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The Stanford Startup and the MIT Startup (2013)

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Re: The Stanford Startup and the MIT Startup (2013)

#41

Post by 3dworldrunner »

alephnerd wrote: post #38
ben7799 wrote: post #36

The article strikes me as somewhat OK but overly critical of the MIT startup and overly forgiving of the Stanford startup. Also prior to the mid 1990s it seems like the Stanford startup thing really hadn't begun yet. You look at the old guard of SV companies and they operated much more like east coast culture. To me it seems like the modern "Stanford startup" culture arose from VC money from the investors who made to…

I went to school out East and work out west, and consumer tech is way more of a NYC thing than a Bay Area thing because the personas and professional networks are out there. West Coast is also enterprise or business tech driven, but those founders aren't as media friendly or sexy despite being the majority (hence the Musks and increasingly Altmans hogging the limelight). Boston has potential, but it honestly isn't le…

Having gone to university in Boston at a few different institutions, this is completely true. It's in the water. I think a lot of people never get out of the mindset, either.

Re: The Stanford Startup and the MIT Startup (2013)

#42

Post by gottorf »

alephnerd wrote: post #38
ben7799 wrote: post #36

The article strikes me as somewhat OK but overly critical of the MIT startup and overly forgiving of the Stanford startup. Also prior to the mid 1990s it seems like the Stanford startup thing really hadn't begun yet. You look at the old guard of SV companies and they operated much more like east coast culture. To me it seems like the modern "Stanford startup" culture arose from VC money from the investors who made to…

I went to school out East and work out west, and consumer tech is way more of a NYC thing than a Bay Area thing because the personas and professional networks are out there. West Coast is also enterprise or business tech driven, but those founders aren't as media friendly or sexy despite being the majority (hence the Musks and increasingly Altmans hogging the limelight). Boston has potential, but it honestly isn't le…

> throw a rock and you'll hit a Cafe Landwer

Are those new to the area? I don't live there anymore, but I spent a decade in Greater Boston and have never heard of this.

Re: The Stanford Startup and the MIT Startup (2013)

#43

Post by zinodaur »

The MIT startup is like a breath of fresh air - a company that is actually doing something!

Stanford style startups are a way better way to make money - but I wish people would just stop making them. Filling the economy with parasitic middle men hasn't worked out too well for us.

Re: The Stanford Startup and the MIT Startup (2013)

#45

Post by DonHopkins »

choppaface wrote: post #16
amirhirsch wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author. Anantha Chandrakasan mentioned this essay at a launch event for The Engine. He was my boss when I was a TA :)

Does the article draw on “worse is better” ? https://www.jwz.org/doc/worse-is-better.html

There's also the corollary East Coast Lisp / West Coast Lisp dichotomy.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39583305

[...]

Leaning hard into the IDE (or ChatGPT these days) because your language design is flawed is a hella/totally stereotypical "West Coast" thing to do, as described in "Evolution of Lisp", "Worse is Better", and "History of T", and exemplified by Interlisp and Warren Teitelman's "pervasive philosophy of user interface design" and implementation of "DWIM".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DWIM

https://www.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de/~joern/jargon/DWIM.HTML

https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6492j904

If your language isn't terribly designed, then your IDE doesn't have to be such a complex non-deterministic Rube Goldberg machine, papering over the languages flaws, haphazardly guessing about your intent, "yelling at you" all the time about potential foot-guns and misunderstandings.

As you might guess, I'm firmly in the "East Coast" MacLisp / Emacs camp, because that's what I learned to program in the 80's. I can't stand most IDEs (except for the original Lisp Machines, and Emacs of course), especially when they keep popping up hyperactive completion menus that steal the keyboard input focus and spew paragraphs of unexpected boilerplate diarrhea into my buffer whenever I dare to type ahead quickly and hit return.

But my point is that you can have and should demand the best of both coasts, unless you start off with a Shitty West Coast Programming Language or a Shitty East Coast IDE.

[...]

Re: The Stanford Startup and the MIT Startup (2013)

#46

Post by alephnerd »

gottorf wrote: post #42
alephnerd wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went to school out East and work out west, and consumer tech is way more of a NYC thing than a Bay Area thing because the personas and professional networks are out there. West Coast is also enterprise or business tech driven, but those founders aren't as media friendly or sexy despite being the majority (hence the Musks and increasingly Altmans hogging the limelight). Boston has potential, but it honestly isn't le…

> throw a rock and you'll hit a Cafe Landwer Are those new to the area? I don't live there anymore, but I spent a decade in Greater Boston and have never heard of this.

They aren't that common (only 3 I think), but they're a very Israeli brand and the only other North American city with a similar number is Toronto (not even New York).

New York is fairly Jewish but not really Israeli, but in Boston the Jewish community is very Israeli.

Re: The Stanford Startup and the MIT Startup (2013)

#47

Post by CuriouslyC »

humansareok1 wrote: post #40
CuriouslyC wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And here we are 11 years later with people cargo-culting all those things. I once overheard someone seriously suggest building a MVP for a game in an established genre.

This actually works though. Pre-Alpha games get limited releases on Steam and can raise millions that can be used to finish and polish the game.

As an avid gamer, I can tell you that early access games that are too early don't do well unless they're made by someone famous. Early access works well with games that are released in a semi-polished state - Hades is probably the poster child for a well executed early access.

Re: The Stanford Startup and the MIT Startup (2013)

#48

Post by thefaux »

DonHopkins wrote: post #45
choppaface wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the article draw on “worse is better” ? https://www.jwz.org/doc/worse-is-better.html

There's also the corollary East Coast Lisp / West Coast Lisp dichotomy. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39583305 [...] Leaning hard into the IDE (or ChatGPT these days) because your language design is flawed is a hella/totally stereotypical "West Coast" thing to do, as described in "Evolution of Lisp", "Worse is Better", and "History of T", and exemplified by Interlisp and Warren Teitelman's "pervasive philosoph…

The problem is that west coast programming languages/ides are easier to sell. It genuinely pains me how accurate the original worse is better essay is.

Re: The Stanford Startup and the MIT Startup (2013)

#50

Post by jobs_throwaway »

zinodaur wrote: post #43

The MIT startup is like a breath of fresh air - a company that is actually doing something! Stanford style startups are a way better way to make money - but I wish people would just stop making them. Filling the economy with parasitic middle men hasn't worked out too well for us.

What about the tech economy hasn't worked out well? Americans and tech workers in particular have never been better off
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