johnl

If your business continues to grow I would say the article applies but if I hit a bump I would certainly look carefully at the competition to make sure nothing over there has changed the rules.

The other side of "putting in the time" is finding something you like doing in the first place. It makes the journey all the more interesting.

By comparing their stats to other successful companies you sure would think so. I would still be looking for that killer income app that can be connected to: per person, per hour, per link, etc, before I jump all the way in first and declare them the winner..

I would delegate but with feedback. After a while the guy is going to get in everyone's way. And by feedback I would mean more than numbers crossing his desk.

Quote: "But for all the buzz around virtual goods, you might still wonder why people are willing to pay for things that don't really exist." I would think they are paying for expectations of a level of entertainment. It's an excellent method of generating revenue compared to a subscription service. It also has a built in "affiliates" program with developers working on their own virtual goods for the site.

If there were a lot of single founders with good ideas YC might consider creating a new program called 2and20. If your single founder application is accepted you have 20 days to get 2 additional founders and resubmit for a second approval?

I would think "bring a sample of your coding" might be better. Non-programming might include: Query language "programming". Maintaining an existing "out of box application" Maintenance programming. End user support. Little real coding is necessary. These are programming jobs but not really programming as I see it but. Then there is the ability to learn new languages, processes, dealing with the end user, is the code maintainable, code by specs?, juggling multiple projects. I might start an interview by a sample code but that would not be my only criteria and if the person failed the "programming" test I would see it as a need for further discussion, not really a big red failure flag. Example: If the reason the programmer doesn't know sql is because they spent their time putting out fires and supporting the end users, I would hire that person over the others any day.

It might be as easy as modularizing your projects after the initial conceptualizing the project before beginning the programming, That second step makes starting, stopping and debugging the programming a lot easier. Break the project in small separate parts, then schedule to program each part without thinking about the larger final project. Before you know it, projects done.

Reliable female birth control started in the 60s so the green graph should be normalize for that fact and you might get a better correlation.

I am not sure the strategy in the article will work or not but it sure does highlight the trade off problems between internet and personal security/identity. Seems like no one likes the preferences opt in/opt out that everyone is currently using.

molecular reactions at absolute zero.... cool.

I think the genius of Google isn't the stuff they build (which is really cool) but the fact that the entire company is built from information essentially available to everyone.

Why don't you create an app that solves that particular problem and give it away free on the condition that you can dish up and split Google ads on the app. Create a site where they can automatically update their hours. Some simple loan calculators made good money referring people to mortgage companies a few years ago.

Sounds like a need for more transparency on swaps and swap accounting, not more Bank bashing..

I would say that's a good idea. If your are not involved in the "problem" you probable won't be able to be part of the solution and surly won't be able to direct or have a say in the solution.

That's a market that hasn't seen any consolidation but quite a lot of competition. It will be interesting to see what they can do and how they are going to approach it..

Sure does. Boys could do that to but are too busy demonstrating that Force = Mass * Acceleration.

Agreed, I wouldn't last a week. Sounds like the concept of: Management knows everything and the employees know nothing attitude.

Every growth industry has it's ups and downs. You find out what works and what doesn't, fix what doesn't, and keep on going. Shouldn't be a big deal.

You could also title the article the "Art of Listening".

Sure doesn't seem to make sense. Could be one of the additives. I would want another study separating all the stuff they put in sodas. But staying away from all that sugar is still a good idea.

Sounds like there is a new gaming market needing attention. Or maybe handicapping players.

Could he just mentor a replacement for a portion reduction in his equity instead of him taking a major role in the company? a new partner would get the ball rolling. He would still be available for consultation but out of the business loop and this way he could continue doing his Arch. study.

glad to see the economics of supply,demand,and price working somewhere.

I liked the interview. Interesting to see how he used other peoples resources instead of creating then from scratch.

Amazon real issue may not be the price issue but that Amazon isn't dictating what the price shall be, someone else is. Amazon may think that if they loose control over price, they loose control over their site.

I guess there is no chance that it is a very well designed marketing ploy, that is putting Jobs in front of everything?

I would agree. I never saw so many bad things happen when my friends upgraded to IE6. It wasn't that IE6 was bad it's just a lot of things security wise came to a head at the same time and IE6 was sitting in it's path.

I like the read but..... I would have liked the author to be more specific about the qualities as a cofounder. A well rounded person compared to a so-so person is still too vague for me. And as a VC and the reason to not invest in my start-up was due to co-founders I would like him to say so, not make a vague excuse as he said he did per the article.

I would start the discussion with development of a marketing strategy or possible marketing strategies and bring in the points of the article in for discussion.