skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
This should come as no surprise. All Startups that are using "legitimate" means to get data (e.g. via APIs) are at risk. The API provider can block you at any time. Here are other examples:
- In May 2006, Ebay blocked Rapleaf's attempt at making seller reputations portable. Rapleaf was using Ebay's API.
- In 1999, UPS and FedEx blocked all companies that were using their APIs to display and transact best shipping methods. All of those startups were using UPS and FedEx API. This happened again in Jan 2006, when UPS blocked www.simpletracking.com and once again in late 2006, when UPS and FedEx blocked startup www.RedRoller.com Their website is still up, but without UPS and FedEx in there, it's evident that they are dying. Once again, RedRoller was using FedEx and UPS API.
- Startups using Google API are subject to the same issue..Google will block you as soon as you come in their radar screen.
...so if you are planning to use APIs, figure out your plan B in advance!
You would hope that companies would start to realize the advantage they gain from everyone using their api. Especially apis that embed their brand (and potentially ads) in other peoples pages. There are a lot reasons for api providers not to pull nonsense like this. Amazon clearly does not look very good here.

But ultimately, yeah, there's always some risk when you run off an api you don't control.
Working at a fun startup is very different from working in some big company. Answer: make your startup a great place to work.
From Subprime Loans to Failing Newspapers - Business opportunity?
As a greybeard in the making (36), my instinct is to dismiss comments like Mark's as inexperience and naivety. Those sorts of attitudes make me uncomfortable and edgy.

After some reflection, I'm forced to conclude that although such ageism is annoying, is naive, is arrogant, it's also beautiful. It is exactly that arrogance, the sure knowledge that the "establishment" is full of it and needs to be rescued by youth, that has rescued us, many times. Its from that arrogance that the energy to drive change comes.

There are many examples. A mantra of the 60s was to never trust anyone over 30. Kurt Cobain didn't exactly work with a lot of elder statesmen of the music world. Bertold Brecht spent his 20s in active rejection of all drama that had come before. And the art world is chock full of young artists declaring that a new age had arrived -- Basquiat probably never even talked to anyone under 30, except Andy Warhol, who was at least pretending to be a teenager.

None of which makes Mark's words easier for me to hear, but I can't bring myself to dismiss the attitude. It's fuel for radical new ideas. It's the nuclear reactor of society.
I figure whereever there is a possible problem there is a business opportunity. That article is a bit long though. Basically the issue is that as content become more and more free, media organisations will start disappearing and then a small percentage of good journalism that you really have to pay for will disappear.

So the question is obviously there is a demand for good journalism, how do you connect that demand directly with the journalists without paper organisations. There is an argument that this is already being done, but I think its not done well enough. Maybe it will just happen without intervention. Just a thought.
Facebook is a product. Lotus is a business.

Facebook doesn't need to keep innovating and re-imagining itself. It's designed to do one thing and it already does that quite well. All Zuckerberg needs to do to continue milking his cash cow is to keep the product fresh and trendy. This means hiring the kind of young and trendy people who his product targets.

Lotus, on the other hand, is a business. And as such they need to constantly innovate to survive. That means finding new problems in new markets and delivering new products to new people. As such they need all the diversity they can get.

If Facebook wants to become a business, they'll need diversity too. If they're content to keep milking the cash cow they already have, I'd say Zuckerberg's strategy is sound.
Google Says "We're Not Doing a Mobile Phone"
With the primary sphere of software innovation now being online offerings, it seems like we have an awesome opportunity to do what leaders of focus groups have dreamed about since the term focus group was invented -- observe usage during natural activities.

Would it be an invasion of my users' privacy to record the frequency of use of various features, if that info was not linked to the user in any way? If that was acceptable to users, we'd have the opportunity to expand on the areas that were getting the most use, while (all the while battling the marketing dept -- "It's already there, what's the harm???") dropping the features that were rarely used, or (even more telling!) got initiated but not completed.

That could lead to some radical simplifying of applications, all to the advantage of the user. But I wouldn't want to be compared to some Orwell character. Whadda people think -- reasonable and beneficial research, or nightmarish Big Brother tactic?
Additional to the Starbucks link earlier
The Starbucks link posted earlier was interesting, but everyone should read the original story that prompted the blog entry.

Starbucks is huge. Starbucks is corporate (whether you think that's good, bad or indifferent is up to you). And this article reveals that Starbucks is incredibly introspective and honest.

I hope that I can be this dispassionate and open about my own mistakes when my company has 10 employees, nevermind 10,000.
Bill Gates' Thoughts on Microsoft in 1989
I recommend reading the comments to that blog post. They make very valid points and make the post much more interesting. There is a place for innovation in big companies, just most of them are bad at nurturing it (excluding Google).
The Transactor Online Archive (This is what geeky high school students read in the 80s! What do they read today?)
How to Pass a Silicon Valley Software Engineering Interview
Thank you for sharing the list. I was surprised to see my co-founder's (python_kiss) article on the list!

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/6_startup_lessons_2007.php
Still in college? Is it a good idea to take time off to pursue a startup?
I'm still a freshman at university. Is taking time off to pursue a startup a good idea? If somebody has a certain amount of dedication, it's possible to leave school, succeed in a startup, come back to school and graduate. What's holding us back?
I regretted not taking a year off from school. I think the timing depends more on the stage of your business, rather than when you're graduating.
Hi Nick,

Understand your concerns about privacy and security, and not everyone will feel comfortable immediately, but we'll keep proving ourselves as independent application providers who really just want to make a really cost effective and smart way to maintain an up to date business plan that you can achieve.

I'm trying to think of smart ideas on how we can provide more comfort, maybe have a recognised audit partner perhaps... In the meantime we'll have to get the people who are comfortabel managing their plan online securely with us and go from their.

thanks,

tim.
PlanHQ
I am a sophomore at the moment.

Over the course of my freshman year I launched three sites that tanked - along with my GPA.

But I guess I was lucky that high GPA and good job was never really an option for me so I kept trying new stuff hoping something would get enough traction to sideline college totally. With the launch of my start-up couple months ago I hit that partial success I was looking at.

I am just in a helpless state of doing my own thing and not caring much about college. I still haven't dropped out or taken a year off but I plan my day around my venture rather than classes. Sticking with the minimum 12hrs is helpful.

Being in college in and of itself isn't a bad thing. You can work tirelessly on your venture across the desk from someone else working tirelessly on a school paper.
This is one question only you can answer. In my opinion, if you have to ask, then you should stay in school for the time being.

In "A Student's Guide to Startups," Paul Graham writes:

"...Our official policy now is only to fund undergrads we can't talk out of [leaving college]. And frankly, if you're not certain, you should wait. It's not as if all the opportunities to start companies are going to be gone if you don't do it now."
While it's interesting to think about what would be ideal in the abstract, I think any company that puts hiring someone who fits a demographic (ie, "young") over hiring the right person for the job is doing themselves a disservice. We all know woefully boring 25-year-olds and exciting, bleeding-edge 50-somethings, I'm sure.

That said, teens and 20-somethings tend to have much more time and energy on their hands -- and a tendency not to be stuck in old ruts. But I imagine they're also much more chaotic and restless. And simply inexperienced. Which could be problematic.
A VC: Why Seed Investing Is Less Risky Than Later Stage Investing
Jeez, Fred, don't tell everyone.
It depends on your mindset. I had fully intended to complete my undergrad while working part-time and then create a startup or pursue a masters.

Instead, my health forced me to drop one of my activities, and it ended up being my schooling. It was stressful, but at this point I am glad I chose to drop my college courses. I would not have gained the experience I have now and my income and work history would have remained relatively stagnant. I would potentially have been forced to move back to the country and live with my parents while I re-gained my health. I would have never worked with the people I worked with and learned about running a company this early in life if I had completed school first.

In the end, it worked to my advantage. In my case, I realized that a degree is something you can get at any time (I still fully intend to complete my CS degree in the future). Work experience and opportunities are harder to come by. For someone else, college (especially a prestigious school) may provide the opportunities I had to look outside for. It all depends on your mindset, your social skills, your location, and your technical/business skills.

In short: no one can really answer this for you. You need to consider your goals, your current opportunities, and the opportunities your current course of action may present to you in the future.
The short answer: no.

It becomes diminishingly difficult to go back to school as you get older. The same applies for doing a startup, unfortunately. The difference is that you can generate income while building a startup. It's more difficult to get investors to pay you to go to college. Thus, finish.

To make your task easier, here's my rule-of-thumb formula for determining the difficulty level for finishing college or creating a startup:

(log(m+1) + w^2 + c + s) x log(y+1), where m is any mortgage, in dollars, w is the number of wives, c is the number of children, s is yourself, and y is your age, in years.

To give you an idea: the average 20 year old has a difficulty factor of about 1.3. A 30 year old with a family and a mortgage is about 6 and a 40 year old in the same boat is about 15. YMMV.

Good luck.
Probably the finger-wag:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/socialmoth/405509951

(Rtm started it.)
A Place For Buyers And Sellers To Meet And Make Business
"If you do have to leave grad school, in the worst case it won't be for too long. If a startup fails, it will probably fail quickly enough that you can return to academic life. And if it succeeds, you may find you no longer have such a burning desire to be an assistant professor." - How to Start a Startup

That article basically made me question the premise of continuing on with my Electrical Engineering degree. During school, I was fascinated by social networks and dividents of collective capability and genius; so I dropped out of school to learn new web programming languages, marketing and business. Then, a few months ago, I finally let my social network out to the public. It was, and continues to be, a thrilling experience.

At this age, we have less responsibilities and a more flexible timetable than we may ever have again. I say leave college; if your startup fails, you can always go back.
its just ur life journey ! its up to you if to take a bus or a train!

Good idea or not is depended on who u ask! Important is what wd u like to do now!
A much more noble attitude than plugging your ears and humming -- which is how many people seem to react to this harsh reality.

The fact is that Kapor himself was very young when he made his mark. There are far more similarities between him and Zuckerberg than differences, regardless of their opinions.
I was just about to post that...
Facebook isn't a technology company - funny Mark thinks it is!
an even better set of notes is here:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/18290/Y-Combinator-Startup-School-2007-Notes
"I think building a diverse team (assuming everybody is highly capable of course) wins most of the time."

We know diversity over the long-term is safer. Perhaps in startups, where the timespan is short, specialization and myopic vision win out?

Where do you see examples of diverse startups being successful? From what I see most are made up of young male geeks who could be brothers.
"... in early 20s coming up with next set of Lotus features."

Why not? The only reason I can image is because they wouldn't likely be allowed to try. Instead they have to create something entirely new and better that makes it obsolete.
In my hiring, there is one thing that is paramount over all- attitude. And generally the attitude that gets people filtered out is arrogance. Not confidence, but arrogance.

Discriminating on age is silly. As is technological proficiency for non-technical positions (to a point.) I'll take a killer sales guy who's just getting by technologically over one who has accepted patches in the linux kernel but doesn't have the drive.

Too many people of one age fail to value people of a different age group... give me two equally proficient engineers, one with 20 years experience and one with 2 years experience, and I'll try to hire them both. But if either of them is arrogant, I'm not interested.
^haha, who came up with that ingenious formula? I would put number of wives and children as an exponent, e^(w + c) :p
I spoke to numerous YC alumni about this and they all offered valuable feedback. My takeaway was the same conclusion I always had: it's worth it. I already know what I want to do, and I have no problem leaving school to work on this full-time. This is not right for everybody (or even most), but I can talk forever about why it's right for me.
Edward Tufte: "Running my own enterprise allows me to work elegantly, intensely, gracefully and incredibly efficiently."
Maybe, but they didn't really want to do email either. Individual handsets can possibly be ruled out, but huge (huge-r?) moves in the mobile arena is a given.
Should I even attempt something of this complexity in Rails?
Gang, I submitted a YC funding idea for a new app that would be highly interactive and ideal to put on the web. The closest thing I've seen to what I'm trying to do is DabbleDB; I won't be competing with it, but my idea is 'of a piece' with Dabble. It's implemented in Seaside, and the more I learn about Seaside and Squeak and Smalltalk in general, the more intrigued I am. But I really enjoy Ruby and I've really loved developing in Rails, so I guess my question is, has anyone tried to implement something as bad-ass as Dabble in Rails, or any other framework out there? How much of a factor should "love of language" play in choosing a framework?
If you want to see the slides, they're online at: http://www.zenter.com/ed/view.html?id=226 (FireFox only at the moment)
Should you really get funding?
Random unverified rumor:    Google to start clothing company
Um... yes?

Let me know if you've got any better ideas.
Funny you think that statement means anything useful.

Facebook certainly is powered by technology and its future certainly relies on innovating using technology. Why don't you clarify what you mean in more than a single sentence?
An attempt an analogy:

Some people would find it less stressful to pilot a small aircraft over open waters than be a passenger in a large jet flying over land.
How useful are type "a" people at all? Sounds like a kind definition of people lacking passion and the desire to grow. Isn't hiring them a recipe for mediocrity at any stage?
Any company that can deal with that kind of traffic has to be at least fairly good at technology.

But I think he meant more than that. He meant they approach problems (including nontechnical ones) the way technical people do. That's an interesting idea. And it seems to be working, too.
Steve Wozniak interview in "Founders At Work"
C Puzzles, time to brush up on your C
I found Wozniak's interview, in Jessica's book, as one of the most entertaining [1]. Many of the lessons learned from his early days have a global appeal to other startups as well: starting out with a great team, being young, not having money, adaptability, etc.

"Entrepreneurs have to keep adjusting to... everything's changing, everything's dynamic, and you get this idea and you get another idea and this doesn't work out and you have to replace it with something else. Time is always critical because somebody might beat you to the punch.

It's better to be young because you can spend a lot more nights, very very late. Because you have to get things done, and there's almost no other way to get around that. When the times come, they are critical." - Woz

[1] I haven't finished the book yet.
Hah, multiple wives? You sure that's only quadratic?
Alexa let their technology stagnate and now there are quite a few startups about to run past them. Unless they buy out the competition Alexa will be totally irrelevant very soon.

This kind of big company coldness is just accelerating their demise.
When investing in early stage companies, you put in less money and the upside is much greater. If this were the full picture then obviously early stage ventures would be a better deal. Of course, many more early stage companies go under than late stage companies. This extra risk is supposed to balance out the greater reward. But does it?

To borrow Kedrosky's terminology, VC investing is really a combination of two separate skills: picking and poking. Picking is choosing which startups to invest in, and poking is helping the startup along to further its chances of success.

The vast majority of people investing in early stage ventures are friends, family, and fools. Because these people aren't very good at either picking or poking, their risk level is very high. This in turn drives up the cost of capital.

You can reduce your risk by becoming better at picking. You can also reduce your risk by becoming better at poking. And if you can become better at both, you can reduce your risk a huge amount. Because there are so few investors who are good at both, these people are barely even taken into account when determining the cost of capital. Which is why if you are good at both, it's an arbitrage opportunity for the investor.

For late stage ventures, there is much more money on the table which means much less amateur investment. Because you don't have as many dumb people pumping up the cost of capital, there isn't really any arbitrage opportunity.

Incidentally, PG has reduced his risk even further by creating news.YC so he can get to know the founders a little bit before investing. Theoretically, if a founder knows that PG has less risk because of this, the founder should be able to use this as leverage to get a better valuation. However, this doesn't work in reality because the shortage of PGs creates a market inefficiency (in favor of PG). However, I suspect that anyone who can successfully clone him will have a good arbitrage opportunity.
I wouldn't consider Ruby a risky choice for implementing something like DabbleDB -- I'd call it the safe choice. Choosing the technology is one of the greatest perks of doing your own thing.
Consider Adding a Filter to Your Randomly Generated CAPTCHAs
You should realize a few things first and weight them:
1. your wants
2. if you are satisfied or not, if you feel not doing what you love or depressed or pressed
3. your determination, be ready to fail and few other questions PG pointed out in his speech.

Thus examine if pursuaing through a break a startup could fulfil what is missing from your life, and if its worth it contrary to what you may miss if you didn't take time off.

It can be both an easy and a very difficult decision. And you shouldn't let anyone affect you, because remember most people of your surrounding are not aware and cannot think the same way you do, no matter how close they are to you.
This is a hard question. I considered dropping out multiple times in college, but ended up sticking it out and getting my degree. I'm still not sure if it was the right choice, but it seems to be working out so far. Anyways, I have no answers, but I have some observations.

One of my main fears in college was that I would graduate, take a soul-crushing job, and then lose all desire to start a startup. This hasn't happened. I still want a successful startup just as much as I did in college, or maybe even more. You're not going to stop wanting what you've always wanted just because you have a degree, a job, money, and options.

OTOH, having a job and an income fucks with your perceptions a little. I was lucky (smart?) and didn't change my spending habits; over the past year and a half that I've been working, I banked close to 90% of my take-home pay. Even though I'm financially much more secure than I was coming out of college, it feels much more precarious - I've gotten used to having a certain amount of money coming in each month. Quitting my day job wouldn't be an issue if I didn't have a day job.

Don't underestimate the experience you'll learn on the job. I feel like I've benefited significantly from working in somebody else's startup for a year and a half before trying my own. It also creates a sense of momentum and gets your brain in gear; you'll need all the focus you can have when starting your startup.

Don't overestimate the book learning you'll get in college. Honestly, I don't think a single thing I learned in the classroom has helped me with my startup.

OTOH, a lot of college learning occurs outside the classroom. My impossible quest to complete a computer science major in one semester while the department would not let me declare one turned out to be exactly what startup life is all about. There will be many moments when you have to work like hell for what feels like zero payoff. It's a good experience to really fuck up and then recover from it, because you do that a lot with startups. If you skip the recovery part in college, how do you know you'll be able to do it with your startup?

Also, I met my cofounders in college. Had I left after freshman year, I would never have known them. Had I left later, I probably wouldn't have kept in touch.

Probably the biggest factor in my decision not to leave is that I didn't have a clear idea what I would do instead. That's probably the biggest determinant: if you know exactly what you'll be working on instead (like Michael Dell, Bill Gates, or Mark Zuckerberg) do that instead. If you don't, stay in school, because you'll probably end up doing nothing instead, and nothing isn't a particularly good teacher.
YCN Feature Request: Best of Day/Week/Month/Year
it's funny that the quote got reported as "we're not doing a mobile phone," when in his second sentence he pretty much says "because handsets suck right now and we'd rather replace them with something completely different."