rwalker

Make sure to choose "I want one" in the membership section - this is probably something we could make clearer

When I was looking for a list like the one I built I did run across this one. Unfortunately, I needed far more than 1000 words and I also wanted to have information on occurrence counts. If you have additional resources I'd love to see them - perhaps I could add links to similar lists to the post.

It would be called Hotmail?

One of the speakers at our YC session had a great quote: "It just doesn't matter." The site delivers interesting stories and commentary on a topic I care about - who cares what HTML it uses?

I agree this is another advantage startups have.

I do also think great service to the customer often gets lost behind risk analysis, corporate politics, bizdev agreements, etc. Early stage startups don't have these situations to balance and they can focus solely on the user.

One of the YC dinner speakers was a Googler - that's how it got started. Later on we approached him, gave a demo, and that is how the ball got rolling.

I also don't know for sure but I assume the YC partners helped talk us up to all the speakers - which couldn't have hurt.

And while we didn't not want our product to be bought by Google, it certainly wasn't the goal we set out with. We wanted to create a compelling product and make sure every week at YC dinners somebody asked "how did you do that?".

- Robby

I posted the following comment in defense of my co-founder Wayne:

Jay,

It is supremely unfair of you to characterize my co-founder as irresponsible, selfish, and ruining his family.

I have never met a man who loves his wife more than Wayne. He and his wife reached a decision together that the best thing for their family and their future was for him to come start a company. Your post makes it sound as if he snuck over the fence in the middle of the night.

It is one thing to attack a business, or even to attack the visible leader of said business. But to slander a good hard working father, husband, and friend is criminal. You owe him a public apology.

Sincerely, Robby Walker

EDIT: it appears he listened - the language has been softened a bit and he apologized.

Update: every single story on the Digg front page is now related to the HD-DVD key. This is certainly an interesting event in the history of community based sites.

Is it my fault that I used the upgrade option or is it Microsoft's fault that the upgrade option doesn't work well? I think the latter.

Sadly, no. I've seen the notice, and am currently housing a few people who got rejected based on their "association" with Justin.

he hired me for my first job

I discovered that a surprisingly large number of improv and sketch comedy performers are hackers. (something like 15%)

Good point. There's a fine line between being passionate and being stubborn - I've added a section to the original post to reflect this.

Zenter is hiring - http://www.zenter.com. You can email us at jobs@zenter.com

Looks like a great product, and I will second the parent comment.

One thing they teach at YC, and in one of pg's essays (http://www.paulgraham.com/investors.html), is to present a story instead of a list of features. That way you answer the question of "Why would I use this product?" simultaneously to answering "What does this product do?".

You're trying to do it in one step:

1. Move

It's easier to do it in three steps:

1. "Do YC for a summer" 2. Secure more funding 3. Move

The YCombinator motto: "Make Something People Want".

Sorry about that. It should be fixed now.

If you want to see the slides, they're online at: http://www.zenter.com/ed/view.html?id=226 (FireFox only at the moment)