skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
First of all, don't drop out of school.

In two years, find another start up and try to negotiate as much equity as you can. You must remember that you are taking a great risk that the company may rapidly implode and a sub-market salary alone is truly not adequate compensation for that risk.

Perhaps in the interim, you could try to start your own business in your spare time.
moo.fx is quite lightweight. You might wanna give that a try.
My guess is they will go the way of Kiko, I still think Kiko's product was better than Google Calender ...
There's very little parental support on this ;) My parents are the "get a degree, work for the rest of your life" type. If it were up to them, I'd live 5 minutes away from home for the rest of their lives.

School isn't very exciting, honestly. Most of the stuff they teach you early on is useful, but after that, they just drill down into very specific applications of certain things, in regards to programming and business. That stuff isn't too relevant to what I'd want to do, I'm finding, and it makes the coursework much less engaging and interesting.
I'm confident they're just fine. For one thing it's a bad sign for Google that they're resorting to announcing vaporware. They didn't need to pre-announce Google Calendars because they knew it was going to kick ass once it hit the market. Strategically coming out with this early means they want to scare people out of the space and they want to put Microsoft on notice. It does not necessarily indicate a killer product.
juwo beta is released (at last!). Please use it and help improve it!
You all gave me valuable advice here when I asked for help.
http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=1890

I followed it! Please help juwo improve.

Thank you! I am grateful to you guys, news.YC and PG for this forum.
By they way, I'm sure everyone would appreciate it if those that got accounts would post up their invites when they get them. :)
It is released. Please see

http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=14254
Google invests $1 million in Israeli-Chinese firm
sorry, not shouting, simply excited (and frustrated, if I may add).

It is released. Please see

http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=14254
If you won't, who will?!
To be brutally honest: color scheme + horizontal scrolling + too much text + general design = I ran off before learning too much about what Juwo does.

Please redesign!

Also try to condense what Juwo is trying to do into a short paragraph. So far, all I can gather by a quick 10 sec browse is that it has something to do with recording/playing back audio, table of contents for audio etc. Leave the demos, instructions, examples for other pages. Give me the story in nice big font and tell it to me like "I'm a 4 yr old." Hope that helps :)

I'll try to look around a bit more once I'm out of work.
I agree with veritas. Try to tell us in a few sentences what juwo is all about.
One big issue is that the demo I downloaded had some audio pre installed with it. Just a thought, but using audio from a speech given by a man with cerebral palsey is not the best choice for a demo. It was very unclear and hard to see what it was that your software was accomplishing.
Cloudy skies. Slight chance of a rain shower. Low 44F. Winds NE at 10 to 15 mph. Never a better time to start a startup.
Do not make the mistake of confusing school with classes. (Or the education with the degree, another common mistake.)

You have more free time now than you probably ever will again. You have incredible resources all around you -- libraries, books, computers, professors, other students. The cost of living is low, and you can easily get student loans and grants to cover it, and you have few to no other financial commitments. As soon as you leave the school bubble, all of that changes.

Classes are just the excuse to be there, and if you play your cards right they won't take up more than a quarter of your time.
They don't need to change it to do stuff that Google Presently can't...I've seen both, and Zenter kicks Google's ass. They're not even playing in the same ball park. To be blunt, Google's entry looks like it was built by people who hate presentation software. I don't blame them for hating presentation software, as I hate it, too...but if you're building it, you kind of have to empathize with your users and their needs and desires.

I suspect Google is trying to do the same thing they did with GMail, which was to rethink what people wanted in email and then get to the root of why they wanted it rather than slavishly giving users what they asked for (for example, folders and filters and crap being replaced by search that's fast and works) and the traditional view being replaced by a threaded view...in both cases, it simplified the interface by removing the elements that were there for the convenience of the developer rather than the user. In the case of presentations, sure PowerPoint is bloated and stupid, but people still want their presentations to look good.

Now, of course, it's possible that Zenter will get side-tracked by some of the incredibly clever bits (and there are some scarily clever bits in there) and forget to launch before five other worthy competitors enter the field. But if they get out there first (Zoho Show doesn't count...it blows), they'll do great.
Thanks for being the first public to drive it!.
Try the BBC demo. it is video - or pretty American Idol Katharine McPhee.
If I could only have one business book on my shelf, this is the one
Really, though: how is this number five?
http://juwo.com/company.html

"Juwo LLC was founded by Anil Philip in December 2004, and is based in Olathe, Kansas.

We are"

... 'we' ?

Also, the religious stuff probably belongs elsewhere, on your own home page, for instance.
thx falseprophet - the article as kind of tongue and cheek and if it were the only thing I had read (of my columns) I would have probably had the same response as you!
I never saw any comments on this post:

http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=6906

I think the linked Forthcoming post is intriguing...
Thanks for being the first public to drive it!.

I read that people dont want to click, but scrolling is ok - I thought that was the lecture at startup school? (I saw a breief note on it here on this site)

the condensation is at the diagrams on the right.
I love how the website claims "We plan on digging deeper than most web2 review sites and finding out what is really going on behind the scenes" when they can't even get simple facts that are right on ycombinator.com correct. It sounds like they need to dig a little deeper.
I am embarrassed to admit it's just me.
It seems like "No single-founders allowed".

So the 'we' is wife (advisor)...

(Actually, I had an informal advisory group which I dissolved. The 'we' comes from there. As you fellow entrepreneurs will learn, advice is of little use - you want someone to help with the work to be done).
perhaps I should rearrange the demos. Is the BBC the most impressive? or American Idol?
Oh, I found it. I had to go to http://juwo.com, then click "Company", then click a very confusing "Home" link. I thought that "Home" was already where I was.

Suggestion: please make the front page of http://juwo.com the actual product, and put the "about the company" stuff on some page linked to from there.
Think of ebay using it's $40m as a permanent ad placement for it's own products and services. It's not that far off in that context.

Plus if it actually becomes a real company and has value, then it's a big deal.

$40m isn't too much money for a decent bet. $4 billion (a la Skype - uh, yeah)
For the BBC demo page, how about isolating the clip you want to show, perhaps surrounded by whitespace, but with a juwo page header? (i.e., make it clear this page still belongs in the juwo site, and you've just sampled a small part of the BBC page)

People with ADD like me will start reading the news ticker or some of the other stories (seriously, I had to back up twice to figure out what I supposed to click on!).

Also, for people not running XP and using Java plugins in their browser (I'm one of them!) can you prepare a version that will still convey what the demo does?
Java kills the creative process. Thats one of the reasons we went with PHP for things closer to the front end. We do use Java for things that are in the background that wont change from day to day. Image processing etc..

Dont underestimate the time from idea to a rapid prototype. For a programmer, at least me, its very rewarding when that is kept short.
I read that people dont want to click, but scrolling is ok

I wasn't at the most recent Startup School, but in general, people don't mind scrolling down; scrolling horizontally is a headache.
To expand on this...an angel or series A round is not the end of your business, it's just the beginning. Cash can't tell you what to spend it on. You're going to need more people...possibly a CEO, probably a CFO within a year, a good accounting firm, sales people if you're in B2B, a PR firm, big customers willing to try your buggy beta software, etc. Knowing who to call on is part of what smart money can bring to the table. (You're on your own for legal...you can't share a lawyer with your money people, if you want to be able to trust things to shake out nicely. Like good fences make good neighbors, the same is true of good lawyers between money and businesses.)
They have a healthy respect for Google, but they're not terrified of them.

Remember, Google is best at making what its own hackers use. That's why Gmail turned out good and Google Video turned out bad. Hackers use calendars, but they don't like to give slide presentations.
Based on a comment in another YC news post, I thought juwo was a tool for automatically transcribing audio to text (is that correct?).

If so, then why not just say that; the demos can be simplified to be the raw audio/video clip with the text, as transcribed by juwo next to/underneath the clips.
Zenter guys, release NOW! Release ASAP! Let the app be out there and let the people use it. Google's app launch is still some time away so you guys have a perfect chance to make their app seem outdated and old and ersatz.
You don't have to be near us. You can stay anywhere near a Caltrain stop, because it stops within walking distance of YC.
I was a teenager during the dot-com boom. I started calling it a bubble around 1997, which in hindsight was a little early, but was pretty close to when rationality started to depart. By the time it got to 1999/2000, there was absolutely no doubt in my mind that it was a bubble, and most of the people I hung around with did too. (A few of them bought tech stocks anyway because they have poor impulse control, but even they said it was a bubble.)

The journalists who were saying "slam dunk" in 1999 were idiots. It's like Bush saying that "nobody could've foreseen the insurgency when we invaded": plenty of people did see it, it's just that he didn't. So it was with the dot-com bust: plenty of people did see it coming, but they got out of the market and didn't scream very hard when it actually did happen. Smart people a.) don't fall for bubbles and b.) don't crow about how smart they were afterwards.

The four words you have to watch out for: "This time it's different." When you see them, you can be fairly certain that you're in a bubble. It's not that things aren't different, it's that the differences are always too subtle for a journalist (or really anyone not an expert in the particular field) to pick out. So when someone says that this time it's different, they've usually fallen for hype, and that's when you need to watch out.
don't know about where you are, but the weather is unusually nice outside today.
I agree. The whole point of the "Two Judgments" essay was probably PG's way of soothing any hurt feelings among those YC rejected.
Seems pretty silly. Why wouldn't people just pop open their web browser and use Google?
Not here. Cloudy, windy, and rainy. Stupid Nor'easter.
It's not important, IMHO.

It could be single founder + employees (but unlikely given the site design) or just him.

But he could always say he's using the royal we.
Do you mean, show the media player in the browser?

Or should I draw the link for the demo in large font?

Actually, juwo is great for people with ADD. you can sit in a class and record lectures - and then review only the important parts.

I have some kind of ADD myself - and use juwo in important meetings.
I tried the first demo and got this:

An error occurred while launching/running the application.

Title: Nodepad
Vendor: juwo LLC
Category: Unexpected Error

Unexpected exception: java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException
eBay To Buy StumbleUpon, The Better AdSense The Better Digg
Remarkable discovery: companies aim to make money.

This is at least a nice change from articles complaining that "Web 2.0" companies don't care enough about making money.
"You have more free time now than you probably ever will again."

I haven't found that to be the case. I have much more time available to work on my own projects than I did in college. Perhaps not in absolute terms, but in terms of usable get-code-out-there blocks.

In college, I found that homework always got Parkinson's-Lawed so it took up all my available time. Either I was actively doing homework, or I was procrastinating on homework and couldn't justify working on other productive projects instead. Plus, available time in college tends to get broken up into 1-2 hour blocks between classes, after activities, before dinner, while waiting for friends to go out to a party, etc.

Now that I'm working, I have significantly less actual free time, but everything I have is mine. There's no work to take home, nothing hanging over my head when I'm not at work. And it's generally in large chunks, too. It does kinda suck not having a social life, but it does leave decent-sized blocks available for a startup.
Your web pages do not render correctly in firefox:

http://abstractnonsense.com/juwo.png
Too many words! This is my most common criticism for evaluating an interface. If you need so many words on the home page to describe how to do something or what it is, then it's not easy enough. Remember you only have about 20 seconds of somebody's attention before they decide to click away. I got lost pretty quick (and I'm actually pretty smart).

The crap about Jesus on the about page turned me off, too. You're welcome to your religious beliefs, but keep them on your blog or someplace more appropriate.
no, that's not correct. It does not transcribe automatically. however the labels can have functionality attached. for example, to run the speech recognizer you have installed on your computer, on a voice note.
Basically, lose everything from the BBC page except the href to the clip you want to show and put it inside a "juwo" page, consistent with everything else on your site.

For a while there, I thought I was at bbcnews.com and I started reading all these extraneous links and photos.
5% seems high for an employee, even the first. Usually the entire options pool is only about 20%, so if you give 5% for employee #1, there isn't much left over for anyone else.

I'd read that about 1.5% is typical for employee #1, and it decreases exponentially from there. I was offered 0.1% at the first startup I worked at (high school grad, there only for a year, employee #13) and 0.01% at one startup I interviewed at after college (college degree, good credentials, employee #22).

I ended up taking a job at a startup with no equity but a much larger salary - as in, $15K larger. I'd recommend this route. $15K is yCombinator funding in a year, any given startup is likely to fail anyways (my employer might actually succeed, but it's the slow-growing type), and if you don't have equity you're less likely to feel responsible for the success of the company, which means you have no compunction against leaving work at work and using your home time to work on your own startup.
I haven't downloaded it because the site doesn't inspire confidence that this is anything I want to install on my machine. Some suggestions:

1. Messaging.

I am confused about what Juwo really is as well. It seems to be a way to tag audio or video by time? There is way too much text on the page. I know Juwo probably has a ton of features, but you need to nail down your core message and drill it in (and design your product around it). Can you describe what Juwo is in 5 words or less? Now what about 2 words? Anything longer than that and you've exceeded my attention span.

2. Design

Horizontal scrolling plus web design circa 1995 plus religious proselytizing doesn't inspire confidence that this is something I want to use and would enjoy using. I strongly recommend looking at other websites featuring downloadable apps such as Skype.com or Trillian, etc to see how they are approaching this. This is compounded by the lack of a clear message as to what your product is.

From what I understood of the core idea, it seems useful, but I can't see myself downloading a standalone app for this functionality. Btw, Have you checked out http://www.veotag.com? Seems like a competitor.
I assume you ran it on Windows?
The download JDIC libraries are for Windows.
If anyone is good with javascript, we can port it to run on other platforms.
Try adding a wife and some kids and report back!
Even if users are not uploading movie clips, they are still providing content by adding comments and ratings and social network nodes (for whatever purpose). So I think the study doesn't really understand Web 2.0).
Which Is Best: More Customers Visiting Once or Fewer Customers Visiting More Often?
Lack of a social life takes care of that one. ;-)
Linux (ubuntu). I clicked on the first demo when I saw it, without reading the rest of the front page (which was pretty overwhelming). I didn't see anywhere that would suggest this was a Windows thing until later.
Can't you switch school/subjects/whatever? I thought it could get more interesting later on, as you could get involved in research.
my typical experience that Perl didn't work as expected right away. That's just because it is so much more messy. I didn't say that Perl doesn't work, it is just harder to use.
It goes much further than veotag IMHO. I have a comparison matrix with with competitors, including veotag.
I really apologize. I am not a Windows guy myself. (Read my rant on how Java harmed Unix and helped windows win).

It is my major priority to get it working on Linux and Mac.
the point is that a visitor to the BBC page would click on the video link, and a juwo of the video would pop up.
StumbleUpon.com Traffic Data - Is eBay Paying Too Much
I think the difference is that I can understand what Veotag is in about 2 seconds, and I am still trying to figure you what Juwo is after really reading about it and thinking about it, and I did that only because I was asked to check it out.

More features does not a better product make. More importantly, you can have 100x times Veotag's features, but it won't matter unless you can make people understand, instantly what your product is.

Now I imagine I'm a random stranger on the internet stumbling across your site. You really have less than 5 seconds of time before I click off back to YouTube or something. I just don't have that much attention.
If you're going to have a car, there are a whole bunch of independent motels on El Camino Real in Palo Alto and Mountain View. Many of these aren't advertised on sites like Expedia, so just use Google Maps to find them, and then contact them directly for rates. Some of 'em look kinda sketchy, but they're all safe, lots of nearby food, and probably clean enough. ;-) Hit me up directly if you want a local's opinion on a particular Mountain View motel. (At least how it looks from the outside.)

Also, you can get great deals on Priceline for excellent hotels near San Francisco Airport. I've gotten rooms a couple times for under $40 per night for 3 or 4 star properties. (The 3 star ones may be better because they won't gouge you on parking and Internet.) Check out www.biddingfortravel.com to see what kind of rates people are getting. Most airport hotels have transportation shuttles, so you can stay near the airport and take Caltrain to your interview. But, shuttle-BART-Caltrain is a bit of a schlep.

Congrats and good luck! Are the interviews this weekend or next?
that's weird - it is straight html, done in dreamweaver 8.

thank you for taking the trouble to get the screenshot. I shall run it from firefox on Linux
I guess that explains the numerous YC-bashing blog posts I've been reading recently...

Maybe this guy was also looking for financing? :)
I read that people dont want to click, but scrolling is ok - I thought that was the lecture at startup school? (I saw a breief note on it here on this site)

the condensation is at the diagrams on the right.

Should I move the diagrams left?

I am stubborn about Jesus; even though I have lost a lot of good opportunities because of it.
You think? As someone potentially in the same situation as he is, I would feel uneasy about writing something that's not the truth.
Hackers don't really need word processing for their day to day jobs, but Writely's a killer. Also, geeks don't read ads, but it's Google's bread and butter. I would chalk Google's success up more to great execution (or buying great execution) than anything else, whether it appears their engineers need the product or not. The main places Google has failed have been sites where the network effect is crucial; they don't do so well with community sites. If Zenter's got some of that secret sauce, then, I'm guessing they'll be fine. Otherwise, :(
Related:

When something is built for a well-defined purpose it's much easier to judge how timeless its solutions are.

http://rodfrey.wordpress.com/2007/04/18/the-craftsmanship-of-code

Appreciating beauty in a specific medium requires knowing the 'language', the conventions of that medium.

http://www.tinkerx.com/index.php/2007/04/15/the-box-part-2-the-frame
Go in with leverage and be ready to walk. By telling the employer you're unhappy with the compensation, you force their hand.

If they choose or are unable to increase your salary or equity, they will (correctly) assume you are not satisfied and likely will not meet your full potential. While there may be no immediate consequences, this will have long term effects on your relationship with the company.

That said, fortune favors the bold! The thread has some fine advice, good luck.
'... Microsoft is shooting at you, and it's just cover fire so that they can move forward and you can't, because this is how the game is played ...' [0]

Why are readers worried about articles like this? More to the point why are you reading them at all? They lack irony, humour and certainly lack a coherent message. Here's mine. You don't read this site & pg's articles just to get funded do you? If you do your missing the point. You are going for the egg instead of the goose. [1] [2]

Don't play the game, move forward.

Reference

[0] Joel On Software, 'Fire And Motion'

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000339.html

[1] Khosla, Vinod, '... Khosla met staffer Andreas Bechtolsheim, a workstation designer and research scientist at the Stanford University network. Bechtolsheim had built a computer workstation and had begun licensing his creation to companies for $10,000. Khosla talked his new colleague into ceasing the licensing game in favor of manufacturing the workstations themselves. "I want the goose that laid the golden egg, and I don't want the golden egg," ...'

http://tinyurl.com/37hve4

[2] If you still don't get it, "It's the information", not the lottery of yc. Reading through pg's articles a clearer path is created in which you can avoid the ugly trolls and other unexpected obstacles, in the maze of twisty little passages creating startups.
I forgot you are a geek! :)
YC News seems like a good place to start. ;-) Anyone here at Stanford? If so, hit me up (my email is in my profile).
I also highly recommend using Priceline for hotels. Especially in the bay area. We pay 28-45 dollars/night and often end up in 3.5-4 star hotels.