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How Not to Die (2007)

paulgraham.com

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Re: How Not to Die (2007)

#121

Post by austhrow743 »

diego wrote: post #118
pbecotte wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have taken enough VC that the only way to get any value at all is through a huge exit, this statement is true. If you run a normal business, it is not true :)

No, I'm talking about companies that didn't even get to take VC funding in some cases. Building a stable business doesn't mean you get rich. The world is filled with middle class folk running stable businesses.

When they said "this statement" I think they meant the statement you were talking about not the statement that you made.

That once you've taken on enough funding, your options are get rich or die. Not that if you build a non-vc stable business your options are get rich or die.

Re: How Not to Die (2007)

#122

Post by [deleted] »

diego wrote: post #118
pbecotte wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have taken enough VC that the only way to get any value at all is through a huge exit, this statement is true. If you run a normal business, it is not true :)

No, I'm talking about companies that didn't even get to take VC funding in some cases. Building a stable business doesn't mean you get rich. The world is filled with middle class folk running stable businesses.

[deleted]

Re: How Not to Die (2007)

#123

Post by brudgers »

pascalxus wrote: post #111

Paul Graham usually writes some really good stuff, but this is highly misleading: "If you can just avoid dying, you get rich." There are soo many projects that can continue in obscurity on a shoe string budget, never to amount to anything. You could continue to invest in those businesses great effort and money all for nothing. ProductHunt is filled to brim with failed projects. Even, Google one of the world's most su…

This is a talk I gave at the last Y Combinator dinner of the summer.

The audience was YC founders at the end of a YC batch. Probably after demo day. The entire audience had already been funded once (by YC at the start) and as a whole they had much better than average prospects for raising money. Some may have already raised or been close.

I agree that it is questionable as generic advice. The August 2007 date suggests the Summer 07 batch. That's Disqus, Dropbox, and Twitch (among others). https://yclist.com/

Re: How Not to Die (2007)

#124

Post by JoeMayoBot »

Sounds more inspirational than literal. He sets the scene as the last Y Combinator dinner of the Summer. Folks are probably taking the evening to relax and something too serious wouldn't fit the mood. Just reading this, I can see the humor, yet appreciate good advice cleverly mixed in to share a few meaningful tips.

Re: How Not to Die (2007)

#126

Post by rfeague »

consultutah wrote: post #4

So did the Octopart guys ever become billionaires?

Seems they got acquired for $12MM about seven years after their last seed round, per CrunchBase. That's perhaps a "soft landing" --- not a "success". The founders probably got something, but maybe not much, since there may have been debt to pay.

Re: How Not to Die (2007)

#127

Post by samvher »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #114
DoreenMichele wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's probably an element of truth to that, but it's also a large forum that gets about 5 million unique visitors per month and I'm a demographic outlier on multiple axes, so I simply express myself differently from the way most people here do. (I also focus on things that would never occur to most people here, which can easily be perceived as irrelevant.) I suspect a high percentage of the downvotes I get -- and I…

> Hopefully, the mods will come along and hide this entire discussion of why my comment was temporarily greyed out before being upvoted. Discussion of downvotes is something the guidelines ask people to not engage in. I'm not redacting this comment cuz reasons. But this is all off topic. I have to say, I don't have an issue with downvote discussions when they are initiated by someone other than the original poster. S…

I actually don't have a problem with the original poster asking why they get downvoted either, I think there is often a learning opportunity in such a situation. What does annoy me is if the person then gets an explanation, but digs in, and it turns into a you're-wrong-I'm-right discussion, but to be honest I don't see that happening that often.

Re: How Not to Die (2007)

#128

Post by nwsm »

pascalxus wrote: post #111

Paul Graham usually writes some really good stuff, but this is highly misleading: "If you can just avoid dying, you get rich." There are soo many projects that can continue in obscurity on a shoe string budget, never to amount to anything. You could continue to invest in those businesses great effort and money all for nothing. ProductHunt is filled to brim with failed projects. Even, Google one of the world's most su…

Read the whole article.

>And however tough things get for the Octoparts, I predict they'll succeed. They may have to morph themselves into something totally different, but they won't just crawl off and die. They're smart; they're working in a promising field; and they just cannot give up.

>All of you guys already have the first two. You're all smart and working on promising ideas. Whether you end up among the living or the dead comes down to the third ingredient, not giving up.

He admits that this speech is made for the startups in the room; ones that already passed the bar.

Re: How Not to Die (2007)

#129

Post by mapcars »

>founders are more motivated by the fear of looking bad than by the hope of getting millions of dollars

Oh that's not the best factor to look for, as one can go beyond the fear of failure and this won't work anymore.

Re: How Not to Die (2007)

#130

Post by tarsinge »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #101
nothrabannosir wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wild guess but I'd be remiss not to express this saturnine suspicion: probably because it's Doreen. She posts a lot, mostly solid content like the above post, some of which hard hitting. Some people take offense, she's often greyed out for no reason and regularly gets pretty harsh criticism. I would be shocked if she doesn't have some auto downvotes for every post. Unfortunately. I recognise it's not constructive to…

There's probably an element of truth to that, but it's also a large forum that gets about 5 million unique visitors per month and I'm a demographic outlier on multiple axes, so I simply express myself differently from the way most people here do. (I also focus on things that would never occur to most people here, which can easily be perceived as irrelevant.) I suspect a high percentage of the downvotes I get -- and I…

I don’t know, this doesn’t reflect my experience here. Either your comment is insightful or not.

For example regarding your previous comment, I found it interesting on the psychology topic, but slightly off topic regarding the subject. The discussion is about startups and investors as entities, not as persons, and the OP explicitly ask for information of someone with experience startup investors, specifically YC.

In short your comment is interesting but not relevant to the discussion. Personally I don’t downvote these kind of comments but I can understand other people do. Nothing to do with your background or how you think in my opinion.

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