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New RFS – Breakthrough Technologies

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: New RFS – Breakthrough Technologies

#61

Post by kyro »

d0m wrote: post #55

We're dead serious about applying and getting in YC. We do RFS #8 (Ephemeralization Apps) and now, thanks to this post, we're also on the RFS "Improving healthcare". I have a request to existing founders, mentors or partners of YC: We have an amazing team and a real problem we're solving in healthcare. Hundreds of doctors are waiting to use our app. I'm wondering if you could help us by reviewing our application and…

I'm in medicine and interested in hearing about what you guys are making. Email is in my profile.

Re: New RFS – Breakthrough Technologies

#62

Post by larrys »

Separately this messages needs to be carried front and center on the YC homepage and become part of an outbound marketing effort and materials as well as PR.

If not how would someone who doesn't know about YC or follow it (or read this blog post on HN) know to apply if that is what they are contemplating doing?

YC has for sure tons of applicants. But there are almost certainly a large number of people out there that don't know the ropes and don't know it even exists. There is really (afaik) no widespread farm team development that feeds into YC.

Re: New RFS – Breakthrough Technologies

#63

Post by mullingitover »

mikeyouse wrote: post #51
mullingitover wrote: post #22

> Throughout history, when the cost of energy has come down a lot (for example, with the steam engine) I'm going to have to review my physics textbook, but I could swear that steam engine consumes energy. edit: Can't believe I'm getting downvoted. I thought this place was full of pedantic engineers, like me? The steam engine turns energy into work. If anything, it probably increased the price of energy (at least temp…

> I'm going to have to review my physics textbook, but I could swear that steam engine consumes energy. If you're going to be pedantic, at least be correct. If you were to consult your physics textbook, somewhere near the beginning under the heading "Conservation of Energy", you'd see that the steam engine neither creates nor destroys energy, merely transforms it into a different form.

I didn't say that the steam engine created or destroyed energy, but that it consumes it (e.g. it burns coal and uses the energy to perform work). Conservation of energy is a given.

Re: New RFS – Breakthrough Technologies

#67

Post by jonlemmon »

"We're interested in ways to use the Internet to fix government"

That's what Loomio is doing: http://boingboing.net/2014/03/19/loomio-democratic-decision-...

Building infrastructure for citizens to self-govern. Using the internet to enable large-scale decision-making, without the need of large government.

Re: New RFS – Breakthrough Technologies

#68

Post by pbreit »

dsugarman wrote: post #2

SpaceX and Tesla were really possible because of the large amounts of money that Elon put into the companies, it is estimated that Elon invested $100MM into SpaceX. his extremely impressive resume was not enough to receive the level of funding to get the company off the ground (get it?) how can a first time entrepreneur actually receive substantial investment without putting in such a large personal investment?

But Tesla is a good example of starting reasonably. The Roadster was mostly a Lotus Elise and the batteries were off-the-shelf notebook batteries, for example.

Re: New RFS – Breakthrough Technologies

#69

Post by CodeMage »

"It used to be the case that governments funded a lot of development of breakthrough technologies. The bad news is that they have mostly stopped; the good news is that the leverage of technology is such that now small startups can do what used to take the resources of nations."

Honest question: if small startups can now do what used to take the resources of nations, isn't there something even cooler that the resources of a nation could do? I'm not knocking what small startups can and do achieve, but in the last few years I've started feeling like the humanity is sort of giving up on big ambitions and ideals of unity, of making big breakthroughs together.

Re: New RFS – Breakthrough Technologies

#70

Post by kyro »

porker wrote: post #64

> "We are getting close to spending 20% of our GDP on healthcare; this is unsustainable." Really? Why should 20% be unsustainable?

Because there are other countries who are delivering high-quality healthcare for less, and our (USA) healthcare expenditure is outpacing GDP growth.
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