the case
1,332 karma · joined March 3, 2008
I waited it out for like 25 minutes and finally the guy came and took me through. But it was such an annoying experience that I'd since given up on it.
Oh summer interns
Just a wild guess based on some quick searching https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1755073
This is a good point. There's a lot of red tape at big companies and sometimes doing the simplest things (e.g. setting up an Apache server) can be made into maddeningly bureaucratic operations (fill out the support ticket -> X -> Y...)
Clearly, "because private-company financials are opaque" investing in the derivatives is speculative. The securitization of Facebook shares is not inherently "evil", but the issues arise if/when these derivatives are misunderstood and overly available for public consumption.
Basically, its all about creating a perception of value.
"The worker MPM uses multiple child processes with many threads each. Each thread handles one connection at a time. Worker generally is a good choice for high-traffic servers because it has a smaller memory footprint than the prefork MPM.
The prefork MPM uses multiple child processes with one thread each. Each process handles one connection at a time. On many systems, prefork is comparable in speed to worker, but it uses more memory. Prefork's threadless design has advantages over worker in some situations: it can be used with non-thread-safe third-party modules, and it is easier to debug on platforms with poor thread debugging support."
I had Prof. Pugh for an honors CS course @ UMD and that's how he first described it to the class.
I do think that for startps and smaller companies, receiving and paying for storage/compute power like electricity is the way to go.
But back for a moment to the A/B example. My point here is really with companies that are dealing with sensitive information. Let A = JP Morgan & B = Morgan Stanley.
JP Morgan, I would guess (somewhat wildly) probably owns and operates in the neighborhood of 18,000+ servers. At least half of those (roughly), probably contain mission critical programs and data. The other half, that don't contain mission critical data per se, probably contain either 1) backups of mission critical applications for emergencies, 2) email, documents etc of every single employee (sensitive data).
Now as long as JP gets the electricity that it needs who care where it comes from? It just needs to run its business. But the moment it lets important data out the door, all bets are off. Who accessed what? Is the network secure? Is the building physically secure from intrusion and corporate espionage? Does Morgan Stanley now know the JP automated trading strategies? and so on... Which is why I would say its not a no brainer to simply give up control of server infrastructure.
Yes, firms can co-locate their equipment in other firms DCs but its not a silver bullet either. You still run up heavy costs associated with renting the physical space, and hardware maintenance. If we're talking about a company of significant size that is going to be part of a paradigmatic shift -- the cost/benefit of co-locating doesn't scale well (and that's why you'll see many sizable non pure tech companies that own and operate their own DCs)
Imagine there exist two companies who are competitors, A and B. Now company A outsources its data with a third party service. When company A managed its own hardware infrastructure it had tight control over physical access to every machine. Now that its data is hosted with a 3rd party, there is a greater possibility that the data becomes physically compromised.
The initial costs associated with building a data center seem enormous. The maintenance costs also must be staggering. Does anyone know what percent of DC construction/maintenance is spent on redundancies? (e.g. backup generators, UPS, multiple carrier services, etc).
Abstracting away the physical infrastructure for a 'logical' infrastructure (if you will), seems very attractive to me. Particularly if I can have an on-line balance between compute cost and benefit.
One major concern with this approach is security, both physical and otherwise...
I can imagine how "Bob" must feel. But execution on the idea is the most important thing.
Until you've created version 1, you're still at the theoretical stage. And while in theory you may see your company being worth (m|b)illions in a few years, the reality is that you need to implement.
Again, like brk suggests, why get mired in an argument over whether you control 100% or 90% of "0". Building a startup and creating value is a lot harder said than done I would imagine. Use your judgement and do whatever it takes to get the best person on board.
"So successful did Argentina's default prove (economic growth has since surged while bond spreads are back in the 300-500 basis point range) that many economists were left to ponder why any sovereign debtor ever honours its commitments to foreign bondholders"
Since the VC has a strong technical background (M.S. in CS), I would guess that they would probably be more interested in the course of a conversation in the "intellectual" / technical side of things rather than the mundane financial boring stuff.
Also, probably better than seed funding would be to connect with this VC, and see if you would like him to mentor you. If you're throwing a business plan and slide deck out it might seem like you are just another opportunistic gold-digger, whereas if you can just show how passionate and energetic you are, as pg suggested, its much more likely to lead to a longer term relationship.