Keios

maxklien,

1.My own perspective is that it does not matter whether it is a 6 or a 7 and who interprets it how. That is the whole point of a subjective system it is not objective.

2. I believe subjective systems should not use numbers or other notations and therefore I suggest a slider not 10 radio buttons or a rating system.

3. I do not imply that the binary/objective system is no good. It is good for some applications, I would just prefer a more subjective measure around things which incorporate human opinion.

:)

PG, I think this is useful for your current setup.

But I think this whole 'bubble popular stuff up' is a tad off. Its too binary, IMO humans aren't all that binary - not all of us anyway. How about you use sliders so people can rate stuff more subjectively and you can also use relative font sizes to size up stuff which is more popular and reduce the font size on stuff that isn't. This does not mean that the text becomes too big or too small - its just a subtle change.

This will allow you to disable this whole bubbling scheme and keep things in a natural chronological order while making it easy to spot popular stuff without adding any cognitive load.

Finally, a discussion board must really have a feature that shows all 'unread' or 'updates since your last post' threads in bold or some sort of highlighting. While news.ycombinator implements the unread piece it would be helpful if it highlighted updated threads also.

How can I be sure you read this comment?

I think it is worth fixing.

The only thing Yahoo still has working for them is the huge consumer base. Some small startups with a fraction of Yahoo's size are also able to charge for services and have revenue sources beyond advertising. A service for which Yahoo users(consumers not businesses) are willing to pay, is there one? Maybe Yahoo needs to be in the same space as PayPal, they have the perfect consumer base(trust and penetration) to action something that facilitates micro-payments. The goal should be to make it as ubiquitous as a yahoo email address was in the past.

The problem isn't going to be solved by bringing in management folks, Yahoo needs a technology upgrade. They haven't done anything amazing for quite some time now - Yahoo is a fairly old company. Not enough hackers graduating from college have Yahoo on the top of their list.

PS: I know they do hosting and other stuff but that isn't a significant contributor to their revenue.

You must not have read some of the profiles which are hyperlinked in that page. Anyway, this discussion seems to have become to trivial. Cheers

Friend, I say are you 'suggesting' not 'saying'. I said this because I don't know why else you stated your salary. Maybe I was mistaken. A good dev with 3 years of experience will have to spend money on absolutely nothin else if he spends $15000 in hosting annually. Surely you are not suggesting that ALL income can be put into hosting.

You said: "Enlighten Me" - then you edited it (I think) Anyway here is something about Indian Contributors to linux, The links below will prove my point.

http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Contributors

http://news.monstersandcritics.com/india/article_1226891.php

http://linuxinindia.pitas.com/

Also: CDAC is doing some interesting work - http://www.cdac.in/

Are you suggesting the average coder earns over $80K+. I don't think so. If the average age for founders is 26, then they possibly have half your work ex, which translates to a significantly lower salary. Here we are talking about people in general not your case specifically.

Server costs can vary, but I would estimate my needs at around $1300+ within 6 months of launch (I will know exactly only once we have launched, I am hoping this turns out to be an understimation ;) and I am looking at service providers such as rackspace.com, servint.com, datapipe.com and serverbeach.com to name a few. Also what kind of servers are we talking here - in terms of hardware? Are you considering a separate db server? Can you refer me to some reliable host who has rack-mounted, dedicated servers at $250 and provides decent support.

I don't know how long most ycombinator companies get by and on how much. It might be interesting to know. I would 'assume' that $15,000 finish in the 3 months. That's a fully loaded cost of $5000 per month. Typically people and hardware are the biggest costs, because there are no employees I think the larger cost may be servers and connectivity. And so it seems server cost is significant. Maybe someone with facts can add to this.

1.As far as fashion is concerned, they do ask for both funding and contacts to sell merchandize, you should check. It is not cheap to do a ramp show in Paris or New York, it is not always succusful.I am not suggesting sponsoring visas - I never did.

2. I suggested that there is much demonstrated capability, I also suggested you do some research starting from the 1980s. I also highlighted why I think there has been lack of resident Indian success in this arena while non-resident Indians have had a better game.

3.I do not think it is difficult to identify good ideas from all over the world - YC already does it in an unorganized format. My contention is that in a virtual platform such as our trade offers us, thinking local is unnecessary and perhaps outdated baggage we carry. There is no need to deploy talent scouts or some such to find the necessary hackers, they will find YCombinator or other such oppurtunities - it just needs to be a more encouraging process than it already is.

4. I have no clue what gave you the notion of a YC United Nations save the world thingy?!

5. I am certain YC has lots to do, and I put up my thoughts for discussion on this thread that someone else started, pg has since then responded but the discussion on the Indian startup scenario can carry on nonetheless. Your comment about 'whining' is inappropriate. I will not regard it as a personal comment, just a poor choice of words - correct me if I am wrong. :)

6.I agree with your advice about hacking away and building something that people want. I hack too, have been doing it for a long while, intend to do it forever, thanks for the advice nonetheless.

7.I have some advice too, I suggest you study hosting costs along with hardware costs - there is no way any salary in Banglore(for a techie) is going to take care of your hosting costs and just how long are you planning to host for before you need help. If your startup is anygood, it will need some serious servers, If you need references for good hosting providers and thier price charts, send me an email and i will send you some. keios.titan (at) gmail. Obviously, hardware or hosting requried depends on your application. My startup project has fairly high hosting demands.

8.You said: "Do I think I am somehow entitled to them just because "I want"? certainly not!"

I said: What!?!

I would like Paul's advice and YComb's resources too, I do not think they will come to me - I will go to them.

9. Well if you suggest the humour is because i cant recall the name, then I don't see the humour. The IIT Chennai startup targets a rural population, I am not a target customer.

10. I am not in the least persuading YC to come to India, and certainly I am not betting on that. I am saying "that they should help hackers who don't know any better through all the other rigmarole involved if they shortlist them."

Its there decision and this is a discussion board you know.

Best of luck with your project, do let me know if you come to Delhi sometime :)

I am not suggesting they change rules, I am suggesting that they setup a vehicle which can help hackers understand this snakepit better. They don't need to do it themselves they can get someone to aid the shortlisted folks.

If the most important criteria for any seeding firm is how many startups exist in any given geographic area - I humbly disagree. It just indicates how easy it is to do business in a specific area, ideas and skills are not born in specific areas they occur universally. YC should actively look for great ideas from all over the world and then support the best, this may invlove moving them from thier current location, such as India, to one which is more conducive to thier pursuits, such as SV^^.The core competency for a YC type seeding company is to find talent and YCs primary service is to help hackers by providing an environment which gives them a shot. YC should be hunting for hackers who can create stuff that people want to pay for - in some fashion. Having existing startups IMO is not the criteria unless you wish to confound your judgment.

To summarize, you base your argument on a assumption that India should already be SV, while I think that is a superflous criteria for making great investment decisions as far as Tech startups go. I may well be wrong - but like you I try not to be blinkered.

PS: Please look at a wider spectrum when you talk of Tech Startups out of India, a great example is an IIT Chennai startup that works in a huge and untapped Indian rural market - can't recall the name. And that's just one, there are many more, I know of many tech startups out of New Delhi, who cater to an Indian audience.

^IMO Banglore and the Silicon Valley have very little in common - Indian tech startups are not yet geo-specific and may never be. Please don't compare Banglore with SV.

^^You may extend this logic to other industries and see that it works, Fashion comes to mind, Indian Fashion designers often also do work in Paris.

Chicken and egg indeed. Your perspective seems to be based on a very "US" centric view, which is perhaps one way to look at the issue. Needless to say entrepreneurial activity may not evolve in the same fashion in India as it did in the US. For example there may never be a specific area or city in India which becomes a Silicon Valley^(SV)

In the US specific areas/cities have historically done better in somethings - especially technology. This may never come to pass in India because of the presence of very different dynamics.

Also, you assume that India already has a world of startups - it does not, it merely has an untapped potential. I will not answer your question about programming languages that have come out of India, or Open Source intiatives - I would merely advise you to count how many Indians have contributed to similar goals in Silicon Valley, you could start back from the 1980s - I think oppurtunity called them to the US and they wisely followed. Also please check similar sources for linux, even the ubuntu flavor has Indians contributing. IMO in the future resident Indians will contribute to such projects, historically some non-resident Indians have. This is so because today's infrastructre allows us. (contd..)

IMO, YCombinator should fund startups in India. Contrary to popular belief there is significant entrepreneurial and IT activity happening here. I would not take anyone seriously who generalizes a whole nation, especially one as diverse as India, in one fell swoop. I am not saying the startup levels are anywhere on the scale of Silicon Valley, I am saying that there is sufficient talent of all types available in India. Unfortunately, these questions come up for the wrong reasons such as Visa problems. If YCombinator helped with Visas, then I don't think this question or other similar ones would pop up.

In terms of finances, the dollar goes a long mile in India and that is a plus. Perhaps a YC startup will probably run out of India in the future, especially because web startups are allowed 100% foreign ownership and foreign direct investment in India.

I thought it might be interesting to start a google group for all Indians who read Ycombinator and similar stuff and maybe want do a startup - http://groups.google.com/group/TechStartups-India Join in, lets find out how many Indians are around and lets chat/meet up :)

For the server use debian if you are going to use the server for anything serious, for your desktop you could use ubuntu. There is no reason IMHO that you would want to use ubuntu on a production server.

This is something that worries me too, from my research only Y Combinator can help if the need arises.

Nice :) The firefox browser inside accepts only fully qualified urls.

Has anyone used Schevo? How is it different from an RDBMS? Is there a way to tackle schema evolution issues in an RDBMS like PostgreSQL?

Not by choice though..just if we don't get a visa.

Folks, There are many threads running on immigration laws and visa issues, and being someone who wishes to apply for the next round of YC school this leaves me a bit uncertain. So here is my question, what if the startup is good and Ycombinator likes it but the founders have visa trouble and aren't able to come to the US. What will happen then?

Also I am from India and in India companies of foreign origin are allowed to own 100% in an Internet startup, will Ycombinator consider letting us run our company out of India if we cant manage the visas? Any clarification will help immensely. Thanks

Also, In India Internet companies/dot-coms are open to 100% Foreign Direct Investment and control. So if you start a company in India a VC or some other company can easily buy all of your stake. This could be true for other countries so check around...

Check this video from the maker of Pylons to get a good overview of WSGI - http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-872784530622495809

Folks, do you think it might be a good idea if this site checked urls for duplication when they are submitted? These urls could expire in 3 months or so..thoughts?

I am sorry, but I didnt realize that this has been posted earlier. Anyway, I hope newer folks find this of value. Perhaps I can suggest a 'feature' for news.ycombinator.com in a separate thread.

Thanks folks for your thoughts..

Does YC help with the visas?

Thank you everyone for your responses :) I was worried about the visas, but I think I need to focus on the hacking instead..

Thanks for the response sharpshoot. Would anyone know if there were any folks from India?