Paul Graham: News from the Front • Hacker News Board

Re: Paul Graham: News from the Front

#51

Post by jey » Wed, Sep 05, 2007, 5:19 PM UTC

bharath wrote: post #22

jey wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vaporware? That's not really new. Anyway, they're probably at +3 standard deviations for "newness" compared to all tech startups. Kind of a high bar to match.

Well.. its not so much the vaporware aspect of things... Succeeding in search today is all about scaling. Only the big three have what it takes to build huge data centers. A startup the size of powerset -- not really. Natural language search is something that the average search engine user would consider a "cool feature" at best. The real power of a search engine comes from its ability to cater to the long tail -- wh…

The software involved is more of a key issue. You can always get more machines off the shelf, but you can't just go to Dell.com and place an order for a few killer algorithms. If you have awesome software, you can get funded. IIRC, Powerset is already backed by some big players.

Re: Paul Graham: News from the Front

#52

Post by henning » Wed, Sep 05, 2007, 5:21 PM UTC

"The curve for faculty is a lot flatter than for students, especially in math and the hard sciences; you have to go pretty far down the list of colleges before you stop finding smart professors in the math department."

I wish this would be repeated more often. I've implemented many interesting algorithms based on papers written by people at, like, Louisiana State University. Noname places.

Re: Paul Graham: News from the Front

#53

Post by whacked_new » Wed, Sep 05, 2007, 5:22 PM UTC

It doesn't take a Paul Graham to realize this nor do I think this is the first time the thought hit him. There are also things that I, and others, would argue about, in favor or not, but nonetheless,

thank you for writing this.

Re: Paul Graham: News from the Front

#54

Post by jey » Wed, Sep 05, 2007, 5:26 PM UTC

corentin wrote: post #35

pg wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when was the last time that a YC-funded startup really did anything new? Considering how many there are of them, probably within the last couple days. But instead of me giving you an example to which you will predictably reply "that's not really new," how about you giving us an example of a non-YC startup you think is doing something really new, so we can see what level of really-newness it would take to satisfy yo…

Why don't you fund a few (or at least one) "crazy" startups like Anybots? Because that's probably the coolest thing YC-related! Are you only interested in web stuff, or is it a lack of serious applications? Here are a few "cool" ventures I have in mind: http://www.armadilloaerospace.com http://www.intellasys.net http://www.teslamotors.com

I think it's the scale inherent in attacking these problems that's the main thing stopping YC from funding them. How much of a humanoid robot are you going to get built on 15k and 3 months?

Re: Paul Graham: News from the Front

#55

Post by edw519 » Wed, Sep 05, 2007, 5:28 PM UTC

Here's another dirty little secret: Your grades don't matter either.

I still chuckle when I think of the drones in my fraternity that missed the best 4 years of their lives because their heads were stuck in their books. Sure, they got 4.0 averages, but who cares now?

Re: Paul Graham: News from the Front

#56

Post by Neoryder » Wed, Sep 05, 2007, 5:29 PM UTC

For me the biggest thing about going to an elite school is expectation.

The more you expect for yourself, the more others expect from you the more you are driven to succeed or make something of your life.

Elite colleges are like the newsweek article on octopart, it makes you want to beat the expectations on you, only several order or magnitudes less.

I think getting an education is secondary in college. Finding people who live with passion used to be a problem when we didn't have the internet. And working/studying in elite institutions gave you a higher chance of meeting passionate people.

Re: Paul Graham: News from the Front

#57

Post by gojomo » Wed, Sep 05, 2007, 5:34 PM UTC

Though as a reader I start sympathetic to both the thesis (it matches my priors) and the author (always enjoy PG's essays), this struck me as hand-waving.

For all the talk of, "I have a lot of data" and "[w]e're just finally able to measure it," there are no supporting numbers, just general impressions.

C'mon, give this topic the rigorous Bayesian treatment. How does the population of YC market-successes compare with YC-chosen and YC-applicants, along the 'prestigious college' dimension? How do these compare with the college-graduate population as a whole, and the college-graduate population succeeding in other competitive fields?

Those numbers would be great, and I'm rooting for the "college-doesn't-matter" result.

Re: Paul Graham: News from the Front

#58

Post by gojomo » Wed, Sep 05, 2007, 5:35 PM UTC

gojomo wrote: post #57

Though as a reader I start sympathetic to both the thesis (it matches my priors) and the author (always enjoy PG's essays), this struck me as hand-waving. For all the talk of, "I have a lot of data" and "[w]e're just finally able to measure it," there are no supporting numbers, just general impressions. C'mon, give this topic the rigorous Bayesian treatment. How does the population of YC market-successes compare with…

As a followup:

Even with hard data, two major sample-selection issues would make me hesitate to generalize the YC experience. First, the YC process attracts especially confident and ambitious people -- not representative of all graduates of the same colleges. Second, prestigious college graduates may have found high-fulfillment work or more traditional startup financing before even considering the YC route. So YC may be rigged to attract an A-team of general collegians (smart go-getters still with something to prove) but a B-team of prestigious collegians (those not already swept up by other plentiful opportunities).

Indeed, "Notes from the Front" can be read as a YC recruiting letter to ambitious prospects from less-prestigious academic backgrounds.

Re: Paul Graham: News from the Front

#59

Post by whacked_new » Wed, Sep 05, 2007, 5:40 PM UTC

edw519 wrote: post #55

Here's another dirty little secret: Your grades don't matter either. I still chuckle when I think of the drones in my fraternity that missed the best 4 years of their lives because their heads were stuck in their books. Sure, they got 4.0 averages, but who cares now?

They matter in different ways. High grades are like the good college. It's instant attention. If your goal is to work on Wall Street, good grades are an advantage. Just depends on what you want to do.

Similarly, high IQ implies smart, but low IQ does not imply unsmart.

Re: Paul Graham: News from the Front

#60

Post by menloparkbum » Wed, Sep 05, 2007, 5:48 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #41

corentin wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't you fund a few (or at least one) "crazy" startups like Anybots? Because that's probably the coolest thing YC-related! Are you only interested in web stuff, or is it a lack of serious applications? Here are a few "cool" ventures I have in mind: http://www.armadilloaerospace.com http://www.intellasys.net http://www.teslamotors.com

You don't count justin.tv as crazy?

Wireless jennicam? Not crazy.