Matt Maroon: Startup School 2008 | Hacker News Reader

Matt Maroon: Startup School 2008

mattmaroon.com

21 pointspchristensen17 comments

Amazon must have a few power generators at its data center, making Bezos's analogy at least redundantly ironic.

browntech means technology that can extract more value from oil. such as better logistics for more efficient international delivery to figuring out how to get oil out of sands and shale.

saying that it means tech in India is quite a stupid joke.

And maybe it was just Matt's hangover, but DHH never said "500 x $40 = $125,000." The slide actually says 400 customers @ $40/mo = $200,000/year, as you can see in the video (http://omnisio.com/startupschool08/david-heinemeier-hansson-... @ 11:50)

yes, i don't recall the math mistake either

Matt was referring to one of the slides toward the end (23:49).

My guess is there was some length of time assumption that he just glossed over. 500 x $40 x 6.25 months = $125,000 for instance.

He said per month in his speech. And why would he choose 6.25 (or even 6) as his length of time?

Oh I remember the mental disconnect I had when he said that, I'm just saying that I assume he misspoke and that slide was supposed to have a real meaning of some sort over time. It seems much more likely that he thought through the slide when he made it and just blundered when on the spot than the other way around.

I also had a moment of confusion on the slide that said 400 x $40 = $200k until I realized he was talking about 12 months and rounding. I imagine something similar was happening here.

I would agree, except everything else was 1 month or a year, and this would have been 6ish months. Kind of random, and doesn't make sense in context. Also, why round from $120 to $125.

If he had said $250k I'd chalk it up to rounding for a year and accidentally saying a month.

Well 125,000 in base 11.5 number system is pretty close to 250,000 in base 10.

...

Yeah, that's all I got.

Lol.

Yes. Where he was talking about scaling.

A lot (majority even?) of factories/universities do have generators which they operate at most expensive hours and feed the excess back into the grid. It only makes sense to have these on hand from a risk perspective considering the volatility of electricity costs.

Interesting overview. I upvoted/saved this because I expect it'll generate the most discussion:)

Maroon is usually good for that :)

I'll be surprised if this one does.

That's too bad. You do have a knack for it, which is a great thing for this site.

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