Since the thread has been nearly entirely about the baity title, we changed the latter to a more neutral sentence from the article.
OpenGov, a startup intended to transform the way governments manage tax dollars
11–20 of 24 posts
Re: OpenGov, a startup intended to transform the way governments manage tax dollars
#12I am amused that to cut through the noise the author - a former Developmental Biology graduate student, who went on to found a successful bio-tech startup, who presently lectures at Stanford and is a partner in one of the premier VC's in the valley - is foced to use linkbait to drive eyeballs to his article just like the rest of us hustlers. (1) https://www.linkedin.com/in/balajissrinivasan
The "lecturing at Stanford" is also oversold. He taught one instance of a MOOC that was really one of the most poorly prepared I've ever experienced, and eventually devolved into him reading nearly verbatim from a written PDF.
EDIT: I toned down the criticism slightly and made it more specific (changed "worst" to "most poorly prepared").
Re: OpenGov, a startup intended to transform the way governments manage tax dollars
#13Since the thread has been nearly entirely about the baity title, we changed the latter to a more neutral sentence from the article.
While I understand your intentions I believe your action to be incorrect. The original title of the post was the exact title of the source article. Also the OP is associated with opengov so they were presumably satisfied with the title.
As you stated the thread has been mainly about the title. That was what posters found the most interesting part of a fluff piece.
Re: OpenGov, a startup intended to transform the way governments manage tax dollars
#14I am amused that to cut through the noise the author - a former Developmental Biology graduate student, who went on to found a successful bio-tech startup, who presently lectures at Stanford and is a partner in one of the premier VC's in the valley - is foced to use linkbait to drive eyeballs to his article just like the rest of us hustlers. (1) https://www.linkedin.com/in/balajissrinivasan
The "lecturing at Stanford" is also oversold. He taught one instance of a MOOC that was really one of the most poorly prepared I've ever experienced, and eventually devolved into him reading nearly verbatim from a written PDF. EDIT: I toned down the criticism slightly and made it more specific (changed "worst" to "most poorly prepared").
He taught statistics at Stanford for a few years. He also taught startup engineering (CS184) before doing the MOOC.
Re: OpenGov, a startup intended to transform the way governments manage tax dollars
#15As somebody who is interested in improving my awareness of local politics, I think this is really great. Not only have these guys created a beautiful interface for viewing budget allocations, they have actually convinced governments to use it. I look forward to the day this comes to San Francisco. Even those with no interest in politics will be better off for it, as greater transparency will surely improve the way our money is being spent.
As usual, most HN comments are negative. I've met Balaji, and he can talk some good hype when he wants to, but I think it's hardly disingenuous or linkbaity to emphasize that OpenGov already has customers with $50 billion in revenues/spending. It could potentially be used by any city, state, or national government, or really any large organization spending public dollars. That's an enormous potential market.
Re: OpenGov, a startup intended to transform the way governments manage tax dollars
#16I am amused that to cut through the noise the author - a former Developmental Biology graduate student, who went on to found a successful bio-tech startup, who presently lectures at Stanford and is a partner in one of the premier VC's in the valley - is foced to use linkbait to drive eyeballs to his article just like the rest of us hustlers. (1) https://www.linkedin.com/in/balajissrinivasan
[deleted]
Re: OpenGov, a startup intended to transform the way governments manage tax dollars
#17Since the thread has been nearly entirely about the baity title, we changed the latter to a more neutral sentence from the article.
While I understand your intentions I believe your action to be incorrect. The original title of the post was the exact title of the source article. Also the OP is associated with opengov so they were presumably satisfied with the title. As you stated the thread has been mainly about the title. That was what posters found the most interesting part of a fluff piece.
Thanks for caring enough to make this comment.
I'm actually fine with the title change as the original title seems to be confusing to some.
Re: OpenGov, a startup intended to transform the way governments manage tax dollars
#18The title is nonsensical. The company's clients have 50 billion in revenue so that makes opengov a 50 billion dollar company? By that logic the food caterer to Apple is a 100 (?) billion dollar company. Prior to reading the article I thought the main purpose of opengov was to help local governments facilitate open access to their data. When I have come across a government that uses opengov it is in reality more of a…
You might as well just call it a "17 trillion dollar company" to claim credit for the entire US GDP.
You're hired!
-Ben Horowitz
Re: OpenGov, a startup intended to transform the way governments manage tax dollars
#19If you want to learn more about the Civic Tech/Gov Tech space, checkout the Code for America Summit live stream when it continues tomorrow at http://www.codeforamerica.org/summit/
(Shameless plug: I will be presenting about our start-up tomorrow)
It's not just A16Z who's getting into this space. Check out the new fund by Ron Bouganim.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/09/15...
And obviously, Y-Combinator is now getting into the government space. https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/
It's been a slow build, but the industry is huge.
Re: OpenGov, a startup intended to transform the way governments manage tax dollars
#20Since the thread has been nearly entirely about the baity title, we changed the latter to a more neutral sentence from the article.
While I understand your intentions I believe your action to be incorrect. The original title of the post was the exact title of the source article. Also the OP is associated with opengov so they were presumably satisfied with the title. As you stated the thread has been mainly about the title. That was what posters found the most interesting part of a fluff piece.
It's not a question of intent but of the site rules. The rule is to use the original title unless it is misleading or linkbait [1]. In this case it was arguably both, so the original title was ruled out.
One reason why baity titles are precluded is that they cause precisely the sort of bikeshed title war that brought this thread down.