Hacker News Reader

Comment by jgrahamc | Hacker News Reader

In what sense is this 'freeing' the talent? We're not exactly in shackles here in London.

Also, the name HackFwd is a bit surprising since none of the people involved are hackers in my mind.

Update. The HackFwd people disagreed with me about my assessment of the people not being hackers. I asked them who they'd highlight as a hacker and they pointed to http://hackfwd.com/people#prof.-franz-guenthner

Second update. The more I think about it the more I think this whole 'freeing' thing is arrogant. Who the hell are these guys to set us free? Why begin by implying that we are not free?

View on HN

I don't see anything objectionable in that beyond typical angel/incubator rhetoric. Isn't something like: "we provide the seed capital that frees up entrepreneurs to pursue their ideas", a pretty stock justification for the role they play?

> We're not exactly in shackles here in London.

Well, London is about as good as it gets in "Europe", of which a great deal remains where 'startups' are a something of a foreign notion. So I say the more the merrier, and things will sort themselves out.

I think all they wanted to imply is that they 'free' you from worrying about paying the bills and allowing you focus on your startup idea by matching your current salary. But I agree that the wording is unlucky and can be easily be misinterpreted.

It's been my experience that the people who are involved in, and want to be prominent in[1], venture/entrepreneurship/funding in Europe are cargo culters, and their idea of tact is not the same as in the UK/US - they also don't do a good job carrying off lovable arrogance, like Americans and Brits have much practice doing.

Case in point: ZenDesk. Their "here's our new price, this is transparent cuz we didn't charge you without telling you" bit and then their non-apology apology, and CEO's tweets complaining about their upset customers, etc.

That behavior, and this behavior, are cut from the same cloth.

I wish the above weren't my experience, seeing as I'm an American transplant in Austria, naturally. I'm invested in it NOT being that way. And yet, there it is.

[1] There are plenty of people in the venture/entrepreneurship/funding game in Europe who aren't like this, I imagine, but the prominence-seeking seems to be the indicator for being unlikably, and unjustifiably, arrogant.

EDIT: replaced start with number to solve formatting issue

I particularly enjoyed this video http://vimeo.com/12149977 in which we are told that Twitter is useful for keeping up to date on new technologies.

Oh wow.

The cliche with a little snippet of code asking the audience to raise hands ("look at us we're such nerds!")... Tasteful.

They spoke a lot but said nothing.

Somehow it's funny to see how the audience might be a little more informed than the presenters... Especially the question at around 23:00 to me seems like a big "fuck you" to the presenters. The sigh at 23.22 sends chills through my spine as the presenter knows that he hasn't got any clue of how to answer to that nerd-question - but he won't be able to admit that because then he wouldn't be such a nerd he thinks he is.

I love it.

You caught me. It was this special day of the year I decided not to wear my suit and stop doing excel sheets for a second.

Here are some slides I created in a prior attempt to impersonate someone who's mental abilities are clearly above mine:

http://www.slideshare.net/evilhackerdude/building-great-stuf...

If you'd like to talk to the person I'm trying to impersonate, here's his Twitter:

http://twitter.com/evilhackerdude

I'd love to talk to you!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com