rohamg

spot on. especially with your first point about energy.

im surprised this is only now making it to HN front page, it was published a while ago and is quite underwhelming in my opinion. it's an entertainment fluff piece, which i guess shouldnt surprise anyone.

the ideas are not ideas, they're technologies - or inventions - and most of them are blindingly obvious and already being worked on. even as far as technologies go, there is very little imagination here.

Stop being paranoid. Shape the online conversation about yourself, don't run away from it.

I've been having good luck with the LG HBS700. It feels a bit flimsy but it works well.

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* Software Engineer, Javascript (node), Ruby, others

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* Product/Project Managers, must rock (CS preferred)

* Design/UI-UX super stars

* Recruiting coordinator / Talent scout / Studio Manager (engineering or PM background preferred)

Axiom Zen is an idea catalyst. We focus on shipping products that are commercially exciting or socially essential, and practice an end-to-end approach, carrying each concept from ideation to production to market launch and beyond.

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this is a great post by Mark, I think everyone who knows Jody will be vigorously nodding their head throughout. way too early to go, man.. the only consolation is it makes me happy to see the tremendous impression you've left on so many others. rest in peace.

Dont worry about that: developing a reputation for aggressively fighting patent trolls has the effect of dissuading trolls from targeting newegg in the first place. Trolls are likely to target others for a quick settlement rather than risk losing their golden goose at trial (as happened here).

"would-be immigrants would require the support of a Canadian angel investor group or venture capital fund before they can apply to the Start-Up Visa Program."

As the operator of a proudly bootstrapped company, I think this requirement makes the entire law a farce. I hope the US legislature doesn't follow the same example. The provision is especially damning because the Canadian angel/VC community is not particularly large or sufficiently risk-tolerant.

looking good guys! it's possible to use Tapstream with our own url shortener right?

Not just "someone willing to help" but also customer support, tutoring, medical emergencies, bomb diffusing... The monetization force is strong with this one.

sorry Alan- u approach this with rational conviction but your emotions have your logic circuitry out of whack. don't take my word for it- come back to this thread in 5 years and you won't recognize the words! i've been there, i know.

that's why we are "life bullies" - because we've made it through tough times and can guarantee that it gets better. if you were a hungry child without a family or a roof over your head, i wouldn't be lecturing you. but then again you wouldn't have time for despair - you'd count every grain of rice as a blessing. buck up, cowboy up, weather the storm. if you feel out of place in this world, do something to make it better. pick up trash, help old people, build a website for a nonprofit.

throw this junk about how you're so special and don't fit in out of the window. being sad doesn't make you special or deep or wise. your life is YOUR LIFE - make it worth living.

if you like books, read Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth. it's good perspective shared with the weight of firsthand experience.

Thanks for posting this. I too am alarmed at the HN community's response. It is surprising how such strong talent can feel so powerless- you'd think hackers would be less susceptible to giving up given that we can change things with our bare hands. It's easy to give up, it's incrementally harder to say "this will pass", it's hardest of all to snap ourselves out- slap ourselves in the face and remind each other of the immense privilege we all were born into, and see problems in the world with a sense of duty and responsibility, not despair. Honestly- I'm a bit shocked at the sense of entitlement people have of life sometimes, expecting happiness to be delivered on a platter (or via API). Life is a startup, it is a fucking war: keep busy and fight the good fight. If we're on HN we're already in the top 1% - if we have problems we should get out there and do something about it.

This is right. I'm shocked at the "suicide apologists" in this thread.

Fascinating. Also not to be ignored: the psychological blowback from the parents' stress and anxiety. Anyone who has dogs or rides horses can tell you - if you're confident and focused, the animal is too. If you're skittish, scared, overly concerned or stressed, the animal will be too. Growing up as part of a generation like this must have been subconsciously traumatizing.

It embarrasses me how ego- and emotion-driven European regulators are. The title of this post, the quotes from the commissioner.. These guys see themselves not as inspectors but practically as clergymen. I don't know if its just me, but while the FTC "investigates", the EC "forces" or "is convinced".. Are we kids here? Is this still Salem? The level of hostility some folks have toward tech is shocking. Meanwhile egregious trade abuses, quasi legal subsidies and anticompetitive practices are practically a way of life across many traditional European industries (agriculture, manufacturing, etc).

A bit unfortunate. FS grew too far too fast and too much at the whims of her VCs. The product now stands at an amorphous juncture between yelp, path, and Facebook, confusing users. I still believe strongly in the need for a mobile foursquare type product and community but I've lost my faith in foursquare as a company being able to satisfy that need.

Cool proposition but because of your onerous terms you are self selecting for bottom barrel. In startups (where there is a power law distribution of outcomes) it would be much preferable to offer more generous terms and simply be more picky selecting for founder competence. Also- need to figure out statute of limitations: who decides when one MVP stops and another begins? What if a freelancer takes your money hacks up a bunch of MVPs and learns enough to do the full swing by themselves?

Nice article, great recommendations. Proper instrumentation and aggregate metrics are essential, but its also impt to know the user on an individual basis- intercom is the only one on this list designed to help do that. If I was writing this article I'd include some funnel tools on mobile too: tapstream, flurry, and paid marketing, like adstage.

pg- when i first read your comments i was surprised at the categorical ad hominem dismissal of svbtle's critics. scrolling down, i see what u mean- the level of negativity and vitriol engendered by seemingly innocuous facts is surprisingly out of proportion. even for HN :) one wonders why the posters torture themselves so much. the internet has always been packed with garbage - but garbage to you can be treasure to me. don't like it? click the back button! it's always been that easy. it's almost as if these out of proportion "controversies" against svbtle are being manufactured by svbtle supporters in order to attract attention? sounds like it could work :)

im afraid its not this easy. continuing your stock exchange analogy, trading volume at the individual stock level will be too sparse and unevenly distributed to make an unassisted exchange workable except at massive unprecedented scale (which i admit we'll achieve eventually). that's why in daily deals "stock brokers" exist, they are groupon/LS/etc. and they're still bleeding cash trying to reach these merchants profitably despite their "high" gross margins.

also i dont think you've adequately fleshed out the chicken and egg problem; ie i dont think folks will sit there and load up their deal preferences without you having demonstrated some kind of value first. demonstrating that value will be difficult without reverting to industry standard stuff. back to square one.

most importantly, in daily deals merchants pay for marketing+distribution = new customers. what you're describing will mean the customers voting on a merchant will already be aware of that merchant, and this makes your pitch to them a different (and much more difficult) conversation. from the merchant's perspective, discounts lower their product's value in their customers' minds. imho the right way to deal with loyalty is through having a loyalty program (assisted by the many great startups in this business), not generalized discounting.

hope this helped.

Samsung is frequently referred to as "the only android carrier that makes any money". One wonders whether such Apple-sque upgrade forcing has contributed to their financial success.

Sounds like a lot of work just to waste time more efficiently..

Grantoo was founded in Paris before moving to SF :) Europe is very much on the radar.

not vaporware. tech is built and already in use.

I see this as a positive, not at all a negative. Programming is rare in that the field lends itself very well to creative destruction / natural competition / evolution, for many of the reasons you describe. The process is chaotic on an individual level but the population as a whole moves forward far more intelligently than any centralized process could hope to mimic.

that's why we call them startups

Here's the thing- if it's based on location, social data, influence, hair color, none of that is illegal. Two things are illegal: 1) discrimination in the -ism sense of the word, and 2) price discrimination based on proximity to competitors in the markets wherein the company doing the price fixing holds a monopoly. #2 is what Staples could be running afoul of here. In the US, it's not illegal to have a monopoly (ie be the only Staples in a small town without an Office Depot/OfficeMax etc). It's also not illegal to engage in anti-competitive (ie under-cutting your competition in price, signing exclusivity contracts etc.) or anti-consumer (ie price discrimination, restriction of choice, etc.) practices. What IS illegal is engaging in anti-competitive practices in situations where you hold a monopoly, and that's what Staples may be in danger of doing here. And yes, I know Staples doesn't hold a monopoly over the entire internet but the value of brand identification / trust and convenience of in-store pickup shouldn't and won't be overlooked by regulators.

i was merely correcting that Facebook copied the product. If SnapChat had a business (users + revenue + customers + relationships + goodwill), it would have been much more difficult to "copy".

What took them so long to move on this?

Really creative! Big props, super geeky but guaranteed to be a winner.

Money quote: "...giving his girlfriend a big surprise when she imaged his electrophoresis gel."