skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I wrote scripts for my blog and still receive spam, so it's not only standard software that's vulnerable - they definitely use some heuristics or otherwise analyze blogs manually, one by one. Also, I see poor English (I mean, very poor English, not like mine) in spam posts, which means it's been outsourced already.
Though he did say "I'm not saying it's a bad idea, I'm saying that I don't want to take responsibility for advising it."

PG is wrong when he says "You'll never found the next Google this way", though. IBM was founded by someone who had a wife and kid to support, and had just been convicted of antitrust violations, fired, and had a 1-year jail sentence hanging over his head (later reversed on appeal).

You do need to be hungrier for profits and less willing to trade growth for money. The strategy I'm using (try lots of stuff until I build something useful, then try to get lots of users, then figure out how to monetize it) won't work for someone with a family to support. But the strategy my boss is using (go to your industry contacts, talk to them about their problems, get them to pay you up-front for development while you solve them, reinvest the profits for growth) could work very well.
VirtualMin also was started before Joe et al got into YC.

There's a difference between "Getting into YC would help my business" and "I need to get into YC to start my business".
Camera Flipping at Justin.TV
OpenID seems to be doomed. All these issues are just horrible on their own... taken as a whole, it's a disaster.
Never mind. I just realised what "showdead" meant and now feel very silly.
Good Luck!

Thanks for giving us fence sitters another kick in th a$$.

I feel each every post like this is going to push me to the brink and finally make me take the plunge.

Thanks Again.
I have to ask - why do you insist on going up to pg's front door and shouting your dislike of him through his letterbox? If you really find him that scary, wouldn't it be much more sensible to run like hell and shout your abuse from a good safe distance down the street?
Think massive international co with a tla for a name.
Australia.
Absolutely nothing interesting about webcams I agree. I want to see justin.tv turn into youtube live. The greatest thing they've developed is a live portable broadcasting for the masses. Actually they should probably keep justin.tv and just startup a live event broadcasting site because the focus wouldnt be around single 24/7 channels but lots of different intermittent broadcasts.

I think the difference between live and prerecorded seems small but is really important. I guess if they did make the switch to broadcast style they'd have make some hardware changes to the sorts of cameras used because it'd mostly need to be tripod stabilized zoom lens stuff.
I'd love to, but I'm outside the US (Australia)
kinda like a blub programmer, but with more rrrrr
We don't supply the hardware; we don't run any very many of the streams on our site at all. So really, if people want to use our site for doing things with tripods and zoom lenses, that's up to them, not us.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48104
Nothing too fancy. We're taking something that's been done hundreds of times before, but all very badly, adding a bit of a twist and making it usable. Our aims are fairly modest, just to generate enough income to support us. I have no (well, not many :) grandiose visions of selling for millions.
> Why do you assume I got "turned down" by YC?

Because if you're this pissed off at them for no reason, that's just fucking weird.
So I guess you know quite a bit about linux then? :)
What field is your startup going to be in?
Looking forward to hearing about your success.

Or your [failure, perseverance]*, and following success :)
That's fantastic! Congratulations.
I've been thinking of working on things with people I'm romantically involved with... what's the experience like? What are the ups and downs?
Oh ok, my bad, that was just the impression I got when you guys first launched. While webcams are pretty standard these days I'm not sure many people are familiar with EVDO. Also I don't think the site is really set up for pre-scheduled events which was really my point. Of course thats not a problem if you have no intention of doing a live event site.
probably the coolest thing I've ever seen.
Microsoft Launches Babel Fish, I mean Windows Live Translator
hmm...you guys are probably more ethical than I am...but why not license this to the pr0n industry? Then, it wouldn't be boring at all...

I can just see the spam: now
live porn, on demand, 200+ amatuer channels! Free preview(9.95/mo subscription)!
Ajax Startup Launches Web Desktop Linked To Gmail
You know, I hadn't realised until I read your comment, but our tenth wedding anniversary coincides very nicely with our leaving the BigCo life.

The Downs: You don't always see eye to eye, and you need to be able to work things out.

The Ups: For me, my wife is not IT oriented, so doesn't try to tell me how to do things, but provides very valuable insight into how a normal user would approach things; her ideas are very good. Another point - You know your partner isn't an idiot:)
Thanks.

I've been reading ycombinator about six months or so now and discussing ideas with my wife for about as long. It's reached the stage where we decided we may as well actually do something.

Tell you what, though. Gives you a whole different outlook on work when you can see the end in sight.
Another Look at Prime Numbers
One of my professors had an interesting comment:

Somewhat unfortunately slanted article, I'm afraid. It makes it sound like conservatives are broken. In fact,
one could just as easily have constructed the task so that the extra deliberation made by liberals caused them to perform worse (by changing how errors and time are used in the final score).

I think the argument has got to be that there are multiple
strategies for dealing with uncertainty in the world and the correct one depends on the world as much as anything else. I believe that we are in a world that favors Kerry's style of decision making over Bush's. But, that's a claim about the world, not a value judgment about Kerry, per se.
Hence the six months lead time, not 'I quit now!'

I've been without income before and am acutely aware of how much it hurts. I'd like to say I have no plan B, that we will make this work, but I have to be realistic and I'm in no hurry to risk my family's welfare again.

We're doing all we can to minimalise the risk, but there comes a time when you have to be willing to take on some or spend the rest of your life in regret.

I too have a cube job - hence the name :)
I just gave a quick look. It looks decent.
> So I guess you know quite a bit about linux then?

No, the _other_ big three letter IT company.
Hint: was started by a prior US presidential candidate.
O boy. Now you got two option. 1-Die trying (and as they say, if you do you won't care anymore) or 2-Become successful. I see you choosing option2.
YC is a known strategy. If someone is suggesting an alternative approach, details would be useful.

"You can do it too!" works better when they aren't telling you to pursue a different strategy than they did with no specifics.
Oh rightio, not even I can miss that hint. Yes good idea leaving them, they can be a bit stifling I hear.
I've read they've received funding from some high-profile angels (including Kevin Rose). google it
Temporary Geek Tattoos
Are you a die-hard geek? A hardcore hacker? Express your allegiance to the Nerd World Order with these Geek Temporary Tattoos. (I don't work for these guys, just thought it was funny.)
YC's value, as is repeated often, is in the advice and contacts. Finding 30 investors that will sit through your demo is something most developers don't know anything about. GGP is conspicuously silent on how to pull off that trick without YC.

> There's a difference between "Getting into YC would help my business" and "I need to get into YC to start my business".

Astounding! Who else have you told this to?
"Are you suggesting in retrospect that you'd have preferred a different strategy?"

Not even a little bit. But we were moving full steam ahead whether YC was involved or not. As others mentioned, we were launched, we were selling products, and we were developing the connections we needed to get to where we wanted to be. YC just accelerated that, gave me the impetus I needed to get moved to the valley, and gave us a chance to hone our message and our product under the discriminating eye of a lot of smart people. Well worth the time, effort, and equity.

But there would still be a Virtualmin, Inc. without YC, and it would still be building products that people like.
'"You can do it too!" works better when they aren't telling you to pursue a different strategy than they did with no specifics.'

I didn't think I needed to do so, since I assumed everybody here has read all of pg's essays, seen Guy Kawasaki's Art of the Start, and read a few other useful books about startups. While everybody who's built a business (I'm on my second) has at least a few things to teach others in the same boat...I didn't want to clutter up the post with a bunch of random rants. I respond to posts here with specific advice whenever there's a question I feel qualified to answer.
> I respond to posts here with specific advice whenever there's a question I feel qualified to answer.

You haven't explained how your start-up succeeded without YC.

> seen Guy Kawasaki's Art of the Start

I hope you're kidding about that.
Why Vote When You Can Bet?  Slate's guide to all the political markets.
Well, it's not exactly that. If primary ids are in order, someone, somewhere, is eventually going to write a script that sequentially goes through and pulls all that data off. While that in itself might not be bad, pinging your servers without throttling it might be.
I vindicate myself: http://mashable.com/2007/09/05/hulu-lulu/
A purely negative article tends to give that impression. What's the alternative? Brands likes to mention how perfect Credentica is, but it isn't deployed anywhere. OpenID may turn out to be the worst identity protocol, except for all the others that have been tried.
A few alternate strategies, some taken from books I've read, others from people I know:

Build a prototype - of anything, really, as long as it's impressive. Show it to industry contacts. Have them tell you "this is interesting, but it's not really what we need right now. However, if you could solve this problem for us, we'd pay you money for it." Get them to pay up-front to fund development. Build the product with their money. Sell product to other customers. Reinvest the profits. (my day job, also Sun Microsystems and Franz Inc.)

Find a group of passionate enthusiasts. Write software for them, and charge money for it. Partner with a business that benefits from what you're doing. Always look for underserved markets, and then opportunistically go after them with cheap products. Iterate quickly. Take over the world. (Microsoft)

Build website. Convince friends to join. Serendipitously discover that friends tell all their friends about it. Overload servers. Charge money for premium features to keep servers running. Make modest profit off of it. (LiveJournal, Flickr).

Same as above, but provide ways for people to make money off your product (selling services to each other, for example). Take a cut of their revenues. (EBay, PayPal, Second Life, Microsoft).

Get people laid. Profit. (HotOrNot, PlentyOfFish)
> Show it to industry contacts.

You need industry contacts first. Suggestions?

> Take over the world. (Microsoft)

"Left as an exercise for the reader."
What really perplexes me are the sites that still use FTP for serving large files, as if FTP is better than HTTP for that purpose.
"You need industry contacts first. Suggestions?"

Work. Go to trade shows. Hang out on Internet forums with people in your target market. Make friends with folks.

It doesn't work so well for me, because I'm 2 years out of college and not in a particularly client-facing job. However, the OP is 36 and in a big company. You ought to have some sort of professional contacts by then, right?
TechCrunch40 Updates - Scoble Out?, Almost Sold Out, Big Announcement
First off, you can't call your desktop environment Windows. That's just asking for a cease and desist.

Second, why copy the Windows GUI when you can do something more suited for the browser?
"try lots of stuff until I build something useful, then try to get lots of users, then figure out how to monetize it"

Seriously, would you consider business with anyone who worked like that? Stumbling around blindly for an idea, followed by hoping that you'll generate a set of expenses, and then finally hoping that you'll be able to earn revenues.

I worry more about you than the bloke with the family to support.
JavaScript frameworks performances: Prototype vs jQuery
Go exponential, not linear, to hit the Gates level.
I know Buenos Aires is a good place to relocate, but it's really cheaper to live in any Euro-denominated country?
In the "what does success mean to you" thread I was going to jokingly comment that success is when you successfully defend your first antitrust trial.

Just saying, there's such a big difference between "had been convicted of antitrust violations" and "leaving 9-to-5 cubicle land" that the wife and kid are practically irrelevant to the comparison.
Consumer web. People don't visit websites based on who developed them. They visit them because they want to.

It's often difficult or impossible to figure out what consumers want, other than putting lots of ideas in front of them. Usually if you ask them, their responses will be wildly different from what they actually do. (I maintained that Reddit was a failure long after I started using it on a regular basis, and did the same with LiveJournal.)

It's not a business model that works in every field - in particular, you absolutely don't want to try enterprise applications this way (really, nobody will buy from you if you try it, as you remark). But it does work.
Hey Dude,

I'm 36 too, I have a wife and kid, and I left a boring safe job to work for what I'd describe as a late-stage startup. My wife works a stable job and brings in a better health lan, too. So while I'm not doing something quite as risky as leaving to start my own probject, I do understand the urge to try something a little more thrilling with a higher potential payout.

Truth is, you'd probably be able to get a big boring job again quite easily if you wanted one. The last time I looked for a job, I had two offers within a few weeks and a substantial counteroffer from my (now ex) employer. The market has its ups and downs, sure, but in the end, I doubt it would be all that hard for you to go back to a bigco and blub away if it comes to that. Which I hope it doesn't for you and for me.

It's excellent that you're giving this a try. Good luck. Do you have a blog or anything? Keep us posted!
"'What was missing from the market was the notion of the unified experience,' [Robertson] said." I don't understand the obsession people have with cramming thousands of apps into a single site. It seems to miss the point of the web. Isn't it much better for apps to run on their own sites with their own interfaces? Interoperability and sharing data between apps is huge, but the answer is not to put all apps on the same site. What are users supposed to think? "Oo, feature-crippled versions of all my favorite apps!" Web desktops strike me as having the worst of both worlds: none of the feature richness of the web and none of the UI advantages of the desktop. For non-power users, having everything in one place doesn't seem compelling enough to ignore that.

In fairness, the writer may have taken Robertson's comment out of context or altered its meaning, so apologies if that wasn't the fairest launching pad for a rant about web OSes.
I just thought that there's more to publicity and marketing than ad spending.
> You'd think there would be lots of intelligent people who had interesting ideas and wrote them down, but really there aren't.

There are a couple interesting problems here. What there is no lack of is intelligent people with ideas that they never share.
Secret of Apple Inc. Marketing: by ex Apple Marketing Executive A
The only reason having a family matters is because someone relies on your income. Hopefully, if you've had a job for a while, you have enough cash built up to live for a year or so.

That means you have a year to either:

1) quit the startup and get a job.

2) get some VC funding or enough revenue to live on.

Plus, big company boring jobs are always there for the taking...
Work or Stay at Home?  Save Money By Not Having a Job
If you don't have a job, you don't have a Starbucks habit, gas expenses, ATM withdrawals, fare, car, car insurance, parking, eating out, convenience foods, housekeeping, lawn maintenance, mortgage, house, children, child care, dry cleaning, professional clothing, commuting times, high tax brackets.
Congratulations on your decision. I know what you are going through, I did the exact same thing 2 weeks ago. Full time startup starts for me in just 2 days, I cant wait.

I'm sure you know this, but make sure your company is cool with you starting your project right now. Mainly, that you are not under any IP agreements. The worse thing would be if your company catches wind of your work and decides that they want to "own" it.
Maybe more accurate to say there are a lot of intelligent people with half-formed ideas they never fully explore by writing them down. Writing is not like hitting print.
That's funny, my wife worked for them for her first job (when we were in Canada).
oops - missed that one.
Rebirth of the wizard!
Where in Australia? I'm from Perth and living in NZ (Auckland).
Certainly part of the problem is the time barrier. IIRC Guy Kawasaki said he averages seven hours per post. It's about the same for me for my posts that have made techmeme or reddit. I'd love to sit down and blog something about the social policy implications of pygmalion effect or whatever but it's hard justify blowing off an entire day more than a couple times a month.

The other problem though is that there is very little theory surrounding what actually makes something insightful, informative, interesting, etc. There are hundreds of books or grammar and style, but try looking for a book on insightfulness. Google turns up literally zero useful results. If there were a book like Strunk/White but on substance, not style, it would greatly ameliorate the problem. I've been working on the problem for a while now myself, not from the perspective of a great writer but rather from the perspective of someone who knows what creates value for him as a reader. The problem is before you publish something like that it kind of has to be perfect.
I appreciate that you mean well; it seems that you're advising people on how to do something you haven't done, however, which is the same situation as at the top of the thread.

My impression is that the best way to meet investors is to live in Silicon Valley. That sounds like it's leaving out a lot of steps...
"You haven't explained how your start-up succeeded without YC."

Nobody asked.

I'll take your response as somebody asking.

In both cases, I made myself a recognized expert on an Open Source project that I liked a lot and that I liked the people involved (Squid in the first case, Webmin in the latter...though the first also included a huge amount of Webmin-related work and inspired the second). And then I founded companies built on making some Open Source project easier to use, more powerful, better documented, and more popular. The first never really made it out of the "consulting business" stage, though I constantly tried to convert it to a product business...had I been in the valley, I would have been able to make it work the way I wanted it to. It was a hardware based business, and for that you need volume, which I didn't have the capital to deal with--closing a big sale in the server appliance industry can cost tens of thousands of dollars before seeing any cashflow from it. So, stay out of hardware if you don't have the capital to see it through. Even then, you probably ought to stay out of hardware. So, the first one did not succeed without YC, by my standards, but did buy me a 350Z and keep me in food and houses for 7 years.

The primary thing worth learning from the first business (which I built without not only YC but without any outside investment for involvement) was that you can't do it alone. Get a partner, get to the valley (I don't even bother saying get to a "startup hub" because nobody is doing deals in Boston), get to work.

As for the second, here's what I know so far:

1. Start or join, very early, an Open Source project.

2. Work on it for several years. Get millions of downloads and millions of users.

3. ...

4. Profit!

"> seen Guy Kawasaki's Art of the Start

I hope you're kidding about that. "

Of course not. Guy's a great motivator. Can't start a business worth crap (see Truemors), but he has a lot of good stuff to say about marketing, salesmanship, morale-building, and lots more. Some accidental experts really do have good advice.
"My impression is that the best way to meet investors is to live in Silicon Valley. That sounds like it's leaving out a lot of steps, however."

You'd be surprised how easy the "get contacts" step becomes when you're in the valley. I was. I fought it for years, as I loved living in Austin. But, events where you can rub elbows with investors happen every single week here...it's a world apart from anywhere else.
Why I'm Enthused About Startup Weekend
"YC's value, as is repeated often, is in the advice and contacts. Finding 30 investors that will sit through your demo is something most developers don't know anything about. GGP is conspicuously silent on how to pull off that trick without YC."

It's not as hard as you think. The difference YC offers is that you're already at stage two of the VC or angel process: Vetted candidate. You get to do a one hour presentation for one member of the VC firms, maybe a partner, instead of having a ten minute phone call to make your pitch. You still have to meet the investors you want to talk to...but they are actively looking for deals in the valley every day. Go to events and you will meet them. If you build something popular, some will even come to you (maybe the hungrier ones...Sequoia isn't Googling for new investment ideas).
> Nobody asked.

Actually that's how this whole debate got started -- I asked:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=52613

> because nobody is doing deals in Boston

So in your opinion would YC be better off doing both batches in Silicon Valley? My impression is people would be better served living there and flying to Boston for Demo Day 2 than vice-versa.

> but he has a lot of good stuff to say about marketing, salesmanship, morale-building, and lots more

http://valleywag.com/tech/silicon-valley-tool/guy-kawasaki-2...

http://www.nowpublic.com/don_t_be_a_dude_yamaha_a_gripping_s...

http://techdumpster.com/2007/08/03/toolbox-profile-1-guy-kaw...

> Guy's a great motivator.

In a "scared straight" kind of way, sure.
you're trolling, and its annoying. You asked a question that was impossible to answer (at least succinctly since there are entire books written about the topic).

Getting into YC isn't even an answer in itself, other people here are just trying to tell you it is possible to do without YC. You know, people did start companies before YC.
Congratulations!
I know this is a big decision, but working in something that you are passionate about is always great.

Hope it will work just the way you want.
Good Luck.
I'm from Perth but living in Canberra
While there are certainly problems that need to be addressed, problems with phishing need to be addressed by any web application. While there is certainly room for improvement I think OpenID at least has the right idea about how single sign-on for the web needs to work.