rmobin

Joined 20 years ago

Karma

104

Submissions

Member since

Feb 21

I love software, startups, cooking, and lifting weights. I worked at online video startup Veoh Networks (veoh.com) from 2006 to 2007. I was a YC Winter 08 founder, but didn't last very long (ping me for lessons learned). I took a few months off, and later started working at DeepDyve, an online rental service for academic journals (deepdyve.com).

Raza Mobin raza.mobin at gmail dot com

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Recent submissions

Comment · 6 years ago

Agreed! People think it's so easy to determine what's true or not at scale. Do I want Facebook employees or (algorithms written by them) making that call? No way.

Comment · 7 years ago

PG holds Sam in very high regard:

"Honestly, Sam is, along with Steve Jobs, the founder I refer to most when I'm advising startups. On questions of design, I ask "What would Steve do?" but on questions of strategy or ambition I ask "What would Sama do?"

What I learned from meeting Sama is that the doctrine of the elect applies to startups. It applies way less than most people think: startup investing does not consist of trying to pick winners the way you might in a horse race. But there are a few people with such force of will that they're going to get whatever they want."

http://paulgraham.com/5founders.html

Comment · 12 years ago

With regards to fat shaming and "gluttonous sloths", Stephan did say: "I do not consider it a "moral failure" to eat unhealthy food that is under your nose, socially accepted and in some cases even considered healthy. I think one of the main problems is simply a lack of accurate information."

http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/05/food-reward-do...

Comment · 12 years ago

I never thought of food reward as typical fat shaming, but I suppose some of the "food reward friday" posts come across that way.

I'm reading through some posts and comments by "itsthewoo", and I'm trying to make sense of her experience. Thanks for pointing her out - food reward has worked really well for me and seems to explain a lot of data out there, but I suppose testing it with a large sample of humans (as opposed to rats) would help us see how universal its suggested interventions are.

Comment · 12 years ago

Anyone who reads Taubes should also consider Stephan Guyenet's critique of his arguments:

http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/08/carbohydrate-h...

http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/11/brief-response...

I used to believe in the refined-carb/insulin hypothesis of Taubes, and I even lost weight on it, but I've ditched that model in favor of Stephan's more complete food reward hypothesis - the idea that more rewarding and palatable foods lead to increased calories ingested in certain individuals and hence lead to fat gain.

One approach to weight loss then is to lower the reward value of the diet. One way to do that is low carb, another way is low fat, another way is vegetarian, another way to use gentler cooking methods and less seasoning, the list goes on. But many successful diets that people have used are very well explained by food reward.

edit> I also believe calorie counting and intermittent fasting are very powerful tools used in conjunction with a reduced reward diet. Eating less calories with minimal hunger and losing fat is the holy grail, and these tools are helping me do that in a very effective way.

Comment · 12 years ago

Hi there, I'm an engineer at DeepDyve. I'm wondering how long your rental was for - was it a 30 day rental? And was 30 days too short to cite the article later? I'll talk to some people here, but we may be able to extend that period pretty easily.

Comment · 14 years ago

Cool, I'll take a look at Peter's posts - I like him in general. Btw, Stephan did respond to Taubes' 6-part series:

http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/11/brief-response...

Comment · 14 years ago

Low-carb diets work for plenty of people (including me), but this is a must-read refutation of Taubes' carbohydrate hypothesis:

http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/08/carbohydrate-h...

Comment · 15 years ago

I don't think he implied that. And I agree with his sentiment - for those of us who haven't made up our minds on Groupon, it's nice to see a view from the other side.

Comment · 15 years ago

It's a big difference to risk starting a company vs climbing Mt Everest. That's actually a big mental block people have - they are afraid of risk, but starting a company or asking a cute girl out and failing is more of an ego hit than a threat to your existence.

Comment · 15 years ago

Seems like you missed the "/sarcasm" comment, unless I'm being leveled?

Comment · 15 years ago

There is an argument to be made that modern fruits have been bred to be sweeter, which is worth examining. Also, it is well known in the "paleo" community that fruit should be avoided when trying to get lean (~10-11% body fat for men) - and this is related to fructose and/or its affect on blood sugar. Last point is a type 1 diabetic, now doctor, eats no fruit and this was a very important step for him to maintain healthy blood sugars and get healthy - Dr. Richard Bernstein (he runs a diabetes clinic in NY). I believe that modern fruit eaten is large quantities isn't so benign.

Comment · 15 years ago

Paul, do you see any role software could play in trying to resolve the dietary advice problem? There are lots of communities out there of diabetics and obese people improving their health through diet - in particular a low carb, medium protein, high fat diet. That's not proof on its own, but it's more compelling than looking at what people who have always been healthy eat (because it could just be good genes). Science and experiments still need to be a part of the solution, but it disturbs me how much bad science is out there.