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Y Combinator’s New Head

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Re: Y Combinator’s New Head

#71
post #51
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if you learn about successfull people through Hollywood you would have the exactly opposite bias, that all successfull people came from a tough childhood. Latest example, James Brown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0F_pxMmOG4I (looks like a nice movie) But you may add others such as Truman Capote, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truman_Capote#Early_life ; Dian Fossey, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dian_Fossey#Life…

Executives are waaaaaaay more succussful than actors in hollywood. And you have none in your list. It might be enlightening to do a demographic study of industry executives and their lobbyists in Washington. And then report back with your findings. =D

Executives are waaaaaaay more succussful than actors in hollywood.

In what sense?

Re: Y Combinator’s New Head

#72
post #71
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Executives are waaaaaaay more succussful than actors in hollywood. And you have none in your list. It might be enlightening to do a demographic study of industry executives and their lobbyists in Washington. And then report back with your findings. =D

Executives are waaaaaaay more succussful than actors in hollywood. In what sense?

More money on average?

Re: Y Combinator’s New Head

#73
post #16
post #2

No disrespect to Sam in any way -- he truly seems like a brilliant guy with a chorus of influential people behind him -- but I've been on a successful-person wikipedia binge as of late, and it's become very, very clear that a person's upbringing almost determines whether or not they're going to be successfull, which saddens me. I grew up to some very close-minded parents who severely limited my growth, forced me to f…

I suggest you start looking for people you can identify with better who met some standard of success you admire. Madonna is a collage drop out. So is Bill Gates. Altough Gates came from money, Madonna came from a middle class background. There are plenty of people out there who came from "nothing." I was one of the top 3 students of my high school graduating class -- STAR student, national merit scholarship winner, s…

> The odds are super high I would have died young had I not made the choices I made.

Please explain.

Re: Y Combinator’s New Head

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at the current President of the United States. Did he have the type of upbringing you are envisioning here?

Yes, actually. His parents were a Harvard alumnus and a mother who was both gifted and accomplished in Anthropology (with a wide network) and the people who raised him from age 10, his grandparents, were hardly "middle class" in the one-breadwinner-midwestern-auto-worker sense of the word. They were at minimum on the affluent side of middle-class. So, Obama's childhood is not even close to being typical. He started w…

How many thousands of people had a Harvard alumnus for a father and gifted and accomplished woman for a mother? How many of those thousands became president?

Re: Y Combinator’s New Head

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've noticed that people in a non-obvious minority group tend to be pleasantly surprised when they find out that someone distinguished is from that same minority group. In addition to the example of gay/lesbian people, I've noticed that Canadians (nationality) and Jews (religion) tend to show this trait. It makes sense - it's pleasing to learn that one of "your tribe" is doing well.

That's the nicest, subtlest wording of OPIAF I've ever seen.

Any link explaining the usual description of OPIAF? Urban dictionary and google are failing me.

Re: Y Combinator’s New Head

#76
post #72
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Executives are waaaaaaay more succussful than actors in hollywood. In what sense?

More money on average?

Does that mean they're more successful? Honest question. Millions of people adore Brad Pitt, very few people know who the CEO of Apple is.

Now don't get me wrong, there are plenty of downsides to being a famous Hollywood actor. But I wouldn't assume success is absolutely all about money.

Re: Y Combinator’s New Head

#77
post #36

Given all this over-the-top fawning from Graham, Thiel, etc, one thing comes to mind: "Where's the beef?" AFAIK, he only has one failed startup to his name, and yet he is hailed as a shrewd thinker and top startup strategist. For those who know and respect Sam, how would you reconcile his amazing status/respect-from-top-people with his lack of concrete achievements?

I respect Sam a lot. I had the good fortune of meeting with him a few times and he invested in my company. I found him to be very smart, honest, and real. If I had to capture one of his strengths, I'd say he understands how systems operate (technology, people, and cultural systems). I'd have to disagree with you on lack of concrete achievements. He has a lot of concrete achievements that you can point to. Starting an…

I'm sure he's a remarkable person, but not so sure about the examples you give as concrete achievements. First, I would not consider Loopt a success. Second, can you give examples of startups he helped succeed?

There is a saying to the effect of "If your financial advisor is so great, where is his yacht?"

Similarly, how can a person be a great startup advisor without significant successes under his belt? If he is that good at strategy and finding product/market fit, why doesn't he apply these skills to his own ideas?

The basic lesson out of this may be that, even if you are a remarkable person, and have great insights and great strategic skills, finding success in the startup world has such a big element of luck and "being in the right place at the right time" that a lot of remarkable people never find success with any startups they start.

Re: Y Combinator’s New Head

#78
post #2

No disrespect to Sam in any way -- he truly seems like a brilliant guy with a chorus of influential people behind him -- but I've been on a successful-person wikipedia binge as of late, and it's become very, very clear that a person's upbringing almost determines whether or not they're going to be successfull, which saddens me. I grew up to some very close-minded parents who severely limited my growth, forced me to f…

If it helps any, there are loads of very successful people that you'll never hear about who grew up very poor or modest and have very much "made it". Not being a public figure is not the same as not being successful.

The very first multi-multi-millionaire I ever met grew up desperately poor. Quit high school in 9th or 10th grade. Tried to become a boxer to escape crushing poverty but didn't have the right build for it. Ended up in construction where he learned to become an electrician.

He started a small contracting company doing electrical work on new construction and now has three generations of his family and a few hundred employees working for him.

As an aside, he has substantial real estate holdings, raises race horses for a hobby (actually he lets his wife do that), lives on a beautiful 50 acre estate with multiple guest houses and a private car collection spread across half a dozen large garages that's got to be seen to be believed and has vacation homes in the places you'd expect people to have vacation homes. He has a skybox at the local football team stadium etc. He's toyed with getting a 100' yacht, but doesn't much like boats.

He's also completely unknown and if you were to meet him you'd think he was a retired ex-boxer construction worker -- real blue collar stuff. Dresses in work clothes most of the time and talks with a bit of the slang that was common when he was young. A google search for his name brings up nothing. His sons and grandkids are all similarly down to earth and work for what they earn and not a one of them would be known outside of the circle they work in. His sons are all at least double digit millionaires, even though they've split the company 3 ways between them.

Another family I know, immigrated from Korea, the father opened a small deli (one of those NYC style by-the-pound places) and his sons all grew up in the family business. The oldest son cottoned onto the family business and grew it, moved it to a better location. He supports his father in a very comfortable retirement, lives in a multi-million dollar 6000 sq ft home in a city next to apartment buildings (so you can guess what the property value might be), his two younger brothers all work at the family business and all live in very comfortable homes. He also has a pretty decent real estate portfolio and is planning on opening up at least 3 other delis in the next 5 years and perhaps building up a brand and franchising them out. They aren't "mega" rich, but they're top 1% in the U.S.

One more.

My father-in-law grew up an orphan at the end of the Korean War. Didn't even finish his 6th grade education. He managed to get ahold of some property and some investment money and flipped it and made some money. Repeat a few years, with more expertise, and he made a tidy fortune for himself. He single handedly supported himself, his wife, 5 kids (all through college), his brother and his similarly sized family...without going into too long a story, he vacations half the year out of his retirement and spends the other half playing Golf...in Korea. He also lives in a multi-million dollar, custom architected showpiece house near Seoul. He's also not findable on Google.

I've since met dozens of other very successful people like this, yachts, vacation homes, private castles, private islands. Not a one of them would be known outside of their immediate circle. Many of them self-made, not from old-money, didn't go to top-tier schools (if they went) and are otherwise successful by any reasonable definition of the word.

Don't confuse "publicly well known" with successful.

Re: Y Combinator’s New Head

#79
post #78
post #2

No disrespect to Sam in any way -- he truly seems like a brilliant guy with a chorus of influential people behind him -- but I've been on a successful-person wikipedia binge as of late, and it's become very, very clear that a person's upbringing almost determines whether or not they're going to be successfull, which saddens me. I grew up to some very close-minded parents who severely limited my growth, forced me to f…

If it helps any, there are loads of very successful people that you'll never hear about who grew up very poor or modest and have very much "made it". Not being a public figure is not the same as not being successful. The very first multi- multi -millionaire I ever met grew up desperately poor. Quit high school in 9th or 10th grade. Tried to become a boxer to escape crushing poverty but didn't have the right build for…

If you're significantly rich, the thing is you don't want to become publicly known. It's a pain in the ass and delivers almost no benefit to you unless you have some plan for what to do with your newfound fame.

Re: Y Combinator’s New Head

#80
post #57
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you work in sales? What do you spend so much time on the phone for? I spend ~1 hr a week on the phone and it's all to my family.

I don't work in sales, but in marketing - probably 70% of my work calls would be to colleagues/clients, the rest to external people (e.g. Companies we spend marketing $ with). For example, off the top of my head I have 8 hours of normally-scheduled conference calls (before anything ad-hoc) with my main client each week - they're a big company, the people I work with there are based in offices in England, Ireland (2 l…

I may have spent an hour on phone/facetime/skype/whatever calls in the past two months. Half of that to my credit card company assuring them that yes, I really am the one using my credit card in Taiwan, and the other half with family.

That's an abnormally large amount of time for me. Usually I can go days or weeks between phone calls, and when they arrive, they're nobody I want to talk to. They're almost never work related unless something has gone horribly, horribly wrong in production, and even then I try hard to get whoever I'm talking to off the damn phone quickly so I can focus on the problem.

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