skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Its totaly in your control... move on, stop hanging out around the YC crowd and go build your company. Don't let YC determine your fate... they had their chance and passed.

The absense of successful rejected is simply a factor of the YC propaganda engine only talking about those accepted. ITs too early for stories about the ones that got away to be well known-- hell, there aren't any real successes from the program yet (which is also because its new.)
I thought about it a little bit more:

- They aren't all lawyers - they've got some marketing/economics guys too.

- In Europe, there are a lot less PG type of people in any case - successful techies that have turned to funding in some way, so "business guys" is probably as good as you'll get for the time being. At least they're trying.
Anyone have recommendations for good scalable managed servers?
We are looking into bitpusher.com which is used by Carson Systems and I believe Wufoo, but would welcome other peoples recommendations.
Man charged with stealing $250,000 worth of Skittles
The main objection of the "trolls" is the strident ideology being shown. Here's one of my replies buried in the other thread:

Anybody who build their business on nights and weekends while working a fulltime job is someone who has shown a great deal of commitment. I've done this, its damn hard... its hard not to let the startup wither away because you're too busy with your day job, and its hard not to loose interest after even 3 months of spending all your time on your job or your other job with little time for anything else.

Show me someone who built thier company that way, and I'll be interested in putting money in.

YC seems to attract and be geared for, kids in college who want a summer job with the prospect of glamorous VC money afterwards. It doesn't matter to them that they might get a raw deal-- cause they don't have much invested in it in the first place. And ther's nothing wrong with that.

The problem is that these kids are so adamant and smug that this is The One True Way To Do A Tech Startup-- that making these foolish short term choices in pursuit of a billion dollar dream is obviously right... and building a net worth of $10M by building a $3M/a year real buisiness is a "lifestyle" business-- a failure in their eyes. They are naieve and strident and there is no getting thru to them because Paul Graham has them mezmerized by the tune he's playing.

YC is a great summer camp for entreprenurial college students. But all the bashing of other ways of going about it that they do are so misguided... and the focus on only high risk, low probability business models seems misguided.
I think this comment shows everything that is asinine and vapid about the YC "community".

Ian Clarke invented freenet... the most successful peer-to-peer privacy network.

And whether his businesses have been successful or not (I don't know, but I know you don't) he's been more successful than the members of this community. He has far more users than reddit, for instance.

Its amazing that every disagreement or criticism of YC is met with the "you're a failure" or "you're jealous" or "you're bitter" response.

Never a response on the point.

This is what has me increasingly believing that YC is a cult of personality-- its adherents don't make arguments, they repreat mantra. Their motivation is not intellectual honesty-- but defense of their idol.

Please, prove me wrong!

These are the classic comebacks of kids. Is this community made up of college students? Is that the problem?
Are you a Google Superstar?
OH MY GOD! Its like you're brainwashed!

Let me ask you this- - you're buying a car. You're going to use this car to deliver papers and make some money delivering pizza on the side. You're going to build a little business here that's worth 10 times the value of the car after a year or two.

Do you go to the bank who gives you %100 of the purchase price of the car in exchange for %9 interest each year? Or do you go to the local loan shark who charges you ("to stay competitive, of course") %30-%40 of the value of the loan, plus-- if you decide to sell the car-- 4 times the value of the loan at liquidation?

YC says you go to the loan shark and pay %400 for your money.

Slashdot "Trolls" say "that's way too much"... and you think they are engaging in bad math?!?!
YC fans mindlessly bash anyone who disagrees. Nothing different here.
Do you realize how patronizing you're being?
You didn't make an argument, you just engaged in personal attack.
It gives Tagged the power to steal emails for corporate blackmail. Should you trust them?
Funny, I wasn't talking about you specifically, but you spent your response talking about you. Since you have made it about you, you put yourself up as an example, thus continuing to argue my points would be easily construed as bashing you personally.

Making it personal in debate is never a good strategy... further, on multiple occassions you misconstrued or misrepresnted the points I was making... so I'm not going to respond to that either.
I question your motives. You seem to just be enjoying the opportunity to play the role of the outspoken critic of The Cult of Paul Graham. You don't seem the least bit interested offering better alternatives for these "kids". All you say is "if you know what you're doing" it "isn't hard" to get funding. Paul Graham is giving personal guidance and introductions.

You're also taking the role of the experienced startup guy setting the "kids" straight. But people who are clearly more experienced and successful than you seem to disagree. Look at the list of speakers YC has attracted, many of them are not easy to influence with money -- and yet they seem to think YC is an amazing opportunity that they would have loved to have when starting out.
Running a Hatchery for Replicant Hackers (YC in the NYT)
I am increasingly becoming convinced that facebook, and most tech businesses-- are totally clueless about interviewing.

Its definately much worse than it was 10 years ago.

Companies are starting to get proud of the fact that they are incompetant at interviewing-- because they think someone "failing" their process means they have a high bar... but the reality is, they let in clueless people with trendy skills and exclued the people who had a clue.

And thene the clueless interview based on trends and the company becomes yahoo (or facebook- they are heading for a fall.)

What do I mean by clueless trendy people? I expect that if I interviewed at facebook, and told them in the interview that I thought unit tests were a waste of time, I wouldn't get hired.

The reality is, I know unit tests are a waste of time, and I know abetter way to develop software. But unit tests are the trend (a trend created by pointy haired idiot non-programmers, believe it or not) and now the clueless will exclude the superior based on this-- and be smug in doing so.

I guess this is the natural way of things-- popular music devolves from mozart to britney spears.
Its a reaction to the fog of smug that surrounds YC.

It really needs to be dissipated.
DemoMyApp - clear gallery of new web applications and start-up sites
Meebo launches Meebo Rooms
I can't tell if you are a deliberate troll or just a very angry person, but nearly all your recent comments consist entirely of remarks about the person you're replying to, and have no information about the point being discussed. Please stop. This is not reddit.
This is completely off topic for this site, or am I mistaken?
Hi the USP of demomyapp is in watching the screencasts. So if you want people to decide whether your site is worth using submit your demo and comment on the screencasts.

We're doing a new release this week too - look out for ratings and the ability to make announcements about your app.
Dude, I got modded down and I'm not complaining. The math is true and I'd be an idiot to disagree. However, with all due respect, you are missing something fundamental. If all we need is an absolute number of smart people, there have been plenty over the past millenia, and humans should be crazily more advanced than now.

If you want to talk about China, sure. From my limited understanding, China was an innovation center in the Tang dynasty. What about the Liao dynasty? I can't say the same. It's safe to say that the Chinese population only increased after a prosperous dynasty, so math-wise, the number of smart people increased too, but not so for innovation. There are obviously other factors at work.

I will not be so bold to claim that I have all the answers, but cultural climate is definitely important, and this is the basis of my comment. Japan has roughly half the population of USA and on par if not superior in communications technology. Why am I not surprised they didn't come out with a superior search engine? Online auctioning? Why am I not surprised that China's largest student social network started as a exact copy of facebook? Adoption of new web technologies is still slow. Because new ideas are still imported.
New Carbon Debit Startup
I don't have a quesiton of yours. I know just what your motives are. You're kissing ass, and you've been doing it as long as I've been here.

Ironically, I don't find much that I dislike about Paul Graham. But the cult of PG is another matter.

If you read my posts you will find that I always provide an alternative solution and generally argue for why it is a better solution. Dont' get VC funding- you don't need it, you can lease the infrastrcture you need, and use open source tools. I even quoted PG saying essentialyl the same thing-- yet this position is the number one thing that people argue with me about here.

I do find it curious that the primary argument made against me is the fallacy of authority:
"But people who are clearly more experienced and successful than you seem to disagree."

I am not making any arguments based on my success, and you certainly don't know my level of success or lack of it. But you sure seem to think you do.

":and yet they seem to think YC is an amazing opportunity that they would have loved to have when starting out."

The thing that most makes this community cult-like is the constant reliance of repeated ideology. The third time you hear the same "Argument" you start to wonder if everyone isn't reading from the same textbook. (And this text book seems to be full of appeals to authority.)

And the worst thing is that there's an ideology here!

Why does it have to be combative? Why does anyone who provies a different opinion need to be attacked or percieved as attacking?

You start off by impunging my motives... but I am more tame than Paul Graham is. Do you question the motives of his essays simply because he's not tame? Again, colored perception.

"clearly more experienced and successful than you"

You know, I think that's the core of it-- Paul had a mild success, and he's written a lot of opinionated articles. The cult of personality is therefore one that worships success... I haven't bragged about my success, I've argued without appeal to authority. But that carries less weight, doesn't it?
Your comment consisted entiredly of remarks about my person, and had no information about the point being discussed.

Thus, either you are a hypocrite, or I am being asked to stop because I have an opinion that (apparently) disagrees with yours.

Further irony comes in the fact that you made this comment in response to me pointing out that the discussion was beind directed towards becoming personal by the person who responded to me, and stating that I wasn't going to go that direction.

Finally, both calling me a troll or stating I'm a "very angry person" are personal attacks.

Communities tend to follow the lead of their ostensible leader-- and you have just communicated to everyone that personal attacks are OK.
All of the points you just made are true. They are correct.

I'm trying to make another point-- its very arrogant to assume that because this is the situation now, that this will always be the situation.

America used to be the manufacturer that supplied the world. That is no longer the case, and even 30 years ago if someone said that we would have a 100 billion dollar trade deficit with china come 2010, virtually nobody would believe you. IF a major public figure said that, then the newspapers would be full of editorials smugly decrying his foolishness.

I think its in error to assume that there is something fundamental about the US (and especially about one particular US city) that gives it superiority in the area of innovation. Yes, culture helps, but the whole of america has the american culture, not just san francisco.

And many countries in the world are starting to get capitalism-- this is no longer the exclusive domain of america.

So, I submit that the future great centers of technological boom are going to be in asia, possibly the middle east, and possible former eastern europe.

The end of the Tang dynasty in america happened about 20 years ago, and we are well into the Liao-- it takes time for the effect to be readily apparent to everyone.

But the cultural revolution has happened and we lost. America is descendant. (China may not be ascendant in anything other than manufacturing- they are still a strong regime and their government has not losened its grip yet.)

Increasingly, innovation will happen outside of the US. This is already the case with consumer electronics.

Software is only 10 or 20 years away.
This isn't a startup, this is a business!
Anyone who respects anyone can be said to be "kissing ass" when they say so. Perhaps it would interest you to know that I have no intention of ever applying to YC or anything similar. I'm fairly impartial I just happen to completely disagree with your opinion and tone.

You did try to list your credentials in the Reddit thread IIRC. And I'm not judging your success and experience against Paul Graham's -- I'm judging it against Paul Graham, Joe Kraus, Evan Williams, Mitch Kapor, Mark Fletcher, Joshua Schacter, Paul Buchheit, etc. All of these people have practically endorsed YC as a Good Thing(TM) and have supported it by meeting with the founders and giving them advice.

You're asking why it feels "combative" and yet your posts basically say that anyone who thinks YC is a good deal is an inexperience make-money-fast cult zombie kid. Surprised?

You'd get a lot more positive response if you went a bit easier on the insulting language and condescension. I don't think that's what you're after though. I think you're enjoying being the outspoken contrarian too much. Enjoy.
I was thinking more along the lines PayPal's Palm solution.

I think of Buxfer as intended more for splitting rent/utilities among roommates and tracking personal finances. That seems much less far-fetched.
Yes. Well done for picking it up.
Report: Paid TV downloads and Apple TV a "dead end"
I wonder what percentage of YC companies never even get to the stage of being able to launch something.
Right. I will also add that although it still has a long way to go, java (and java libs/framework) is getting better all the time. Compare todays web-frameworks (like wicket & seam) to what we had 3 years ago - a lot of good ideas from other platforms are being absorbed into the java world.
I didn't say investors wouldn't fund your salary. I said they won't fund a $200k salary. I said $50k is more like it. I hear guys ALL the time talking about how they want to find investors so they can keep their massive paychecks while letting someone else foot the bill to test their idea. It's just unrealistic.
Sure. I'm not challenging you here nor am I claiming oxymorons like the status quo will persist.

The problem is that most people can't wait 10 years. Your skillset today may well be useless by then. You react to current trends, and set sail when winds are favorable. If the favorable winds are elsewhere, you move. Waiting is only an option when you can outlive the competition. For small startups, not an option. If you have money, hell, you don't care about winds, you make the wind.
It's having some troubles loading at the moment...
Good Math, Bad Math : An Introduction to Information Theory (updated from Blogspot)
In my experience during the dot-com bubble, the biggest predictor of failure was having taken VC money. When you can't make a VC's timetable for returns (and few companies can in a recession), they're apt to pull the plug and divert cash to those startups that can deliver returns satisfactory to the VCs investors, like Akamai or Google. While if you bootstrap and refuse outside investment, you can batten down the hatches, cut expenditures, change your business model (like HotOrNot), and come through the recession on savings.
I'm fairly interested in these problems; they are directly relevant. So thanks for mentioning them :)
YC doesn't say that. YC isn't competing with the larger VCs, and as far as I know large VCs wouldn't deal with a company the size of a YC candidate. Also, the bank isn't giving you a list of customers whose credit card statements show pizza and newspaper purchases in the last year.

Your analogy doesn't work; YC is buying equity just like anyone else. They're getting it cheap because they're paying for a couple undergrads to work for the summer -- your analogy would work if the bank would only give the loan if you had an established business and promised to work full-time for years.

Since we have the math, there's no reason to make up emotionally charged analogies. YC values these companies at somewhere between $100K ($10K for 10%) and $1.5 million ($15K for 1%). They do some legal work, and offer lots of advice and connections. Obviously, this isn't a good deal for everyone (given the industry I'm in, for example, I'd probably pass on YC), but if you're having trouble understanding why anyone would accept it, you may just have trouble thinking like a smart, ambitious, well-informed twenty-something.

And judging by the quality of your writing, age is not what sets you apart.
A proxy server running on the user's machine? It gets to see everywhere the user goes. A Javascript or plugin can communicate with the proxy for better browser integration.
Distributed Ruby Workers on EC2
10 reasons we love flex2
that report is such bs, forrester asks the wrong questions and gets the wrong data

if you interview folks with a single serving mindset you're going to get single servings result

future of tv/movie downloads is subscription based entertainment, the MMORPG's do it and now its hollywood's turn
How Facebook scaled w/ memcached (read Steve Grimm's responses)
I posted this story yesterday....nothing came of it.
16 "Awesome" Data Visualization Tools
$200k/yr may seem massive, but here in the bay area, it's not. $150k is about the base if you don't want to live at the very edge (so far out that it's a 1.5 hour commute to get to San Mateo, SF, San Jose, etc.).

I live in a 1800 sq ft townhouse on the peninsula worth $900,000, I'm on one income, and my head is just above water -- I can save money every paycheck, but not as much as you think. I make just shy of $200k.

I know you realize that the bay area is expensive -- I'm just not sure you realize how expensive it is.

That fact doesn't change what investors do -- maybe they don't want to invest in salaries. But forcing entrepreneurs into huge debt doesn't sound like a smart investment plan. No one's looking for a mansion; I just don't want to live in the ghetto because I had an idea.
I won't use your product just because I'm your friend
So what you're claiming is that established companies and startups are wasting time hiring people with bogus qualifications -- they're all paying a productivity tax that you've found a way to evade! Isn't that great news? Shouldn't you be thrilled?

Let's not get ahead of ourselves: we can have a big party after the company you start to hire all these great undervalued programmers finishes up its IPO.
The Real Story of JPG Magazine - a cautionary tale for founders
Study Shows Online Apparel Sales Growing
Why do you think it's all YC companies? The article doesn't appear to claim that.

Haysan appears to be missing; that's the one with Marie Brattberg in it IIRC. http://www.heysan.com/
There's also a discussion on MeFi: http://www.metafilter.com/61170/Heather-and-Derek-are-suddenly-out-of-JPG-Magazine
deity!

If you read this comment before you read the article, do yourself a favor and skip the article.

nothing against you brlewis, but that thing was horribly written.
Oops, didn't see it - sorry.
Apple speed bumped the Macbook today. Good time to buy
IMHO, Java is not dead, but it's found its home: the enterprise.

Java has a ton of overhead in its syntax and structure: just saying "Hello world" takes like 10 lines.

In an enterprise, where you have so many developers who will work on the same codebase, then a nanny-language like Java is appropriate. You never know who might take advantage of a lack of structure and do something Really Stupid[tm] that you won't find out about until much later.

But for hacking? YMMV but in my experience, the only hackers who need Java are the ones who cannot exist without a lot of predefined structure.
How about putting news.yc on the nametags so as not to be confused with real YC people.
No. Java is alive and well, and still a very good solution for certain classes of problem.

The Java hype appears to be mostly dead. Only the most pointy-haired continue to think that Java is a silver bullet for all problems.
No offense taken. I just found it funny.
No.

In fact, Google uses it to build their web apps (GWT). Its not going away, rather it keeps expanding and morphing to fit new emerging needs.

To hackers who feel tied down by the rigid structure of statically typed languages, it probably seems dead. Higher level loosely typed interpreted languages seem to be the growing trend now.

Dead on the Client? I don't think so. Does no one here code in Eclipse? Azureus and several other really good client apps are Java. It is a very attractive choice considering the wide range of classes in the core API and in open source libraries.

Besides GWT, Java web development sucks though, IMHO. JSF did not improve things much. They are trying to add AJAX features but it just doesn't work. Its too cumbersome for hackers to work with IMHO.
green.yahoo.com
Is this question about Java the platform or Java the language? For ourdoings.com I use the platform, but Scheme is the language.
LightEdge Solutions is a great Managed Service Provider. www.lightedge.com and www.edgebcc.com

If you need any information you can email me.
Not at all. It's constantly improving, e.g. generics, enums, and much more with version 5, and there's talk of adding closures to the language.

The amount of open source software and libraries for Java is also staggering.

The JVM platform is great and improving all the time.

If you like dynamic languages, why not try something that runs on the JVM as bytecode, like Groovy, JRuby, or Jython? You'll get the best of both worlds and can call Java code from your dynamic language.
Best and Worst US Cities for Data Centers
Paul Graham is too arrogant
Spurred by a previous post about managed servers.
Success stories are the only empirical data we have. Please share yours.
You Are NOT the Anything-Killer Until You Actually Kill Something
Sabat - I'm actually looking for a place myself in the bay area, so I do know how expensive it is. If you can convince an investor to pay you $200k to vet your idea, all the power to you my friend. But I have to advise you that it's not something that an investor will typically do.
Valleywag Misses the Mark on Y Combinator
Rich or Royal: What Do Founders Want?
Calm down man.. This forum is focused on startup news, and pg is just trying to moderate and maintain a high SNR by keeping threads on topic and relatively clean.
This is the stupidest thing I've ever seen.