rumpelstiltskin

And this is called talking out of one's ass. It's easy to armchair quarterback from a cozy cubicle at Pando HQ. When you run an actual company, especially as a solo founder, you'll realize how thin your bandwidth gets stretched. Unless it's core, you adopt a 'cross that bridge when you get there' mentality. Which is exactly what Apoorva did here.

Seriously, once you go down the 'due diligence' road, there are a million things to check up on. Focus on the core to get up and running, fix things as they break and worry about the rest later.

I'm in Houston, TX. When I searched for 'windshield repair houston', the 1st result - wwwDOThoustonwindshieldrepairDOTnet - looked promising so I made an appointment with them to get my windshield repaired. When I went to their place of business, it was just a guy in a pickup truck in the parking lot of a strip mall, with a 'windshield repair' sign on the back of the truck.

Turns out he's running a scam where he gets ppl to file claims with their insurance, and when they pay him, he would kickback 50% to the customer. Having insurance pay for damages is common enough, plenty of businesses do it. But this guy was trying to get me to file claims for damages that I didn't even have. When I asked for a cash price just to repair the damage I did have, he refused saying that 'it wasn't enough money'.

I was pissed. Not only is this illegal, I couldn't believe he was ranked #1. When I did some digging, it turns out the guy is gaming google with a ton of paid backlinks. For example, http://www.searchpicks.com/business/automotive/patsco-windsh... (click 'suggest listing' for the price).

I'm sure plenty of other searchers ended up wasting their time with this SERP just like I did.

Save the mock exasperation for elsewhere.

P.S. I agree with your 'Secondly,...' point.

For the record, I'm all for blacklisting daringfireball.

Also, I had no idea Paul Stamatiou left to join Picplum. How often do YC alums jump from a still running startup to another? Is it common?

Yes. We can. Some ppl may not like it, but we certainly can.

Right. Shortchange the company instead.

OP, considering your virtually nonexistent professional experience, I'd take the job regardless of the salary and focus on learning as much as I can. Ignore the money for a couple years.

Then bump up to a higher payscale, either at the same company or jumping ship to a different one.

Is this info posted anywhere online?

Then why doesn't everyone and their mom become a VC?

Hint: Because it's nowhere near as easy as you think it is.

And why should it be different? The fact of the matter is that the idea of Google going after Apple, Microsoft etc for violating Google's patents isn't even an issue. Wanna know why? Because Google's competing on the merit of the product. It's letting the customers make the choice b/w the Microsoft OS and Android.

Whereas if Microsoft had it's way, the customer wouldn't even have a choice. Thats the real difference.

It's a hook, catering to a very specific niche of ppl. If it catches on, you can bet that they'll expand with MBA2Startup and others, for more 'seasoned' vets.

How much?

So if it helps you sleep better, go right ahead thinking that. I am done with this nonsense :)

We're not talking about some hypothetical person. We're talking about this specific person. It's ok for Tammy to refer to herself as a 'victim' since in her mind, it may very well be true. But we can't call her a 'victim' since, in this specific case, we don't know what happened.

You really need to calm down and think things through. Just because jsprinkles said that blogging about this accomplishes nothing (and he's absolutely right btw), doesn't mean he's saying that she should stay silent. Since when is blogging/tweeting about this the first line of action?

Go to the police. Period.

P.S. Try not to throw the word 'victim' around. All we have is her word. If the allegations are proven, then yes, she's a victim. Till then, she's a blogger.

I'll stick to my original assessment. Down vote away to your heart's content.

You don't need something flashy. Something Neat, simple and attractive that gets the USP across will do. Check out the sites of some of your YC classmates, like Indinero for example.

You can slice it any way you like, but location matters.

There's only 2 possibilities here - 1. They didn't see the emails or 2. They saw them, but chose to ignore them. Either way, his choice boils down to killing his idea or launching it and seeing what happens.

It would be utterly moronic of him to kill his idea simply because they didn't respond. Might as well leave that decision to them by launching it and seeing how they respond. If they don't shut him down, then his service isn't breaking their rules. If they do, he's no worse off than not launching in the first place.

He did the right thing.

EDIT: HN is not letting me respond to wmf below, so I'm responding here - Where does he say he knew paypal would freeze the account sooner or later? In fact, the whole point of his emails to them was to specifically ask if his service was compliant with their TOS.

Let's stick to facts and not get into subjective arguments. Your idea of 'ordinary' can be completely different from his or anyone else's idea of 'ordinary'. This is why TOSs, FAQs etc exist in the first place. But since he couldn't find an exact answer anywhere, he emailed them.