I thought this was a cool article until I read this line:
"But regardless of how successful Greplin is, say, even if we go public someday, my parents won't be satisfied unless I get a degree. They won't speak to me."
I came here to say the same thing (even worded the same way in my head).
Why are people so fixated on college degrees -- even if they've already built a profitable company from scratch? Is it to prove something? If so, what?
I don't think it's sad at all. People seem to forget that college can be about more than career advancement.
In this case, he clearly doesn't need a degree to be gainfully employed. Chances are that he's a pretty intelligent kid with other interests. If he puts 3-4 years into startups, not only will he probably be able to pay his own way through college, but will be at a point in life to appreciate the learning options a lot more (I can attest to this having taught many "older" undergraduates).
Maybe he'll develop an interest in advanced algorithms, or number theory, or neuroscience, or literature. At 19, there are a lot of possibilities in life, and college is a great way to be exposed to them, as well as people with passions in other fields.
It looks like he's using APIs, which means that he can only index as much data as the services are willing to provide. They can squeeze him out of business by shutting down or reducing access to the data whenever they please. Or just add to their API TOS that keeping a cached copy of the data is a no go.
The service would lose a lot of relevance if suddenly one of the main players like Facebook decided that they don't want to be indexed by Greplin anymore. Without long-term partnerships or contracts with all the stakeholders, I wouldn't bet on that horse.
Traditional media and established blogs have sympathy for small startups that take on giants like Google, etc. especially if they are founded by someone under 20.
btw, where is cuil now?
Nice piece. I have a question that comes up every time I read a "we came up with our Y-Combinator demo in the last weekend and got funded" story--is this rare? It seems like I hear it all the time, but maybe most of the "last 24 hour" demos don't get mentioned.
It's surprising to me to think it might be common, because my gut reaction is that this means the founders don't actually have a viable product, but because they got funded before they could figure that out, it will now take months or years for the founders to move on (or pivot significantly). I'd love to hear why that's not what's going on, though.
From the article, on going to college: "The way it works in Israel, you have to go to the army first"
I wonder how much this impacts the entrepreneurial mindset in male youth. I grew up mostly in Singapore, and they too have conscription upon reaching the age of 18 (with some exceptions, eg: for medicine and for national scholarship holders). From what I see from my friends' facebook channels, it's definitely a draining experience indeed, one that takes months to recover from once its done.
But Kudos to this guy! Greplin is pretty awesome and I've already put it to use.
I'm Israeli, so I thought I'd share on how the Army has a huge positive impact on entrepreneurship.
For a lot of Israelis who are smart, the army is a great experience that really helps them. For example, there is a very respected Programming Course in the Israeli army, which trains programmers for half a year. These programmers then go on to work on all the Armies' systems for the next 5 1/2 years. This course is called Mamram (I was in it).
This means that programmers in Israel are not only trained in a very intensive course for half a year, but they then go on to work on real-world (and often critical) systems, for 5 1/2 years. Which means there are many Israeli programmers who, at age 24, have 6 years of professional experience working on big, important systems.
Add to this that the Mamram course is very famous (most Israeli companies require programmers to either have a degree or be a graduate of Mamra). Also, serving 6 years in the army (and being in a course with 100 peers) means you get an incredible network of connections. I'm a good example - I'm working on my own startup with two people I served with in the army, and I know many people who either work at or run a lot of Israeli startups, just because I served with them at some point. I'm probably 2 hops from most startups in Israel, just because almost all of them hire programmers from the Mamram course.
OK that came out long. I only focused on the Mamram course since that's what I know best, but there are a lot of other fields the army is great for that have nothing to do with programming.
Met this guy sitting outside of Facebook a few months ago. Nice kid, smart, savvy. We chatted about Greplin and it sounded like he was making good progress... Let's hope he keeps it going...
Daniel, if you're on HN, I'd love to know how the visa/immigration situation worked out for you in this case (if you can publicly talk about it, I know that this is not always the case).
It's troubling how little of this article is about the actual service. I'm left wondering why this is worth $5m? Isn't this basically HotBot for signup services?
I just linked my Twitter account and have to say Greplin is scary fast on searches. I am not sure I would like another 3rd party indexing my emails, but will keep an eye on Greplin because of the twitter searches. I always wanted to search just my twitter stream, but I have never found, until now, such an easy and fast way to do it.
I think this would work (but I haven't tested it):
Convert the string to an array of integers called FORWARD.
Copy and flip the array into REVERSE. Subtract the values of REVERSE, offset by (0..length), pairwise from FORWARD. Then, just keep track of the longest block of zeros (index in FORWARD and length)
In this case, the password appears at an offset of 2
REVERSE(2): (0,0,14,14,19,17,0,2,4,2,0,17,4,10,8)
SUBTRACTED: (-8,-11,6,4,15,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,-15,-4,-6)
The longest zero block occurs at FORWARD[5] and ends at FORWARD[11]... in other words, racecar.
I did manage to solve all three problems and I really liked the way the problems were put up on the website.
Anyway, I would still suggest trying for some more time before looking at the solution that that I have provided here - https://gist.github.com/849813 .
The first problem itself took me most of the time. All this time I was trying to come up with a optimal approach (and was stuck in some boundary condition in implementation for Approach 1) until I realized that even a brute force solution will work in this case because of the smaller text input.
If you finish you're prompted to submit your code along with your resume for employment consideration. Keep that in mind as you move on to each next step. Had to piece together one of my solutions into a single solution.
https://www.greplin.com/jobs Here is the source of the challenge link which gives you a heads up it's for a job contest.
[+] [-] acconrad|15 years ago|reply
"But regardless of how successful Greplin is, say, even if we go public someday, my parents won't be satisfied unless I get a degree. They won't speak to me."
That's pretty sad, actually :(
[+] [-] danicgross|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] m_myers|15 years ago|reply
Why are people so fixated on college degrees -- even if they've already built a profitable company from scratch? Is it to prove something? If so, what?
[+] [-] acconrad|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mayank|15 years ago|reply
In this case, he clearly doesn't need a degree to be gainfully employed. Chances are that he's a pretty intelligent kid with other interests. If he puts 3-4 years into startups, not only will he probably be able to pay his own way through college, but will be at a point in life to appreciate the learning options a lot more (I can attest to this having taught many "older" undergraduates).
Maybe he'll develop an interest in advanced algorithms, or number theory, or neuroscience, or literature. At 19, there are a lot of possibilities in life, and college is a great way to be exposed to them, as well as people with passions in other fields.
[+] [-] unknown|15 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] kouiskas|15 years ago|reply
The service would lose a lot of relevance if suddenly one of the main players like Facebook decided that they don't want to be indexed by Greplin anymore. Without long-term partnerships or contracts with all the stakeholders, I wouldn't bet on that horse.
[+] [-] pbiggar|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pchristensen|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mkramlich|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|15 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] elvirs|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kouiskas|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] asr|15 years ago|reply
It's surprising to me to think it might be common, because my gut reaction is that this means the founders don't actually have a viable product, but because they got funded before they could figure that out, it will now take months or years for the founders to move on (or pivot significantly). I'd love to hear why that's not what's going on, though.
[+] [-] yewweitan|15 years ago|reply
I wonder how much this impacts the entrepreneurial mindset in male youth. I grew up mostly in Singapore, and they too have conscription upon reaching the age of 18 (with some exceptions, eg: for medicine and for national scholarship holders). From what I see from my friends' facebook channels, it's definitely a draining experience indeed, one that takes months to recover from once its done.
But Kudos to this guy! Greplin is pretty awesome and I've already put it to use.
[+] [-] edanm|15 years ago|reply
For a lot of Israelis who are smart, the army is a great experience that really helps them. For example, there is a very respected Programming Course in the Israeli army, which trains programmers for half a year. These programmers then go on to work on all the Armies' systems for the next 5 1/2 years. This course is called Mamram (I was in it).
This means that programmers in Israel are not only trained in a very intensive course for half a year, but they then go on to work on real-world (and often critical) systems, for 5 1/2 years. Which means there are many Israeli programmers who, at age 24, have 6 years of professional experience working on big, important systems.
Add to this that the Mamram course is very famous (most Israeli companies require programmers to either have a degree or be a graduate of Mamra). Also, serving 6 years in the army (and being in a course with 100 peers) means you get an incredible network of connections. I'm a good example - I'm working on my own startup with two people I served with in the army, and I know many people who either work at or run a lot of Israeli startups, just because I served with them at some point. I'm probably 2 hops from most startups in Israel, just because almost all of them hire programmers from the Mamram course.
OK that came out long. I only focused on the Mamram course since that's what I know best, but there are a lot of other fields the army is great for that have nothing to do with programming.
[+] [-] hnfwerr|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jasonwilk|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gooberdlx|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jhuckestein|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] charlesdm|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] devindotcom|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] EastSmith|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iworkforthem|15 years ago|reply
Anyone managed to pass level 1? I am stuck at level 1. Please share the logic.
[+] [-] brich|15 years ago|reply
Convert the string to an array of integers called FORWARD. Copy and flip the array into REVERSE. Subtract the values of REVERSE, offset by (0..length), pairwise from FORWARD. Then, just keep track of the longest block of zeros (index in FORWARD and length)
corpus: ilikeracecarstoo FORWARD: (8,11,8,10,4,17,0,2,4,2,0,17,19,14,14) REVERSE: (14,14,19,17,0,2,4,2,0,17,4,10,8,11,8)
In this case, the password appears at an offset of 2 REVERSE(2): (0,0,14,14,19,17,0,2,4,2,0,17,4,10,8) SUBTRACTED: (-8,-11,6,4,15,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,-15,-4,-6)
The longest zero block occurs at FORWARD[5] and ends at FORWARD[11]... in other words, racecar.
Should be quicker than brute force.
[+] [-] ashish_0x90|15 years ago|reply
Anyway, I would still suggest trying for some more time before looking at the solution that that I have provided here - https://gist.github.com/849813 .
The first problem itself took me most of the time. All this time I was trying to come up with a optimal approach (and was stuck in some boundary condition in implementation for Approach 1) until I realized that even a brute force solution will work in this case because of the smaller text input.
[+] [-] parfe|15 years ago|reply
https://www.greplin.com/jobs Here is the source of the challenge link which gives you a heads up it's for a job contest.
[+] [-] erwanb|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blhack|15 years ago|reply
I'm stuck on level 3 right now. The way I'm doing it is probably very very stupid, but I think it will work :)
(I'm trying to brute force it. I may look back at this as very very stupid, but we'll see).
This could get filed under: "Ways to denial-of-service Ryan".
Love it. Thanks to whoever set up the challenge.
[+] [-] Natsu|15 years ago|reply
Just spend a few minutes thinking about what you know about palindromes and what they look like and it shouldn't be too hard to code.
[+] [-] RiderOfGiraffes|15 years ago|reply
Color me unimpressed.
[+] [-] silverlake|15 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] rokhayakebe|15 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] VladRussian|15 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] unknown|15 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] 108|15 years ago|reply