Just in case you're reading the comments here -
In the infographic section "Comments were generally negative and top comment tended to reflect this sentiment."
the POSITIVE / NEGATIVE categories are swapped.
Stop Obsessing Over Comments On Hacker News (2015)
31–40 of 58 posts
Re: Stop Obsessing Over Comments On Hacker News (2015)
#32There are so many comments on hacker news of the flavor: "Why would anyone use this when you can build it yourself in five minutes using x, y and z open source tools" completely ignoring how much knowledge you have to have retained in order to build it in five minutes.
Any time I read someone saying something like that I internally replace the subject with food. "Why would anyone buy food professionally made at a restaurant when you could make something similar at home?" Because I want something nice and I'm willing to spend some cash to get it. C'mon..
Valid point.
Counterexample by way of metaphor: I used to feel the same way about restaurant food, but then my cooking skills increased to the point where I can make most Italian or French food just as well as if not better than most restaurants I've been to.
Now, I rarely if ever go out for French or Italian any more.
Re: Stop Obsessing Over Comments On Hacker News (2015)
#33Ugh. There really should be a logical fallacy around the fact that Hacker News was incorrect about Dropbox and other companies, and how it's not a license to ignore comments altogether . I really wish people would stop referring to the Dropbox story on HN as an example of "ignore the haters because they are wrong." Dropbox, and the other startups mentioned in the post, are outliers , not typical examples, and also ca…
Yes! In the book Rationality: From AI to Zombies[1], Eliezer Yudkowsky talks about this as the "availability" bias (Chapter 5.)
Re: Stop Obsessing Over Comments On Hacker News (2015)
#34Who'd have thought a community of grognards seemingly interested only in the latest JavaScript framework and a priori inserting Latin idioms into places they don't belong makes a poor predictor of startup success?
Re: Stop Obsessing Over Comments On Hacker News (2015)
#35This reminds me of something Joel Spolsky said on a podcast several years back. The gist was many newer ideas for startups that turned out to be great, were first met with criticism or labeled bad ideas. Because if the new idea was too obvious, it was probably already done by someone else. (At least that is what I think he meant. Wish I could find the show notes.)
Would be interested to listen to this if you do dig it up!
Found it: https://stackoverflow.fogbugz.com/default.asp?W25795 Podcast 025. It is a good one, with Jeff, Joel and Steve Yegge. Joel says: "For a startup to work, it has to be an idea that is not very convincing. It has to be a completely terrible idea."
Re: Stop Obsessing Over Comments On Hacker News (2015)
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Any time I read someone saying something like that I internally replace the subject with food. "Why would anyone buy food professionally made at a restaurant when you could make something similar at home?" Because I want something nice and I'm willing to spend some cash to get it. C'mon..
Valid point. Counterexample by way of metaphor: I used to feel the same way about restaurant food, but then my cooking skills increased to the point where I can make most Italian or French food just as well as if not better than most restaurants I've been to. Now, I rarely if ever go out for French or Italian any more.
Technical capacity is only part of parent's metaphor. Convenience, priorities, free time also count
Re: Stop Obsessing Over Comments On Hacker News (2015)
#37Oops, seems I've gone over the top about obsessing with HN comments:
Re: Stop Obsessing Over Comments On Hacker News (2015)
#38Ugh. There really should be a logical fallacy around the fact that Hacker News was incorrect about Dropbox and other companies, and how it's not a license to ignore comments altogether . I really wish people would stop referring to the Dropbox story on HN as an example of "ignore the haters because they are wrong." Dropbox, and the other startups mentioned in the post, are outliers , not typical examples, and also ca…
Agreed. And technically, if the author wanted to make a useful point, they should have looked at a random sample of startups that were posted on HN. See if HN was generally correct or not. This is just looking for HN to be wrong.
Re: Stop Obsessing Over Comments On Hacker News (2015)
#39This really just puts more strength in the idea that success is largely luck-based. No one can accurately predict success. Not specialized forums, not specialized workers in the field, and not even VCs whose sole incentive is to make money by investing in great ideas . Even YC says as much that they have no clear idea as to what will be a success, and their strongest signal is the strength of the founders, and that t…
I agree with some of the sentiment but I feel like saying "largely luck-based" frames it as being mostly out of our control.
Yes, there are absolutely economic/industry issues that are completely out of our control and hard to predict but I believe a major part is the strength of the team to focus, execute, get along and continue when sh*t happens, and adjust as their Vision hits reality.
I'm not sure what the division is between luck/timing vs team/product vs all the other things but it's hard to accept that it's "largely" out of my hands. Maybe you're right but I hope not.
Re: Stop Obsessing Over Comments On Hacker News (2015)
#40Oh god, this reminds me of the time I told Bram Cohen that Bit Torrent would never work. Of course, I just didn't understand what he was trying to do. Face, meet egg.
I was once superficially polite to the founder of twitter, while laughing patronizingly on the inside. "So, it's like chat, but with more restrictions and fewer features? Completely unmonetized, and the name literally means ignorant babbling? Huh, cool. Hope it works out for you!"
I'm still not convinced your inner voice was wrong, but you can't argue with the investors apparently