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Why YC went to DC

ycombinator.com

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Re: Why YC went to DC

#341

Post by lol768 »

Justsignedup wrote: post #327
siliconc0w wrote: post #9

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…

How about health insurance not being tied to profits. Startups pay the full brunt of health insurance since they don't have real profits they have nothing to write off. Meanwhile large orgs get to write off a ton of profits as Healthcare costs for employees. So startups tend to have real garbage insurance. As someone older with kids startups are getting more and more prohibitive because I need that Healthcare. Maybe…

Radical suggestion (maybe I'm too British): health insurance not being tied to employment or work whatsoever?

Re: Why YC went to DC

#342

Post by dmoy »

selimthegrim wrote: post #266
cameroncairns wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a practitioner, just a startup cofounder affected by these changes.. not legal or tax advice. You can read the applicable text here: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/174 Section 174(c)(3) ``` (3) Software development For purposes of this section, any amount paid or incurred in connection with the development of any software shall be treated as a research or experimental expenditure. ``` That being said.…

Does 174 apply to SBIR money?

It really depends on what you do / discover with the SBIR grant

See e.g. https://www.jamesoncpa.com/learning-center/irs-finally-issue...

Caveat, I've been out of the small lab SBIR world for 13-14 years

Re: Why YC went to DC

#343

Post by ejstronge »

pdonis wrote: post #235
yqx wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious what history Jack Clark is referring to here. If I think of the last thirty years of policy in most of Europe and the US I'm thinking of a strong trend of deregulation and giving more powers to markets, removing international trade barriers and so on. That seems to be a dynamic opposite to the one the quoted article is suggesting.

> If I think of the last thirty years of policy in most of Europe and the US I'm thinking of a strong trend of deregulation and giving more powers to markets That's been the PR spin, but it's not actually true. It's a smoke screen to help governments avoid actual accountability. For example, the crash of 2008 was blamed on too much market and not enough regulation, but in fact it was the opposite: regulatory thumbs o…

> for example the US government wanting to encourage home ownership and skewing the mortage [sic] market and the money supply and requiring lenders to accept more default risk

Are there economists who share your view on this? I don’t see how the issue of repackaging CDS and related products by a financial rating agency has anything to go with the government.

If you’re saying that the government forced buyers to abandon due diligence… I think we will have to disagree about the facts of the GFC

Re: Why YC went to DC

#344

Post by nradov »

Justsignedup wrote: post #327
siliconc0w wrote: post #9

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…

How about health insurance not being tied to profits. Startups pay the full brunt of health insurance since they don't have real profits they have nothing to write off. Meanwhile large orgs get to write off a ton of profits as Healthcare costs for employees. So startups tend to have real garbage insurance. As someone older with kids startups are getting more and more prohibitive because I need that Healthcare. Maybe…

There is no particular linkage between health insurance and profits. Small businesses such as early-stage startups tend to have worse and more expensive employee health plans because they lack the scale to go self-insured or to negotiate lower premiums with payers for fully-insured plans. Profitable small businesses face the same problem.

Re: Why YC went to DC

#345

Post by gaws »

bko wrote: post #155
mrb wrote: 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.

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

I've seen this mindset among people promoting open positions at desirable companies that don't hire often. In most cases, applying is a waste of time because the company already made its decision to fill the position with an internal candidate.

Re: Why YC went to DC

#346

Post by joelfried »

lol768 wrote: post #341
Justsignedup wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about health insurance not being tied to profits. Startups pay the full brunt of health insurance since they don't have real profits they have nothing to write off. Meanwhile large orgs get to write off a ton of profits as Healthcare costs for employees. So startups tend to have real garbage insurance. As someone older with kids startups are getting more and more prohibitive because I need that Healthcare. Maybe…

Radical suggestion (maybe I'm too British): health insurance not being tied to employment or work whatsoever?

Millions of us have been wishing for that our entire lives. We have about as much say in it as you do.

Re: Why YC went to DC

#347

Post by stackskipton »

Alexsky2 wrote: post #290
nurple wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 un…

I agree that regulatory compliance and industries around that can often be theater and it creates regulatory barriers that inhibit startups and competition generally but there must be some method of oversight to ensure that people can trust a system or company without needing to see the internals. For example, we trust our food is healthy because the firm that made it is authorized to do so by the FDA as they comply…

>What is needed in the current SOC2 world that might solve some of the issues you outlined without getting rid of it, or the idea of it, entirely?

IMO, nothing. It's not redeemable at all. Since you asked though, here is some thoughts:

Be more like FDA process where software is extensively reviewed, rollback procedures established, and you launch specific version with compliance. So basically two releases, maybe 4 a year.

Disallowing risk mitigation because IMO, that's result of most of problems. Oh yea, we are doing "Terrible Security thing but since fixing is too expensive, here is a bunch of lies about how we have mitigated it."

There is also option to make a government audit with criminal liability for falsifying/misleading auditors. This third-party system where auditors are getting paid results in problems. I've seen plenty of audits where bosses write up auditor requests is extremely specific ways that creatively leave out thing that should never be approved. I've also seen auditors be made aware of problem, then people backtrack, and auditors accept it because "They are also our customer and we need repeat business."

Re: Why YC went to DC

#348

Post by pdonis »

ejstronge wrote: post #343
pdonis wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I think of the last thirty years of policy in most of Europe and the US I'm thinking of a strong trend of deregulation and giving more powers to markets That's been the PR spin, but it's not actually true. It's a smoke screen to help governments avoid actual accountability. For example, the crash of 2008 was blamed on too much market and not enough regulation, but in fact it was the opposite: regulatory thumbs o…

> for example the US government wanting to encourage home ownership and skewing the mortage [sic] market and the money supply and requiring lenders to accept more default risk Are there economists who share your view on this? I don’t see how the issue of repackaging CDS and related products by a financial rating agency has anything to go with the government. If you’re saying that the government forced buyers to aband…

> I don’t see how the issue of repackaging CDS and related products by a financial rating agency has anything to go with the government.

The financial rating agencies are creatures of government regulation.

> If you’re saying that the government forced buyers to abandon due diligence

I said no such thing. I said that government regulations forced lenders to accept more default risk--meaning they were forced to lend to people they would not otherwise have lent to because the risk of default was too high. That's what "subprime mortgages" means, and those were a huge contributor to the crash.

Re: Why YC went to DC

#349

Post by Matticus_Rex »

ethbr1 wrote: post #191
MichaelZuo wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That's backwards reasoning though. If limited liability is a concern... we can just create that for individuals . I'm not convinced that Meta also needs the right to do whatever it wants, for the sake of aspiring indie filmmakers.

"If limited liability is a concern... we can just create that for individuals."

> laughs in lawyer

Re: Why YC went to DC

#350

Post by ripcanada »

dghlsakjg wrote: post #238
robertlagrant wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> institute a national, single-payer plan that covers everyone, like every other modern industrialized country The two (real, non-politicians are corrupt) downsides to contend with: - countries do this by limiting what they will spend; in the US you have access to unlimited treatment. E.g. in the UK the NHS will spend £30k for each good year it buys you - this one isn't fair, but the US is where health innovation hap…

I live in Canada and there isn’t a spending limit. The decision of how to treat is made by the doctor. The doctor is then paid. In my experience living on both sides of the border, you get far more care up here since there is no bullshit with finding a facility that accepts your insurance, and cost isn’t a consideration for doctors or patients. People will occasionally travel to the states for drug/therapy trials not…

>If you want the proof of it, remember that a huge majority of Canadians live close enough to drive to the US for health care, but don’t.

With Canada rapidly approaching third-world status, this is hardly surprising. Most Canadians cannot even afford to cross the border, much less pay American prices.

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