The space programs to send humans in space are at the same time granted hundreds of billions. Many point that maybe this money should be invested in ... discovering our oceans rather than setting up a base on the Moon.
I was until recently convinced that it would be much more relevant. Now I wonder: Could it be better to keep the oceans away from our knowledge?
I know how absurd it sounds. My opinion varies accordingly to my mood, I reckon. One day, I have faith that knowledge and Science is The Way. The other day, I can't help thinking that the current unchecked capitalism will ruthlessly exploit whatever Science discovers at whatever cost for the climate and biodiversity.
Could it be more ethical to keep our oceans and seas out of reach of capitalism?
Of course, it's easy to argue that a better knowledge will empower the protectors of the oceans, since unchecked capitalism is already depleting the seas.
Scientific arguments would be therefore the only way to convince the governments to preserve the oceans.
But would they really? In the last 30 years, the IPCC reports have proved reliable. Its climate model has been being tuned continuously and their last report is now very reliable.
And yet we do nothing at the scale of the issue.
So what is the point, really, to know more about our oceans except opening new ways to make profits while destroying Life?
Hoping for the best as a principle is nice. And easy. But doing again and again the same error is stupid, isn't it?
If we believed in Science and Technology as much as we pretend, why aren't the 300 billions needed for a base on the Moon directed to find a technical solution to grab CO2 and methane from the atmosphere - at a scale large enough to stop global warming?
It seems that we trust Science and Technology in very different ways. A colony on Mars? Yeah, genius! Stop global warming? Rather than founding EarthX, Elon Musk himself prefers to grant 100 million to whoever finds the way to massively recapture CO2.
So, what do you think? Is Science the Way or are we helplessly the baddies, since we can't help going to the Dark Side when money is to be made?"},"title":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"Ask HN: Should we survey all the oceans?"}},"_tags":["story","author_FrenchAmerican","story_30973771","ask_hn"],"author":"FrenchAmerican","children":[30974543,30975010,30976936,30977787],"created_at":"2022-04-10T01:44:07Z","created_at_i":1649555047,"num_comments":8,"objectID":"30973771","points":8,"story_id":30973771,"story_text":"Our future on Earth is rather gloomy. We are causing a massive climate dereliction and an even larger loss of biodiversity - and we do very little about it.
The space programs to send humans in space are at the same time granted hundreds of billions. Many point that maybe this money should be invested in ... discovering our oceans rather than setting up a base on the Moon.
I was until recently convinced that it would be much more relevant. Now I wonder: Could it be better to keep the oceans away from our knowledge?
I know how absurd it sounds. My opinion varies accordingly to my mood, I reckon. One day, I have faith that knowledge and Science is The Way. The other day, I can't help thinking that the current unchecked capitalism will ruthlessly exploit whatever Science discovers at whatever cost for the climate and biodiversity.
Could it be more ethical to keep our oceans and seas out of reach of capitalism?
Of course, it's easy to argue that a better knowledge will empower the protectors of the oceans, since unchecked capitalism is already depleting the seas.
Scientific arguments would be therefore the only way to convince the governments to preserve the oceans.
But would they really? In the last 30 years, the IPCC reports have proved reliable. Its climate model has been being tuned continuously and their last report is now very reliable.
And yet we do nothing at the scale of the issue.
So what is the point, really, to know more about our oceans except opening new ways to make profits while destroying Life?
Hoping for the best as a principle is nice. And easy. But doing again and again the same error is stupid, isn't it?
If we believed in Science and Technology as much as we pretend, why aren't the 300 billions needed for a base on the Moon directed to find a technical solution to grab CO2 and methane from the atmosphere - at a scale large enough to stop global warming?
It seems that we trust Science and Technology in very different ways. A colony on Mars? Yeah, genius! Stop global warming? Rather than founding EarthX, Elon Musk himself prefers to grant 100 million to whoever finds the way to massively recapture CO2.
So, what do you think? Is Science the Way or are we helplessly the baddies, since we can't help going to the Dark Side when money is to be made?","title":"Ask HN: Should we survey all the oceans?","updated_at":"2024-09-20T10:55:16Z"},{"_highlightResult":{"author":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"lucie22sc32"},"story_text":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"full","matchedWords":["reach","capital"],"value":"I have dyslexia. I was one of the lucky ones. Diagnosed at eight, I got accommodations and support before things spiraled.
Most kids aren't so lucky. The path from initial concern to diagnosis can take years and cost families upward of $5,000. For many, it never comes at all. In one study, 50% of prisoners were found to be dyslexic, with 80% functionally illiterate. Behind every missed diagnosis is a kid who gets told they're lazy, when the reality is no one ever gave them the right test.
Marker Learning is building an AI-enhanced assessment platform that makes identifying learning differences faster, cheaper, and more equitable, especially for multilingual students who are routinely misidentified or overlooked. Imagine if every kid could be screened for learning differences as easily as they're screened for vision. That's what we're building.
This isn't a chatbot or a homework helper. We're a Series B company backed by Reach Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and Primary, running a multi-million-dollar longitudinal study spanning K\u201312 and developing the psychometric engine behind it. We need engineers who are excited by that.
We're hiring a hands-on full-stack engineer (React, Node.js, TypeScript) to help build and scale the platform: adaptive testing infrastructure, AI-powered scoring scoring and data pipelines, and the systems that maintain clinical rigor at scale. High autonomy, lightweight process, fast-paced. 8\u201310+ years, ideally with 0-to-1 or early-stage experience. You'll work directly with psychometrics, product, and data science, and the engineering decisions you make now will define the platform for years.
Reach out directly with your gh, linkedin, and resume and why you want this position to lucie@markerlearning.com. Please specify if your location, if you are interested in full time, contract or open to both. Make the subject "Lead Engineer Application (I am not a bot)"."},"title":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"Lead Full-Stack Engineer Marker Learning \u2013 Remote"}},"_tags":["story","author_lucie22sc32","story_47794168","ask_hn"],"author":"lucie22sc32","created_at":"2026-04-16T15:01:46Z","created_at_i":1776351706,"num_comments":0,"objectID":"47794168","points":1,"story_id":47794168,"story_text":"I have dyslexia. I was one of the lucky ones. Diagnosed at eight, I got accommodations and support before things spiraled.
Most kids aren't so lucky. The path from initial concern to diagnosis can take years and cost families upward of $5,000. For many, it never comes at all. In one study, 50% of prisoners were found to be dyslexic, with 80% functionally illiterate. Behind every missed diagnosis is a kid who gets told they're lazy, when the reality is no one ever gave them the right test.
Marker Learning is building an AI-enhanced assessment platform that makes identifying learning differences faster, cheaper, and more equitable, especially for multilingual students who are routinely misidentified or overlooked. Imagine if every kid could be screened for learning differences as easily as they're screened for vision. That's what we're building.
This isn't a chatbot or a homework helper. We're a Series B company backed by Reach Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and Primary, running a multi-million-dollar longitudinal study spanning K\u201312 and developing the psychometric engine behind it. We need engineers who are excited by that.
We're hiring a hands-on full-stack engineer (React, Node.js, TypeScript) to help build and scale the platform: adaptive testing infrastructure, AI-powered scoring scoring and data pipelines, and the systems that maintain clinical rigor at scale. High autonomy, lightweight process, fast-paced. 8\u201310+ years, ideally with 0-to-1 or early-stage experience. You'll work directly with psychometrics, product, and data science, and the engineering decisions you make now will define the platform for years.
Reach out directly with your gh, linkedin, and resume and why you want this position to lucie@markerlearning.com. Please specify if your location, if you are interested in full time, contract or open to both. Make the subject "Lead Engineer Application (I am not a bot)".","title":"Lead Full-Stack Engineer Marker Learning \u2013 Remote","updated_at":"2026-04-16T15:04:02Z"},{"_highlightResult":{"author":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"notkid"},"title":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"Overcoming the 'Entry Level' Catch-22 in the Age of AI"},"url":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"full","matchedWords":["reach","capital"],"value":"https://www.reachcapital.com/2024/06/17/overcoming-the-entry-level-catch-22-in-the-age-of-ai/"}},"_tags":["story","author_notkid","story_40939177"],"author":"notkid","created_at":"2024-07-11T18:14:47Z","created_at_i":1720721687,"num_comments":0,"objectID":"40939177","points":2,"story_id":40939177,"title":"Overcoming the 'Entry Level' Catch-22 in the Age of AI","updated_at":"2024-09-20T17:25:41Z","url":"https://www.reachcapital.com/2024/06/17/overcoming-the-entry-level-catch-22-in-the-age-of-ai/"},{"_highlightResult":{"author":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"wslh"},"title":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"Introducing Edtech Playbooks"},"url":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"full","matchedWords":["reach","capital"],"value":"https://www.reachcapital.com/2024/05/16/introducing-edtech-playbooks/"}},"_tags":["story","author_wslh","story_40420923"],"author":"wslh","created_at":"2024-05-20T21:57:50Z","created_at_i":1716242270,"num_comments":0,"objectID":"40420923","points":1,"story_id":40420923,"title":"Introducing Edtech Playbooks","updated_at":"2024-09-20T17:01:26Z","url":"https://www.reachcapital.com/2024/05/16/introducing-edtech-playbooks/"},{"_highlightResult":{"author":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"mehra-vaayushop"},"story_text":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"full","matchedWords":["reach","capital"],"value":"How we leveraged Events, LinkedIn, Open-source, free accounts. With 0 Strategy. Just plain curiosity to learn & solve a problem.
Curiosity > Strategy
We didn't know words MVP, pitchdeck nor about fundraise, co-founder.\nStartups, VC, angels world was alien to me....
So here's how we started. We would ping strangers on LinkedIn & events that I joined.\nI even spent Indian Rupees 1L ($4900 in PPP terms) on paid events/niche trainings.
I\u2019ve never hesitated to spend on my Curiosity. It pays back in long run.
We helped strangers without expectations. Still ppl won't respond... I wondered why? These people posted they needed help.
But this pain paid back in long run. You learn this is how the world works. You reach 20 \u2014 if 2-5 respond, you're lucky.
Deal that crashed
I helped 1 wanna-be US VC raising $100M fund, 2 wanna-be startups & 2 folks with overlap to our idea.\nSince we weren't sure about any idea \u2014 VC thing looked exciting.
We helped with what we know best \u2014 tech, connects \u2014 without even knowing what we wanted in return.\nIntroduced 7\u201310 connects, drafted tech, designed tech teams \u2014 for free.
It was genuine collab evolving on both sides.\nWanna-be-VC wanted us in plum VC role \u2014 but that felt like employment.\nSo the deal crashed.
Got first Angel without pitch deck
One person we helped on LinkedIn gave us offer to be our first angel \u2014 when we weren\u2019t even raising.\nWe didn\u2019t know the word \u201cPitch Deck\u201d. He\u2019s investing in our new round too.
He did it because his idea overlapped with ours & he liked how we navigated the problem while helping him.
MVP In 15 days
At an event, I pinged folks who might want help or become co-founders.\nShared idea with a L'Or\u00e9al exec. He said \u2014 let\u2019s build & take it to L'Or\u00e9al.
Achal & I knew backend/building like water. But we hadn\u2019t worked in frontends.\nStill, we built it in 15 days.
Another hope crashed
L'Or\u00e9al guy said \u2014 colors/aesthetics aren\u2019t up to mark. Can\u2019t take this to L'Or\u00e9al.\nWe said \u2014 that\u2019s why this is MVP. By then, we had our first angel on board.
Finding way out \u2014 there\u2019s no straight road
We decided to take MVP to market, aesthetics or not.\nPut some money to validate market (<$12k).\nDiscounted 7 invoices semi-automated. GST number borrowed from 1st investor.
But we had no way forward. Angel tells us \u2014 put pitch deck.\nAchal & I had detailed tech & biz plan already (shabby, but whatever).
We were validating, attending events, helping, talking, learning, wrapping from Germany & US to India \u2014 all at once.
Luck meets those who dare to go out
An ex-colleague who had seen my paper vision introduced us to his Razorpay classmate.\nHe linked us to Razorpay\u2019s investment team \u2014 they helped refine our deck.
They said \u2014 what you\u2019re building is called \u201cBuy Now, Pay Later\u201d with AI.\nWe didn\u2019t know that. We reached this word by seeking, reaching...
It came from someone who had access to latest ideas.\nNow our pitch deck aligned to a hot market. We didn\u2019t know \u2014 others told us.
Same product, new story. The world framed it for us.
2 months later
We had:
Pitch deck
Validated MVP
Team
Hottest product
Raised \u20b980L ($105k) in first round. Raised $68k more later.\nRaising another round now with more commitments \u2014 all without strategy.
Without events, active reachout \u2014 it might\u2019ve taken 2 years & 3x more capital to reach here.\nWe had a working MVP, deck, team & early investors.
What we did:
Shared ideas openly
Put it on a webpage
Didn\u2019t try to be perfect
Validated, moved forward
Reached out, helped freely, expected nothing
Build. Fund. Collaborate. Go to market."},"title":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"MVP in 15 days and why strangers became angels"}},"_tags":["story","author_mehra-vaayushop","story_44402928","ask_hn"],"author":"mehra-vaayushop","created_at":"2025-06-28T07:45:53Z","created_at_i":1751096753,"num_comments":0,"objectID":"44402928","points":3,"story_id":44402928,"story_text":"How we leveraged Events, LinkedIn, Open-source, free accounts. With 0 Strategy. Just plain curiosity to learn & solve a problem.
Curiosity > Strategy
We didn't know words MVP, pitchdeck nor about fundraise, co-founder.\nStartups, VC, angels world was alien to me....
So here's how we started. We would ping strangers on LinkedIn & events that I joined.\nI even spent Indian Rupees 1L ($4900 in PPP terms) on paid events/niche trainings.
I\u2019ve never hesitated to spend on my Curiosity. It pays back in long run.
We helped strangers without expectations. Still ppl won't respond... I wondered why? These people posted they needed help.
But this pain paid back in long run. You learn this is how the world works. You reach 20 \u2014 if 2-5 respond, you're lucky.
Deal that crashed
I helped 1 wanna-be US VC raising $100M fund, 2 wanna-be startups & 2 folks with overlap to our idea.\nSince we weren't sure about any idea \u2014 VC thing looked exciting.
We helped with what we know best \u2014 tech, connects \u2014 without even knowing what we wanted in return.\nIntroduced 7\u201310 connects, drafted tech, designed tech teams \u2014 for free.
It was genuine collab evolving on both sides.\nWanna-be-VC wanted us in plum VC role \u2014 but that felt like employment.\nSo the deal crashed.
Got first Angel without pitch deck
One person we helped on LinkedIn gave us offer to be our first angel \u2014 when we weren\u2019t even raising.\nWe didn\u2019t know the word \u201cPitch Deck\u201d. He\u2019s investing in our new round too.
He did it because his idea overlapped with ours & he liked how we navigated the problem while helping him.
MVP In 15 days
At an event, I pinged folks who might want help or become co-founders.\nShared idea with a L'Or\u00e9al exec. He said \u2014 let\u2019s build & take it to L'Or\u00e9al.
Achal & I knew backend/building like water. But we hadn\u2019t worked in frontends.\nStill, we built it in 15 days.
Another hope crashed
L'Or\u00e9al guy said \u2014 colors/aesthetics aren\u2019t up to mark. Can\u2019t take this to L'Or\u00e9al.\nWe said \u2014 that\u2019s why this is MVP. By then, we had our first angel on board.
Finding way out \u2014 there\u2019s no straight road
We decided to take MVP to market, aesthetics or not.\nPut some money to validate market (<$12k).\nDiscounted 7 invoices semi-automated. GST number borrowed from 1st investor.
But we had no way forward. Angel tells us \u2014 put pitch deck.\nAchal & I had detailed tech & biz plan already (shabby, but whatever).
We were validating, attending events, helping, talking, learning, wrapping from Germany & US to India \u2014 all at once.
Luck meets those who dare to go out
An ex-colleague who had seen my paper vision introduced us to his Razorpay classmate.\nHe linked us to Razorpay\u2019s investment team \u2014 they helped refine our deck.
They said \u2014 what you\u2019re building is called \u201cBuy Now, Pay Later\u201d with AI.\nWe didn\u2019t know that. We reached this word by seeking, reaching...
It came from someone who had access to latest ideas.\nNow our pitch deck aligned to a hot market. We didn\u2019t know \u2014 others told us.
Same product, new story. The world framed it for us.
2 months later
We had:
Pitch deck
Validated MVP
Team
Hottest product
Raised \u20b980L ($105k) in first round. Raised $68k more later.\nRaising another round now with more commitments \u2014 all without strategy.
Without events, active reachout \u2014 it might\u2019ve taken 2 years & 3x more capital to reach here.\nWe had a working MVP, deck, team & early investors.
What we did:
Shared ideas openly
Put it on a webpage
Didn\u2019t try to be perfect
Validated, moved forward
Reached out, helped freely, expected nothing
Build. Fund. Collaborate. Go to market.","title":"MVP in 15 days and why strangers became angels","updated_at":"2025-06-29T02:30:38Z"},{"_highlightResult":{"author":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"pcaversaccio"},"title":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"full","matchedWords":["reach","capital"],"value":"Bitcoin reaches one trillion market capitalisation"},"url":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"full","matchedWords":["reach","capital"],"value":"https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/lnjn2i/bitcoin_reaches_one_trillion_market_capitalisation/"}},"_tags":["story","author_pcaversaccio","story_26194649"],"author":"pcaversaccio","created_at":"2021-02-19T16:16:52Z","created_at_i":1613751412,"num_comments":0,"objectID":"26194649","points":9,"story_id":26194649,"title":"Bitcoin reaches one trillion market capitalisation","updated_at":"2024-09-20T08:03:29Z","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/lnjn2i/bitcoin_reaches_one_trillion_market_capitalisation/"},{"_highlightResult":{"author":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"alexjmann"},"title":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"full","matchedWords":["reach","capital"],"value":"5 Milestones to Reach Before Raising Venture Capital"},"url":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"partial","matchedWords":["capital"],"value":"http://www.centernetworks.com/venture-capital-milestones"}},"_tags":["story","author_alexjmann","story_649738"],"author":"alexjmann","created_at":"2009-06-09T19:22:57Z","created_at_i":1244575377,"num_comments":0,"objectID":"649738","points":5,"story_id":649738,"title":"5 Milestones to Reach Before Raising Venture Capital","updated_at":"2023-09-06T19:49:57Z","url":"http://www.centernetworks.com/venture-capital-milestones"},{"_highlightResult":{"author":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"Laurentvw"},"story_text":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":""},"title":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"full","matchedWords":["reach","capital"],"value":"5 milestones to reach before raising venture capital"},"url":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"full","matchedWords":["reach","capital"],"value":"http://entrepreneur.venturebeat.com/2009/08/31/5-milestones-to-reach-before-raising-venture-capital/"}},"_tags":["story","author_Laurentvw","story_795911"],"author":"Laurentvw","created_at":"2009-08-31T14:03:17Z","created_at_i":1251727397,"num_comments":0,"objectID":"795911","points":4,"story_id":795911,"story_text":"","title":"5 milestones to reach before raising venture capital","updated_at":"2024-09-19T16:45:17Z","url":"http://entrepreneur.venturebeat.com/2009/08/31/5-milestones-to-reach-before-raising-venture-capital/"},{"_highlightResult":{"author":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"3pt14159"},"story_text":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":""},"title":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"full","matchedWords":["reach","capital"],"value":"Milestones to reach before raising venture capital"},"url":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"partial","matchedWords":["capital"],"value":"http://www.freshbooks.com/blog/2009/06/08/5-milestones-to-cross-before-raising-venture-capital/"}},"_tags":["story","author_3pt14159","story_647626"],"author":"3pt14159","created_at":"2009-06-08T17:18:48Z","created_at_i":1244481528,"num_comments":0,"objectID":"647626","points":4,"story_id":647626,"story_text":"","title":"Milestones to reach before raising venture capital","updated_at":"2024-09-19T16:40:01Z","url":"http://www.freshbooks.com/blog/2009/06/08/5-milestones-to-cross-before-raising-venture-capital/"},{"_highlightResult":{"author":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"matteosb"},"story_text":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"full","matchedWords":["reach","capital"],"value":"CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
Transfer of Shares and Related Rights
We propose that all operations involving the transfer of shares (or rights thereto) be subject to the following clauses:
i. Report in favor of the shareholders;\nii. Tag-along right in favor of Company A in the event of the sale of the majority;\niii. Drag-along right in favor of the Founders in the event of the sale of the majority;
We propose the following option rights in favor of Company A:
i. Free call option in favor of Company A to purchase additional shares from the Founders under the following conditions:
Subject: A percentage that allows Company A to reach 49% of the capital (total post-option share including the initial share);\nPrice: Proportionally equal to the valuation used for the initial investment;\nExercise term: 2 years from the initial investment;\nii. Free call option in favor of Company A to purchase additional shares from the Founders under the following conditions:
Subject: Remaining shares held by the Founders (exit way for the Founders);\nPrice: Market value (fair value) with the determination mechanism agreed upon by the parties or, failing that, by a third-party evaluator;\nExercise term: Indeterminate;\nDeliberative Quorums for Certain Operations
We propose that operations exceeding normal operations (extraordinary or involving significant asset dispositions) require the favorable vote of Company A in the competent corporate body (assembly or board of directors); the operations in question should be as follows:
i. Sale of trademarks or intellectual property in general (know-how and similar);\nii. Sale of the company or branches of the company;\niii. Changes to the corporate purpose;\niv. Capital increases reserved for third parties;\nv. Extraordinary corporate operations (merger, demerger, transformation);
We propose the following rights for Company A regarding the composition and compensation of the Board of Directors (BoD):
i. One seat on the administrative body is reserved for a person designated by Company A;\nii. Compensation to the BoD exceeding a certain threshold (to be established based on the current situation) requires the favorable vote of Company A or its representative (depending on whether the resolution is adopted by the assembly or the BoD).
Relationships with the Founders
We propose that an exclusivity agreement be established for the activity of the Founders in favor of Company B;\nWe propose that a non-competition agreement be established for the Founders and Company B with respect to Company A.
OPERATIONAL PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN COMPANY B AND COMPANY A
Commercial Agreement
i. We propose the signing of a commercial agreement between the two entities that provides for a reciprocal commercial fee of 15%."},"title":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"Investor just shared proposal of our shareholders' agreement: any red flag?"}},"_tags":["story","author_matteosb","story_40934845","ask_hn"],"author":"matteosb","created_at":"2024-07-11T09:10:43Z","created_at_i":1720689043,"num_comments":0,"objectID":"40934845","points":2,"story_id":40934845,"story_text":"CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
Transfer of Shares and Related Rights
We propose that all operations involving the transfer of shares (or rights thereto) be subject to the following clauses:
i. Report in favor of the shareholders;\nii. Tag-along right in favor of Company A in the event of the sale of the majority;\niii. Drag-along right in favor of the Founders in the event of the sale of the majority;
We propose the following option rights in favor of Company A:
i. Free call option in favor of Company A to purchase additional shares from the Founders under the following conditions:
Subject: A percentage that allows Company A to reach 49% of the capital (total post-option share including the initial share);\nPrice: Proportionally equal to the valuation used for the initial investment;\nExercise term: 2 years from the initial investment;\nii. Free call option in favor of Company A to purchase additional shares from the Founders under the following conditions:
Subject: Remaining shares held by the Founders (exit way for the Founders);\nPrice: Market value (fair value) with the determination mechanism agreed upon by the parties or, failing that, by a third-party evaluator;\nExercise term: Indeterminate;\nDeliberative Quorums for Certain Operations
We propose that operations exceeding normal operations (extraordinary or involving significant asset dispositions) require the favorable vote of Company A in the competent corporate body (assembly or board of directors); the operations in question should be as follows:
i. Sale of trademarks or intellectual property in general (know-how and similar);\nii. Sale of the company or branches of the company;\niii. Changes to the corporate purpose;\niv. Capital increases reserved for third parties;\nv. Extraordinary corporate operations (merger, demerger, transformation);
We propose the following rights for Company A regarding the composition and compensation of the Board of Directors (BoD):
i. One seat on the administrative body is reserved for a person designated by Company A;\nii. Compensation to the BoD exceeding a certain threshold (to be established based on the current situation) requires the favorable vote of Company A or its representative (depending on whether the resolution is adopted by the assembly or the BoD).
Relationships with the Founders
We propose that an exclusivity agreement be established for the activity of the Founders in favor of Company B;\nWe propose that a non-competition agreement be established for the Founders and Company B with respect to Company A.
OPERATIONAL PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN COMPANY B AND COMPANY A
Commercial Agreement
i. We propose the signing of a commercial agreement between the two entities that provides for a reciprocal commercial fee of 15%.","title":"Investor just shared proposal of our shareholders' agreement: any red flag?","updated_at":"2024-09-20T17:25:09Z"},{"_highlightResult":{"author":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"mrb"},"title":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"full","matchedWords":["reach","capital"],"value":"Bitcoin Reaches All Time High Market Capitalization"},"url":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=141465.0"}},"_tags":["story","author_mrb","story_5174482"],"author":"mrb","children":[5174676,5174679,5174703,5174751,5174865,5174892,5174977,5175071,5175692,5176006],"created_at":"2013-02-06T01:53:14Z","created_at_i":1360115594,"num_comments":53,"objectID":"5174482","points":91,"story_id":5174482,"title":"Bitcoin Reaches All Time High Market Capitalization","updated_at":"2023-09-06T20:45:51Z","url":"https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=141465.0"},{"_highlightResult":{"author":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"CryptoJunky"},"story_text":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":""},"title":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"full","matchedWords":["reach","capital"],"value":"Bitcoin Reaches Half Billion Dollar Market Capitalization"},"url":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"full","matchedWords":["reach","capital"],"value":"http://cryptojunky.com/blog/2013/03/06/bitcoin-reaches-half-billion-dollar-market-capitalization/"}},"_tags":["story","author_CryptoJunky","story_5331312"],"author":"CryptoJunky","created_at":"2013-03-06T14:37:22Z","created_at_i":1362580642,"num_comments":0,"objectID":"5331312","points":2,"story_id":5331312,"story_text":"","title":"Bitcoin Reaches Half Billion Dollar Market Capitalization","updated_at":"2024-09-19T19:19:09Z","url":"http://cryptojunky.com/blog/2013/03/06/bitcoin-reaches-half-billion-dollar-market-capitalization/"},{"_highlightResult":{"author":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"Brajeshwar"},"title":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"full","matchedWords":["reach","capital"],"value":"Indian Capital, Delhi's air pollution reaches 'severe plus' levels"},"url":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1wj43vqdlpo"}},"_tags":["story","author_Brajeshwar","story_42182127"],"author":"Brajeshwar","created_at":"2024-11-19T11:00:11Z","created_at_i":1732014011,"num_comments":0,"objectID":"42182127","points":1,"story_id":42182127,"title":"Indian Capital, Delhi's air pollution reaches 'severe plus' levels","updated_at":"2024-11-19T11:05:38Z","url":"https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1wj43vqdlpo"},{"_highlightResult":{"author":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"qeorge"},"story_text":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"full","matchedWords":["reach","capital"],"value":"About 2 years ago, my firm developed software under contract. About 4 months later, after falling behind on payments, the customer "charged back" all his previous payments (via PayPal), and kept the software (it was not yet finished, but functional enough to charge customers).
We recouped about half the money through PayPal's dispute process. We let the rest go, deciding it wasn't worth trying to squeeze blood from a turnip.
Fast forward to today, the very same company is on the front page of HackerNews:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8225738
The business' name is Pigeon.ly / fotopigeon.com (when we worked on it it was called pichurz.com / picturgram.com). The owners names are Fredrick Hutson and Alfonzo Brooks.
So, HN, what should we do? We have a signed contract with them which states that the software becomes our property in the event of non-payment. Should we assert ownership of the software? Of their business? Should we sue them? Should we reach out to their investors (Kapor Capital and Base Ventures)? Should we include Kapor Capital and Base Ventures in the suit?
I would really appreciate any advice HN can offer. We will of course rely on our attorney's advice primarily, but I am optimistic that someone here has dealt with a similar situation before.
Thank you for your time!"},"title":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"Ask HN: Startup stole our software, and raised $2MM with it. What should we do?"}},"_tags":["story","author_qeorge","story_8227225","ask_hn"],"author":"qeorge","children":[8227260,8227340,8227374,8227379,8227386,8227394,8227402,8227404,8227423,8227431,8227463,8227496,8227514,8227519,8227521,8227531,8227550,8227563,8227566,8227574,8227591,8227597,8227612,8227636,8227844,8227959,8228115,8228201,8228514,8228557,8228568,8228788,8229101,8242367,8242602],"created_at":"2014-08-26T14:29:50Z","created_at_i":1409063390,"num_comments":67,"objectID":"8227225","points":231,"story_id":8227225,"story_text":"About 2 years ago, my firm developed software under contract. About 4 months later, after falling behind on payments, the customer "charged back" all his previous payments (via PayPal), and kept the software (it was not yet finished, but functional enough to charge customers).
We recouped about half the money through PayPal's dispute process. We let the rest go, deciding it wasn't worth trying to squeeze blood from a turnip.
Fast forward to today, the very same company is on the front page of HackerNews:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8225738
The business' name is Pigeon.ly / fotopigeon.com (when we worked on it it was called pichurz.com / picturgram.com). The owners names are Fredrick Hutson and Alfonzo Brooks.
So, HN, what should we do? We have a signed contract with them which states that the software becomes our property in the event of non-payment. Should we assert ownership of the software? Of their business? Should we sue them? Should we reach out to their investors (Kapor Capital and Base Ventures)? Should we include Kapor Capital and Base Ventures in the suit?
I would really appreciate any advice HN can offer. We will of course rely on our attorney's advice primarily, but I am optimistic that someone here has dealt with a similar situation before.
Thank you for your time!","title":"Ask HN: Startup stole our software, and raised $2MM with it. 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In Europe many founders report that fundraising takes too long. While in San Fransisco you run into VC after VC, the decentralised nature of Europe makes fundraising much more of a remote process. In survey entrepreneurs often note, that the biggest problems are (i) that they don\u00b4t know where in the process they are, (ii) what their probabilities \u201codds\u201d are, and (iii) what else the VC is working one. Especially for life science this is a problem, as founders always run risk of disclosing solutions to competitors.
Solution: BUSY.VC
A glassdoor for venture capital. Founders can rank VCs and business angels by (i) how quick they reply, (ii) how helpful their feedback was and (iii) if they would recommend these investors from their experience.
Business model: Pitch 50 VCs at once\nThe moment a startup decides to raise funding, it\u00b4s a difficult to create momentum and demand / competition amongst investors for the opportunity. We help by sending every week a hand-picked newsletter with startup recommendations to a curated pool of investors (approximately 50 investors per startup). There are currently 6000 investors in Europe - founders reach with us all in less then three month (if even needed).
By our peer-review startups can be sure that their pitch, product and value proposition is good and delivered to matching investors - VCs will know that there is a market taking place.
For startups it\u00b4s free to judge VCs and to apply to pitch - but we don\u00b4t accept every startup. If we don\u00b4t think a pitch is ready yet, we provide direct feedback and help in building the pitch.
Investors pay for early access to startups.
Over-time busyvc sees this way as a \u201cfair\u201d knowledge-broker the early stage market much better and more efficient then every small VC.
(\u2026)
* I thought about the idea for a while - thought it could be interesting to hear here what you think :-)\n I don\u00b4t own BUSY.VC - somebody snapped it recently"},"title":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"partial","matchedWords":["capital"],"value":"BUSY.VC \u2013 Glassdoor for Venture Capital"}},"_tags":["story","author_tbsmartens","story_11563110","ask_hn"],"author":"tbsmartens","children":[11564043,11566963],"created_at":"2016-04-25T08:43:53Z","created_at_i":1461573833,"num_comments":2,"objectID":"11563110","points":6,"story_id":11563110,"story_text":"One more idea*
In Europe many founders report that fundraising takes too long. While in San Fransisco you run into VC after VC, the decentralised nature of Europe makes fundraising much more of a remote process. In survey entrepreneurs often note, that the biggest problems are (i) that they don\u00b4t know where in the process they are, (ii) what their probabilities \u201codds\u201d are, and (iii) what else the VC is working one. Especially for life science this is a problem, as founders always run risk of disclosing solutions to competitors.
Solution: BUSY.VC
A glassdoor for venture capital. Founders can rank VCs and business angels by (i) how quick they reply, (ii) how helpful their feedback was and (iii) if they would recommend these investors from their experience.
Business model: Pitch 50 VCs at once\nThe moment a startup decides to raise funding, it\u00b4s a difficult to create momentum and demand / competition amongst investors for the opportunity. We help by sending every week a hand-picked newsletter with startup recommendations to a curated pool of investors (approximately 50 investors per startup). There are currently 6000 investors in Europe - founders reach with us all in less then three month (if even needed).
By our peer-review startups can be sure that their pitch, product and value proposition is good and delivered to matching investors - VCs will know that there is a market taking place.
For startups it\u00b4s free to judge VCs and to apply to pitch - but we don\u00b4t accept every startup. If we don\u00b4t think a pitch is ready yet, we provide direct feedback and help in building the pitch.
Investors pay for early access to startups.
Over-time busyvc sees this way as a \u201cfair\u201d knowledge-broker the early stage market much better and more efficient then every small VC.
(\u2026)
* I thought about the idea for a while - thought it could be interesting to hear here what you think :-)\n I don\u00b4t own BUSY.VC - somebody snapped it recently","title":"BUSY.VC \u2013 Glassdoor for Venture Capital","updated_at":"2024-09-19T23:09:19Z"},{"_highlightResult":{"author":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"mogadsheu"},"story_text":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"partial","matchedWords":["capital"],"value":"In addition to your answer/why one was more of a challenge than the other..
What industry were you in (consumer/enterprise/biotech/consumer/other?)\nWas it technology heavy or light?\nWere capital requirements high?\nWhat was the customer lifecycle like?\nWhat was the competitive environment like?"},"title":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"partial","matchedWords":["reach"],"value":"Ask HN: Did you find it harder to reach product market fit, or to scale?"}},"_tags":["story","author_mogadsheu","story_22143509","ask_hn"],"author":"mogadsheu","children":[22146031,22147606,22150685],"created_at":"2020-01-24T23:55:54Z","created_at_i":1579910154,"num_comments":3,"objectID":"22143509","points":5,"story_id":22143509,"story_text":"In addition to your answer/why one was more of a challenge than the other..
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China","updated_at":"2024-09-20T03:15:12Z","url":"https://capitalandgrowth.org/questions/1299/how-can-we-reach-high-net-worth-individuals-in-chi.html?childToView=1327#answer-1327"},{"_highlightResult":{"author":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"artsandsci"},"title":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"partial","matchedWords":["reach"],"value":"Toshiba Reaches Tentative Deal to Sell Microchip Unit"},"url":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"partial","matchedWords":["capital"],"value":"https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/20/business/dealbook/toshiba-bain-capital-chip.html"}},"_tags":["story","author_artsandsci","story_15295412"],"author":"artsandsci","created_at":"2017-09-20T16:14:25Z","created_at_i":1505924065,"num_comments":0,"objectID":"15295412","points":2,"story_id":15295412,"title":"Toshiba Reaches Tentative Deal to Sell Microchip 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high","updated_at":"2024-09-19T17:54:35Z","url":"http://gigaom.com/2011/07/19/venture-capital-2011-web-startups/"},{"_highlightResult":{"author":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"partial","matchedWords":["capital"],"value":"CapitalistCartr"},"title":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"partial","matchedWords":["reach"],"value":"Hedge Fund Reaches a Deal to Buy Tribune Publishing"},"url":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/16/business/media/alden-tribune-newspaper-sale.html"}},"_tags":["story","author_CapitalistCartr","story_26165561"],"author":"CapitalistCartr","created_at":"2021-02-17T12:21:44Z","created_at_i":1613564504,"num_comments":0,"objectID":"26165561","points":1,"story_id":26165561,"title":"Hedge Fund Reaches a Deal to Buy Tribune 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entrepreneurs","updated_at":"2024-09-20T07:45:38Z","url":"https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venture-capital-y-combinator-idUSKBN29J2XK"},{"_highlightResult":{"author":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"jkuria"},"title":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"partial","matchedWords":["reach"],"value":"How to Reach High Net Worth Individuals in China"},"url":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"full","matchedWords":["reach","capital"],"value":"https://capitalandgrowth.org/answers/2981122/How-can-we-reach-High-Net-Worth-Individuals-in-China"}},"_tags":["story","author_jkuria","story_22352789"],"author":"jkuria","created_at":"2020-02-18T02:01:26Z","created_at_i":1581991286,"num_comments":0,"objectID":"22352789","points":1,"story_id":22352789,"title":"How to Reach High Net Worth Individuals in China","updated_at":"2024-09-20T05:41:55Z","url":"https://capitalandgrowth.org/answers/2981122/How-can-we-reach-High-Net-Worth-Individuals-in-China"},{"_highlightResult":{"author":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"jkuria"},"title":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"partial","matchedWords":["reach"],"value":"How to Reach Social Media 'Opt-Outers'"},"url":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"partial","matchedWords":["capital"],"value":"https://capitalandgrowth.org/questions/1480/how-can-we-target-social-media-opt-outers.html"}},"_tags":["story","author_jkuria","story_18937180"],"author":"jkuria","created_at":"2019-01-18T05:09:14Z","created_at_i":1547788154,"num_comments":0,"objectID":"18937180","points":1,"story_id":18937180,"title":"How to Reach Social Media 'Opt-Outers'","updated_at":"2024-09-20T03:40:20Z","url":"https://capitalandgrowth.org/questions/1480/how-can-we-target-social-media-opt-outers.html"},{"_highlightResult":{"author":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"jkuria"},"title":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"partial","matchedWords":["reach"],"value":"How to Reach High Net Worth Individuals in China?"},"url":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"full","matchedWords":["reach","capital"],"value":"https://capitalandgrowth.org/questions/1299/how-can-we-reach-high-net-worth-individuals-in-chi.html?src=hn-11-12"}},"_tags":["story","author_jkuria","story_18438746"],"author":"jkuria","created_at":"2018-11-13T05:07:08Z","created_at_i":1542085628,"num_comments":0,"objectID":"18438746","points":1,"story_id":18438746,"title":"How to Reach High Net Worth Individuals in China?","updated_at":"2024-09-20T03:18:31Z","url":"https://capitalandgrowth.org/questions/1299/how-can-we-reach-high-net-worth-individuals-in-chi.html?src=hn-11-12"},{"_highlightResult":{"author":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"BayAreaSmayArea"},"story_text":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"partial","matchedWords":["reach"],"value":"This weekend I spent some time going through Tren Griffin's new collection of essays "A Dozen Lessons for Entrepreneurs." There is some good advice and great content. I can't help but notice a big gap in the talking points of these VCs about partnering with founders and providing a network of resources vs my own experience.
At my last startup we had investments from some very big names that you'd all recognize. I think that they collectively provided one great enterprise lead and hosted a couple of meetings around that lead. The founders/founding team did key hiring with our own network and cold reach out.
I'm wondering, was our experience out of the ordinary. I assumed that the network effect of investors was largely about networking to other investors and the rest was just flowery language. But now I'm wondering if there is more to it and we didn't use or weren't offered all of what our investors had to give.
Have you gotten anything more from VC firms than a cash for equity transaction?"},"title":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"partial","matchedWords":["capital"],"value":"Ask HN: Besides capital, did you get any help from your VCs?"}},"_tags":["story","author_BayAreaSmayArea","story_17012891","ask_hn"],"author":"BayAreaSmayArea","created_at":"2018-05-07T14:15:14Z","created_at_i":1525702514,"num_comments":0,"objectID":"17012891","points":1,"story_id":17012891,"story_text":"This weekend I spent some time going through Tren Griffin's new collection of essays "A Dozen Lessons for Entrepreneurs." There is some good advice and great content. I can't help but notice a big gap in the talking points of these VCs about partnering with founders and providing a network of resources vs my own experience.
At my last startup we had investments from some very big names that you'd all recognize. I think that they collectively provided one great enterprise lead and hosted a couple of meetings around that lead. The founders/founding team did key hiring with our own network and cold reach out.
I'm wondering, was our experience out of the ordinary. I assumed that the network effect of investors was largely about networking to other investors and the rest was just flowery language. But now I'm wondering if there is more to it and we didn't use or weren't offered all of what our investors had to give.
Have you gotten anything more from VC firms than a cash for equity transaction?","title":"Ask HN: Besides capital, did you get any help from your VCs?","updated_at":"2024-09-20T02:22:00Z"},{"_highlightResult":{"author":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"gooseserbus"},"title":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"full","matchedWords":["reach","capital"],"value":"Ubisoft reaches agreement with Vivendi for its full exit from Ubisoft capital"},"url":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"partial","matchedWords":["reach"],"value":"https://www.nasdaq.com/press-release/ubisoft-entertainment--ubisoft-reaches-agreement-with-vivendi-for-its-full-exit-from-ubisofts-shar-20180320-01025"}},"_tags":["story","author_gooseserbus","story_16631198"],"author":"gooseserbus","created_at":"2018-03-20T18:28:35Z","created_at_i":1521570515,"num_comments":0,"objectID":"16631198","points":1,"story_id":16631198,"title":"Ubisoft reaches agreement with Vivendi for its full exit from Ubisoft capital","updated_at":"2024-09-20T02:12:48Z","url":"https://www.nasdaq.com/press-release/ubisoft-entertainment--ubisoft-reaches-agreement-with-vivendi-for-its-full-exit-from-ubisofts-shar-20180320-01025"},{"_highlightResult":{"author":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"lpage"},"story_text":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"full","matchedWords":["reach","capital"],"value":"Hi HN\u2014we're Kelly and Steve, co-founders of OneChronos (https://www.onechronos.com). OneChronos is a "Smart Market" for US equities\u2014meaning we match counterparties using mathematical optimization instead of classical human auctioneer mechanics [1]. Our flavor of Smart Market\u2014combinatorial auctions\u2014lets users enter orders spanning multiple securities and specify matching preferences way beyond just price and quantity.
We didn't invent Smart Markets or combinatorial auctions. Roughly $1T/year flows through them in industries ranging from display advertising to telecommunications. The underlying theory was the subject of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences [2]. We're bringing them to capital markets, and we have both the customers and the regulatory clearance to do so. Our initial user base contains the household names cumulatively responsible for \u224870% of US equities trading volume.
Today's market structure costs institutional investors at least a trillion dollars annually. We'll go into the details below, but the big thing to understand is that mutual/pension/sovereign funds, 401K plans, and ETF managers pay the price, and ultimately it gets passed on to households. Given diverse investment time horizons and risk preferences, capital markets are not a zero-sum game, but the existing market structure makes it one. Any form of market friction that prevents mutually beneficial trades from happening is an economic loss. Our goal is to make a lot more mutually beneficial trades happen.
We started working on OneChronos as experienced traders and auction theorists. Even so, getting here has taken five years of iterating with customers, tackling two deep tech problems, and working through an involved regulatory process. We'll describe what's causing existing market friction, the solution, and why that solution is a significant technical lift.
When people hear about market friction and hidden costs, they usually think about low latency technology, market data, exchange fees, and predatory HFT practices. Those are significant, and yet they are rounding errors compared to others. The principal sources of market friction that we're attacking are bidders' inability to express economic complements (things that are worth more together than separately), substitutes (things with diminishing marginal utility that are replacements for each other) and non-price factors, and game-theoretic incentives against bidding "truthfully"\u2014that is, against specifying how many units of a good you have and the highest price at which you'd buy or the lowest at which you'd sell them (your supply and demand curve). The most commonly proposed market structure "fixes," like single good periodic batch auctions and the IEX speed bump, don't address any of these.
Imagine that a buyer values two goods A and B at $10 for the package, but only $4 for each individually since they're complements. Similarly, a seller might unload the package for $8 while demanding $5 for each good individually. Both agents have "exposure risk" if A and B are bought and sold separately\u2014they might get stuck with an incomplete package. No trade happens if the risk is high enough (buy at $4, sell at $5, no cross). But if they can trade the package atomically, there's a mutual win of $2 in gains from trade. Similar missed opportunities happen if agents only want A XOR B or have different prices for different counterparties (price discrimination). This game of imperfect information and missed opportunities plays out every day in capital markets globally.
The straightforward solution to these problems is called "Expressive Bidding"\u2014the ability to communicate parametric bids to the auctioneer, e.g., buy at most one of {$10 for A and B, $4 for A, $4 for B} or sell at most two units of A, pricing it at $10 for counterparty C_1, $9 for C_2, or $8 for C_3. Given everyone's Expressive Bid and a well-chosen objective function, the auctioneer uses constrained optimization to clear the market and unlock efficiencies. Awesome. So why didn't this happen when markets first started going electronic?
General combinatorial auctions are isomorphic to weighted set packing. Clearing them is an NP-complete optimization problem. Finding feasible and near-optimal solutions at the speed and scale of capital markets is deep tech problem #1. Furthermore, bidding in combinatorial auctions can be challenging in both a computational and UX sense. Making it easy is deep tech problem #2.
We tackle problem #1 similarly to how game AI like AlphaZero and optimizers like AlphaFold work. The combination of deep learning, heuristics, and classical AI search techniques is powerful, and applying them to combinatorial auctions in novel ways is a core part of our IP. Problem #2 involves the magic of formal methods. Expressive Bidding users submit snippets of code (a functionally pure subset of OCaml/ReasonML) called a Proxy Bidder. These proxies are essentially functions mapping "proposals" (allocations of goods) to prices, e.g., f({2A, -B}) \u2192 -5, meaning that the bidder wants $5 for buying two units of A and selling one unit of B. Using formal methods, we turn Proxy Bidders into Expressive Bids that our optimizers can understand. You can see what that looks like here [3]. This approach is dead simple for end users, but it took years of collaborative R&D with our friends and formal methods legends at Imandra [4] to enable.
Not everyone needs to write or use Expressive Bids. For common use cases, we're offering pre-canned/forkable Expressive Bids for things like pairs trades and factor neutral portfolios. That aside, users who don't use Expressive Bidding still benefit from those who use it and create unique liquidity that doesn't exist on other trading venues. Our economic mechanism prevents "dark forest" scenarios in which Expressive Bidding has adversarial uses that detract from overall match quality. "Power users" can only benefit those who treat us like a vanilla trading venue\u2014and each other.
We make money by charging a small commission in line with other venues ($0.0009) on each share traded. Longer-term, we're excited about a pricing model that balances computational resources used against liquidity contributed and compensates OneChronos based on how much value we add. Specifically, we'll measure how much notional dollar price improvement we generate for the market beyond what's generated by a "vanilla" double auction that we run in parallel (a neat trick enabled by Expressive Bidding\u2013we can run an arbitrary number of auctions with different rulesets in parallel to measure relative performance). This approach aligns our incentives with our customers and eliminates fixed costs (which cause market friction) from trading.
Only FINRA registered broker-dealers connect to OneChronos directly. If you work at one, and you're not yet a subscriber, please get in touch. We love talking to both subscribers and their customers, and we'd love to hear from institutional investors looking to leverage OneChronos through their existing broker algo and DMA workflows. Retail customers will eventually access us through brokers that choose to allow it (PFOF is its own thing). In the meantime, stay tuned for other more decentralized asset classes :) You can reach us at info (at) onechronos.com.
And we're hiring! If you're passionate about deeply technical problems ranging from mechanism design to applying ML to combinatorial optimization to writing compilers and engineering sophisticated distributed systems to HFT tolerances, get in touch \u2014 careers (at) onechronos.com.
Steve and I will be online today and would love to talk about our technical challenges, auctions/mechanism design, market structure, and the future of OneChronos.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_market
[2] https://news.stanford.edu/2020/11/19/bid-picture-nobel-prize... - Paul Milgrom, one of the laureates, is the Chair of OneChronos Labs, our research arm.
[3] https://www.onechronos.com/docs/expressive/bidding-guide/#in...
[4] https://www.imandra.ai/"},"title":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"Launch HN: OneChronos (YC S16) \u2013 Combinatorial auctions market for US equities"}},"_tags":["story","author_lpage","story_30247159","launch_hn"],"author":"lpage","children":[30247296,30247364,30247696,30247919,30247936,30247994,30248135,30248706,30249030,30249058,30249229,30249230,30249360,30249642,30249947,30250057,30250120,30250219,30250260,30250312,30250330,30250964,30250987,30251215,30252407,30253453,30253586,30254530,30254532,30254883,30256171,30256842,30257145,30258292,30263078,30266480,30268479],"created_at":"2022-02-07T16:36:09Z","created_at_i":1644251769,"num_comments":118,"objectID":"30247159","points":231,"story_id":30247159,"story_text":"Hi HN\u2014we're Kelly and Steve, co-founders of OneChronos (https://www.onechronos.com). OneChronos is a "Smart Market" for US equities\u2014meaning we match counterparties using mathematical optimization instead of classical human auctioneer mechanics [1]. Our flavor of Smart Market\u2014combinatorial auctions\u2014lets users enter orders spanning multiple securities and specify matching preferences way beyond just price and quantity.
We didn't invent Smart Markets or combinatorial auctions. Roughly $1T/year flows through them in industries ranging from display advertising to telecommunications. The underlying theory was the subject of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences [2]. We're bringing them to capital markets, and we have both the customers and the regulatory clearance to do so. Our initial user base contains the household names cumulatively responsible for \u224870% of US equities trading volume.
Today's market structure costs institutional investors at least a trillion dollars annually. We'll go into the details below, but the big thing to understand is that mutual/pension/sovereign funds, 401K plans, and ETF managers pay the price, and ultimately it gets passed on to households. Given diverse investment time horizons and risk preferences, capital markets are not a zero-sum game, but the existing market structure makes it one. Any form of market friction that prevents mutually beneficial trades from happening is an economic loss. Our goal is to make a lot more mutually beneficial trades happen.
We started working on OneChronos as experienced traders and auction theorists. Even so, getting here has taken five years of iterating with customers, tackling two deep tech problems, and working through an involved regulatory process. We'll describe what's causing existing market friction, the solution, and why that solution is a significant technical lift.
When people hear about market friction and hidden costs, they usually think about low latency technology, market data, exchange fees, and predatory HFT practices. Those are significant, and yet they are rounding errors compared to others. The principal sources of market friction that we're attacking are bidders' inability to express economic complements (things that are worth more together than separately), substitutes (things with diminishing marginal utility that are replacements for each other) and non-price factors, and game-theoretic incentives against bidding "truthfully"\u2014that is, against specifying how many units of a good you have and the highest price at which you'd buy or the lowest at which you'd sell them (your supply and demand curve). The most commonly proposed market structure "fixes," like single good periodic batch auctions and the IEX speed bump, don't address any of these.
Imagine that a buyer values two goods A and B at $10 for the package, but only $4 for each individually since they're complements. Similarly, a seller might unload the package for $8 while demanding $5 for each good individually. Both agents have "exposure risk" if A and B are bought and sold separately\u2014they might get stuck with an incomplete package. No trade happens if the risk is high enough (buy at $4, sell at $5, no cross). But if they can trade the package atomically, there's a mutual win of $2 in gains from trade. Similar missed opportunities happen if agents only want A XOR B or have different prices for different counterparties (price discrimination). This game of imperfect information and missed opportunities plays out every day in capital markets globally.
The straightforward solution to these problems is called "Expressive Bidding"\u2014the ability to communicate parametric bids to the auctioneer, e.g., buy at most one of {$10 for A and B, $4 for A, $4 for B} or sell at most two units of A, pricing it at $10 for counterparty C_1, $9 for C_2, or $8 for C_3. Given everyone's Expressive Bid and a well-chosen objective function, the auctioneer uses constrained optimization to clear the market and unlock efficiencies. Awesome. So why didn't this happen when markets first started going electronic?
General combinatorial auctions are isomorphic to weighted set packing. Clearing them is an NP-complete optimization problem. Finding feasible and near-optimal solutions at the speed and scale of capital markets is deep tech problem #1. Furthermore, bidding in combinatorial auctions can be challenging in both a computational and UX sense. Making it easy is deep tech problem #2.
We tackle problem #1 similarly to how game AI like AlphaZero and optimizers like AlphaFold work. The combination of deep learning, heuristics, and classical AI search techniques is powerful, and applying them to combinatorial auctions in novel ways is a core part of our IP. Problem #2 involves the magic of formal methods. Expressive Bidding users submit snippets of code (a functionally pure subset of OCaml/ReasonML) called a Proxy Bidder. These proxies are essentially functions mapping "proposals" (allocations of goods) to prices, e.g., f({2A, -B}) \u2192 -5, meaning that the bidder wants $5 for buying two units of A and selling one unit of B. Using formal methods, we turn Proxy Bidders into Expressive Bids that our optimizers can understand. You can see what that looks like here [3]. This approach is dead simple for end users, but it took years of collaborative R&D with our friends and formal methods legends at Imandra [4] to enable.
Not everyone needs to write or use Expressive Bids. For common use cases, we're offering pre-canned/forkable Expressive Bids for things like pairs trades and factor neutral portfolios. That aside, users who don't use Expressive Bidding still benefit from those who use it and create unique liquidity that doesn't exist on other trading venues. Our economic mechanism prevents "dark forest" scenarios in which Expressive Bidding has adversarial uses that detract from overall match quality. "Power users" can only benefit those who treat us like a vanilla trading venue\u2014and each other.
We make money by charging a small commission in line with other venues ($0.0009) on each share traded. Longer-term, we're excited about a pricing model that balances computational resources used against liquidity contributed and compensates OneChronos based on how much value we add. Specifically, we'll measure how much notional dollar price improvement we generate for the market beyond what's generated by a "vanilla" double auction that we run in parallel (a neat trick enabled by Expressive Bidding\u2013we can run an arbitrary number of auctions with different rulesets in parallel to measure relative performance). This approach aligns our incentives with our customers and eliminates fixed costs (which cause market friction) from trading.
Only FINRA registered broker-dealers connect to OneChronos directly. If you work at one, and you're not yet a subscriber, please get in touch. We love talking to both subscribers and their customers, and we'd love to hear from institutional investors looking to leverage OneChronos through their existing broker algo and DMA workflows. Retail customers will eventually access us through brokers that choose to allow it (PFOF is its own thing). In the meantime, stay tuned for other more decentralized asset classes :) You can reach us at info (at) onechronos.com.
And we're hiring! If you're passionate about deeply technical problems ranging from mechanism design to applying ML to combinatorial optimization to writing compilers and engineering sophisticated distributed systems to HFT tolerances, get in touch \u2014 careers (at) onechronos.com.
Steve and I will be online today and would love to talk about our technical challenges, auctions/mechanism design, market structure, and the future of OneChronos.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_market
[2] https://news.stanford.edu/2020/11/19/bid-picture-nobel-prize... - Paul Milgrom, one of the laureates, is the Chair of OneChronos Labs, our research arm.
[3] https://www.onechronos.com/docs/expressive/bidding-guide/#in...
[4] https://www.imandra.ai/","title":"Launch HN: OneChronos (YC S16) \u2013 Combinatorial auctions market for US equities","updated_at":"2026-03-26T15:10:49Z"},{"_highlightResult":{"author":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"markcyffka"},"story_text":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"full","matchedWords":["reach","capital"],"value":"Hi HN, we are Sudip and Mark, founders of AirMyne (https://www.airmyne.com, but there\u2019s nothing there yet). We\u2019re building an industrial-scale process/plant to capture and remove CO2 from air, so it can be piped to nearby sequestration facilities and injected underground\u2014a process that requires less energy and capital equipment than other leading solutions.
Companies spent over $1B on CO2 offsets last year, sourced primarily from landowners and project aggregators claiming to protect forested lands. Over the past few years, interest in more permanent forms of CO2 removal have led to the pilot-scale commercialization of novel bio-oil/biochar/biomass, direct air capture, mineralization, and ocean processes, but these are not yet available with sufficient capacity to meet demand. There is no silver bullet, but we believe removing CO2 from air with an industrial chemical process offers the most realistic and scalable path forward.
Capturing and sequestering CO2 from air is a huge engineering challenge. The dilute concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere (~400ppm) means a system operating at 100% capture efficiency would still need to process 2500 tons of air to capture just 1 ton of CO2. Significant energy is then required to release CO2 from the capture medium. On top of that, compressing and injecting CO2 underground requires controlling for gas leakages, dry ice blockages, and the corrosive conditions created when concentrated CO2 comes in contact with trace water vapor.
Our approach goes back to the fundamentals of acid/base chemistry. CO2 acts as an acid and will bind to a base, whether in the liquid phase or on a solid surface. We have developed a process to bring air in contact with a base substrate that captures CO2 molecules while letting N2 and O2 molecules pass through. After energy is applied, CO2 is desorbed from the substrate for downstream treatment and compression. This reversible process allows for a single stage \u201cair in, CO2 out\u201d system where 1 ton of substrate could capture >1000 tons of CO2 over its useful lifetime.
In the lab, we have demonstrated this approach at a gram-level scale and believe the process offers favorable energy use, planned capex/opex costs, and process complexity compared to existing solutions. (We\u2019d love to show you a video but can\u2019t do that yet\u2014the chemistry & physical embodiment of the system are areas where we\u2019re developing core IP and that process still involves some secrecy at this stage.)
As we scale this process, we are initiating discussions with other companies who can help us inject captured CO2 deep underground so it can be sequestered for geologic time scales. Sequestration technologies have improved their compression and injection processes over the years, and an emerging regulatory landscape is starting to take shape to accelerate the deployment of CO2 injection wells and mineralization projects in the US, the EU, and around the world. We intend to colocate our CO2 capture near injection facilities to minimize transport logistics.
Sudip and I both come from industry. At Honeywell, Sudip invented and scaled the low-global-warming refrigerant 1234yf used in automotive air conditioning systems, as well as a variety of products used to make displays, computer chips, sensors, solar modules, and electrical components. I invented formulations at BASF now widely used in the manufacture of silicon carbide power electronics for EVs, solar inverters, and other high power electric devices. We bring a systems engineering perspective to the C02/climate problem\u2014our focus is not only developing, but also derisking and scaling industrial systems/processes into a business case suitable for large industrial stakeholders.
Eliminating existing emissions is the most urgent and important challenge we face to keep the climate habitable, but removing CO2 from the atmosphere will likely be needed too. Tackling this problem head-on opens up other fascinating possibilities. By focusing on the \u201cextreme user\u201d case of removing dilute CO2 from air, we might develop unique innovations or insights applicable to the point-source capture of more concentrated CO2 streams such as industrial flue gases. And just as natural gas (methane) was a commercially useless molecule until oil companies started capturing it and finding a use case, we believe that if CO2 can be captured from air and made useful, it could become the feedstock for an industry of similar scope and scale.
We are thrilled to launch as a YC W22 company - we couldn\u2019t ask for a more forward-looking community of folks open to buying, supporting, or otherwise engaging with climate solutions like ours. Grateful for your time and happy to take your questions! We are at hello@airmyne.com if you want to reach out.
p.s. dang took out all our footnotes but if you want references for any of the above, please ask!"},"title":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"Launch HN: AirMyne (YC W22) \u2013 Capturing CO2 from air at industrial scale"}},"_tags":["story","author_markcyffka","story_30712229","launch_hn"],"author":"markcyffka","children":[30712322,30712586,30712660,30712702,30712703,30712807,30712864,30712887,30712899,30712992,30713017,30713038,30713086,30713099,30713255,30713267,30713604,30713647,30714120,30714171,30714633,30714639,30714671,30715342,30715617,30715789,30716014,30716182,30717216,30717982,30719385,30720043,30723757,30724231],"created_at":"2022-03-17T15:31:55Z","created_at_i":1647531115,"num_comments":192,"objectID":"30712229","points":198,"story_id":30712229,"story_text":"Hi HN, we are Sudip and Mark, founders of AirMyne (https://www.airmyne.com, but there\u2019s nothing there yet). We\u2019re building an industrial-scale process/plant to capture and remove CO2 from air, so it can be piped to nearby sequestration facilities and injected underground\u2014a process that requires less energy and capital equipment than other leading solutions.
Companies spent over $1B on CO2 offsets last year, sourced primarily from landowners and project aggregators claiming to protect forested lands. Over the past few years, interest in more permanent forms of CO2 removal have led to the pilot-scale commercialization of novel bio-oil/biochar/biomass, direct air capture, mineralization, and ocean processes, but these are not yet available with sufficient capacity to meet demand. There is no silver bullet, but we believe removing CO2 from air with an industrial chemical process offers the most realistic and scalable path forward.
Capturing and sequestering CO2 from air is a huge engineering challenge. The dilute concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere (~400ppm) means a system operating at 100% capture efficiency would still need to process 2500 tons of air to capture just 1 ton of CO2. Significant energy is then required to release CO2 from the capture medium. On top of that, compressing and injecting CO2 underground requires controlling for gas leakages, dry ice blockages, and the corrosive conditions created when concentrated CO2 comes in contact with trace water vapor.
Our approach goes back to the fundamentals of acid/base chemistry. CO2 acts as an acid and will bind to a base, whether in the liquid phase or on a solid surface. We have developed a process to bring air in contact with a base substrate that captures CO2 molecules while letting N2 and O2 molecules pass through. After energy is applied, CO2 is desorbed from the substrate for downstream treatment and compression. This reversible process allows for a single stage \u201cair in, CO2 out\u201d system where 1 ton of substrate could capture >1000 tons of CO2 over its useful lifetime.
In the lab, we have demonstrated this approach at a gram-level scale and believe the process offers favorable energy use, planned capex/opex costs, and process complexity compared to existing solutions. (We\u2019d love to show you a video but can\u2019t do that yet\u2014the chemistry & physical embodiment of the system are areas where we\u2019re developing core IP and that process still involves some secrecy at this stage.)
As we scale this process, we are initiating discussions with other companies who can help us inject captured CO2 deep underground so it can be sequestered for geologic time scales. Sequestration technologies have improved their compression and injection processes over the years, and an emerging regulatory landscape is starting to take shape to accelerate the deployment of CO2 injection wells and mineralization projects in the US, the EU, and around the world. We intend to colocate our CO2 capture near injection facilities to minimize transport logistics.
Sudip and I both come from industry. At Honeywell, Sudip invented and scaled the low-global-warming refrigerant 1234yf used in automotive air conditioning systems, as well as a variety of products used to make displays, computer chips, sensors, solar modules, and electrical components. I invented formulations at BASF now widely used in the manufacture of silicon carbide power electronics for EVs, solar inverters, and other high power electric devices. We bring a systems engineering perspective to the C02/climate problem\u2014our focus is not only developing, but also derisking and scaling industrial systems/processes into a business case suitable for large industrial stakeholders.
Eliminating existing emissions is the most urgent and important challenge we face to keep the climate habitable, but removing CO2 from the atmosphere will likely be needed too. Tackling this problem head-on opens up other fascinating possibilities. By focusing on the \u201cextreme user\u201d case of removing dilute CO2 from air, we might develop unique innovations or insights applicable to the point-source capture of more concentrated CO2 streams such as industrial flue gases. And just as natural gas (methane) was a commercially useless molecule until oil companies started capturing it and finding a use case, we believe that if CO2 can be captured from air and made useful, it could become the feedstock for an industry of similar scope and scale.
We are thrilled to launch as a YC W22 company - we couldn\u2019t ask for a more forward-looking community of folks open to buying, supporting, or otherwise engaging with climate solutions like ours. Grateful for your time and happy to take your questions! We are at hello@airmyne.com if you want to reach out.
p.s. dang took out all our footnotes but if you want references for any of the above, please ask!","title":"Launch HN: AirMyne (YC W22) \u2013 Capturing CO2 from air at industrial scale","updated_at":"2025-09-01T00:27:21Z"},{"_highlightResult":{"author":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"muneeb"},"story_text":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"full","matchedWords":["reach","capital"],"value":"I'm Muneeb, CEO & Co-founder of Blockstack PBC (YC S14). Blockstack is a decentralized computing network. We currently have 165+ apps built on top (https://blockstack.org). Today we're launching Stacks to the public, the first SEC-qualified crypto token offering.
First, a little about our journey: I grew up in Pakistan with a single state-controlled TV channel. I've been obsessed with the internet since the dial-up days of the late 90s. I researched computer networks as a grad student. I took a leave from Princeton in 2013 to start Blockstack with my co-founder. Our rather ambitious goal was to build a better internet. We went through YC in 2014 and have raised $50M in capital so far.
We believe that the "traditional internet" became dependent on a handful of companies. We want to take the internet back to its decentralized roots. We've done 4+ years of R&D and infrastructure building. We're focusing on giving developers the right tools to build decentralized apps. The big difference between these and traditional internet apps is that: \n(1) apps mostly run client-side (no servers or databases), \n(2) users are in control of their data with encrypted private data lockers, and \n(3) users have universal cryptographic logins without any third-party providers.
Blockstack PBC is a public benefit corporation. We build the core protocols and developer tools for decentralized computing. Developers use our open-source reference implementations and SDKs to build decentralized apps. These include Graphite (decentralized Google docs), Dmail (encrypted email), BitPatron (decentralized Patreon), and others (https://app.co/blockstack). The Blockstack software stack gives developers decentralized solutions for auth and storage. Further, developers can program smart contracts.
The Stacks blockchain is a foundational layer of our architecture. It executes smart contracts and enables our decentralized auth and storage to work without centralized operators. Users register their usernames on the Stacks blockchain and link their storage credentials. Technical details of our full decentralized computing stack are at https://blockstack.org/whitepaper.pdf.
Stacks is the native crypto token of Blockstack. Stacks are used as "fuel" to register digital assets and execute smart contracts. Compared to other decentralized app platforms like Ethereum or EOS, we:\n(1) keep on-chain logic to a minimum, \n(2) scale apps by localizing state changes, and\n(3) enable developers to write general-purpose apps, not just smart contracts.
Our regulatory approach is also very different from typical \u201cICOs\u201d you may have seen. For distributing Stacks to the general public, we decided to work with US regulators. We wanted to open up the US market to our offering instead of blocking US investors. Yesterday, we received qualification from the SEC. The SEC has never qualified any token offering until now.
Regulation A is often compared to a \u201cmini IPO.\u201d Our filing has fully-audited financials and seeks to provide fully transparent disclosures. There were a lot of legal and accounting treatment questions that we had to work on with the SEC. It\u2019s new territory for everyone. It took us almost ten months to reach this stage and we spent close to 2M USD in legal fees and other expenses. I joked at a recent event that I consider our expenditures a donation to the rest of the crypto industry. Other projects now have a legal framework for regulated crypto-token offerings.
I know that many on HN are skeptical of the cryptocurrency market, which has become over-hyped with many bad actors. We share a lot of those feelings. We want to build on solid scientific foundations and give developers the right tools for scalable decentralized apps. Alternatives to centralized big tech monopolies can and will, eventually, exist. The SEC-qualified token offering is our effort to help mature this industry.
You can find our SEC offering circular link at https://stackstoken.com. We'd love to get feedback from the HN community on our regulatory framework and tech design. Thanks!
P.S: Given the regulated nature of this offering, I need to give disclaimers. Realize it\u2019s not typical HN culture :-)
\u2014 Muneeb
Important disclaimer\nThe Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has qualified the offering statement that we have filed with the SEC. The information in that offering statement is more complete than the information we are providing now, and could differ in important ways. You must read the documents filed with the SEC before investing. The offering is being made only by means of its offering statement. This document shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction.
An indication of interest involves no obligation or commitment of any kind. Any person interested in investing in any offering of Stacks tokens should review our disclosures and the publicly filed offering statement and the final offering circular that is part of that offering statement at stackstoken.com/circular. Blockstack is not registered, licensed or supervised as a broker dealer or investment adviser by the SEC, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) or any other financial regulatory authority or licensed to provide any financial advice or services.
Forward-looking statements\nThis communication contains forward-looking statements that are based on our beliefs and assumptions and on information currently available to us. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by the following words: \u201cwill,\u201d \u201cexpect,\u201d \u201cwould,\u201d \u201cintend,\u201d \u201cbelieve,\u201d or other comparable terminology. Forward-looking statements in this document include, but are not limited to, statements about our plans for developing the platform and future utility for the Stacks token, our Reg A+ offering and launch of our network, and collaborations and partnerships. These statements involve risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors that may cause actual results or performance to be materially different. More information on the factors, risks and uncertainties that could cause or contribute to such differences is included in our filings with the SEC, including in the \u201cRisk Factors\u201d and \u201cManagement\u2019s Discussion & Analysis\u201d sections of our offering statement on Form 1-A. We cannot assure you that the forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date hereof. We disclaim any obligation to update these forward-looking statements."},"title":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"Launch HN: Stacks (YC S14) \u2013 The first SEC-qualified crypto token offering"}},"_tags":["story","author_muneeb","story_20413420","launch_hn"],"author":"muneeb","children":[20413573,20413793,20413811,20413842,20414059,20414076,20414355,20414422,20414561,20414628,20414884,20415023,20415857,20416234,20416939,20417251,20417337,20417989,20418520,20419253,20419341,20419665,20427506],"created_at":"2019-07-11T17:20:39Z","created_at_i":1562865639,"num_comments":68,"objectID":"20413420","points":134,"story_id":20413420,"story_text":"I'm Muneeb, CEO & Co-founder of Blockstack PBC (YC S14). Blockstack is a decentralized computing network. We currently have 165+ apps built on top (https://blockstack.org). Today we're launching Stacks to the public, the first SEC-qualified crypto token offering.
First, a little about our journey: I grew up in Pakistan with a single state-controlled TV channel. I've been obsessed with the internet since the dial-up days of the late 90s. I researched computer networks as a grad student. I took a leave from Princeton in 2013 to start Blockstack with my co-founder. Our rather ambitious goal was to build a better internet. We went through YC in 2014 and have raised $50M in capital so far.
We believe that the "traditional internet" became dependent on a handful of companies. We want to take the internet back to its decentralized roots. We've done 4+ years of R&D and infrastructure building. We're focusing on giving developers the right tools to build decentralized apps. The big difference between these and traditional internet apps is that: \n(1) apps mostly run client-side (no servers or databases), \n(2) users are in control of their data with encrypted private data lockers, and \n(3) users have universal cryptographic logins without any third-party providers.
Blockstack PBC is a public benefit corporation. We build the core protocols and developer tools for decentralized computing. Developers use our open-source reference implementations and SDKs to build decentralized apps. These include Graphite (decentralized Google docs), Dmail (encrypted email), BitPatron (decentralized Patreon), and others (https://app.co/blockstack). The Blockstack software stack gives developers decentralized solutions for auth and storage. Further, developers can program smart contracts.
The Stacks blockchain is a foundational layer of our architecture. It executes smart contracts and enables our decentralized auth and storage to work without centralized operators. Users register their usernames on the Stacks blockchain and link their storage credentials. Technical details of our full decentralized computing stack are at https://blockstack.org/whitepaper.pdf.
Stacks is the native crypto token of Blockstack. Stacks are used as "fuel" to register digital assets and execute smart contracts. Compared to other decentralized app platforms like Ethereum or EOS, we:\n(1) keep on-chain logic to a minimum, \n(2) scale apps by localizing state changes, and\n(3) enable developers to write general-purpose apps, not just smart contracts.
Our regulatory approach is also very different from typical \u201cICOs\u201d you may have seen. For distributing Stacks to the general public, we decided to work with US regulators. We wanted to open up the US market to our offering instead of blocking US investors. Yesterday, we received qualification from the SEC. The SEC has never qualified any token offering until now.
Regulation A is often compared to a \u201cmini IPO.\u201d Our filing has fully-audited financials and seeks to provide fully transparent disclosures. There were a lot of legal and accounting treatment questions that we had to work on with the SEC. It\u2019s new territory for everyone. It took us almost ten months to reach this stage and we spent close to 2M USD in legal fees and other expenses. I joked at a recent event that I consider our expenditures a donation to the rest of the crypto industry. Other projects now have a legal framework for regulated crypto-token offerings.
I know that many on HN are skeptical of the cryptocurrency market, which has become over-hyped with many bad actors. We share a lot of those feelings. We want to build on solid scientific foundations and give developers the right tools for scalable decentralized apps. Alternatives to centralized big tech monopolies can and will, eventually, exist. The SEC-qualified token offering is our effort to help mature this industry.
You can find our SEC offering circular link at https://stackstoken.com. We'd love to get feedback from the HN community on our regulatory framework and tech design. Thanks!
P.S: Given the regulated nature of this offering, I need to give disclaimers. Realize it\u2019s not typical HN culture :-)
\u2014 Muneeb
Important disclaimer\nThe Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has qualified the offering statement that we have filed with the SEC. The information in that offering statement is more complete than the information we are providing now, and could differ in important ways. You must read the documents filed with the SEC before investing. The offering is being made only by means of its offering statement. This document shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction.
An indication of interest involves no obligation or commitment of any kind. Any person interested in investing in any offering of Stacks tokens should review our disclosures and the publicly filed offering statement and the final offering circular that is part of that offering statement at stackstoken.com/circular. Blockstack is not registered, licensed or supervised as a broker dealer or investment adviser by the SEC, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) or any other financial regulatory authority or licensed to provide any financial advice or services.
Forward-looking statements\nThis communication contains forward-looking statements that are based on our beliefs and assumptions and on information currently available to us. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by the following words: \u201cwill,\u201d \u201cexpect,\u201d \u201cwould,\u201d \u201cintend,\u201d \u201cbelieve,\u201d or other comparable terminology. Forward-looking statements in this document include, but are not limited to, statements about our plans for developing the platform and future utility for the Stacks token, our Reg A+ offering and launch of our network, and collaborations and partnerships. These statements involve risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors that may cause actual results or performance to be materially different. More information on the factors, risks and uncertainties that could cause or contribute to such differences is included in our filings with the SEC, including in the \u201cRisk Factors\u201d and \u201cManagement\u2019s Discussion & Analysis\u201d sections of our offering statement on Form 1-A. We cannot assure you that the forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date hereof. We disclaim any obligation to update these forward-looking statements.","title":"Launch HN: Stacks (YC S14) \u2013 The first SEC-qualified crypto token offering","updated_at":"2024-09-20T04:33:06Z"},{"_highlightResult":{"author":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"antgoldbloom"},"story_text":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"full","matchedWords":["reach","capital"],"value":"I\u2019m Anthony, co-founder/CEO of Sumble. I was previously co-founder/CEO of Kaggle. Sumble is my newco with Ben Hamner (former co-founder and CTO of Kaggle).
### What we built
Sumble is a knowledge graph for go-to-market teams. We allow you to run very rich queries to identify prospects at a granular level and be able to do very targeted outreach.
Sumble allows you to find:
- tech stacks (in larger companies, down to the team or buying group level)\n- key projects those teams are working on (cloud migrations, GenAI initiatives, etc.)\n- people involved in those key projects
For example, here's a list of GenAI projects at Capital One that involve RAG/Vector databases:\nhttps://sumble.com/l/6sDqKmhyAH
And this view includes a list of people who we think are involved in a particular project being undertaken by the AI Foundation Team at Capital One:\nhttps://sumble.com/l/j8mbRrDsly
These views allow you to reach out to that team with a granular understanding of what they are working on.
### Inspiration
Sumble was very much inspired by our experience at Kaggle:
1. Kaggle\u2019s public-data platform showed us how hungry people are for high-quality data (the metrics on that product were really strong)
2. At Google we saw knowledge graphs unlock powerful and composable queries
### Trying it out
- The app is live today; you\u2019ll need to log in (Google OAuth or magic links)
- Most functionality and data are free; we only charge individual users for bulk exports
### How it works (briefly)
- Sources: job posts, resume data, company websites (more to come!)
- Extraction & linking: We use LLM (mostly fine-tuned models) to extract entities out of text from sources (company \u2192 team \u2192 people on a team \u2192 projects the team is undertaking \u2192 technology the team uses)
### What\u2019s next
- Adding more sources so you can run even more composable queries
- Opening an API so devs can hit the graph directly
- Much later: expand to use cases beyond GTM
### Feedback
- Is the web app intuitive?
- What queries do you want us to prioritize supporting in an API?
- What additional external data sources would you like us to prioritize?\n- What workflow improvements/integrations would you find most helpful?"},"title":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"Show HN: Sumble \u2013 knowledge graph for GTM data \u2013 query tech stack, key projects"},"url":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"https://sumble.com"}},"_tags":["story","author_antgoldbloom","story_44501076","show_hn"],"author":"antgoldbloom","children":[44501326,44501433,44501493,44501507,44501516,44501522,44501529,44501596,44501603,44501742,44501805,44501934,44501985,44502064,44502067,44502100,44502106,44502204,44502217,44502237,44502364,44505159],"created_at":"2025-07-08T15:42:34Z","created_at_i":1751989354,"num_comments":47,"objectID":"44501076","points":91,"story_id":44501076,"story_text":"I\u2019m Anthony, co-founder/CEO of Sumble. I was previously co-founder/CEO of Kaggle. Sumble is my newco with Ben Hamner (former co-founder and CTO of Kaggle).
### What we built
Sumble is a knowledge graph for go-to-market teams. We allow you to run very rich queries to identify prospects at a granular level and be able to do very targeted outreach.
Sumble allows you to find:
- tech stacks (in larger companies, down to the team or buying group level)\n- key projects those teams are working on (cloud migrations, GenAI initiatives, etc.)\n- people involved in those key projects
For example, here's a list of GenAI projects at Capital One that involve RAG/Vector databases:\nhttps://sumble.com/l/6sDqKmhyAH
And this view includes a list of people who we think are involved in a particular project being undertaken by the AI Foundation Team at Capital One:\nhttps://sumble.com/l/j8mbRrDsly
These views allow you to reach out to that team with a granular understanding of what they are working on.
### Inspiration
Sumble was very much inspired by our experience at Kaggle:
1. Kaggle\u2019s public-data platform showed us how hungry people are for high-quality data (the metrics on that product were really strong)
2. At Google we saw knowledge graphs unlock powerful and composable queries
### Trying it out
- The app is live today; you\u2019ll need to log in (Google OAuth or magic links)
- Most functionality and data are free; we only charge individual users for bulk exports
### How it works (briefly)
- Sources: job posts, resume data, company websites (more to come!)
- Extraction & linking: We use LLM (mostly fine-tuned models) to extract entities out of text from sources (company \u2192 team \u2192 people on a team \u2192 projects the team is undertaking \u2192 technology the team uses)
### What\u2019s next
- Adding more sources so you can run even more composable queries
- Opening an API so devs can hit the graph directly
- Much later: expand to use cases beyond GTM
### Feedback
- Is the web app intuitive?
- What queries do you want us to prioritize supporting in an API?
- What additional external data sources would you like us to prioritize?\n- What workflow improvements/integrations would you find most helpful?","title":"Show HN: Sumble \u2013 knowledge graph for GTM data \u2013 query tech stack, key projects","updated_at":"2026-08-12T15:20:01Z","url":"https://sumble.com"},{"_highlightResult":{"author":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"throwawaypotato"},"story_text":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"full","matchedWords":["reach","capital"],"value":"I work at a large, non-software company in the US as an entry-level software engineer, where I've been working for a little over a year, now. This has been my first job out of college, though I did do freelance work for a few years prior. I'm very unhappy at my company, and I'm wondering whether this is due to the company, or instead due to my own unrealistic expectations.
In my organization at this company, each team is assigned one senior engineer, one or more non-senior engineers, and one or more offshore engineers. On my team, I am the only non-senior engineer, in addition to half a dozen offshore engineers. In the ~12 months that I've been on my team, 3 senior engineers have joined and subsequently quit, which has left me to learn the ropes of our (unnecessarily large and often undocumented) application and manage all of our offshore engineers on my own.
This means that I usually work significantly more than 8 hours per day (8 hours is the norm at my company). Lately, this also means that I'm usually quite a bit more familiar with our application than the senior engineer on my team. This has led to a number of hilarious situations in which I am at my desk, IM'ing the senior engineer what he needs to say at meetings, as those meetings are happening. I can't attend these meetings, because they're only for senior engineers!
Because I generally have no time to write code or do anything other than write e-mails and put out fires during the work week, I spend a large part of my weekends writing code for prototypes and projects, thinking about the designs of various parts of the company's application, improving our documentation, writing code quality guides, and coming up with various process improvements (e.g. ways to improve our source control policies, ways that we can improve our interview process, etc). When I show other people (engineers on other teams, management, etc) what I've worked on, I generally don't get any response whatsoever. This is problematic, because I need management to sign off on any changes that I make to our code-base or any of our processes, and without their sign-off, my work basically goes to waste. It's alright if none of my ideas get implemented -- they might be bad ideas (in hindsight, I know that some of them are!) -- but it would at least be nice to get some feedback, and I never get any.
To make matters worse, management doesn't seem to be aware of any of this. My manager has suggested that I try to take on more tasks at the next job-level up from mine, when by the company's own guidelines, I've been doing the job of a senior engineer for some time now (though I probably haven't been doing as well at it as an actual senior engineer would). I will admit that I haven't been doing an great job of making myself "visible" to management, but I think that I've been doing enough that they should have more awareness than they seem to have.
Other than that, I just can't seem to connect with anyone at work. I try to have conversations with other engineers about software (I've tried a wide variety of topics), and am generally greeted with head-nodding and a blank stare -- sometimes other engineers even make impolite comments about my interest in software. I've tried to organize meetings where we can discuss computer science topics, but management, while supportive of the idea, has warned me that there might not be enough interest to warrant having such meetings.
The general M.O. here seems to be to do just enough work to shift responsibility to someone else, to be Agile (with a capital "A") even though our organization is anything but, to schedule meetings (never try to solve a problem using automation -- meetings are the only way), and to basically maintain the status quo, even when doing so means making bad decisions that will cost the company big time in the future. By the way, it's not cool to think or converse in terms of abstractions -- only speak in terms of APIs, please (paraphrased advice that I've been given by management).
I've been trying to make the best of things: the attitude I've tried to have over the past year has been that if I can identify various things that we do wrong at work, and can come up with better ways to do them, then it's almost as good as working somewhere where things actually get done in the right way. Still, I'm unhappy. For the first time in my life, I feel like I might be depressed. I don't like waking up for work in the morning, and on the weekend, all I can think about is how much the next week is going to suck.
It seems like this should be a really sweet job -- after all, you can do what is essentially bad work and still get paid, the environment is laid back, and people are friendly, for the most part. But it's actually really frustrating. It feels like no matter how hard I try, I'll never make any improvements to the company's situation, because our organization in the company is structured in such a way that one single person (at my job-level, at least) can't really affect any change by him/herself. Thus it feels like the only way to proceed is to knowingly do bad work.
Am I expecting too much? Is this just how software engineering is? I'm grateful to have a job, and don't mean to be a know-it-all. I know that my company doesn't owe me anything more than a paycheck, but I just don't feel like this is a good situation. I've talked about some of this with management, and the response has basically been "That must be frustrating." I don't know many other software engineers, and didn't do CS in college, so can't reach out to classmates or professors for advice.
Please, HN, set me straight!"},"title":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"Ask HN: Am I expecting too much?"}},"_tags":["story","author_throwawaypotato","story_11859709","ask_hn"],"author":"throwawaypotato","children":[11859718,11859828,11859859,11859919,11859924,11859974,11860074,11860095,11860139,11860152,11860201,11860212,11860213,11860215,11860228,11860279,11860296,11860301,11860303,11860310,11860312,11860318,11860351,11860356,11860360,11860366,11860388,11860408,11860456,11860458,11860470,11860473,11860481,11860482,11860516,11860562,11860923,11861227,11861883,11861936,11862339,11862456,11863494],"created_at":"2016-06-08T03:05:08Z","created_at_i":1465355108,"num_comments":63,"objectID":"11859709","points":87,"story_id":11859709,"story_text":"I work at a large, non-software company in the US as an entry-level software engineer, where I've been working for a little over a year, now. This has been my first job out of college, though I did do freelance work for a few years prior. I'm very unhappy at my company, and I'm wondering whether this is due to the company, or instead due to my own unrealistic expectations.
In my organization at this company, each team is assigned one senior engineer, one or more non-senior engineers, and one or more offshore engineers. On my team, I am the only non-senior engineer, in addition to half a dozen offshore engineers. In the ~12 months that I've been on my team, 3 senior engineers have joined and subsequently quit, which has left me to learn the ropes of our (unnecessarily large and often undocumented) application and manage all of our offshore engineers on my own.
This means that I usually work significantly more than 8 hours per day (8 hours is the norm at my company). Lately, this also means that I'm usually quite a bit more familiar with our application than the senior engineer on my team. This has led to a number of hilarious situations in which I am at my desk, IM'ing the senior engineer what he needs to say at meetings, as those meetings are happening. I can't attend these meetings, because they're only for senior engineers!
Because I generally have no time to write code or do anything other than write e-mails and put out fires during the work week, I spend a large part of my weekends writing code for prototypes and projects, thinking about the designs of various parts of the company's application, improving our documentation, writing code quality guides, and coming up with various process improvements (e.g. ways to improve our source control policies, ways that we can improve our interview process, etc). When I show other people (engineers on other teams, management, etc) what I've worked on, I generally don't get any response whatsoever. This is problematic, because I need management to sign off on any changes that I make to our code-base or any of our processes, and without their sign-off, my work basically goes to waste. It's alright if none of my ideas get implemented -- they might be bad ideas (in hindsight, I know that some of them are!) -- but it would at least be nice to get some feedback, and I never get any.
To make matters worse, management doesn't seem to be aware of any of this. My manager has suggested that I try to take on more tasks at the next job-level up from mine, when by the company's own guidelines, I've been doing the job of a senior engineer for some time now (though I probably haven't been doing as well at it as an actual senior engineer would). I will admit that I haven't been doing an great job of making myself "visible" to management, but I think that I've been doing enough that they should have more awareness than they seem to have.
Other than that, I just can't seem to connect with anyone at work. I try to have conversations with other engineers about software (I've tried a wide variety of topics), and am generally greeted with head-nodding and a blank stare -- sometimes other engineers even make impolite comments about my interest in software. I've tried to organize meetings where we can discuss computer science topics, but management, while supportive of the idea, has warned me that there might not be enough interest to warrant having such meetings.
The general M.O. here seems to be to do just enough work to shift responsibility to someone else, to be Agile (with a capital "A") even though our organization is anything but, to schedule meetings (never try to solve a problem using automation -- meetings are the only way), and to basically maintain the status quo, even when doing so means making bad decisions that will cost the company big time in the future. By the way, it's not cool to think or converse in terms of abstractions -- only speak in terms of APIs, please (paraphrased advice that I've been given by management).
I've been trying to make the best of things: the attitude I've tried to have over the past year has been that if I can identify various things that we do wrong at work, and can come up with better ways to do them, then it's almost as good as working somewhere where things actually get done in the right way. Still, I'm unhappy. For the first time in my life, I feel like I might be depressed. I don't like waking up for work in the morning, and on the weekend, all I can think about is how much the next week is going to suck.
It seems like this should be a really sweet job -- after all, you can do what is essentially bad work and still get paid, the environment is laid back, and people are friendly, for the most part. But it's actually really frustrating. It feels like no matter how hard I try, I'll never make any improvements to the company's situation, because our organization in the company is structured in such a way that one single person (at my job-level, at least) can't really affect any change by him/herself. Thus it feels like the only way to proceed is to knowingly do bad work.
Am I expecting too much? Is this just how software engineering is? I'm grateful to have a job, and don't mean to be a know-it-all. I know that my company doesn't owe me anything more than a paycheck, but I just don't feel like this is a good situation. I've talked about some of this with management, and the response has basically been "That must be frustrating." I don't know many other software engineers, and didn't do CS in college, so can't reach out to classmates or professors for advice.
Please, HN, set me straight!","title":"Ask HN: Am I expecting too much?","updated_at":"2024-09-19T23:19:48Z"}],"hitsPerPage":50,"nbHits":128,"nbPages":3,"page":0,"params":"query=Reach+Capital&tags=story&hitsPerPage=50&advancedSyntax=true&analyticsTags=backend","processingTimeMS":33,"processingTimingsMS":{"_request":{"roundTrip":18},"afterFetch":{"format":{"highlighting":4,"total":5},"merge":{"mergeLoop":{"prepareNextHit":2,"total":2},"total":2},"total":3},"fetch":{"query":9,"scanning":8,"total":18},"getIdx":{"load":{"gens":4,"synonyms":5,"total":11},"total":11},"total":33},"query":"Reach Capital","serverTimeMS":70}