HN user
Almost every single industry in america is oligopoly and defending oligopolies with the free market capitalism argument is completely illogical and unfair.
If companies (private or state owned) are making huge profits at the cost of tax-payers money, then capitalism or socialism doesn't make any differences...
i guess gold and silver are the best bet.. though i dont know its a right time to buy right now as prices has shot in last couple of years... dollar crash may also result in to stock-crash and someone who can predict this can also buy 'short' ETFs. Dollar crash will also create demand in Oil which in-turn will increase the oil price. all these factors can help anyone to shield from now. Also one can start investing in forex, many smart immigrants have started investing in their home countries so that there is some risk mitigation.
Interested readers can also read "10 Bubbles in the making" @
http://www.businessinsider.com/bubbles-in-the-making-2009-9#...
i wont be surprised if 80 is "few" for China as they might be planning to have 800 trains in next 10 or 20 years (its a huge country - geographically ) ... who knows?
FYI:
100 Indian Rupee (Rs.) = 2.06622 US Dollar
100 US Dollar(USD) = 4839.76000 Indian Rupee(INR)
Fantastic Pg, one of the best essay ever ....
Loved it when you said "Ambitious people are rare, ... When you take people like this and put them together with other ambitious people, they bloom like dying plants given water. Probably most ambitious people are starved for the sort of encouragement they'd get from ambitious peers, whatever their age."
IMO, Ambitious people are like power engine or say running water - its a old saying that running water never stops at any hurdles, no mater what - they pass thru huge mountains and forests - if a ambitious person loves what he/she is doing then nothing can stop him/her - you can see the fire in their eyes to succeed, the ambition and love for their work itself becomes determination ...
Google is planning a OS but in the form of browser...
visit: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/introducing-google-ch...
whatever i said is from common endusers perspective and not from YC news reader's(who are mostly techies) point of view - just like the way we switch our browser right now ... we will be able to do the same with the OS!! or even better, there will be multiple browser OS preinstalled, you pick what you want....
as far as h/w platform is concern it would be too early to make a call, we may think right now that intel will lead the market/platform as they now support both (PC & MAC) but i wont be surprised if there are new players... especially from taiwan and china!!!
And even if intel dominates the microprocessor market, I really wonder how would a common man will differentiate a MAC laptop with Lenovo's thinkpad because all they have installed is the same Browser-OS (chrome, safari etc.) on the same platform (intel), with the same specs(say 4GB RAM, 5 USB ports, 2HDMI, same display card.... etc.) and almost everything else is on the cloud .... i guess then it would be all about speed, power and exterior look/design of the laptop??!!!
I just can't wait for my browser to becomes my OS - it would be a game changing scenario - it won't matter what is pre-installed, you'll be able to switch your OS in a second ... it won't even matter what h/w you are using (PC on intel, MAC on intel, Linux on whatever) ....
i wonder how much a h/w platform or pre-installed s/w would matter in one's life when a browser is your new OS and almost all your apps are on the cloud !!!
i second with you - upgrading existing infrastructure or implementing small creative fixes will solve most of the problems and will also create huge amount of direct and indirect jobs ... huge benefit of infrastructure spending is you require people right at the site so no outsourcing (not that i'm aginst but still it helps local economy)
Few reason's why i will vote for HSR:
1. It's safer than car, very few or no accidents compare to highway accidents - so you can't put value to human life.
2. Compare to air and car drive, weather conditions doesn't impact HSR.
3. Peace of mind: Compare to driving car, its a peace of mind as you may relax rather than stressing out due to driving itself or weather or traffic jams etc.
4. Compare to air travel, there is no hijack like situation possible. i.e. peace of mind to government.
5. No matter how fast you drive a car or bus, you just can't beat HSR's speed and time saved due to speed. Plus no speeding ticket :)
i know i'll be downgraded for saying this and i'm ok with that because most of the hackers are apple lovers and this is hackers community and not marketing forum :) but anyway if you think that apple charges reasonably for their products then you've no clue how apple is doing in other parts of the world - marketing research says that companies like apple had made money from westerners ONLY !!!
yes, apple offers quality products
yes, apple charges for premium
yes, apple has all the innovation working for them ....
But
Apple is a hit in western world only where people spend blindly .... look at the success rate of apple in 3rd world countries (where population is huge) - you will know that they are nowhere in top 10 --- surprised? let me give you an example:
ipod: a music player that is a huge hit in north-america is a super-flop product amongst south-asians!!! WHY? Why people who are known as a smartest consumers in the world don't buy ipods? the reason is not only the price of an ipod but also the lack of features in ipods ... the other mp3 player offer way more features than ipods ... and sound quality is as good as ipods .... So why one would pay more price for less features and get a same quality of output???????????? this is not me who is saying it, its a huge market research for all the premium products that has a good following in western countries but no takers in other parts of the world.
So the same product that we call "premium" in america (or western world) is labeled as a "rip-off" in other parts of the world where a person is called as a foolish for paying more price and getting same quality output but way less features...
just wondering about pros and cons of offering founder's stock to early seed investors? I know few incubators/investors asking for the same ....
try all social media locations: myspace, twitter, facebook, orkut etc.
try craigslist - you'll be surprised - i've seen VP (sales) posting their resumes there ...
i agree with you that "Apple needs to innovate on the low end, or die" because cloud computing and browser OS are going to be a game changer - if every task is done on the net and if the browser is the OS then how would one differentiate a PC from MAC??? all you need is a hardware with a browser OS that is slick and speedy, while all the apps that resides on the net will have same look and feel on all the browsers doesn't matter what hardware you're using!
open university/courses will become a norm... if you're interested in the subject then there should not be any reason why you cant study and clear exams without any hassle ....
one such univ. is "University of the People", world’s first tuition-free, online academic institution dedicated to the global advancement of higher education.
visit: http://www.uopeople.org
i agree with you - Yahoo finance, Yahoo sports and Yahoo movies are very popular ... also one might be surprised that yahoo has huge loyal fans in asian countries like china, hongkong, singapore, india, indonesia etc.... people from these countries started their internet life with yahoo search and email services and they still use it, so yes, there are many yahoo properties that are undoubtedly leading the competition...
this is smart move by twitter - inviting celebrities so that media will help to get more traffic ... more traction means more valuation means more money from investors ...
Pg and team can use online web-app tool such as "Decide Already" - it makes easy for organizations and groups to come to a decision about anything.
This is just like YC clone except asking for 20% of share in return... i think this is a lot for a startup to give away... i'm not saying its wrong or bad but can't justify it either ...
Five Tibetan Rites are one of the best form of ancient Yoga for longitivity and healthy physical and mental fitness!!
just 2 days a go i predicted that google will come out with its own OS - though android - but never expected that in just couple of days my gut feeling will come true ...
MS won't make a mistake of forcing people to adopt WIN7 otherwise the result would be same as IE - there are many, especially in the 3rd world countries where they are just looking for a reason to dump windows but they keep it because it came pre-installed - just 2 countries (china & india) can make windows dead in matter of years (if not months) if they try to force it ...
also who knows??, there are new guys (read Android, WebOS, OS-X) who MIGHT be waiting for the opportunity to jump in ... i dont know why but i feel that eventually google will enter the game by getting android from phones to netbook to notebook....!! if the brand like HTC starts making netbook/notebook then i won't be surprise if it comes pre-installed with android !!
i dont know how they calc the stats - IE is already dying or may be dead .... this is because there will be mix-up(layers) on the top of IE, for example it is possible that all PCs that came with IE6 pre-installed cant be taken in to the account as most of them might be using other browsers. If you calc the pure downloads then IE is dead.... users have multiple browsers but they rarely use IE - it is sad that MS killed netscape to make it sort of mandatory to have IE, but still they couldn't sustain the lead - when people bypass your product and specially go on the net to download your competitor's product that means you're nearly DEAD. and BTW who is the competitor? the same guy whose product you killed years a go!!!! GOOD REVENGE !!!! NICE JOB, Eric Schmidt !!!
this is beginning of the End of US$ - it is just the matter of time when BRIC nations would decide about world trade, economics and monitory policies ...
i've seen few times on sitepoint - most of them are experienced buyers and they dont want to take any chances - there are many frauds and scams in web business as they inflate revenue and make a story which is too good to be true, of course one should have an eye for it to know that. also this practice is very common amongst small non-web businesses (convenience store, gas station, laundromat etc.) and now it is becoming popular on web as well...
good idea, no doubt about it ... crowdsourcing is the best way to go ... though i have few queries (especially the last one)if someone can answer:
1. how is lobsterback going to make money? OR are they planning for no profit and no loss endeavor?
2. Is there any contract paperwork done? and can an investor see that beforehand?
3. How lobsterback is committed for ROI when you're investing in "Natalie queen of stock - LLC"?
4. Personally I want to know how SEC won't object to such financing? as investors are also shareholders!!??!! Because if this can be done (legally) then angel investing (thru crowdsourcing) can go off the roof to help so many different kind of startups. So if you know a trick/loop-hole/idea/grey-area of how one can arrange this kind of financing then reply here right away.
I TRULY SEE THIS IDEA A REVOLUTIONARY !!! I'm saying this because i know people who have done research (on this kind of financing) and spoke to several lawyers but with no help ...
i kind of liked the last option - i would say motivated crowdsourcing!!!
the other option (which has become preferred option recently) is to sell 25%-50% to the new owner who will run and/or control the operations (and see how it goes) and u be there to provide training and support - this will gain the confidence of the buyer community that your business is real business and you're transparent about revenue and growth potential... once the new owner sees that there is real revenue and growth, he/she start taking more ownership on monthly basis or give you lumpsum amount that was agreed upon.
the following links will help u a lot - good luck ...
http://www.blogdesignblog.com/blog-design/25-must-buy-borrow...
Just like financial, health and immigration reforms, Obama should also bring educational reforms ASAP - if americans don't want their jobs to be outsourced then they have to produce more engineers, nurses, doctors etc., period.
The shortage of skilled labor is the major complain and its been actively voiced by all (including Bill Gates) ... the whole H1B issue has 2 major components: 1. shortage of skilled labor and 2. cheap labor available else where. There is also 3rd important issue which is exploitation of H1B visa holders by the employers (the body-shoppers) --- but above all if you have enough supply then employers won't line-up to hire outsiders the way they started doing since y2k, also because of high increase in salaries and other logistics in 3rd world countries (read India) the difference between insource and outsource is not that big anymore ...
while the 3rd issue is more important for all who came here with a dream of easy riding and then getting disappointed also needs reforms in regulation and awareness.