
War Stories from a VC - dedalus
http://wing.vc/perspectives/war-stories
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late2part
I'm not allergic to the term "War Stories" like smacktoward. I would like to
see a similarly highlight set of curated stories about entrepreneurs that
succeeded or failed while working with VCs.

Frankly, these stories read more like marketing and fluff than real war
stories or lessons learned.

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fapjacks
Having been shot at in actual wars, I find it disrespectful and dishonest to
use this term to describe some marketing experience or whatever. Unless, of
course, you pulled a rotting child corpse out of a canal at some point. Then I
suppose you could say it was a "war story".

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smacktoward
I know this will sound nit-picky, but it's one of my pet peeves: don't talk
about "war stories" unless they involve you getting shot at. Really, literally
shot at, or otherwise menaced by someone who wants to kill you.

It just feels disrespectful to hear people talk that way in a society where we
send a tiny fraction of our population off to actually bear those risks on our
behalf, while the rest of us sit comfortably in air-conditioned rooms where
the biggest risk we face is obesity. It's vicarious masculinity, borrowed
valor.

People use these terms all the time, without thinking. "War stories." "Knife
fight." "In the trenches." A trench is a muddy hole in the ground that you had
to dig yourself to keep your innards from getting pierced by flying metal.
Your Aeron chair is not a trench.

End of rant.

