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Interviewing with YC? Don't overstep the limits like us (but be close)

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Re: Interviewing with YC? Don't overstep the limits like us (but be close)

#11

Post by mrkurt »

yid wrote: post #5
notJim wrote: post #4

Is anyone else somewhat annoyed by the wink-and-a-node style this post is written in? It's like, "Hey look how scrappy we are, willing to push the limits like this, but oh, that's not appropriate for you , you had better play it safe."

It's interesting that the tone of the blog post suggests a desperation about getting into YC, rather than the old adage of wanting to build something that people actually want to use. It's also interesting that HN is full of people who talk about a higher education bubble, but a YC bubble mysteriously seems to be off-topic here. (Note that I love and use a lot of YC companies)

If they're anything like me, it's not "desperation" to get into YC, necessarily, as much as the ridiculous hatred of failure. They'd probably go equally nuts for anywhere they applied, be it Harvard or Juliar or for unemployment checks.

Re: Interviewing with YC? Don't overstep the limits like us (but be close)

#12

Post by shii »

yid wrote: post #5
notJim wrote: post #4

Is anyone else somewhat annoyed by the wink-and-a-node style this post is written in? It's like, "Hey look how scrappy we are, willing to push the limits like this, but oh, that's not appropriate for you , you had better play it safe."

It's interesting that the tone of the blog post suggests a desperation about getting into YC, rather than the old adage of wanting to build something that people actually want to use. It's also interesting that HN is full of people who talk about a higher education bubble, but a YC bubble mysteriously seems to be off-topic here. (Note that I love and use a lot of YC companies)

This reminds me of a post a long while ago from someone who basically equated getting into YC as the ultimate test for whether their company would be viable. They also hinted that the existential questions of their own self-worth were put into jeopardy when they were rejected.

Re: Interviewing with YC? Don't overstep the limits like us (but be close)

#13

Post by Mz »

From pg's own remarks on the topic http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html:

They delight in breaking rules, but not rules that matter.

I get the feeling these folks can't tell the difference between the two. And I am thinking "naughty" is not necessarily the best word for this quality and is bound to be misinterpreted by some folks.

Re: Interviewing with YC? Don't overstep the limits like us (but be close)

#14

Post by allending »

notJim wrote: post #4

Is anyone else somewhat annoyed by the wink-and-a-node style this post is written in? It's like, "Hey look how scrappy we are, willing to push the limits like this, but oh, that's not appropriate for you , you had better play it safe."

Honestly, I'm pretty disgusted.

Re: Interviewing with YC? Don't overstep the limits like us (but be close)

#15

Post by citizenkeys »

onan_barbarian wrote: post #6

Given the inherent dodginess of so many 'social startups' already ("get piles of users now, figure out how to make a big pile of money from later"), this whole 'naughtiness' stuff bothers me. It's a short hop from naughty to 'actively unethical'. Here's the question: given that you've already demonstrated that you don't really have a lot of regard for the privacy of fellow YC interviewees (however 'intentionally' you…

Although PG uses the word "naughty", I think "radical" is perhaps a more appropriate word. "Naughty" is not necessarily disruptive. "Radical", however, is almost always disruptive. "Radical" also strictly represents the root of something.

Printing cardboard cereal boxes to sell at a convention sounds more "radical" than "naughty". Loading up big piles of airbeds for people to sleep on at another convention sounds similarly "radical". If you look at a list of YC funded companies, you can almost always see a hint of "radicalness" in each of their ideas.

Re: Interviewing with YC? Don't overstep the limits like us (but be close)

#16

Post by mattmanser »

onan_barbarian wrote: post #6

Given the inherent dodginess of so many 'social startups' already ("get piles of users now, figure out how to make a big pile of money from later"), this whole 'naughtiness' stuff bothers me. It's a short hop from naughty to 'actively unethical'. Here's the question: given that you've already demonstrated that you don't really have a lot of regard for the privacy of fellow YC interviewees (however 'intentionally' you…

To be brutally honest, if you're not a bit weird[1] you're probably not cut out to make it in the social space.

We're talking about people who would have created a hot or not site 10 years ago without a thought about the pain it could cause people who always ended up 'not'.

These aren't normally adjusted people. They have a lot of good points, and some very bad ones.

If you want to look at it in a good way they're not bounded by social norms. In certain scenarios, they're not very nice people.

I'm not judging and to be utterly frank I sometimes wish I was one of them, they're not like 95% of the rest of us and that gives them some advantages. Like this stunt.

Edit:[1] I'm having a very hard time finding the right word here. Sociopathic? It's a bit too harsh given what can be lumped in there, but it does describe it a bit. A couple of good friends of mine have the trait I'm trying to describe. I love them, but they make me cringe sometimes.

Re: Interviewing with YC? Don't overstep the limits like us (but be close)

#17

Post by tesseract »

Mz wrote: post #13

From pg's own remarks on the topic http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html : They delight in breaking rules, but not rules that matter. I get the feeling these folks can't tell the difference between the two. And I am thinking "naughty" is not necessarily the best word for this quality and is bound to be misinterpreted by some folks.

I think "naughty" is a great word for that quality. The undesirable quality would be maybe something more like "reckless".

Re: Interviewing with YC? Don't overstep the limits like us (but be close)

#18

Post by [deleted] »

pg wrote: post #2

"The problem is, while pg outwardly disapproved of our actions, we know he secretly loves founders that push the limits!" You know what, though: the response function around the limit is not a smooth bell curve; it drops sharply below the x axis as you go past the peak.

[deleted]

Re: Interviewing with YC? Don't overstep the limits like us (but be close)

#19

Post by Mz »

tesseract wrote: post #17
Mz wrote: post #13

From pg's own remarks on the topic http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html : They delight in breaking rules, but not rules that matter. I get the feeling these folks can't tell the difference between the two. And I am thinking "naughty" is not necessarily the best word for this quality and is bound to be misinterpreted by some folks.

I think "naughty" is a great word for that quality. The undesirable quality would be maybe something more like "reckless".

I can't think of a better word, I just know that 80% of what most kids hear is "no" or some variation thereof, so most people have a very negative spin on a lot of language. This fact gets me in enormous trouble because it seems to incline many people towards an assumption of guilt. The things I say and do are usually rooted in very innocent motives, though I fail to conform and such. I think it's a complicated topic and the value of 'breaking the rules' comes in having a different understanding of "the rules", kind of like Einstein's Theory of Relativity technically makes Newton's theory of gravity obsolete -- yet we use the formula for gravity anyway for many things because if you stay on earth, there is no real advantage in doing the more complex calculations. Gravity is close enough. (Or so I gather. I'm not much of a physics person.)

I'm sure this one trait and trying to explain exactly what pg and YC are looking for in that regard could be a paper by itself, but no doubt all that complexity really didn't have a place in the piece he wrote at the time. Still, "naughty" strikes me as kind of a blunt instrument for explaining it. I have two "naughty" kids -- two ASD kids who just are baffled by why most folks do what they do and I spent their lives explaining it to them in terms that made sense. And I couldn't be imprecise in explaining it or it simply wasn't useful information to them. I think "naughty" is imprecise in this instance. It's a perfectly good word for those folks who get what pg means but for those who don't, it's a time-bomb waiting to go off. This may be just the first such explosion given how recent events have ramped up the number of applicants.

But that's just my opinion.

Peace.

Re: Interviewing with YC? Don't overstep the limits like us (but be close)

#20

Post by onan_barbarian »

mattmanser wrote: post #16
onan_barbarian wrote: post #6

Given the inherent dodginess of so many 'social startups' already ("get piles of users now, figure out how to make a big pile of money from later"), this whole 'naughtiness' stuff bothers me. It's a short hop from naughty to 'actively unethical'. Here's the question: given that you've already demonstrated that you don't really have a lot of regard for the privacy of fellow YC interviewees (however 'intentionally' you…

To be brutally honest, if you're not a bit weird[1] you're probably not cut out to make it in the social space. We're talking about people who would have created a hot or not site 10 years ago without a thought about the pain it could cause people who always ended up 'not'. These aren't normally adjusted people. They have a lot of good points, and some very bad ones. If you want to look at it in a good way they're no…

I don't mind sociopaths; they are what they are. What I mind is the sugar-coating of sociopathic behavior that's actually flat-out unethical as 'naughtiness' so these people can be treated as innovative rule-benders rather than creeps.

Doing many of these 'sociopathic' things is a lot like going to a small country town where people leave their doors unlocked and burgling the houses there; you're violating a lot of unwritten and only mildly enforced rules. What bothers me is the idea that you will be specifically rewarded for this kind of behavior if you can spin it as a 'Country Town Social Hack'.

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