dsernst

This is a post by Joel Spolsky. The original post is linked at the bottom.

This is such a common question here and elsewhere that I will attempt to write the world's most canonical answer to this question. Hopefully in the future when someone on answers.onstartups asks how to split up the ownership of their new company, you can simply point to this answer.

The most important principle: Fairness, and the perception of fairness, is much more valuable than owning a large stake. Almost everything that can go wrong in a startup will go wrong, and one of the biggest things that can go wrong is huge, angry, shouting matches between the founders as to who worked harder, who owns more, whose idea was it anyway, etc. That is why I would always rather split a new company 50-50 with a friend than insist on owning 60% because "it was my idea," or because "I was more experienced" or anything else. Why? Because if I split the company 60-40, the company is going to fail when we argue ourselves to death. And if you ju

dsernst

On Thu, Jul 10, 2014 at 10:44 AM, Anthony Zeoli <[email protected]> wrote:

Hi everyone,

I rarely write anything about my personal life, but I thought this was super important to put out there and see what kind of help might be available.

One of my wife's best friends, Ann, has stage 4 cancer and has now opted into hospice, as she's at the point in her treatment where they say there's no more they can do. Ann has been battling cancer for 7-years. We first went to support her in Boston when she was being seen there and had to have a double mastectomy. A year or so later, we did the Komen Walk in NYC with her through Central Park. It was a very emotional day - walking with someone who you actually knew that was trying to beat the cancer that started invading her body. A year or so after the walk, the Cancer went to her hip and she had to have hip replacement surgery.

dsernst

“Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.” —Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities

via http://www.crowdspot.com.au/about/

dsernst

Conferences:

Many groups hold conferences to discuss current issues they want to focus on.

1972: Stockholm "on environment" 1992: Rio was "environment & development" in the North but "development & environment" in the South. Huh. 2002: Johannesburg on "sustainable development" 2012: Rio "sustainable development (+ 20)" (via http://www.aguanomics.com/2011/12/notes-from-nexus.html)

dsernst

The trouble with New York is how intensely competitive it is. Everyone expects more from you, all the time.

It's so hyper commercialized and everything & everyone is always competing for your money, or more likely, your attention.

dsernst

I've been introducing the concept of Gittip/Gratipay to one of my friends throughout the day. Note this guy is a full-time college student, and probably not the "target market". Still, I thought it would be worth investigating how broad of an appeal the concept has.

Later, I asked for more specific feedback:

Could you ever see yourself using this sort of thing? To receive money?

He asked more questions to clarify. He finally said "Yeah, it's cool." But didn't really seem all that interested.

Why wouldn't everyone use it? (we made this list together)

• Do they know about it?

dsernst

Friends,

When saying the name "lets fix dot net" out loud, the first impression it gives off hasn't been what I was hoping for. The intonation comes off more aggressive than necessary. Too forceful.

The name Let's Fix may still have a place one day... but in a slightly different role. Focused on solutions, perhaps.

But is it worth going back a stage? Before action, we can just try to observe the problem. To be present. To try to diagnose what's going on.

What about this name....?

dsernst

What is a meta-optimization?

"Unconditional love as the most frictionless meta-optimization."

Finding patterns among the patterns.

dsernst

Core Philosophy:

I want to be part of a sacred world.

Creating fertile soil, a discussion ground, for recognizing that something's not right and could be better.

It would be interesting to help create the next stage of the collective consciousness.

It's a tool that uses rapid, collective, communication. Rapid, dynamic, instantly scalable communication. In order to help us resolve the problems of all size. Including the big ones of our time.

dsernst

What the Kickstarter is going to fund: MVP

Allowing people to tag media as they create and have it thereby shared automatically with the people. For their own use. Without having to do anything, when you stop recording.

At the very least, I think people would find something like that valuable. As an MVP. That's one kind of MVP I could see this being.