skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Ok, I see why they did it, now they need to advertise the fact on their home page for everyone to see.

Pretty asinine to call yourselves a security company and then just role over like this-- no court fight, no resistance.

Further, this also goes to show that any company in a MLAT country is vulnerable to being made to turn over the information you're paying them to keep private.

and of course, given the way the US is going they will always have an excuse for getting this info- drugs, terrorism, pedophilia., but as we have seen in the past these excuses are a veneer that wears thin and it becomes outright spying.

Hushmail is now compromised- and they didn't even resist. Any further breaches won't even be newsworthy, and the feds know they will role over... so any time a hushmail.com adddress comes up in an investigation, they'll just demand the info.
Yep. Joel Spolsky summarized the risk/reward imbalance in an article:
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/VC.html

This one is a bit more personal and rather bitter: "An Engineer's View of Venture Capitalists".
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/careers/careerstemplate.jsp?Art...

This guy's main experience was in the 1980s, so it doesn't take into account technical people who got rich in the 90s boom and then went into VC. So things may have somewhat improved, in that you might find VCs who really grok your idea. Nevertheless, that doesn't address the mismatch of incentives.
Ok, if Facebook would pull the app, I could add Facebook to my anti-lobby list ;-) The point is not being on Facebook especially, it is putting a number to the bad publicity. Pissing one customer off is one thing, pissing off one hundred another. It could actually be a valuable service for the targeted companies. They already have "retention scores" for single customers, maybe they would be happy to be able to compute retention scores for groups.

I don't care so much for random complaints voiced on the internet, because they are not by my friends whom I trust.

I am actually a bit concerned about painting too bleak a picture about some companies. For example, if a company shifts a huge number of products, there are bound to be some random problems. That way it might appear as if company X has much worse customer service than company Y, even though company X has ten times better customer service than company Y (ie if X sells 100 times more products than Y).

And sometimes it is really the customer who is being obnoxious. Hopefully in that case the customer's friends would tell him to let go, or at least not support the case.
Positive review of Disqus on Uncov
What is a dichotomous key? If you find a workable way to make people find somebody they only know by sight, you will definitely score big, in my opinion.
You presume you have to have a cofounder...even that having a cofounder is an advantage-- while you recognize the results of having one.

I'm telling you that there is no significant advantage of consensus management-- that there is a big detriment.
Facebook Everywhere
You deserve more than an up-vote. Here is a hug. Thanks!
Exactly. And be aware of the risks. As a solo founder you need people you can bounce ideas off of. (And in my opinion this is the purpose of an advisory board, or even friends who have no skin in the game)... and as a group of co-founders you have the serious risk of conflict among the group.
I thought you had a gene splicing product. Why did they comapre you to yahoo?
After I read the details of Facebook's social ads I wasn't too impressed... Although I believe in social ads, and I think this is the future of the advertising industry, I thought Facebook's attempt was weak... I have already seen what they launched (with all the hype), on other existing networks such as Myspace and Sugar Network (although Sugar is not using it as advertising but have the very same thing as pages and the procedure of members adding the brands to their profiles)

What I was waiting for was an announcement that FB will use its power of information to target ads to its members, all over the web

This article mentions this, and if its true then I am excited

also here is a quote from Dave Winer that I love
"Advertising will get more and more targeted until it disappears, because perfectly targeted advertising is just information."
I'll try. Some are not easy to classify though.
Actually, I'm not confusing them, PG is. What I advocate is having a single leader, and whether you call employees 2-4 "co-founders" or not, they all know who is boss.

PG thinks that you have to have consensus and multiple founders all with an equal say. Thus, multiple leaders.

The whole cofounder thing has taken on quite a weird perspective-- I think because PG doesn't have much experience with it, but is adamant, and most of his readers have never worked for a startup, let alone started one, so they believe he's preaching the gospel.

There has to be a leader, that's my point.
Ad Networks Are the New Dot-Coms
Dauntless--

No need to warn me, I've seen the strife of having co-founders, and I've seen the harmony of having a solo found er and co-founder teams that lasted 20 years.

I don't think its a factor of finding "good" co-founders. I think unless you have known the person a long time, you can't know if they are "good" or not- its not whether they are good or not, as the most earnest, responsible, loyal and considerate founder may still be the death of your company. Its fundamental to the nature of trying to manage a company by consensus.

Consensus management doesn't work- or we'd be up to our ears in all the communes the hippies started in the 60s and 70s.
lazynews.yc: If it restricts by your username, then all you have to do is clear your cookies and you can look at the site, right? You won't be able to comment, but you can read everything.

I guess we are going to have to exercise some self-control. That's fine.

PS. It is a great feature though!
My original post was based on my experience. PG responded with absolute (and absolutely asinine) claims about statistics. I'd like to see him provide some evidence. Giving him more "starting cred" is the problem with the YC way of doing things- its a cult of personality and the personality in question gives some good advice but also some bad advice.

However, you can look at any list of the richest people, or any list of successful startups, and you'll note that most of them were founded by individuals. Though you gotta restrict your data to companies that have lasted a decade or so- otherwise you havent' given the founding teams time to split apart.
actually, most of the companies I've worked for were started by an individual, and most of the successful ones were as well.

But my point is that there has to be someone in charge. You can have "cofounders" so long as they know that the buck stops with you. (Or you can be a cofounder so long as you know the buck stops with someone.)
I also think you need to find someone that is as dedicated as you are, and if not they make it clear and you will be compensated appropriately... the worst thing is to find yourself working with someone that is not as enthusiastic or committed about the project as you are ... for instance, if you work full-time on the project and your partner decides that he needs to have a job and work part time with you, there would eventually be problems ...

Also try to find someone that can complement you, i.e. if you know your weaknesses then find someone that is strong at those (of course things that matter to your business)
Build your own track record (by writing code). After all, having a 4.0 GPA isn't much of a differentiator, and GPA is a poor indicator of programming ability anyway.

It's possible to get a good programming job without a college degree as long as you've done enough interesting coding projects outside of school. I didn't have any trouble landing interviews after I got kicked out of college, and I chalk this up almost entirely to the fact that I was able to fill out my resume with hobby projects I'd done previously. With a barren resume I would've been dismissed at the first filter, regardless of what I claimed to be able to do.
I personally would be most interested in web companies founded in the last 10 years; I think that conditions have changed a lot recently. The Alexa top 100 would be a good-enough proxy. I pledge One Upvote to whoever hunts that data down.
For instance, look at plentyoffish.com

Not only did this guy not get a cofounder, he has never gotten any employees. He's making millions by himself, a total solo effort.

In fact there area lot of examples out there of people doing this... many of them are of the professional blogging/seo/domainer variety. What people on here would deride as "lifestyle businesses" (Personally I don't think you get to deride someone's choices until you've done better than them.)

But further, there's a whole movement of "micro-isvs" - a poor term as it came from someone with a microsoft perspective-- but these are people who make software themselves and sell it. Many of these businesses are on their way to becoming large enterprises. Omni Group is an example of one that's had several years, but Delicious Monster is one that's only been at it a few years- very successful, good number of employees now, single founder. And of course there's scores more.

You know, what we really need is a version of TechCrunch- but one that covers these non-VC backed startups- the companies that won't get coverage in TechCrunch because they are not following the latest fad and burning money on lavish parties to invite Michael Arrington to. For all the little companies you never heard of on TecCrunch there are other little companies who are going to be more successful ... but are under the radar now. I think this is what leads to a distorted perspective of the startup landscape.
And don't for a second think that getting a cofounder is a requirement for success.
Hey, don't forget that Paul Allen left Microsoft with cancer. Once he went into remission, he didn't go back to work, he decided to take care of himself and put his billions to use. Pretty easy decision, IMO.

Woz never wanted to run a company, he just wanted to build stuff. (Shameless plug for Chapter 3 of Jessica's book, Founders at Work).

For every example you cite, there's probably a new story line.
I've got three more for you:

1) Industry rule number 4,080: record company people are shady.

2) Guns, bitches and bling were never part of the Four Elements, and never will be.

3) Do not let your own industry degenerate into a self-promoting cesspit of inbred attitudes that... well, never mind.
Let's make a mega list, I will make a web form (when I have time, probably not today) that has
Company | # founders | current market cap | exited (boolean)

A few I know the startup story:
OpenText | 3 | 1.7 billion | F
Janna Systems | 1 | 1.1 billion | T
Crazy expensive.
4.0 GPA shows the other side of you: discipline, be able to set your priority, focused and of course, intelligence. You wouldn't get 4.0 if you're not smart, except if you go to Podunk college.

Of course it doesn't necessarily translate to good programming ability because one has no 10 years programming experience. But it's what people perceived to be "RAW talent".

By the way, there are people who are good at programming but not great at solving complex problem. There's a reason why Google hired PhD and MSc to build the search engine. Compare that to Reddit people. Reddit people can code I give them that, but they can't write a site "search" feature.
A VC: The Rise And Fall Of The Venture Business
Track your time spent in various apps and websites, down to the minute
PG mentioned having News.yc cut you off automatically, to encourage people to get work done.

I think a stronger solution is simply measuring the amount of time you spend on various sites/programs, and then adjusting your schedule appropriately.

I had mentioned one MyDreamApp application that would have done that, but the application was never finished.

Rescuetime.com is now sending out invitations to their beta, and they look to do exactly what I had described- Track the time you spend. Everywhere.

I have no association to the site, but it might be worth checking out for busy News.YCers trying to get a handle on their schedule
PG mentioned having News.yc cut you off automatically, to encourage people to get work done.

I think a stronger solution is simply measuring the amount of time you spend on various sites/programs, and then adjusting your schedule appropriately.

I had mentioned one MyDreamApp application that would have done that, but the application was never finished.

Rescuetime.com is now sending out invitations to their beta, and they look to do exactly what I had described- Track the time you spend. Everywhere.

I have no association to the site, but it might be worth checking out for busy News.YCers trying to get a handle on their schedule
I would give you five upvotes if I could. There's nothing like data to inform a disagreement. Many thanks.
Record amount of private equity raised gives entrepreneurs an upper hand
When I saw the title I thought it had to be fake, but it's true. This may be the first time I've seen "positive" and "uncov" used together.
Ask YC: What did YC see in Disqus? why are they special?
I used Disqus and liked it, and would like to congratulate them on their recent launch. But this is a very competitive market. Disqus is doing a good job, but I am not too clear how (in a major way) they differentiate from others. But they are getting lots of support from important bloggers. I know they were funded by Y Combinator and spent the summer in Boston.

I believe launching a product is as important (if not more important) than the idea, and getting it developed. These guys have had a great launch. I want to learn from them.

Here are my questions:

Q1: Knowing there is many competition out there (but not exactly any clear leaders!) what made them interesting to Y Combinator, why were they chosen?

Q2: Why so much hype and support (and so many positive reviews all over the place)? is it because of Y Combinator connections and support or there is more to it?

Q3: How big is this market and the potential of this business (if things workout for them) that got YC to invest?

Note: I am not arguing whether they deserve it or not, and I am not questioning their product (but you could!) I just don't think they have revolutionized, there is many competition and they get the most attention, and I believe this kind of support could make or break a product.

Few similar products: SezWho, Intense Debate, Tangler, JS-Kit, CoComment ...
Final Decisionmaker versus Consensus
BitGeek has made two assertions that have led to much debate:

(1) It is common for successful startups to have single founders.

(2) A structure with a final decisionmaker will work better than a structure where decisions must be made by consensus.

I think (1) depends a lot on how you define cofounder. I'm not interested in extensive discussion about it; I might want to read a summary after it all dies down.

For (2) I am interested in extensive discussion, whether it's statistics, anecdotes, or just supposition. Can people please comment on this posting only with ideas about (2) and leave the word "cofounder" out of it?
They're special cuz they're Aggies! Go Davis!!!
Excellent question. Maybe they have future features planned that will distinguish them?
Pyglet is now out in public beta
A 4.0 GPA just shows that you can do all of the rote busy work and that you care about your GPA. It shows that you can memorize enough of the crap to regurgitate it on the test. Smart people can do that too, but you don't need to be smart to get a 4.0. You just need to give the professor whatever (s)he expects. If you want to do well in school, you'd do best to not think and just do exactly what you're told. This is the secret to earning a 4.0 GPA.

I agree that a 4.0 GPA shows "discipline", so if you're looking to raise an army of robots, you probably would do best to reject anyone who doesn't have a 4.0 GPA. I disagree that it indicates your "priorities" are straight -- all it shows is that your priorities are aligned with the priorities that are socially prescribed, not that you have your priorities figured out. Why should someone place a high importance on GPA? Isn't it just a waste of time and effort? Aren't happiness, learning, and curiosity more important?

"By the way, there are people who are good at programming but not great at solving complex problem."

I fully agree. But I think the implication here is that people with a 4.0 are good at solving complex problems. If so, that's total bullshit. You can get through a Computer Science degree never solving any hard problem nor thinking at all. You have to copy the example the professor gives and follow his recommendation as closely as possible. If you show any creativity or thought, you will be punished.

People with a 4.0 who solve hard problems aren't able to solve problems because of their 4.0s -- they are able to solve them despite their 4.0s. They were able to get a 4.0 GPA without turning into a robot, now that is impressive!

If I was hiring programmers, I wouldn't dismiss someone for having a 4.0 GPA, but having a 4.0 doesn't tell me anything useful about them at all. They still have to prove themselves to me, from scratch. Having a 4.0 would put up one barrier though: they'd have to also show me that they didn't have a robot's personality.

/if it isn't already obvious from the acerbic tone of this post, yes, I had a bad time in the school system :)
even if this is true, this will only answer question 1, but what about question two? why are they getting so much attention from everyone?
Ask YC: Suggest a good IDE for Scheme please. 
Or am I doomed with DrScheme.
Very cool. Sometimes though, i think this is an ambiguous topic. There doesnt seem to be a strict definition of a founder?

Ian
Perhaps, but with every media source erring on the other side of the argument, this article is simply a reality check, and has to err on the side of negativity to get its point across.
I know the readership here does not represent the general population of the internet, but have any of you ever purchased a product/service from an ad served up in a non-search context?
the domain name
What's wrong with DrScheme?

Here's a Scheme editor plugin for Eclipse:

http://schemeway.sf.net/

I use emacs myself.
If this is obvious, why do we keep hearing the same stories over and over about how easy it is to succeed with software startups? The "low barrier to entry" and other stuff that's mentioned even in these comments?

Low cost of entry isn't really an advantage since everyone is experiencing it at once. Whom do you have an advantage over when we can all build the same website in the same amount of time and host it for the same amount of money?

As always, winning in this game comes down to building something unique that is also difficult for others to build, marketing, and luck. I don't think a lot people building new web apps these days understand this.
I assume that in this context, founders are the people whose names show up on the incorporation filing.
"almost all of them founded by more than one person"

You can see why I might get that impression...
'why are they getting so much attention from everyone?'

Its called a PR firm, and they take care of bombing every worthy media outlet with a tailored-made hyper-inflated story on how they will change the world (a.k.a 'Press release').

They are generally expensive, but are often worth every penny since they have contacts in all the major media departments, which in turn create this type buzz. Wait till their PR budget runs out, then we will see if the software stands on its own.
He treated scribd alright too:
http://www.uncov.com/2007/4/26/scribd-you-re-alright
Is there any substantial point to institutional higher education today? The only possibilities I can think of are:
1. Research that isn't tied down by practical concerns.
2. Professors can help people learn the material faster than on their own.

1 is good, and from my very limited knowledge seems to be fairly strong, but fading, in academia. 2, of course, depends on the person, and the emphasis on grades can slow a person down, as you say. I'm churning through the busy work right now in my courses, since grades still matter at least for their appearance.

In my opinion, our educational model needs to be majorly revamped, or augmented. I know a couple people here went to Amherst, and I quite liked what I saw on their website.
Maybe because they're good? Even the Uncov guy likes it! :)
sure PR firms can help ... but there is not way you can get Fred Wilson to use the product before its launched, or get Dave Winer to try it out... or its not even that easy to get TechCrunch, and many other A List bloggers to write about your product... some of these blogs are big because no PR firm can get them to just publish the stuff, they are very picky... And of course if an average person wants TechCrunch to write about their product they will have very little chance to get any attention, but if I can get PG to ask TechCrunch, then its a different story, which is fair since they know who PG is and they know their time is not being wasted, whereas its hard to know what other people thinking...

They have surely had great PR and they have probably got advice on what they should do, but what they are getting back is not simply because they are willing to spend dollars on a PR firm ... and if it is, and there are such influential PR firms please introduce them to me
I wish we had money for a PR firm. I couldn't write a press release to save my life (and thus haven't). :P
could i get an invite code?
bkmrkr at yahoo.com
Thanks
Is this a YC company? I'm always nervous about installing software on my personal computer. What's the assurance that this isn't a keylogger or that they are reporting all the data they collect back to their servers?
Yeah I thought the two were mutually exclusive...

Perhaps this comment on the Uncov article explains it:

"subtext: persai is going to launch soon...crap, better start making some friends"
Jason & Daniel make a great team?
PG doesn't ask TC to write stories for his companies. TC asks PG. YC is a quality filter - it works for follow-on investors, acquirers, and press alike.

edited: I didn't intend for this comment to be insulting. "TC asks PG" was hyperbole. What I meant to get across is that TC is interested in writing about YC companies because YC acts as a good filter for all the stuff that comes across Arrington's inbox.
what do you mean by they? the team or the product? ... if the product, then how did YC knew it was going to be good... and it takes more than being good to convince people to take a look at your product .... I think they are good but I don't see how they are so different from other ones... specially since they are so late in the game ... when you are late and you have a product that has social aspects to it, you need to do a lot more than being good in order to compete ... you have a major disadvantage and thats network effects (maybe not as crucial here since no one has really gained it yet, but once someone does its very hard to compete) ... also its not that easy to convince a blogger to switch from their current commenting system to a new one, specially that they have created an archive for themselves, and many of the current systems do not let you move your content around (i.e. at the end of the day you don't really own your comments)