Ashton Kutcher’s Inspiring Speech, Startup Version

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Ashton's talk from YC Startup School 2011 was great. So I put together some notes. Lots of great insight on what he looks for as an investor, with the main point being don't try to be the next Mark Zuckerberg. All feedback appreciated... Enjoy.

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"To reach that audience, Ashton had to choose a different venue. Y Combinator’s Startup School. It was October 29th, 2011, and the Stanford auditorium was full of first-time founders. With alumni such as Dropbox, Airbnb, and reddit – YC’s accelerator program consistently attracts the cream of the crop."

While much of the transcript appears sensible (haven't sat through the video itself), what I'd really love to know is how his speech was seen by the YC '11 alumni in the auditorium. Did they see it as "inspiring" too?

I was there that day, and I found it surprisingly inspiring.

Seems like the opposite message to Shark Tank

I've never disliked Kutcher as intensely as some people seem to do...is thought Punkd was quite funny and he's done far more experimentation and exploration than other people in his situation. That said, it's ironic to me the content of his speech, celebrating a selfless engineer, after he tried to besmirch Woz, who is perhaps the patron saint of engineers

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