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Paul Graham: News from the Front

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Re: Paul Graham: News from the Front

#101

Post by euccastro »

bharath wrote: post #22
jey wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vaporware? That's not really new. Anyway, they're probably at +3 standard deviations for "newness" compared to all tech startups. Kind of a high bar to match.

Well.. its not so much the vaporware aspect of things... Succeeding in search today is all about scaling. Only the big three have what it takes to build huge data centers. A startup the size of powerset -- not really. Natural language search is something that the average search engine user would consider a "cool feature" at best. The real power of a search engine comes from its ability to cater to the long tail -- wh…

Natural language search is something that the average search engine user would consider a "cool feature" at best.

But natural language search that works would be HUGE.

Re: Paul Graham: News from the Front

#102

Post by corentin »

euccastro wrote: post #100
corentin wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I have to agree that the technology behind justin.tv is quite interesting. Right now, it seems like it's only used by a bunch of exhibitionist and egocentric persons in a real TV fashion, but it will probably end up being used for more interesting stuff (like, say, a sailor racing across the world). On the other hand, they'd be stupid not to go where the money is (that is, were all the MySpace generation kids ar…

A sailor racing across the world would be dead boring in real time. It would be interesting to watch a half-hour documentary summarizing a couple months worth of travel. Then again, I guess that's true for all kinds of reality TV we've seen so far, including justin.tv.

Most people are dead boring in real time; a sailor, an astronaut or any other kind of explorer is just a little bit less boring than a teenage girl buying whatever crap.

Re: Paul Graham: News from the Front

#103

Post by andreyf »

dfranke wrote: post #80
brlewis wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In response to your first paragraph, I think more people should obsess about where there kids go to kindergarten. Not obsess about how a selective kindergarten will help them get into the right college, but about whether the environment will suppress creativity, being a self-starter, and intellectual curiosity, as most schools do. Unfortunately, schools that nurture those qualities usually cost money.

One of my biggest motivations for getting rich is so that when I have kids, I can afford to home-school them.

Aye.

Re: Paul Graham: News from the Front

#104

Post by andreyf »

cellis wrote: post #87
npk wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it ironic that Peter Norvig touts this view, but works at google? I've heard that GPA/pedigree are one of the key decisions for hiring?

Actually I think its the problem solving questions that they ask you. I may be mistaken,since I don't work there. Theres an article in businessweek or b2.0 about it right now. Things such as "You are shrunk to the size of a nickel..preserving your density proportional...and put in a blender...you have 5 seconds before the blades start moving - what do you do?

Go to the center part of the blender, which doesn't spin?

Re: Paul Graham: News from the Front

#105

Post by gojomo »

pg wrote: post #93
michael_nielsen wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably, your data can only show that it doesn't matter what school you went to, conditional on being accepted by YC. That is a completely different statement than showing that it doesn't matter what school you went to. Your article appears to me like it is conflating the two.

No, I'm also considering people we invite for interviews.

So the conjecture of the essay is some combination of the following:

(1) Conditional on having applied to YC, YC finds that having attended a prestigious college makes one no more likely to be selected for interviews.

(2) Conditional on having been selected for YC interviews, YC finds that having attended a prestigious college makes one no more likely to receive YC support.

(3) Conditional on receiving YC support, YC finds that having attended a prestigious college makes one no more likely to succeed in the market (here defined as visibly thriving within about a year).

Given the initial essay's strong emphasis on market success as the ultimate verifier (paragraphs 5-8), I thought the main idea was (3) -- but if interview invites/subjective-evaluations are a factor, some amount of (1) and (2) are mixed in, too.

Re: Paul Graham: News from the Front

#106

Post by SwellJoe »

cellis wrote: post #87
npk wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it ironic that Peter Norvig touts this view, but works at google? I've heard that GPA/pedigree are one of the key decisions for hiring?

Actually I think its the problem solving questions that they ask you. I may be mistaken,since I don't work there. Theres an article in businessweek or b2.0 about it right now. Things such as "You are shrunk to the size of a nickel..preserving your density proportional...and put in a blender...you have 5 seconds before the blades start moving - what do you do?

Google is a total slut for a high GPA, make no mistake about that.

Google also has a list of schools that are considered top-tier, and if you're not from one of those, you're unlikely to be hired. I don't believe Google has always been this way--and I think the pressure to raise the hiring bar in so many artificial ways comes not from any elitism, but from the fact that Google is hiring way too fast, and the folks at the top know it. By ruling out everyone below a quite high academic threshold, they've cut down the number of applicants under consideration.

I suspect, but don't know for sure, that if you have a long track record of producing good results, you can still get hired by Google. I received a recruitment letter from them, but never followed up by going through the hiring process to find out if someone with a couple of two year community college degrees (and no computer science classes at all aside from AP high school classes--I tested out of all of the computer-related classes for my degrees) could get hired there, based on the strength of accomplishments, alone. The letter came two days after I accepted funding from YC, and a few months after we started making money with Virtualmin, so it wasn't really of interest at all. But now that I think about it, it would have been an interesting experiment.

Re: Paul Graham: News from the Front

#107

Post by SwellJoe »

andreyf wrote: post #104
cellis wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually I think its the problem solving questions that they ask you. I may be mistaken,since I don't work there. Theres an article in businessweek or b2.0 about it right now. Things such as "You are shrunk to the size of a nickel..preserving your density proportional...and put in a blender...you have 5 seconds before the blades start moving - what do you do?

Go to the center part of the blender, which doesn't spin?

There's no "right" answer to this kind of puzzle. The purpose is to see how you think through problems.

The 5 second limitation makes it a little less useful for that purpose, though...and, in general, I've never liked this particular puzzle question.

Besides, the center part of my blender does spin...it's what holds the blade.

Re: Paul Graham: News from the Front

#108

Post by cstejerean »

whacked_new wrote: post #59
edw519 wrote: post #55

Here's another dirty little secret: Your grades don't matter either. I still chuckle when I think of the drones in my fraternity that missed the best 4 years of their lives because their heads were stuck in their books. Sure, they got 4.0 averages, but who cares now?

They matter in different ways. High grades are like the good college. It's instant attention. If your goal is to work on Wall Street, good grades are an advantage. Just depends on what you want to do. Similarly, high IQ implies smart, but low IQ does not imply unsmart.

Grades matter only if you have no other experience. If you want to work on Wallstreet chances are you don't have much experience coming out of school. But after you get the right experience nobody cares about grades. The question is whether or not you can get the right experience in the time you would otherwise waste worrying about grades.

Re: Paul Graham: News from the Front

#109

Post by dfranke »

cellis wrote: post #87
npk wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it ironic that Peter Norvig touts this view, but works at google? I've heard that GPA/pedigree are one of the key decisions for hiring?

Actually I think its the problem solving questions that they ask you. I may be mistaken,since I don't work there. Theres an article in businessweek or b2.0 about it right now. Things such as "You are shrunk to the size of a nickel..preserving your density proportional...and put in a blender...you have 5 seconds before the blades start moving - what do you do?

Is there anything else in the blender, i.e., do I have to worry about air as well as the blades?

If not, blender blades rarely reach the very bottom of the pitcher. Lie flat underneath them.

Re: Paul Graham: News from the Front

#110

Post by rokhayakebe »

dfranke wrote: post #80
brlewis wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In response to your first paragraph, I think more people should obsess about where there kids go to kindergarten. Not obsess about how a selective kindergarten will help them get into the right college, but about whether the environment will suppress creativity, being a self-starter, and intellectual curiosity, as most schools do. Unfortunately, schools that nurture those qualities usually cost money.

One of my biggest motivations for getting rich is so that when I have kids, I can afford to home-school them.

Touche
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