91–100 of 312 posts
Has there been a New Yorker piece on PG? I googled and didn't find anything. He's the one that put all this together and seems far more deserving of such a thing.
The brilliance of YCombinator, IMO, is HackerNews. It's turned YC into a self-perpetuating machine by getting smart people to congregate and talk about news YC itself partially generates. I heard about YC, PG, and sama all through this outlet.
Makes sense. I personally read some of the comments before jumping into an article, mainly because comments most of the time loop me in on something that I am completely clueless or have little aware of. Also to see if the article is worth reading into because obviously if you read 20 people saying "The author of the article doesn't know what he is talking about" then its more possible that indeed the author has writ…
Can someone explain what is referred as "Golcondan wealth"?
I do admire all the ambition. But does it really have to be mixed in with views such as "Democracy only works in a growing economy. Without a return to economic growth, the democratic experiment will fail. And I have to think that YC is hugely important to that growth." I'm sure Sam (and other SV types) is well aware of the complexity of reality and that YC, as one company, cannot be hugely important to that growth.…
And if you think about it, most of these disruptive companies are not offering real growth. Both Über and Air BNB, for instance are diverting dollars from the legacy provider. And they're doing this by offering better service and/or lower prices. There is no value creation to see here.
And your assessment of Airbnb of just "diverting dollars from the legacy provider" is wrong in my opinion, it turns an unused space into cash (creating a new market/enabling an underserved market), just like early-eBay turned unwanted stuff in your house into cash. I'm not fully sure where I stand on Uber, but they're certainly offering a much better customer experience than traditional taxis.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
and "upload"? "what intrigues him is their potential effect on the world. To determine that, he’ll upload all he needs to know about, say, urban planning or nuclear fusion."
I read it as somewhere between "skim" and "learn" - it's probably a term sama used himself in the interview. If you think of yourself as a machine it's probably a term than makes sense; it doesn't feel particularly aspirational to me :)
I do admire all the ambition. But does it really have to be mixed in with views such as "Democracy only works in a growing economy. Without a return to economic growth, the democratic experiment will fail. And I have to think that YC is hugely important to that growth." I'm sure Sam (and other SV types) is well aware of the complexity of reality and that YC, as one company, cannot be hugely important to that growth.…
And if you think about it, most of these disruptive companies are not offering real growth. Both Über and Air BNB, for instance are diverting dollars from the legacy provider. And they're doing this by offering better service and/or lower prices. There is no value creation to see here.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's iteresting. I was not aware of such a connotation - to me the term manifest destiny just meant "a destiny that can be clearly seen and that cannot be changed" [1]. Maybe the article's sub-editor was equally ignorant of 19th century US history. [1] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/manifest%20destiny
No way. That's a deliberate choice of words and the parallel is actually pretty striking. From Wikipedia: > In the 19th century, manifest destiny was a widely held belief in the United States that its settlers were destined to expand across North America. There are three basic themes to manifest destiny: The special virtues of the American people and their institutions The mission of the United States to redeem and r…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_follows_the_plow
This led to people settling in unwise places. And you know what, even though the Wikipedia page says that climatologists now regard this as mere superstition, these areas of the US are now well-populated: A critical mass did settle, so in a way it's all worked out.
Thinking democracy's success is tied to economic growth is a pretty dim worldview. I hope he's wrong about that.
"Economic growth" can exist on a computer screen completely decoupled from the "real world" and independent of a strong middle class. IMHO An economically strong middle class is needed to maintain social order. This mitigates the public from hunting and and killing the rich and keeps the public from displacing their social frustrations on to each other and creating riots. Generally its a better existence for everyone…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No way. That's a deliberate choice of words and the parallel is actually pretty striking. From Wikipedia: > In the 19th century, manifest destiny was a widely held belief in the United States that its settlers were destined to expand across North America. There are three basic themes to manifest destiny: The special virtues of the American people and their institutions The mission of the United States to redeem and r…
And just to add to this, Manifest Destiny had some very concrete related beliefs. Such as "the rain follows the plow", the belief that if you settle and farm somewhere, the climate will magically change to make this workable https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_follows_the_plow This led to people settling in unwise places. And you know what, even though the Wikipedia page says that climatologists now regard this as mer…
Sounds like a classic case of survivor bias though? Where would Chicago be today if it wasn't for the trains? What would be the state of Phoenix Arizona if not for things like CAP? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Arizona_Project
You mentioned this but I wanted to spell it out.