aashaykumar92

"There's no correct amount of sleep, says Prof Kevin Morgan, of Loughborough University's sleep research centre. The only rule is to sleep long enough to feel refreshed when you wake up."

^That answers the question quite well I believe. Yes, people CAN, but it is uncommon. And anything that is uncommon usually takes a considerable amount of practice. Ms. Thatcher most likely made it a concerted goal to train her self to be fully functional on just 4 hours of sleep over the weekdays. It is stated that she most likely slept longer on weekends, indicating that she was aware of her sleep schedule on weekdays vs. weekends.

Things like sleep are studied so much that it is a subject overly-saturated with studies, and that too, conflicting ones. This, more than anything, shows that one's need for sleep can be controlled by him/her. I had a friend in college, he was a junior when I was a freshman. He slept through most of his morning classes and would always tweet that he was napping in the evening. He had amazing grades, though, and good enough interview skills to land him a job as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs, and he would be working in their most demanding team. In fact, his boss to-be even emailed him saying something like "Make sleep an option, not a requirement". Mike (my friend) took it literally.

From the day he got that email in March, he chose to sleep 7 minutes less every 3 days with no naps. By the end of April, he was sleeping about 5.5 hours a night. For the next month, he got even crazier and took off minutes from his sleep on a daily basis. He succeeded and by the time he was at GS, he needed 2hrs 52minutes of sleep per night and was productive the rest. How do I know he was productive? Because after his internship, he was given a personalized offer letter...from the CEO. He had worked on more deals than not only all interns across the world, but more than 98% of current employees.

Training our body is something we can do and just like anything, if you work hard at it, you'll more than likely be successful at some point.

Definitions of Successes and Failures are subject to your own discretion--that's the beauty of these terms.

What would X+Y represent?? And "Don't be afraid to fail" would be a nice add-on for sure!

where?

It's enough to have a brief explanation right before starting the interview, there's no need to have this info before registering or anything. And no problem at all, good luck!

HireArt seems like such a neat idea so I went through the registration process and said Business Development is an area I am interested in for fun, and I was taken to a page where it tells me that I will now "be asked four questions about Biz Dev And Sales. Some require a short video response, and others text."

I'm guessing the point of something like this is so that people aren't preparing for the normal, mundane questions that typically come up in job interviews but I do think it would be nice if there were a bit more details, especially considering 'some [questions] require a short video response'. I'm currently sitting in bed and my voice probably still sounds like I just woke up so a video response from me would not be very attractive to employers.

Questions like "Do I only get one chance to respond to the questions? Or can I have multiple video responses?" should be at least addressed at this point so people like me aren't going in blind and have potentially-awful videos. There is no need to prep anyone on the question material, just some basic info.

Again, great idea...just thought I'd give some feedback...Cheers!

After reading, I'd say your base question/thesis is: "Why on Earth aren’t there more billionaires doing really cool sci-fi sh!#?". You go on to give plenty of examples (FYI--some of these are already being done such as self-driving cars and flexible displays) but all of them, to truly build, would require a solid understanding of mathematics/physics/some type of engineering right? Not every billionaire has that knowledge. Elon Musk does--I believe he has a degree in physics from Penn and dropped out from the PhD program at Stanford. This knowledge simple does not exist among the majority of billionaires. And exactly because of this lack of knowledge, I don't think billionaires CAN actually do 'really cool sci=f sh!#'.

When you think of a crazy idea, out of the first few questions that come to your mind, one of them is probably, "Is this idea feasible?" To Musk, the idea of Tesla and SpaceX were both feasible, BECAUSE he had the necessary base knowledge in those areas to realize that with money, these visions could become realities. I like to think many people, other billionaires included, have had the idea of cool battery charged vehicles but without the ability to realize it is possible (aka the base knowledge), they stopped at that. Good or bad, this is most likely the reality of it.

All of that being said, I would like to see billionaires do what J.P. Morgan and George Westinghouse did for Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla, respectively--and that is to find and fund geniuses with these revolutionary, futuristic, 'really cool sci-fi sh!#' ideas. If more billionaires sought out to find scientists/engineers working on 'the next big thing', I imagine more would happen and newer, more fascinating, industries would be formed.

My plea: If you're a billionaire who appreciates what people like Elon Musk has done/is doing but don't have the skills to do so yourself, go find more people like him (in the sense that they have crazy futuristic ideas) and help them to help the world.

FIND/HIRE A LAWYER ASAP!! You definitely have grounds for this case. If you think it may be too expensive, I suggest using Lawdingo (https://www.lawdingo.com/lawyers) as you can cold-message/chat with lawyers for free. I am positive that if everything you have presented is true, someone or another will be more than willing to represent you and help you take the appropriate action.

Really sorry to hear about this but best of luck, its unfortunate this happens with such large companies. Nonetheless, hope it gets resolved soon--good luck!

This is awesome, I never knew such a thing existed! But it's also quite alarming that so many devices are connected to the internet/computers that probably shouldn't be.

So my big question is: Is there a way to solve this 'security failure'? And if so, what is it/is it feasible? For someone with malintentions, Shodan seems to be golden.

That really depends on the rescue dogs' condition.

You make some great points, but don't forget that Tuna was already trained...if you are to get a dog, or shall I say puppy, the training process will take a lot of dedication--this means time AND effort. Remember, the puppy won't come with a routine...you have to get him/her into a routine--yes, it sounds nice but it's not easy. Having a startup and raising a puppy together seem like a pretty tough combination, especially if this will be your first puppy. Once the pup is trained, though, you'll reap all the benefits as you did with Tuna--you just have to be very very dedicated during that first month.

I don't mean to discourage you at all. I've had 2 dogs, pretty much raised the one by myself, and don't regret it at all but I did want to give that insight so it doesn't go over your head! If you have any specific questions about what goes into raising a puppy, feel free to reply here or email me at aashayk@gmail.com.

Hey jstanley! I'm Shmacked is one of the fastest growing college entertainment platforms (98th percentile). To be quite frank, though, the I'm Shmacked team travels to different colleges and gets footage of that colleges social scene, namely the party culture. It is extremely popular as several colleges which they haven't yet visited are demanding their presence. They are looking to expand and have partnered with DVBBS to put on shows at colleges--mainly to gain revenue.

Hey I believe they will let us know by EOD April 16th, so by next Tuesday...Good Luck!

I went back to read this portion[1] and it actually says, "If we get 1000 applications and have 10 days to read them, we have to read about 100 a day." So take it in context: PG is really trying to encourage applicants to put effort into their applications so that they stand out. And that doesn't mean to write a ton in your application but instead write concisely enough to answer the question well.

I'd also go out on a limb and say that this is a subtle message to applicants to apply as early as possible. PG is admitting that it is indeed difficult for the partners to keep their focus on so many applications throughout this period. Applying earlier gives the partners more time to review our applications and hence, our applications get reviewed thoroughly and they have more time to engage with the applicants (if interested, of course). Essentially, a win-win. Now that I briefly inferred/annotated this part, I definitely wish I had read this section more carefully. I resubmitted my application several times all the way until the day it was due.

Anyway, as a follow up to the posted question, how do you manage to continue advising YC alumni while reviewing so many applications? Especially the recent class (YC W13) that is probably meeting with tons of investors right now and needs the partners' guidance.

[1] How to Apply to Y Combinator: http://ycombinator.com/howtoapply.html

This is something I have dreamed about doing...but how does one financially do this? I'm still in college so sorry my naivety. It just seems that it would be incredibly expensive to embark on such a trip. And I completely believe it's worth the cost but still, how do you determine when you have enough to embark?

And beyond just visiting all the countries, I would like to incorporate service into my travels. So for every country that I go to, I would like to do community service there--anything to help the underprivileged but specifically help in making sure people are properly nourished if that is a problem. I know I can't save everyone, but I do want to do some good while having fun.

Your intentions are good so I won't downvote but this type of post should be pasted on more pertinent forums.

One action does not define a person.

It was wrong of him, yes. Being young (only 16 years old) and in debt probably took a huge emotional toll on him, though...don't you think? Again, what he did, IF true, wasn't right by any means but be a bit more understanding given the context. At least he went and made a respectable name for himself after. In the world we live in today, there are far worse stories that come from poor financial situations like this, namely crime.

I repeat: one action does not define a person. And for Jody, if we are assuming the article to be true, he seemed to be a pretty damn good person.

If you read this as a story, it's actually really well written--it's a great progression. There may not be one clear, overall thesis, but each section seems to have its own thesis and each is supported quite well. I never knew Jody but from the story, I have two takeaways:

1) Jody was a great person. The reason why I mention this first is to make it clear that the article really strives to show this. And he truly seemed to have a big heart.

2) Always be as open as possible. Many times, we don't want our problems to become others' problems so we hide it. And then it builds and it leads to a large amount of secrecy that could have been avoided. It goes back to the childhood saying we all hear, "No question is a dumb question." This phrase ultimately is saying that you might as well ask a question so that you are not falling behind in knowledge--whether it's academic or not. And please don't assume that I am saying Jody's suicide was purely because he didn't disclose Ecomom's financials; I just believe that if he would have been more open, more help could have been offered--financially and psychologically.

Of course, I gained more takeaways than this but these are the two I thought were most worth sharing.

Like a couple people have said, this is nothing new--it's an affirmation at most. But what also is missing is that it is completely reliant on the individual. Warmups are RELATIVE to YOU, the athlete.

I played 3 varsity sports--soccer, swimming, and track--throughout my 4 years of high school but made sure that I did a dynamic stretch of MY OWN before getting into any stretching/exercise with the rest of my team. I stayed healthy throughout high school. When I got to college, I decided to play ultimate frisbee and made the A team. I became lazy and started stretching with the team--the coach had us do a relatively rigorous dynamic stretch. I wasn't a fan but went along with it (again, I was lazy). About 5 weeks in, I pulled my hamstring badly and it took me about 6-8 weeks to fully recover. I don't want to jump to the conclusion that not doing an individual dynamic stretch was THE reason for my injury, but it definitely was a large contributing factor. From the time I came back until now, I make sure to do my own dynamic stretch before getting into any exercise, light or intense--it works.

WHY?

The whole point of stretching is really to get your muscles moving and to be comfortable. Only I can decide when I feel I am ready to go...and only you can decide when you are. So do what you feel is best for you first, then immerse yourself in activities that your peers or team is doing. And I promise, this will not be held against you as doing something that the team is not. Hell, I was the captain of my swimming and soccer teams for my junior and senior years. If you're helping yourself, you're ultimately helping the team--especially in this context.

Right, I agree. And exactly because of this, I hope pg doesn't divulge into what these 'predictors of failure' are from his perspective.

"He [pg] said that this time around, YC looked at 'predictors of failure,' not just 'predictors of success.' For example, he said that in the past YC might have chosen a company that had great founders (a predictor of success), but this time it might have filtered that same company out because those founders, while great individually, all hate each other (a predictor of failure)."

The given example implies that YC has chosen founders who don't like each other in the past. Seems remarkably odd and hard to believe IMO. It may have meant to say that the founders seemed LIKELY TO hate each other eventually but if they even disliked each other at the interview, I can't imagine the YC partners being ok with this.

I do agree they should be consistent but in their defense, one of the above is an actual quote while the other is not.

Here is one that seems to be pretty accurate

http://yclist.com/

At the same time, many events are still held at bars right? It wouldn't be a bad idea to see someone who abstains from alcohol in a bar-type setting...he/she wouldn't be forced to drink, of course, but it would be nice to see them at least remain comfortable and social.

Sort of controversial, I know, but it's important for everyone to be open IMO.

"Aside from the official interview, we often take candidates to drinks, dinner, or coffee to get to know each other in a more casual environment, and we make sure they have the chance to get to meet multiple members of the team."

I really like this one, mainly because it seems to be overlooked by so many companies today. Recruiting smart brains is one thing, but recruiting smart brains that will work well in your company's system, in and outside of the office, is just as important. Meeting in a casual setting is far different from having a business casual interview. Not to mention, taking interviewees out also shows them that the employees also have fun and that is something that everyone their cares about, not just says on their Jobs page.

Remember that video "What Most Schools Don't Teach" that had Zuckerberg, Gates, and Houston encouraging kids to learn how to program? The opening quote is from Steve Jobs that says "Everybody in this country should learn how to program a computer...because it teaches you how to think."

To me, chess does the same and has since my childhood. When you first learn chess, you learn what each piece can and can't do. And after that, YOU must learn how to strategically move the pieces in a way that traps your opponent and beats him/her. It teaches you how to think strategically, both offensively and defensively...or to be able to think 4-5 steps ahead...it's a different way of thinking.

Of course, as you get more advanced, there are books and such to explain certain strategies but the world champions don't just win off the strategies in the book--they are forced to think even further outside the box if they want to have a chance of winning.

Chess is a great game to teach kids HOW to think. I'm all for this, especially in a country such as Armenia.

In light of the instant stop-bleeding gel[1], I started thinking about the concept of a gel that could serve as an even better form of protection than condoms. I wish I knew my chemistry better but I am sure that scientists can determine a way that this can be done.

[1]http://www.humansinvent.com/#!/11409/the-gel-that-stops-blee...

Sounds good, thanks for the clarification! And yep, only suggestion is to brand your accelerator as a 'warmup'...this way, it will appeal to college students such as myself; we don't necessarily have to leave school but we can still work on it and have a better idea of what we want to do at the end of the 14 weeks. Thanks again, though, and all the best!

Now that they've brought in this talent, it's just a matter of time before all those brains start working together--and once this happens, you'll see the product naturally evolve. I don't have any specific ideas as to what it will involve into, though.

Yeah I think that's pretty inferable. Regardless, Drew and company are doing an amazing job getting all this talent--coming IPO or not, these are a lot of power people coming in and they can't have been easy to attain.

It'll be quite the solid team to showcase to investors come IPO time.