How to Build the Future with Sam Altman • Hacker News Board

Re: How to Build the Future with Sam Altman

#31

Post by npezolano » Tue, Sep 27, 2016, 7:52 PM UTC

sama wrote: post #20

flyosity wrote: post #15

I'm sure this will get downvoted into oblivion, but why should I or other engineers/entrepreneurs look at Sam Altman as a massive startup success story when his lone startup Loopt never really achieved product-market fit, and ended up in a firesale? Across 5 funding rounds, Crunchbase lists Loopt as having raised $39 million and then was acquired (acqui-hired?) for $43 million. He didn't create any multiples of value…

I turned out to be a better investor than an entrepreneur (though somewhat to my surprise running YC is more about running a company than being an investor). I think I've learned a lot from working closely with entrepreneurs that run massively successful companies that's worth sharing. If you disagree, no one is making you watch this. You're free to hit the back button.

I find you learn the most from mistakes, either your own or from others.

Re: How to Build the Future with Sam Altman

#32

Post by lpolovets » Tue, Sep 27, 2016, 7:58 PM UTC

flyosity wrote: post #15

I'm sure this will get downvoted into oblivion, but why should I or other engineers/entrepreneurs look at Sam Altman as a massive startup success story when his lone startup Loopt never really achieved product-market fit, and ended up in a firesale? Across 5 funding rounds, Crunchbase lists Loopt as having raised $39 million and then was acquired (acqui-hired?) for $43 million. He didn't create any multiples of value…

To add another data point in support of Sam's comment, I think one can build a good understanding of entrepreneurship and how to increase the chances of success without having been a hugely successful founder. I joined VC four years ago because I wanted to learn more about early-stage startups before starting my own, and I ended up falling in love with the job. I've learned a ton about factors of success and failure over the last few years.

My belief is that there's a large chunk of building a company that I will never learn or understand without becoming a founder myself. Maybe that's 50% of success. However, for the other 50%, I can actually learn things better than many founders because they have a sample size of one or two or three startups that they have started, while I can look across fifty or a hundred companies that I am intimately involved in and analyze what is different between the ones that become huge and the ones that do not. I think this cross-sectional pattern matching is what makes a lot of VCs and investors sources of good advice (in some startup topics) even though they might not have built huge companies themselves.

Re: How to Build the Future with Sam Altman

#33

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Sep 27, 2016, 8:01 PM UTC

flyosity wrote: post #15

I'm sure this will get downvoted into oblivion, but why should I or other engineers/entrepreneurs look at Sam Altman as a massive startup success story when his lone startup Loopt never really achieved product-market fit, and ended up in a firesale? Across 5 funding rounds, Crunchbase lists Loopt as having raised $39 million and then was acquired (acqui-hired?) for $43 million. He didn't create any multiples of value…

[deleted]

Re: How to Build the Future with Sam Altman

#34

Post by loceng » Tue, Sep 27, 2016, 8:09 PM UTC

sama wrote: post #20

flyosity wrote: post #15

I'm sure this will get downvoted into oblivion, but why should I or other engineers/entrepreneurs look at Sam Altman as a massive startup success story when his lone startup Loopt never really achieved product-market fit, and ended up in a firesale? Across 5 funding rounds, Crunchbase lists Loopt as having raised $39 million and then was acquired (acqui-hired?) for $43 million. He didn't create any multiples of value…

I turned out to be a better investor than an entrepreneur (though somewhat to my surprise running YC is more about running a company than being an investor). I think I've learned a lot from working closely with entrepreneurs that run massively successful companies that's worth sharing. If you disagree, no one is making you watch this. You're free to hit the back button.

YC's leading metric is the success of its investments, without that foundation then all other decisions will be off. Starting off on the right foot is more important IMHO than being fantastic at running a company.

Re: How to Build the Future with Sam Altman

#35

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Sep 27, 2016, 8:10 PM UTC

flyosity wrote: post #15

I'm sure this will get downvoted into oblivion, but why should I or other engineers/entrepreneurs look at Sam Altman as a massive startup success story when his lone startup Loopt never really achieved product-market fit, and ended up in a firesale? Across 5 funding rounds, Crunchbase lists Loopt as having raised $39 million and then was acquired (acqui-hired?) for $43 million. He didn't create any multiples of value…

[deleted]

Re: How to Build the Future with Sam Altman

#36

Post by CptJamesCook » Tue, Sep 27, 2016, 8:14 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #24

flyosity wrote: post #15

I'm sure this will get downvoted into oblivion, but why should I or other engineers/entrepreneurs look at Sam Altman as a massive startup success story when his lone startup Loopt never really achieved product-market fit, and ended up in a firesale? Across 5 funding rounds, Crunchbase lists Loopt as having raised $39 million and then was acquired (acqui-hired?) for $43 million. He didn't create any multiples of value…

By top 10 YC startup standards, Paul Graham's Viaweb success isn't all that interesting either. But, of course: if the model they're building with YC works, this is the outcome you'd expect. YC wouldn't be very interesting if its outcomes were capped to Viaweb's and Loopt's.

Paul Graham started Y Combinator, which is a company.

Paul Graham was a borderline founder of Reddit, as well.

Re: How to Build the Future with Sam Altman

#37

Post by davecyen » Tue, Sep 27, 2016, 8:16 PM UTC

Main takeaway:

Work on something together w/ people you like and on an idea that you are truly excited about and strongly opinionated on. Shit will get hard and most people will quit too soon (esp if they don't like each other or don't care about what they're doing). Don't be those people.

Re: How to Build the Future with Sam Altman

#38

Post by hugs » Tue, Sep 27, 2016, 8:26 PM UTC

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #17

flyosity wrote: post #15

I'm sure this will get downvoted into oblivion, but why should I or other engineers/entrepreneurs look at Sam Altman as a massive startup success story when his lone startup Loopt never really achieved product-market fit, and ended up in a firesale? Across 5 funding rounds, Crunchbase lists Loopt as having raised $39 million and then was acquired (acqui-hired?) for $43 million. He didn't create any multiples of value…

While we're at it, how about Mark Cuban? Did Broadcast.com ever work past a basic stage? Did it ever have huge, if any, positive revenues? It really sounds like he bought a domain name and fucked around a little with html and won big in the dotcom craze. A lot of "heroes" in this world are fairly fraudulent. Worse, some went from young tech luminaries to older VC sharks with questionable ethics like Mark Andreeson. I…

There's yet another kind of startup founder, who merely starts a successful company that makes millions of dollars per year and is still in business almost a decade later. The company doesn't fail, but it doesn't have a huge blow-out liquidity event, either. The founder remains heads-down, in the trenches, with no interest in going the VC route. Regardless, they're in a boring B2B niche, so you'll never read about them.

Re: How to Build the Future with Sam Altman

#39

Post by the_common_man » Tue, Sep 27, 2016, 8:28 PM UTC

flyosity wrote: post #15

I'm sure this will get downvoted into oblivion, but why should I or other engineers/entrepreneurs look at Sam Altman as a massive startup success story when his lone startup Loopt never really achieved product-market fit, and ended up in a firesale? Across 5 funding rounds, Crunchbase lists Loopt as having raised $39 million and then was acquired (acqui-hired?) for $43 million. He didn't create any multiples of value…

Same reason why we read books. Most book authors just write on stuff. They are very good at communicating a topic clearly but haven't 'achieved' much themselves.

Same with Sam. His observations and insights are very useful and he is able to communicate them clearly.

Re: How to Build the Future with Sam Altman

#40

Post by dwaxe » Tue, Sep 27, 2016, 8:37 PM UTC

CptJamesCook wrote: post #36

tptacek wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By top 10 YC startup standards, Paul Graham's Viaweb success isn't all that interesting either. But, of course: if the model they're building with YC works, this is the outcome you'd expect. YC wouldn't be very interesting if its outcomes were capped to Viaweb's and Loopt's.

Paul Graham started Y Combinator, which is a company. Paul Graham was a borderline founder of Reddit, as well.

By YC startup standards again, Reddit isn't a very successful company. The amount of early investment that went into it has certainly paid off, but monetization is a seriously hard problem for them.