121–125 of 125 posts
I enjoyed the article, as I enjoy most of Paul's articles. But, I'm coming to the tech world after having worked in the health care industry for 15 years. And, I studied art for 6-7 years, thinking that I could make a career out of it. So, I guess that I have a different perspective on the geek/hacker culture. And, something about hacker culture that never really set well with me was this--the nastiness. Paul referen…
I enjoyed the article, as I enjoy most of Paul's articles. But, I'm coming to the tech world after having worked in the health care industry for 15 years. And, I studied art for 6-7 years, thinking that I could make a career out of it. So, I guess that I have a different perspective on the geek/hacker culture. And, something about hacker culture that never really set well with me was this--the nastiness. Paul referen…
What it boils down to is reputation. Trolls seek only to reduce the reputation of his victim.
I've received a standard reaction to new ideas all my life. In the early seventies I went looking for a sound system with dual cassettes ... "why would anybody want that?". A few years later I wanted to use VHS cassettes as the basis of a multi-track audio recorder ... "why would anybody want that?" In the early nineties I started writing radio automation software that ran on a standard PC ... "why would anybody want that?"
All these things (and many others) eventually had their season. And now when I hear that phrase, my ears prick up because I =know= I'm on to something.
::Leigh
Small teams of hackers definitely present the fewest problems with this kind of approach, but if people in large, established organizations in fields from mechanical engineering to life science (with the possible exception of virology...which can take longer than a Y Combinator season just to incubate the test vector) don't start applying this approach, they will be overtaken by fast newcomers when instead they could have fostered and benefited from them.
http://thethreepercent.com/2009/05/04/paul-graham-simple-inf...
Graham, When will you stop ranting about Viaweb? I understand it was your single achievement, but it was essentially a fluke. There were hundreds of startups trying, one of them got lucky. And where's Viaweb now? It was a long time ago, and you should considering moving on with your life. Now, as a self-proclaimed nerd, you know of Gary Gygax? Well, if Viaweb was your D&D, YC is your Lejendary Adventures: a heartbrea…