Gaussian

Staples has been well run. Especially its online business. They were installing Kiva Systems' bots in their distribution centers before Amazon (which now owns Kiva), and they've consistently squeezed more margin than others from a category that deals 100% in commodities.

I am impressed by the amount of latent bear fighting knowledge around here. People chiming in from the Yukon and Alaska. Pretty awesome.

Woot!

We're stoked to get this going and dialed in with Stripe and some of own customer service controls (free deals, unique discounts to single customers, unsubscribers, etc.).

This addressed a sharp need for a lot of us--and there's little better than doing that in a startup.

Good luck, Sean.

Most of the holier-than-thou devs I've met, and I've met a few, are weaker developers. Anybody who has built something with a business-facing constraint knows how valuable the right kind of bizdev/hustler/whatever guy can be. Invaluable.

In fact, I'd say these people are rarer than competent devs, but their skills are applicable in fewer arenas and are in lower demand overall. And these people don't always fit in well within a traditional corporate environment, but they can sometimes will a startup with a merely decent concept to success on the back of their hustling.

Again, the traits that define such a person are hard to define and not nearly as marketable as somebody with, say, a solid Ruby background, a fact that produces a small group of devs who, frankly, overestimate their worth to a startup, although they're eminently employable at large, lame companies. There's no room for mediocre engineers at a startup focused on building well and building fast.

She did the right thing. I think she had peaked at Google.

She risks "failure" at Yahoo, but that's why this is the right move. What was she to do at Google -- just drift along as the cofounders continue to (rightly) control the company?

I've never been a huge fan nor a detractor of Mayer, but I'll be rooting for Yahoo now. It's about time for another epic comeback story in SV. Long odds, but that's why this is fun.

I don't know how Ferriss successfully appointed himself some kind of tech guru, but he seems to have convinced people he deserves this pulpit where he doles out tech advice. People take him seriously, which is fascinating.

I know almost nothing about RC gadgets. But those are some badass toys.

Hey Geoff -- that's awesome!

Our company dwells in a weird business that sometimes defies logic. But Geoff had two golden pieces of advice for us after listening to our story for only two minutes in an office hours session. He's a stalwart sounding board. Big addition.

This is 60 minutes... where we're only 1 year behind the news! This is like their exposé on high-speed trading that came six months after the Flash Crash. Brilliant. Not that I hate the show. But their tendency to cherry pick well-trodden stories always annoys me.

I'm not a huge booster of the whole barefoot trend, but I do think that's what, ultimately, has scuttled Hann's shoe from getting to market. The momentum toward thinner soles and less material is anathema to the theory, look and feel of this shoe.

You've got a book--Born To Run--that won't leave the NYTimes Bestseller list. And you've got every serious/casual runner out there espousing the virtues of minimalist footwear for running. I feel like I run into conversations on the topic at half of the social events I go to; Vibram has made millions of those five-toed shoes; everybody feels smarter for having read that book and worked less foam into their running routine -- and now this guy shows up with a shoe that runs straight against that vibe? That's tough swimming, even if he's right.

Obviously, he should have assented to a far lower royalty rate.

This is exactly the rub. Managers take no haircut when the fund gets hammered. It is true that most managers won't take a profit on investor's money until they return to the "high water mark" of how much $$$ that investor originally put into the fund, but often times when a fund loses too much money, the manager simply closes it and opens another, therefore dodging the high water mark requirements.

But honestly, if rich people can't figure out that their fund manager is ripping them off, then to hell with them. Fund managers, at least, prey on people who are already rich. Better than a lot of other sleazes who take advantage of the undereducated and poor. I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying that if you have enough money to write John Paulson a check, then you should know what you're doing. I can't say the same for an old woman in a bad neighborhood who was talked into refinancing her house of 50 years so she could take out cash to buy a conversion van. The people who preyed on her are far worse, in my mind, than your average fund manager who does nothing of virtue for his clients.

It's a tough business, you're right. But the nice thing about partnering with existing, main-line grocery retailers is that there's capacity to scale more quickly than a site that's wholly direct-to-consumer. And there's no inventory or shipping to mess with in this model.

Suspect. The grocery index for Chicago is 72 and in Baltimore it's 101. Are groceries really 40% more in Baltimore than in Chicago? They're likely not more at all. In fact, on the whole, Chicago is more expensive than Baltimore. That's just a fact. But the figures here say otherwise.

I have a quibble with the piece's core scrap of evidence: "The remarkable finding of their study is that, compared with the participants who were “only” in the 99.1 percentile for intellectual ability at age 12, those who were in the 99.9 percentile — the profoundly gifted — were between three and five times more likely to go on to earn a doctorate, secure a patent, publish an article in a scientific journal or publish a literary work. A high level of intellectual ability gives you an enormous real-world advantage."

Most of those achievements--earning a doctorate, publishing a journal article or a literary work or even securing a patent--all seem to be items that favor dogged effort rather than pure smarts. Moreover, I would bet it's also the case that the kids in the 99.9 percentile spent more time drilling, practicing and studying for their early-age SATs than did the 99.1 percentile group, although I'm fairly certain the time both groups spent studying standardized test questions--at the age of 12--would frighten me.

That said, it only figures that the 99.9 group would continue through life outworking most people they go up against, hence the improved rates of adult "achievement," a word I employ loosely.

I rather enjoy loudly opting out every chance I get. I say it loud enough so the whole line hears me. And really, who doesn't enjoy a nice pat down? Sadly, my complaints have not yet convinced anybody else in these lines to join me. Sheep. Yet I'm the one corralled into the opt-out pen.

I think in some ways the feeling of this piece embodies the phenomenon, real or not, it attempts to describe. The writer clearly harbors some negative feelings about hipster culture and his perception of its salesman roots, but he won't come out and explicitly rip it--similar to the attitudes of the hipsters he finds so enigmatic.

Pincus is attempting to make it sound as if he wants to claw back equity from employees who don't do their jobs. But if they aren't doing their jobs, why not fire them?

No, it seems to me that Pincus is looking at some people, perhaps they're middle-level employees, and saying, "you know, that guy might be doing his job, but he isn't worth $50 million."

Yeah, no shit he's not worth $50M. Few people are. But that's how the fucking game works. The fact that a Google chef got $20M -- why is that bad? It's not bad; it's cool. How many Microsoft stories are there about secretaries that made off with $10 million? Those aren't bad stories; those are good stories.

I'm sorry that Pincus fails to see things that way. And I'm sorry that he's decided to shit on a paradigm that's helped build Silicon Valley.

Extraordinary writing. Everybody should have such a talented sister at the lectern on the day they're remembered.

An 18 year old would have to engage in some pretty dark stuff for me to indict them later in life as a subpar founder, partner or person. Spamming and porn don't even come close to qualifying.

Pretty trite. I think everybody understands that NDAs are uncool with the cool.

And it's true that the NDA can look pretty stupid when you're some random hacker guy who hasn't done anything and you seem to be taking yourself incredibly seriously with these contracts and agreements of secrecy.

But so what? If you think you're idea is good enough for an NDA, then ask for one. If you're wrong, you'll find out soon enough. But if you're right... the NDA just might work out for you.

Sure. Groupon has a few problems.

But the idea that an underwriting firm such as Goldman or Morgan is some kind of arbiter of wholesome business fundamentals is ridiculous.

Sorkin knows better than to suggest that.

Quick wit. Deft touch. Well done.

NU grad.

The only thing an investor should be worried about is whether the entrepreneur can think creatively and get shit done. Fund-raising protocol is overrated.

INVESTOR SAYS: "Oh, shit, he asked me to sign an NDA -- what a noob!"

So sure, that's a faux pas. But it's the investor who is a fool if he doesn't at least see what the noob has cooking. Bowing to dogma won't help you excel in the Valley; it will only help you blend in.

The nutritional content of Greek yogurt is definitely behind some of the craze. But those nutritional benefits aren't unique to Chobani; they're something that all of the Greek yogurts share. Chobani has somehow managed to grow faster than the rest of the sector. For instance, Chobani has crushed Fage, the incumbent market leader. Fage grew 58% last year... which sounds good. But in the Greek yogurt business if you're not growing 100%, you're not even maintaining your market share. Chobani grew 258% last year.

They had originally pledged to only source their milk from New York state, but they've grown so big so quickly that they've literally bought every last drop of available NY milk. The farmers can't keep up. As a result, they're going to have to cross state lines soon.

American Roquefort caves.

>What I don't get is why TechCrunch seems to give YC companies more coverage than 500 Startups companies.

How can you possibly not get that? YC is a bigger deal, so it gets more coverage. There's little nuance to the matter. If 500 Startups rattles off the hits and builds a pedigree similar to YC, it will receive commensurate coverage. I'm not saying other startups don't deserve coverage. I'm saying that the Valley and the tech crowd (TC's audience, by and large) are demonstrably interested in what comes out of YC -- so why wouldn't TC cover it well?

There's a ton of places that this can go. Just building on top of the functionality they've already enabled, this could become quite powerful very quickly.

Here's this raw data stream that's existed for years that hasn't seen any good tandems of algorithms+UI applied toward it. Big opportunity.

Watch Bloomberg, Reuters and Yahoo...they could be jousting for this in six months or less.