Let's Do Lunch | Hacker News Reader

Let's Do Lunch

paulgraham.com

156 pointsyan43 comments

Seems kind of ... hrm ... odd to propose it as a chat about your startup. I think it'd be fun to do lunch with PG, but would much rather range over a wider group of topics - life in Italy, fatherhood, tech trends, languages, politics (hate seeing it on this site, but like everyone, I'm interested in it), and this that and the other thing.

Seems reasonable to me. For the silent auctions I've attended, barbers contribute haircuts, masseuses contribute massages, dentists contribute teeth whitening. PG's profession is advising startups, so that's what he put up for bid.

If you won the teeth whitening but wanted to engage the dentist in a conversation about sports or society or the state of the dental profession, he'd probably go for it, but it's not odd that he offered his expertise to the fundraiser.

"... odd to propose it as a chat about your startup. I think it'd be fun to do lunch with PG ..."

Access to pg talking about startups might have a higher auction value than other topics.

Actually that might be a backwards bending demand curve. If a lunch conversation with PG cost like $100K, you'd have less people wanting/needing to talk startups and more people who were already rich who just wanted to talk about whatever seems intellectually satisfying.

I'd be happy to talk about random topics, but it would seem presumptuous to offer that as an auction item.

On the other hand, if I had a good proposition for a startup and team, you'd pay me to fly there and talk about it for a few minutes, and then potentially give me money to work on it!

Also, in terms of startups, I have a suspicion that the most interesting knowledge in pg's head has to do with the aggregate data from YC: trends, what works, what doesn't, what makes money, that sort of thing. That's what I'd focus on in terms of startups.

Most likely a bargain in comparison to the lunch with Warren Buffett that recently went for a whopping $2.63 million.

Though that $2.63 million sure did include a ton of exposure (including your comment now!).

Paul can you ask the nursery school to try to take bids by phone? I will mail them a 20 dollar check. And if I win I will not make you go anywhere, I will fly out to Palo Alto.

I am sure many others would appreciate this option.

According to this previous post on the topic (by one of the volunteers at the school) if you want to bid but can't be there in person then you can contact them:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1863923

Unfortunately, you can't bid unless you attend the event (or have someone attend in your place).

I checked with Bing and unfortunately there is no way for someone to bid unless you attend the auction. If you want to bid, you should designate someone else to attend for you and get a reservation/bidder number.

This is a good Offer HN opportunity. (I know, I know, that's so last week.)

You could tell people that they can email you with the max they'll pay, and you'll go and bid for whoever has the highest max. And I guess you should say that you'll definitely bid at least the second highest max you heard, so that we don't end up shorting Bing.

(eg. Someone gives you a max of $5k. Someone else gives you a max of $4k. But the highest bid from anyone at the auction is $2k. So you bid $2500 on behalf of the $5k person and win it for them. If the $4k person and the $5k person had gotten different proxies, Bing would have gotten >$4k, but because there was a sort of pre-auction, they only got $2500. By saying that you'll definitely bid as high as the second-highest emailer, you avoid that problem.)

Just make sure you vet the person pretty well so you know they'll actually pay.

I'd do this myself, but I'll be on a plane back from Rubyconf that evening.

It is a silent auction.

Microtrend?

Our Kickstarter project also arranges coffees with VCs/angels for a donation to a nonprofit. And you can bid online. Deadline: end of day Saturday, Nov. Sixth.

http://pageturnerfest.org/kickstarter/vcs

Donate $500 to the Asian American Writers' Workshop literary festival and you can snatch coffees with:

- Patrick Chung, partner at NEA and co-lead of its consumer investing practice.

- Harj Taggar, partner at Y Combinator.

- Puneet Agarwal, of True Ventures, a $195 million fund that focuses earliest stages in the highest-growth segments of the technology market.

- Andrew Chung, principal at Lightspeed Venture Partners, who covers the cleantech, Internet and software sectors.

- James Cham, principal at Trinity Ventures, who covers consumer services, social media and digital media.

- Richard de Silva, general partner at Highland Capital Partners, who is focused on digital media investments with specific interest in online advertising, online media properties, consumer payment systems and internet infrastructure. [SOLD OUT]

- David Lee, partner at SV Angel with Ron Conway, who focuses on investments within the consumer Internet, mobile, video and other IT industries. [SOLD OUT]

Direct to our Kickstarter project: http://aaww.org/kickstarter

Site idea: leaders in their field volunteer their time for lunch. People bid and also pay for said lunch. Winning bid goes to designated charity. Perhaps have one auction per day. Could be anything from someone like PG to head of marketing at a major sports team, to notable chefs, writers, etc.

yup just what i was talking about, see below

Could be something in it then.

If it was high profile enough, the restaurants might even cover the lunch in exchange for the plug on the site.

Can someone in the area be my proxy and bid for me?

I'm wondering this same thing for myself.

I don't want to give the school a fixed number. I want a live body that can call me. I might go over my "limit" if it's within reason at the last minute...

I think it is a silent auction. So you go in and put your bid. So it is not going to be like what I believe you imagine.

I am not sure whether 1. you know what others have bid(my guess is this would be the case to raise more money from charity's point of view) 2. you can bid again.

The way silent auctions (charity or otherwise) I've participated in usually do it is to have a list of bids near each item. You can circulate throughout the evening, changing your bid until bidding closes.

Yeah, most silent auctions for charities will have items on tables and a paper/clipboard in front of each ... as you mingle at the event, you can check the highest bid and raise if you'd like ... could be wrong though

This reactive limit thing bothers me when my family buys on eBay. Decide your ACTUAL limit up front if you already have all the relevant information :)

I don't have all of the relevant information. The obvious missing piece is how much other people value the item.

It seems kind of silly to be upset by being outbid when you are participating in an auction with public bids.

You already know all about PG, so what's stopping you from deciding the most it's worth to you?

Speaking of eBay, it's amazing how many users harm bidder proceedings by 'staking their claim' rather than making a single bid at their latest opportunity.

sounds like a lot of people are interested in this but can't be there to bid. perhaps pg could setup a second lunch for online bidders, do a reverse auction and donate all the bids.

I would like to remotely bid on this item too. I would fly in for the lunch.

Seems to be the type of thing where the higher you bid, the less meaningful the result would actually be.

This is a great way to increase the value (or beneficiaries) of altruistic acts. Maybe that startup Skyara should make this one of their use cases, where people with specific domain knowledge could offer lunches and donate the proceeds to charity.

Note: I have no affiliation with Skyara and hadn't even heard about them until I read this HN thread a couple minutes ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1874982

I plan to be there...And hope to win:) @callmeed, i can bid on ur behalf assuming it is a straightforward one time bid...i can contact you on email if you want..though there is a conflict of interest :) edit: edited some portion once i learned about silent auction

If you are bidding yourself, I think you cannot bid for someone else (morally speaking). Otherwise you can be sure to beat his bid by bidding just one dollar more.

true - i edited for that just now:) I did not realize that it would be a silent auction.

Surely, he could do that anyway ? - it's a silent auction not a secret one, all bids are public.

This is well timed, to be honest part of me wants to go there and bid just to ask Paul Graham why we didn't get into YCombinator. But, we are in NYC :)

a school at stanford and they lack technology? perhaps someone should quickly build an ipad app to put on the table at the auction. onsite folks can bid on the ipad, and folks at home can bid via browser. take twitter id so all bids are tweeted to drive even more bidders. perhaps the basis for a yc startup...

I know this is about the lunch, but does anyone have any kids that have gone to Bing? Is it worthwhile?

lunch + feedback with PG - how amazing. Right now I'm bootstrapping my business companyline.com so winning this auction isn't likely. However, PG I'd donate 200+ hours of community service for a similar lunch in Mountain View.

Its times like these I wish I had cash to spare, haha.

not do downplay the charity aspect, it would be cheaper to spend some time building a great mvp and apply to yc to get more than lunch with pg and gang. but then there's the chance of not being selected ;)

pg, are you ready for the possible

"Why didn't you pick me for yc?! (sob)"

awkward lunch?

The thing is, I don't think it'd be that awkward for him. I bet he'd find a way to say, "you know, I got rejected once..." and you'd walk out ready to rock and roll.

I think the most beneficial thing would to be blunt with a person, tell them exactly where you think they have gone wrong. They may disagree but in the end pg is the one with the yc program to offer and gets to make the call, rightly or wrongly in heinsight who makes the cut.

I don't think tiptoeing around it really helps either side.

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