skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Everything can be seen as an opportunity rather than a weakness.
Like the people at 37 signals say:
"Embrace your constraints
Let limitations guide you to creative solutions

There's never enough to go around. Not enough time. Not enough money. Not enough people.

That's a good thing...."

And also the gapping void:
7. Keep your day job.

I�m not just saying that for the usual reason i.e. because I think your idea will fail. I�m saying it because to suddenly quit one�s job in a big ol' creative drama-queen moment is always, always, always in direct conflict with what I call "The Sex & Cash Theory".

THE SEX & CASH THEORY: "The creative person basically has two kinds of jobs: One is the sexy, creative kind. Second is the kind that pays the bills. Sometimes the task in hand covers both bases, but not often. This tense duality will always play center stage. It will never be transcended."
http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/000889.html
tables would still qualify. What wouldn't qualify is a flash site.
I think the question is, are the complaints they're getting facebook news feed type complaints? Or netscape.com relaunch type complaints?

One goes away when people get used to the newness. The other destroys any hope you had for a community.
Should an advisor have skin in the game? Your opinion...
I recently dissolved my advisor board. Advice is a strange thing. An
illiterate nincompoop on the street can be right today, but the pedigreed suit in the boardroom puffing his cigar can be wrong about the same thing. But back to the topic, Talk is Cheap but Effort shows Commitment. Or to put it another way, if you have skin in the game, then I'll know that you are putting your money where your mouth is. What do you think?
There's a word for advisors with skin in the game: board members.

The advisor's job, besides giving help and advice, is to find the flaws in your thinking before the board does.
5 Reasons Why Flickr & Youtube are Successful
The guy should read the Orwell essay posted buy Guy Kawasaki earlier this week. What was there, 35% buzz words? He may have made good points; I can't parse his language.
All these points are vague and non-actionable. Here's my take:

If you've been Net Native long enough you probably remember oFoto and Shutterfly and Webshots. What happened to all these sites? Flickr.

Flickr was designed around an open API from the ground up, meaning you could take your photos and embed around the web and in other applications. You could even take other people's photos and embed them around the web and in other applications. It was pretty sweet.

As a result they quickly dominated the photo sharing scene and were bought out by Yahoo! in record time.

Flickr's sustainable competitive advantage was freedom.

Back in June the Flickr team was having an internal debate about whether or not to allow competitors to data mine their site. Flickr's founder, Stewart Butterfield, posted a comment on his blog saying,

*******

"T]his is something that we've never had any set policy on and this thread has sparked a lot of internal debate on the team: some people felt that it was unreasonable, some people felt like it didn't matter since Flickr should win on the basis of being the best thing out there.

I actually had a change of heart and was convinced by Eric's position that we definitely should approve requests from direct competitors as long as they do the same. That means (a) that they need to have a full and complete API and (b) be willing to give us access.

The reasoning here is partly just that 'fair's fair' and more subtly, like a GPL license, it enforces user freedom down the chain. I think we'll take this approach (still discussing it internally)."

*******

This makes sense for a non-profit like Wikipedia but it was a bad idea in this case. Flickr made their money by tapping the differential in the freedom gradient, so by requiring reciprocal openness they are literally forcing the competition to steal their sustainable advantage.

The paradox is they'd be better off just bending over and taking it. That's pretty fucked up.

Or, as Thomas Pynchon says, "If you can get them asking the wrong questions, you don't have to worry about the answers."
Moo.com Mini Cards: Guy gives girl pretty moo card. Girl likes pretty moo card. Girl calls guy using number on back of moo card. Guy gets laid.
Startup founders, how old are you?
In my opinion, startup founders hit mid life crisis in their early 20s. Considering Paul's influence on YCombinator, I am guessing that is the age group most of us belong to. So go ahead and share with us your age.

I just turned 22 today :)
Ah, 19 for another couple months:)
The average YC founder is about 25. The range so far has been from 19 to (I think) 33.
Paul, is the YC demographic a good representative of the average startup founder's age? Judging from your articles, I sense that there is a certain, though justified, bias towards funding younger startup founders. This is the excerpt I am referring to:

"The other reason it's hard to start a company before 23 is that people won't take you seriously. VCs won't trust you, and will try to reduce you to a mascot as a condition of funding. Customers will worry you're going to flake out and leave them stranded. Even you yourself, unless you're very unusual, will feel your age to some degree; you'll find it awkward to be the boss of someone much older than you, and if you're 21, hiring only people younger rather limits your options." - How to start a Startup
"In my opinion, startup founders hit mid life crisis in their early 20s."

I'd agree with that. I'm 25 and sometimes wonder if I'm over the hill.

Then again, my boss in my day job (sole founder and CEO) is almost 50. So it's not *impossible* to start late. I have noticed that it makes things difficult, culture-wise. The startup I'm at has a very 9-5 culture and tends to move fairly slowly, which is frustrating for young, ambitious hires like myself. It does have customers and manages to turn a profit, but I worry that we're falling behind the technology curve and may find ourselves without customers if a major market shake-out occurs or a competitor invades.
Happy Birthday!

Hopefully by your 23rd you'll be getting ready to retire :-)
Creativity is essential for startups and for some people creativity increases with age: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.07/genius.html
This article can be expanded to include forum software, namely phpBB. Who really needs, or more importantly, reads the list of all the active users in the forum? But the users of the phpBB software consistently leave in the unnecessary junk.

All in all, he accurately articulated a wider design laziness which can even be seen in commercial sites (opera.com vs. mozilla.com or reddit vs. news.ycombinator). I know that this parenthetical suggestion will get me modded down, but where's the line between copying a proven good idea and unwillingness to take a risk on an original design?
31.

For what it's worth, I feel more ready and able to do a startup now than I would have been when I was younger. Just for starters I was already in my mid-20s when I got my PhD.

A good friend of mine sold his startup last year to AOL for enough money that he'll never have to work again. He was 41 at the time and I believe his co-founder was around the same age. This gives me hope that I'm not quite over the hill yet ;-)
YC news *is* pretty much a startup reddit. If the reddit people had made a startup reddit before this, we probably wouldn't have a separate YC news. As such, I wouldn't really blame it for being just like reddit.
Blog design is a lot different than social systems design. When designing a blog you mainly have to worry about useability and aesthetics. Once you get the design of your blog just the way you like it, you never have to change it.

Whereas when you are designing a community you are trying to get maximize the quality of discussion, which is a function of both the people and the way they interact because of the systemic design. Once everyone knows what everyone else thinks the community begins to get stale, and to fix that (if seen as a problem) you need to redesign your site with the goal of either changing the mix of participants or changing the way they interact.

While news.ycombinator may visually look the same as Reddit, it changes both the people and the way they interact (through different algorithms). That is probably why I've almost completely stopped reading Reddit since this site launched, even though at first glance they seem similar.
I disagree with your two main points:

1. "Once you get the design of your blog just the way you like it, you never have to change it."

What if the design is just usable enough as to not draw any complaints? No complaints means perfect (or good enough) design, right? But what if, in constantly improving your design, you attract an audience that passed on your site initially. How would you know if you just let the blog go flat?

2. "Once everyone knows what everyone else thinks ... you need to redesign your site ..."

If the community is such that the people only contribute trite truisms, I don't think a redesign will do much to rectify the problem. I wouldn't know, though; I've never been to a site where everyone knows what the other users are thinking.
Social news... on a tree trunk.
OpenOffice is an open-sourced MS Office look-alike. Does this mean that OpenOffice v3.0 will have to copy Office 2007's "ribbon" design? OpenOffice could instead take this opportunity, a time where MS alienates its existing users with a radical design, to formulate a unique design that increases OO's market share paralleling the IE vs. Firefox browser "war."
The patent office opens up to the web!?
The Secrets to becoming an E-commerce Mogul
A Google employee and Pine contributer (Ryan Barrett) compared the two and gave his thoughts on the matter:

http://snarfed.org/space/gmail%20vs%20pine
customer reviews online bias very positive
Eighteen...:D
I agree with you on point one.

As for point two, I suppose you never know what each individual is thinking. However, the aggregated wisdom tends to be fairly stable over time for any given topic.

For example, if the topic of Apple comes up on Digg then I pretty much know what the comments are going to say without having to click on them. If one person posts an especially insightful comment, and others recognize it as such, then chances are someone else will repost that comment in future threads about Apple. More and more people come to believe whatever is said, until someone else comes up with a new paradigm for Apple worship. So the discourse evolves, but slowly and in predictable patterns.

Certainly any given individual's opinions are constantly in flux, but what matters isn't the ideas of each individual brings to the system, but rather the range of diversity and novelty of thought present in the system as a whole.
Which page is this comment for?
http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=2028

Please add a link from a comment's permalink page to the page it was commenting on.
17 Pithy Insights For Startup Founders
The Secret to Utilizing Social Media Sites (like Reddit)
UsedCardboardBoxes.com = $750,000 A Year
I'm a current YC company founder and I'm 21. I see the points pg makes in that essay you quote but I can't say I've let them apply to me personally. I have someone working for our company at the moment who is 33, in fact I don't think I've ever worked with someone who is the same age or younger than me (my co founder is 23). I've never had a problem with it personally, in fact I probably prefer it as I can generally learn more from more older than I am.

To make that situation work I think you need to believe strongly in two things:

1) Being a good leader does not mean being the smartest/most knowledgeable person in your company. It means being able to spot the smartest people and make them work together and learn from each other. That's not as simple as it sounds

2) You MUST believe 110% that age is a completely irrelevant metric when determining the "smartness" of a person. I don't care if someone is 20 years older than I am - if they haven't done a start-up then that puts me ahead of them in respect to running a start up. They may be an infinitely better coder/designer/whatever than I am but not a better startup founder.

The second reason is why I ditched my career as an attorney to be a start up founder. I don't intend on letting my income be determined by the number of years I've been sitting behind a desk.
Despite Yahoo's down year, Semel gets a big bonus
Basically following reasons -

I read somewhere that paul said he wanted to do via-web to solve the money problem once and for all. I think that is a real good motivation.

Second, probability of trying 15 different things in next 5 years and having one homerun is not as low as one would be tempted to think.. That still saves you 20 years of doing job and you are firing on all cylinders when you really are doing what you like the most, so the odds definitely are with you...

Third there is a certain degree of ego satisfaction when 1000s of people are using what you created (again one starts with a hope right?)
From the front page:

"We care more about how smart you are than how old you are, and more about the quality of your ideas than whether you have a formal business plan."

Perhaps the question should be: How many startups have you been a part of?
I also agree with this observation, but it's clearly an unrealistic expectation that we should all be accomplished and nearing retirement by the time we're 30.

I'm a 22 year-old learning animal. I expect to get my ass handed to me every time I deal with someone my senior; given the experience I've had with my first start-up, I've found this to be par for the course.

While I believe that I have it in myself to build the foundation for a highly profitable company, I also expect that my ability to build great companies will only improve with age.
Founders: How many startups have you been a part of?
Terry Semel alone cannot be held responsible for Yahoo's misfortunes. The problem has its root in Yahoo's line extension; the company has too many products (often competing against each other) irrelevant to its core business. Each time Yahoo ventures outside its core business, it sets itself open to a confrontation by a more focused competitor.

For instance, why did Yahoo 360 do terrible while other social networks gained market share? Because other social networks were intensely focused on their market, Yahoo wasn't.
Exit strategies not a viable business plan
25, and my co-founders are 23 and 32.

Relatedly: two of us have wives and families, which does make things more difficult financially and time-wise. Do any other founders have families? Do you work on the startup full-time? How do you fund yourselves?
Looking for a quick flip? Think again.
I don't know how it'll work out, but my wife and I are considering the idea of "wife's full time job as funding", in the sense that if she has a good job, and we can get by on her salary, then I'm free to work on some things of my own.

In some ways, I think it's nice to be married as it gives me a certain stability that I didn't have before.

Edit: BTW, I'm 31. I actually feel like it's the right time for me to try something of my own. I feel like I have a better vision of more things than I did when I was younger. I don't feel 'old' though, and we don't have kids (yet).
Are you paid enough?
7 Habits of Highly Effective Web Apps
Sorry, the original url is http://twopointouch.com/2007/02/21/7-habits-of-highly-effective-web-apps/
I'll be sending in a YC application in a couple days if my cofounder decides to commit. I'm 21. He's 18.
I don't know. I can't think of any video sites offhand that are _worse_ than youtube in most respects. The player is small, grainy, hard to control. The "community" is full of appalling idiots. The search feature is the worst I've ever seen. They did scale it very well--outages seemed minimal. I'm sure that is the greatest technical challenge for video.

Flickr is a real puzzle. Any jackass could have made that site. I think the stars just aligned for them. People can flippantly say things like, "Oh, Microsoft got lucky" or whatever, because they did get some breaks. But MSFT also did real work, not easily replicated. Flickr--geez. Most online stores have a photograph engine of some sort that does the same thing, as just one tiny feature.
That I'm still proud of?

http://www.samaritan.com/

http://costco.emailcopkids.com/

http://www.lp-hawaii.com/

Nothing sexy. And let's see, at least 3 or 4 flops (thankfully I wasn't too far along before discovering they were flops).
This was a pretty believable story until the point where Gates takes it seriously. Jobs was completely in-character but Gates isn't that stupid.
I've read the book. Basically, the features I have are the minimum I needed where I first rolled out the system (my day job). We had to have something that lets people share tasks, and keep track of time. Like they also say in the book, I realize those features aren't for everyone, so I'm happy to concentrate on the niche of people who need them. At work, they really like the system, so I'm confident they're out there.
Heh, funny this should come up now. I'm turning 29 tomorrow. Go Marchites.
I have a family also.. Y'all will think I'm totally nuts, but I'm a polyphasic sleeper ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphasic_sleep ). Altogether I sleep about 2.5 hours a day, which means I can have a 15 hour work day (at night) and still have 6+ hours at just the right times to be with my family and do personal things etc. I have my wife's 100% support though, and that makes all the difference (I won the support by cleaning the kitchen at night, of course).

In some ways I miss the freedom of being a little younger and single- being able to drop absolutely everything and move somewhere, knowing you'll be able to take care of yourself at the very least no matter what. On the other hand, there's a certain stability in your life that comes from being married and from having children. It can really be an anchor when times are difficult. It also usually forces you to take a lot more realistic view of your potential startup. Will this really produce revenue? Am I really covering my bases? etc.
I was watching the "secret YC video" that was posted the other day. You could see some older people and a few who looked quite young. But you really had to look for it, because what you really saw was a bunch of geeks. And I mean that in the best possible sense.
My co-founder and I are both 21.

I believe that competence, experience, and drive are not determined by age. I consider all aspiring entrepreneurs to be my peers and all successful entrepreneurs to be my role models.
All through my early startups I had a lingering feeling deep down that maybe I was too young- in over my head. Then one day I wake up and I'm feeling like maybe I'm too old- what if I missed the sweet spot or something? So my recommendation to all, young and old- ignore it.

Every time I hear someone older say they are getting forgetful because of their age (unless they really have dementia) I laugh inside, because everyone forgets stuff all the time- it's just that when you're older you have an excuse to pin it on. If your boss is 50 and the company is sluggish and behind the culture and curve, then it's your boss's disposition that made it so, not his age. It's a kind of slow culture that anyone turning a profit can get stuck in.
Feeling like an old fart here...I'm 33.

I'm career changing and going back to school. I should be done with my CS degree in two years. While I'm finishing school, though, I'm setting up my life to be a serial founder. I'll be 35 at that time.

I know that's breaking the mold, but I've had some time to set things up:

When I'm done with school, I will make a decent living working part time.
I have moved to Silicon Valley.
I will have my team together.
We won't be betting the farm while iterating through startup ideas.

I'm sure it won't all be a bed of roses, but I think there's something to be said for taking time to prepare for a life of uncertainty.
Only 21 and I still feel like I should have accomplished more with my life by now.

Experience is important, passion is more important.

Experience without passion is a dead startup.
Fail Well
Quintura launches a new user interface for easy search and browsing the Web
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transaction_cost

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Coase

(if I'm correct in my admittedly superficial understanding of his work)

Although that's probably not what the article's author had in mind when writing it, and I think it's a bit tangential to the feeling that I get too that there is a bit of froth in the market.

I'd agree with you that there's plenty of room out there, but offhand, I'd say the question to ask is whether the "width" of what startups are working on is growing proportionally to the number of startups, rather than simply the "depth" (people working on similar things).
Y Combinator Backed Search Engine For Gadget Parts
Or perhaps "How smart are you?" would be better?
The people who say Web 2.0 apps are garbage are completely right -- and utterly wrong
Micheal Mace says: "Participating in the blossoming of a new software platform is one of the most exciting things you can do in the tech industry."

I think he's true. That's why I'm gonna jump on Apollo.
With all respect, if you're planning to found companies what do you need a degree for? Backup plan? It seems like an odd choice to me.
Happy Birthday python_kiss!

I just turned 0o25 myself. Or just 0x15.

Mid life crisis in early 20s = Quarter life crisis? A lot of people have it in the years after they graduate when they realise they're just trapped in an office. A startup might just be our equivalant of buying a sports car.
32. With wife and kids. :)

It's a strain on personal/family life, but I firmly believe that starting a startup now is the best time for me to do so. I've been in the work world long enough to realize what I don't like, what I'm sick of, and what kinds of things people in my position are looking for.

There's also something to be said for the support that a spouse can give you, and for the energy that children impart just by being around you. Yeah, I have my bad days, but all in all, I think that this is the time.

Focus is the main thing that limited resources will impart to you. My two most limited resources at the moment are time and money. Since I don't have much of each, and can't afford to fail, I am that much more focused on what I need to be doing.
5 Principles of Great Design
The 50 Most Important People on the Web
Google And YouTube Continue to Struggle With Details
45 Fresh, Clean and Impressive Designs!
Congrats to you guys :)

42. Paul Graham, Trevor Blackwell, Robert Morris, and Jessica LivingstonFounders, Y Combinator

Rather than sinking a whole lot of money into a handful of companies that may (or may not) turn into the next big Google, venture capital firms like Y Combinator dole out smaller sums to potential mini-Googles. Y Combinator commits to two rounds of funding and dispenses less than $20,000 (expense money, really) to coders so they can work, work, work on a prototype to parlay into more funding. In exchange, Y Combinator asks for 2 to 10 percent of the company's stock. Startups that these guys have funded include Reddit (acquired by CondeNast), Kiko, and Weebly. The names sound funny, sure, but do you remember the first time you heard the name YouTube?
Open source developer warns about Adobe...
iPhone UI - WPF can do that!
I can't look at these lists without hearing John C. Dvorak (dvorark.org/blog) in my head saying, It's all a bunch of crap. It's a bunch of editors and writers getting together and throwing out names.

It's basically link bait, right?
Who wants a Joost inivitation? Have 2 left.
I do, I do... raju.gandhi@gmail.com ... Thanks!
Is on it's way...
@ theudude2002
Thank you, just got it... Much appreciated!!!
26 now, 19 when founded first real startup