dstorrs

I gave up on reading newspapers and watching TV news over a decade ago and I can't point to a single way that it's ever harmed me. My basic theory is as follows:

- I miss out on the fearmongering

- I save a tremendous amount of time

- If anything important IS happening, everyone will be talking about it, so I'll hear about it

- Even if I do miss hearing about an important issue, what does it matter? What can I actually do to prevent e.g. the fiscal cliff, or the failure of Lehman Brothers, or etc?

- When it comes time to vote, I talk with my friends who actually care about news / politics and, if use their information (plus a bit of research if needed) to decide my vote

- I read Hacker news or other sites like it because the news that geeks want to know about is far more likely to be interesting / relevant.

Aside from some occasional mild embarrassment when someone asks me an opinion on something I'm not aware of -- which can usually be deflected simply by saying something innocuous and then turning the conversation back to them -- this has worked excellently for me.

What you're talking about is a great example of good-faith communication. Unfortunately, it relies on both parties dealing in good faith, and I've had too much experience with people who won't do that -- they won't give an honest assessment of what happens if their request isn't met. I wish I knew how to handle that.

As a developer, I'd just like to say: thank you for doing this. A good PM is literally worth their weight in silver (at today's price, anyway).

Ok, tell me if I have this correct:

  module Foo
    def hello
      puts "Hello World"
    end
  end

  ...in a different file...

  foo = Foo.new.msg

Q: What does that print? A: There is no way to tell. It depends on what the 'using' line (not shown) is, and whether anything has refined 'Foo'.

Seems like bad action at a distance, to me. Or am I missing something? The example about the effects of refining 'each' is also pretty disconcerting.

Let me preface this by saying that I'm actually pretty much onboard with a lot of the Libertarian policies that I've heard. Like anything, of course, I think it can be taken too far. So, when you ask for a "very specific example", this is the sort of thing that comes to mind:

- City governments have health inspectors that check local restaurants, and food-product companies to ensure they are using good ingredients, that the equipment is clean, etc. In a libertarian world (at least, certain versions of one) this practice would not exist. Now think what happens when a Monsanto executive realizes that paying the occasional legal suit is cheaper than keeping their packing plants clean and disease-free.

From the site: limit is $100 per transaction

After a marriage and a divorce I can expand on this (marital lessons reframed for business though).

There's a second question to ask: how often do you fight?

If you are generally in alignment but disagree sometimes / occasionally, that's good. If you seem to disagree most of the time, that's a problem.

Other specifics I'd look at:

- are you aligned on the fundamentals? (e.g. B2C vs B2B)

- do you fight the same way? If one of you prefers rational discussion and the other prefers combative, whoever-sticks-longest-wins then it's going to go poorly

- how do the fights end? "ok, after thinking about it, I think you were right about XYZ" is very different from "fine, whatever. I'm tired of arguing."

- do you resolve issues and come to agreement or do the same topics come up again and again?

- after a conclusion is reached and a plan is put together, do both parties fulfill their pieces of it reliably and on time?

One very simple way to avoid issues during fights is the 'I statement': "I feel my opinions get ignored a lot..." is a lot less escalation-inducing than "You always ignore my opinions".

I'll ignore the ad hominem and the argument by implied assertion and assume that we have different definitions of "making people's lives better". What's yours?

The kindest thing I can say here is that I find your interpretation odd and that it contains some substantial And unusual interpretation of the text.

Melanie said she tried the standard (accellerator leading presumably to VC) route, it didn't work, she tried another, nonstandard route, it did. Now she is sharing the lesson that alternatives exist.

I consider Zuckerberg to be rich. As far as I can tell from his and FB's public-facing personas, he's a failure at the things that really matter -- integrity, positive impact on others, respect of peers for anything other than wealth acquisition.

"I am doing a startup because...."

So, to you, it's not a startup unless it's what the OP calls the "go big or go home" approach. The OP asserts that that is not a critical element of starting up a business, nor a healthy one, nor necessarily one that will increase your odds of success.

Honestly your argument seems odd. If you were able to do a successful company ($2mm / year rev, $3mm exit after 10 years by OP definition) at 19, why didn't you? Why not use that money to fund your "bigger is better" startup instead of taking VC? Or did you?