
YC is a cult - jamesgolick
http://www.danielharan.com/2008/07/28/yc-is-a-cult/
======
pg
Actually there's a fundamental incompatibility between cults and startups.
Cult followers tend to be people who want someone to tell them what to do.
There are a lot of people like that, but they're the opposite of the kind of
people who make good startup founders. What you want in a startup founder is
the sort of tenacious independent mindedness that makes you start a new search
engine in 1998, when everyone else thinks it's too late.

If the startups we funded were run by the kind of people who'd feel at home in
a cult, they'd get creamed as soon as they hit the real world, and our returns
would be terrible. A regular company could tend toward the cultish and succeed
(some technology companies show signs of it), but a venture firm couldn't be,
because its startups would lose in the market.

~~~
danielharan
So, what's up with these insane hours?

You've written about the need for working long hours, but aren't Michael
Parkatti and Mike Marrone taking it a bit too far?

~~~
pg
As far as I can tell, how hard people work has little correlation with whether
they have follower-type personalities. It does, however, have quite a high
correlation with working on a startup. So my guess is the cause is that
they're working on a startup.

~~~
danielharan
So do you condone working such long hours that founders are routinely sleep
deprived?

~~~
staunch
_"Even during Viaweb I still slept 8 hours a night (roughly 3-11). The most
productive people rarely have more than 6 hours or so of really concentrated
work per day, except in emergencies. If you can ensure you get that every day,
you don't need to economize on sleep..."_ \-- by pg 358 days ago

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39778>

~~~
gojomo
So Say We All.

------
pc

      - People are put in physically or emotionally distressing situations;
      - Their problems are reduced to one simple explanation, which is repeatedly emphasized;
      - They receive unconditional love, acceptance, and attention from a charismatic; [sic]
      - They get a new identity based on the group;
      - They are subject to entrapment (isolation from friends, relatives, and the mainstream
      culture) and their access to information is severely controlled.
    

To the extent that YC fits this definition, so does any intense and ambitious
collaboration. Take the Manhattan Project, the Apollo missions, and some parts
of the Human Genome Project -- they all fit criteria 1, 2, 4, and the first
part of 5 to a much greater extent than YC ever does.

So it looks like we have a broken test function. (Though perhaps it's just
missing a type-check -- maybe it's only supposed to be applied to religions.)

~~~
kschrader
Come on now, let's not go overboard here and compare YC to the Manhattan
Project or Apollo missions. Doing a start-up is hard work, but we're talking
about a slightly different scale here.

~~~
h34t
Why do you think starting a company is less demanding than being a member of
the Manhattan Project or Apollo teams?

"Scale" is exactly the right word -- Apollo didn't happen because one person
worked more insanely hard than anyone else had worked in the history of the
universe. It was a large project with a lot of people (and a lot of science).
Yes, a lot of them worked hard. But please, measure effort on a human scale.
It doesn't matter whether you're starting a company or developing a new
technology for space travel -- if you're pouring your whole life into it, the
same psychological conditions can apply.

~~~
krschultz
Except, in Apollo people died/can die. They didn't work 18 hours a day because
you make mistakes at that point. If your "web application" fails, no one
really bats an eye. But if you start killing people - it is a bit different.
Please don't compare these toy companies that get created, which barely have a
business model much less a purpose, to one of the greatest achievements of all
time just because you sit in front of your computer for long hours.

~~~
mechanical_fish
_Except, in Apollo people died/can die._

That is a rather silly criterion. _All_ engineers build things that can kill
people if they go wrong. That's what engineers do.

You think that social software can't be used to kill people? Do you know the
number of people (mostly women) who are murdered each year by stalkers, most
of whom are former lovers or spouses? Do you want to bet that _none_ of those
stalkers have used, say, Google to help locate their victims?

Do you think that having your identity stolen and your bank account drained
can't lead directly to your death? What, do you live in a country where health
insurance is guaranteed to all citizens? (Oh, wait -- perhaps you do. Never
mind.)

"Toy companies"? Interesting choice of phrase. Here's what one minute's
Googling found for me: A court case, _Estate of Matthew C. Metzgar v.
Playskool, Inc_ :

[http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=3rd&#...</a><p><i>the
plaintiffs' expert, E. Patrick McGuire, reported for the record that in one
year studied, 1988, there were eleven deaths due to aspiration of small toys
or toy parts by children... the plaintiffs submitted a CPSC estimate reported
in the House Congressional Record that in each year from 1980-88, an average
of 3,200 small children were treated in hospital emergency rooms for toy
related ingestion and aspiration injuries. The CPSC also reported that between
1980 and 1991, 186 children choked on small toys, toy parts, and other
children's products.</i><p>Frankly, from the viewpoint of danger and death,
the space program's engineers are wimps: They do very dangerous things, but
they only endanger a handful of people at a time. A toy engineer who specifies
the wrong paint can kill hundreds of babies at once. Social software is pretty
safe, but if the odds that a Facebook user will be killed because of a
Facebook design error are as small as one per 100 million user-years [1], the
company stands to lose 1 user per year, because they have 90 million active
users.<p>[1] I have no data, but I doubt the odds are that small. I'd be
astonished if Facebook hadn't already been a factor in thousands of suicides,
for example. One of the reasons why humans are so incredibly talented at
socializing is that it's <i>fraught with peril</i>.

~~~
krschultz
Apollo engineers make a design mistake, it kills people. If you don't like
that because it doesn't effect enough people (Sorry I didn't realize that
since Facebook serves 100 million people it is more of a feat than going to
the moon) lets talk about Boeing. Boeing makes a design mistake, hundreds of
people die. That has happened and will continue to happen.

Now you compare that to Facebook - if Facebook or Google goes down, who dies?

And this whole stalker point - wtf does that have to do with anything. Do you
think there where no stalkers before the internet? The fact that people misuse
something doesn't make it the engineers fault. If I designed kitchen knives
and it is used to kill someone is it my fault? Hell no. But if I design a
hatch door that doesn't open because of a design flaw, and people die, that is
my fault.

That responsibility is the difference.

~~~
pg
I think the test of the importance of your work is not how much people will be
hurt if you screw up, but how much people's lives are improved if you succeed.
Some of the most important work is done by people working quietly on mundane
problems. Judged by the standard of how much it contributes to people's well-
being, Google probably does more for the world than the Apollo missions did.

~~~
jmatt
Ok PG's response seems almost like flamebait. I had to respond and try to
voice my disagreement.

 _I think the test of the importance of your work is not how much people will
be hurt if you screw up, but how much people's lives are improved if you
succeed._

I notice you leave out the Manhattan Project. Through which nuclear power was
discovered. And later those same researchers discovered Quantum
Electrodynamics... which will likely be the next hardware solution for
computer science.

 _Judged by the standard of how much it contributes to people's well-being,
Google probably does more for the world than the Apollo missions did._

As for Apollo versus Google - come on. Search (PageRank) & improved web mail
(GMail) versus safe commercial air travel, radio and satellite communication,
safe structures, better roads, GPS, etc. Maybe there weren't advancements to
Computer Science. But, there were major advancements in civil, construction,
electrical and mechanical engineering.

 _The program spurred advances in many areas of technology peripheral to
rocketry and manned spaceflight. These include major contributions in the
fields of avionics, telecommunications, and computers. The program sparked
interest in many fields of engineering, including pioneering work using
statistical methods to study the reliability of complex systems made from
component parts. The physical facilities and machines which were necessary
components of the manned spaceflight program remain as landmarks of civil,
mechanical, and electrical engineering._ from
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program>

Separately the Apollo program had a cultural impact on the students and
engineers of the time and even today. I know I am inspired by what the program
did with such limited technology.

[EDIT: Some details and another quote]

------
DanielBMarkham
I love contrarian articles.

Not only is it fun reading a scathing criticism, (and I think he went too far
in some ways and not far enough in others) the really funny part is watching
the target audience digest (or rather, regurgitate) it.

There is a strange similarity between YC and a cult. You guys quote PG all the
time like he's the next Buddha or something. YC is looked at as the only way
towards making your startup happen. Sometimes around application time the
posts get really out there as far as hero worship -- and Paul's said so
himself.

Having said that, there's a LOT of dissension here as well. Lots of folks that
have nothing to do with YC and just think Paul's a nice, regular schmuck like
the rest of us. I know I'm here because of the crowd -- and by that I mean the
larger startup crowd, not necessarily the YC bunch. This is the first board
I've been on that has a long-running discussion about how single-arrow voting
sucks, for one thing, or the role of contrarian comments in a healthy
community.

So yeah, he's got a bit of a point. But it's mostly overblown, and I wouldn't
worry about it. If you're 22 years old and don't have somebody to look up to?
Then I'd start worrying.

------
mattmaroon
Hilarious. Blatant linkbait, but hilarious.

Clearly he does not know many actual participants. Working 18 hour days for
two months is not the norm.

~~~
danielharan
Thank you :)

So, what exactly is the norm? What we hear from blog entries and the like is
that you're all working from the time you get up to the time you fall asleep
clutching your laptops.

~~~
adrianwaj
Cults are defined in other ways too:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult#Definition_according_to_se...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult#Definition_according_to_secular_opposition)

"A cult is a group or movement exhibiting a great or excessive devotion or
dedication to some person, idea or thing and employing unethically
manipulative techniques of persuasion and control (e.g. isolation from former
friends and family, debilitation, use of special methods to heighten
suggestibility and subservience, powerful group pressures, information
management, suspension of individuality or critical judgment, promotion of
total dependency on the group and fear of [consequences of] leaving it, etc)
designed to advance the goals of the group's leaders to the actual or possible
detriment of members, their families, or the community."

For and exhaustive list, see here: <http://rickross.com/sg_alpha.html>

This is no laughing matter. People's lives are ruined by cults, and even if
taken away from a cult, their effects linger.

~~~
danielharan
"Unethically manipulative"!? WTF is that?

~~~
stcredzero
I think that a mother using reverse psychology to motivate her child to do her
homework is "ethically manipulative." I think a national leader using lies to
lead his country into war is unethically manipulative. I don't yet have a
formula for it though.

~~~
mattmaroon
I don't like that formula, because in both cases the manipulator would think
it's for their own good. It's too subjective.

~~~
stcredzero
Well, that's why there is no formula! It's a sticky wicket. In the case of the
mother and child, in most cases, the mother is correct in thinking it's "for
their own good." Also, in that case, there's good reason to believe that the
child doesn't know what's best.

So don't try to put any formula in my mouth. I explicitly said I had none!

(It's like porn: "I can't define it, but I know it when I see it.")

~~~
mattmaroon
Well, I guess I meant that any formula you come up with around that statment
suffers from revisionist history, and a very subjective view of what is really
good. I was objecting to the formula you hadn't pinned down based on the
output.

Most people would say that George W Bush deceived us into invading Iraq. Had
he found a few nukes lying around, would that still have been unethical? A lot
of people who think his actions were unethical now would probably not if the
results were different, even though nothing was known at the time he did it.

~~~
stcredzero
If George W. _knew_ that there were nukes lying around Iraq and used deception
to motivate the US to go to war to get them, then I'd say that would be better
than the current situation, but I'm still not sure it would be ethical.
However, it looks like he knew there weren't nukes or any sort of WMDs there.

In the case of the mom, the prospects for long term harm are minimal and the
potential for long term benefit are pretty good. In the case of taking a
country to war, there's always a whole lot of potential for long term harm.

------
paul
It's sad to see this trollish content rising to the top of news.yc.

~~~
pg
I don't think it's as bad as it might seem. I'd rather have this on the
frontpage than lolcats or accident pictures. In fact, I think some of the
people who upvote or submit things like this do it as a way of keeping News.YC
good. They don't want the site to degenerate into an intellectual monoculture.
That doesn't mean they necessarily agree with everything it says.

Back in the 1960s, the Communists used to get so many votes in French
elections that some people in the US worried the country would align with
Russia. But as Laurence Wylie pointed out in _Village in the Vaucluse_ (great
book btw), most of the voters didn't actually agree with the Communists'
policies. They were just voting for them because they worried that the
dominant party was getting too powerful. Really they were voting for
diversity.

~~~
paul
I'd rather see LOLCATs.

I haven't quite figured out how to articulate what's wrong with this kind of
thing, but it's somewhat similar to Fox news -- they're not simply useless,
they're corrosive.

I'm still trying to think of a better explanation. Disagreement is fine and
good, but this kind of thing is something else. The 37signals posts do a good
job of presenting an alternate perspective, but in a way that is generally
positive and helpful.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
I'd like to see you explain yourself better, Paul.

How can free speech corrode anything? Is it like when you tell a kid there's
no Santa Claus, then you've hurt his innocence with your cynicism?

It sounds like you've got your thumb on a very specific feeling, and I'd be
interested to hear about it, but heck if I can figure out where you're going.

I'm a big free speech guy, and I love a good kick in the butt from time to
time, so I liked it for that reason. WE always want to judge our position
against our critics, right? If not we're just living in a echo-room. But
that's just me.

~~~
pg
Free speech is not a _type_ of speech. It's a policy about speech.

So the question reduces to "How can speech be corrosive?" Corrosive is not a
very precise word, but I can guess what Paul means: he means when people are
deliberately intellectually dishonest, as for example Fox News seems to be.
When someone (a) deliberately misrepresents what an opponent is saying (b) as
if he were attacking something that is a hot button for the audience, and then
(c) replies with rousing platitudes.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Free speech as a policy has consistently been interpreted as political speech,
that is, speech about what or what not we should be doing. It this sense of
speech as a voice of opposition calling for change in the status quo that I
meant.

Sorry to make so many jumps, but it wouldn't have occurred to me to use the
term in any other way -- obviously I'm not talking about speech one does not
have to pay for. Or speech that is unconstrained.

There's a fine difference between honestly describing what you believe to be
the other person's views, exaggerating the other person's views in order to
show how his/her argument fails at the extremes, and purposely mis-stating the
other person's views simply to mock them without giving them a fair chance at
explanation.

We do all three of these all of the time in normal arguments, btw.

I just couldn't equate the blog to the TV channel reference. I'm not going to
defend Fox News, mainly because I don't think they need defending. I'm unaware
of anything that seems "wrong" about them, save for the fact they seem to bug
the heck out of more progressive people. But it seemed like two different
genres, and two completely different animals.

There's an interesting question in there about blogs in general, and the
tendency in media for consumers to prefer people who rant and rave, as I
notice many of the later evening cable news entertainment shows doing. (Note
the separation of news, news commentary, and news entertainment) I wonder why
this type of "corrosive" media attracts so many viewers? Is there a large
group of people, for instance, that really want to hear YC misrepresented and
trashed? I don't believe that. I believe the article in question only
exaggerated a bit to show where the site could be headed. If not, there's
nothing stopping us from using his piece for that purpose.

It just always raises my hairs when somebody says something to the effect of
"stop that man! He's saying something dangerous!" or the like. I'm just
curious. EDIT: Paul did not use the word "dangerous." he only implied that
this article was in some different category of bad speech beyond LOLCats.

------
fallentimes
This guy is presumptuous, ill informed and appears to have a thing for blanket
statements.

Hi, I'm currently in YC for the summer. Although I certainly don't speak for
everyone in YC, I think I'm somewhat more qualified than the author who has
never been in the program and who apparently receives his information from
blog posts and hearsay.

Most of his assertions apply to startups or any intense forms of collaboration
(as PC noted) in general. Although we work a significant amount of hours, it's
not as if we never get out. I've gotten to know many of the other cofounders
very well outside of YC. Additionally, is it really work if you enjoy what
you're doing? I rather work 60-80 hours per week on something I like that
challenges me, than 40 hours per week on something I'm disinterested in. As
for the pure speculative, link-baiting stuff:

"Young, impressionable and inexperienced entrepreneurs are willing to
sacrifice their health, happiness and creativity while pursuing wealth." This
is the second company I've started. It's my business partner's second as well.
Many of the founders in YC have worked at startups or run their own businesses
before.

Happiness/Creativity? I went from working a 9-7 office job I wasn't interested
in to working on my dream project.

Health? Due to increased schedule flexibility, I've actually been able to
exercise more and eat better. I've lost a good 5 lbs.

"They receive unconditional love, acceptance, and attention from a
charismatic..." You should have been at my team's first meeting; it was like
this, but the opposite. Informal founder feedback sessions have been similar.
The carebear environment the author described wouldn't work anyway - the VCs
would destroy us.

"They are subject to entrapment (isolation from friends, relatives, and the
mainstream culture) and their access to information is severely controlled."
Isolation? My parents just visited this past weekend. I still keep in touch
with all of my friends even if many of them wear the hat of beta tester. If
anything, I've been able to keep in _better_ touch with my friends because
they're all curious about what I'm working on. Talking about a startup is a
lot more fun than talking about a 9-5 or 9-7 for that matter.

Without YC I'd still be at my same old job trying to work on our startup on
the side. This is not only difficult to do, but very slow as well. YC
essentially moved everything up a year or two and allowed us to work on what
we love while being surrounded with a bunch of brilliant people to bounce
ideas off of and anxious investors to present to. What more could two
cofounders originally from Ohio ask for?

~~~
swombat
You know, one of the common characteristics of people who have been
brainwashed (by a cult or otherwise) is that they absolutely do not believe
that they have been brainwashed, and will fight that suggestion with all their
strength, coming up with never-ending explanations for why they haven't been
brainwashed at all!

</tongue-in-cheek>

~~~
rbanffy
OTOH, if you were brainwashed into believing another group was brainwashed,
you will fight any suggestion the other group was not brainwashed and come up
with an unending stream of reasons to believe they were.

~~~
swombat
Even more twisted: what if you were brainwashed into thinking that people who
have been brainwashed don't believe they've been brainwashed? Would you be
able to tell whether you've been brainwashed yourself or whether it's the rest
of the world that's brainwashed?

The world would be a strange place... but very clean.

------
whycombinator
If you love what you do and are good at it, programming is only somewhat more
mentally exhausting than playing computer games all day (and I do relatively
complicated stuff: algorithms and numerical math in C++ and ML - don't ask
about details, I like my relative anonymity).

The "burnout" happens when there is no reward in sight, or worse: you work
hard for many months, produce good results, then your PHB shits on them for
political reasons (so you wouldn't get too stuck up), or is just too stupid to
appreciate your work.

I'm not a web programmer, and I tend to be very skeptical of much of what PG
writes (especially the last few years), but I think independent enterprise is
the way to go for the more gifted and hard-working people.

~~~
richcollins
There is some evidence that your ability to make good decisions is depleted as
you make decisions:

<http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=tough-choices-how-making>

(No matter how fun the act of decision making is)

~~~
whycombinator
That's pretty interesting. I find the cube scary to look at, for some reason.
Makes it hard to read the text.

------
pierrefar

      - People are put in physically or emotionally distressing situations;
      - Their problems are reduced to one simple explanation, which is repeatedly emphasized;
      - They receive unconditional love, acceptance, and attention from a charismatic; [sic]
      - They get a new identity based on the group;
      - They are subject to entrapment (isolation from friends, relatives, and the mainstream
      culture) and their access to information is severely controlled.
    

You mean just like doing a PhD or building a company or heck, being a geek
about anything in life. A baseball fan who can recite stats about everything
and everyone for the past 100 years is, by this definition, part of a cult.

------
sutro
Does YC require its participants to practice polygamy? I checked the FAQ but
this wasn't covered.

~~~
gscott
What happens at the Yscraper stays at the Yscraper.

------
YuriNiyazov
First there was "All YC startups produce unoriginal second-rate stuff"
(unfortunately, I don't have the link handy). Now there's this. It is
impressive how YC-hate is evolving.

~~~
Hexstream
If you plot its success and the hate it receives on a graph I think you'll see
a strong correlation.

~~~
william42
If you've read
[http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2005/0...](http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2005/08/physics_of_pass.html)
you wouldn't be surprised at that.

------
vidar
Obviously the guy is trolling, but a useful question does emerge: Are people
taking pg's advice without critically evaluating it? If they do not then all
is fine and dandy but if they do, the guy has a point (albeit poorly
presented).

~~~
endlessvoid94
I'm not sure that's it.

Just because many, many people take pg's advice doesn't mean they aren't
evaluating it. We only hear about the ones that come to the opposite
conclusion (that he's wrong).

------
zenspider
The best definition of a cult that I've heard was from some guy on NPR (no
clue who, I was driving and came in mid-program)... he said, quite simply,
that a cult is any organization who's ulterior motive is to have sex with
minors. I'm sure there are counter-examples, but I think it fits pretty well.

~~~
mattmaroon
By that definition, I know a lot of guys who are cults.

~~~
khafra
I think it's different when that's the overt motive.

------
eugenejen
So what?

I sometime doubt why I've been living my life most of time by ignoring
mainstream culture, being isolated from my relatives, with a few really good
friends far below Dunbar's number that will help each other without questions,
working 60 to 80 hours on non leisure stuffs, and living in the opposite side
of the earth to my birth place since I was 15. I even joined a quasi-cult
organization once to see how does it work. It has been a quarter of century
and I love it. Because I do what I want to hack in my life and I learn from PG
that beside that I also need to figure how to make something that people want!
And I still have some chance to know some very attractive females and keeping
myself fit.

At least I feel much better now because I know I can survive under inhuman
conditions so I just need to persist till I get my share of glory. Of course I
may die tomorrow but I didn't live a life that feel pressure from peers,
pointing hair boss and failed marriages.

~~~
mtts
It's responses like these that at the very least do very little to disprove
the author's point.

Of course YC is not a cult and PG is not a cult leader, but some people here
do seem to treat them as such. Some of the questions asked here (like the "Is
40 years too old to start a startup" one alluded to in the original article)
and some of the material posted here (like the ramblings of the poor college
kid who thought being glued to a computer for 80 hours a week was a fulfilling
existence) indicate that PG's message "running a startup is one of the most
rewarding things you can do in your life" gets distorted in some people's
minds to "running a startup is the only thing in your life that's worthwhile
to do".

The irony, of course, is that PG himself, in his writings, demonstrates an
interest in a lot of other things besides web start ups. It's not only PG who
seems to have an unusually broad world view, however. The same holds true for
a large number of the people who post here.

Unfortunately, a small number of people such as yourself seem to overlook that
and reduce the message (if there is such a thing, which I doubt) to something
ridiculous. The author definitely has a point there.

~~~
eugenejen
Hmm,

Did I say I glue myself 60 to 80 hours in front of computers for 25 years? I
included my time thinking over ideas as work, reading books as work,
congregation in cult as work. I even analyse strategic consequences of my
friends relationship problems as logic and psychology exercises in work. It is
really inhuman conditions because my mind has to run all the time to challenge
itself without paycheck.

I see a big difference is most people thinking work/learning as slavery to the
employers/teacher. So leisure time is classified as the time to avoid their
work/learning. While you are working for yourself, everything you do in your
life is work and learning.

But you are right that I don't care what the author said and have no intent to
disprove what he wrote. I just enjoy my own way of living.

------
h34t
Four parts ridiculous, one part true.

1\. Young and inexperienced? _That's the point_. This is how you gain
experience. Impressionable? Another word for "quick learners".

2\. Sacrificing happiness? Not if it feels good to work on something you
believe in.

3\. Sacrificing creativity? Since when is it not creative to create a new
business?

4\. "18 hour days for two straight months" -- from the point of view of "hard
work," big deal. Good stress makes you stronger. You're alive all 18 hours
anyway -- if you believe in what you are doing, and you take care of yourself
along the way, then all that effort can actually _add_ to your energy levels.

5\. But the key line is "if you take care of yourself." The effects of sleep
deprivation (and eating shit for food) are real. If think and act as though
you're invincible, you really can burn out, and that is <a
href="<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=69097>">a hellish experience</a>.

------
KirinDave
I guess maybe I'd be more concerned about this accusation if YC wasn't one of
the smaller players in the space. Simply put, people will go and make bad and
self-harming decisions all the time (god knows I've done it), it's a constant.
If YC _is_ an unhealthy environment–and I see no evidence that it is, but
perhaps the kool-aid is in my brain–then it's a relatively small one.

I mean, most people here realize they don't need ycomb, right? It's one of
many ways to get some initial funding, but it's certainly not the only way or
even the normal way. It's more of a publicity stunt for a new startup than a
real viable path to large-scale funding (if funding is what you need).

~~~
pg
_It's more of a publicity stunt for a new startup than a real viable path to
large-scale funding_

Of the 80 startups prior to the current cycle (who haven't had Demo Day yet),
I believe 14 have raised series A rounds so far. Probably the same number
again could have if they wanted to, but either didn't want to raise that much
money, or got acquired first.

------
dshah
He got at least one thing wrong: YC folks don't work hard to make money. Many
of them work really hard, but I don't think it's to make money.

~~~
alaskamiller
Pretty sure it's for the money.

~~~
mattmaroon
I did it for the cheese. The Boston batch gets some pretty good stuff.

~~~
alaskamiller
I would like to try podolico.

~~~
mattmaroon
I've heard it's not worth the money.

------
sethg
IMHO (based on my reading, and based on my observations of a certain
organization where I went to college), the distinguishing feature of a cult is
the exploitation of _unanimous peer pressure_ (cf. the Asch conformity
experiment) to make everyone follow _one charismatic dictator_.

E.g. you give all your money to The Guru because that's what a loyal follower
of The Guru does, and all the people you hang out with are loyal followers of
The Guru. All the people you hang out with are loyal followers of The Guru
because they love you so much and they have so many things for you to do
together and go on all these lovely weekend retreats where you are told that
if you hang out with someone who's not a loyal follower of The Guru then it
would be very bad for your karma.

The unanimity and the single leadership make cults different in kind, and not
just different in degree, from other kinds of organized goal-seeking human
groups. And I really don't see how the cult model, seen in this way, applies
to YC.

~~~
adrianwaj
With over 22000 karma points, (~5000 more than nickb) you could construe that
Paul Graham is the cult leader of this board, whereby his words are not just
approved, they are also a guide.

If you start disagreeing with PG in a large way, those that like him will
scrutinize you and take aim as they may feel they are also being questioned.
So there is a slight cultish behaviour going on with this board and maybe with
its larger YCombinator fund context, but not intently by PG, he's an investor
for the most part.

YCombinator as a 'startup scene' is not a cult because no harm is being done,
and the absorption of minds is for the most part very beneficial. Cult
leaders, I think take advantage of their own charisma to defray free choice in
their environment for their own benefit. All in all, Ycombinator has a culture
but is not a cult.

The notion "build something people want" I think is an ideology and ideologies
are at the foundations of many cults, but cults generally have spiritual or
religious overtones.

------
demandred
"5. They are subject to entrapment (isolation from friends, relatives, and the
mainstream culture) and _their access to information is severely controlled_."

Yet on Hacker News, the recruiting grounds of said cult, this post
(information contrary to the teaching of said cult) has ascended to the top?

------
abiek
The solution is to apply the YC principles that fit for you and still live
your life and to not get overly caught up in the message and let it block out
outside reasoning.

------
ChaitanyaSai
Speaking of the news.yc community and not of the founders, what if the
perception of cultism keeps the quality of postings here from deteriorating
rapidly? Most of the level-headed ones here do not buy into that percept and
vote and comment independently and intelligently. The inevitable band of pg
worshipers do amplify the noise, but could that be the cost of keeping the
unaffiliated, median slashdotter away?

------
cbrinker
The cylinder only fits in the circular hole.

You can't assume that you always have a cylinder or a cube to fit into the
mold. Heck, you may end up with an icosidigon and have only a triangle to try
to shove it into.

As amazing as the Y Combinator idea may sound to some, you also have to have a
healthy sense of skepticism and apply it appropriately to every situation and
oppourtunity that comes your way. Make it work for you, not you for it.

------
aswanson
Didn't yamada cover this ground about a year ago?

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=51989>

------
azharcs
I am surely going to be a part of this cult.

------
SwellJoe
Linkbait, and not even original. People were calling pg a cult leader years
ago.

~~~
knarf
I, for one, welcome our new YC overlords

------
scorpion032
As Jason said it elsewhere, "If U want to work 9 to 5, Go work for Starbucks"

------
rokhayakebe
And several years ago the same thing was said about Schools.

~~~
MaysonL
With much more justification.

------
jrockway
_I am opinionated, concerned about environmental issues ... surrounding
software and data access._

We've got to stop dumping the used ones and zeros into the oceans! It's
melting the ice caps!

~~~
rbanffy
"We've got to stop dumping the used ones and zeros into the oceans! It's
melting the ice caps!"

Really, it's the ones. It's a well known fact ones have more energy than
zeros. We should right now start dumping more zeros to cool down the oceans.
If we do it quickly enough, we may stop global warming. We should also switch
to other binary architectures as x86 code has a one-to-zero ratio that exceeds
1.

------
endlessvoid94
Isn't how much people hate you a sign that you're doing something different
and right?

I'm certain I read that somewhere.

~~~
sofal
Be very careful about using that as a measuring stick.

------
pageman
Olympians put in 18 hours a day - so they're cults too?

<http://www.magazine.utoronto.ca/08summer/olympics.asp>

"...Talk of "magic" swimsuits obscures the incredibly hard work swimmers such
as Russell, a second-year pharmacology major, actually put in. Before I went
to university it would be 20 hours a week, weights and swimming. When I went
to Indiana [his first school] my training stepped up to 30 hours of weights,
swimming and dry land, though that is really excessive for me. Now it’s about
18 hours..."

~~~
jwinter
If you read closely, you'll find that's 18 hours a week.

