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Svbtle Funding

blog.svbtle.com

161–170 of 173 posts

Re: Svbtle Funding

#161
post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man I have never wanted to see a company succeed more than I want to see Curtis' thing succeed now. What a bunch of wangs you all are. If this is some kind of genius nerd underdog sympathy marketing ploy, I've never seen it done better.

Underdog? Have you read anything the guy writes? He's like Kanye West but without the humility.

So you made me curious. I went and had a look at Dustin's writing. Here's a piece entitled "Do".

=========================

Wake up early. Show up. Learn how to think. Be genuine, but appear nice. Use envy for motivation instead of destruction. Do what you say you’re going to do. Ensure balance in every area of your life. Confront repressed thoughts immediately. Surround yourself with people who are better than you (but remember the thing about envy). Work out every day. Be good at what you do. Make money doing what you love. Have good friends. Never settle.

--

Now, as far as I can tell, every aspect of that post is good advice. It's evident that Dustin's advice was derived from experience, because some his points are counter-intuitive-but-true (which tend to only be learned as a byproduct of screwing up). The advice seems to match my own experience as well, so it seems possible it may be broadly true and (and therefore broadly useful).

I don't know what demon you see in him, but you're wrong.

Now, at this point, it seems only fair that we contrast Dustin's writing against someone else's writing. Let's use your writing, in fact.

So here's a piece you wrote, entitled "New Year - No Fun Allowed".

=========================

My resolution is to blog every day. Whoops, already missed that one. Make it every week, I guess.

Also, to finally launch the enormous white whale of a ship that I’ve been working on in Kerbal Space Program (which is what has kept me from here for so long). It will set all sorts of records, visit all the planets… I just need to have the damn thing not explode. I’m getting closer now; got as far as 20km, and the most recent launch was spoiled by pure bad luck (a piece I’d blown off the top of my rocket fell down back onto it).

You might think stuff like buying a flat or finding a job should be higher on the list than achieving something in a computer game. And you’d be right. But damned if it doesn’t feel like the other way around.

--

Eh... I was going to say some more stuff, but it appears you may be going through a rough period in your life.

This is something of a tangent, but: if you happen to want to talk with someone about what's on your mind nowadays, or if you just need someone to talk to, then please feel free to toss me an email. I'm happy to listen (if you want that) or to do whatever else I can.

Life can be rough, but don't let it break you, even if it seems hard not to.

Re: Svbtle Funding

#162
post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I must have missed that, what as "the Airbnb case"?

I'm away from my desktop computer (and Opera's bookmark sync doesn't work on my MacBook Air, the PoS), but these two articles seem to capture the imbroglio well enough: - http://www.pehub.com/114113/what-not-to-do-in-a-crisis-%E2%8... - http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/30/how-the-hell-is-this-my-fau...

Thanks!

Re: Svbtle Funding

#163
post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Underdog? Have you read anything the guy writes? He's like Kanye West but without the humility.

So you made me curious. I went and had a look at Dustin's writing. Here's a piece entitled "Do". ========================= Wake up early. Show up. Learn how to think. Be genuine, but appear nice. Use envy for motivation instead of destruction. Do what you say you’re going to do. Ensure balance in every area of your life. Confront repressed thoughts immediately. Surround yourself with people who are better than you (b…

[deleted]

Re: Svbtle Funding

#164
post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Underdog? Have you read anything the guy writes? He's like Kanye West but without the humility.

So you made me curious. I went and had a look at Dustin's writing. Here's a piece entitled "Do". ========================= Wake up early. Show up. Learn how to think. Be genuine, but appear nice. Use envy for motivation instead of destruction. Do what you say you’re going to do. Ensure balance in every area of your life. Confront repressed thoughts immediately. Surround yourself with people who are better than you (b…

>It's evident that Dustin's advice was derived from experience, because some his points are counter-intuitive-but-true (which tend to only be learned as a byproduct of screwing up).

That seems implausible given his age and job history. I don't see how he can possibly have tried e.g. settling enough to be able to assert one should never do it.

The whole tone is one of condescension, of the enlightened master speaking down to his acolytes. I'd accept it coming from e.g. that guy who built a windmill out of scrap metal, or Helen Keller, or even Mark Zuckerberg. Someone who's overcome adversity and/or achieved something useful - or perhaps even just someone old enough to have a bit of life experience. From a bay-area upper-class white male who has never had to struggle, who so far as I can tell has never done a day's real work in his life? No; I'd accept domain-specific advice on design or writing (which he seems to have a genuine talent for), but I refuse to believe he knows better than me how to live - and that's how he's phrased it, not as suggestions or things that worked for him, but as instructions and universal truths.

>Eh... I was going to say some more stuff, but it appears you may be going through a rough period in your life.

Hah, a reader. No, don't worry, I guess it sounded bad out of context. No Fun Allowed is the blog title, not because I don't have fun but because I spend most of the posts taking silly things way too seriously. My present employers have chosen a somewhat inconvenient time to make 2/3 of their developers redundant, which in the worst case might set my life plans back a few years, but life is good; thanks for the sympathy, but I'm doing ok, at least for the moment.

Re: Svbtle Funding

#165
post #150
post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The whole selling point is that it is curated by him. I disagree. I doubt Subtle is getting funded because of Dustin Curtis' audience. For funding, the conversation of "market" had to come up and if the answer to "market" was "Dustin Curtis' fanbase", the investors would have had to be nuts to proceed. How big is the "Dustin Curtis" following? Hundred? Several hundred? A few thousand? I don't think so.

At least 40,000 if Twitter followers are anything to judge by: https://twitter.com/dcurtis

You're kidding, right?

Re: Svbtle Funding

#166
post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you made me curious. I went and had a look at Dustin's writing. Here's a piece entitled "Do". ========================= Wake up early. Show up. Learn how to think. Be genuine, but appear nice. Use envy for motivation instead of destruction. Do what you say you’re going to do. Ensure balance in every area of your life. Confront repressed thoughts immediately. Surround yourself with people who are better than you (b…

>It's evident that Dustin's advice was derived from experience, because some his points are counter-intuitive-but-true (which tend to only be learned as a byproduct of screwing up). That seems implausible given his age and job history. I don't see how he can possibly have tried e.g. settling enough to be able to assert one should never do it. The whole tone is one of condescension, of the enlightened master speaking…

who so far as I can tell has never done a day's real work in his life?

How could you possibly know a thing like that?

The things you've said in this thread are so much worse than anything you accuse Dustin of saying. I wonder the contrast doesn't strike you.

Re: Svbtle Funding

#167
post #53

Svbtle is probably one of the most misunderstood companies we've funded. Partly because what they're doing is hard to understand, and partly because Dustin has alienated a few people along the way, who now in the usual way with haters want to misunderstand what Svbtle is. One of the reasons Svbtle is hard to understand is that it's a work in progress. At its current fairly fuzzy resolution, it's what I'd guess a trad…

I don't like Dustin Curtis as a person, based on prior history (i.e., American Airlines, presumption in his articles bordering on know-it-all after accomplishing little, and so on). You might find that the majority of the haters you're talking about feel the same; there's been discussion about this recently linked elsewhere in the thread that I won't rehash here. If he's genuinely confused by the hate, that'd be surp…

I would really draw a distinction between "as a person" and professional persona. I don't like a lot of things people say on the Internet, but I'd generally trust even those people to be reasonable people in other contexts. And there are people I respect professionally who turn out to be utterly obnoxious in real life or one on one social settings.

Re: Svbtle Funding

#168
post #166
post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's evident that Dustin's advice was derived from experience, because some his points are counter-intuitive-but-true (which tend to only be learned as a byproduct of screwing up). That seems implausible given his age and job history. I don't see how he can possibly have tried e.g. settling enough to be able to assert one should never do it. The whole tone is one of condescension, of the enlightened master speaking…

who so far as I can tell has never done a day's real work in his life? How could you possibly know a thing like that? The things you've said in this thread are so much worse than anything you accuse Dustin of saying. I wonder the contrast doesn't strike you.

It's always hardest to see flaws in oneself. Do I come across as telling people what to do? I try to avoid that (outside my specific expertise), but I'm constantly worried I've failed.

Is it that I think I'm better than Dustin? That's a tougher one; I'm hardly any less privileged; I think I'm less condescending. Being proud of one's humility is a trap, but that doesn't mean one should never call others out on their arrogance.

Is it the hate? I'd like to be more constructive, but I think there's still value in being honest. There is a risk of a negative impact here, but the worst obvious case is that I upset one person and have no other effect.

Re: Svbtle Funding

#169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I told pg, my opinion of you impacts Svbtle so minutely that it might as well not even exist. But , it is still my opinion of you . Let's be honest, Dustin, that article was from 2009. It wasn't exactly written in the '80s when you were on a coke binge. I think your attitude in a lot of blog posts reflects quite negatively on who you are as a person, and that's where a lot of the hate for you comes from. You're pr…

"Often I've asked, who is Dustin Curtis? Why is he telling me the important things about building a startup?" As someone who is neither in the hater not fan category, this is what I've been trying to figure out. I have no clue who he is and it's very difficult to find out much besides he's an opinionated person with a taste for design.

Why does it matter who he is? Why not consider the merits of the ideas in their own right rather than relying on the authority of the author? One would think folks on HN would be inclined to treat ideas in a more meritocratically way.

Re: Svbtle Funding

#170
post #168
post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

who so far as I can tell has never done a day's real work in his life? How could you possibly know a thing like that? The things you've said in this thread are so much worse than anything you accuse Dustin of saying. I wonder the contrast doesn't strike you.

It's always hardest to see flaws in oneself. Do I come across as telling people what to do? I try to avoid that (outside my specific expertise), but I'm constantly worried I've failed. Is it that I think I'm better than Dustin? That's a tougher one; I'm hardly any less privileged; I think I'm less condescending. Being proud of one's humility is a trap, but that doesn't mean one should never call others out on their a…

"Is it that I think I'm better than Dustin? That's a tougher one;"

A world class designer with a funded, successful blog network or an unemployed LARPer. Not sure it's as tough as you think.

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