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Voicegem (YC S12) joins Palantir

53 points by ardakara 14y ago

ukd1 14y ago
Congratulations to you both, enjoy NYC!
vj44 14y ago
Looking forward to meet you guys in nyc!
dannyr 14y ago
"One of those tools was a voice based email service that quickly grew beyond our friends at the local senior houses" If the service is doing well, why is it being shut down?
- aaronbrethorst 14y ago
  30 seconds/recording: presumed average recording length 1,000,000 seconds: a bit higher than the total number of seconds of audio recorded 8 months: Amount of time service was around 1,000,000 seconds / 30 seconds/recording = 33,333 recordings 33,333 recordings / 8 months = 4,166 recordings/month = 138 recordings/day. Assuming that the average user tried it out once and then didn't use it again, VoiceGem was getting about 140 new users a day. If the average user used it more than once, they were getting even fewer new users. Startups are hard. Edit: for some reason, Josh Constine at TechCrunch decided to reference my arithmetic. I just want to make sure it's clear that I'm happy for Arda and Alexander for finding an exit, and that startups are hard. I'm not trying to be snarky.
  - andrewcooke 14y ago
    all you are going to deduce from this is whatever you put into your model. if they were getting exponential growth then most of the calls would have been recent. and they imply that they had viral growth because use was spreading... on the other hand, presumably they didn't decide to fuck over a bunch of grannies for fun (even if they did go to palantir). so it was an acquihire. so maybe some part of the description was more positive than the unvarnished truth?
    - choffstein 14y ago
      It never really says it is an acqui-anything. Maybe they are just winding down and getting jobs?
- jonpeda 14y ago
  because it wasn't making enough money to merit a buyout, and the current operators got a better offer to work on Palantir projects. Same reason my babysitting service was doing well before I got a job working on a web site, and then I shut down my babysitting service.
  - trdtaylor 14y ago
    Yep, their startup / idea / solution was worth less then the team they had grown. It's a better end to a startup then laying everyone off no doubt.
Samuel_Michon 14y ago
Congrats! You may want to place a hyperlink to Palantir in your blogpost. I'm assuming it's these guys (?): http://www.palantir.com/ http://www.palantir.com/
kategleason 14y ago
love this team, congrats!
rdl 14y ago
Congratulations! Palantir has a lot of interesting technical challenges and great engineers, ops people, etc. -- I think you'll love it there.
argumentum 14y ago
Wow, congrats fellow "no idea" batchmates!
neel_murthy 14y ago
Known Arda and Alex for years. They are really smart guys and Palantir is lucky to have them! Sad to see you two go though, but enjoy NYC!
deleted 14y ago
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53 points by ardakara 14y ago

ukd1 14y ago

Congratulations to you both, enjoy NYC!

vj44 14y ago

Looking forward to meet you guys in nyc!

dannyr 14y ago

"One of those tools was a voice based email service that quickly grew beyond our friends at the local senior houses" If the service is doing well, why is it being shut down?

aaronbrethorst 14y ago
30 seconds/recording: presumed average recording length 1,000,000 seconds: a bit higher than the total number of seconds of audio recorded 8 months: Amount of time service was around 1,000,000 seconds / 30 seconds/recording = 33,333 recordings 33,333 recordings / 8 months = 4,166 recordings/month = 138 recordings/day. Assuming that the average user tried it out once and then didn't use it again, VoiceGem was getting about 140 new users a day. If the average user used it more than once, they were getting even fewer new users. Startups are hard. Edit: for some reason, Josh Constine at TechCrunch decided to reference my arithmetic. I just want to make sure it's clear that I'm happy for Arda and Alexander for finding an exit, and that startups are hard. I'm not trying to be snarky.
- andrewcooke 14y ago
  all you are going to deduce from this is whatever you put into your model. if they were getting exponential growth then most of the calls would have been recent. and they imply that they had viral growth because use was spreading... on the other hand, presumably they didn't decide to fuck over a bunch of grannies for fun (even if they did go to palantir). so it was an acquihire. so maybe some part of the description was more positive than the unvarnished truth?
  - choffstein 14y ago
    It never really says it is an acqui-anything. Maybe they are just winding down and getting jobs?
jonpeda 14y ago
because it wasn't making enough money to merit a buyout, and the current operators got a better offer to work on Palantir projects. Same reason my babysitting service was doing well before I got a job working on a web site, and then I shut down my babysitting service.
- trdtaylor 14y ago
  Yep, their startup / idea / solution was worth less then the team they had grown. It's a better end to a startup then laying everyone off no doubt.

Samuel_Michon 14y ago

Congrats! You may want to place a hyperlink to Palantir in your blogpost. I'm assuming it's these guys (?): http://www.palantir.com/ http://www.palantir.com/

kategleason 14y ago

love this team, congrats!

rdl 14y ago

Congratulations! Palantir has a lot of interesting technical challenges and great engineers, ops people, etc. -- I think you'll love it there.

argumentum 14y ago

Wow, congrats fellow "no idea" batchmates!

neel_murthy 14y ago

Known Arda and Alex for years. They are really smart guys and Palantir is lucky to have them! Sad to see you two go though, but enjoy NYC!

deleted 14y ago

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