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Comment by nlh | Hacker News Reader

I rarely get such a viscerally negative reaction to reading something as I did reading this article.

The party is not over. It’s never over. There are always always always more ideas, great businesses waiting to be built, and wonderful opportunities for clever people.

Of course the “obvious” apps/website have been built — do you know why? Because they only seem obvious in retrospect - most weren’t obvious at the time they were built. And even if they were, implementing was harder than you’d think and adoption was even harder.

Argh this frustrates me so much.

HNers: Don’t give up - don’t throw in the towel, and definitely don’t assume there are no more ideas to build with a good brain and a keyboard at your disposal.

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I had a negative reaction to your negative reaction because I think you are mischaracterizing his argument. I don't think he's saying "you're guaranteed to fail, just give up", but rather the expectations of "valuation to effort" is skewed by the 2002-2014 time period, and with that I wholeheartedly agree. If anything, I would argue it would be a better startup community if people had realistic expectations about how much effort hard things take, instead of yet another food delivery app.

Ok that's a fair point, and I just read the article again with this in mind. I understand where you (and the author) are coming from.

My strong reaction came from "all the obvious ideas are taken" and I still think you can build a billion-dollar company from your bedroom.

I actually agree with the author that the YC model of accomplishing something huge and meaningful and hockey-stick-like in 12 weeks is unrealistic. (I actually think it's been unrealistic from the start but that's a different argument for a different time).

Thanks for pointing this out! The core of my response still stands but I see the nuance of the author's post now.

Thank you for expressing my opinion possibly better then I did.

I don't see the point of just not addressing the article. It quite specifically argues that as technology isn't emerging any more so startups can't commercialize those emerging technologies.

Many of these companies were absolutely obvious, just hard to get right. "Everyone" were creating social networks at one point when Myspace was big and Facebook hadn't yet won. And music streaming after Napster, or "mobile blogging" as an Instagram predecessor, or video streaming with Flash, or ... .

Of course it was hard to get it right, but that is why you had a shot to make something with "a good brain and a keyboard". Many companies who didn't make it all the way still sold on some merit of technology. Many VC firms aren't looking for that any more, but things like marketing and sales.

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