kom107

Hi Suvinay! Do you all have a website that keeps interested people updated about the upcoming Swarm hardware? I would like to follow this work. Thanks!

I think this is a large part of the problem. I believe that the standard quantitative models used for productivity are no longer accurate. They are somewhat precise, but do not correctly reflect value that is produced.

They are valuable, except for the fact that machines can now do the disinfecting aspect of the job (the most important part) better and faster than they can.

See: http://tru-d.com/

And to the point someone else made in this thread, they are easily replaced; not requiring a significant amount of training or onboarding resources.

Understood. I think one of the problems is that (fill in the blank: society, parents, students, guidance/admissions counselors, et al) seek to categorize and create blanket answers, whereas the correct answer is highly variable relative to the application. Boolean vs bayesian.

As a mental exercise, I'm imagining a product that would, given a number of inputs, produce a bayesian curve of the applicant's possible outcomes, and then selects the best school for that applicant. While developing this product sounds like a fun side project, I can't imagine it gaining traction, because the aforementioned groups would get upset (read: not pay) that Prestigious U is not the best choice for Johnny, rather, Mid-Atlantic Middle College is. It would be difficult to get the secondary actors in the process to pay as well, because there is value generated for them by maintaining process homeostasis.

Current thinking would suggest that I should have gone to, say, Bucknell over Penn State (again, I understand n=1 here, and I am not measuring my level of selective perception), whereas I am very happy with the course of events and think it produced the best outcome. I have to believe there is some grain of truth to my line of thinking and a potential for value generation in the decision aspect of college admissions.

Agree 100%. Great conversation tangent over on reddit's FI sub about this article, and specifically, the fear that those of us who were/are responsible will be taxed to support those who were/are not: https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/comments/4fhs...

For those of you who prefer the whistling-past-the-graveyard approach, Christopher Buckley's book 'Boomsday' is hilarious.

Anyone care to share how they are protecting their savings against this increasingly likely prospect?

That's not entirely true. See: http://yscouts.com/executive/where-did-fortune-500-ceos-go-t...

Stanford has some fantastic opportunities, sure. But those opportunities come with significant opportunity costs (at the very least, financially). For some, it is better to attend a state school; the mental calculus involved in making this decision is rather difficult for an 18 year old and his/her family, especially with all of the noise that surrounds the college admissions process.

If a kid is going to be a success, they'll be a success. Multiple studies support this: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/20/where-you-go-to-col...

Disclaimer: I'm a proud Penn State alum, which was (at the time) my safety school. Just my $0.02.

Agreed. I've just gone about it by refusing to sign the IP agreements, OR by editing the document to say that anything I do on my own time is mine. Have yet to run into an issue with those approaches.

I wonder how much innovation here is stifled because there are still only a handful of major employers, and all of them have blanket IP agreements. Frankly, if I was running UPMC, PNC, or Highmark, I'd set up a VC arm and encourage any employee with a good idea (related to the industry) to start a company with seed capital from the VC arm. UPMC is KIND OF doing this (I work for them now), but they're not quite there yet, and it doesn't seem like current employees can swing over there to start their own company easily. Still, I think they're headed down the right path.

Snagged my house in Morningside, which is in the city. You can still get pretty inexpensive houses throughout the East End, but you'll need to put in some elbow grease. Average prices seem to be around $200,000 for a decent home in the city. $500,000 and it's a move in ready palace.

Ooooh. Talk dirty to us. YC Pittsburgh batch. Dig it.

Born in Pittsburgh, raised in Pittsburgh, started (and failed, 2009-2014) my own company in Pittsburgh, currently have an excellent tech job in Pittsburgh and am going to launch the beta product of my new company (YC reject) in Pittsburgh in June.

So. First off, I nearly cried reading this headline, and did tear up reading it. So whether or not he reads this, thanks, Paul.

Second. To the hard work of it all. I agree with every point he made, with the caveat that Pittsburgh needs to be careful with the historic preservation aspect of things: they vascillate between 'hey let's forget all of our history and blow this place up' to 'we must preserve every nook and cranny exactly as it was, even though it's detrimental towards progress'.

We could also stand to improve tax policy (lower them, significantly), and get our major employers here to knock it off with their ridiculous IP agreements. Also, I'd love it if our politicians stopped directly trying to ape Silicon Valley (or New York, or perhaps most ridiculous, the Paris of Appalachia). Let's be Pittsburgh.

Here's the thing that perhaps Paul missed when he was here, and perhaps others who aren't here can't see: I feel we've reached a critical mass of people who just DGAF (in a good way), because the opportunity costs of testing out your vision here are so low. By that, I mean that you can try out your weird (read: innovative) vision of the future, and no one bats an eye. On top of that, if you are producing a signal, it's much easier to cut through noise here. I spent a fair amount of time interviewing in SF for startup gigs, and it's not a good value proposition compared to here, to me. Finally, while the investment scene is terrible, that can be very beneficial to the right founder, because obviously one will retain more for themselves, and one don't NEED very much capital to get started in Pittsburgh. I bought my first house for $80,000 in 2013. 4/2, hardwood throughout, 1944 brick single family, 2 car garage, yard, granite, stainless, wine fridge, etc, in a good neighborhood. It's that cheap here. Anecdotal, but if you're smart with your money here, you can build your own runway.

All of that said, I'm hoping it happens. More than that, I'll work for it to happen. Onwards and upwards, fellow Yinzers. And Let's Go Bucs.

I'm registered as a Republican, and in theory, would rather date a Republican than a Libertarian. In unsurprising news, every woman I have ever dated has been a Democrat, and my wife is a Democrat from a socially democratic country. She will be joining me in voting for Gary Johnson in the upcoming presidential election, but is voting for Hilary in her party's primary.

It's funny, I used to look at the types of signaling you reference when I was dating (do we like the same things, have the same outlook, etc). I have found my greatest happiness with my wife, and the only two signals there I used were her work ethic and intellectual capacity. Well. And she's the hottest woman I've ever seen. All three, and I couldn't wait to put a ring on it.

No, she doesn't know my HN username.

Bingo. My academic studies of political systems, US politics, game theory and economics leads me to believe that a true free market economy is the causa sine qua non for a more tolerant and free society.

I also believe that one cannot legislate social mores, and that the government does not, can not, and should not grant or even 'uphold' rights. Further, I believe that free markets CAN and HAVE caused (on net) greater social change than any legislated social change, and that on an individual level, free markets are the best channel for allowing minorities/oppressed individuals to champion their cause while simultaneously avoiding and stamping out oppression.

Ergo, I dedicate myself (and my vote) to the goal of an entirely free market. In essence, I swipe right for the Austrian School. (Go ahead and groan).

"Current and future quality of life for myself and others trumps paying lip service to ideals that are never realized."

Agreed. However, I bet we differ on the means by which one should go about achieving/obtaining (I separate those words very deliberately here) a high quality of life for oneself, and the means that will help others. If you're truly interested in a political conversation, and open to learning, my email is in my profile. While the HN community may benefit, we are going on quite the tangent from the main topic. Cheers.

I go back to the old-school, small government intellectual Republicanism (this may sound crazy to many of you, but I assure you, at one point it existed). I realize that this is currently not where the party is (see: Trump, Cruz, Jindal, Carson, Palin, et al), but I believe in trying to change it from the inside.

As it stands, I vote libertarian a lot.

It's funny you say this, because I am a Republican pro-life lesbian. I have used both OkCupid and Tinder in the past, and I 1. Didn't find OkCupid to be terribly good for filtering out those with worldview I disagreed with 2. Liked Tinder more because it forced that initial conversation with someone, which I would rather have, as I am interested in their mind just as much as their looks. Best of both worlds. YMMV.

Seconding this for the lesbian community. For heterosexuals, sure, this may only be a hookup app. For lesbians? Long term relationships from Tinder abound (I say this as a lesbian, albeit one who met her wife at work).

Hey--sorry, forgot I hid it for a while. Anyway, it's kate (dot) mcginley at gmail. Talk soon.

As someone with 10+ years of mad success in sales/marketing/hacking growth, from my own startup to Fortune 500 level in several verticals, here's what you have to do:

1. Yeah, sometimes you just gotta cold call. Even better, show up. Ever watch the original Wall Street? Bud Fox calls Gekko every damn day. To get in front of your very first customers, you need to be doing this too. Go to where your ideal customers are and start talking with them (tangentially) about your product.

2. MAJOR CAVEAT: This first conversation should NOT be about you, product features, design, how much VC you've landed (or want to land). No 'push notifications' here guys. You should be listening to your customer, asking them about what problems you THINK they have that you THINK your product will solve. If it's not the type of product to obviously solve a problem (maybe you've not figured out what problem it solves or it's something that's more for fun), let the customer play with it and ask the customer high-value questions while they use it.

3. Here's the secret to successful sales in one sentence: it's not at ALL about you or the product. Remember that, listen, and your customers will start giving clues away about how to sell to them. If you get good at asking the right questions, it's like calling the Nintendo cheat hotline back in the day: the wins come really easily once someone tells you how to do it (I'd like to publicly apologize to my parents for the 1998 phone bill right now).

4. Always, always, always track the conversations. Every one. Even that 2 second one getting coffee this morning. Look for patterns (what worked, what didn't, similarities between cohorts at different stages in the buying cycle, what questions you asked that elicited the most helpful responses, etc). As Paul Graham says, to get your first users, you have to do things that don't scale. However, assuming you do this successfully, you'll need to rapidly build systems that do scale, so doing this extra work now will pay off like mad. Moreover, these conversations should help you find opportunities for the next iterations of your product. In the book Traction, the authors talk about doing sales and product iteration concurrently, and they're 100% right. If you do one without the other, you're going to struggle.

5. BE where your customers are. Remember when you had the hots for someone in high school? What would you do? Everyone, and I mean everyone, tries to put themselves near where this person is--maybe you sit nearby in class, or try to pass them in the hall, whatever. Same stuff with landing customers. Pretend like they're your crush, find out everything you can about their industry, their job (what they REALLY do and worry about, not just their title and organization), maybe some things they enjoy. It's okay to be a little creepy when prepping and strategizing sales--more info is better, because it helps you develop a more holistic picture of your ideal customer, and that narrows down the channels you should try to succeed. Just don't be obvious about your prep. Remember: the will to win is important, but the will to prepare is vital.

6. Sales come from emotion. One of the biggest problems I see when engineers sell is that they use language that makes sense to them and is technically correct, but makes the customers feel stupid. Metadata to you is a 'wikipedia for your most important software' to the lay person. Make sure you emphasize the BENEFITS to the potential customer--they don't actually care about the feature. If you have a sciences background, you will probably screw this up. That's okay, just keep working at it--if you are cognizant of this and work to correct it, you'll be doing sales like the sales pros in short order.

This is definitely not inclusive, and each bullet point deserves its own book, but in my experience, they'll deliver the most value for where you are at now. Write letters, send emails, show up early and late, go to where they are, and keep the conversations about THEM. Sales are based on trust and likability (and it helps, but isn't necessary, to have a best-in-class product). You can do it.

It's funny you ask this, because I'm trying to find a job leading sales/marketing/growth at a startup company (Series A or after) right now (started applying hard yesterday). Email me and I'll do a no-fee consult (email's in my profile); if anyone else in the community has questions, feel free to reach out as well. Even if you're not in my target company demographic, I believe in good karma. Good luck guys.

Reminded me of this article (link below with TL;DR). So we have two strong examples of how changing environment can reduce crime and improve lives. Perhaps we should change our current educational and judicial policies?

TL;DR: after hurricaine Katrina, many people who relocated from the lowest-income, highest-crime areas in New Orleans (and many of whom had previous convictions) improved their circumstances--reduced recidivism, higher standards of living, etc. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/08/24/starting-over-d...

While this is true, many disadvantaged students don't even know this, because they don't even look at these schools in the first place, as they assume they cannot afford to attend. Selection bias.

Awesome. Thanks!!

How do you know? I don't mean to be rude but I'm just curious as someone who applied and was rejected.

My team and I are planning on continuing on. Good luck to everyone else who is in the same boat!

Hello. I have. I had no college degree. I was a drop-out. I worked as a line cook, for $9.70/hr (no tips). No economic help from my family. $9.70/hr. Had my electric turned off a few times. Phone turned off regularly. Water turned off. No gas for a northeast winter.

Decided I was sick of it. Went back to school, took out some loans, but worked my ASS off, trying to get as many hours as possible so as to take out as few loans as possible. Kept communication open with my bosses and with my professors: I'm not making shit, I have to keep this job, but I want to make a better life for myself.

It was hard. Hardest thing I've ever done. Realized that I couldn't rely on the cook income, so I started a side business JUST IN CASE they decided to fire me (building websites, took one class that had a week long section on HTML in college). Hustled. Replaced my income. Kept the two jobs, took a full course load. Awful. Hated my life, always tired. I graduated with $10,000 in debt from my bachelors and a post-bacc certificate program. Could have been a lot more, but I saw what happened if I went down that route.

But you know what? I did it. It is possible. I am not a millionaire, but I have a great job, and am working on launching another company, so that I and my family can have an even better life.

Everything we put in front of ourselves is an excuse. It IS possible. If I would have lost my job, I would have found a new one. Kids add difficulty to the situation (trust me, I know), but it is still possible.

Glad to see there is a market out there for this. I applied to the YC Fellows program and pitched my idea as 'uber for nurses'. And here I was thinking that I was coming up with a groundbreaking idea...haha.

I'm interested to see how this shakes out. The delivery method for healthcare is a mess for everyone involved. I think we go back to house calls within 10 years.

Oh, I was so shy when I was younger. Socially awkward (and I was just smart enough to know it), nervous, didn't want to talk with others at all, really. Now, I love it.

I started very small and very simply: I started reading etiquette books (this was as a teenager). No joke. If you think about it, they're just really 'how to' books that cover a lot of social situations (I still have a copy of Debrett's). Anyway, so I started there and began to add what I read into my everyday social interactions. Things got a bit easier. From there, I actually joined greek life in college. Sure, it gets a bad rap, but I very quickly learned how to become very comfortable in social situations because I FORCED myself into a setting that was, by nature, incredibly social. As an adult, I'd suggest getting involved in some activity that you enjoy that has a heavy social aspect...and also NOT with people who are JUST LIKE YOU (i.e. don't go to meetups for just coders or engineers). I also held two sales jobs and volunteered at a phone bank to call people and ask for donations for a good cause. Cold-calling people and sales were really helpful because it gets you incredibly comfortable with rejection--which, if you really think about it, is, IMO, the reason those of us who are naturally shy are shy--there's a small worry about rejection, or at least nervousness around 'maybe this person won't like me'. If you get rejected enough, you literally don't even notice anymore.

Those were the things that I did that I believe had the biggest impact. Hopefully you can take some of my experiences and make them work for you. Have fun.

I run. I've lost 50 pounds since the start of it all. Running clears my mind up, and I usually can just let my mind wander--that's often all it takes for me to come up with a solution to a problem I'm stuck on, and if I'm feeling like a failure, it's one thing that I know I can look at and say, 'You know, this was a total good. I ran x miles, I can accomplish something else today.'

I still have more weight I'd like to lose, but this has been a game changer for me. I love trail running!

So the way inpatient (hospital) settings work here in the US is that patients have their own rooms (occasionally shared rooms, with one or maybe two other people, but by and large patients have a private room). Usually the doctors round in the morning, meaning they stop in to the room, talk with and examine the patient, and then update the plan of care as necessary. The nurses then execute the plan of care--the nurses administer medications, explain processes, etc. The nurses cannot diagnose a disease (officially), nor can they prescribe medications (officially). Typically, conversations patients and nurses have result in the nurse suggesting a doctor look at a specific cluster of symptoms or test for a specific diagnosis, and/or prescribe given things. Nurses are supposed to be advocates for patients. Doctors plan the care. Excepting surgeons, doctors rarely actually administer the care.

The inpatient system works this way because it is easier to scale--our nurses often have bachelors degrees, with an emphasis on biosciences: pharmacology, pathophysiology, anatomy and physiology, etc. The providers (doctors, hospitals) are reimbursed based on what is prescribed (the procedures) and (this is key) how many people they see. So, it makes the most sense, financially, to have the doctors see each patient for, say, 10-15 minutes only, and then have the nurses carry out the plan of care. If you have a good working relationship between the doctor and the nurse, the doctors will often rely on what the nurse thinks to decide on what tests to order and/or what meds to prescribe. How does it work in your country?

Agreed--if the exit strategy for a startup is to simply be bought up by another company, well then come on down!! :-)

I think that's actually a very interesting question. It's certainly possible that the accelerators here encourage exits instead of world domination, because it's 'safer' to exit if you have the opportunity (i.e. why soldier on for an IPO when you can be acquired, the accelerator makes its money back, you make some money, and everyone in the region can say 'oh well startup x was sold, look at the success!'). Continuing on represents risk...the company may not IPO, or may not continue to grow at a rate that supports the valuation, etc.

I've not gone through an accelerator here in Pittsburgh (or anywhere else for that matter), but I would strongly suspect a large part of it is the cultural mindset here--an exit is a win, because compared to their peers, that's enough, just like how our high school football teams view winning the local championship as more important than winning states. Not saying that an exit isn't a win (it certainly is), but you don't see anyone around here swinging for the fences and taking that continued risk. My $.02.

The Pittsburgh area accelerators also require that the company stays headquartered in Pittsburgh. I love my hometown, but it's not exactly the best place to grow a company, especially a startup (in general, I think in some verticals there may be a fair amount of potential). The governor talks about bringing in more venture capital to the area, but that's not really something you can legislate. There's a low cost of living and really smart people out here, but one of the biggest hurdles (IMHO) that no one is mentioning is that it's difficult to access capital to get going, and the small size of the business community here and lack of affordable transportation to other areas make it a bit daunting to start. Better to move out to SF and start something while couchsurfing--there's a higher ceiling elsewhere with their accelerator communities.

I get and appreciate that, but I really don't think it's appropriate to hit someone over a turkey sandwich. If you're able to eat that and walk around on your own and watch the ball game, pretty sure your suffering isn't sufficient to warrant punching a nurse in the chest.