ashokn225

I wanted your guys' thoughts on this process of finding a co founder that I documented. Fundamentally, building something small and fast is probably the best metric to test the dynamic of a team. We built http://thestyli.st as a test (far from what we're planning to focus on keep in mind).

I think whether it's addiction of media, drugs, or even Facebook, most people are aware of what they're doing. This notion that we're unaware of our addictions, that "denial is the first mistake" is all bullshit. People are particularly rational (in their own respective idea of what rational is) when it comes to addictions. It's just a cost benefit analysis. The cost is time and the opportunity cost of what we could be doing versus the benefit of being connected, consuming information (even social), or the high. How each of us weighs those options is a deeply subjective thing, but to say that we're not aware or that "we have a choice" to be producers, with that pedantic tone, is just wrong.

The real difference is that Google's IPO was a Dutch auction. This was particularly accurate because of how much information asymmetry there was with Google. Not everyone knew where the value in Google was. Everyone knows about Facebook. That complicates things. I wrote about this recently if you guys wanna take a look. http://ashoknayar.wordpress.com/2012/02/04/ipos-the-social-w...

I've always believed deeply in this idea. The value of delusion, or rather, calculated delusion, is extremely important to the idea of being entrepreneurial. (Genius here is a bit loosely used, but I'll go with it). The math of any unlikely opportunity (like starting a business) is against you so any logical person would think it's delusional. But to most entrepreneurs, starting a business is all that seems logical. The fastest way to make a billion dollars is take something that everyone believes is true, and bet against it. http://ashoknayar.wordpress.com/2010/05/27/why-entrepreneurs...

I agree with this but it's tough to prove that there's a causation effect between the two (other than the one person who was fired, which by itself probably is enough to make a valid argument). But it seems like when the value add of a programmer is so high, it's a lack of mimicking the finance market to structure your compensation package that seems to be more closely correlated to the (low) average income. I say finance market because it's probably one of the few markets where compensation is directly and proportionally related to performance.

Not really connecting waking up early with honesty, but rather a generalized idea of the type of people that tend to live disciplined lives.

I wouldn't liken tax evasion to letting someone use your apartment. I was really just speaking casually about how the situation would unfold. It's also a grey area since this is less of a sublet and more of a micro sublet (akin to letting a friend over for the night who buys you lunch in turn), which complicates the legality of it. Err on the side of caution I guess, but reading your lease agreement is obviously the best thing one can do.

Most people, myself included, who rent in the city have all of that laid out in the lease agreement. Most landlords probably wouldn't know either way unless they are coming by the apartment often. In either case, it's not a huge issue in the city.

One of the downsides with a statement like this (i.e x city is making y$/person) is that once you hit enough of a threshold of people on airbnb, it seems like there's going to be too much noise for anyone to really find a place of any value. Reviews and location/price filtering obviously help with that, but I'm curious as to what other types of filtering algorithms the team is working on.

I'm not sure this is entirely true. I understand the logic, but it's important to note that theres still a net positive in the more subjective ideas of "greeting the day" and finding yourself in a more calculated, healthy routine. Waking up early in the morning, if surrounded by many who also do the same, also lends itself to being surrounded by a group of typically disciplined, motivated and honest people, where little downside can be seen. All of this is deeply subjective, but I think there's some logic to it.