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Comment by ReadEvalPost | Hacker News Reader

    What the hell has Felix Salmon ever done?

Felix Salmon is a journalist. He provides value to the world by reporting or critiquing -- in this case, critiquing the notion that Andreessen and his business practices are worth venerating or emulating.

That he has not built a successful start-up is entirely unrelated to that point, much in the same way the fact Roger Ebert isn't a director is unrelated to his critique of films.

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>Felix Salmon is a journalist.

Exactly. Not being a successful VC does not preclude you from criticising a successful VC.

However, Salmon's incentives aren't aligned the same and regardless of his desire to show a lack of bias to be a "good journalist", there is a point that he stands a lot to gain if his critique of Andreessen becomes popular.

Sure, he makes good points, but I'd take this type of critique a lot more seriously if a successful VC said it. Journalists are good at writing and doing a job of disseminating information. Given their role, they will never be completely accurate when it comes to making predictions of an industry in which they are often on the periphery of "the trenches".

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