aganek's comments

YC has proven that it is capable of returning results that beat the market. Few other incubators are able to replicate the success of YC. As an incubator, it is an outlier. Is an outlier a good "control" sample to prove that this reform works?

Startup visa reform is a necessity, clearly. Founders have the opportunity to make a strong positive impact on jobs, etc. I'd love for YC to be able to work with additional talented founders. No question, I am all for giving YC access to founder visas.

Question: Would a successful beta program at YC prove that the program works? Or would it prove that YC works? If the latter, is there an alternative "beta" program that would be more representative necessary for large scale reform?

Full discloser: I'm a founder at Cloudtenna.

AeroFS is a great option for file-syncing. Compare public file sync (Dropbox), private file sync (AeroFS), and traditional network file shares (CIFS/NFS).

Can you risk files in the public cloud? If no, you're limited to just private file sync and traditional network shares. And this is where AeroFS can shine.

You may already have a network share. Its secure. But its a pain to access remotely (VPN) and mobile devices are not compatible at all. So you may choose to migrate your files into an AeroFS Private Cloud so you can sync files instead of browsing files via the network. Syncing files to your desktop gives you offline/remote access.

I'd argue the most secure option is probably leaving data where it already is. If you already have a file server, with permissions and such thats already vetted secure. Cloudtenna adds mobile file access to your on-prem file server. No need to migrate files to a new storage platform.

My blatant pitch aside, AeroFS is right solution if you want to replace mounted network file shares with file sync. Cloudtenna, instead, is good for adding the web/mobile access features of Dropbox to your existing network shares.

I love that Twitter announced it via a tweet. Good work dogfooding their own product :)

I consider "sync" to only be a feature of Dropbox. Its the absolute best way to get files into their cloud storage platform (as compared to something like uploading files manually via a web portal).

But I think the value of Dropbox is in their cloud storage platform itself. It is the platform that is responsible for integration into a bevy of mobile apps, backup, and many other useful tools.

In my opinion, BitTorrent is a feature that doesn't offer the value of a platform. This feature is super awesome for a select use-case (maybe moving my media library across all of my home devices), but its no Dropbox killer. Its not a full platform at its current state.

Congrats AeroFS team!

Fantastic approach. Great post.

My takeaways: (1) Look for unconventional ways to create a MVP (2) Hustle is a very valuable asset to a startup. For startups with high hustle-to-technical ratios, they may consider building a culture around hustle rather than code.

I like this proposal very much.

On the other hand, it reminds me of a quote by Sam Goldwyn... "A spoken contract isn't worth the paper it's written on."

Yes. A better comparison.

Big! Search will fit seamlessly in the Facebook experience. I bet we soon forget that Facebook didn't always have this function.

I think this a big deal.

The first step to a Yelp killer? Type in "Italian Restaurant" and get back list of all the restaurants your friends have checked into. A recommendation engine.

For now, its mostly to filter your facebook data. But do you think it can expand and become the goto search engine, ala google?

Congrats to the meetings.io team. I'm a big fan of the product.

Thanks pg!

I expect another strong YC class this session. We've submitted our app already, but I am happy those on the east coast aren't denied by something out of their control.

Bold action often results in great things.

Apple has always strived to couple great hardware design with great software. Excited to see them bring the two departments closer again.

Judge rules Samsung owes Apple roughly one 'Instagram' in damages.

I love this post.

There is no doubt in my mind that the file system (as we know it) is dead. Daily workflows are becoming more and more integrated with the social graph. Its one thing to manage your own file set, but try keeping track of everyone's files... or even your own across multiple different purpose devices for that matter.

If I save files using one filtering scheme and someone else saves to the same shared drive using another scheme... both of our files eventually become lost in a mess.

Like others have posted, I believe the solution is search. Maybe not textbox search like Google, but certainly different ways to view lists of files. Can you imagine viewing the most recent files edited by a certain coworker, or the most recent files edited within range of a certain GPS location. I don't have an exact answer how to sort the data, but in my mind... there is a lot of additional data that can be used to help filter file presentations beyond the just the file index and file attributes used today.

I'm in the bay area, working on a startup to address this shift. Message me if interested... I'm always looking for people to talk about it with.

The secret sauce is in the case. Touch + a trackpad is necessary to use both metro and the traditional desktop UI. Could be a good compromise so I can keep using legacy desktop apps until all the new metro apps are ready.

I think the case is what is most interesting. Keyboard + trackpad.

Good bet by Microsoft. They are trying to shift the tablet market away from "a bigger smartphone" and back into their bread & butter desktop environment. They hope to leverage their ecosystem of apps on Windows and couldn't really do that with just a touch interface.

I'm excited to see what it feels like when it is released. I'll be honest, I'm not convinced that I'll be able to deal with the context switching between traditional and metro UI's (+ touch and trackpad input methods), but I'll certainly give it shot. Best of both worlds if Microsoft pulls it off.

The next big stage of cloud storage is integration. Integration into 3rd party apps. Integration deep into devices (iCloud for iOS and Google Drive for Android). This was a "must" for Google for Android to remain relevant.

Could try SMEstorage. I think they have an "aggregation" concept like this.

I think this article misses the point of the these new cloud solutions though. I'm not a fan of aggregation.

The next big stage of cloud storage is integration. Integration into 3rd party apps. Integration deep into devices (iCloud for iOS and Google Drive for Android). Coupling them together will miss the biggest advantage of cloud storage.