skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
All -

This is an important question, and one that may have not been answered. To the people who say you can take a $150K salary: how sure are you? ($300K seems wildly excessive to me, as CEOs of 400M corporations don't make that much in salary, they usually get stocks + benefits to augment salary to the $500K range)

This would have been great to ask at startupschool.
Breaking Up the Colors - The Rubik's Cube and writing software
It's a classic meme - been around since the late 90s. You get people interested in the story, reading it, wondering what's going to happen and your life got flipped, turned upside down - and I'd like to take a minute just sit right there, I'll tell you how I became the prince of a town called Bel-Air. In West Philadelphia, born and raised, on the playground where I spent most of my days. Chilling out, maxing, relaxing all cool, and all shooting some b-ball outside of the school; when a couple of guys said "we're up in no good," started making trouble in my neighborhood. I got in one little fight and my mom got scared and said "you're moving with your aunt and uncle in Bel-Air."
or make the bookmarklet not upvote, so we can use it to find comment threads.

http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=3902
I beg to differ.

In the Bay Area, VCs expect and want the founder/CEO to make approximately $150K to $175K per year after the VC round (i.e. Seies A). I have confirmed this by asking VC panels here in Orange County during open-mike sessions.

What should be clearly understood is that you are actually financing a part of that compensation via your significant equity dilution that would result from the new vesting schedule put in place by the VC! You typically can't escape this new vesting if you want VC money...which is why PG's question about how much cash will you take to just walk away from it has real substance behind it.
Text Link Ads Launches Post Level Text Link Ads
James Hong: I think better when I'm not really thinking about it
Key takeaway here: Ruby on Rails is the new, hot fad, but apparently doesn't scale in the way web languages should. Dropping ActiveRecord, for example, cuts out the main piece of RoR coolness I still liked.
Ok:

This seems useful, but I don't fully understand it. Are you saying that the VCs will force you to take a high salary, so that they can take a bigger chunk of your company?
Sadly, microcredit is nowhere near profitable. Yunus et. al. are heavily government-subsidized. And the reason most of the loans go to women is that Yunus has a really bizarre feminist agenda. Microcredit is maybe a good way to run a charity, but it's not a business.

http://www.mises.org/journals/fm/Dec06.pdf
I second the suggestion... I have to come back here often to see whether there are replies or not
Not at all, let me tell you ;)

And if you care about the business, you won't take a $300k salary either.
I see the big divide between those who do and those who don't differently. Most people choose a life pursuing happiness, a few choose lives of meaning. The person who chooses a life of meaning wants to get rich, but they secretly don't do it for the money. they simply can't not do their dreams. To most, it's foolishness. It's not that the person choosing a life of meaning doesn't want to be happy, or can't be, it's just that their happiness is largely irrelevant.
I also disagree with the crap about age. PG filters everything through this fine mesh, then claims the result is representative of the whole. I realized sometime around age 40 that to those who see startups as foolishness, there IS NO GOOD AGE. I kept wondering how I could go instantly from being too young to being too old. According to most, there is no good age. It's always a bad idea.
What PG is experiencing is this. Much of the corporate World, and the homes of families in which people grow up, it is heavily permission-based. In the Midwest for example, anyone behind a tech startup is considered out of line because they didn't ask permission, they didn't spend twenty years climbing a permission ladder. If they succeed, they are thought to have broken the rules. Younger people are more rebellious - we don't need no stinking permission - and can succeed if they don't first spend years working for a bunch of mindless droids.
Yet, it is still far superior to have broken through all this and risen above it all, to have endured the worst and still plow ahead in relentless pursuit of meaningful dreams to build something great. Meanwhile, there's PG with his clipboard going up and down a check list. I plain know better.
Geoff Brozny at http://www.glorb.com
He is fantastic at customer support. Send him an email anytime and he will respond within an hour - usually, within a few minutes.
Yoono Launches Buzz It to Clip and Share Web Content
hmmm are people after money only? I think there may be just very few who will encash the money and take an early retirement. Some may just become angel investors and put some cash into startups. But on the whole if google cannot hold back their employees then there may be something to do with erosion of google culture or mistake in finding the right hire.
6 Tips for eBook Copy Layout
Joel Spolsky told you so
Paul Graham: Handling Investors (talk at Stanford 11 April 07)
Nice write up and great answer to that question. I can't tell you how bummed out I am that my application was rejected. I'm debating whether it means there was something fundamentally wrong with my app or if it's something fixable. I know it's impossible, but I would have really liked to know what was (or wasn't) in my application that caused it to be rejected.
No. They will not do that. No good VC would not force you to take a high salary if you would rather the money went into the business. They'd probably even like that. A founder should be setting the vision and culture of the company. Compensation is one piece of that culture. You set a precedent by taking a big salary and you set a message by taking a small one (i.e. Jet Blue - CEO, COO, CFO each have a base salary of $200,000 / turned down bonuses during bad years).
The subconscious is a terrible thing to waste;
http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=11252
Seems like RoR is great for getting something out very quickly but if the site takes off then you need to be prepared to take out the very features that helped get you there.

So, it comes down to, if you're shooting for something very high traffic (and who isn't) use a faster language. If not, use RoR.
Man that looked like an awesome talk. I love Atlanta but missing out on this kind of stuff really sucks. That couple of days for Startup School was refreshing.
It worries me that this is important. It's like saying "When you go to a restaurant, don't concentrate on how many menu items you order, or on how big the kitchen is. Make sure you get the food you want in a portion size that's big enough."

I mean, ownership is wealth and control -- how can you consider it wealth if you aren't translating it into dollars?
develop an online sitcom set at my company that will 1) popularize my company's online markets, 2) showcase market participants, and 3) earn profits from sales of ad space (in the tradition of diggnation, NBC's The Apprentice, etc.)

will distribute via revver, p2p, etc.
San Francisco or Palo Alto for a new startup?
I'm moving to Silicon Valley to work on my startup and be closer to the entrepreneurial community. Should I rent in San Francisco or somewhere around Stanford? How about the YScraper?
It's not a question of forcing. It's the norm. All other things being equal, why should someone take a lower salary?

And there are other factors. If your compensation becomes a benchmark for the rest of the team, now your company is in real trouble. You can't expect to hire key team members at less than the norm. It just won't happen. VCs know that.

Also, a VC's main job is to put out as much of their committed capital as possible into good deals. Allocating a large part of a preferred equity tranche to fund the maintenance and creation of a solid team is the right thing to do.

And comparing with large companies is not apples to apples. That's a different world; here's an extreme example of that world:
http://valleywag.com/tech/greed/the-grotesque-1-salary-251104.php
Good point jkush. But then I suppose RoR is only good for one-off kind web-app?
Consensus seems to be "Live in San Francisco, commute to the Valley."

San Franciso is a much cooler place to be than Palo Alto/Menlo Park/Mountain View. YScraper's probably a good bet, I imagine it's getting pretty popular though.
Where is the "YScraper"? I'm looking to move out to the area and wouldn't mind joining the entrepreneurial crowd in YScraper.
How soon do you want to go broke? The Bay Area is a big place and all you need to get started is a laptop.
Anyone owns a car in San Francisco? Or should I sell my car?
The Yscraper is in a lame part of San Francisco, if you are a young person. The building is lame, too... unless you like living in an apartment that is like a college dorm or old folks home.

Regarding SF vs Palo Alto. SF is way more fun. But keep in mind historical patterns. How many successful startups have been started in SF? How many have been started up in the valley?

Valley based startups are more successful, simply because there is nothing else to do down there.
Work/Sleep/Shop Triangle (summary: work at home, be close to beer, be happy)
Paul Gillin Invites You To Come hear David Weinberger's social media insights on April 24. It's free!
We're in stealth mode so we're not saying a whole bunch right now about the product itself. Technically though we're building a portal for our users. We then have different kinds of content and actions they can do from the portal. I've been modeling after Netvibes/Pageflakes/etc.
Did Paul use Zenter again?
I own a car, but use it only for driving to meetings (where a bike jersey is not the appropriate attire), shopping, or leaving town. The transit system here is very good, and the bike lane system is getting better all the time (the bike lobby has growing political clout in the city). Also, parking is a &^^ as the city uses tickets as a big revenue stream, so if you are illegal for only a few minutes, you'll get a ticket. You will also save time by not having to park.

The downside is that the Muni rail system is not entirely reliable. Normally it takes me 30 minutes from door to door via Muni (N line - when it's raining which isn't that often), but it can take up to 50 if there is a problem which is about 20% of the time. (Biking takes me 20 minutes or less). Of course if you work out of your apartment, commuting is a non issue.
Wikipedia founder (Jimbo Wales) sets his sites on Google
It's no secret if you watch justin.tv a little:

http://www.google.com/search?q=crystal+tower%2C+san+francisco
No, not this time.
I would personally hate for my start-up to be positioned in this way in media during its starting stages. Another example is Powerset which has raised millions, has been touted as a google killer and hosted cool Valley parties--and is yet to launch.

My BS meter just shoots up when I know more about a start-up's PR success than its product.
Go for San Francisco:

1. Space The rents are actually in many cases less here than in other parts of the valley. (My office is $1 per s.f. per month!) A huge building boom is finishing up in the SOMA area of the City with hundreds (maybe 1000+) new apartments entering the market. This is good news for downward pressure on rental prices.

2. Convenience: Within walking distance of both my office and my apartment are countless restaurants, markets, office supplies, banks, etc etc. You can simply walk to what you need saving so much time over driving around on errands in rush hour traffic in the South Bay. There are countless take-out food restaurants open until late at night to keep you coding with a reasonable diet, with many delivering to your door. (Chinese takeout costs about $7 for a main item - roughly $10 for a meal)

3. Coolness: There are a lot of web companies in the city because it is such a great place to live. Attracting hackers to work for you may be easier here.
Even the Large Corporate Web companies are setting up major operations in the City:

http://sanfrancisco.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2007/01/15/story22.html
http://www.niallkennedy.com/blog/archives/2005/08/yahoo_leasing_san_francisco_of.html

4. Life Style: For those moments when you're not all-nightering on a problem, you have many options here:
a. Sailing in the Bay
b. Biking - across the Golden Gate and you are into nature in no time.
c. Beach - Many beaches in the area
d. Skiing - As close as 2.5 - 3 hours away for some great slopes.
d. Symphony/Opera/Theater/Movies galore, etc etc etc
e. Night Life - Live music, etc etc etc.
f. Wine Country - Only an hour drive to Napa County/Sonoma County - countless vineyards - great wine.

5. Variety: San Francisco has many different neighborhoods that have entirely different cultures. A few blocks in different directions will let you experience the unexpected. (Usually good, ocassionally bad)

6. Ok, you're right, I'm biased. I love living in the City.

7. Downside: The VC's and many angels are in the South Bay, but thats only a 30-40 min. drive away - or Caltrain ride.
As far a languages go, there's no silver bullet, go with whatever your team is comfortable with.
add in "justin" to that search and it gets a whole lot more fun.
I live in Mountain View and go to SF for fun, of which there is plenty to be had.

Rent is a factor of course. I'm currently in a nice 2-bed town-house close to downtown mv, for $1700/month.
We're also on GoDaddy, and haven't had any problems so far (granted, we're pre-launch, so we haven't had a chance for any of the really taxing stuff to occur). We haven't ruled out switching services if there's a problem, but we might as well start simple.

You have to take into account company size when weighing complaints. The bigger hosting providers - GoDaddy and DreamHost - will necessarily have more negative opinions, simply because of sheer numbers. But there are many, many satisfied customers of them.
YouOS: YouHave To Be Kidding Me (ajax, youos)
Of course the advertising is forgettable there is no advertising.
Django gives you the benefits of speed and an easy to use framework. Rails just seems to have more hype around it.

The people who constantly say that the poor performance of Ruby and Rails isn't an issue are the same people who don't have large spikes in traffic, since their apps are subscription-based. For most of the typical Web 2.0 stuff getting built these days, huge spikes in traffic are exactly what you want, but using Rails is setting you up to have scaling issues once you get the press you're hoping for. You're likely to run into those same issues regardless, but why make things worse? Assuming Rails is better than Django, it's not so much better that it'll make up for the poor performance. The improvements in ease of development aren't unique to Rails, they're a byproduct of the philosophy that Django, Rails, and similar frameworks all share.

I'm far more likely to trust the opinion of the Twitter folks than that of people who have something to gain from my choice of framework.
I agree with you. I've been debating whether to focus on using Django or Rails - and I think I'm going with Django. If Rails has known speed limitations, why work with it if there's another option?
The rates start in 2008. It's free 'till the end of the year.
What I Learned From Friendster: Jonathan Abrams' New Startup -
Paul talks about the YC admission process. "At YCombinator we go through and rank all of the applications, then we take the top 30 for interviews."

I bet there are a few people around here who would like to know where they placed in the last round.
Yeah, but then he went ahead and created Wasabi. Kinda lost points there.
Y Combinator Interviewees
It would be interesting for the REJECTS to see what the pool of accepted interview companies consist of.

VoteUp if you would be interested in this.
And if you made the cut please post in the replies the following information:

Your Company Name:
Small Public Description:
Demo, Screencast, or Company Link if applicable:
I don't know how "radical" the idea is. Justin.tv is "Web 2.0" for Jennicam (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JenniCam).
Can anyone explain what is exactly so great about this idea?

It's the 90's all over again...
I think it depends on the focus of your startup. My perception is that SF is more media-centric, with lots of designers and media professionals, while South Bay is more "nerdy" and enterprise-centric, with lots of hardcore hackers.

Regarding "where to live": I currently live in Mountain View, but I would move to SF if I could afford (although MV is not that cheap either!). SF is an awesome city.
Executive management decision for your Startup - When/How?
When is the latest that a startup needs to think about the executive management? When does one decide on who the CEO should be? And what is the best way to go about it? Thanks!
M&amp;A Trends
There have been some discussions here and elsewhere about how larger companies are more interested in acquiring earlier-stage startups than they used to be. The gist is that they are beginning to cut out the VC middleman by going after promising companies before they grow too big (and expensive).

Is anyone aware of any data that backs this up? I'm not sure how to present this idea to folks who aren't in tune with valley trends.
Y Combinator's WriteWith Launches - Collaborative Blogging
Justin.tv is not Jennicam. Justin.tv is a business and has a business plan that can be executed. Think reality TV... think internet television.
I really don't understand why you've gotten nothing but positive comments on this. This is not an original idea. If I'm wrong, what is original about it? For the use case you describe, having a saved set of Firefox tabs would do a far better job.

Let's say you do come up with some new twist on the whole web desktop thing. There is absolutely no technological barrier to entry for that market. Any of the existing products can add on your differentiating feature in a week, and then crush you.

If you're working on this as a neat hack, I'm all for it, but if you think this is going to turn into a viable business somehow, I think you're probably mistaken.
A beta version of the news website will probably be available in about 2 weeks. I can notify you about it, if you want to, same for c1sc0, but you'll have to give me your email address then, I guess.

Funny, I thought starting the international version first would be better, as I find it easier to get the word out (lots of english web 2.0 blogs and such). I have very little knowledge on how to get your site promoted in Belgium.

Belgian community? You're giving me an idea :) Wouldn't it be awesome to gather belgian webmasters all in 1 place (a website.. obviously), create a commmunity and call it "Silicon Valley in Belgium". Not that I'm going to do that, it's just a cool idea :)
I'm playing around with it. It saves every 20 seconds. Great for forgetful people.
What exactly do you dislike about PHP? and Why is your web language of choice better?
There seems to be much talk thrashing the web language incumbent PHP. What exactly bums you out? and why is your language better?
Thanks for the feedback.
Good advice, definitetly.

The only problem is about the language filter: we already thought about it, but now we have only one story in english, so you wouldn't have seen anything. This is one of the first things we'll fix in the next days.
Interesting to see that WriteWith seems to take GoogleDocs head on! There seems to be a few parallels between what Kiko attempted and how they were hosed by Google Calender and what WriteWith is attempting.

The difference here being WriteWith launching after GoogleDocs and it being marketed differently. Looks like WriteWith is creating a niche within collaborative doc editing, by catering to and marketing as a collaborative blogging platform. Brilliant concept! Truly catering to the long tail of bloggers!!
brain drain vs. brain circulation
But it can't be for google to do the exact same thing with blogs. The ebay auction countdown begins...what will they come up with next?
How Startups Get Funded Before Investors Show Up
Don't forget to check the content policy,

http://checkout.google.com/seller/content_policies.html

Google's looks straight-forward, but sometimes providers have uncommon restrictions in there. eg, the "Travel packages and offers" wouldn't be immediately obvious.
Although not part of his talk, Paul had something interesting to say, when posed with the question about how anal investors are, about 'domain expertise' of the team they would be willing to fund.

The point to take home from Paul's response to this question was that, as long as the investors are convinced that the 'hackers' have enough domain knowledge to realize an important need and they have a relevant and popular solution to the problem, then the product/prototype/system should silence the critics/cynics, if any.

Paul used Mark Zuckerberg as an example as a facilitator of 'inter-personal networking' through facebook. The domain here being 'inter-personal networking' ;-) and how much Mark sucks at it!

Go HACKERS!!
Our way or the highway
Distributed file storage: MogileFS
Well, I definitely feel its not hard to picture Google looking at WriteWith and realizing that there is an opportunity there for them to leverage from their existing systems and just establish a connection between GoogleDocs and Blogger.

The incremental effort required to bridge the gap, seems minuscule, especially on the Google scale. One of the possible Google efforts would be, WriteWith getting an irresistible offer from Google. I am sure the founders won't be complaining then!
Software Startup Myths Debunked
What was the first venture you tried? Tell your story.
I had this idea in 8th grade to build something similar to what Yahoo Answers! is today.

I developed much of the site in ASP and partnered with a designer to do the logo design(I sucked at designing back then). Once high school started and I discovered freelancing I lost focus and never really went live.

The site was called HelpersSeekers.com. This was in 2001.
MGM Partners with iTunes
Kaleidoscopes. About 3rd. grade. Sold a couple :D
I actually see the PHP bashing as dieing down quite a bit, Now that the Ruby on Rails craze is over with (the language is awesome, but I'm glad to see some of the hype go away).

I think people are finally understanding that there is room for both languages (and more) and each language has it's strengths and weaknesses than can only be leveraged (or overcome) by someone truly comfortable with that language.
CMU mini-robot dancing to a song on YouTube
Unfortunately, not everybody can realize this. Most people are so connected to their physical environment in their conscious state that they just can't let go of their conscious connections. I guess all of us are caught up some way or the other.
I totally agree. This is a classic example of an Innovator's Dilemma incremental improvement (i.e. what big slow companies are really good at)

http://www.amazon.com/Innovators-Dilemma-Revolutionary-Business-Essentials/dp/0060521996/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-9893482-5829762?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1176413849&sr=8-1
Yahoo in Talks To Buy Rivals.com for About $100 Million
Nice!! The book looks interesting! Thanks for the recommendation!!
Disagree. It seems more like they've optimized one part of their infrastructure, so now a new bottleneck has popped up. Par for the course when you're optimizing anything...

Oh, and this interview was discussed by DHH on his blog:

http://www.loudthinking.com/arc/000608.html

The comments were interesting, especially one from Alex Payne (the Twitter dev himself). Here is an excerpt. Visit the link above to read the full comment (which is kind of long to post fully inline here).

"...We'd be running into scaling issues on Django or any other platform. We're happiest scaling on Rails."
This is definitely a Karmactic idea.
Is this done with Ruby On Rails? It looks like it, very 37signals-ish.