Great Summary of the Highlights of StartupSchool | Hacker News Reader

Great Summary of the Highlights of StartupSchool

venturebeat.com

17 pointsfar33d11 comments

I think Mark largely pulled his "two points" out of his ass honestly. Did anyone else get that impression? Of the entire startup school, the aspect I was most dissappointed with was the fact that he simply did not give a flip about preparing a speech for 650 people, many of whom (myself included) traveled from far to attend the school. I honestly think he walked up on the stage and started talking about the first two things that came to his head.

Other than that the school was great. And if anything Mark served as an example of what not to do when giving a presentation.

Yeah agreed. Not good for his professional reputation. Other than that (and hell, it was entertaining at least) it was an awesome day. Thanks again to the YC folks.

From the blog post:

"I want to stress the importance of being young and technical," he stated. If you want to found a successful company, you should only hire young people with technical expertise.

"Young people are just smarter," he said with a straight face. "Why are most chess masters under 30?" he asked. "I don't know," he answered. "Young people just have simpler lives. We may not own a car. We may not have family." In the absence of those distractions, he says, you can focus on big ideologies. He added, "I only own a mattress." Later: "Simplicity in life allows you to focus on what's important."

Isn't age discrimination illegal?

If you're soliciting applicants and interviewing and putting people through a "hiring process," yes. If you're only hiring your friends or people you recruit from school or your online contacts, I think it's a lot less well-defined.

Better question -- is he planning to hand the company over to an undergrad when he turns 30?

So social networking is a way to hire only young people without breaking the law?

More generally, it seems that you can use social networking to get around all the antidiscrimination laws.

I guess. Not something I relish being on the far side of 30, but freedom of association being what it is, it seems so.

As I've gotten older, one thing I've learned is that some thoughts are best kept to yourself (or those you trust), even if they are true. :)

Publicly suggesting that you hire based on age isn't especially brilliant.

In Mark's defense, I thought that he might really be trying to say that younger people are systematically undervalued, and so hiring them is a bargain. (the market has under-priced their work) Of course I'm sure that others think that the opposite is true and that older people are under-priced. Obviously those people should hire the under-priced old people and build a competing social network. :)

I agree. Being a few years older than mark, I actually didn't find myself offended by his comments.

Just as PG said that adulthood is a stage, not an age, I took mark's comments (though quite less elegant), to mean that there's a mindset of youth that helps in starting companies: simple life, willingness to take risks, lack of corruption of the complacency of the workplace, etc.

Maybe I give him too much credit.

At the same time, if your customers are people with families and complicated lives, you're in a better position to understand your customers when you're in their shoes.

For Mark's comment, I think an entrepreneur over 30 would tend to ask to "address a market", while those under 20 tend to just build a cool thing and see if anybody is willing to pay for it. The latter is more likely to build revolutionary products because they see market needs that haven't emerged yet. Having said that, older entrepreneurs are more experience and still capable, but perhaps can only build incrementally better products.

Ycom-dotted? Anyone have a mirror?

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