

Matt Maroon: Startup School 2008 - pchristensen
http://mattmaroon.com/?p=355

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menloparkbum
Amazon must have a few power generators at its data center, making Bezos's
analogy at least redundantly ironic.

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alaskamiller
browntech means technology that can extract more value from oil. such as
better logistics for more efficient international delivery to figuring out how
to get oil out of sands and shale.

saying that it means tech in India is quite a stupid joke.

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ed
And maybe it was just Matt's hangover, but DHH never said "500 x $40 =
$125,000." The slide actually says 400 customers @ $40/mo = $200,000/year, as
you can see in the video ([http://omnisio.com/startupschool08/david-
heinemeier-hansson-...](http://omnisio.com/startupschool08/david-heinemeier-
hansson-at-startup-school-08) @ 11:50)

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danielha
Matt was referring to one of the slides toward the end (23:49).

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Xichekolas
My guess is there was some length of time assumption that he just glossed
over. 500 x $40 x 6.25 months = $125,000 for instance.

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mattmaroon
He said per month in his speech. And why would he choose 6.25 (or even 6) as
his length of time?

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Xichekolas
Oh I remember the mental disconnect I had when he said that, I'm just saying
that I assume he misspoke and that slide was supposed to have a real meaning
of some sort over time. It seems much more likely that he thought through the
slide when he made it and just blundered when on the spot than the other way
around.

I also had a moment of confusion on the slide that said 400 x $40 = $200k
until I realized he was talking about 12 months and rounding. I imagine
something similar was happening here.

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mattmaroon
I would agree, except everything else was 1 month or a year, and this would
have been 6ish months. Kind of random, and doesn't make sense in context.
Also, why round from $120 to $125.

If he had said $250k I'd chalk it up to rounding for a year and accidentally
saying a month.

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Xichekolas
Well 125,000 in base 11.5 number system is pretty close to 250,000 in base 10.

...

Yeah, that's all I got.

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mattmaroon
Lol.

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concealed
A lot (majority even?) of factories/universities do have generators which they
operate at most expensive hours and feed the excess back into the grid. It
only makes sense to have these on hand from a risk perspective considering the
volatility of electricity costs.

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yters
Interesting overview. I upvoted/saved this because I expect it'll generate the
most discussion:)

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pchristensen
Maroon is usually good for that :)

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mattmaroon
I'll be surprised if this one does.

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yters
That's too bad. You do have a knack for it, which is a great thing for this
site.

