HN user
Hutch Carpenter Chief Scientist RevolutionCredit hutch.carpenter AT gmail.com
He was still doing weekends when I discovered Coast to Coast AM. As others have said, his ability to hold two opposing points of view in mind (i. this guy I'm talking to is crazy, ii. let's get weird) was wonderful. I enjoyed the way he played his interviews. On the west coast, it's a 10 pm show. To this day, I still like to put Coast to Coast AM on 1-hour sleep timer when I go to bed. Fun to hear all the crazy perspectives. Art Bell, you lived well.
A metric that may be useful: fragility index. How many positive results would need to be reversed to have the p-value exceed 0.05? Seems applicable for low-powered studies such as this one.
Oliver - as a fellow marathoner, I'll disagree on this. 26.2 is just a long run, with ever degrading legs. Even with the drafting behind the phalanx of runner, one's legs are being put through some rough work. I watched the Kipchoge doing this race. He was a beast, not a lab rat. Note that two other runners, with all the advantages, couldn't come close to what he did.
For me, this was confirmation that humans do indeed have room to push the current world record further down.
I guess it goes without saying that the headline is clickbait. The difference isn't "an illusion". Rather, the article describes an insightful way of looking at incomes based on cost-of-living for different geographies.
The yawning difference between Asians and whites mostly disappears after accounting for geography. But it's still quite large versus other segments (blacks, hispanics).
Based on the headline, I was expecting to see income convergence among the four groups. Not the case at all.
How do you mean? I think of Moments are formalizing something that Twitter does well: conversations/stories around topics of current interest. Sure, you'll engage your connections on these topics. But it's nice to see a broader view of them as well.
I'm convinced way down the road (ahem...pun) that autonomous vehicles are going to become our work spaces. We already see it with some people getting work done on their company buses. But those are limited in terms of letting you work fully.
In our future, you'll have your own personal space on a self-driving car. Room for proper placement of your laptop + keyboard. Ability to loudly participate in conference calls. Dual screens.
And this opens up home ownership possibilities. Bay Area home prices are going through the roof. If companies want to hire people, they need to account for housing prices. Well, why not hire people who live 2 hours away? For example, the job may be in San Francisco (median home price $1.063 million), but the employee lives in Roseville (media home price $372,200).
The work day starts with the 8 am commute. Our employee lets the vehicle drive and starts working. Emails, documents, conference calls, etc. He then shows up in the office at 10 am. Gets that key face time and benefits from those serendipitous moments that only occur in person. Exits the office at 4:30 pm to return home, working on the commute. Has dinner with the kids and helps them with the homework.
One can see real possibilities for positive change once we have autonomous vehicles.
I've flown to Germany from San Francisco several times. Nine time zones away. The flight leaves early afternoon in SF, and I'm in Germany by late morning. The travel included a 40 minute train ride from Frankfurt. I sleep very little on flights, and I'm exhausted on that train ride.
I used to try the "stay awake until night" method once I was in Germany. It wasn't very effective, I didn't adjust for several days. I then tried something different.
As soon as I get to my hotel (around lunchtime), I take a nap of 3 hours or so. I don't let myself sleep beyond that. I then get up and do some activities. I have dinner at the regular local time and then go to sleep at the usual time in the evening.
I've found that I rapidly adjust to the local time and have very little jet lag thereafter. It's that initial nap upon arrival that makes the difference.
"I believe that some day a great part of the world will be Eurasian."
Considering this was 1890, and that she was experiencing all these prejudices, a remarkable prediction on her part. We're still a ways away, but in 2010, 15% of new marriages in the U.S. were interracial. [1]
[1] http://mic.com/articles/87359/national-geographic-determined...
I'm expecting somewhere way down the road, scientists will unlock the secrets to prolonging our lives for nearly forever. They'll stop the telomeres from degrading, come up with ways to address cancer quickly and effectively, etc.
At the same time, space travel technology will also have been advanced, allowing for self-sustaining spacecraft that offer protection against the harsh environment of outer space.
At that point, you can imagine that a hearty band of explorers will undertake a mission of leaving our solar system and exploring way beyond our world. Who knows how far they could get.
These are the sorts of advances I can imagine becoming real many generations from now. I wouldn't underestimate our capacity to make it happen.
I don't know this market well. But I can suggest three tests that you should apply to any potential niche you're considering.
"Jobs-to-be-done" (JTBD) is useful analytical tool here. A "job" is a thing that someone is trying to accomplish. Harvard's Theodore Levitt expressed it well in this quote:
"People don't want to buy a 1/4 inch drill. They want a 1/4 inch hole."
It reframes the discussion away from features to customer objectives.
As you look at your platform, think about different market niches and the things they're trying to get done. Here are three tests to apply as you consider a given niche.
1. Is it an actual JTBD for a large enough target niche?
This is the most basic test. Do people actually have the need that your product/service addresses? Not only that, but can you characterize the the number of potential customers with the JTBD?
2. Does your product/service/idea meaningfully improve on the incumbent solution(s)?
This is a tougher test. How does your idea outperform the current way customers address the JTBD? You need to have a clear view on this. And the improvement needs to be significant, not just a little. Customers will overvalue their incumbent solution's benefits, and undervalue the new product's benefits.
3. Is the total incremental cost to the customer of your idea less than the total incremental value to the customer?
This test is the toughest. You need to consider monetary costs of course. But there can be many other switching costs as well. Loss of existing data, new time required to learn, new formats that have upstream and downstream impacts.
My take is that successful products can get to clear yes's on these three tests. But it takes some work, experimenting and seeing where your idea falls short if it's not getting yes's on the three tests.
Father of an older boy (11), younger girl (8). I do notice that it's "easier" to be stern with my son than my daughter. I have to be stern with both at times, but it takes a bit of extra effort to bring the right attitude with my daughter. I'm conscious of it, and I intellectually know I need to overcome my internal...conditioning?
Per his LinkedIn page, he was CTO but left Monsoon in August 2014.
https://www.linkedin.com/pub/andrew-hunzekerhesed/1a/361/320
I've not used Slack. How does it differ from Yammer and Jive? I ask, because those two work collaboration platforms have their own valuations. Yammer was bought for $1 billion by Microsoft. Jive Software's current market cap is $404 million.
I'm curious what the key differences are that drive a $2.8 billion valuation relative to the lower valuations of those two companies.
I live not too far from Sutro Tower. One use for it: fog indicator. I used to commute from Pleasanton back into SF. I'd always take a look at Sutro Tower. If it was shrouded in fog, I knew my house would be too. If it was sunny on Sutro, I knew I'd see blue sky at my house as well.
My crack at it...
1/3 chance prize is behind a given door. Pick a door, you've got a 1/3 chance it's behind it.
But there's a 2/3 chance it's behind one of the other doors.
So you've got two sets of outcomes at this point. Set A has 1/3 probability (the door you chose). Set B has a 2/3 probability (the two doors you didn't choose).
You then get this incredibly valuable information. The door in Set B that doesn't have the prize. So now Set B still has a 2/3 probability of having the prize. But you know that higher probability now applies to only the one door in Set B.
So you end up with: Set A door = 1/3 chance | Set B door = 2/3 chance
Make the switch every time.
Keep in mind that there were deaths in the development of our space program in the past.
http://www.spaceanswers.com/space-exploration/heroes-of-spac...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disast...
Another parent here. This summer, we took the kids to Paris. 10 y.o. son is wearing a Minecraft t-shirt on the street. A group of Chinese kids in a tourist group walked by. They saw his shirt, and I understood one word they said: "Minecraft".
Having lived in SF since 1996, I'd like to formally refute your point here. I'm quite happy with SF. I also live outside the Mission gentrification world, but do work in the tech industry. SF is still weird, it's still got its distinct character and it's still part of an incredible geography. I like being in the West because it's as much a psychological distance as anything. I say this as someone born and raised in Virginia.
I'm always amused at people's attitudes about San Francisco, and San Franciscans. Keep 'em coming.
Klout's "klout score" = 87.
Agree that we do in reality get busy, and it's a legit thing to say at times. My sense is the perpetually "I'm so busy" types are the subject of the post.
Sachin - are you aware of any transfer tools to Posterous's most obvious peer, Tumblr?
Along those lines, saw this tweet earlier today:
"Entrepreneurs take note: The going rate for a 'yes' to your ideas is roughly ten 'no's. - @neilpatel"
https://twitter.com/johnsonwhitney/status/268411928408363009
For MVPs, I have seen this particular situation (it's a B2B scenario). Your customer will use the product with their customers or users. So the MVP has to be 'good enough' for not just your early adopter customers, but for their customers as well.
Challenge then is that their customers/users may not be the same early adopter types. A work-in-progress app may reflect poorly on your customer.
MVP has a lowest common denominator aspect in this case. As in, what would be acceptable to your customer's customers/users? Seems to raise the bar on what is needed for a minimum viable product.
In classic "disruptive technology/business model" terms, I agree.
(1) What is disrupted? Existing means of accessing capital (banks, individual investors, corporations).
(2) It's coming at it from the low end of the market. Small little projects getting funding, nothing that hits the bigger players' radar. But slowly, it starts to grow in terms of volume, and funding project size.
(3) It's addressing an end of the market that was really underserved by mature sources of funding.
Based on all this, I would say crowdfunding is disruptive, with Kickstarter leading the way.
Agree. Turn down $33/share from MSFT, you'd better have a killer plan to get your valuation higher. Never saw anything indicating a better plan.
Why move away from Air? Serious question, want to understand its issues.
> I guess I cared a little about my own survival before
After kids, I suddenly became much more conscious of my mortality than I ever had been. Intellectually, we all know we die. But seeing my kids, I suddenly internalized this fact much more. Perhaps it's the thought of the things I won't be around to see or help with once I'm gone.
I'd say that Google doesn't really get user experience in this case. Things like making it clearer what +1 does. Does it show up somewhere? (yes) Does it affect search (sorta, but not really) Does it feed into my Google+ account? (no)
Maybe even the name "+1", which is a given for regular forum participants, but may be hard to get for others.
Interested in the use of the term "printing" as the process here. It's a good metaphor for moving from ink on a sheet of paper to manufacture of original, standalone structures.
We send visual instructions to a machine, it spits out something that looks like them. It "prints" them.
I remember discussing this in operations class. If I recall correctly, the biggest issue with the single line approach is one of perception. Customers see a really, really long line and decide to skip shopping at a location. Despite the fact that this is more efficient allocation mode of checkout "supply" for the checkout "demand".
I believe Disney may have put some effort in masking the length of the single line to address this issue. Might be something that grocers could learn.
A couple factors, though, would seem to undermine grocers' incentives to change their queuing approach:
One is the need to maximize inventory on the sales floor. They would need to do a lot of reconfiguration to handle the single line. And that might potentially reduce floor space for stock.
The other issue is that grocery stores fill a core human need: food. We're going there regardless of the line configuration.
I'll bet some grocer out there could make a name for themselves by shaking up the traditional ways we shop. This queuing idea is one example. Would be a smart move in fairly commoditized industry..