Re: Y Store now C++

[Daniel Weinreb <address@hidden>]

Paul Graham wrote:

>Though you meant this as a joke, this is in a sense the
>key to success.  A lot of startups are doing de facto
>product development for big companies.  Because in
>the startup phase they don't yet have the big companies'
>pointy-haired bosses telling them what to do, they can
>use radically better technologies than they'd be allowed
>to if they already worked for the company that will later
>buy them.  
>
In your case, it worked; Yahoo was willing to buy the code even though 
it was
in what they (at least now) consider an exotic langauge. The last time I 
was at
a company and tried to sell technology to another company, the biggest 
problem
they had with the whole idea was that they didn't like the language that 
it was in.
I have a friend (on this list) who wanted to sell his company's 
technology, and he
and his co-workers decided to undetake a complete rewrite to put it into 
a more
acceptable language.  So the stragegy you're talking about only 
sometimes works.