smallgovt

Interesting theory. Is there a way to quantify how evenly investing, say $200B, across the S&P would affect the index's price?

>> The bots didn't identify as FB (used "spoofed" UAs)

That's surprising. What were the spoofed user agents that they used?

We've run into this issue also, but all Facebook bot activity had user agents that contained the string "facebookexternalhit".

The fact that many investors will outright dismiss Skilling based on his track record is exactly what would attract amoral investors. One man's trash is another man's treasure.

How do we support non-profit sites like this more?

I think it's pretty absurd that Grubhub and Uber take such a large commission for what amounts to pretty basic software.

But, I bet this site isn't getting much traction because it has no marketing budget (because it makes no profit).

How is this random? Uber has been making significant investments in the food delivery space via their Uber Eats offering. Consolidation makes sense given industry-wide razor thin margins and intense competition.

Grubhub actually only charges 10% for delivery.

It charges an additional 15%+ for the marketing component (to get your restaurant listed and to appear higher up in search rankings).

In other words, if a restaurant sources their own customer and only uses Grubhub for delivery, they only pay 10%. This charge seems reasonable when compared to what it costs to have an inhouse courier.

Source?

There's a guy that's working on an app that helps you order directly from local restaurants so they can save on commission fees: https://www.eatnyc.org/

I think the app only covers NYC for now.

You may be right, but my thought was that people can't go back to work if their kids are stuck at home.

What is your reaction to Sweden's COVID track?

They didn't shut down daily life, and their hospitals are doing just fine. In fact, COVID cases and deaths have plateaued.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52395866

> Blanket lockdown has to end.

I tend to agree.

Why is nobody focusing on Sweden's COVID numbers? Sweden didn't institute city-wide shutdown measures. Yet, there hospitals are not overwhelmed. And, their COVID case counts and death counts are plateauing.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52395866

Um, I'm not sure if you're being serious, but there are plenty of ways to gradually re-open. As an example:

step 1) re-open elementary schools

step 2) re-open middle schools

step 3) re-open high schools & colleges

step 4) re-open all small businesses that do not result in gatherings of more than 2 people in one place, then 5, then 10, then 20, then 50

I'm not saying that's the right approach but there is certainly middle ground between current shutdowns and a total re-opening of society.

To be fair, the cost of COVID medical care pales in comparison to the likely impact on future earnings these shutdowns are having.

If it's strictly about money, we should cease shutdowns immediately. But, it's not. People are dying.

> How is it moral to order people to shelter in place when their risk of death is 0.01% for 18-45 year olds

The data from your second source indicates that the case fatality rate in New York for 18-45 yr olds is 0.833% (14 deaths in 1705 confirmed cases). Where are you getting 0.01% from?

If you were doubting that the +3% market movement was primarily driven by this news, take a look at the markets at 12:40PM today when negative news of clinical trials for the drug were released. Again, direct minute by minute correlation btw SPY dropping and GILD news.

I think you've outlined an excellent framework/technique to self improvement -- not dissimilar to the Carol Dweck's 'Growth Mindset'.

However, I think it's very likely GP has a much more pernicious problem. That is, he is afraid to make mistakes.

The sentence that highlights this for me is -- "I have realized that I easily give up when I face a hard problem."

If you're afraid of making mistakes, you won't be willing to ask questions (in case it makes you look stupid). And, you won't be willing to try something new (because learning something new leads to mistakes).

This fear of making mistakes is often rooted in an extrinsic desire to be perfect. And, based on GP's description, this desire likely came from his demanding upbringing (read: parents).

GP, I highly recommend Carol Dweck's book 'The Growth Mindset'. It's not just OK to make mistakes -- it's often a GOOD thing because it means you're on the path of progress.

Stock futures are up 3% on this news so there appears to be something to this.

> If founders say something along the lines of YC decides after term sheet, it basically means no.

Why would it basically mean no? It seems like the new policy makes the answer "Maybe, and there's no way to find out until a lead investor has signed on the dotted line".

Ah, I see. Is it true that these tests are a work in progress and the false positive rate will drop in the coming weeks/months? If so, it seems like we should start doing random sampling and saving the samples for future testing (so we can see how infection rate trended). This could be invaluable data that we're losing.

This published scientific article shows you why the CFR in Italy is so high -- and why it doesn't apply to the general population: http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2763667

Takeaways: Old population, Pre-existing conditions, Skewed testing

Does this study change your mind on that 20-30% figure? After all, the study measured a 35% infection rate for people living in close quarters with other infected individuals. Surely, the overall population would yield a much lower infection rate than this?

> We can't say for certain that the sample is an exact representation of the general population.

I actually think we can say for certain this is NOT a good representation of the general population. The general population has not been living in close quarters with multiple COVID positive people.

> We need more studies to gather data on these asymptomatic cases if we want to reopen the economy soon.

I don't understand what's so hard about measuring population infection rate.

Assuming the population infection rate is between 1-10%, we would only need to do around ~500 randomized tests to achieve a 95% confidence interval of +/- 1%.

For example, let's say we tested 500 random NYC residents for COVID and found that 10 were positive -- a 2% infection rate. The standard error (binomial approximation) for this sample is 0.6%. So, by doing a mere 500 randomized tests, we have a 95% confidence interval of 0.8%-3.2%.

Given that overall population infection rate is so important in planning for re-opening, why are we not doing randomized testing in hotspots like NY on a regular basis? Am I missing something?

Simply put, no. No evidence other than hearsay. And this, after countless lawsuits.

I would hardly call them credible reports. It's easy to see how business owners could draw false inferences when they receive a Yelp sales call and coincidentally get a negative review shortly after.

Honestly, I thought this was long since debunked. There is no physical evidence of Yelp sales execs extorting small businesses.

> You’ve moved the goalposts here though. You first argued how none of these small business owners brought forward evidence and therefore this isn’t a real scandal.

I never moved the goalpost. My claim has always been that there is zero physical evidence of Yelp extorting small businesses.

The posted video is not evidence of Yelp extorting business. It's an example of a fired Yelp employee blaming a business owner for getting fired, and taking it out on the business owner's Yelp page. That is not extortion on behalf of Yelp.

> When hundreds of small business owners make accusations against one company like this, and people like Louis being tangible evidence forward, a full investigation of these practices is warranted, which hasn’t happened yet, to my knowledge.

There have been countless lawsuits filed against Yelp for extortion. All of them have been dismissed -- not settled; dismissed. Google is your friend.

Obviously the number one existential threat is different for each startup. He's simply saying that lack of runway is the most likely cause of death now. Most industries will probably return to normal in 2-3 years time.

The most useful takeaway for me was: “In 2008, the average Series A company raised $4M on a $28.5M post. In 2009, it was considerably less with an average of $3.5M on a $14M post — half the valuation of the year before. And there were 30% fewer Series A rounds overall."

Battening down the hatches and cutting costs is common sense.

But, actually quantifying how much harder your next raise will be is helpful. Congrats to anyone who wasn't depending on it!

I acknowledged that in my previous comment. All the fake reviews were written by friends of the fired sales rep.

Basically, Louis got the rep fired, and the rep went haywire. This doesn't suggest Yelp has extortive sales practices. If anything, Yelp made the right decision to fire this sales rep who breached privacy protocol.

To summarize:

- A Yelp account exec inappropriately shared another business's profile stats with Louis.

- Louis reported this privacy violation to Yelp, and Yelp decided to fire the account exec.

- The fired account exec blamed Louis for getting fired and subsequently got her friends to write negative reviews on Louis's Yelp page.

That's not evidence that Yelp practices extortion.