jsherry

Journalism lives and dies by SEO. And if they take their time to carefully check their sources on every story before posting it, then they'll find themselves on the 6th page of Google b/c everybody has already beaten them to the punch. Speed and verification of sources are in total conflict with each other - it's a tough business.

Here's what you see when you search the term "insurance" on airbnb.com: http://www.airbnb.com/help/search?q=insurance

Something like this would be more reassuring: http://support.getaround.com/kb/insurance-infractions/how-do...

For the most part, the author is correct: by most objective measures, the shuttle was a disaster. One point I disagree with is his criticism of "the teachers who spoke about it in admiring tones to their students".

Is it really that wrong to try and get kids excited about engineering and science?

TMZ is to Lindsay Lohan as TechCrunch is to Color. Constantly reporting upon (and clearly enjoying) the precipitous demise.

This is great insight: something I haven't experienced and therefore didn't address in my original response to the parent. Thanks.

I have been using Spotify in the US in closed beta as well for over a month, so just wanted to give my two cents on these points. I will respond in order:

1.The ads on the free plan are obtrusive, but it's free. I didn't find them any more obtrusive than Pandora's ads. That said, I love the service and wanted to take it mobile, so I upgraded to premium, so I'm no longer hearing ads.

2.I didn't experience disappearing playlists. I'm sure this happened to you, just pointing out that it's not a super common occurrence b/c I'm on Spotify hours per day with plenty of playlists and haven't seen the issue.

3. Agreed. I miss my Beatles and Pink Floyd. However, the Stones' library is on there.

4. Again, I'm sure you're seeing this issue, but I use both Skype and Spotify on my PC fairly often and haven't had any issues.

5. In fairness, I'm just interested in a streaming music platform - not starting a movement. There are plenty of inefficiencies in the record label industry, but I'm. Just a startup guy, not an artist so it's not my fight ;-)

One issue I will add is that Spotify stopped streaming on my Droid about two weeks into my premium subscription. However, customer service couldn't have been more responsive and helped me fix the issue pronto.

You're defining a pyramid scheme too narrowly. This is one piece of a pyramid/ponzi scheme, but in those schemes, the underlying asset has no net worth. Here, Evernote clearly has worth, and plenty of it (regardless of whether the exact figure is debatable).

This happens quite often in Series B+ rounds, where previous investors take some or all money off the table. The reason is that early stage investors don't always have the tolerance/portfolio to sustain a long-term investment. Let's use DoCoMo Capital in this example since they were an investor in Evernote's Series A/B rounds. It appears that they didn't invest during this round, so it very well may be the case that they took some of all of their money off the table. It could very well be the case that DoCoMo Capital (who is the venture arm of NTT DoCoMo) made their initial investment in Evernote as a strategic one. Perhaps they no longer see strategic value in the company and need to cash out so they can make different investments that are a better strategic fit for their company. I don't know this to be the case at all - just showing the point.

Alternatively, let's say an angel investor with a very small portfolio had invested in Evernote in their very early stages. It could very well be the case today that 95%+ of that angel's net worth is tied up in the company, and so he/she might want to take some money off the table today to reduce his/her risk.

On the other hand, perhaps Sequoia has the tolerance to wait this out until IPO or a mega-acquisition. So they get in now at a higher price, cash some of the older investors out to reduce some dilution to current shareholders, and then the rest of the cash gets pumped back into the company.

Hopefully this is helpful.

Coke and Pepsi are competitors, but they're quietly pleased with their duopoly. Apple and Android should just squash the other guys and then worry about fighting over their 50/50 market share later.

Personal fave:

"How many people did you work with on Google+?

We're a surprisingly small team (esp. by Google's standards), but we try to make up for it with passion and speed."

To which I ask, how many people did you work with on Google+?

Link to apply for listing in Garry's directory:

https://ycdesign.wufoo.com/forms/y-combinator-designer-direc...

This article offers a pretty nice summary, but was wondering if any HNers out there have experience with this topic - considering sub-domains versus separate domains for one of our company's projects. Thanks.

CB Insights in New York, NY

Front-End Developer (Full-time): http://www.cbinsights.com/jobs/FrontEndDeveloper-CBInsights....

CB Insights is a National Science Foundation-backed data company working on difficult problems focused on very large markets. Although early on in the game we are revenue generating and are pushing the lumbering dinosaurs in our industry to the brink of extinction. Our data is frequently featured in the media which you can see here - http://www.cbinsights.com/press.php.

Penn is a very "pre-professional" school, which is not a bad thing at all. Nonetheless, it's refreshing to see this for a change...

Clarification: it's an unethical clause to begin with - absolutely agree. Just saying that you can't count on anyone besides yourself to act on behalf of your own best interests.

"It turns out the investor group...had secured a so-called repurchase right that gave them authority to buy back the shares at the grant price."

If this is true, it sounds like somebody didn't properly perform their due diligence before signing their options agreement. Although it's never right for a company or investor to exercise this buy back when it comes to an honest, hard-working employee, the onus really falls on the employee ensuring that this clause never sees the light of day in their contract in the first place. Perhaps in the event of "cause", one could make a case, but certainly under no other condition.

EDIT: It's an unethical clause to begin with - absolutely agree with the comments. Just saying that you can't count on anyone besides yourself to act on behalf of your own best interests.

Same theme over and over and it's frustrating: technology is fully ready to support streaming and on demand programming, but the content providers don't like licensing the content because it cannibalizes their TV product. And who can blame them really? They're the only show in town and they should cash in via whatever method best suits them.

The only real chance for things like Hulu and Netflix to succeed no-holds-barred, carrying everybody's content, is for them to carry their own content. Netflix is starting to do this and finally some competition in the form of fresh content is beginning to occur. Now if this behavior goes mainstream, people may stop watching traditional television in lieu of Netflix not only because they like the convenience but also prefer the programming. Then we have real incentive for the networks to get their stuff back on streaming platforms because it will no longer be a question of cannibalism, but one of losing viewersip altogether.

This makes sense in my head - hopefully it does too here ;-)

There was actually a guest post on TC regarding this topic recently, which broke it down according to the data: http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/12/math-of-techcrunch-startups...

The conclusion in the author's words: "TechCrunch is covering more early-stage startups than ever before, but sadly that coverage is often drowned out by an even greater volume of posts on larger companies."

I think the fact that Bitcoins is being discussed in the Economist is an interesting data point unto itself. Just means its awareness is entering mainstream media territory.

"Tapjoy said last month that a survey of about 500 of its developers found 54 percent of them have seen revenue decreases following Apple’s effective ban on pay-per-install."

I wonder if there's some kind of agreement that prohibits them from pulling the end-around on cable? Anyone know? Even if they could pull it off, they probably don't want to bite the hand that feeds.

I don't think that the author was expressing his astonishment with the fact that Netflix is threatening cable. He was just reporting the findings of a new study which show hard evidence. In fact, he states that "this jibes with both common sense and other anecdotal evidence we’ve seen.", so he's clearly not surprised.

Count me in the 40% who has cut their cable bill (I.e. no more premium channels) since buying an Apple TV.

I've had false positives on these alerts too, but I'm willing to put up with them. As long as there are no false negatives, I will be happy ;-)

Good point indeed. The functionality is already there, but Apple will surely simplify things and cause widespread adoption.

I will have to see the full implementation of iCloud to understand the difference. Again, can't speak for Dropbox even though they're the market leader. But SugarSync has this syncing functionality already and has had it for at least 2 years.

You can sync to the cloud and access files from the cloud OR you can actually choose files/folders to sync across hardware. For example, if I say that I want to sync my music folder across my Macbook Air and my Thinkpad, any time I make an update on one machine, it flows through to the other machine's hard drive. Similar with documents. If I choose to sync a Word document across machines and I edit it and save on one machine, in seconds it updates on the other machine should I open it there. It's all seamless - happens in the background without me having to push it from machine to machine.

Re: the API point, SugarSync has had one since 2010: http://www.sugarsync.com/developer. Haven't developed with it at all nor have I used an app that uses it, so can't speak for its flexibility.

P.s. I swear I'm not a SugarSync employee - just a very satisfied user since 2008 ;-)

It just seems to me that companies like SugarSync (and maybe Dropbox - I don't use it) have been doing this for years. I'm confident that Apple will improve some of the media streaming experience, but their real genius is in marketing these products b/c this has existed for some time.

Some discussion on this earlier: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2629114

Agreed on the convenience point. FT's strategy is definitely dependent upon the consumer's loyalty to their brand/product. Enough that they'd rather see Apple's cut stay with the publisher at the inconvenience cost of dealing with separate bills.

I'm curious whether this $24.99/yr revenue is shared with the labels who own the "pirated" music as part of the deal.