
Don't Read the Comments - dwaxe
http://blog.samaltman.com/dont-read-the-comments
======
cmontella
I would say don't ignore the haters, anticipate them. When we showed off our
early work on Eve last year, we prepared for every possible comment and
criticism we could think of. What we did is write a series of documents such
that whenever anyone brought up an argument against us, we replied and pointed
to a well-researched post refuting their point of view. It actually worked to
talk people down from "This is the dumbest thing ever" to "oh, I can see why
you did that. Good luck".

~~~
Mahn
This works (being good at understanding, anticipating and addressing
criticism) until you realize it's turtles all the way down and at some point
the returns of keeping up with the criticism become diminishing. One has to
realize that:

1) People like to criticise for the sake of critising, there's never gonna be
a scenario where you don't have haters unless nobody likes or uses your
product/company.

2) People are often irrational and emotional, there's only so much you can do
with logic and reason when one just wants to vent and shout.

3) People don't understand that you have to make compromises to be able to run
your service/product/company and those compromises mean you can't please the
entirety 100% of uses cases they come up with. As far as they are concerned
your product/company should do everything all the time at no cost.

By all means, don't ignore criticism and the haters, but keep a level head and
understand that it won't always take you somewhere to argue about it.

~~~
nostrademons
The point usually isn't to convince the haters, it's to convince the
bystanders who might've been swayed by the haters' arguments.

~~~
thesz
I cannot agree more.

The discussion with almost anybody on the internet should address the most
wider audience as a target.

People learn from discussions tremendously. At the very least, it entertains
them.

------
sotojuan
I spent ages 12-now on internet forums, ranging from video game boards, to
anime imageboards, to HN. One "positive" thing about this is that by now I am
desensitized from rude and baseless internet comments. I've heard and been
told everything! If I had a penny for every time I've been told that I suck
and I need to kill myself, maybe I could be a YC partner and invest :-)

But I always forget there's a lot of people that well, went outside a lot in
their teens and only talked to their friends on AIM/Facebook/texting, so they
take rude comments personally. So yeah, I agree with Sam. Ignore them. Unless
they're personally harassing you, stalking you, etc. (or opposite, giving
helpful criticism), it's just words that mean nothing.

~~~
grillvogel
the thing about this is that you don't know whether or not its actually
affected you. those words get into your brain and then they hang out in your
subconscious and have a party.

~~~
nemothekid
Like the other poster, I've spent my entire adolescence on internet forums. I
can't say they negatively affect me either (as anything other than noise). In
general all the mean comments I've received have been lazy, contradictory and
eventually you see these comments as a indicator that you've "won" as the
other commenters are now "salty".

One thing I can say it has affected me is I tend not to get into arguments
over subjects I don't care about - online and off. Years of arguing online
about inane subjects and logging in the next day to see your opponent's views
have gone unchanged makes you realize how much time and energy you waste
getting mad at things on the internet - there are far for effective ways to
change the world.

Even though I've spent probably entire years of my life reading comments, I am
of the camp that most comments aren't even worth the silicon they are stored
on. However, there are a lot of diamonds in the ash.

I understand, however, that this experience might be much different on non-
anonymous/social platforms like Twitter and Facebook where it may seem like
the attacks are personal, but I'm not popular enough to have this experience.

------
keithwhor
This is a tricky subject.

I think all feedback is helpful. (Engaging with the people who provide the
feedback, however, can be more trouble than it's worth. You have to know when
to let go.)

We launched stdlib [1] two weeks ago and while we saw a lot of positive
reactions, there was a very vocal minority who lashed back against our
"marketing speak" and lack of things like SLAs. This quickly devolved into
tearing apart the product itself, with someone going as far as to say if the
commercial venture is successful, we will ruin the lives of thousands of
developers (!!).

The response was actually tremendously valuable --- our marketing material
sucks for a developer tool. It doesn't describe what the product does well
enough. Heck, it _still_ doesn't because we've been iterating on features more
than messaging.

It was easy to instantly jump to the defensive, and I think I did to begin
with, but I'm learning that adversarial comments are actually just a really
straightforward question disguised as incredulity. "What's your value prop?"
Some people might not get it right away, some never will. But my goal,
personally, is to reduce the amount of people that ask that question. :)

[1] [https://stdlib.com](https://stdlib.com)

~~~
50CNT
Yup, read that, no idea what it does. Now not to bash you, but here's some
things you guys might want to look at.

For one, there's truth in the saying "Users don't give a sh*t about your
vision". They're as self-serving as anyone, and they want to know what good
your thing does for them. It's great folly to not tell them once they have
reached your site and are ready to listen.

Second, "marketing speak“ is feel-good fluff, designed to obfuscate meaning,
just like political speak. You're doing something technical, don't use
marketing speak. Talk facts, talk applications, talk guides and tutorials.
This leads to two great outcomes. One is that the people you're trying to
reach understand exactly what you're saying. Two, you don't have to feel
smarmy saying it.

Then, try to see your messaging as another component of your overall project.
Imagine you have some kickass servers crunching numbers, but your load
balancer is an arduino running on potato batteries. No bueno. Now you don't
have to make everything perfect, but your copy should do your project justice.

Also, focusing on features over "messaging“ seems like something I'd do if I
didn't know how to do marketing and wanted to avoid the topic altogether. Make
sure you're not neglecting critical areas because you're uncomfortable with
them. If lack of confidence/knowledge is an issue, I'd recommend picking up a
copy of Claude Hopkins "Scientific Advertising". It's only 80 pages, there's
pdfs of it floating around on-line, and I think it gets the principles down
nicely.

~~~
keithwhor
You're 100% right. Thanks for the feedback. It's exactly because we're not as
good at marketing, and are focusing on what we're best at. :) (But you can't
avoid blind spots forever!) I'll take a look at the book --- thanks for the
recommendation!

------
gavanwoolery
My $0.02: Read the comments, particularly the negative ones, and try to reply
to every single one. 99.999 percent of the time, people will flip the switch
from negative to positive when confronted directly. They realize "hey - this
is a real person behind this company, and they are taking the time to address
my concerns personally." Often, their negative perspective can be reversed
with better communication and clarity about your product / goals.

Also, the people criticizing your product may very well be right. There were
plenty of times when I did not place enough weight on some criticisms, and
they were in fact right. Take criticisms seriously, it is too easy to get
tunnel vision and convince yourself you are making all the right choices.

------
Gargoyle
I tend to agree.

About 90% of the critical comments on startups are things that occur to people
within literally the first few minutes of thinking about them. If that long.

Those comments are at best valueless, and perhaps even of negative value, both
to the startup and to the wider community. Probably even to the commenters
themselves.

The people involved in the company, the founders, the employees, the
investors, they all have brains of their own and those same problems occurred
to them in about the same amount of time. There's no real insight there, no
true value added. Nearly all of your initial reactions as an outsider is a
known-known, so where's the value?

What _is_ useful, at least to the commenter, and likely the community, and
maybe even the company itself is taking the next step- What would make what
you think is an issue not a problem? How can it be solved? How can it be
avoided altogether?

That's where the actual insight comes in, not in spotting the problems that
are obvious to everyone in 60 seconds.

This morning I went through the list of YC Demo Day companies from yesterday
and made notes about my initial reactions to each. What I thought was cool,
what I thought was likely to be a problem, what I didn't get at all. Probably
pretty much the same reactions everyone else had.

And over the next whatever period of time, I'm going to think about why they
could work, or what it would take to make them work, or what their "real plan"
is. Just as a way to keep my brain active beyond kneejerk responses. For me,
that's infinitely more useful than whatever immediate dismissal comes to mind.

------
tptacek
If you have a company that just launched and you're scared to read the HN
comments about it, I know the feeling. Ping me, and I'll read them for you and
pass the nice ones and the useful ones along.

~~~
gist
An interesting idea for a service, could call it filterhatemail.com

~~~
corobo
This idea is stupid and you should feel stupid!*

* Not necessarily true, who filters for the filterers?

~~~
tptacek
If you think I would pass dumb comments along, don't ask me to read comments
for your company.

I agree that this is the worst startup idea ever.

~~~
viraptor
Is it? Maybe not just as a hatemail filter, but someone who actually collates
responses, tries to get the reason for criticism without getting into
arguments, and tries to extract actionable ideas from overall internet
response could be an interesting offer. Sounds almost like it could be
uservoice.com's premium offer.

~~~
prawn
I agree - doesn't scale, but it's far from a bad idea. I've done it for
someone who takes reviews very personally. I abstracted the useful criticism
and didn't make mention of the petty stuff.

------
fowl2
And yet, the first thing I did was read the comments here- to determine if the
article was worth tapping.

~~~
tiglionabbit
Article is about negative comments about your startup.

------
carsongross
_The people who have said there is nothing new left to do in the world have
been wrong every time. Don 't let their lack of imagination hold you back._

I think this is the larger point, hovering in the background of of the
article, at least from YC's standpoint: have we stuffed so much capital into
Silicon Valley (and that mode of entrepreneurship) that we have exhausted it?
Are we now cargo-culting?

I tend to think so, but then I'm that sort of person.

~~~
Animats
We've probably stuffed too much capital into ad-supported businesses, as
Twitter stockholders are painfully aware. Very few of YC's current crop are
ad-supported. Silicon Valley is moving back to making things for which
customers pay money, and the paying customers have to be kept happy.

Right now, the ad-supported portion of the industry in the US is more than
half Google and Facebook, and that fraction is increasing. Everybody else is
being squeezed out.

I wonder if the day will come when people with backgrounds in ad-based
companies will have trouble getting jobs. They'll be seen as not having a
proper "the customer is always right" attitude.

~~~
criddell
> We've probably stuffed too much capital into ad-supported businesses

As someone that has recently been converted to the ad-blocking side (actually
mostly tracker-blocking but that tends to kill ads too), there's no way I
would want to invest in a new ad-supported business.

------
vonnik
To paraphrase Bjarne Stroustrup: "There are two kinds of startups: the ones
people criticize, and the ones nobody's ever heard of."

------
rezashirazian
I've done side projects and small weekend prototypes and I know it's not the
same as running a startup or vesting full time on an idea. But in all honestly
it feels 100x worst when you get ignored. I would take all the haters and
doubters over no comments, no response, no visitors, absolute silence.

------
wbillingsley
If it's "these start-ups suck" and "everything of value's already been
invented" that sounds more like vague criticism of YCombinator -- that it
isn't currently producing the very high level of innovation people are hoping
for -- than any given start-up.

There could be any number of reasons for that.

Perhaps there's a mismatch beteween public (techy) expectations of YCombinator
and its current goals? eg, perhaps the public and press all expect start-ups
to be totally original and adventurous but actually what gets investor funding
might be a little more conservative following a predictable pattern. Or
perhaps as YCombinator has grown and the process has become practiced, the
focused impact it can have on individual start-ups is lower -- ie, there may
be a little more "going through the process" and a little less "being put
through the fire" than in the early days. Or perhaps it's just that as there's
more coverage of tech innovation, people are now more likely to have heard of
the idea before demo day (there's always other start-ups in similar spaces,
but previously the public didn't know that).

But all those possible reasons are speculation.

~~~
prawn
This is similar to the comment I was looking to make. That many of us look to
YC batches for innovative ideas, the things no one had thought of yet. YC is
likely simply looking for the angles that will make money, and sometimes it's
just doing something normal but in a slightly new way.

So many of the comments are then about lame ideas.

------
tkiley
I did a Show HN / feedback post for my startup almost nine years ago and got
some very mixed feedback, but I felt that it was all well intentioned and at
least somewhat reasonable.

Over time, it seems like the feedback for early stage startups on HN has
become progressively more gratuitously negative.

In some cases, armchair critics have valid points, but I've gradually adopted
this rule of thumb: Unless I'd give a naysayer's argument a >90% chance of
coming to fruition, I probably just need to ignore it and address it when it
actually shows up in the business (as feedback from, say, real customers). An
armchair critic with a story about why I'm going to crash and burn with, say,
60% probability just isn't worth worrying about, because hard work and elbow
grease can chip away at that 60% pretty quickly when the time comes.

~~~
tedmiston
> Over time, it seems like the feedback for early stage startups on HN has
> become progressively more gratuitously negative.

There's a term for discussion in an internet medium trending toward this the
longer it's popular. The name is slipping my mind right now.

~~~
wtracy
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September)

?

~~~
tedmiston
That's it.

------
nice__two
And it's not just start-ups. If you contribute to LibreOffice, a lot of what
is being said in threads under release announcement can make you feel
depresssed.

I stopped reading them and just contribute anyways. Just because everyone can
have an opinion doesn't mean you have to read all of them.

~~~
Animats
LibreOffice isn't bad now. I've been using it and its predecessors all the way
back to the OpenOffice era. It was originally terrible, but now, it's a good
alternative to Microsoft Word. I haven't bought a Microsoft Office product
since Word 97.

------
Animats
As Altman points out, most of them are going to fail. Later stage investors
need to figure out which ones after YC has done its series A thing. YC isn't
investing that much per startup. YC does well even if the later financing
rounds are way overvalued.

The later stage investors don't.

------
vermontdevil
Will never forget this:

 _No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame._

Obviously he meant well at that time.

But one never knows how a startup or an idea would do unless you try. Comments
often can be like peanut gallery. Has little or no value depending on the
situation.

------
baldajan
Oh no - I'm reading the comments!

With all seriousness, I've gone through this experience. Working hard day and
night and then having a bunch of hate reviews on the internet, and really
awkward and weird ones on the App Store.

My general rule: if they make a solid argument, take it into consideration
(this is the hardest thing to do due to personal biases); if the comment is
without substance, I just brush it off and walk away. If it's a continues
comment (without substance) then I ask if we're the root cause of this
perception, or it's general market perception that leads to them.

------
throw2016
I find a lot of commentators needlessly confrontational and agressive online,
which is completely unlike human behavior in the real world since there is a
huge cost to social aggression.

Initially it was felt anonymity would lets one speak their mind and bring real
honesty and value to a discussion but it has only unleashed an unrelenting
wave of rudeness and negativity that is tedious and derails every discussion.
It's possible to to be honest without anonymity but requires more effort,
maturity and eloquence on the individuals part. Perhaps these barriers are
needed for meaningful discussion.

A useful discussion can be had when the incentive for showboating is removed,
and there is a need for informed criticism to be backed by some level of
reason and logic so the discussion is de-personalized.

Voting does the exact opposite, It makes discussion personal, puts the focus
back on the individual and incentivizes commentators to pass off personal
opinion as widespread consensus, promotes what those vying for acceptance
presume to be consensus, voting rings, and other shenanigans.

You can see all of this widespread on HN. Inspite of heavy moderation there is
still a level of sniping that is frankly tiresome and far too many offhand and
dismissive comments that add little to a discussion beyond trying to make the
commentator look smart.

------
forgetsusername
> _The people who have said there is nothing new left to do in the world have
> been wrong every time._

Being as how the vast majority of startups fail, money is on the pessimists,
no?

~~~
dang
In terms of frequency, yes, but not expected value. I think Sam made this
point in his post.

------
unabst
There's a difference between a negative comment and a hateful comment.
Engaging hate usually leads nowhere and the source is often too subjective to
matter. But understanding constructive criticism or user sentiment is
important. If 30% of users are now hateful because you've failed to fix a bug,
you have a problem, and your comment system isn't it. There are also practical
implications such as NPR not being able to moderate fast enough to put out
fires.

But there's also the issue of the audience. When I'm walking down Spring
Street in DTLA I usually (regrettably) ignore all the random comments, since I
know the audience. But if I were participating in a staff meeting I called
for, I'd engage every comment, and probably even prioritize the hateful ones,
not that there are any.

I always love landing on Youtube videos with close to zero dislikes. They're
usually fairly specific or niche, and so the audience got there by seeking it
themselves. And they searched because they wanted to see something from that
artist.

I find random acts of hatefulness result mostly from random traffic. And the
upside of intentional hate is that at least you matter enough that they chose
you as their target.

------
Kevin_S
I like this post. As someone who has little aspiration anymore for starting a
company, but has (kinda) in the past, I could've used this.

An interesting idea is to NEVER read the dumb internet comments. Just like
professional baseball players are smart to not read reports/rumors, those with
these kind of goals are smart not to get wrapped up in the bullshit of
internet comments.

~~~
rb808
> An interesting idea is to NEVER read the dumb internet comments.

Ironically this good advice comes from an internet comment. :)

~~~
danieltillett
The op did say ignore the "dumb" internet comments. Of course how you can
determine which comments are dumb without reading them is an unsolved problem.

------
roberdam
I think the real message is "Don't let the comments become a burden, use them
as fuel"

Two years ago I put a post right here on Show HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8268275](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8268275)

Most of the comments where negative ones, but as cmontella says, that give you
the chance of think how to answer the criticism and anticipate, so after two
years in the making this was the second post, with the second iteration
resulted from the criticism received:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12260958](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12260958)
Allmost all the arguments against where answered , and the reception and final
product was far better than the original.

So, use the critics and haters as the devil advocate, and use them to your
advantage, far worst is not having anyone to care (even in a bad way) for what
you are doing.

------
grandalf
I'd argue that the thing to do is to read them. Take the emotion behind the
comment seriously, but not the details (for positive _and_ negative comments).

I've seen founders get caught up in their own ego about being an authority
figure. By doing a startup and not investing in the S&P you are taking a
contrarian view, so just own it.

------
scott_karana
> Unless the world ends soon, the most valuable company the world will ever
> see has not yet been started.

I hope he's wrong: I wouldn't mind living in a future where low barriers to
entry and strong competition meant that we looked back on companies like Apple
how we look back on Standard Oil now.

------
sangd
I think reading comments is important just like customer service. Maybe it's a
little easier since we can ignore the ones that are offensive or irrelevant,
or you can say in another way "developing thick skin". I often find a lot of
useful information by reading comments.

------
_sentient
I think there are two core drivers that are behind most of the negativity. The
first is incompetence, and the second is something close to malice.

For the incompetent commenter:

1) Blind criticism is cheaper than thoughtful feedback. 2) It makes the giver
feel superior to the target of their criticism. 3) Cue the dopamine reward.
Rinse and repeat.

For the malicious commenter:

1) They have a vested interest in discrediting the target. (Other accelerators
-> YC, Other markets -> Silicon Valley, Competitors -> You, etc). 2)
Negativity serves these interests. 3) Cue the (perceived) economic reward.
Rinse and repeat.

Between all this, you'll find the occasional piece of genuinely thoughtful
feedback. It's worth looking for, but you'll need to develop a rather thick
skin if you want to wade through the muck and mire to find it.

------
ixtli
Definitely don't get in the way of criticism. But do _get_ criticism. There is
a big and meaningful distinction. "Don't read the comments" is a clickbait
article title: worse than having haters is developing an echo chamber that
isn't tolerant of dissent.

------
Swizec
As per Neil Gaiman: "Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or
doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you
exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always
wrong."

------
codingdave
Better than ignoring comments is to learn to filter the chaff from them.
Remove the emotion, remove the ego, remove the negativity, and ask yourself...
what is the core issue they have with your product, and have they raised a
valid point? If so, stop and make a conscious decision about that point. You
set the direction and strategy for your product, so you choose which points to
address, and which to ignore. But do so deliberately, consciously, without
even acknowledging the tone of how it was presented. That will take you in a
good direction.

------
ryandrake
Although it's carefully couched with "some criticism is useful", it's
disappointing to see the idea perpetuated that offering disagreement and
negative comments makes one a "hater". If I criticize something about your
idea, I'm not doing it because I hate you--maybe I just think it's a bad idea.
There's enough actual hate out there. Equating general negativity with hate
downplays the seriousness of hate and does a disservice to actual victims of
hate.

------
Qantourisc
I think what we could use is a sort of spam filter for comments. Where each
comment is either classified as positive or negative. Next some researcher can
probably tell us the optimal rate between positive and negative comments for
your mental health/self esteem. This way you can get a "rebalanced" feed that
is fit for human consumption. This also reduces the risk of "going into
defensive mode" and ignoring bad comments.

------
losteverything
I have learned that I have never met the person, can't see the person then the
value I place on their words is very small. And secondarily, I always try to
determine if the in-person I am talking to has never met or seen the
communicator.

To me, comments are the rare exception just like watching tv news.

So the advice is good. But the successful companies already have a very good
"filter" already to not pay attention to unimportant people and words.

------
tedmiston
This is so true about critics in many contexts.

> A friend of mine likes to say "there are two kinds of people in the world--
> the people that build the future, and the people who write posts on the
> internet about why they'll fail".

> Most startups will fail, so you can say everything sucks and be right most
> of the time.

------
andrewstuart
<edited down after thinking>

It seems to be personal taste whether these companies are of interest.

This industry for a very long time has churned out things that are obviously
exciting, and at first glance you think "wow I connect with that".

~~~
dang
> _This industry for a very long time has churned out things that are
> obviously exciting, and at first glance you think "wow I connect with
> that"._

That seems like hindsight bias. It's certainly not an accurate description of
how people reacted to future successes in the past.

------
rrecuero
Along the same page, I like this quote.

"If you want to do right, be an optimist. If you want to be right, be a
pessimist."

It is much easier to be a pessimist and although they are right more often
than not, that doesn't lead anywhere.

------
bluetwo
1) People love to tell other people how wrong they are, especially to people
they don't know.

2) People despise being told they are wrong, especially from people they don't
know.

------
tedmiston
I wonder if Sam will read these comments...

------
stonogo
Sam Altman seems to spend about half his communications effort these days
complaining about people being mean on the internet. I hope he's okay.

~~~
danieltillett
Sam has a job I would not want - the don't f-up YC job. The stress that has to
go with this must be enormous.

~~~
sama
Actually it's surprisingly not stressful--one interesting thing I've learned
is that, at least for myself, job stress and burnout comes from something not
going that well (e.g. my old startup), not from being super busy.

And to the parent comment--I'm fine, thanks for the concern :)

~~~
cableshaft
That sounds right. When things weren't going well at the startups I worked at
I felt crazy stressed out.

I also felt some stress when busy, but that was less because there was a lot
to do and more because I had someone who was expecting it to be done in an
unreasonable amount of time.

~~~
danieltillett
I have had two periods of great work stress times in my life - the first was
when my startup was under enormous financial strain and I was doing everything
I could to hustle up the money to keep the team together (2002 to 2003). This
was a time of lying awake night after night wondering what to do.

The second time was different. I was working two more than full time jobs
(academic and running startup that was taking off). I literally did nothing
for a couple of years (2010 - 2012) but work, eat and sleep. At the time I
didn't feel stressed (I was comparing how I felt with the early stress times),
but I was under a lot of stress. I only realised when I quit my academic job.

------
avindroth
Read the comments written by those you respect. Those you aspire to be!

~~~
dredmorbius
Careful there.

If you're good at choosing role models, maybe. OTOH, the worst glurge I find
is written by many of the most "popular" critics and reviewers.

I've been reading up on the Gartner Hype Cycle and methodology behind it.[1]
One article quoted another tech review company who openly admitted that his
job was to be optimistic -- _overly_ and _unjustifiably_ optimistic -- out of
necessity. IOW: these companies are _not_ sources for impartial assessment.

I try to find voices which are independent, _really don 't care a rat's ass
one way or the other about your concept_ in many cases,[2] And their
commentary should hit the same criteria as a good monitoring system: it should
be specific, relevant, and actionable.

______________________________

Notes:

1\. Not much.

2\. The other terms for this are "impartial" and "disinterested". They're
neither a vested fanboi nor a sworn hater.

~~~
avindroth
Thanks for commenting. I have just come across Gartner Hype Cycle, and it's
fascinating.

You said there isn't much, but is there anything I can read about that would
deepen my understanding?

------
minimaxir
Last January, I wrote a blog post rhetorically titled "You're Not Allowed to
Criticize Startups, You Stupid Hater" in response to the disproportionate hype
around Peach ("it's a messaging app that hit #10 in the App Store so it is a
success and the haters were wrong!") and how the fact that the startup had
credible backers does not give it immunity from criticism. (HN discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10967859](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10967859)).
Nowadays, we can see Peach did not succeed because _it was another messaging
app_.

Likewise, I'm disappointed to see this post from Sam as it advocates
_ignoring_ the haters. "Don't let their lack of imagination hold you back" is
terrible advice for people who want to find pain points for their product to
improve. The assumption that all criticism is _bad_ is, in my opinion, toxic
to the startup ecosystem.

~~~
danieltillett
Max most of your comments here are well thought out and argued (I don't always
agree with you), but unless you are an investor or employee what does it
really matter if Peach succeeds or fails? I also thought Peach would go
nowhere (not much sign of 10x), but I kept my opinion to myself as I had
nothing productive to add.

~~~
Dylan16807
That removes half the point of this site if we don't talk about where startups
are going to go.

People like to talk about things? I don't know how to answer your question
better than that.

~~~
danieltillett
I think it is fine to talk about startups and even criticise them when you
have something constructive to say. In the case of Peach I had literally
nothing to add that was constructive so I kept my opinion of it to myself.

~~~
Dylan16807
Building an accurate assessment of whether it's going to succeed is one of the
most productive things that can be said about a startup.

~~~
dang
Such assessments are notoriously inaccurate, except in the trivial sense that
we all know most startups won't succeed.

------
emblem21
I always read the comments. In fact, I don't even read the articles on HN. I
just click on the comments.

I read comments on reddit and the *chans and tumblr. The comments is where the
magic happens. It's where all of your best planning and PR spit-shine goes to
shit and something unexpected occurs.

The problem is that certain Western cultures have raised a generation of
people who think they can micromanage every single aspect of the creative
process. Just to bridge the gap, imagine everything you, the reader of this
comment, might know about science or programming or some arcane field of
complex rules. Now imagine the capacity of your mind to have that knowledge.
Now imagine a person with the same capacity, but none of your knowledge. What
did they fill it up with?

Rules of brush strokes at certain humidity and temperature ranges for a
certain chemical for a certain color of red oil, horse racing statistics from
1942, the amount of chocolate per day required to make their loved one's
adopted child happy, the number of times a boss taps their pencil on a desk
before they reach a conclusion, the amount of paper you have to buy per month
to feed your new hobby in origami, the character development of a favorite D&D
campaign out of several simultaneous D&D campaigns... the intensity of your
capacity for your knowledge is just as equal as the intensity of their
knowledge. They come up with their own rules and classifications and means in
a way that makes sense to them and their internal consistency. They'll fill
that space up with things you'll never know about.

Do you, creator of a product or maintainer of a company, ---REALLY--- think
your willpower, mixed with the vast resources of other people's money, can
truly steer the flow of this mass web of humanity intensity into an expression
you desire? You're pissing in an ocean of piss and there's no splash-guard.
You can micromanage your domain as much as you want because you can quantify
those risks to some degree of predictability. You can't quantify or control
the cacophony of mass human reaction when they are exposed to your presence.
If "internet culture" is mean and stupid and evil and racist and sexist, you
might as well yell at the sun for being too hot or water for being too wet.
There is no "internet culture." There is only a convenient summary of your
experiences to justify why the comments are wrong and you are right.

Maybe the problem isn't the comments. Maybe the problem is the expectation
that other people should automatically like us, or at the least, be polite.
Maybe the problem is that the medium itself makes the expression of intentions
via subconscious behavior impossible, so when someone shitposts, you get hurt
by it because, to you, you were very clear in your intentions. Maybe the
problem is that you're trying to force the internet as a medium of
communication instead of as an archive of data preservation and/or a national
infrastructure failsafe in case of strategic nuclear targeting to
telecommunications facilities. Do you treat your dishwasher like a piano
because you love music?

The ancients knew they couldn't control the rivers, but they did know they
could capture parts of it at important areas to maximize their desires.

------
igorgue
Is not about "thick skin" is about entrepreneurs not having the right motives.

From the music book "Effortless Mastery":

    
    
      "If you weren’t so concerned about your level of playing, you’d hang in for as long as it took. It would be like a hobby.
      That’s why this book stresses again and again developing a detachment to what you’re doing while you are doing it.
      However, it is so easy to become discouraged.
      All you need is one night when you didn’t play what you wanted to hear, and the ego says,
      ”Screw it! It’s not happening.”
      Again and again, this needs to be said:
      you probably cannot develop this level of patience if you are vain about your playing!"
    

Excerpt From: Kenny Werner. “Effortless Mastery.” iBooks.
[https://itun.es/us/LiM3B.l](https://itun.es/us/LiM3B.l)

Or I can change it for you guys:

    
    
      "If you weren't so concerned about your personal image and more concern about changing the world,
      you'd hang in for as long as it took"
    

The problem here my dear Sam is, most modern entrepreneurs have HUGE egos, and
that's exactly why, without the bless from Mr. Luck, they all fucking fail.

Basically, whoever was "down" that you used as example, is a person who just
hasn't found the passion on his project that he claims to have.

Why do people who claim to be "changing the world" go home cry over somebody,
being "mean" to them? Is that how easy they get discouraged? Is like if Batman
gave up after 1 time the joker made fun of him... Seeing this here, with a
bunch of nerds that think they're better than anybody makes me sad. Cause I'm
one of you, and I HATE being associated with egotistical people.

~~~
ffggvv
Obviously you're being downvoted. How dare you criticize HN? Huh?

~~~
igorgue
They just made a ridiculous "YOU CAN DO IT" post that sounds like a 16 yr old
Instagram girl that's telling you to not listen to the "haters"... Yeah that
kinda triggered me, because is insulting to intelligent people.

Should I continue?

~~~
angersock
Your characterization is accurate. It's a feelgood email, probably meant to
help people be cheerful for the stressful presentations.

All that said, you would've had a better post by talking about what content
you think _should 've_ been in the email or by talking about why you found a
simple "Folks, don't let the bastards get you down" to be insulting.

------
forloop
No.

~~~
dang
Unsubstantive dismissals make for bad HN comments, so please don't post them.
We're hoping for thoughtful discussion here.

We detached this comment from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12347919](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12347919)
and marked it off-topic.

~~~
forloop
Would this have happened if I had written yes? (To the question of whether the
post is worth reading).

~~~
dang
That would still have been unsubstantive, but unsubstantive dismissals are
particularly bad.

------
angersock
sama sent out a reassuring email to the current batch because somebody got
their feelings hurt by the mean old internet.

We will now argue incessantly in the comments section here about it.

EDIT: Folks, if you would like to explain why either of those sentences were
correct or unsubstantiated by current events, by all means do so. Cowardly
downvoting doesn't educate anybody else.

~~~
kbenson
I imagine it's a matter of people finding that it didn't really contribute
meaningfully to the conversation. While not part of the guidelines, the
welcome page[1].

 _The most important principle on HN, though, is to make thoughtful comments.
Thoughtful in both senses: civil and substantial.

The test for substance is a lot like it is for links. Does your comment teach
us anything? There are two ways to do that: by pointing out some consideration
that hadn't previously been mentioned, and by giving more information about
the topic, perhaps from personal experience. Whereas comments like "LOL!" or
worse still, "That's retarded!" teach us nothing._

We apply it very unevenly, and are harsher on the critical or humorous when it
isn't insightful in some way. You gave a quick summary, but possibly not for
the purpose of educating, but to be critical. That sets some people's downvote
reflex off, I imagine.

Note: I didn't downvote you, and I'm sure I'm not opening your eyes to
anything new, as you've been here longer than me. That said, you asked... :)

1:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html)

~~~
angersock
The darkly humorous thing about this is that the original submission would've
been flagged away in other communities, precisely because it lacks substance.

I don't know if this is because of people wanting to upvote the general
propaganda of the startup ecosystem here, or because of a general attempt at
reversing the trend of HN being perceived as overly critical--both are
reasonable in their own way.

Your observation about the uneven application of the guidelines here by HN
members is of course spot on.

------
supergirl
does he think so little of those guys that he feels the need to write this
cringey advice?

~~~
dang
Most people aren't born with the gift of equanimity, and a lot of "those guys"
are just starting out, so it seems reasonable to me.

I wonder why some of us get angry when we hear others being encouraged this
way.

------
b333t
This kind of advice seems coddling and in opposition to the great advice
Jessica Livingston gives in:
[http://blogs.wsj.com/accelerators/2014/06/03/jessica-
livings...](http://blogs.wsj.com/accelerators/2014/06/03/jessica-livingston-
why-startups-need-to-focus-on-sales-not-marketing/)

Were _any_ of the founders of the mentioned startups so mentally weak that
they gave a shit what anyone else said?

They may have all had haters but they _definitely_ also had lovers.

~~~
runesoerensen
Someone who is affected by other people hating them and what they do can more
accurately be classified as "human" than "mentally weak".

In the article you refer to Jessica Livingston is talking about feedback from
_users_. Those are very rarely the same people as the haters commenting on
articles here and elsewhere.

~~~
b333t
You've spent thousands of hours working on something but a random comment from
someone who spent 30 seconds thinking about your thing upsets you?

That's a weakness to be overcome not a trait to be embraced.

HN users were early adopters of most of the mentioned successful startups but
I would agree it's a very biased sample of users.

~~~
runesoerensen
_> That's a weakness to be overcome not a trait to be embraced._

Embracing the fact that feeling this way is normal means you can and should
brace yourself to overcome this "weakness".

It's interesting that you seem to agree with the essence of this post: Don't
let random haters drag you down. Yet your comments come off as oddly negative,
seemingly because you don't understand the _" pain point"_ (you obviously
would never get hurt by random commenters, but some in the target audience
probably would).

Analogously, people hating on startups often don't (want to) understand the
pain points addressed by the startups they're hating on either.

~~~
b333t
This "pain point" is a symptom of living a sheltered and coddled life. Wealthy
parents and teachers don't tell their children the truth, leaving them to be
blindsided when the real world inevitably shines through.

These people are trying something real for the first time in their lives and
they should be taught to overcome the struggle not run from it or blame
"haters" for being mean.

------
blintz
This is a straw-man - it seems like the author is just telling founders to
classify critics as "haters", and ignore them. He has a parenthetical 'well,
not all criticism is bad', but that seems there mostly to save face.

A lot of the criticism of startups coming out of the Valley, including YC
(that they solve problems for the same small segment of society (Filld), or
flippantly ignore technological or legal limits (Theranos, Zenefits)), is
absolutely valid. I have yet to see this other mysterious form of "hating"
materialize.

