Week 1 - Yufei Liu

There are multiple start ups within the last few years ranging from Uber to Tinder and they all have a big target audience. Every start up is based on an idea of improving lives. The way a start up makes money is to offer people better technology than they have now. The article talks about Google as an example. Google was simply to create a search site that is helpful. They had three new ideas for Google which sets it apart from other search engines: index more fo the Web, use links to rank search results and have clean, simple web pages with unintrusive keyword-based ads. Above all, Google is determined to make a site that was good to use with the least bugs and glitches. Basically the main way to generate start up ideas is to look at something people are trying to do and figure out how to do it in a way that doesn't suck. One advantage startups have over established companies is that there are no discrimination laws about starting businesses. For example, I would be reluctant to start a startup with a woman who had small children or was likely to have them soon. However, you're not allowed to ask prospective employees if they plan to have kids soon. Under current US law, you are not even allowed to discriminate on the basis of intelligence. Whereas when you're starting a company, you can discriminate on any basis you want about who you start it with.