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Welcome Peter

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: Welcome Peter

#84

Post by ryanSrich »

fsk wrote: post #74
ryanSrich wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

25-30 year olds smart enough to build their own business wouldn't waste their time with YC. Most of the information and knowledge YC provides is openly published for free online. Aside from that the partners are always open to emails and communication. So why waste your money?

Also, if you're a 25-30+ year old tech worker, and aren't financially incompetent, you probably have some savings and can use that as your seed funding instead of needing to join an accelerator.

That and the fact that you can bootstrap _most_ startups either by maintaining a full time job or consulting part time. The options for creating a tech business are endless but the Silicon Valley hive mind has done a good job of convincing a lot of people that you need to do it a very specific way.

Re: Welcome Peter

#85

Post by stingraycharles »

mlchild wrote: post #78
pitchups wrote: post #23

Just finished reading Zero to One for a second-time, and it was interesting to see that Peter Thiel's contrarian approach to investing in startups ("What valuable company is nobody building") is very similar to PG's thesis that "all good ideas look like bad ideas to begin with (black swan investing) [0] It will be even more interesting to see if their combined insights and approach can increase their chances of ident…

I'd still love to hear Peter Thiel and PG duke it out/reconcile the "choose an idea that avoids competition at all costs" vs. "don't worry about competition at all" messages.

I think they are not necessarily mutually exclusive, just different ways to look at things. A good marketer can "invent" a new area of competition where you are the leader.

Thus, one aproach is to tackle this problem at the start, the other is to tackle this problem later on.

Re: Welcome Peter

#86

Post by logicallee »

api wrote: post #20
logicallee wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is not true. an accelerator can do earlier (before team or product or idea); wider (fund literally anyone who can write five pages in English in a timed setting about their idea); lower (take 0.075% for $2k); faster (an SaaS app that wires you a check within 24 hours, after a human lawyer verifies your details and contract); riskier (billion dollar ideas that don't even have the research paper worked out - like…

All those are valid. One you forgot: YC, like nearly all other accelerators, is implicitly age-ist. Note that I said implicitly. There is no explicit age discrimination that I am aware of, but the entire program is structured in a way that makes it horribly impractical for anyone who isn't a bachelor/bachelorette and childless. You must move to the Bay Area, put in family-unfriendly hours, and live on a quantity of m…

it's also implicitly anti-penguin; in it's 10-year history it has not funded a single one

Re: Welcome Peter

#87

Post by salimmadjd »

Thiel's addition makes YC into a monopoly of sorts. Which is inline with Thiel's philosophy.

I wonder how much of that thinking was involved in the decision making on both sides.

Re: Welcome Peter

#90

Post by baddox »

zajd wrote: post #48
danmaz74 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Most importantly, I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.” "Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron."

Those sound pretty damning to me. Especially coming from a billionaire.

Which part of his statement is inaccurate?
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