Live data from Hacker News

Why YC went to DC

ycombinator.com

151–160 of 407 posts

Re: Why YC went to DC

#151
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like VR in 2018. I'd love to see a Silicon Valley season for the current tech environment.

VR won’t touch every aspect of society and government and corporate operations in five years. AI will.

I remember people saying the same about blockchain and, a little later, "the metaverse". A prominent, large tech company even changed its name to show its commitment to this promising technology!

Re: Why YC went to DC

#152
post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think 2018 was the year of FinTech, which translates mostly to "altcoins". I was looking for a job in the summer of 2018 and that's what all the ads were for. Ended up working for an ISP though, which was nice.

Haven’t seen any “Web 3” shills for a long time, gone right out of style it has!

Didn't stop YC from funding almost 100 of them[0] including signal boosting[1] this obvious scam that blatantly ripped off another's website and company too.[2]

[0] https://www.ycombinator.com/companies?tags=Crypto%20%2F%20We...

[1] https://x.com/ycombinator/status/1517556338750074881?lang=en

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31686140

Re: Why YC went to DC

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a dozen people worked hard enough to gain the knowledge that gets them “rest and vest” at Google, they deserve it. Monetary reward is the reason we’re working at all. It’s not for the greater good. You’re certainly not going to convince anyone to give the government power to deny them their right to take the money and run

It's not about the workers. It's not about the market. Hiring all the staff at an inflated rate to put a competitor out of business is good for the staff that got hired. Without competition the dominant player makes more, without other places to work dominant player pays less. > It’s not for the greater good. Your not getting paid because your valuable your getting paid out because its anti-competitive. Paying you mo…

You’re absolutely getting paid because you’re valuable, otherwise Google wouldn’t need to buy you out to enact their anti-competitive behavior. You wouldn’t be a threat in the first place.

Re: Why YC went to DC

#154

If you need more things to fix: * Software R&D Amortization - taxes on make-believe profits * Patent law - protect small businesses from patent trolls * Automate government-driven compliance standards - enable small businesses to sell into large companies/government entities, automatic certification when using pre-approved cloud solutions. * Healthcare insurance - employees of SMBs automatically get access to medicar…

Healthcare insurance - employees of SMBs automatically get access to medicare This puts you in the same company of abusing the system as Walmart, the nation's biggest welfare queen. Employers should just have to give health benefits. You want workers, you pay benefits. Period. Maybe then you all will get on board for a single payer system. Its what you want, but only in fits and starts. quit fucking around already.

What if someone doesn't offer enough to his employer to justify the healthcare coverage? They should just not be able to work legally?

Re: Why YC went to DC

#155
post #14

"This year, we’ll fund more than 500 companies out of 50,000 applications, and almost all of them are related to AI in some way." So, what this means: that in 2024, if you want to get VC capital, your startup must be related to AI.

I love the constant flex of their tiny acceptance rate. "We only accept 1% of applicants. Btw everyone should apply!"

The collective man hours wasted on appe every year for what is essentially a lottery is insane.

Re: Why YC went to DC

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> * Automate government-driven compliance standards - enable small businesses to sell into large companies/government entities, automatic certification when using pre-approved cloud solutions. I don't see how this will end well. I appreciate the reasoning behind it, but this is not a good solution. I'd prefer to see more "startup friendly" compliance frameworks that don't require tens to hundreds of thousands of doll…

I'd also prefer to see these standards go away. I haven't seen any proof they are providing meaningful security at any company I've been at and several of them have had massive hacks despite being SOC2 on paper. They also eat up InfoSec time instead of being productive on meaningful stuff like "Hey, are patching everything?" Most of these compliance just seem like barber licenses. A way for existing entities entrench…

Here here. The only thing SOC2 has done in my opinion is to create a multibillion dollar business that mainly just drains resources from companies that may not have them, with no guarantees you're actually secure. This usually devolves into security theatre where the CISO and underlings are putting in tools that drown teams with so much noise it's hard to detect the signal.

The people running these programs rarely understand the security space well enough to even tell you what a lot of the hits even mean, which ramps up disdain and division between the groups. This is arguably more detrimental to security as the scanners give execs/management a false sense of security while the noise makes it incredibly difficult to run a holistic security strategy.

Re: Why YC went to DC

#157
I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I had a surprisingly positive reaction to this piece. It will be hard to avoid, but I think that preventing GenAI from turning into yet another tech oligopoly is hugely important.

For one, it absolutely will stifle innovation if one or a few companies can control the market. Just look at what Google has done with their money printing monopoly money over the past decade.

Competition will be doubly important if modern AI can fullfill much of the current hype. That kind of power in the hands of a sophisticated used car salesman like Sam Altman will be bad in so many ways.

Re: Why YC went to DC

#158
post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Non-human entities aren't entitled to 1st amendment protections. The vast majority of speech that needs to remain protected for speech to remain meaningfully free happens through non-human entities. Removing that protection is an absolutely insane step.

Happens via, but starts with individuals (or should!). What we have now is the worst of both worlds: - Individual speech is censored at whim by non-government platforms that are unavoidable. - While giant companies are empowered to speak anything they want (speaking as the company). That doesn't seem ass-backwards? We should be prioritizing individual speech / power, and disempowering corporate speech.

Says who? Even the aspiring indie filmmaker wants limited liability not unlimited liability.

Re: Why YC went to DC

#159

If you need more things to fix: * Software R&D Amortization - taxes on make-believe profits * Patent law - protect small businesses from patent trolls * Automate government-driven compliance standards - enable small businesses to sell into large companies/government entities, automatic certification when using pre-approved cloud solutions. * Healthcare insurance - employees of SMBs automatically get access to medicar…

Of these, the Section 174 debacle (software R&D amortization) is arguably the problem that needs to be addressed most urgently.

Couldn't agree more. In the SMEs that I've been involved with, this has had a huge chilling effect on both hiring and innovation. I think that the change is a primary contributing factor to the layoffs and offshoring that have seized the market ever since.

I'm not convinced that this wasn't the intent of the change in the first place.

Re: Why YC went to DC

#160
> This country is built on the idea of rugged individualism, ingenuity, and grit.

> It’s also built on the idea of equal opportunity

Anybody else get “out of touch” vibes from this post?

Post reply on HN