skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I'll check my mail. Meanwhile I'm marking this dead;
nothing personal.
France Bans Citizen Journalists from recording violence
Not so fast; we are pretty good at repairing ideas.
So far, the approximate average age for a founder based on the responses is (27.8)

--

require 'hpricot'

sum = 0
count = 0.0

file = Hpricot(File.open("comments.htm","r"))

file.search("span.comment/font") do |line|
if line.inner_html =~ /([^\s][0-9]+[.,\s])/
number = $1.strip.to_i
if number gt 10 && number lt 70
sum += number
count += 1
end
end
end

puts "average age of founder is: " + sprintf("%.1f",sum/count)
AT&T vice president says they are committed to municipal wireless.
5 Phrases You Never Want to Hear in a Presentation
As you pointed out, Google already competes both directly and indirectly with myspace; NewsCorp knew that going in, and went with Google anyway. I doubt that serving ads for yet another social network would be enough to drive NewsCorp away--and I even more seriously doubt that their contract with Google would allow it.

One point about Orkut: while its growth is phenomenal, most of that growth is in non-US markets, so it does not pose any direct threat to either Friendster or myspace.
VC's back teams not ideas. Jeff Taylor is an executor - he doesn't need the money, but its enough to show anyone else in the space who's boss (or the monster). Having money in the bank while funds are still frothy just means they won't struggle in the future. He probably got a valuation he can't match and they are probably looking at monetising their audience in "offline ways" which may up the burn rate a tad. That said i'd back jeff taylor too. Good luck to them :)
Perhaps they plan on hiring full time content creators and community coordinators.

Hopefully once you get to be in your 70s you're no submitting new content eight hours a day just for the karma to alleviate your status anxiety. Hopefully.
Trading latte for co-workers
How Do You Teach Kids the Value of Money?
Y Combinator: The Top Internet VC Firms (Sequoia #1)
I wonder if that choice of the word "staggering" is an accident.
The rise of the female entrepreneur
You're only 21? I would have guessed 26.
It's hard to say for sure, but I'd guess it's not off by more than a couple years.

YC founders probably differ from the average founder more in how hackerly they are than their age. We have a strong bias toward companies run by the people actually writing the software.
How to make the most of your pitch to a VC
Presently I'm involved in everything, as we just recently got going in earnest. I'm a developer and I've been out of development roles for past couple of years, so I'm really enjoying it.

However, I see my day-to-day programming role going down as we get more successful. My eventual role will probably be that of product development (besides corporate leadership). I'm the one with the original vision and I've been in consulting situations where this product would have been very helpful.
Uclue--The return of Google Answers (or at least the researchers)
I like Alex, Danielha, and notabel :) Keep up the great posts guys. Feel free to email/call me if any of you guys wish to discuss startups with a fellow entrepreneur. - jawad.exe@gmail.com, 1-416-879-4659
The examples given also support JWZ's theory of social software: software exists to get people (or dogs) laid.
I think there is a virtue to not having much of it to begin with.

My parents are big believers in saving for rainy days, and we definitely had some rainy days during my childhood (Dad works in aerospace, go figure). I think tough times like these really helped me interactively learn about the value of money. Though I disliked such lessons at the time, I'm learning to appreciate them now that I'm on my own.
There's just the two of us so I'm involved in just about everything. We each have our own strong areas so we split up the development in regards to that.

As it is right now, we conceptualize together and I head the front-end development while my partner has been doing substantial back-end work.
You don't have to be a US citizen or resident to own a US company.
We'll gradually be adding more features of this type.
I think you can teach kids the value of money by stressing the importance of achieving financial independence early in life.
"Search is not a business"
It seems like a good idea, I've just never used it. Anybody here actually use research products like this?
It's true -- search _wasn't_ a business. Fortunately some people were smart enough to see that it could _become_ a business.
I'd be curious to know how many people were polled to generate those numbers. For instance, if 25 people[1] were polled, then 23 of 25 -- 92% -- put Sequoia on their list. That would be quite impressive indeed.[2]

[1] I'm pulling that number from the ether, and the fact that there are 95 points visible; 25 people would have 125 available, and an excess of 30 seems reasonable.
[2] Not that the data aren't impressive anyway.[3]
[3] Yes, I have a footnote problem.
10 Great Blogger Tantrums
A search please.
QUOTE: Considering that relying sites can filter which providers they allow authentication from, I am overall positive about an increased usage of OpenID.

I'm hoping that this sort of thinking will not proliferate, as it nullifies what I see as one of the big advantages of OpenID: user privacy. The core architecture of OpenID makes it possible for users or small groups of users to operate their own OpenID servers, avoiding the need to hand their personal information over to any third party to prove their (pseudonymous) identity. If it becomes standard practice to filter OpenID requests to only allow authentication from certain large providers, then OpenID becomes no better than any other single-sign-on system.

Moreover, there is no advantage to filtering authentication sources. An OpenID authentication is merely an assertion that the user is authorized to use a given universally unique identifier. The only way that the authentication source can cheat is by permitting auths that it should deny, or vice versa. Because users can choose the authentication source they use, there is no incentive for such cheating. In the case of a private person running their own OpenID server, the only attack would be for that person to attack their own account, nonsensically.

If you're unconvinced of the security of permitting anyone to serve, consider the analogy to Jabber servers: anyone can run their own, federating into the wider XMPP network, and the network maintains security because the misbehavior of one server only affects that server's users.
I am a firm believer that our schools should have a heavy financial component at some point around 9th and 12th grades. The amount of debt that many have these days in their early 20's is outrageous.
Depending on how mature the startup is, the roles keep changing. It starts with being a little bit of everything, but if you are lucky, you eventually find people who fit certain roles better than you would.
I just discussed a few examples here http://www.logic2go.com/index.php/archives/2007/03/02/
Apple unveils iLaunch for launching products
Tangentially related:

http://paul.kedrosky.com/archives/2007/03/07/five_questions.html
I am the team leader; the one with the original insight. My initial role was as the developer. I created a beta version of the concept and used it to convince two extremely talented people to join my team. I now have an exceptional designer and a marketing guru working with me to create an innovate business.
Indeed, it has been widely noted that craigslist's authenic feel (hyped by the .org TLD) and community fostering ruggedness has created a cult-like following. It seems that their lack of graphics, change, and heavy UI development has kept the installed user base, well, installed, and growing.

http://www.startupnation.com/pages/newsroom/PR_2006_0128.asp
I'm the tech lead. I make all technology choices, figure out the overall system architecture, and so far have done all the programming (we may pull other founders over to some of the easier programming tasks later). I did not have the original idea, nor do I have any talent at graphics design, so I'm glad I have cofounders for that part.
Great! Now let's use the same method to measure the length of the emperor's nose. :)

If you have Nexis or bizwire access, you could probably get hard numbers going.
Anyone interested in meeting up in the Palo Alto area?
It would be awesome to get together with fellow YC News community folks who are around the area.
Funny, but more of a Reddit-of-old thing than a YC news thing.
If you want to be rich, first stop being so frightened
I was going to put out something also whenever Startup School invitations go out.

Then again, maybe they have and I'm out of luck. :)
Absolutely. I was also thinking of setting something up as soon as we received word on admittance. I would love to meet the YC News community. Maybe even grab a drink afterward. Talk startup. :)
Definitely - count me in.
Myth of the seasoned manager
Parhaps you could all meet at the new Palo Alto OpenCoffee club. Details at http://localglobe.blogspot.com/2007/03/palo-altos-opencoffee-club.html
Who is going to Startup School? Have you heard back yet?
I have not yet received word.
Turkey Says 'No More YouTube' (Blocked)
U.S. online ad revenue rises to $16.8 Billion dollars!
Count me in too - as soon as I get an invitation to Startup School :)
I'm going to be in the area the weekend of StartupSchool (March 24th). Anyone up for coffee then?
Seems like a case of treating the symptom not the ailment itself...
If only I weren't in school on the East coast.
Get Your Estimated Home Valuation In One Click
Marketing on Blogs: Top 50 Web 2.0 Blogs
Are you all planning on flying out there are or you from the area? I'll try to fly out (and most definitely meet up) if I am accepted and if it's within my budget.
Smile for the Google 3D Mapping Truck
Count me in as well.
Can someone please post the location and time details?
I could not see info on how to get invitation to "Palo Alto OpenCoffee Club" when I clicked that link. I get message "That venue is private".
I am also waiting for the response.
I think the concept sounds great and it is beautifully executed.

Books don't have the same broad appeal as videos but are definitely easier to classify, search, and analyze. There's a whole lot of semantic data to work with in a book so a site like Scribd should be much easier to monetize than youtube with context-sensitive advertising. Couple this product with some sort of publisher agreement a la youtube and you'll definitely have a winning investment.

Congrats on the cash infusion! Spend wisely!!
Anyone in NYC interested in something similar?
Where the Coffee Shop Meets the Cubicle
It is true, search was not a business. Back then, most startups depended on DoubleClick banner ads for revenue generation (just as today most startups depend on Adsense). DoubleClick was not a viable business model and Google considered that to be their very last option.

Google was running thin on cash until they finally adopted Bill Gross' GoTo.com advertising model (aka Overture) in 2000. So for the first 2 years, Google was a cash cow with no business model around its search either.
"weekly Palo Alto OpenCoffee Club on Tuesday between 830-100 at Deuce France in the Town & Country Village close to the intersection of El Camino Real & Embarcadero."

It's open to anyone (hence opencoffee) so no need for invitation. You just turn up and enjoy. The first one in London drew 120 people during the 2 hours, completely overunning the starbucks where it took place. I hope Palo Alto will be the same.
Nor have I, which is one of the reasons I started this topic.
How to Monetize MySpace
Next Generation Social Networks
Thanks.
I assume 830-100 means 8:30 AM to 10 AM then.
Wish it was over weekend,
Am currently doing the bulk of the market research, b-plan dev and giving guidance to the other two in the company who have never been part of a startup. Soon, I'll be doing the visual design and some custom PHP coding and all of the marketing. So much to do! So little time!
where on the east coast are you?
FYI, I made this post aside from Startup School -- I was originally hoping to meet up with other YC News peeps in the Palo Alto area (maybe those thinking of applying for Summer Founders?).

Regardless, observing this thread's progression, I'd also love to be able to meet as many of you as possible (put faces to those comments!) whether you live around Palo Alto or will be in town during Startup School.
=)

Wow. I remember hearing a while back that they were introducing 3D mapping contests on college campuses...guess this works, too.
Why VCs should not ask for Founder Indemnities
After reading about his investment style and bootstrapping background (and huge sales), Jesse Rasch. Also, I don't think there are other Angels like him in Canada, unless I missed some - you guys in the US have lots.
Arranging this over week-end would really help a lot.
Guy Kawasaki on Founders at Work
there's an awesome picture of his book full of stickies
Startupschool Acceptance Thread
So, has anybody gotten acceptances yet?
Well, It is true that Funding will most likely follow towards companies those have 2 or more founders. But there are great success stories around single Founder. Look at Amazon, Del.icio.us, EBay.

I agree, having confounder helps a lot, but if one can't find it then that should not stop you from doing what you want to do.
Don't forget, Myhrvold is the man who completely missed the Internet while he was the CTO at MS. Were it not for BillG, who realized what Internet represented, MS would have been toast.

No wonder he got kicked out of MS and no wonder that he spends his post-MS days playing a patent troll.
yes, we should do an east coast meetup. Count me in. Say, next week some time?
Startup School Responses Delayed for a Day
There are certainly a lot of ways to monetize MySpace beyond ad revenue, and using it as a music distribution channel is one of the easiest. (maybe News Corp. should buy Amie Street, and integrate it into myspace?)

But shouldn't they start by doing a better job capitalizing on the advertising potential? Theoretically, MySpace should know a massive amount of information about each user (everything they list on their profile page), including location, age, interests, media consumption patterns, etc. They could be selling very highly-targeted ads based on all of those parameters. Wouldn't it be more lucrative NOT to sell a graphical ad on the homepage at a daily rate of $250,000 (as the post reports), but instead to make the homepage ad dynamically tailored to each user?
Announcement: Responses delayed for one day. We ended up getting a huge number of applications (1181 for 650 places), and it's taking us longer than we anticipated to read them all. So we're not going to be able to reply to everyone March 7, as we initially promised, but we will try to do it by the end of March 8.
I do the visual design, my partner does the technical design. We collaborate on the conceptual design.

I also do the marketing and sales.
Well, what I mean to say is that the number of meetups is simply dependent on those interested. YC News gatherings shouldn't ultimately be restricted to Startup School weekend.

I figured that it would be great if YC News goers in the Palo Alto area get together since we're probably sitting in the same neighborhood.

Ideally, it would be awesome if YC News communities got together with peers in their immediate locales. Know what I mean?
the Freemium model (an oldie but goodie)
It has been delayed by one day: http://startupschool.org/index.html
What do you think about looking for a co-founder on Craigslist?
Web apps with S3 + Rails.  Now your apps have 2x as many buzz words.
I can't say it's one of the best places. But hey -- people have found some odder things on Craigslist.
true. my parents met on craigslist.

(just kidding. i don't think that's possible.)
Someone should make an S3 interface that does automatic file versioning. Basically a CVS for non-coders. It seems like that would be an intuitive feature for any online storage product.

Do any of the current online storage products do this already? I know some of the new ones use S3 (elephant drive and jungle disk, to name two), but I don't think either of them have a versioning feature built-in. It shouldn't be too hard to create...
Seems like a lot of the things he finds funny are because he's a suit, and has always been a suit. He always gets modded up by the former reddit/current YC news community, and I've never figured out why, since normally the same people seem to be anti-suit.
I disagree. Fear is one of the two major forces at work in a startup (the other is faith).

There are legitimate fears--these are the risks. Fear that you'll run out of money. Fear that you've picked the wrong people to work with. Fear that you'll be beat to market. If you don't have some measure of fear, you're ignoring risks, which makes your failure that much more likely.
India is new upcomming market for web technology...
I could tell from my coversation with him that he is genuinely a nice person. Guy hasn't always been a "suit" btw. He started out as an Apple evangelist, not a venture capitalist. He has an inspiring video that might change your view of him:

http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/06/the_art_of_the_.html

That said, his book "The Art of Start" did not live upto my expectations. I felt that it was too practical; consequently, leaving little room for creativity or sparking new ideas.
The New Wisdom of the Web
I think he always has been a suit: http://guykawasaki.com/about/index.shtml

He got his MBA, then got into evangelizing about Apple through a friend. I think I would count MBAs who evangelize about Apple as suits.

Edit: By the way, nothing about being a suit means you're not nice, of course. I would assume that most suits are probably nicer than most hackers, because it's the job of a suit to say nice things, while it's the job of a hacker to say true things.
He hasn't always been a suit. But python_kiss is right, his advice is very practical. He does understand a lot about tech business, but then again he's no hacker himself.
Also, I've just gotten through reading a couple choice interviews from Founders at Work. These stories are true treasures. Above being insightful and inspiring for entrepreneurs, it's damned entertaining for anyone.
i am not enterprenur..but i dream one day i will..i think an enterprenur is the person who is the sole of a startup company ...he is the person who is innovative.creative..visioniory..and lot of other qualities..Technical knowledge is just part of it..
Well, I guess I meant it more in the sense that he's always been self-deprecating about being an MBA since he likes to promote the entrepreneur over the businessman. For a suit, he understands the culture pretty well.
Can anyone recommend an affordable web/interface designer?
Count me in, just make sure to announce the time and place here :)
Making money using open source
Amazon's Series of Fortunate Events
Coincidences that made Google successful
It seems that the acceptance e-mails will go out all at once, after everyone has been accepted or rejected.
Practicing Programming (Steve Yegge)
I thought most of them were funny too. Startups are basically comedies, or at least seem so in retrospect.

One thing I've learned from YC is that practically all startups are broken in some way, no matter what face they show to the world. And novel kinds of breakage are the basis of humor.
I can relate to that. In January, without my knowledge, my newly minted startup hit Digg's frontpage. What followed was an entourage of hungry geeks that basically killed my shared hosting account. It took about 3 days for my site to recover with an upgraded VPS server. But every hour of those 3 days left me hysterical and I couldn't sleep at all :(

But it seems funny now that I look back. Whatever made me think a shared hosting account was the way to go? `:D
Google: Not trapping users' data = GOOD
Sun's online game platform goes open source
Don Tapscott, author of Wikinomics, hosted by Cambrian House
Cambrian House 2.0 Rolled Out
Web 3.0 is here! "Online Music Awards"
Is having cofounder at early stage really that important?
Well what's an early stage? A co-founder would need to be existent at the founding, right? Otherwise he wouldn't be a co-founder but rather an addition to your team. But it's altogether possible to develop ideas on your own before locating a partner. If you plan on having a co-founder, I say it's best to have him involved from the beginning.
Clicking 'About' already directs me to a full-page ad before I could even learn what the website was about.

If that's the kind of thing that's waiting for us in Web 3.0, I hope we stay in 2.0 as long as possible.
John Battelle's book had some really good stories that have stuck with me. How does "The Google Story" compare?
Was any promotion done for the event outside of word-of-mouth? That seems like a lot of would-be entrepreneurs in the area.

I wonder why so many people want to go. Most of the material is already on the web (+ the podcast), and one is unlikely to network significantly with a 50-1 participant-expert ratio.
"Startups are basically comedies [...]"

I've been seriously waiting for a Scrubs-style primetime comedy on startups and/or Silicon Valley-esque entrepreneur culture. Maybe one of these days, I'll get a pilot-writer and pitch the idea to a network...
I think "suits" like Guy Kawasaki and Seth Godin are hackers-in-wolves clothing. That's why I find their opinions interesting.
Prashant -- where are you located? I got the feeling from some of your postings that you might be around the Northern California region.
How big was the increase in applicants from the previous year?
"Maybe one of these days, I'll get a pilot-writer and pitch the idea to a network..."

heh, or you could always pitch to YCombinator :D
Networking with the participants was the best part when I went to the event in Boston. I'm still good friends with a couple of the people I met there. In fact, many of us have now all moved to Silicon Valley for various reasons.
How news is made (a quick intro to PR)
New AOL Email Beta Cannot Compete With Google, Yahoo
y combinator news bookmarklet
Why so much capital?
I happened to interview with this company, Eons, a year or so ago. At the time they were looking to do a RoR knockoff of their existing site. I'm not sure where they went with that.

I'm wondering about a few things. The founder I believe was involved with Monster, .ie. has a track record. How do
startups with this kind of capital succeed? The money itself is going to attract all sort of folks who won't necessarily add value. Does it come down to just leadership?

How this contrast with the approach of Y Combinator, where S,K, and I with a large dose of youthful energy provide a complete basis :)
I'm afraid of sites like tech crunch destroying me. I had some trouble with a read-only site when it started getting hundreds of digg users a minute, and it was a simple application. God help you if you have a dynamic front page and a web app that does lots of reads and writes.

Scaling for mass media traffic seems like such a waste -- the big-news-site traffic comes right when you launch, and then that's just the time you want lots of capacity and don't have it yet. After the traffic leaves, you don't want it anymore.

Has anyone tried something like media temple for temporary scaling? I'd be tempted to throw a site on there to see if they can handle a tech crunching.
If Web2.0 is now in Newsweek, is that itself an indicator that the wave has passed?
Well, he polled people who he knew understood VCs pretty well. I would trust a trusted network of people over a generic aggregation any day, and that's why this thought is insightful, while a US News list of the best VC firms probably would never make it to the front page of news.yc.