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Bolt founder on Stripe/YC

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Re: Bolt founder on Stripe/YC

#241

Post by danielmarkbruce »

patrec wrote: post #193
danielvinson wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not related to your actual point, but I researched corporate boards a few years back and found many instances of people on boards of two direct competitors. In fact, I found a couple of companies with CEOs who also served on the board of a competitor. This was going through maybe a few hundred large corporations, so I’d have to assume it’s incredibly common.

Can you give some examples (because that sounds interesting, not because I don't believe you)?

Yeah I'd be interested to see the examples too.

Eric Schmidt sat on Apple's board while running Google, but left in 2009 when they became competitors in the smart phone business. Before that, Apple & Google weren't competitors.

Re: Bolt founder on Stripe/YC

#242

Post by dang »

throwaway984393 wrote: post #236
dang wrote: post #184

His claims about HN are false. Short version: his post was 2+ hours later than Stripe's, not an hour earlier, and fell in rank because users flagged it, not because moderators did anything (which I suppose is what his mafia/mob language was intended to imply). The longer version is going to involve a tedious barrage of links, but I want this to be something that people can check for themselves if they care to. Quotin…

> and it fell in rank because users flagged it, not because moderators did anything Moderators get involvedin flagged articles on their own initiative all the time. Inaction is a form of action. > He's clearly insinuating that we use insider powers to favor stripe.com submissions with special treatment on HN. That's precisely what we don't do. You've admitted on multiple occasions that you intentionally choose to do…

This feels like a spaghetti-at-the-wall sort of objection blob but let's see if I can disentangle some spaghetti.

When I said moderators didn't do anything, I meant we didn't penalize the post or override any of the software affecting its rank (or anything else). I was not talking about Sartrean inaction, which ontologically is also action.

Sometimes we do specific things, depending on...things? Who doesn't "admit" that? Everything the mods do is special treatment? Not following you. Instinct? Yes. Whim? No.

Stripe wasn't coached in how to achieve darling status. At least I never saw that. They were just really good at making products, writing, and interacting with the community. Is the community naturally biased towards YC? In some ways yes and in other ways biased against - it's complicated. jgc (assuming you mean jgrahamc of Cloudflare) is not part of a YC startup, so I assume that's actually a counterexample.

Unconscious bias? I strongly agree. But if you're making some specific point about it, I'd like to hear something specific—otherwise it seems kind of hand-wavey.

Re: Bolt founder on Stripe/YC

#243

Post by dreamcompiler »

jgrahamc wrote: post #195
dang wrote: post #184

His claims about HN are false. Short version: his post was 2+ hours later than Stripe's, not an hour earlier, and fell in rank because users flagged it, not because moderators did anything (which I suppose is what his mafia/mob language was intended to imply). The longer version is going to involve a tedious barrage of links, but I want this to be something that people can check for themselves if they care to. Quotin…

Another startup that managed it, around the same time, was Cloudflare (not a YC startup). We spent a huge amount of time on the Cloudflare blog making sure that it was precisely not a marketing outlet but technical. I think that's why it took off here. And we were/are very honest about when we had/have problems* and use simple, clear language. I personally spent/spend hours per day editing/writing for the blog. * htt…

That you can write well outside of blogs is evident from your posts. You obviously put in a lot of time sweating how to write before you joined Cloudflare, and that makes your blog posts a joy to read.

The Geek Atlas is one of my favorite books by anybody, BTW.

Re: Bolt founder on Stripe/YC

#244

Post by danielmarkbruce »

tzury wrote: post #87

Never herd of Bolt till this post. That made me think, how come I've never heard of bolt up until this moment? Is their marketing so bad? They managed however to get to a poont of a "successful company with 600 employees, billions in GMV, and growing rapidly", right? I visit HN at least 10 times per week. So I decided to check how many posts have they posted on this site since founding the company. I currently see 4…

Their marketing isn't great. It's quite unclear exactly what they do. "One click checkout" means they do what exactly? I know what it means for me as an e-commerce company, but what does bolt do?

Re: Bolt founder on Stripe/YC

#245

Post by jgrahamc »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #243
jgrahamc wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another startup that managed it, around the same time, was Cloudflare (not a YC startup). We spent a huge amount of time on the Cloudflare blog making sure that it was precisely not a marketing outlet but technical. I think that's why it took off here. And we were/are very honest about when we had/have problems* and use simple, clear language. I personally spent/spend hours per day editing/writing for the blog. * htt…

That you can write well outside of blogs is evident from your posts. You obviously put in a lot of time sweating how to write before you joined Cloudflare, and that makes your blog posts a joy to read. The Geek Atlas is one of my favorite books by anybody, BTW.

That's very kind of you. I am glad you enjoyed my book.

Re: Bolt founder on Stripe/YC

#246

Post by dang »

skinkestek wrote: post #238
skinkestek wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd almost suggest reducing the power of flagging on posts even more, but I won't for two reasons: - This is your job and from everything I see you already put a whole lot of thought into it and I don't think I can outsmart you here. - IMO things have become better the last decade so it seems to me some adjustments (either technical or in the user base) have already happened. [1] That said, maybe we as a community co…

Ok, one perfect (I think) example that this still isn't perfect: If I hadn't checked /active today I would have missed the story about Google classifying 1 and 0 as copyrighted. Is there a reason why flagging that story shouldn't count as abusing flags?

Do you mean https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30060405? It wasn't flagged. (More precisely, it was, but the flags were dropped by HN's anti-abuse system, and wouldn't have affected the story's rank in any case because the upvotes were massively dominant.) The post spent 13 hours on HN's front page. This seems like things working the way they should—am I missing something?

Re: Bolt founder on Stripe/YC

#247

Post by infamia »

dang wrote: post #158
dotcoma wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

dang, imho you’re trying too hard.

Sorry, but if someone makes statements about HN or YC that I know to be false, I believe it's my job to correct them—especially since we can't treat this kind of post in the way we normally moderate HN ( https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... ). What do you think I should do instead?

When you have a fixed mindset, have chosen a side in a debate, and actively participate in a story where you have a vested self-interest, you cease to become what this community loves about you -- the impartial gardener of HN. At this point, you've become a YC defender and have abandoned your post as someone who could serve as a balanced arbiter. Surely, there are other people at YC who could comment on such matters for stories like this. That would be far, far better for you and HN (and probably YC too).

Re: Bolt founder on Stripe/YC

#248

Post by dang »

Kye wrote: post #229
dang wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but if someone makes statements about HN or YC that I know to be false, I believe it's my job to correct them—especially since we can't treat this kind of post in the way we normally moderate HN ( https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... ). What do you think I should do instead?

I can see someone who isn't convinced you're a fair operator taking the volume and detail of response as defensiveness, and that can look suspicious in a context like this. They aren't right , but I can understand the perspective.

I get it too. But when things get to that stage, literally anything you do will be taken as proof of the same nefariousness, whether you sink or you float.

I think it makes more sense to focus on the much larger audience that's sincerely making up their mind, and give them good information with which to do it. Could I do that less defensively though? Absolutely. Not there yet.

Re: Bolt founder on Stripe/YC

#249

Post by dang »

infamia wrote: post #247
dang wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but if someone makes statements about HN or YC that I know to be false, I believe it's my job to correct them—especially since we can't treat this kind of post in the way we normally moderate HN ( https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... ). What do you think I should do instead?

When you have a fixed mindset, have chosen a side in a debate, and actively participate in a story where you have a vested self-interest, you cease to become what this community loves about you -- the impartial gardener of HN. At this point, you've become a YC defender and have abandoned your post as someone who could serve as a balanced arbiter. Surely, there are other people at YC who could comment on such matters…

I appreciate your comment! but I really don't think that's the right conclusion. I've been doing this for years—people know what to expect from me. I'd rather be up front about the fact that I care about HN and YC, and don't like to let false accusations go unanswered. To some extent it's a temperament thing. Past experiences (long before HN) have conditioned me to be a bit passionate in this department, and with a community like this one, which is extremely sensitive to the truth, I think it would be a bigger mistake to pretend otherwise. Probably a hugely bigger mistake, because what works best for me on HN is relating to people, and I can only do that by being myself.

I've never claimed to be impartial and never would (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...). What I do claim is that (a) we try hard to be fair and to follow HN's principles, especially the one about intellectual curiosity (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...) ; (b) we always answer questions truthfully, partly because it feels better that way and partly because it would be dumb not to (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...) ; and (c) we moderate HN less, not more, when YC or a YC startup is involved in a story (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...). That, by the way, is the only reason why this imaginary riler-upper spent 11 hours on HN's front page today. We'd never allow that normally—it goes against everything the site is supposed to be for. But I dutifully gritted my teeth and bore it, because that's the principle, and because I'm not about to trade a global optimum for a local one (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...), even though it sucks to periodically get slimed like this.

Re: Bolt founder on Stripe/YC

#250

Post by skinkestek »

dang wrote: post #246
skinkestek wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, one perfect (I think) example that this still isn't perfect: If I hadn't checked /active today I would have missed the story about Google classifying 1 and 0 as copyrighted. Is there a reason why flagging that story shouldn't count as abusing flags?

Do you mean https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30060405 ? It wasn't flagged. (More precisely, it was, but the flags were dropped by HN's anti-abuse system, and wouldn't have affected the story's rank in any case because the upvotes were massively dominant.) The post spent 13 hours on HN's front page. This seems like things working the way they should—am I missing something?

OK, you are probably right again.

It is just that I spend quite a lot of time on HN and I missed it until I checked /active.

So either I didn't notice it at first or I had a 13 hour break from HN ;-)

That said, doesn't some stories with a 5-600 hundred upvotes linger on the front page for days? Am I mistaken? (And if not - do you have time to explain why I can find a <700 points story here the next day but not this one?)

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