

The Start-up Guru: Y Combinator's Paul Graham - peter123
http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090601/the-start-up-guru-y-combinators-paul-graham.html

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johnnybgoode
They quote Fred Wilson: "I don't mean this in a negative way, but Y Combinator
is more like a cult than a venture capital fund. And Paul is the cult leader."

I love that he added that last sentence! No one would've known what he meant
otherwise. ;)

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ivankirigin
That's a stupid quote. If he didn't want to put a negative spin on it, he
should have avoided the word "cult". Replace it with "club" and it is both
more reasonable and accurate.

Note that most of the fan boys that are cultishly obsessed with pg and yc are
actually NOT in YC. That's just such an important distinction. I get this
impression just by tracking the most ridiculous comments on YC during the
acceptance notifications, and noting the source.

In my experience, YC startup founders are far more likely to say they're sick
of his slop (literally) after a few weeks than gush over him.

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brendano
_the guy who invented spam filtering as we know it_

That is NOT TRUE! It's so frustrating people think this. He popularized one
particular algorithm, which is great. But he did _not_ invent it, not by a
long shot.

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pg
I think you're misreading the article. They're not claiming I invented spam
filtering, just one particular algorithm that worked.

There were effective spam filters before "A Plan for Spam," most notably
CRM114, but that worked differently. And there were a couple papers published
that had the words "Bayesian" and "spam filter" in the title, but the
algorithms they described were different, and in fact quite useless.

~~~
brendano
interesting. thanks for the clarification!

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rms
Printer friendly: [http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090601/the-start-up-guru-y-
com...](http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090601/the-start-up-guru-y-combinators-
paul-graham_Printer_Friendly.html)

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ajju
_It requires that founders work more or less around the clock while ignoring
pedestrian concerns like cash flow or |hygiene|_

Well, that was below the belt.

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Mistone
"Running a start-up is like being punched in the face repeatedly," he says.
"But working for a large company is like being waterboarded." classic quote
indeed. and true of course.

~~~
hexis
This is exactly right. Nothing clears up any blues I might get working these
days like remembering _any other job I've ever had_.

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herdrick
"... I doubt I've done anything anyone would care about in 100 years."

No way. For one thing, I'm convinced that "What You Can't Say" will be read in
a hundred years and long beyond. Imagine if someone had written essentially
the same essay centuries ago. Wouldn't we still read it?

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nirmal
I was hoping that the 2-page image of pg and other's at a table would be
available.

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ajju
Were you also hoping to frame it and bow before it every morning? ;) <I kid>

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nirmal
Nice to see Gatech didn't take the humor out of you. Only a few make it
through with their brain intact, and fewer still choose to go back. :)

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biohacker42
It's amazing to think that PG first published his thoughts on startups in
recessions way back in the .COM 1.0 crash days.

And here we are today a few short years later in another epic downturn.

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edw519
This is a great article! Max Chafkin takes a way of thinking most of us here
take for granted and makes it understandable to a general audience. Sure, he
occasionally gets lazy with the same old tired cliches about hygiene and
interpersonal skills, but really nails the 3 essentials, passion, hard work,
and customers.

This interchange with pg makes almost anyone want to jump up and do something:

"But what you really should do is start a start-up," he says. He stops and
thinks for a moment. "You know what? You should do a news website for finance.
You could be like Bloomberg, but you'd be just one person." His mind is going
faster than his mouth. "What about Blogberg as a name? Is Blogberg.com taken?"
Before I have a chance to respond, he flips open his MacBook to check, using a
clever domain-name search tool developed by another Y Combinator founder, Beau
Hartshorne.

Sam Altman's quote about hard work pretty much sums it up:

"The start-ups that do well are the ones that are working all the time."

Good to see he didn't miss the most important thing of all:

"We learned quickly by paying attention to the users," Graham says.

Thanks, Max. How about a follow-up article about Hacker News? Paul Graham & Y
Combinator's influence goes far beyond 145 start-ups.

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brandnewlow
Would YC actually fund a news startup? I find that hard to believe considering
the ranks of the alumni.

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pg
Yes, we'd fund a news startup. It's on the list:
<http://ycombinator.com/ideas.html>

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TheSOB88
How is this comment worth 6 points? I mean, sure, it answers a question and
all, but it's not very insightful or thought-provoking. What exactly is this
"pg" guy bringing to the table here?

Is there something I'm missing?

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rms
I'm going to assume you're serious. Pg is Paul Graham, founding partner of Y
Combinator, so he is extremely qualified to answer questions about what YC
will or won't fund. Simple answers to questions always do well here karma wise
and they don't always need to be thought provoking, especially when a simple
"yes" is enough.

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cpr
Anybody else get the da Vinci reference?

Is nothing sacred? ;-)

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Mistone
something buggy going on at inc website, article wont load and now the site
wont load at all. the PG effect?

