jacoblyles

Whether or not a tech company is a good investment seldom depends on valuation, and I suspect it will be the same for Mojangosoft

I recently took a trip to Asia where capital is hard to come by and startup valuations are much lower. It seems that if VCs are having trouble finding return, they might be well served by investing in global expertise.

Are the consumer markets so much better in America that it's worth paying 4x valuation and competing with lots of other VCs for deals? The answer may be "yes", but it doesn't seem obvious to me.

I thought it was "meh" until the doctor started pitching the main character on his startup during an appointment - then I lost it

The original works of Seneca and Epictetus are also surprisingly applicable to modern life, and their problems are surprisingly relatable. I recommend Seneca's "On the Shortness of Life" and Epictetus's handbook in modern translation.

I hope those guys do something interesting with their billions. But so far the only billionaires that realize the power of a billion dollars in personal capital seem to be Elon Musk and Peter Thiel.

I can't help out a lot. But I did accidentally order a pretty nice Christmas present that it turns out I don't need. Drop me an email with your address and I'll forward it for the kids.

I'd rather see them shut down the FDA than 23andMe

It's worth remembering that both California senators Feinstein and Boxer were cosponsors of PIPA. They are no fans of tech. I'm waiting for a tech movement to realize that they are giving their money and votes to the enemy.

If someone does a bad job on a campaign, he gets fired and replaced with someone that can do the job better. Campaigns run on a limited budget - they don't have all the money in the world. They have a well defined goal and strict timeline.

Pretty much the opposite of a government project.

PPC has better features than BTC, but people haven't heard of it yet[1]. That said, BTC may win by being "good enough" and having a strong network effect.

[1] http://www.ppcoin.org/static/ppcoin-paper.pdf

Developing a thick skin and tolerance for the culture of the locals definitely helps you enjoy the good things you find in life.

Wake Forest class of 2005 here, now working in the Valley. I can't help but be jealous of my college friends when I go back home and see their humane cost of living. Everybody I know in NC owns a home that would cost seven figures in Mountain View, CA. Everybody I know in California rents and lives dorm-style with roommates.

Making a Silicon Valley salary remotely in Winston-Salem would let you live like a king.

Besides, the Carolina skies are just breathtaking, and not available at any price. I recently visited Winston with my California native girlfriend, and we were both charmed by the beauty and open space of Carolina.

Status quo apologetics. Ewww.

The truth machine is broken. How do we fix it?

And why is it that whenever I see a list of the "top 10 most important problems" to solve, this isn't on it? Most educated people take the veracity of published science as given, and we clearly know that's a false assumption.

I know we need more transparency in science - sharing of data and code, and negative results. But institutionally, I don't know how we get there with the tools we have.

Part of the reason the current system stays in place, despite failing at its charter mission, is billions of dollars of annual subsidies. Changing the way research dollars are allocated would change the structure of the academic enterprise, but that is incredibly hard to do. Few systems have as much momentum.

The more you learn about economics, the less you will trust economists. They have trouble predicting economic growth one quarter ahead[1] and there are tons of competing schools and models on the macro level that endlessly bicker without coming to agreement (not one of which is very good at predicting the future). They have like, degrees and shit, so the world considers them experts. But take them with a grain of salt.

[1] http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-10-10/not-world-youre-hop...

There are two ways to fund mining operations:

1) Tax the holders of coins

2) Tax the users of coins

Bitcoin starts with 1 (mining rewards) and then moves onto 2 (transaction fees) for long-term stability. I think this is dumb if your goal is widespread adoption because it taxes the activity that causes network effects to grow (transactions).

PPC sticks with 1 for the lifetime of the system (through a slow-growing monetary base), strengthening my belief that PPC is a strictly better design than bitcoin.

I still wonder why people aren't paying more attention to Peer-to-Peer Coin (PPC), which uses a blockchain-growing algorithm that depends on the age of the coins you own rather than than the amount of work you do[1]. It's far better for the planet and far more resilient against an attacker with more resources (like the NSA).

[1] http://www.ppcoin.org/static/ppcoin-paper.pdf

Protip: get earmuffs. The kind that construction workers use. They're about $20 on Amazon. If you combine them with earbuds, you literally can't hear a conversation right next to you.

This is the setup that pro Starcraft tournaments use so that players can't hear the announcers and crowd.

This sounds like a good time to start doing crypto research outside of the United States.

Detroit has USG backing.

It's not a universal American taboo. It's a progressive taboo, and California is a progressive region of the country.

You've taken all the meaning out of the word. Founders with thick accents should also be afraid that their speaking abilities or lack thereof will lower the value of the companies that they are founding. Would that make them... "xenophobic"... about themselves?

PG is in the business of giving business advice and teaching startups how to grow and prosper in the world as it exists. He has stated that he writes publicly in order to scale the process of giving advice. By putting it online, it is precisely where founders who most need the advice are most likely to find it.

It makes you upset that PG is giving this advice. But if it is true advice, then founders will be better off for hearing it, regardless of your feelings.

It is easier for founders to modify their behavior than it is to teach all the VCs of the valley to understand lots of accents, so PG's advice passes the sanity check even though we may wish the contrary were true.

I'm criticizing the people claiming that PG is xenophobic. I'm on your side on this one. I hate argument by insult - it shrinks the range of acceptable thought, thereby enstupidating the public mind.

It's straight out of the 1984 playbook. Language becomes vaguer and mushier, less communicative. We can no longer tell founders that "thick foreign accents will hurt your startup", instead we must say "have good communication skills", which is a far less useful statement. It is like the substitution of "ungood" for "bad" and "plusgood" for anything more extreme than "good".

Why should we talk to each other anymore, when a tiny handbook can contain all the thoughts we are allowed to express?

if it's not about political correctness, then we need a new word for signaling one's own righteousness by being quick to take offense

I am elitist against people who judge ideas on the scale of which one is most politically correct.

I don't understand how they get anything done in life without giving their brain room to think. For example, a founder having trouble raising funds could consider Paul Graham's advice on accents and see if it applies to him, but not if he censors his own mind to avoid it.

Anyone who accuses anyone of being X-phobic is laughable. Rational people ought to be able to debate - sparring through facts, hypotheses, and argument - without walking on eggshells. Dispassionate debate is a far better mechanism to find truth than name-calling.

If you're right, then why do you have to resort to attacking the motivations of the other speaker to win? Correct opinions ought to be able to walk on their own without relying on such crutches.

The Soviet Union was based on equality too. The problem is that some bureaucracies produce an equally shitty product for everyone.

A tax on corporate profits?

It's far less economically distorting to top up a family's income with an EITC than by mandating higher wages. For one thing, it avoids giving employers incentive to cut back on labor costs.