snake117

Yeah it seems that YC made the right choice by not letting them in. I can imagine YC being a little picky about what press they would allow into Demo Day because they only want positive news about their start-ups...and who can blame them? I don't have anything against Pando, but I've never heard of them until now, yet I've been familiar with TechCrunch for a long time. YC is comfortable with them and this is there event, therefore, they have the final say in who can attend...even if it only is TechCrunch.

I believe this too. I wasn't expecting for there to be so many applicants, given that the application was open for only one week; I certainly learned my lesson. I read on another article that they only accepted 20 teams out of the 6500 pool. I can only imagine that they came across these teams early on and didn't pay a lot of attention to the rest of the pool, especially one's like mine where, now that I look back on it, my application was not ready for submission. When I read what I wrote, I used way to many "weasel words", as PG would say, and didn't state clearly anything in my application.

So to anyone reading this, if you apply to YC, make sure you do these two things: 1) Have a clear, well-written application that states your idea and your background clearly. 2) Start your application early and submit it early. This is one of those things that can only help you.

It was kind of funny because I thought at first that's what he was taking about, but then his message clicked and I agree. No developer should rely on one tool for the job; you have to be open-minded, try out new things, and explore new solutions. Taking this approach in the beginning is rather daunting, but definitely pays off in the long run when you have the ability to tackle problems from multiple angles.

Sometimes the unfortunate part of the education system is that you have to teach yourself a concept or skill. It's admirable that the individual mentioned was a straight-A student, but its almost meaningless compared to the people who have been teaching themselves how to code, hack, tinker with hardware, etc, since they were a kid.

I read Sean Parker's bio on Wikipedia sometime back and it explained his "autodidacticism". It got him far very early in his life so much that he didn't have to attend college. Granted not everyone has the kind of innate skill that some of these so called geniuses or prodigies do, but you can certainly learn a thing or two from them.

As far as working in teams go, again, nothing is preventing you from gathering two or three of your good friends and building something together, no matter how useless the end product turns out to be in real life. This way, you are not restrained on your idea or your methodology in building, you learn from trial-and-error and build on your experience, and if the product does turn out to be something remotely useful then that is one more thing to write on your resume and talk about in your interviews. Work towards getting your degree and do well, but always work towards making yourself better; don't solely rely on coursework and professors, because that won't take you very far.

I couldn't agree more. You would think with the funding they receive they wouldn't need to raise a 100k. I like the idea and would be definitely interested in trying it out, but there are other ways to advertise your product.

Even though this compound has a lot of potential to help those in need, I can see this being marketed as the new Hydroxycut.

So is this kind of like Flash and Illustrator rolled into one free product?

If so that's pretty amazing.

Nowadays, it seems that if your startup is primarily a web application, then choosing the right domain is a little more important than if you make an app like Snapchat. Is there really a big difference if you type in "snapchat.com" vs "snapchatapp.com"?

However, if you can avoid more obscure and complicated URLs, then by all means do it. I think its best practice to have something straight forward so the user doesn't have to search first to come on your site. You never know what kind of distraction can present itself in those few seconds leading a user away from your site.

So I'm planning on building a new gaming rig because my current PC is still running Sandy Bridge. Would you guys recommend Skylake? I found this MoBo + CPU + Memory package on Newegg for $500:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=19-117-601

From my understanding, the i5 CPUs are great for gaming and i7 is great for running multiple applications at the same time. I appreciate any help, thanks!

I would assume with the growing number of teams that YC accepts, they need more people to give great advice. But not just generic advice regarding strategy, they need people to give advice about some of the more intricate things, like hardware. I wouldn't be surprised if they start hiring some people with a biology/chemistry/physics background given the increase number of biotech start-ups that I've been seeing.

Regarding your last comment, I think that's kind of interesting to think about. To think that their first batch had only 8 start-ups and now they're at something like 86 is pretty staggering. I don't think they're going to sacrifice the quality and credibility of their program for taking in more start-ups, because they are still pretty selective on who they take in and have the best reputation.

Really they're just trying to branch out to more teams in the hopes of "finding the next Dropbox or Airbnb".

I know he emphasized biotech in the blog post, but I got the impression that he would assist general startups that incorporate some kind of hardware in their product. So it could be biotech or something like Anki or the Myo armband by Thalmic.

I think this is a great medium for educating potential future founders around the web, so thank you for taking the time to make this. I'm sure most HN user's out there have heard of Jessica Livingston's book "Founders at Work". I just got it in the mail today and its a great read. If you enjoy this kind of interview format you will definitely enjoy this book.

I think one of the worst advertisements is the Bank of America ads played before any video on the BBC app. It's always that one German lady singing "Dankeshon"...very annoying.

I agree with you completely. I get that its hard to find a decent way for Google to monetize YouTube without being blocked and throwing ads in the users' faces. But when I have to watch a 30 second ad for a popular video that may only be a few minutes in length, I get pretty frustrated and just wait for the skip button without even taking in the ad. If most users are like this, which it seems so, then Google would be better off trying to come up with a different scheme because this isn't even effective advertising anymore.

I always enjoyed Calvin and Hobbes and I certainly enjoyed this message by Bill Watterson. It's hard not to let things bog you down in life so much and to be able to find that right balance between your passions, responsibilities and priorities. Thanks for sharing!

I just started working with Ruby on Rails a few weeks ago and I think the so-called "elegant" syntax is the reason why I went with it. That and the fact that Rails is a joy to work with.

It would be nice to see AI technology used for more than just sifting through videos and posts, but I guess with regards to Facebook there isn't much else is there?

That was an interesting read by the way. Thanks!