If you wind the company down, you would/should try to make your investors 'as whole as possible'.
Debt implies that at some later date YC could come asking for their $375k back. A SAFE is not debt.
If your company is running and does not end up raising more money that SAFE should just sit there waiting for the day that you do (which may never come).
There's no maturation date on a SAFE. This is all in the "User Guide" YC publishes for these instruments. The text of the SAFE refers to it as a "converting security". I'm sure there's an important distinction to be made here, but for the purposes of this discussion: if you never raise a round, the issuer just gets their money back (if money is to be had after senior claims).
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I would also add, that over time hyper efficient public transit systems and large fleets of self driving cars doing transportation as a service converge into the same thing.
They are virtually indistinguishable from each other.
Combine that with the progress we are making with electric cars and we've got some REAL progress on multiple fronts that will make a serious difference to the lives of everyday people.
if there isn't a talent shortage and there are workers in the bay area without jobs that work in engineering I would appreciate an intro to said workers.
also to clarify, if you mean there isn't a shortage and that i just have to offer higher salaries to poach from other companies I would categorize that as a shortage since it will just results in the equivalent of music chairs for jobs.
i don't mind paying top dollar for the best engineers but if the permanent state is music chairs for engineers that to me implies a shortage. Irrespective of the salaries you have to pay, there should be enough engineers to fill all job openings otherwise I would say there is a shortage.
not advocating excessive numbers of workers to drop salaries, ideally it would (job openings -1) number of engineers.
You should probably state what time period you are referring to when you recall hearing about Stripe..
I do not recall Stripe being positioned as a PayPal alternative really ever, but certainly not when it launched.
I also believe that Sam was first made aware of Stripe much earlier than most people and it probably did seem like quite a black swan at the time.
I know the very first time that I heard the idea for Stripe it was definitely considered a "crazy" idea. I would easily categorize it as a black swan investment.
Dispassionate debate is a good way to find the truth, but does seem a bit odd to debate whether somebody is xenophobic when you can just go talk to them and see what they are like.
Debating theories and facts or interpretation of facts makes alot of sense for things like science experiments , it seems a bit like indirection when talking about what a certain person is like.
You can just go find out what that person is like, instead of relying on hearsay.
Regarding Slava, I wouldn't say that he is doing the name calling.
Accusing somebody of being xenophobic is much closer to name calling, I find that even the act of accusing to be pretty weak, why not just make a statement as opposed to an accusation.
I agree with Slava's statement, if anyone would make the statement that YC/PG is xenophobic after having met them I would say that is pretty laughable.
I don't need to debate this, it's merely my opinion based on factual experience.
(also, opinions don't need to be correct, they are just opinions. Facts on the other hand can be incorrect or correct)
If you think otherwise without meeting YC/PG, then you are making an opinion without any experience.
(a situation you can correct)
As an aside, you don't even need to walk on eggshells around PG.
You can just ask him if he is a xenophobe, he will answer no.
i still remember one of your rehearsal presentations for demo day,
it was something along the lines of
"this graph is bad"
"this graph is good"
i even thought you were playing up your accent for added comedic value.
(for context, he was showing a performance graph of rethinkDB vs. mySQL, and the graphs were practically inverted. rethinkDB was performing so much better it was comical how much throughput it was doing)
I would suggest that the best performers are internally motivated and not externally motivated.
So ultimately if you could motivate them to be better, then by definition they would be mediocre performers.
Based on my personal experience, I would not be surprised if you were to show me a study that found a strong correlation between being internally motivated and being considered a star performer.
All people operate within a system, whether visible or not. Improve your systems, improve your quality; regardless of your employees.
Besides, by definition, most of your employees will be average. Otherwise the average would shift. Focus on bringing the whole bell curve up by improving your systems and your management, rather than on terms you use for individuals. You're better off optimizing your company and your management to handle this diversity, since it's a natural result of a sample.
You are assuming people who are 'high achievers' achieve highly in all circumstances: this is false.
For example, the Ivy League colleges suffer rampant grade inflation due to these high-achieving students not being able to cope with getting less-than-perfect grades. This poor coping is a form of 'low achievement' that drives other 'low achievement' behaviors: reduced course load, dropping out, switching to less rigorous majors, etc.
the class of status (TN) is less important than the mindset of your new employer.
No visa class requires you to be paid under market (some even require that you are paid a wage comparable to an american)
If an employer is trying to "maximize profits" through non-american workers, they will do it regardless of what status you hold.
If an employer is simply trying to find the somebody to "do the job" regardless of status or citizenship then it is unlikely you will experience any difference in treatment.
On a personal note, I had been on a TN for 2.5 years and was paid at (or slightly above) market rate for the entirety of the time.
At no time did my employer seek to use my TN as a way of leveraging down my pay.
We hired quite a few americans as well (half a dozen or so, it was a small company).
If we could have found more qualified candidates, we probably would have hired more
(american or not, we scoured github for candidates as this tended to provide the best candidates. since github user profiles generally do not provide citizenship information, we had to be open to hiring local or possibly non local if we found somebody who looked promising).
I worked in the US on an E3 Visa, which is pretty much like a H1B that is only available to Australians.
As I understand it, both of those require you to be paid at least the 'prevailing wage', and before the job is offered to you:
"This Form ETA-9035 needs to be posted in “two conspicuous locations” at the work site for 10 consecutive days where the H-1B (or H-1B1, or E-3) nonimmigrant will be employed. You must post the entire LCA, including the instructions and the portion containing information on the prevailing and offered wages."
ie, your employer has to post the fact that they're going to employ someone at a certain wage within the office.
That leads to fun times when your visa is up for renewal and the company is obliged to tell everyone what your wage is.
In my case I believe I was being paid more than some of my roughly-equivalent colleagues and there was some concern that the posting might ruffle some feathers. When I decided i'd had enough of the US and that it was time to move on I was told to pick anywhere in the world and my employer would pay to move me there and set me up so I could keep working for them. I was the complete opposite of an exploited foreign worker.
I was in the US working on a TN for 1.5 years. At that time, TN's were not tied to the employer. I'm not sure if this is still the case. You just had to have a job in the field that you came in on. That said, you couldn't apply for a greencard while on a TN. For that you needed to get an H1B.
For our company I was paid the market rate, no different than a local hire.
If you wind the company down, you would/should try to make your investors 'as whole as possible'.
Debt implies that at some later date YC could come asking for their $375k back. A SAFE is not debt.
If your company is running and does not end up raising more money that SAFE should just sit there waiting for the day that you do (which may never come).