

  TC50 Backstage: Why PG Was Mean and Which YC Companies Will IPO - jasonlbaptiste
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/14/tc50-backstage-why-paul-graham-was-so-mean-and-which-of-his-companies-will-ipo/

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jasonlbaptiste
"If Sam Altman wants to go public, Sam Altman will go public"

...

"If Sam Altman wants to whoop Chuck Norris' ass, Sam Altman will whoop Chuck
Norris' ass"

~~~
zackattack
What makes Sam Altman so amazing? What attributes does Sam Altman have that
make pg such a fan?

I was annoyed by the reporter's "holding back?" attempt.

~~~
unalone
We have asked that many times. Paul still doesn't answer, probably because he
thinks that signing multiple deals with phone companies speaks for itself.

(I've asked repeatedly why PG focuses on sama rather than Mark Zuckerberg of
Facebook fame, and many interesting arguments have sprung up from my making
that comparison, but sadly Paul hasn't joined in.)

~~~
johnnybgoode
In case anyone hasn't seen this yet:
<http://www.paulgraham.com/5founders.html>

The list has some questionable entries even before you get to #5. At that
point it just seems comical. But I could be wrong, of course.

~~~
pg
In the first paragraph I explained the criterion I used to make the list. It's
just the 5 founders who've influenced me the most.

~~~
johnnybgoode
Right, I saw that. That's why I didn't just call the list wrong outright. But
I do wonder why the founders on that list influenced you more than all the
others.

------
lsb
"Y Combinator's been huge and encouraging a lot of young entrepreneurs and
guiding them and mentoring them, but that's a knock I hear about you guys a
lot, is that there aren't really big ideas that come out of it, it's more just
kind of web apps---"

"You know, the problem is that you read your own columns."

~~~
johnnybgoode
The interviewer was kind of annoying in general, and "the problem is that you
read your own columns" was pretty good (how long have you been saving that one
for, PG? ;)...but there is a little something to that knock.

Edit: Also, the transcript sort of implied a harsh, conclusive interruption
from PG, which would've been awesome. The video is much friendlier in tone. :|

~~~
rjurney
Doesn't it go like this?: You're starting a company on $15-20K, so you need to
get a usable app out within a few months - to get some users loving you - to
raise money to go after a bigger market with a 'grander app. You could simply
not ship anything, go after that bigger market first... but then in addition
to seeing fewer, more substantial first apps from YC companies after much
longer incubations, you'd see YC's success rate plummet.

Nobody's ultimate game plan is the cute web app. Thats just how you get
through round one to connect with a real market and real users and iterate
from there, with additional funding.

In other words: complaining about a bunch of small web apps coming out of a
summer incubator and then not exploding into massive companies is equivalent
to complaining about a bunch of startups failing under any other model. Most
do. Thats just how it is. In the case of YC, failure means you probably ship
something, then fail to go much past there. Which is better than not shipping
anything, or spending a year on something nobody wants before you ever ship.

A high failure rate is valid criticism, but judging from how many YC companies
get follow-on funding, I'd say the model works just fine. It will take a long
time to find out.

My question for PG is this: How long until you find out if the early YC
classes are winning or losing investments? How many cells out in your excel is
that day?

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zaidf
pg was mean? Makes me wonder if she was watching the same show as me.

I found pg to be WAY more thoughtful compared to other judges who seemed to be
more in "quiz" mode("How will you solve chicken egg problem?") or "nice" mode.
pg's tone was more like "I wonder if you can do blabla with this. hmm." That
is also how he communicates with his own startups.

~~~
wensing
Completely agree.

What I would give for 5 minutes of questions from PG about our startup! Maybe
that's something he could auction off for charity? Bidding on office hours!

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veteran
Ideally, the presenters should have ready answers for most of the questions
that were posed after the presentations ..wasn't there a selection process per
se? it was odd that many presenters were not prepared for answering market
size/distribution etc questions

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icey
In which talk was pg being mean? Was it for that sports ticket predictor? He
asked the question I was thinking - if I were trying to decide how much I
wanted to pay for this thing, I need to know what its overall value
proposition is to me.

~~~
jjs
Apparently his _faux pas_ was asking serious business questions at a dog and
pony show.

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brianlash
You know that really is a sweet face at 3:28.

~~~
johnnybgoode
Not what I was expecting. PG doing some mid-interview facial exercise?

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scorpion032
This is SarahLacy writing. Isn't she the same who screwed up a public
interview with Zuckerberg trying to hit on him?

No. This is not intended to be Ad-Hominem. I am just curious. Is she the one.

