It all sounds like hysteria to me. We're not even close to this level of AI.

You kind of have to. The vast majority of them are obviously fake. If you look at the wording / grammar there is a lot of similarity (uses of the word "Great", etc)

though not yet proven, I believe we may have found the Enron of our decade

Security aside, I would argue that 98 and XP were the best versions of Windows during that period

98 was so bug-riddled that only 98 SE was actually usable. And I'd argue that Windows 2000 was much better-liked than XP on that period. XP was horrible at launch and needed two service packs to become actually liked.

Is there a way to start a name consultancy?

I'm fairly good at coming up with names, and wouldn't mind offering my services, but I'm not sure how to secure my idea before selling it.

I would also be open to testing my skills for anyone looking for a company name.

You could do an Offer HN I'll help you come up with a name?

The other thing to do would be just to have a gentleman's agreement where they sign something (TBH I wouldn't worry with a legal contract initially, if you work with honest customers the gentleman's agreement is OK, and worst case if it was a big deal you could take to court and likely win)

So the agreement would be something like: I'll come up with a name for you, I won't make you pay upfront, but if I come up with one you like and you haven't already thought of it [make them list all the ones they are currently considering upfront], then you'll pay me $500. Reply to this email with your full name if you agree. And then just make sure you follow them on twitter and connect on linkedin or such so that they feel that you would notice if they screwed you over, but like I say I think most people are nice and worrying about getting screwed over is likely premature optimization :-)

Try the contests over at http://www.namestation.com/contests

> I'm fairly good at coming up with names ... I'm not sure how to secure my idea before selling it.

Whether you like it or not, domain squatting seems to be the most popular way to do that.

I agree. It seemed more like an angel round deck. A startup asking for $10M series A should already product validation, meaningful traction, and starting their growth phase. This had none of that. The only thing they had going for them was YC and a strong brand of previous investors.

To be fair to Standard Treasury, the pitch ("we're building a new kind of bank") is an unusual one for traditional technology investors, so product validation, traction, etc. are probably going to be less important to the investors who are interested in evaluating this further.

But even so, the detail is quite lacking and there's not a lot that instills confidence that this company has what it takes break into a highly-regulated market dominated by institutions with billions of dollars in capital and more and better technology resources than the founders would like to believe. Building a viable new bank is not a $10 million proposition, so as an investor my first question would be: how much are you going to need to raise in the next several years for this to even have a shot?

not surprised. the pitch deck didn't seem very convincing tbh

It seems they used to have more employees and 2 other co-founders. Wonder what happened

one day we will write about the experiment story. one thing that is true for all startups is things never go the way you expect. 😏

Don't worry about it.

He's trying to motivate his employees by showing his dedication. If he wants to work in the middle of the night, let him do so. It's normal for startup founders to work late or wake up in the middle of the night with random thoughts.

I highly doubt you're expected to respond to it immediately anyway.

Also, it's not really your job to worry about his cognitive capabilities. That's his responsibility, and some people can get away with less sleep than others.

If you don't trust in his ability and the future of the startup, then you should simply leave the company.

So they give you a couple grand. What other value do they provide? Seems like a bad deal for people who actually have good ideas and can execute.

I've never been through the programme, but I've worked with several people who have.

Most young entrepreneurs who "go it alone" tend to pick up a network of useful contacts - advisors, introducers, investors, corporate buyers, talented potential co-founders/employees etc - over a period of a few years. EF are very good at speeding up that process, so when you're starting your first company you've already got a base of people around you who can provide you with the support and connection you need, without you devoting large portions of your time to it.

It's easy for young entrepreneurs to downplay the importance of that network because there's a selection bias towards confident naivety amongst people who've decided to set up their own company rather than following a safer, more established path (I know I did when I first started), but looking back on it, objectively I'd say joining them is a good idea for almost any graduate entrepreneur.

Having someone who, without any real effort from you, can represent you to a VC from a position of power, make warm introductions to large numbers of angels in your domain, find you really good candidates for early-stage roles in your company, or introduce you to people in big companies who're actively looking to buy products from startups is a blessing you can almost overlook if you've got it but helps you avoid some serious pitfalls.