457 karma · joined December 27, 2008
I have used GraphQL for the last 2 projects I've been involved with... and definitely was a better experience for frontend engineers.
Was the last API you built REST or GraphQL? Why you pick one vs. the other?
The article doesn't explains what makes LTSE different than NYSE? How will it actually encourage looking beyond the next quarter? Where can one learn about that?
While the acquisition price is public, would love to learn more about revenue or # of customers. They must have had some serious revenue/traction to be bought for $170M.
Only pain: not having iMessage on laptop.
One option is to automatically revert back to a commit when an issue is discovered until a fix can be applied. Does anyone use this? If so, what is your team's SCM (i.e., git) workflow?
Not in a law-of-physics point of view, but I suppose, it is from the perspective of the entity that pays for the server.
If you can push the computation to the end point, and simply spend fewer resources (let's say, 1000x fewer resources) to coordinate the task, then, behold 1000x cost reduction!
In fact, even Quora hadn't actually implemented a 10-year exercisable window by the time (or right before the time) Sam's article was written: see comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7610668. Note that the article simply mentions it as an idea; not as an ongoing implementation. I wonder if it is now actually implemented at Quora.
I was never a user, but when I checked them out, did think their offering showed great promise. I suppose the offer from Facebook must've been too good to say no.
However, as they say, reality is relative. If the tests they ran are "realistic" in the sense that most people use the systems in the same way they tested, then it's all good.
I suppose we need to agree on what's realistic / acceptable. I would say just minimize client-server RTT and that's a good setup, which they may have.
Ahh -- "observed instances of eventual consistency" as in "able to observe poorer than strong consistency". I was imagining it as able to eventually confirm _consistency_. However, was dumbfounded by the lack of information on delay before check.
I wonder if the experiment normalizes for the client origin. The farther the client is from the actual server, the more time it takes to do a round trip, and less chance for an observed instance of eventual consistency.
The big company that acquired us didn't even ask to take a look at your code until after a deal was discussed, and intent signed, but before closing. (i.e., final due diligence... and they wanted it to scan for GPL violations, etc.). They evaluated our software/company by focusing their efforts on extensively using our software in various (stress) test scenarios prior to discussing the deal. They also asked us to add a few features on short notice to test our ability to execute.
In fact, they kept the competing implementers (read: engineers who would actually write code) away from the deep technical decisions (and they had a competing effort which they merged with us later). Most of the technical discussions were limited to the engineering director who ran the group. They took a very caution approach: they have much more to lose then us if the deal didn't went through and they did in fact end up launching the product (i.e., possibility of a failed startup suing them).
I think if it any reputable big company in the valley, they will probably follow the same protocol.
One word of caveat: you may end up working on a deal, but generally it will take a LOT of your time. So you should find out if the discussions are leading to something you want ASAP.
And as for clearly better funds like A16Z and YC now, there have many numerous that have held that crown before. Fees and fund expansion have resulted in worse results -- allowing newer players like A16Z and YC to take off.
My argument is that I don't think it's clear who'll beat the broad market (for their asset class) once the fees are taken out. I suppose we disagree about the value of high-fee managed funds (whether VC, PE, Hedge, etc.). That's fine.
Anyway, enough digression from the discussion on hand.
Good luck to the founders in making their value proposition clear. I am sure there are lots of people want to invest in hedge funds but don't have the funds to invest directly. They will find this appealing.
How do you suppose one tell which hedge fund will do better and which won't beforehand? Past performance? We know that's not a good indicator. If you can tell which hedge funds will do better in the future, you probably can tell which stocks will do better, and then why not just got it yourself without giving someone else 2 and 20?
We agree that S&P500 and hedge funds have different risk factors.
The point is that S&P500 is a lot less riskier and with better returns than an average hedge fund.
Buffet (S&P500) is leading against hedge funds on the aforementioned long bet: http://fortune.com/2014/02/05/buffett-widens-lead-in-1-milli...
Disclaimer: I am on Buffet's side on this long bet. Management fees are the devil. I am all-in for low-fee index funds.
There is also a precedent for such type of clarification updates in YC family. YC founding partner, Jessica Livingston, provided a clarification with respects to Sabeer Bhatia of Hotmail vs. DFJ ventures based on the statements Bhatia made in an interview with her for the book "Founders at Work".
(1) Risk of time (and other things, including money) => go safe.
(2) Risk of money (only) => go big.
I am genuinely not sure[1], but it does occur to me that this could be the underlying difference in approach between an investor and a founder (more specifically: a founder still looking for his safety net.)
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[1] To tell you the truth, I find myself leaning towards "going big" of late. But until I found something tangible, it's just an exercise in vanity.
For a super successful startup (a la dropbox, stripe, etc.) -- why take only $50 million and leave the rest (possibly hundreds of millions) on the table? Especially with investors chewing their ears out about going for the home run. And, possibly, with an opportunity to cash out partially (a la Groupon, airbnb, etc.)
This is the type of article I come to Hacker News for. Thank you for writing it.
To make it interesting to the Hacker News crowd, I can provide some insights into how our acquisition went -- from a small startup to launching the product at a huge company with a large sales team.
Please let me know if you have any questions, comments, etc.