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What I Didn't Say

paulgraham.com

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Re: What I Didn't Say

#61

Post by po »

tptacek wrote: post #2

I apologize. I took it on faith that when The Information said they were running a "complete interview" with you, that it was in fact both complete and an actual interview. It seems very clear how this piece misrepresented you; the entire elided question you cite is particularly damning. I retain some of my misgivings (which have much more to do with the industry than with YC), but the "interview" clearly wasn't a go…

I had high hopes for The Information that their business model would lead to better quality reporting… Their page states:

The Information recently sat down with Mr. Graham. We covered a wide range of topics including “mass producing” startups, Mr. Graham’s controversial statements on founder accents, his wife and YC's secret weapon Jessica Livingston (link) and some little-known stories about YC alum Airbnb.

https://www.theinformation.com/YC-s-Paul-Graham-The-Complete...

…which implies that it was a formal interview. I don't have a subscription but something still doesn't quite mesh there. If I were PG I would be writing to them to demand that they change that lead-in to the story.

edit: Another part of this saga that stands out to me is how very few people commenting on it actually have a subscription to the supposedly first hand source at The Information. It was a bit strange that we had a scandal caused by a news report about a news report that most people don't have access to.

Re: What I Didn't Say

#62

Post by apsec112 »

"I think everyone should have the media perform a hatchet job on them at least once. It’s this really scary feeling when you know you’re trying to be honest and do the right thing, and yet you see how easy it is for a hostile writer to cast every single thing you do as corrupt and destructive. And how quick everyone is to believe them. And how attempts to set the record straight get met with outraged “how dare you give one of those typical sputtering non-apologies!”. It reminds me of those computer games where “ACCUSE” is just a button you press, and it doesn’t even matter what the accusation is or whether it makes sense."

http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/15/things-i-learned-by-spe...

Re: What I Didn't Say

#63

Post by crazygringo »

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…

Blind applications would be great if they were possible, but I suspect they would be as helpful as a blind audition for concert conductors -- i.e., not at all.

When you evaluate a team, you need to be able to judge their confidence, see how they interact with each other, get a feel for the trustworthiness, the way they look at you when they answer a question, and so on. If you can't see them, and their voice is distorted, then you might as well just ask for a slide deck and forgo an in-person interview altogether. Which doesn't seem like a good idea.

Re: What I Didn't Say

#64

Post by crassus »

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…

One thing that nobody is mentioning is that many "fratty" companies have been wildly successful. That's why VCs aren't cracking down on startups to make them more professional. (Although it is a good idea to become more professional as your startup grows, for cultural appeal to the median tech worker)

This fratty culture certainly drives away slightly older founders (by that, I mean 25+!) and others who don't appreciate the atmosphere. Ultimately, I expect differentiation in the ecosystem, with different incubators forming to attract talent from different pools of talent.

Creating an atmosphere where your founders feel like they belong is a competitive advantage for an incubator. But no one incubator can make an atmosphere that appeals to everybody. If you make an atmosphere to appeal to 40-year-old females, someone else will lure the 19-year-old males away with beer pong, dorm living, and video game breaks.

Re: What I Didn't Say

#65

Post by rubiquity »

The passion for women/girls (referred to as females from this point on) representation in programming is so strong that they try and make villains out of the wrong people as if it will help their cause. From all of the reading I've done of PG's writings I think he has always taken a rather binary approach at whether you're the startup kind of person. I don't think he cares about sex at all. He wants people that are hackers/founders by personal interest rather than being pushed to it by others.

I really like when the move for more female participation in programming is more of removing barriers that would otherwise discourage females from participating (sexism, snickering, etc.) and less pushing females into programming.

As we all know, PG runs a company where his bottom dollar comes from the success rate of startups. It's not hard to draw the conclusion that people who naturally enjoy doing something are more successful at it on the whole than people who are pushed into doing something.

PG just happens to operate in a space dominated by males, because of this I imagine some people feel he has a responsibility to push the female programmer movement forward. I certainly don't imagine him holding female programmers back, with the female founders conf he's announced it sounds like he's trying to help. That said, I think PG is a "pull no punches" kind of guy, so while he is aware of the lack of female founders I don't think he's going to lose sleep over it as long YC continues to succeed.

Re: What I Didn't Say

#66

Post by jug6ernaut »

"I was explaining the distinction between a CS major and a hacker..."

"What I was talking about here is the idea that to do something well you have to be interested in it for its own sake, not just because you had to pick something as a major.So this is the message to take away:

    If you want to be really good at programming, you have to love it for itself. "
Labeling "CS major"'s as non hackers, good to know as someone with a CS degree.

While I 100% agree with your final above statement, I find it concerning that you would label everyone with a "CS major" as having motivations outside of a "hacker". I fail to see how they are mutually exclusive. I hope this was just a unfortunate choice of words.

Re: What I Didn't Say

#67

Post by __pThrow »

What Paul didn't say.

Anything about DongleGate

Anything about PronounGate

Anything about CPlusEqualityGate

But when They Came for Paul, then he wanted us to know what he said.

Sadly, I was already gone.

In fact what he did apparently was to take these sorts of threads down and encourage moderators to kill them.

Now of course, he abuses his power as publisher to host this thread where we can deify him, thank him, and and apologize to him.

Re: What I Didn't Say

#68

Post by ajju »

When a similar brouhaha happened over PG's comments about accent taken out of context, not one publication cared to actually interview the scores of foreign founders with accents that have gone through YC (I am one).

The same thing happened again with this controversy. Here's at least one rebuttal from a leading female founder: https://t.co/1NbszBqlB1

Is it too much to ask of the press to at least look into a person's actions before piling on with criticism of a purported quote rehashed by a known instigator such as valleywag?

Re: What I Didn't Say

#69

Post by rexreed »

Does the shrill, hyper-Silicon Valley startup focused, gossipy, and banal tech 'press' really matter? I wish they would focus on news, get outside of the Valley for their inspiration, and focus on a wider range of technologies and markets. But then again, who would read that? What we've got here is not "press" but rather entertainment. Basically, it's the TMZ-ification of tech "journalism". Yup, those are scare quotes.

Re: What I Didn't Say

#70

Post by venantius »

I'm really happy PG responded to this, because when it came out it already seemed like a completely overblown and taken-out-of-context quote and I had to literally refuse to discuss it with people because the firestorm seemed too absurd to validate with conversation.
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