Paul Graham's Letter to YC Companies • Hacker News Board

Re: Paul Graham's Letter to YC Companies

#31

Post by rdl » Tue, Jun 05, 2012, 5:13 AM UTC

waterlesscloud wrote: post #25

cdixon wrote: post #19

This happens every couple of years in tech. I've personally witnessed 3 downturns now. One was real and two were arguably the best time to start companies. Raising money might be harder, but generally only for bad companies.

Why would they be good times to start companies? Less clutter for investors to sort through and more available talent?

Also, fewer marginal companies over-funded and thus competing with you (maybe by selling at below long term cost).

Re: Paul Graham's Letter to YC Companies

#32

Post by jayzee » Tue, Jun 05, 2012, 5:14 AM UTC

So here is an idea for an email feature/gmail plugin: 'Semantic Scramble' Basically, any sensitive email that you send to a bunch of people is automatically scrambled (retaining original meaning/correct grammar, just a small shuffling of words) so that each person gets a unique email. Easy to find out who leaked it. You could add a similar unique jitter for sensitive photos/images...

Re: Paul Graham's Letter to YC Companies

#33

Post by Alex3917 » Tue, Jun 05, 2012, 5:14 AM UTC

pg wrote: post #22

Note incidentally that I'm talking about the performance of the IPO, not the performance of Facebook itself. I think Facebook as a company is in a strong position. The problem is simply that Mr. Market ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Intelligent_Investor ) doesn't think so at the moment.

Out of curiosity, why is it that Facebook's IPO would hurt early stage valuations, when all of Facebook's early investors made hundreds of millions or billions of dollars? I could see it getting harder to IPO at a good valuation for a few years, but that shouldn't drive down early stage valuations all that much. Also, to me the most interesting thing to watch (beyond Spain) is these new crowdsourcing laws going into effect January 1st. That has the potential to drive hundreds of millions of dollars into the angel space overnight, sending valuations through the roof or at least keeping them propped up for a while.

Re: Paul Graham's Letter to YC Companies

#34

Post by cdixon » Tue, Jun 05, 2012, 5:14 AM UTC

jayzee wrote: post #32

So here is an idea for an email feature/gmail plugin: 'Semantic Scramble' Basically, any sensitive email that you send to a bunch of people is automatically scrambled (retaining original meaning/correct grammar, just a small shuffling of words) so that each person gets a unique email. Easy to find out who leaked it. You could add a similar unique jitter for sensitive photos/images...

The canary trap.

Re: Paul Graham's Letter to YC Companies

#35

Post by pg » Tue, Jun 05, 2012, 5:15 AM UTC

jcitme wrote: post #27

pg wrote: post #22

Note incidentally that I'm talking about the performance of the IPO, not the performance of Facebook itself. I think Facebook as a company is in a strong position. The problem is simply that Mr. Market ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Intelligent_Investor ) doesn't think so at the moment.

> I think Facebook as a company is in a strong position. Just curious, but I'd like to hear your opinion on why this is the case, vs all the naysayers that are betting against the company now. Do you have any specific point you find that Facebook can leverage to maintain success?

I don't think they've even tried to make money yet. They've just been focusing on growth. But they have so many users now that they could do whatever they want. Ideas that would entail a chicken and egg problem for anyone starting from scratch (e.g. marketplaces) do not for them.

Plus Mark himself is such a fearsomely effective person. And so young; he's only a little older now than Larry and Sergey were when they started Google; so he still has the energy and mental flexibility that's usually the only asset of founders just starting out.

Re: Paul Graham's Letter to YC Companies

#36

Post by Alex3917 » Tue, Jun 05, 2012, 5:18 AM UTC

jayzee wrote: post #32

So here is an idea for an email feature/gmail plugin: 'Semantic Scramble' Basically, any sensitive email that you send to a bunch of people is automatically scrambled (retaining original meaning/correct grammar, just a small shuffling of words) so that each person gets a unique email. Easy to find out who leaked it. You could add a similar unique jitter for sensitive photos/images...

That's called salting, and many firms already do it. I'm not aware of any software packages to automate this, but I haven't looked either.

Re: Paul Graham's Letter to YC Companies

#37

Post by lotharbot » Tue, Jun 05, 2012, 5:19 AM UTC

cdixon wrote: post #34

jayzee wrote: post #32

So here is an idea for an email feature/gmail plugin: 'Semantic Scramble' Basically, any sensitive email that you send to a bunch of people is automatically scrambled (retaining original meaning/correct grammar, just a small shuffling of words) so that each person gets a unique email. Easy to find out who leaked it. You could add a similar unique jitter for sensitive photos/images...

The canary trap.

For those not familiar with the term:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canary_trap

Re: Paul Graham's Letter to YC Companies

#38

Post by eddie_the_head » Tue, Jun 05, 2012, 5:20 AM UTC

cdixon wrote: post #34

jayzee wrote: post #32

So here is an idea for an email feature/gmail plugin: 'Semantic Scramble' Basically, any sensitive email that you send to a bunch of people is automatically scrambled (retaining original meaning/correct grammar, just a small shuffling of words) so that each person gets a unique email. Easy to find out who leaked it. You could add a similar unique jitter for sensitive photos/images...

The canary trap.

This is how the music industry does it with material they send out to different parties like reviewers or magazines with tools like Haulix, except they use watermarks that are undetectable to the ear but encoded in the file itself.

Wrt email however, I don't think Paul really minded that it was leaked or just realized it was futile to stop it, perhaps that's why he un-killed it.

Re: Paul Graham's Letter to YC Companies

#39

Post by rdl » Tue, Jun 05, 2012, 5:20 AM UTC

cdixon wrote: post #19

This happens every couple of years in tech. I've personally witnessed 3 downturns now. One was real and two were arguably the best time to start companies. Raising money might be harder, but generally only for bad companies.

Three? 2001-2002 was basically nuclear winter in my experience. 2008-2009 wasn't actually that bad except outside tech (although, I was in Iraq and Afghanistan during all of it). Before that, you'd have to go to early-1990s, when I was...12, and some HN readers weren't born.

Re: Paul Graham's Letter to YC Companies

#40

Post by cdixon » Tue, Jun 05, 2012, 5:22 AM UTC

pg wrote: post #35

jcitme wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think Facebook as a company is in a strong position. Just curious, but I'd like to hear your opinion on why this is the case, vs all the naysayers that are betting against the company now. Do you have any specific point you find that Facebook can leverage to maintain success?

I don't think they've even tried to make money yet. They've just been focusing on growth. But they have so many users now that they could do whatever they want. Ideas that would entail a chicken and egg problem for anyone starting from scratch (e.g. marketplaces) do not for them. Plus Mark himself is such a fearsomely effective person. And so young; he's only a little older now than Larry and Sergey were when they st…

Yes. Wall Street grades Facebook by drawing lines through dots of revenues and margins. The more accurate way to view Facebook is as a powerful coil that can spring in multiple directions. (I say this as someone who questions whether Facebook is a positive force on the web).