This interview defines me. Paul Graham exemplifies software entrepreneurship: "Make something people want." Cory Johnson, herald of the old guard: "Make users wade through bullshit; make ad revenue." You are dead, bullshit business man. Welcome to my century.
Y Combinator's Graham Says Startups Must Improve Lives
51–60 of 92 posts
Re: Y Combinator's Graham Says Startups Must Improve Lives
#52I'm reminded every time I watch Bloomberg I'm reminded just how high quality they are, and how intelligent their anchors are relative to any other large media corp. Additionally, Paul, thanks for being frank and great. It makes me so happy to see you as the face of not only YC, but increasingly of tech startups in general. When I get around to implementing a good idea, I've got you to look to not only for interesting…
At least one of the taglines was a huge mis-characterization of what was actually said, though.
"Paul Graham: Don't look at groupon's numbers"
That's not what he said at all. He said that HE wouldn't, and that he'd bet on Andrew Mason because he knows him to be a smart guy (using PG's definition of smart). It wasn't giving advice except perhaps in the general sense of "bet on good people."
Re: Y Combinator's Graham Says Startups Must Improve Lives
#53This interview defines me. Paul Graham exemplifies software entrepreneurship: "Make something people want." Cory Johnson, herald of the old guard: "Make users wade through bullshit; make ad revenue." You are dead, bullshit business man. Welcome to my century.
I am pretty sure Cory was not advocating click-throughs to generate ad revenue, in fact he seemed to be specifically trying to frame that particular approach as being vulnerable to competition.
The key question of course being, how can hipmunk actually make money doing this?
Re: Y Combinator's Graham Says Startups Must Improve Lives
#54This interview defines me. Paul Graham exemplifies software entrepreneurship: "Make something people want." Cory Johnson, herald of the old guard: "Make users wade through bullshit; make ad revenue." You are dead, bullshit business man. Welcome to my century.
I am pretty sure Cory was not advocating click-throughs to generate ad revenue, in fact he seemed to be specifically trying to frame that particular approach as being vulnerable to competition. The key question of course being, how can hipmunk actually make money doing this?
I did not get the same impression other HN'ers did, I noticed. To me Cory sounded smug and know-better, but maybe that's what I expected out of him. I'll watch it again.
Re: Y Combinator's Graham Says Startups Must Improve Lives
#55I'm reminded every time I watch Bloomberg I'm reminded just how high quality they are, and how intelligent their anchors are relative to any other large media corp. Additionally, Paul, thanks for being frank and great. It makes me so happy to see you as the face of not only YC, but increasingly of tech startups in general. When I get around to implementing a good idea, I've got you to look to not only for interesting…
At least one of the taglines was a huge mis-characterization of what was actually said, though. "Paul Graham: Don't look at groupon's numbers" That's not what he said at all. He said that HE wouldn't, and that he'd bet on Andrew Mason because he knows him to be a smart guy (using PG's definition of smart). It wasn't giving advice except perhaps in the general sense of "bet on good people."
Yeah but Groupon is not on the "bet" level and IPOs are different that seed or series-A funding.
Re: Y Combinator's Graham Says Startups Must Improve Lives
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am pretty sure Cory was not advocating click-throughs to generate ad revenue, in fact he seemed to be specifically trying to frame that particular approach as being vulnerable to competition. The key question of course being, how can hipmunk actually make money doing this?
I did not get the same impression other HN'ers did, I noticed. To me Cory sounded smug and know-better, but maybe that's what I expected out of him. I'll watch it again.
Oh he definitely he sounded smug and know-better, he's a professional TV personality and his audience is not typically hackers. But I think that's more a reflection of him not actually caring deeply about topic more than true conviction. That comment was just a set-up for the truly interesting question.
Re: Y Combinator's Graham Says Startups Must Improve Lives
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
At least one of the taglines was a huge mis-characterization of what was actually said, though. "Paul Graham: Don't look at groupon's numbers" That's not what he said at all. He said that HE wouldn't, and that he'd bet on Andrew Mason because he knows him to be a smart guy (using PG's definition of smart). It wasn't giving advice except perhaps in the general sense of "bet on good people."
Yeah but Groupon is not on the "bet" level and IPOs are different that seed or series-A funding.
Yeah that's the whole point. He's not giving advice at all, he's just talking about his general approach to investment. It was Bloomberg that took the comment turned it into implicit commentary about the IPO, which was clearly not his intent.
Re: Y Combinator's Graham Says Startups Must Improve Lives
#58I like how PG surprises the male interviewer with his non-traditional filters for good investments.
Re: Y Combinator's Graham Says Startups Must Improve Lives
#59'Improving lives' is ambiguous, it centralizes around solving problems that people have. However if you scale these problems from 1st world to 3rd world problems it seems to me that improving lives in this context is aimed more at 1st rather than 3rd world problems. Which makes sense from a business standpoint, but the title somewhat implies that is about making the world a 'better' place. I am not criticizing pg bec…
Vittana and Kiva are both arguably startups (the former certainly-- they are young/small and enjoying epic growth).
Re: Y Combinator's Graham Says Startups Must Improve Lives
#60I'm reminded every time I watch Bloomberg I'm reminded just how high quality they are, and how intelligent their anchors are relative to any other large media corp. Additionally, Paul, thanks for being frank and great. It makes me so happy to see you as the face of not only YC, but increasingly of tech startups in general. When I get around to implementing a good idea, I've got you to look to not only for interesting…
No kidding. I have to admit when I saw Emily Chang give her opening spiel, having never heard of her or Bloomberg, my mind immediately put her in the "vapid TV personality" bucket. But over the next minute or two I realized that was a complete mistake, and was extremely impressed with how sharp she was. I don't even think I was aware of how low my expectations of TV anchors are.
I felt the EXACT same way. She really did a great job.