I'm trying to guess why it has 53 votes. The only explanation I can come up with is that there must be a number of IFTTT fans who upvoted it just because it praises IFTTT. That would mean there is a high likelihood that this comment would be downvoted.
By the way, as the CEO of Justin.tv you may want to be more mindful of your personal image. I wouldn't want to see comments like the above if I were your investor or your employee.
Why? He called you out and he's 100% correct, why would it matter who he is? Personally, I think it speaks to his "personal image" that he doesn't give a shit about your feel-good CEO image demands. There's also no shortage of hilariousness that you think him taking a shot at you lowers his "personal image"; no harm done for telling the truth, you just don't see it that way because you're on the wrong end of it.
If I were shopping around for a company to invest in and I came across a comment like that, I'd be more likely to toss my money at him. You know why? Because I know I'm dealing with a person, not someone repressing all personal feelings and emotion to create this caricature of someone that they're really not. A person like that is more invested in their failures and successes, and, in my experience, is a better person to work for.
Becoming the leader of a company, as you know, is not a magic threshold after which you have to change who you are. I wish we'd get over this ridiculous assumption that we must hold people to a higher standard based on who they are. It underlies pretty much all of politics, and makes it a newsworthy event when Obama is seen drinking a beer. It's depressing.
I agree that it would be nice, jspthrowaway. Unfortunately you, Emmett (whom I've met in person), and I are not representative of all investors, employees, user, or customers.
Emmett quoted me incorrectly, and made questionable use of the downvote button (which comes with great responsibility, especially if you are a YC partner like he is). To his credit he probably went back to work and forgot about this thread.
In your opinion. I think it was right on target. Complaining about downvotes is in the guidelines as something to be avoided, and predicting their onset is a slightly differently colored shade of the same thing. It manipulates peoples' reactions to your comment, and you are not at all oblivious to that.
I'm actually glad he told you why, even though it cost him karma. I wish every downvote came with a reason.
> (which comes with great responsibility, especially if you are a YC partner like he is)
I laughed out loud at this. It's the downvote button, not a loaded gun.
I'll summarize.
The CEO of justin.tv, who you've met personally (as if that's important to the issue at hand), downvoted you and you've gone after his personal image as a result. Now you're citing his responsibility "as a YC partner" to act fairly. Can we circle back toward you just not liking being downvoted eventually?
Your comment was so devoid of insight that the downvote jab at the end just became icing on the cake, and I agree with it being called out. People upvoted the article. It's a dumb article. Commenting on the people upvoting the dumb article and characterizing them as mindless IFTTT fans is just noise, and this entire thread which has now launched off from your noise is even more noise.
ggp wrote: I downvoted you just for the jab about "that will mean this gets downvoted".
I don't get how that gets you to write:
Why? He called you out and he's 100% correct, why would it matter who he is? --> he's 100% correct about what? what claim did he make? He certainly didn't seem to make any claim about it not mattering who he is.
no harm done for telling the truth, you just don't see it that way because you're on the wrong end of it. --> What truth, and just what is diego on the wrong end of? ggp made no claims, if anything, just insinuated that one shouldn't make comments about some company or product's fanbase. Or I'm not sure what. It's certainly not an outright clear claim of anything to me, just an explanation of what he just did. And what is diego on the wrong end of? Judging from the community reaction, people are agreeing more with diego than not.
And now my being pedantic will get me more downvoted, especially because I'm contributing to something so off-topic and non-value-adding? I just want to understand what it is you're saying because my mind felt like it just experienced a GPF.
I see a lot of people commenting now and then about how HN is not as nice or civil as it used to be anymore. Am I contributing to it or pointing it out?
But something that is worth discussing.
Becoming the leader of a company, as you know, is not a magic threshold after which you have to change who you are.
I see lots of examples out there that seem to disagree. There are lots of anecdotes about how Mark Zuckerberg had to take CEO coaching to be able to do his job. Stories I read about Marissa Mayer when she was named Yahoo's CEO said that she was not CEO material because of how she was unable to lead people, then I read further stories quoting people who said that was the old Marissa Mayer before she matured. I read another lengthy article about how Steve Jobs would not have been the high-quality CEO 2.0 he was at Apple if he didn't have the interim experience at Pixar to refine his CEO style and skills. And I can go on and on about the stories I've been reading. So it's difficult for me to agree with you on that statement.
edit: I mean, if this really were the case, I don't think we'd see blog posts like this one that are so respected: http://bhorowitz.com/2011/04/01/what%E2%80%99s-the-most-diff... I think it's quite natural that becoming a leader requires you to change who you are, unless you were a natural at it. And part of that change includes how you have to carry yourself and present yourself to others and in the public eye. It's part of leading. One of the best articles I've read on the subject I think is an interview that happened with the leader of the Firefox effort, because he was originally so introverted.