rjf90

I’m sorry but that seems pretty absurd. You don’t need to be a certain type of bot to pull the meta information. From an analytics standpoint it would also be beneficial. I’ve always had issues tracking how many people have shared an SMS referral link.

Congrats on your accomplishments; ignore the haters on here.

Am I the only one that doesn't see any archive on https://archive.org/web/?

Yes this is ironic.

But let's not judge the article and assertion based on our preconceived bias against Goldman Sachs. I think that their conclusion “We would argue that bitcoin, and other digital currencies, lie somewhere on the boundary between currency, commodity and financial asset” makes a lot of sense.

Really, Bitcoin does have more similarities to a commodity than a currency (especially a fiat currency). It's fungible, untraceable, and unregulated.

Yet another example of society acclimating to disruptive technology.

This is awesome. There are a lot of things I love about this country, but one thing we've done bad is create lawyers. Where I live (DC) 1 in 12 people are lawyers.

I wish every legal document carried a tl;dr.

Agreed on Neil Degrasse Tyson.

People need to understand that there are different types of powerpoint presentations. Here are some of the different types of Powerpoints I have experience with:

The Public Speaking: Should be a few words, a picture, a quote...basically what this presentation advocates for. Very minimalist. The focus should be on what the presenter is saying.

The Pitch Deck: In my opinion, a startup pitch deck should be very minimalist, but should be enough for someone to understand the pitch. Often investors ask me for pitch decks before a meeting. If there's only 3 words per slide, lots of valuable content might be missed. I still never have more than 3 bullet points per slide.

The Consulting Deck: When I worked for a big 3 management consulting firm, we used decks to present all of our information. It was much more technical and in depth, and it needed to stand alone in case a CEO wanted to read the study two years down the line. Many times it would have multiple graphs or infographics, and several bullet points. The top right would have a tracker saying which part of the presentation we were in, and the title would be a tagline which states the takeaway from the slide. This type of deck would never be presented to a large public audience, but rather around a table with a few stakeholders with in-depth subject matter knowledge.

Clearly there are different types of powerpoints for different situations. My best professors did notes by hand, rather than try to put everything on a powerpoint.

The most important rule that holds true to all Powerpoints, in my humble opinion, is one point/takeaway per slide.

Too many people use powerpoints as a crutch rather than a tool, and it gives the slideshow a bad name.

I've been looking for something like this. Powtoons is ok but sucks for someone who wants a little more out of their animation tool. Can't wait to try it out!

Every time I thought I spotted one, I was wrong.

But clearly depth perception and movement, not to mention infared, would help distinguish them.

When I sign up for a website, I do not give them information that I'm not comfortable being public. if you don't like it, don't use it.

I'm a fan of LinkedIn replacing the Rolodex. LinkedIn makes networking a whole lot easier. Maybe all your "technical" friends don't need to network, but I do.

Faster advancement within the company. Executives aren't in their position simply because they are smarter than everyone else. After an IQ of 120-125, intelligence is not a good predictor of success (according to Malcolm Gladwell at least). Hard work plays a role.

If you want to work a normal work week and a normal life, great. But sometimes to achieve great things you have to make sacrifices.

Congrats, nice work! Look forward to seeing more!

Not necessarily true. If people weren't getting compensated in some way they would leave. Investment bankers work 80-120 hours per week, and they get paid as such. Same with lawyers.

This is deceptive at best. I've been a fan of LinkedIn as a company until now.

I think acquirers are aware of notions like yours (I used to work for one of the acquirers you mentioned). These companies will eventually start to take great care to preserve the brand and product of the acquired company.

My experience with one of the banks you mentioned has not changed since it's been acquired.

Simple is a great example of how someone can go into an old, broken industry, make a company that would not be considered a tech startup, and still scale rapidly and change the industry. Bravo!

Damodoran is known for his value investing analysis. He is an academic, and value investing is the only form of investing proven to work.

However, he does a good job of wearing hats of other types of investors, which is why I enjoy his analyses.

Bottom line is that social media companies will either have to sustain these valuations forever, or they will eventually fail. When times of turmoil hit, user base and engagement will not be enough save a company. Cashflow is the only surefire metric that indicates a company's success.

I'm not getting it.

Great article, comes at a very good time for me and my company.

I think founders are inspired by the challenge of creating a company. The whole "I could make this but it's not interesting enough" is an excuse I used for a long long time. There are things I would never do (such as social media) because they don't interest me in the least bit. But, the fact is, you will probably pivot. And if you do, you may be working on something that is no longer interesting to you.

But, building a company is interesting to me. Creating culture, cultivating talent, contributing to GDP and changing an industry are the motivational factors behind me creating a company. And it's extremely challenging. Anybody can create interesting technology; turning it into an self sustaining business is the hard part.

Just my two cents. I agree that ideas are not worthless. Some are plain bad. I've always wanted to ask a VC, "If ideas are so worthless, and the focus is on the founders, why do you have them pitch their company to judge them? Wouldn't another interview process be better."