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

Re: How to Build the Future with Sam Altman

#91

Post by sama » Wed, Sep 28, 2016, 3:12 AM UTC

dota_fanatic wrote: post #72

sama wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What's the purpose of your third line? Obviously they didn't even click the link at all, but they had a legitimate question to ask the community in hopes of learning more about why the content is good. Your first two lines directly answer their questions, but the third one just seems, well, immature?

I honestly think it's a valid comment. If I see something from someone I don't think has anything to teach me (though I try to be charitable in that determination), I just don't read it.

Re: How to Build the Future with Sam Altman

#92

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Sep 28, 2016, 7:29 AM UTC

Alupis wrote: post #69

Reedx wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if Reddit is around for 50 years, paying dozens of employees the whole time while never making a net profit. Would that not be a successful company to essentially everyone? (except the investors)

If all your business does it extract money from investors and deposit it into employee's pockets (and never generates self sustaining revenue, let alone turn profits), I think we'd call that a charity, more than anything.

[deleted]

Re: How to Build the Future with Sam Altman

#93

Post by drzaiusapelord » Wed, Sep 28, 2016, 1:59 PM UTC

nibs wrote: post #62

hugs wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

So much more likely to succeed and so much less likely to make $100M. Definitely the surest path to $5-10M near the end of your career. If you only want <$5M perhaps being a corporate VP would be more optimal risk adjusted. This is my strong preference, I just wish there were more of a culture of that here. It could be the fact that this is a start-up forum but sustainable B2B niche business is really interesting and…

The problem with that approach is that getting a high level VP position at a non-trivial sized company is pretty competitive and there are only so many open slots to go around. It also requires a strict career plan and the ability to play office politics very well, which I think most techies struggle with.

Being the guy who sells a small app, service, or utility on the side and clearing $150k a year, or more, via mostly passive income is a much easier trick to pull off. Also this approach can come with a sweetheart acquisition deal from a larger company that wants your product and can run in the millions, on top of what you've earned already.

Re: How to Build the Future with Sam Altman

#94

Post by bexp » Wed, Sep 28, 2016, 10:20 PM UTC

jonknee wrote: post #89

bexp wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree with above, Sama puts himself into same bucket of people as Zuck and Musk in how to build future series. What he has build so far ? Happened to be a VC partner sitting on huge pile of cash, distributing it to bunch of YC applicants ? I could see Paul Graham as YC founder takes some credit for creating all YC unicorns, Sam is just one of many partners in VC firm, nothing outstanding though.

> Sam is just one of many partners in VC firm, nothing outstanding though. He is the President.

In VC world there are only Limited Partners (LP who give money) and general/managing partners (who invest money), everything else is non-essential.

Re: How to Build the Future with Sam Altman

#95

Post by rhizome » Wed, Sep 28, 2016, 10:29 PM UTC

mbesto wrote: post #82

rhizome wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Underperforming relative to what standard?

Underperforming versus it's competitors. I know of several websites that do 1/1000th of the traffic and have similar, if not better revenue.

I wonder if branding strategies keep their numbers down. I don't ever see a sidebar ad for Coca Cola.

Re: How to Build the Future with Sam Altman

#96

Post by CptJamesCook » Thu, Sep 29, 2016, 6:25 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #57

CptJamesCook wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Sam operates YC, which is a company. If the argument is that he lacks operational experience, and YC is a company, you've defeated your own argument.

I was arguing that Paul Graham ought to judged by more than viaweb, not that Sam Altman isn't an excellent president of YC. He has done amazing things with the organization in a short period of time.

Re: How to Build the Future with Sam Altman

#97

Post by ycliu » Thu, Sep 29, 2016, 6:55 AM UTC

sandslash wrote: post #2

And here are the download links for the transcript and audio files if anyone is interested in tuning in offline: Transcript: https://goo.gl/8z2h1b Audio: https://goo.gl/D8h0NU

Here is a mind map version I made:

https://milkr.io/yuecen/Sam-Altman-How-to-Build-the-Future

Re: How to Build the Future with Sam Altman

#98

Post by scobar » Fri, Sep 30, 2016, 6:34 PM UTC

liquimoon wrote: post #68

YC is producing lots of fluffy content lately. I was very disappointed with the How to Build the Future series. Particularly, the interview with Elon Musk. The quality of the questions was mediocre at best. And the podcasts are just about showcasing YC companies. As an entrepreneur, I basically got zero value from these. PG should write more essays. Whenever one of them came out, I dropped whatever I was doing to rea…

This reply is very late and you may not see it, but I wanted to express my thoughts.

I appreciate the way Sam presents his thoughts (questions, answers, or otherwise). They're both extremely thoughtful and simple in a sense that he won't repel those who may feel below his level intellectually. Some of his points are so insightful, but it's taken me a lot of time, experience, and thought to be able to absorb or agree/disagree with them. Some just seem like simple advice that I should consider because I don't know enough to strongly believe he's right or wrong.

Perhaps you're at a high enough level intellectually that his simply-stated yet thoughtful points are, by now, obvious to you. I definitely don't mean to imply otherwise. Unfortunately, I haven't found many writers whose thoughts are as insightful as PG's, but I am content with rereading his old essays as I'm certain I haven't thoroughly understood everything he's written at the depth of understanding that he or others may have.