subhash

I had similar grudges about my school, but money and location didn't favor me, so I just bore it grudgingly. From what I have heard about the US, I am assuming the following might actually be possible:

- Convince your school to miss classes if you demonstrate great scores and promise to keep them

- Convince your parents to let you take a year off, promising to continue where you left off later and use the time to pursue your interest of study. You will either confirm your suspicion that school is a waste of time or gain completely different perspectives. Either case is a win

- Homeschooling. I am surprised your parents haven't come up with this option yet. I am not familiar with the US educational system, but can't you just study on your own and appear for qualifying exams that you would have normally taken after high school?

"What chance has she .. in understanding and possibly rejecting religious dogma when she can't do the same with obvious nonsense like tooth fairies"

They are resenting the fact that you are an outlier, a 'free spirit' and even if you had succeeded in your startup, they wouldn't see the relevance of that success to a (seemingly boring) desk job. UK companies read a lot 'between the lines' and it can be frustrating to find your strengths noted as weaknesses. Try not letting that affect your own perceptions.

Dying languages seldom get the attention that monuments and historical artifacts do even though they are more indicative of history and culture

Aim for mediocrity because you'll pretty much get there anyway. And restrain your kids so they don't think big. Perfect recipes for a boring life.

You seem to be considering only cities in the US because it doesn't seem practical to ask startups to move across countries, especially if they are very different. As a corollary, a city might benefit instead by exploiting the local peculiarities to espouse a startup culture.

For example, in the city I live in, it's perfectly acceptable to live with your parents all your life. And that's a perfect fit for lowering living costs. There is also an obsession to live in or close to your hometown, which might force college grads to start up instead of working for a big company in a big city. There is a strong sense in society of admiring entrepreneurship as opposed to employment because of a (convoluted) communistic ideal. There is a lot of investment money readily available from expatriates from the Middle East that they cannot use in their country of residence.

This might mean that there is a different route to becoming Silicon Valley and it is all the more difficult to determine because it is not generic.

When a good startup compares two funding offers, it does not automatically pick the one that gives the highest valuation. It has to consider the other intangibles like VC advice, contacts, good PR etc. Given this, a city offering just money is like a loser VC who's really desperate. Why would a good startup want to take that?

It seems funny to me that he chose to discuss the technology behind the voice synthesis as that seems to weaken his argument. It is clear that the audio experience (the effects to make it sound like a human voice) is largely a result of the technology and the copyrighted material is still being used only in text form

Hee. I guess I do lag. Which is the equivalent Web 2.0 site?

Do you mean YCombinator should come to India? Or have such a phenomenon work in India?

Personally, I think angel funding is not very relevant in India because the startup costs are extremely low. Also, VCs are not as prevalent as in the US (that seems to be changing with proto.in etc) so the VC contacts that YCombinator provides might not apply either. But the advice and ideas of someone like Paul Graham would do wonders, but I can't think of a resident Indian in that place.

Include the wife as a co-founder? :) I am trying that, and the biggest advantage I can see is that our interests and intentions are more aligned than can be with other co-founders.

That is encouraging. If folks with no previous design experience (assuming) can dish out beautiful html and css, that is indeed encouraging to the rest of us :) Any pointers to templates or design guides?