freshfunk

Yelp has a pretty massive sales force and existing relationships with local businesses. I wouldn't count them out so easily.

Quite amusing but sometimes the bulldozer is just a self-entitled jerk who thinks the rules don't apply to them (eg. people who cut in front of lines, people who drive pass a long line of cars waiting to merge and wait until the very end, people who come late to synagogue who KNOW that if you come late you're supposed to wait outside).

Maybe a great example of this is AirBnb. Apparently spam is evil if everyone else does it but not if you're AirBnb. Bulldozing much?

On the other hand, I've "bulldozed" at times and have felt really guilty afterwards. For example, a few friends and I went to a busy restaurant on a Saturday night and the wait was something like 1.5 hours. It was literally a mob by the door. Names are being called out for the next table and I realize that, at times, no one is responding (because they've changed their mind and left). So I waited until a name was called and no one responded in the first 10 seconds, and claimed that name. We probably waited 10 mins total.

We were happy to disobey the rules, cut and sit early but everyone felt a tinge of guilt afterwards.

Having been 10 years out of college I guess I can provide some insight. Just some background: I went to a top tier CS school in the Bay Area and graduated in 2000.

At 5 years out of school (2005),it was nearing the end of the dark times (bubble burst). I didn't feel unprepared for school. I felt overwhelmed by the economy (or lack of it) and the extent to which outsourcing had really threatened software development jobs in the US.

Finding good jobs wasn't about being or not being prepared. All recent grads had a hard time finding jobs in software and many decided to change directions (law school, MBA, grad school). In fact, I noticed my friends with Master degrees had much easier times getting jobs ... particularly at places like Google. So, in fact, education helped them more.

In 2010, looking back I can say that having a CS degree from a top school has opened many doors for me. I found out about a great job at a cool startup from a friend I went to _school_ with. Even when meeting new people (in a professional sense), alums from my school (and major) tend to be the most open to meeting because they recognize the value of the education we went through.

Yes, thank you. I meant to say median.

These are misguided statistics. I can envision a scenario where using average numbers give you completely the wrong picture.

For example, the majority of the total value comes from the few outliers (AirBnb, Heroku, DropBox) and the other 80/90/95% of companies contribute relatively little to the total valuation.

So let's say they still own 6% of these outliers. Great! That's still worth a lot. But how much do they still own? Have their shares been diluted? Did they have to issue new shares due to further financing? Has that 6% turned into 3% or 1.5%?

I'm not an expert but it's quite possible that their initial 6% has been diluted.

I think the picture looks good, overall, for YC from an investment standpoint. I think avg. value is not a great metric by which to value the "average" YC company since my guess is that the majority of the value is on the top end.

Interesting analysis but the statistic I find most disturbing (and selective) is the "average" value of startups funded. What would be more informative is the mean value. I'm guessing the mean value would be extremely lower since most of the total value is made by a few outliers on the top end.

By taking the average value in this case, it's likely giving an inaccurate picture of what the average YC funded company is actually worth.

Just a thought. I could be wrong assuming most of the total value does not come from outliers but my sense is that I'm right based on the news I've seen around YC companies.

I doubt it. I worked at a company that aggregated job listings from Craigslist. We actually didn't do anything insidious; in fact, we served up their jobs with attribution and if the job was clicked, it would take the user to the Craigslist site. So basically we were feeding them extra traffic.

They sent a cease and desist relatively early on (not waiting until we got bigger).

It's likely that they didn't know and have either just sent them a cease and desist or AirBnb has chosen to ignore it.

What bothers me more is that Craigslist is one of the great Silicon Valley stories of something that grew from nothing (an email list that one person created). They weren't always big. Long ago they were a small, scrappy startup. It took years of perseverance, hard work and providing a useful service.

It's a story startups should aspire to. Instead AirBnb seems to get a pass because they are a YC company. I can't wait for irony to strike when another startup does this to AirBnb.

You're a surly one aren't you?

The comment I replied to basically implied that only neat projects have come from Google's APIs and nothing more. This came after his comments about how one shouldn't build a business off a not-for-profit API.

In my mind it's an incredibly ignorant remark to make. THAT was what I was making a counterpoint to. I could point out some very obvious examples like Tweetdeck or the numerous applications that use the Facebook API. I just thought it was incredibly obvious and not worth my time.

Most of today's exciting APIs are "not-for-profit." That is, companies do not charge for the APIs themselves. By your advice, nobody should be trying to build for-profit, real companies based on them. The primary reason why these APIs are created are so that they can create their own economies that are dependent on their platforms.

My comment was also generalized (much like the comment I replied to) to APIs beyond Google's Translate API. I guess you were too busy fixated on this one scenario.

I went through the startup profiling and it was pretty accurate and quite worth it. At the end, it also gives some pretty useful advice on moving forward. Definitely recommend this if you're doing a startup.

As a counterpoint, many companies are built off of APIs that are out there. That's the nature of business and that's actually great for the API authors out there.

But if developers knew that APIs could easily go away, then people wouldn't build businesses on top of those APIs. The risk would be too high.

I don't know the history but it seems that Google could've implemented some simple solutions to prevent abuse of their APIs while catering to the business community such as simply charging for use. Any legit business would be willing to do this.

I could only get through half the interview because the interviewer was horrible and obviously quite biased in the beginning trying really hard (too hard) to portray Card in a certain light.

Perhaps I'm extrapolating too much but if the guy is asking you specifically, "Do you think it's a good idea?" then either he's very early in his idea, he hasn't thought through why HE thinks it's a good idea or he doesn't have the confidence that his idea is good.

If it's the first two options, then he needs to put more time into developing the idea to gain the confidence that it's a good idea. If it's the final one, then perhaps it's not worth pursuing the idea or he's not in the right position (confidence) to do so.

Of course, it's always smart to solicit advice on an idea such as the potential challenges, risks, strategies etc.

Very interesting experiment and I'm curious to see what comes out of it but I motivation for going to college isn't all about making money (which is what starting a business is all about).

Aside from education, College/University changes people in immeasurable ways. Usually it's where you meet friends you have for life, find the person you want to marry, discover your political and philosophical self, explore vastly different parts of your intellect from incredibly smart/talented people (anything from quantum physics to 18th century english literature), and, most importantly, mature.

These are things that you can't put a price on but will stay with you the rest of your life. Of course, one doesn't necessarily need college to mature but it's a great environment to do it in. I can't imagine trying to do that in a corporate environment.

The thing is that both the status quo and immorality often come down to judgment calls.

Is it immoral to gather personal data and then share it on the internet? (Facebook personal profiles going public.)

Is it immoral to pay a PR firm to portray a competitor in a negative light if it means highlighting their questionable practices? (Facebook hiring a PR firm to highlight Google Social.)

Is it immoral to characterize a service you offer one way while leaving important details to fine print or convoluted text? (Zynga's lead gen offers, DropBox security.)

Actually I think you misunderstand and misinterpret my point. I'll try to clarify.

I think much of what's excepted in today's business environment can be summarized by the following statement:

"It's easier to ask for forgiveness than it is to get permission."

This logic has been used to justify all sorts of questionable actions. It's what Pincus was speaking to when he said, "we broke every rule in the book" or when Facebook unilaterally changes a once private profile to a public one. Heck, I'd even characterize Google's Buzz in this category.

Businesses do this all the time. I don't necessarily blame them. Most times it's easier and quicker to simply execute on an idea and see if there's any backlash. Much of innovation comes about this way so I do see the value in it.

But I also see the negative consequences of it.

Perhaps you should look to real business rather than comics for examples. It would be more convincing.

Brand is about perception. Value is about perception.

Look at wine. Studies show that people enjoy the _same_ wine if they pay more for it. Is that deception? Intrinsically, why does one bottle of wine cost more than the other? Because it's _better_? What exactly makes one bottle of wine better than the other? It's very subjective.

When it comes to products/service that are more quantifiable perhaps the better argument can be made. But that's almost never possible. Businesses distinguish their product/service by other factors that are not easily quantifiable (eg. better customer service, better user experience) that add value.

I think deception is the wrong word to use but certainly consumers can save a lot of money by simply being educated about what they're buying (eg. buying the generic version of Claritin/drugs for 60% of the price).

To some degree both ideas and developers have become commodities. One doesn't need an MBA to come up with an idea and most people can learn some basic levels of programming.

I think the real value in both lines of expertise is execution.

In the MBAs case, it's not about how many different ideas they can come up with. It's whether they can distinguish which 1-3 ideas that a company must execute on in order to be successful before they run out of money, the competition beats them and/or reach the greatest market potential. Time and money is finite.. very finite.

In the developers case, can they execute quickly and still architect a scalable system, build for flexibility, pick the right technologies/platforms to use.

In a morally-flexible environment, it's easy to confuse the two.

For example - Zynga selling offers (for credits) with very fine print that signs you up for paid services. And the fine print is so convoluted/tiny most people don't read it. Helping or hurting consumers?

- Facebook hiring a PR firm to highlight questionable privacy practices by Google. Helping users or hurting Google?

- Subprime mortgages. Helping or hurting homeowners?

This reminds me of Outliers when Gladwell talks about concert violinists.

"All of the violinists had started playing at around age five, and they all played about two or three hours a week during the first few years. However, around the age of eight, an important difference began to emerge in the amount of hours they each practiced. By age 20, the stars in the group had all totaled 10,000 hours of practice over the course of their lives; the “good” students had totaled 8,000 hours; and the future music teachers just over 4,000 hours.

What the research suggested was that once you have enough talent to get into a top music school, the thing that distinguishes one performer from another is how hard he or she works."

Being in Silicon Valley, I meet smart entrepreneurs all the time. Many of them come from places like Stanford. I think many pass the basic threshold of intelligence. In fact, this is more than passing considering that it doesn't take an elite education to create a good company IMO.

Obviously, not all these people succeed and so the other factor behind success is likely to be what you said: determination.

I understand the positive qualities of being Kirk-esque and creating one's own rules (see Kobayashi Maru). I also understand the qualities of being single-minded in purpose, determination and the will to succeed. These are qualities needed to survive in the uncertain, risky and scary environment of an entrepreneur.

However, I wonder when we begin to cross the fine-line between naughtiness, white-lies, small-rule breaking and moral flexibility to privacy-violating, scamming, propaganda spreading and even law-breaking actions.

In a world where one will do anything to win, it seems all too easy to fall by the wayside towards morally-questionable deeds.

Paypal was a merger or two companies very early on:

"The current incarnation of PayPal is the result of a March 2000 merger between Confinity and X.com.[10] Confinity was founded in December 1998 by Max Levchin, Peter Thiel, Luke Nosek, and Ken Howery, initially as a Palm Pilot payments and cryptography company.[11] X.com was founded by Elon Musk in March 1999, initially as an Internet financial services company. " per the wiki

IMO, a language derives the most of its real-world utility from (good, updated, relevant) supporting libraries. This is a great reason to learn python AND ruby.

(Personally, I have a project where I'm debating the two. I've decided Ruby for now but may move to Python. I hope I never do PHP again.)

Literal much?

OK, fine, "corporate war."

Happy? You must be great at parties.

I think the war against a former employer is an interesting position to be in but anybody who actually believes in the "Dont Be Evil" slogan anymore is a fool, even if they work at Google.

It's not that they are evil, but I don't think they are particularly different from any of the other decent corporations out there. When it comes to war (and, yes, this is war), companies will go to extreme lengths to win. This means also using questionable tactics. And I'm talking about Google, Facebook and any other huge player that has lots to lose in a war.

These Xooglers who moved over, surely must have known that they were switching from one team to another. The majority of these people, in the end, probably moved over because of the money/IPO/stock. So I imagine they expect their employer to bring guns to a knife fight.

That departure one is excellent.

A key point made that's relevant to a many other parts of a startup is this: It depends.

People want simple answers to questions that are actually complex. In this case, it's not that it's incredibly complex but that there is no ONE right answer (50/50 or not 50/50). (At least, this is my humble first-time-entrepreneur take on the matter.)

Furthermore, everyone has their own bias and point to their own anecdotal situations as proof that either 1) they are right or 2) the other person is wrong. And yet they don't realize that that both cases can be true (that is, their solution was right for their situation and the other persons solution would've been wrong for their solution but right for someone else's).

In my case, 50/50 (or even split) would've made sense early one when I first started. And this is what I was aiming for. But, as time went on, it became apparent that I would be leading this startup by myself. As time went on, 50/50 just made no sense since I was putting all my time/effort/ideas into the project, full-time.

These days, I would never accept 50/50 even if that other person is a friend (mind you, I've been working on my startup for over a year and have a live product and users). Fairness, in my case, isn't about 50/50 but giving a fair share.

Not a great example because I think at least 50% of people would do what your friends did. Like others mentioned, it depends which law he broke but chances are it brought up to question this person's sense of responsibility, integrity and whether this is someone that could be trusted. These are foundations for any business relationship (let alone the distractions that come with someone who has problems with the law).

Perhaps the only saving grace for this person is if they were responsible for a notorious but awesome hack job that only few people (read: no script kiddies) could do.

In general, quite sound advice. But, to follow this analogy, you don't always need a top chef. You may just be working a hot dog stand, a McDonalds or a college Chinese joint. Not every chef is headed to a 5-star restaurant.