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Bolt founder on Stripe/YC

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Re: Bolt founder on Stripe/YC

#101

Post by tomnipotent »

ergocoder wrote: post #82

I can see why VC avoided Bolt's founder. A lot of his claims seem weak. I wouldn't work with a person like this either. The tweet about the fraud detection seems straight up false. People pointed out that Stripe posted it before Bolt. Can someone confirm? Even if Stripe posted after Bolt, it would be pretty damn strange for Stripe to write a blog within an hour.

His entire rant is filled with Pizzagate-level reasoning and accusations. I doubt Stripe gave two craps about Bolt, and that its founders and YC probably spent more time talking about the weather.

I suppose it's more exciting to paint yourself as the underdog incumbents are actively working against, rather than a mediocre investment opportunity offering easily replicable services.

Re: Bolt founder on Stripe/YC

#102

Post by coldtea »

dang wrote: post #56
parhamn wrote: post #10

I think if you get over the drama here and implied "dirtiness", the main result is still a bit interesting. Even if you exclude the implied carteling and take everything he said with a grain of salt, the outcomes of this incentive structure are clear: once SV (i.e. the YC centered VC machine) gets into a space and has a main horse, SV can no longer incubate new innovation/competition in the space. It can also very li…

If that's the main result of the post, then it's a reductio, because YC funds competitors all the time and would never turn down an innovator for anti-competitive reasons—only because they thought it wouldn't be a good investment at that moment. Anything else would both be bad for YC's business and against its principles ( https://www.ycombinator.com/principles/ ). Of course it still happens that YC turns down good c…

>Anything else would both be bad for YC's business and against its principles

Well, "bad for business" is arguable, but it's not like "against its principles" has been any big detterent in Google, Apple, Microsoft, and generally coporate behavior...

Re: Bolt founder on Stripe/YC

#103

Post by DarylZero »

aerosmile wrote: post #51

Public fights can occasionally be net positive for one of the participants, but your arguments will be publicly scrutinized and they better be watertight. If the logic you presented is your best work, then I can easily see why you've experienced some trouble in getting people to support you. Let's start with the very first argument you presented: getting rejected by YC is a clear proof of collusion. Getting rejected…

I don't think you're using the word "contrarian" correctly.

Re: Bolt founder on Stripe/YC

#104

Post by thrwn_frthr_awy »

dang wrote: post #45
thrwn_frthr_awy wrote: post #25

Fwiw I think HN should be more forthcoming on how the ranking of yc co’s posts are ranked vs other posts. Are the ranked differently? Do the upvotes of yc members affect ranking more than other user’s upvotes?

They aren't ranked differently and YC alumni votes don't affect ranking any more than other upvotes. Most importantly, the first principle of HN moderation is that we moderate less, not more, when a YC startup (or YC itself) is involved in a story. That does not mean we don't moderate at all—but we moderate significantly less. I've written about this a ton over the years: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&…

I appreciate the response and the information!

Re: Bolt founder on Stripe/YC

#105

Post by tomcat27 »

dvt wrote: post #21
tomcat27 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Pretty sure this is how business is done. FYI - It's illegal to do what Bolt founder tweeted. Companies are allowed to create and be at a monopoly but not kick others trying to break it. Not sure how this ever gets proven..

> Companies are allowed to create and be at a monopoly but not kick others trying to break it. Claiming that Stripe is a monopoly is pure fiction. Breslow himself admits there are competitors. We're also conveniently forgetting that Bolt just raised $355M at an $11B valuation, who am I supposed to feel sorry for again?

> Claiming that Stripe is a monopoly is pure fiction.

I didn’t say they are.

Re: Bolt founder on Stripe/YC

#106

Post by [deleted] »

nus07 wrote: post #72
parhamn wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this comment surprising. I didn't say anything too controversial. Investors regularly refuse (and it's often the morally correct thing to do) investments in competitors. It's also often in their financial incentive too. To assume any investment organization in broad does differently because of their stated principles is absurd. Most investors would comfortably say this. > YC funds competitors all the time and…

With all due respect there have been 2-3 HN posts in the last few months about YC and HN being biased towards Stripe. Surely it cannot be so much smoke without a fire.

[deleted]

Re: Bolt founder on Stripe/YC

#107

Post by amitmina »

Hi Ryan - welcome to capitalism!

he is just picking a fight to get to the next wave of twitter followers. Top players will always have strong network effects and will defend their territory. We have been rejected twice by YC which means nothing. You can beat a strong network by innovating in distribution and product. But that is very hard to do so the simpler thing is pick the biggest guy on the street and start a fight to get attention.

Re: Bolt founder on Stripe/YC

#108

Post by gondo »

dang wrote: post #96
vmception wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we check internet archive? The database entries could be modified easily Not to entertain the conspiracy, I’ve just done it before so it comes to mind

I'm on my phone so can't dig as easily, but you can tell from the item IDs that the Stripe post preceded the Bolt one, and we never change those. Edit: internet archive links are now at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30070287 .

So you change the dates sometimes? :)

Re: Bolt founder on Stripe/YC

#109

Post by floatingatoll »

jhchen wrote: post #54

At first https://twitter.com/theryanking/status/1485784882173255680 seemed pretty damning but if you hover over the dates of the HN posts, the title attribute shows the timestamp, and it would appear Stripe's came in a couple hours before Bolt's. Add in Lyft and the "facts" around this story really seem to fall apart.

Post IDs also support that observation, per elsethread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30068454

Re: Bolt founder on Stripe/YC

#110

Post by sailingparrot »

vmception wrote: post #91
sailingparrot wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can someone confirm? Hover over the dates in the links. Stripe's post [1]: 17:41 UTC Bolt's [2]: 20:08 UTC Considering this is the only thing he claimed to have "proof" on, and it turns out not only to be false but to be the actual opposite, this is really damning for the rest of his claims. If that was such a traumatizing event, how can one not think of checking the timestamp once in 4 years to at least know if yo…

Can we check internet archive? The database entries could be modified easily Not to entertain the conspiracy, I’ve just done it before so it comes to mind

Can't see the timestamp on wayback archive.

But over on Twitter the same is true, with Stripe's annoucement coming a few hours before Bolt's:

https://twitter.com/stripe/status/986651162760724480

https://twitter.com/bolt/status/986700626364055552

And anyway Stripe's release was announcing the release of the product on that day, it wasn't just a random marketing filler. There is a just no way a company the size of Stripe is going to put something as sensitive as a new fraud detection system in production, on a 1h notice just to steal some views from a competitor's blog post if it's not 100% ready.

I don't trust for 1 second that the CEO of a company in the same space can believe that either.

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