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Financial Misstatements

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: Financial Misstatements

#91

Post by mildbow »

dang wrote: post #86
gohrt wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's strange that you think that an investor who owns 7% of a company is "being serious" by declining to do any diligence about illegal behavior undertaken by management.

You have no basis for that statement.

Isn't the whole article pretty much basis for that ? :(

If sam is saying YC founders are using terms wrong, doesn't that imply that YC was fine with those terms?

So confused.

Anyway, the simple fix would be to just have a 1-3 day finance bootcamp to make sure everyone speaks the same language. Rather than getting everyone to try to being kinda-sorta competent.

Re: Financial Misstatements

#92

Post by dang »

mildbow wrote: post #75
ams6110 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At what point do people start acting like grown-ups who take the time to learn what responsibilities come with their actions? I think college graduates certainly qualify. If I'm going to call myself "CEO" then I better damn well figure out what that means, and if I don't know, I should study or seek the advice of someone who does.

You mean maybe the accelerator? It would be awesome if YC/the accelerator had a bootcamp of 1-3 days talking about this stuff. Because, let's face it, this "finance stuff" is complicated and most of us don't have a clue: it's not intuitive or something that can be reasoned from first principles. Anyway, are we supposed to build product or become focused on learning all this new jargon(is this fake work?) ? Seems like…

I think you might be misapprehending Sam's posts. Demo Day just finished and he's advising startups by warning them about pitfalls. YC has a tradition of making these kinds of posts public—pg used to publish his advice to YC startups in the form of essays for anyone. I always thought that was great. (Off topic: I've been inspired by it to (slowly) write some advice for YC startups about what counts as good content for Hacker News, and when it's ready, will make that public too.)

As for what's disagreeable in what you said, let's look at your paragraphs: (1) 100% fine; (2) assumes its conclusion and makes an unfair jab; (3) mischaracterizes Sam's posts on the whole, as well as the recent ones; (4) off-topic posturing about bannage.

Re: Financial Misstatements

#94

Post by mildbow »

zaidf wrote: post #83
smacktoward wrote: post #46

This post leaves a bad taste in my mouth, at least to the degree it's talking about executives of YC companies. I mean, the whole model of YC is to take kids straight out of college (if not before) and turn them into startup CEOs. If those CEOs come out of that process not understanding the legal obligations of their new position, whose fault is that, exactly? It's not like they're bringing decades of business experi…

By your logic, Harvard should be to blame for the millionaires and billionaires from Harvard that are in prison for insider trading.

It's not about blame. Everyone makes mistakes.

It's about seeing a recurrent problem, then helping people by fixing it

Re: Financial Misstatements

#95

Post by dang »

mildbow wrote: post #91
dang wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have no basis for that statement.

Isn't the whole article pretty much basis for that ? :( If sam is saying YC founders are using terms wrong, doesn't that imply that YC was fine with those terms? So confused. Anyway, the simple fix would be to just have a 1-3 day finance bootcamp to make sure everyone speaks the same language. Rather than getting everyone to try to being kinda-sorta competent.

> Isn't the whole article pretty much basis for that

For "declining to do any diligence about illegal behavior"? Of course not. Why did this topic come up in the first place?

Re lack of diligence, it's astonishing how people jump to make mean, false statements without a second's pause to consider the obvious.

Re: Financial Misstatements

#96

Post by Maro »

There's a great book called 'The HBR Guide to Finance Basics for Managers', about 200 pages:

https://hbr.org/product/hbr-guide-to-finance-basics-for-mana...

It doesn't specifically address the terms in the OP, but it should be the starting point for non-MBAs (like myself) to start understanding basic Finance.

In my experience, if you're a co-founder and you don't understand basic Finance and let your Finance department do whatever it's doing you may be setting yourself up for trouble. The OP described the other case of simply saying non-sense because you don't understand the terms :)

Re: Financial Misstatements

#98

Post by ska »

dandare wrote: post #25
codemac wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the reasons startups can't hire good finance people? Or at least contract with an expert? Is it a difficulty in judging their abilities when it's not your area? Is it something where only at a certain size would it be worth the reduced financial risk to have someone on it? Learning from scratch has to be the slowest, highest risk way of doing it -- which is the exact opposite of what a startup should be opti…

"What are the reasons startups can't hire good finance people?" I think the reason is that you are in stage where the CEO personally empties the rubbish bins in the office, that's why.

They can, and do if they are being sensible. One of your fairly early hires should be a real finance person (not an executive but someone experienced enough to take over the day to day effectively). Not doing this is false economy.

Well before that point, you should have a contract accountant of course.

Re: Financial Misstatements

#99

Post by mildbow »

dang wrote: post #92
mildbow wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean maybe the accelerator? It would be awesome if YC/the accelerator had a bootcamp of 1-3 days talking about this stuff. Because, let's face it, this "finance stuff" is complicated and most of us don't have a clue: it's not intuitive or something that can be reasoned from first principles. Anyway, are we supposed to build product or become focused on learning all this new jargon(is this fake work?) ? Seems like…

I think you might be misapprehending Sam's posts. Demo Day just finished and he's advising startups by warning them about pitfalls. YC has a tradition of making these kinds of posts public—pg used to publish his advice to YC startups in the form of essays for anyone. I always thought that was great. (Off topic: I've been inspired by it to (slowly) write some advice for YC startups about what counts as good content fo…

Thanks for acknowledging/replying.

Regarding your specific complaints: (2)Assuming conclusion and using that to open up discussion is a fairly standard rhetorical practice. Are you saying that that paragraph doesn't move the discussion forward? Why is it unfair? It's an assumption/leading for sure, but it's as fair as anything else.

3) Ok. So here's the thing: when you put things out on the internet, other people read it. They especially read it when it's the top link on HN :). And, they read the content not the intent. Mischaracterization isn't something I'm trying to do malignantly: but unless I'm missing something recent posts have been very much in the vein of "here's what I don't like" rather than "here's how we are fixing some thing we don't like". Maybe I'm still being unfair? But when these posts are up for consumption for the world, the cop-out that it was only meant for the YC class seems a bit silly. Is seeing that opinion voiced really worth the effort of silencing it? Are only "positive" (fawning) posts the ones that are allowed?

4) Are you saying I'm not shadow/hellbanned?

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