Disqus - Latest Comments for blakeweb

Re: Question: what options for online Python or R classes?

blakeborgeson — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 23:43:38 -0000

Udacity has several courses of varying levels in python, and the teaching and user interface there is awesome.

Software carpentry is great as well, and has tons of python lessons, plus tutorials on using the command line and its most-useful tools, which is just as important if you want to wrangle data.

Re: http://rahmin.com/post/459242760

blakeborgeson — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 18:00:25 -0000

This is true, non-obvious, and important. Was just hearing about Tolstoy this morning from my parents--makes me think I should make a point to see 'the last station'.

Re: my comment on seth godin’s post “breakage”: be careful with your customers

blakeborgeson — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 03:35:56 -0000

Hey Jonathan--great to see you here!

My favorite resource for discussions about versioning so far is Eric Ries, co-founder of imvu. He's incredibly smart both technically and business-wise and just started writing a fantastic blog about 4 months ago at http://startuplessonslearne.... I imagine you've seen links to some of his posts on hacker news. He's very prolific as well. To thin it out a bit, here's a link to a tag of split-test posts he's written: http://startuplessonslearne...

He talks about doing all the versioning the manual way deep within the code for the site, which is how we set it up as well. But you can use some tricks to leverage google's website optimizer if you're limited in your coding bandwidth. For example, if you've got an out-of-the-box ecommerce solution or you coded one yourself, just run some different versions of portions of your homepage that link through to duplicates of the same product, but at different prices. Then google handles all the cookies, tracking, and conversion analysis. You'll have to do some math yourself to pick the optimal price for you based on your profit margins--conversion rates is, I believe, as far as website optimizer will take you. Hope that helps!

Re: some good web finds last week: zembly platform, startup ideas, a postmortem

blakeborgeson — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 03:18:12 -0000

Hmm...I don't, but since I haven't really done much with that account, I was
going to change the password so you could check it out. Unfortunately,
there doesn't seem to be any way in their account interface to change
passwords, and the 'lost my password' function is broken.

I haven't tested it much honestly, but it seems sweet. Something for you to
look forward to. =)

Re: Start-upping 101: Free tickets to Startonomics

blakeborgeson — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 20:05:58 -0000

my first startup plan
make a website then profit
did i skip a step?

Re: what i liked at techcrunch50: fitbit, grockit, goodguide, and peter thiel

blakeborgeson — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 11:13:38 -0000

Sorry disqus ate your comment, and thanks for letting me know--that's something I should keep an eye out for if I can.

tonchidot: No, I definitely don't think it's really real. I mean, the video isn't fake, but yeah, I agree that it's a hacked demo in that their application isn't really ready at all. They seeded it with perfect data in a perfect scenario, so the video wasn't realistic at all. But it's coming soon, I hope.

swype: Yeah, I skipped them--I never paid attention to them at the event because I have an app on my iphone already as of a couple weeks ago that does what they're doing, called writingpad (http://www.shapewriter.com/.... So swype's technology didn't look that unique or defensible to me. I like writingpad a lot, though right now it's confined to its own little notepad application rather than subbing in for the default iphone keyboard. That's what swype is trying to change, I guess. Seems like apple and the other phone makers will just do it themselves, and hopefully have it as another option for the way the keyboard works.

Although looking at their website, it seems swype might be targeting actual computer touch screens over mobile devices. That seems like it could be really useful.

Re: using a speculative market to decide our laws? (”futarchy”)

blakeborgeson — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 03:18:42 -0000

That's true--I think right now the idea definitely doesn't have a lot of support yet. Maybe we need an authoritarian government to bridge the gap...with me in charge. =)

Re: using a speculative market to decide our laws? (”futarchy”)

blakeborgeson — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 03:17:04 -0000

Good point. It actually does seem reasonably achievable to do some experimentation of this sort at the local level. Experiments with governance on a national level may have to wait until the first seasteading (seasteading.org) colony is launched. =)

Re: How to Pitch Ideas

blakeborgeson — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 17:01:45 -0000

I like what you're doing with this. You see the importance of pitching emphasized all over the place as it applies to entrepreneurs starting businesses, but I haven't seen it discussed much in terms of other creative works. Obviously there's the advice "be so good they can't ignore you", but being able to explain the value of what you're creating is often vital.

Re: How to Chrome Your Industry

blakeborgeson — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 14:13:18 -0000

The chrome release reminds me of the stories I heard of Google's decision to buy Android, and all the money, dedication, and star power they've put behind it to try to broaden the reach and increase the depth of the mobile web. Here's one take on it from wired via gizmodo (not a great telling, probably better to just google 'android history'): http://gizmodo.com/5019678/wired-how-and-why-android-came-to-be.

Reading about Google finding yet another means of achieving greatness through goodness makes me think about their "luck" in achieving a perfect business model for that approach. They started out making a better search engine to help people find things on the internet, and lo and behold, enough people search for stuff they want to buy enough of the time, and advertisers will pay so much to get to them, that you can pull in unimaginable amounts of money in a way that feels to users like you're doing nothing but helping them out--for free, at that--even when they end up buying something via a paid advertisement.

If you take a company in an industry like oil, you've got quite a different situation, for reasons that seem pretty clear. Your entire infrastructure, skills and investments to date depend on refining and selling something that may potentially have an overall _negative_ net impact on the world.

The strategic decisions discussed in posts like this seem to be the types of decisions a company makes when deciding its initial business model--during the utter beginnings of the company--or perhaps later when entering a new market. Following this kind of advice may be impossible at many existing companies, unless you have the influence and courage to change the company's entire business model.

The moral of the story seems to be to _think_ about your business model, including what your underlying personal goals are for the company beyond making money, and how your business model will align the incentives for your company to do well by being good. And that thinking had better be done before you start your company or enter a new market.

From the little experience I have so far, there's too little discussion about those types of questions when new business ideas are being tossed around and decided on by founders, then vetted, and funded by angels and vcs, it seems to me. But answering those questions is fundamental in determining whether that company will ever be able to be really great.

Re: Change I'd Like To See

blakeborgeson — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 15:08:33 -0000

Fred,

Huge props for writing posts like this. In my experience, it's really emotionally and mentally taxing to get into conversations like this, especially on a computer, and especially with several people at the same time. And my experience is limited to a small set of strong-willed friends. But you're in a unique position with your following and the respect people have for you to make people think about important stuff. Thanks for stepping up.

Re: Change I'd Like To See

blakeborgeson — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 14:58:04 -0000

Brian,

With Fred talking about voting for Obama, your taxes are only going to go up if you're making over 250k. You said:

>I am trying to save for retirement and my children's education. I would appreciate you not raising my taxes just because you do not think you are paying your fair share.

Maybe you weren't aware, but if you're making less than 250k, under Obama's plan, your taxes will go down. That's according to Furman, Obama's lead economic advisor, as related in the article in the NYTimes which Boris linked to above:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008...

So I'm curious whether a) that's news to you, or b) you actually have an income over 250k, but still feel like you're scraping by.

Re: obamanomics needs a one-liner: excellent nytimes article on obama’s economics views

blakeborgeson — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 12:17:41 -0000

Dan,

Your comments are all spot on. In retrospect, I can see that the excerpt I chose doesn't do much more to talk about what ideas Obama has about what will change. It more just describes at a high level, via references to the last few presidents, where Obama sees himself on the political spectrum economically.

As you supposed, there are lots of more specific details in the article itself, and to that point, that's really the challenge someone like Obama faces. He's really got a good handle on the economics issues in my opinion, and I think this article shows that, but how can he communicate that to Americans? Not more than 1 in 20 Americans is actually going to read anything as long as that whole article, and it's a lot less than that probably. So how does he convince the country that he's the best person to put in charge of it? He's got to break it down into terms people can understand, and that's the goal I think he's trying to work towards mentally in that excerpt.

One of the specific ideas/plans mentioned in the article, something I've been hearing about in the last couple of months as a possibility, is decreasing the payroll tax. The way it's structured, it essentially discourages businesses from investing in people. I agree that decreasing or phasing out the payroll tax, and picking up the slack with the changes he proposes to income and capital gains taxes, would likely be great for the country.

Re: What Apple Knows That Facebook Doesn't

blakeborgeson — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 11:35:06 -0000

Riaz, quick thought:

As to google's platform/market, I just read a post somewhere a couple weeks ago offering up the idea that google's platform these days is really the entire internet. They're an entrypoint to the internet ecosystem, and the value of that ecosystem is what they monetize when they put ads alongside their search results. You can directly see this in how google has treated android--they honestly don't care if they come out on top in the platform wars for mobile devices. They just want to push mobile devices and the mobile internet in a positive direction, then be sure to defend their position (searching google.com, or some other entrypoint they can serve ads alongside) as the entryway. I think that speaks to them seeing the internet ecosystem as a market whose value directly drives their success.

Re: Venture Fund Economics: Gross and Net Returns

blakeborgeson — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 02:02:00 -0000

Thanks for that back-of-the-napkin math. Puts things in perspective.

Re: [bijan sabet] the personal tumblelog of Bijan Sabet

blakeborgeson — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 01:59:58 -0000

Put companies like loopt, reddit, disqus, and justin.tv up against other startups that people call successful that aren't yet rolling in dough, and they seem to stack up well.

I think all he was saying was that starting a business may not require the age and experience potential startup founders think might think it does. Long way of saying, "Hey kids out there, if you can code a sweet website, you have more of a chance to hit it big than you realize. Go for it."

But yeah, definitely no googles yet. =)

Re: Transitions

blakeborgeson — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 20:16:30 -0000

Pmarca posted about hiring a CEO back in August of last year, and he basically said that if one of the founders isn't capable of running the company anymore, you still shouldn't hire a CEO--it's time to sell the company. I think he's got a lot of truth in there, but I can see both sides of the issue.

To me it begs a good question to think about: how do you know as a founder when you've reached the stage "in the evolution of the company" when it makes sense?

One tentative answer to that: when (a) you've got the money to do so (either from revenues or from solid funding rounds), (b) the vision of the company and product/market fit have been sufficiently realized that the new CEO can guide the company from there, and (c) the founder running the company isn't as good at executing as someone you could bring in. The tradeoff between b and c is the crux, and it's still pretty hazy to me.

Re: seeking advice: username/blog connection problems and confusion

blakeborgeson — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 16:57:18 -0000

Perfect. Awesome. He fixed it juuust right.

Re: asgagea

blakeborgeson — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 21:10:06 -0000

Incredibly useful post for me just in kicking me into finding the TED video podcasts.

I also haven't subscribed to cable or even hooked up an antenna to my tv in a couple years. In the past I was only getting what was on dvd, but more and more I'm finding content online, and it looks like you've found a lot better sources.

Re: Saving Strategy From the Strategists

blakeborgeson — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 15:06:27 -0000

Great writing. It scares and excites me to think about what's happening in the world economy, and what opportunities there are to uproot what's there and make it work right this time around.

Regarding the finance industry aspect: I talked over dinner recently with someone who's several years into the investment banking world, which I usually only read about. In his experience, nobody outside of the big investment banks understands remotely enough of what's going on with the crisis, how we got into it, or much of anything about all the newer financial instruments they rely on these days. Given the incredible salaries you get working for the big banks as compared to working for the fed or some other regulator, and the usual mindset of young people in general who would want to get into finance and economics, his opinion was that even the rank-and-file at the regulators just have no idea what's really going on--at least not enough to develop and carry out enough meaningful regulations. That seems like a serious problem with no immediately apparent solution.

Also, thanks for the book recommendation. I'd love it, and maybe others here would as well, if you could list and describe a few top book recommendations that would be helpful to entrepreneurs working on coming up with or developing big-impact ideas--I'm short all of a sudden on books that I'm really excited about.

Re: reblog: president bush pardons himself via congress for potential warcrimes

blakeborgeson — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 20:14:20 -0000

Andre-
Thanks, I appreciate you linking to the digg story--I hadn't seen that, but that makes sense. I see a couple comments on that dig post from several days ago that seem to indicate this story is talking about "the 2006 Military Commissions Act, which was recently struck down as unconstitutional by the supreme court." [swrostmore], and one of the commenters at digg correctly points out that the video was first posted on youtube in January of 08. So the story isn't brand new it seems.

The story in general also really isn't all that surprising to me--I don't blame Bush for pursuing, as strongly but quietly as he can, retroactive immunity for all the gray area (some would say it's not very gray) he's trudged into with all the cia interrogation issues since 9/11.

Re: umair to business: be sustainable

blakeborgeson — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 14:51:29 -0000

@Dan, thanks, and I think your suggestion for another way of moving sustainability forward is definitely a good one.

If pressed, I'd probably lump Google's backing of those sustainable widgets partially into the philanthropy/morality view of business sustainability, and partially into Google looking out for its own long-term interests, as part of what makes it Google in consumers' minds is taking a lead on sustainability issues.

@Matt, yeah, I don't agree with that first quote exactly as Umair worded it either, which I didn't talk much about. Rather than wealth generation necessarily having all those bad things listed as a by-product, I think the issue is more that certain costs are not being allocated correctly, allowing businesses to sometimes profit from something like loopholes, profiting while contributing negative long term value.

I think you're very right about communication increasing the SENSE that there's a lot wrong with the world. And yeah, from the studies I've read about, it sounds like we're actually making pretty incredible progress on a lot of the big problems in the world. Enough so that it's tempting to say that all economic growth definitely increases living standards for everyone across the board--but that's where I think you'll make a mistake unless you look closely: I think there are still loopholes we need to work on closing up.

Re: nick bostrom: are we living in a matrix? more possible than you might think

blakeborgeson — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 12:29:39 -0000

@soundslikeaustin I 100% agree with your comments as they pertain to the movie 'the matrix', although that wasn't quite what the post was about. You should check it out. But yeah, what's the primary energy source for the human race? Doesn't make sense.

@dan Yeah, I agree with your criticism of the argument, but the thing that makes this particular possible explanation for our existence a bit more meaningful to me is that it's actually hard to come up with a reason why we wouldn't want to run billions simulations of our existence in the distant future, given the computational ability. I can better visualize the potential benefits of running simulations than I can for any other seedling-esque hypothesis I've heard. I'd be interested in hearing other hypothetical future 'causes' that seem plausible.

Re: what does a higher gdp get you? national influence, not citizen happiness

blakeborgeson — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 20:58:47 -0000

I'm glad you wanted to take the discussion up with me--that's the best thing blog comments are good for. Plus, it gives me an excuse to clean up and qualify my position a bit.

Another point I'd make against my general tone here of gdp not necessarily being a good thing is that gdp _generally_ means more stuff for the citizens. And the government being, in theory at least, here to serve in the best interest of the citizens, and the citizens of this country pretty universally wanting more stuff, it makes sense that the government should try to give it to them, as long as it's heeding the spirit of their desire and not just the letter (ie, not screwing them over by giving them what they ask for without them understanding the consequences).

The reason I emphasized "generally" there is in line with the position of my post--that in many more cases than people are aware of today, because of environmental, social, and other cost allocation being incomplete or incorrect, incrementally higher gdp can indicate people being as a whole worse off. If a city is flattened by an earthquake or a flood and insurance pays for it all to be rebuilt exactly as it was, the gdp goes up. When more criminals in a city destroy more property, the gdp goes up in 3 ways off the top of my head: the property has to be repaired or replaced; more policemen are employed by the city; more prisons are built and prison guards hired. We know that crime in fact isn't good for anyone, but at least in the immediate-tem, it's good for the gdp. What are your thoughts on that?

Re: marc andreessen’s greatest blog hits

blakeborgeson — Sat, 17 May 2008 22:06:05 -0000

Thanks for the feedback, John. I'm assuming you mean links directly into pmarca's posts. I'll do that tonight since you asked.