I can put things in a box that uses spooky electromagnetic waves to tickle water molecules to the point that they get hot and maybe boil off, given the chance? Sounds like magic to me
For the past 10 years I’ve been a volunteer organizer of [Startup Row](https://us.pycon.org/2026/attend/startup-row/) at PyCon US, and I wanted to let all the entrepreneurs and early-stage startup employees know that applications for free booth space at PyCon US close at the end of this weekend. (The webpage says this Friday, but I can assure you that the web form will stay up through the weekend.)
There’s a lot of information on the Startup Row page on the PyCon US website, and a post on the [PyCon blog](https://pycon.blogspot.com/2026/01/apply-for-pycon-startup-r...) if you’re interested. But I figured I’d summarize it all in the form of an FAQ.
*What is Startup Row at PyCon US?*
Since 2011 the Python Software Foundation and conference organizers have reserved booth space for early-stage startups at PyCon US. It is, in short, a row of booths for startups building cool things with Python. Companies can apply for booth space on Startup Row and recipients are selected through a competitive review process. The selection committee consists mostly of startup founders that have previously presented on Startup Row.
There are a half-dozen questions that you’ve probably already answered if you’ve applied to any sort of incubator, accelerator, or startup competition.
You will need to create a PyCon US login first, but that takes only a minute.
*Deadline?*
Technically the webpage says applications close on Friday January 30th. The web form will remain active through this weekend.
Our goal is to give companies a final decision on their application status by mid-February, which is plenty of time to book your travel and sort out logistics.
*What does my company get if selected to be on Startup Row?*
At no cost to them, Startup Row companies receive:
- Two included conference passes, with additional passes available for your team at a discount.
- Booth space in the Expo Hall on Startup Row for the Opening Reception on the evening of Thursday May 14th and for both days of the main conference, Friday May 15th and Saturday May 16th.
- Optionally: A table at the PyCon US Job Fair on Sunday May 17th. (If you’re company is hiring Python talent, there is likely nowhere better than PyCon US for technical recruiting.)
- Placement on the PyCon US 2026 website and a profile on the PyCon US blog (where you’re reading this post)
- Eternal glory
Basically, getting a spot on Startup Row gives your company the same experience as a paying sponsor of PyCon at no cost. Teams are still responsible for flights, hotels, and whatever materials you bring for your booth.
*What are the eligibility requirements?*
Pretty simple:
- You have to use Python somewhere in your stack, the more the better.
- Company is less than 2.5 years old (either from founding or from public launch)
- Has 25 or fewer employees
- Has not already presented on Startup Row or sponsored PyCon US. (Founders who previously applied but weren’t selected are welcome to apply again.)
Up until recently I was editor at an AI company, and parts of this read exactly like some of the outputs I'd get out of GPT-4/ChatGPT Plus.
Many of the linked references are too recent to be in the training corpus (Llama 2, for example), so unless there's some web-search component to this it looks like an LLM wrote the first draft, and a human went through to edit, add links, and populate with images, etc.
Bingo. It's all about reducing liabilities on the books, while also making employees effectively beg for vacation. I thought I'd like "unlimited" PTO, but in practice, it's been a source of stress.
Same for me. At a job that had unlimited PTO our boss asked who was taking Veteran's Day off. I said I was because why not it is unlimited. He messaged me saying he was a veteran and he wasn't taking the day off. Like ok? We have "unlimited pto" but have to play guessing games if taking federal holidays off is ok?
While great in theory, the devil is in the details.
So far, every company I've worked for has an "unlimited" PTO policy. In practice, it means that folks end up taking little/no PTO, or folks end up abusing the policy with extensive breaks for personal travel, etc. (I 100% support taking vacations and carving out time for personal projects and family stuff... I just kinda look askance at the idea of taking the equivalent of a 1-month sabbatical only 6 months after joining a company.)
What I'd love to see is Unlimited PTO with a mandatory minimum. Even for the most die-hard workaholics, having some time away from work stuff is important. For everyone else, a PTO mandate would make taking personal time just another part of their work responsibilities.
I worked at Dropbox for a couple of years, and it was functionally unlimited. I took two weeks off just a month in to help my wife recover from surgery. My org had a guideline of taking at least one week off per quarter, targeting six weeks per year. I took six weeks off in a year, plus plenty of half-days and single days off.
I recognize Dropbox is the exception to this rule, though. My new employer gives seven weeks, and requires that you take at least four.
This is why I hate unlimited PTO. To my workaholic former boss, abusing PTO meant taking anything beyond a week at Christmas and a day off on a federal holiday. For a more reasonable boss it might mean 4 weeks off a year, or it might mean 8 or it might mean 16. May as well ask people to take unlimited salary but don't abuse it.
I like your mandatory minimum idea if it very close to whatever the company views as the reasonable maximum.
I completely agree. If companies really thought PTO was important, they would enforce a minimum PTO policy. You MUST take off 3 weeks a year. (or whatever). If you don't take it by the end of the year, they remove your card/network access.
I fail to see how taking as much time as you want off with unlimited time off is abuse? If you don’t want people to take half the year off, set a limit on it.
If you explicitly state "You get 6 weeks of PTO per year", the average amount of PTO taken per employee will likely be close to that 6 weeks.
If you give "unlimited" PTO, then people will likely only take 2-3 weeks a year because they'll be afraid to be seen as abusing the policy.
At the company I'm at, we have unlimited PTO, and we also have two "quiet weeks" where you're essentially FORCED to take it. The first is usually the first week of August, and the second is between Christmas and New Years.
The week between Christmas and NY is fine, but having the other week being forced to be in the beginning of August kind of sucks, tbh. I don't take normally take vacations between mid-June and mid-August because that's prime tourism season and everything is crowded and more expensive, not to mention loud kids everywhere. Of course, I understand they chose that week because some employees are parents and that allows them to take a vacation while the kids are out of school.
Still, I think it'd be better if the early-August company shutdown was changed to a policy that required people to take at least 1 full week off at least once per year.
It would avoid the situation of me taking a week off in September and having management go "You just had a week off a month ago!". Not that that's happened, but I do wonder if they're thinking it.
"A study by Namely found that employees with unlimited PTO took an average of 13 vacation days, compared to 15 days for their fixed PTO counterparts. Why would this be? Without clear guidance on what’s acceptable, most workers end up taking off less time to avoid appearing lazy or otherwise be seen as abusing the policy."
Yup this is exactly why when we set our benefits package, even though we are big about work life balance, I insisted we track PTO and give people a finite amount.
Because I worked at a place with “unlimited” vacation and nobody ever took any. And when I left, since there wasn’t any PTO granted, there was nothing to pay out.
Author of the article here. Yes, they are apparently hiring, or so suggests some of my internet research. One of the founders' linkedin profiles said they're mostly building in Haskell.
The article said that "common" shareholders walk out with nothing.
Typically, founders and early employees are issued only common stock, while investors are issued "preferred" shares. Unless the founding team invested their own capital alongside the angels and professional VCs involved in their rounds, it's not likely that they were preferred shareholders.
Preferred shareholders are first in line to get cash payouts after liquidation. Common shareholders are able to access cash only after all of the preferred shareholders have been paid.
I wrote a series on the subject I could share if you're interested.
Say what you want about the company, product, and executive leadership, but for a time Mattermark was a fairly influential organization in the Valley and elsewhere.
Mattermark can probably serve as a case study of how good written content can really bolster a company's credibility and positioning in a market.
Author of the article here. Yes, there are plenty of different ways to wind up a company. But the primary goal of the series was to go over the most common legal terms in investor agreements, so I took this last piece as an opportunity to mostly cover seniority structures and liquidation preferences.
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