that is terrible. if you are a half decent php guy you could expect 25k. if you were really good 30k. if you could demonstrate something useful like hadoop or c++ more.
what else are they offering? if you are getting stock, cost for moving and regular training sessions on growing skills like scalable, Haskell or big data stuff, then you might just as well stomach it.
if you have a CS degree and have experience with version control, coding in a team, and delivering you are being undrbumped.
come to London get a work permit, leave and get a real job with a startup that value it's team.
Like IBM wrestling with the PC vs the mainframe, you need to find some critical way of transitioning into the new paradigm.
IMHO Microsoft's web businesses are too close to the existing cash cows and that pollutes the offering. They have two masters: the masters of the new (cloud based market) and the master of the old business.
Perversely what could have been an asset (the cashflows and distribution and brand awareness of the existing business) turns out to weaken and confuse the proposition.
Unsurprisingly (if you are an observer of this industry) being a startup focussed solely on your product confers you real advantage.
What Microsoft needs to do is put some of the $2bn a year it loses being 3rd in a range of markets (some of which only have two players) into building offerings that don't encapsulate Msft DNA but purely focus on what this new world needs.
They can then bolt on distribution via the Windows platform as icing on the cake, rather than a core part of the proposition.
Windows doesn't need to die. It needs to be ignored by Microsoft and Redmond.
Happen to agree with Jason on this one. So startups prior to marriage, working on my third when my first child was born. Moved to big corporate jobs with big perks for three years, then back to startups. We are at 3 kids (one of six weeks), and clearly the ability to work all night is constrained. And I am more tired.
However, I can guarantee on most days to have 90 minutes to 120 minutes of complete joy with my kids, and weekends that take me away from 'office work'.
And, that 36 hour weekend break is a weekly opportunity I have to review, contemplate, reprioritise--mostly holding this stuff in my head for the weekend. It was hard work at first and now it's something that I look forward to.
On the downside the costs of failure are disproportionately higher.
Hey I am the CEO of PeerIndex -- the rationale is design patterns and frameworks.
For our business, UX is important but not absolutely critical (at least at the working proof of concept stage).
Excellent design is expensive and time consuming and vital for some businesses. I felt for ours, good and clear would get us very far along--and could be done with a lower investment by using a framework (e.g. blueprint) and some commonly used design patterns.
When we know more about our users (A/B test, A/B test, etc) we'll invest increasingly more in the UI and perhaps we'll look and feel different. Although I still see us leaning heavily on frameworks, for the attendant benefits.
If you are an awesome UI designer or visualisation person in the mood to challenge us with your thinking, let me know ;)
Hey congrats on doing this. NLP on tweets is not trivial at all given just how colloquial it is. I like being able to navigate a visual map of what people are talking about.
well hardly every since. the thing that prompted it was a HN post on how to get in touch with PG; and I have really strong memories of the Viaweb story, mostly around my dad's heart attack. Check here: http://bit.ly/5e0XxJ
Bear in mind, this was in the days well before blogging when getting any story out involved fighting for column cm with other journalist, and a (necessarily) sceptical business editor. I know, it seems antiquated now!
And I am not sure I said it was news. And yes, you may get semantic about this being news.ycombinator, but i'll leave you to do the detailed analysis of what qualifies since you have the media studies degree.
Pablo the hacker behind it, presented in detail at DLD, and I was lucky enough to see it. They were able to detect between the species of mosquito that are carriers and those that weren't.
And Pablo also pointed out that their target would be $10--especially if volume would be reached...
and for $10, nathan myrvolhd can user a laser to track and detect a mosquito, distinguish those carrying malaria from those who aren't, and then shoot down the ones carrying malaria.... nice http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/12/using-lasers-to-zap....
Good points. I ought to clarify: back to the idea of rebalancing. It is really about checking your assumptions and trimming your sails a few times a year.
As to fund managers: i think that is the case with mutual fund managers. But it certainly isn't the case with hedge funds or VC. VC for example guarantees you will lose money uness you chose a handful of funds whose identity you know a priori.
As for hedge funds--they cover a broad church--of which two remain specially interesting: Special situations/global macro -- where you need to know and understand a manager (who is essentially a business man) and find someone who has decent risk management in place as well as a really good investment process.I like Paulson for this.
The second interesting area is the the high frequency systematic trading if highly liquid instruments (CTAs, if you will) which have a very different risk/return profile especially in chop markets and actually have a distribution benefit.
Eaten alive isn't very precise--you can actually model your fees and work out how much of you will be eaten.
I think you have a couple of issues you need to bear in mind.
The world is fundamentally broken. And most models you will read about were built for a different world.
I suggested you read John Mauldin (a lot) his newsletter is at http://www.johnmauldin.com/outside_the_box.html
You need to now learn and understand about finance, what is wrong with the models and how to read the global environment. As an HNer you shd be able to do this. (You, for example, need to think about the liquidity you need)
So rather than looking at a model, build up a picture of the world.
That picture might probably be:
* 10-15 yrs of misery in the US with choppy equity markets and an ever weaker dollar. Assume a deflation type scenario
* Growth in China & Brazil but the danger of overeating
* Climate change play: climate change play is clearly a good 20-30yr trend but there is reason to believe that with the PDO we will see global temperature anomalies drop for then next 10-12 yrs, so over that time frame there may be a contrarian play
* Gold may be valuable but only to a point
* And will successive US governments try to eviscerate the dollar, there isn;t much choice for other central bankers but to hold the dollar
* Sovreign debt in Europe looks risky.
With $5m you should aim for around 20-25 individual positions. Much of this can be done via ETFs with the right degree of portfolio balancing, and there are several services (which I can't vouch for) like alphaclone, which will help you do this.
I would absolutely not follow the traditional route of the bulk of your assets follow US stock indicies--that worked in the post-baby boom years, don't think it would work now.
However, I wouldn't understate the value of being able to get into a really good macro-oriented or special situations hedge fund. John Paulson's funds are a great example of this. They have returned 16-17% pretty consistently with a few bad years for 20 yrs or so. Allocating $500k into something like that is probably not a bad idea.
It is abosolutely worth you find a good financial advisor (Sanford Bernstein or similiar) and put some of your assets with them to get access to their research & network. Your test should be: can they get me into a few reliable hedge funds, etc and do I get extra benefits. Yes: you pay 2% to get into a hedge fund, but if you get into a half decent one, you'll add a lot to your portfolio.
In your position, my book would look like this:
$1.5 - $2m into a variety of hedge funds and / or private equity positions (at least 7-8 very reputable ones
$2m into a variety of ETFs ensuring you have good coverage of BRIC and non-US markets
$1m in liquids (USD, NOK, other strong currencies)
You should plan to spend at least 1.5 days a month reviewing your portfolio, some of which will be daily reading of good business websites (NOT MARKETWATCH! or CRAMER). Plan on rebalancing no more than half-of your positions a quarted, any more than that and the markets are nuts or you have a trigger finger.
Because ETFs are liquid you can get in and out when you like, with some price risk. So if you need to hire a private jet and take your friends to Ibiza, you can.
Above all: trust no-one. Equip yourself to make your own decisions.
hey sorry for getting so silent. but the best is the enemy of the good.
Lots of issues about just how great wikileaks is for all this--but until there is something better then let's give them some support.
what else are they offering? if you are getting stock, cost for moving and regular training sessions on growing skills like scalable, Haskell or big data stuff, then you might just as well stomach it.
if you have a CS degree and have experience with version control, coding in a team, and delivering you are being undrbumped.
come to London get a work permit, leave and get a real job with a startup that value it's team.