tslathrow

I continued to be impressed with Sam's clarity. Keep it up!

Sidenote: interesting to see that YC has a BBerg terminal (and careful with the RMB claim in the near-term)

Fido is a great shop and 100K is relatively cheap for that important of a lesson... and of course we shouldn't ask too many what-ifs.

GMO is the laughingstock of the HF community... trying to make a name for themselves with a permabear outlook.

Their index and commodity projections are truly hilarious and they've been claiming this sort of shit for years, generating bottom-decile returns.

2006

But seriously, why are you limiting yourself to PHP and jQuery? JQuery especially - really odd considering you could easily work with any framework if you have the JS background...

Well I have a lot of experience with 16 hour/day work weeks (have worked at banks most of my life). Yeah, you're right, it's not fun.

It really comes down to the time-sensitivity of your work. For someone in their 20s, I think the perfect balance is less than 80 hours/week but more than 40-50. If you're being paid two standard deviations over US median household income ($120k+), you're going to be expected to put some work-life balance on hold.

"Knowledge worker" makes you sound like you think programming is rocket surgery. VC is actually much closer to knowledge work than programming, and could more realistically have 16-hour work weeks.

You guys should organize. YC Founders Union. Obviously shortened to YCFU.

Unrelated: Don't go to UChicago if you want to study CS. The department isn't built out.

Consider UPenn SEAS or Columbia Fu for a similar tier CS program.

It's really excellent for economics (which I was considering), but ended up not going to Chicago after talking to some of the comp sci majors.

I will never forget OS 1... I still have nightmares

I completely agree. It was more that I ended up going into finance, so GPA became a sticking point. It all turned out okay - I just wonder whether Columbia could make CS less brutal.

I did an undergrad in CS (Columbia) - in retrospect I should only have minored in CS.

I'm not sure it's worth the workload!

You will have _no_ free time and get reamed in GPA

Very math-heavy and the project based classes were brutal.

I can guarantee that they will lose to Interactive Brokers on price. IB has structural cost advantages in internal matching and zero customer service (possible given the more advanced user base). It's also very very stupid for a retail investor to chose a broker based on fees.

A 10-25bp difference in execution on a $10k+ trade easily covers any commission.

Congrats Garry!

Just FYI ritholtz is a complete fake... tried to build a brand out of working as a strategist at a bombed out bank.

Not saying that his articles are invalid, just that he is a serial marketer with little in terms of relevant credentials.

I was curious because I recently finished my two analyst years in ibd (@ a bb), but switched into PE instead of a startup, which I was considering. Always interesting to hear the other side.

Why'd you leave IBD/VC?

Not a big fan of capital structure above common for early-stage investing. Too much possibility of fucking over the common. Why not bundle a non-expiring warrant with convertible preferreds?

Consider also how much harder this will make private placements.

I was more wondering about working capital management RE: cash flow. I was originally an IB analyst @ BB.

The series 7/63 issue only applies if you don't leave the usual "forward looking statements etc" disclosure.

Part of the reason this is not a good business is you can't amortize advertising. ie no SG&A leverage going forward. unlikely to see decreasing marginal cost

why not post cash flow as well?

you will also get your ass kicked for posting projected financials without a series 7 & 63

I did undergrad CS & OR at Columbia before going into banking... it really depends on what you're interested in

And it also depends on just how far you go in finance - IBD at a bulge bracket is very different from some nonsense boutique

For me, banking paid better and provided more interesting work

haha I can appreciate that

Half-day trip on san pedro in college... good times

Unrelated, but have you ever tried mescaline via san pedro? One of the good legal psychedelics if you're thinking about shrooms.

I will never understand why Silk Road is easier than just hitting up your dealer

What does that even mean? I highly doubt that any form of Ruby is faster than WSGI PyPy.

Very often there was a crunch time around getting a deal done.

Could be an IPO, restructuring etc

That means lots of modeling and dicking around with slide decks

RE lunch: I took fewer than ten lunches away from my desk over those two years.

Generally dinner at the desk via Seamless

Seeing as I grew up on 80+ hour workweeks, I can promise you this is false for a certain group of people.

I spent two years in banking - normally we had 18+ hour workdays... definitely gave me stamina later on.

Tier 1 bonus bucket at a bulge bracket one year, Tier 2 the other year.

You pretty much always end up getting paid for hard work.

Definitely keep a screenshot of this for a final slide in your IPO roadshow deck 2 years from now

Mostly disagree. My banking years (age 21-23) were really rough (100+ hour workweeks), but it definitely meant we learned much faster and earned significantly more over the long run.

I tend to lose interest if I'm not actively competing against my peers.

Now I just enjoy my job way too much to consider scaling back the hours.

        - Forcing unnecessary financial disclosures

Have we not learned a damn thing from 1999? The whole reason retail investors have a chance is because public companies have to file an 8k every time the CFO farts

I assumed you could just look in any introductory finance textbook, but here:

CAPE Formula:

- Adjust each of the yearly earnings of the last 10 years for inflation.

- Average the result of the step 1.

- Divide the current price by the result of step 2.

When I say yearly earnings I really mean trailing twelve months. Use TIPS etc to adjust for inflation.

CAPE is mostly horseshit but basically it's designed to give a sense of over/undervaluation of risky assets

It's about as awful as any other valuation metric though.