Do You Have What It Takes To Be A Startup Entrepreneur?

If you’ve applied for a job before, you’ve probably fretted over how to answer questions like “are you inclined to rely more on improvisation than on careful planning?” or “do you like to create challenges for yourself when you take on a new project?”. Companies commonly use personality tests filled with questions like these to assess the fit of a potential employees with the company.

There’s a whole laundry list of these personality tests here. Some companies, like Google, have even developed their own.

All of these tests are sets of written questions meant to poke and prod at a candidates mind to get a real sense of their ability and personality. However, the meaning behind these questions is relatively transparent, motivating candidates to give the answers they think their employer wants to hear.

Startup Pairwise is taking a different approach to personality tests.

Instead of words, Pairwise will use images to test a candidates mentality using data gleaned from their LikeBetter picture game. LikeBetter is a flash based game that shows you a series of pairs of images uploaded by users. For each pair, you pick which image you prefer. Based on the choices you make, LikeBetter makes a guess about your personal traits, which you then confirm or correct. As more people use the system, LikeBetter discovers the strong correlations between the choices people make and the attributes they express.

Based on this data, Pairwise creates a quiz using some of the most highly discriminating pairs, chosen to have the strongest and most confident predictive power across the broadest spectrum of personality traits. They can then track a candidate’s behavior through the test and make an educated guess about their personality based on the correlations they made in LikeBetter. Pairwise does their best to make the test harder to read into by being a completely image based test and using non-obvious pairs (no GI Joe vs. Barbie).

Under the hood, LikeBetter is using an iterative application of Bayes rule called Naive Bayesian inference. The method uses a lot of dense statistics involving proposing hypotheses and dependent probabilities. If you really want to learn about it, check out the Wikipedia entry. On the other hand, the employment quiz is not making and testing hypotheses, but comparing the user’s behavior with the statistics they collected through LikeBetter and determining the the applicants tendency toward either extreme of an attribute (i.e cleanliness vs. messiness).

Pairwise’s first customer is Y Combinator, for whom they crafted this little Y Combinator founder quiz based on personality tests done on all their current founders. Y Combinator will be using the test in their application drive ending April 2nd. We’ve included the test for you to take below. Here’s how I fared.

Do You Have What It Takes To Be A Startup Entrepreneur?

New fiction ... Ian McEwan, Beach music - back to the top of his game?

IAN McEWAN is back on form. Following “Saturday”, his enjoyable but overly safe previous novel, this master of fiction has written a poignant new book that in terms of its diminutive size—though not its emotional range—is reminiscent of his Man Booker-prize-winning “Amsterdam”.

It is July 1962. Edward and Florence, both 22 years old, educated yet innocent, have been married for just eight hours after a courtship bound by unspoken protocols. In their honeymoon suite overlooking Chesil Beach on the Dorset coast they are served a formal dinner of long-ago roasted beef in thickened gravy, soft-boiled vegetables and white wine: “It would not have crossed Edward's mind to order a red.” Neither has any appetite. There is a starched, stilted feeling in the tepid evening air as, almost strangers, they stand, “strangely together, on a new pinnacle of existence”.

They believe their marriage will bring them happiness and the freedom to realise the plans “heaped up before them in the misty future”. Yet, despite this joyful promise neither is able to suppress fully the anxieties about the moment when, after dinner, they must “reveal themselves fully to one another” on the narrow four-poster bed with pure white covers.

For Edward, who is suffering first-night nerves, this moment will be the resolution of a prospect that has mesmerised him for more than a year. But for Florence a “visceral dread, a helpless disgust as palpable as seasickness” is overwhelming her. Here is a woman who knows that sex will never be the “summation of her joy” but the price she must pay for love—an emotion she sees as “a comforting broth...a thick winter blanket of kindness and trust”.

Mr McEwan's prose is, as always, intense and visually descriptive, but in this elegantly crafted novel his skill lies in his illumination of an evening taut with emotional paralysis and in his portrayal of missed opportunity. As events move forward to the book's dénouement, “On Chesil Beach” becomes much more than a simple story of emotions held in check by convention. It is a memorable exposé of how terrible wounds can be inflicted and the entire course of a life changed—by doing nothing.


New fiction Beach music Economist.com

The Onion - America's Finest News Source (ahem) - Now available via Online Video

Where do you get your news? CNN, ABC, FOX, Comedy Central? As American maintain loyalty to these mainstream news outlets, there is a growing audience (19% online political news consumers) of younger audience that seek their news from humor sites like The Daily Show and The Onion.

Not missing a step, The Onion is responding to its surge in print and online readers and advertisers by committing major investment into its soon to be launched Onion News Networka 24-hour fake news net marketing itself as, "faster, harder, scarier and all-knowing."

Nicely executed ad-supported video and site will lean heavily on the popularity of its iTunes podcasts and the power of viral. Unlike it's Viacom backed, Comedy Central, ONN will encourage video embedding and fan distribution on YouTube, My Space and others like Helio Mobile, iTunes or TiVo. More news to come - appropriately timed to launch - April 1!

Immigration: The Human Cost


Immigration: The Human Cost The Onion - America's Finest News Source

The new Wembley stadium - hosts its first real football match, at last ...

At last, the new Wembley is hosting a real football match*, so one can safely (famous last words?!) assume that the FA Cup final will be hosted at the new Wembley in just a few weeks time?

I have happy memories of the Cardiff Millennium stadium (ie, Sheffield Wednesday securing promotion to the Championship in the play-off final) which was as an excellent substitute national stadium, but I suppose for all the delays and outrageous amount of money it has cost, the new Wembley looks set to be a stadium worthy of our national game. Personally, I find its design somewhat anonymous and rather too conservative. Aesthetically, the Cardiff Millennium is more inspiring.

Roll on the FA Cup final, and hopefully Manchester United will win it - inevitably it will be a big money clash between Man U and Chelsea, and not many neutral fans want to see the $$$$ over-indulged 'Chelski' win - the prospect of seeing Ronaldo's sublime talents at the new Wembley is certainly an appealing one. Don't miss it.

*ps, the England vs Italy under-21's match has just finished - a rather exciting 3-3 draw. Italy's Pazzini scoring a hat-trick; there's one for the new stadium's record-books. Match that, Man Utd, Chelsea or England seniors, eh?

Still, let's beat Israel tonight first .....


BBC SPORT Football Wembley pictures

The Fall, The Picturedome and Holmfirth ....

Well, my ears are still ringing today after seeing The Fall at the Picturedome in Holmfirth last night; an enigmatic venue for a very enigmatic band.

It's the fourth time I have seen The Fall (twice in New York and now twice in the UK) and each time it is fascinating, challenging and rewarding - sure, their music is an assault on the senses - if you don't know them they do not produce happygolucky-singalongs, that's for sure - but they are a very skilled, powerful and cohesive band and produce incredibly visceral sounds.

It's very rewarding to see a concert where you're not waiting for the next singalong tune with an easily accessible chorus, etc - The Fall makes you think about music, what it means to you and what it does to your senses. For that alone I shall continue to go and see The Fall for many more years, I hope.

And as for the venue, the Picturedome at Holmfirth - well, it's had a turbulent time recently, falling into a bit of a state of disrepair along with a ubiquitous pub chain trying to take control of it - thankfully that has fallen-through and the Picturedome remains independent and will stay as a unique venue for concerts such as this.

It's awash with lovely architectural details and in a lovely setting; the stage is never more than a few feet away, there's a bar, cinema-style seats (if you need to sit down as a result of excessive bopping and/or drinking) and just outside there's the river/weir - all in the tranquil setting of sleepy Holmfirth (where much of 'Last of the Summer Wine' was filmed, if you're familiar with that show).


The Fall

Wired News: Apple of Our Eye: Macs Save Money

Well, well ... who'd have anticipated this?

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There's been a distinct sea change in the way people think about Apple in the last few weeks.
Recently, people have been saying the strangest things about Apple and the Mac. Everything is topsy-turvy. Pundits aren't trotting out the old conventional wisdoms any more. They're saying odd stuff, like Macs are good for business; Macs can save money; and that Apple's stock -- at $90 a share -- is a bargain.

In fact, there seems to be a widespread re-evaluation of Apple going on, a cultural shift that's changing the way people think about the company. It's been building for a while but it has reached a tipping point in the last couple of months.

Here's what people are saying now:

Macs will save you money

Macs have always been derided as more expensive than PCs, but now Wilkes University in Pennsylvania is dumping its Windows machines for Macs -- to save money! A few years ago, universities like Dartmouth College, one of the biggest Mac-centric colleges, couldn't dump their Macs fast enough.

Macs are good for business

Macs in the workplace used to be just for the artsy types in the design department. But now they're appropriate for regular desk jockeys of every stripe. In Computerworld, consultant Seth Weintraub recommends Macs for the enterprise because they're easy to learn, easy to administer and not as prone to viruses and other nasties. Weintraub says IT managers who bought Macs for home use are increasingly looking to deploy them at work.

Less is more

At one time, loading on more features was the mantra. When the iPod came out, critics said it didn't match rival devices, which boasted FM radios and bigger hard drives. But users wanted fewer features, and better ease of use. "That's why the iPod succeeded where its predecessor products bombed," writes Chris Taylor, Business 2.0's senior editor, in a recent piece titled "The Trouble With Gee-Whiz Gadgets."

Closed is good

Apple's traditional closed system -- proprietary hardware, software and online services -- is now a selling point. A couple of years ago, many confidently predicted Apple would fail if it didn't open up the iPod/iTunes system to rivals, who would "hybridize" the platform with interoperable hardware and software from multiple companies. "It's absolutely clear now why five years from now, Apple will have 3 (percent) to 5 percent of the player market,'' Rob Glaser, CEO of Apple rival RealNetworks, told The New York Times in 2003. "The history of the world is that hybridization yields better results."

But consumers seem to want the opposite -- products and services from one company that are guaranteed to work well together.

Look at Microsoft's attempt to copy the iPod's top-to-bottom integration with the Zune. And customers are embracing that "closed" system. "I just switched from a Dell to an Apple laptop and love the Mac lifestyle," student Priya Sanghvi told USA Today.

Story continued on Page 2 »

Wired News: Apple of Our Eye: Macs Save Money

Squeeze - they're back ....!

Much as I love new music and am of the belief one should not overtly spend too much time wallowing in past favourite music (it's too comfortable, too easy), it's great to see that Squeeze are back - a very significant band, with cleverly crafted classic pop song ballads; I put them on a par with The Kinks.