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Great excerpt from the article:

"While it might look like an overnight success in hindsight, the story of React is actually a great example of how new ideas often need to go through several rounds of refinement, iteration, and course correction over a long period of time before reaching their full potential."

pan_won I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA

I'm working on a startup that provides live remote video assistant as a service and we piggy backs off of existing technology platforms (FaceTime, Hangouts, Skype) rather than building the tech ourselves for the meantime.

Do you prefer that companies have their own technology or is it okay that a company utilizes existing platforms in the beginning?

My team consist of CS and ME/EE.

It's PokeBin.com if you wanted more information.

pan_won PokeBin: Schedule free demo to view apt/house remotely to save on flights/hotels

The riskiest part of relocating is securing housing ahead of time. You want to make sure that your new home is comfortable and that there are no regrets when you purchase or sign the rental contract. Unfortunately, sellers and landlords are not always honest. They conveniently leave out the negative aspects when they advertise their offerings. One of my co-workers from Europe even got scammed out of his apt and left homeless on arrival! That is why many people have to go see the place in person before committing. However, sometimes that is not possible because of time and money. Not everyone can take time off to fly in and book hotels. My goal is to solve this issue as a real-time remote video assistant.

After scheduling a viewing, a PokeBin representative shows up at the apartment and conducts a live walkthrough with you via FaceTime or another video calling app of your choice.

It could also be used for anything where you need eyes on the ground (i.e. check on CraigsList meetup, your pet from work, crowdedness of restaurant, if a party is popping, for a specific talk at a conference).

Please let us know what you think.

pan_won Ask HN: Anyone interested in connecting with a mentor?

I think this is a great question. I don't think there is a definitive description for a mentor. It could mean many things to different people.

To me a mentor is someone who is interested in helping me, I have a good relationship with and cares about my growth.

How you two go about doing those things will be entirely up to you. For example, maybe you two have some frequency of checkins or interact on a need basis. This could be over plain old chatting, code review, or playing a game. As long as there are thought out topics to discuss and a medium that makes people comfortable.

pan_won Ask HN: Anyone interested in connecting with a mentor?

Also, if anyone might be interested in being a mentor, please let me know. The more the merrier.

pan_won Ask HN: Anyone interested in connecting with a mentor?

Feel free to Twitter DM (@_panw) or email me (panw@outlook.com)

pan_won Ask HN: Anyone interested in connecting with a mentor?

As I mentioned, I'm open to connecting with anyone. I would definitely have a more positive outlook cause you'll have a future regardless if you want to, you don't really have a choice haha. Feel free to Twitter DM (@_panw) or email me (panw@outlook.com).

pan_won Ask HN: Anyone interested in connecting with a mentor?

Thanks for your messages and emails. I was only expecting a few people, but this is awesome.

Looks like y'all don't like Snapchat lol. What would be the best platform for us to connect (Slack, Twitter DM, FB DM)?

pan_won Ask HN: Anyone interested in connecting with a mentor?

Mentors has had a significant impact on my life. To continue the cycle, I’d like to make myself available to all of you.

A little about me: I have experience working on startups and in innovation centers with a background in computer science. I’m currently based in NYC, but I also spend a lot of time in SF. I’ve travelled most of the Europe, Asia, and the U.S. After college, I actually took 6 months off to couch surf through Europe, which partially inspired me to do this. Learn more about me at panw.weebly.com

Given my background, I believe I could be helpful to anyone who is involved with a startup, still in college, or involved with tech (getting involved or already involved). However, I am open to speaking to anyone.

Snapchat me @ pan-w

pan_won Tay Microsoft's AI Chatbot

Super excited that Tay finally launched. I sit right next to the team, so it's super cool to finally see their work in the wild.

pan_won NYU ARISE High School Summer Opportunity

If you have a younger sibling, child, or just know some youngster consider passing this opportunity along. Also here is another program for young females: http://www.girlswhocode.com/applynow

I wish I had more information about such programs when I was in high school. Now that I have internal information from my company, I thought I share with the community.

pan_won Show HN: Blabr – Scientific Computing for the Web

Cool, look forward to it

pan_won Show HN: Blabr – Scientific Computing for the Web

Nice website. Are you executing the code on the client or server? We are both instructors and have been working on a similar tool to help our students learn MATLAB, React, React Router, MongoDB, and Babel-ES6. It has worked really well for our students. Check it out: https://SaturnAPI.com

We'd love to collaborate or exchange ideas. If you are interested, feel free to email me at panthongw@gmail.com.

pan_won Ask HN: Does Meteorjs really lock people in? (Brought up by Feathersjs)

Full disclosure - I develop in Meteor and like it.

When I'm choosing to be involved with something, I always look to the people I'll have to engage with. It's very much a date.

For a programming framework, it would be the dev community around it. First I see if there is a community forming, that's a really good indicator if the technology is good and if it's here to stay. Then I start building a small app with the technology and interacting with people in the community online and offline. If the technology is meeting my needs and the community members are pleasant and helpful then I'll commit.

Not being able to use NPM modules directly is kind of a bummer, but they can be ported to Meteor Packages.

Looking through Feathers, it does not seem very beginner friendly and there is a lot of configurations needed. I believe one of the reason Meteor gained a lot of traction because it was extremely beginner friendly. As I developed more Meteor apps I have also been able to utilize advance features as well. There was something for everyone.

With regard to the funding, I think that is a good thing. Big name investors won't invest in something they don't think will be at least 10x better than what currently exist. If something is that much better there will definitely be a way to make money without compromising the product. Google is a great example. They display ads based on your search history. If I'm looking to buy some shoes, I wouldn't mind ads about shoe promotions. I believe the lead investor is A16Z and Marc Andressen cofounded Netscape, so I have confidence in them.

Competition is great none the less, so I hope Feathers pressures Meteor to constantly be better.

Here is an example project I'm working on if you need some insight to Meteor's capabilities. It's MATLAB in the cloud, so you could share Fiddles and build APIs that need computational capabilities: https://SaturnAPI.com

pan_won Polyfills as a Service

CDNs beats packages for faster page loads, but there must be a reliable maintainer. This was paramount as I was building SaturnAPI. If anyone needs to utilize MATLAB in the cloud check it out: https://SaturnAPI.com

pan_won Open Source Legal Docs – Save Money and Better Understand the Docs

Thanks for the tip. I'll keep that in mind from now on. Cheers

pan_won Bonsai: Bulletproof contracts, simple e-signing, escrow for freelancers

http://bit.ly/panwlegaldocs

I recently open sourced my legal docs on Google Docs, so people could share docs, ask questions, and help each other. Legal docs are expensive and the language is very obscure. Let's utilize our legal experience and help each other out. Here's my post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10100848