kops

As an Indian,

1. For the same reason as solving sudoku online i.e. for the joy of it.

2. Some interesting literature was written in Sanskrit. I may want to read that.

3. To be able to judge when a hindu preacher is bullshitting me.

4. To be able to critically analyze some of the religious stuff e.g. does the age of Sun god tally with what the modern physics tells us.

5. Its grammar expands my view of what is possible to express in a language.

6. For the same reason as pursuing archaeology. The words in a dead language can tell you a lot about the life when it was in common use.

I see that you substantiate some of your views with a "P.S." that you were forced to learn it for 3 years. That means nothing. I learnt it for 5 years purely to pass exams but that hardly makes me qualified enough to start judging whether others should learn it or not.

Nopes I don't know Sanskrit and it is not on my radar right now. But a while ago when I tried to learn German, faint memories from Sanskrit classes came quite handy(see #5 above).

> but what leverage do they have

I thought he meant "what leverage do the founders have?". Not sure though....

However, assuming that he did mean "what leverage do the founders have?", I would say that they are the boots on the ground and can very much scuttle anything that the investor wants them to do. The moment founder's interests are not aligned with the startup, it is doomed. I guess an investor can help them succeed but can't stop them from ruining it.

Disclaimer: pure speculation, I have no experience of being on either side of the table.

AFAIK neither the problem, nor the solution is specific to America. Link bonus, salary or promotion to the amount of noise a guy makes and you can have an army of self-promoting assholes overnight anywhere in the world. The baby that cries the most, gets the milk etc. etc...

Thanks for the post. Watching that animation reminded what pleasure could be derived by just watching simple mechanism in action e.g. union joint, differential gear, rotary engine etc.

I have never heard of ancient Indian kingdoms going beyond present day afganistan[1]. This falls quite a bit short of Egypt. On the eastern side though, Indonesia seems to have had Hindu kings[2]. I do recollect reading somewhere that at some point of time Indonesia was controlled from Kalinga but can't seem to find a reference any more. I don't think that the whole area from Afganistan till Indonesia was ever under a single king at any point of time. But I am not much of a historian so wouldn't really bet on any of this stuff.

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashoka [2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Indonesia

Isn't it weird that this author did most of his research on angel.co which itself can be described as match.com for entrepreneurs?

> To be fair, he did found the armed wing of the ANC, was offered a release from prison conditional on renouncing violence which he refused to do, and afterward his group went on to carry out a number of IRA-style bombings.

So he didn't turn out to be a meek cow...that is your complaint?

Thanks for your post in a world where it seems horrible things were ever done only by one side in second world war. The fact that white homo-sapiens aren't extinct in SA is good enough to convince me that not just Mandela, but many other people in that country are better human beings than I am. The words of a dutch friend keep ringing in my ears where he suggested that the aggressive group will always be better off regardless of morality, I wish he was wrong but I am still waiting for the evidence to the contrary....

As far as I can tell, YC isn't much of an option if you aren't located in US. Besides most of the start-ups go down the drain not because they lacked advice but because they ran out of money. So congratulations for creating an option that can be considered by those who have no intention/ability of moving to US.

It wasn't for founders to realize because as far as they were concerned things were going great. It were the merchants who had to realize that they were being used to fuel the engines of Groupon. Another big loser in this game would have been the investors who wanted to ride the engine. Whether they knew it or not, but founders and customers had a party at someone else's expense. I kind of feel sorry for the merchants.

Youtube comment section is one of the few places that aptly helps define the meaning of the phrase "darkest corner of internet". Some of the commenters there seem to have been gifted with the brains of an amoeba.

I found this really funny

>>>Some blog post about scalability... blog crashes after posting link to HN and /r/programming

But who says I can't talk about a rocket while riding a bike:-)

Also I will add these to the list

> why [angular/backbone/ember] [rocks|sucks]

> XYZ in pure CSS.

> How I got [in/out] of YC

I have to admit I enjoy many of these. Just taking cheap shots here:-) But I would really like a few more posts about

1. The thought process a new founder goes through before approaching a VC.

2. How to save your ass while talking to VC's who know the game far better than you do.

3. The mistakes founders have made in past w.r.t to starting, abandoning, funding their startups.

1. Local transport system in an unfamiliar city is always more complicated than catching a cab.

2. Given the importance he attached to YC, he prioritized the problems flawlessly. Saving that $100 vs. making absolutely sure that he reaches YC office on time, not exactly a brain-teaser if you ask me.

3. $100 doesn't mean the same to everybody.

UK's aid is more to massage UK's ego and keep your british raj hangover going than to help India. A rocket launch in 60s and then a nuclear test in 74 should have taught you what importance India gives to this aid. Even our parliamentarians are on record that we don't need it. But well...

Besides, I suspect that except in cases of natural disasters, most aid in general is a not-so-subtle bribe to buy influence. We can see front-pages demonstration of these facts quite often, all you have to do is follow the itinerary of John Kerry.....

As for remittance, I think you have misunderstood the meaning of the word. So let's ignore that part of your outburst.

His essays are way older than YC.

Hmmm....reminds me of a time when I naively tried to code a date.next() method. Never again..

>Even with mitigations, my staff and I basically spent every DST start/end dealing with a plethora of IRs to the degree of, "why did you change the time?"

For us the mayhem used to last for weeks because DST changes in different countries at different times. However, the biggest challenge was always to convey to many programmers that despite a date being in different timezones, the UTC timestamp is always the same and that timezone merely changes the interpretation of a UTC timestamp. Than there was the nuisance of different machines running in different timezone and some automatically generated cron jobs all going haywire. And then, any scripts you write to fix the issue have to wait for 6 months before they can be battle tested. It took us a good 3 DST changes to finally solve the problem and still it is quite an unpleasant hack.

No, I would not miss DST either. After all it has been more than a century since light bulb liberated us from relying on the Sun as the sole source of light.

> Bear in mind that no one is forcing the employee to accept this.

That doesn't quite absolve the employer e.g. if I am stuck in sahara desert and bump into a man starving for days. At this time if I offer him food in return for his soul, would you consider it a fair trade? Even though the poor guy has a choice to reject my offer?

I know it may sound illogical, but no decision is taken in isolation. Years ago I decided not to do anything with middle eastern countries for what they did to non-muslims, immigrants or to their own women. I still go fill gas in my car knowingly fully well how hypocritical it is, but I pray everyday for Elon Musk to succeed and for us to be off this hook. If US, a country made by immigrants, treats immigrants badly, thats enough for me to make a choice. It doesn't matter if it will have an impact or not. I really couldn't afford to care.... Having said that, if I were starving, I will go anywhere to make a living..and that really explains a lot of misery. I don't have any answers...sorry...

It sounds even more surprising to me even though I have never been to US. Although I always dreamt to...

Thanks for your post. I mean no disrespect, but could you please link to any references. Specially about the working hours, minimum wage and vacation etc. If it is true then I am going to do myself a favour and trash my US visa right away. I am not much of a traveller but I can always assume that grand canyon doesn't exist or that I can see it in a different life....

Edit: looks like you are right http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_time#United_States

I will embrace each of the supposedly problematic things you mentioned in your post any day. They seem rather fair to me. Do you have a different opinion? Why would you want startups to be exempt from this?

Getting a US visa is one thing, but what about tolerating the thought of someone putting their hands up your ass at the port of entry :-(

What you are saying is absolutely reasonable assumption to make. But let's face it, all social security systems are and should be to take care that people don't go hungry and start prostituting themselves for a loaf of bread. If I want to be an entrepreneur then I don't blame the authorities for showing me the door and telling me to fend for myself. I may have a different opinion in 2-3 months at the end of my runway though ;-)

NOTE: This post is probably useless for anyone other than the person I am replying to and the residents in Switzerland.

You can start a business, but it can not be registered as a GmbH or AG(These are like LLC or Pvt. Ltd. companies). From the day you quit your job, you have 3 months, during which you still have to pretend as if you are looking for a job. After that RAV(unemployment insurance dept.) gets off your back for 4 months during which you can devote yourself to setting up the business. At the end of 4 months, you have to either start pretending to be looking for a job again or give up your benefits. I didn't really have to bother with all this because I really had to register my company. I also thought I was at a disadvantage due to me being a non-european founder but my lawyer assures me that this holds true for everyone. If you own shares in a GmbH or AG, you can not claim benefits from RAV.

P.S. I didn't read the article and my understanding of social security and unemployment insurance is quite hazy. That's why I hired a lawyer. There are people who know how to game the system either to start a company or to go on extended holidays ;-), so that is possible e.g. as an Indian I could have registered my company in India without having any impact on my social security in Switzerland. But financial wizardy and legal games is not what I intend to devote my attention to...

Swiss system is awesome as a safety net but I am not quite sure if it helps the entrepreneurs. The moment you register a company(either as GmbH or AG) you basically kiss your social security goodbye. The only comfort is that if your startup fails within a year, then you just have to liquidate the company and you are back on the social security system. Not bad as a truly dooms-day-scenario.

Even if we leave the tech aside, this is a good example of PR hacking, which I think is pretty relevant to a lot of people here. Congratulations to you and your team for spotting an opportunity and exploiting it.

edit : typo

Looking at that video, I am inclined to say that this system(HN system) works very well. Almost like magic ;-)

No worries. I will keep following it up on your website. Thanks,

Thanks a lot for all the pointers. Really appreciate it.

BTW any plans to zero-in on the pricing anytime soon? I saw that for one app you will always keep it free, but it will be nice to know what happens beyond that..

My first impression is that it is like extending the two-way binding of AngularJS across the wire. Not sure though...