Yes and no. Yes, your talent is the most important long term factor. But the elite universities take a very different approach to teaching, especially for sciences and engineering. Compare the CS curriculum at MIT to that at your state college. MIT's is far more hardcore, and with much greater emphasis theory. Same for other fields. There is a qualitative difference between a top tier school and the rest of the pack.
Your post said that they could get additional funding at the end. The way you stated it made it sound like they could get more than 20K for their 6%. No, to get additional funding at the end they'll have to sell a larger chunk of the company. So don't pretend that's an advantage of taking this crappy deal.
Oh sure, there's plenty of suckers in the world. People will take them up on it. That doesn't change the fact that they're giving up more of the company for less than they would going through normal angel channels, by almost an order of magnitude.
Yes, they can get more funding- for an additional chunk of the company. The VCs won't give them that money just because the idea is cool. They'll want a return on it. So you're selling them 6% of the company for 20K and the chance to sell more of the company to them later.
Have you ever worked for a startup or studied the process of starting a company before at all?
It's 20K, some software, and access to talk to the VCs. So basically 20K, 25K tops with the software. Still one of the biggest ripoffs I've ever heard of. Any reputable angel investor will sponsor at least 6 months of development at a decent salary, if not a full year. The amount of money they're offering is laughable, especially with the chunk of the company they're taking.
You act like YCombinator isn't widely thought of as a horrible rip off. It is. You're always going to give up too much to your first angel investor, but if they aren't going to fund at least a couple of devs for a year, you're best off looking for a better deal or shelving the idea.
6% for 20K acceptable? 20K will pay for 2 developer months- 3 if your devs are cheap. You're going to pretty much immediately need a new source of funding, which will cost more dilution. This isn't a good deal, it's a complete ripoff. If you're in a state where such a small amount of money is worth giving up equity, keep your day job and run it as a side project.
They didn't. They said that bottled water makers can't use that to advertise their products. Since a label like that is likely to make less intelligent people think that it has an additive making it more effective than other sources, not allowing them to do so makes a lot of sense to me. They did the right thing.
Actually no, there aren't. The unemployment rate for programmers is below 3% and in some areas negative. That's normal frictional rates at the high end, and actually more jobs than people at the low end. Hell, I was looking just a month ago (my employer was bought, I was deciding whether I wanted to work for the new owners). I had 3 offers in 3 weeks, on about 4-5 resumes sent out. The job market for programmers is hopping.
It doesn't matter where you are- refuse. When they can't hire anyone, they'll get the point. It's not like you're blue collar labor- you're an expensive to find and replace resource as a programmer.
No, it's actually not common. Agreements that anything you make at work, or substantially related to work belongs to the company are common. Anything more than that is not common, and is the company trying to fuck you over. Refuse to sign without changing that clause and they will cave. If they don't, you don't want to work there anyway.
It was only some phones that did this, not all. The original G1 didn't, but the Samsung Moment did- I called the cops 3 times one day. Luckily in 3 separate cities. They fixed it in the first firmware update.
You didn't need to pay for a lock app though- there were plenty of free ones on the market.
You assume it's available. I don't have a wifi router (my computer is wired). Neither does every hotel I go to (many are wired). Nor do my parents (their single PC is wired). Plus I then have to send my data via the internet, which I may not wish to do. And I'd need a program on the target PC to connect to it.
No thank you on connectorless. If I want to transfer data, I want USB speed not bluetooth. And if I want to charge it, I want it to charge in minutes, not hours.
The vast majority of traffic is either html or email. Very structured data. It's sufficiently random to use for a video game or the like, but it's definitely not random from a cryptography point of view. So you're doing things the hard way with no discernible benefit. Total waste of time.
I don't. There's a negative unemployment rate in my area for programmers. It's a sellers market. And even in hard times, that means I may miss out on one job, and it will take me a whole extra 2-3 weeks to find the next one. That's why I have a years salary banked. Job interviews are a two way street- you have to be a good fit for me as well. I'm not willing to take a risk on an employer who isn't willing to take a risk in me. Nor will anyone else decent. You don't see it eliminating candidates because the good ones never even bothered to apply.
If you're testing their library/framework knowledge instead of their fundamental understanding of programming and problem solving, unless you have something they'll need to work on that goes to production that week, you're doing it wrong.
Granted whiteboards aren't the best, but they're frequently more convenient to read off of than staring over their shoulders at a computer screen. But the test giver needs to give some allowance for minor mistakes due to it (misspelled variables, missing ; , sloppiness due to not having cut/copy/paste, etc).
Are you paying them for this real world test? If not, why the fuck would they do it, especially before the interview? If it's actually real world (as in, will be put to production) code, I want to be paid. If it's a bullshit question to test my skills, on top of an interview, you're taking up way too much of my time. I'd only even consider it after the interview, and then I better really want the job.
The problem with this is absolutely noone decent would even consider a temp to perm contract. We know that it's a way to try to underpay us for months while dangling a job under our nose at the end. The only candidates who apply for those are people who didn't read the fine print, the desperate, and the mediocre.
It's the outflow of the biggest river in the continent and the ocean. It will be a major transportation and shipping hub. That means a lot of ports, and a lot of incoming boats. So lots of jobs. The people who work there will want to live nearby. They'll want to buy goods and services. Industry will want to exist nearby to take advantage of the shipping. This means more jobs, and more goods and services, requiring yet more people. This is the basis of damn near every major city in the world. There is no way that there isn't a major city in that spot until the Mississippi dries up.
Of course it is. There isn't even a question about it. The correct question to ask is "is it more addictive, or is addiction to it more harmful to the victim or others, than other legal substances?" For example, alcohol. Or for that matter, video games or gambling, both of which can be addictive.
That's where the answer is no, it's no more dangerous than alcohol, and may well be less. At the very least I see fewer violent responses to it. Definitely not worth the cost we spend to police it, when treating it as a health problem would be cheaper. But if you really think it's not addictive you need to get your head out of your ass, look at the medical literature. Or just look at how many people continue to smoke pot as they throw their lives away.
Or you could have multiple models and allow people to decide their own likes and dislikes.
That's why I refuse to buy Apple products- their belief that they know best and refusal to listen to other opinions. I don't care how good you think your keyboard is, I want something like Swype. I don't care how nice you think the 3.5 inch screen is, I want something a bit bigger. I don't care how great you think your email client is, I want the option of using another. Other vendors give us this, Apple does not. And on a side note, I find they're wrong a significant amount of the time, exceeding 50%- their UIs really do tend to suck for anyone who isn't blown away by ooh shinies.
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Yes and no. Yes, your talent is the most important long term factor. But the elite universities take a very different approach to teaching, especially for sciences and engineering. Compare the CS curriculum at MIT to that at your state college. MIT's is far more hardcore, and with much greater emphasis theory. Same for other fields. There is a qualitative difference between a top tier school and the rest of the pack.
Your post said that they could get additional funding at the end. The way you stated it made it sound like they could get more than 20K for their 6%. No, to get additional funding at the end they'll have to sell a larger chunk of the company. So don't pretend that's an advantage of taking this crappy deal.
Oh sure, there's plenty of suckers in the world. People will take them up on it. That doesn't change the fact that they're giving up more of the company for less than they would going through normal angel channels, by almost an order of magnitude.
Yes, they can get more funding- for an additional chunk of the company. The VCs won't give them that money just because the idea is cool. They'll want a return on it. So you're selling them 6% of the company for 20K and the chance to sell more of the company to them later.
Have you ever worked for a startup or studied the process of starting a company before at all?
Or sign to text translation. Limited usage and I see low commercial viability, but it would be interesting.
It's 20K, some software, and access to talk to the VCs. So basically 20K, 25K tops with the software. Still one of the biggest ripoffs I've ever heard of. Any reputable angel investor will sponsor at least 6 months of development at a decent salary, if not a full year. The amount of money they're offering is laughable, especially with the chunk of the company they're taking.
You act like YCombinator isn't widely thought of as a horrible rip off. It is. You're always going to give up too much to your first angel investor, but if they aren't going to fund at least a couple of devs for a year, you're best off looking for a better deal or shelving the idea.
So they're a crappy angel investor instead of a VC. It's still a miniscule amount of money for a large chunk of the company. It's a bad deal.
6% for 20K acceptable? 20K will pay for 2 developer months- 3 if your devs are cheap. You're going to pretty much immediately need a new source of funding, which will cost more dilution. This isn't a good deal, it's a complete ripoff. If you're in a state where such a small amount of money is worth giving up equity, keep your day job and run it as a side project.
They didn't. They said that bottled water makers can't use that to advertise their products. Since a label like that is likely to make less intelligent people think that it has an additive making it more effective than other sources, not allowing them to do so makes a lot of sense to me. They did the right thing.
Actually no, there aren't. The unemployment rate for programmers is below 3% and in some areas negative. That's normal frictional rates at the high end, and actually more jobs than people at the low end. Hell, I was looking just a month ago (my employer was bought, I was deciding whether I wanted to work for the new owners). I had 3 offers in 3 weeks, on about 4-5 resumes sent out. The job market for programmers is hopping.
It doesn't matter where you are- refuse. When they can't hire anyone, they'll get the point. It's not like you're blue collar labor- you're an expensive to find and replace resource as a programmer.
No, it's actually not common. Agreements that anything you make at work, or substantially related to work belongs to the company are common. Anything more than that is not common, and is the company trying to fuck you over. Refuse to sign without changing that clause and they will cave. If they don't, you don't want to work there anyway.
It was only some phones that did this, not all. The original G1 didn't, but the Samsung Moment did- I called the cops 3 times one day. Luckily in 3 separate cities. They fixed it in the first firmware update.
You didn't need to pay for a lock app though- there were plenty of free ones on the market.
You assume it's available. I don't have a wifi router (my computer is wired). Neither does every hotel I go to (many are wired). Nor do my parents (their single PC is wired). Plus I then have to send my data via the internet, which I may not wish to do. And I'd need a program on the target PC to connect to it.
Nope. Still want a USB connector.
No thank you on connectorless. If I want to transfer data, I want USB speed not bluetooth. And if I want to charge it, I want it to charge in minutes, not hours.
The vast majority of traffic is either html or email. Very structured data. It's sufficiently random to use for a video game or the like, but it's definitely not random from a cryptography point of view. So you're doing things the hard way with no discernible benefit. Total waste of time.
I don't. There's a negative unemployment rate in my area for programmers. It's a sellers market. And even in hard times, that means I may miss out on one job, and it will take me a whole extra 2-3 weeks to find the next one. That's why I have a years salary banked. Job interviews are a two way street- you have to be a good fit for me as well. I'm not willing to take a risk on an employer who isn't willing to take a risk in me. Nor will anyone else decent. You don't see it eliminating candidates because the good ones never even bothered to apply.
If you're testing their library/framework knowledge instead of their fundamental understanding of programming and problem solving, unless you have something they'll need to work on that goes to production that week, you're doing it wrong.
Granted whiteboards aren't the best, but they're frequently more convenient to read off of than staring over their shoulders at a computer screen. But the test giver needs to give some allowance for minor mistakes due to it (misspelled variables, missing ; , sloppiness due to not having cut/copy/paste, etc).
Are you paying them for this real world test? If not, why the fuck would they do it, especially before the interview? If it's actually real world (as in, will be put to production) code, I want to be paid. If it's a bullshit question to test my skills, on top of an interview, you're taking up way too much of my time. I'd only even consider it after the interview, and then I better really want the job.
The problem with this is absolutely noone decent would even consider a temp to perm contract. We know that it's a way to try to underpay us for months while dangling a job under our nose at the end. The only candidates who apply for those are people who didn't read the fine print, the desperate, and the mediocre.
It's the outflow of the biggest river in the continent and the ocean. It will be a major transportation and shipping hub. That means a lot of ports, and a lot of incoming boats. So lots of jobs. The people who work there will want to live nearby. They'll want to buy goods and services. Industry will want to exist nearby to take advantage of the shipping. This means more jobs, and more goods and services, requiring yet more people. This is the basis of damn near every major city in the world. There is no way that there isn't a major city in that spot until the Mississippi dries up.
Of course it is. There isn't even a question about it. The correct question to ask is "is it more addictive, or is addiction to it more harmful to the victim or others, than other legal substances?" For example, alcohol. Or for that matter, video games or gambling, both of which can be addictive.
That's where the answer is no, it's no more dangerous than alcohol, and may well be less. At the very least I see fewer violent responses to it. Definitely not worth the cost we spend to police it, when treating it as a health problem would be cheaper. But if you really think it's not addictive you need to get your head out of your ass, look at the medical literature. Or just look at how many people continue to smoke pot as they throw their lives away.
Yes, because nobody lives in and spends most of their time in major metropolitan areas.
Or you could have multiple models and allow people to decide their own likes and dislikes.
That's why I refuse to buy Apple products- their belief that they know best and refusal to listen to other opinions. I don't care how good you think your keyboard is, I want something like Swype. I don't care how nice you think the 3.5 inch screen is, I want something a bit bigger. I don't care how great you think your email client is, I want the option of using another. Other vendors give us this, Apple does not. And on a side note, I find they're wrong a significant amount of the time, exceeding 50%- their UIs really do tend to suck for anyone who isn't blown away by ooh shinies.