It took me a while to get this, so I made a helpful graph for everyone else as slow as I am.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/22926250/pgResponse.png

"The problem is, while pg outwardly disapproved of our actions, we know he secretly loves founders that push the limits!"

You know what, though: the response function around the limit is not a smooth bell curve; it drops sharply below the x axis as you go past the peak.

This isn't even remotely similar to bittorrent, it's more akin to rapidshare et al. You're completely at the whim of a 3rd party, Dropbox. And I'm pretty sure something like this would violate whatever contract you agree to when signing up.

So no, not a successor to torrents.

1. Build software that provides value for your customers and their customers so that everyone gets paid and makes money. Repeat for years.

2. Stay busy and keep learning, but since you know that none of these things really matter, you can ignore all Hacker News posts about them:

  - the bubble
  - the best language to do <x>
  - how to blog about <y>
  - how to tweet about <z>
  - your Facebook prescence
  - why technology <a> is dead
  - how to make Hacker News better
  - how much to pay for a domain name you must have
  - how to "socialize" your app
  - how social apps are changing the world
  - how we are losing our civil liberties
  - what makes Apple so cool (they are, but who cares)
  - what makes Microsoft so lame (they are, but who cares)
  - how to interview (just be yourself)
  - who's hanging out with who (who cares)
  - how to build software without programming
  - how to network (just get out there)
  - how to get rich (do the right things and let that take care of itself)

This is actually quite a remarkable piece:

1. It gently mocks the investors who proclaim "bubble" as a way to bitch and moan over being caught in a price squeeze.

2. It lampoons the alarmist press accounts of the same "bubble" as a sort of guilt-ridden desire to atone for having so idiotically missed the real bubble of 2000.

3. It deprecates its own author in two splendid ways (swimming in the bubble froth of holding a worthless vp biz dev position while on the ascendancy and swimming in booze in the aftermath as the illusory fortune took wing and flew away).

4. It offers some sharp and pithy contrasts between what is in fact happening today (some over-excitement in select tech areas) and what happened in 2000 (spend, spend, spend and to hell with fundamentals), all of which in fact draws a sharp contrast between what was indisputably a bubble back then with what is (likely) not really one today.

5. And it does all the above with tongue heavily in cheek, right down to the very title ("blubble").

You can love or hate Mr. Arrington, and he is undoubtedly one who provokes strong reactions from others, but his work is anything but routine and, at times, it even soars.

Is anyone else somewhat annoyed by the wink-and-a-node style this post is written in? It's like, "Hey look how scrappy we are, willing to push the limits like this, but oh, that's not appropriate for you, you had better play it safe."

Given the inherent dodginess of so many 'social startups' already ("get piles of users now, figure out how to make a big pile of money from later"), this whole 'naughtiness' stuff bothers me. It's a short hop from naughty to 'actively unethical'.

Here's the question: given that you've already demonstrated that you don't really have a lot of regard for the privacy of fellow YC interviewees (however 'intentionally' you outed a bunch of people on Twitter), why should you be trusted with user data?

If you'll pull a stunt like this for seed money, what will you do to get VC money? Just wait until you've got 2-4 years of serious work on a startup and you're 'close' to serious profitability. What 'naughty' stuff will you do when you've actually got some serious skin in the game?

The more insensitive one is, the more overly-sensitive everyone else seems.