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Comment by jf781 | Hacker News Reader

Young guns from Google. I know Ethan from Google video days. I like how they bootstrapped it. No full time employees til the product launches in the market. Smart move.

We are living in a new counter culture

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I am always amazed by the lack of historical knowledge among large portions of the HN crowd (not knocking you, just amused). Read up on the story of how eGroups was created (by Larry Page's brother, no less).

Everything under the sun's been done.

eGroups was over ten years ago. Since then, a culture of VC reliance has been the dominant model, and now with increasing frequency, you're seeing bootstrapped companies emerge.

I think that was the point he was trying to make, not that it's never happened before.

You think a "culture of VC reliance" wasn't the prevalent model in 1999?

I think that I heard a lot more about companies that were "two guys in a garage" in the 90s than I hear about these days, yes. It could be just my perception, or it could be reality.

I'm just callin' it as I see it. As someone who sits in this world more or less 24/7, I can't remember the last time (prior to the last couple months) where a bootstrapped company gained wide-acceptance like has been happening recently.

Historical oneupmanship quickly turns into an infinite regression:

http://www.amazon.com/Bootstrap-Lessons-Learned-Building-Suc...

(Edit: the Amazon page doesn't make clear that the book, though published in 2001, is about a desktop software company from the early PC days.)

Yaron interviewed me at Google. It's funny how many people you continue to bump in to in the Valley...

They were one of several ents from TC50 that said they financed it (bootstrapped) with their credit cards, Kevin Smith style.

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