Talent Acquisitions • Hacker News Board

Re: Talent Acquisitions

#141

Post by sigkill » Sat, Jul 21, 2012, 9:05 PM UTC

hntester123 wrote: post #137

sigkill wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> App Stores have made consumer software cost expectations too cheap. Not just that. Previously when you released a paid desktop app, you weren't expected to give out free upgrades to the user. With the App store model, if a user purchases your app at V1, and five years down the line you're making a V4, the user will probably still feel entitled to getting the "update" (note, I said update, not upgrade) for free.

What do you mean by update vs. upgrade? Update = bug fixes only vs. upgrade = more features? Or something else?

Oh sorry I should clarify myself. But yes, you are correct.

Update is basically like bug fixes, or resolving incompatibilities and stuff like that. [For eg. Windows XP -> SP1 -> SP2 -> SP3]

Upgrade would mean adding new features. Moving along with the times. New technologies etc.

Re: Talent Acquisitions

#142

Post by hntester123 » Sun, Jul 22, 2012, 12:02 AM UTC

sigkill wrote: post #141

hntester123 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by update vs. upgrade? Update = bug fixes only vs. upgrade = more features? Or something else?

Oh sorry I should clarify myself. But yes, you are correct. Update is basically like bug fixes, or resolving incompatibilities and stuff like that. [For eg. Windows XP -> SP1 -> SP2 -> SP3] Upgrade would mean adding new features. Moving along with the times. New technologies etc.

Got it, thanks.

Re: Talent Acquisitions

#143

Post by neilparikh » Sun, Jul 22, 2012, 6:10 AM UTC

yuliyp wrote: post #122

I'm having a tough time understanding talent acquisitions. You have a set of people working for the startup and the outside investors in the startup, and you have an outside company trying to purchase them. The outside company offers $X for the company in an acquihire. Let's say all the outside investors own fraction Y of the company. Why can't the outside company offer a total of X * (1-.5Y) in signing bonuses to th…

This is explained well in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4272973

Re: Talent Acquisitions

#144

Post by andy_herbert » Sun, Jul 22, 2012, 9:25 AM UTC

> I was only able to reject those offers because Instapaper is a healthy business, and the life that Instapaper provides for me and my family is better than what the big companies offered.

The subtext I'm reading here is that none of the offers Marco has received yet are attractive enough for him accept. So he is in the exact-same position as Pulp Wallet and Sparrow then, it's likely that quite a few offers came knocking before the right one came along.

Re: Talent Acquisitions

#145

Post by rmc » Tue, Jul 24, 2012, 7:22 PM UTC

podperson wrote: post #93

jazzychad wrote: post #9

Well, congrats to Marco for having a successful and sustainable business where he has the option and leverage to decide what he wants to do when these offers come knocking. Most startup/bootstrapped companies are not in that position. Most end up failing and winding up with nothing, but there are some that will end up with these talent acquisition situations. Remember, both sides (the acquirers and the acquirees) hav…

Personally, I think that software should be protected by copyright only if its source code is placed in escrow and made available (a) when the copyright expires or (b) when the software ceases to be commercially available / supported (just as you can legally photocopy copyright books and pay a nominal per-page fee if they're out of print). The purpose of copyright is to provide a limited monopoly in the interest of c…

I really really like the idea of non-commercial use of a copyrighted work being legal 1 year (or so) after a copyrighted work is no longer commercially available. If it's not commercially viable, then copying it isn't going to lead to a loss sale, and it means that a work isn't locked away for 50 years.

Re: Talent Acquisitions

#146

Post by podperson » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 9:09 PM UTC

wmf wrote: post #100

bcbrown wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that would work. You don't need copyright protection for closed-source code, because it's closed; no one can see it anyway.

I think podperson is talking about copyright protection for closed-source binaries.

Exactly. Closed source binaries are protected by "copyright" the way written works are. But written works are useful in and of themselves, whereas closed source binaries really aren't. It's the useful part -- the source code and algorithms -- that we want to become a public good, not the incomprehensible black box.

To get copyright protection you should be forced, eventually, to give away the good stuff.

Interestingly, in the early days of software development a lot of programmers didn't quite know what they needed to do to protect their software under copyright, and some I know personally went so far as to print out their code as books and deposit them with national libraries.