skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
So many companies out there seem to have really crappy products, therefore I am convinced that you can be successful with anything. It just takes the right kind of sticking to it.
I remember reading this a while back.
Sounds like a good data point for Paul Buchheit's Startup School point about memory vs disks.
"Also, the current trend in blogging, led by Valleywag and others, is to 'go negative first, and ask questions later.' That tabloid-style journalism tends to generate a lot of eyeballs and, subsequently, advertiser dollars. This is something we just can't compete with. By acquiring FC, we can go more negative faster than anyone else out there, when and if we need to."

That pretty much gives it away. April Fools.
The entire gag is inspired by this comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=6709
You're making the assumption the majority of people want insightful and informative. The fact that there is a huge market for content like Survivor and Fear Factor makes me doubt this assumption.

I'd say that Reddit has more to worry about from niche copycats than another large site. Why go to Reddit for your celeb gossip and pictures of cats with dumb text when there's a site dedicated to it? It's like oh-mah-gawd-with-justin-timberlake on top awesome, without all the nerdy stuff that makes my brain hurt.
My sites achieve about .20% CTR as well. How is everyone else doing?
But how many of them would take Techstars? Giving away 5% of my equity for $10000 is a pretty marginal decision without the advice and connections that come with it, and I've yet to see that TechStars has any advice that isn't plaigarized from your essays. Being forced to be based in Boulder pretty much puts me under the bottom.
My perception is that the extra coding done to implement things like patterns to get around the fact that Java is so limited a language will cut down on the performance gains. But I don't have any statistics to back that up.

BTW, Python is not just a scripting language. It is a real language that just happens to be usable as a scripting language. Lua is a scripting language.
I'm having trouble using drakma to hit the site. I'm pretty new to Lisp so I'm still learning what I'm looking at, however it looks like something in the stream from the server (possibly while reading headers?) is messing up CHUNGA:READLINE which Drakma uses.
It's interesting that most web 2.0 services do not appear deep in any theoretical sense. In particular, 99% probably do not have anything that comes even close to the sophistication behind the PageRank algorithm.

But still, some web 2.0 services have become very popular.

It seems that if you do not have any sophisticated algorithms behind your approach, you can still succeed if you are the first to address a need (even if you do it in the most naive way imaginable) and you get sufficient publicity.

The vast majority of people could care less about sophisticated algorithms. The vast majority of people do not obsess over whether an approach is prone to spam.
Of course, we're being told this by a research paper.
Tim O'Reilly with a call for a Blogger's Code of Conduct
We tell people finally on the 22nd, not the 29th. Which is still after the 16th, but only 6 days after.
OK, not the right place for that discussion. The reason languages like python are inherently slower is that they are not strongly typed. It seems only LISP is getting it right, I think there you can voluntarily use strong typing, allowing for dramatic speed improvements - why don't any other languages copy that? (I think it must be the typing that is responsible for the speed difference - this time I don't have an official article backing that up).
I guess this depends on what you mean by "most advanced". TeXmacs combines the easy learning curve of Emacs with the familiar word processing paradigm of TeX to form a program usable by 1/10000 of the market. Sure, it's advanced. So's the flight deck of the Airbus A380.

A more successful interpretation of "most advanced" would be "gives the user the easiest interface to use to accomplish his tasks". By that standard, I think Google Docs or Writeboard is much more advanced than TeXmacs.
Interestingly, Larry Page was reluctant to publish this infamous research paper when it was first conceived. Much of Larry's thinking was inspired by Nikola Tesla's life; a genius whose inventions were often mocked upon and stolen by Thomas Edison. It was Larry's research advisor who convinced him to publish the paper.

Other interesting sites:-

Google Search Engine in 1997: http://backrub.tjtech.org/1997/index.htm

Explanation of PageRank: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank

BackRub research (which ultimiately led to PageRank): http://backrub.tjtech.org/1997/backrub.htm

lol@"Sorry, many services are unavailable due to a local network faliure beyond our control. We are working to fix the problem and hope to be back up soon. 12/4/97"
seems to be down, though the server is pinging.
What about addressing the "pay per blog entry" unethical businesses that are springing up?
For a clever variation on PageRank using vision-based page segmentation, see:

http://research.microsoft.com/research/pubs/view.aspx?tr_id=754

For a more sophisticated web page similarity measure inspired by PageRank, see:

http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~glenj/simrank.pdf

For a ton of very cool papers on these sorts of topics, check out:

http://dbpubs.stanford.edu:8090/aux/index-en.html
In order for any product be successful, the founder must really passionate about the idea and responsive to constructive criticism.
"Link spam is used to increase the ranking
of certain target web pages by misleading
the connectivity-based ranking algorithms in
search engines. In this paper we study how
web pages can be interconnected in a spam
farm in order to optimize rankings. We also
study alliances, that is, interconnections of
spam farms. Our results identify the optimal
structures and quantify the potential gains. In
particular, we show that alliances can be synergistic
and improve the rankings of all participants.
We believe that the insights we gain
will be useful in identifying and combating
link spam."

http://infolab.stanford.edu/~zoltan/publications/gyongyi2005link.pdf
How Napster changed the world - A look back 7 years later from the VP of Product Development
Justin.TV pwns king content
This article gives a great view of how the record labels were reacting to this innovative approach to music. It also has some helpful tips on starting a startup.
Windows Vista restricts GNU GCC apps to 32 MB
TapeFailure - Watch your users use your site
Mark Zuckerberg is not arrogant. People who are convinced that Mark is anybody but a busy person who has way more responsibility to society on his free breakfast, lunch, and dinner plate[1] than any other 22-year-old on the planet, are misleading themselves and their friends.

It is very easy to point a finger at Mark and say "the arrogant one," similar to how a woman may say "the bald guy" to point her husband out on a long street to a cab driver. But, this is a relative comparison only. Applying a label on a person deducted from a relative comparison is inconsiderate. Mark is actually very deserving of his happiness, sucess, and pride he has earned. One mustn't compare Mark's mannerisms to those of millions of other 22-year-olds or Saturday's Startup School speakers', unless they compare and constrast what these people actually accomplish during the day versus Mark, as well.

[1] Facebook has free food.
However, I noticed that YC did not ask for my email address, so it was not a painful way of registering. Also, you can read the news without an account.
Wow, amazing design philosophy. It's so unlike a google philossphy giving that he works with google. If this was done by google they'd keep every email ever sent to mailinator and analyse it for stats and patterns the help improve the system.
10 Lessons Frank Miller's 300 can teach you about Successful Online Business
In the end though, is it not all about money? As far as I am concerned, grad school is something you do for fun, and which costs a lot of money. Even if you receive a minimum paycheck, you have to take the opportunity costs into consideratiosn, so five years of grad school cost several 100000$, or am I mistaken? Why then do you worry so much more about starting a startup? The differences in maximum loss seem marginal, except that for grad school the losses are guaranteed, and for startups they are not.

It does not depend on being in grad school or not whether you can do what you want, it depends on having the money - either to pay for grad school, or for toying around with your startup.

I realize I made some oversimplifications, but still...
I expect that once you start dedicating yourself to one thing, you will quickly meet the right people.
Reddit To Start Showing Ads
A big part of YComb is subtly teaching people to live an entrepreneurial life way beyond the three months you spend at YComb. That is why YComb doesn't seem to care THAT much about one particular idea. Instead they bank on the people they fund to continue making new stuff and really, if you make enough new things, you WILL get a hit. That seems to be the idea behind YComb - to keep supporting their group of entrepreneurs idea after another with the assumption that eventually they will get a hit somewhere.

The company model you describe is therefore incompatible with YComb because the company will be sending folks to make ONE idea which isn't much of an attraction to the flexible nature of YComb. YComb funds people more than ideass, remember?
if you're going to create sockpuppet accounts, at least have the creativity to name them differently!
Special - The Best 100 April Fool's Day Jokes Of All Time
You have a higher chance of becoming rich with YCombinator than writing a factually accurate research paper.

Paul Graham: "So about 50% of the founders from that first summer, less than two years ago, are now rich, at least by their standards. "

New Scientist Magazine: Most scientific research papers are wrong ( http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7915&feedId=online-news_rss20 )
the links to Ralph Koster's presentations towards the bottom are especially worthwhile...
Theory of Fun
Introducing Lean Software Development
Read/WriteWeb wrote an article about this April Fools joke. Check it out:

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/the_end_of_an_era_1april07.php
Raph Koster's stuff is boring as hell for me and I get nothing insightful or novel out of it. Having read his endless article series in Game Developer, it came as no surprise he would publish a title like "A Theory of Fun." Probably a decent guy, but I wouldn't hire him.
"While plenty of startups are launching, we arent seeing any actual innovation any more... there just isnt anything left to invent."

Definitely April Fools.
Nowhere did this article say that 50% of research papers were not "factually accurate". It says faulty research methods mean 50% of conclusions are not true.

Which is itself a ridiculous thing for New Scientist to repeat. The basis of the scientific method is that we don't ever try to prove things are true. We just show that there's a good chance (1 in 20 is standard) that a model fits. Statistical methods are used and statistics is another area that has no truck with "truth" -- it is the mathematics of making your way in a probabilistic universe.

Having papers come out with promising claims and having "only" 50% of them stand up to professional scrutiny is a wondrous miracle. The entire scientific establishment is set up to disprove hypotheses as they emerge. If half of them stand, the scientific establishment is not doing its job.

A sensationalist article that plays into the "nobody really knows how things work, so I'll believe what I want" meme.
Xcerion: A YouOS Competitor startup
One of my favorite books -- can be a bit long at times, but the point is excellent nonetheless.

Zach, I don't believe Raph's looking for a job.
Btw, danw, did you get this from reading my iminlikewithyou profile? :-)
That name will not help them.
I agree. The name doesn't really give you a sense of what the service will be. I hold a strong belief that a company name is crucial. It should be simple and memorable.
'... How about doing this for real? ... Reality is the superior test of whether you are an entrepreneur ...'

True . Ideally yes. But it there may be times when you want to test skills or sub sections of skills, NOW. I've run 8 miles in 2 hours in the past but does that mean I can do it now?

I think the bit I was addressing was suggesting a technique to scale selection through automated means by testing against the best. I agree reality is a better test. But you miss the point about simulation. With simulation you can

- test/be tested/train in compressed time

- test/be tested/train with different scenarios

- test/be tested/train individual components of the process

- test/be tested/train with lower costs

- test/be tested/train in controlled circumstances to allow better measurement

'... having done something is better than simulating it ...'

Pilots fly planes but they also train and test their skills in simulation due to cost, risk and a lot of other factors. People who do things, need ways to test their skills, improve and be tested. Why not startups? In the case of YC, 'done', 'doing' may not be controlled enough to measure against the best (conjecture).
XML-based? Hmm.
Workspace: Web-based access to FTP
Reminds me of Nicola Tesla's holy grail. He conducted lots of weird experiments in the later part of his life to transmit power across the aether.
I wouldn't have the balls to put "failure" in the name of my startup.
Wow, a huge above-the-fold piece on the Chronicle front page, in their second week of operations, that's amazing placement.

Does anyone know if Justin has professional PR assistance, or if they're generating all the media buzz themselves?
LISP is faster than Java? With all that pounding on the stack? I'd have to see it to believe it.

Anyway, FORTRAN is still faster than C at a lot of things.
Jajah buys Vonage
Anybody using Amazon Web Services (S3, EC2) in their startup?
This seems like the coolest thing since sliced bread. We're experimenting with S3 but I'm really interested in EC2 also. Anybody else using AWS?
ok here is a problem:

Say you have a great idea (don't we all :))

But we don't know if either TechStars or Y-Combinator will actually accept our idea so to hedge our bets we apply to both. (of course YC is first option).

Now TechStars will send their results on Apr 5 and the deadline to accept, I think is Apr14 . This is before the Apr22 date when YC decides which companies it will fund.

So on Apr14: if you are one of the really good ideas that both TechStars and YC like - because of the timeline - you get into a dilema: if u say no to TechStars there is no guarantee that YC will accept u but if u say yes to TechStars - then u give up on your first choice without even getting a chance to hear the YC results.

Seems like a cunning way for TechStars to get all the best ideas this summer before YC can get them.
(I bet they try to pull this off every six months to try and steal all the best ideas...)

So, YC needs think about how to solve this potential issue - (maybe bringin the dates of their decisions??)
People seem to keep ignoring that April Fools is actually in April, not the last day of March. (Then again, it could be 4/1 over there.)
Yeah rather awkward word choice.
This is two for two for me after TechCrunch.

April Fools and 20hr day don't go together. Next one to post a similar thing gets a smacking from me;)
I guess you've never had a failed startup.
What can I say, except "carry on, it's your money!"

But whether you would pay more or not, the subject was contemplating employment with a company and valuing stock options.

Never mind generalities. If Sequoia have a wonderful track record for picking winners, I offered another means of calculating the value of the stock based on the likelihood there would be a liquidity event.

Here's something to ponder: if the industry gets 20% and Seqouia gets 22% of their investments to a liquidity event, Seqouia is doing fantastically well. 10% better!

But: how much does a 2% difference in likelihood affect the value of the stock for employees?

Feel free to plug in Sequoia's actual numbers. I think you will find that they do not underpay as much as you may suppose.

It would basically be a cheap way of getting in on their fund, assuming the premium wasn't huge.

I would love to get in on their fund as well. But my post wasn't about investing, it was about valuing stock options so you could understand what they are worth on a risk-adjusted basis.

What's the difference?

Remember, when you invest alongside them you get all sorts of extra rights like double dips, convertible shares, preferred, and a zillion other ways to get money in situations at the expense of founders.

This is why it is very important not to assume that just because a name brand VC invests in a company that employee options or founder shares are somehow worth as much as you might pay for those same shares if you are the same VC.

If anything, employee options are worth much, much less, because VCs can get some of their money back if there is a modest wind-up or merger, whereas employees only cash out if there is a major event.
Being the Ben Folds of your Niche
All themselves. These guys are literally what they
seem on their show: four recent college grads in an
apt.
Practically all the current batch of YC startups are using S3.
Apple collaborating with Amazon, Google, and Cingular on new iReader?
That's a very great perspective. I want to be the Ben Folds of my niche.
We don't accept a fixed number of applicants. We'll fund anyone who seems good enough. If we suddenly got 30 great applications, we''d accept them all, and worry later about how to cram them all into our space.
I know that YouOS uses it.
How many teams does YComb invite to Mountain View?
I love S3! It's so easy to get started. I have less use for EC2 since I have less computations to do. I wish I could run a database on EC2...
Don Knuth finally sells out.

http://www.ibiblio.org/Dave/Dr-Fun/df200002/df20000210.jpg
Last cycle we invited about 30, but there is no fixed number. Nor is there any fixed number of startups we fund per cycle. We accept every group that seems good enough.
Introducing Gmail Paper
Google ?= Exxon
This past week I was able to talk a partner of an oil and gas VC that specializes in small scale (less than 10M) projects. One of the things I asked her was if the 'small-fry' oil and gas industry was being smothered by the giants of Exxon, BP, and Shell much as some people claim is being done by Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo. She replied that the big three are only able to pursue and develop the projects which show a high margin due to their high operating costs thereby allowing small ventures to flourish in projects that aren't 'profitable enough'.

Certainly this argument has also been made for the internet market too, but the oil and gas market is heavily capital dependent with large 'retooling' costs whereas the internet industry is driven largely by a smart labor force (ie: a more agile industry). So is it a possibility that small time internet ventures are more vulnerable to attack than the equivalent oil and gas company (and other industries for that matter)?
Does anyone have experiences going to VCs for funding that dont specialize in internet technology startups? I am particularily interested if say an oil/gas VC would be willing to negotiate sweeter terms than many of the "cut-throat" tech VCs would...
Sure, if you're using Rails it's really easy to use attachment_fu (the new generation of the image/file storing acts_as_attachment plugin) to keep uploaded photos on S3. Also for Rails, Jamglue's technique of putting your entire static file hierarchy on S3 is great for maximimizing your app servers' bandwidth. BTW, Justin.tv runs off EC2 servers.
I assume they're working on a database solution to go along with S3 and EC2. Of course I have no proof they are, though.
Good for him. I haven't heard what he's been up to since he was working on Star Wars Galaxies.
Great find! I've been participating in Google's pre-beta program (where features are pre-beta tested for one week before escalating to official Google Beta status for three more years.)

It doesn't say on that page, but they have great integration with RemoteControlMail.com . GMail prints and sends my e-mail to them via snail mail, and RCM scans the mail back into electronic form and e-mails me once a day about it. It's a really great way to get all of your entire e-mail once a day (two business days later) without being bothered to check for it every 5 minutes.

Also, I have a filter set up on gmail that will parse the notification e-mails from RCM about new deliveries and forward them to my vlad-spam@gmail.com e-mail account. These are then also automatically printed, sent back to RCM, scanned, then e-mailed back to the original gmail address. This way, I am notified about the spam via gmail one day later than normal for each day of mail, thereby keeping the important mail in front.

I already know that yes, this just delays spam mail one day and you receive the previous spam mail the current day. I know. That is why I have applied for YCombinator funding to solve this problem alone. At least TechStars seemed interested in it.
I've used S3 on a few projects and would definitely endorse it. I just got accepted to the EC2 beta last week and haven't started messing around with it.
HA! this is funny cause my co-founder made up a phrase like this but used Nirvana as the band. Create something that makes the industry readjust to you while I guess trying to avoid early death. I dunno he has some whole manifesto.

Nice thoughts though and Ben Folds is great.
Aside from Scoble's sketchy imagery, I almost know that an Apple/Amazon deal is highly unlikely.

And to think I was almost fooled. :-)
I'm not sure if I'm missing something or if this is just a really bad (sorry!) April Fool's joke.
I'm just speculating(as I have no VC experience at all) but would'nt the oil/gas VC be less tech savvy than your tech VCs? Another thing to consider is they(oil/gas VC) will have little or no knowledge about the Internet industry which makes it significantly more difficult to convince them the possible implications and benefits of your start up.
The REAL kicker would be if a LBO/junk bond firm actually BOUGHT the FuckedCompany name.
The question now begs: Zach, did you vote me down because you don't agree with me? Because I certainly didn't do anything of the sort to you.
I believe he openly admitted his failures with Galaxies. A few of my former colleagues were quite close to the matter, and Galaxies was definitely an organization-wide failure. Raph was far removed from actual design duties when Galaxies started to croak.

Btw, Raph's got a Charles River-backed startup called Areae. It's doing some pretty cool things if you're interested in virtual worlding and web interaction.
My parents had a startup when I was a child. My mom was adventurous and worked with my dad in the business. As a little kid, I had no awareness that we were rich or poor, though we must have struggled because I remember different living situations were not as nice as others. Our family life was happiest during the building phase of the company - before success was surely won.

One thing I'm sure of is that my dad would have been miserable if he had a straight job and that would have affected our family a lot more than material instability.

There are many lessons that you can teach a child about resilience - about fortune's ups and downs and how to handle risk that are unavailable to those who put their lives on hold to rear a child. I wouldn't have had any other childhood. We had extreme fortune upheavals. At one point, the family lost everything. But dad started again and made a success. I still wound up attending an Ivy League school and hope to apply the lessons I've learned growing up to the startups I'll start.