | Sexiest company names | null | 1 | null | 9,193 | 5 | [
9249,
9196,
9212,
9278
] | null | null |
|
9,194 | comment | jamiequint | 2007-04-05T14:43:24 | null | What's your company name and what are you doing? | null | null | 9,192 | 9,192 | null | null | null | null |
9,195 | comment | dawie | 2007-04-05T14:44:12 | null | I think that vertical news is the way forward, because its focused | null | null | 9,166 | 9,166 | null | null | null | null |
9,196 | comment | sharpshoot | 2007-04-05T14:44:29 | null | Naming a company is hard - so what are the best names you've ever heard? 37signals is pretty groovy | null | null | 9,193 | 9,193 | null | null | null | null |
9,197 | comment | Elfan | 2007-04-05T14:48:10 | null | They have also challenged popular teaching methods, suggesting that teachers should focus more on giving students the answers, instead of asking them to solve problems on their own.<p>I don't understand how this connects to the rest of the study. | null | null | 9,118 | 9,118 | null | [
9211
] | null | null |
9,198 | story | sharpshoot | 2007-04-05T14:49:10 | Worst company names | null | null | 3 | null | 9,198 | 9 | [
9328,
9274,
9288,
9363,
9258,
9199,
9289,
9232
] | null | null |
9,199 | comment | sharpshoot | 2007-04-05T14:49:35 | null | Brain Bakery | null | null | 9,198 | 9,198 | null | null | null | null |
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