skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The biggest problem most founders have in the beginning is just being able to devote undivided attention to it. If you have to work a full-time job and do your startup on the side for the first 1-2 years that's a huge disadvantage and it
massively deceases your chances of success.

If you have something good and don't need a lot of money there's no reason you have to put yourself at the mercy of VCs -- you can maintain control.

You can't judge this kind of thing in a vacuum. What kind of scenario are you thinking of?
Best of luck to every applicant.
Taking a new and popular thing from the US and creating version for a different country has made more than one person rich. The reverse also works.

Create an MP3 company.
"change the way people use" is good too.

Where's the startup to monitor buzz by analyzing this kind of stuff? O'Reilly might buy you.
Yes. Yes. Yes. No. Varies.
Patents are for boosting your valuation during funding/acquisition. Not doing either? Why not just keep it a trade secret.
Hence, I am coding for Localization from the start!!
As long as you are catering to needs of users, as long as its worth paying for or worth looking up, if it has a solid model, then anyplace would be fine. Its just that as zaidf pointed out, as long as it fits well with culture and profile of the place.... things will run smooth. So go ahead and start it.
I can't imagine many scenarios where I'd have a secretary reading emails to me. I definitely wouldn't use a text-to-speech solution.
I am running some basic stuff ... but notice the occasional 500's ... IRC / Web states that Pound with Lighttpd and Instances of Mongrel is really the best solution ... however, mongrel's site states that Lighttpd's mod_proxy still has issues....so I am really baffled with what is a proven solution... I am just gonna run some tests before I conclude...
Right approach, utf-8 and separated language files :)
so you don't have a fastcgi.crash.log ... ???
"Sorry; perhaps we should have reminded people to do this."

translation:

"You're lucky we didn't just skip your dumb ass."

j/k
I might be. but for the mean time I'm exploring Rails :-) and gettng my Ruby skills up to match. Although I can't seem to shake Java's verbosity out my system and it reflects on my Ruby programs. :-)
Have you considered SQLite?
MS dead - yes, just because it has no good moves for a long time now. In my humble opinion last turn point were the times of the first browser's wars.

BitGeek wrote this -
"That's a very sick and twisted view of the world-- and it is from Karl Marx." - it is a bit out of context here, but stil.

Yes M$ dying has to do somethng with Karl Marx, too - let me put aside "sick and twisted" for a moment. Not even prime flagships of economy, which of BitGeek knows about, weren't able to undermine one simple sentence from Marx's "Das Kapital" - Only (human) labour and labour only can produce new value. Not money - labour. There is no need, I presume, to point out the quantity of labour pumped into the "market" since early 1990's on radically different principals then ones driving the dead.

Another view could also come from the economy principals. Shortly it is a story of smart and dumb monopols. The smart ones optimize the production level - the dumb ones optimize the profit. The dead rocketed profit (and extra-profit) sky high.

Personally I do not thik that the future is in web-based IT. It simply is not cost effective - why the hack should I have powerfull desktop just to run application on the server. For me it server centric IT was already seen and the come back is (could be) no more than a cycle in everladting evolution of IT.
I think the simple approach of raising the threshold works pretty well. Spend time improving the metric used by the threshold -- make that part smart. Think about how the reddit home page works, where there's a similar problem: too many good links.
I think the problem you had with "Jigg It" is that you're copying "Digg It" which is plain English, whereas yours is a made up term that doesn't mean anything. The closest phrase is "getting jiggy with it", which would be nice if shortened.

Another thing to consider is that "priesthood" stuff. Users feel good for knowing stuff about your product that newbies won't know right away. There may be times when it makes sense to use unfamiliar lingo on your site.
If it's evident in the job listing that they have read and practice what's in Peopleware (a classic, be sure to read it if you haven't already).

http://www.amazon.com/Peopleware-Productive-Projects-Tom-DeMarco/dp/0932633439
I don't think it's a good fit for the web. The level of abstraction is at the wrong place. The web is an OS. The home page sites like Pageflakes are much more a WebOS than the sites cloning old-style desktops in Ajax.
On one hand I have to agree that there was more than one occasion that I would get all hot and bothered with the thought of building a WebOS. Infact I flirted with the idea of building a Mobile Phone OS. Thinking that users will become more affluent in the future that they themselves will choose the mobile OS that suits them. And like most technologists I found myself out of touch with the world and reality in general. So the idea of a WebOS, as far as I'm concerned is a pipe dream. Too many things to consider such as the limitations of existing web standards and programming languages, browser limitations and the such. To hardware dependencies that require a native platform to run off of. Although that doesn't mean I won't stop dreaming :P
This is one of the better listings I got recently from a recruiter. When I asked her about the company and what they did, all she would tell me is "Our client is a very successful E-Commerce company. It is in the top 10 in
the world for the particular type of site that this job is for." Looks like a fairly good 'job', but to work for a non-descript ecommerce company was not in my plans. I think it's great though that they start right off with the work environment. Custom workstation with Dual 30" Apple displays would be amazing.

----------

Work environment

- We will custom build a workstation to your specifications using the
latest and greatest technology; Mac OS X and Linux-friendly

- Dual Apple 30" Cinema HD displays

- Join a team with a winning attitude in a fast moving, highly energetic
environment

- Full benefits

- Executive desk with your own personal choice of ergonomic chair

- All of our servers run GNU/Linux (Debian) or OpenBSD

_________________________________

Job Title: Senior PHP5 Developer

Location: Anywhere

Job Type: Permanent

Salary:	$75K - 150K

_________________________________

The Opportunity

- Design and manage an object oriented PHP5 codebase

- Seeing projects through the complete software life-cycle, from design
and implementation to testing and production deployment and beyond

- Lots of room for growth within the company

- Technically challenging

- Highly rewarding and enthusiastic team environment

_________________________________

Getting in the door

- Strong object oriented PHP experience, must have operational examples
of prior PHP5 OO work

- Strong understanding of MySQL 4.1-5.x

- 8 to 10 years of experience in software development using object
oriented and procedural programming

- Strong background in developing for GNU/Linux or Unix-like platforms
for mission-critical production deployments

- Strong analytical and logical thinking capability

_________________________________

Always a plus

- Experience with MySQL replication, MySQL Cluster

- Experience with MySQL performance tuning and optimization (query
optimization, index tuning, caching, and buffer tuning)

- Secure coding practices

- High-availability and scalable network service development

- Expertise with interfaces, MVC, HTML, CSS2, JavaScript, AJAX,
Templating, caching, sessions, and authentication

- GNU/Linux optimization, security and network administration

- Experience with distributed architecture, design, and implementation

- Experience with running Apache or other Unix-based web servers in a
production environment

- Industry networking experience, including knowledge of fundamental
protocols, such as TCP, UDP, IPv4/6 and SSL/TLS

- B.S. or M.S. in Computer Science or other related field
Even slovak startups create interesting things from time to time :) A TextMate for Window$
Shmooze lessons for Hackers :-) love it!
$1,000,000 Netflix Prize -- Create an Uber Recommendation Algorithm
Thank you for the link. I used to code in Scheme and enjoyed it very much, it would be great to get back into LISP one of these days. However, whenever I see HTML generated from within the code, as it is in that tutorial, it just feels like it is 10 years behind the state of the art. I think it is much better to use some kind of HTML templates (but maybe I am wrong?).

Another thing I was looking for when I last evaluated LISP was an OR-mapping library. I can't go back to executing SQL statements from within my code - that is also so 90ies. I think there is one project underway to provide OR-mapping for LISP, but I am not sure if it was ready for prime time yet.
The rest of us will just think that you are pushing your agenda, and therefore, your own view of the world. Is it a coincidence a Web 2.0 investor supports an evangelically blinkered approach to non Web 2.0 solutions.

I am a fantastic believer in history telling us about the future. And in this case, history says, Microsoft will always be key to a desktop centric world. And desktop centricity is cyclical. For now Web 2.0 seems to have the baton, but as we nove into a very rich multi-media world we will become constrained by the broadband pipes. This will push apps, content, and everything else back to the user device, be it a Windows PC or a Windows Pocket PC. Apple stole the march with the single purpose iPod (don't pretend video or anything else on the iPod is a killer App), but Microsoft still own the multi-purpose device.

DRM has been the Achilles Heel of Microsoft. As they have come back from many Anti-Trust cases they attempted to sidestep more brouhaha in the world of Digital Media, and have attempted to play fair (don't get me wrong I know they usually do not play fair). This has allowed Apple to gain the upperhand in Music Devices. But, as Apple are now breaking the mold on this to allow DRM-free sales from EMI, they in turn will have just given Microsoft the opening it will need to reinforce its position. It wont be success through intent, as I believe that the Zune player will fail. But a new competitive ecosystem of devices will lead everything back to the desktop as the hub.

No matter what, no-one is going to trust their personal memories, be it music, video or photo's entirely to the Web. They will share it there, but not leave it there.

Microsoft is back where they were when Netscape first launched, they are the slow lumbering laggard.

But as history shows us, they turned themselves around, and owned (however briefly) the mindset of everyone who had money to spend (and this is not typically your 15-year old Web 2.0 consumer with no money), it was the corporates, with their large cheque books.

Google are moving more and more to follow the Microsoft lead. Microsoft is far from dead, but like all parents who have given life to others (such as Google, albeit through removed ways), they from time to time will be less involved in their Children's lives. But, they will always retain some criticality in their lives. MS will never really die in our lifetimes. They just move from being the soul point of attention.

Good luck to your startups, but imagining them operating in a world where they do not know and respect the importance of Microsoft, and try to emulate or utilise them in their goals, seems like a recipe for failure to me.
Since nobody mentioned it: I plan to at least evaluate Groovy+Grails - hoping it might be a smoother transition coming from a Java background than going to RoR directly. Also, some things just work better with Java, and Groovy might allow me to build on that (what things? Getting a database driver for example).
It would be nice if you would use a more descriptive subject line...
Super awesome !
@M$ : Web 2.0 is no Bubble.
"deader than microsoft" - that is great :-)
How often is your gut instinct right?
Does your gut instinct lead you to make good decisions more often than bad ones? Does it work better for you in some areas than in others? For example, are your decisions about marketing more often right than your decisions about strategy? Or does it work better for you with small decisions compared to large ones?
Creating a Code of Conduct for a start-up
On the business plan and Neal Stephenson's blueprint
GN!
(because-function-names-are-so-long-and-detailed 'post)
Well, agreed you get along without VC if you actually have a part-time job and which leaves you the necessary time to program on the side . It is also quite true that hardware and stuff are quite cheap by now.

Still, if you don't have any money and not a job then VC seems to be the only way on how to make a living and pay for all the expenses. There are lawyer fees for getting incorporated, trademark-fees, patent-fees and renting a scalable RoR server at JoyEnt costs also 125$ a month. We are now a team of three founders and work fulltime on our project. But programming is only half the things we have to do, we also have to think about the promotion of our product, things have to be designed, the userinterface gets tested a lot and we have to think about strategies how to make our service known. We will probably use GoogleAdWords, create a viral videospot etc. All these things cost money. And it would be really great to have an office where we could program instead of my 13 squaremeter room which leaves me nearly no privacy because when I go to bed someone is programming in my apartment and when I wake up someone else is already there.

Therefore I think that VC still covers a quite basic need of a startup, even if RoR is used and the founders have read Getting Real. Founding a company still costs money, although admittedly less than a few years ago. VC-companies investing in webprojects are not dead, but will have to adapt to the needs of founders and start investing smaller sums.
Dollar signs?

No, but seriously, everything depends on compensation. Everything else is simply an apology. The more you pay me, the less of my life I have to waste working for other people.
Why not. lots of smart young well educated people, good education levels. The one downside is the instability with the government. Of course if you are a local or have good local insight this may not be a problem.
Something that shows me what kind of people the company consists of. The ad needs to show that the company is smart and fun.
http://www.carsonified.com/misc/survey-how-much-cash-for-small-business might be of interest.
I'm not local, however my name can indicate that (even I taught russian language 10 years 'cos we were a part of communist block), only thinking about it. everyone goes to the west, but Russia is virgin land in on-line business, there are 140milion potential customers not counting satellite states, like Ukraine where people speak russian. that's my opinion :) Stability is not important, you can run on .com domain, or buy domain at the same company as google for $20 and host anywhere in stable country in case, we are talking about on-line business.
Very often, it's like masochist, the problem is, I'm not submissive :)
Microsoft is not dead. They are smart. Do not forget that they own significant shares in Apple. It was Microsoft that helped Apple come back. If you take a close look you may find that Apple is Microsofts support. Strange angle I agree. With Apple being percieved as strong, Microsoft can not be suide as easily for anything they do to control or manipulate the market. Deffinately they are not publicly viewed as a Manopoly any more. Take a close look from this direction and you may find another good article to write.

What has helped the market more than Apple or Linux is this: desktop applications have standardized and the conversion tools make even programs like excell (with macros and arrays) interchangable with other nock off products. Thanks goes to the unknowns that supply open source that is interchangeable with MS products. If this was not avaialble every business would be locked into one desktop and that would likely still be MS Office.
CiteUlike is just amazing
Just rediscovering my love for citeulike upon going back to PhD work after a week of startups :). Plus its had a reskinning - check out the "digg for academic papers" part.
If it was just him giving me an idea then I would have simply done it myself without his involvement. Our product is about teaching guitar. I didn't have any guitar experience while he has nearly two decades worth. He has to produce all the content which is a massive task in itself. The difference is he works on a guitar and I work on a computer. I should make clear the idea is no longer just his. He may have had the initial idea but it's developed a great deal from there to be made up of many ideas from both of us. Ownership of an idea seems to dilute over time. I believe our relationship works because it is equal. Equal decision making power, work load, and business ownership. I think any business relationship where the workload isn't equally shared is doomed to failure. Ideas aren't really worth much. His idea was seemed pretty obvious but we discovered no one was really doing it (due to technical restraints which have only started lifting over the past five years, not through lack of a market ;-).

For a successful business relationship I believe you need to bring an essential skill that helps the project get off the ground, not just an idea. Otherwise, your only alternative is to learn how to code or pay someone to do it.
You need local understanding to make it work. Google's story was that they bought out an ex-Russian entrepreneur who ran Dulance.com and made him head of R&D for Russia. And while you have 140mln population, keep in mind that a) it's decreasing every year by 600-700k, and b) less than 30mln are online.

Certainly the cost of a Russian programmer is less than the cost of an Indian programmer, but keep in mind that salaries decrease as soon as you get outside of Moscow. In neighboring Kharkov, Ukraine for example, QA staff can be had for $400 a month, and experienced hires will be hired for $800-$1200 a month.

Also keep in mind that locals are already snapping up large parts of the startup space. There is already a RuTube, a Russian Amazon (Ozon.ru, who just got $18mln funding BTW), and a Russian Google (Yandex.ru). So, your first mover advantage might be over already.
If Microsoft made an offer to buy your startup would you sell?
I think how you answer this question says a lot. I'm not sure how I would answer this question myself.

Would you refuse to sell on principle? Or because as Paul says, Microsoft is dead?

Or do you just take the money, principles be damned?
The title headers are the same size as the category words... makes for a hard read... do you just get used to it?
When there's a mispelling or obvious sign that someone in HR wrote the job description.

For Example: "Must be proficient in Sequel."

or

"Must have 10+ years experience in the .NET environment."

When that kind of thing catches my attention, I want nothing to do with a company where people who don't know what they're talking about are allowed to represent the company to the public.
Just to split hairs here, is there a difference between principles damned at $1, and principles damned at $1e7?

Also, Microsoft might be "dead" but they still provide value to their customers, whatever it is. While Vista might be way overhyped and/or overpriced, it can still do useful things. If your product reaches more customers and results in significant benefits for them, why not leverage MS's position? The principle then, is not about money. It's about your product's purpose. Hotmail for example.
With boso, ibtalk and now auctomatic, the instinctive decisions have always been the best. I'm wary of the term 'common sense' because I don't really think it's all that common. Also, what's really weird, is that at time x, you can believe 100% and with everything in your heart that decision y is the best course of action. At x + 3 days, you can then believe, also 100% without any doubt, that decision y was wrong and that you should now do z. It's not that that is indecision, it's just that things can move so quickly and variables change so much that you can change your mind 100% about something without too much difficulty. (and I've been using 100% too much). I believe an important quality of a CEO is to be able to do that, and continually convince himself that the latest course of action is the most prudent, but more importantly, convince his team that it is the right path to take too, (and that bit of advice came to me from someone who works at Yelp).
I agree - it's just that I've met too many people who live by principle and not by the situation.
This post is so interesting,

there is no guarantee that those who didn't fill in the email address will read this. And to make sure they read this, you would want to send them an email.
Do you mean "gut instinct"? I go by that a lot and have been learning how to trust it more. More often than not, my initial reaction is right.

If you're interested, here's a link to a book about this topic:

http://snipurl.com/1fxk7
I'm an american living in India and there are opportunities for a million web 1.0 models. But the fact is it may be too early in the game to build anything of lasting value. But the Baazee deal was impressive considering it was long after the bubble had burst.
Here's a technique using power law distributions: http://thraxil.com/users/anders/posts/2005/12/13/scaling-tag-clouds
your english does not have to be good.
to have a successful startup, you dont have to relocate to the USA (except for YC).
I don't find it ironic. I find it unrelated. If you could find a successful startup today that used a lot of IBM technology -- even if you could show that a startup today succeeded only because they were using IBM technology -- that wouldn't turn IBM back into the dangerous monopolist it once was (which was what Paul's article was about).
simple suggestion for YC: simply list the selected teams for Summer funding on the home page (re: email addresses missing)
intuition can mask prejudice
In western Michigan, a job listing.
Not exactly what you asked for, but another option is to use persistent objects (e.g. AllegroCache) instead of mapping them to RDBMS.
also, (your announcement on email addresses has already been buried) some of the posts can be announcement posts and not scroll down - oops! becoming like a traditional newsgroup.
Presumably anyone who didnt fill in the email in the profile would have to be contacted using the email address in the application form.
The Art of Avoiding an Asshole [Cofounder] - Guy Kawasaki
This post is actually about a 'boss', but it fits very well when considering a cofounder.

The numbered points at the bottom are the best ;)
Actually, a better question would be:

Would you rather sell your soul to the devil or to this guy?

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6843390913661737077

Seriously, I have a hard time deciding that one ;)
You certanly have something realy messed up.
MS dead ? Wake up! How can u even compare MS wich has 90% of the market with Apple wuch haves like 5% to 7% well that's rubbish.
How can u think that ... Appple is evolving and leaving Windows behind.. hm.. do u think that Bill G. Will allow that ?
Have u heard/read about the interview of Windows Vienna?
Sorry "my frind" but u are.. simply wrong.
Haha. No matter how many times I see that video it kills me. Thanks for the laugh, I needed it.

Hahaha.
there is no need to read Guy's article to give it a point here ... specially if you are half Scotsman :)
'... your announcement on email addresses has already been buried ...'

one way to get around this is to have a status message at the top broadcasting to all users as they login & use news.yc. Pretty simple to do.