Lenders like OnDeck can loan a business roughly 10-15% of your annual revenue in a day or two.

There is plenty of disruption in the small business loan space, including billion dollar valuations (one went public in December). They're just not from SV.

I am extremely dubious of this claim. $1500 in midtown? Maybe way uptown (Harlem, etc.)

I pretty much only read HN on mobile...

If its anything like Alcohol, the top 10% of buyers spend $3500 per year.

You don't get to 600 lbs without some sort of mental illness or deep unwellness. Do you look at people who commit suicide with contempt? Its similar.

Sriracha is one of the few generics that Trader Joes is terrible at.

They should just sell the real thing. I made the same mistake. Should have taken it back.

I second that. It's weak.

Thirded. How could their tasters and product manager let it out of development and testing. Hmm... a software analogy.

Kind of weird to have an article about alternative lending and big data, and not mention Lending Club? The are the biggest player in the space by far and IPOed only last month...

Looks like the focus of the article is on alternative techniques to determine creditworthiness. Lending Club, as I understand, relies mostly on traditional credit scores, which does not make them particularly innovative for this particular aspect of lending.

Lending Club is a rounding error compared to the big banks.

And is a marketplace, not a direct lender like the companies mentioned.

Dogs breed themselves just fine - ever been to a shelter?

They breed because irresponsible people (breeders and owners alike) let them breed.

Hour and a half bus ride each way, NYC.