Marrying Pocket Sixes

Disclaimer: this post is purely my own personal thoughts and does not represent any YCombinator company nor Caviar’s stance on the issues below. 

Michael Halligan posted pretty much the Silicon’s Manifesto “Fuck you, pay me” blog post the other day about why YCombinator founders are behind the curve in competitive salaries. He notes:

YCombinator founders do very well, so I don’t blame them for drinking the kool-aid and being put-off by somebody who doesn’t want to work 60-80 hours per week to make them wealthy. They’re too blinded by their peers success to understand why anybody wouldn’t want to work for them. Most of them are children fresh out of college, so they wouldn’t understand why anybody would care about benefits and time-off. They’re working 100 hours a week and want you to as well.

I’m a co-founder of a YC company, and I sympathize with his points. But two things drew red flags:

Their product means nothing to me, it’s not going to change the world, but that’s OK…All start-ups today are about supporting advertising in one way or another.

Michael mentions also:

I’m a senior engineer with 20 years of experience and can command a pretty good salary…I would like to buy a house in the next two years, which means I need a good salary.

To boot, he has a lovely daughter to support.

The reason why startups is a “young man’s game” is because they have everything to give. No kids, no mortgage, no dream of buying a house in two years. We live on ramen. What I’m trying to get at here is that it’s not for everyone.

We put 100 hour weeks into our startups because we believe. Time is our enemy, and we must show the world how amazing of a product this is. This unfortunately is something Michael doesn’t have as noted above, which is why he came off a little “mercenary” to me. Michael seems like an extraordinary candidate that MVP/medium-sized startups simply cannot afford. I’m sure all the YC companies would love to have his skill set, but the culture fit seems out of place.

This part is written to Michael directly. 20 years of experience sounds like you’re around what? Close shave under 40? It’s not too late to work for outstanding tech companies like Google and Facebook who can compensate you appropriately. The former was recently rated the “Best Place to Work in America,” so you can’t be THAT worse off.

There was no reason to be condescending and categorizing us as “children fresh out of college” (I’m 28, for what it’s worth). Most of us are trying to make a positive impact in the world, and I hope you can see that we’re trying.

And as for the “worthless stock options,” I suppose you can always start your own company. But your financial planning for the house takes precedence, so why would you ever do something so insane and stupid as startups?

It’s back.* Better, faster, fatter, I’ve expanded my resume to the fields of Crocker-Amazon and more Michelin glamour in downtown.

Again, the theme for this burger guide is that there isn’t really the best way to make a burger, there are just bad ways to go about it. In my search for the burger, here are San Francisco’s gems for you to enjoy**!

10. [NEW] Fresh Ground Burger at Monk’s Kettle. Mission.

We start the list off with a bar burger, which are special unicorns that I’ve come to appreciate through the years. The Monk has probably the neatest, staunch dry burger on this List. The onion jam tricks you into thinking it’s a wet one, but a sturdy acne bun takes you back to its core. The white cheddar and bacon don’t even interfere with the patty.

If you’ve lost your way, let this burger hold your hand and guide you.

9. Truffle Burger at Umami Burger. Marina.

I hate writing about Umami. It’s a chain, but heaven knows how hard I’ve tried to quit Umami Burger. The awesome ambiance, your great menu selection of sweets & savories. Your 6-ounce patty that’s always medium rare topped with a mild truffle-infused cheese and glaze. That “secret” Umami sauce slipping its way into my mouth. As LA Burger describes it:

There’s no lettuce, tomato or anything else to get in the way of experiencing the fifth taste sensation of umami found in truffles – their rich, earthy, full-bodied deliciousness.

It’s sickening, I tell you. Read the rest of this entry »

The keener eye recognizes the “Pinch,” typically halfway through the script, after the Catalyst and right before the Climax. This is the point of no return for your main character where motivation is strengthened and what they have to do is made perfectly clear. The struggle within the character to understand their purpose to fight to the crisis, where all hope seems lost.Classic stories involve what we call the Big Five: Premise, Catalyst, Crisis, Climax, & Resolution. You know, the Premise where the hero is stuck in a rut, then the Catalyst out of his control descends upon him (e.g. giant robot destroying the world), which brings him to the key Crisis decision to rise to fight it. BIG FIGHT for the Climax, and then the terribly happy/sad Resolution.

Turns out, this happens in real life too. And history has shown the different responses to what different historians have called, “The Wilderness Years.” Examples:

• Bobby Fisher. The de facto greatest chess player of all time. The pure positional game in chess “energized him,” naturally understanding where every piece must go. His Wilderness Years drove him into the darkest chapter of his life. He never recovered, wandering aimlessly and died in an Iceland hospital, estranged from family and friends.
•  Winston Churchill. Regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century, he was ousted in 1928 from the Britain’s Conservative government for the disastrous Gallipoli Campaign. Churchill assumes his career is over. But his maverick journey of being attacked relentlessly for unpopular views about the King’s abdication and Hitler’s threat highlighted his Wilderness Years, culminating to his ascension in 1939 as Prime Minster. He’d serve twice, winning a Nobel prize, and after his death was named the Greatest Briton of all time in a 2002 poll.
• And the one that Silicon reveres, Steve Jobs. We’ve all heard from time and time again his 1985 to 1996 hiatus from Apple, as if the only meaningful times in Jobs’s life were those spent in Cupertino.

In fact, this middle period was the most pivotal of his life. And perhaps the happiest. He finally settled down, married, and had a family. He learned the value of patience and the ability to feign it when he lost it. Most important, his work with the two companies he led during that time, NeXT and Pixar, turned him into the kind of man, and leader, who would spur Apple to unimaginable heights upon his return.

To reflect, where are you in your story? Are you having trouble raising a round? Lost a key co-founder? Company deadpooled?

Embrace it. This is where your character must be sharpened by iron, to be tested right before the Climax, where you’ll face the toughest thing you’d have to face in your life.

“Don’t fear failure. Not failure, but low aim, is the crime. In great attempts it is glorious even to fail.”—Bruce Lee

Lazy and need someone just to yell at you to tell you what to do? Welcome.

Let’s get these out of the way:

• Public Transportation from the airports (OAK or SFO) is terribad. Unless you’re willing to spend a $40-$70 cab ride (depending on the competency of your driver slash getting stuck on the pleasures of 101), you’ll be taking BART. It is not rapid, it is not ideal.
• Layer up. Because we’re on a peninsula, the weather during night and day is +/- 20 degrees, easy. Top it off with sudden wind bursts and fog rolls, it’s funsies.
• People are weird here, a lot homeless. Compared to other major metropolitans, San Francisco is a bit more “weathered” (read: old), not as aesthetically pleasing, and there is a healthy population of homeless people here. Because of the current tech boom that’s occurring in Silicon Valley, there is a wide disparency between engineers/investors and lifers that have arrested Mission since the 80′s. To label it as “socioeconomic tension” is just surface area.

That said, bar none, it is one of the most health-conscious, high quality of life food-cities in the United States. New York is generally the “what you pay is what you get.” Here in San Francisco, even if you were a total nub you actually have a very high chance of wandering into a restaurant that serves pretty awesome food for a very reasonable price. It’s weird.

Without further ado, here are the five must-eats for the full palette of San Francisco.

5. Prime rib at House of Prime Rib, Nob Hill. 

The old guard of San Francisco. Husky restaurant with amazing salads, amazing cuts. Reservations are a must. An awesome alternative is Swan Oyster Depot, also in Nob Hill. Lunch only though.

$~37 for the House of Prime Rib Cut; takes up a dinner or lunch. Read the rest of this entry »

I think what inspired me to write this post was inDinero founder Jessica Mah’s rather frank interview about the difficulties of founding a startup at Stanford. It might not ask a lot of hard questions, but it sure almost plays as a confession.

Startup Digest founder Chris McCann succinctly stated, “Startups are unimaginably difficult.”

All my friends back out East who are stuck in their respective rut as the corporate cog always say, “Wow Abel, you got it so good. San Francisco is the new heart of the startup scene, and you’re working at a Y Combinator company, surrounded by the best talent Silicon Valley can recognize. Plus, that food you’re eating.”

I don’t know how it is for the younger entrepreneurs in this city, but sometimes I’m tired of saying the same party line, “Oh it’s all grand, we just broke profitability a few months ago! Exciting times!” While all the above is true, I turned 27. My golden parachute savings have been ransacked. We’re burning through money. Because our startup might just die any moment, I don’t have much job security. I’m single nowhere near indicators of a serious relationship. Your balls may not be in a vice, but they sure are dangling in the winds with no clear indication of a safe landing.

Despite all this, no one is excited as I am to see where this journey leads. I have never met so many smart, amazing people in a short space of time, and never has anything else been as this rewarding.

As the poker gods would say, ship it.

The argument of “best burger” is relative. There isn’t really the best way to make a burger, there are just bad ways to go about it. And there will always be the local denizen joints that we’ve all come to love; Ganim’s, Sam’s, or Roam Artisan Burgers come to mind. I’m sure I’m forgetting all the other neighborhood bombs in San Francisco.

In my search for the burger, I’ve actually come to learn more about myself. And I hope the list that I humbly present to you may find culinary revelations in each of these masterpieces.*

Honorable Mention: Truffle Burger at Umami Burger. Marina. 

Despite the fact that it’s a chain not from San Francisco, I am personally a fan. It’s technically located in our city so I’m allowed to blog about it. Actually, screw you, I can write whatever I want.

The place secretes the vision of serving you an awesome burger. Despite the raves for their flagship Umami Burger, I believe their best candidate has been the Truffle Burger all along. A 6-ounce patty that’s always done medium rare topped with a mild truffle-infused cheese and glaze, and nothing else allows their master “secret” Umami sauce shine through. The simple trappings of the Truffle allow the beef to come through. As LA Burger describes it:

There’s no lettuce, tomato or anything else to get in the way of experiencing the fifth taste sensation of umami found in truffles – their rich, earthy, full-bodied deliciousness.

I think the house-made ice cream sandwich was the final nail in the coffin. Crowd pleasers, believe.

5. Burger at Fish & Farm. Civic Center/Tenderloin. 

To be honest, this burger would’ve been so much higher on the list if not for the fact a) the spokeswoman for this establishment abhors this burger (she said it brought in and I quote, “a lower class of patrons”), and b) the service has been its greatest flaw.

Strangely, its pedigree is not “gourmet” if you really break it down. It’s probably one of the “wettest” burgers on this list. 7×7 notes:

The Niman beef is not ground in-house and the grilled Acme brioche bun becomes one with an umami-tastic “secret sauce”— spiked with fresh green peppercorns and heady with horseradish—dripping down the sides. The lily is gilded with grilled onions, housemade pickles, melted Cabot cheddar and a steak knife thrust, rather thrillingly, into the center.

Conclusion: come for the “Farm” and not so much for the “Fish” and you’ll be in great hands. I tearfully await the day they remove this beauty from the menu. In the meantime, bring extra napkins. The Seven Years of Plenty just showed up early. Read the rest of this entry »

The day is finally here. For those uninitiated, Facebook has filed their $5 billion IPO. The actual S-1 Document is here. But for a lot of us netizens, should we care? Here are some highlights you can spout to impress conversation.

Snapshot Numbers

• In their 2004 S1, Google reported a net income of $106 million on $962 million revenue. Facebook is $1 billion on $3.7 billion. Wow.
• It’s been profitable since 2009.
• $3.9 billion cash and equivalents on hand.
• Zynga accounts for 12% of the company’s revenue.
• 3,200 employees.
• 845 Million users. 57% are MAUs (Monthly Active Users).

Read the rest of this entry »

With OpenTable announcing that they’re shuttering their daily deals leg, we tally another casualty. Facebook has formally withdrawn from the Deals Wars, BuyWithMe had a horrendous execution of laying off half of its workforce to be an acquisition target for Gilt, and everyone watched a general industry shakeout.

Add Silicon Valley tightening its Round A/B funding, you might say the sky is falling. Oh wait, I failed to mention there was a company called Groupon…is that still IPOing? As a Partner at Munch on Me fighting within this fierce sector, I hope to lay out some personal observations. These are obviously my own opinions, and do not reflect Munch on Me’s organization beliefs whatsoever. Read the rest of this entry »

So here we are. Fatter, wiser, and 100 meals Foursquared in San Francisco. In case you don’t know what I’m talking about, I recently took on 7×7′s 2010 foodie challenge of eating everything on this list in a year. The list described on the website as, “a serious melting pot of flavors made up of timeless classics, off-the-beaten-path gems and a few – how shall we put it – experiences” began its journey to my tummy on September 8th, 2010. For those who don’t have the time or budget to eat 100 different things, today I am pleased to share with you the best of the best! If you were to do an eating tour of San Francisco, I think this list would be a great introduction.

Because I’m playing with such a deep roster, my choices were rooted heavily on quality at the price point it was given, along with the service, ambiance, etc. It got bonus points if it was a “San Francisco first” culinary experience as well.

10. Egg Custard Tart at Golden Gate Bakery, Chinatown. 

Of course I’d start off this list with a dessert. Their famous egg custard tarts are so good they almost charge twice as much compared to the normal street prices with impunity, but it’s worth it. It has all the trappings of a good Chinese hole-in-the-wall: a) it looks like one, b) they “go on vacation” and close whenever they want and c) there’s no website whatsoever. The crust is airy, yet moist with a hint of crisp. It’s always insanely fresh so make sure you give it a few minutes to cool. Bottom line, Golden Gate Bakery has saved what has become a tourist trap of a Chinatown.

~$1.13/piece. Read the rest of this entry »