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Crazy New Ideas

paulgraham.com

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Re: Crazy New Ideas

#121

Post by ad89aud89adjas »

gustavo-fring wrote: post #39

Graham's obviously inspired by some Kuhnian paradigms here, but in Grahamiam fashion, he doesn't cite anything to back it up. What I find interesting where he calls most people conservative is how when I'm discussing VCs, YC, etc with non SV people is we talk about how conservative they are. YC's business model for years was predicated on finding talent (kids) that was undervalued, underpaying them (10k was the initi…

The whole SV/VC thing is just a big shallow marketing scheme to get young people buy into bad deals because they are brainwashed into thinking it's the cool thing to do. Have been there, done that, regret it. It took me years of being outside of SV to realize how brainwashed I was by comparing myself to the media and people around me.

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#122

Post by calvin_ »

bhouston wrote: post #25
anotha1 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mighty is a good idea, marketed to the wrong people. I mean, who wouldn't just upgrade their computer? New software is a cost, even if it's "free." I'm sure there's a niche, though. Like low-paid workers needing to do a lot on their crappy personal machines.

I think that corporations may want to force all their users to use Mighty so that they can control exactly what goes on in the browser -- it is easier to pay Mighty to "virtualize" the browser, than it is to keep all computers up to date and without malicious extensions. Maybe even prevent browsers from downloading files onto the local computer. A full recording of each user's sessions. Integrated password manager th…

Except VDI products for enterprise already exist and are much cheaper than Mighty. AWS, Citrix, VMware, and probably others play in this space.

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#123

Post by TheAdamAndChe »

ad89aud89adjas wrote: post #121
gustavo-fring wrote: post #39

Graham's obviously inspired by some Kuhnian paradigms here, but in Grahamiam fashion, he doesn't cite anything to back it up. What I find interesting where he calls most people conservative is how when I'm discussing VCs, YC, etc with non SV people is we talk about how conservative they are. YC's business model for years was predicated on finding talent (kids) that was undervalued, underpaying them (10k was the initi…

The whole SV/VC thing is just a big shallow marketing scheme to get young people buy into bad deals because they are brainwashed into thinking it's the cool thing to do. Have been there, done that, regret it. It took me years of being outside of SV to realize how brainwashed I was by comparing myself to the media and people around me.

> It took me years of being outside of SV to realize how brainwashed I was by comparing myself to the media and people around me.

The media doesn't represent normal people, and there are different regions of the country with very different norms, cultures, and beliefs. I know we are social animals heavily influenced by those around us, but it's also important to reflect and try to determine if those influences are right or productive.

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#124

Post by mids_hn »

lbacaj wrote: post #118
antipauline wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's nothing original there, it's the business model of carpetbaggers and robber barons. How boring. Indeed. Venture capitalism is still capitalism, with all its abuse and exploitation.

Capitalism for all its flaws at least taps into what motivates people to work really hard and encourages it. It mimics nature itself. Some ideas might be mundane but others can be extraordinary, it’s par for the course. As an example, Capitalism gave us a vaccine to a novel corona-virus within a year. These companies didn’t do it out of good will, they did it because they knew they could make money. Many socialist co…

[dead]

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#125

Post by anatoly »

UncleMeat wrote: post #110

I really wish PG would actually talk to some historians. History of Science is an extremely deep field with tons of professionals who have spent their lives studying this material. His overview is shallow. The only history book he cites is from fifty years ago ! It is so frustrating. There is this huge wealth of content available and a large group of people who'd want nothing more to be able to share what they know a…

You should use this opportunity to recommend an especially high-quality introduction/overview of modern history of science, approachable by a curious outsider.

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#126

Post by stephc_int13 »

gustavo-fring wrote: post #39

Graham's obviously inspired by some Kuhnian paradigms here, but in Grahamiam fashion, he doesn't cite anything to back it up. What I find interesting where he calls most people conservative is how when I'm discussing VCs, YC, etc with non SV people is we talk about how conservative they are. YC's business model for years was predicated on finding talent (kids) that was undervalued, underpaying them (10k was the initi…

There is a thing I realized a few years ago about about VC.

They are not in the game to fuel innovation, contrary to what they pretend.

They are in the game to protect old-money against innovation.

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#127

Post by de_keyboard »

I think "attacking" Crazy New Ideas is how we develop them, iron out the kinks and test our understanding. Criticism is an essential part of the journey from crazy new idea to accepted wisdom.

However, the main problem I have with with this article is that it divides people into domain experts and the rest. This kind of black and white thinking is pervasive in PG essays, and always lead to a cute conclusion. You can have two domain experts that disagree. You can have an idea that spans multiple domains, and there are no (or few) experts in all of them. Maybe the Crazy New Idea seems brilliant to experts in one domain, but only because they don't grasp the others.

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#128

Post by nojs »

stephc_int13 wrote: post #89

In case someone missed the story, Paul Graham is indirectly talking about the feedback received by Mighty App. And in this particular case, I don't think this is a valid defense. First, he clearly has too much skin in the game to be credibly neutral about it. Second, he avoids addressing the main critique about this "new tech". People are not claiming that it is a bad idea because it is infeasible or not valuable, bu…

I wish he would say this in the post!

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#129

Post by aadvani »

keiferski wrote: post #38

Something I’ve noticed a lot lately is that the people who have crazy new ideas are often the absolute last people that should be communicating them to the world. I’m not sure if it comes from the insularity of academia or just a basic inability to write clearly. My theory is that many domain experts haven’t needed to communicate with a lay audience in decades (if ever) and thus aren’t aware of their own baseline ass…

We’re building this for clinical papers! inpharmd.com We have 10k summarized so far

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#130

Post by tnzm »

fallingknife wrote: post #66
antipauline wrote: post #48

Why are you all upvoting this shit? Just because Paul Graham wrote it, doesn't mean it's worth reading. Usually the opposite, in fact. You people need to lay off the PG cultism. Stop worshipping every word he writes just because you idolize his riches, or want to be him, or whatever.

You actually add credibility to his writing because you make it obvious that you don't actually have a counter argument.

Burden of proof, my dude.
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