lafay

Not just product placement, and not just "today" either. I can recall so many cartoons from my childhood in the 80's (He-Man and G.I. Joe come to mind) which were nothing but long-form promotional content aimed directly at kids.

The long-standing prohibition of non-compete agreements in California is really the X factor in why it continues to be the innovation juggernaut. So many startups here are the result of founders capitalizing on some element of their experience at prior employers. And the ability to hire top talent away from direct competitors also provides a significant advantage for rising startups.

Even if other states pass legislation to end non-competes (as MA has tried to do a few times), it will take time for regional business culture to adapt. I've worked for a few East coast tech firms where company loyalty is taken very seriously, and defectors were semi-publicly shamed even if not outright sued for violating a non-compete.

Wealthfront states it more clearly here: https://blog.wealthfront.com/qualified-small-business-stock-...

It’s a major benefit if you have the opportunity to early exercise your shares.

This isn't a Florida-specific thing. It's a requirement of the National Electrical Code (NEC) that grid-tie inverters shut down on grid power loss, for exactly the stated reason. Every commercially produced grid-tie inverter has that feature built in.

Yes, this. Whatever was used to share or transfer the files generated a cleartext log with MD5 hashes, which was written somewhere other than the encrypted volume.

When USPS first launched Parcel Post in 1913, people would "mail" their kids to relatives. No joke:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/05/24...

The idea that insurance won't cover fires from unpermitted, DIY stuff is mostly urban legend. Most homeowners' policies are what are called "all hazards" policies. They cover any kind of damage for any reason, with explicit exclusions like war, earthquake, flood. Outright arson / fraud by the policyholder would also obviously be excluded.

Banks would object to policies that excluded unpermitted work, since it's relatively common and this type of exclusion would leave them with lots of exposure.

So, they may decide to drop you like a hot potato afterward, but a fire from your homebrew powerwall would likely be covered. Read your policy fine print to be sure.

Here's a method to block calls from all 9,999 numbers in your area code & prefix who are not you:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/scam-calls-spoofing-your-own-...

Author's title is "Why A Lifestyle Business Beats a Startup" which implies that no one should be pursuing a VC-backed startup, in favor of lifestyle businesses. That would leave all of these (subjectively) great ideas by the wayside.

I'm all for lifestyle businesses and side hustles. But some ideas really do require a lot of up-front capital. It's hard to imagine Tesla, SpaceX, Boom, or Nest succeeding as lifestyle businesses.

Early exercise / 83(b) has another benefit that most people aren't aware of -- if the exit is at least 5 years out, you can exclude 100% of your gain from federal cap gains tax under IRS Section 1202.

See here for more: https://blog.wealthfront.com/qualified-small-business-stock-...

This article makes a good case for having at least one early team member who knows how to build out physical infrastructure at scale, even if you initially decide on AWS / GCE / Azure:

http://firstround.com/review/the-three-infrastructure-mistak...

One thing that always strikes me about this kind of analysis or discussion is that it presupposes we have reached some kind of evolutionary final state -- that humans now possess all of the "competence" and "affordances" that will be necessary to comprehend the true nature of our existence and experience. Personally, I think that's naive, and that we are still very far from true understanding. In the same way that a cat is very far from comprehending geopolitics or calculus.

Related to "final state" is the assumption that there will be no successor beings. Surely evolution will continue to create beings (bio or silicon) that are more competent than humans -- perhaps it already has. Cattle can observe humans and their actions, but the cattle do not comprehend that they are captive and food. I'm not sure why it would be any different between humans and successors.

We're also hiring in sales, pre-sales engineering, technical marketing and customer success.

Kentik | San Francisco | Full Time | REMOTE, VISA considered

https://www.kentik.com/careers/

Interested in building a distributed column-store time series database? Crafting a sleek, intuitive front-end? Evangelizing a breakthrough approach to network intelligence? This is your opportunity to get involved in a dynamic, rapidly growing San Francisco-based startup. Kentik Technologies is the creator of Kentik Detect, a big data SaaS for network traffic visibility, DDoS detection, and infrastructure optimization. Accessible via web portal, psql client, and API, Kentik Detect is the network visibility solution that our founders — former network operators from Akamai, Netflix, YouTube, and CloudFlare — always wanted but could never find. It lets network operators see complete traffic paths, find root causes for link congestion, reduce costs by peering with other networks, and know immediately when their networks are under DDoS attack.

In our first 18 months on the market we've landed 100+ customers including: Shopify, Pandora, DailyMotion, Yelp, Box, Neustar, Instart Logic, Cisco, Appnexus, and University of Washington plus top carriers, telcos, and hosting providers.

On the backend we're looking for folks with real-world experience building distributed systems in Go/C/C++. On the frontend we need experts at both client- and server-side JavaScript, with broad experience in monitoring, visualization, and building state-of-the-art Web applications. And in sales we need proven performers with a track record in highly technical markets (network-related preferred).

Sound like a good fit? Check us out at https://www.kentik.com/careers/, and contact us at hr@kentik.com.

+1

B2B SaaS here too, and targeted cold calling is our most effective lead gen channel.

No, no -- the ideal spouse / SO writes half the code, is your co-founder, and joins you at the meetups.

This seems like a reasonable idea, but I don't think it can last indefinitely. You will almost certainly reveal something that will allow someone to unmask you eventually, regardless of how careful you are.

Startup L. Jackson is a great example: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-17/unmasking...

This made the math crystal clear for me in a way I have not seen laid out before.

Kentik | San Francisco | Full Time | REMOTE, VISA considered

https://www.kentik.com/careers/

Interested in building a distributed column-store time series database? Crafting a sleek, intuitive front-end? Evangelizing a breakthrough approach to network intelligence? This is your opportunity to get involved in a dynamic, rapidly growing San Francisco-based startup.

Kentik Technologies is the creator of Kentik Detect, a big data SaaS for network traffic visibility, DDoS detection, and infrastructure optimization. Accessible via web portal, psql client, and API, Kentik Detect is the network visibility solution that our founders — former network operators from Akamai, Netflix, YouTube, and CloudFlare — always wanted but could never find. It lets network operators see complete traffic paths, find root causes for link congestion, reduce costs by peering with other networks, and know immediately when their networks are under DDoS attack.

In our first 18 months on the market we've landed 100+ customers including: Shopify, Pandora, DailyMotion, Yelp, Box, Neustar, Instart Logic, Cisco, Appnexus, and University of Washington plus top carriers, telcos, and hosting providers.

On the backend we're looking for folks with real-world experience building distributed systems in Go/C/C++. On the frontend we need experts at both client- and server-side JavaScript, with broad experience in monitoring, visualization, and building state-of-the-art Web applications. And in sales we need proven performers with a track record in highly technical markets (network-related preferred).

Sound like a good fit? Check us out at https://www.kentik.com/careers/, and contact us at hr@kentik.com.

If you're joining as employee 10, you should negotiate for the opportunity to early exercise all of your shares and avoid any tough tax choices later on. Perhaps even a starting bonus to cover the cost of exercise.

This also puts you in a position to exclude your entire gain from federal capital gains tax if the liquidity event is at least 5 years out:

https://blog.wealthfront.com/qualified-small-business-stock-...

Kentik | San Francisco | Full Time | REMOTE, VISA considered

https://www.kentik.com/careers/

Interested in building a distributed column-store time series database? Crafting a sleek, intuitive front-end? Evangelizing a breakthrough approach to network intelligence? This is your opportunity to get involved in a dynamic, rapidly growing San Francisco-based startup.

Kentik Technologies is the creator of Kentik Detect, a big data SaaS for network traffic visibility, DDoS detection, and infrastructure optimization. Accessible via web portal, psql client, and API, Kentik Detect is the network visibility solution that our founders — former network operators from Akamai, Netflix, YouTube, and CloudFlare — always wanted but could never find. It lets network operators see complete traffic paths, find root causes for link congestion, reduce costs by peering with other networks, and know immediately when their networks are under DDoS attack.

In our first 15 months on the market we've landed 70+ customers including: Shopify, Pandora, DailyMotion, Yelp, Box, Neustar, Instart Logic, Cisco, Appnexus, and University of Washington plus top carriers, telcos, and hosting providers.

On the backend we're looking for folks with real-world experience building distributed systems in Go/C/C++. On the frontend we need experts at both client- and server-side JavaScript, with broad experience in monitoring, visualization, and building state-of-the-art Web applications. And in sales we need proven performers with a track record in highly technical markets (network-related preferred).

Sound like a good fit? Check us out at https://www.kentik.com/careers/, and contact us at hr@kentik.com.

Kentik | San Francisco | Full Time | REMOTE, VISA considered

https://www.kentik.com/careers/

Interested in building a distributed column-store time series database? Crafting a sleek, intuitive front-end? Evangelizing a breakthrough approach to network intelligence? This is your opportunity to get involved in a dynamic, rapidly growing San Francisco-based startup.

Kentik Technologies is the creator of Kentik Detect, a big data SaaS for network traffic visibility, DDoS detection, and infrastructure optimization. Accessible via web portal, psql client, and API, Kentik Detect is the network visibility solution that our founders — former network operators from Akamai, Netflix, YouTube, and CloudFlare — always wanted but could never find. It lets network operators see complete traffic paths, find root causes for link congestion, reduce costs by peering with other networks, and know immediately when their networks are under DDoS attack.

In our first 15 months on the market we've landed 70+ customers including:

Shopify, Pandora, DailyMotion, Yelp, Box, Neustar, Instart Logic, Cisco, Appnexus, and University of Washington plus top carriers, telcos, and hosting providers.

On the backend we're looking for folks with real-world experience building distributed systems in Go/C/C++. On the frontend we need experts at both client- and server-side JavaScript, with broad experience in monitoring, visualization, and building state-of-the-art Web applications. And in sales we need proven performers with a track record in highly technical markets (network-related preferred).

Sound like a good fit? Check us out at https://www.kentik.com/careers/, and contact us at hr@kentik.com.

> I appreciate that Mark Suster is upfront in saying he's only interested in the correct pedigree.

I didn't read it in such black & white terms. More like: If your team is uniquely qualified to solve the problem you're working on, you should lead with that.

At the very least, spend some time refining a story about why whatever background you have actually is the perfect pedigree for what you're working on.

It's a silly headline, implying that Powerpoint wizardry was the primary factor behind the raise. I suspect that companies with growth metrics like these could walk in with pitch decks that look like chicken scratch, or none at all, and get the same investment.

Arbor Networks (now part of Netscout) is the incumbent in this area. Kentik is the disruptive SaaS-based startup.

Kentik | San Francisco | Full Time | REMOTE, VISA considered

https://www.kentik.com/careers/

Interested in building a distributed column-store time series database? Crafting a sleek, intuitive front-end? Evangelizing a breakthrough approach to network intelligence? This is your opportunity to get involved in a dynamic, rapidly growing San Francisco-based startup.

Kentik Technologies is the creator of Kentik Detect, a big data SaaS for network traffic visibility, DDoS detection, and infrastructure optimization. Accessible via web portal, psql client, and API, Kentik Detect is the network visibility solution that our founders — former network operators from Akamai, Netflix, YouTube, and CloudFlare — always wanted but could never find. It lets network operators see complete traffic paths, find root causes for link congestion, reduce costs by peering with other networks, and know immediately when their networks are under DDoS attack.

In our first 12 months on the market we've landed 70+ customers including:

Shopify, Pandora, DailyMotion, Yelp, Box, Neustar, Instart Logic, and Cisco/OpenDNS.

On the backend we're looking for folks with real-world experience building distributed systems in Go/C/C++. On the front end we need experts at both client- and server-side JavaScript, with broad experience in monitoring, visualization, and building state-of-the-art Web applications. And in sales we need proven performers with a track record in highly technical markets (network-related preferred).

Sound like a good fit? Check us out at https://www.kentik.com/careers/, and contact us at hr@kentik.com.

This is the best description of HN I've ever read:

> There are great ideas and topics to be covered here for sure, but they're sprinkled on top of a giant cake made with 1-part self-loathing, 2-parts day-dreaming, and 1-part regular huff-and-puffing.

Isn't most of "built great products" the combination of right timing, right connections, right team, product/market fit? What really is the difference between #1 and #2?

This was news to me that there was any battle to be had here.

I grew up in a part of suburban Chicago where all the residential streets were lined with elms -- it looked very much like the photo of Central Park in the article. I can remember the little papery elm seeds littered everywhere. Over the course of my childhood in the 1980s they all got Dutch elm disease and every last one was removed. The village arborist would come by and spray paint a big green dot on the trunk -- a mark of death -- and a week later it'd be gone.

By the time I was in high school, it looked very bare. Most of the elms were replaced with maples, which are only now starting to look reasonably substantial.