vagarwa

would love to get your comments on our efforts at Surfmark (now focused on education but still open for everyone) required disclaimer: founder, surfmark

Here is a straightforward reason that no one who claims to be some sort of economist (social or otherwise) can argue against: India has 1.2 billion people and is not particularly endowed with wealth that it can dig out of the ground. So the only way to create wealth is to turn 'sand-into-silicon' aka make productivity gains using the only abundant resource it has - the human resource. Now if this particular mission can inspire .0001% of additional population to aspire for non-manual labor employment (i.e. study STEM etc), the productivity gain from those people will pay for this mission many times over (I haven't cared to do the math here because I just want to illustrate what I thought is an obvious point which people somehow gloss over).

Not having a 'scalable' business model (or having to prove that the model is indeed scalable) hasn't deterred other companies from going public and having an awesome final exist (from Investors' perspective). Example: Successfactors.

Here is the excerpt of their S-1 from IPO and their last 10-K as an independent company: http://mark.ly/KgA6PO/

The point being that as long as Box's bankers can convince the investment managers that there is an eventual buyer, box will have a decently oversubscribed order book at IPO. Of-course roadshow can't and won't mention this.

We have an extension (for chrome) and a bookmarklet (and ipad app) that use pdf.js to add comments to pdfs and save specific pages from pdfs. The extension and bookmarklet allow commenting on any page that can be rendered on a web page (including Pdfs!). We are now targeting it for education. Will love feedback (provided our site doesn't crash) http://www.surfmark.com

targets different group of investors (who like the fixed income component) and is quicker to issue and less costly in terms of coupon rate and transaction costs. Tesla's high stock price 'begs' a convertible offering which lets the Company offer equity by the 'back door' without impacting the stock negatively.

Well he turned Surfmark down and decided to follow his gut :) (Some 'gut' that was!) https://twitter.com/brianacton/status/1997180708

And I have 'immortalized' this using...surfmark http://www.surfmark.com/viewsm/GzFRmNKFeUqCGZBiZRzChw#page1

My view - The biggest difference is the underlying system (law, bureaucracy and even infrastructure)still being used in India is the one built to extract and export resources out as efficiently as possible. That's the legacy of 150 years of colonialism and Indians simply have never been able to do the challenging work (various reasons) of changing these but for a few word changes here and there. This is most stark in nation's civil and police services.

'War' is a very specific term of the trade. Using any and all tools available when you are at War can be easily defended by a whole lot of people (not everyone0. US is not officially at war in Yemen or Pakistan or for that matter Afghanistan. Hence, I think, use of drones introduces another dimension to the arguments. Ultimately, there is and always has been one principle used by humanity - 'Might is right'. Of-course smart ones can always hide this core principle in layers of arguments of convenience.

$100MM+, you should at least expect a proof read page? "with this purchase your are activating your VIP Membership"

(I am just going by the text on the image you have supplied)

nope not revolutionary or new at all. Just that they are actually going through with it. With the free marketing they are getting, they have a shot at making mixing-chemicals-into-food a profitable business! And unless they are profitable, they can't afford to be charitable.

It may yet not be there for most (not necessarily because of inherent nutrient-biology issues but because of lack of long term testing) but it will be a damn good alternative for a few hundred million across the world: http://southasia.oneworld.net/news/food-shortage-forcing-chi...

What's the point of discussing how at fault a poor old retired widow is. Why don't we discuss of how deliberately vague the last minute update to S-1 was! (I was a banker who has written a few S-1s and I can imagine what kind of discussions precipitated when Mr. Ebersman dropped the 'bomb' during the roadshow - if only those discussions could be recorded) Facebook and its bankers broke NO law. But IPO investing doesn't have to be this big of a crap shoot for retail investors. The prospectus should put anyone, who cares to read and parse it, at equal footing with the institutional investors. That's where the law is lacking a bit. The prospectus can not include any forward projections and institutional investors get to see all of those BEFORE the IPO (of-course making them available will bring their own sets of problems). I wish you guys discussed that part here as well. Being non-bankers and non-lawyers (for the most part), you can come up with better solution, maybe?

So much wisdom packed into so few words!

Electric cars are an order or magnitude simpler mechanical devices as compared to IC engine cars. Once an affordable battery chemistry (or any other cheap energy storage mechanism) is figured out, a lot more electric car companies will get started (I am hoping for a healthy 'car-kit' market). Tesla is the 'best' in the sense that it has the best technology to handle the idiosyncrasies of Li-ion battery (they like to burn themselves the first opportunity they get!).

a really good lawyer (aka, lots of money).

Isn't all entertainment just about Dopamine release (catchall for all other known and unknown 'pleasure' neurotransmitters. Zynga's games were decent enough at first. The problem is that for a business that is in the business of purveying entertainment, to be successful, it has to figure out a way of continually squirting out Dopamine in a subject without harming them (harming is more from business point of view than moral). Zynga's current game plays simply can't achieve that. Now if they can get the gambling license... (it is approaching midnight, so please pardon my incoherence)

Merchants (such as Safeway) don't get this information if you use a credit card to make a purchase. The network (Visa, MC, Amex etc) authenticates the transaction and issuing bank releases the funds. But merchant doesn't even get the ZIP code of the customer. If you make online purchases, most merchants do ask you to create an account (accept those 'enlightened ones that allow you guest sign-up), in which case they get all your information. There too you can use Paypal/Gwallet, if it is offered, but Paypal/Gwallet may or may not share the information with the merchant. That is kind of a grey area. Paypal clearly doesn't for merchants on ebay but in cases like Homedepot, I am not so sure.

Banks and networks (Visa etc) don't share the customer information with the merchant. There was a class action law suit against merchants asking for Zipcode. http://articles.latimes.com/2011/feb/16/business/la-fi-0216-... Here Google is acting like a network and the developer is the merchant. There is absolutely no requirement (from a legal perspective) to pass on the customers' information to the merchant. Visa and the issuer bank don't share any personal details of the customer with the merchant, which is what Google and Paypal (and probably square) are promising the merchants, if they use their payment system.

1.go to pinterest.com 2.make sure, you are not logged in. 3.search 'food' With all the money they have raised, can't they figure out a solution to this most juvenile of spams!!! It of-course doesn't matter since they still managed a $1.5BN valuation

quite sad. People don't have the time, and rely on the science writers' abilities to report accurately. Maybe there should be a GitHub for news stories where volunteers can point out and correct the most egregious of quantitative 'errors'.

post facto analysis - easy. (business types need jobs too!) predicting consumer behavior - hard.

How does it effect Per Vices, the Y-combinator graduate?