skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I respectfully disagree, because the video is something one can watch at any time, but releasing a web service to the public is something that should be done as soon as possible.

But you made me reconsider. I guess I can probably put it on my phone and watch it at the gym when I'm doing some stretches or warming up!

I'm glad you enjoyed my link, and I hope I have some time to watch more of it myself. Thanks for your reply!
best piece i've read about angel / venture investing in a long time. nice job :)

note: i'm one of a small group of ex-geek angel investors out here in silicon valley, altho admittedly i'm small fry compared to most others. i've done 5-6 deals averaging ~$25-50K, and only because i'm crazy and my wife isn't watching too closely ;) i was fortunate to be at PayPal from 2001-2004, but not so early that i'm rich enough to retire just yet... maybe someday.

enjoyed the article; keep up the great writing!

- dave mcclure
http://500hats.typepad.com/
Not my experience at all. Some of the biggest spikes in traffic I've ever seen were generated by major-network television coverage wherein the domain was simply mentioned a couple times. I think the deciding factor is whether the description of your site gets people excited -- "I have to see that!".
in most places, $5M or more.

however in Silicon Valley or New York, probably more like $10-20M.

(note: in some beach towns in thailand or se asia, FU money can be had for under $1M... maybe even a few hundred thou).

still working on mine, btw ;)

- dave mc
This is a totally awesome idea IMHO.
I think an archive of all previous entries would be really helpful.
That's actually a good looking site. I guess I shouldn't be surprised...MS has plenty of money to hire the best (how to explain their software, though?).

But I'm most impressed that they've figured out that if apps aren't being developed for Windows, they will die a slow death. Front and center they're offering free software development tools, and a great vision of what those tools could do for you (turn you into the next Bill Gates). It's a lie, of course, but still, it's a hell of a good image. (It's a lie because Microsoft will not tolerate the existence of another Bill Gates within their eco-system...you can only ever be a servant to MS when building for MS.)

Anyway, I'm impressed. Really clean design with clear pathways to do things on the site.
Why Sribd Rocks
For some reason if a VC dumps $10m each into 100 companies and none of them is very successful, it's part of the business.

YC puts $15-20k into 20 companies and one has a (major) liquidity event and that's a failure? wtf?
'... The startup community is highly disconnected. ... Startups, investors, job seekers and service providers all need one another to survive and grow yet at the same time they are hindered by their own lack of connectivity ...'

"3 Things Investors Won't Pay the Founder For" and there's one thing the startup should be wary of - the middle man.

It's in Wils companies interest, to debunk any unnecessary costs for investors. It's simply a negotiation tactic to increase profit. Wil is not a fool and wants to makes sales on his terms or terms favourable to the highest paying customer. It also highlights how making the business (Wils business) attractive to investors by realising startups, developers as a whole have less experience (and power) negotiating with potential investors.

You have to realise and act upon this weakness to improve your position.
does he have anotyhe roption with steve behind him :P
well chk out G5 for one of his best creations..and also the isub woofer..
Groovy things to do with Groovy Google Tech Talk
There is always cs426, "Death Graphics" with Funkhouser at Princeton ~ http://www.cs.princeton.edu/courses/archive/fall00/cs426/
evite is the most inexplicable of these. it's so bad. everyone hates it. but... it won't die!
More info @ http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/05/14/orgoo-the-web-emailim-replacement/
SwellJoe, i'm seeing you all over the internet now.
That's partially what I meant -- it's 20 hours of video, but in addition to that, it will actually take much, much longer than that to digest, since it's not really an Introduction to CS in the way most people are used to.
BUILT TO FLIP: Y Combinator's startups - Valleywag
Boston YC Meetup at next weeks (5/22) WebInnovators Conf?
Wait a second... when I saw it, it had Bill Gates' photo in the big box with a link to Visual Studio, and an ad for Visual Studio on the right.

The Google cache shows the Microsoft site with an X-Box in the big box, and a game ad, DirectX, Templates, Clipart, and Microsoft Office links.

It must know from cookies in advertising it shows all over the web to know if your IP has seen a lot of XBox ads on XBox sites, or if your IP has seen a lot of Visual Studio ads on Slashdot (even if you don't click) it shows the Visual Studio home page.

Even if you don't click a Microsoft ad, it seems to know which site to show you, probably by collecting IP addresses from different web sites where they show ads.
Anyone want to meetup at the next Tues May 22 WebInnovators conference at the Royal Sonesta in Cambridge (6:30-9pm)? There are about 150+ people that attend, so I recommend we put a YC on the nametags to identify ourselves. The event is free, but you should RSVP at: http://www.webinnovatorsgroup.com/
Essential Web07, where all the European stars will be
dupe http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=22037
Top 20 Social Bookmarking Sites Ranked By Traffic - May 2007
Don't be afraid of the Pro CEO
Interesting .... thanks for the link. Though, in the context of that report, a 'new business' need consume only 15 or more hours per week to 'count'. Such low-intensity enterprises aren't really what the YC (or VC) crowd is interested in (whatever their other virtues), so I think there's a bit of an apples-and-oranges problem with the 550K/mo number, even assuming there are no deeper statistical problems with the report.
I'm a CS grad student at Stanford and involved with some of the startup-related activities here.

Entrepreneur Idol isn't actually part of a class, it's just a small event run by the Graduate School of Business. It's an elevator pitch competition, which is relatively common at business school. Of course, Stanford is unique in its connections to the venture capital industry -- many of the VCs are about one block from campus.

The organizers have held this same event a couple other times earlier this year. In December, one of my co-founders participated and placed 4th. We won $100 from that which we still haven't spent yet.

Unfortunately I wasn't at this event so I can't add much more than what the LA Times reporter said. I know one of the students they quoted, and he's quite smart/talented.
besides, how do you FAIL an IQ test? you probably get a 40 or something if you can drool.
GPL v3, Clarity and Simplicity
Amazon acquires dpreview.com
I might buy that if he didn't write an article right after the last round justifying nonselection of people as "measurement error" between those at the tail end of the talent cutoff. http://paulgraham.com/judgement.html

My question is how many of the start-ups selected wouldn't have done anything if they hadn't made the cut? I think most of the non-selectees switch gears and do something else instead, like school.

Relatedly, how many of the people who were selected had success primarily because of their YC link rather than because of impressive technology? Reddit certainly seems to be one of them, and the "big success" so far.
How to Be a Millionaire, the "Easy" Way
On top of "Popular Downloads" is: "Windows Server code name 'Longhorn' Beta 3". I doubt they show this to all visitors, too...
Nope. Java is a pretty solid platform on the server. Client-side java was never alive, though it had a lot of hype.
New solar startup cuts silicon usage 99%
Hi, I think this is an interesting story because there's a parallel between semiconductor equipment and app design, i.e., do you spend the money to build your own, are you better off in some cases to outsource it to a specialist (in this case equipment that makes solar cells)? Another example might be, are you better off building your own anti-virus app that needs constant updating, or do you outsource it to McAfee?
Just out of curiosity, is Apple really that popular in Silicon Valley?

In the places where I've lived, Apple was/is not much of a player at all particularly since the 1990s.

I find it peculiar that there are so many Apple-related posts on YC News!
I think it's usefulness over technology. I'd wager that chances of any of the YC funded startups are outsmarting entire departments in the behemoth companies, technology-wise, are close to nothing.

I'd say it's like the restaurant business. There are many cooks out there, but not all can make a nice shop with the right ambience, right furniture, etc.
Jamglue (YC Startup) featured on NPR Morning Edition
Will Free or Fee-Based Web Video Prevail?
Moving to Manufacturing Models: IBM's LEAN; Why It's Inevitable and What You Can Do About It
Are Traditional Media Companies Like The Detroit Auto Industry?
European Startups Coming to a Web Browser Near You
Congrats on the publicity, guys.
Yeah I thought he was talking about usability which covers design but I thought he was referring to broad browser compatibility and accessibility (CAPTCHA designs for instance)
Tutorial: Domain-Specific Languages in Groovy
83 days of trying to raise money + the 9 previous months they spent building the site, now that is more accurate number.
I think you've answered your own question. :)
[kill]
sabat - so true.

/me begins working up post. finds research exhausting. :)
Just so we're on point here, I'm sure there are some instances where a founder was well paid or debt was paid. It's just a really bad idea to go into an investment thinking that's a typical situation. I've yet to meet an investor that thinks either of those situations are preferable. Also, what happens in the Valley works well in the Valley but rarely translates to the rest of the world (for better and worse!)
I hope they all become billionaires. I just missed the correlation.
Jason Calacanis Chats with Jeff Dachis of Web 1.0 Monster Razorfish [video, podcast]
I shouldn't have commented. The post in question is so vague it is meaningless. "Investors" could mean anyone. Angel funding, pre-angel funding, series-A VC money, Paul Graham, your rich uncle, Sequoia capital, etc. I'm speaking from a silicon valley perspective. Those companies listed on TechCrunch with a 7-8 million dollar series A round - everyone there is making six figures. Companies getting a $20K check from Y-combinator... those founders are not.
I am seeing an increasing number of engineers switching to Apple @home while continuing develop under Windows only because their employer uses it.

Also, more and more technical books have screenshots in them done using Mac. While I can't say Apple is "popular", I can certainly say that Mac is getting more popular.
Specific and interesting suggestions. Nice ideas.
hystry: Give me your browser history, and I will give you an inbox for the web
My goal has been to focus on two use cases:

1. When I return to a popular story on reddit/slashdot/digg I would like to see highlighted the comments that were posted since I last visited it. (digg is only in theory; does it ever get interesting comments?)

2. When I post a comment on a blog it usually has very little traffic. I never bother returning to see if someone responded to my comment, and would like to be reminded of it only when that happens.

[update]

All comments most appreciated. I will be only online one hour everyday for the next few days(I wrote this while on vacation travellling in india), so expect responses in 24-36 hours. Thanks.
My economic platform as president of the US would be to institute an advanced cloning program to duplicate Steve Jobs and replace the heads of the Fortune 100. I would call this
"The De-Sculleyification of America" or "The No CEO Left Behind Act".
Give you my browser history, and I've lost my privacy and security.

This is interesting, but unless you keep my history private I would never use this. It is possible for Firefox extensions to store data locally, so maybe you could.
What can Wikipedia learn from the Iliad? (The sociology of wiki management)
Java had a moment on the client. We still have a few Java applets in our product (a file manager, an ssh/terminal client, probably a couple of others I'm not thinking of), though they are being re-written as AJAX apps as we speak. But all of the flaws in Java are still present even on modern machines with modern Java versions...so no use flogging a dead horse.
This is a FAQ. http://hystry.com/faq.html

Firefox extensions are restricted to javascript. Consider an extension that is about comparable in terms of computing resources: searching in scrapbook (http://amb.vis.ne.jp/mozilla/scrapbook ). On any reasonable set of pages saved, searching is dog slow. hystry's workflow - saving the state of every page you visit, and then performing diffs when you ask for them - is equally non-trivial. Also, scrapbook gradually makes firefox unresponsive as we keep adding pages to it. I have scrapbook setup to save every page I read, and need to save elsewhere the gigabyte of data it generates every month. This kind of computation and storage is what the website is for.

hystry.com is pretty slow as well so far, but at least it doesn't keep popping up a dialog asking if you should let the javascript thread continue. And it will become faster over time.
Java will never disappear, but a lot less people have wool pulled over their eyes than did before. Now that Java has less hype and "management buy-in" it's going to have to compete on merit, and there it mostly falls short. Survival of the fittest.
A Great Way to Learn Ruby
Latest RailsConf-related Posts for the Rubyists out there (via Technorati)
MyConfPlan: Pick & Manage Which Conf. Breakout Sessions you Attend
For me the FAQ's answer is unsatisfactory. The claim that "The information cannot be connected with you" is a misleading falsehood. You can and so could any bad guy that has penetrated your system.

No one who cares cares about their security or privacy could use your application in its current form. Thankfully there's lots of people who don't, so you should be fine. Good luck.
How LiveJournal Scales [PDF]
"Social software" is about making it easy for people to do other things that make them happy
Thanks. If you have any suggestions on how to make it work locally I'd be interested to hear them.

Moving from a desktop to a web service will always involve some loss of privacy. The trend seems to be to deemphasize privacy.
Ajaxian acquired by Techtarget for $1M
MMORPG.
A plug-in can access whatever libraries you want.
Yes, "investors" here is a bit broad.

Reading posts like this make it seem really pointless to spend too much time seeking investment.

Just go out and build a solid business. Either:

A) It will work. You will have profits and/or investors will be beating down your door.

B) It won't - you've run out of money and no one wants to invest in you. Just give up!

Luckily there are angels and groups like YC who don't take the "don't fund founder salaries" approach.

For a small web 2.0 startup -- server costs are around $100-500 a month for even a modestly successful app.

What else are investors funding, if not founder salaries??
I would like to know more about the overall architecture especially with their backend written in C# rather than Ruby.
The Widget Economy
Oops, I didn't find the other story. My bad fellas.
Things Sure Are Quiet At MySpace News
Just Tell The Friggin' Truth
Elevating User Experience (Fixing Google) [MP3]
Interesting contrast to News.YC.

Honestly, you would think they would have at least two users: the guy who created the project & Tom. One of them needs to start spamming the site to make it seem alive.
And that's not including the risk premium and required risk-free return, both of which have been implicitly priced into the contract. To stay competitive, VCs often require an expected annual return on new investments of 30-40%. Because YC invests at such an early stage, I would suspect that their required return should be much higher.

A 50% discount rate would lead to significantly larger average valuations @ 5% equity ($15k invested): $450,000 after first year; $675,000 at second year; $1 million at third year.

Since any later financing would dilute their stake, the expected post-money valuations should be even larger.
Trouble In Venture Capital Land?
I like how you put a historical perspective on a modern day innovation. But a (history) question.

Iliad was a collaboration... have more information? First time I read that. I always thought Iliad was especially amazing because Homer conceived it all in his head and later had it transcribed. Since in that sense Homer's genius is unparalleled it wouldn't make sense to have corrections here and there. Nobody would ever know what brilliance would've been in Bach's Unfinished symphony, so what was present already would've probably been left unaltered.

And in terms of collaboration, wasn't the Bible a better example?
despite a number of attempts!
Da' Vincian Creation - Holy Grail of AI
How to get a massive viral spike (if you don't tick off your users first)
check out http://teenwag.com
Someone scribd it here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/53672/LiveJournal-Behind-The-Scenes-how-to-scale
funny that the next comment on this thread was a teenwag spam :)
Actually those technical books you mentioned are always around Web Development, Ruby on Rails, HTML/CSS.

Most of Web Designers have background in Graphics Design. Graphics Design use Mac.

Ruby on Rails developers (most of them) use Mac thanks to the hype and the shiny screencast made by DHH.

While the last reason might not be important, it also has some effect to certain degree to books; IE6/WinXP theme looks old (same thing with IE6/WinXP classic theme) while Safari looks much nicer in those web development books. Basically people need fresh air that's all. It's not that Mac is better.

Did you know that Yahoo! Mail doesn't work in Safari?
Perhaps it's only in Silicon Valley. The place where I live, people don't care of Apple or Web 2.0 that much. They use computer to browse news, check e-mail, YouTube and Friendster/Facebook/MySpace because they can see the hottest chicks or guys around their environments.
Safari is crap. I hope the Maccos at least install Firefox on their machines.
Some interesting things (to me, anyway):

This link to my post on Slashdot is better rated than all but one of my submissions to News.YC. I guess that's why Staunch is in the "leaders" and I'm in the ghetto with ~100 points. Staunch has an eye for a good story, and I don't, even when I wrote it.

Steven Levy is utterly ignored when he posts on Slashdot (he replied to my post, and got no votes). I find that shocking. The Slashdot I knew and loved would have really appreciated a visit from the author of "Hackers". He's not some hack writer slumming in the tech department on his way to politics or sports...he's Steven-Fucking-Levy. Folks ought to show some respect. I'm not wishing for an automatic +5 from fan-boys (ala Bruce Perens), but it'd be nice to see some evidence that the idiots aren't running the asylum over there in Slashland.

Finally, my post elicited a +5 Interesting, but got no replies (other than Steven's response, and a troll). Sure, I'm all giddy about the magnificent impact on my karma (Excellent-Excellent...I feel validated), but I'd rather hear what folks have to say. I'm guessing it has to do with the fact that everyone wants to post to only the latest stories.

I miss being able to vote on everything. Sure, I get moderator points over on Slashdot pretty frequently (Karma==Excellent!), but never when I really want to smack someone down or approve something.

Why does any of this matter? I dunno.
Hey, what about Simmery Axe? You know, the creators of BrainGuppy. You don't? Oh.

Anyway, yeah, Simmery Axe. And you thought Wufoo was a wacked-out name. It's apparently from a Gilbert and Sullivan opera, which doesn't explain as much as deepen the mystery.
troll: Internet slang for someone who disagrees with you, but whom you cannot come up with a cogent counter argument for.

Yes, I mean "build your thing." This is NOT the "YC model". The YC model is "build a demo so you can get VC money". This is a very bad approach-- I mean, its a great approach if you're looking to get funded so that you can get a salary. ITs a terrible approach if you want to build a business that will grow fast and make you rich. The YC model has you building a demo that gets funded and instead of getting a salary from a large tech company like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo or Amazon, you get a salary from VCs. Believe it or not, as clueless as managerment at G, M, Y or A are, the VCs are even more clueless.

You're still assuming that the purpose of your company is to demo your way into a job (eg: get "big" funding.)

Sorry, I didn't mean network with your peers (if your peers are under 25). Hanging out with other YC founders is ok, but its not networking... you need to network with people who are older (assuming you're under 25)... people with other disciplines, preferably people with significant business experience. Nothing wrong with hanging out with other 25 year olds, but that's not the point.

"Without the seriously smart hackers and designers-only rule, there's no value."

I understand why you would say something like that. and I'm certainly not saying you should spend time with kids (also under 25) who spent the last four years snorting lines of coke off of hookers bellies (eg: Havard MBAs) but your coming off like Mark Zuckerberg... there are great bright valuable people in business. And you will NOT find them at a YC infest.... because these are people who are running successful companies. You need to be networking with your possible strategic partners, or the people who will be your customers or know your customers.

.....

The reason the slashdot thread is so hostile is that the cult of Paul Graham is getting a lot of press lately and its sounding more and more like its gonna end in another jonestown.

The more people associated with the program act like stepford hackers the more you're going to see "trolling" ...and the less time I'll spend here... whenever I've expressed something not %100 in line with the PG ideology, the responses have been vehemenant and identical... not counter arguments, but repetition of the ideology.
No. If you happen to know someone with a lot of money and, much more importantly, they know you well enough to know your trustworthy, you can often get a nice deal early in the life of your startup.

But this is not-- by a long shot-- how most startups become successful.

And one thing I've learned in the last 20 years-- the people who are worth knowing-- the really valuable ones-- they are approachable. You don't need someone to make an introduction to them.

Universally people who make their living as middlement and introduction brokers are people who are selling you something you could get for free, and undermining your ability to use it at the same time (because they are selling it to others as well-- making their introduction less valuable than contacting the person cold.)
I once tried to contribute to freenet. Yes, Ian is absolutely arrogant and rude, and he is the reason his startups fail.
How to Run a Successful Online Community
Steven Levy was present at about a third of the dinners during WFP 2007. He did serious research for the article. It is a fair presentation, with a bit of hyperbole thrown in (most likely to satisfy editors).

And, he is no mere "reporter". He is Steven Levy, who is among the best technology writers.
Well hell, why not just hire from UC Santa Cruz? Then you're tapping into the source.