The Disruptor In The Valley | Hacker News Reader

The Disruptor In The Valley

forbes.com

197 pointsandujo44 comments

Open articleView on HN

"Graham met Morris, an authority on the Unix computer language"

Sigh...

Great article though. And a wonderful portrait of pg!

Another one: "Y Combinator--a computer term for a program that runs other programs."

Heh, sure.

On the other hand, the explanation of convertible notes and valuation caps was clear and helpful.

Great article overall.

A bit off topic, but where can I learn more about convertibles, valuation caps, FF stock, and all the legal stuff we don't learn in our engineering classes?

http://venturehacks.com/archives

I did not know that Naval had a site like this. Thanks!

And it functions as more or less everything you need to know about this stuff. I was able to read it as it was posted but if I was just starting the now the ebook for $20 is well worth it over clicking "previous" a whole bunch of times in the blog layout.

If you take expressions in the lambda calculus to be programs, then that's not too bad. You don't even have to be liberal in your interpretation of `run'.

Of course "computer term" is a bad choice. It's mathematics (or its hyped subfield of computer science).

"Graham concedes that individual YC partners have invested in a few startups that hadn't been able to attract much outside funding."

Interesting that Paul, Trevor, Robert, and Jessica (maybe Harj and Alexis now?) will backstop companies that can't raise outside money after YC. It's like the exact opposite of the signaling problem.

It's not just them. YC has produced a good number of qualified investors at this point. ;)

The first couple years I used to participate in a lot of the startups' angel rounds. Now I hardly ever do. I didn't invest in any of the startups from the most recent batch, for example.

Why the change?

Partly because I don't have as much spare money (because I bought an expensive house in Palo Alto and haven't sold my Cambridge house yet) and partly because I don't need to as much.

He is not only the Valley Disruptor, he will change how smart kids pursue their education, career ,,,,

Hacker news is part of my daily diet and i have to admit that PG is Rock star. Though the amount of money he funds to YC startups is minuscule, the end result is unbelievable. I have been in the startup industry for more than a decade and to me it seems like the YC funding is more like paid mentoring.

I imagine that a great number of people who hang out on HN feel the same way, myself included.

It is great to see PG giving back to the community in such a sustainable, profitable way. He has created a product that entrepreneurs want.

Never knew Paul Graham began as an artist. I'm not that surprised though. Art and programming are both forms of creative expression.

Paul mentions these origins in his essay on Taste:

http://paulgraham.com/taste.html

After "Why Nerds Are Unpopular", it's one of my favorite things he's written.

"At an art school where I once studied, the students wanted most of all to develop a personal style. But if you just try to make good things, you'll inevitably do it in a distinctive way, just as each person walks in a distinctive way. Michelangelo was not trying to paint like Michelangelo. He was just trying to paint well; he couldn't help painting like Michelangelo."

'why nerds are unpopular' was the first paul graham essay i read in high school (as a sophomore who moved to a new high school). got me hooked =]

I read it as a senior, when the bulk of my school related angst was behind me. It was still awesome, though. I felt less alone – less like I was nuts or something for seeing school the way I had.

Le goût est le nec plus utlra de l'intelligence/Lautréamont (means sthg like 'Taste is intelligence brought to its highest intensity') _ Original quote "Le goût est la qualité fondamentale qui résume toutes les autres qualités. C’est le nec plus ultra de l’intelligence. (Comte de Lautréamont, Poésies I, 1870)"

http://www.paulgraham.com/hp.html

http://idlewords.com/2005/04/dabblers_and_blowhards.htm

of course the birkenstocks would be featured prominently...

I'm surprised they got Paul in pants -- must have been a cold day to get him to not wear shorts.

They said I had to. They also supplied the shirt.

It's a nice shirt. Did you get to keep it?

Great article tho I worry that it makes raising seed $$ sound easy.

It is easy. Y Combinator's application process is designed to take only an hour or two, though it can take much longer if you have to figure out what your company is going to make at the same time. But you have to figure that out anyway -- it's not really a difficulty of raising seed money.

Y Combinator is very selective, but there are many other incubator / tech accelerator programs where the bar is not so high.

But even failing the YC application would be a valuable learning experience - if YC won't invest in you, you'd do well to consider why.

Then again, as pg himself says, the better you are, the less of a "real" reason that you didn't get in. If you're one of the top 100 startups in this cycle, all of which have potential, you might not make it just cause there are another 35 great companies they decide to go with.

How many YC companies failed to get in first time but got in on later applications - any knowledge on this?

see this thread http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1745802

Thank you

Justin.tv, now the Web's biggest portal for live video

umm, what? Is Justin.tv bigger than Ustream and Livestream? I seriously doubt that.

Yes it is. Check Alexa or Compete, Justin.tv is ahead by a significant margin.

I checked google trends: http://www.google.com/trends?q=justin.tv,+ustream,+livestrea...

I didn't know that, if true - serious props, since ustream seems to be a whole lot more.

sorry, small nitpick with your methodology- try these as more realistic comparisons (still not exactly apples to apples):

http://www.google.com/trends?q=%22justin+tv%22%2C+ustream%2C...

http://www.google.com/trends?q=justin.tv%2C+ustream.tv%2C+li...

np, and thanks - since I don't really know how to use google trends properly.

Ustream is often higher in unique views (but not always, and not currently), but Justin.tv has people stay on site almost twice as long, and has almost half the bounce rate. It certainly pumps far more video in and out (at one point at least more than even youtube, but I don't think we've measured that in a while). Livestream is a distant third. Ustream spends a lot of money projecting their image, while we just keep making sure that our product is several times better.

Thanks for info, I really had no idea. Ustream just, well, seemed like they are BIG (good marketing then). I have posted this ~17 days ago, but I had no response: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1755458

I even emailed you guys, but got no response whatsoever. Ustream and Livestream both responded.

Just posted a comment to it (: Email may have fallen into a black hole or something. Good luck!

Wondering if the painting behind PG on the picture could have been one he painted himself?

PG looks very Roger Sterling in that photo there.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com