JamesPeterson

The ICANN administration is notorious for its motives. While a public organization, many of its decisions are clearly to benefit their own and are clearly not in the public benefit.

Option to provide lock-screen option to allow guests to login using their iCloud account.

In Australia, we almost match this by (a) having a "Low Income Tax Offset" (being fazed out in favour of an $18k tax free bracket) and (b) having a wide-reaching 'Centrelink' social security scheme. One of our greatest worries as a nation is that we're very dependent on such structural measures, but that we're using a medium-term cyclical benefit (the mining boom) to pay for it.

Typically, they'll be offered options to buy stock for essentially nothing. Often there will be tricks though - for example it might take a couple of years in employment to be able to exercise all of the options.

The shareholders control the board, and the board controls management. Thus, unhappy shareholders will mean new management.

In FB's case however, Zuck still controls (through proxy) the majority of votes; Zuck cannot be ousted.

There are other problems with a non-performing stock too; employee morale may be (and is increasingly?) tightly related to the share options they own. If management is not performing well and costing their employees money (!) that can ruin morale.

This doesn't just involve Facebook; currently the market is pretty bullish on web companies. It can quickly turn bearish, restricting the capital that currently flows so free.

I'd recommend hooking up with a local angels syndicate, so that diversify the risk. Also, bigger pockets (ie across the whole syndicate rather than just one angel) attracts better investment opportunities.

Have a look at Gust.com to see if anyone is in your area.

For a further push into index funds (vs stock picking) look up the "efficient markets hypothesis" and relate it to portfolio theory. Our markets are very reasonably semi-strong; over any considerable time period, the chances of you beating the market as an individual on a risk-adjusted basis are essentially nil.

Look for funds' fees and tracking errors before choosing.

I imagine the opportunity for Google to offer this sort of "private search" (perhaps w/ complementing premium features) via mass licenses to (nervous) big corps would be one worth perusing. I imagine also it might be worth those big corps' money.

The firm holds a longer, (financially) non-optimal view; their handling stakeholders would be different if they were gunning for an exit. Instead, Wordpress seem to be presenting for (private; less volatile) investment (but I don't know what for?).

Commercial banks offer what you're seeking. In our local scene when one of our cash-flow+ portfolio companies is seeking further capital for expansion, often debt is a better (cheaper) option than taking on VC investment (if they're CF+ they shouldn't be seeking angel terms!). We've actually had a big bank actively trying to sell such debt.

If you're CF+ and need capital, talk to your bank.

When Skype was first sold to eBay, eBay did a whoozy and made bad assumptions resulting in them buying Skype without the core IP.

This later cost them a gazillion dollars after a court process, and the whole world realized they needed to watch their backs just that little more.

I'd recommend exchanging pre-existing IP with the company for your founding stock, otherwise nobody will want to go near you.

If you have a model that beats the market it some way, you'll profit by making deals that are only available because the market does not understand them as well as your model.

If the market understands your model, you may as well throw it into an index; all opportunity for such deals will be absorbed by the market if it knows of them.

Your aim is to be better than the market.

This is not an ideal fundraising instrument for a startup, because it is likely the fair rate of interest will be higher than the loan amount itself (ie >100%).

For a pre-alpha startup, think equity. Any investor will want their chance at a return which reflects the opportunity costs and risks of their investment.

Edit: stock makes plenty of sense for investment. The purchase of equity is the same as buying a stake of future cash flows, whether this is as growth or dividends. Note that responsible directorship applies.

Your analogy between the startup and music industries draws true. Not everything will be successful, but it's important that those involved can have a reasonable chance to be rewarded. Both of the above sectors are centered around firms designed to manage risk - VCs for startups, and labels for artists. VCs are generally fulfilling their purpose much better than music labels are.

Nay; Edmonton, on the south side. I did attend Cairns SHS from 2004-2006, if that's of help.

I grew up in Cairns, a small city in far north Queensland. When it came time to go to uni, a huge subset of our year shifted to Brisbane (those looking on - Brisbane is Queensland's capital city and has far better tertiary education available than the rest of the state). After uni, it seems everyone is shifting to Sydney/Melbourne.

This simply shows people will aggregate toward where opportunity pre-exists.

I am also in Brisbane, though the roles I'm looking at aren't necessarily in IT; this problem does not seem specific to the IT industry here.

Fixed. Thanks!

In Australia, the idea of paying to receive calls is rediculous. Sure, it's not quite like that on the carrier end. But we consumers only pay when making calls.

The OP probably understands this, but is trying to get information on what typically happens to the property itself. Is it discarded and forgotten? Kept and used internally, perhaps also saved for a rainy day? Is it ever resold separate to the parent product/services they belonged to?

Does anyone here have any relevant anecdotes?

This sounds great to me! That said, I'm a 20yo finance undergrad who merely dabbles - like yourself - in tech and web technologies and probably am not a useful hacker per se (at least as far as programming goes!).

Your offer appeals to me as a great opportunity, but I'm obviously not who you're after.

Hi Anibal. I haven't opened the links; I'm on my mobile browser. Can you please explain what makes your ads 'premium'? Thanks.

Oh awesome. Thanks for clarifying :)

Wait. What?

In Australia, we have "EFT" - electronic funds transfer (between banks). Typically, there's no cost and it's accepted between all banks. If you have to transfer to another bank though, it can take one business day.

We also have BPay, which is simpler and a little easier.

The USA seriously doesn't have these?

I think it also very much depends in what 'tier' you do your spending. For example, I bought a Samsung laptop. It's great. My housemate bought a Sony laptop that's slightly shinier but has similar features and a pricetag 2.5x higher. I buy $30 shirts. Provided they fit me properly, they look great. A friend of mine frequently spends $200 on each shirt. His are a little shinier, but for a price tag of 6-7x more. And I still look great ;)

It depends on a bit on both luck and work done to reduce living costs. For example, in my city home prices average ~$500,000 (AUD is currently roughly on parity with USD). Yet I, renting, live off roughly what you describe.

Yep. I spend ~$380 each week total; ~$380 includes (shared) rent, food, (considerable) entertainment, health care & cover, gym, mobile, broadband, travel and whatever miscellaneous expenses come up (well-chosen presents, broken crockery (!) etc).

I live in a beautiful house that's just a little more than a mile from the city centre and don't have any shared expenses with my partner (who still lives with her parents). I do not, however, have any dependents.

I live a great life on next-to-no money (mostly out of necessity; I plan on returning to my studies next year). We had to find a landlord willing to give a discount for quality tenants, and I had to give up buying luxury items (my last watch cost just $20). Most of the work really is just tracking receipts and making sure there aren't any surprises (and if there are, lose those habits).

Oh, and we eat very (!) well, but only have take-out a few times a week.

Oh wow! I've just looked - and you are correct. This has blown me away. That said, I swear I've read (somewhere) that arts courses are subsidized less. I wonder if that simply means arts courses are substantially cheaper to run?

Thanks for picking that up for me.

Here in Australia, liberal arts majors are subsidized less than STEM majors. We also have a largely subsidized public university system in general - we have just one private university (but many private colleges).

As an example of what this means, the University of Queensland located down the road from me is often ranked in the top 50 worldwide.

Science courses at UQ are about half the cost of liberal arts majors.

I can study there and place tuition on what's essentially an interest-free (plus inflation) government loan that I only have to begin paying back (at 4-8% of my gross salary, depending on earnings) when/if my salary goes above ~$47,000.

I'm not sure why you're being downvoted; your point is valid. I can not accept owning an Android phone until this is fixed.

I'm not sure if this is an Australia-only thing - and I was under the impression that if was far from being so - but here the responsibility to shareholders of a corporation is solely fiscal.

The reasoning behind this is that shareholder needs tend to differ. If shareholders wish to engage in philanthropy, the corporation is not the ideal (shared) vessel for doing so. Instead, individual investors may receive their asset's rent and choose to distribute their earnings as they please; management is employed to run the Corp and not make decisions for the shareholders' philanthropic activities.