[abbasmehdi]

I think you might have not been down voted as much if you had written less sarcastically and with more practical solutions (versus ideological). The solutions you are offering are so general that by following this high-level point of view we can solve world peace, world energy and world poverty and still make the evening tea.

You see HN is mostly a community of "doers", and though the ideas you presented might have merit among circles of people who.. discuss big ideas (for the lack of a better description), a community of doers says and does things they can actually attempt doing today, tomorrow, or in a week with a reasonable probability of success. I am not attacking you, just trying to explain why I think you're being down-voted.

These might be helpful, specifically the comments section: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[ten_fingers]

> The solutions you are offering are so general that by following this high-level point of view we can solve world peace, world energy and world poverty and still make the evening tea.

Nonsense. I'm talking applied research. There's rock solid, highly developed, high quality education for that called a Ph.D. in applied physics, applied science, applied math, the mathematical sciences, and many fields of engineering. The education is for 'doing' and is fully 'practical'. The shelves of the research libraries are stuffed with peer-reviewed journals of original research with 'applied' and synonyms in the titles. These journals state strongly that they like papers with actual applications. There is nothing too "general" about what I described.

It is true that the HN community and Silicon Valley are short on Ph.D. holders in applied physics, applied science, applied math, engineering, etc. But, as I stated up front, YC is unusually well qualified in these directions.

My post made some rock solid points but was written in a way to raise 'attention' although attacked no one. Instead, I was attacked. Likely the attackers were mostly just HN mods. I've seen such before at HN: There are some strong, secret PC norms sometimes enforced here. Thus HN is nothing like free and open discussion of IDEAS.

PG's essay raised some questions about some pressing issues, and I gave some rock solid answers, and was, thus, attacked. Piss poor.

[abbasmehdi]

Then why aren't you a billionaire yet and why do you need Paul?

[ten_fingers]

If my project is successful, I will be a billionaire, many times over. I have no desire to do that, and really don't want the down side of being that wealthy, and didn't try to pick a project that would make so darned much money, but that's just the way my project looks.

I picked a project using my Steps 1 and 2. So, in Step 1 I picked a big unsolved problem, one that nearly every Internet user, desktop to mobile, wants to have solved and that so far is at best poorly solved. Then I executed my Step 2 and drew from my background in pure and applied math, had some new ideas, wrote out some new theorems and proofs, as my education taught me very well how to do, and then wrote the corresponding software.

At this point what is left to do is not very much quite routine Web site construction and some initial data collection. The rest of the software is ready for at least initial production. I've written successful production software before and for this project had no desire to write 'prototype' software.

But what's crucial about my project is the research, just the research, or Step 2 in my post. All the rest is routine.

The main business risk is, will users like my solution. Why is there a question? Mostly because the UI and UX are different. The UI is much easier to use than anything in, say, Office, but there is still a little for users to do.

Can the solution 'scale'? Apparently. From how my software works, my software timings, and some fairly simple estimating, it appears that my software could serve the world from just 2000 square feet of standard rack space in a room of, say, 20,000 square feet. So, my software is relatively efficient. The needed scaling techniques are just the simplest ones -- lots of parallelism and redundancy and processing mostly read only data with good locality of reference.

For 'needing' Paul, really I'm not trying: I've never applied to a YC 'class' and wouldn't want to be part of one. E.g., I don't have a Mac laptop! And I'm building on Microsoft instead of Linux. And I'm writing in Visual Basic .NET instead of C#! So, my software writing doesn't 'fit in' with the YC or HN 'norms'! And, more importantly, I'm not writing just demo or prototype software. Also, I'm a one-person effort: As founder, I insist on knowing all the early software, and the way for me do to that is just to write it. Besides, I enjoy writing software.

The 'business idea', the research, and the corresponding software were all fast, fun, and easy for me. But learning enough about .NET and SQL Server administration has been a self inflicted root canal procedure bottleneck -- that maybe by now I'm mostly through.

When I get some revenue or equity funding, for more obscure details about Microsoft's software, e.g., when I get to be a big uses of Windows Server and SQL Server, I will just pick up a phone, call a Microsoft expert, and pay. My patience working through MSDN Web pages is drawing to a close. Similarly for boxes I get from Cisco.

So far I am 100% owner. Some venture funding would have helped me a little mostly just because I could have called Microsoft instead of worked through thousands of MSDN Web pages. Also a LOT of venture funding would have let me hire people for all the routine software. Net, so far being 100% owner has likely been for the best.

But in the future there may be a role for some venture funding. But it looks like the 'window' will be short: By the time I qualify for such funding, I should be close to no longer needing or willing to accept it.

But YC doesn't really do venture funding. So, I would not be looking to YC for venture funding. So, my post was not to try to get YC funding.

Instead my post was to try to help Paul with the struggles in project evaluation in his essay. Also, since SV has similar struggles, I was writing to help SV. If someone in SV wants to discuss venture funding soon, then okay, but I doubt they will.

For SV funding my project, from all I can tell there will be no problem if and only if my project is nearly far enough along that I no longer need or will accept funding!

My guess, from contacts with VCs I have had, is that to fund my project now, VCs would have to evaluate my research, which they won't do and would have a tough time doing, and then violate some rules from their limited partners.

So, really my post was to tell PG, YC, SV, VCs, and the LPs that for the few "big wins" they want, they should learn to evaluate research and, then, should do that.

Of course, the SV answer, should they ever actually think that far, would be, if the rest of the software is just a little, routine Web site construction, then that is not too much to ask before looking for equity funding. My response would be, okay, but then you risk trying to get on my airplane after it has already left the ground.

Net, then, my post was really to try to shock SV enough to get them to pay enough attention that maybe I could do them some good on one of their worst problems and not really to get funding for my project.

But I should be worth about $500 million: I helped start FedEx and saved it twice. My offer letter said I'd get stock. Later Fred Smith told me, with Mike Basch, that the amount would be $500,000, and that would be worth ballpark $500 million now. That FedEx wouldn't do what they promised in my offer letter is my loss but their shame. Ah, what the heck: If my project works, then I'll be worth more than Fred Smith anyway.

[salemh]

This is more venting, or a manic episode (I am not being facetious, I am reading it that way) without any sort of specifics besides the merits you are expounding about applied research without specifics in an attack like style of writing. It's very interesting for me to read as a stream of conscious, but not practical in any aspect, nor open to any debate.

Your "doing them some good" had nothing specific to merit attention towards fixing a... valuation or funding problem?

[ten_fingers]

My point is clear, simple, rock solid, quite explicit, and very well supported: Again, yet again, this time just for you, my point from DoD research is that DoD research shows that research can find powerful solutions to important practical problems. Examples include a long list of astounding military technology from the atomic bomb, the hydrogen bomb, sonar in all its forms, radar, now a deep and astounding field, laser guided bombs, GPS, stealth, high bypass turbo-fan engines, e.g., first for the C5-A, carbon fiber materials, CAD, originally heavily for aerospace, etc.

What is "practical" is the unique power of research to find powerful solutions to important real problems.

I omitted all my peer-reviewed, published research results. But if you want some examples of research, try the shelves of any research library.

My post, if actually read, directly addressed the main problem in PG's essay, how to evaluate projects. My solution was my three steps. That is, start with an important problem and do some research to get a powerful solution. That solution addressed PG's issue.

For how to evaluate some routine application of software for a simple case of some social, sharing, mobile app, my solution is don't try and, instead, go with projects that use original research to get powerful solutions for important problems.

If you want to know what research is, get a Ph.D. in a technical field from a good research university. If you want to know how DoD does research and applies it, then get a job in a DoD laboratory that does such work -- the DC area is surrounded by such labs from NRL, NSRDC, JHU/APL, and many more, and there are many more such labs all across the US.