skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Carson's arguments aren't very strong. However, I do wonder how a small team based in europe could move to Silicon Valley with no money and legally be allowed to work in the country.

I'm interested in hearing how YC works out the visa situation for teams based outside of the USA. We have had to pass on a number of awesome applicants because of visa problems. However, we do have a couple indispensible hackers based in Europe, and had to set up a (somewhat) complicated system of small european based companies so that we can bring them over to work for 3-5 months at a time.
In fact, your tagline is so good, I would emphasize it even more. Remove "The Information Marketplace". That means nothing. Make "KnowledgeBid" smaller. Make "Sell what you know. Buy what you don't." bigger. I would even put it before "KnowledgeBid". That pretty much says it all. Sounds like a good thing. Hope it works out well for you. Keep us posted.
"There's way too much pressure in the web app industry to be the next $100 million dollar company. Screw that."

Well, that basically has to be your attitude if you can't rely upon angel support, meeting deal-makers, or follow-on capital.

So you'll do just as well... as long as you turn a profit quickly, you're not interested in being acquired before that, and you're not shooting for a large market? Not terribly inspiring.
Ryan raises some decent points, but I have to side with Paul on this one. If you want to -maximize- your startup's chance for success, moving out to SV (or other big hubs) would be the most logical choice. This doesn't mean your startup won't have a shot elsewhere, but he's just calling it as he sees it. What yields the best results is typically what people want to hear when it comes to getting advice.
London and Paris will never become competitive startup hubs for the most simplest and most important reason, the climate!

Everybody loves sun and beaches!
Facebook Traffic Tanks - This can't be real?
If you are not based in the USA and want to work in the USA, having a degree solves a number of visa issues. The same goes for people in the USA who would like to work overseas at some point. I've spent time working in Australia and Japan and don't think I could have legally done so without having a degree.

That said, I left university as a junior to work on my first startup and after four years of working went back for a year to finish up my degree(s).
So perhaps Barcelona has a chance.
And I'm even more guilty for continuing it after posting that.

Dropped.
I have a fairly new (2 years) computer science degree, from what I feel is a very good program. Even in this program, some courses were definitely more valuable than others.

Not long past the point where it was too late to change majors, something astounded me. I discovered a pattern to the valuable courses. It was as follows:

The most valuable high-level courses were the theoretical computer science courses (the foundations of CS series, AI stuff, the sort of thing where you're asked, "How would you solve this problem?"). The most valuable low-level courses were the concrete courses in things other than computer science (mostly math and physics; to a lesser extent, various engineering disciplines). If you think about it, this actually makes sense: the courses about solving problems, following the courses that give you the tools to do that.

If you think about it, there's a good reason for this: Low level courses exist to provide a foundation for more advanced courses. This means that they are not designed for people who already intuitively understand their subject matter. If you already know C, Java, and two or three other languages like Pascal, you can learn Perl, Prolog, and Scheme on your own -- you don't need a professor to teach them to you (though it might help to have someone get you to use macros). You just need to understand that language's "thing" (punctuation, assertions/derivations, first-class functions/closures/continuations) and then it will almost learn itself. If you already know how to build a pointer-based binary tree, you don't need a course to tell you how to build a radix tree, or a red-black tree, or a trie.

On the other hand, the low level courses in other disciplines are designed for people who don't already intuitively understand that area. That makes them perfect for you.

Unfortunately, most universities do try to curtail the obvious solution by enforcing prerequisite courses. This makes little sense from a teaching perspective, but it makes perfect sense from a "raising the average GPA of their students" perspective.

Almost anywhere you go, you'll find the ability to game the system somehow -- be it alternate prerequisites, testing out of things, or taking a minor in CS instead of a major. You need to be able to game the system to an extent. Yet, that's a valuable skill in itself. Just optimize what you're trying to learn, not the best way to get that piece of paper.
I don't think it really works in my Browser (Firefox on Ubuntu 7.04). I couldn't drop the widgets, and there was no choice of corner styles.
Er... what beach do people in Palo Alto go to? Santa Cruz? Pacifica? The beaches in the Bay Area are FREEZING COLD.

The beaches near Boston, whilst disgusting, are actually much warmer and beach-like in the summer than the beaches in NorCal ever are.
Well, still, his argument isn't that London / Europe today are just as good as Silicon Valley, his argument seems to be to stop telling people Silicon Valley is better because they'll go there and Europe won't be able to catch up... in effect, that Europe CAN be as effective as Silicon Valley if nurtured. But that simply agrees with pg's argument that today, Silicon Valley is a better destination.
Thanks. Cookies get set. They're data the server asks the client to remember for it. The word 'install' suggests something much more.
I'd say because for most people it'll speed up the responsiveness of their browsing experience, and they won't really care if a website sets a cookie or logs their IP address.

If you're doing something you don't want to be spied on, anonymous proxies work well.
Far more appropriate for this site! I'm fairly impressed with this homemade automated sentry gun myself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Al-4_1kUBLc
UK Entrepreneurs 'scared of failure'
We are using extjs in our next UI version...the widgets are awesome. The docs are sometimes a bit terse. The examples are usually contrived in ways that completely avoid real world requirements...which often turn out to be quite complex to get working. Stuff like setting the selected item in a combo box that is generated via a JSON object takes several steps, and pre-loading a TreeMenu is laughably complex. It often feels like the goal was to make as much as possible load on-demand, with no possibility to use those widgets without the lazy-loading features...which makes it much slower to use in every use case I can imagine...we wrote our own tree menu that loads all items in one go instead of fighting with it anymore. Also, sometimes things change pretty dramatically between versions.

But it's the best thing we've found for our needs. It looks great, runs fast, and the developers offer reasonable commercial support.
Guns are designed to propel bullets quickly and accurately. This is used for whatever people want to use it for, including sport, murder, and saving lives.
vim is awesome. I discovered it after 8 years of Delphi, Eclipse and Visual Studio. After two months of a steep learning curve I could honestly say that indeed, vim alone can be as productive as any IDE.
Let me clarify, since a few people are misinterpreting slightly. YC is certainly very helpful, and that's why we're all applying. Being accepted undoubtedly helps a startup's chances for success. So let me append to "for a team to be accepted, it can't need YC" a parenthetical phrase: "(in order to be willing to proceed full steam ahead)".
If you were to post it on reddit, how about this ;)

Finally, the single most amazing tool that Ron Paul could use to be more productive [pic]
A question for you from a graduating college senior who's trying to decide between grad school and work:
Do programming work get boring in a business-setting?

I am trying to decide whether I should go to grad school or to work. My experiences at the so-called "tech-heavy" cities and companies is that the "smart people and high-tech" is all hype. Maybe my experiences are just too biased, but do people at the Valley really push the envelope, or do they just do the same Java/PHP/Ruby stuff that high school students could do, and put a Web 2.0 stamp on it.
Breaking... Oldage declared leading cause of death. Death to Oldage!
I think Ryan and PG have a different idea of what startups are. PG said in response to a question at FOWA that he was talking about startups designed for acquisition by the likes of Google. Acquisition is much easier where there are big established companies to network with. Ryan on the other hand seems to be talking about bootstrapping and building to last, which doesn't depend on the benefits of SV as much.
and I'm sure the gun industry earns billions of dollars each year just from people who loves sports!
Simulating smoke and fire with simpler models.
How can we get to that critical level of support here in Europe if we always have people saying everyone should move to Silicon Valley?

I was more concerned with saying something true than saying something that would encourage startups in a particular region. I agree entirely that saying startups will do equally well anywhere would encourage startups in Europe. If Carson in turn agrees that this statement, though encouraging, is false, then we'll have settled our differences.
I'm in Portugal, we have very good climate and beaches but i don't think Lisbon or any other Portuguese city will ever be a hub. It's not just the climate.
Yah, I've had a number of email threads with Aaron Rasmussen, the guy behind that system. Smart guy, now working on a startup call US Mechatronics
http://www.usmechatronics.com

I love that it was "just" a summer project and I love that he tested on his brother.

They also did a pretty cool Wii controled samurai sword slashing robot arm.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qEotHQgUsg
It would have been very helpful to send half the emails with 'finally!' and half without, at the same time.

Next beta, I guess...
Good concept and I would suggest the following:

(1) Instead of all those messy listings you should have a GIANT search box right in the middle a-la google.

(2) Drop the categories. Work on your search algorithms instead.

(3) Make it much easier for visitors to identify themselves right on the front page: freelancer, employer, curious person, etc

(4) Write down top 3 reasons for why you are different from craigslist or jobster. Make those reasons obvious and apparent on your front page.

Good luck!
Ryan Carson doth protest too much, methinks.
Well they feel a little bit like hooks the server sinks into the client, but yeah ;-)
5 Questions on Agile Development
I think it's hard to form a conclusion from a sample set of 1.

If you were to test this though, I do think your theory would hold mostly true, at least to some extent.

SEO and other modern marketing "sciences" have shown us that minor changes in text can lead to major changes in how people read/consume/value/react.
Flirt-o-matic bigger than Google
We've heard that from others as well - thanks very much for the feedback!
why do you focus on sports instead of self defense?
heh, have you looked at what the enterprise is paying for software?

Insanity.
He said it himself. He's not replying b/c he's got a good point, he's replying b/c he's angry -- his blood is boiling.
Business work is usually boring compared to self-directed work. The reason is simple: established companies want predictable returns on investment. There is little chance you and two friends will stop working on that internal reporting app and go into VOIP, to loud applause from your boss. That is not your job.

The same applies to grad school, btw -- you are a paid research assistant, not a freebird. But the problems can sometimes be cooler.

But it's a continuum and part of being happy is being humble and learning where you fit. I know many happy people at Yahoo who do cool new things. Others are chair-warmers. A large number are genuinely interested the thankless task of supporting hundreds of millions of users and petabytes of data, every damned day. Those people are the salt of the earth, and I salute them.

As for the second part: There is a sampling problem when you say things such as "all hype" or "people in the Valley do/are X".

If you poke your nose into 20 companies, Valley or no, you will find overwhelming crap. 90% of everything is crap. But you do not experience the world as an average. The trick is to find the 10% that are not crap, and the 1% within those who are really good, and see if you can hang with them.

In every field there are people who are so awful they don't know it. There are the elites. There is a large field of the mediocre who ape the elite without deep understanding. Then way out in left field are the crazies who scandalize, confuse --and somtimes inspire-- everybody. Find them all, learn to tell the difference, and find your niche.
"bootstrapping and building to last, which doesn't depend on the benefits of SV as much"

Why's that? Funding, connections, deals, etc are still very important. If you want to grow your business at all, whether it's to an acquisition, IPO, or whatever... those things are still important.
UpNext is the future of Local - the 3d map is amazing
The more people go out, the less they use your web two point oh app.
there was an excellent article published in Foreign Affairs last year on the topic of Entrepreneurial Economies, written by Carl Schramm, author and CEO at Kauffman Institute.

the article is unfortunately not freely distributed and requires a subscription fee to access it.

The concept of hubs is central to his thesis. He basically argues that the key requirements for an industry hub are: large companies for R&D and M&A, Research Universities for research and tech transfer, Investment Groups for access to capital, and knowledge workers with applicable skills.

In the web/tech space there is no argument that SV provides the right mix of resources and is the leading technology hub.

Where the EU and metro regions in the US can improve is increasing the linkages between these groups and thus making it easier for entreps to succeed there.

Many of the examples Ryan provided in his post are examples of the progress that has been made in Europe.
I think PG is right.
Ryan Carson wishful thinking is not going make it better.
I due however think that Europe has an opportunity to attract hackers from everywhere (due to USA VISA policies) and build a vibrant startup community.
I don't really agree with this logic. If you're building something that people want, your target audience should reach far beyond friends and friends-of-friends. If people want something, they're likely looking for it via a search engine these days. Neglecting search engine ranking is neglecting a large amount of potential customers that you could likely be acquiring for a very low cost.

I could make a counter case to your argument: If the majority of your users aren't discovering you via Google, your product doesn't have a wide enough audience to be viable.
Actually, his position is that he makes money arranging web 2.0 conferences in London. How's he going to make money if all the "entrepreneurs" leave for silicon valley?
thanks very much - very interesting feedback and ideas
I think you nailed it.

PG doesn't view something like dropsend as a startup per se. To him that's just a small business with a chance at being successful. Ryan sees Dropsend from a founders point of view: a significant success, but not something that's going to be acquired by Google for $xxM.

They're arguing from two different positions about two different things.
pg cares more about the immediate success of the entrepreneur.

Carson cares more about developing new Silicon Valleys.

They're both right, but as an entrepreneur, I know who I should be listening to.
I don't have a gun, in fact I believe that having a gun for self defense may increase your possibilities of getting killed, let me explain it.

Where I come from people are not trying to kill you, they are trying to steal your wallet or something, and if someone points a gun on me, i would prefer to give that person my wallet than to take out a gun.

Its just my opinion and I don't want to take the risk of someone shooting me because I pulled out a gun.
For the most part though, I suspect that for most non-US-citizen entrepreneurs, the question "Should I move to Silicon Valley?" is a bit like the questions "Should I grow a pair of wings on my back?" or "Should I enlist the Loch Ness Monster as a cofounder?" It might be nice to do it, but given the difficulty of getting a visa as an entrepreneur, it's not really an option.
Atlanta Can Compete (or, Atlanta is not hosed)
>as long as you turn a profit quickly

Starting businesses that don't have this objective is how we got into the bubble mess of dot-com in the first place.

If this isn't your objective, you should find something else to work on.
Another site I have to register to use. Forget it.
> Do programming work get boring in a business-setting?

Yes. One of the things you aren't going to hear too much on a site that promotes the start-up lifestyle is that 80% of the work you are going to be doing is not intellectually interesting in any way. It is somewhat interesting from a "holy shit I can't believe life is really like this" perspective, but if you are into ideas that aren't just superfically interesting it can be a real drain.

On the other hand, I did a year of grad school after working for four years and I couldn't believe how much it was like "The Office." Most people just surfed the internet, played fantasy sports games online, went to every journal-club/data-sharing/journal-data-sharing club event, and did the bare minimum of work to get by.

I'm not sure what to tell you. If I had to do it all again, I would have gone to grad school straight out of college, finished version 1.0 of my product during the first year of graduate school, then dropped out and turned it into a business.
pg cares about making money for YC. He does a lot of good things to do that but let's not forget that is his goal.

Carson is trying to become a pg of Europe.

Take both in measured amounts.
Their AIR application is quite impressive too: http://extjs.com/blog/2007/06/29/building-a-desktop-applicat...
I would never move to Cali b/c I enjoy all 4 seasons. a sunny christmas would bother me, to be honest.
too many people focus on silicon valley - as the next group of startups come from anywhere, so will the incubators.
Preparing for Web 3.0
There's only one way to really settle this. MORTAL KOMBAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Cars are dangerous with those rules already in place. Should we ban cars from more places such as city centers?
I consider my CS degree quite valuable to myself, and it has opened a lot of doors for me. Now obviously, not everyone needs a degree; and not everyone with a degree is good. But from personal experience, it was well worth the time, money and effort to get a degree.
I went to a school that is heavy on the math and algorithm side of CS, which was quite useful.

If you have already started a degree, I would consider that another motivating factor to continue, you are already pot committed (if you know poker terms).
Actually, you don't have to register. Just click the "Enter Now" button at the top of the entry page.
or hearts? ;-)
Doesn't run on Linux.
I would add something to why a degree is useful:
A degree forces you to learn things that you would otherwise not learn. I hate stats, but I had to learn stats. It has surprisingly proved useful in my work from time to time. The same follows with about 100 other things I was forced to learn, and that have popped up. Usually they are relatively obscure topics you have no interest in and avoid, but occasionally they are whole subjects that you just dislike.
Size Matters, Condom Experts Told
"Start driving your car on the sidewalk or across someone's front yard and you'll be rapidy arrested."

Not if you're good. n00b.
A few questions about startups.
Its often said that the startups are successful, especially by the venture capitalist firms who fund these startups. It is hard to say, what is intention behind the claim of saying most of the startups as successful, because as far as we could find on the internet there is not a single place which contains the facts and the figures about the success and the failure of the new ventures.

And if so that the people were successful, who were they from were did they start, were their background as modest, or where they some geeks like Einstein or from the Wharton business school?

Is there is a place where we can find who these people where and what was special in idea which made them successful? All that are stated at time are bug names like Sabeer
Bhatia, and Steve Jobs. But definitely all cant be them, and that's for sure.

In short is there any study available which can confirm or prove that taking a risk is not foolishness, but its a calculated path that could take you to success.
I have to agree.

Their admin UI is great and their staff is really helpful; but it's been days and they still haven't resolved their issues...
Ah, the good old East vs West debate of birthdate. Does it occur at conception or birth?
let me explain it.

And let me explain pi:

Pi is exactly THREE.

Actually, there's no "you" or "me" explaining it. The math behind the question is complicated and most people instantly fall into the mistake of pretending it is simple.

http://www.google.com/search?q=more+guns+less+crime

From Amazon's review,

In retrospect, it perhaps should not have been surprising that increasing the number of civilians with guns would reduce crime rates. The possibility of armed victims reduces the expected benefits and increases the expected costs of criminal activity.

Well, maybe. Maybe not.
Founders at Work. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1590597141
It's an interesting comparison between the difference between 2.0/1.0 and 3.0/2.0, but the author gives no support as to why he thinks it's education/creation for 3.0 in the future.

Do you think he's spot on, and know any reasons for or against it?
Faith can't be calculated, and it's the most unpredictable thing ever (even more unpredictable than women or children...).

And, there's no chance ever that faith will become insignificant. Look at Russia, a real religious boom now, after communism tried to kill faith...

Or look at non religious people: generally they end up treating some other important interest of their life like a religion.

Sorry, dear mister Math, you forgot some non calculable ingredient...
What we need is the iCleanSweep to eliminate home invaders and clean the floors.
How many years was it before Google started running ads? And let's not even talk about biotech.
You missed the East Bay beyond the mountains (San Ramon, Alamo, Lafeyette, Pleasanton, Walnut Creek) and Marin. Less expensive than Saratoga and much better places if you have a family than Cupertino or (shudder) Milpitas. There are quite a few large companies in both places ( Fair Isaac, PeopleSoft, Sybase, Chevron )
Does Google Gears = Global Grid?
Can Google use Google Gears as a global grid platform?