graaben

The biggest issue that I have with companies like System1 is that a huge portion of their business model is tricking technically un-savvy people into clicking on ads they otherwise would not want to click on. How is that adding any value to society, other than a check in the pocket of the middle man?

I've worked with System1 in a previous job. One of their main products is ad arbitrage, which as far as I can tell adds zero (or negative) value to the average consumer's browsing experience. This is a company that only cares about extracting as much money as they can by finding new ways of showing you ads.

As a side note - the whole digital advertising industry reminds me a little of the financial engineering on Wall Street of the last decade. Doesn't add any new value to society - and in many ways actually harms it - but makes so much money that companies build their whole strategy around it.

I got my Kindle in 2012 and it still runs like a brand new device. I think Amazon's issue will eventually be that, unlike the iPhone, no one needs to upgrade their kindle more than once per decade or so. Of course if the newer models had dramatically better features or apps I would be tempted to upgrade.

"We generated 15% of our Ridesharing Gross Bookings from trips that either started or were completed at an airport"

This just highlights the need for better public transportation from cities to their airports.

Love the idea! Slightly off topic, but what was your experience applying for/going through YC as a husband and wife team? I've heard that VC's are reluctant to invest out of fear of interpersonal issues.

I live in LA and the scooter situation is starting to get out of hand, at last count we had 5 companies competing in my neighborhood. I think it does solve a necessary problem, but there are easily 5+ scooters for every rider now. I fail to see how any of them can get this to profitability soon, let alone all 5.

Money buys founder an accelerated timeline. With consumer products like these it's much easier to get to your first 10 or 100 customers when you have the funds to spend on ads vs trying to get them organically.

The trades are on 10x leverage by default.

This is a great idea, because it is now possible for anyone to learn almost anything through YouTube videos. It isn't necessarily the best format, especially for children, but done the right way it can really change the education process.

I would love to see something like this but for MOOCs. Some of the bigger sites are already doing this with micro-degrees on specific topics. But it would be great if anyone could mix and match the best or most relevant videos from different courses to create a meta-course.

Off topic but I found this interesting:

Out of the top 10 mobile apps in the US 5 are owned by Google, 3 by Facebook, and 2 by Apple.

Although this site doesn't really offer any substance, I'm glad that Google is making this project more public. Not only it nice to have updates on the project (I do hope they continue to update this site with their progress) but I think PR campaigns like this will go a long way to swaying popular opinion on self driving technology. The faster they can get the public on their side, the fewer regulatory hurdles they will face.

Exactly. It reminds me of the "I'll be gone, you'll be gone" mentality of Wall Street in the mid-2000s. As long as these new developments are sold to buyers/investors now, the risk is transferred away from the developers and their incentive to build remains. And the demand isn't going to dry up any time soon with tons of cash from South America coming into Miami every day.

There will be a day of reckoning soon when the next major hurricane hits and all of these new developments are damaged beyond repair. Miami got very lucky with Matthew a few months ago, but the next one is really going to hurt today's buyers.

My co-founders and I have been building our company https://triphappy.com while traveling for about a year now. We've lived in 6 different countries so far on 3 continents. We travel and live together, renting AirBnBs as we go, and normally stay in one place for 1 - 2 months at a time.

I wouldn't necessarily consider myself a 'digital nomad', but more of a startup founder that just happens not to have a home base. Other than living abroad, my lifestyle is not all that different than when I lived in the US.

I worked in that building in 2012, and when we got back into the office later that week there were huge cracks running down the drywall from ceiling to floor.