8,297 karma · joined March 6, 2011
Don't note what machine or where the key has access to either. I know purists will take issue with this but it's a solution to a problem as you have detailed.
Obviously only works from "borrowed machine from friend work etc" unless you can get the key from a machine to "wife's phone".
"we believe investing in YC companies at post-YC valuations is still a great deal"
but also says this (from the post):
"And by doing this in every YC company, there will be no signaling issue of us supporting some companies and not others."
So how can you have both statements be true?
In other words how can you say "still a great deal" and also acknowledge that you are investing in all companies, not only ones that are a "great deal", simply so there is no signaling?
Essentially a variation of Cialdini's "reciprocity" principle (among others..)
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/six-principles-influe...
People are free to do whatever they want with the grant and not go any further with YC but it's obvious that the good will and grant will cause a large percentage of them to not do that.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/temperature-gauge/id46783052...
Looks like they have another app which does have fan control:
I have a Porsche Macan S (small SUV) which has 0 to 60 times in the 5 second range. But the acceleration from 50 to 95 (the point that your realize you are going to fast) feels almost split second.
The 2012 911 that I had had much better 0 to 60 times (in the 4's) but even with a 7 speed manual transmission didn't have the kick that the Macan has at the upper end. [1] (And it's really pretty neat to hit the gas and in an instant be practically at 100 miles per hour. Helps greatly with passing truck..)
Likewise if you take a test drive in a Cayman S which has better 0 to 60 than a Macan S it feels quite frankly like a "pig". I had a brand new loaner [2] and drove one for about 100 miles and went to town with it.
Lastly, engine noise is pretty cool at least the way I have experienced it.
[1] Generally you are going to do more accelerating once you get to 40 mph than you are from a stoplight at least that is what I have found.
[2] Side note I have found that with the Porsches that I have bought they do get better once they are broken in (2k to 4k miles..)
And they want the same person each time whereas with drivers that doesn't matter, certainly not as much.
So one way that cleaning companies differ, and I employ cleaners for both my home and commercial properties, is that the cleaning is predictable in nature "every week, every two weeks, 3 times per month" and so on usually at a set time. [1] The only variable is the day that you "setup" with them. Rides don't follow the same pattern. With rides (also much simpler getting someone to the airport) you don't need the same driver and the time is typically not the same and nowhere near as frequent for the average user. With cleaning companies you want the same crew even in the sense that they get to know the lay of the land at your property (home or commercial). (Helps with pets as well). A host of differences.
[1] And once this time comes up it normally doesn't change and you are on autopilot.
This product is almost a reverse example of why you can't ask people of whether they need your product (Steve Jobs examples) since they could overestimate what they would buy until it comes time to actually do so.
My first reaction was "this is cool I have to have one!" and I thought of one case in particular where I was trying to film my car accelerating (a 911) but couldn't get my wife to come with me and besides she wouldn't do a good job anyway. But then I thought "well is filming that event important enough to get involved with this product at that price point and do I really need another practically single use gadget to have to deal with and learn to use?" I still haven't even bought a quadracopter with video (new dji 4 model) and it's not for price reasons. In the end I am thinking "ok so I will have all of this cool video then what do I do with the video exactly?" It's not that I wouldn't enjoy using these types of things but I have toys that I don't have the time to play with right now.
In theory by doing that they were raising the potential price for those that would end up investing. Their competitors. If you felt you had "plan b's" you'd be less likely to lower your expectations on value than you would be if you had 7 firm rejections. 7 firm rejection might mean "take what we can get".
Here is an example using car buying.
If a car is sitting on the lot and has nobody expressing any interest the dealer may possibly want to unload the car and take whatever he can get. Otoh if the dealer feels that he has 2 or 3 people interested in the same car he will then be less likely to take a "short" deal from the 4th person who walks into the dealership. He will feel there is potential and it is worth the gamble to wait feeling he has a few plan b's.
(Forget for a second whether this actually happens with car dealers I am only trying to illustrate the theory of what I call "feeling fat" which I have seen many times in business).
Of course as a group it's hard to explain why all participants would act this way or that this even happens. However I don't feel individually they are disadvantaged by this behavior at all. While there might be a reputation disadvantage to stringing someone along unless they are absolutely sure they will not invest why not string someone along?
Pushes all the right buttons, but keep in mind that those investors also rejected vastly more ideas that most likely never went anywhere. That was their take on airbnb at the time.
With respects to Airbnb, Fred Wilson of USV passed on the opportunity as well and posted emails showing where Paul Graham personally spent quite a bit of time trying to convince him otherwise.
In other words "spread the cheer around".
The mythical mafia does this in popular culture as well by apparently buying Turkeys at Christmas time (for example) and helping people out in small ways and building trust. That trust allows them (in theory) to get away with the crimes that they commit (among other reasons). I say "mythical" because this is a popular cultural observation of mine, not some fact backed up by research. But I have found it to be true that people tend to look the other way if their palms are getting greased.
In case it's not entirely obvious it is also one of the reasons (along with tax benefits) that the rich give to charity causes. The good will gets those in power to look the other way.
If you can't get ycombinator.com you can get yycombinator.net or ycombinator.somenewtld (that was just released).
And Wine and Art of the type that has value can't be created in as large a quantity as there is a market for anyway (cheaper mass produced wine can of course). If there wasn't scarcity the value would not be as great. With domains the reason the value is high is similar. There is only one "bell.com" and if you want that name and not "thebell.com" or bell.xyz you need to pay the person who got to it first (legitimately I might add).
This is all just sour grapes. Somebody wakes up one morning and decides that life isn't fair because the domain that they want is owned by someone else. Might even be a bakery on main street that got to "mycakes.com" first (made that up ..)
> "Real estate, on the other hand, is a very similar case, and in my opinion there should be laws against playing dog in the manger with real estate - either an outright ban or a hefty penalty in the form of extra property tax."
Ridiculous free market system works like this and always has. You are free today to buy real estate at absolute bargain prices in Newark NJ and sit on it for years and try to make some money later. Go a short distance north and you will end up in Manhattan where you won't buy a parking space for the same 4x price. What do you want to do now have the state take all property that people have acquired legitimately and redistribute it? Ridiculous.
[1] And maybe when someone decides to name their company they should consider what names they can buy prior to deciding to use a domain that they will not be able to buy, and then crying about how unfair the system is because it is not available right?
It is trivial anyway to "use" a domain name. Are you further suggesting that someone who is legitimately "using" a domain name (and who is going to decide what use is anyway) then can't sell that domain name? And does that mean they can't sell the business that is attached to that domain name? Or you are going to have some tribunal that looks into the facts of every single case and decides 'ok this is a "real" business the domain can be sold, "no this isn't sorry"'?
Let's say a name that you would one day sell for $15k was registered by a flower shop that used it for business. In that case if someone else came along and wanted that name they would very well have to pay more than 15k for it and might not be able to purchase it at all.
That is that it's just so unfair and unjust that the name they want was purchased by someone before them and that they can't use it or buy it cheaply or at all. [1] I don't know why people seem to think the Internet is different than other ways people make money buying and selling. For example coin collecting, art work, wine to name only a few things. And of course land and housing as you are mentioning.
[1] Try buying a domain name from google or a host of large "we don't need any more money" type of companies. You will learn to love anyone who is in the business of actually selling the domains that they own because given the right offer they will at least sell those names to you.
I have found it helpful and have done deals with people that would normally be considered spammers. Wish I could provide details but let's just say that some people who spam actually are legitimate buyers of certain products or services and respond quite well to reply emails.
How much spam do I get and have to go through? Easily 3000 messages per day. You will have to trust me when I say I have not regretted not doing any filtering in terms of what I do [1]
[1] And no I do not sell a product or service to spammers...
I like the sound of that. I actually have run my own mail servers since the mid 90's [1] but I am more of a business guy who knows computers than a strong technical guy the way that I see it. I don't use gmail (for anything important I do use it for unimportant things) I don't like the idea of my mail sitting on their servers.
[1] Actually if you include non internet mail dates back to the mid 80's on a Unix system V.
Upvoted you but...
A company offers a free service. "Your aunt" does know know or understand the need for "two step verification" nor do almost certainly a large percentage of people using gmail.
This idea that companies resolve themselves of all responsibility to provide reasonable customer support for a free product with such wide adoption is ridiculous. Google derives benefit from the relationship regardless of the fact that the service is free.
It's the "trust us" attitude and the generally soft spoken videos and collateral doing exactly what marketing is supposed to do. In other words it all seems so genuine, possible and down to earth in tone and builds up a trust factor. Even though the people behind the product are complete unknowns. Take away those videos and there would be a drastic drop in funding and not just because the videos explain features or benefits either or can go viral.
An example "Reading it, it looks like a total hack job by a poor programmer."