HN user
Fair enough, I see your point and completely agree that all currencies are based on belief. I guess that why I am all over the internet all day long trying to convince bitcoin is worth a shot.
Bitcoin doesn't need credibility. It just needs to work. Hype and speculators are a natural product of the energy gathering around the massive technical innovation and corresponding social movement that is Bitcoin.
People should have the freedom to make those security choices for themselves. People who are scared by the security issues of Bitcoin can avoid it, or only use it when the efficiency benefits are advantageous to them.
All the recent politically oriented attacks on Bitcoin are completely devoid of logical analysis and steeped in establishment dogma. They use name calling tactics like "play money" and "beenie babies fad" and scare tactics like "bubble" and "cesspool of criminal activity".
What none of these arguments ever address is the massive gains in economic efficiency that Bitcoin can clearly provide. It cuts out parasitic elements of the financial system that have grown like a giant parasite over the entire society.
The author claims that Bitcoin is steeped in nerd paternalism, but what about the epic paternalism of banks and regulators? Paternalism is their entire argument against Bitcoin, which basically amounts to "if people gain economic freedom, they will hurt themselves".
It's because Bitcoin is truly a massive political issue, with the potential to completely overhaul existing power dynamics. It is Establishment Leftism vs everyone else, and the battle lines are being drawn.
Bitcoin is a much different investment than stock in established companies or national currencies. It is much similar to high risk / high reward investments in uncertain technology ventures, like angel and VC investing. What it also has in common with those types of investments is the potential for very high returns that make taking on a high level of risk completely justified.
This type of risk profile lends itself to volatility. We don't get to see this with startup investments because their stock is rarely traded, and when it is it is done privately. The public doesn't get to see stock fluctuations in high tech companies until after the IPO, at which point the companies are clearly established and much of the volatility has been eliminated.
If anything Google has gained some share since then. The biggest change has been that it continues to suck more and more traffic away with ads, YouTube listings, Google Places listings, shopping results, Google's in house affiliate ads, Google Books, and anything else that pays Google or keeps traffic on Google sites. It's gotten so bad that in many verticals it is impossible to find an organic result without scrolling. Like this for example:
I would guess 500 or so. I think people still have a lot of enthusiasm, but camping out and taking care of all the practical details is exhausting and that is starting to show. I think it's extremely important that this movement gets moved online and finds a way to exist permanently. The camping at City Hall will eventually end, but I don't think that will be any type of failure of the movement. This is something that will take years to fully manifest itself.
It's hard to say. There were definitely representatives from every part of that spectrum. I think the important thing to grasp is that this movement transcends ideologies. The main commonality is that people believe the system is broken and want to break the stranglehold of monied interests over the government.
I was there mainly as a spectator, but did get on the mic for about a minute to share a few thoughts. My main goal was to converse with people on a individual level.
My personal goal is to wake people up to the brokenness of our political system and to inspire everyone to change it together. This is only a start but I'm very optimistic.
I will definitely attend more events, but more importantly, I plan on talking to people I know and care about to understand what they think and to help them see why I believe this is so important.
That's why Google is rolling out flat rate click pricing in many local verticals. They take the conversion data from advertisers using website optimizer and use it to help less sophisticated businesses compete against them.
You really need to refine the concept of exactly what your product does and the language you use to communicate that to users. Spending a few minutes on the site, I can tell it's for education but not much more than that. I get the idea you are trying to be all things to all people. You would probably be better off being the exact right fit for a specific segment of the market. By trying to be for businesses, educators, and amateurs you end up being not quite right for any of those groups. You should decide to be either for the mass consumer market or for businesses and educational institutions and develop your product and pricing accordingly.
You are disappointed in Mixergy because of your own short attention span? Why is that a problem with Mixergy. If you looked around you would also notice there are transcripts and text summaries. What I like to do is put it on in the background when I'm doing semi-menial work and then focus on it when something catches my attention. Of course talk video has it's shortcomings but Andrew is doing the best startup interviews anywhere.
Aaron is really out of his range of expertise with this one. Did he just read a book on Adwords or something? Almost as bad as his attempt to re-explain Keynesian economics to the world. Among other things, his comments about Google not trying improve CTR are just flat out wrong. Everyone should realize an advanced beginner level of knowledge does not enable you to make profound insights into any complex subject.
"Talent" in finance is not equal to raw skill and intelligence. A great deal of an bank employee's value is connections across the finance industry and access to inside information. While there are many highly intelligent people in the world, there are very few who have the requisite experience and domain expertise within different segments of the finance industry to attract millions (possibly billions) of dollars in new business to their company or make a similar amount trading.
There is a high likelihood of causation though, simply because many jobs (especially in the healthcare industry) require an associate's degree. For many people earning those degree help them go from minimum wage jobs to 30-40K per year.
Bing.com/twitter is actually pretty cool for topics that have recently been in the news, especially the most shared links. On the other hand, if you search for anything that is not news oriented and is highly commercial, the results are super spammy.
You need a tagline explaining what the site is for. "For iPhones Apps" left me wondering, yea but the WTF for iPhone apps?
You should help people browse apps more effectively. Lead them into different categories. Highlight the most popular apps. I don't see any reason why using this site would be better than visiting the app store directly.
As a corollary to this, I think it's important to understand that only certain types of companies and entrepreneurs benefit from giving out business advice to the entire world. Generally, these are the types of businesses that greatly benefit from publicity. One of the main reasons social web companies pursue (and receive) so much press is that it's in their best interest for everyone to know about their product because their goal is to acquire as many users as possible. For many other companies, being in the limelight is a huge liability that can quickly erode their competitive advantage. You never hear about these businesses, but in many cases they are far more profitable than the Twitter/Facebook type companies constantly paraded around the business press.
I don't disagree with you, but being in the right place at the right time usually means putting yourself out there by constantly searching for opportunities and trying (and failing) many times. Once you find yourself in the right place at the right time, there is also the matter of recognizing a great opportunity and risking your own capital and reputation by pursuing it with full force. That is much harder than most people imagine.
What it helps a lot with are the terms of the deal. If you NEED the money to keep your company afloat investors are going to put the screws to you for a much lower valuation.
The reason that losers are losers is that they don't have the balls to start their own company or seize power within an organization. They are free to attempt those things, but they don't, either because they fear risk, don't understand the nature of business, or are too nice to make the sociopathic choices necessary to survive. Sociopaths might not lay the bricks themselves, so to speak, but they take the risks and make the leaps that result in true productivity gains.
Good link, terrible headline. The link us an interesting video about the benefits of taking a year long sabbatical every seven years, but it doesn't claim that the sabbatical is what made Stefan Sagmeister a design genius. He was insanely talented before he started taking sabbaticals, and they just made him more productive.
This is really a fitting follow up to the top 30 entrepreneurs under 30. Which really should be called the top feel good media stories under 30, because the majority of their companies don't break $1MM in revenue. How quaint! I am convinced that a key to success in business is realizing that 1) the business press is massively biased towards media businesses, and 2) the vast majority of companies that are printing money would never reveal any useful business strategies to the public because that would only undermine their own business goals. So basically, you will never learn anything useful about business by reading articles online.
MBA is probably not worth it unless you can get into a top 10 program and want to be an investment banker or biz dev guy whose only real asset is a rolodex (which is really a significant asset). The fact this guy needed to write a blog post and email a dozen people about what he should do makes me think he should go for the MBA.
"Incidentally, we're one of the very few media companies (let alone b2b media companies) making money right now."
Not every media company is a dying newspaper, and a lot of them besides yours make money. Unless you have access to the finances of thousands of private companies, you should really think a second before making such statements.
Similar to what Mark Cuban has said about business (paraphrasing) that it's non-stop competition. 24 hours a day there is somebody out there trying to kick your ass.
Does anyone else assume that whenever the price of an acquisition isn't flaunted that it must be some very low number and that "acquisition" really means cutting your losses and taking whatever you can get?
That guy is setting himself up to have his time wasted by an endless string of idiots. If you offer to work for free, that is exactly the value people will place on the work you do.
I think it's that his "lightweight business-IT theories" aren't recognized as such.