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I don't mean to be impolite, but do you honestly not know that "Founders" is one of (if not THE ) seminal work on the culture of startups and their founders? I guarantee you cannot name three books that have done a better job capturing this topic, because they don't exist. Claiming that Livingston's relationship with YCombinator/Graham is the reason why the book is so wonderful, is like claiming David Pogues relation…
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Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't mean to be impolite, but do you honestly not know that "Founders" is one of (if not THE ) seminal work on the culture of startups and their founders? I guarantee you cannot name three books that have done a better job capturing this topic, because they don't exist. Claiming that Livingston's relationship with YCombinator/Graham is the reason why the book is so wonderful, is like claiming David Pogues relation…
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Compare 'Founders', to something like Walter Isaacson "Jobs" - both of them had lots of interviews, with transcribing, and edits - but I got a lot more out of 'Founders' (as did everyone I know) than Issacon's book. Issacson supposedly had 100% access with his relationship to Steve Jobs, but I don't know if Issacson didn't know what questions to ask, how to ask them, how to make his subject comfortable, what the important parts were to capture, or (my opinion) - just didn't really care about his subject that much. It was a huge disappointment for me.
Founders is a delight, and I attribute that pretty much 60% to the author, 40% to the interview subjects, and 0% to Paul Graham.
If Livingston had been assigned to write Jobs's Biography it would have blown our minds. And, of course, you would have said it was good because she was related to Paul Graham.
I know this is a minor issue. But when I publish something I want people to inform me of problems. Please note that I don't mean to be disrespectful and just want to help. So here goes: 3rd sentence: "There's a talk I've always want to give at the beginning of each batch...". I think this should be either "I've always wanted to..." or "I always want to..." right?
I saw this talk at Startup School. Honestly, as someone working in industry who tried doing a startup during school, there's a huge thing missing. CMD+F for "luck" = 0 results. Luck is a huge factor and sometimes you just need to move on to either something new, or working for a company to fill in the gaps, and trying again soon.
Talking about "luck" in a presentation like this is like talking about the life benefits of physical attractiveness. Precious little of it is in your control, so what's the point? Address what you can control, and hope for the best.
By increasing determination, you decrease the effect luck has on anything you do.
-- This is a great point. Even outside of startups.
I saw this talk at Startup School. Honestly, as someone working in industry who tried doing a startup during school, there's a huge thing missing. CMD+F for "luck" = 0 results. Luck is a huge factor and sometimes you just need to move on to either something new, or working for a company to fill in the gaps, and trying again soon.
Talking about "luck" in a presentation like this is like talking about the life benefits of physical attractiveness. Precious little of it is in your control, so what's the point? Address what you can control, and hope for the best.