skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
see http://juwo-works.blogspot.com/2007/03/better-business-model-for-incubators.html

"incubators like YCombinator are running an orphanage; get a batch of orphans, grow them and then release them into the world. The other (new) way calls for them to become foster parents. Look after them for short periods, and then release them back to their parents"

what do you think?
That's nothing, it told me I should take up smoking.
Mobile browsing with deepfish
I don't know about biotech, but in sw, not unless (a) it's based on your research and (b) there are patents involved. Even then universities tend to be accomodating. They make more money by not pissing off founders.
http://mypunchbowl.wordpress.com/2007/03/29/web-innovators-group-11-last-night/

note: not my blog
I doubt anyone in PG's position would be interested in taking orders from some big corp. I don't see it working out within Y-Combinator.

I am sure if someone really wanted to do it they could. Just don't think what you are suggesting is opposite of or can be compared to what Y-Combinator currently is.

-Zaid
No response? This is pretty much the holy grail of electrical engineering.
Do any Y Combinator startups share code and/or hardware?
A Summary of Mark Zuckerberg's Speech at Startup School (comic)
Rich, I like your point. I find that I do a lot of my best work when I can allow at least several days to a project, then my mind is saturated with the problem and requires smaller amounts of energy to get something done. I don't this this happening if you have a family or other huge responsibilities.

I also think math is overrated in many cases.
Maybe if this particular image/flash hack doesn't work, at least they are innovating and trying out new products, keeping that startup mentality of throwing something against the wall and seeing if it sticks.
check out Gary Halbert (http://www.thegaryhalbertletter.com/) for good copywriting skills/ideas
I read somewhere that it started out being minimalistic because none of the two founders knew much of HTML.
No, it's an information exchange for nerds looking to start businesses.

Thanks for your comment, PG.
I'm calling my grandpa to see if he wants to partner up for a startup :)
It's only tangentially relevant and reads like spam.
Awesome I was always fascinated with this type of application. Not for monetary means but rather how can one leverage his/her personal effects on a web based OS. What are the ramifications for someone using this kind of system? Who would it appeal to? and is this something people will pay for? How useful would this be? I think this is a interesting study in itself.
It got the book part wrong on mine too.
Wow just wow...think of the thing you can do with this technology. This could mean wireless power for pretty much anything that uses electricity.
I like that haha. I guess what he's trying to say is in tandem with the empowering people with you product. Not just merely selling them a cheaper alternative.
Advertising 2.0 does not exist
This is getting blown out of proportion. He did say it with something of a half kidding smirk on his face.

But that comic is funny.
Kathy Sierra's only point is: customized education, good; standardized, bad.

My plan describes how to make customized education available on a grand scale ASAP.

Q.E.D. :-)
I work at a startup and I am BROKE. How do I make some extra money?
Hockey is the king of entrepreneurial sports.
It's pretty hard to gauge web traffic across the internet without facing selection bias problems like alexa. I'm just waiting for google to start releasing more traffic data, instead of just hoarding it. (ever wonder why/how analytics is free? Google's probably got the best web trend data in the world)
Village Earth and Appropedia Join Forces for Sustainability
At Pitt, if you have patentable research where a startup spinoff is possible, you submit it to the tech transfer office.

Option 1: they don't think it's worth patenting, you can do whatever you want, so long as you give them 15% of revenue resulting from said idea.

Option 2: They patent it for you and you get 30% of revenue.

Either way, you really don't want the university to get hold of your IP, except you can get a free patent in your name out of it.

You should get some documentation showing whatever you developed, you developed on your own time.
Oh man. Knuth.

This is only the second webcomic I've ever seen that even mentioned Knuth. (The first was http://www.xkcd.com/c163.html). Clearly more geeks need to write comics.
Some people misattribute their success to their skill instead of luck.
And mine:

http://www.likebetter.com/quiz/results?quiz_id=596593159&user_list_id=6

So is it good to be on all of the edges?
I don't have a wife.. but I do beat my roommate nightly with a wooden chair to escape the stress of startup life.
Check with the legal fine print. Universities, colleges see their research as fair game for IP differently. At a local Uni I know of going through the IP application on using technology developed withing the area of study I found things like:

- response time for application? (4 months)

- response time for decision approval of application (within 4 months)

- commercialisation was something like 10% back to the University + 30% return for future funds (what ever that is) on profits made. (meaning there has to be submissions made back to the University on accounts).

But it will vary widely. So check. For instance did you realise, Google has a long term licensing arrangement with Stanford [0]

For me though the rub is even if you are not developing in your area of research do you want to be shackled having to submit information and asking permission?

Reference

[0] Google, PageRank, 'In the Crosshairs'

http://www.jimworld.com/gazette/issue-208/1053114758.html
Hmm, you're right.

http://www.pitt.edu/HOME/PP/policies/11/11-02-01.html

I suspect these rules are really meant for biotech research, though. They'd never get away with applying them to web stuff. If I were a student and started working on a web project, I'd ignore these rules.

Harvard's policy

http://www.techtransfer.harvard.edu/PatentPolicy.html

says, except for some medical stuff, your inventions are your own.

So Pitt's policy is in fact unusually harsh. I suspect they wouldn't dare enforce it in practice.
or timing or the zeitgeist. Arrogance is always unnecessary.
this is amusing
Top 5 Startup Focused Blogs that Every Founder should Know
A lot of these people are famous for stuff they did earlier, sometimes decades earlier.
This is great. I've been hearing a lot of buzz about this recently. I'm still wary about the effective power captured from the radio signals, but the article graphic throws out a figure of "up to 70 percent." That's damn impressive if reachable.

It's funny though -- a few years ago, I was having one of those late-night "what if" discussions with some friends. We were throwing out our best invention ideas for guaranteed fame and fortune when we began talking about cordless electricity (power through the air). We laughed it off, but I read up on it shortly after and found some interesting things. Fast forward to now and the advances in effective conversion is just awesome. For now the applications seem to be on the small-small-scale, but even then this is going to turn multiple industries on its head.
A lot of people rolled their eyes when Mark proclaimed that Facebook's mission was to make the world a more open place. But take a look through Facebook's API. I've found it more valuable than nearly anything else out there when it comes to leveraging real identities for your application. If you realize the potential in that existing community, there's so much that can be done. As more and more applications extend upon Facebook's platform, Facebook is accomplishing just what Mark claimed.
Google Analytics uses a small JavaScript (placed by the webmaster) on the page to be tracked. It's not as if Google has unfettered access to everyone's traffic data and secretly sits on it.
How about doing this for real?

I mean before Y combinator, build a product - launch it. Grow the userbase - iterate.

Reality is the superior test of whther you are an entrepreneur - don't need to get Y com funding to get going...

See all the recent fundees: Scribd, Boso, Weebly, Buxfer: they had a product.

Doesn;t need to be so far down this track but having done something is better than simulating it.
Way too eerie. It's like that Bizarro world episode of Seinfeld -- things are the same yet completely opposite.

Did they even attempt to copy YC's team structure?: http://www.illinoisventures.com/ourteam.html
Why would repealing laws not help now?
This guy is incredible. I worked on some UAV/UGV systems at my uni and heard of quite a few teams using X-Plane as a simulation environment for their UAVs. As stated in the article the simulator actually tries to model what's happening with the aircraft instead of using look-up tables based on full size aircraft, making it much more useful for modeling model... (small scale) aircraft.
I don't think any of them is the next Google or YouTube, to be honest. Take for example the first one: I thought the locksmiths can crack any door within seconds anyway (typically just by looking at it), so that service is completely useless. The others are also weird, but you never now - I guess the dog food vending machines could be really big (dog owners are weird, too).
Pitt's policy is pretty much completely ignorable if you're a student, unless you go out of the way to lose your IP rights. There's been a campaign to get more faculty to submit "invention disclosures" to the tech transfer office but I'm not sure how aggressively the university would litigate if a faculty member just didn't submit their research and proceeded to commercialization themselves.

However, the policy is less draconian when you realize that the revenue split only applies to patent licensing revenue. A professor's start up company would not have to pay licensing fees to the university. It really only makes sense for biotech because there is almost no money in licensing new software patents.

Perhaps more interesting is that Pitt's tech transfer is run at a net loss -- the vice provost said recently that they are just now breaking even which means they are probably still losing money.
Absolutely ridiculous test. There weren't even any books in it, for example, yet they claim to be able to tell if I am into reading books or not? Sorry, but I don't believe their tests are scientifically sound. The sheer number of traits they claim to identify - almost as many traits as there were "questions", I don't think it can work.

Why don't you just use a classic IQ test if you are into that kind of stuff, or the Myer-Briggs test?
Mine too.
Why would it be important to risk anything???
All great blogs, but these are blogs about startups not blogs for startups.
Taking orders? of course not. It means companies applying just like we do, and just for implementing new product ideas.
Excellent!! Like so many current narratives - You assume that only the young are concerned with start-ups! My partner is in his middle 50's and I'm 61 going on "28". You made quite a point to inform us what and why 18 was such an important age - how about telling me something about the other end of the scale. As a boomer - there are more of us coming back from the corporate wars battered, bruised and ready for a life we can love. I say send the "kids" to work and let those of us that still have the fire do the creating.
Well you've got the www.rentacoder.com type sites. www.odesk.com is another. And then you've got whatever you can dig up on your own through independent consulting. Just be sure not to break any agreements with the startup with respect to IP, competition, etc.

And then there's always waiting tables. A bit of a shot to the ego perhaps, but that'd be a good break from coding perhaps. If it's good enough for every budding actor/screenwriter/director in LA... :)
He doesn't seem all that bad, not like his reputation. Not sure why they needed that many people in a room for two days, but maybe it made sense.

That was a cool machine though. We had a lab of them in college.
Business Creativity and Happiness
LinkedIn says: stay in school kids
http://geekz.co.uk/shop/store/show/knuth-tshirt
You probably signed some sort of Student Handbook at the beginning of the year that says what, if anything, the university thinks it can claim.

As others have said it also probably depends on if you are doing research when you start your company or just a student.
Many Eyes -- Visualize datasets from social networks
For example, here are some already existing visualizations for second life:

http://services.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/browse/visualizations?q=second%20life

You can also take the same datasets these visualizations were made from and make a new visualization. Or you can upload data from your own social network to analyze, or beg the owners of some other network for their data :-)
How much money to set aside for legal work/fees?
HiTask - free online task management
Top Irish Web Apps
If you can get these two things right, you're positioned for sales success
BetsGoWild Launches - Betting Done (Almost) Right
Interesting. If Mark sold to Yahoo, maybe none of this would have happened. By releasing the API, facebook also de-monopolizes its information. This perhaps lowers FB's pricetag per user. And perhaps Mark knows this.
A while ago, I remember reading on Emanuel Derman's blog (http://www.wilmott.com/blogs/eman/) a comment along the lines of "Time and the right to choose have value".

So while I'm sure you can find some job to pay the bills, consider how much time (and in what state mentally/physically) it will leave you to focus on your startup.
Quoting no. 6: "So a lot of clients have been recently asking their ad agencies, 'So what can you do for us in Web 2.0?' And the agencies have been replying, 'Lots! Lots and lots and lots and lots!' Bullshit. Ad agencies have so far been hopeless in this space."

An opportunity awaits.
Spam Experts at MIT study Search/Spam
MySQLHotCopy backup script
Making "something people want" is always good advice. I thought the interesting issue raised by this article was the particular situation where "making something people want" involved playing to the lowest common denominator. Facile content at the expense of intellectual depth. Mars Bars instead of balanced meals.

During seed-stage development, driving users by any means possible seems like great advice. (Or, at least, great advice 99.9% of the time.) Seems like it could be an increasingly dangerous strategy over time, though, at least to the extent that it encourages you to focus on lots of users/pageviews instead of finding committed users who really need your product.
What would you do? Acceptance decision by April 16th to Techstars or wait for YComb decision and risk losing the given opportunity?
Ycom-dotted? Anyone have a mirror?
Reading the forum, I noticed a lot of you are applying to Techstars and Y. If you were accepted to Techstars, you will have to give an acceptance decision by April 16th. However, lets say you were given an interview to Y but acceptance is not offered until April 29th. So what would you do?

Take a leap of faith and wait for Y, knowing that you just given up a sure opportunity to be mentored or go for Techstars?

Of course both are great programs
Isn't Google building the Gmail of PowerPoint? I've heard rumblings of "Google Present" for some time now. Let's hope these guys don't go the way of Kiko; they sound like they have some pretty good ideas.
I'm sure techstars would take anyone who made it to the interview stage at YC, regardless of deadlines.
How so? care to elaborate?
If tons of more things are running off of radio waves how bad would that impact our health? Any ideas?
Start-up cliches - By Sanjay Anandaram
I have high school friends who graduated from three of these schools. They are all smart people, did well in college, and are doing well after graduating. But none of them are starting a company. The idea doesn't seem to intrigue them either.

If you have the entrepreneurial spirit in you, constantly remind yourself that you have it, regardless of where you are and what people tell you. If you have it as a highschooler, great. The eye for opportunity is a great gift, and colleges do not know how to measure this, nor can they teach you how to acquire it.

I don't think you should worry if a school will turn you into a successful entrepreneur. The greater concern should be people to bounce ideas off of, and potentially work with. Talent is everywhere; train yourself to spot it. That is an asset second to none.

I must agree with pg though. Vibe is very important. It's a lot more enjoyable to build stuff when everybody around you is talking about building stuff too. Where I went to school, people spend more time talking about philosophy :)
There's something about X-plane that is super addictive. You will never get bored of it!

Here are some cool X-plane videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFpp1zRrDfg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXcCAsu9Odk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1Tt5y6-ueY
Magnify is bringing a new approach to video sites
Because the big telcoms already monopolize the infrastructure so no new startup is going to be able to compete with them head-on.
This Magnify video site looks great. I see a lot of promise with websites being able to create their own video page for their niche market.
Lean Management: How to be 50% faster with 80% higher quality
haven't heard of Techstars before. Any alums I'd know of?
My cofounder works this way and I have all the respect for him for being able to carry this out without it having an impact on our development.

Still you have to be very careful it does not take your focus away at any point. My partner had freelanced before so he knew what kind of projects to take and not take. Best projects are those that pay for some straightforward coding without much mental work.
Y acceptance isn't announced till 29th? I thought it was till 22nd?

"# We'll review applications by April 10 and invite the groups that seem most promising to meet us in Mountain View on the weekend of April 21-22. We'll reimburse up to $500 per group for travel expenses.

# We'll decide who to fund that weekend, and tell you by phone on Sunday evening."
It cost us about $500 to incorporate/get a PO box. I figure another few hundred - on the cheap side - if we paid to get our TOS and/or Privacy Policy written by a lawyer.
Don't worry, I HATE smoking and got closer to smoke than not smoke ;)
Someone's already mentioned Y Combinator. But YC isn't the only place you could go for funding. There are angel investors and VC groups all over the map. What you have to do is put together something that convinces these people that not investing in you now is leaving money on the table. Don't worry about failure to get financing at this stage; there's always more people out there looking for the next hot startup to invest in. All you have to do is convince first yourself and then these other people that you can do this.

I would caution you against using college loans to fund your startup. For one thing, it's probably foolish to borrow money for this when there are people who will invest if you spend the time to get them interested. But for another thing, it may be a violation of federal law, with serious consequences if you get caught. A CPA or lawyer may be able to advise you about your options here.
Many of the strategies being used by successful web 2.0 companies were pioneered decades ago by Toyota, now called Lean Management (and Lean Consumption).

Key Principles for Success (50% less effort, 80% higher quality): (From www.lean.org)

+Focus on Customer Value

+Eliminate Waste: Identify all the steps in the value stream
eliminating every step and every action and every practice that does not create value.

+Process Flow: Make the remaining value-creating steps occur in a tight and integrated sequence so the product will flow smoothly toward the customer.

+Customer Pull: As flow is introduced, let customers pull value from the next upstream activity

+Pursue Perfection: As these steps lead to greater transparency, enabling managers and teams to eliminate further waste, pursue perfection through continuous improvement.
AJAX-based upvoting: I click on the up arrow for a comment, and the page totally refreshes, and I'm at the top of the page. Then I have to scroll back down and find where I left off. Annoying.

Link to the news.ycom page in the RSS feed, rather than the external link, or in addition to the external link: If I want to comment on the external site, or read what other people have made, I have to go to the main news.ycom page and find the comment thread. This wastes maybe 30 seconds of my time, which can be important when I'm still formulating what I want to say and don't need the distraction.
Software Development as a Collaborative Game
A Google Presently is in the works. I'm don't know the differences in approach compared with Zenter, but we should find out more as Google formally announces Presently and Zenter opens up a bit more to the public.
The research paper that launched the Google empire
Top 10 Reasons You Are Not Making Money Online
Well, it isn't really all that satisfying, but I've taken to tutoring, specifically SAT tutoring. This has good points ($40-$50 / hour, not very difficult) and it has bad points (relatively mindless, highly repetitive, can be a lot of driving). Still, it is a flexible solution to a very stressful problem.
A VC: Thinking About Online Photo Services
The challenge is in creating something with near-instant gratification while maintaining substance.

Usually it's hard enough to get a high demand hit, so we concentrate on just that. If we can achieve that part, we can then worry about not becoming a short-lived flavor du jour. It's there that we evaluate the differences between offering something people desire and providing something people value.
The Architecture of Mailinator - averaging 4.5million emails a day on a single 2Ghz machine
This is their first batch.
April Fools? TechCrunch acquires FuckedCompany - what's next?
Aren't these the dudes that plagiarized YC's application (and maybe entire business model)? Sure you want to do business with them?
Does it worry you when working on Arc? Do you think you could have done better when you were 25?
I am a little surprised they get this much performance out of Java. But I guess if you know it like the back of your hand, you can make it fly.
Thanks... Did you go the LLC route?
"Entrepreneurs with new ideas will always have a way to reach potential users and customers. They just won't be able to do it here any more."

Are they trying to just become a regular news outlet then? It seems like a bad move on their part to abandon the entrepreneurs and startups that made them what they are today.

Is this an April fools joke?
Most Scientific research papers are probably wrong
I think it's April Fools. You can read the details here: http://www.zaid360.com/?p=110
We went with an Inc. since we had three of us with stakes and knew the number of people would only increase.

Make sure you go with Delaware in most cases.
Yeah, Python is great.

But it doesn't give you the live preview in browser, does it? :D
What does the "Delete that text from your homepage" line refer to? I cant interpret that from any of the essays. Does Paul encourage to remove bad prose from blogs to startuppers? Or does he advise not to say "What you cant say?"
Port this to the web and you will have the most advanced online word processor by far
Any takers? What sort of technologies would you use?

http://texmacs.org
Good Entrepreneurs Always Accept NO For An Answer
Just curious, what else than Java would you use for performance, save for C or Lisp? I know the YC folks don't appreciate it, but actually Java has it's merits. Last comparison I looked at, Java was 6 times slower than C, with only LISP being faster and not being C. Scripting languages like Python or Perl are a factor slower than Java.