Live data from Hacker News

How to get Paul Graham to take you to lunch and review your start-up idea

news.ycombinator.com

31–40 of 52 posts

Re: How to get Paul Graham to take you to lunch and review your start-up idea

#31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what if he's already denied you?

This lunch isn't an investor meeting. It's a chance to have some food and chat about start-ups in general or general advice on your own. I'm fairly certain there is no implied chance of funding. After all, this is for charity. That's not to say if if your idea is freaking amazing or you two click, he isn't ABLE to fund you. The chance is slim, but maybe just slightly more then meeting him on the street since he'll li…

some lawyers charge $1000/hr for consultation. an hour with pg is worth even more than that. $500 is bargain.

Re: How to get Paul Graham to take you to lunch and review your start-up idea

#32
post #30
post #2

1 of the top ten nursery schools in the US Ok, seriously, this is getting ridiculous. Who the hell goes across the country compiling a list of the top ten nursery schools ? I'm not convinced that such ratings are useful for universities, never mind high schools or lower tiers of education. The concept of a top-ten list of preschools just blows my mind. (I still think it's great that PG is contributing to this in such…

It's probably not the ideal thread, but this pushed me over the edge on education. The current education system is a dire sad long term problem that is writing off a large portion of society. I believe something more sensitive and human can grow out of it. Ken Robinson talks super lucidly about the destruction of creativity in children and the wider problems in schooling. That's great and the problem is now quite wel…

I agree that something should be done to improve education, but am not convinced by this proposal.

We want creative adults. The solution is not simply to "nurture expression" in children. Most of the creative output of world history came from adults who were schooled rigorously in the techniques of their field.

Having creative adult mathematicians relies on developing skills and intuitions through rigorous training. You cannot "nurture" a child to do this.

Unsurprisingly, then, having brilliantly creative composers, painters, politicians and business professionals also requires difficult training first.

Our current educational system seems to over-emphasize the motions of developing analytical skills (without necessarily the rigor of showing that your analysis is right) and offers no opportunities to develop spatial skills. I don't mean the touchy-feely "modes of learning," I mean seriously being able to look in front of you and accurately discern the spatial relationships of the objects you see.

So my suggestion would be:

- Arts education beginning with basic drawing courses and branching out into other media. Studying art history to see how artists expressed themselves through styles of iconography, realism, expressionism, etc.

But seriously, there are schools that do roughly what we are both talking about, and the key idea at all of them is to avoid this idea of a messianic administrator to lead them. At really good schools, administrators are just teachers of teachers (like Plato) and the teachers have the full power to do what they need.

Re: How to get Paul Graham to take you to lunch and review your start-up idea

#33
post #2

1 of the top ten nursery schools in the US Ok, seriously, this is getting ridiculous. Who the hell goes across the country compiling a list of the top ten nursery schools ? I'm not convinced that such ratings are useful for universities, never mind high schools or lower tiers of education. The concept of a top-ten list of preschools just blows my mind. (I still think it's great that PG is contributing to this in such…

A year at a "top" nursery school in New York City, can cost more than my entire university education (McGill University). Pretty scary thought right?

Re: How to get Paul Graham to take you to lunch and review your start-up idea

#34
post #30
post #2

1 of the top ten nursery schools in the US Ok, seriously, this is getting ridiculous. Who the hell goes across the country compiling a list of the top ten nursery schools ? I'm not convinced that such ratings are useful for universities, never mind high schools or lower tiers of education. The concept of a top-ten list of preschools just blows my mind. (I still think it's great that PG is contributing to this in such…

It's probably not the ideal thread, but this pushed me over the edge on education. The current education system is a dire sad long term problem that is writing off a large portion of society. I believe something more sensitive and human can grow out of it. Ken Robinson talks super lucidly about the destruction of creativity in children and the wider problems in schooling. That's great and the problem is now quite wel…

I watched a ted talk recently and while I don't recall it containing any data about the long term effects I was very impressed by the method/process used.

http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_meyer_math_curriculum_makeover....

Hopefully that will help to get some wheels spinning?

Re: How to get Paul Graham to take you to lunch and review your start-up idea

#35
post #6
post #2

1 of the top ten nursery schools in the US Ok, seriously, this is getting ridiculous. Who the hell goes across the country compiling a list of the top ten nursery schools ? I'm not convinced that such ratings are useful for universities, never mind high schools or lower tiers of education. The concept of a top-ten list of preschools just blows my mind. (I still think it's great that PG is contributing to this in such…

Tangent: I don't know anything about early childhood education, but now I'm interested. (Also, I'm not implying anything of your post; I agree that the rankings can get silly.) Is there any data to suggest that preschool is, in fact, less important than university? It's easy to scoff at the notion that pre-K and K are significant, but I'd guess that some high quality nurturing at this age might be the requisite exper…

Actually I think most research shows that the number one influence in the formative years is the state of the household, and by that I mean the family dynamics and the quality of the home and neighbourhood that the child spends his/her time.

All else is secondary.

Re: How to get Paul Graham to take you to lunch and review your start-up idea

#36
post #33
post #2

1 of the top ten nursery schools in the US Ok, seriously, this is getting ridiculous. Who the hell goes across the country compiling a list of the top ten nursery schools ? I'm not convinced that such ratings are useful for universities, never mind high schools or lower tiers of education. The concept of a top-ten list of preschools just blows my mind. (I still think it's great that PG is contributing to this in such…

A year at a "top" nursery school in New York City, can cost more than my entire university education (McGill University). Pretty scary thought right?

Not really. PT Barnum and all.

Re: How to get Paul Graham to take you to lunch and review your start-up idea

#38
post #8

Surely the type of people most likely to benefit from PG's advice are some of the least likely to have the disposable income to be able to spend (up to) $500 for his time? That's 1/40th of the $20k most startups get from YC. [I don't mean to detract from the good cause being raised for here - but I think society should expect people to give back to charity/good causes/etc proportionally to their wealth - surely most…

What if people aren't interested in the funding, but instead are interested in all the other intangible benefits that comes with being funded by PG&Co?

Re: How to get Paul Graham to take you to lunch and review your start-up idea

#39
post #6
post #2

1 of the top ten nursery schools in the US Ok, seriously, this is getting ridiculous. Who the hell goes across the country compiling a list of the top ten nursery schools ? I'm not convinced that such ratings are useful for universities, never mind high schools or lower tiers of education. The concept of a top-ten list of preschools just blows my mind. (I still think it's great that PG is contributing to this in such…

Tangent: I don't know anything about early childhood education, but now I'm interested. (Also, I'm not implying anything of your post; I agree that the rankings can get silly.) Is there any data to suggest that preschool is, in fact, less important than university? It's easy to scoff at the notion that pre-K and K are significant, but I'd guess that some high quality nurturing at this age might be the requisite exper…

The only paper I've read on this (and I unfortunately can't find it) suggested that students who go to pre-school, as opposed to those who go straight to kindergarten, have a higher rate of behavioral problems. Of course, that's for ALL pre-schools.

The only other information I have is that a lot of these nurseries use tests (like "put the block in the right hole") as part of their admittance exams, and high performance those tests show absolutely no correlation with later success. (Obviously kids who do very poorly might have other issues) That's from NutureShock.

And finally, in New York City these "top" nursery schools are considered feeder schools to the "top" elementary schools, and so on, so regardless of whether the kids in them have been better educated, they might gain an admission advantage to private high schools and consequently university. See the movie "Nursery University." (That's not actually a recommendation, it was completely painful.)

Re: How to get Paul Graham to take you to lunch and review your start-up idea

#40
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tangent: I don't know anything about early childhood education, but now I'm interested. (Also, I'm not implying anything of your post; I agree that the rankings can get silly.) Is there any data to suggest that preschool is, in fact, less important than university? It's easy to scoff at the notion that pre-K and K are significant, but I'd guess that some high quality nurturing at this age might be the requisite exper…

okeyyyyy.... if you want to be reasonable try compiling a list of successful people who went to a top ten/100/1000 pre-school. If the number is significant then we will agree if not then we will not. (Btw, I don't think such a list would exist as it really doesn't matter.)

That doesn't control for wealth.
Post reply on HN