Hacker News Reader

dtapon Gatsby raises $15M Series A for its modern web development platform

Congrats Sam!

dtapon “Super Engine” may fundamentally change the way internal combustion engines work

We have invested in a Company that has Chinese partners building the billion dollar factories for us.

http://www.ecomotors.com/post/ecomotors-receives-new-investm...

dtapon Now Worth $10B, Is WeWork a 2000 Redux?

It is desire for yield. If you take the risk-less rate down from ~4% to 0%, then you can shift the rates for higher risk asset classes down similarly. If VC is historically a 12% return asset class (properly risked), LPs will demand the asset more, driving up supply and down the return until it is in-line with the risk profile (perhaps 8%?).

dtapon Banks Forgot Who Was Supposed to Own Dell Shares

eShares is an interesting solution but with so many parties involved (company, lawyers, several investor groups) how do you get one person to drive the solution? My experience is that something like that may be rocking the boat a little bit too hard.

dtapon Banks Forgot Who Was Supposed to Own Dell Shares

The physical holding of a stock certificate is a dangerous thing. If you are an investor in a company that gets sold or goes public (and you have to surrender your shares) and misplace them, it is an expensive mess, even in Delaware.

dtapon Transatomic Power

The bigger problem than the corrosion is the inability to inspect the system in an efficient way. In a regulated nuclear industry, not knowing the status of the system means it will not be allowed.

dtapon New RFS – Breakthrough Technologies

As an active investor in the energy space, I would love to hear how Sam/YC see their model working here. The MVP and concept of early sales is something that is very difficult in this and many of the other markets they mentioned. We try with all of our companies to partner with larger organizations and generate early, profitable revenue. But it is difficult in many industries and there is still a large capital need.

That being said, would love to attend a YC non-software demo day.

dtapon Nuclear fusion milestone passed at US lab

There was not an overall net gain.

Direct from the source http://1.usa.gov/1e4Na9Q.

8 kJ out from 1.7 MJ (1700 kJ) in. At the end of the month they were able to get 14 kJ. I believe they are referring to the energy released within the hohlraum.

Also, if you are interested there are privately funded companies doing this, General Fusion (http://www.generalfusion.com/) and TriAlpha Energy (secretive and funded by the Russian govt., but in California). The VC fund I work for has invested in GF and obviously we think there is promise :)

dtapon APIs for Manufacturing

"And modern supply chains were built around that very premise – that hands were needed"

That is quite far from the truth. Having been in many plants, automation is almost everywhere. The pay-back period on automation (Variable Speed Drives, for example) is under a year.

If you watch an updated version of the crayon process (http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xl1v1m_you-ve-got-crayola-c...), you see how many of those people have been replaced by robots. A fully burdened worker salary (~$70k) can buy you a good deal of robots.

dtapon Apple Reports First Quarter Results: $13.06 Billion Net Profit

The reason oil companies get a lot of their subsidies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_gimmick

Also, created the problem of sending so much money overseas.

dtapon Inside McKinsey

As a current BCG consultant, thanks for this. Have been fortunate to work on real strategy work, but have lots of co-workers doing IT diagnostics and other not-so-exciting things.

dtapon Detroit in Ruins

As I see in the comments here, and in general public sentiment, there is an extreme bifurcation. People who believe and people who don't.

I grew up in the suburbs and will be moving downtown in a month. A lot of people, my parents, my girlfriend and some of my friends think I am crazy. When you see pictures like this, it is hard not to blame them. But once you get past the empty buildings and wasteland, there is something magical about the city.

Not a single person who lives in Detroit does so lightly. Everyone loves this city and firmly believes in its future. It provides opportunities unlike anywhere else. For example, there are 6 bars within 500 feet of my front door. I can see Comerica Park from my bedroom. The prospect of a Tigers playoff run makes me extremely excited. No where else can I get this experience for the amount of rent I am paying.

It certainly has its problems, largely created by 30 years of inept city government and the collapse of the auto industry. But we have smart people running the city and the state and a large, well-funded, group of people who have a contagious belief in its future.

If anyone from HN is ever in town and wants to grab a beer downtown, I'd be glad to show them around.

dtapon Citibank confirms hacking attack

FWIW, my Citi card info was stolen and used last week. This despite never being out of my possession.

dtapon Y Combinator Numbers

These numbers are astonishing. By my calculation YC has a cash-on-cash return of 67X!

Avg. value (22.4M) * Avg. equity (6%) = Value of average stake (1.34M)

Compare this to an investment of $20k, wow.

I am sure there is some sort of dilution that occurs, but anywhere in this order of magnitude is remarkable.

dtapon Detroit is Dying… Quickly

A much more interesting chart is here:

http://www.freep.com/article/20110323/NEWS01/103230444/Detro...

Notice the blue areas of 20% growth. These are areas where young people are moving in. Around downtown and the midtown area near Wayne State.

dtapon A Google Suggest Venn Diagram Generator

Seems like spam with so many links to the site...

dtapon Ask HN: Selling disruptive technology

Not to seem doubtful, but the website does not inspire a lot of confidence. It is terribly formatted and oddly has red text highlighting market sizes.

Also, the Business Development guy also designed the website with his separate company. But that company's website (jkmarketingspecialists.com) was designed by some company that is a green company directory?? I would definitely encourage an effort of legitimacy. No one can fund that website.

You mention that he has been published in peer-reviewed journals, could you put those links or articles on the website. I have never seen an academic extract mention money or be formatted like this:

~ $265 MM/year pre-tax net income and liberates US Government budget from > $15 billion/year expenses. The U.S. market for the RCC packages is about $10 billion/year.

The technology could be as awesome as you say but this lack of clarity could be why the experts say no way. It usually isn't a conspiracy or a vested interest conflict. A smart investor would be aware of these and would probably only refer you to someone whose honest opinion he could get.

dtapon The Simple MBA Manifesto: Do We Really Need MBAs?

Also worthy of note:

Man do I regret not funding these guys.

-pg

About a company (postabon) founded by two Harvard Business School MBAs.

dtapon Jessica Roy: Dear San Francisco Employers: Please Hire Me

How do you pay off NYU on $12/hour?

dtapon Contrarian Investor Predicts Economic Crash in China

"We used to not trust Chinese data ourselves" and this is why Goldman Sachs has computed its own Chinese data for years, he added.

"According to our own proprietary Chinese GDP indicator, in December Chinese growth could have been 13 percent."

http://www.cnbc.com/id/34700874

dtapon Warren Buffett and Bill Gates: Keeping America Great (1 hour CNBC Town Hall)

Please watch the video and say something insightful, don't just flame something about business schools.

dtapon ScamVille Lawsuit: Facebook, MySpace, Zynga And More Face Possible Class Action

I hope that this type of action will serve to clean up the web in general. Overall, protecting consumers is a great thing.

This case seems easy because these are real companies committing the fraud, not random Russians who populate a lot of spam.

dtapon Myths about Wall Street pay days

While there a lot of talented people, there are few extremely talented people. It is these extremely talented people who make the huge salaries. I am at a top 5 business school now and you can definitely see the future millionaires.

Generally, there are a lot of people who go into finance and will make $65-70k and never get into the extreme. But there are people who are going to make $200k+ out of undergrad and likely earn millions someday. They are worth it, many already manage their own money in excess of half a mil.

In a class of 300 top students, I think there are 2-3 of these people.

dtapon Ask HN: Has anyone started a non tech related business before?

I started a company looking to do some small scale manufacturing. In a non-web space, it really depends on IP, either currently had or to be developed. Also, any product that is larger than a hand-held widget is going to cost into the hundred thousands to produce (molds, jigs, etc.). There is no open-source manufacturing.

Anything like coffee shops or restaurants are going to take all of your time and be difficult to scale. Only if you reach a level where you can franchise can you get to sustainable growth. Otherwise, it is how much time can you spend on growing it. Anyone who would be capable of taking over some of your responsibilities is likely to go and start their own restaurant.

dtapon The real Ajay Bhatt, co-inventor of the USB port

My dad works for Intel and can vouch for his rock star status. Intel makes money by selling chips and standardization makes adoption go through the roof. They have bankrolled many things, to then open them to all (USB, moblin, WiMAX).

USB certainly was a huge step and made them a lot of money, much of which Ajay is responsible for. This makes him a rock star.

dtapon The history of management consulting : The New Yorker

It isn't so much a history of management consulting as it is a history of the advent of business as a science.

Interesting that Conde Nast, The New Yorker's parent company, has recently been a high profile client of McKinsey.

dtapon Boston startup events, resources, people you need to know

I will be sure to use this as I move to Boston next summer. This is an awesome list to get dialed in to the Boston community. Thanks

dtapon Mark Zuckerberg: The evolution of a remarkable CEO

A lot of places do/did this. IBM sales reps were subject to the 70-20-10 principle. 70% of people are average, 20% are above average and get bonuses and 10% are below average and are fired. It was brutal for morale and hurt productivity in a lot of ways.

dtapon Silicon Valley startup reinvents the lowly brick

The "Rap Music Industry" has millions of customers, numerous magazines, radio stations and a TV channel dedicated solely to it. That makes it very large in my book.

dtapon Does ‘microlending’ actually fight poverty?

I would really ask the question, ‘Why did we expect all these things to happen?’ If you give people access to a financial instrument, it’s like any other instrument. It’s useful, but it’s not like the miracle drug to end poverty.

A rough reality. I trust that MIT will publish the research with the same conclusions. It is really unfortunate. I was really excited about millions of people digging themselves out of poverty. Alas, it is much more complicated than that.