What I Didn't Say • Hacker News Board

Re: What I Didn't Say

#301

Post by mattmanser » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 12:18 AM UTC

mjburgess wrote: post #236

grellas wrote: post #229

A word about credibility. It comes from the Latin word credo , meaning "I trust." Its value exceeds that of money because it marks you as a person - as someone who is respected, who is trustworthy, and whom you would want to count as a friend. It marks you not as perfect but as special. It makes others ponder not so much that they did the last deal with you but that they would want to do the next deal too. Just as we…

Fine, he was mischaracterized and he replied. But jesus, > pg's response is actually priceless: it is like a soft-spoken witness upending a bullying lawyer who had just viciously attacked him, leaving the attacker reeling for all to see. What's with the almost cult-like reverence for this largely pseudo-intellectual entrepreneur?

pg, a pseudo-intellectual?

I'm frankly surprised you've been here for 2 years and never realised.

You see the ycombinator in news.ycombinator.com? In this website?

That's pg's company.

Do you know what ycombinator is? That he started the seed funding movement? That he was blogging about hacking startups before people even really realised you could hack startups? Before lean startup existed? That he's written his own dialect of LISP? That he started and sold his own startup in the early days of the web? And that, now this is some serious respect, it was actually written in LISP?

That's not cultish, it's earned respect and pg's got it in buckets around here.

Crikey.

Little drunk, but crikey, talk about having absolutely no fucking clue. The guy's a machine of intellectualism, most things he turns his mind to he de-constructs, encapsulates and then explains brilliantly. Yeah, occasionally he's wrong, especially when he tries to justify certain aspects of exploitative capitalism, but damn he's good. Very good.

And that response was classic pg as grellas said.

Re: What I Didn't Say

#302

Post by mjburgess » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 12:19 AM UTC

jraines wrote: post #271

mjburgess wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fine, he was mischaracterized and he replied. But jesus, > pg's response is actually priceless: it is like a soft-spoken witness upending a bullying lawyer who had just viciously attacked him, leaving the attacker reeling for all to see. What's with the almost cult-like reverence for this largely pseudo-intellectual entrepreneur?

pg's writing has made a big impact among a lot of people, the majority of whom don't view him as a cult-like leader or personality at all. It sounds like you disagree with his ideas; what qualifies someone as an intellectual in your book and not a pseudo-intellectual?

"pseudo" was a little strong. But if you have any serious familiarity with his "off-topic" rants, youll see he writes about issues glibly and with a severe lack of information. I dont mind "academic journalism", I do it a lot myself: write on difficult topics for a lay audience and maybe sacrifice a little accurasy a long the way. I think pg likes be seen making points more than he wants further understanding/truth/etc.

Re: What I Didn't Say

#303

Post by theorique » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 12:19 AM UTC

jacalata wrote: post #200

theorique wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Work on Wall Street. It's one of the last bastions of political incorrectness that you're likely to find in the USA. (I mean that in a complimentary way - people tend to take your words with a grain of salt, don't get butthurt unnecessarily, and if they are offended, they tell you off and then you put it behind you.)

Funny, that's also the industry where my sister had to literally campaign to get the office porn collection off the walls when she became the first female trader at her company in 2008. I think if this 'over-sensitivity' that men in tech say they are suffering from actually exists in a large percentage of developers, then it's a healthy backlash from such behaviour as Wall St, and eventually we'll find an equilibrium…

Porn on the walls is going a bit far, especially for 2008.

I'm talking more about the tone of jokes (non-individually directed) and things like that. Stuff that you don't need to remember to hide when clients or the Board of Directors come to the office, and that doesn't turn up in an email log that will be reviewed later on by regulators. Stuff that you can switch off right away when you need to go in to "serious professional mode".

Re: What I Didn't Say

#304

Post by jneen » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 12:21 AM UTC

drakeandrews wrote: post #226

jneen wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not sure why i can't reply to ars_technician, but fwiw sexism is a problem that we need protections against.

HN hides the reply button on some comments that it deems might start flame wars (or similar). If you click the link link, that will let you reply from there.

ah, thanks, i didn't know that trick.

Re: What I Didn't Say

#305

Post by Jd » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 12:23 AM UTC

mjburgess wrote: post #236

grellas wrote: post #229

A word about credibility. It comes from the Latin word credo , meaning "I trust." Its value exceeds that of money because it marks you as a person - as someone who is respected, who is trustworthy, and whom you would want to count as a friend. It marks you not as perfect but as special. It makes others ponder not so much that they did the last deal with you but that they would want to do the next deal too. Just as we…

Fine, he was mischaracterized and he replied. But jesus, > pg's response is actually priceless: it is like a soft-spoken witness upending a bullying lawyer who had just viciously attacked him, leaving the attacker reeling for all to see. What's with the almost cult-like reverence for this largely pseudo-intellectual entrepreneur?

pg is a nerd who got rich without being any less of a nerd. He also helps other nerds get rich. Any clue why that would be popular?

Re: What I Didn't Say

#306

Post by argumentum » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 12:23 AM UTC

jusben1369 wrote: post #214

hooande wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A reputation can be a blessing or a curse. YCombinator has a great reputation as the best startup incubator and it's founders have sterling reputations as being the people you absolutely need to talk to if you're considering a tech startup. It takes a lifetime to become known as superlative, the proverbial gold standard. It's as true on the mean streets as it is in the halls of power: You are what people think you ar…

Hey I think your intentions are in a good place but I think you're placing the onus on the wrong party. @ericabiz is very open, transparent and direct about what she has seen and heard. It sounds like she's quite talented and had a choice available to her in the marketplace. Based on her market research she went with what she believed to be the better option for her situation. It's possible that she may have decided…

> had a choice available to her in the marketplace

Well, that's not actually true, because she didn't apply to yc to begin with, so we don't know whether or not the choice would have been available.

Oddly enough, I think I met ericabiz (hello ;), she briefly stayed at my house through airbnb. I totally agree that she is talented, and that if people like her are not even applying because of such a perception, it is a problem. I feel it's a false perception, but not well-addressed by statistics trying to prove or disprove a lack of bias (as she had suggested).

But, really, it's a one page form and it was designed to be useful for founders whether or not you are accepted. The worst outcome (which 95%+ of applications receive) is not getting an interview. So apply! (erica and every other female, male, white, black, green, 40-something etc in this thread).

Fear of rejection (not just from YC) is simply a dumb fear if you think about it, particularly if your doing a startup. Because you are going to be rejected over and over anyway, and ultimately no one can save you from building something no-one wants (the only rejection that means anything in this context).

Re: What I Didn't Say

#307

Post by mjburgess » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 12:23 AM UTC

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #284

mjburgess wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fine, he was mischaracterized and he replied. But jesus, > pg's response is actually priceless: it is like a soft-spoken witness upending a bullying lawyer who had just viciously attacked him, leaving the attacker reeling for all to see. What's with the almost cult-like reverence for this largely pseudo-intellectual entrepreneur?

You mean like the cult-like reverence for the pseudo-intellectual issues commentary on Twitter and Medium? The people who have less than a decade in the industry but are experts on compensation, ocracies, power dynamics, and psychology? The ones who work at Silicon Valley startups and lecture the entire industry about how things work, then surround themselves with like-minded people to have strength in numbers? You a…

> If you're under 40, I'm largely uninterested in your take on the world.

pg isnt peddling his "take on the world". He talks about serious academic topics in a chronically under and misinformed way. My 50 year old plumber knows jack about Metaphysics, Quantum Field Theory or Abstract Expressionism despite - as in a Louis CK bit - his seeing a dead body "one time".

If you want to have a fire-side chat with him - be my guest. But I ain't fetching the scribe because he's had a few decades wandering around.

Re: What I Didn't Say

#308

Post by rsl7 » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 12:23 AM UTC

mattmanser wrote: post #301

mjburgess wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fine, he was mischaracterized and he replied. But jesus, > pg's response is actually priceless: it is like a soft-spoken witness upending a bullying lawyer who had just viciously attacked him, leaving the attacker reeling for all to see. What's with the almost cult-like reverence for this largely pseudo-intellectual entrepreneur?

pg, a pseudo-intellectual? I'm frankly surprised you've been here for 2 years and never realised. You see the ycombinator in news.ycombinator.com? In this website? That's pg's company. Do you know what ycombinator is? That he started the seed funding movement? That he was blogging about hacking startups before people even really realised you could hack startups? Before lean startup existed? That he's written his own…

pg started the seed funding movement? puh-leeeze.

Re: What I Didn't Say

#309

Post by ericabiz » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 12:24 AM UTC

forgottenpaswrd wrote: post #187

ericabiz wrote: post #32

As a female founder, I think this is a well-thought-out, articulate response, and I appreciate pg stepping up to say something about women in tech. In a similar vein, I'd love to see YC take on one or both of the following: 1) Do at least one application cycle completely blind. How could you accomplish this? Much like in the concert auditions where this was first tried, put people behind a curtain--and then use techn…

As a founder, with due respect, why you don't do anything about it? I think they are good ideas. So how is that you expect someone else to do the work for you? As a founder I know how hard is to make an idea a reality, and my ideas had relative success(I managed to get things done and most people look to me now like "all I have was given" to me, or that what I created was obvious and easy, as it is obvious now, but t…

> As a founder, with due respect, why you don't do anything about it?

There's a difference between "good idea" and "marketable business." As founders, we have to make that distinction. I'd like to see YC do blind interviews because I think it's a good idea for them to do so. I am not working on that myself because I can't see that good idea, in and of itself, turning into a business--a product a company could replicate and sell to others.

Perhaps other founders have the necessary domain expertise to turn something like what I suggested into a replicable, marketable business. If so, I support them in doing so.

> So if you care about this, why you don't take action?

I did. I took time away from my business to write this comment and make a suggestion. I hope YC takes it into account. I think it would make an awesome experiment for them.

> The "frat house" is working very well and there is no reason to change what works.

I suspect this might have been your real point. Sure, YC has worked well...but could it work better? Those are the questions we as hackers ask all the time. I think it's worth a shot to try something different and unique that could work even better than the status quo. Given the popularity of my comment here, I'm not the only one who thinks so. We'll see if YC (or any other accelerator) runs with this suggestion!

Re: What I Didn't Say

#310

Post by crassus » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 12:24 AM UTC

crassus wrote: post #33

yawn wrote: post #26

Jakob Kaplan Moss owes PG a public apology for his behavior. The witch hunt tweets that were coming out of him without getting the facts straight are downright disheartening.

I'm of mixed opinions about him. On the one hand, he's been influential in making Pycon more friendly to women, which I support[1]. On the other hand, he appears to have swallowed the feminist kool-aid without reflection. He has a knee-jerk reaction whenever an alleged case of "sexism" comes up - he is inclined to take the side of the "oppressed" group and facts be damned. He takes a guilty until proven innocent stan…

After reading his tweets, my opinion of Jacob Kaplan Moss is more unmixed. I would never want to work with him on anything, even something as small as a lemonade stand. Keep that SJW BS out of tech and in English departments on the East Coast, where it belongs.