jbkiv

Owners rarely pay for crew. They only pay for a skipper and first mate. But the rest of the crew is not paid, but all expenses paid. Got to be careful when picking the boat and the skipper. Bad boat, differed maintenance can be the kiss of death in the middle of the ocean. Bad crew can result in conflicts: alcool and drug use, bad hygiene. You can get away from the boat, for 20-40 days...

get classes, pretty unexpensive. After your first 5-7 days when you learn basic skills you will receive plenty of invitations to crew. Not unlike the corporate world, too many chiefs, not enough workers. Good crews are in high demand (and you can bring significant other, friends). Lots of owners are clueless. Lots of big boats are looking for crews, typically an ocean crossing. Think Panama-Tahiti. Expenses, including flights, paid

Plenty of ways. In the past being a good mechanic was handy. Today being an engineer is highly valuable:

Electrical: 110v 60 Hz, 220v 50 Hz and 12v for 12v DC for electronics while you run 24v dc for the rest. Networking radars, GPS, AIS, plotters has become incredibly complex.

Sewing: having a commercial sewing machine has proven to be useful (to make friends). Repair sails, awning, various canvas

Digital media: most popular boats have satellite com on board and produce one quality youtube video every week. Photos, blogs, manage fans on Instagram. You were hoping to get away from the hustle? You will be back in it quickly.

Refrigeration skills: get yourself a set of gauges ($50), vacuum pump, several cans of refrigerant, soldering equipment. Whomever can produce cold (freezer, cold beers or ice cubes) is king in the tropics.

I can add to this list. The world of handymen is incredibly unskilled. Come with a mechanical engineering or EE/CS background, you will be making friends faster than you can think.

Nice and simple UI, cool!

They can. Up to a point. If you push too much one day you will face a jury composed of normal people. We have experienced that in some states with non compete agreements. It got to the point that you could no longer work anywhere else. Sometimes the company would make you sign documents saying that they owned the IP you were creating AFTER your departure. Don't push too hard because at one point you will that jury of normal people. And they will make their mind very quickly.

I agree with you say verisimi. Pretty sad. As much as I hate trial lawyers, as of today we would not be better off without them. Bad corporations will squeeze money out of you as much as they can.

This has become a general problem. There seems to be more money in "software services" than in building tractors and motors.

John Deere is not unique. All common rail engines require a visit from a "certified engineer" who has access to the software. This is terrible in the marine industry where you can't get one in the middle of the ocean and you can't repair yourself either. What do you do? Do you sail to a harbor? You can't unless you have a sailboat. Get a tow to the nearest Volvo/Yanmar dealer? You must be kidding, thousand of miles away?

So yes, that lawsuit makes sense.

As for a class action lawsuit some of the comments in the thread misunderstand how it works: 1. Secure one or two plaintiffs. Two or three is better. Make sure they represent owners well: no conflicts, not paid to sue, good/clean plaintiffs. 2. Find the right location for the lawsuit. Location is very important in the US. Not only the state but the county. This is VERY important. Good plaintiff lawyers know where to sue. 3. Get your judge to certify the class action. "this lawsuit is on behalf of all users of John Deere tractors, etc". This is ALSO very important. John Deere will fight that. They will claim that those two plaintiffs do not represent the class, blabla. 4. Fight in court. Other plaintiffs have nothing to do. If the class action lawsuit wins on behalf of thousands of owners this represents a lot of money. It costs nothing to plaintiffs. Lawyers typically get 30%, sometimes less. If they are too greedy (they all are) the judge may object and cut down the fees. 5. Users can “opt out” of the payment if John Deere loses in court after appeals. Most plaintiffs do not opt out because they can’t afford to fight big corporations.

Unfortunately corporations are not always fair. We have seen many, many cases when poor farmer John just could not pay the exorbitant costs imposed by John Deere. Understand that these people have learned to be self-sufficient. They weld their broken massive tools in the field. They call the mobile repair shop to fix and tune their engines. Now they can't do anything. That massive, expensive John Deer is like a beached whale. Nothing you can do about it.

Hence class action lawsuits in the US. Some of them are abusive (i.e.recent att phone bills, 100M customers collect $1, lawyers collect $30M), but sometimes there are no other ways (asbestos, workplace injuries, brain damage near chemical waste from mining). Folks outside the US struggle to understand the system.

It is why today you can enjoy Non-Apple store repairs to your phone, non OEM parts for your car or non branded cartridges for your printer.

I wish that such a lawsuit will force John Deere to change its practices, like it forced other companies to do so.

Thank you for your explanation.

You will notice that the first question when you apply to Y Combinator is your age. The second is your sex.

I was inspired by the Minitel to start Esurance in 1997. The Minitel of course had porn (more Craigslist type "offerings" from real people) but also reservations, travel, and...INSURANCE! You are totally correct, it was so efficient that it delayed the adoption of the worldwide web. Of course France wanted something in FRENCH (!). As I was raising money in Europe for Esurance, the French executives would look down on me and say "we have the Minitel, we want nothing to do with your Internet" :-)

Damn! Good find :-)

I would be interested in learning more about that. I have been in discussion with Chainanalysis and other companies. We are building an app / risk management process for average investors in crypto and NFTs. Think about a very secure wallet, with cold storage, and a near real time app that would trigger an alert if you are transferring crypto to a wallet tagged as high risk. We are building a database of what we call good/bad wallet addresses. Just created wallet? Flagged, transaction may be delayed 12 or 24 hours,etc... Can we be wrong? Of course and in that case we would insure that/you would get reimbursed. Example: somebody hacked into your wallet as you were seeking help on discourse, got the QR code, tries to transfer the funds to a new wallet. Bang, transaction on hold and you have to approve it. Any of you working on a list of dubious wallet addresses?

Makes total sense. If you buy a subscription for few dollars/month, don't expect a human being to answer your call. Google/Twillio/Sendgrid, whatever the service, all the same ticketing system and no real answer.

HN crowd looks down on sales reps. But a good sales rep will 1) understand your business 2) will look for ways to match your needs to solutions they offer 3) will be your point of contact when things go wrong.

Sales reps are human beings, treat them well, thank them for their time if you don't buy the fancy/expensive enterprise plan.They'll understand. Most reps are young college grads that are building a network for life.

You could be a solo SaaS creator and cheap because it is a side gig and your don't have the money. But still make an effort to nurture those little young reps. One day they'll make the phone call to somebody that will remove that account suspension. That will save your business.

This a weak response.

It reminds me of a fellow student at Wharton. Whatever the question was in classes (ethics, economics) his answer was ALWAYS "I really feel strongly both ways". My friends and I even gave him a price for his answers/behavior at the end.

Years later he was a CEO of major corporations. That served him well to never take the stand.

Life is full of people who "really feel strongly both ways". It seems that Purdue is taking that route. We have seen that with other Universities: cheating on exams? Don't do that again (=we need to keep the money flowing).

This is awful. President Daniels should resign. Or the Board should advise him to step down "in the interest of the University".

This is not an uncommon practice in the Silicon Valley. Startup wants to business with Big Co., invites Big Co.'s decision maker (VP Marketing, CIO, CTO, CFO) to join the "board of advisors". Then startups pays for expenses, travel and grant "stock options" to Big Co. senior manager.

Understand that ANY product has a "side" price tag, paid by granting options or "payment for expenses" to the senior individual. Another way to look at that. Ask ANY member of your board of advisors to disclose ANY conflict of interest.

If StartUp sells product/services/SaaS to BigCo. then BigCo. "advisor" should disclose ANY payment, direct or indirect, travel or non-travel, and ANY stock options.

This is what had to be done with the large drug companies, forcing them to disclose payments to providers/medical doctors who had the authority to buy drugs. Full disclosure + penalties for lack of disclosure ---> that was the end for the drug sales rep who were doling "educational conference tickets, all expenses paid for you and your spouse, ALL expenses paid, and of course compensation for your time". Of course said conference had to happen in Tahiti, San Francisco, Seychelles, etc...

Code law? You must be kidding. It is OK to chat about "Code Law" among like minded individuals always on the lookout to crack open the pirate's chest. It is a different story to explain to a judge: "sir, the bank had left the vault open during the fire alarm. I just helped myself with few $M. It is the bank's fault". Good luck.

I am not sure. As often is the case, if you want your kids to go to public schools, you step in and fund an organization (in this case Kiddo) to provide funding for anything the state does not provide. The same folks just want to see their money going 100% to fund classrooms, teachers and projects.

It is very efficient. All volunteers. 100% of your money is put to good use.

Funding legislation is a whole different Hydra and the best way to go nowhere while you have kids in school. Focus on the short term and support classes and teachers right now.

California is not doing anything special. The tech sector provides high paying jobs fueling high housing costs in the San Francisco Bay and other places used as second homes (WFH): Wine country (Napa/Sonoma), the Coast (Santa Cruz, Stinson, Big Sur) or the Sierras (Lake Tahoe). High paying jobs + high housing prices ---> higher taxes Taxing tech corporations is more complex and most have stored IP in low tax havens. Note that this is not specific to tech, Wal Mart, Goldman Sachs and others do the same thing.

I live in California. The state with highest tax rate in the country.

For whatever historic reasons our street is not maintained by the city, nor by the county (we are in Marin County). Obviously not by the State of California. Every 10 years neighbors get together and we hire a contractor to patch the holes in the street and coat with tar. We have no public lights, each house installs a light in front on the entrance.

Our public high school is severely underfunded. There is side system funded by parents/PTA to maintain projetcs, art classes, etc.: https://www.tamvalleypta.com/

Kiddo (https://kiddo.org/) raise $3M every year to fund just about everything:

What Kiddo! Funds

At every elementary school, Kiddo! funding pays for many people and programs.

    Kiddo! provides funding for the salaries for all Art teachers, Music teachers, Chorus teachers, Orchestra and Band teachers, and P.E. teachers; plus salaries for almost every Classroom aide, and every Library aide in our District.
    Kiddo! also funds Dance programs in every grade, Poetry and/or Drama instruction in every grade, and multiple Innovative Teacher Grants.

At MVMS, Kiddo! funding also pays for many programs and teachers:

    Kiddo! funds 100% of the salaries for all Art teachers, Instrumental Music teachers, and Vocal Music teachers, plus Music Technology, and our MVMS Library Aide
    Kiddo! funds 100% of the Specialist Contracts to teach Dance in all grades, and Poetry in 6th grade.
    Kiddo! funds the Greek Mythology workshops for all of  6th grade, Shakespeare program and performances for all 7th grade classrooms, Word for Word literary drama program for all 8th grade classes, a Yoga unit for all grades during P.E., an all-school Robotics Club, and several innovative teacher grants.
    Kiddo! also provides funding for the all-school Spring Cabaret for all grades. 
    Kiddo! also provides funding for technology, including computers and software for classrooms, plus the salaries of our district-wide Instructional Tech Coach and some of the tech support staff. Read more about the District Tech Plan here.

Arts Education in Mill Valley Public Schools

Because of Kiddo!, the Mill Valley School District is able to provide our students with an unparalleled, top-notch education that values the arts as much as any other content area. This is integral to our Strategic Plan, and it is a point of pride for our District that students in all six of our schools participate in a diverse array of enriching experiences that deepen and expand their learning every year, from transitional Kindergarten through 8th grade.

How Kiddo! Helps Elementary and Middle School Teachers

    Support for Core Curriculum. The arts and P.E. are not "extras." They are part of the core curriculum in California. Kiddo! funds pay for the art, music and elementary P.E. teachers, and provide dance, drama and poetry specialists.
    Specialized Instruction. In districts that can't afford dedicated staff for art or P.E., classroom teachers often teach these subjects, squeezing them in when they can. Mill Valley students receive regularly scheduled art, music, drama, dance, poetry and P.E. from professionals trained in these subjects.
    Support for Differentiated Learning. Because Kiddo! funds classroom aides, teachers have more prep time and more time to dedicate to students. They can provide more attention to students who need it and more challenges for students who are excelling.
    Teaching Grants. Kiddo! also funds grants so classroom teachers can try new and innovative programs. This year Kiddo! has funded over $50,000 in teaching grants across the District.
    Teaching Teachers. – Kiddo! provides the funding for our district-wide Instructional Technology Coach whose primary focus is to assist classroom teachers to successfully integrate instructional strategies using multiple technologies.
    Funding for Other Needs. Kiddo! fills holes in other critical areas such as supporting professional development and funding most of our tech support team. 

Each year, with the help of parent volunteers from every school, Kiddo! raises over $3 million in funds for our District, to help us deliver a complete education to Mill Valley’s public elementary and middle school students.

Learn more about volunteering, events, and other ways to get involved at http://kiddo.org/

I have heard a different story (but from Kahn's side): that the board did not back him up when he presented his internet strategy. He left after that, arguing that the board did not have the vision.

For me, the only thing I truly remember about Borland is Philippe Kahn (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippe_Kahn). Kahn is a giant: supreme intelligence, accomplished musician, worldwide competitive sailor. He is also a big and tall man. He is also the person who sent the first photo via a telephone. I first met him in 95 when I invited him to speak at a Wharton meeting. His vision of the internet blew me away. Shortly after meeting with him I quit my job to start one of the dotcom companies. Like a lot of companies ran by Founders, Borland had a face, for me it was Kahn.

You are so right. Too much confusing and scattered information in the US. Do some reading on UPS training for their UPS drivers, No turn left, optimization,...

Very simply "the experience" is much better on mobile = we track everything you do, your location, we mine your friends info...And sell that for more $$$$. And either you don't it / or you don't care or it is simply too complicated unless you are in Europe (in that part of the world it is more risky to sell your personal info without your explicit consent).

Can't really do that if you use your laptop. At least it is harder and harder to get to it (trend to use Safari, Firefox, etc).

No, typically there is nothing to sell. The "assets" are worthless (code, website, customer lists). Maybe furniture they sell to liquidators at 5% of price. The liquidators will then put that in storage and will sell the assets at 40-50% of price. Unwinding a company is quite complex and he works with a skeleton accounting staff to close the corporation, pay state, federal, sales taxes (you can never escape that), closing the DE corp and all foreign companies as well. Lot of admin work.

I had not seen that one. Lots of truth indeed!

AND you have not looked into the arcane world of pharmacy bids company. Stick your nose into their billing, you are guaranteed a 20% discount (Oh, sorry we discovered several mistakes). But this is boring stuff for 2020 startups who "want to disrupt the industry".

Now you wonder why the Democrats are pushing TONIGHT last minute negotiations in DC to add another $250B in stimulus money. We'll sign ONLY if you carve out, say $50-100 Billions or additional money for...HOSPITALS!

You get it now?

In the US, a lot of "HR tech companies" are in fact insurance brokers, selling both health benefits and workers comp. Those two lines are a massive source of revenues.

In most countries outside the US, healthcare is not privatized. Benefits brokers are virtually nonexistent outside the US.

"HR tech companies" provide free HR software and make money on selling benefits insurance and workers comp insurance mostly to other startups who are buying "nothing but the best" gold healthcare coverage (= more commissions).

Nothing new, the biggest companies are Paychex and ADP and they have been doing that for a long time. Not a surprise if I tell you that their software is horrible...

So if startups start to do layoffs or shut down, or even start to control their expenses (lower benefits, co-pays), I would expect the "tech HR companies" to not do so well.

Thks, could not agree more. More Uber = more pollution and unbearable traffic. Slap a 50% tax on Uber and use that money for free public transportation. In a recession maybe we'll see more people getting on an electric bus/subway. And our lungs will be feel better.

Insurance companies are kind of a costco, they buy stuff in bulk , sell it retail, and manage to get a 5% margin.

My humble opinion: the health care system in the US is totally screwed up and nobody wants to recognize that (except those paying maybe, and I am not even sure of that because they are conned into thinking "that we have the greatest healthcare system in the world").

Everybody is trying to pull the blanket their way. It is obscenely too expensive with little results (worse results than Europe and 4x the price). This is pathetic and a total failure.

Go medicare at scale, and for everybody? But the government does not know how to control the costs on medicare either.

Then religious beliefs get in the way: if 75-85% of the cost of insurance is wasted in the last year of your life, you understand why they keep you artificially alive so everybody can milk the system: never ending MRI's, super expensive drugs, etc...Hospitals, doctors, medical devices providers, everybody feeds on the system, and blame the lame insurance companies/costco of the healthcare world.

This is sad because so many people do not have the means to pay for that, few have access to the type of healthcare engineers have access though work.

I respectfully disagree about what it takes to be approved as a health insurance COMPANY (as opposed to a broker). In fact I am quite happy that regulators require you to show that 1) you know what you are doing 2) you have a massive balance sheet to protect your customers if they need it. The point 2 is super important in the context of VC-backed companies. There is simply no way to build a massive insurance company that way, the return on equity is too low. Unlike airbnb you just don’t go out and raised $2B in debt because you are running out of money and you can’t pay claims. Regulators would step in way before, and they have done that multiple times.

Witness what is happening today: I have not heard from any health insurance company requesting a bailout (unlike most companies). State regulators are a pain in the neck, are conservative but - in your interest - they control how the insurance company uses their capital (you grow too fast = you must add more equity, a bit like working capital), and how you invest your money (they restrict the amount of equity you invest in). All in the interest of the consumers.

Think for a second: if the balance sheet of your health insurance company looked like the balance sheet of Softbank’s vision fund? Would you like to hear “we are sorry, we’ll have to stop your cancer treatment, we are out of money”.

Health insurance companies are regulated at both the State and Federal level. The goal is to make sure that they are fair and will pay the claims when you need that down the road. Like everything in financial services (your savings, your retirement fund, your health for you and your family) this is not the place for fly by night startups. While it is visually appealing to see a better UI, you hear startups "disrupting this dinosaur industry" but very few of them succeeded. And maybe it would be nice, but smart investors (after say series B or C) realize that the returns are not that great and the company requires a massive amount of equity, in fact locked in low risk investments/stable bonds.

Sure, you can target a very young workforce and ignore the sick, the old, the crippled, those overweight or whatever else there is. And you can make money within the startup ecosystem, when everybody works out, eats well, and is super healthy.

But it is simply illegal and my advice for you is to buy insurance from an old, stodgy company. Maybe a mutual company? I don't care if wework is out of money, I can always find space somewhere else. When you have cancer, or when you child is disabled, you don’t want to deal with insurance regulators who have seized the assets of your shiny new health insurance company startup.

There is no room for mistakes when it comes to your health and your savings.

Disclaimer: I have Kaiser, I never use them, but I am sure they will be there when needed.

My best advice for you today is to be super frugal. Don't buy the fancy car, don't buy the condo, don't sign a long lease. A low burn for yourself will lower your stress and will offer you a lot of options. If you like your job and the company stay put and work more if you can. Your leadership will be struggling at some point to survive. Your CEO/Founder will feel very, very lonely. Go meet with him/her, tell him how you feel and offer help. Even if the company collapses you will end up working with a lot of the same folks down the road. You will create memories and will bond with other folks in a less superficial way. As they say this is fucking hard. More than you can imagine. Ben Horowitz wrote a good book, The Hard Thing About Hard Things. In his case, it ended well, but most likely it will not end well for a lot of people.

Be sympathetic. Empathy is important. This is too late to be cynical or overly critical

Good luck.