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I wasn't angry. I was resigned. That's why I phrased what I said the way I did. After so many cycles of doing YC, I know a certain percentage of the startups in each batch are doomed. Some people just aren't meant to start startups, but there's no way for them to know that for sure without trying it.

So when a startup seems determined to stay on the wrong path, I won't keep fighting them forever. Eventually I give up. And occasionally when I do I tell them so, because sometimes that wakes them up.

One of the most influential points in my graduate school was when I worked really really hard, and failed to get a result. My advisor gave me this piercing look that without words said firmly, "I'm not angry at you, I'm just disappointed". That woke me up and got me on the right path.

...so what did you change, if your problem wasn't failure to work hard?

technical approaches, mostly, learning not to reinvent the wheel so much, transitioning more towards using well-established techniques in the lab instead of going for broke on a risky project. I think a lot of figuring yourself out is knowing how to properly assess risk (while not becoming risk averse to the point of paralysis), hedge against failure, grab the low hanging fruit, and communicate the above to others.

+1, this is the kind of thing that changes the way you think when you find out.

Sometimes you don't need to be the genious inventing every single part of something to build something great, but we emotionally think we need to, because we often look up to people that did that as it looks too damn hard and wonderful.

Although I learned a LOT in grad school (and in postdoc #1, and in postdoc #2), I will have to say that choice basically ruined any chance I have at getting a faculty position in academia. If you can't join 'em, beat 'em ==> I'm starting my own research institute.

Lots of lessons in life have to be experienced, they can't be taught.

> "... know a certain percentage of the startups in each batch are doomed. Some people just aren't meant to start startups, but there's no way for them to know that for sure without trying it."

People are much stronger and amazing than that.

It's important not to forget that all people have unlimited potential, because we are all the same. However, one factor that cannot be measured, is passion. Passion can come from one or any number of factors - and passion can make the impossible possible.

To that extent, I'd encourage comment readers to grasp that idea you love so greatly, and grasp it with all your heart... for off that cliff lies a river where you can pan for gold.

The other driver's cars were not designed for high altitude nose dives into water. The car designers did not care enough to pay that much attention to detail to handle that dive.

However, for the passionate who can make the finest car, there in that river lies the gold.

Did I time-warp into a Tony Robbins seminar, here?

People have unlimited potential?

We are all the same?

The impossible is possible?

There is a fine line separating rational optimism from potentially dangerous delusion, and your post crosses it.

Stick to science and knowledge. Our potential is finite, we all have very real differences (biological and otherwise), and "the impossible is possible" is an obvious contradiction that renders both terms meaningless, so you're really saying nothing at all.

you toke the words out of my hands :D +1

Wow, you're like the anti-me.

People (with a few exceptions, usually the result of excellent breeding, education or culture) are much weaker and worse than that.

It's important not to forget that all people have limited potential, though some are much more limited than others.

Do you know Plato had a name for the man who was ruled by passion? Every man has to place some principle on the throne of his heart. The true aristocratic man, the philosopher-king, is ruled by wisdom. The timocrat, leader of a warrior state, is ruled by honour.

Going further done the list, the oligarch is ruled by desire for wealth - which at least gives him the motivation to work hard, if nothing else. The democratic man is ruled by freedom, and his life therefore involves being blown around his own whims.

But the lowest of all is the man ruled by passion - the tryant. People here should read The Republic (or knowing HN readers, skim the Wikipedia article describing the 5 different types of polis): he describes modern culture (including Occupy Wall St) pretty well, which just shows that human nature hasn't changed.

too late, but can you quote the exact passage in the Republic? this really sounds cool, that I really don't want to find out if the wikipedia guy and the philosopher phd that came up top on the google and you are the same person.

Wait, hold up.

I don't think his comments translate into "you are stupid." They translate very clearly into "that is a terrible idea." With perhaps a shade of "don't 'pivot' because your feet are cold."

Which is super-valuable guidance!

That's not to say it's pleasant. Clearly communicating that you think someone is making a mistake often sounds like a personal attack. (Maybe that is a personal attack, at least if your decision-making process is deeply intertwined with your identity).

But in person, without preparation, in a few-minutes-long meeting? You're going to hurt someone's feelings. Guaranteed. Just think about how long it would take you to "correct" someone in an email, communicating that they are totally wrong, but not hurting their feelings at all? Heck, we probably each spent about as much time writing these comments as the interview took in its entirety.

There is one personal rule that I feel strongly about, though: never say anything negative in public (or to colleagues) about someone that you haven't already leveled with them about, and ideally given them a chance to change. I don't know if pg did that with the thermostat startup he trashed on Twitter recently, although it's not really any of my business.

The "you are stupid" sentiment comes from this statement: "like moths for bad ideas." To come up with stupid ideas is one thing but to have a natural disposition towards bad ideas is perhaps the definition of stupid. I partly sympathize with the team because it sounds like they were desperate, or at least acting that way. When that happens, rationality fails and your criteria for ideas gets too relaxed and your guiding motivation is to do what's easy and relevant for the most people rather than perhaps providing significant value to a smaller group. The latter is much harder since you are engaging with people you won't be as comfortable with compared to "your mother".

I didn't interpret it as "you are stupid." It's actually surprisingly common for first-time founders, even smart ones, to have terrible startup ideas.

It takes time to develop good judgement. Many ideas that seem initially appealing turn out to be tarpits that ensnare founder after founder. And some ideas that seem crazy at first are actually good. And many ideas are bad initially, but "ripen" as technology changes.

For example, WebVan was a huge failure 12 years ago. But today Instacart is providing a very similar service, but in today's context they can do it without burning tons of capital.

Part of the benefit of YC is that they see so many startups that they can develop keen intuition into which ideas are most likely to work. Not perfect intuition. But definitely better than the average first-time founder.

> I don't think his comments translate into "you are stupid." They translate very clearly into "that is a terrible idea." With perhaps a shade of "don't 'pivot' because your feet are cold."

Consider this: If some random person after listening to you presenting your idea says a. "that is a terrible idea" or b. "you are fucking stupid." Does it matter? B may be more unpleasant to you, but both A and B express the exact same opinion about your idea.

Anyway, I think you missed my point. Nobody cares if feelings get hurt, but expressions like "like moths for bad ideas" aren't brutal honesty.

What would Spock have done when brandonb and his partner presented their (supposedly well-researched) idea bout changing the company? He would have said "My instinct tells me that your idea is detrimental to your business. But this meeting is to short for me to analyze all the facts and formulate a final opinion. Please get back to me next week and I will explain what I think the major weaknesses of your business plan is."

That would have been unfiltered and brutally honest. But it is also possible that it wouldn't have persuaded brandonb to change his mind.

I think we're interested in this because frank feedback is an age-old aspect of 'geek culture', but it's obviously not that important; I'm sure neither of us is too invested in his point of view. Continuing the thread:

I agree with you about people using Steve Jobs-esque "emotional towel-snaps", and how reactions to them may thus be emotional and not rational. Check.

I'm saying, though, that if you clearly (and quickly! within minutes or seconds!) communicate 'you came here for my view, and it's that you're wrong. don't do that', people will read that as emotional, maybe as 'mean', regardless of whether there's any explicit emotional content there. No one likes to hear that answer, so their distaste at getting an answer they don't like makes them view it as an attack.

But I don't see that anything in pg's cited words demands a translation to "you are effing stupid!" It's reasonable for an adult who is basically paying equity to get actionable advice from a trusted investor not to interpret said advice as a personal attack.

To illustrate my point: your 'Spock' answer assumes a much friendlier reality than pg may have seen for them.

What if 'Spock' is convinced they were having a hard time buckling down, that if they changed focus that late in the game, they'd have died?

Then he would have essentially paraphrased pg's response: 'I am as sure as I can be that that is, qualitatively, a terrible course of action. You've nearly died already [moths for bad ideas], and I'm sure you will be dead if you do this. My time's up, so let me know what you decide next week.'

Yeah, I have the same impression.

I prefer Linus style - he at least gives the reasons why something is bad idea, why he won't accept some patches etc.

I don't know about PG, but the blog post portrays him as someone who likes to use argumentum ad verecundiam.

He could at least provide list of some startups which had same/similar idea that failed, for further studies. And maybe he did, if so, it wasn't PG fault that the author of blog post picked irrelevant part, that says nothing more than "you're wrong, because I say so".

For me no-filter style is Linus style, and I really like it.

> I prefer Linus style - he at least gives the reasons why something is bad idea, why he won't accept some patches etc.

Yeah. Basically, when Linus flames somebody, the "mean words" are decoration. They don't actually form the meat of the message, which is almost always technical and detailed. If you had an email filter which deleted all nasty words, you'd still get very useful information from one of Linus's flames.

PG is an authority. If he told me in person that he thought my startup idea sucked, I would listen to him.

I don't take that as a rule, if even after a really nice and long talk about the problem with motives and perspectives analysed I still think he is not right, I would try it my way.

It seems hard to use emotional arguments against logical decisions, and vice versa. Given that their initial decision was emotional ("I want to build something my mom will use!") it seems likely that an emotional counter-argument ("you respect me, and you're losing my respect by acting illogical") was more likely to work.

Agree.

Also would say that if you question somebody in the wrong tone of voice or are vehement enough you can make anyone question a decision they have made.

Here's an example.

You do research and find what you think is the cheapest airfare for a particular destination at a price of $340 USD by checking all the usual suspects. And more.

Someone else who you respect says "now are sure that that is the cheapest price and that a fare of $300 isn't out there?"

You say "yes" but they persist and say "you are absolutely sure right?"

You say yes.

They say "ok will you bet me $500 are you that sure?

All the sudden you are going to 2nd guess and feel that you might have perhaps made a mistake or missed something.

Certainly more than if someone just says "are you sure that's the best price"?. In the case of PG he was daring them and doing what I call "putting a hex" on something by being so vehement that he was right and they were wrong. And that they were going to suffer the consequences.

"Someone else who you respect" ... but is he an expert on flight prices specifically?

Is he a booking-a-flight guru that a majority of world-class flight-bookers go to?

Does he make money from helping you find that $300 ticket?

If he knows that there's a $300 ticket available, and gives me clear guidance on what I need to do to get it (instead of just teasing me with questions), should I ignore him because he was 'putting a hex' on me with his vehemence?

I would suppose not only PG's emotions but also his personality, track record and the OP's general admiration for him, which all add up to his influenciality.

If someone puts all of this in the balance, you listen, and it won't leave you unmoved. Choose wisely whom you grant such power.

> The conclusion I would draw from your anecdote is that it is much easier to get your point across if you are emotional, even when dealing with intelligent, technical people.

You have to command respect, too. If he was just some random suit angrily telling them they were stupid, they might have complied unwillingly.

This post is very gladwellesque; presents an anecdote then draws a very general conclusion based on it (being honest is good).

This is off-topic, but: if "gladwellesque" ever becomes a popular word, I hope this post gets recorded as its first use.