Submission timeline
2007–2026One slot for every year since HN launched. Height is that year's peak points; orange marks a 100+ point or 50+ comment breakout. Select a bar to open its strongest thread.
First comments on top threads
HN comment orderMan finds a black kind of rock that burns; discovers that you can get a lot of this rock if you dig deeper, but deep mines have water. In order to successfully mine this rock, man devises a steam powered engine (neatly enough powered by this same rock) to pump out the water. No, not the steam engines you're familiar with. This is the Newcomen Steam Engine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newcomen_engine The Newcomen Engine has a fatal flaw: it cools the steam for…
I'm surprised that someone hasn't taken on Google in search. Cuil tried, and they had a huge spike in traffic at launch. Then people discovered the product was broken. Also, they didn't have a revenue model. They were able to build a full search engine with about 50 people and $50M, which indicates the price of entry isn't that high. Over time, hardware gets cheaper, and the cost of building a search engine declines. This has not been matched with…
This is "Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas" from March 2012. Section 5 (of 7) is entitled "The Next Steve Jobs"
Idea 1 seems doable in the current wave of AI and LLMs. So, Sam Altman is doing this itself?
The first top-level comment from each of the four biggest threads, in HN’s own order. Excerpts are shortened; open a comment for full context.
- Breakout years
- 2
- Total points
- 1317
- Total comments
- 678
100+ points or 50+ comments
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
Every submission
| Date | Title as submitted | By | Points | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012-03-10 | Frighteningly Ambitious Startup IdeasFirst breakout · Best thread | anateus | 1032 | 430 |
| 2012-03-10 | Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas | lambtron | 7 | 0 |
| 2013-03-20 | Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas | mh_ | 3 | 0 |
| 2013-07-09 | Ambitious | duggieawesome | 2 | 0 |
| 2016-11-03 | The Next Steve Jobs | dmmalam | 3 | 1 |
| 2017-05-20 | Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas (2012)Hall induction · Latest 20+ point return | tosh | 252 | 245 |
| 2018-10-01 | Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas (2012) | notadog | 4 | 0 |
| 2020-04-07 | Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas – How Paul's prediction turn out (2012) | docuru | 1 | 0 |
| 2020-05-28 | Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas (2012) | sillysaurusx | 1 | 1 |
| 2020-10-03 | Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas (2012) | etherio | 3 | 0 |
| 2021-04-11 | Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas | abreckle | 1 | 0 |
| 2021-10-06 | Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas | ofou | 2 | 0 |
| 2023-02-12 | Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas (2012) | npguy | 4 | 0 |
| 2023-03-18 | Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas (March 2012) | textread | 2 | 1 |