kevt

Great idea for posting up a wishlist for services, until I remembered the old saying of how people are terrible at predicting future behavior. Hence, never to ask potential customers the question, "would you buy/use this". I realize that this is in reverse (the writer is asking for it), and that they are not being lead by an interviewer, but shouldnt the same theory (that people cannot predict future behavior) still apply?

To add to Nick's point, you can read Random Walk Down Wall Street to get an understand of why buying an index fund is probably a good idea for you. It boils down to the fact that the market is fairly efficient "most" of the time (hard to find deals), and by trading you are already at a disadvantage against the market because you will likely pay more commission and pay more taxes (based on your trading volume of course, but generally speaking, buying index funds are extremely efficient in both these two areas). To over come this and still beat the market as a whole (over a long period of time and risk-adjusted) is a extremely difficult. You have to be very very skilled to accomplish this. Most pros do not accomplish this in their careers (even though it may be due to other factors such as incentive structures, but that's for another discussion). So realistically speaking, you will have to invest a lot of time to become "good enough", which means it will only be worth while if you are trading a significant amount of money. Even Warren Buffett, who's an evangelists for value investing recommends investing in index funds for most people. And the last and most important thing to remember is that yes, people make money from the stock market all the time just like how people make money from the casino all the time. It doesn't mean it makes sense risk-adjusted, and that it can be done over a long period of time.

Anyone know what can get an app shutdown by facebook? Apparently, Dan received this from fb: "For example, if an application is making an inordinate number of stream.publish calls and receiving a large number of user reports". What exactly is an inordinate number of post? Was Breakup Notifier spamming signed up users' post stream to get the word out? Or was it just an extraordinary number of api calls that FB was not use to getting?

Seems like you are evaluating this completely based on compensation. Here are some possible reasons why you would work at a startup and take a paycut. a) I love the team, I love what they are doing, I love the work that they want me to do... I can't believe they are paying me to do this! b) I can learn so much from this team and experience, and in a couple of years, I'll be ready to do *SOMETHING (ie. start my own company, etc)... I can't believe they are paying me to do this! c) Totally believe in the team and their vision, this is going to be the next facebook, I want to be part of it, my equity can be worth millions, but regardless...I can't believe they are paying me to be part of this! However if your primary objective is to maximize compensation, then you shouldn't take a pay cut to work at a startup.

ha, I just bought that book yesterday (Do More Faster). I'll get to that quote soon.

People usually "fall in love" with ideas, which is why its so hard to pull away from it. Its hard to be rational and objective when you're in love. This isn't so much of an issue in a relationship (in love with a person) because how you feel is what matters. However, in a startup, what matters is how the customers feel, and that love potion will be your Archilles heel if not treated carefully. I generally try to fall in love with problems before an idea (solution). When the idea comes before the problem, its been disastrous. Customer Development helps, but its still a rough ride.