beachstartup

it's easier to get the small provider on the phone.

but i mean, this is simply what you believe to be true. in reality, it doesn't matter if it's true or not, because you believe it. that's what small companies fight against every day of their life.

so how would you describe it?

no, i think you have it backwards. the men who are 50 something right now dove headlong into family+salary+mortgage at an early age, possibly against their true desires, and many of them are feeling the negative effects of that.

peter pan syndrome means you never actually did anything with your life (positive or negative), not that you've been beaten down by it. how can you be beaten down by nothing?

flux is awesome. i can't use it during the day though, because it puts me to sleep! it works too well.

part of the problem is by the time you're 50, you've had 30 years of adult life to accumulate bad decisions.

a lot of people are saddled with obligations they never actually wanted. :(

i've considered the psychology of our position.

the difficult part is getting someone to understand that they have been vastly overpaying -- that means they must call into question their own (past) judgment, which for some people is easy, but for most people, is extremely hard (mild cognitive dissonance).

i find it especially interesting that the question is coming from a small private school, who's business model is basically the same thing. i.e. offering a superior alternative to larger, better funded incumbent institutions.

i run a small tech company, though not an ISP.

i hear this question a lot. "how do you compete with xyz megacorp?"

delivering a better/faster product for less money, is the easy part. nearly everything is overpriced from megacorps. believe me, it's easy. even the accounting is harder.

the hard part is selling it. people will complain all day about megacorp sucking, but when it comes right down to it, they won't go with the little guy 99% of the time even when the benefits are staring them right in the face.

unless of course, you happen to offer a service in an area the big guys simply don't exist in, which is awesome and good for OP for spotting the opportunity.

if the founder(s) of the company got really rich, but the company is still owned by VCs, there is almost definitely "voodoo bullshit" going on.

it's customary to take some money to alleviate the everyday financial stresses of life and to maybe buy a decent house because people have families, but the original intent behind the IPO was designed to align everyone's incentives. when they aren't aligned i.e. when there is a super-class of owners that already cashed out, it's going to end badly for the people who aren't in control.

everyone who got in early is already rich or completely exited, and more idiots keep piling onto the funding rounds... hmm... what does that sound like?

you'll notice that i'm actually agreeing with you. what's fun for you may or may not be real 'work' in the vernacular sense. hiking is definitely work - even in the strict physical sense of the word. but what about something else, like carpentry or metalworking? these are definitely work, but also definitely hobbies for some people.

ycombinator is a venture capital firm and pretty much all they put out has to do with work and money and making lots of it. i was responding to the op who seemed upset that he's reading about work on a site about work... which is bizarre.

every hobby and social activity that's worth doing is also work. it's just not the work you get paid for. that's why it's fun; there are no expectations other than your own, and you're free to have none whatsoever.

i mean, what's not work? watching netflix? chilling by the pool and drinking booze? can you really do that all day, every day? do we need tributes to that?

p.s. people worked their ass off to make netflix+chill possible for you to enjoy in your leisure time.

surely there's a bus that goes straight up fairfax?

edit: looks like the 217 bus goes up fairfax and into west hollywood. why not take that?

i had mine taken out with local+nitrous (as opposed to going completely under) because the anesthesiologist wasn't in that day (apparently an oral surgeon can do the gas, but not the knockout drugs). i remember the whole thing. it was surprising how much force they used but other than that it was fine. i remember i had my ipod with me and tripped out to music while getting my face drilled.

as an adult it's probably better because there's no recovery time, they just take the nitrous away and you're good to drive yourself home (or to the pharmacy, to pick up your pain meds that you're definitely going to need) 2 minutes later.

the 2-3 weeks following extraction are 1000x worse than the actual procedure, which isn't bad at all.

> IIRC the USA doesn't really do trains

the US does a lot of trains, but generally for short distances on commuter corridors, and municipal light rail. we don't do high speed passenger rail, which is probably what you're thinking of.

let's not forget that switzerland is basically just rich white people. racial tension in the US contributes a LOT to the dislike of anything even remotely resembling 'socialism'.

but you make a good point. i think the american aristocracy is currently in the end stages of forming and will be completely established within a few more years. once it gets bad enough, there will be a new relationship model between workers and owners, but until then, it's a free for all.

i say this as a business owner who does fine for himself and the other stakeholders but the level of wealth that the top echelons have is mind boggling.

like, i don't actually see a path to amassing that much wealth no matter how hard i work. to achieve that seems to be some voodoo mix of circumstances like birth, connections, and straight up luck.

indeed. in some of today's cars it's really astounding how much more power you can make quite easily, if you're into that sort of thing.

hit a few keys and turn a few knobs and all of a sudden you're making 50 horsepower more, and living life in the no warranty danger zone. exciting!

this is such a tired internet cliche.

in reality the bank will force you into bankruptcy, seize all your assets because they're at the top of the payback list, and blacklist you from ever running a business or borrowing money again.

in other words, you lose.

they would have done that anyways. they also take discarded cardboard boxes and other re-usables.

> anecdotally it's very hard to find things made in the US unless it's a high end store

manufacturing output is measured in dollars, not 'amount of stuff' except in very specific cases. producing fewer but more expensive high end goods (like what the US makes) can still result in more output.

why wouldn't it be?

raising sheep requires land, remember? it's livestock, grass/feed, water, veterinarians, medication, sheepdogs, abattoir, compliance, inspection, processing, packing, refrigeration, shipping.

if you're producing wool, let's substitute/add shearing, washing, drying, processing, packing, etc.

not to mention sales, marketing, client relations, accounting, human resources, payroll taxes, corporate taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, value added taxes, etc. because a ranch is a business that turns over probably millions a year.

how much does all that cost in the UK? how much does it cost in NZ? find the difference, and compared to the shipping costs, which are trivial, probably a couple of thousand dollars to get a refrigerated 30 foot container from Auckland to Amsterdam, then another few hundred pounds to get it across the channel and into a distribution center in the south of england.

i don't know a damn thing about farming or logistics, but all it takes is about 2 minutes of thought to see how the economics would work.

> People don't have negative stereotypes towards Asians

yes they do.

pass-through device virtualization of various types provide this facility.

because manufacturers still provide dos .exe's for flash updates.

install onto a stick or disc for server firmware upgrades.

"but the cloud..."

someone maintains that cloud, every day.

a few years ago an apple launch would do that. they smartly built the stores large enough to contain the crowds, though.

serious question: do you know who made the exploding samsung batteries? can the same kind of thing happen to car or home batteries?

my gut assumption is that most journalists have journalism or communications degrees, which seems to be corroborated by the data.

https://books.google.com/books?id=KUyOAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA42&lpg=P...

not that it really matters, i have an econ degree but wouldn't call myself an economist by any stretch.

the real issue, at least in the US, most news is really just either direct or indirect PR. curiously, i think 'X writer' is the term you are looking for. i.e., someone with a background in technology or fashion that reports on things is more likely to be called themselves a 'tech writer' or 'fashion writer'. it's almost like real experts don't even want to be called journalists. i certainly wouldn't.

i've found that you're much more likely to find accurate reporting in industry-specific media rather than general media, because then at least the sources of funding and agenda are pretty clear.

the nyt is always off the mark on topics i know something about, and nothing leads me to believe they are any better about topics i know nothing about.

we manage entire projects with a simple milestone list and a constantly updated list of current tasks and who is going to do them (action items, in mba blogspeak).

'make a list and then do it' is way too simple for a lot of people to understand. most people are looking for either shortcuts, or magic solutions like special software.

i watch a lot of niche hobby channels (not gaming) on youtube as a primary activity. there is some very, very good content out there. many shows get made that would never pass muster at a "tv network".

these people are able to make enough from youtube to either supplement a good professional income, or replace it altogether. which makes everyone, both producer and viewer, very happy indeed.

i swear all you trolls read from the same exact playbook. "nobody hears about the failures"?

really? i hear about plenty of failures all around me. i see restaurants shutting down left and right. i see people having mental breakdowns, public freakouts, people drop out of school. marriages fall apart, houses get repossessed, stock markets crash, people go bankrupt, even commit suicide.

startups failing and people not getting rich is honestly the least, most insignificant of all of life's failures.

but so what? so just do nothing with your life? never try anything? grow up.