Taxis, even in San Francisco, were woefully inadequate prior to Uber. Further, it not as if taxis were driver friendly. The majority of the money went the the medallion holder. The medallion holders artificially constricted service to keep rates high via a monopoly. So, there was no pre-rideshare paradise to return to.
HN was always more than mere startup culture / computer science posts.
The same way that every balanced programmer (or scientist for that matter) has always been.
And it's difficult to be an entrepreneur of any major scale if one doesn't understand the society they live in, its culture, and its roots. Selling socks, maybe.
Celebrity news and gossip is explicitly the sort of mainstream content which HN is supposed to select against, and which doesn't belong here. No one on Hacker News cared enough about Chuck Berry to post about him when he was alive, why should his death be worth discussing now?
Someone's death is often a moment to consider them, and HN has had discussions like this for years. I'm sure no two readers share the same list of which such discussions belong on HN, but as long as it's not excessive or predictable I don't see why we shouldn't have them. Chuck Berry's a pretty important historical figure.
I was downvoted considerably when I made similar complaints in the Carrie Fisher thread, and so far I'm at -1 for my comment here.
It could be because Chuck Berry isn't nearly as much of a trigger for pop-cultural nostalgia and trivia as Carrie Fisher, and so the thread simply isn't as popular, or it could be that I'm not entirely wrong.
I used to be fine with these threads but over time they've gotten more and more grating to me.
Perhaps because many programmers and engineers are musically inclined as well?? And perhaps Chuck Berry is as much a life influence and role model to them as Alan Turing, Steve Jobs, Margaret Hamilton etc.?
A patent strategy can indeed affect a tech startup company’s growth. The data indicates that companies that have patents in earlier rounds (especially before obtaining funding, or in Rounds 1 and 2) are able to obtain more total funding. This occurs in all markets, but is especially so in Biotechnology/Agriculture, IT/Hardware and Medical devices, in which the largest patenting activity tends to happen in the beginning of the company’s life. This suggests that patenting early may be more important for start-ups than what some views in venture capital may predict.
Surprisingly, most start-ups that patented filed their first application before even receiving any reported funding. A possible explanation is that these companies were aware of the potential signaling value of the patents, and that they strategically filed their patents early, despite the relatively high burden of patenting costs for an early-stage venture.
Also surprisingly, companies located in California patented more than companies located elsewhere. The study supports the idea that California provides unique conditions for start-up growth, and points out to the patenting activity in the state, a factor that is not commonly discussed in the startup environment.
Companies that were venture-backed also filed more patents that those which did not receive venture capital in any stage. This is consistent with previous studies, and reaffirms a strong connection between patents and venture capital.
Moreover, the results indicated that the number of patents (and not merely the fact that the company had patents) was highly correlated with total funding. The effect of each additional patent for companies in the dataset was 530,000 USD more in funding per additional patent application that the company had.
Finally, the analysis also supported the idea that patents account for only for a fraction of start-up success. While the contribution of patents to startup funding seems to be positive, what is the importance of a patent in comparison to other factors? The results back the position that while patents have a positive effect on funding, their contribution to start-up growth is somewhat limited: one factor among many of those that influence investor’s decisions. Patents can only explain increased funding in a limited number of cases, around 10% to 15% of them.
So are we in a position to solve the “patent dilemma”? While the study alone may not solve the dilemma for all companies, it serves to shed an empirical light on it, which is uniquely useful to entrepreneurs, lawyers and the startup ecosystem. Patents may not be a fundamental requirement to receive funding or be acquired, but they prove to be an advantageous tool for early-stage signaling of startup’s value and potential.
Good article, although his use of the word "chemicals" as a negative is pretty silly. Particularly, in this sentence "Fermentation and curdling involve hundreds of chemical reactions that produce a multitude of complex flavor compounds with a depth that can't be replicated by chemicals."
Given that the paragraph you've quoted from is followed with a description of how acids denature proteins, I think the author probably understands that all the other stuff he's working with are "chemicals" too.
However, I think this works as a reasonable shorthand for non-specific synthetic food additives in this context. Laypeople like myself understand that butter substitutes include artificial flavors to attempt to recreate some of the flavor of butter, but they fall short. The author can favorably compare his curdling approach to the fake butter flavors of those familiar commercially available products without stopping to specify them, because it doesn't matter which specific chemical additives he's comparing to. If he instead said " ... a depth of flavor that can't be replicated by adding acetoin or diacetyl" (which wikipedia says are the common fake butter additives) what would that really add for his readers?
Well, obviously chemicals can't replicate the chemicals produced by the chemical reactions among the chemicals in butter. I don't see what's so hard to understand about it.
What really happens with most government run investment where funds are allocated to outside investment people or groups (ex. EU funds), is that the investors have limited incentives to actually/help create successful companies.
In fact, what often happens is that the investors manage to funnel a large portion of the funding back to their own pockets by requiring the startups to pay for bootcamps and trips that are run by the investor and mentors (i.e. investor's buddies) and pay for services and facilities that the state provides the investors for free.
On top of this, the investors get very generous salaries and reimbursed for many if not all expenses (i.e. a great opportunity to double dip, see above).
Finally, if the investor has any money at risk in the fund it is normally all but fully insured by the government and they get the lion's share of any returns, if there are any. All in all, it is a great deal for the investors with almost no accountability and little net benefit for the startups.
By your definition, most state venture-funds are born to die. What you are describing is a structural issue, which while plausible, is not definitive the structure that a state VC will wield. Some very good examples of state VCs that did not fall into this trip are Temasek/GIC from my country (Singapore), as well as that of Norway. And yes, Termasek have a VC that does tech fundings too. They recently funded Snapchat.
I would exclude from this explanation, state funded VCs or sovereign wealth funds that invest in later stages. They are most commonly investing for strategic reasons or just piling onto an already established leader.
I would love to say this is shocking, but it has become routine to see double digit percentage increases in San Francisco rents. I am curious to see if the increases were as extreme outside on the city.
