2arrs2ells

Sohail Prasad (YCS12) is building a publicly traded for privately held startups! https://www.wsj.com/articles/fund-to-let-retail-investors-be...

I think that’s unfair to Scott when the entire article is prefaced by “Epistemic status: Extremely confused! Low confidence in all of this”

The rationalist movement is all about being able to accurately forecast the accuracy of your predictions. Saying we shouldn’t discuss low accuracy predictions at all seems odd - by making early/fuzzy predictions (and acknowledging them as such) we may ex find that we are more accurate than we realize.

Re: revenue generated, if this [1] article about Peter Thiel's $5bn Roth is correct, that's $1bn+ in lost long term capital gains tax on him alone!

(That said, I'm guessing the intent of the provision is more about fairness/eliminating a loophole for the wealthy than strictly generating revenue).

[1] https://www.propublica.org/article/lord-of-the-roths-how-tec...

This general idea is called a revenue neutral carbon tax: ex https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2019/07/revenue-neutral-c...

Blocking new housing is resisting change. Maintaining the status quo is conservative. Pushing for change is progressive.

Aline Lerner: https://blog.alinelerner.com/ive-been-an-engineer-and-a-recr...

Waterloo is a well-regarded engineering powerhouse & has been well represented in YC going back to my batch (s12 - BufferBox) if not earlier.

That's a totally unsustainable routine for you and for your daughter... I'd strongly recommend hiring a great sleep coach!

Air New Zealand has a bunk bed/sleep pod concept called the "economy skynest": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Se6uehzy5K0 (not yet launched).

The founder's original equity shouldn't count as compensation (it's purchased at time of incorporation at fair market value).

Don't miss Alex Stamos (former Facebook Chief Security Officer's reply): https://twitter.com/alexstamos/status/1320006154424967170

If I'm understanding Alex right, he's saying that Facebook's 2019 FTC consent decree requires them to limit the personal information collected by apps on the platform.

There's a great reply-all on Feral Hogs: https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/n8hw3d that explores the tweet:

“Legit question for rural Americans - how do I kill the 30-50 feral hogs that run into my yard within 3-5 min while my small kids play.”

The database maintained by YC is going to be a lot more accurate: https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/?batch=S11&status=Acti...

For S11, 21 companies are still active, with 5 (GoCardless, Segment, Zeus, Vidyard, and Sift) in the "YC Top 100" (valued at $150mm or more). At least one (Segment) is valued at $1bn+.

I’m not here to defend Zuck, but those acquisitions only look obvious in hindsight. People thought Facebook was insane for paying a billion for a photo sharing app with a tiny team. And while WhatsApp was ubiquitous, it was very under the radar in the US until Facebook paid what seemed like an ungodly sum ($12bn) at the time. Instagram may go down in history as one of the greatest acquisitions of all time.

Earnings are already after tax. That's why EBITDA is EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization).

Do you live in the Bay Area? Your take doesn’t match my experience at all...

* Most of my friends are members of one museum (or have season tickets to SHN/SFJazz/etc)

* Most of my friends go hiking in Marin or Big Basin or whenever at least once a month, and spend a weekend somewhere like Big Sur or Yosemite a couple times a year. Bay Area nature is unparalleled.

SF may be in a tough place for a while, but don’t underestimate why it’s special.

International first class is accessible to anyone with a decent US credit history, a somewhat flexible schedule, & an interest in figuring out semi-complex systems. I flew Cathay Pacific first class Toronto => Hong Kong as a recent college grad on a teacher's salary.

Is there a way to pin a tweet via SMS? I don't think so... and these tweets are getting pinned.

Teachers unions are very influential - especially in state and local elections (ex. described here as "political juggernauts" https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2018/02/14/are-teachers-u...)

My wife and I had our first kid almost four months ago. Trustle connected us with an amazing coach (Alina!) who’s been amazing at fielding our questions around feeding and sleep. We’re much calmer parents with a happier baby thanks to Trustle.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with mortgage-backed securities (they exist today!). In fact, there’s a lot right with them - they allow specialization by firms within the mortgage process and participation by investors with various risk profiles. It’s applying the Unix mindset of specialized composable functions to mortgages.

The 2008 crisis happened because MBSs became a bubble - investors stopped performing diligence (and risk models were crappy), so securitizers started packaging up crap, underwriting standards dropped, etc.

Because home equity is highly liquid. You can refinance your mortgage (and take money out), or take out a reverse mortgage (which pays you monthly in exchange for eventual ownership), or a home equity loan. Tons of ways to turn your home equity into cash.

Exchanging bitcoin for actual money isn't hard if you're willing to clear KYC/AML (ex at Coinbase).

I’ve found that non-standard DNS often prevents access to WiFi portals. Removing the Google/Cloudflare dns settings is step # 2 in my public WiFi debugging checklist (after trying to visit neverssl).

Maybe Elastic isn't growing because Algolia is eating their lunch?

Tiger came out 14 years ago. Dashboard has barely seen any investment since then. Calling it a "fundamental part of the OS" makes me think you're trolling. This isn't the least bit surprising.

(And I'm sure a 3rd party replacement will pop up, if there are enough frustrated users).

HN discussion of Bloomberg story (with denial from head of Whatsapp): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21100588

If you remove the word "encrypted" from this sentence in the Bloomberg article:

Social media platforms based in the U.S. including Facebook and WhatsApp will be forced to share users’ encrypted messages with British police under a new treaty between the two countries, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Then the article matches Stamos's account entirely.

With the word "encrypted," the article makes no sense – it would take legislation to force US companies to build backdoors to encryption, not an international accord.

I agree the HN headline could be better (my fault!) - but my money is on another Bloomberg security reporting error. Hope they actually issue a correction this time...

Looks like more crappy security reporting from Bloomberg: https://twitter.com/alexstamos/status/1178308065268920320

I bet you’d enjoy Pyramid by David Macaulay (https://www.amazon.com/Pyramid-David-Macaulay/dp/0395321212). I read it as a kid and loved the glimpse into Egyptian construction with an architect/engineer perspective.