FWIW "Billions of dollars" should be considered in the context that 1 million people * $1,000 = $1 billion. The US is ~300m people. So, this headline is something like "1/3 of 1% of the US is putting an extra $1,000 in their 401k recently" (really more like 1-2% of the _workforce_ but the point remains)
I use this service and I like it. Many blog posts and engineering discussions tend to treat tools in isolation -- you're learning about Redis or Rails or Ember only. Being able to meet other engineers who use the same _combination_ of tools can help you learn about higher level design patterns and the interactions between the tools.
Good point. Especially that stat, because it is so volatile. So much of the wealth is tied up in the value of companies or other complex things whose value is illiquid, and whose value can change quickly.
Still though, not like it's going to go to 50/50, 70/30, or some less-eye-popping number anytime soon.
Or, should I say that my self-generated perception after a compressed review of the literature has left me inclined to believe that the author is highly self-aware and wry, with their oral muscular hydrostat firmly implanted in either the left or right side of the orifice.
This is an enormously complicated question, and a good answer requires knowing a bit about your background and what you already understand about business.
As for some high level answers to your three questions:
1) They lost a lot of money, how can they function? Well, it depends on your definition of "a lot". Look at http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bs?s=amzn+Balance+Sheet&annual and you will see on the top line, at the end of 2013, Amazon had about $8.6 billion in cash. $574m is only about 6% of that.
2) Where does it get money? There are two main sources. The first is selling goods (books, etc) and services (Amazon Web Services, etc). The second is investors. Amazon owns a lot of it's own stock and if it wanted, it could sell that stock to get more cash.
3) Who invests? Lots of individuals and groups. You're not going to be able to get a list of literally every person who owns a share, but you can easily find out which groups/people own large chunks: https://finance.yahoo.com/q/mh?s=AMZN+Major+Holders
Take my, and everyone's advice, with a grain of salt. Few people have experienced enough launches to offer a very objective view of the patterns, so you're going to have to make the decision for yourself.
As a rule of thumb, from the launches I've seen and been close to, they are not make-or-break for a company/product. You might get a bit of buzz, you might have a TC or RWW article about you, but as I think of successful startups that I didn't personally know, I can remember only a few launch days.
The important factor is in one of two categories:
1) consumer app: the app produces a TON of value, and everyone tells the people they know (viral growth)
2) business app: viral growth is a factor, but there's probably going to be a lot of sales-y activity required.
Neither of these categories are largely dependent on a launch. A launch is more important when you've already got a ton of eyeballs.
Again, this is a rule of thumb, and I'm not aware of a single person who I would say is a true expert around launches.
I have no special knowledge on the subject, but I did a quick Google search. I'm sure you might have run across some of these before, but I wanted to share them since I'm pleasantly surprised by the depth of things that are out there.
Akshay, it looks like you're the person who wrote this and posted it. Thank you for the contribution. It deserves to make the front page.
This is insanely important and may be the best HN link all week. Any engineer who routinely feels frustrated when working with other people should pay attention to this.
I've done engineering and sales, which are very different skillsets. More importantly, I have been mentored by other people who are world class at these respective skills, and have been very lucky to have the opportunity to learn from them.
Even though not everyone should learn to code, it is valuable to be able to put on the other person's hat.
Non-engineers need to respect that engineers deal with situations that don't happen in everyday life. An engineer is frequently presented with situations that boil down to "it does work" or "it does not work". There is no gray area, and typically the computer is not very polite in the way that it tells you that you're wrong -- errors rarely say "Hey, I hope you aren't upset about this, but something's not working right. Want to talk it through and find a solution?" Instead, we deal with messages that have the emotional sensitivity of "screw you!", or if we are lucky, "screw you! #32"
Being in this mindset all the time will condition you to thinking in a certain way, and that's what is required to program. People, on the other hand, don't work like this, and if you can see the difference and act on it, you will benefit from it.
Cranston is the best. He is a fantastic role model for consistently showing up and putting in work, and if he's only a quarter as nice as he's been described, he'd be a fine drinking companion any day.
Umair is a total bummer and is being misled by his own intelligence. He's Nostradamus but with better marketing.
People have been saying the world is burning for as long as there have been people, and they often have compelling arguments, yet we are still here. You'd think after 10,000 years of buying losing lottery tickets, we'd stop playing that game.
It's ok. Sometimes people just post garbage or spam, which is why new accounts are displayed in green, so we know to be cautious :)
Reddit is more of a general-audience kind of thing. It's like CNN or BuzzFeed, but the key difference is that anyone can go in and create a new group ("subreddit") to discuss whatever they want (hence the value of the community, and the potential for advertising & marketing). This ad-marketing potential is likely what's causing people to put money in.
To me, HN could be thought of as a single subreddit focused on tech-startup-business. I see political things and other non-tech-startup-business things on here sometimes, but that doesn't appear to be the priority.
Given that you created your HN account 4 minutes ago, I'm going to give you a quick answer. If this is a real question and you post a more detailed question, I'm happy to give you more info.
Reddit is an entertainment site for me. Funny gifs, videos, etc.