hermanmerman | 10 years ago | on: I Have Read Prop F, and It Is a Normal and Reasonable Piece of Legislation
What is your non-arbitrary take on that number then?
hermanmerman's comments
hermanmerman | 10 years ago | on: Bitcoin's Shared Ledger Technology: Money's New Operating System
1. Gold had value 4000 years ago because it was rare enough that people could use it as a currency, not because it was a useful metal. Incidentally, it's not useful at all compared to steel, copper, aluminum, etc. hence its use in jewelry.
2. Gold has value today because some people are willing to buy it and some others are willing to sell it. I don't see how it couldn't be the same with Bitcoins (or anything for that matters). Can you explain to me why dollars have value? Euros? Drachmas?
3. You repeating that two successful investors said something at some point doesn't mean they are right, and you saying that they "agree with you" doesn't mean you are right. When trying to find the truth, blindly referring to authority is the last thing you should do.
hermanmerman | 10 years ago | on: When running for exercise was for weirdos
What is the "jogging" of today? Gluten free diets? I could see it become mainstream once science has studied it more extensively, but today if you don't have coeliac disease and decide to go gluten-free, you're labeled as nuts right away.
hermanmerman | 10 years ago | on: Show HN: News site using NLP to analyze social data and write its own headlines
The headlines look informative and neutral in tone, no click-baiting and BuzzFeed-like over-sensationalization. Correctly filtered and tailored to my tastes, I could use it to read the news!
hermanmerman | 10 years ago | on: Matchstick to refund everyone's money
I am completely out of the loop and hove no idea what the project is about, but apparently every one on the KS page is basically saying that they couldn't care less about this feature. I'm curious now at what really happened and why they shut it down, if their biggest hurdle is something so few people want.
hermanmerman | 10 years ago | on: Why Are There Still So Many Jobs? The History and Future of Workplace Automation [pdf]
So bullshit jobs are a tax paid by big corporations? Why are they willing to pay this tax? If most of their workforce is improductive, why not get rid of it altogether? Why do these jobs exist?
hermanmerman | 10 years ago | on: Joining a Different YC
YC operates like a startup would: they have a bold hypothesis, something that must be challenged ("most science is a slog"). There is very little chance that they could be right, but in case they are, and they execute well, the benefits could be huge.
Speeding up life sciences development cycles the way development cycles in software engineering have been sped up is the goal, but the way to do it is hard and complex and uncertain. It requires funding, perseverance, trial and error, incremental improvements as much as breakthroughs. YC has proven they're good at all of this.
hermanmerman | 10 years ago | on: Startup Stock Option Changes
I don't really think it's 10/20/30/40, one year cliff means they get 25% after a year but then the schedule is monthly. See it as a salary: you get some every month, it stops when you get fired.
hermanmerman | 10 years ago | on: Finally a Worthy Competitor to Google Street View
It's one of those situations where I would be very happy to be wrong :)
hermanmerman | 10 years ago | on: Finally a Worthy Competitor to Google Street View
As cool as it is, the reality is that geography changes: cities evolve, roads are built, closed, etc. Maintaining an up-to-date database of those views can only be done to serve another, very lucrative purpose, the one of which only Google & al. can offer. I don't think a community-based approach can work when the scale of effort is this high.
hermanmerman | 10 years ago | on: Ironclad (YC S15) Is an Automated Legal Assistant for Companies
Is it template-based like Clerky (with the same Delaware C-Corp limitation), or is there more to it (advice on which document to use based on the situation, clauses that change depending on context, etc.)?
hermanmerman | 10 years ago | on: Encryptr – Free, open-source password manager and e-wallet
Does it support self-hosting of the server part? If I could deploy it to one of my Digital Ocean servers easily, I could see it become my default (and last) password manager. I'm too small a fish for a hacker to actually hunt my own server, and even if they do... it's zero knowledge, so I think I'd be comfortable with that.
Side question: does it support sharing of secured notes and credentials? even to non-encryptr users?
hermanmerman | 10 years ago | on: Tell HN: My way of doing 'community service' on HN
The checks look simple/unambiguous enough for a bot to do the work. Maybe a dual machine/human approach is the right one: a bot scans /new every 15 min for those factors, and updates a list of suspicious links/accounts, and then humans review this list and take action. Valve does something similar to detect cheaters on CS:GO by the way.
hermanmerman | 10 years ago | on: Ask HN: I feel that my submissions are severely underrated. What to do?
you're right, but HN is so focused that there is only one /new page, so the competition is brutal.
hermanmerman | 10 years ago | on: Ask HN: I feel that my submissions are severely underrated. What to do?
There are 25 links on /new, the oldest being 27 min ago. So your post has 27 minutes to gather the attention of enough people (7-8 upvotes is OK) to actually surface to the frontpage. This is not a lot fo time, especially for IPython Notebooks which need time to be read/appreciated. Maybe reddit is the community you need :/
hermanmerman | 10 years ago | on: What Business Is Square In Exactly?
Hey Zac, I think you are spot on (except maybe the bullish part). Credit card processing was likely just a foot in the door, but allowed them to build relationships with a ton of (very) small businesses. As a technology company, I trust them more than banks to take advantage of these relationships (and the data that comes with it). At the end of the day, the banks are here to offer loans to their customers, and a loan is as good as the risk assessment of the borrower's situation, which leads to the associated interest rate. Who is in a better position to calculate that, other than the company who has a clear view of the cash that goes in the business every day? That's Square right there.
hermanmerman | 10 years ago | on: Nasty Truths About U.S. Fintech
If you haven't seen it already (was posted yesterday I think), check out Standard Treasury's Series A deck: http://slideshare.net/linhir/standard-treasury-series-a-pitc...
They explain why they decided to start their bank in the UK instead of the US. For once, the USA seem to have no competitive advantage.
hermanmerman | 10 years ago | on: GitHub Raises $250M at $2B Valuation
Why wait to find out, when there is money on the table right now?
Also, sometimes they have to take a lot of money, as later-stage investors want to control a sizable chunk of the company (in this case, 12.5%).
hermanmerman | 10 years ago | on: GitHub Raises $250M at $2B Valuation
tablecloth math time: $2bn worth, assuming they're worth 10 times their revenue (let's be generous), that would require $200m in sales. they have 10m users, assuming 1% are paying, that means 100k users for $200m sales, meaning each user must spend 2000 dollars per year at Github. Sounds a little high considering the basic plan is $7/month, but with entreprise sales and growth rate, it sounds feasible.
hermanmerman | 10 years ago | on: GitHub Raises $250M at $2B Valuation
Google naturally comes to mind. Facebook / Parse, also. Amazon Web Services. Actually any company in this space (that is worth more than $20bn).
Why do you say an IPO is unlikely? I don't see why the public markets would be wary: Github is IaaS done right, has clear ways to make money and grow on its current offering, and can very well come up with innovations adjacent to its core services.
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