aerosmile

I have never heard this particular angle on this bill, and would hope that it's wrong. Can someone confirm/deny with some references?

As a European, I was also surprised to find out that the US has a very low unemployment rate compared to what I am used to. Then I moved to the US, and on a few occasions found myself in a position to be able to consider hiring a lot of people very quickly (and hence taking on a substantial amount of risk, both for the company and those employees). I can definitely tell you that if the US had the same workers rights as Europe, I wouldn't have hired nearly as many people - not even close, less than half for sure. In one instance it was the wrong call to hire so quickly, and all other instances it was the right call and generated value for both sides.

I know that in Europe you can let people go if the company is experiencing financial difficulties and all that, but there's no question that the commitment to any new European employee you hire is higher than in the case of their US counterpart. And it would be foolish to assume that by increasing the decisioning barrier there wouldn't be some kind of an action-reaction happening in the market. As an employer, you never have 100% certainty that a new initiative will pay off - there's always this doubt in the back of your mind. Well, if the cost of failure is higher in one case than another, you are simply going to initiate fewer bets and will also give fewer people an opportunity to benefit from them (and those bets that you do initiate, you will approach more carefully and with fewer people).

Does this explain the entire gap in unemployment? Of course not. But I really do think it is a factor. So what's better - a bulletproof job that fewer people have, or a more risky proposition that more people can get access to? I don't think I have an answer to this, but I certainly don't think that the answer is always in increasing the decisioning barriers.

That's a fair comment. In my mind, I have been focusing on the recent history, whereas technically if you go back to the beginning of human civilization, you could argue that people never clocked in and out. But they also had to do every little thing themselves rather than pay someone. Something's wrong with your roof|clothes|body|[anything]? You fix it all by yourself (and God help you if you don't know how to). Does fixing those things count as work? One way or another, we do have to take into account that free time means something different today than way back when.

I think I did. That person was dealt bad cards (assuming they are sufficiently motivated and getting the most out of their set of circumstances), and their mission in life now is to overcome whatever challenges are currently preventing them from having a higher paying job (of which there are plenty).

> WHY are we forced to use 30-50% of our lives to be able to ”enjoy” the rest?

Never in the history of the world have people had to work fewer hours per week. Something's telling me that we are not any happier than previous generations. We are definitely going to keep reducing the work hours further, and perhaps we will in fact reach the point of no work at all - but will we be happier than today? Just look at all the people who retire and decline quickly.

There's something about work that's natural to the concept of human race, and I, for one, would continue to work even if I didn't have to. But - and that's a big but - I enjoy my work. It allows me to use my brain and express myself in ways that I never would be able to without the support of my team and my company. It multiplies my ability to make an impact on others and to see a meaning in waking up every morning.

This is not going to be a popular opinion, but everyone here has the ability to find themselves in a position of fulfilling work. In my case, it took 20 years of hard work, of which the first year was awful and it gradually got better, leading to where I am today. I don't think I possess any special qualities, and I certainly didn't come from money or any type of privilege (I wasn't even born in the US). But I was willing to work my ass off, and it all paid off.

Assuming you come from a similar background as mine, you cannot escape work. Think of it as a prison sentence of anywhere from 1-20 years. You're in jail now, and you can't get out of it - what do you do? Sit in a corner and feel sorry for yourself, or try to have meaningful connections with your jail mates, exercise your body, read books, learn something new every day. I know which way I would go.

Inequality is at the very core of how the universe operates. We all have different genes, and some of us are stronger, taller, cuter, and/or healthier than others. Some of us are dealt good cards and some are dealt bad ones. Heck, some of us are born on Earth, and there might be other species born on another planet, dealing with a very different climate other circumstances - it's highly unlikely that there's another carbon copy of our planet.

Life is different for everyone, and if you spend your life looking at someone who has to work less, you're going to miss the essence of this universe. From what you wrote, your life will have a heavy dose of work associated with it, and that makes it similar to mine. It's ok, there's a lot of pride, joy and fun to be had. It all starts with realizing that it's about living your best life and not someone else's.

I take the opposite view - technology has progressed faster than any other aspect of our experience on this planet. From first flight to landing on the moon = 60 years. From first computers to an iPhone = 60 years. What else has changed in this world faster than technology?

It would take about 30 mins to do so diligently. I took about 5 mins and skimmed it top to bottom. What I found is a lot of statements that didn’t have any amount of humility or recognition that not all of science has been invented yet. It sounds like you took a deeper stab at it. What did I miss?

Obviously, he's wrong. There are things we know, there are things we know that we don't know, and, thirdly, there are things that we don't know that we don't know. Anyone betting against autonomous vehicles, fusion reactors, and similar hard challenges knows about that third part and will never say "never" - instead they pad their predictions with "not soon," "unlikely," etc. In contrast, this dude went full bore and just said "no way we'll ever get below $17 per pound." Again, there is definitionally no chance that the third aspect was baked into that prediction, so he's either insanely naive or just financially incentivized to act that way. And then I found it:

> Humbird’s job is to look into the crystal ball. He’s one of the experts NREL contracts to figure out which approaches are viable at scale, how much they would cost, and ultimately if the government should fund them.

Well, if you make it your job to give yes or no predictions, then you cannot take that third factor into account, because you would make it very clear to your employer that your work is absolutely worthless. Someone could have equally hired him 10 years ago to answer: "how many man hours would it take to build a rocket that will take us to Mars?" You think he would have said: "no idea, that's too unpredictable, we have to leave this to crazy people like Elon and then just see what happens?" No, he would have happily spent the next 2 years writing a 100 page document that would spit out some random number between 10 and 10,000,000 years. And then he would lean on his PhD and call it a scientifically backed result.

My point was not to defend the crime rate in the US, but to address a question that a person from Russia asked - why does it sound like living in NYC is like watching some Western movie, whereas the same cannot be said about Moscow?

It sounded strange, because all it takes is a few YouTube searches to witness the level of violence that exists in Russia that far exceeds anything you'll see in the US. Russia really is something else in that regard, and if a Russian felt safer at home than in the US, it's simply a product of exaggerated reporting.

If someone living in Munich said that NYC is more dangerous than what they are used to, I wouldn't disagree with them.

He started off with "It's always strange to read these reports from American cities..."

It's strange because it's exaggerated, and it's exaggerated because it has to be - otherwise nobody would care to read the article (and then nobody would pay for this poor reporter's salary who has to hit certain monthly pageview targets, etc).

If you read something in the news and it sounds really strange, don't take it at face value.

Spoiler alert: the murder rate in Russia is 40% higher than in the US, and that's despite the very different gun laws [1][2].

Nothing ruins a good story like facts. That's also why you should always raise before you launch or enter a new market, etc. People are suckers for a story, and our brains are pre-wired to explain phenomena rather than to question them. Once you master that psychology (and manipulation) of people, you'll be better at fundraising - and apparently at journalism as well!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Russia [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States

You're also somehow trying to equate analysis with rumination. Two very different things.

We get your point, but at least two of us are not buying it. Happiness is a much more complex system than something that's directly and exclusively controlled by impulsiveness.

I couldn't care less about the outcome here. But what's clear once again is that you can't trust anyone's election campaign. From now on, I will just simply assume that whenever we vote for Democrats, they will tax the shit out the rich, regardless of what they say. You might think that's a good thing, except for the whole lying thing and the associated risk for everyone else.

I would group this together with two other statements I heard that seem logical on the surface but ignore the reality of the market:

"Why raise a seed round of more than $1.3M? If I can't build a business with 1.3M, then it's not a business worth building!"

"What's the problem with [name of a top tier VC fund] being in my seed round? If they actually choose not to do our A round, then it's not a good business to start with!"

The problem with all these statements is that you're looking at this from an overly idealized perspective where things always happen for a reason and there are no oh-shit moments. But the real world is messy and sometimes not rational. Perhaps your VC won't take your A simply because they already did two As that same year, and they are stretched beyond their limits. And perhaps your bigger competitor will sue you and suddenly your $1.3M will no longer be enough (at that point it's too late to raise again).

So going back to your original statement "best startups don't need help attracting access and information" - so you're saying best startups always go from bootstrapped to a high valuation A without any seed checks in between? I mean, even Google took a bunch of seed checks, and it doesn't get more disruptive than two Stanford PhDs building a better search engine with patented IP. By the time all those seed checks, lower-than-otherwise valuation, and various not-super-clean deal terms (was Eric Schmidt really necessary and how much did he cost in cash and equity?) are factored in, the YC route turns out to be net positive even for the best startups with first-time founders. The only exception might be a serial founder with a prior exit and strong VC connections, eg Max Levchin.

Yep

The challenge of a random company posting about their experience at YC is the same as what you'll hear about HBS - it's always anecdotal and tied to the personal outcome of the writer. Are there people who spend a shit ton on HBS and don't return that investment soon enough? Sure. Would it make sense to go to HBS? Depending on where you net out, it can be the best or the worst investment you've ever made.

The nice thing about YC is that you're not investing your cash, but equity. If you have the right business/team/timing/execution, then the cost of equity will be high, but you'll do better than you ever expected so it's all good. And if you don't do well, then your equity wasn't worth much to start with, and you essentially got the HBS experience for free without any of the debt.

If the advice at YC was the same as what you get at HBS, we would have plenty of people who know how to scale but not how to start. And no, the art of starting something is neither well researched nor well understood, beyond of what you'll learn at YC. They really have formulated that field better than anyone else, however scientifically (or not) that knowledge was created.

I would love to see where you've seen that. Ramen profitability is one of the most often quoted principles at YC. It's easy to make assumptions and pad them with "from what I've seen," but it's not helpful to other founders.

Are there instances where it makes sense to step on the gas? Of course. Are YC valuations high, leading to large rounds and plenty of liquidity? Yes. And yet, nobody at YC will tell you to scale before you find your PMF.

Sorry for hijacking this thread, but whoever posted this information in an internal message board was keen on finding a method to force the company to act on this. Was it the right thing to do? Yes. Was it meant to be leaked? 100%.

Running a company in today's environment feels very different than 20 years ago, and to make it clear - it's better for the world this way. Any employee - no matter how low or high ranking - has the ability to erase a significant amount of enterprise value from any business, no matter how large or small. This is driven by improved moral standards, but also extreme connectivity that we have in terms of obtaining information internally (slack, notion, google drive and thousands of other software solutions that have increased everyone's access to documents) and sharing it with the outside world (social media, easy access to journalists, readers' interest in holding companies accountable).

I would be surprised if we don't experience some type of a push back from the companies. At the very least, I imagine access to info will be reduced (already happened at Google), and also that we'll increasingly start seeing new ways of how employees are connected with each other (both in terms of policy as well as actual barriers that will prohibit anyone from reaching too many people). I imagine that companies will also start researching new candidates' propensity for activism by analyzing their social media content. For example, if you post "tax the rich!" on Facebook, I imagine that in the not so distant future that will have a negative impact on your market value.

If there's one thing that I've learned, it's that every action triggers a reaction (which is time-delayed in the sense that it arrives late and also overshoots the original target), and the constant yo-yoing between those two forces is what explains much of the irrational behavior in the world.

That's a popular view, but only true for people who don't have any deductions, depreciations, business expenses, mileage, etc. For a large group of people, the IRS can run the math only after you submit the full list of inputs.

Elsewhere in this thread you will find multiple references to a 150-year old law in Germany that explicitly protects "people's personal honor."

It's still a fact that in Germany you have to be careful how you express yourself. It was a total shock to me to arrive in the States and hear my cab driver unload on the US President at the time. He really wasn't choosing his words very carefully, to the point that I had to wonder if this was some kind of a test by the INS. I still chuckle today about how my views have changed since then, and how much more comfortable I am today with criticizing people, especially those in power.

This was the main argument against social networking back in the day. "If I want to talk to someone, I'll pick up the phone and have a quality conversation." People are abandoning Facebook for a number of poor product and business decisions on Facebook's part, but we did learn that there's a difference between the opt-in and opt-out communication channels.

The opinion on the level of health risk one is supposed to take on in an effort to keep the economy running is very much split along the political lines. For every solid argument you brought up, there's a solid counterargument from the other side of the fence. Both sides of the fence include intellectuals who can be extremely thoughtful and reasonable. I don't think that HN would be the right time and place to regurgitate all the reasonable arguments from both sides (and certainly not all the unreasonable ones).

I am not interested in engaging in a political discussion. My points were entirely focused on the author who presented his case with the logic of a 5-year-old ("No! I don't want to!"). Your comments have the maturity and thoughtfulness that I was hoping to see in an article that was on the front page of HN.

The author points out on several occasions why it makes more sense for employers to have people return to the office. Then, he delivers the punchline for WFH: "many employees simply don't want to return." That's it - no more, no less. Hidden in there somewhere is the assumption that no more justification is needed - if an employee doesn't fancy going to work, the employer should let them do whatever they want.

For the record, I don't think that this article accurately portrays the arguments on either side of the fence, and in my company we've accommodated both approaches, depending on the specific needs of the employees. But regardless of what your views are on this topic, I hope we can collectively agree that returning to the office is a more complex topic than just a matter of surveying what the (vast?) majority of employees would love to see happen. If that were to be the case, why not also survey how many hours people would like to work, how much PTO time they should have, etc.

The problem with fast-journalism articles like this one is that they make employees look like spoiled children, without properly discerning the many aspects of this pandemic which all have to be addressed for everyone's mutual benefit, including employees as well as the people who are signing their checks. Saying "many employees simply don't want to return" is not helping anyone.

Pretty clear from several comments in this thread that Non-US citizens have a hard time distinguishing the risk-levels of a US-centric vs a China-centric world. Particularly insulting to see the French comments. Ever wondered what Europe would be looking like today if it was China and USSR that ended up defeating the Nazis?

10 years ago, I launched a small modification to a social network I was running at the time - you could only post once per day. The quality of the content went through the roof, but it turned the product into more something like Medium. It had some upsides, but also some downsides. It was amazing to see how such a simple change can dramatically alter the nature of the product.

Knowing Parker, his quote was taken out of context and turned into a clickbait title. He would be the last person to tell you that YC is not at the very top of their game right now. We all have to learn that when talking to journalists, you have to phrase each sentence in such a way that it can stand on its own.

I am sure he would agree with me that the YC game has changed, and perhaps it requires more work from VCs than ever before, but it's definitely the biggest game in town (or even globally), and it would be foolish to ignore it. There are plenty of VCs for whom this game no longer works, but that's more of a reflection on them than on YC. You can still make boat loads of money with the best YC companies, and you have to evolve your signal gathering and ability to close rather than reminiscing the good old times when just having a large fund alone was enough to get into any deal you wanted.