meterplech

If you are confused about the title, I stole the title from the Harvard Business Review Daily stat: http://web.hbr.org/email/archive/dailystat.php?date=022511

But, I thought it would make more sense to link to the article detailing the actual study.

I am wondering if you are worried about the new Apple policy changes. Specifically the 30% subscription in-app. Do you feel this applies to this type of SaaS app?

In economics the reverse hockey stick growth is known as diminishing marginal returns. This simply means the market values the earliest years of experience as much more beneficial to a developers skill than the later.

While I understand the idea behind hiring young and inexperienced, it should be noted that the wage rates are there for a reason. The training costs/possible managerial time may be greater for the average college graduate. (Clearly not always true- I am just trying to postulate why the market values experience this way).

I may not have known what the terms meant, but I took that to mean 10 year returns on funds. So, I thought it was only referring to funds started in 1998, 1999, and 2000. Still definitely not a overwhelming amount of data. I forgot to mention the other years in my comment. However, the general idea of the comment still holds- they took an exact bit of data, like 10 year returns for the worst years of funds to determine that VCs aren't valuable. As has already been commented, if you looked at the 15 or 20 year returns you will be amazed in the other direction.

In general I am shocked whenever a single anecdote like this is reported as the truth. They try to add some cachet by saying they looked at 1,300 firms, but picking only one start date is awful.

I'd be really interested in average 10 year returns on VC from the past 10 years. I.e funds raised from 1990 to 2000. Obviously even more interesting will be how the current funds do.

The great thing about the internet is that people can express their point of views. If the idea is a good and interesting one it will be discussed. Think of it as an anonymous letter to the editor if you need.

I think you can certainly reach certain levels of wealth only be selling a company you own. But, I am not sure joining a startup you don't own doesn't give you a hugely better chance of wealth. Especially if you are not one of the first 5 employees or some very high position. Let's say you have the skills to be a VP Engineering of a startup or a engineering manager at Google.

Let's be generous and say you get there after a series A and make 100k/year startup and get ~.5% ownership subject to dilution. Compared to that Google job making 175k a year plus bonus and stock options. Let's be conservative and say total compensation of 200k. In 5 years you are forgoing $500,000 + any return on asset you made. That startup has to sell for $10 million without taking any more investment for it to be worth it.

Obviously this is possible, but it's not clear which one is better off most of the time. Like the article says- do a startup if you want to do one. Not if you want to get rich. If you want to get rich go be a quant at a hedge fund.

I love seeing this type of response. It's similar to the race to put a man on the moon. Some technology should be there to inspire.

Sorry if it was a bit harsh. You definitely wrote a more entertaining post. I was just pointing out that he was specifically requesting information that wasn't related to doing a startup.

This isn't controversial at all. This is pretty much the typical HN answer. But, the OP wasn't looking for this...

"I realize the general consensus around here may be that the best investment would be in yourself (have 25k? start a business!), but surely some people have "normal" investments, too. How do you hack it?"

Congrats on making this decision to do a startup, but that's not what he is looking for.

For what it's worth, I think that the way "big money" wins and "little guy" loses is exactly because of this. When people lose a ton of money, they lose confidence in the market and don't get to make much of it back in the subsequent rebound. To answer the OP's point, I invest in tech stocks/ETFs that I understand. I cut my losses very quickly, but buy more shares on my way up if it's going up. That's how after taking only a 10% loss in the market collapse I grew my portfolio about 80% the past 2 years in the recovery. Good luck! If you want more thoughts/ideas definitely email me- in profile. I'd be happy to discuss.

I think many people conflate BisDev and Sales too much. Most people in tech have an idea of a Sales guy: the ultimate closer, knows everyone, eats rejection for breakfast. A great sales guy is one of the best assets in a tech startup. That being said, a BizDev person normally is thinking strategically about the company's position as a whole. He is gaining deep knowledge in new verticals and identifying the right companies to target. It's usually a big picture type person. I think the best in this position truly understand the tech involved in the company.

Nice- I should've looked. And, I appreciate the idea behind earned trust. Best of luck!

Is their business model subscription based or recommendation (like Mint) based? I don't know if I would trust anything from a company like this if I was already in debt. Usually people already feel screwed over. They should really work on PR and branding so people feel like they can trust then.

You know, obviously you are right. But, I think people (especially intelligent HN type people) greatly underestimate how much psychological tricks affect them. I know deep down that spending with credit card is the same as spending with cash. But, I tracked my spending using cards and only withdrawing from ATMs and using cash. I spent about 20% more. And my life didn't feel any better or anything. Now I use credit cards on the big stuff- like travel, transportation costs, and other large ticket items where credit versus cash is unlikely to affect me spending habits. Point is, you get some tiny cash back, but I think for 99% of people you spend more than you get.

I'm really impressed. This is especially interesting given all the TechCrunch type talk of Google falling being Facebook in terms of talent. I'm sure there are a lot of defections (people do seek pre-IPO options after all) but clearly Google still has a strong pull for talent.

I think this shows they truly are doing things right w.r.t treating employees right and creating a great environment to work.

I think it's scary when you first realize you have to charge users. (Or to raise your price on them). But, as long as you talk to them, sometimes it can surprise you how receptive they are.

When I was an SAT tutor I started charging $20/hour. I was inexperienced and a bit younger than most of my clients, so I figured I couldn't charge much. After awhile, I decided I wanted a higher wage if I got new clients. But, how much? I decided to ask for $30 from new clients. No one argued, or showed any displeasure. Wow! But, had I not gone high enough?

The next time I decided I wanted more, I made the decision to jump it to $60/hour just to see if anyone would take it. And... everyone did. Without question.

In order to get paid you have to ask. And, it's sometimes shocking how much people will pay you. Don't be afraid to ask for more.

Sure- I am really happy for them. But, from a "change the world," or "next Big Thing" perspective it's sad to see. We love to think of startups as vehicles for innovation and change. But, a liquidation event can often lead to the mission being hurt. I am sure the OKC team is proud of their work and happy with this result. But, the HN crowd is sad to see them not going all the way so to speak. We wanted a great at SEO/marketing, fun, and free dating site to work.

This is particularly poignant and frustrating given OKCupids recent acquisition. I'm happy for those guys- but I am sad that the one good dating site will probably be discontinued. It's tough when you know the shady tactics of practically all the others.

I like the article for the added perspective of going elsewhere. But, like recent anti-tax blog posts I have trouble believing a $6-figure salary is that bad. No way you only have 4k of disposable income. How is that calculated? Even in NYC you do not need to spend 30k a year on housing like his percentages would suggests. People should stop trying to describe the plight of the 6-figure earner.

This article is really devoid of substance. I expect more from the Economist magazine normally. They provide anecdotes about companies and countries that got by without a large number of MBAs. They don't even provide any evidence of correlation, let alone causation.

I have generally been skeptic of increases in higher education- but this doesn't really explain the pros and cons of an MBA.

There have been a few attempts in this space, but I would love Amazon to succeed here. I wonder if this is timed because of their purchase of Diaper.com/Soap.com. That business had a true understanding of how to sort and deliver merchandize. Seems like this would be a great way to leverage that knowledge combined with Amazon's inventory.

Previous HN discussions: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1427668 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1877916

In my entrepreneurship program at school, someone asked a speaker how he managed to avoid taking a job and sticking with starting a company. He responded "I never made a resume. If you don't have a resume, you can't get a job."

Perhaps it isn't quite that simple, but it's a nice story.

It's more than that though. This article specifically says that HTC and Motorola have also been sued for patent infringement. Even if Google can afford to pay for these types of lawsuits, this could really hurt them strategically in working with telecoms and other vendors in the future. Anyone wanting to build a new tablet/phone will have to consider this as a huge risk. Could have much bigger strategic aspects than just the IP

I think the point was successful short term flips don't add as much value as growing a business over a long time. Doesn't create jobs or likely new technologies. Not to take anything away from this- it's a neat idea, and always impressive to have such viral use. But, I guess OP just means this shouldn't be the final goal for HN users.

Seems like a winning strategy to take a popular language/framework and make it incredibly simple and easy to deploy. As long as you have a very strong technical team I think this will be a successful YC exit every time. Either it can get huge due to great marketing, or the technology will be desperately sought after by larger hosting companies.

Not if you get a lawyer to take your case for a % of the eventual settlement/suit. Which I think is a relatively common practice. Not sure how it works and I am not an expert, but I imagine a lot of enterprising lawyers would be willing to take that deal. Twitter will likely settle to end it, and they can take a good percentage.

It's an interesting idea that I think local businesses would be interested in marketed properly. I have 2 remarks on the design.

1) Not all businesses have a single Zip Code. It is the right idea for a restaurant or bar for example, but only if there is only one location. For example, if I owned a small chain like 16 Handles for example I may be interested in how people like my business in general, not on one store. I can see how the feature could be useful, but it should be optional (and clearly marked so)

2) When I tried to click on the screenshots, I thought that the text was way too small to really understand what you were seeing. When I squinted I could figure it out, and it did seem really cool, but I am only 20 and using Chrome on a MacBook Air, so I think you should make the font waaaay bigger for your target middle aged user on a 5 year old Dell using IE7.

Great line from the article: "Sculley came to the conclusion that "we could run a lot better with Steve out of operations," he says. Jobs tended to value technological "elegance" over customer needs—a costly luxury at a time of slowing sales."

And you know, in some ways he still does. A belief in technological elegance created the iPod, iPhone, and iPad. Customers weren't demanding that technology, mostly they only realized they wanted it after it existed.

True about NY, but not about Massachusetts actually. If you go to page 3 of (1), you see that people under 300% of poverty level are provided care through "Commonwealth Care." This actually adds to my point, because of the US's federal system, different states, regions, and cities have not only different demographics, but different laws as well.

I like the idea of adding the "what is good where" point as well. For example, they don't discuss things like access to beach, or frequency of bone chilling blizzards.

(1): Somewhat large PDF... https://www.mahealthconnector.org/portal/binary/com.epicentr...

I think the problem with comparing the United States with other countries in general- specifically Sweden/Norway or even the UK or Canada is that the United States is just so much bigger. So, the characteristics of the "average" person are hardly representative (obviously). It's hard to imagine that this site can adequately compare life in two places. A better comparison may be single metropolitan area or state. I.e I think it would be more relevant to compare NYC with London, or Massachusetts with Sweden.

To the credit of the website though, it is cleanly designed and pretty interesting to play with. Cool.