skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
You know you're obsessed with getting into YC when...
You know you're obsessed with getting into YC when...

10) You custom tailored your application demo with Paul Graham in mind. When discussing your demo with your cofounder, you've started your sentences with "When Paul Graham visits the site..."

9) You've spent many late night arguing with your cofounder about the exact wording of each answer to the application questions. You copied and pasted into MS Word so that you can do a word count on your answers.

8) You had a mini panic attack when you hit the "save" button on your application and got presented with an expired link message. Then you were really relieved when you hit the back button and realized that because you use Firefox, the form data is still there.

7) You've marked November 3 on your calendar

6) You scrutinize every word that Paul Graham writes on Hacker News

5) You click on "pg" and click on "submissions" to read all the submissions that Paul Graham has made....and then you click on "comments" to read all the comments that he made and then the original submissions to those comments.

4) You are very careful about the comments that you post on Hacker News because you're afraid that Paul Graham will think you're stupid and that it will be the reason for you not getting accepted into YC.

3) You compulsively check your demo because you're paranoid that your server will crash right when Paul Graham visits your site.

2) You've searched your email inbox for "Paul Graham" just in case your accidentally overlooked an email from him

1) You check your server logs on a daily basis to look for a non-familiar IP Address. When you find one, you do an IP Lookup to see if it originated from Boston. Then you get disappointed when you realize it's some random crawler probing your site, or worse yet, you realize it was you visiting your own site.

I decided to write this because I was driving home tonight and starting thinking about all the crazy things that I've done with my coworker over the last 4 weeks trying to get an interview with YCombinator. It culminated today when, during work, my cofounder and I realized that our demo was offline because his cable modem had died. Fearing that PG would visit our non-functioning demo today, we skipped lunch and quickly drove to his home and moved his Mac Mini server to my girlfriend's dorm room at Stanford, whom I had called 30 minutes earlier to beg to use her internet connection until October 18th. We picked up some fast food on the way home and made it back just in time for my 1:00pm meeting. What a crazy day!

Feel free to submit your own stories. Good luck to everyone!
Joyent Accelerators ( http://www.joyent.com ) are flexible, and they're the "official" Ruby on Rails host. They also happen to offer the best control panel (Virtualmin, of course). The only negative might be that Accelerators are Solaris systems--I don't have any complaints about that, but if you're accustomed to Linux, it might be a bit of a learning curve.

Slicehost ( http://www.slicehost.com ) has a good reputation. Their Xen systems are not over-subscribed and they know their business.

Media Temple (http://www.mediatemple.com ) had a good reputation until recently...but I'm sure it was a temporary setback. They're technically savvy. They're using a kind of quirky virtualization layer (Virtuozzo) which, when over-subscribed even a little bit (and sometimes even when not), exhibits serious memory issues.

Gridzones ( http://www.gridzones.com ) is another Solaris zones based host, and they have some reasonable plans. It's a smaller shop, so probably gives more personal service. Tell Phil that Joe from Virtualmin sent you (I dunno if it'll get you a discount, but he'll be happy to hear from you). They start at $15, which is hard to beat (you probably want more space than that, though...). They're also Virtualmin friendly, when appropriate (i.e. when you have enough space/memory for full service hosting).

If you're wanting to spend a little more, The Planet and Server Beach both offer dedicated boxes starting at around $69, I think. I've used both for years with very few complaints.
You check your server logs on a daily basis to look for a non-familiar IP Address. When you find one, you do an IP Lookup to see if it originated from Boston. Then you get disappointed when you realize it's some random crawler probing your site, or worse yet, you realize it was you visiting your own site.

I must be missing something. How could you possibly not recognize your own IP address?
This should be renamed to, "You know you're obsessed with Paul Graham when..."
My ip address changes on occasion. Also, I checked my demo from work, which had an IP that I didn't recognize right away
I've been with Media Temple almost a year now, but I recently dropped it because they were having major problems this week (which gave me a headache since it was right before the YC submission).

yeah Mediatemple has it's pros:
- really good customer service (24/7) phone support
- an out of this world web admin ui (nothing compares)
- decent pricing

Unfortunately I can't recommend it because in the end it's about having a reliable and relatively fast website of which MT is not known for. Even with a grid server account maxed to 1GB and a separate database instance, it's still somewhat slow (and this is when their network is not being attacked...). Their technology looks really good theoritically but in real life it just doesn't work...
If your ip allocation is not static then it can change
"...noble peace price..."
Ask News YC: What market is your startup in?
Hello, I'd like to introduce myself. I'm an applicant for this YC funding cycle, and would love to get to know some of you guys+girls.

I'm curious as to what market your startup/idea is in? If you feel like sharing.

Mine is about on-demand software/SaaS.

I expect all of us will be sharing more soon. I am missing community feeling on this board, hence this post to generate some introductions.

Really look forward to meeting you, these are exciting times.
I'm not a YC applicant; but I'm doing online backups, with an emphasis on security.
Thanks for the post. So you're already in the market and launched?
I'm kind of wondering what all the obsession is about? Not that that's not ok, but, although I'm sure it is very nice to get into YC, does your business idea really depend on it?

I'm rather torn - don't really need YC for the core biz but for sure would love to experience those famed crazy three months.

All the best Edward, who knows maybe we'll meet on Nov 3rd.
No, I'm still writing code. I'm not applying to YC because (a) I'm a sole founder, (b) I can't move to the bay area (unless someone wants to pay my medical bills, I need to stay in Canada where things are mostly free), and (c) I'm busy leading an opera orchestra on the November 3rd/4th weekend.
This does not make any mention of Nokia's mobile content push. Nokia is quickly becoming more than just a handset manufacturer. If you dont believe me just look at all of the startups they have acquired recently. If I were Apple I would be very concerned.
That's really nice - a musician. Anyway sign me up if you have some kind of launch newsletter, I'd love to know more. Let me know if you need any advice or opinion, or want to exchange ideas.
I'm sure that TeXmacs is great, but that alone isn't enough to get people to switch.
I understand the aversion to drowning users with ads, but still, many sites use ads without nauseating the users to generate decent ad revenue. Why was it so hard to do it for reddit?
You're diluting news.yc, man. Take it to reddit. What makes yc news /valuable/ is that it's not diluted with off-topic stuff. You weaken that when you make non-startup, non-code-related posts.
Yeah... if nothing else, it seems like something worth experiencing.
That is surprisingly easy to get running and fun to watch. The logfile I hooked it up to is not nearly as active as the one in the video, but it's kind of cool because my attention drifts away and then it starts suddenly jumping around.

It would be pretty awesome for a monitor-in-the-lobby sort of thing.
Hi Rob, my cofounder and I are doing genetic testing.
We are making a collaborative business webapp that integrates project and task management using constraint enabled workflows that you can template and interconnect. In a sense, our system establishes workflow as the spine of business networking, allowing businesses internally (staff) and externally (with their customers and vendors) to collaborate on any project. We have been coding since January and are finally launching our private beta next week. (Email us if your're interested in a peek)
http://StreamFocus.com
WoW - is this a YC pratical joke, an applicant's PR stunt or an Internet MeMe. Hmmmm, I leaning towards a MeMe.
That's awesome - I'd love to, just sent you an email.
Does YCombinator each semester fund 20 or sometimes it is less?

Also, who are the other organizations like YCombinator?
MS Word? Uh oh... doesn't sound like hacker material to me;-)
They fund however many they think are qualified.

Techstars directly copied the model, Seedcamp is inspired by YC and invests a little more for a bigger stake.

Two VCs, Lightspeed and Highland Capital have summer programs for student entrepreneurs.
Can you explain further? DNA comes to mind, are you talking about that? Or unit tests that go through an evolution process?
The focus of Hacker News is going to be anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes a lot more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

http://ycombinator.com/hackernews.html
Checked out your homepage, you have a good project description.

I had the same problem you had: being overwhelmed with tasks in my task management software. I solved it quite simply by marking certain tasks as "in progress". That allows me to see what I should be focusing on - and if I'm not, I re-evaluate where I am at, and set different tasks to "in progress" that make more sense.

For sure not as thought out as your solution - yet it has been working fine for me. Yours is for a team though, much more complex/interesting problem. Nice work & thoughts.
He was/is simply one who is convinced that it can be done simpler/better.

We all need this attitude...
That field is so interesting, however, I am not sure why people would want to test for the "HIV-gene"? So that they can "screw around" with an easier mind afterwards? But it doesn't seem to indicate 100% resistance, so what good is it?
site:news.ycombinator.com hosting

It's been discussed before. I've been happy with Layered Tech.
It provides peace of mind to certain individuals, it does not allow anyone to have unprotected sex. It is more explicitly useful to those that have HIV because the mutation indicates the disease's rate of progression.

I think this field is incredibly interesting and am looking forward to watching this amazing technology improve over the next five years.
DNA testing, we have one test we're launching now but hope to expand in the marketplace as funds allow.
There are actually 4 partners that comprise YC. So PG may not be the only person reviewing you app/demo..
Funny pictures (love the iSheep), but very week argumentation.
I don't think it's a great argument.
Perhaps Apple will beat Nokia in America, but since America is about 5 years behind Europe/Asia in mobile technology it's pretty irrelevant anyway.
I just saw a guy in my dorm print this article out and post it outside his room. We live in SV.
Wow, I am just amazed by this.

I cannot speak from the perspective of an entrepreneur, but in my current situation, I always stand when presenting to customers and suppliers. It's more professional and more respectful. Sitting down is body language for "I don't think highly enough of you to keep standing." Some may disagree; I learned that the hard way.
"If Microsoft and Yahoo want to add Twitter functionality to their communication and publishing tools--which is now a competitive imperative--they can build this functionality themselves, or...buy Twitter. The first option, by the way, has failed miserably in the past. For example, Yahoo's soft-phone VOIP service is nowhere compared to Skype (which is saying something, given that Skype isn't exactly knocking the cover off the ball)."

I don't think you can really compare writing a 'twitter like app' with a VOIP service.
Rewriting twitter would probably take a day or 2 surely.
Compositing should always he used over inheritance where possible, in my opinion. However, claiming inheritance should never be used is a bit unrealistic. There are times when it is a useful and logical choice.
Three-Dimensional Home Printers Could Disrupt Economy
Inkjet Printers Used to Make 3-D Biological Structures
I submitted my startup which is in private beta now, as well as detailed three other concepts.

Im a sole founder, but didn't let that stop me from submitting!

I think I have an interesting story, as my startup has been created over many months with the help from others all over the world(Washington D.C.,Sydney, Mumbai, Helsinki & Prague).

We will see though.... Good Luck to everyone!
Sometimes it's also helpful to experiencing good usability. So I suggest using OS X, after awhile I found myself looking at software in a different way.
great!

forgive my noobery, but who is the person in the second poster?
It will be fascinating to see this play out. My wife creates resin sculptures ( http://camilleart.com ), and I know firsthand how time-consuming the process is. With a 3D scanner, she could sell her figurines online and let people print/decorate their own, like Munny ( http://www.kidrobot.com/html/munny3/gallery.html ) except with no fabrication, storage, distribution, middlemen, or shipping... literally just a website and some ultra-cheap bandwidth. An artist's dream!

I wonder if these printers will become cheap/efficient with the same speed that computers and websites did. If so, what a fascinating time that will be, when the digital world can yield tangible, three dimensional results.

At the same time, reading stories like this, I think back to some of the hilarious Popular Science stories I've read about hoverboards and robot assistants...
Power line explodes at Yscaper, productivity destroyed
I think this is more real than hoverboards :) I'm looking forward to printing out architectural models (of the building kind) myself when the price is right.
Interesting, out of 28 voters, 9 voted up :-)
What's your startup? What is your trick or tricks? Speak freely!
Hehe, yeah, but I've just read so many stories gushing about all these totally crazy things which will happen in -- wait for it! (but not too long) -- THE FUTURE. And a lot of them have seemed practical/obvious/awesome, but in the end, they either never happened, or didn't come close to expectations. The problem is, obviously, that predicting the future is a fool's game, because your chances of getting anything right seem to decrease exponentially with the reach of your prediction.

The Segway for example -- remember that insane buildup in 2001? 'IT' was going to change the world -- a technological revolution, over a decade in the making by a mad scientist living on a secluded private island. Steve Jobs said it was going to be as big a deal as the personal computer, and one of the most-bandied-about bits of PR claimed that it would be the basis of future cities.

Not that Segways suck or failed miserably, but man, that was some weapons-grade hype.

Anyway, I'm not really that pessimistic about this, just trying to temper my enthusiasm. While waiting to see how the 3D printer market turns out, I guess I'll check up and see when my standard-issue flying car will arrive...
Innovation Becoming More Open - Economist Special Report
"standardized procedures" are a very, very important thing. I founded five small companies in the last 15 years and helped a few other founders to start their businesses. One of the big problems i never found a solution for within the process of "standardization starting a startup" is having a tool for the organisation of all the companies' information - i needed a "mini-SAP" for that and i found nothing. So i startet vitool.com. What kind of software do you suggest for your founders, that is simple & cheap and can grow with them?
Djisktra (or however you spell it) I think ??
Who is Paul Graham?

Just kidding :-).

Actually I wonder if I will win any points for developing my system on the CLISP platform. BTW does anyone know why Paul didn't end up using CLISP for Viaweb?
We did use CLisp.
Really, I though I read/was told that you guys switched over to a commercial LISP when you delivered.

Hmm. Nice. Did they ask you if you extended it any way?
Also out of curiousity did you run it as an executable image in the production version?
Non-US Visa Applicants to the US - Don't You Think It's Time We Compared Notes?
OK, I'll kick things off. In our case, we have a US founder and two UK founders, a further two US employees, and a UK employee.. We started life as a UK limited company, and then incorporated a US Delaware parent co. So now the UK company is wholly owned by the Delaware corporation, and all the shareholders hold stock only in the US co.

Sound complicated? It is, but entirely doable and we negotiated fixed fees and payment deferral with our US lawyers (UK lawyers are twice the price by the way..).

This was not the most efficient way of getting from zero to functioning company, but it has presented us with some interesting options for visas.

Firstly, the UK guys (founders and employee) can be employees of the UK company and get B1 visas for the US for the first twelve months . Physically, we can be in US, but be paid by the UK entity.

We can do this for 12 months than get E2 (Treaty Investor) visas so long as the US parent continues to be at least 50% owned by UK nationals.

Or we can decamp the whole team to Europe for the first year where it's pretty straightforward to get work permits, and get our heads down over there before returning to the US.

We can work in the UK for a year and go back to the US on L1 (intra-company transferee) visas.
OR
We can work in the UK for a year and in that time try for H1Bs (application due in March 1, visas would be valid from October 2008). And a couple of us would probably pass muster as 'Individuals of Extraordinary Ability (the O1 visa) coming to do work in the US in the area of our abilities.

So that's our pretty unique situation - however, perhaps there's a lesson there? From the very beginning, explore having two companies - European and US - to give yourself the maximum number of options.
mine is productivity combined with issue tracking [i.e. issue tracking combined with effective planning methology] (issuesdone.com)
Skip Google Earth for YouTube vids, use Mappeo instead
This is my project.
Feedback and suggestions are appreciated. Thanks!
I still can't believe that people in general will volunteer to be monitored to such a big degree. What exactly is the value of having person x listed as a friend on page y, if you already know that person x is a friend anyway (because they sent you an email sometime...)?

I guess relationship management tools are and will be important, but please leave the information on my PC. The world doesn't need to know.

I suppose Xobni are up to something: it would be useful to access information about friends at a mouseclick (ie search web for their email-address or openId or whatever).
As Its Stock Tops $600, Google Faces Growing Risks
The chart is interesting.

What makes the "Hard Work" in Phase II different from the hard work in Phase I?
"We can do this for 12 months than get E2 (Treaty Investor) visas so long as the US parent continues to be at least 50% owned by UK nationals".

why can't you get the e2 visas from the start? that's a great visa to have.

"We can work in the UK for a year and in that time try for H1Bs"

the buxfers successfully applied for H1bs for their own companies
Physicists are faced with the same problem as Madonna
Physicists would die to have what is epsilon to Madonna. What physicists get from Big Publisher is not even epsilon. It is zero. Physicists give away their product to Big Publisher for free.
Seven Questions Employees Should Ask Before Joining a Startup
There are many benefits associated with joining a startup as an employee at any level (energized work atmosphere, little bureaucracy, upside), but there are many significant risks coupled with them as well. Of course, a prospective employee should ask numerous questions of both his/her role and the company before joining any firm, but there is a set of questions specific to joining a startup that people should pose.
I don't understand the sequence. Was he selling the painkillers in his shop? Or just being friendly?
Ties are an abomination. They are the apex of everything that is wrong with western civilization; the culmination of fluff utterly drained of whatever utility they once may have had. Ties are the peacock feather of man. OSHA should ban them as an occupational hazard. An MSDS should be required to be provided with each tie sale.

It is a little known fact that the B-Ark contained all the neckties from Golgafrincham in additiion to the hairdressers, telephone sanitizers and others. The Golgafrincham neckties were initially considered as the form of legal tender on prehistoric Earth, however, it was discovered that it was too difficult to tie a proper Full Windsor with a leaf.

"People with ropes around their necks don't always hang."
Summary:
- Value is an exponential on total time (with a base >1)
- Odds of success are an exponential on total time (with a base <1)
- Making the growth and success happen both take a lot of work

Therefore, if it's worth it to you to put in that work, and can tolerate the risk, build. If not, try to trick someone into buying you when your value is mostly hype. Good advice, if a little obvious.
hostingPride Networks, http://www.hostingPride.net - is also a good shared webhosting company. They support both php4 & php5. They are new in the market, but their management is quite dedicated to their job.
I don't think it is legal to apply for an H1 in a company where you have significant ownership.
This may sound like a stupid question, but how did you meet some of your international cohorts? Old fashioned IRC Chat or elance? I've been talking wtih my co-founders about getting some great help internationally, but I just don't know where to start. Any resources from anybody?
Look at recent winners and see if you can spot the pattern.
How much do you want to spend? If you have $69 a month or so, get your own dedicated server (try to find one that is not solely using bandwidth from Cogent). If you want to pay less, go to webhostingtalk.com and look over the VPS Offers section.
We don't consider only technical ability. Character and judgement also count.
that's not true, all you need is for someone other than yourself to sign the petition.
I am just not as turned on by sarcasm as many would like..
Code by the beach, then get bought
My startup is in Manila, Philippines - one hour away from some of the best beaches in the world. What fun!
I'm curious about #4 - "What is the plan for exit strategy and its timeframe?" - isn't that a little presumptuous for a first date?
We want to change the world of politics- web-based CRM. App was for a simple communications tool that would allow you to easily complain to government.

Our first product was Fantasy Congress <www.fantasycongress.com>, we made that as a hobby first and then received amazing press coverage on it and should have applied to YC last summer. We made the choice to ditch our post-grad plans and are bootstrapping out of Washington DC (but man do we want to get back to where the tech is). Our second product is an election game which we're working on with a media partner, but the YC application we've submitted is going to be the core of how we're going to help make political communication more effective.