devinmontgomery

A person who does this being "otherwise good" doesn't lessen the harm to women looking for jobs or investment. But it does go to the person's intent and overall desert of punishment.

That was still a risky move. The key (literally, one of the elements of sexual harassment) is whether the advance is welcome. I'm guessing that Bill used a lower-risk way of finding that out than sending a text message after a job interview.

It's the position of power, regardless of intent, that's the problem. It's lonely to be the boss. Don't hit on women you meet in that capacity.

That message was absolutely inappropriate. Women should be able to raise money without being hit on by investors.

My comment was in response to the idea that Dave was secretly different than his outward appearance. I don't know him, I don't know the situation. But I think otherwise good people can do things they should apologize for and stop.

I think there are both 1) sleezeballs who intentionally take advantage of their position and 2) men who don't realized what they're doing and need to use better judgement.

Without knowing details, there are at least indications in both McClure's and Sacca's pasts that they may (hopefully) be in the latter group.

And hopefully this will help both groups get smaller.

There may be a little bias too since YC obviously has an interest in the most stable of all configurations for their startups, which is the 50/50 split (although it may not be the most fair one).

It seems this is what founders want too. If the goal is a big business and instability makes that less likely, I would optimize the equity split for effectiveness over fairness.

Highly customizable craft kits. We started with some design and stitch yourself thin wallets: http://fabnik.com//products/bookbinder-bifold-wallet-kit/. Working on a leather watch strap now.

This NOVA episode with Cliff is what got me interested in the Internet when I was 8: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcKxaq1FTac

Thanks - and you're right, almost all of that size is the leather texture and thread images. The rest is just svg and some css tricks. Visualizing what their choices would look like together was a big problem for customers, and we were excited to solve it in the size of a large jpeg.

Your kit will ship tomorrow (well, today - Wednesday), so you should have it by the weekend!

Awesome. Thank you! We'd be really interested to hear how making the kit goes.

Thanks - this is absolutely true. We're working on a javascript configurator so customers can better visualize what they're building. And see it all without scrolling. :)

Thanks for the interest! It's $5.

For those interested, we did an Instructables "launch" a couple weeks ago: http://www.instructables.com/id/Custom-Thin-Wallet-Kit/. Having great instructions for the kit was really important to us, so it seemed like a good fit. We got a very warm welcome and some incredibly useful feedback.

They want to set your old salary as the reference point for your new salary. If you're moving laterally, this isn't awful, but it is if you're looking to move up.

A better anchor (both closer to market and better for you) is to research the median salaries for that type of position in the area. Many job sites (I most recently used Glassdoor for this) give these numbers. It's not perfect, but it's a better starting point.

The actual words I would use are "Well, the median salary for [position] in [City] is $[dollars]. I'm looking for something that pays somewhere in that ballpark." If there are reasons you think you should be paid more than the median (you're very well qualified, the company tends to pay above median, etc), I would wait until after the offer is made, when you're in a stronger position.

It seems like refunds would be hackable. If they're made in bitcoin, I could get back more than I paid if bitcoin value goes up. If they're made in dollars, I could get back more than I paid if it goes down.

I don't think this is meant to be a piece of persuasive writing - he's not trying to form an argument.

It compares two companies of different eras with the same name, who ran into their doppelgängers because companies founded 15 years ago had telephone numbers and companies founded 6 years ago don't. I think it's gorgeous.

It's more like:

VC: "I am going to buy these goods at $1,000 today because I expect to be able to sell them for $1,100 in one year".

How they arrive at the $1,100 is based on the amount of risk there is and the return they could get on a zero-risk investment.

Seriously, finance seemed like mumbo jumbo to me to too before I learned about it. But it's actually pretty interesting. This is the calculation for present value.

Remember: These valuations aren't for what a company is currently worth. Otherwise, there's no point to investment. They valuations are for where they see the company going, and more probably, growing past.

Nit pick: a valuation is what a company is currently worth. That current worth us just based on anticipated future cash flows.

I think the impressiveness of what these guys made is the best argument for what a mistake that is. The effective 0% unemployment rate of engineers in SV shows what you get when you're not willing to be "bad at math." I know you're not advocating for that attitude, it just drives me nuts.

I am at once both amazed and saddened. Mastering fraction reduction and later simple algebra when I was a kid was one of the most empowering experiences of my life. This is like having an app run a marathon for me - it's easier, but I'm not changed through the work.

This is the standard applied to treating people differently on characteristics not part of a protected class:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_basis_review

High intelligence isn't what's called a "protected class," meaning smart people have not historically been discriminated against. That's the difference.

I know a lot of people like this - smart, talented people who want a lifestyle business. Being able to afford to do what you love for a living is awesome. Good for Notch, now he can.

This is not Five Thirty Eight type reporting. This is just pseudoscience. It starts with admittedly subjective, unvalidated criteria then proceeds to analyze and present them as though they were data. It's non-science presented as science.

I think the best thing about it, more than being inspirational, is that it normalizes the idea of starting a startup - especially if you're from outside the valley.

Startup checklist item #378: Get some bullshit patents we don't even believe are valid to use defensively and/or pretend we have some protectable IP. Of all the things I don't want to spend time on, this is right up there.

I got nothing from the project description, but here's the patent: https://www.google.com/patents/US6516866

It sounds like a mashup of injection molding and lost wax casting (what they call "lost core molding").

This says a lot about the alternatives YC says it's really competing with - the other things people who could build great startups would otherwise be doing.

$17k is what two engineering students might have made at a summer internship in Boston in 2005.

$120k is now what two entry-level engineers might make in six months in the Valley.

So I used this to answer the obvious question: life would suck on Tatooine, with an earth-sized planet shooting in and out of the habitable zone. Then I found this: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23051-only-the-toughes....