11–20 of 31 posts
It really is that simple.
At last. A post about AngelGate I can leave unflagged. Lets draw a line under the soap opera gossip and move on.
It's been pretty clear to me from the beginning that there's a lot of misunderstanding going around, so the whole flap is funny at best. Some influential people got together for drinks and to talk about the industry they all work in, and decided to meet again; some of their conversation, naturally, turned to focus on some of the threats and challenges in their industry, of which YC might be one of; some of the conversation might have made a few attendees feel "uncomfortable"; Arrington got wind of it, showed up uninvited (and, really, I can't blame anyone there for not inviting him in the first place), and smelled a rat; Arrington likely also interpreted confidential statements from anonymous sources in as sensationalistic way as possible, because that's what happens when people talk about something without really talking about it; words like "collusion" were probably the children of phrases like "how can we handle these problems in our industry" and "what can we do to better develop our business"; and in the meantime, Ron Conway overreacted (but with his heart in the right place) and someone else wrote a long piece about how the overreaction made their heart sad.
I hoped I wasn't the only one that thought it was all pretty ridiculous. Thank you, Rich, for writing the first piece on it that hasn't been a waste of time to read.
I think the more pertinent conversation should be around what the hell do some of these angels offer to entrepreneurs, anyways? Money is a commodity these days. Plus, real hackers require very little, if any, to get off the ground in the EC2-era. The very top guys (like PG, Sacca, Ron Conway, Chris Dixon, etc.) are obviously in it for the right reasons AND offer a lot more than money. But the majority of angels, even some of the top ones, I fear take more than they give.
Argue all you want about valuations, deal structures, terms, business plans, power, and money, but no one earns anything unless we hackers write something . Thanks for the show, guys. Now back to work. [EDIT: Changed "until" to "unless" to sidestep the silly debate over the sequence that things happen. We hackers still have to make something. The process of doing that can sometimes become monotonous, so we often appr…
Actually, no one earns anything until the customer writes a check or pulls out their credit card.
Not to say I don't care about the core problem at hand (the possibility of collusion). But, I don't care about the noise surrounding it. Plus, I don't know enough about the law to say whether it was actually collusion or not (assuming most of the pieces needed were public).
But, I do know that I bought 10 hot dogs and 8 buns at the supermarket on Saturday. And that code I need to write won't write itself.
Argue all you want about valuations, deal structures, terms, business plans, power, and money, but no one earns anything unless we hackers write something . Thanks for the show, guys. Now back to work. [EDIT: Changed "until" to "unless" to sidestep the silly debate over the sequence that things happen. We hackers still have to make something. The process of doing that can sometimes become monotonous, so we often appr…
Actually, no one earns anything until the customer writes a check or pulls out their credit card.
I'm not losing sleep over it (too busy hacking), but it's easy for We Pay to say they don't care: they've already raised 3 rounds http://www.crunchbase.com/company/wepay . The essay was edited by PG, himself. Clearly the angels have treated them well. I think the more pertinent conversation should be around what the hell do some of these angels offer to entrepreneurs, anyways? Money is a commodity these days. Plus, r…
1. They offer advice. For a first-time entrepreneur, this is probably enough reason to work with angels right there.
2. They offer networking. Good angels are supposed to know everybody, including just the right people you should be talking to to take your company to the next stage.
3. Money is important. I happen to have savings, but if I were trying to start without already having money in the bank, I'd have to go get an angel round. And people straight out of University don't have money.