I cackled to myself 4.6x.
Honesty is the sniper of the mind.
Thanks 'pg.
Paul Graham on Building Companies for Fast Growth
121–130 of 175 posts
Re: Paul Graham on Building Companies for Fast Growth
#122I'm really disappointed that this was Paul's top of mind criterion for rejection, "One quality that's a really bad indication is a CEO with a strong foreign accent." That reminds me of an incident earlier in my career when a recruiter ranked candidates on their 'communication skills', which really was a proxy for whether they were an immigrant or not, in order to try to avoid discrimination laws. http://www.freshbook…
It's not our top criterion. It's just one that I'm willing to talk about publicly, because there's no way to fake it. We're not against funding people from outside the US, and we fund a lot of them. But 564 startups is enough to see patterns, and the empirical evidence about very strong accents is striking. And I am talking about failure to communicate here. I don't mean strong accents in the sense that it's clear th…
This reminds me of a fun thing that happened to my colleagues a few years ago (weeks prior to me joining them). They were working on a router pimped with some home automation features (Z-Wave/ZigBee interfacing & co.); the baseboard that the HW provider was offering had 2 Ethernet ports, but they wanted four. They informed them they don't have a four-port version, so they asked if a custom one can be made, extending the current design.
The answer (in a strong Chinese accent)? "Noooo we can't do extended custom design hitishu".
They were baffled. Sure, they understood the "can't do extended custom design part", but the last word was entirely foreign to them. They tried to dig deeper, but all they got was "if we extend cable network we have hitishu".
The talks continued, in order to explore some alternatives; while the business guys did their talking, one of my colleagues figured what this hitishu gizmo was by accident; a few days later, he accidentally touched one of the chips on the board and burnt his fingers. The problem was that the processor they were using was already fairly loaded and, due to the design of the case, couldn't be properly ventilated. They feared that pushing it even harder could get it to heat up even more, which would have lead to heat issues.
Re: Paul Graham on Building Companies for Fast Growth
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not our top criterion. It's just one that I'm willing to talk about publicly, because there's no way to fake it. We're not against funding people from outside the US, and we fund a lot of them. But 564 startups is enough to see patterns, and the empirical evidence about very strong accents is striking. And I am talking about failure to communicate here. I don't mean strong accents in the sense that it's clear th…
It's a good thing you not a football manager, imagine Lionel Messi, Ronaldo,Zinnedine Zidane or Ronaldhino coming to your team. These are some of the best footballers in the world, all speak different languages but can walk on a field in England and beat an offside trap, request a pin point pass through top rated defenders at a speed of 100mph. Most people just don't want to take the time to try and understand someon…
I'm guilty as anyone of being a xenophile, but the analogy doesn't hold for scale reasons:
The CEO of a startup is the leader and public face, so should be in command of the company's message. If this person cannot make themselves understood, their odds of success are zilch a priori.
If anything, a big football shop is a highly-adapted enterprise with tons of cash that can afford extravagance. They have already scaled and can afford specialized subject-matter experts with multitudes of baggage.
In an early startup, you need "go doers": those that are infinitely more capable on average to either get shit done or know what shit actually needs doing (and fast). Later on, the time will be right to bring on more specialized people as the early founders may start to get bored.
Re: Paul Graham on Building Companies for Fast Growth
#124So, one of the purposes of the application video is to judge a person's accent? Is that fair?
Re: Paul Graham on Building Companies for Fast Growth
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
Me too! I would have thought there could be so many things in the number 1 spot ... and then this :)
Err... if you read the article, he says "one quality", not "the number one". Also, it's worth considering that this is something that has jumped at them only after a number of batches of YC, not something that they started out with, so it is, in some way, based on actual data. They probably already filter out people based on any number of more important criteria.
If found it worth a mention for a worldwide released article ... I am sure its pretty high on his list
Re: Paul Graham on Building Companies for Fast Growth
#126Funny --- next time when YC rejects a company with foreign founders, you should ask them "Was it the idea or the accent?" :D Hilarious ...
Re: Paul Graham on Building Companies for Fast Growth
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not our top criterion. It's just one that I'm willing to talk about publicly, because there's no way to fake it. We're not against funding people from outside the US, and we fund a lot of them. But 564 startups is enough to see patterns, and the empirical evidence about very strong accents is striking. And I am talking about failure to communicate here. I don't mean strong accents in the sense that it's clear th…
"That correlates more with any other success factor that I've seen in the world's greatest entrepreneurs. If you look at Bezos, or Andreessen, David Filo, the founders of Google, they all seem to be white, male, nerds who've dropped out of Harvard or Stanford and they absolutely have no social life. So when I see that pattern coming in -- which was true of Google -- it was very easy to decide to invest." -- John Doer…
pg is not a politician who must appeal to all to be successful, so why do you wonder? he just thinks of the things that work. I run an outsourcing shop, and if i clearly knew that black gays are 2x productive for the same rate i'd quickly turn worst racist/sexist guy you seen.
Re: Paul Graham on Building Companies for Fast Growth
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not our top criterion. It's just one that I'm willing to talk about publicly, because there's no way to fake it. We're not against funding people from outside the US, and we fund a lot of them. But 564 startups is enough to see patterns, and the empirical evidence about very strong accents is striking. And I am talking about failure to communicate here. I don't mean strong accents in the sense that it's clear th…
It's a good thing you not a football manager, imagine Lionel Messi, Ronaldo,Zinnedine Zidane or Ronaldhino coming to your team. These are some of the best footballers in the world, all speak different languages but can walk on a field in England and beat an offside trap, request a pin point pass through top rated defenders at a speed of 100mph. Most people just don't want to take the time to try and understand someon…
Most people just don't want to take the time to try and understand someone because the expectation is that you are in America and you must speak english
It's demonstrably false that what you're talking about is a "'MURICA!!!" thing— English is the lingua franca of engineering and the technical world. Not only in America, but all over the world. This has been discussed over and over again here.
Re: Paul Graham on Building Companies for Fast Growth
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
I love the way she used a super wide shot to pull in so many graphic elements - beautifully done, Kate Courteau.
oh I see now that she didn't take the actual picture but Jason Madara did that -
Like food styling, architectural photography is a discipline unto itself.
Re: Paul Graham on Building Companies for Fast Growth
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
"That correlates more with any other success factor that I've seen in the world's greatest entrepreneurs. If you look at Bezos, or Andreessen, David Filo, the founders of Google, they all seem to be white, male, nerds who've dropped out of Harvard or Stanford and they absolutely have no social life. So when I see that pattern coming in -- which was true of Google -- it was very easy to decide to invest." -- John Doer…
pg is not a politician who must appeal to all to be successful, so why do you wonder? he just thinks of the things that work. I run an outsourcing shop, and if i clearly knew that black gays are 2x productive for the same rate i'd quickly turn worst racist/sexist guy you seen.
Only politicians should be concerned with racial equality? Wow.