whatsmyhandle

Very nice writeup! A nice, detailed read that was easy to understand.

It seems to focus more on raw infrastructure (EC2 vs GCE) instead of each company's PaaS offerings. Obviously AWS has the front runner lead here, but would be super curious in a comparison of RDS vs. Cloud Spanner for instance. (pun unintentional, but then realized, and left in there)

EEK. When speaking in front of a large audience, it's generally a good idea to either mute your phone, or ditch it entirely before you get up onstage.

To get canned for not responding to a text message 30 minutes before a talk - which you were already approved for - seems terribly unfair and a decision probably made in the heat of the moment.

"The median seed deal is now $1.6 million, according to Pitchbook, up from about $500,000 five years ago. That's more in line with what big venture firms used to invest."

Cost of living, office space, employees (due to the cost of living) has to be a factor here. Maybe $500k was viable a few years ago in the Bay Area, but imagine these days a company NEEDS a larger seed round in order to get to a viable state.

I generally consider targeted ads to be relatively harmless, with one major recent exception:

I'm starting to shop for an engagement ring, but since I live with my GF I have to do online research in Incognito mode so ads don't ruin what I hope to be a surprise someday.

File this under "things peeps didn't have to worry about 10-15 years ago"

Unfortunate that your perception is that this is a desperation play. I think the intent is the exact opposite of that.

The startup souffle might be deflating for sure, but I think the intent here is to say:

"We just had to layoff 40% of our staff yesterday. Through no fault of their own, our folks are now jobless. Can the community help?"