Totally agree about open data and we actually do integrate with a large number of systems via http://www.open311.org/, an open standard built by cities and vendors working together.
Most of what you describe takes place at the state and federal level, but not local. In fact, discretionary funds are plentiful in our target market—people are often shocked to learn that we've never run into price objections when selling, and we've successfully sold to cities ranging in population from 20k to 4m. In other words, they aren't "awful purchasers" as you call them—they're hard-working, dedicated people looking to improve their efficiency with money to spend, but they aren't being provided with solutions they can experiment with on a monthly basis. We're trying to change that.
In addition, the strategy you've outlined is the one nearly every incumbent in every enterprise space has leaned on to protect themselves from disruption, but it only works for so long (as we've seen time and time again). I also think people overestimate the ability of large companies to quickly adapt their offering—the machinery of enormous sales, marketing, and product organizations can't turn on a dime.
Just noticed this went up! Happy to answer any questions about what we're doing, or more importantly, how the amazing folks in local government are performing their jobs. Also, I noticed the article doesn't link to our site, so https://www.senecagov.com
This looks awesome (although I think the name could use a little work). It also brings up a question I have for HN:
Every few years, I make an attempt to learn to use one of the classic editors like vim or emacs, and inevitably give up after the enormous productivity drop I suffer when writing code. I just can't seem to pick up the muscle memory required to become fast with these tools, and the overwhelming array of customization options leaves me frustrated.
The most annoying thing is that I want to learn one of these, because I think I'll enjoy it once I do. Any suggestions from people who have picked one up on how to accomplish this seemingly Herculean task?
And, I suppose, I have another another question: is it worth it?
That's quite the stretch, and I'm even one of the commenters in your linked thread who used to work there. Gusto has made some mistakes on the employee equity side, but, with a few exceptions, it was a wonderful place to work.
I suggest reading http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill for a pretty good overview of the arguments in favor of the existence of "free will" (which itself has many definitions).
Which isn't to say you're wrong, but I think it's pretty uncharitable to say there aren't any "coherent" arguments in favor of free will. You did say you haven't "seen" any arguments, which I suppose is not the same as a claim that are none, but a cursory glance at that article should be illuminating for you. People have been thinking about this for a very long time, and no consensus seems to have emerged. :-)
Michael was one of our group partners during S16, and I cannot think of a person better suited for this position than him. He consistently demonstrated the ability to cut through all of the nonsense founders tried to use to defend their actions (ourselves included) and delivered fantastic insights into our businesses to which we were blinded.
For me, the group partners were the primary value delivered by YC during the program, and I look forward to that value being continued under Michael's leadership. Congratulations!
I thought it was incredibly valuable, but exhausting at the same time. Usually, meetings like this would be spread out over days and weeks, giving you a chance to recover from each pitch. This was relentless: the same questions every 20 minutes for most of the day.
On the other hand, it was awesome to meet so many people excited by what we're doing in a single day. The investors we spoke to were engaging and thoughtful, and we didn't have to worry (for the most part!) about whether speaking with them was worth our time.
The algo for matching investors with companies seemed to work _okay_, although there were a few meetings we had to schedule outside of Investor Day with people who didn't make the cut for whatever reason.
On the whole, it was absolutely worth it and I highly recommend YC keep it as a mechanism for speeding up fundraising after Demo Day.
Correct--these things are spelled out in the Stock Purchase Agreement each employee is given. I can tell you, however, that all limits imposed are spelled out clearly in that document, and not hidden in our bylaws.
But you're right--we should put it in the handbook as well, because that's our living document for past, present, and future employees.
They do, and this Agreement specified that the ROFR was the only practical limit on transfers. Indeed, the sale passed the scrutiny of outside attorneys who looked at all documents that had been given to the employees.
It wasn't until a buyer had been found and the company had been notified that they pulled out the company bylaws and revealed this extra clause deep in the bowels of that document--a document which had never been furnished before.
Precisely--this is the exact reason that ROFRs exist. They make sure that a company has the option of keeping its cap table clean in the event of a sale by an employee.
What these companies want is to have their cake and eat it too: prohibit sales of stock to outsiders without having to pay for the privilege.
The cynic in me says that this is because companies of this kind are far less likely to be in the position to exercise ROFRs and pay for it via profits simply because they are not yet profitable. And I'm sure investors don't like the idea of their capital being used to buy back shares of vested stock from employees.
In the case @tyre mentioned above, the number of owners on the cap table would have actually been reduced during the sale, not increased.
The problem is not with the spirit under which that clause was added to the company's bylaws--the problem is the knee-jerk reaction by which they halted any discussion of sales (and didn't try to find a solution that worked), whether or not the proposed sale actually had a material effect on the cap table. Not to mention that ROFRs exist to eliminate cap table problems altogether.
Employees are unaware of these "veto" clauses, and continuing to hide them is acting in bad faith. But of course companies don't want employees to be aware of these clauses--it would become crystal clear how absolutely worthless equity is for the vast majority of employees at startups (even at Valley darlings like Gusto).
It's a function that takes a String and returns a new function which takes a String and returns a String. All functions in Haskell/Elm are arity 1.
So in order to construct functions that accept more than one argument, you actually return successive functions that apply successive arguments, known as currying.
In addition to the other comments, I would also note that it's untrue that Rockefeller started doing philanthropic work as "atonement" for his business practices. Even as a young man just getting his start as a bookkeeper at a small merchant, he gave a significant portion of his then-meager pay to charity.
He was a complicated man, no doubt, and he tended to gloss over some of the consequences of his actions when recalling his past, but he was, mostly, just vilified for being a brilliant businessman at a time when it was popular to do so.
That's true if you try to sell into the municipalities via the RFP process. However, we sell directly to the departments who will be using our software. We've met with great success doing it this way.
In fact, we managed to close a department in Miami in only six days--that's basically unheard of in local government software sales.
