Hacker News Reader

marc__1on Why Experience Defines Intelligence

If you want to go deeper into what experience, knowledge is, you should Hume and Kant. Folks that spent their whole lives thinking about this

marc__1on NASA’s tech demo streams first video from deep space via laser

Is this humanity's first attempt to test the Dark Forest Theory?

marc__1on Together AI raises a $102.5M Series A

There are well-defined accounting rules for that, which also applies for joint-ventures, holdings and any holding structure.

Many examples, but this was the first relevant link on DDG:

https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/pages/audit/articles/a-roadm...

marc__1on Google pays Apple $18B to $20B a year to keep its search in iPhone

Would be interesting to hear from the accountants in HN if this violates U.S. GAAP rules for publicly-traded rules regarding disclosures.

https://viewpoint.pwc.com/dt/us/en/pwc/accounting_guides/fin...

marc__1on First blood test for dozens of hereditary cancers approved by FDA

In the USA there is The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act from 2008 that bars insurance discrimination based on your genes. I assume this will become a landmark law in the next 50 years as society becomes familiarized with routine blood (I mean gene) tests to drive preventive care to the next level

https://www.genome.gov/about-genomics/policy-issues/Genetic-...

marc__1on Chicago’s Railroad Problem

This is also an issue with subways. NYC subway, for example, originally had two different owners and they build their separate networks with different width so that one rail would not use the other. Today, they call it Division A and B trains.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_Subway_rolling....

marc__1on Grave of a man who never was (2015)

Wiki article has additional context, and there is even a movie on netflix that is just great

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mincemeat

https://www.netflix.com/title/81428563

marc__1on Launch HN: Reality Defender (YC W22) – Deepfake Detection Platform

Congratulations on the launch team! This is a great need and hope the team can deliver.

My questions are:

1 - Do you have any research on false negatives and false positives for your platform?

2 - How do you build trust in your platform so that users will use your results (and their users will trust it)? Fake news has been so widespread and people continue to believe in it, so why is that any different than with deep fake?

3 - Why are you trying a consumption-type of pricing? Cybersecurity typically charges on a per seat, and it would be very hard for a malware provider charge by 'malware detection'

marc__1on Tesla FY2021 Earnings Result

"we achieved the highest quarterly operating margin among all volume OEMs, based on the latest available data, demonstrating that EVs can be more profitable than combustion engine vehicles."

marc__1on Nearly half of new U.S. electric generating capacity will be solar in 2022

For additional context:

At the end of 2020, the United States had 1,117,475 MW — or about 1.12 billion kilowatts (kW) — of total utility-scale electricity generating capacity and about 27,724 MW — or nearly 0.03 billion kW — of small-scale solar photovoltaic electricity generating capacity.

Solar went from 0.4 million kW in 2020 to 47.8 million kW in 2020

Pretty impressive S curve, still in the early-stages imo

https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-...

marc__1on Rethinking Equity Compensation: From Lottery Ticket to Financial Wedge

Excellent article (and great opportunity for a startup)

marc__1on Life Circa 2050 Will Be Bad.

"Most people underestimate what they can achieve in a year and underestimate what they can achieve in ten years". Over the past 20 years, we have the following mind-blowing breakthroughs, so there is a lot of reason for optimism:

- the FDA has approved about 190 new cancer treatments for adults, we have the Human Genome Program and CRISPR;

- graphene was isolated in lab and it is used in many applications (from solar cells to HIV diagnosis);

- bluetooth officially launched in 1999;

- we are on Mars with Curiosity and reusable rockets are a reality;

[1] https://www.fda.gov/media/122693/download

[2] https://www.drugs.com/newdrugs.html

[3]https://fee.org/articles/the-20-biggest-advances-in-tech-ove...

marc__1on List of startups that recently raised and are on a hiring spree

$1.4 billion series A?

That company is a spin-off of a larger defense organization. Investors are mostly PE firms, so not your typical tech early-stage deal

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/19/sierra-space-raises-1point4-...

also a $155M seed It was actually Series A, and company is 2 years old. Again not the typical deal.

https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/09/scalapay-raises-155m-at-a-...

Anyways, the numbers are staggering. Very good website

marc__1on Chobani S-1 IPO Prospectus

Mainly because they have a huge debt-pile. Had Hamdi had chosen to raise equity it would be profitable, albeit with a smaller ownership (typical in tech, no so much in food companies).

All in all, great company and congrats to this milestone

marc__1on HashiCorp – S1

After the JOBS act, roadshows can start 15 calendar days of publicly filing the registration statement with the SEC (before it was 21)

Roadshow may take 5-20 more days, so we may see them ring the bell by mid-December

marc__1on HashiCorp – S1

wow

> As of July 31, 2021, we served 2,101 customers spanning organizations of a broad range of sizes and industries, compared to 1,473 and 831 customers as of January 31, 2021 and 2020, respectively.

> over 300 of the Forbes Global 2000 were our customers

>As of January 31, 2020, January 31, 2021, July 31, 2020, and July 31, 2021, our last four quarter average net dollar retention rate was 131%, 123%, 128%, and 124%, respectively.

> over 44% of our customers with $100,000 or greater ARR were licensing more than one product

marc__1on Facebook Reports Third Quarter 2021 Results

Interesting commentary on the 'metaverse'

>Starting with our results for the fourth quarter of 2021, we plan to break out Facebook Reality Labs, or FRL, as a separate reporting segment. As we have discussed, we are dedicating significant resources toward our augmented and virtual reality products and services

>We expect our investment in Facebook Reality Labs to reduce our overall operating profit in 2021 by approximately $10 billion. We are committed to bringing this long-term vision to life and we expect to increase our investments for the next several years.

marc__1on Rent The Runway S-1 IPO

This is a very detailed s-1. The 'Our Financial Model' starting on page 84 is a great way to understand how B2C companies make money:

> Our ROI calculation assumes an average of 20 lifetime turns per unit. Based on the average lifetime turns as of June 2021 of all items we acquired in fiscal years 2015, 2016 and 2017, we have determined that an item can turn a minimum of 20 times on average over its lifetime.

>When we multiply the item economics from fiscal year 2019 and the first six months of fiscal year 2021 by 20 turns, this implies total lifetime revenue of $445 and $536, respectively, and total lifetime profit of $212 and $324, respectively.

>Therefore, our product ROI has improved from 4.0x to 5.9x on a revenue basis, and from 1.9x to 3.6x on a profit basis based on item economics in fiscal year 2019 and the first six months of fiscal year 2021 applied over the expected lifetime of units, respectively. We believe we have the ability to drive improvements in product ROI over time as we continue to decrease our fulfillment expenses to improve profitability per item and use more efficient product acquisition channels to reduce upfront product cost.

marc__1on Globalfoundries F-1 IPO Prospectus

> As of the date of this prospectus, the aggregate lifetime revenue commitment reflected by these agreements amounted to more than $19.5 billion, including more than $10 billion during the period from 2022 through 2023 and approximately $2.5 billion in advanced payments and capacity reservation fees. These agreements include binding, multi-year, reciprocal annual (and, in some cases, quarterly) minimum purchase and supply commitments with wafer pricing and associated mechanics outlined for the contract term.

> A key measure of our position as a strategic partner to our customers is the mix of our wafer shipment volume attributable to single-sourced business, which represented approximately 61% of wafer shipment volume in 2020, up from 47% in 2018

> In 2020, we shipped approximately 2 million 300mm equivalent semiconductor wafers

marc__1on Tell HN: Amplitude (YC W12) just went public – AMA

- when did you stop coding (was it deliberate or natural as the co grew)?

- do you feel people started treating you differently as the co grew and is now publicly traded?

- what did you like to do when growing (sports, books, activities to call out)?

Btw, this has been fantastic, thanks for your time!

marc__1on Tell HN: Amplitude (YC W12) just went public – AMA

Daniel, any chance we can have these AMA with more YC later-stage founders?

This is such an amazing experience (we all want to talk and listen to this amazing founders)

maybe a new category? AMA HN

marc__1on Ask HN: What're some great cities to live for $2k USD per month?

If you are really looking at this life changing experience, i'd suggest taking a look at expat rankings for additional data points such as Mercer's 2021 Cost of Living city ranking (1). They are a good starting point, but you should also look at taxes, community, language barrier, safety and security, among many other important aspects that are not in the description

https://www.mercer.com/our-thinking/career/cost-of-living.ht...

marc__1on Ginkgo Bioworks (YC S14) is going public today

That is very unfair.

VC is a long-term business, with the average time from founding to IPO ranging from 8-10 years depending on the year. If you look closer at this list, you'll see companies about to IPO (Amplitude, Relativity Space, Embark Trucks) and several multi-billion dollar exits (e.g Segment <> Twilio, Twitch <> Amazon).

Lastly, the business is all about power law, so these small exits outperform the remaining portfolio by orders of magnitude. I bet they are beyond excited with their returns.

marc__1on Gitlab S-1

Fair enough: the average dollar retention rate among all gitlab's customer is 152%, behind only Snowflake, Blend Labs, nCino and UIPath afaik.

I was just trying to emphasize that for the highest paying cohort, retention is best class.

marc__1on Gitlab S-1

> is anyone actually doing that at scale?

per the prospectus on page 16 the answer is definitely yes:

Net Dollar Retention Rate for customers who paid more than $100,000 in ARR is 283% as of 12 months ended January 2021 and 383% for YTD 2021, meaning this customer cohort increases on average the spent by 2.8x.

The highest net-dollar retention rate among all SaaS publicly-traded companies, whose average is around 120%.

marc__1on Gitlab S-1

"The applicable price hurdle must be achieved during the relevant performance period (as set forth in the table below corresponding to the price hurdle) in order for the applicable tranche of RSU Awards to be earned, but once a price hurdle is achieved, the price hurdle need not be maintained in order for the applicable RSU Award tranche to continue to vest based on service. Once a price hurdle is no longer achievable due to the lapse of a performance period or if Mr. Sijbrandij ceases to be the CEO, any then-unvested portion of the RSU Award will be immediately forfeited."

marc__1on Gitlab S-1

From page 135 you have what it may be consider one of the most ambitious founder-performance compensation plans ever. The latest tranche, to be observed between 2027 and 2030, will be granted if the share price of Gitlab reaches $500, or 26x the price per share of the most recent fundraising (Series E at $18.6294 per share)

Here is the text if anyone cares fo cmd+F: "The following table indicates the price hurdle and the corresponding performance period in which that hurdle must be achieved and the service vesting date upon which the corresponding vesting is contingent"

marc__1on How do I sell a high value software when I was able to build it by myself?

This sounds like a good startup concept for a SaaS:

1-low cogs (80%+ gross margins) 2- predictable and long term renewal contracts; low customer churn 3- if this is a problem for a 10b+ company then nearly every other company should also be your potential customer

Price your product in a similar way that others do (there is always competition). Remember that the price for your first customer will not be the price for every other customer. You can and will iterate just like you do with your code.

There is plenty of discussions around ACV, ARR and product-led growth out there. For example

https://www.lightercapital.com/blog/what-is-acv-in-sales/

marc__1on Covid Spike Protein Disrupts Human Cardiac Pericytes Function [pdf]

The Pericytes Function is still an evolving subject and I can only expect more scientists and does creating ultimately better devices and drugs for our bodies. Unfortunately this time it is taking way too many lives

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8001346/#__ffn_...

marc__1on Allbirds S-1 IPO

from the filing:

◦New materials. Our successful track record of commercializing and bringing to market new innovations has made us a desirable partner for many outside R&D companies and vendors, allowing us to be first to market with novel materials while accelerating development timelines and reducing costs. A recent example is our collaboration with Natural Fiber Welding, Inc. to commercialize a 100% natural, plant-based leather-alternative. As we continue to build our library of materials, we plan to create new, differentiated products, as well as leverage new materials across our existing product platforms by refreshing our classic silhouettes.

We estimate that a standard pair of sneakers results in a carbon footprint of 14.1 kg of CO2e. Today, through our use of renewable, natural materials and responsible manufacturing, the average pair of Allbirds shoes has a carbon footprint that is 30% less than our estimated carbon footprint for a standard pair of sneakers, and we offset the entirety of the rest to provide our customers with carbon-neutral products. Furthermore, we believe in the power of selective industry collaboration to accelerate progress, as evident by our partnership with adidas to unveil the world’s lowest carbon footprint running shoe at 2.94kg of CO2e in May 2021. This partnership, as well as our decision to open up the carbon-negative, green EVA used to make SweetFoam, and our carbon footprint methodology demonstrates our ability to scale our impact to the broader industry and beyond, while extending our brand’s leadership as a sustainability innovator.

For example, in 2018, with the help of our partner, Braskem S.A., the petrochemical company and a leading biopolymers producer, we pioneered a carbon-negative green EVA made with Brazilian sugarcane, as an alternative to traditional EVA made from petroleum. We used this new carbon-negative green EVA to create SweetFoam, which is now in all of our shoe soles.