I'd be interested in seeing the cost analysis/breakdown of hiring Cessna pilots to take pictures vs. renting Parrot AR Drones with GoPros to farmers, teaching them to survey their own land and provide them with a software built by TerrAvion.
We looked into this quite extensively. It's actually surprisingly cheaper to fly a Cessna vs use a small drone. We can cover 100,000 acres in a day with a Cessna, compared to maybe 400 (not including time for battery charging) with a small hand launched drone. Along with that farmers are really busy and not very interested in operating another new tool.
We intend to move to drones whenever they are legal, cheaper and more effective, but in the meantime Cessnas are the answer.
If you'll let me further explain what <$30 per acre pricing per season means for farmers...
We have client in Livermore, CA who is actually a lawyer but has a 5 acre vineyard at his house. For $150 he can't even afford to do the research on Amazon to pick the right drone with the right sensor, let alone buy it, and operate it.
He is right next to another client, a large integrated grower with a couple thousand acres. No matter what sized drone they picked, if they were going to do a high-revisit service internally, they would have to hire someone full time to run it. We deliver to them for far less than the price of a new employee, let alone all the IT they would have to invest in.
Was looking into this just yesterday after a friend suggested an interesting application of drones. The Parrot drones seem to have a very low range for any practical use such as this. From a few minutes of looking online, I couldn't find any drone platforms available for consumers with a range that can extend beyond 1000 meters. Even the DJI Phantom 2 which can do 1000 meters can only do it in favorable environments.
Most investors think because a YC Partner invested, that must be the best company. And the YC Partners should know, they've spent the last three months with every company!
I'm sure the YC Partners' track record of "picking" is no better than SV Angel, a16z, Greylock, etc.
I think this tweak to the investment policy will contribute to eliminating the sub-par angel investors who base a majority of their investments on which companies received funding from YC partners. PG taking action to make his dreams a reality [1]
I don't think this is the case; they only need to infer "better than average" or "not a lemmon". The problem is everyone else is trading-off the research of others and abnormal volatility# results, which has dis-utility to the companies involved. In fact, it eventually would become a dis-incentive to join YC. It is this latter outcome that surely YC wants to avoid. They are not going to benefit from the pricing of current companies, so much as they would lose long-term value of their franchise. Ie, if it becomes a very "hit or miss" investment of Founder's time, the more capable founders may seek to mitigate their exposure to such a process.
I have a feeling history is going to repeat itself. Statements like "AMD believes that it will be the leader of this ARM Server market" reminds me of the DRAM boom-and-bust from 2006-2009. The new (old) hot technology froths the market into a frenzy and semiconductor fabs start rushing to get a slice of the action.
I offset the carbon emissions through Terrapass (http://www.terrapass.com/). It's not perfect, I know, but I can't afford a Tesla at the moment without liquidating my TSLA stock.
Since when are services built on sound science "indulgence-style"? It wasn't like I drove to Florida on a vacation; I was taking care of a family member. I'm not supposed to go because I'm releasing ~2 tons of carbon? Bah.
There's nothing wrong with driving far distances, it's just that money negating pollution is silly to me, as incongruent as a tithe forgiving sins. You can't just wring automobile emissions out of the sky, and a donation doesn't change the fact that the extra car on the road causes other cars to slow, producing more emissions, increasing demand for road infrastructure and such.
There are consequences larger than "hey, stop that."
Even Uber's legal representation said they could be liable for damages:
If Uber employees intentionally diverted Gett drivers from legitimate business by making phony calls, that is an unfair business practice, illegal under California law," he said. "It is also an intentional interference with Gett's business which makes them liable for money damages.
That's not Uber's legal representation, it's "San Francisco-based attorney Drexel Bradshaw." Nowhere does it suggest that Bradshaw is associated with Uber. Here is Mr. Bradshaw's profile page from his law firm (from a cursory Google search): http://www.bradshawassociates.com/Bio/DrexelBradshaw.php
Genentech asked Kleiner Perkins for a $3.0 million dollar investment back in the 70s to see if it was even possible to accomplish genome splicing. The investment would have paid for building a new lab, new equipment, etc. KP decided to give them $500k and rent the UCLA lab instead. That was a groundbreaking investment (and the VC business had only been around for 15-20 years).
In the current landscape of investing, crowdfunding has become the vehicle for riskier investments that traditional VCs no longer make (because they don't fit 10% x $2 billion = happy LPs) and I'm sure KP knows firsthand about dealing with bio-pharma regulations.
Think of any film about any successful company that has ever been made and you'll realize the 'idea' and the 'success' get all the screen time. All of the hard work, sacrifice and, arguably, the best parts of starting a company get rolled up into a 60 second montage. Nobody wants to watch the nitty gritty stuff, let alone do it, but that's what separates founders from everyone else.
