

Setting the record straight (Seth Levine's response) - yubrew
http://sethlevine.typepad.com/vc_adventure/2007/07/setting-the-rec.html
In response to the statement in USA Today, "...6% is a huge amount of equity to give up for such little money..."
Seth Levine says that he was misquoted in the USA Today article, and will never do a phone interview again. 
For the article: <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/2007-07-17-ycombinator_N.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/2007-07-...</a>
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pg
Since he says he was misrepresented in the USA Today article, I took out the
paragraph that linked to it. That has the side effect of making this post
mysterious, so in case anyone is confused, the deleted paragraph read:

"Usually people who say we're a bad deal, like Seth Levine in this article,
simply don't understand what we do. If all we did was write checks, YC would
be a bad deal. But in fact the money is the least of what we do. No VC who has
seen Demo Day first hand has ever said YC took too much equity."

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sethjohn
Especially upon re-reading the article, it looks to me as though the reporter
(no doubt trying to present 'both sides of the story') began a paragraph with
"But the limits of Y Combinator's model remain unclear" and then shoehorned in
Seth Levine's comments without much regard to what he was really saying.

~~~
pg
One of the weird things about doing something mostly benevolent is that you
end up breaking the standard journalism algorithm. We've hit this on several
occasions. They feel like they have to find something at least slightly bad to
say about us, and they end up choosing something random. It seems like the
same thing happens to Google.

I'm not sure if this happens because it's an axiom of journalism that every
story has two sides, or because conflict makes stories interesting. Maybe
both. But one sees it often on TV news. A city bans people from setting one
another on fire, and the reporter diligently tracks down the president of the
local chapter of Pyromaniacs of America to offer the other side of the story.

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garbowza
Being a huge sports fan, I am used to people apologizing after the fact and
blaming the media for "misrepresentation" and taking their comments "out of
context." However, I do applaud Seth Levine for at least addressing the issue.
While the context of the comment in the USAToday article was addressed at YC,
it did seem strange that Seth would blast the same model for which he
contributes via TechStars.

I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, since to me it does seem reasonable
that his comments were taken out of context.

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far33d
Email interviews are boring, and worthless. Sorry folks, but if you don't want
to be misrepresented, do a better job interviewing. What you THINK you said,
and what you said are very different.

~~~
ph0rque
> Email interviews are boring, and worthless.

How so? Because the feedback time (i.e. follow-up questions) is too long? In
that case, IM/chat should solve the problem.

~~~
far33d
No ad-lib, too much opportunity for PR rewrites, spin, etc. People are much
more interesting in a conversation.

Yes, IM is much better.

~~~
Goladus
Huh, that depends on what you're looking for, I guess. In a live interview,
you can be asked a question you weren't prepared for, and if you lose
composure even a little it doesn't matter what the truth is nor what your
answer is, what people will remember is that you got flustered. With email,
you can relax and take your time.

I'm not saying email is superior, but one should recognize the advantages and
disadvantages of each method. Live interviews (and to a lesser extent, IM) are
a place where the glib win.
[http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/0...](http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/04/when_only_the_g.html)

~~~
far33d
I was referring to the experience as a reader - emailed interviews and the
stories that result from them are usually boring and formulaic, and don't
differ much from a stock press release.

