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Welcome Peter

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: Welcome Peter

#71

Post by jacques_chester »

waxman wrote: post #29

The idea that a startup's end game should be to "build a monopoly" is one of the most profound insights in Thiel's excellent book, Zero to One. This move just deepens YC's monopoly in its domain, as sama would say, "in the Peter Thiel sense."

> one of the most profound insights in Thiel's excellent book, Zero to One.

Which was an insight in Blue Ocean Strategy (Kim & Mauborgne, 2005).

And before that, if you squint, in Competitive Strategy (Porter, 1980) and Competitive Advantage (Porter, 1980).

And the B-school theorists basically got their ideas by peeking over the fence of the Economics dept at how monopolies are formed and abuse their power and saying "hey, let's teach that to our students".

Re: Welcome Peter

#73

Post by lancewiggs »

jacques_chester wrote: post #71
waxman wrote: post #29

The idea that a startup's end game should be to "build a monopoly" is one of the most profound insights in Thiel's excellent book, Zero to One. This move just deepens YC's monopoly in its domain, as sama would say, "in the Peter Thiel sense."

> one of the most profound insights in Thiel's excellent book, Zero to One. Which was an insight in Blue Ocean Strategy (Kim & Mauborgne, 2005). And before that, if you squint, in Competitive Strategy (Porter, 1980) and Competitive Advantage (Porter, 1980). And the B-school theorists basically got their ideas by peeking over the fence of the Economics dept at how monopolies are formed and abuse their power and saying…

And Drucker's Innovation and Entrepreneurship a bit latter that decade. I recommend all of them and also Porter's 5 forces update article in HBR.

Re: Welcome Peter

#74

Post by fsk »

ryanSrich wrote: post #63
api wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All those are valid. One you forgot: YC, like nearly all other accelerators, is implicitly age-ist. Note that I said implicitly. There is no explicit age discrimination that I am aware of, but the entire program is structured in a way that makes it horribly impractical for anyone who isn't a bachelor/bachelorette and childless. You must move to the Bay Area, put in family-unfriendly hours, and live on a quantity of m…

25-30 year olds smart enough to build their own business wouldn't waste their time with YC. Most of the information and knowledge YC provides is openly published for free online. Aside from that the partners are always open to emails and communication. So why waste your money?

Also, if you're a 25-30+ year old tech worker, and aren't financially incompetent, you probably have some savings and can use that as your seed funding instead of needing to join an accelerator.

Re: Welcome Peter

#75

Post by jacques_chester »

lancewiggs wrote: post #73
jacques_chester wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> one of the most profound insights in Thiel's excellent book, Zero to One. Which was an insight in Blue Ocean Strategy (Kim & Mauborgne, 2005). And before that, if you squint, in Competitive Strategy (Porter, 1980) and Competitive Advantage (Porter, 1980). And the B-school theorists basically got their ideas by peeking over the fence of the Economics dept at how monopolies are formed and abuse their power and saying…

And Drucker's Innovation and Entrepreneurship a bit latter that decade. I recommend all of them and also Porter's 5 forces update article in HBR.

And I won't be surprised if someone pops up with a Sun Tzu quote before long.

(I'll leave Ecclesiastes 1:9 as an exercise for the reader.)

Re: Welcome Peter

#76

Post by jsprogrammer »

jacques_chester wrote: post #71
waxman wrote: post #29

The idea that a startup's end game should be to "build a monopoly" is one of the most profound insights in Thiel's excellent book, Zero to One. This move just deepens YC's monopoly in its domain, as sama would say, "in the Peter Thiel sense."

> one of the most profound insights in Thiel's excellent book, Zero to One. Which was an insight in Blue Ocean Strategy (Kim & Mauborgne, 2005). And before that, if you squint, in Competitive Strategy (Porter, 1980) and Competitive Advantage (Porter, 1980). And the B-school theorists basically got their ideas by peeking over the fence of the Economics dept at how monopolies are formed and abuse their power and saying…

And before that, Morgan, Rockefeller, etc.

And before that, George(s), Charles, Henry, James, Elizabeth, Kahn, Alexander, etc, etc.

Re: Welcome Peter

#77

Post by hindsightbias »

zajd wrote: post #48
danmaz74 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Most importantly, I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.” "Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron."

Those sound pretty damning to me. Especially coming from a billionaire.

> Especially

I've only been around a few billionaires, but most of the multi-millionaires I've known pretty much toe the same schtick w/o the veneer of Ideology.

Re: Welcome Peter

#78

Post by mlchild »

pitchups wrote: post #23

Just finished reading Zero to One for a second-time, and it was interesting to see that Peter Thiel's contrarian approach to investing in startups ("What valuable company is nobody building") is very similar to PG's thesis that "all good ideas look like bad ideas to begin with (black swan investing) [0] It will be even more interesting to see if their combined insights and approach can increase their chances of ident…

I'd still love to hear Peter Thiel and PG duke it out/reconcile the "choose an idea that avoids competition at all costs" vs. "don't worry about competition at all" messages.

Re: Welcome Peter

#80

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

api wrote: post #50
chatmasta wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think one reason you don't see a lot of older folks applying to YC is not necessarily for this reason. The most talented older people, the ones who would be getting into YC anyway, presumably have been in the industry for 20 years. When you've been around that long, you tend to already have plenty of connections. You're already tapped into the silicon valley network. So why bother going the route of YC if you can a…

That's an interesting and I think valid point. Older people tend to find it easier to raise money just on their own, make connections on their own, etc. They also have more experience, so they need less mentoring. Maybe they just don't need accelerators as much, therefore there's no niche for one that caters to that crowd.

Also more skeptical and less willing to hand over equity and control without raw-numbers proof of a significant positive contribution.

The social capital you get from dinners and networking is all very well. But it's not quite enough to provide that proof in an objective business-case sense.

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