skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
An interesting analysis-

His basic premise is that in order to reach people, you need to do you homework and deal with the decision makers in a way that encourages them to action.

Of his two scenarios, the first is more interesting- Recognizing that people in large companies are often looking out for their own interest more directly than that of the company at-large, he positions the letter to them as a take it or leave it solution, reminding them that he's sent it to their colleagues as well.

This is reminiscent of a point Seth Godin makes, which is that it's harder for someone to do nothing, than to say no.

The author of this letter tries to put the executives in a position where they are Making a Decision not to meet. They are choosing to pass up the offer, not just declining to do it now.

That's a powerful position to take, particularly when you're trying to get a meeting.

If I recall correctly.from previous forum posts, PG said that last year he had started out with three piles- Meeting, No Meeting, and Maybe.. Eventually, he moved everyone from the Maybe pile to Meeting. It's worth the time and money to avoid the risk of passing up something that could be great.

It's that sort of decision- "I better at least listen to foo, or I'm missing out", that opens the door for meetings.
Stock Market Tips All Over The World
When you open Pandora's box, you get everything, both the bad (greed, vanity, slander, envy, pining, etc.) and the good (hope and progress).
Point or no point, he sounds like an ass.
Flash (and other) video compression uses a similar algorithm to look for parts of a video that are more static. (To avoid re-sending information about a static background, for example.) I'd guess it's a modification from compression technology.

to avoid re-sending information about a static background for example. I wonder if they built theirs from scratch or just modified
Wait until you get groupies camping outside your house, just to get glimpse of you. You could be the next David Koresh or Jim Jones.
BTW, I'm seeing a weird bug in Safari. Every time I reply or just click an up-arrow, I get an error saying "does nto exist". Then I go back, and see that my comment was posted and my up-vote was counted. What gives?
Interesting stuff. The cool thing about Slingshot is that it seems like it'll be relatively easy to bolt it on to existing Rails apps. For Apollo, I think you're pretty much going to have to build your apps for Apollo from the start.

The downside to Slingshot (for some people) is that, since it's rails, you're gonna be sending at least part of your application's source code down to the client to make it work offline. I don't think that's such a big deal, but it could be a dealbreaker for some.

edit: see also: http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/03/23/here-comes-competition-apollo/
I think what's important is that you agree on WHAT you will build.
I don't get it. Sign up, "bid" everything on one girl, if it doesn't work, close the account and repeat.

???

Easy to game, and I'm not sure why any woman would care two cents for some meaningless "bids" in contrast with _any_ real-world criteria.
I think theres plenty of people out there who want to be part of a startup, but hav no idea whatsoever, or have just vague/pipe dream ideas about starting a company.

Right now I just need a really good flash developer, and maybe another super tech if they could contribute alot. I haven't been able to find one yet, but still have a few leads..
hehe lol, that's a good topic!
I've been married for past 4 years (almost five, and I'll be at ycomb when we're 5 years - hopefully) and what I can say is:

My wife's paying the bills right now while iJigg is giving me 12 hours of work and big headaches :D

I'd not say you shouldn't try something being married, but for sure you need a good conversation with your wife before you start.

Tell her what are you going to do, the risks and the gifts you'll be able to give to her if you make it thru.

Tell her that you'll give her the first 3 months of incoming, that will help.

btw, my wife's pregnant and our incoming isn't enough anymore what tells me to rush even more on iJigg.

Dreams are priceless, but when married you're not alone anymore, you need to share everything with your wife!
Well I'd assume that a company would already be far along with development and brainstorming if they're looking for publicity like this. All they are expecting is pretty much a sales pitch, which a startup is probably already used to giving anyways. If not, videotaping yourself in such a way might be more important then developing or brainstorming.
He definitely got rich! No idea if she regretted it... I never asked him about that. I think he remarried.
jackpipe- yea we know that page is admittedly weak right now ;-) we're replacing the about page with a distilled 5-point tour that explains the concept better and more visually. RE: the vanilla preconfigured stacks- the VirtualAppliances.net guys and Spike Source are doing a pretty good job now with putting out lean versions of the basic software stacks so we're targeting the end-to-end apps for now. We'll hit those up down the road though. thanks for the feedback.

sean
They seem to just be looking for you to present your company in a creative way.
Yahoo! Pipes and the web as a database
Does the fact that LLCs do not have shares imply that each member will know the ownership of every other partner?

Or is there a way to keep that private?
They're just overlaying sprites (stars in this case) in areas of high deltas (changes). That's all.
Ethnography: stalking your user (legally) - A List Apart
I bet Google really wishes they thought of pipes (to go with Google Base).

(Note: Google Base is one of the potential data sources in Pipes)
Scrapblog: Scrapbook maker
I don't know of what use it is to guess the "likelihood" of something such as this.

The way it works with us is I usually make the technical decisions with my tech partner in my mind. Yes there are times we run into disagreements but they are discussed and resolved UNLESS you make disagreements a personal thing in which case you might as well part ways with your team.
Craig Newmark on Net Neutrality
Math is hard. I have about as much formal education in math as I do in CS (about to finish undergrad as a double major). Yet I can pick up nearly any CS research paper and breeze through it, but my eyes will glaze over at 90% of math research.
Yes, math is hard and successful academics in the field are super smart. And yes, mathematical ability declines with age.

However, I don't see that math is really all that important for 99% of web 2.0 startups.
Yeah, but don't you think it's more important to care about people having points than people being asses? I'd certainly rather live in a place where everybody had a point but was an ass than where nobody was an ass but also had no points. (similarity to places real or imagined entirely coincidental)
direct link: http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/06/09/newmark.internet/index.html

It's a good read, but it's from last year.
This is a really interesting idea, it would be cool to have an API for pipes but I supposed you could really do the same thing locally by just scraping the data sources. I'm pretty excited to play around with this.
it would be cool if the sprites had some ballistic motion after they were spawned... with velocity based on the initial direction of the delta that spawned the sprite + some gravity, maybe some turbulence and random lifespans and size changes.

I've had too many years making particle effects....
I don't think the OP meant specifically that math is important, just that the same energy that makes young people better at math also makes them better at startups.
Very few people are good at math. You need more than energy and enthusiasm to succeed in that field.

Anyway, older people bring critical skills to a startup such as creativity, which can improve over time as you try and observe all sorts of ideas.
Stephen King's 'On Writing' applies to software as well
They were part of the 06 SFP in Boston and went back to NYC at the end of the summer.
Well, I'm at Stanford, which is a good part of why it's been so great. Before Startup School, I hadn't had the balls to apply to particulary competitive schools. (I was previously thinking of getting a master's in IT management from a local school. It's a good program if I wanted to be a contractor, but not when I really wanted to be in the software industry.)

Stanford is in the heart of Silicon Valley, which is a big part of why this has been so great. There are an unusual number of opportunities related to tech business because of that. The other schools in this area, like Santa Clara U. and San Jose State, also have great access to the tech industry. And even if I wasn't in school, it would have been wise just to move to this area.

At Stanford, I've also met a lot of smart and motivated people, both professors and students. I'm learning a TON in my classes, honestly they're far more interesting and useful than I would have guessed. I stumbled upon co-founders for a startup, and I've gotten the opportunity to TA for a great professor. It's all been a ton of work, and I'm honestly kinda burnt out, but nonetheless I'm really glad I'm here.
The problem with enterprise software (at least as I understand it) is that it's frequently bespoke data processing software, written in-house -- it's not the sort of thing that you can do once and sell to multiple clients, it's the sort of thing that needs to be customized for each client.

I think that it has the potential to be the most interesting software to work on, because a lot of it is about real things, but because of its bespoke nature the only way to get at the really interesting bits is to work for the company that it forms part of the infrastructure for. And once you're in that situation, you're dependent on (probably very risk-averse) management for support for doing "smart" things with the software.
Paul, on Saturday, you discussed YC's 100% satisfaction rating from the founders you've sponsored. I can't imagine that's true for all (non-YC) startups, but I bet it's still extremely high. I hope you do become more comfortable with this, because there are a bunch of us that are living much more inspired lives, and trace part of that inspiration back to you. I'd hate to see you shy away from this because you're nervous about the outcome.

(Fortunately, I don't see any signs that you're actually too concerned. "Why to Not Not Start a Startup" couldn't have come from someone who's wavering!)
If the link comes broken for you, use this:
http://www.slideshare.net/zaidf/how-i-sold-my-idea-to-my-cofounders
I just want to say that this program is nuts. You can get started without being signed up so I'd say try it out. It's pretty impressive and I'm almost positive that it's built with Adobe Flex. Runs a lot like a desktop application. I've been waiting to see a good use for Flex.
Sigh. The sum of the scores on my four comments is now 6 and yesterday it was 3 (should always be 4). Apparently this is a bad idea.
I'm a CS major but by the time I'll graduate I'll have taken more math than CS courses (degree requirements are funny that way). I would tend to agree with you about the relative difficulty if CS and math but this could be partially a consequence of how it is taught. If some school was crazy enough to offer a "real" (see Dijkstra[1]) program that would compare more favorably.

But this sort of proves the original point. Since cs/programming has lower barriers to entry (cool new stuff is still "easy") there are many more opportunities for young people.

[1] http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD10xx/EWD1036.html
Unless I missed a subtlety he meant "smart" as in intelligent. He later clarified that one should never compromise intelligence for experience when hiring.
Intelligent along what dimension(s)? Or is he a believer in the g factor?
He didn't specify.

Notes:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dczgjp36_7c78dgn
right -- but if your employment docs say, for example, that your employer owns all IP you create including stuff you do on your own time and out of the office (yes, a draconian clause, but not that uncommon!), you can be in big trouble if your startup takes off and your former employer is legally entitled to (i.e. you don't own) the IP you created -- either your employer can try to lay claim to what you've built or your investors/acquirer will find out during the due diligence process and not move forward as a result.

that said, i'm not a lawyer, and i'm sure others can provide related nightmare stories -- but everything i've heard indicates it's really better to not screw around, and to have a paper trail indicating that you own your IP.

-drew
I'd love one too if you still have any left you'd be willing to give out. (I'll throw it out there that I'm female, in case that makes it any more likely you'll give me one :-). I'm willing to bet most people here aren't.)

diviam at gmail
I don't understand the relevance of your point about CS curricula. My comparison was with respect to my ability to read research papers written by professors, not to do classwork at my current level. I'm observing that math papers are much more difficult to understand and inferring that the state of the art in math is more complex than the state of the art in computer science.
Joel Spolsky: The famous blogger on software productivity (Video)
Silicon Valley's middle class
oohhhhhhhhhhh 100th comment :)
My Own Successful Startup Story ... In 1984 Mar
Wow... that was an amazing article, one of the best that I have read in a while. It really gave a lot of insight into social interactions, and not just online ones. Thanks for the link.

Someone mentioned Reddit, and I was thinking exactly the same thing, myself. Of course, Reddit at least does include many of the mechanisms suggested in the article, but there is one glaring omission: established users do not seem to have much more power than non-established ones. Perhaps users with more karma should have more weight when voting certain entries up or down. Just a thought...
I think it is dangerous to expect a cofounder to be a yes-man. You are probably better off without a cofounder at all. I'd imagine a good partner would complement your ability, and provide interpretation from a different angle.
It was partially a tangent prompted by your comment. I meant "the stuff CS people do and think about" not just homework or research. Through whatever accidents of history, practical concerns, or being a young field, the stuff CS people do tends to be easier than the stuff math people do, but that doesn't necessarily need to be the case.
are these available to download as mp3s?
Ruining the User Experience with AJAX
Great article which reiterates the point that even a failed startup can be a great experience. It is also an important reminder that the best software does not always (or even often) win out, so it is important to consider other issues when working on your product. It also demonstrates that a failure does not necessarily indicate a lack of ability or innovativeness on your part, but perhaps simply a small oversight or an inability to overcome inertia.
Your slides made me think you don't realize how small a niche you're targeting. Thankfully it's the internet, where even a relatively small niche can get pretty huge.

Don't listen to the Perl naysayers. There's amazing productivity to be had with it, if you can deal with it not being "cool" these days. I'd recommend checking out Catalyst ( http://dev.catalyst.perl.org/ ) and DBIx::Class (CPAN) if you haven't.
How much are the "Web 2.0" offerings cutting into our productivity?
"Tongue in cheek" icons for your web app in progress
Justin.TV Guide: Highlights and lowlights
Make Money With Twitter! 5 Monetization Models
Its a tradeoff one has to live with. All of us lead parallel lives. You needn't be the same person in both the worlds. You play different roles, at times they are totally tangential, hence the problem.

Someone said this to me once, "if your professional life kicks ass... u r taking a beating in the personal front." Its not a universal rule, but I am sure a lot of people can relate to it.

Rather than cribbing about having to make a compromise. I think the best bet is to involve your partners as much as possible in discussions about your venture so that they know how important this is for you and how it is in the best interests of the relationship. Go ahead and ask your spouse for suggestions/feedback and keep her in the loop, never leave her in the dark. Share your vision with her. If she does share your vision, then she is going to support you 100%. Then it becomes a non-issue. Its easier said than done, but definitely worth a shot. I am sure Guy would agree with this approach.

In short - "Try to establish a mutually benefitting connection between the two parallel lives."
While I agree AJAX apps should gracefully degrade when Javascript is disabled, I personally like the (Javascript-enabled) UI at Lala.com. I'm not sure I agree every service must be accessible everywhere.

It depends on the app. I'd really like to be able to check my Gmail and calendar on my cell phone. But I won't mind if I can't load Youtube or Flickr.

Know your target audience.
Science of Business: serial entrepreneurs share qualities with street kids?
Top 25 Web 2.0 Websites By Traffic, March 2007
Might be nice if it worked under Safari rather than just hanging. :-(
'... Entrepreneurs are misfits, they are miscreants they are creative deviant ... these innovators often live life on the edge ...' [0]

'... results showed that the kids at risk and the entrepreneurs were similar on a number of dimensions... pathological anarchist ... Anarchy is about lack of control, lack of boundaries.. create something from those random concepts ...' [1]

Transcript of a weekly science show shows the building blocks for entrepreneurs & how they are used by entrepreneurs. Illustrates how using them you can improve entrepreneurial behaviour. The descriptive bit on the title, 'serial entrepreneurs share qualities with street kids' I grabbed from psychologist, Louise Earnshaw [2], who in the course of her studies identified risk taking as a common trait among self-made businessmen [3] .

The thing I got out of watching (reading as well) was the key characteristics & traits common to entrepreneurs and the science behind it.

Reference

[0] ABC TV, Catalyst, 'The Science of Business 'How to make it Big'', 29 March, 2007. Reported by Dr Paul Willis"

http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s1884704.htm

[2] ABC TV, Catalyst, 'The Science of Business 'How to make it Big'', Ibid.

[2] Louise Earnshaw, psychologist, "University of Queensland, School of Psychology, PhD Candidate: Entrepreneurial Psychology"

http://www.psy.uq.edu.au/people/personal.html?id=244

[3] In Australia the word entrepreneur has a close association with huckster, grifters & con men and is not used as widely as in the United States.
Craig Newmark on net neutrality
Well, I wouldn't go that far, but it is easier for those of us who have wives who are interested in being a founder, rather than a founder's wife. :)
http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=7416
I agree that you should know your target audience, but I think it's also a cost-benefit issue. I'm all for making your page accessible to as many people as possible, but in many cases it's not practical to cater to the 3 hits per month that for some reason still use Netscape 4.x.

I disagree with the article that you might need to "dig out some old favorites like @import" for older browsers. As discussed in "To Hell With Bad Browsers" ( http://www.alistapart.com/articles/tohell ), you shouldn't have to deal with people who refuse to use a modern browser. (Hmm that was 6 years ago now... am I old?)

I agree with the article that it's illogical to load an entire page with AJAX and not have a non-javascript option, but I think the whole 3-level scheme is overkill in some cases. I think it comes back to knowing your audience, and designing your site so that they will be able to use it how they want.
It would be really nice if links to this site went away.
There must be a bit of latent demand for cute or whimsical icons or cartoons. I remember back a while I saw an on-line 'wanted' advert for blog cartoonist. So I'm not surprised ~ http://flickr.com/photos/bootload/213561726/

If you are, please read the about how Hugh MacLeods' "gaping void ", is used as an attention grabber for marketing other products ~ http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/002670.html
Scaling PHP/MySQL...Presentation from Flickr (very good)
Scribd is Youtube for documents, Literally
In the beginning, there was HTML, and lo, there was much rejoicing among the scientists. Content was king. HTML was to provide guidelines for presentation, without dictating exact formatting. Lynx and Mosaic users existed in harmony.

Then came the .com rush, and with them, their horde of designers. Designers used tables to wring miracles from HTML, all above the protests of the purists -- "HTML is not a page description language!", "What about the Lynx users??" etc.

But what the purists missed was that the landscape had changed. HTML was no longer just about content: de facto, it had become about the presentation as well. Eventually CSS caught up and specs mirrored reality.

Ironically, it's the designers, like the author, who are now missing the context change. It's their turn to be the dinosaurs. Web 2.0 is not just about more presentation options; spice and sugar on a page-oriented website. AJAX is about building applications that use the browser as the environment. Protesting that cell phone users won't be able to use the app is missing the point. Do people complain that Writely doesn't work on a cellphone?

(Well, maybe they do. Stuff 'em! :)
Infomercial as in Don Lapre, or even a late night WWE promo. Better yet - a late night ORIGINAL ECW video, with real promo's... commerical, video commercial -- sell your start up and save some money by grabbing some free ad space on CenterNetworks.
T9space has 4 million pageviews. Gives mobile access to the popular social networks
I worked at company full of ex-Digital Equip Guys and they had similar procedures to Google except they had design "approach" reviews, where over lunch you presented your design for a feature/function etc. to your peers. It was quite effective for finding new approaches or things you haven't thought about. I was impressed enough with the process that I often thought I'd try it if I was ever the head of an engineering dept. The company did produce some industrial strength network management code.
Top 10 Brands on Digg
But if we avoid requiring the dedicated poll code, PG won't need to get around to writing it... So the obvious solution is that everyone should make a point of doing a poll a day until PG writes the code.
I got to say this was idea was very clever. kudos to Phil K!
Cell phone classified-ads startup launched
Ok interesting stuff - thanks for the replies. Does anyone know the guys from auctomatic post on these pages at all?
[kill please]
Great LAMP Scaling Presentation by Matt Ogle of Last.fm (PDF)
Very impressive essay. I'm a founder of a startup and agree with most things here. Great job.
Sure, that may be what AJAX and Web 2.0 are about. But isn't the point of a web site to provide some service? In the case of Lala, the service is to facilitate CD trading (or something along those lines). To best provide that service, do they really need Web 2.0 and AJAX? If they want to accomodate users of mobile devices (and wouldn't they? every visitor is a potential customer), then they should provide a working interface for those users.

On the other hand, if they think AJAX is the best way to provide their service, that's up to them... it's their web site. I think the author really means that they should be designing for a wider audience if they want to appease as many visitors as possible. Whether that demographic is important enough to bother with is another question.
Hey, that's one way to flirt with the ladies...casting your spell.