hari_seldon_

Article explains the what but not a why…

Hmmm

Tangentially related, but this made me think of Aristotle's teachings on technology effectively as a "prosthesis" or non-biological way to evolve. Even back then, being able to record trade deals, journal, and so on enabled folks to offload some of their brain capacity. Today, we can consider the smartphone as an extension of our brain. Source: http://www.joachimschummer.net/jslit/aristot.htm

Of course, it is important to note that I am trying to discuss these neutrally and do believe that there are negative repercussions of offloading too much from our brains onto these devices, particularly if it results in relying on social media dopamine hits and news articles to tell folks what to think...

+1, the issue here is not that errors can occur but instead how a company responds. It’s tough to be sympathetic to leaders in a company that were aware of the errors and then took no action for years to remedy it, particularly as the error resulted in overcharging customers.

I agree. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychohistory_(fictional)

Is it Anglicized, or is it just using that Latin alphabet that some parts of former Yugoslavia employ (including Serbia and Croatia)?

Can you explain why you think they are not going to be forced to remain in “wartime?”

Which market cap? The one that was set by investors during the last round and has already been more than halved?

Great analogy.

But stackoverflow asked users to provide an email address for the gift card as part of the survey.

Speaking from my past experience when running surveys like this at a startup, you are given the option to get a claim code to send to your customers, or to provide their emails for a one-off direct gift card message. The latter was safer because there is no handling of sensitive financial info (a live gift card code is effectively cash).

I genuinely say this because I want to be helpful and not because I am trying to be snarky:

Search past HN posts and even Google the topic. People have written a lot about this, and nothing that will be said here will be any more useful without more context on your situation...

If you really want feedback to YOUR post on HN, I’d say to rewrite it with more context on your idea, background, and what you are looking for in a co-founder (skillset, money?, location, commitment, etc.).

With IPO rumors existing for at least 4 years and a price under $2B, is this a good exit for the company’s leadership and employees? (Understanding that an exit is better than nothing at all!)

This is the standard HN effect. I also love when I think some startups are killing it based on what I read here; but then they end up shutting down soon after due to a lack of any real revenue model.

While it is easy to say that it is hard to spot “genius,” it is also important to note that people grow and change over time. Maybe being called flaky influenced his growth down the road.

Feedback like this is based on limited interaction with someone at one point in their life, and I hope that many 21-year-olds mature and find their element later.

Maybe we can think of it as everyone having a lottery ticket, but certain things can increase your odds. When it comes to startups, for example, VCs are often arguing that just being closer to them in SV can help your chances. The neighborhoods we grow up in, the schools we attend -- they all influence that "luck" number for each person!

When talking about wealth in our society (especially when it is tied up in real estate and other non-cash assets), things get a lot more complicated, especially when wealth can help move markets and set policy. I was purely talking from the perspective of thinking about games and probability.

That's a fair point for some games, but even in games where the gambler has a positive expected value would have him/her go bust eventually when playing against someone with much, much more wealth (ignoring the fact that you can walk away):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler%27s_ruin

Not from the article, but this makes me think of something that we learned back in my college probability course: "wealth gravitates towards the wealthy." Even in fair games and situations, it is much harder to come out ahead when you start out behind. Think of how the house always wins in Vegas, or how a random walk can experience heavy drift.

Would the package include both equity and pay? Do you have a link to your deck?

Agreed. The dominant strategy seems to be to undercut competitors until they are driven out of business, and then you can raise prices. However, raising prices then gives opportunity for a new ride-sharing service to come in and say that they can compete by offering lower prices for a period of time...

Nikola*

Sorry for being picky about it, but I always think that we should respect people enough to spell their names correctly!

Great to see this pivot and new feature set -- it is definitely a tool that will be useful to a lot of early stage startups!

Do you plan on adding any Excel support down the road?

I think your last statement only holds true if the _only_ people coming out of Harvard that have any chance in society are those with straight A's. I'd argue that anyone at the school is already "winning this game."

That's a very fair point, that is probably just as "real" as it is "cynical."

This is why grade inflation should be curbed at an institutional level. When you compare schools like Harvard and Stanford, where As are very common, to schools like Princeton and MIT, that have some sort of deflation in place, it becomes clear that the latter do not "help" their richest and most arrogant students.

That said, schools like that probably have other informal systems in place that ensure the powerful have their kids stay ahead.

So basically their cost of revenue is going up? They need to spend more to earn every dollar this year compared to last year, which makes reporting their overall revenue feel very misleading!

What's your definition?

I think you are getting caught up in definitions for the concept in a vacuum. I was just trying to help explore "tech" when it comes to hacker news and the VC landscape, whether or not I agree with the definition.

Made me chuckle -- agreed.

I think that addresses it then lol. They aren't even delivering on their core promise, and competition has outperformed on a key product metric like effort and prep time!

Agreed in general, but I am specifically not talking about technology used to improve processes or help a company move up the learning curve.

I was trying to offer an explanation of what separates out "tech" companies and not trying to get into the nitty gritty of the fact that many companies use technologies. I would argue that a manufacturing company whose innovation is a more streamlined assembly line to product some widget is not a "tech" company in the sense that many people on hacker news use the word.