Most startup theory is ex-post, therefore bs • Hacker News Board

Re: Most startup theory is ex-post, therefore bs

#81

Post by CrazyStat » Tue, Aug 20, 2019, 7:33 PM UTC

neilv wrote: post #61

smallgovt wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not. He's directly refuting the claim made in the title of the blog post. That is: Most startup theory is ex-post, therefore bs. In the title, the author is seemingly making the claim that all ex-post startup advice is BS. The commenter is debunking that claim by providing sound ex-post advice.

> directly refuting the claim made in the title of the blog post. That is: Most [...] In the title, the author is seemingly making the claim that all [...]

Very clever, but missing the point. Those two qualifiers refer to different classes:

(1) Most startup theory is ex-post, therefore bs.

(2) All ex-post startup theory is bullshit.

Those claims may or may not be true, but there's no contradiction between the two. The title does indeed seem to implicitly claim (2), in the form of the following (implied) syllogism:

Most startup theory is ex-post.

All ex-post startup theory is bullshit.

Therefore, most startup theory is bullshit.

Or, more concisely: most startup theory is ex-post, therefore bs.

Re: Most startup theory is ex-post, therefore bs

#82

Post by vikramkr » Tue, Aug 20, 2019, 7:34 PM UTC

mcguire wrote: post #77

amoorthy wrote: post #34

I'm surprised this blog post made the first page of HN given its lack of sources or analysis. Maybe a good discussion can come on one example startup advice from YC: do things that don't scale. I think this is really sound in that they're saying "get product-market-fit with some segment of users." i.e. know that there's demand for your product/service even if it's pretty manual to deliver early on. Then see how to au…

" ...know that there's demand for your product/service even if it's pretty manual to deliver early on. Then see how to automate. " So, Theranos? (I swear, if I had a quarter for every company that had "good product-market fit", I'd have...a lot of quarters. Possibly all of them.) Advice isn't terribly useful if you can only evaluate it after you've taken it, or not. P.S. Think I can get VC funding for my corner fruit…

No, because they didn't deliver anything early on, manually or otherwise. "Dont do crimes and fraud" is another great bit of advice IMO.

Even healthcare isn't immune from market considerations. Might have been a good idea for regeneron to have done more market research before developing praulent for example.

Re: Most startup theory is ex-post, therefore bs

#83

Post by shafyy » Tue, Aug 20, 2019, 7:34 PM UTC

afarrell wrote: post #79

shafyy wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is they're not saying "ONLY do things that don't scale". It's more like, "from time to time, ALSO do things that don't scale". Which, as I said, I think is good advice, but also pretty common sense.

> common sense Is this a meaningful category of knowledge?

If it truly is common sense, then yes I would say. The question always is, is it really common sense.

Re: Most startup theory is ex-post, therefore bs

#84

Post by squirrelicus » Tue, Aug 20, 2019, 7:41 PM UTC

Emulating successful startups is folly. It's the myriad failures that you will never learn about that you should be concerned with.

I'll just leave this here. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

Re: Most startup theory is ex-post, therefore bs

#85

Post by ehnto » Tue, Aug 20, 2019, 7:45 PM UTC

bovermyer wrote: post #33

When I was in my twenties, I was part of the early "life coach blogger" culture. Now that I'm almost in my forties, I realize everything I wrote back then was bullshit. Earnest, but bullshit nonetheless. I'm much more cynical, but I'm also much more likely to just do what seems right and figure out the rest as I go. I don't read "best practices" or advice articles anymore. This is not to say that there is nothing to…

I started to see the same trend in technology hopping. New language's or frameworks are barely around long enough to develop long term maintainability best practices borne from experience, so everyone's blog posts are just well intentioned speculation.

You end up seeing enough contradicting information said absolutely that you realise no one is ever 100% right.

Re: Most startup theory is ex-post, therefore bs

#86

Post by ionforce » Tue, Aug 20, 2019, 7:47 PM UTC

kd5bjo wrote: post #70

bovermyer wrote: post #33

When I was in my twenties, I was part of the early "life coach blogger" culture. Now that I'm almost in my forties, I realize everything I wrote back then was bullshit. Earnest, but bullshit nonetheless. I'm much more cynical, but I'm also much more likely to just do what seems right and figure out the rest as I go. I don't read "best practices" or advice articles anymore. This is not to say that there is nothing to…

I’ve read a lot of time management/productivity books, and there seem to be only two things all of the authors agree on: write stuff down, and continuously tweak your system. The latter is usually mentioned offhand in the preface, as the author wants to deliver a fait accompli instead of just some tips and tricks.

Can you elaborate on "write stuff down"?

Re: Most startup theory is ex-post, therefore bs

#87

Post by gist » Tue, Aug 20, 2019, 7:47 PM UTC

dcolkitt wrote: post #12

> Do you think Musk copied that strategy from the business school he never went to. Elon Musk did his undergrad at Wharton. I guess the statement might be true if you mean "business school" to strictly mean a graduate MBA program. But Musk definitely took business classes that would have been nearly identical to those taken by MBAs.

Why cut the writer so much slack? Musk went to business school period. Undergraduate, graduate doesn't matter. Doesn't matter what classes he took either. That is not what is talked about in the statement.

Curious why it even matters what is written by the OP given such a glaring and easy to figure out wrong mistake.

Re: Most startup theory is ex-post, therefore bs

#88

Post by stephc_int13 » Tue, Aug 20, 2019, 7:48 PM UTC

I think the same about most management theory, most of the corporate bs can be categorized as a form of Cargo-Cult.

Look how well they did doing that, let's copy them without understanding the context or anything below the surface of the things.

Re: Most startup theory is ex-post, therefore bs

#89

Post by CalChris » Tue, Aug 20, 2019, 7:49 PM UTC

amoorthy wrote: post #34

I'm surprised this blog post made the first page of HN given its lack of sources or analysis. Maybe a good discussion can come on one example startup advice from YC: do things that don't scale. I think this is really sound in that they're saying "get product-market-fit with some segment of users." i.e. know that there's demand for your product/service even if it's pretty manual to deliver early on. Then see how to au…

That's because this is anti-advice. It's saying figure it out yourself. How does one source such advice? How does one analyze it? It is the same idea as The answer to “Will you mentor me?” is no.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20715136

Re: Most startup theory is ex-post, therefore bs

#90

Post by ryandrake » Tue, Aug 20, 2019, 7:49 PM UTC

So much crappy business advice suffers from Survivorship Bias [1]. “Companies A, B, and C did X and succeeded. Companies D, E, and F did not do X and failed. Therefore, X leads to success.” Ignoring how many companies also did X but failed too. The book “Good to Great” contains nothing but Survivorship Bias and is adored by Business Schools.

1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias (excuse the mobile link)