
We Need More (PayPal) Mafias - jasonlbaptiste
http://jasonlbaptiste.com/commentary/paypal-mafias/
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hotpockets
There is so much ambiguity in evaluating startups, investors rely too heavily
on evaluation crutches such as being a previously successful entrepreneur.
Sure there is some signal present in that metric but also a lot of noise, and
I think more noise than most people admit (taking a kind of "fooled by
randomness" thesis here).

It seems to me that second time entrepreneurs end up being bad for first time
entrepreneurs because of it, funneling money to established successes. At
least, thats the way it seems to me. A bit nepotistic. What we need is more
opportunities for first time entrepreneurs, like YC.

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barry-cotter
"If you're so smart why aren't you rich?" If you've got a metric with higher
s/n than the VCs and seed firms have come up with, you have alpha, and that's
always in demand. YC and its clones are a consequence of the history and
development of the tech industry thus far. Without them, without the embedded
cultural nous that's in the Valley, Boston the barriers would be even higher.

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kragen
Summary: people who get rich from founding high-tech startups tend to found
and fund more high-tech startups later on. Nothing new there. Article's author
badly lacks historical perspective (HP; Shockley, Fairchild, Intel; Sun) and
basic proofreading skills. Article not even worth skimming.

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kragen
...and after I posted that, everything I'd commented in the last 24 hours got
downvoted. I wonder who did that?

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michael_dorfman
The use of the term "mafia" here is really distracting from the main point.

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pclark
therefore, we need more IPOs.

Google has created tons of great companies since its IPO. Loads of its
engineers now run awesome startups.

