tyng

Wait, so the US stopped mining rare earth material for environmental concerns, but wants China to mine more of them and export the material to the US - what about the environment in China? And remember when "an incovinient truth" was at its height US officials blamed China for causing so much environmental issues - c'mon, what do you really want them to do?

A link in the above article points to another article where there's a similar scenario of trade vs clean energy - isn't government subsidy of clean tech an universally good action for our environment? - http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/18/business/global/18trade.ht...

Read the productivity bible "Getting Things Done" (GTD), which outlines a systematic approach to get yourself more organised and ready to take actions.

If in doubt, just google "GTD" to find out more. There are tons of third-party applications to help you implement the system

Cheers pg. The reason I asked was because when my cofounder and I submitted our application for w2011, we decided to use his account as the lead even though I had way more karma, which was due to him having a much cooler answer to the non-computer hack question specifically addressed at only the lead.

Anyway, not that it matters since a good application is still a good one (and vice versa), but it's possible to find a higher YC/HN participation rate if you include the cofounders.

Does this percentage include other applying co-founders in the application, or just the lead applicants?

"Starting Wednesday, Bing will take data posted on Facebook -- such as users' "likes" or preferences -- and use that information to provide more relevant search results."

This is a step ahead of Google's Social Circle, which currently pulls data form buzz and Twitter.

That wasn't what I meant.

What I was saying was that you want to inspire your employees with your vision, so that they feel a sense of purpose in your startup. When your startup is making meaning not just money, the satisfaction they get from doing work is more than any money or equity you can pay. They are committed.

And I'm not against giving employees equity at all. But inspiration is a higher level, and arguably the right kind of, motivation.

When I saw the title "zero-equity co-founder" I thought it was about inspiring employees to work as committed as an actual co-founder, which would be totally appropriate.

I think the downside of single founder startup is that 1. there's no one to bounce your ideas with; 2. speed to market is greatly reduced; 3. there's no one to share the stress or keep each other motivated when things get tough; and most importantly, 4. there's no one to share the joy when you manage to solve a business/technical problem that is not visible to outsiders.

I don't see any apparent advantage of keeping a single founder startup. You may have the ability to run the startup as well or even better as a multi-cofounder startup and keep all the shares - but it's not fun, and fun is very important for an entrepreneur!

This is similar to the question "what would happen to your facebook account when you die" for the general public, and a possible answer is, similarly - there's no value for others to access them anyway, unless you are some kind of celebrity or your side projects are making millions.

The verdict would suggest, and it's a common misunderstanding to think that, the person who comes up with the idea first is more important for innovation than the person who executes it. This is encouraging talkers and discouraging doers.

Yes Gelernter may be the first person that came up with the "mirror world" idea (not to mention he has already made money from the books he sold), but instead of suing Apple for money, he should have praise Apple for making his vision a reality.

He may have tried, but his execution wasn't anywhere near Apple's. Instead of suing Apple for money, he should have praise Apple for making his vision a reality

Don't try to count or guess, use simple math shortcuts.

I took a rough average of the double digit numbers on the screen (35), multiplied by the number of double digit numbers (16), and since 30 x 10 is 300, I guessed the total would be around 500.

This was all done within 5 seconds

Another obvious but often overlooked factor that contributed to the decline of IE is the increased number people converting to Mac (anybody have a figure for this?). Because MS discontinued supporting IE on Mac years ago, there's not way to recover users lost to Safari and other browsers on the Mac front.

I agree - the groupon price is likely going to become the "reference price" in the minds of most customers, meaning psychologically any number higher than the "reference price" will be considered too expensive. This effect is even more likely to occur on someone purchasing a service or activity for the first time (first impression effect), not to mention groupon buyers are mostly regular deal-hunters.

RIM used to be creative, BlackBerry devices used to be a game-changer - where did all that innovative thinking go? I like Apple products, but hate to see every other company just following what Apple is doing and not coming up with their own WOW concepts. I mean, the future of mobile devices can't be just the tablets, aren't there any other possibilities?

Sorry BlackBerry fans, I can't help but feel distasteful of the PlayBook.

Argh, cost of iteration is definitely going to be a major factor to consider, thanks for pointing it out.

And the "Sell before build" approach definitely worths a try if I'm building something b2b, but for b2c it probably won't work. Most of the b2c startups nowadays don't make any money until 2 - 3 years down the track. But I guess this tactic can apply to selling my b2c idea to investors.

”Sometimes staying put is the riskiest thing you can do“ - thumbs up!

Totally agree! A cross-disciplinary approach is definitely the future of... well pretty much every industry, thanks for the advice :)

That's a great way of differentiating between "tech startups" and "web-based startups", and they certainly require very different skill sets to get them off the ground.

To me the "web-based business" category is definitely the area I'm more interesting in, and have the right skills to execute the idea. Cheers!

On a random note, what's your take on a CEO with no tech background heading a company of, say, chemical engineering?

"Tangible evidence of passion" - points taken! :)

Hey dude, when iPadCaseFinder.com first came out my friend said to me "this guy is so smart, got into the game before everyone else"! Congrats on the success!

I do know some HTML/CSS codes though can't really build a site from scratch. I've been building websites using wordpress then change the stuff in the theme CSS file.

And agree about the importance of networking :)

Accountants and bookkeepers weren't really the "biz type" I was talking about (though they are important), I was talking about sales, marketing and finance guy. Granted, a smart techie willing to learn can learn those stuff too. But I think the type of business really determines whether you'll need to find a biz type cofounder early on, which in your case, a marketing/sales person is useless during the startup phase. Something like Groupon for instance, would probably need sales people early on.

Thanks for the discussion, I found it really stimulating. :)

We shall see the censored text pretty soon on Wikileak - c'mon Pentagon, it's the age of internet!

But I've seen articles with 0 comment and only 9 upvotes appear on the front page, while there are threads with more comments and upvotes not getting noticed.

What I learned from the article: Keeping the trapped miners mentally inspired is at least as important as providing food and health care

Vision, business skills & Money - Points taken! :)

Hey lsc, thank you so much for your advice about hiring techs on a contracter basis, it's such an eye-opener and I think this might be something I can pursue! (Only if I could upvote multiple times, I'd upvote you multiple times!)

Out of curiosity, does it work the same way for you as a hacker hiring a biz type? For example, if you hire a sales and later fires him, there's the chance that he/she will take your clients away. Thoughts?

Thanks for you advice, especially about the reduced learning curve. Really appreciated!

I read his biography, in fact he collaborated with a friend based in the States to start the first version of that yellow pagesish site (it was during a time when nobody knew what internet was), which was later either acquired or started a new joint venture with the government.

I like the service you are creating, but it's hard to take the results seriously... are there any better (read: outside of box) ways to determine how good the potential cofounder is?

Also, I'm playing devil's advocate here - how do you differentiate yourself from LinkedIn? It's something I have relied on in the past.

Thanks for your insights. I was quite successful selling sponsorship package for an not-for-profit organisation I cofounded a while back. Industry knowledge is probably a weakness, what's the best way to gain industry knowledge? (following HN is definitely one good way)