From the comments: > No self-respecting conspiracy uses a wiki (or even email). I laughed.
Were you in the room?
He says no: http://twitter.com/joshu/status/25164168842
So A Blogger Walks Into A Bar…
141–150 of 258 posts
Re: So A Blogger Walks Into A Bar…
#142Someone please explain the finer nuances of the law; I can't see how this is different from professional athletes forming their own association/union and stipulating a "minimum fee" e.g. NBA.
the NBA and other sporting leagues are exempt from anti-trust laws in the USA. They get a free pass from the gov:
http://www.thesportjournal.org/article/role-antitrust-laws-p...
Re: So A Blogger Walks Into A Bar…
#143I am late in joining this thread and will add only a few observations to supplement the many good comments already here: 1. Competitor collusion and express agreements to restrict the freedom of each to compete (i.e., horizontal contractual dealings) do indeed expose the colluding parties to potentially serious liabilities under the Sherman and FTC Acts. If that is what is going on here, then Mr. Arrington has fired…
I am very appreciative that you spend your time sharing here when you could be elsewhere, in six minute increments.
Re: So A Blogger Walks Into A Bar…
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
The interesting thing is unlike that group of Angels apparently in the bar PG's interests are less about helping himself, and more about helping entrepreneurs. From an essay by PG entitled "Why YC": The real reason we started Y Combinator is one probably only a hacker would understand. We did it because it seems such a great hack. There are thousands of smart people who could start companies and don't, and with a rel…
I don't think anybody's stated interests should be taken as an indicator of their true interests. In this case, with PG, I do believe that his stated intentions are sincere. But there is often so little correlation between actual and stated intentions, that I don't take any such statement at face value.
I don't think anybody's stated interests should be taken as an indicator of their true interests.
I agree. (actually I'd replace "taken as an indicator" with "taken as an absolute indicator")
In this case, with PG, I do believe that his stated intentions are sincere.
I agree.
Re: So A Blogger Walks Into A Bar…
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Arrington's defense his claims are laid out clearly without any weasel words. Either this is happening or it isn't. So while I'm pretty meh about TC as a whole, I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt on this one.
He didn't name a single name. If he really believed this was so certain, he could have. Unless he's trying to make them do something, the only reason to keep names out of it is because he thinks this might be libel.
"the only reason"
He did mention that they were his friends. Perhaps he wants to nip the illegal activity in the bud with as little collateral damage as possible.
Re: So A Blogger Walks Into A Bar…
#146Congratulations to PG & company. When I first met Paul years ago, he was musing about spam filters and the finer points of a well-designed lisp. Now he apparently has the top 10 angels in Silicon Valley running scared of him.
The interesting thing is unlike that group of Angels apparently in the bar PG's interests are less about helping himself, and more about helping entrepreneurs. From an essay by PG entitled "Why YC": The real reason we started Y Combinator is one probably only a hacker would understand. We did it because it seems such a great hack. There are thousands of smart people who could start companies and don't, and with a rel…
YC's greatest hack is identifying founder material based on technical rather than social proof (the YC app asks for an example of the coolest thing you've ever built, not an example of a cool person that thinks you are cool). This hack is possible thanks to a judges panel full of real nerds. How many super angels or VC's can claim to have the same?
Re: So A Blogger Walks Into A Bar…
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the FTC determines that the joint venture would form a monopoly, they could in fact block it on antitrust grounds. The FTC blocks mergers all the time. Explicit cooperation in restraint of trade is always illegal, though.
According to Wikipedia [1], there were over 250,000 angel investors active in 2007. If 10 of those investors were to get together to form a "super-group", I'm not sure it would match up with the definition of a monopoly. I don't know anything about the collusion arguments though. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angel_investor
The real question would be their investment market share, right? There might be 500 companies building operating systems, but a Microsoft/Apple merger would probably be a monopoly concern.
That said, while their market share is certainly larger than 10/250,000, it probably doesn't even approach 10%. So you're probably right.
Re: So A Blogger Walks Into A Bar…
#148Well, at least one investor seems to have accidentally included himself in the mess (from TC's comments) http://twitter.com/speechu/status/25083299594
The tweet has been erased but somebody did an old-school retweet of it.
"Timestamp is 8p yesterday. RT @speechu: Bin 38 is like heaven right now, chock-full of angels. #superevil #evidence cc @arrington"
Re: So A Blogger Walks Into A Bar…
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wouldn't take anything he says seriously. [Edit: If it wasn't clear, I meant Arrington, not Jesse]
Strange how any post that could be construed as being negative about Arrington gets down-modded by about 5 points, regular as clockwork. That being said, I think he's on the money with this one. This can only be good for YC overall. The suspicion that YC alternatives are all colluding against your startup is likely to make YC seem more attractive still, to the class of startup that would be wavering between YC and a…
The reason it's always exactly 4 points of downvote is because hn caps the visible downvotes at 4, not because there are 4 shills.
Re: So A Blogger Walks Into A Bar…
#150This thread officially needs a 'grellas bat-signal.
Signal answered. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1714863