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I think it's interesting that the culture on HN is such that we can have an article like this on the front page. Sure, the comments are dumping on it, and it's not the most compelling argument in the first place, but the fact that it's upvoted and seriously considered before being refuted is pretty awesome.

I guess I'm seeing it as an interesting case of a culture being open to criticism. How many of you were sincerely hoping, when you clicked on the headline, that the contents of the article would be a really intelligent argument about cult-like behavior in SV? One that said things you hadn't heard before? I was hoping. Why is that?

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I've been browsing HN since 2009 and there's always been articles like this. Hell, if you read pg's old essays, he often took a strong pro-bootstrapping, anti-funding tone.

The problem with articles like this is they call startups a "cult" on the grounds that one can get a better financial deal elsewhere. What they ignore is that some people might be entirely rational in valuing the chance to build something groundbreaking, over pure financial concerns. The real criticism of startups would be that this is the big swindle -- that despite advertisements to the contrary, VC-funded startups do not offer the chance to build great products. The VC game inherently undermines attempts to build companies which think long-term, act on principle, and which build awesome products. Some companies manage it, but it takes exception leadership, vision and political savvy from the founders.

"Cult" might be a provocative word choice, but given the shared irrational/false beliefs that partly define the real existing culture being talked about you can't easily dismiss the word choice completely.

I wasn't commenting on the word choice. I was commenting on the focus on the financial drawbacks of startups, when the focus should be on how they stifle good work.

I think it shows that the backlash to the careerist-striver SV startup bubble culture is in full swing. I'm not sure when it first came back after the Dot-com bubble, but it's a good counterweight to being unquestioning towards the 'wisdom' of founders/funders.

> I guess I'm seeing it as an interesting case of a culture being open to criticism

What's the proportion of readers sharing this culture? I assume most readers don't work in SV, and many of them don't even live in the US.

I don't see this article as clickbait. It's been upvoted a lot, so I would say that's evidence also of being an "intelligent argument".

I don't think it's clickbait, just kinda ranty and with no "wow, that's a good point!" moments.

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