skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I agree and made note of framework and tool advancements above, but you are still missing the point. Good utilities make it quicker to create an application, but they don't create good programmers or good code by themselves.

Squeak (http://www.squeak.org/) was an interesting advent. It made programming pretty simple. A layperson playing with squeak could "program," but it hardly stands in for even an introductory CS class.

I also take issue with the fact that you treat programming or web app development as if good is a static threshold. A good web app a few years ago hardly compares today, and that can be seen in the evolution of almost any major website.
Much of this has probably already been said but here are some of my observations. First, the lessons page was so long that I wonder whether they have really been learned. Had they been learned it would have been stated in a sentence or two. Rather, what you ended up with is a web page that you _wish_ you could have had weeks ago, to express much of your thinking at the time during the crisis.

The main thing that stuck out was how you seemed to be a programmer as an after thought. Particularly with the voting scheme; did you not have a genuine belief about the right way to pursue certain tasks? Whether from the beauty of a design, or the long standing approach it might have, or from a quick tweak to an existing infrastructure. I also don't think its enough to 'marvel' at two or more viewpoints. Just the fact that they can exist isn't enough, as you do a disservice to both/all parties unless you go with a decision, hopefully one that jives in some way with an internal model of how you see or have come to see things, and thus consistent.

Finally, I got the sense that you were 'hosting a party but constantly worrying about whether people are having a good time'.

These aren't meant to be brutal comments its just I think your series deserves an honest response!
If you are in the situation where a company is offering people a decent amount of money to leave, there are only two choices. Leave now with the money. Leave later with nothing.
Ok, fine, lets be precise. First, innate skill is an oxymoron then because "skill" implies that it is learned (see dictionary) and "innate" implies it is not.

As far as "on average" goes, where do you think salary.com/payscale.com get their data, averages of real-world salaries.
Google Profiting From Typo Squatting, Report Charges
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I vaguely remember that the success of "Non-Linear Systems" experiment was initially attributed to people working better when they have "a sense of belonging to a team". However, later it was attributed (by experiment authors, no less) instead to people working better when observed.
I think that attributing anything cultural to history is a sloppy subject. Sounds like it makes sense, but very little predictive power, like stock analysts.

On a side note, look over your (plain English) sentence: "this 'slavish' attitude is due to being subjected" Slave comes from slavic. Can't live without dictators.
Only today I heard a story from a friend about a lab assistant he worked with that did just that in the early nineties. The only mistake he made was calling the executable "password-cracker".
> I'm going to attempt rational discourse. So far you guys don't seem to like it so much.

I don't like it because it's off topic, as is this whole article. You seem like a pretty reasonable and intelligent guy to me, but there's a good reason politics is taboo: it tends to attract people that aren't so reasonable, that come to sites merely to argue and flame.

If you want to put it in terms of Krugman, consider his NYT columns. Instead of working on more insightful and cutting edge economics, we have a very sharp economist wasting his time saying that "Bush is an idiot". It doesn't take a genius to figure that out or write about it.
"Complete"?
How can you not be an MM fan? That guy is great.
:)
No way this will stand up legally.

Who is losing out in this situation? I think many of us have seen enough usability tests to know that a 404 could stop a user dead in their tracks. Instead, though, we have a proper site suggestion that is clear and directs the user where they meant to go. If BofA was really upset at all this, they could take it up with site owners, or stop buying into Google's ads, but they know better.

Aside: It's pretty depressing that Harvard professors are spending research money on things like typo-squatting and publishing papers on it.
YouTube - The Neuroscience of Emotions
I don't think it is inconceivable that the adult autism sufferers remain undetected. Presumably, their lives are already arranged. Either they survived somehow, or they didn't. If they survived, there probably is some kind of routine that keeps them alive (maybe an institution, or they live as beggars on the street, or whatever). In that case, why should somebody check up on them again? Sure, it would be nice if somebody would, but why should it happen? When was the last time you learned about some new medical breakthrough and thought "hey, let's go out on the street and check all homeless people to see if they have this condition"? (Not saying older autistic people are homeless, I have no idea how they survive once their parents are dead). Also, there is no cure for autism (or is there?), so simply correcting the diagnosis might not help the older autistic people much (at least not "help" in terms of making it easier for the people they live with - might be easier for themselves, though). Maybe now they are simply sedated with powerful drugs most of the time and don't do much.

Anyway, the main point remains: be careful with "common sense" conclusions.
Paul Graham on a New Attitude for Startup Acquisitions
You know what really caused the change in polling numbers, in my opinion? People just got used to seeing barack. It's like you meet a paralysed guy for the very first time. The first few times you are very consious of him being paralyed, and are all gingerly and careful with him. But after a while, you stop noticing it and you just speak to him normally and have fun with him.

I think that Barack is no longer the 'black guy running for president', people have stopped paying attention to his blackness and have started noticing the other stuff.

He's the cosby show of politics - after season 1, it was not really important anymore what color they were.
hate to break it to you, but jesus is not a real person.

and really does the definition of humble apply to people who are decidedly NOT so? especially considering the definition covers a broad range of classification

1.	not proud or arrogant; modest:
2.	having a feeling of insignificance, inferiority, subservience, etc.:
3.	low in rank, importance, status, quality, etc.; lowly: of humble origin;
4.	courteously respectful:

those people could easily be humble by one definition and not by another. you have to take this kind of disposition with a grain of salt
This is a take on acquisition that I had not previously considered. The idea of a CAO seems almost tongue-in-cheek at first glance, but I would not be at all surprised to see this a reality in coming years. It is a clearly evolving process as PG illustrates, and some do it better than others.
"At the moment, there is no one within big companies who gets in trouble when they buy a startup for $200 million that they could have bought earlier for $20 million"

this comment is amusing although i do believe he is being facetious.

i am of the opinion that everyone in a company should have an eye out for innovation that is relevant to the company and should call it upon themself to escalate an emerging "acquisition worthy" startup to the attention of the powers that be. and of course let it fall upon their heads if they fail to take action.

it would show how well communication flows in your company as to how agile you are in making these kinds of acquisitions. a company that did it well would be fearfully predatorial indeed
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Venture capitalists: Don't blame us
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Are we going to see a new essay soon?
Boo acquisitions. Yay dividends.
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Functional. Simple. Easier to get businesses to buy 7.5 or 8.0 instead of switching from "XP" to "Vista". I like it.
This gives a well thought out and unique perspective on the current conversations drawing on about the current state and near future of startups.

It seems that the author echoes much of the sentiment in the comments of the 37signals protest: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=331202
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It seems to me anyone interpreting economics in such a literal sense is entirely missing the point. I would expect true economics to be not about people maximizing their monetary income, just as mathematics is not about numbers. The reason that many economics papers talk about money is that it is a convenient substitute for a measurement of well-being. But you can just factor any other measurement into the economic models and the outcome should be the same. The gist is, people make decisions to somehow maximize their "whatever it is, happiness, well-being, whatever". It is entirely feasible to think that individuals have individual "whatever it is things" - one might strive to have more time for his family, the other might strive for a luxury house and a Ferrari. Contrary to what the article suggests Economic theory has no problem with that at all.

It is also untrue that 50 million $ could make ever so many people in Africa happy - the problem is not raising the money, the problem is getting it to the people.

Finally, I would have wished for more details on how the happiness for people was determined. Maybe there is some kind of "bootstrapping fallacy" in it - if "1 dollar makes a poor person 10 times as happy as a rich person", the poor person is likely to give a higher rating for it's own happiness than the rich person - in turn distorting the scale the happiness researchers is trying to create.

Maybe brain scans would be a way for objective measurement of happiness, but even with that I would remain skeptic for a very long time.

Another thing that should be taken into consideration is competition. It is fine if your goal in life is to raise fine flowers in your garden, but if your neighbor's goal is to build a 50 story skyscraper at the place where your garden is, just seeding flowers won't be sufficient to maintain your happiness. You might still be forced to move to where the money is so that you can keep your flower hobby. In other words, evolution theory has to be considered when trying to determine people's goals - only "evolutionary stable" goals can prevail. People whose goal in life is to commit suicide don't stand much of a chance in the long run.
This is from a year ago -- http://paulgraham.com/webstartups.html
That experiment was done, google for it. It is quite amazing/shocking. The guy with the electrode apparently pushed the button thousands of times within a short period of time. It's just scary to think - I suspect nobody would have the will power to escape that drug. Which in turn shows how clever nature has programmed us (somehow making us DO things), and how little we really determine our fates.
Are you sure? What if the other societies do that and crush us? How do you eliminate competition? And would we really thrive without competition? I doubt it, as it has many healthy side effects.
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I guess pg hasn't seen that lame ppt from Whiner Perkins yet.
Google is the problem.
Umm, this is a true story. There was a group there, being helped by 2 or 3 escorts for one of their daily or weekly activities. I wasn't insulting employees of McDonalds. If the parent poster isn't seeing adult mentally handicapped, s/he is not looking very hard.
Confusion over cyber-security
why he basically says that there should be somebody who gets the blame if they don't buy the startup early and cheap instead of late and expensive
Sounds like a description of every government employee in a third world country.
I can't find any fault in Krugman's academic work. I haven't read it, though it sounds fascinating. He is held in high regard in the academy, and I believe he is as talented as other people say he is.

His NY Times column, however, I feel fit to judge as shrill, unimaginative, vanilla leftism. I'm sure he understands all the criticisms that other economists would level at the policies he supports. The flaws are glaring. Now, it is perfectly honest to acknowledge the existence of those flaws and argue that the benefits of the policy outweigh the drawbacks. However, it is not honest to pretend that such criticisms do not exist.

I could read similar opinion pieces from any leftist without a PHD after his name. The point of reading someone so lettered is that his opinions should be well-argued and therefore interesting, even if you disagree with him. That is rarely the case with Krugman.

I have no doubt that his work in economics will be remembered 50 years from now, and his columns will be long forgot.
No, you do well in search engines if they "think" your site is useful. I'd also argue that "relevant" is a better term than "useful". A site can be extremely useful to humans but not necessarily rank extremely well.
"I thought it was commonplace knowledge within the geek community that XP was short for "eXPerience"?"

It's news to me. I think it's still fair to say that the name "doesn't really mean anything".
He's asking about the next essay. It's been over 2 months since the last one.

On another note: I really hate posts with nothing more than a quote.
He was awarded the prize for his academic work, not his shilling for the Democratic Party.
> I'm not the first one to say this, but I'm worried about Windows as a platform.

I'm worried that it might still dominate the world after 5 years.
I've been travelling all fall, but I'm flying home tomorrow. Lots of new ideas, but I have to read YC applications as soon as I get home, so not sure when I'll get to write something.
The problem from the other side is harder. Given that Google finds a talented startup team, how do they know that the startup is in a business that Google should be doing? Should Google ever turn down a good startup team? Most of what Google does is opaque to me. They are becoming the GE of the internet.

What is the purpose of a firm? Is it a collection of synergistic business ventures? A source of capital? Does it make sense to continually expand it's scope of activities? Would investors be better off if Google kept the equity it needed to run its search business and paid the rest out in a dividend to shareholders?

We think of the big boys as a black box - a black box full of money. I'd like to understand them, how they operate and how they could be better. I don't understand their purpose in pursuing many of these acquisitions, besides making sure their rivals don't buy the target first.
Sadly, this didn't sound very intelligent to me. And I can't seem to understand what significant things he did.
Sorry, this is stereotypical and stupid generalization. How can you attribute the characteristics of a bunch of programmers you met in a small outsourcing company, to a whole country of 1.2 billion people?

There are more entrepreneurial and enterprising people in India than you think...
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$800 MacBook? What $800 MacBook?
>First, innate skill is an oxymoron then because "skill" implies that >it is learned

Wrong.

>(see dictionary)

Skill n. 2 a) an art, craft, or science, esp. one involving the use of the hands or body b) ABILITY IN SUCH AN ART, CRAFT, OR SCIENCE

ISBN 0-02-860586-1 pg. 1257
Seriously, why does the name matter?
My, that's neat, wasting people's time with a marketing survey under the guise of an actual product offer.
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Time is a valuable resource. Wasting people's time with a marketing survey under the guise of a product offer is not my idea of ethical. I would fly off the frickin' handle if someone wasted my time for me like that, using a deceptive little trick like that.
Or he'll have moved to a Mac by then?

Disclaimer: I don't own a Mac... Yet.
Not if they can't. What's the current best selling hardware category in computing? What OS do they use? Does Microsoft provide a stable, working Silverlight plugin?
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I'm assuming we are talking about a blend of full-time and part-time cofounders. Let's say you are the full-time cofounder. Before you take the plunge, you better make sure you find out if your "part-time" cofounders will ever plan on quitting their full-time jobs. If they say no to you, will you be prepared for the day they decide to quit?

They will never be as devoted as you will be. They will never be as committed. Sure they may be talented and will write tons of code for you - but what happens if they leave and you have to figure out how all of their code worked?

I'm sure you've read all the articles written by other entrepreneurs about how much dedication it takes to build a company. There are always exceptions to the rule (del.icio.us), but I'd say most successful startups require your full attention.
Run my map-reduce as a single task. :)
"His wife left him."

Hahaha, over 30 isn't old, women are just to wrapped up in appearence, because hey, if your husband can't make money, you gotta find one that does right?
Brand Names - the new gods?
If you look at the title you'll see that this is actually just the "highlights" reel. The actual talk given at FOWA went much further in depth into the actual technologies. Hopefully they will put this up too.
This quote is the gist of the article:

"At the moment, there is no one within big companies who gets in trouble when they buy a startup for $200 million that they could have bought earlier for $20 million. There should start to be someone who gets in trouble for that."
- Paul Graham

I think its well understood that there exists a tremendous amount of inefficiency. That large companies should spend some energy identifying what they need so it costs them 20 million instead of 200. I'm know some large companies already try to do this. They will get better at it over time and others will emulate their models. As a result, the investment and startup model/process/vc-lifecycle will shift accordingly. I feel PG thinks that ycombinator is on the leading edge of being able to take advantage of this shift as...he probably is.

My attitude for my startup has always been that if I sell early, I get 20 million and get to keep all of it. If I take on lots of VC, I have to sell for 200 million and I still net out at 20. Most stertup founders are happy to take the early 20 and get on with their next big idea. I do think PG is correct that the model is slowly shifting in this direction. And its the right direction for innovation to continue.
Windows has had to promise and deliver complete backward compatibility to retain their market share. They've painted themselves into a corner

I think that's correlation, not causation. Look at Sun and their Solaris backwards-compatibility guarantee (which is, if your old binaries break on our new version, it's our bug and we'll fix it).
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Narcissism is healthy and good - it pushes people to achieve.
Or, say in 1988 you were told you could have a 2008 PC for a week... That's a bigger jump in power for most people than what you're suggesting.
"incapable of self-direction" ... well, as fellow IT worker from a developing country, I feel sort of offended when I hear such comments. Not that it's untrue, but more because this seems to be a commong perception.

I know where it comes from, managers in developing nations seems to suck more than the avg manager in say europe or USA.

Managers in developing nations, tend to give unclear direction and then become agressive when their subordinates do not do as they were told, so eventually in many workplace ppl become very passive so not to anger their manager.

What aggrevate the issue is that being a developing nation, it means opportunities are fewer, and you tend to get stuck where you are longer than you usually want.

The solution is simple, just tell your new co-workers from this developing nations, that they are empowered and allowed to do mistakes without being attacked,thats all!
http://bobbickel.blogspot.com/2008/09/ringside-winding-down....
'Experts say this huge rise in spam is thanks to the cracking of Google’s CAPTCHA system. Spammers came up with an OCR scanner that was smart enough to read it'

...well, they're one up on me. It took me at least 4 attempts to get a CAPTCHA I could read when I created a gmail account recently.
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Too heavy, huh? :)
See replies to eru.
Careful. I'm a quality developer who lives in St Louis. :P
Assuming:

- It takes two years for a start up to go from $20m to $200m

- The two year startup failure rate is greater than 1 in 8.

- The performance risks of independance are about equal to the performance risks of being owned (capital scarcity etc vs loss of agility etc).

It makes more financial sense to buy at £200m than at £20m, assuming your information is imperfect.

Working:

$20m + $2.05m inflation (5%) + $4.2m cost of capital (10%) = $26.25m.

Cost of risk ~= $200m/$26.25m = 7.6 multiple.

(The cost of acquiring better information can be costed, of course, and the new probabilites and expected value calculated - which may be a better strategy, but information is not free, especially if you need to employ $400k/yr+ 'CAOs').
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That's true in a sense.

Acquisitions only really make sense if a company is creeping horizontally. Otherwise not that man opportunities make sense.

Say Apple decide to concentrate on what their exisitng lines (they've pretty much said so), how many startups would they find to buy? Probably not enough for a CAO.
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Paul Krugman: Incidents from my Career
I suppose it's the flip side for no one getting the blame when a big company spends a few mil buying a startup which turns out to have no value. (Did anyone at Conde Nast get fired for acquiring Reddit?)