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What I Didn't Say

paulgraham.com

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Re: What I Didn't Say

#591

Post by grifpete »

mjburgess wrote: post #324
mattmanser wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

None of his achievements as an entrepreneur give him insights into philosophy, political economy or anything else he writes on. I granted him "entrepreneur" status. He can have "compu-sci" intellectual too. You can see my comment here on his pseud-osity: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6988150 to save repeating myself.

I read your comment. And the article you were commenting on.

To be honest I found your comment shallow and mean spirited. You didn't present a true criticism of the article. You simply alleged that it was lame.

Ironically, whilst you may be correct that being an entrepreneur will not give a person insights into philosophy, he happens to have a degree in philosophy so perhaps that gives him some insight. More specifically, he has a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy from Cornell University.

As for his achievements not giving him insight into 'anything else he writes on' that appears to me to be patently silly. A good deal of what he writes on is about entrepreneurship.

All in your criticism smacks to me of small minded jealousy. It's a familiar pattern - small petty people trying to boost their flagging self esteem by trying to tear down those who have achieved.

Re: What I Didn't Say

#592

Post by argumentum »

ericabiz wrote: post #560
argumentum wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does YC being a "frat house" have to do with applying though? I can understand why that perception may discourage someone from participating in YC, but the acceptance rate is so low that it seems like premature optimization to think beyond the application.

There's not much more I can say that I haven't already said, as some of the conversations I've had were explicitly off the record. But I can say this, in a generic sense: All of the top accelerators will seek out people they want to attend and encourage them to apply. When this happens to you, as a founder, you're well aware that if you apply, you're very likely to get an interview and also very likely to get in. I c…

Yes, you've pretty much said everything that could be said, without heed to whether any of it was true.

Ugh .. disappointing to say the least.

Re: What I Didn't Say

#593

Post by ericabiz »

ericabiz wrote: post #560
argumentum wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does YC being a "frat house" have to do with applying though? I can understand why that perception may discourage someone from participating in YC, but the acceptance rate is so low that it seems like premature optimization to think beyond the application.

There's not much more I can say that I haven't already said, as some of the conversations I've had were explicitly off the record. But I can say this, in a generic sense: All of the top accelerators will seek out people they want to attend and encourage them to apply. When this happens to you, as a founder, you're well aware that if you apply, you're very likely to get an interview and also very likely to get in. I c…

@argumentum: Please feel free to contact me offline; you've met me through Airbnb, so you have my contact info.

I'm going to repeat what I said above: "There's not much more I can say that I haven't already said, as some of the conversations I've had were explicitly off the record." I'm not going to repeat things that aren't true or that I don't have data for. But I also can't break the trust of people who've spoken with me privately. I will say I did my homework on YC. I've reached the limit of what I can say publicly.

Re: What I Didn't Say

#594

Post by tyang »

jusben1369 wrote: post #545
jsmthrowaway wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I see a lot of "two wrongs make a right" stuff here in rebuttals. The problem OP is pointing out is the cult like reverence for PG in this responders comments. Coming to his defense by pointing out that there are other authors on Medium and Twitter who also have a cult like reverence amongst their followers is a mis-direction at best. I think the point is non one deserves cult-like reverence. Maybe Ghandi but certain…

PG only suffers from trust/naivete in dealing with reporters. Here are some ways to avoid the tricks reporters play on those they interview:

1. Keep the interview short and stick to the script. This is what Laura Bush does better than almost anybody. Don't give reporters any "gotcha's" to their tricky line of questions.

2. If possible, do the inteview by email, not phone, videochat or in person. This way, you can give a considered response to their questions, which is what folks like PG excel at.

PG is not a professional interview giver. It shows.

And I'm no PG fan boy. I think his Startup = Growth article is flat out misleading w/r/t startups that start from a base of one user or one cent in revenue (to take extreme examples) and then say a startup is growing if it has 5% weekly growth.

Re: What I Didn't Say

#595

Post by jacalata »

hobs wrote: post #577
jacalata wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That mindset could justify any arbitrary barrier to y combinator, but I don't see pg instituting a mandatory cliff dive as part of the application even though startup founders need to be able to show courage and deal with unexpected and crazy obstacles.

That's true! However, another quote that I thought was relevant to this same way of thinking: (this was just posted today on HN, and I thought, exactly!) “Fear is the greatest obstacle to learning. But fear is your best friend. Fear is like fire. If you learn to control it, you let it work for you. If you don’t learn to control it, it’ll destroy you and everything around you. “You think you know the difference betwee…

Well, you might. But I think you're either having a different discussion to 'is it a good thing for arbitrary barriers exist to entering YC?', or else you're conflating heroism and entrepreneurship in a way I find a little overblown.

Re: What I Didn't Say

#596

Post by grifpete »

pwang wrote: post #425
mattmanser wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't know you, Matt, and I certainly don't have a beef with Paul Graham - I have much respect for him. But, the specific components of your encomium do not recommend you. More specifically: > That he started the seed funding movement? Um, people were doing seed rounds before YC. For like, decades. They weren't blogging about it, because there was no HTTP and HTML and always-on broadband, but crikey, how the hell d…

I would be curious to know what PG has done to earn your respect as nothing above does.

Re: What I Didn't Say

#597

Post by richardw »

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?

He writes for hackers, not for Nature, his articles take a week, not a year. People like to read his perspective and he's got some street cred. Why does it bother you so much if he has a following? So do sportspeople, businesspeople, graffiti artists. That's ok. It takes very little from your life. Personally I'm glad he takes the time.

If you can do better, go for it.

Re: What I Didn't Say

#598

Post by tomasien »

yogo wrote: post #35
tomasien wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not PG specifically, but unless you operate on the premise that getting into YC does nothing to help your startup OR that YC's acceptance processes are flawless (two assertions I'm 100% certain PG would not make) then there is a layer of gatekeeperdome inherit in what YC does. I would personally argue it's a large one, but it certainly IS one.

If you think like this, even a little, I think you can find a way to see everything in life as having a gate. Can't get on TV, radio, on some blog, etc. ... gatekeeper present. That's the wrong mindset to have IMO.

Um, yeah - gatekeepers are WAY more present in TV, radio, and blogs than even at YC. At least at YC there are lots of partners, in those examples it's usually one person who decides to have you on. Patriarchy is a way bigger problem in those places.

It's not about an attitude about life - I don't worry about gatekeepers at because practically you can't. You've got to give gatekeepers no choice - give YC no choice but to accept you, Techcrunch no choice but to write about you, etc. etc. But as a matter or discussing how our SOCIETY should work, gatekeepers need to examine their biases, strongly and often.

Re: What I Didn't Say

#599

Post by grifpete »

mjburgess wrote: post #319
mjburgess wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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/e…

I seem to have been down-voted, maybe some dont see the problem. Here's a randomly picked example: http://paulgraham.com/inequality.html Randomish quote from end of article, "The problem here is not wealth, but corruption. So why not go after corruption? We don't need to prevent people from being rich if we can prevent wealth from translating into power." Umm... how about in a capitalist society money is the vehicle…

I do happen to have such serious reading and I don't find the whole article just silly. I may agree with some parts more than others but it isn't idiotic. He's exploring an important issue, wealth distribution and economic growth and outlining some of his ideas on the topic.

btw WTF is a 'vehicle of positive freedom?' This is not a term of art in any serious social science or philosophy that I'm aware of but apparently it is important to your theory of money and power in a capitalist society. A theory, incidentally, which you don't take the trouble to outline. You simply state that 'under capitalism there is...' It is indeed a small off-hand (and unclear) point.

And why the heck shouldn't he be able to give a talk like this at a tech conference? Defcon isn't an academic conference. Unlace your girdle and give yourself a break from your half digested pomposity. :)

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