ryporter

Can you please elaborate on the large amount of evidence that he is not a genius? If you are going to cite some of his investment failures, then you also have to consider his successes, and the fact that he has, overall, been very, very successful.

He did not just have one good investment. He has had many, in addition to founding PayPal and Palantir.

It's also not contrarian. Now, The Grob (1.g4) would be more fitting. :)

Based on the following comment by the employee, this was actually a case of "do shortsighted things to save money."

"He moved the customer support to Philippines because he can get someone for like 10-12$ an hr. Great idea.. right? Let's connect the customers who are loaning flightcar a 30-40k car to someone in Philippines who does not understand english or even knows what a floor mat is."

Citigroup was $7 BILLION for their mortgage fraud. [1] I think that can be considered a "real consequence." This was a far less severe infraction, and the fine was correspondingly much lower.

[1] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-citigroup-settlement-doj-i...

Thank you for replying. I did underestimate your company.

I think it would be useful to add to your website a prominent comparison to the entrenched players. I'm probably not the only person to fail to appreciate your advantages over Vanguard, based on your current website (though perhaps I overlooked something). A convincing comparison to the quintessential low-cost provider would deliver quite a powerful message.

Guideline isn't actually "fixing" your 401(k). They are primarily just competing on price. Employers can already get a decent 401(k) from Vanguard, which obviously offers access to their low-cost funds. Guideline doesn't appear to be offering anything fundamentally new (in contrast to, for example, robo-advisors). If I were setting up a 401(k) plan for a company, I'd probably just go with Vanguard, with full confidence that my provider will not undergo any "growing pains" or even cease to exist in 5 years.

Or, Vanguard could lower their already low prices. Fund managers are already locked in a race to the bottom on fund fees.

I agree. Atomic clocks are an implementation detail, and also overkill (at least during this decade). I've worked in HFT (albeit in forex, not stocks), and there are always internal delays within the exchange that you cannot predict with anywhere near the accuracy of an atomic clock. (Well, if you could, then that would be a true innovation.)

Hedge Funds don't patent strategies. They keep them as trade secrets. It would make more sense to me if this filing was part of an attempt to build a patent portfolio for defensive purposes, as tech companies do.

What law of physics makes what Theranos attempted to achieve impossible? They were still drawing blood from the patient. Thus, it seems theoretically possible for technology to overcome the challenges the approach presents.

What is your argument? Mine is that both Holmes and Musk were not initially experts in their respective fields.

No, he wasn't an expert when he started down this path.

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-elon-musk-learned-rocket-...

I was actually thinking more about SpaceX. They promised technology that was faster (in terms of development speed) and cheaper.

That's not at all what I said. My claim is that innovation often involves ignoring all of the incumbents who say that a new way will never work. Obviously you shouldn't inflate the results of your attempt.

That's not the point. I'm claiming that it was reasonable to attempt to develop the technology in a lab. Obviously they shouldn't have launched it in the state that it was in.

To be fair, that is how innovation occurs. There are many examples of "ridiculous" ideas that ended being wildly successful. Where would Elon Musk be if he listened to all of the incumbents who said that his ideas would never work? Obviously, the putative innovators massively failed in this case, but I don't think that the outcome proves that their original idea was fatally flawed, or at least that it wasn't worth attempting.

Many former employees have done exactly this.

They are not "basically owned" by a private equity firm. They have raised money at high valuations, and I strongly doubt that they have sold away a controlling stake in the company. So, they still get to make their own decisions.

They are definitely bringing in real revenue. Many firms have raised substantially more than they need to, because they have been well aware that funding could dry up.

Why can't both benefit? Palantir merely offered the deal, and employees (and ex-employees) accepted.

The author defends Gawker by stating, "But at least Gawker did this openly." If he is working for Gawker, that is very relevant to his argument.

“Venture capital can be like a mortgage you can’t afford,” says Atlassian co-founder Scott Farquhar. “It sounds great at the time, but you regret it when your mortgage payments overwhelm you and you realize you didn’t really need a big house in the first place.”

No, venture capital is not at all like a mortgage. There are no payments due, unlike a small business loan, which is very much like a mortgage.

This is similar to revenue sharing agreements that many investors enter into with startups. Many angels at least bake this option into their Seed Stage investment if they fear that the company could turn into a "lifestyle" business.

Well, this indicator is not the worst one of all time. That record is probably still held by the price of butter in Bangladesh. [1] Seriously, all you need to read from this article is the following quote:

Mark Cannice, a University of San Francisco professor, issues a quarterly index of venture-capitalist confidence. “I put more faith in venture capitalist insights and confidence,” he says, “than I would in ping-pong-table sales.”

[1] http://www.investopedia.com/articles/stocks/08/stock-market-...

This is a great point. Additionally, you're fine if you pay 110% of your prior year's tax bill. For most employees referred to in this article, this amount should be payable.

It's important to note that Yahoo's board did not give her a 69% raise this year or decide that her performance over the last year was worth more than $42M. This is the compensation she agreed to as part of contract when she joined as CEO.

Ever year we see a multitude of articles highlighting CEOs of poorly performing companies who had a huge increase in compensation, but they completely miss the point. There is no "news" here, per se. It's just like a professional sports player who signs a very large, guaranteed 5-year deal. It doesn't really matter if the payments each year are equal or if they are backloaded so that the player gets a huge "raise" in his final years. Just take the total size of the contract, divide it by 5, and call that his effective yearly compensation.

Now, it is certainly the case that we can debate whether the board overpaid for Mayer, but that's completely independent of this "news".

They should have used Yahoo! Auctions. Oh, wait...

If the employee had stopped complaining and pretended to be happy in the job, then I don't think he would have been fired. Yes, he would have been miserable, but he would have been able to keep a job if he needed it. That's a huge difference. It's sad, but lots of people hate their job, but continue to plug away at it in silent resignation, because they think it is the best way to support themselves and their family.

Having read through many of the applications, I think that we could safely get down to 25 without risking throwing out any that deserve the win. There just weren't all that many applications that clearly described a remotely plausible business idea and that had founders who posted thoughtful responses. I would say that at least half of the applications seemed like a hobby or an idea that had been simmering in the back of someone's mind, with little to no thought given to how it could turn into a viable business.

That's sort of how startups work, with equity grants to early employees. What you are proposing for larger businesses is simply impractical and so inconsistent with the current state of affairs that it really has no chance. To succeed, you're going to have to fundamentally shift our business culture. I see the ideal that you are striving for, but I can't fathom a path to get there from here.

I'm sorry for sounding harsh, but this seems like a classic case of a feature instead of a startup. Based on the way you describe it, this is an enhancement that Yelp could add. Sure, it will be harder for them to do so than for a nimble startup focusing solely on this feature, but Yelp has an huge, huge advantage: they already have their network.

For you, building out a product with this feature is just the very beginning. At that point, you'll have to face your biggest obstacle: attracting a critical mass of users. As a potential investor, I would be far more interested in hearing how you plan to accomplish this.

I think that tools like this are great, but there already are some in this space (e.g., mySymptoms [1]). How will you differentiate yourself?

[1] http://skygazerlabs.com/wp/