“There is no harsher judgment in all this world, thought Gilead, than that of an Ozark woman for a female that can’t cope. But she didn’t say it aloud, it wasn’t the kind of thing you said to a man..

“I’ve met a lot of fairly powerful people who are very, very nervous about where the New/Global Economy is headed, and how the U.S. is going to maintain its standard of living in the future. If you’re looking for a near-magic solution, which you are if you’re a politician, grabbing onto intellectual property as the salvation of high-cost Western society probably isn’t the stupidest thing you’ll do all day.

“The technical hierarchy is kept very simple and “shallow” so that there is minimal bullshit and over-organization.

“Building something is easy. Evaluating what you build is hard. Iterate between the two as fast as you can.

“..the technology stack is Zimki on the backend with Flex up front. I cannot recommend this combo enough for developing very rich applications, very quickly.

“Heh. Paul Graham isn’t automatically front-page material, pica is gone, and hopeseekr has a girlfriend. This is not the reddit I know and love.

“Investors are like high school girls:

* They always say what they really care about is the team [you]. Actually what they care most about is your traffic [stock], then what other investors think, then you.

* They are afraid of looking bad.

* They can’t make up their minds.

* They like it when you don’t need them.

* Being turned down by them doesn’t mean much.

* They are emotional. Investment negotiations can easily turn personal. If you offend investors, they’ll leave in a huff. Even after a term sheet, it may be several months to a deal. It’s not uncommon for them to get buyer’s remorse. If they do, they’ll usually seize on some technicality or claim you misled them, rather than admitting they changed their minds.

* They look for founders like the current stars.

* They collude. They are constantly trading little favors. Though a professional investor may have a closer relationship with a founder he invests in than with other investors, his relationship with the founder is only going to last a couple years, whereas his relationship with other firms will last his whole career.

“I’ve been surprised how willing investors are to split deals. You might think that if they found a good deal they’d want it all to themselves, but they seem positively eager to syndicate. There is one rational reason to want multiple VCs in a deal: Any investor who co-invests with you is one less investor who could fund a competitor. Splitting deals thus has similar advantages to confusing paternity.

“Since valuations are made up, founders shouldn’t care too much about them. And since a startup is like a pass/fail course for the founders, what you want to optimize is your chance of a good outcome, not the percentage of the company you keep.

“VCs don’t try to look at something and predict whether it will take off. They win by noticing that something is taking off a little sooner than everyone else.