bsims

To my knowledge yes, but it was reduced in the last batch.

http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/11/26/y-combinator-reduci...

Third set of eyes would be helpful.

The most difficult part will be figuring out how to condense it down.

Will do. Mind being a second set of eyes on it?

About 8 years ago an investor in my first company was defrauded by a con artist. This led me on a crazy 4 year chase which resulted in the discovery of a series of pump and dump stock frauds worth over $1 billion (think Enron, divided into smaller pieces) and possible ties to terrorism. This was a result of class action lawsuits, SEC investigations etc. None of which resulted in any type of jail time, and one of the individuals lives nicely in a 20 bedroom mansion in Barbados.

The sad part about all of this, was that I notified the SEC on multiple occasions with physical proof that people were defrauding the government and individuals. The SEC's responsibility wasn't "to handle foreign citizens." Homeland Security "didn't handle securities cases." The IRS needed the person's Social Security Number, name and address. When someone moves from one state to another, the states stop communicating on any type of prosecution.

The whole process was a fascinating/scary insight into how easy it is to commit fraud in the United States.

So as a word to the wise for first time entrepreneurs, don't be afraid to ask investors, VCs or others where their money comes from.

This was a great write-up, thanks for sharing. Similarly here is an article about the most common passwords for 2012.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-205_162-57539366/the-25-most-com...

What about finding some local business with a poor website and offering to build them a new website for $500 if they help you buy your next computer. Now you have $1,200 to buy a new Macbook.

Don't just think about the cash you have now, think about how you can use that tool to make more...even if it is before you have the laptop.

I totally agree with this. Considering some of the recent threads happening around suicide, people being civil about reviewing open source code etc., I thought mocking someone who recently died was in very poor taste.

How do you expect someone to answer this question?

You should send this to the Buffalo Bill's new analytics department. Maybe a Hacker could get hired to an NFL team.

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap1000000121582/article/bill-...

Here is a related post I was about to make but thought it would be relevant as a comment.

"Why I disagree with LinkedIn endorsements"

I was having a discussion with a VP of Lending last week about a new company I am working on to supplement financial information for loan purposes. The topic of LinkedIn, credibility, and endorsements came up and he suggested that perhaps someday in the future loans could be based off of your endorsements. I disagreed, stating that I didn’t think endorsements were very accurate but couldn’t fully explain why. This was my analysis.

1) A break-down by LinkedIn contacts: I have been endorsed by 26 people of the 845 (3%) I’m connected to on LinkedIn. I began realizing I didn’t know some of the people endorsing me so I created some criteria for my endorsers: -Never met: 19% of endorsements -Never done business with: 50% of endorsements -Haven’t seen in 5+ years: 46% of endorsements -Didn’t recognize their name and had to pull up their profile: 19%

2) I decided to Social Graph my profile and found that the largest categories of people I know are: 1) From the financial industry 2) CEOs or executives 3) Entrepreneurs 4) From Oregon/hometown/school alumni 5) Team members from my previous company. These all make sense because the last company I founded works with the financial industry, so my social circle has evolved to primarily entrepreneurs and people in the financial industry.

http://ow.ly/i/1h9IB

3) Of these groups, who arguably know me the best of anyone I had:

-0 active CEO’s or C level executives (non-entrepreneurs) -0 co-workers or team members -0 investors from my previous company (none of which are not on LinkedIn)

4) The first listed 2 endorsements of the initial 13 I selected became my #1 and #2 skillset.

Some thoughts on Endorsements

1) The quality of the endorsements has a ways to go. -Endorsers often have a small impact on one’s real life, but can majorly impact one’s professional perception. -It seems that a fairly high % of people who endorse have some type of vested interest be it getting business from LinkedIn, networking for jobs, gaining topic expertise or driving traffic.

2) Your mind is tricking you. -People choose what is listed first: My #1 and #2 skills and endorsements were the first two skills listed. -Visual Deception: People love graphs, they remember them. They also only remember a couple things about you, like your #1 skill. This is a terrible thing because by nature we automatically assume this person is not as good at the other things and we begin typecasting. Would you agree that your #1 endorsement is your strongest skill? Would you say you are twice as good as your #1 endorsement as your #2 endorsement? These are some of the impressions this is building. -Group Think: If someone else thinks you’re good at X, you must be, so I’ll endorse that also. This creates an echo chamber.

3) The dynamic of endorsing people can get awkward, which may prevent accurate endorsements. Would you endorse your professor while taking a class from them? How about your manager while working for them? The owner of the company where you work?

4) Higher ups aren’t on LinkedIn. The people who arguably have the most “influence” on me as an entrepreneur are not actively on LinkedIn and certainly are not out endorsing people.

The bottom line is that a vocal minority may influence the majority so be careful what impressions your endorsements may give of you. The people who spend the most time on LinkedIn are probably not the ones you want determining who you are.

Disclaimer: Thank you to those who have endorsed me. I know you have done so with the intention of helping me and it is appreciated. This post is about the social flaws with LinkedIn’s Endorsements and also about the behavioral economics behind online social influence.

Yeah it would definitely be interesting to get his take. But in the meantime making decisions with the best info at hand! :)

This stock/bond chart blew my mind. The bigger question is how long high bond rates will last?

http://www.businessinsider.com/t-rowe-price-us-equity-outloo...

You are correct. I didn't realize PMF was such a consistent dividend that far back. On top of the 6% average, it is also tax free since it is Municipal so true return could get up to 8ish which is pretty incredible considering the last 10 years.

If you do any freelance work or own your own business you could do an Independent 401k which lets you stuff more money away than a normal 401k. Good idea for some of the freelancers on HN.

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/independent_401k.asp

Thanks for sharing a specific example. Could be an interesting investment. At the same time, you have to weigh out the other risks such as Mass. being one of the most in debt states in the country.

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/state_debt_rank

It is hard to tell if this is a serious or sarcastic response.

If you think Muni Bonds will stay at 6% for a lifetime, you're misinformed. 1) Government owned consumer debt is up nearly 5x in 5 years 2) Lately Muni Bonds have been swinging more than stocks themselves 3) Take Pimco Municipal Income Fund (NYSE: PMF) as an example. It's price has appreciated 7% over 10 years, TOTAL. Even with dividends you're looking at best 3% and at that point you've successfully managed to do nothing more than keep up with inflation.

Link isn't working.

It is worth reading PG's email from 5 months back about his vision of what the fund raising environment might look like.

http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-fallout-y-combinator...

Can I use this quote? Working on a company built around supplementing credit information to solve this problem. Would be curious to hear an international perspective on this.

Good to know, didn't know larger companies could manually update the count.

It is important to take some of the LinkedIn employee counts with a grain of salt. Often times it clusters companies into different categories of sizes (i.e. 1-9 employees, 10-50 employees) so an 11 person company could appear larger than it is.

You could go donate plasma. http://www.ehow.com/how_2195131_earn-month-donating-plasma.h...

Style points if you bring a laptop and work on a project while waiting in line to sell your spot.

I recently moved to California and was surprised to find that HSA were not deductible here, although federally it is considered a deduction. Wouldn't be the first time California as bucked Federal rules though. =)

http://www.benefitscafe.com/hsa/articles.html

Everyone commenting on this thread should read Founder's Dilemma to at least give some statistical information about success rates of founding teams.

http://www.amazon.com/Founders-Dilemmas-Anticipating-Foundat...

Regardless of one's opinion of solo vs team, statistically it is easier with co-founders. That doesn't mean it can't be done solo, but you have better odds. And YC makes investments so why wouldn't you play the odds?

A bit belated, but thanks for the answer!

If I were YC, I'd probably turn down most applicants the first time anyway and then wait and see who re-applies and see how much they've done since the first application. It's like interviewing someone and waiting to see if they follow-up.

This would weed out a lot of the wantrepreneurs who expect some external source to make them successful vs. building something.

It would probably be better at this point to think about what you're going to do over the next 6 months to build your product, which in turn will only help your odds for YC.

You should also be careful about what you post online relative to this case as what you write could potentially be used against you in a case. I.e. search your company name>your company name is your HN username>this post could be admissible. Just something to be aware of.

Is this a course you have to be enrolled at the University to take full time or is it possible to take these as a single course?

Credit histories go as far back as 7 years, so in terms of 3 and 6 months, it is a relatively short time. This is also why it is a challenge for many young adults to receive fair credit scores.

Also, you should at least be charging one thing per credit card so they are still remaining active.

As dumb as it may sound, it is actually better for your credit score if you have around $5-$10 on your statement on any given month which achieves a higher credit score vs. paying it off entirely. This is illogical because most smart people just set it up for auto pay and pay it off entirely. Hope that helps.