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Comment by peteforde | Hacker News Reader

It's bothering me that Geoff introduced Paul as "the founder" and Paul just kind of went with it. It was a small moment but these sorts of details matter because they can contribute to unintended historical revisionism.

A YouTube annotation overlay might be appreciated by the other founders.

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FWIW pg is clear here that YC had 4 founders: http://www.paulgraham.com/jessica.html

still doesn't change what happened in the youtube video - just to be clear

PG has written very candidly of being uncomfortable speaking publicly [1].

As an uncomfortable public speaker myself, when I've been in that situation of being introduced at the beginning of a Q&A session, my mind is mostly occupied with mildly anxious thoughts about how I'm going to get through the talk without freezing up or saying something stupid. I'm not paying close attention to what the host is saying.

It's worth considering that one of the reasons PG stepped away from being president of YC seemed to be that he got sick of having the minutiae of his words and actions scrutinised and presumed to be motivated by malice. There's a reason his preferred method of public communication is long-form essays.

As the parent to your comment pointed out, he's been at pains to credit his co-founders in the past, and shows no signs of having an ego-driven need to be known as the sole founder of YC.

Maybe give the guy a break?

[1] http://www.paulgraham.com/speak.html

I did a video series on programming a while back. I wasn't teaching. I was just sharing being a fanboy with some experts.

Boy, did that suck. Every little thing that happened, I couldn't help but think through all the mistakes and omissions being made. I can't imagine doing the same thing at the scale of YC.

I'll probably do it again. I love writing and expressing myself. But I can see where PG did the right thing to get out of the light a bit. I remember on HN the guy would say something like "It's raining outside" and 14 people would respond with misunderstandings, clarifications, arguments, nit-picking. At some audience level all in the same room, it becomes impossible to communicate back-and-forth. The long-form essay is probably best.

I didn't listen to the whole thing nor do I care about any one individual thing, but they did talk about the co-founders as well from what I saw.

That said, other than that I disagree with you. If someone wants to have their opinions taken seriously they have take other people's opinions seriously as well and can't get angry as soon as people disagree.

Personally I think many of his essays aren't very good, but there just isn't any practical way to discuss them. And frankly I don't think people are really that interested in doing that either.

I don't think there's been any "getting angry as soon as people disagree" - he's substantially edited essays in response to critiques. It's pedantry and the presumption of malice that were probably the hard things to deal with, and he just realised that his time and energy would be better spent being an attentive father and partner. Good for him.

I disagree. I think his way of having a debate is very dysfunctional. Many of his essays makes themselves hard to argue with rhetorically. He doesn't leave much room in the text itself nor in the medium for people to share their own opinion about it. And when people despite that still do write e.g. blog posts his response isn't to their argument, but that they have misunderstood what he meant. The way to make pedantry meaningless is to have a substantial debate. I also think there is as much presumption of malice on his part as anyone else. You can even find that in many of his essays where he talks about other people either being with or against him. I could find you some examples where I think he did an especially bad job, but what is the point? If you like his essays do that, but base that on substance and not some sort of universal truth on Hacker News.

Also, when you're being interviewed, how much should you interrupt the interviewee and nitpick on everything? I'd say Geoff made a mistake here and said "The founder" instead of "A co-founder" but was it worth interrupting the flow, etc?

I'm sorry, are you asking if Paul Graham is comfortable interrupting people and making clarifying statements?

https://techcrunch.com/video/paul-grahams-office-hours-tips-...

Jump to 6:20 and tell me with a straight face that PG is concerned about interjection. He literally could have just chuckled and helpfully offered, "well... co-founder!"

Here's the thing: I'm a PG fan and I'm not trying to be pedantic. Jessica has frequently written about how her role is misunderstood and unfortunately minimized, even though it's clear to anyone with life experience that she is the heart and soul of the operation.

http://foundersatwork.posthaven.com/grow-the-puzzle-around-y...

> “I'm not trying to be pedantic”

Nobody likes to think of themselves as being pedantic.

But people can choose to make an effort to avoid being pedantic.

Instead you’ve chosen to use emotive words like “historical revisionism”, “fascinating”, “sad” and “oblivion” to create drama over something that, as I said in another comment, for all we know, PG may not have even properly heard.

If you’re a PG fan, perhaps have a re-read of the “Life is Short” essay and take a moment to think about whether PG (and Jessica and the other YC founders) would think this discussion is the kind of thing life is or isn’t too short for.

Fair enough.

Thanks for the comment; I appreciate your perspective.

Good on you, thanks for the gracious response.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WO5kJChg3w&feature=youtu.be...

He doesn't sound sorry =p

But if he really did "choose" the other guys, then maybe calling him the founder isn't so wrong.

He seems to be talking about Viaweb in the point you link to here?

ahh you are right. my mistake.

I completely agree. It bothered me as well.

It's fascinating and a little sad that anyone who spoke up about this point was downvoted into oblivion... even though my point is entirely valid and easy to verify.

I don't think PG would disagree with my suggestion, and he certainly doesn't need people to defend him.

Perhaps it's because you/they are focusing on some minuscule act of wording instead of on anything significant in the video. We don't need to play the internet gotcha game on HN. In fact, it's off topic by the site guidelines, since it isn't done out of intellectual curiosity (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).

I appreciate the reply. I'll accept your wisdom on the subject, given your role and perspective.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I tried.

You might think it’s minutia for Jessica to be erased, but obviously many of us disagree.

I think it’s a powerful data point to see Paul quietly accept the the title of Founder. It is evidence he’s not in the habit of correcting people who don’t see him as a co-founder with a woman.

It speaks to his mindset. And perhaps this thread speaks to yours as well. It’s not about some kind of gotcha game. We are legitimately interested in how deeply both of you are engaged with this subject.

Personally, I don’t mind if you and Paul don’t think it’s a serious issue. I don’t think you do. You are under no obligation to care. But I think we should be free to discuss the possibility that you don’t. And to notice evidence that you don’t.

This is the kind of thinking that makes me realize YC isn’t a good fit for me. I think it benefits both me and YC for YC’s approach to these issues to be discussed. You don’t want people like me to apply, it would be bad for the health of the program.

It doesn't "speak to his mindset". You've simply cherry-picked that detail ("a powerful data point"!) against all evidence to the contrary. No one who really cared about pg's "mindset" would look at just a single use of the word 'the' which he didn't even say. If that isn't the internet gotcha game I don't know what is.

I chose to see things from Dan's perspective because I trust that he's not an agitator and that there exists a large spectrum between intentional oversight and missed opportunity. Dan's point about this being unworthy of this much attention is correct. Ultimately, it's just not that big a deal and if it's enough to keep you from applying to YC, YC is probably not a good fit for you. You have to be able to see things from multiple perspectives if you're going to have the best chance at dodging blind spots. Things don't always have to be comfortable and if everyone is agreeing with you, it's possible that you're not moving forward.

At any rate, I don't for a moment believe that PG would ever introduce himself as "the founder" and I hope that didn't come across.

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