
The Viral Me: Inside Y Combinator  - jakarta
http://www.gq.com/news-politics/big-issues/201012/viral-me-silicon-valley-social-networking-devin-friedman
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seiji
I'm impressed. It's not just a fluff piece about how amazing it is having
dropouts save the world.

Devin keeps trying to figure out why omnipresent ego inflation is a good
thing. He hits all the major points: it's about mindshare, addiction, and
manipulating people to get a higher CPM.

    
    
      Is that all social media is doing?  Playing psychological video games in ways 
      that form habits and drive revenue for Internet companies?
    

He takes interviewee's quips (reduce friction! share yourself!), actually
thinks (instead of sitting dumbfounded when someone young talks about
technology and business), then figures out why the fads of today are shallow
substitutes for sincere social interaction.

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jakarta
Single page print version: [http://www.gq.com/news-politics/big-
issues/201012/viral-me-s...](http://www.gq.com/news-politics/big-
issues/201012/viral-me-silicon-valley-social-networking-devin-
friedman?printable=true)

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siddhant
On page 3,

 _One of the founders of a YC company called 1000Memories.com (it's FB for
dead people, only more interesting) says he heard FB can already tell when
you're about to break up with someone: certain communication patterns emerge._

Yes, I know that the amount of data people share on Facebook is staggering,
but, you've _got_ to be kidding me!

~~~
ig1
Nah, I'm pretty sure that's just a Chinese Whisper that originated from David
McCandless work in data mining breakups on Facebook. It can tell you what the
most popular day to breakup is, but it can't predict when a couple is going to
breakup.

However that said it probably is possible to predict breakups with
communication data. You could probably even do it with an iphone app, breakups
tend to follow certain events (like drop in respect, distancing, etc.) that
can detected in vocal patterns.

~~~
siddhant
There is a (YC?) company that analyzes your GMail and tells you which of your
friends you haven't been in touch with, in recent times. I'm forgetting the
name right now. But we all know that Facebook has an edge over GMail in terms
of personal data, and they can certainly do it.

Hmm. I can see an app waiting to be built there. :-)

~~~
shykes
You're thinking of Etacts.

~~~
siddhant
Ah yes. Etacts it is. Thanks!

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inmygarage
I found his observations eloquent and for the most part very insightful. If
nothing else, he does an excellent job of glamorizing why this market is so
exciting:

"These people are optimistic not only because theirs is the last ascendant
American industry but because implied in all those products is the idea that
the human problem can be solved."

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joshu
I still wonder if passing on Rahul's startup was a mistake.

~~~
ig1
What made you decide to pass on it ?

~~~
joshu
I am already in another gmail-plugin company.

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il
So, to sum up: To get into YC and be successful in Silicon Valley, I have to
have gone to Stanford, worked at Google and be building a social app?

pg, say it ain't so! Are people like me who went to state school, never had a
real job and are building tools for businesses doomed?

~~~
pg
It ain't so. In fact I wrote a whole essay about what a bad predictor people's
colleges turn out to be.

<http://paulgraham.com/colleges.html>

Edit: I just took a look at a random sample of startups in the batch we just
accepted. Out of 21 founders, 2 went to Stanford, and 2 went to Ivy League
colleges.

~~~
ivankirigin
Just 21 founders?

~~~
ecuzzillo
It was a random sample of the batch.

~~~
ivankirigin
Whoops

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jedc
My favourite quote from the article: "a guy named Rahul, a slender 27-year-old
Englishman of Indian extraction who's 50 percent hair and 50 percent brain."
Which is a hilarious description of YC/HN's own
<http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=rahulvohra>

