ycskyspeak

I was thinking long and hard about this for the last week - there are 2 main systems out there 1. Reddit - Tree where indentation determines where you are in the visibility of a new user based on your "score" 2. Yelp - Flat wall of text which is not very usable 3. The rest - Disqus, forums et al which have some variation of this but are not very usable.

Is there anything better out there for documenting comments in a usable way?

Google Maps can only predict future travel time for public transport. Is there an app that does this for traveling in a vehicle based on historical data?

We are Bancbox and we are in the process of building out the capabilities of our merchant processing product and release it as a standalone vertical. We wanted to get your feedback and know from you what you wanted. This will also help us tailor the product in terms of audience (Marketplaces v/s Merchants) and set-up (Risk to marketplaces or to individual merchants). Head on over to http://buildmerchant.bancbox.com/

The trend towards having no Product Managers in an organization seems to be catching on. Stripe does not have PM folks. Nor does Square to an extent. When hired, the work is split between project management and passing the parcel between various departments of the company - engg/release readiness/sales etc. There was a time when Intuit was the shining star of PM training. Are there good product organizations? It seems like most are sales or engineering driven. And will this field even survive in the future?

As I know people and as I have myself interviewed in places, it becomes pretty clear that the process itself is pretty awful. You have to take off from work and then meet the prospective employers - there is the obvious aspect of lying to your current employer as to where you are really going. Then the whole process becomes even more difficult when you want to evaluate multiple opportunities. Most startups want you to meet the team, and when I say team I mean the actual team, the CEO, the office manager, the spouse, the resident dog and the delivery man. The whole thing becomes this massive time sink which, although completely necessary, starts intruding on the day to day operations of the current job. Some folks dont have the luxury of quitting before looking and I was wondering if the concept of Interview Saturdays make sense? The prospective employers and interviewers can get through their day jobs without constant interview interruptions. The prospective interviewee doesnt have to lie or get behind on work. Everyone wins! Except Saturday, but then if you are in a hot startup, then tough shit. The time spent interviewing folks during the week will carry over to your nights and weekend anyway. This Interview Saturday will help you figure out people who are willing to make the sacrifices (Saturday gone) and will lead to less drawn out interview loops - also more efficient tracking of time spent on interviews if you silo the time.

What do you think?

With tens of thousands of dollars in student loans, my worst nightmare was to end up getting booted out of the country. This was either through a failure at the H-1B lottery, something doing the rounds again this year. Thankfully I survived.

Booted out of the country could also happen through a job cut which leaves my H-1B visa hanging. Something which I am currently afraid of. Is there a panic button service that matches employees on the cusp of losing their job with a valid work visa against employers looking to hire fast? Is this even a viable idea? Logistically and morally? Hedging against jobs and people is a very weird area to get into. What do you think?