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YC is a cult

danielharan.com

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Re: YC is a cult

#51

Post by menloparkbum »

pc wrote: post #12

- People are put in physically or emotionally distressing situations; - Their problems are reduced to one simple explanation, which is repeatedly emphasized; - They receive unconditional love, acceptance, and attention from a charismatic; [sic] - They get a new identity based on the group; - They are subject to entrapment (isolation from friends, relatives, and the mainstream culture) and their access to information…

I have a family member who was one of the top 10 important people on the Human Genome Project during its heyday and am curious as to what part of that project you think fits those criteria.

Re: YC is a cult

#52

Post by parker »

mattmaroon wrote: post #2

Hilarious. Blatant linkbait, but hilarious. Clearly he does not know many actual participants. Working 18 hour days for two months is not the norm.

Yeah, the 18 hour days reference was simply to imply that starting a startup is a full-time, front-of-mind undertaking.

I think it's safe to say that this guy took it a bit out of context.

Re: YC is a cult

#54

Post by hassing »

pc wrote: post #12

- People are put in physically or emotionally distressing situations; - Their problems are reduced to one simple explanation, which is repeatedly emphasized; - They receive unconditional love, acceptance, and attention from a charismatic; [sic] - They get a new identity based on the group; - They are subject to entrapment (isolation from friends, relatives, and the mainstream culture) and their access to information…

These criteria fit almost anything that requires dedication.

Anything from starting a family to funding a company to joining a professional sports team.

(except maybe "They are subject to entrapment (isolation from friends, relatives, and the mainstream culture) and their access to information is severely controlled." but I don't see how startups are isolated and have their access to information controlled.)

Re: YC is a cult

#56

Post by pageman »

Olympians put in 18 hours a day - so they're cults too?

http://www.magazine.utoronto.ca/08summer/olympics.asp

"...Talk of "magic" swimsuits obscures the incredibly hard work swimmers such as Russell, a second-year pharmacology major, actually put in. Before I went to university it would be 20 hours a week, weights and swimming. When I went to Indiana [his first school] my training stepped up to 30 hours of weights, swimming and dry land, though that is really excessive for me. Now it’s about 18 hours..."

Re: YC is a cult

#57

Post by mtts »

eugenejen wrote: post #23

So what? I sometime doubt why I've been living my life most of time by ignoring mainstream culture, being isolated from my relatives, with a few really good friends far below Dunbar's number that will help each other without questions, working 60 to 80 hours on non leisure stuffs, and living in the opposite side of the earth to my birth place since I was 15. I even joined a quasi-cult organization once to see how doe…

It's responses like these that at the very least do very little to disprove the author's point.

Of course YC is not a cult and PG is not a cult leader, but some people here do seem to treat them as such. Some of the questions asked here (like the "Is 40 years too old to start a startup" one alluded to in the original article) and some of the material posted here (like the ramblings of the poor college kid who thought being glued to a computer for 80 hours a week was a fulfilling existence) indicate that PG's message "running a startup is one of the most rewarding things you can do in your life" gets distorted in some people's minds to "running a startup is the only thing in your life that's worthwhile to do".

The irony, of course, is that PG himself, in his writings, demonstrates an interest in a lot of other things besides web start ups. It's not only PG who seems to have an unusually broad world view, however. The same holds true for a large number of the people who post here.

Unfortunately, a small number of people such as yourself seem to overlook that and reduce the message (if there is such a thing, which I doubt) to something ridiculous. The author definitely has a point there.

Re: YC is a cult

#58

Post by DanielBMarkham »

I love contrarian articles.

Not only is it fun reading a scathing criticism, (and I think he went too far in some ways and not far enough in others) the really funny part is watching the target audience digest (or rather, regurgitate) it.

There is a strange similarity between YC and a cult. You guys quote PG all the time like he's the next Buddha or something. YC is looked at as the only way towards making your startup happen. Sometimes around application time the posts get really out there as far as hero worship -- and Paul's said so himself.

Having said that, there's a LOT of dissension here as well. Lots of folks that have nothing to do with YC and just think Paul's a nice, regular schmuck like the rest of us. I know I'm here because of the crowd -- and by that I mean the larger startup crowd, not necessarily the YC bunch. This is the first board I've been on that has a long-running discussion about how single-arrow voting sucks, for one thing, or the role of contrarian comments in a healthy community.

So yeah, he's got a bit of a point. But it's mostly overblown, and I wouldn't worry about it. If you're 22 years old and don't have somebody to look up to? Then I'd start worrying.

Re: YC is a cult

#59

Post by rbanffy »

swombat wrote: post #45
fallentimes wrote: post #32

This guy is presumptuous, ill informed and appears to have a thing for blanket statements. Hi, I'm currently in YC for the summer. Although I certainly don't speak for everyone in YC, I think I'm somewhat more qualified than the author who has never been in the program and who apparently receives his information from blog posts and hearsay. Most of his assertions apply to startups or any intense forms of collaboratio…

You know, one of the common characteristics of people who have been brainwashed (by a cult or otherwise) is that they absolutely do not believe that they have been brainwashed, and will fight that suggestion with all their strength, coming up with never-ending explanations for why they haven't been brainwashed at all!

OTOH, if you were brainwashed into believing another group was brainwashed, you will fight any suggestion the other group was not brainwashed and come up with an unending stream of reasons to believe they were.

Re: YC is a cult

#60

Post by rbanffy »

jrockway wrote: post #18

I am opinionated, concerned about environmental issues ... surrounding software and data access. We've got to stop dumping the used ones and zeros into the oceans! It's melting the ice caps!

"We've got to stop dumping the used ones and zeros into the oceans! It's melting the ice caps!"

Really, it's the ones. It's a well known fact ones have more energy than zeros. We should right now start dumping more zeros to cool down the oceans. If we do it quickly enough, we may stop global warming. We should also switch to other binary architectures as x86 code has a one-to-zero ratio that exceeds 1.

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