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Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

I got to "An MIT AI PhD can generally walk alone into an investor meeting wearing a coconut-shell bra, perform a series of improvised birdcalls, and walk out with $1 million." and stopped reading; does it get better, or more credible? Also: the rug store? Really? This is the one on University, right?

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Yep, the Medallion Rug Gallery. (I see someone else already linked to it.)

The coconut bra thing is clearly facetiously phrased, but I think it captures a fundamental truth of Silicon Valley in 2014, yes. I suspect that if you had that degree and even a remotely plausible sounding business idea, you could walk into an investor meeting alone and walk out with seed money. You probably couldn't literally walk into the meeting with a coconut shell bra and perform improvised bird calls, but the point is that such a person could half-ass things to a much greater degree than someone without such a degree could.

Does it depend on if you perform the bird calls or you have a web application for performing them?

As a serious aside, i don't know about apps for making bird calls, but i have met birdwatchers who were very excited about the prospect of an app which identifies bird calls. Like:

http://grow.cals.wisc.edu/environment/smart-birding

Or:

http://www.isoperla.co.uk/BirdSongIdiPhone.html

The article doesn't get much better, but there may be a kernel of truth to the rug store angle. There's a profile of the rug store owner/prolific angel investor at http://www.forbes.com/sites/victoriabarret/2012/03/21/silico... .

The rug store that rented space to Google and Paypal early on took equity. They later spun up a venture arm.

What makes you think that sentence you quote was supposed to be credible? It's clearly hyperbole.

Is it even remotely true?

Talented technical teams can raise money fairly easily (presuming a somewhat plausible business idea), so yes, it is remotely true.

I would change that to:

Well credentialed and talented technical teams.

That degree from Stanford or M.I.T. just opens an incredible number of doors when it comes to fundraising.

This article is so insanely true, the problem is people who wish that it wasn't so.

Think of the number of startups that basically walked into huge series A but literally have nothing under them!

There's a caste system at play, so how are YOU going to escape it?

Bruce Sterling has been telling this for years, especially in good conference talks.

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