Andrew Mason at YC
smandrew.com
smandrew.com
Good to be here!
To the Chicago-based commenters: if there's anything I can do to be helpful before I leave, email me at andrew@ycombinator.com. I'm happy to hang out and give "advice" if you'll make the haul up to Evanston and help me assemble a ping pong table or cat habitrail or whatever my loser project of the week is.
Whoever said Chicago's challenge is one of talent network effects, I agree (although it depends on the nature of your company - Chicago is great for Groupon). I'd love to help solve it, but not enough to endure the handicap. Building a company is hard enough as is. And if you're really intent on self-inflicted pain for your startup, there are far more interesting ways to do it.
The album is real. Looking forward to more 50% off jokes! Can't wait!
Andrew
Edit: since the downvotes from assumed sycophants are pouring in, I'm not afraid to defend my position: the story of the Groupon pump and dump is well-known here and criticism has always been widely upvoted. But once the man is right here in our midsts you retreat. This is essentially the same behavior we see over and over of society promoting the psychopath. Others might have short memories but I don't.
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C'mon, you should know better.
Andrew, why is this your first comment or post?
You could collect and bundle them, and release them as your autobiography.
I'm going to need at least a 50%-off coupon before I consider picking this one up.
That's AWESOME that he is doing this. I love the fact that this guy thinks so far outside of the box.
An ALBUM of motivational BUSINESS MUSIC....wow...
MIND BLOWN
Can't wait.
What? Seriously. What the fuck? Am I viewing the same HN? Just about every Andrew Mason related topic is bountiful of upvoted praise.
I'm appalled by your insinuation that respect is deserved and not earned.
When I usually think of tech, I think of it cannabalizing existing industries, for example travel agents.
Andrew created a new take on the advertising industry, and brought work to tons of people. We talk a lot about big ideas- I'd like to see more ideas that send their profit into a large volume of employees, rather than making fortunes for founders or increasing investor's wealth. Humanity sure needs it.
It's almost like you haven't been paying attention to a single thing about Groupon for the last couple of years.
You could start here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupon#Reception) but somehow I think that wouldn't matter to you.
So stay! I understand you probably get nauseous every time you run in to someone from Lightbank, but we could really use you here. The city has gotten behind entrepreneurship, there are great mentors and accelerators. Tons of businesses are getting started. But what we sorely lack is people who have gone huge, took the big risks, learned a lot, made a bunch of money and now want to dive in and give back. Obviously you want to do this, and YC is great, but TechStars Chicago could use you a whole lot more.
We organize meetups every other month for people in my field (information security) and get a strong turnout, but very few of them seem to be engaged in any kind of startup scene here either.
Should we just be more involved in local Ruby and Python meetups?
Come by 1871, it has become the nexus of the scene. I'd love to chat about what you see as ongoing challenges as a business owner. It has been a while since we had coffee and caught up anyway.
It's too hard to raise money for a new startup in Chicago. This leads to fewer startups being funded, which leads to fewer startups, which makes it riskier to join a startup that could go belly up and leave you unemployed for a few months.
In the Bay Area, if you're an engineer and your startup tanks, you can have 5 job offers in a week from other startups. If those tank, you can get 5 more offers, and so on, until something "pops". That's not how it works in Chicago, so there's real risk to joining a startup there.
The reason this works in SF is because there's just a lot more money there going into startups.
A lot of the Chicago startup booster events I've attended in recent years were based on the assertion that the city wasn't retaining top technical talent, but it could if the startup community would just try harder, or something.
The reason the best devs in Chicago are leaving or not working on startups there is because there's not enough rich people and VC funds funding startups to make it risk free and interesting for them to do so.
Ultimately I think people like Andrew staying, investing and leading the way is what we need to make that transition to the next level.
Chicago is a terrible place to raise money, but it's a great place to do business, better than SFBA.
Labor intensive operations, like Groupon, benefit from Chicago because of the cost and availability of real estate. On the other hand, so does most of the rest of the United States.
So mostly CSRs / sales, right? Outbound cold calling and the like.
"Haven't you read any business books? Good to Great? Winning? The One Minute Manager?"
Why would they? Those are books aimed at business management, not customer service representatives.
I'm working as a paramedic. I don't prep for my new paramedic job by reading the textbooks my Medical Director (an MD) does.
Today's CSR may be tomorrow's manager.
I'm working as a paramedic. I don't prep for my new paramedic job by reading the textbooks my Medical Director (an MD) does.
That's a slightly different situation due to the regulatory stuff, required certifications, etc., but I'd encourage most people starting any new job to start reading the books their boss reads, and the books their bosses boss reads. At least anyone who's ambitious and plans to move up the ranks. Maybe it's just a reflection of the same attitude that makes precocious kids, well, precocious, but I've always tried to read books that went beyond whatever my current job responsibilities entailed. shrug
Uh... what?
Pretty cool actually. If anything YC & HN inspire young people to dream and get engaged in business press & conventions. There's a real lack of this knowledge and worldview by the uninitiated, even amongst peers dabbling in amateur entrepreneurship for whom business inspiration are motivational meme pictures.
edit typo
It might be a while.