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zain

3,242 karma · joined September 2, 2007

Movity (YC Winter 2010). Reach me via @zainy or zain@inzain.net.
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zain··on Why 56k is the fastest dial up modem speed
Low Ping Bastard
zain··on The Ideation Flywheel: A mental model for deciding which startup ideas to pursue
I think this is a point in favor of the parent, actually. As you said, you described solutions, and the "problems" found by inverting them are not really things that people would say. To some degree, the founders thought "this product would be awesome if it existed" not "I'm solving a painkiller-level problem here"

For example:

- Facebook: "it is hard to connect to young people at my school" (what do you mean? I'll just go to the campus bar)

- Apple: "I want to get into home computers but I don't know how to solder" (ok, let's start a soldering school?)

- Amazon: "I don't want to leave the house to buy books" (???)

zain··on Show HN: Mana Pool – Market for Magic Cards
I'm a huge fan of both Gaia GPS and Magic, so I'm understandably excited about Mana Pool. Thanks for sharing!
zain··on Ask HN: How did you move on from past experiences?
How did you learn how to train your dog?
zain··on Vercel raises $150M Series D
Any support fo HIPAA compliant workflows?
zain··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (November 2021)
Hypothetically | hiring designers and engineers | fully remote

[TLDR: I’m a YC alum who has raised $7m for this idea, inspired by taking care of my sick mom. You’d be the first hire.]

If you're sick, nobody really knows what you should to do get healthy. Your doctor gives generic advice and rarely follows up, and you're left to Google and hearsay to figure out the best diet, exercise, and drugs to get better. Today, you have to just try things and see if they work.

Our app lets anyone run experiments on themselves to figure out what actually works. People use us to find the optimal dose of a drug, determine the impact of a habit, or figure out whether a supplement does anything.

The product comes from Zain's own experience caring for his sick mom. Our users' pain points are literally painful: chronic pain, sleep issues, brain fog, flare-ups, and more. We have a chance to use design & engineering to help people going through the toughest moments of their lives.

As we scale, we are building the world's first continuously-learning knowledge base on human health, and unlocking a revolution in precision medicine for everyone on the planet.

Our two founders helped build Forward Health and Clubhouse. We've raised $7m from top investors in Silicon Valley: Khosla Ventures, Bling Capital, South Park Commons, SciFi VC, plus 35 angel investors including the founders of 23andMe, PayPal, Counsyl, Cancer Commons, Opendoor, and more.

We're in an interesting spot. On one hand, we have a huge roster of engaged advisors and a ton of runway. On the other hand, we're pre-product and the team is just the two of us. This is a rare opportunity to be on the founding team of a high-growth startup and learn the skills to start your own thing someday.

Get in touch: zain@hypothetical.ly

zain··on Jellyfin: Free Software Media System
Where do you keep track of the LG app status? I’d love to track the progress too
zain··on Airbnb raises violent crime rates in cities as residents are pushed out
Did you know Airbnb has a full ban on parties? If you're a neighbor and you find a party, you can call Airbnb and have it dealt with: https://www.airbnb.com/neighbors
zain··on Mitochondria may contribute to neurological and psychiatric disorders: research
Does "endogenous ketones" just mean following a keto diet? What were your symptoms?
zain··on Beach High School
I graduated from Beach High School about 18 years ago. Without going into detail too much, the public school system failed me, and Beach High School was the stepping stone that allowed me to go to college. I would be living a very different life right now if Beach High School didn't exist.
zain··on Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'
They haven’t submitted to the FDA for emergency use authorization yet because their trials aren’t done yet. Their trials started well after Pfizer/Moderna and are longer than J&J. They’re expected to apply in the next 3-4wks.
zain··on The Perfect Media Server
What device can you connect to your TV and use Infuse on?
zain··on YC W21 Remote Batch
I was in S20 and also W10, so I did a remote batch and a non-remote batch ten years apart. Overall, it was indeed more work to get to know your batchmates, and the serendipity was gone a little. However, on the flip side, all the structured pieces were very on-point -- e.g. weekly talks, written materials, office hours, and advice.

With few exceptions, I would recommend YC to anyone on the fence.

zain··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (February 2019)
Opendoor | Software Engineer, Machine Learning Engineer, Data Engineer | Full-time onsite | SF, LA, and Atlanta

At Opendoor (https://www.opendoor.com/) we’re changing the way homes are bought and sold.

We're growing insanely quickly -- both in size and in revenue. In fact, we're on track to be the fastest company to $1bn in yearly revenue run rate (faster than Google, FB, Airbnb, & Uber), but we need your help.

Technologies we work with: Rails, React, React Native, PostGIS, Python, AWS, Webpack, Phoenix (Elixir), Kubernetes, Docker.

We also have quite a few YC alum who work here (like myself!). It's a great place to meet your future cofounder :)

Shoot me an email and I'll get you fast-tracked: zain@opendoor

zain··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (January 2019)
Opendoor | Software Engineer, Machine Learning Engineer, Data Engineer | Full-time onsite | SF, LA, and Atlanta

At Opendoor (https://www.opendoor.com/) we’re changing the way homes are bought and sold.

We're growing insanely quickly -- both in size and in revenue. In fact, we're on track to be the fastest company to $1bn in revenue (faster than Google, FB, Airbnb, & Uber), but we need your help.

Technologies we work with: Rails, React, React Native, PostGIS, Python, AWS, Webpack, Phoenix (Elixir), Kubernetes, Docker.

We also have quite a few YC alum who work here. It's a great place to meet your future cofounder :)

Shoot me an email and I'll get you fast-tracked: zain@opendoor

zain··on The Stack That Helped Opendoor Buy and Sell Over $1B in Homes
Hey! Zain from Opendoor here. We actually just switched to using Kwikset 914 locks instead of the Schlage ones. API docs are basically nonexistent for both, but the Kwikset is a lot easier to reverse-engineer than the Schlage! Feel free to email me if you have specific questions about either lock. zain@opendoor
zain··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (March 2015)
We @ Lovely, http://livelovely.com, are looking for smart, relatively senior devs and designers to add immediate value by shaping our awesome growth story. We are located in SF, no remote, but we'll pay relocation expenses if you're not local and we've sponsored two H1Bs so far. You will help design and build the most beautiful Rental user/landlord portal in the US. We are a Python/Angularjs shop and we hire full stack polyglots who are savvy in a blended web/mobile environment.

I run engineering -- ex-YC, Django dev, been in the real estate space most of my life. I'd be happy to answer any of your questions: zain@livelovely.com.

zain··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (February 2015)
definitely drop me an email. I'll make sure it's seen and I promise a response.
zain··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (February 2015)
We @ Lovely, http://livelovely.com, are looking for smart, relatively senior devs and designers to add immediate value by shaping our awesome growth story.

No remote, but we'll pay relocation expenses if you're not local and we've sponsored two H1Bs so far. You will help design and build the most beautiful Rental user/landlord portal in the US. We are a Python/Angularjs shop and we hire full stack polyglots who are savvy in a blended web/mobile environment.

We're the prettiest entrant in a traditionally un-pretty industry: real estate. This is an entrenched industry that is overdue for some innovation, and it's a great opportunity to work on improving the difficult experience of finding a home. Your rent payment is probably the biggest bill you pay every month and we want disrupt the rental industry with a beautiful answer to CL problem. We're a little under 30 people right now but we're growing as fast as we can find people.

I run engineering -- ex-YC, Django dev, been in the real estate space most of my life. I'd be happy to answer any of your questions: zain@livelovely.com.

zain··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (July 2014)
Lovely, San Francisco: http://livelovely.com. Looking for smart, relatively senior devs and designers. No remote, but we'll pay relocation expenses if you're not local and we've sponsored two H1Bs so far.

We're the prettiest entrant in a traditionally un-pretty industry: real estate. This is an entrenched industry that is overdue for some innovation, and it's a great opportunity to work on improving the difficult experience of finding a home. Your rent payment is probably the biggest bill you pay every month.

It's a great time to join because we've recently hit an inflection point, especially in SF where it's hard to find an apartment. We're on Lifehacker regularly, featured in last month's WIRED magazine, and 7x7 named us one of the top startups changing the world.

We're just over 20 people right now but we're growing as fast as we can find people. We just signed a lease for our first office by ourselves, a gorgeous 6000sqft building. I run engineering -- ex-YC, Django dev, been in the real estate space most of my life. I'd be happy to answer any of your questions: zain@livelovely.com.

zain··on Beyond Pricing – Automatic Dynamic Pricing for Airbnb
I've been using Beyond Pricing to set the price of my AirBnB for a few weeks now and I'm really happy with it. My increase wasn't anything dramatic -- probably 20% or so -- but it was dead simple to set up and basically free money.
zain··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (June 2014)
Lovely, San Francisco: http://livelovely.com. Looking for smart, relatively senior devs and designers. No remote, but we'll pay relocation expenses if you're not local and we've sponsored two H1Bs so far.

We're the prettiest entrant in a traditionally un-pretty industry: real estate. This is an entrenched industry that is overdue for some innovation, and it's a great opportunity to work on improving the difficult experience of finding a home. Your rent payment is probably the biggest bill you pay every month.

It's a great time to join because we've recently hit an inflection point, especially in SF where it's hard to find an apartment. We're on Lifehacker regularly, featured in last month's WIRED magazine, and 7x7 named us one of the top startups changing the world.

We're a little under 20 people right now but we're growing as fast as we can find people. We just signed a lease for our first office by ourselves, a gorgeous 6000sqft building.

I run engineering -- ex-YC, Django dev, been in the real estate space most of my life. I'd be happy to answer any of your questions: zain@livelovely.com.

zain··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (May 2014)
Lovely, San Francisco: http://livelovely.com. Looking for a senior developer, a software engineer in test, an iOS developer, a product manager, and a product designer.

We're the prettiest entrant in a traditionally un-pretty industry: real estate. This is an entrenched industry that is overdue for some innovation, and a great opportunity to work on improving the difficult experience of finding a home.

It's a great time to join, because we've recently hit an inflection point, especially in SF where it's hard to find an apartment. We're on Lifehacker today, featured in this month's WIRED magazine, and last week, 7x7 named us one of the top startups changing the world.

I run engineering -- ex-YC, Django dev, been in the real estate space most of my life. I'd be happy to answer any of your questions: zain@livelovely.com.

zain··on Trulia acquires Movity (YC W10)
Correction, I didn't design it -- I created orderable inlines and foreignkey autocomplete and got jQuery in. But thanks for the kind words.
zain··on HTML5 Speech Recognition (in Chrome)
Californian here, and it was really close on my first try:

the reflected binary code was originally designed to prevent spurious output from electrode mechanical switches

I'm kinda blown away. Here's an mp3 of what I sound like, if anyone is curious: http://cl.ly/3WDv

zain··on Visualization: Guy-to-girl ratio of every bar and restaurant in SF/NYC
We could've probably normalized this data better. The fact of the matter is that guys use foursquare nearly twice as much as girls do, so every venue will have dramatically more guy check-ins. A 7% male edge actually makes it one of the more female venues in the city.
zain··on WeePlaces: a visualization of your foursquare check-ins
You can actually make your WeePlaces map private (click the little lock icon) or delete it entirely. We're introverted hackers and care about privacy too.
zain··on California's Prop 8 (gay marriage ban) ruled unconstitutional
To answer your question, I posted this on HN because I felt it would lead to interesting comments. The ruling is certainly cause for celebration, but it's also one of the most publicized cases of a judge overturning a majority vote. I wanted to hear how other hackers settled the internal debate of forcefully eliminating bigotry vs. lessening government intervention.
zain··on Noise Visualization in the Tenderloin by Movity (YC W10)
We try to be inconspicuous when installing our noise capturing equipment. We're frequently questioned by cops but usually they're just curious after they establish we're not stealing traffic lights. One time, some bums asked us what we were doing, and after we told them we were collecting noise data, they started screaming into our noise recorders :(
zain··on Steve Jobs On Android
Engadget's live coverage has more context. It isn't quite a non-sequitor like TechCrunch says -- Walt actually asked Jobs about his relationship with Google, and Jobs made a joke.

  6:49PM Walt: How's your relationship?
  6:49PM Steve: My sex life is pretty good.
http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/01/steve-jobs-live-from-d8/
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