Hacker News Reader

Reminds me of Stephen King's rejection slips: "By the time I was fourteen the nail in my wall would no longer support the weight of the rejection slips impaled upon it. I replaced the nail with a spike and went on writing.”

Like Guy Kawasaki once said, "Don´t Let The Bozos Grind You Down".

View on HN

With Stephen King (or any book author) it's a little different. It's not like they get rejected and keep selling that one book they just wrote. Most authors write bad books when they are starting, they get rejected and they continue to write more books, usually better books.

"It's not like they get rejected and keep selling that one book they just wrote." (1) just because you're selling doesn't mean you're making profit. (2) Airbnb wasn't profitable when they were getting rejected, so in a sense "they kept writing". Hell, they even sold cereal boxes to stay afloat before Ycombinator picked them up! https://www.airbnb.com/obamaos

I think "bozo" is too harsh. It's hard to predict what books will be bestsellers and what startups will reach $1B valuation. Arguably, traditional publishers and VCs have to say "no" most of the time. Maybe Kawasaki's quip had a context that made it more palatable, though.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com