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Candy Japan 2015 Year in Review
2015 was a nerve-wrecking year for Candy Japan, with some dramatic ups and downs.
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The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 75 posts.
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To predict the future 1/3 of you need to be crazy
In a rapidly changing world those who copy the past have doomed their future. When companies or agencies search for disruptive and innovative strategies they often assemble a panel of experts to ad…
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Princess Pricklepants, Startup Founder Extraordinaire
Previously: Princess Pricklepants, Entrepreneur Dear reader, for our preamble we’d like to say a number of fascinating, witty, clever, and delightful things, but we can’t think of any. …
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Thank you, Y Combinator
Dear friends- I wanted to let you know I am stepping away from YC. I've been involved at YC since early 2011 and in that time it has been my privilege to work with over 600 startups and over a...
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The Tech Bust of 2015
Maybe instead of a tech bubble, we’re in a tech bust. No one seems to fervently believe tech valuations are cheap, so it’d be somewhat surprising if we were in a bubble. In many parts of the...
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Didn’t Homejoy Shut Down?
If you’ve ever been a Homejoy customer this should piss you off. “Fly Maids” has all your data and they seem pretty awful.
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List of Y Combinator companies I have worked with (hacked)
Background: I have worked with lots of companies as security consultant through bug bounties either I asked them if they need my service or they approached. I’m a big fan of Paul’s essa…
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Let a thousand flowers bloom, then rip 999 of them out
For the past eleven months I’ve been the tech lead for Twitter’s Engineering Effectiveness group. Engineering Effectiveness is our name for what elsewhere might be called Developer Tools, Developer Productivity, Engineering Infrastructure, or Developer Efficiency. We provide the tools and processes that allow the rest…
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Stupid Apps and Changing the World
An article came out today in Businessweek about arrogance and Silicon Valley. I thought it was good, but there was one more point I wanted to make. People often accuse people in Silicon Valley...
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Unit Economics
Commentators are looking hard for what’s wrong with startups in Silicon Valley. First they talked about valuations being too high. Then they talked about valuations not really meaning anything. ...
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Launching a product in just 3652 days
A story about how I learned a lot of things the hard way
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What Did Billion Dollar Companies Look Like at the Series A?
Five key traits of unicorns at the Series A. Some may surprise you.
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Your Job as a Founder Is to Create Believers
Before we launched HelloSign, I remember showing HelloFax to a family member. This person was normally supportive, but he took a glance and walked away. He wasn't the only one. A lot of people...
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Financial Misstatements
First-time startup CEOs make a lot of mistakes, mostly due to ignorance. One particularly bad one is misunderstanding or misusing basic financial terms. I started noticing this in Y Combinator...
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The Post-YC Slump
At the end of a YC batch, the general consensus among the partners is that about 25% of the companies are on a trajectory that could lead to a multi-billion dollar company. Of course, only a...
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Why Founders Fail: The Product CEO Paradox (2013)
Ben Horowitz is a cofounder and general partner at the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. He is the author of the New York Times bestsellers, The
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Projects and Companies
In the early days of my startup, I used to get slightly offended when people would refer to it as a “project”. “How’s your project going?” seemed like the asker didn't take us seriously, even...
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Standard Treasury Acquired by Silicon Valley Bank
We're proud to say that Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) has acquired the assets and team of Standard Treasury. More information can be found in the press release. Dan and I started Standard Treasury...