

Support the Jobs Act and ease regulations on startups and investors - DanielRibeiro
http://angel.co/jobs-act

======
zdw
A better jobs act would be "Healthcare that's actually affordable for someone
starting out"

People would leave their deadend jobs in droves and start new companies if
they didn't have to risk their health and that of their families by doing so.

~~~
brildum
As someone who has chronic back problems, I cannot agree with this more. I've
wanted to start a company for some time, but my increased risk for significant
medical care/procedures has somewhat anchored me to working for others.

~~~
wes-exp
IIRC, assuming Obamacare is still intact come 2014, health insurers will not
be able to discriminate against pre-existing conditions.

~~~
nantes
<pedantic> Down voted for using for using the pejorative 'Obamacare'. The
thing actually has a real name (and it doesn't even make some bad acronym), it
is the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act". </pedantic>

~~~
Nate75Sanders
Odd. I know plenty of liberals/Democrats/etc who call it Obamacare. They don't
mean anything negative by it. It's a hell of a lot shorter than call it the
"Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act".

~~~
nantes
Perhaps I am just sensitive to being fairly liberal in a pretty conservative
area. The vast majority (read: all, until now apparently) of the times I hear
the term, it's definitely used negatively. I understand the formal name is a
bit cumbersome, but it's accurate and a lot less ambiguous. Of those I know
who don't use 'Obamacare' or the actual name, using the simple healthcare
reform act seems to work well.

My apologies for turning this into a political argument. My intention was to
try to check some perceived bias. Looks like I over-corrected.

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specialist
Smells like libertarian BS.

Regulations aren't the problem.

Young, small companies are the job creators.

Not having affordable healthcare is the single biggest inhibitor to startups.

Single payer healthcare would be the single largest job creating boost.
Lopping the 1/3rd of costs, decapitating the blood sucking "insurance" racket,
would make a significant dent in everyone's overhead.

~~~
Game_Ender
Single payer != free. Unless you manage to create massive efficiency gains in
the health care sector you are going to replace health insurance premiums with
health insurance taxes.

~~~
drewrv
Single payer would lead to massive efficiency gains in healthcare.

[http://www.medicaltranscription.net/cost-of-medical-
paperwor...](http://www.medicaltranscription.net/cost-of-medical-paperwork/)

[http://www.modernmedicine.com/modernmedicine/Modern+Medicine...](http://www.modernmedicine.com/modernmedicine/Modern+Medicine+Now/Paperwork-
costs-are-far-higher-in-US-than-in-
Canad/ArticleStandard/Article/detail/739129)

------
mikeryan
I'm okay up until _Stay private if they have over 500 shareholders_

Honestly, You're not a startup if you have over 500 shareholders, You're
basically a public company with no disclosure requirements for investors. Why
would anyone go public if they can just sell all their shares on secondmarket
and not have disclose anything? That rule is in place to protect investors.

~~~
olefoo
I was under the impression that the raising of the 500 shareholder limit was
to allow the crowdfunding aspect to be meaningful; 500 investors at $100 a pop
is only $50,000 that makes a certain amount of sense.

However, I'm not familiar enough with the securities law of 1933 to gauge what
section 302 of the proposed bill (
[http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112hr3606eh/pdf/BILLS-112...](http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112hr3606eh/pdf/BILLS-112hr3606eh.pdf)
) means in practice.

~~~
snprbob86
Couldn't this be solved with one level of indirection, such that the crowd
funding company is the sole investor of crowd-sourced funds?

~~~
spindritf
Wouldn't that render any limit on the number of shareholder meaningless?

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neilk
I am not a lawyer, but I tried to read some of this. I don't see how it's
targeted to anything I would call a startup.

[http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h112-3606&...](http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h112-3606&tab=summary)

First off, it defines an "emerging growth company" as anything with less than
$1 billion gross yearly revenue. You all have heard of Netgear? Emerging
growth company.

And then it exempts such a company from reporting requirements, shareholder
approval of executive compensation, shareholder approval of severance
packages, certain auditing requirements, and even conflict-of-interest
provisions.

In my non-expert opinion it looks more like it's trying to make the first
dotcom bubble look like a period of sanity and sobriety.

------
israelpasos
This is something that needs to happen. I wish ProFounder hadn't close,
however it's a clear example of how our institutions and legal frameworks are
not evolving fast enough to foster creativity and innovation. I'm still
waiting for Government 2.0...

Signed.

------
gammarator
Here's a collection of some contrary perspectives:
<http://www.consumerfed.org/news/473> ,
[http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/13/in-latest-jobs-
bill...](http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/13/in-latest-jobs-bill-a-
billion-dollar-business-is-now-small/)

The legislation will certainly be good for founders and investors trying to
take companies public, as well as the Wall Street banks which will underwrite
them.

My concern is that gutting investor (self-)protections will bring in a flood
of dumb money, with all the market distortions that creates.

~~~
cageface
_My concern is that gutting investor (self-)protections will bring in a flood
of dumb money, with all the market distortions that creates._

That seems to be happening already, perhaps because there's no where else for
investment to go right now.

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whyenot
I'm not sure about this. The summary says the law changes how any company with
annual revenue <$1bn is regulated. That's a much larger group than just
startups. The law would ease regulations, but some of those regulations are
for investor protection and it's not clear to me that their removal is
actually a good thing. Also, I don't see why it's called "the Jobs Act." There
doesn't seem to be any estimate on how many jobs it may create.

------
eli_gottlieb
I'm all in favor of crowdfunding, but this sounds a lot like an excuse to gut
transparency and disclosure regulations so _another_ stock-market bubble can
get (back to) going.

~~~
fdr
If I read the bill correctly, it only reduces oversight when there are 2000 or
so investors: quite easily not enough to really enable the Kickstarter-startup
vision.

------
robomartin
Signed.

