Let me guess: You've never been a real entrepreneur. :]
649 karma · joined January 25, 2010
It's not unheard of that I'll be hanging out at a cafe in Palo Alto and run into other entrepreneurs I've met before.
I went to a talk at the CS dept at Berkeley and ran into a direct competitor (who actually had my app installed on his phone). Had a great convo with him.
I've also had people come up to me who are in similar spaces who propose a possible collaboration.
If it's true, I don't think he deserves 50% or 80%. It's up to the courts. Also, I think Facebook is what it is today solely because of Zuck and the FB team.
But I don't see a problem with waiting to file a claim.
The emails from Ceglia are laden with a bunch of grammatical and spelling errors. While the supposed emails from Zuck sound more polished, robotic and have neither grammatical nor spelling errors.
The tone of the two are very different.
Plus, the legal costs of pursuing a case like this is likely to be extremely high. If the evidence is so weak to be thrown out even before it comes to court, then I don't think they would pursue it.
I think finding the emails on the second time around is suspect but defense lawyers will have a chance to review the evidence so it makes me think that DLA Piper did their due diligence to prove the veracity of these emails (otherwise they would know that it's likely to be thrown out before even coming to court).
If you're trying to monetize the idea and are asking for 6% of people's company then, sorry, you've got to be joking.
What do you offer for this 6%? Money, connections, knowledge?
If you're simply a coordinator bringing people together, I think asking for 6% is ridiculous and it makes me question your motivation for doing this.
I'm actually inclined to believe it's the latter considering the supply and demand. The demand for accelerators is extremely high and the supply of open spots is very low. I think current accelerators are just scratching the surface with respect to promising startups which is why we're seeing many more sprout up.
Yes, I'm being snarky. I'm open to his opinion but I also missing where he's qualified to make a more informed opinion.
You're implying he said credentials are worthless or meaningless.
He actually was saying that there's a bubble in education. That is, the cost of education is overvalued vs the return one typically gets. Yes, he talks about the exclusionary nature of institutions but I don't think his point is that credentialing is pointless. His point is that the system has built a bubble (overvalued not worthless)
What has surprised you about being an entrepreneur?
When I first started out, I took for granted the overall speed at which I thought things should happen. It turns out things happen slower in the short term and faster in the long term. As an entrepreneur, you are believer and so you tend to think your idea will be obvious and immediately transformative. But nothing happens at first, and not for a long time. You get 90% of the results in the last 10% of time. You spend so much time thinking about getting to the goal that you forget to think about what to do once you get there. You need to think 30 steps ahead.
If you're in the bay area, I'll be doing a soft launch tomorrow at the 106 miles event in Palo Alto which is a meetup for entrepreneurs. I'd love for you to participate and give me some user feedback.
On the whole, I thought my post was pretty balanced. At the end I talk about how I'm looking for people to work with (cofounders / core team) and I care more about their ability to hack than which school they came from.
I also said that people with degrees from good schools can become complacent and lazy because they always fall back on it whereas someone without a degree could be a better producer of good work.
Degrees are like filters. I've done a lot of resume reading in my time, filtering through candidates for jobs. It's mindboggling how many responses one gets. Literally hundreds. And that wasn't my full time job (which was software development).
At the point that you're looking at hundreds of responses, you start applying certain filters so that you can increase your probability of finding what you want. Typically the initial filter is something that doesn't require a lot of time. For many, this tends to be if they have a CS degree.
http://infolab.stanford.edu/~sergey/ http://infolab.stanford.edu/~page/
"Personally, I think the differences come at the top end. I think computer science students who've spent a lot of time doing research (particularly Ph.D.s) gain something that can't be self-taught."
So, in this context, I think it makes sense. Yes, there will always be edge cases like Ramanujan (0.00001% of the population) but I took a little liberty not to qualify every single statement I made.
If anything, this was more about giving respect to the <1% of people who have Ph.D's. But I guess you were offended.
Understanding query cost has more to do with data structures than algorithms. Why does the optimizer seek vs scan? What column(s) do I need to index and how should it be structured? You really don't need to understand how things get sorted in a b-tree.
Knowing normal forms is also different from algorithms. Ergo, it would be more useful to ask "When would you denormalized your data?" instead of "What's the difference between Quicksort and Bubble Sort?"
Objective-C is really just one of many languages I know and use. It just happens to be the most recent. Oddly enough I did spend some time (many years ago) implementing my own browser for a job. We used Java and, again, I never really had to know the complexities of sorting algorithms.
It's like people couldn't think of an original question that might actually be of some use to the actual job you'd be doing.
- Renowned CS programs spend less time than you think teaching you how to actually program. Programming is simply a tool to teach things like theory, algorithms, mathematics, logic, artificial intelligence, operating systems, graphics, and so on. I actually took a class on programming C++ and it was one of those independent self-teaching classes. :)
- I think one needs to differentiate between programs that teach programming as a trade and a CS program at a top school. I imagine the experiences are quite different. Much like there would be a difference between someone who learned from Learn C++ in 21 Days vs the hallowed Abelsson and Sussman (Alyssa P Hacker anyone?).
- I think most lower division books can be read by anyone and they would glean the same amount of knowledge. In fact, I would say there isn't much difference if someone went to somewhere like OpenCourseWare and learned it themselves.
- I think you'll find more difficulty at the top end. While it's possible that self-taught programmers would do these exercises, if I ever meet one I'll bow down before him. I'm talking about classes like CS 162 Operating Systems (http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs162/sp11/) or CS 170 Efficient Algorithms and Intractable Problems (http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs170/sp11/).
- With that said, I personally rarely (if ever) use the things I learned in these classes. Perhaps if I wanted to write my own language, my compilers class would be useful. Or maybe if I got really deep into machine learning, then my AI class would have been more use.
So, I guess with that said, it's really about what doors were open to me on matters that, even when taught, seemed impossible to understand. Doing it self-taught is just that much harder unless you're the guy from Good Will Hunting.
All in all, I'd say that for the majority of people who are not that specialized (like web developers) it doesn't make much of a difference. The people for whom it made a real difference went on to do research in a specific area and are the ones who are hired for some specific knowledge they have (eg. classification algorithms, machine learning algorithms, security, complex statistical models).
Is he a developer? Are you a developer? Is he really slow or is he just giving bad estimates on how long things take? Are you shifting specs which causes delays?
You're making character judgments of him and obviously you're biased and we have to take your word for it. You point out some anecdotes on his apparent laziness but you could do the same with anybody.
I think one think you can do is recognize that you and this person may not have the same mindset on how to work. That's not saying he's wrong or that you're right. It's saying that there's a disconnect that should be resolved.
Personally, I agree with nostrademons. Working those kind of hours can happen for crunch time but it's not a long term strategy for a company, even a startup. You'll burn out quickly and everyone will hate each other.
Work hard but take time off and don't neglect the rest of life otherwise you'll end up hating it. Leave time to refresh your batteries.
I don't think everyone is Superman but I have the impression that while they all seem normal, the applicants must be very competitive. By that, I mean many must show something impressive that separates them from the others.
This doesn't mean they can shoot lasers from their eyes but they must show some entrepreneurial spirit or have accomplished something great/interesting/cool beforehand.
As someone who didn't get into YC, I do agree with your final statement. No reason you can't do a startup.
And, after reading this, I'm reminded I should re-apply. :)