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Greg

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: Greg

#21

Post by neolefty »

smacktoward wrote: post #12
codingdave wrote: post #7

Every success DOES need a guy like Greg. But I really worry about the part where Greg was working on the effort full-time, doing it all while the other guys still worked. When it ends in success, it is a great story. When it ends without success, Greg is the guy who put all his time into it, then ends up with nothing. Greg becomes the warning story. Greg is the guy you need. Not necessarily the guy you want to be.

There is a very, very fine line dividing "chief optimist" from "sucker."

> Greg asked me questions for the first half of the drive back to San Francisco, then declared he was in, and started planning logistics for the rest of the drive.

I think he took on the risk when he bought into it.

But yeah.

Re: Greg

#22

Post by noonespecial »

ProAm wrote: post #15
smacktoward wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a very, very fine line dividing "chief optimist" from "sucker."

Sounds like we need a Co-founder basic income?

That's a fantastic idea. We could give it a special name to avoid confusion. How about "salary"?

Re: Greg

#24

Post by edanm »

throwaway13100 wrote: post #13

Never let it be forgotten that Sam Altman's first big "success" was Loopt, a gay hookup app that was slowly dying and only even got acquired because a Sequoia board member who invested in it made Green Dot buy it so he wouldn't lose his money. Every time you read one of these arrogant, triumphalist blog posts from Altman, remember that his first big success was really a total failure that got bailed out thanks to a V…

Whether what you're saying is true or not, do we really need to remember this every single time we read anything he writes? How about we just hear what he has to say and then decide if it's worth listening to?

(Besides which, at this stage, whatever his earlier successes or failures, you can hardly say he isn't at least worth listening to based on his experience at YC.)

Re: Greg

#25

Post by throwaway13100 »

edanm wrote: post #24
throwaway13100 wrote: post #13

Never let it be forgotten that Sam Altman's first big "success" was Loopt, a gay hookup app that was slowly dying and only even got acquired because a Sequoia board member who invested in it made Green Dot buy it so he wouldn't lose his money. Every time you read one of these arrogant, triumphalist blog posts from Altman, remember that his first big success was really a total failure that got bailed out thanks to a V…

Whether what you're saying is true or not, do we really need to remember this every single time we read anything he writes? How about we just hear what he has to say and then decide if it's worth listening to? (Besides which, at this stage, whatever his earlier successes or failures, you can hardly say he isn't at least worth listening to based on his experience at YC.)

That "success" propelled him to countless more, including the presidency of YC. Altman's example demonstrates that success in the startup/VC game has much more to do with luck and connections than merit.

Re: Greg

#26

Post by rl3 »

>Greg is a world-class recruiter (he plans every detail of interviews, heavily researches candidate’s backgrounds, sends thoughtful and persistent followups, and so on), and I now believe even more strongly that someone on the founding team has to be an amazing recruiter.

I maintain a version-controlled text file of people I want to hire for my startup, should hell ever freeze over and I secure funding some day.

The nice part is that doing so usually goes hand-in-hand with the product/market/technology research you conduct anyways, so the practice has a very low time investment attached to it. For the most part, you simply stumble upon desirable people during the course of seemingly unrelated research, dig into their background, and then add them to the list.

On a humorous note, quite a few people on my list later ended up being hired by YC HARC. Hey Sam, what are the finer points of YC companies* trying to hire talent attached to YC projects? Can you offer any pointers? :)

* Not a YC company (yet).

Re: Greg

#28

Post by cryptarch »

edanm wrote: post #24
throwaway13100 wrote: post #13

Never let it be forgotten that Sam Altman's first big "success" was Loopt, a gay hookup app that was slowly dying and only even got acquired because a Sequoia board member who invested in it made Green Dot buy it so he wouldn't lose his money. Every time you read one of these arrogant, triumphalist blog posts from Altman, remember that his first big success was really a total failure that got bailed out thanks to a V…

Whether what you're saying is true or not, do we really need to remember this every single time we read anything he writes? How about we just hear what he has to say and then decide if it's worth listening to? (Besides which, at this stage, whatever his earlier successes or failures, you can hardly say he isn't at least worth listening to based on his experience at YC.)

I don't think GP was relevant or that he's sympathetic, but he did post something mildly interesting I didn't know before; because of this I chose not to vote.

I don't think the flagging was proportionate, I'd prefer it to hover around the bottom of the comment section.

Re: Greg

#29

Post by MegaButts »

onion2k wrote: post #17
codingdave wrote: post #7

Every success DOES need a guy like Greg. But I really worry about the part where Greg was working on the effort full-time, doing it all while the other guys still worked. When it ends in success, it is a great story. When it ends without success, Greg is the guy who put all his time into it, then ends up with nothing. Greg becomes the warning story. Greg is the guy you need. Not necessarily the guy you want to be.

Greg is the guy you need. Not necessarily the guy you want to be. I don't think that's true. At least at the beginning, a "Greg" will be the person who has all the direct contact with mentors, investors, team, suppliers, and customers. A "Greg" will be the "business face" of things (not necessarily who the public see, but who everyone else sees). That's a very good position to be in when things fail or when the compa…

So having worked way too hard on my startup only to have it fail, I can somewhat relate to this (I do not pretend to be as amazing as Greg). You're right - after my startup failed people were throwing what were objectively great job offers at me. Even more amazing, many of my investors were encouraging me to start another company and were willing to give me fantastic terms just for agreeing to start a company (entirely at the idea stage I could raise 7 digits at an 8 digit valuation with no strings attached from investors I already knew to be great people).

This ignores the mental toll that exhausting yourself on a company takes though. There are lots of people that start companies, but many people quit when the going gets tough. Those that commit everything to it are praised when they succeed but mostly forgotten when they don't. I am just now recovering after several months of not working, catching up on years of lost sleep, and basically becoming a person again.

There are days when I regret it and there are days when I don't. I learned a hell of a lot and I recognize it has opened doors for me, but the real question is was it worth it? And that's going to be different for everybody.

An important note, which is particularly relevant for HN. Paul Graham once said Sam Altman was the right person working on the wrong problem (with regards to his company Loopt). I bet there are a lot of people like that who just commit themselves to the wrong thing.

Re: Greg

#30

Post by cryptarch »

throwaway13100 wrote: post #25
edanm wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether what you're saying is true or not, do we really need to remember this every single time we read anything he writes? How about we just hear what he has to say and then decide if it's worth listening to? (Besides which, at this stage, whatever his earlier successes or failures, you can hardly say he isn't at least worth listening to based on his experience at YC.)

That "success" propelled him to countless more, including the presidency of YC. Altman's example demonstrates that success in the startup/VC game has much more to do with luck and connections than merit.

Being highly connected and being capable of utilizing your luck are skills IMO, and I don't understand why you feel the need to speak so spitefully of him.
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