Hacker News Reader

attack_forgotpwon Why VCs Aren’t More Brave

Yes, I've come to realize that investors who spend the majority of the time asking me about the legality of my startup really don't have any experience with, or understanding of these types of startups.

attack_forgotpwon Ask News.YC: Proposed experiment to test "The PG bias"

Wishing and ignoring amounts to nothing.

attack_forgotpwon Ask News.YC: Proposed experiment to test "The PG bias"

Heavily skewed voting can be WORSE than having no information at all. Considering that 95% of the commenting here is disagreement, THAT'S a no-brainer.

attack_forgotpwon Ask News.YC: Proposed experiment to test "The PG bias"

You fail at statistical analysis.

attack_forgotpwon Ask News.YC: Proposed experiment to test "The PG bias"

This is easy to protect against. Just obscure pg's real name from a portion of the YC userbase.

This is really an extremely easy test to get right if we think for a minute.

attack_forgotpwon Sincere Apologies to Paul Graham and the Y Combinator Team (from the Seattle Founder's Co-op)

So everyone is a clone.

attack_forgotpwon Israel: a country too far from Mike Arrington’s house

Incorrect. He discovered that other bloggers have been providing a false view of startup landscape.

attack_forgotpwon Israel: a country too far from Mike Arrington’s house

Great point. This has always stuck out as an incredible demonstration of the failure of online tech journalism. I'm surprised that more have not written about this.

attack_forgotpwon Sincere Apologies to Paul Graham and the Y Combinator Team (from the Seattle Founder's Co-op)

That's what I assumed what they were going for. Actually, I fully support this approach.

attack_forgotpwon Why Social Communities Will Fail: Marketing Advice

It's a bit late to say that they all will fail...

I could say that for the majority of the time, face to face communications are what's failing people. It's inefficient and limiting for so many purposes.

There are times when I get more satisfaction from talking in person. When talking to the opposite sex in a non-work capacity or having beers with the guys or doing sports. For the first of those at least, 95% of the world doesn't live within constant reach of enough people to keep it interesting.

attack_forgotpwon Sincere Apologies to Paul Graham and the Y Combinator Team (from the Seattle Founder's Co-op)

YC is a clone of Google's SOC project that occurred the prior summer. Taking on multiple projects simultaneously, providing about 5k, accepting applications, three month timeline, having frequent meetings between people and mentors, bringing in outside mentors, having a day at the end for people to present their accomplishments.

It is natural to be concerned about competitors, but everyone who is being abrasive to these other angels for copying a couple aspects is harming the angel investment community overall. YC is just a couple people with a couple MM, they can't fund everyone.

Bonus similarities: appealing to the young, first session occurred immediately after google's finished, setting up mailing list forum for those interested, primary announcement occurred on slashdot.