151–160 of 312 posts
In the context of "The people who come to us from big companies often seem kind of conservative." --- how do founders coming out of academia fair? Specifically, founders with, at least, a few years towards a phd.
The idea that there is a certain "natural" size to groups of people reminds me of the Monkeysphere essay: http://www.pointlesswasteoftime.com/monkeysphere.html The size of a monkeysphere is estimated to be 150 people, which is quite a bit larger than the 10-person group Paul advocates, but I guess you need to know at least a few people outside of work. :) I wonder if the problem with large corporations is that you do…
Dunbar's number is a limit on the size of a society, not on the size of a group that can work together to complete a task.
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Thus the debit card was invented.
credit cards are great for building credit, which is useful for other things, like buying a house
He was nervous about his organizational ability, and decided not to get one. Four years later, he had a tough time getting an apartment in SF because he had no credit.
It's stupid, and credit card companies definitely target college students knowing that many of them will end up paying severe penalties and interest charges. But the thing is, they'll give you a credit card because you're a college student without the same credit history they'd want to see after college. So if you have the discipline to charge very small amounts and always pay it off on time, it is wise to get one.
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A lot of people these days (myself included) have chronic conditions that require ongoing regular doctor visits and/or medication. Even at a high premium level, insurance is cheaper than paying out of pocket (my maintenance medication costs $48k annually!). I guess you could argue that that makes me not a good candidate for a startup... which is why I still work for BigCo, and work on my startup at night (N.B not the…
Ahhh, very true. I imagine it would be nearly impossible to get a plan outside of a company with $48k guaranteed outlay, since you wouldn't have coworkers helping to even out the cost for the insurance company. I guess there are always government backed plans like COBRA for cases like that. I think the best candidates for startups are the ones who actually make the leap... everything else is accounting... best of luc…
This is why the company has to pay for this stuff. I'm pretty useless if I get sick...
> producing fresh vegetables doesn't [scale] The reason starchy and hydrogenated foods dominate is agricultural subsidies, not so much natural economies. If you killed corn and soy subsidies a whole lot of junk food would disappear. Fritos are only cheaper than sauerkraut because you paid part of the frito bill when you filed taxes. Healthy fresh vegetables are most definitely mass produced. Running with the metaphor…
It's true that farmers of commodities like corn and wheat have the government wrapped around their fingers. But the reason they're big enough to do that is that their market scales. No one has invented a fresh carrot that can sit on a shelf for six months the way a candy bar can.
What's a "specialty crop"? The general rule appears to bet that if it is a recognizable vegetable that would appear in it's natural form on your dinner table, it's a specialty crop. Interestingly, many of the nation's (and world's) specialty crops are either locally grown, or are shipped in from California.
If it gets processed into something no longer recognizable as food, it's not a specialty crop, and is most likely getting subsidized.
Ironically, the government recommended food pyramid is the inverse of government subsidies.
I am a 27 year old programmer and have worked for two small companies ( < 20 employees ) and for one company of 200+ employees. The only thing I can say about working for the large company is that it felt like breathing through a straw. Go work for a small company or as Paul Graham suggests, go start up your own. Leave the big companies for the burnt-out folk with kids and debt.
I used to work for a defense company that eventually got bought by a mega defense company. It was ~3000 people in various parts of the country and it was started by a man who deeply believed in the power of the entrepreneurial spirit. It had that free for all structure that PG says he'd never seen in a tech company. It was the wild west. We had different groups competing for the same government contracts. Managers an…
Being from the defense sector, I'd love to know what companies you're talking about. Although I bet you don't want to get into that. Anyway, in a week I'll be leaving my 1000+ people company for a 5 people startup! Interesting times ahead...
This is now one of my favorites. Could not agree more. You sum up very well my reasons for leaving IBM to do a startup. I keep trying to give my friends who're still there and working for other companies this message. They don't get it.
I think the people to whom this advice applies already know that something is wrong, and that there must be something better than the corporate monotony. All they need is some encouragement, and a bit of a support network.
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I've heard some Amazon employees say something similar (but maybe not as enthusiastically) about Amazon. One person described their structure to me as "like terrorist cells": it's understood (and encouraged) that 3 different teams are all trying to implement the same thing, in completely different languages and with completely different interfaces. They might not even know the others exist, until they ship. Hopefully…
Theres a view in economics that you 'can not play market' within the boundaries of the firm. That is to say if there is an overseeing committee that can end a project prematurely then you are not really having market forces operate 'within' the firm and are doomed to failure. There have been a couple of companies that have tried to do this. It is documented in the following book by Nicolai Foss: http://www.amazon.com…
And yet founders live almost exclusively on pizza...