arnoldwh

Agree. So many companies don't act like grown-ups and just try to cover up the problem.

Still, it's going to be pretty tough getting your average customer back who hears they've been "hacked" and are afraid to create a new password. Not to mention the average customer's password is probably the same password across facebook, gmail, etc.

Strange article. Not much content about what Buffet actually thinks and it goes onto some sort of political diatribe against Mitt Romney.

In my opinion PE shops fill a different sort of gap. Whereas Buffet benefits by buying a company that is extremely well managed, PE shops can sometimes create value by changing the management team of a company that is not optimally run.

Mitt Romney's track record at BCG, Bain, and Bain Capital should be examined, but I don't understand why it's in an article about Warren Buffet.

Agree that a basic test can be useful, but I think two points need to be made here.

1. It falls on the interviewer to be helpful and clear enough to help a candidate understand what is being asked. Often, a brainteaser of any sort explained poorly can be a death knell for anybody, no matter how smart they are. It's imperative that the interviewer is able to thoughtfully analyze a person's line of thinking moreso than whether or not they can get to a right answer.

2. Which brings me to the second point... The issue with a lot of brainteasers for poor interviewers is that it's a binary outcome. Either the candidate already knows the answer and comes off looking like a genius, or the candidate stumbles around in no man's land with no clue what you're talking about. Again, it's key here that the interviewer is able to guide a candidate through the thinking instead of sitting back and enjoying the show (which is admittedly sometimes fun).

I definitely think there is space for brainteasers, but it really requires an interviewer with the right training to get it right (which a company like Google does not have to worry about, but a start-up may). What I've actually heard is an interesting approach for start-ups recruiting is to just have the candidate sit and try to tackle a recent problem the company has faced with the interviewer.

I think I'd put what Foursquare has done well/not done well into three buckets:

1. Virality - Highly viral product that got shared enough to the point that almost everyone knows about it (in current target demographic). Throw up that Mission Accomplished banner.

2. Engagement: Falls off here. Most early adopters got bored, and it's just now catching on with what I would call the "early majority." This would be fine except they're running through the same cycle of being bored by checkins. Reviews/Radar seems like an attempt to engage their users beyond check-ins, which probably seems more confusing than anything else for the typical early majority user. I think the problem here is that they've lost the "core user group" (aka that bored early adopter) you're talking about...the type of people that would spend time curating lists, putting up great content, and getting a kick out of people checking in to their recommendations.

3. Monetization: Nobody seems to care about this anymore, but with their level of funding/valuation, it's probably becoming increasingly difficult to tell them that they're just a few pivots away from making money. However, until they have a clear idea of how people will engage with their product, I'm not so sure they'll know how to monetize. It seems like 4square is pushing towards some sort of CRM system for local merchants, but I don't think I'm smart enough to know the right answer to this one.

I live across the street from this, and I've always wondered what these guys did. Great to read their story, and I've got to say it definitely takes guts to put yourself out there day in and day out (especially right now when it's 14 degrees outside!).

Ah! Perfect example then. Shouldn't have generalized.

I hate to pull this card, but you also have to really wonder if people would be "annoyed" as much if it were cute little suburban girl scouts selling the candy instead of a dude named "Tracks" (why is there not a comment about how ridiculously awesome/apt this name is?)...

No link. They talked about it at the NYC YC event. They also talked about bootstrapping by working out of a Starbucks and getting free refills for the entire day. Pretty cool stuff.

Let me ask you a quick question - what do you think about food trucks? In NYC, most of them park illegally and pay the fine as a cost of doing business. I'm sure this guy has gotten fined before, but maybe it's just a cost of doing business as well.

ha - seriously..I really don't understand this at all. Why is it ok to go door to door peddling a start-up that will fail 90% of the time, but not ok to sell a candy that will satisfy 100% of the time :)

Don't knock the hustle. I remember hearing about how GrubWithUs started by inserting flyers inside the free morning daily newsletters in subways (illegally) - people applauded at how "scrappy" this great startup was. Setting up lemonade stands is also illegal unless you have a permit, but nobody complains. I guess sometimes the law just isn't in your favor, and you have to actually think for yourself whether something is right or wrong.

I think I just found our new marketing campaign. A CPA of a bottle + a handwritten note sounds like a good deal to me.

In general, I question the "network effect" and how strong it really is here in this industry.

People always say that in an ideal world you'd have only one provider for streaming movies, but I actually see this going the other way...as in multiple providers (e.g. HBO) that stream their own content. I don't think this affects the user experience as meaningfully as people claim. I think people in general are used to multiple providers and are much more willing to accept it. Just look at how many apps people have on their iPhone. Plus it's just a lot easier to play with the content providers in a more vertically integrated model.

One path that I would wish Netflix to keep going down is becoming a distribution channel for foreign movies.

I don't think the author gets how markets work. Investors are much more focused much more on macro factors (e.g. the state of the EU) than micro ones (e.g. Blackberry's servers being down in the middle east).

The S&P was up 3.4%, and with RIM's beta of ~1.3..a rough benchmark, extremely imperfect "guess" for how much RIM should be up is 4.4%. This could mean that if the overall market was just flat, RIM's stock might have taken a loss. I think this was more a case of a rising tide lifting RIM's boat.

....or maybe it means MSFT will finally buy them out.

Samsung has been putting some impressive gadgets out, and they seem to finally be "getting it." What's interesting is just how large that company is and how much control they can have over each individual component...would be interesting to see seamless integration between the different divisions though (monitors, tvs, phones, etc.) Probably too bureaucratic for that to happen though.

I never understood why they would let a reality tv show cover TechStars. The problem I see is that you have misaligned incentives. From what I know of Techstars, their goal is to help these entrepreneurs through what is probably one of the most exciting/stressful time of their lives as they build their pretty awesome businesses.

From what I know of reality tv shows, it's to entertain people with extreme stories that are easy to digest and with little to no depth.

My question is why is Opentable stock down so much on this news? How serious is Google about getting into reservations? If this is anything like what they did in NFC payments space with MasterCard, they'll likely just try and ride Opentable's rails instead of trying to build out their own. Maybe do some sort of data share agreement to better their idea of how successfully they are able to close the search/discovery to successful reservation loop.

I just cant imagine Google wanting to go out to each of these restaurants themselves...a very difficult proposition, even with Zagat's team.

Sad day..I think I must have watched his stanford commencement speech at least a dozen times.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc&feature=youtu...

I think the author misses the point that lower prices can actually be an incredible strategic advantage as long as you have the business model that supports it. You only need to look at a business model like ikea or wal-mart to see this in action. It also creates a Nice barrier to entry as the scale and experience you need in order to achieve thst low cost base is often impossible for new entrants unless some sort of disruption happens.

One way to prevent some sort of disruption in a business is to make it so cheap that it's no longer worth the time and effort to threaten your business...