skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I'm working on a startup on the side, and during the day I work with a couple of really amazing programmers on H1 visas. We get along great, I asked them to help, and before they started working my co-founder suggested we ask a lawyer, just in case.

We called the Murthy law firm (http://www.murthy.com/consult.html - experts in immigration law) for a free consultation and unfortunately were told that not only could my coworkers not work for us unless they
A) got an additional H1 Visa and
B) were paid market rates
but that they even came by and made the coffee on a regular basis they could be endangering their Visa status. We would have to actually put them on the payroll, which in our case would mean actually having a payroll.

Now, that is probably a bit alarmist but its the kind of thing that might scare off investors in the future. The sad part is that these guys would do amazing things for the startup. They have tons of free time, are absolutely the best programmers I've ever worked with and alot of fun as well.

So I'm no lawyer, just thought I'd share the bit of info I got on the subject.
FeedoStyle selling itself on eBay for just $5000!
'... if a bunch of people already thought your idea was a good idea, it'd effectively be a mature space. ...'

I'd modify that slightly...

'people already thought your idea was a good (MONEY SPINNER) idea , it'd effectively be a mature space. ...'

New ideas maybe easy to come up with but translation into a product is not easy. If you can see a new idea implemented & copy it you piggy back on the innovation of others thinking & implementing.

Compare for instance Flickr to say Zoomer. The later was developed post flickr & probably quicker. The point being Flickr came up with the wonderful clean url design, api design and concepts such as 'favourites'. It also showed there was a market. Zoomer copied lots of Flickr ideas without having to think, tinker & hack.
The First Penny - getting your users to pay you anything at all
Couple of suggestions on urls

* clean urls (because they are cool) ~ http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI

- ie: '/comments/363' instead of '/comments?id=363'

- '/user/bootload' instead of '/user?id=bootload'

* ability to view posts by date

- ie: '/2007/mar/12' or '/2007/03/12' (eg if I use YYYYMMDD format)

* inline urls such as 'http://foo.com/bar' interpreted as links

- ie: http://foo.com/bar becomes a clickable url

* long urls are automatically converted to tinyurls

- noticed twitter doing this automatically now
Also includes a follow up with 7 more reasons...
http://bokardo.com/archives/7-more-reasons-why-web-apps-fail/
Anybody have a spare Amazon EC2 account?
thanks for pointing this out! It turned out to be a bug in the way I was indexing; I had a memory leak. How embarassing!

Based on the feedack I've received, I changed the questions to be more general. I just realized I need to change the tag line as well.
I joined the entrepeneur meetup group and have been to one meeting; it was 3 people who were in business to cater to small businesses (like accountants and marketing people), and everyone else was technical, so it was a good experience for me. Those three nontechnical people were really good contacts to make. The list you're talking about doesn't sound too promising though.
well, all I can tell you is that from looking at the logs, there are a lot of people out there who are searching for someone with common interests that they must not be finding through normal channels. I'm especially seeing it with people overseas -- that was a surprise for me. I think that is a strong indicator that YCombinator has large overseas following.
Just for fun: Wikipedia entry about Ron Conway
that's for *rob* conway
The Genius of MacHeist: Putting Users to Work
I'm on my OPT (Optional Practical Training), can I start a startup and basically sponsor myself for an H1-B?
yeah, it's mismarked -- i don't see any other entry for ron conway. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=ron+conway&fulltext=Search
The social intelligence hypothesis
Basic science explanation of the 'social intelligence hypothesis' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machiavellian_intelligence) ~ theorises why human brains increased in size? Could it be to understand, get along with each other. Why is social intelligence so important in groups?

It's a good read because it may have implications/insights for the social software explosion going on written/designed by programmers/hackers with slightly *warped* (in a good way) social intelligence.
Using RSS for Marketing
:!rm %
Insider Facebook. Life, Work and Visions of Greatness
Read some of this when it was first released (and was free for a bit). Pretty interesting, now its $10 or something so worth a read.
Craigslist uses MySQL FULLTEXT indexing, so it definitely "scales". For all my big-time searching needs I use Xapian.
Extract from Fabrice Grinda because he says it better than me:
"The book's self-help parts are annoying and the story would have been stronger if it focused only on Facebook, but that aside Inside Facebook, with its compelling characters and a story line on the way to fairy tale ending, is extremely fun and energizing!"

I agree :-).
Just a big white page with some links on the bottom here... Oh, it appears that it's some crappy flash application, that would explain that.
We're looking at Solr where I'm working. It seems pretty nice as it gives you all the 'extras' to make Lucene that much more attractive.
Start-up to launch free wireless network in S.F.
Microsoft Small Business Summit (free 5-day online event)
It's very amusing the way they're just doing an end-run past all the bureacratic stuff cooked up by the city. That's the great thing about startups; they just flow right around gatekeepers.
Can anyone here recommend VC and angel investors in Australia?
Videos from last year...

http://www.microsoft.com/smallbusiness/small-business-summit/2006.mspx

I haven't watched many of them, but Keith Ferrazzi's was good.
Rumor: Google about to sign ad deal with Dish Networks
http://gigaom.com/2006/11/20/san-francisco-munifi/

A mess is an appropriate description for this. With Meraki's approach, I can see true headway being made. It looks like there's some appeal for the entrepreneurial crowd as well -- you can run your own network and charge users.
Poking around their site, I see that one of their technical advisers is none other than Robert Morris himself. Very cool.
I believe they were his grad students.
Wouldn't google be a better way to find what you are looking for? Having said that I might add mine anyway :-).
True that, it's good to know there's a community of like minded people here that share the joys and frustrations of seeing the other end of the pond.
Bookmark Your Shopping Needs
VOIP Java
How we got hosted, the Rails way
Google Testing TV Ads in California
Javascript/CSS Font Detector - Really useful for checking font support
Why OpenID will fail. AKA OpenID disinformation time.
How the young open-source kids are talking (CARTOON)
Gottzap - mobile social network launches
Get Rich Quick: Build The Best "Photoshop Web Edition(TM)" App -- Sell to Adobe, Google, or Microsoft.
VC Term Sheets: Dividends
Number of Users on Each Plan
I've actually never read anyone discussing the elasticity of demand for web services. Here's a thank-you to my econ teacher in college!

Sobering quote: "The biggest gap in any venture is that between a service that is free and one that costs a penny."
I have to say this matches my experience with any shared host for a serious web app. TextDrive is super helpful with customer service but not being able to get root on your server cuts off a lot of solutions.

So my advice to anyone hosting a Rails app or any other web app would be to go with a dedicated host (where you at least have a virtual server or something)
So hang on, how about the old adage "Repetition is the mother of all skill?" How do we apply that in our situation? As a programmer I found that this is one way of increasing your actual skill.
The Bootstrapper's Bible
37Signals: Getting Real
I think this was posted before in the first few days of YC news. A recommended read.

See: http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=574
As an alternative, I would suggest Slicehost:

http://slicehost.com

I stumbled upon them last week after looking for an inexpensive dedicated server or VPS with root access. They offer slices of 4-processor RAID-1 Linux boxes (with your choice of distribution) for reasonable rates. You can add slices as you grow, up to the point of requiring a dedicated box. This is not a managed service--you have full control over your set up.

They are developer centric, appear to have a great community going and have received entirely favorable reviews online (at least as far as I could find). They are very Rails friendly (their interface is developed in Rails), but also support Python, Java, PHP, LISP, etc. With root access, you can install whatever development/server environment you desire.

I'm just getting set up, but so far, I have been very happy with their service.
Oops... thanks. Wish the system checked for duplicate URLs on submission.
Commitment Reminders and FWYDWYD syndrome
H1-B is a work visa, Usually if you get a job in the states, the company sponcers you, as in pays fees to the govt, and agrees that they will pay you well so that you do not become a liability for the govt.Usually it is given for 2 years, after which you have to renew it which is a mess of a hell. Don't get me started on that.
I don't think this will be possible. But the best people to ask about this would be the folks at the International Student Center at your university.( As it turns out they are the ones who do the processing for the OPT in my university, so they know everything! )
It may just be me but I didn't really get much from this article. The author states that it's hard to get users to pay for something, and then doesn't offer any advice as to how to fix the problem.
Yet Another Reason to Start Your Own Business: Programming jobs suck
There are a few points in this article I don't agree with. But it makes an interesting case as to why controlling your own fate, as a small business owner, is a much better choice than 'getting a real job' in the IT industry.
I don't necessarily agree with the "low prestige" argument. I think that as the internet becomes a greater part of young people's lives (i.e. myspace), the industry becomes more hip and being a programmer for lets say Yahoo! or Google carries a "cooler" image
March Mandess Pool with Web 2.0 slickness
This is an interesting variation on the model that Fon is using. If I'm reading it correctly, Meraki is assuming that only fraction of the routers will be hardwired to the internet, with the remainder acting only to extend the mesh. In that sense, it's similar to a local, community based project (alacloud.net) that I'm working with now.

Unlike with Fon, however, there is no clear way to offer users any compensation[1], or really to monetize the network (other than something like ads). I'm intrigued to see how this "experiment" turns out.

[1] It's left as an exercise to the reader to decide whether Fon's model is a horrible idea or not.
A programmer for google or yahoo, sure. A programmer for Microsoft or Adobe, not so much. Moreover, outside the big names, software companies are largely unknown; to most of us, hearing that someone works for, e.g, Fog Creek, is pretty nifty, but to the average person, it's meaningless.
I think how you fix the problem is finding other means to make money rather than having users pay. I must admit, if I see a dollar sign on a website, I'm less likely to even try it out. And if I never try it, then I never get hooked, and everyone loses.

I think we're on the verge of a new form of web advertising. One that works, actually makes money, and isn't annoying (like flashing banners). Google's way is a good start, but we need something revolutionary, and once it happens I think the question of whether or not users pay becomes futile.
Web 2.0 Tutorials Round-Up
And yet not all ideas are good ones:
http://www.advogato.org/person/apenwarr/diary.html?start=258
There is only one way to do it.
Hiring--No False Positives
Wufoo competitor: Frevvo Live Forms Builder Rips off Wufoo
"There is a prestigious school, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, devoted to science and engineering, and while I'm sure that there are some students there who are majoring in 'computer science,' the science that's taught isn't related to the dirty low-prestige job of creating e-commerce websites using ASP.NET"

That note is interesting to me. A major reason I'm on this site right now, in addition to the discussions and the talk about startups, is the fact that Paul Graham was one of the first authors that I read that laid a very solid case for smart programming leading to good business- which of course validated what I and probably most of you already knew or felt. The author of this article is actually saying that an MIT type education is worthless in the real world where you need ASP.NET programming to get the 'real work' done. The author kind of lost all of his credibility for me at that point.
Ad-supported media corrupt and corrupting
Another way to really keep the fire and remember what you're doing is to maintain momentum. Like the 37signals guys say- have accomplishments every week that you can celebrate. That trumps having to dig up old memories about how excited you once were any day, IMO.
There are a few links like this that get submitted about every 4 or 5 days. At first I was annoyed, but now I kind of think it's a good thing- with the usership growing on this site it's probably important to hit some of these great pieces. If only the comments could be consolidated or something though...
The end of prime time
For me, programming is just a means to an end.

I do it not because I find programming intrinsically rewarding necessarily but rather because I find the creation of applications to demonstrate my ideas to be highly rewarding.

So obviously, writing code for someone else would not be rewarding for me.
I'd strongly encourage people on this list (who I'm going to assume are technical) to get their own VPS, not a shared account somewhere.

I've been very happy with Future Hosting at http://www.futurehosting.biz/. I've got a VPS with Ubuntu on it and we completely control the box. We're paying $25/month for that server.
My Mindshare 10-Point Declaration
nice post. In my experience also the lowest paying accounts are the most difficult to maintain- out of proportion certainly to the revenue they bring in. However, one thing it didn't mention here is to remember not to discount market share. In lots of apps the higher subscription plans will only be upsales- no one will jump straight into the business account, for example. And in some cases your low paying accounts are doing a lot of evangelizing for your product, or not using a competitors product, etc. Keep it balanced, for sure, but get lots of users.
I personally love programming. I'd gotten to a point a few years ago in my career where I moved out of programming roles only to discover that I missed it. Helping my younger brother through a CS programming really got me going again, and I credit that experience with getting me going on a startup.

That said, sure there's very little cool about being programmer #45 for an insurance company. The truly gifted developers need to be at a software firm, a consulting company (more new dev, less maintenance), working on an open source project, or (best yet) creating their own software.
looks like between the three of them they've already got it under control :)
a little bit ironic that you're advertising your site to us...
Weaving the Web to your taste
It's kind of funny- I think about web apps constantly. After reading this, though, I decided to make a list of the web applications that I have actually paid for. I could only think of one- it was one of the ediet ones that lets you pick your diet (out of many popular ones) then emails you meal plans and shopping lists each week. I'm not even on a diet.

The fact that it saved me time and thought thinking through healthy meals was what got me to pay. And it made me realize also how few web apps actually end up saving me time in the end (which is the make-it or break-it factor for me, but I realize probably not for others).

So here's my question- what web apps have you other news.YC'ers ever actually paid money for? Any?
The mind sharing concept is interesting. I see an inherent flaw in the "traditional model" that you posted:

---

Advertiser posts ad

Consumer views ad

Advertiser pays media

---

You missed a crucial detail: the advertiser posts the ad to the media to publish. It's a critical detail that bridges the next step.

When a potential customer sits and views your ad for a set wage, it's much different than encountering the ad in a targeted environment. I noticed the targeted aspect of your service, but it's difficult to gauge its effectiveness just yet. As an advertising medium, I'm skeptical. The concept definitely has merit in getting something of yours read or viewed.
It does. The URLs submitted slightly differ.
Zoodango Lets Businesses Create Their Own Social Networks
Interview: Jimmy Wales - Artist of Web Community
That seems like a good idea. But what I think is missing in Photoshop is image analysis features. These features will allow you to take image editing to an entirely different level. This is a self-promotion, of course  you can read about some of these features at Pixcavator.com. I have been working on a technology for computer vision/image mining/image search, but recently I realized that being able to analyze the image gives you totally new tools for image manipulation. If somebody is interested in pursuing this, write me a couple of lines.
I like this one...

"The benefits of being around other startups and founders simply cannot be described properly in words. If you are stuck somewhere trying to do things by yourself without any other startups you only have one choice. Move."
Founder from The Apprentice. Name = Zoodango. I'm not sure if the Bubble is really back, but I'm increasingly noticing something that was a component of it: startups that sound like they were cooked up by The Onion.
I agree that his views on schools doesn't really translate to coding. The author talks about the prestige of programming being low, which in IT it is, but there are obviously coders that have prestige. John Carmack, for one, is very highly regarded in the computer science field, but he never went to a prestigious CS school. What I find interesting is that programmers only get prestige from actually DOING something. This can happen at a big company but more often than not it happens at a startup. Lawyers and Doctors 'get' their prestige from going to school and getting their title, whether it is deserved or not, but programmers have to earn it through solving problems. I find that much more rewarding, it will mean much more for me to be prestigous because of my work than because of where I went to school.
Tim O'Reilly: Different approaches to the semantic web
Google TechTalk: The story behind BillMonk.com
I root for him when I see The Apprentice on (if he hasn't been booted yet, I'm not sure). That way I can potentially hear web social networking being hawked on network television.
I also disagree with several of the minor premises in this article. Such as his statement that "So what advantage does a 60-year-old .NET programmer have over a 27-year-old .NET programmer when they both have, at most, 5 years of experience doing .NET programming? Absolutely none." ... That 60-year-old programmer has more experience and wisdom and that is a huge advantage over a newb!

Overall the author is making a good point. Technology workers have (or are beginning) to wake up to the fact that their skills are commoditizable. Anyone (anywhere) can be trained up to do their job. This is why most tech people get caught in the trap of the never ending skill upgrade cycle ... "If I could just learn and get a certificate in X I can earn the big bucks...". When what they really need to start thinking is how to apply the knowledge that they have into real solutions that they can then monetize.
Phatfusion (beautiful Javascript tricks)
It is true that making your users pay to try your product is the best way to keep your userbase small. I think that offering a free version and then a pay version with extra features is the only real way to expect users to pay. The problem is what happens when someone else comes along and offers all of your features for free? Google was really smart with Gmail because they started out offering people 2 gig of space, which seemed insane. What was even better is that they then made it constantly 'increase' so it seems like you have as much space as you'll ever need. But if you actually watch that ticker it's increasing so slowly that it probably isn't costing them any more money, and in fact their cost probably goes down, to give each user that much space.I guess my point is that once you have a user offering them a better 'precieved' value, even if it's not better than someone else, will get them to stick with you, or get them to consider a pay account.
O'Reilly clearly gets to a point that I tried to make in reference to one of the first round of articles about freebase: namely, that by adopting the ideas of web2.0, namely relying on users to generate information because it is natural and convenient for them, we have a chance to take another shot at the semantic web, and perhaps actually make it past arguing in the W3C this time.
I agree with jwecker here; when I hit that part of the article, I couldn't help but think of Joel Spolsky's "The Perils of JavaSchools" essay.

EDIT: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/ThePerilsofJavaSchools.html for anyone who's not familiar. It's a good read.
Good post with some financial data on VC & Angel investments (tough business)
It's important to understand that there are a lot of non-monetary costs associated with paying for things, such as entering payment info and deciding whether it's actually worth paying for in the first place.
"I remember my father-in-law telling me about the virtues of a balanced investment portfolio. I told him that my portfolio is balanced. I have risky investments balanced by outrageously risky investments.".

I guess that's cool if you're in our shoes, but boy it seems a bit risky when you're running other people's (the limited partners) money.
They lose money because they forget the most basic principle of any business: moneymaking.

It seems so obvious; but everybody on Web 2.0 seems to think that exit strategies mean they don't need a business plan. The bottom line is that a business is not a business if it does not make money. By that metric, almost all internet startups, even the ones funded by VCs, are just "hobbies".

Exit strategies are great. But that does not give us the excuse to ignore the basic economics of this business.
Very true, but maybe our overall image is gradually improving, esp. as the tech/internet generation matures.
Video: Trevor Blackwell's Robot At Y Combinator
MySpace skipped the lawyer and just copied other sites' legalese. (see page 2)
See the second page for the MySpace reference.