Exactly. We had a similar discussion a couple days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16006674.
3,078 karma · joined February 1, 2011
It’s not just cash. Who has been building cars with smart sensors for more than 10 years? Who has self-driving cars on the road already? Who has factories to scale this up to a level that’s required to build an enormous fleet to replace all existing cars? It doesn’t even come close.
I believe so too, but from a slightly different angle: I believe self-driving vehicles will literally mean the end for both Uber & Lyft (and they only accelerate their fate by investing into it).
To understand why: their inherent value is their ability to match human drivers with customers. They both do such a good job at it, that the switching costs between the 2 apps are quite low (first sign of weak competitive advantage).
Now, take away the difficult problem of finding human drivers at the right place and the right time. You now have self-driving cars that make no mistakes, have no scheduling issues, do not get tired etc. It’s way easier to fullfil demand. But, you’re not the only one working on this problem. Google, Tesla, (probably Apple too) are all actively working on the same problem. And they probably have 10X the computing/engineering/cash/data resources to solve this problem.
What are Uber/Lyft left with? A fancy app with a button (which they have already proven to easily clone). Not only that, they also have to compete with the native operating systems (and future devices) that the big corps control. They don’t even own their maps!
So yes, in 2023, you will probably be able to order a Level-5 self driving vehicle to your doorstep with a wink of your half robotic eye, but it will not be Uber or Lyft.
The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dictatorship of the Small Minority
https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict...
Specifically in this article about coffee naps http://www.vox.com/2014/8/28/6074177/coffee-naps-caffeine-sc... which links to this Harvard article: http://healthysleep.med.harvard.edu/healthy/matters/benefits...
Setting LLC's up is easy (even setting up a C-Corp is considerably easy) but for me the problem is always to maintain it and file taxes and other stuff on time etc. Is there any startup/service that helps me solve that problem?
It's OK to leave stuff out on your resume if it's not relevant (and maybe even harmful) to the position you're applying for.
Well, it's just sugar, lemon, and water...
http://www.businessinsider.com/what-its-like-to-work-at-snap...
> We face significant competition in almost every aspect of our business both domestically and internationally. This includes larger, more established companies such as Apple, Facebook (including Instagram and WhatsApp), Google (including YouTube), Twitter, Kakao, LINE, Naver (including Snow), and Tencent, which provide their users with a variety of products, services, content, and online advertising offerings, and smaller companies that offer products and services that may compete with specific Snapchat features.
> For example, Instagram, a subsidiary of Facebook, recently introduced a “stories” feature that largely mimics our Stories feature and may be directly competitive. We may also lose users to small companies that offer products and services that compete with specific Snapchat features because of the low cost for our users to switch to a different product or service.
> Many of our current and potential competitors have significantly greater resources and broader global recognition and occupy better competitive positions in certain markets than we do. These factors may allow our competitors to respond to new or emerging technologies and changes in market requirements better than we can.
> Our competitors may also develop products, features, or services that are similar to ours or that achieve greater market acceptance. These products, features, and services may undertake more far-reaching and successful product development efforts or marketing campaigns, or may adopt more aggressive pricing policies.
"If you have a US startup called X and you don’t have x.com, you should probably change your name.
The reason is not just that people can't find you. For companies with mobile apps, especially, having the right domain name is not as critical as it used to be for getting users. The problem with not having the .com of your name is that it signals weakness. Unless you're so big that your reputation precedes you, a marginal domain suggests you're a marginal company. Whereas (as Stripe shows) having x.com signals strength even if it has no relation to what you do."
On the base of what, though? It's well known that the USCIS is mostly self sustained (e.g. minimal government funding) so that money has to come from somewhere. I believe the thought is that getting a visa/permanent residency is considered a privilege, not a right.
2) What you're struggling with is the distinction between technical problems and adaptive challenges [1]. Purely solving technical problems (what you call, "innovation"), will not get you anywhere if you don't pay attention to adaptive challenges. You might simply just be deluding yourself to work hard on "hard problems" that don't really matter for the course of your company and your success.
[1] I actually wrote a blog post exactly about this common misconception on Medium just this week: https://medium.com/@melvinmt/so-you-want-to-work-hard-and-ch...