skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Anyone having problems accessing justin.tv?
Marketing Your Startup. Any comments?
Waste of a lot of time. Time's the only thing you can't get back, unfortunately.
All 40 of his submissions are visible and the average is 6.95

I suspect he'd still have the highest comment/karma average. He makes lots of great comments.
How about highest karma per comment? Personally, I consider comments that people post here a lot more useful than original articles. I also tend to mod comments a lot more frequently than stories themselves.
Hah yeah, apparently they drank a bit too much from Chris Bangle's "flame styling" cup. Believe it or not, the back is even worse...
I think they were upgrading the site.
Whoops. Sure enough. Good thing I posted the source. I fixed the code and of course got different answers. Now PB is number 1.

(If anyone reading this later wonders what the parent comment is talking about, my original attempt to calculate this was wrong.)
spigit - The Startup Showcase and Simulation Game
I prefer to think of it from the other angle. Humanity is evolving to the point where you can contact anyone. Old friends, super-intelligent people you've heard of, band singers, anyone. As long as the government stays out of the way, the next twenty years are going to be a ride.
Except there has to be someone, or a small group, to make overall design decisions as the organization gets bigger. I doubt the iPhone would be recognizable if Apple were a design democracy.
How about karma/comment? or even pageloads/time? :)
most comments don't seem to bad, worse case get a job at a behemoth, make some steady money for a while and hopefully meet a few folks to take of with on your next startup.

I'm still at the early stages, and hopefully will not have a great amount of war torn wisdom to share with folks about failing in a year or too, but the odds are stacked towards that outcome, as we all know.
Not incorporating is just dumb. Just get at least a basic LLC.
It depends on how much you personally invest.

If you cash out your 401k and empty your savings, and the business fails, then, you're out your 401k and savings. If you go small, fast and cheap, you're alot more likely to fail sooner but fail cheaper as well.

If you take money from others, there is a lot less financial risk for you, but less upside.

If you can set up your financial life so you have less debt and expenses, then you have a lot less to lose.
RockYou is monetizing by cross selling users to other apps for $0.30 a user.
Do you think Wal-Mart #1, Think Again A
hm. i'd rather type something like:

select username, karma, submissions from users where submissions > 10 order by karma desc

but you don't see me running an uber-hip VC firm, do you?
I'm with Locke here. What difference does it make? As long as you properly declare your income, and aren't in a position that you're going to get sued, you should be ok.
Anyone care?

I kid, I kid :-)
The graphical depictions are actually very good at explaining this concept. Great article.
That just demonstrated to me how I have exactly zero visual aesthetic sense. All four of those cars seem completely equivalent to me, aside from being functionally different. I'm beyond not having a visual design sense; I can't even notice good visual design when it hits me over the head.

It's just visual that's the problem, though-- I know elegance in proofs and programs, and I know good music; a Monet, though, does no more for me than a hotel painting, in that they're both kind of blurry.

I can still find things like Myspace obnoxious compared to Facebook, but only because of functionality and usage patterns, not any sense of aesthetics.
The Fuzzwich Cartoon Maker (yc summer 07)
check this site www.irintech.com/x1/
its a blog with simple 3-4 colors everything from the font to the design aspect.
its actually not the design but the layout and color combination that wins, and very few in the management understand. imagine a site with all sorts of animation it would look more like a site for a circus company
Looks awesome! Out of curiosity, why can't a user upload a sound or image and use it in their cartoon? If you're worried about NSFW issues, you can always use Amazon's Mechanical Turk to mark a sound or image as NSFW.
"Don't incorporate, though, if you can avoid it. We're less likely to accept groups that are already incorporated, because it costs so much more to deal with existing documents than to start from scratch." http://ycombinator.com/faq.html
hmmm I could be wrong because I'm not a lawyer (so you have to check this with a real lawyer), but I heard that even if you incorporate you're still somewhat liable as long as you're not a passive investor.

For example, if you (yourself) accidently release all of your users' confidential data to the public; you're liable for the damages that stem from it
congrats guys!!
double congrats to them! A few of them went to Georgia Tech and were in classes of mine. my thoughts about it from yesterday: http://urltea.com/15s0
Actually, we got slammed by approximately 150,000 13 year old girls at the same time. We hit the file descriptor limit on the load balancer - oops.
Ads to be added to up-and-coming widgets
Max Levchin already changed electronic commerce as a co-founder of PayPal, an online payment service that is expected to process more than $40 billion in transactions this year.
Brown represent!
Yeah but realistically that'd just return: ERROR: Unknown column 'submissions' or whatever because you'd probably have a separate submission table. Still, you're right that this simple stuff is what SQL is good at.

But having all that data in an in-memory hash is way more flexible and convenient. He can do any arbitrary operations on it, not just the stuff SQL and stored procedures are good at.
This is a good article with a interesting point of view. I would simply add that sometimes a great product sitting in my development environment or hidden from the world is worthless. You have to consider even a minimal amount of effort in getting your viral marketing started. Hopefully the theory focused on by the article will save you tons in marketing expenses once it gets going.
Marcus Frind: What Would You Do With a $300K Monthly Budget For Hiring and Strategy?
I'm a bit out of the Facebook loop, but one angle I've read of is selling data to advertisers.
Loosing your wife
I had some fun with it, no offense to anyone involved. It's pretty cool actually, because of how simple it is.

http://www.fuzzwich.com/minivid/minivid.php?vid=400
Presumably he's part of the 99.9% of companies out there who aren't lucky enough to have YC as an option.
cost is a hell of a lot more than $150... unless you're planning on incorporating something that will end up providing no protection in court, anyway, and will hurt you big time if you end up going big.
Fleeing free
Yes.

The key to not working overtime is to not work overtime. Don't be a wimp. I like a phrase I stole from "Lost in Translation":

"I have a previous commitment."
against the tos
Rethinking 'Crossing The Chasm'
I think this is saying that YC would rather not have to make legal changes to an existing company (i.e. it's more likely that you'll be funded by YC if you let them take care of the legal junk).
Web 2.0 Is A Gift, Not A Threat, To VCs
Copyright concerns?
This is just not true. Suppose you file the basic incorporation documents provided by your state and you are the sole shareholder. How exactly will that provide you with "no protection in court" or "hurt you big time if you end up going big?"
I don't trust corporations more than I trust governments.
Recycle it Your Own Damn Self!
I'm always looking for ways to reduce but I recently discovered a way to reuse before I recycle. It's a system called the 'scratch tray' and it's very straightforward. First you save all of the paper you would normally recycle (unless it has sensitive info on it, but those you would probably shred anyway). Then you....
How do you know you "aren't in a position that you're going to get sued?"
what a depressing article.
Sorry, but you are generally wrong. What I think you are talking about is called piercing the corporate veil: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piercing_the_corporate_veil

Under almost all regular circumstances, including the example you mention, you most likely wouldn't be held personally liable. You have to do something grossly negligent or something clearly in bad faith. An example would be committing fraud.
User upload will be coming in the near future. At least for images. For now, we wanted to push out something that was dead simple and involved as few steps to create something as possible.

On another note, our more powerful and feature rich online music animator, currently in the works, completely revolves around user created and uploaded content.
thank you thank you thank you thank you...
Reminds me a bit of http://quickcomic.com/ - but done right. Well done guys.
This is strangely addictive. I still haven't figured out
exactly why.
Nirvanix to challenge Amazon S3
Excellent article, and the illustrations do a fantastic job of visualizing your points.

I agree with your assertion, by the way. However, it does take something 'extra' (the "if you really want to spend money" part at the bottom) to make something into a total social phenomenon. That said, I still believe the magic sauce could be inventing something that is just so downright amazing (ex.: a perpetual motion machine) that people (and the news) must talk about it. That is the dream-stricken inventor in me, at least.
I've also wondered if "karma" as defined here is anything like real world karma (if there is such a thing).

What I mean is: Does upvoting a comment or submission effect your own karma points? Have the folks on the leader board also upvoted a lot? Is there any correlation at all?
More Lawsuit Fun For Facebook
Ready To Kill Some Time (And Some Enemies)?
Quantcast - Open Internet Ratings Service
Why Aren't Alt Search Engines Crawling Websites?
Arrington's comment several pages down is worth reading and considering:

> Jason, you don't address the fact that it takes two parties to transact. Simply charging for a piece of software doesn't bring in revenue. Someone has to actually pay for it.

I guess this is easy to overlook if you're 37signals...
If you look at median comment score, there are three leaders with 3-- garbowza, greendestiny, and pg-- followed by a large number with 2. If you go by average the leaders are:

(pg 1086 3.92)
(rwalker 14 3.57)
(cperciva 36 3.36)
(jmzachary 21 3.05)
(paul 160 2.98)
(elq 24 2.96)
(uuilly 26 2.88)
(greendestiny 23 2.83)
(rzwitserloot 18 2.78)
(smg 12 2.75)
(garbowza 12 2.75)
(nostrademons 440 2.75)
(pc 12 2.75)

Though it's kind of lame that I lead, the good news is that it looks like the extra upvotes I get for being the creator of the site probably don't amount to more than 1 per comment.
When I stay up late to hack, my thought is that if I'm not sleeping I'd better be doing something productive. Why stay up until 3 or 4 AM if you're just surfing the web?
That made me laugh out loud. I put it on my frontpage.
What's the difference between a business idea and an opportunity?
True cost of the iPhone
A detailed look at Vancouver's startup scene
I don't think it's lame that you lead. More people upvote your comments because more people read your comments, and that's to be expected. It would only be blind fandom if all your comments were upvoted.
Killer resources for entrepreneurs
If anyone is wondering what's going on, it's standard for companies just about to go public to get a flurry of lawsuits from people hoping they'll pay them to go away.

Curiously, the ultimate culprit here may be the press. If a company is going public with a lawsuit hanging over its head, no matter how ridiculous, reporters will end otherwise positive stories with "but they're being sued" in order to seem to be judiciously reporting both sides of the story.
Just incorporate. Over here in europe you need 18k in the bank and it costs at least 1200 dollars in notary fees, and most people still do so. (Or alternatively you could get an english limited but this makes further legalese difficult as you need to conform to two different nation's laws).

The biggest problem, as I understand it (at least over here) is that changing from non-incorporated to incorporated AFTER your company has built up significant value is a complete pain in the arse.
One YC funded startup is based there, Snipshot.
Leveraging Facebook To Compete With eBay Won't Work
Stealth mode means when software isn't launched.
I wonder how it handles?
The scary thing about this is the assumption that your job is a mere "day job."

Most people who do great things work hard. If you don't feel you're doing great things at your current job, get another job.
Yah, the whole point is that living in this litigious society means anyone can sue for anything. Losing a house doesn't necessarily mean you lost a reasonable case.

It means you lose in trying to fight. Essentially, I'm trying to spend as little on lawyers as possible.
There have been a number of comments about how effective incorporation is at protecting you from suit, etc. They're all guesses: Sarbanes Oxley changes all the rules, and the old rules concerning the corporate veil no longer apply. (Anticipating an objection, no, SarbOx does not apply solely to public companies.)

The problem is that nobody knows exactly what the new rules are. There is no case law yet surrounding SarbOx IT compliance that I'm aware of.

That doesn't really matter, though. nickb said that not incorporating is "just dumb": if that's the case, there are an awful lot of really dumb entrepreneurs out there, and really dumb business advisors, too. The cost of incorporation is more than the couple of hundred bucks to file the paperwork: there's ongoing compliance which costs both money and mindshare. It's probably not worth it until you require the different tax regime or have a specific need for the limited liability.

The bottom line is that you won't get sued until you have substantial revenue, and then you'll get sued no matter what you do. Lawsuits follow the money. Nobody is going to sue you to get your house because it would cost more in legal fees than your house is worth. A website is different than a business with a storefront, which has to deal with the possibility of personal injury claims, and which invariably has an insurance policy to provide the honeypot for suits.
We definitely have the option to do YC. Our application is in.

This faq is certainly a reason for making this post and asking, as our release would come before the winter session starts and maybe before Oct. 11th, when application results come out.

Is seems the consensus is to incorporate in some fashion just out of basic prudence before a release. So the question for PG and folks at YC is "you'd rather we no incorporate, but I think we need to, how should we do it?"

Another thread mentioned opening the "standard" papers YC uses -- and PG mentioned the problem in papers that might be wrong or have holes for companies. I'd like to hear about any progress on that front.
We're working on that.
You have to do some other things, like open up a bank account, and make sure company things are separate from personal things. But there are books (nolo.com has some for instance) that explain the steps necessary.

I guess it's all about risks/rewards - I don't have a lot of assets to begin with, I'm not sure the company will go anywhere, so why blow thousands of dollars on expensive lawyers? Better to learn the details of the process myself. So I created an LLC in Oregon.

On the other hand, if you're already wealthy, and want to create some kind of music sharing site... well, maybe some good lawyers are worth the money.
What about something like an umbrella policy? Would that cover a sole proprietership (sp)?
Just had a chat with one of the cofounders. I misunderstood / recruitment agent mis-told me that it was equity, rather it is a company share option scheme.

I will be offered 100 shares (3yr vest period) which isn't great however this will hopefully be pre series A and so strike cost should be a lot less post series A.

Is it worth going for share options (even if it's only for 100 shares)? I don't see this as compensation for salary but more of a bonus if anything.

what does eveyone think?
That's affirmative:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39936

http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?api_key=611914d...

(see admin-like wall post from chris smoak)
9 Lessons Learned From Founders At Work
Founders at Work is a great book for anyone working on a startup or thinking about doing so.
Why I really don't like cold calling and what I do instead
Cut off Nose, Spite Facebook
I wonder if Friendster'll pull out their patent, too, while the iron's hot.
Wow. This is great. I was just (yesterday) thinking about how there are no user accessible animation tools out there. There's a long way to go, but this is a wonderful start.

Congrats.
While live record is a great way to get it out there... keyframe based animation (even without explicit timing spline control) would really help.
PlentyOfFish has an incredible reach, especially for a one-man job in ASP.NET. I think it's probably the best example of the power of the network effect I've ever seen.

Given a traffic juggernaut, your focus has got to be on 1) growing it, and 2) monetizing it better.
What about when the boring current job pays 50%+ more than the possibly exciting job down the street?

The grass is not always greener...

(this coming from the guy that struggles to force himself to work 40/wk [and who's paid hourly])
Couldn't get it to work. I have Flash 8. No error or anything.
This happens to hedge funds, too. Clarium Capital and Citadel Investment Group have each grown about a thousandfold since founding -- and both have people claiming to be forgotten, cheated cofounders.
Salt was an excellent metaphor to choose because it removes scarcity as an issue. Property rights developed in an environment of scarcity: when I take something from you I deprive you of its use. Obviously copyright infringement does not deprive the copyright owner of use of the material. It does diminish the value of the copyright, though.

When framed this way, debate can be about the validity of the copyright or intellectual property rather than whether "stealing" is OK. The colonial "copyright" on salt was clearly not justified; a copyright on "one-click" purchases seems silly; the copyright on the Office 2007 ribbon seems more justified. In any case the debate is focussed on what it should be.
1 Billion mobile broadband users in 5 years
Can you give some specific examples how SarbOx "changes all the rules" for web startups like those that people are generally making on this forum?

In other words, I think this is an extreme overstatement. For most situations that people here will be concerned with, the case law regarding corporate veils that has been developed over the past several hundred years will still apply. And regardless, you still want to be protected as much as possible, which results in the same advice of creating a legal entity with some sort of liability protection.

Also, regarding getting sued. If you personally have a decent amount of money, you are a target for frivolous lawsuits regardless of how well your business is doing. And it doesn't cost that much to file a suit and fish for a settlement.

Finally, regarding the fact that many people operate outside a corporate veil. They most likely do it because it is the path of least resistance. This doesn't make it right though. Like anything, it is a cost/benefit scenario. Since the costs are so low, and the benefits are so high (protection from low probability but high impact events), it just makes sense in many cases where you are trying to build a big business, like most people on this forum.
You don't have to spend anything on lawyers to create a legal entity with liability protection. It really is simple and quick.
Generally umbrella policies do not cover businesses of any kind. They are more for personal injury protection and intended to be an "umbrella" over your home and car insurance policies.
Interface Compare: Inviting Friends on MySpace & Facebook
Does anyone have experience with mynewcompany.com?
This looks like an attractive deal .There's a huge price difference between this and hiring a lawyer - so what are the drawbacks of using a service like this?
Can you give an example of web startups like those that people are generally making on this forum that have been sued?

To answer your question: no I can't give an example. I don't think there are any examples: that's why I said nobody knows the effect. My point is that simple statements about limited liability might be correct, but might not be.

I agree that case law surrounding corporate liability has been developed over hundreds of years. That's one reason why SarbOx is so widely reviled: it was a reactionary, hasty rollback of much of that law. Problems are already emerging and the provisos, exemptions, etc. are starting to be catalogued. Should keep government lawyers and bureaucrats in steak and ice cream for years to come.

I totally disagree that most people choose sole proprietorship or partnership because it is the path of least resistance (and by implication, because they are simpletons). I think they do it because it is the best choice for their business.

I didn't mean to make extreme statements: quite the opposite, what I meant to say was the incorporation is complex and highly dependent on individual circumstances, and blanket rules are unhelpful. That seems to me to be pretty middle path, although all extremists believe they are middle path, I suppose.

I stand by what I said about getting sued. I know a couple of lawyers who do not carry liability insurance on their side business for just this reason. If you are worth several millions, you are worth suing, otherwise, not. Any suits against a website are likely to be class action suits, so you would have to be personally worth tens of millions at least to make it worth a lawyer's time.
I think it could work for things which require a higher trust level or in which locality is a key factor. For example, suppose I have a hundred or so porn DVDs I inherited from my recently collapsed startup. Maybe I don't want to go through the hassle of sending each one out to a different user over ebay but if can give them to folks for $5 a pop who happen to be around campus (or town) then I come out a winner.
Google to unveil phone of its own by next year (Phoney?)
I'm currently reading a book, 'The Black Swan', that talks about randomness, and I have to say... I didn't wake up this morning thinking that I would create a cartoony animation subsequently featured on PG's web site.
Turns out Google may just be your garden-variety monopoly after all