An Article About Startups That Wasn't Written By A Pretentious Asshole
teddziuba.com
teddziuba.com
Perhaps PG's advice isn't all perfect, and maybe it's not for everyone, but the fact is that he has helped a lot of people, including hundreds of YC founders, and they generally seem pretty grateful. Who has this guy helped? What has he done to make the world a better place?
Nearly everyone here is focusing on the attack on pg, and ignoring the substance of the argument. Perhaps that's just because Ted is a controversial character, but it still doesn't make the discussion here much more than a collective ad hominem attack.
It's possible that he _could_ have an interesting blog post here though. If he spent less time attacking people and more time thinking about his motivations, there might be some genuinely useful insights. His comment about "taking shit" from everyone is somewhat revealing. It may be that he simple has the wrong personality for this. I like our users (well, most of them), and it's part of what I like about my job.
1) Startup success has a lot to do with luck.
2) There are many people out there who have confused luck with skill, and they're often the loudest, but they're not necessarily giving good advice.
3) Startups are not a good/reliable way to make money, when you can be a doctor, lawyer, banker (or even a corporate drone).
4) Startups are a good way to maintain your independence.
5) ...but you'll still have to take a lot of shit.
6) Starting a successful company doesn't make you smart, virile or attractive.
7) Perhaps the only good reason to start a company is because it's fun.
BTW, I think the reason his writing annoys me is because startups ARE difficult. The people attempting them have enough challenges to deal with -- they don't need this guy shitting on their heads (and making it seem "cool").
I'd probably feel more strongly about it if it were my head being shat upon, but I tend to write off his bitterness as just another way of grabbing attention.
I understand a lot to know this was not intented to be about startups as much about spreading discouragment and causing invalidation to any number left that werent crap of the points he made.
I am surprised to see startup folks have beaten the bite, therefore all this unnessary discussion about someone who missed to take failure the right way.
But if someone wrote it this way, without all the additional nastiness, would it have gotten so many votes? Which I suppose probably explains a lot of the nastiness. It's a way to get attention.
The article was funny, but he should not have insulted anyone. I think he is angry at the world.
EDIT: Mostly mad at bloggers because his application did not get the best reviews which is ironic because his blog uncov trashed most web application development teams.
My only reaction to this article: Don't feed the trolls.
1) For most entrepreneurs, the present value of expected personal profit from a startup is probably less than that from a salary at a big tech company -- or even less so than from on Wall Street. 2) Luck begets success in entrepreneurship. Sure, it requires hard work and some intelligence, but obviously there are far more smart and hard working people than people who started public companies. Perhaps the function should be "(success) = (hard work) * (intelligence) * (luck),” where hard work and intelligence = 0 or 1 and luck is any real number. 3) Many tech bloggers and journalists are writing about things in which they don't have expertise. It's commonly cited among the academics whom I’ve met that expertise requires 10+ years in a field. Many of these people are in their 20s. Something doesn't add up. Moreover, many experienced people extrapolate their previous lessons to situations that are too broad or not directly parallel.
I certainly agree with points 1, 2, and 3, but I think you're forgetting a very important point: many of us are doing startups because we love the environment and type of work.
We wake up every day excited to work on TicketStumbler. Sure you have bad days or even rough weeks, but overall I'm much happier than I've ever been at a more formalized job. I think the last formalized job Tom had was "grocery bagger" so I can't really speak for him.
This certainly doesn't apply to everyone at a startup, but it applies to a lot of us.
He just named the places where bullshit lives. I'm speechless. And I liked Starcraft dammit!
Did he picture her as Kerrigan or the Zerg Queen?
That about sums up the content of the article.
I'd argue that doing a startup with someone else's money (thanks PG and Co), at a young age, and in a struggling economy is much less risky than my former spot.
I used to work in finance and many of my friends are out of jobs with nothing to fall back on. I could have easily been one of them. At least if this fails, I'll come out with a ton of experience in numerous areas and good friends.
However... I do think that a lot of you are shutting Ted down simply because he said shit about PG.
Ted is funny as hell, and pretty much everything he said in his "rant" is spot on.
Personal note: I submitted this at +152 points here on news.yc, let's see how far it drops! Like Google after their earnings report? We'll see :)
People like Ted Dziuba and Zed Shaw seem to have found a winning formula for getting attention on the internet: yell loudly and profanely and don't be afraid to blatantly insult people, even if it's uncalled for.
I just hope his startup, a web page that lists links to other web pages, does not get in the way of his truer literary calling.
edit: </sarcasm>
Great satirists can be witty, vulgar, and highly personal all at the same time and yet come across as hilarious rather than offensive. But you'd better be saying something good or true. If you miss the mark, you're just an asshole. The trouble with this piece is not that it's vulgar but that it's mostly unfunny and drab. And the trouble with the swipe at Paul Graham is not that it's vulgar (or even that it's personal) but that it's gratuitous.
Edit: incidentally, your last sentence strikes me as a shrewd observation.
Too bad we can't say the same about your writing.
We've hit the big time. People are dripping with hate, envy, and disparagement. It seems as if entrepreneur hackers -- people who try to make something new, are now officially a subculture. Hurrah?
Can you imagine the New England Patriots without a Super Bowl swagger? A rock star who is genuinely humble? The president of the US acting like he's just an ordinary person?
I think if you sell your company to google (or better, start the next google) you almost have a responsibility to act accordingly. Walk around with your chest out and your head held high! Talk like you know something! Or else what's the freaking point? If you don't act like you're at least supremely confident, you're almost doing a disservice to everyone else who is trying to get to be where you are.
It's not actually his cursing that I object to. His writing is not coherent or original. He spends more time attacking others than presenting original ideas.
If i read a rant what makes me say "yes!" to the article?: Is it the content? Or is it more the writing style which makes even the most stupid points and argumentations sound logical and cool?
Take this rant as an example: it is somehow succesful on hacker news despite having absolutely no content other than that its author feels fine two days out of three. If he would have written that in a normal style not even his mum would have read his blog entry. But by insulting other people and writing somehow aggressive he creates attention that isnt supported by the content.
:)
Ideally, it is good to have a logo that works in monochrome (for laser prints, photocopies, embossing/engraving, etc.) and if possible includes the company name.
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If you're gonna vote-bomb something to the top of YCNews, you might want to check the URL works first!.....
Definition of "asshole."
...Wanna Bet?