skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Your going rate at established companies is probably simply your going rate. Start there; it's what the market values your services at. That number is your floor, not your ceiling.

At a financed, leveraged startup, you're not going to get that number in cash. But you need to get that number, risk-adjusted, in some fashion. Generally, engineers should not expect to be "worth less" to startups. They're just compensated using different instruments.

The problem with berating engineers for framing comp discussions in terms of their going rate is that engineers can't value equity the way founders can. It's an asymmetric information problem. The founders know more about the value of their equity and have more control over the variables that will change those values. So the onus is on the company, not the candidate, to justify the equity grants being used to offset salary.

The way that should probably work for most startups is a conversation about expected future revenues. Acquired startups aren't really valued in terms of forward revenue multiples, but that is the scoring system used by most bystanders to evaluate a deal. So a compensation discussion that involves equity should involve quarterly revenue projections and a notion of what multiple of that revenue the company might be acquired at (or, if you're shooting for Mars and not the moon, where you'd IPO at --- but the IPO story is usually so B.S. that it's a warning sign).

A founder who can't have that conversation with a candidate or can't do it convincingly has no business trying to sell equity to a candidate. Which, make no mistake, is exactly what founders are doing when they compensate employees with equity: they are selling stock in their company, and it's the least valuable stock in the company.
Im with you, i sold a number of things without problems, but I did it assuming that if I follow the rules of Paypals Seller Protection, i would be covered.
This is not the case here. I now know that Seller Protection means nothing to the fraudster in the know
A-yup, couldn't agree more. It's already common practice to buy bundled CPUs and boards. We might as well be buying them as one solid piece.
Is the word 'coach' in your title, or is coaching just something you do as a good manager?

I really enjoyed your recent post about incrementally escaping local maxima. It would be cool to read some of your coaching tips and stories someday.
I sold my iPhone 4 on Gazelle. I know I could have got more through Craigslist or eBay, but it wasn't worth my time.

With eBay I have to photograph it, write it up, list it, answer ridiculous questions about shipping it to the 3rd world and take payment in the form of casino chips mailed to me in a few months. Then I have to deal with the buyer, ship it, and the whole time I have to be worried about scammers. All the time I'm competing against companies that are listing 50 iPhones a day because that's their fulltime job and my account hasn't been used in 4 years. I wouldn't buy from me in that circumstance.

With Craigslist, things are a bit worse. Not only do you get occasional scammer emails, but I have to meet the person to physically sell the item. I've had people stand me up numerous times, be continually able to schedule, etc. And when I do meet up with someone, they could give me fake money, or just steal the item, or refuse to buy it meaning I have to go through the whole thing again.

With Gazelle I got a perfectly fair bid. I hit accept and in a day or two a box showed up on my door. Put the phone in it, dropped it off at a UPS store, and in a few days I got my Amazon gift card. No weird fraudsters, and I spent a total of about 10 minutes of my time. In return I got a price I was quite happy with, an easy experience, and I was able to use the money to help support my Amazon habit.

Worst case scenario, Gazelle could have said no and shipped the phone back to me. I wouldn't be out any money (unlike if I paid for eBay shipping), and I could have sold it on Craigslist.
Well, what I am doing right now, just trying out so can't say for sure how effective it is. I was working with a a freelancer who knows python and is more experienced than me so I say I'll pay for your time for pair programming, design review, etc...

What I would do is to code the way I would and then go over it with him via teamviewer or something and we chat over skype. For me, the difficult part is creating the right classes and refactoring, making unit tests and making code scale. I also have design questions. Perhaps I'll make a post when I have more feedback.
>10 people pay $20 to participate in the auction

That doesn't seem like an auction and to be honest I don't really like the idea either.
It's less than 2% in the aggregate across eBay, but it's probably significantly higher for small high-value electronics like recent smartphones, especially if you're a small seller relying on eBay to detect scammers.
Thanks for the comments. My concerns about a cofounder seem to be consistent with the comments.

I guess I really won't know until I move forward. Right now I have enough basic knowledge (technical, business, and marketing) that I could produce a beta version.

My goals are the following:
1. Make a beta for my users (already have them waiting)
2. ???
3. Profit.
By profit, I mean grab the attention of investors and fill in the blanks (mostly technical) by hiring. From there, if someone works with me long enough, I’d considering bringing them on as a cofounder.
GitHub, an egalitarian love story
And what about if the OP here was the buyer, and received a broken phone?

Then what?
No. According to the Steam hardware survey, for November 2012 Win8x64 has a 4.25% install base (less than WinVistax64). Win8x32 has .44%, so Win8 has a combined percentage of 4.69%. By comparison, the top four OSX versions have a combined percentage of 3.26%. WinXP has a combined percentage of 10.83%, and Linux isn't even a blip on their radar.

Source:http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey
Misleading is putting it kind of nicely. It's flame bait. According to their data, only Win8 64bit is surpassing OS X, and even those are segmented in to releases. What's more, the main argument is that Gabe called Win8 a waste of time, but is supporting Mac, but the great majority of the userbase is still on Win7 (over 70%), whereas Win8 combined is under 5%. WinXP has larger share than Win8.
One could say the same thing about OP's post.
Yet, it isn't unique by a long shot.

I've also given up on selling via CL because of the scammers. Now I donate to the local Goodwill or other charity (women's shelters want cellphones, for example), and take the tax write-off.
just like it's spelled.
Airbnb Tech Talk: Ilya Grigorik - HTTP 2.0 for Fun and Profit
While this was somewhat humorous, I don't think not charging on day one matters. In fact, Salesforce[1] has been offering a similar product for 5 years. You may have seen it in action on Dell's Ideastorm site, or Starbucks (not sure if that one still exists).

[1]http://www.salesforce.com/salesforceideas/
Then you are part of the innovation problem. You could be the one auctioning a service instead.
Lynyrd Skynyrd called...
The limiting factor is the buyer's reputation with his credit card company. If he is repeatedly doing chargebacks people hopefully a credit card company will notice and not take his side or better yet, not issue him credit. The idea is that credit card companies also do not want to have this person as a customer, and probably this is a new scam he dreamed up, not an ongoing one.
The scammer should take the hit.
What did you spy on me? :) I watched the same trailer.
I agree. Good article.
PayPal screwing over their users? That's new!

In all seriousness though, PayPal does need to get their act together. I've lost easily lost a few hundred through various transactions over the past couple years because of things like this - But there are so few options that are available to the mass public that it's hard to move away from them as a seller.
>Researchers suspect it may take several years for Voyager 1 to clear this area entirely, after which it will finally reach interstellar space.

The RTGs in Voyager 1 are only good until about 2025 iirc, ~12-13 more years. Here's hoping it makes it through in time.
The same thing happens to me the other day with a "item not as described" claim. Fortunately, the item was of much less value. Still pissed me off.
I didn't know IMDb is owned by Amazon.
Vlad, I had a similar thing happen last year with an iPad. I even went through a complaint with the Better Business Bureau, and appealed it, but PayPal is able to hide behind their fine print.

I think the only way to protect ourselves from this is to limit the accounts to which our PayPal accounts are linked. They automatically-deducted $900 from my bank account upon the charge reversal, and I was unable to prevent this.

By the time you get Paypal's resolution, the scammer is long gone and local law enforcement will tell you it's already gone. This whole situation is monopolistic and I don't understand why the FTC is not doing anything about it.

(also posted as a comment on your essay)
"If you look at the resale value for a MacBook it's a lot higher than a Lenovo. I'm sure there's something other than "shiny" that makes a five year old MacBook still have significant value."

I rather enjoy the availability of cheap good recycled laptops such as the Lenovo Thinkpads.

I suspect the lower price compared to Apple laptops of similar vintage may have to do with the volume available, and the tendency of corporate purchasers to refresh their stock en masse.

If my hypothesis is correct, one would expect to see a drop in resale value of Apple laptops in the future as the volume increases, and as they are seen more in the corporate world in larger numbers.
Yeah that's what I am guessing exactly but don't they care about us part of the world?
If only eBay accepted Bitcoin. Though that would open the door up to a host of new scams which eBay would be equally slow/unable to respond to and when they do, would probably only enable the scammers even more. Bottom line is no one there seems to give a shit anymore. Just stay away from that cesspool
I'm curious why you think you should see the buyer actually withdraw from an ATM? If I was a buyer and the seller asked to follow me to my ATM, I'd be concerned.
> if users could put up actual $$$ for feature requests so the site actually performs more like kickstarter. This would also help the quality of requests.

Agreed, but I'd expect few people would put in money up front to fund something that no one's promising to make. It's hard to give it a hard date like Kickstarter since it's not the people doing who create the posts.

The best way I can think of going about it is having people say how much they're willing to pay (but no money changes hands), allowing someone to say they're going to implement and idea, and then it turns into a kickstarter project and emails all of the people who said they'd pay so they can enter their credit card details.

That way there's no risk for the backers (until they know someone wants to fulfill their dreams) or creator's (functions just like kickstarter for them -- except someone is giving them an initial list of interested parties). The websites whole purpose becomes facilitating new ideas.

To cut down on spam, you could charge people a dollar per vote (or microtransactions) and then promise creators a cut of that if they successfully "kickstart" a project (or convert a sufficient number of voting backers).

* To be clear: I'm not talking about using kickstarter -- then you'd lose all your revenue.

Edit: I expected pvsh to be about "I want this thing" instead of feature requests for specific products. It seems weird to me for Corporations to request bounties on features, but I still like the idea as a way to connect user's wants with entrepreneurs.
You have a social circle where founding a startup and eventually making millions is a regular occurrence? Outside of the bay area? Can I be your friend?

Why not skimp and save for a few years worth of survival and take a shot at one of these companies so that you have the financial cushion to give the college try and move on if you have to?

Edit: Guys, calm down. I was teasing him for casually claiming that he was surrounded by inspired millionaires but had to wear the hair-shirt.

I understand the lifestyle tradeoffs different people have to make and I don't begrudge people for prioritizing family. I don't have one, but I imagine that if I did, I'd go the safe/secure route too.

I'm sorry I made you feel like your life choices were questioned by a stranger on the internet.
It's easier to find a seller to trust than a buyer to trust.

Edit for accuracy: It's easier to verify the trustworthiness of a seller than that of a buyer.
Announcing the PyCon 2013 talks
Then, Sir, you are blessed.
I think I interviewed That Guy :-)

I ran the numbers for this guy, but I'll make some up here to show the process I went through. It went like this:

Here is an offer $100K/yr 100K shares vesting over 4.
Counter $150K/yr, 100K shares.
My counter $150K/yr, no equity.

This is this math, I've got a fixed amount of money in the bank, its going toward zero. I can sell your 100,000 shares to one of our investors for $2/share, giving the company $200,000 which I will then pay out to you $50K per year on top of your $100,000 a year salary. You get $150K per year, the investor gets the 100,000 shares. Or I can give the 100,000 shares to you with a strike price of $0.25/share, vesting over 4 years. So at the end of the four years you will have one of three outcomes.

1) $130,000 in the bank (that is $50 - 35% marginal tax rate) * four years.

2) A right to buy $xxxK of stock for $25,000.

3) A different job.

So realistically the stock needs to be worth $300K and saleable for you to make money. ($300K - $25K exercise - approx $137.50K in taxes) So $3/share. If I have investors willing to pay $2/share for common stock today, you (the engineer) need to believe that in four years the common stock will become 50% more valuable. You've got to ask yourself one question, "Do I feel lucky?"

For lots of people though its also more 'fun' to work in a startup in terms of engaging problems to solve and level of impact on the company is involved.
:( sorry.

Let me try again.

When we talk about wireless bandwidth, there is a big problem with congestion. When we talk about residential bandwidth, congestion isn't the issue so much as competitive access is. It's not that AT&T and Comcast have the best access, they just got there first and are able to block other competitors.

Throttling will make the ISPs more money, but it doesn't help consumers or solve this problem.

I think this might be explicitly what you're looking for: At the pricing and access tiers available today it is virtually impossible to saturate and block a local connection (at the residential level) such that you impact other subscribers at a regional level.

Throttling doesn't solve this problem it just reduces usage. ISPs have the overall goal of reducing usage because it increases profit. The logical fallacy is that while your model proposes an ISP that would want to give everyone as much as speed as possible, the reality is that all ISPs want users to use as little bandwidth as possible.

Does that help? Really I'm not trying to show off my vocabulary it's just a complex subject :(.
For aliases, convenience functions, and fancy widgets, my philosophy is one word: wait. I make myself go through the trouble of doing it the usual way for a little while. This way, I usually end up with much more domain knowledge and a much more elegant solution than if I'd rushed in to make things easier right of the bat.

For example, I don't have `alias gs='git status'`. Just `alias g=git` works great, and git has its own awesome alias system with tab completion that gets me the rest of it. So instead of `gs` I type `g s`, and I get tab completion on all the flags.
It would be interesting to contrast the same policies for other similar services (ex. Amazon Marketplace).

Sorry you're out that much money because of scam.
> Employee private stock outcomes are generally very poor even when the startup "succeeds". No party to the financing of a startup is served less faithfully than the ones who contribute via deferred or diminished salaries.

A six-figure salary is by no means "deferred". And, of course, I understand that there is a big difference between 100K and 150K/year. The whole point of the blog post is that if you want the 150K, then you can easily go to a Series C funded startup and get that (alongside the lower equity offer). If you want a higher stake, then you can go to the earlier stage startup, get your 90K and huge chunk of equity. If the parties want to have a custom "in between", then that is reasonable, too. Some startups can do it, others cannot depending on cash-flow. Expecting early stage-like equity and later-stage-like salary doesn't make sense. Not to mention the other equally important issues that we had with the candidate.
Oh man I get so excited every time I hear news from the Voyager program.

What an amazing achievement to do what those guys did back in the 1970s.
Darpa Seeks Revolution, Not Evolution, in Cyberspace Capabilities
I've been waiting for this for quite some time now. Kudos!
I agree this is not taking advantage of the GPU, but it's not making a draw call for every pixel either.

It looks to me like it's probably making a single call for each frame. Perhaps it mostly depends on how well the pixels.data[] call is implemented.
It's a tough problem, but without a third party to monitor the transaction there can always be scams when it's your word against his.
If you really want the money back, sue the guy.
File a miscellaneous action in Ohio and then use subpoenas to acquire his real address/billing info.

Contact the state AG and local federal AG's as well, just for kicks.

Note that if you go to file a small claims action, you will actually have to be present in Ohio.
They require in-personam jurisdiction.

(You do have the option of filing in local federal district court against the person, but this is very expensive)
IMO the games industry has a dearth of open source activity, and I'm thankful to you for moving it forward.
Top Ten Geek Business Myths
I looked at the Steam data before I read the article. The data itself is interesting. The article is garbage.
I would have taken the article seriously if not for the website name.
Has PayPal gotten their money back from you yet?
They're not expanding to Ireland. That's the point. Now they route all transactions from non-US customers through the Irish subsidiary and keep their money over there. They pay up 15% or whatever the tax rate is instead of the 35% over here. They keep the profits there waiting for a tax holiday, then move the money back when that happens. They can probably even claim the 15% as a foreign tax credit during the tax holiday.

Pretty simple. :)

While not illegal, it's a little bit dodgy. But it's what everyone does these days, so why not?
I think the Consumerist would love to run a piece about PayPal facilitating mail fraud. You should tell them your story.
Of course. If you look their website now and their SEC filings, it is clear that eBay is not any more "garage sales on internet with auctions". It is more like discount store.

Are there any of YC companies building "garage sales on internet"?
Open Source Guilt and Passion
That is exactly what happened with me. The way they hide behind poor communication and offshore CS reps is amazing. I'd receive answers to my emails that had nothing to do with the content itself, recommendations to check a FAQ in response to three hours of phone calls with detailed information about the incident, etc.

I'm happy you are publicizing this, but the thing is, this is happening everywhere, to all kinds of people, and eBay/PayPal are not doing anything about it.

After striking out with appeals and the Better Business Bureau, I believe the only way forward is to pressure the FTC through our government representatives.
I like the idea but the coin pricing kills it for me.

I can't figure out what it really means exactly. Maybe put an example up of what it would look like to run a few hours on the weekends? Just a thought.

The idea is still a good one.
It is a problem when you consider a buyer has usually 6 months to do a chargeback and you have 60 days to leave feedback and cannot change it later.
What an odd metric to cherry-pick. How much of Steam's catalog is even on Mac OS X?

There is no need to look at Steam statistics to feel good about Windows 8. Even if Windows 8 is a colossal failure it will still have over 100 million users within a year, more than enough to keep it ahead of Mac OS X.
I can see the comments just fine.
You can't sue a fake identity
I actually probably wouldn't do that, but it would be a pretty good hedge against receiving counterfeit currency.
Sure, but I wouldn't ask the buyer to come to my house at 2 in the morning, nor would I agree to meet him in that alley behind the biker bar, either.
It's as if a bunch of Americans wrote a bunch of ill-informed translations in an attempt to make this about translations, and not about tax avoidance. :)
I 100% agree with you. And by the way, we did ended up getting great engineers.
That's really the gist of this.

I still (it's 2012!) can amaze/scare/shock people by sending mails as their so/dad/uncle/lover/boss. SMS is just the same and for just the same reasons it's 'okay' (the usual use case is beneficial: I might want to send mail and define the from header. I really might want to send a text message from a website that looks like it came from my mobile, and leads replies to end up on it).

Can we solve this at all?
Safe holiday candles
Alleged scammers impersonate FTC, promise “refunds” to victims
Two things.

In the settings "Link your Minecraft account for 400 coins" is ambiguous. Am I spending coins or getting coins?

Also, look into Feed the Beast, it's a mod pack (like Tekkit) except built and supported by the developers of the mods. Many of whom feel Tekkit used their mods unfairly without their permission.

http://feed-the-beast.com
Are you seriously saying you've never heard any of the voluminous complaints about Dell over the years?
But tiny throwaway scripts get built up into huge applications all the time, sometimes by other people who don't have the mental TODO to go back and handle errors.
Actually, the "robosigners" were humans who would sign (and were encouraged / forced to sign) documents asserting facts for which there was no supporting evidence, or even where there was directly contradictory evidence. Signatures were by humans, not computers.

http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/false-affidavits-fore...
It's just that the scamming is more common with iPhones. There are many public cases where the similar scam was pulled as the buyer returned an "item not as described" as an empty guitar case full of rocks/synth box full of books/etc.
Actually, you can (John Doe lawsuits).

Besides that, most of these scams are not that sophisticated as you see in spy movies. You subpoena a few folks, and you get the identity.

It usually turns out to be a 16 year old, but you still get it.
[unrelated] just noticed this on the source site under 'primary display resolution':

6048 x 1080 [0.01% | +0.00%]

..where does this exist?
just wondering how would you expect or how do other companies currently avoid fraud. The costs associated or added with constantly investigating fraud would almost seem like a deterrent in making a system useful.