YC Startup School Radio, Episode 1: Alexis Ohanian and Kaz Nejatian | Hacker News Reader

YC Startup School Radio, Episode 1: Alexis Ohanian and Kaz Nejatian

blog.ycombinator.com

83 pointsloyalelectron37 comments

This podcast is very consumer-oriented

Things I wish they covered but didn't

- How did Reddit get acquired, and why?

- Why did Alexis leave Reddit originally, and why did he come back?

- What is the exit strategy for Kash? Are they planning on literally taking over Visa, or is an XXX million dollar exit to PayPal good enough?

- how will Kash beat its closest competitors? There are "pay with an app" companies. Why are you better than stripe behind an app frontend.

I don't plan on listening to this podcast again unless I hear it's become less "consumery".

Episode 2 was much better. Justin Kan really gets into the business/growth of justin tv

https://soundcloud.com/akharris/startup-school-radio-ep-2-ju...

So glad you found the second episode more to your liking! The focus of each episode shifts based on who is on the show and where the story takes us. My guess is that different episodes will resonate with different people.

Looking forward to more feedback!

If you are interested in more in-depth stories on Reddit. You might be interested in the podcast Alexis Ohanian did with Steve Huffman when Reddit turned 10

https://www.reddit.com/r/Upvoted/comments/3b2ypq/episode_24_...

Thanks! Gonna get Steve to sit down again soon for us to talk about the next 10 years...

- How did Reddit get acquired, and why?

I wish I could just copy paste the section from my book, but it happened because word spread about reddit and how well we were doing (this started right around when Steve + I got back from Google in Nov 05 and turned down their acqui-hire offer) and the head of Biz Dev from CondeNet reached out to me via a mutual friend. He proposed we work on a project together (lipstick.com) and this ultimately led to acquisition talks.

- Why did Alexis leave Reddit originally, and why did he come back?

Our contracts were up Halloween 2009 and I stayed on for a few more months to get things in place and wrap up some things before leaving to go volunteer in Armenia with Kiva for a few months. Needed to get away from SF and connect with my roots.

I was on the board when Yishan made his sudden departure and ultimately came back because the timing was right + reddit needed the help. Reddit means so much to me and it was really hard watching it struggle.

Thanks for doing this.

Sometime back I tried to develop habit of listening to podcasts about startups while working out. I gave up finally when I realized most podcasts I find on web on related topic are with people who are trying to sell something (mostly book).

Any other good sources on podcasts with founders that are not trying to sell their book?

I'd recommend the Entrepreneurial Thought Leader Seminars from the Stanford Technology Ventures Program. They're all available on iTunes.

Check out Startup -- https://gimletmedia.com/show/startup/

The 1st season of Startup was great. It is broadcasted as someone telling a story. No suprise here as the producers are from the "This American Life" camp.

2nd season is a little flat compare to the 1st season, but still quite good.

This week in startups -- http://thisweekinstartups.com/

All of the guests are there to promote something (themselves/their-startup) so everyone is a bit manicured, but it's still a good look at some of what goes on inside of startups.

I only avoided this recommendation specifically because each of the hosts has their own book to promote on the show - even though neither one seems to do so too much (Rob not so much at all anymore, but Mike's book was released recently).

I do think it is a great podcast with tons of practical, actionable advice focused at lifestyle SaaS developers.

Rob and Mike have http://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/

Twist in from Jason Calacanis.

Oops; you're right - thanks!

Exponent FM is great. Not by a founder, but about strategy in tech

CodePen Radio is pretty good. They cover a wide breadth of topics.

It's focused around the 3 people that run codpen.io They talk about what it's like running a startup. They don't try to sell anything or have outside sponsors because it's about their business. I guess it's pretty much implied you know of codepen already so they don't have to shove adverts down your throat.

FWIW, not easy to decipher, but it appears you can access a feed for akharris at [1].

[1] http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:150759713...

Thanks; an RSS feed is super-convenient!

Was this podcast already posted on HN and I just missed it? The 10 episodes released over the past 2 months don't seem to be trying to hide too hard: https://soundcloud.com/akharris

Originally broadcast on Sirius XM's Business Radio powered by the Wharton school on Sirius 111.

It's the top-ranked item on the 'Shows' tab there (https://www.siriusxm.com/businessradio) - maybe this is just evidence of how unimportant satellite radio is? Production quality is top-notch.

Transcript link http://genius.com/Aaron-harris-startup-school-radio-ep-1-ale...

I think this is a great medium for educating potential future founders around the web, so thank you for taking the time to make this. I'm sure most HN user's out there have heard of Jessica Livingston's book "Founders at Work". I just got it in the mail today and its a great read. If you enjoy this kind of interview format you will definitely enjoy this book.

She does a pseudo follow up using video interviews with founders. For example, https://vimeo.com/10119028 with AirBNB founders.

I think there was a site dedicated to these, but I can only find the Vimeo page.

Is there any chance these Startup School Radio recording files will be made available in a typical audio encoding format (mp3, ogg, m4a, ...) over http or ftp?

Neither Soundcloud nor iTunes provides simple download links.

The embedded Soundcloud player on that page has a download button in the upper right corner (arrow pointing downward) that will download the audio in mp3 format.

Thank you, but the problem is the "player" from soundcloud; it requires running thousands of lines of javascript and it's completely unnecessary for delivering audio. It would be simple to use a HTML5 <audio> element with the src attribute set to a media file for playback in HTML5 enabled browsers, and for the non-HTML5 browsers, you can easily provide a link to the audio file.

In iTunes you can right click on a podcast episode and select "Create MP3 Version". It then creates an mp3 and adds it to your music library.

also interesting to see Colleen Taylor is at YC now.. :)

As an old high school friend of Kaz I can say his last name is not spelled "netajian" - is that on purpose?

I'm sure it's a typo.

Aaron is right. It's Nejatian. Hi Aaron!

Hey Kaz - fixed!

Thanks! Not the worse though! I go by Kaz because when I was in Junior High, the basketball coach spelled my name as Kazday Nejootsian. So you know. Improvement over time!

Off-topic, but isn't Alexis the guy behind firing Victoria and setting Ellen Pao up for taking the wrap? Not once did he come forward and say it was him.

I've heard he's an intelligent guy, but I have a particular disgust for sly people. Just bear that in mind when listening to advice from him.

(Didn't actually listen to the Podcast, maybe this was mentioned?)

All this is speculation.

For good reason, it is not public information who fired Victoria or why. I doubt it was a one-person decision though.

Uh, unless you consider Yishan Wong (former reddit CEO) publicly stating it[1], and Alexis himself admitting it[2] 'speculation', then I think the evidence is solid enough.

[1]: https://np.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/3d2hv3/kn0th...

[2]:https://np.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/3cucye/an_old...

You're contradicting yourself, you say that "Not once did he come forward and say it was him" and then you say Alexis publicly admitted it himself.

My point is that we don't really know why she was fired (and why should we?). If Victoria wants to come forward and explain what happened then we can discuss the merits, until then it's speculation.

What I should have said was, "not once did he come forward and say it was him, while Ellen Pao was taking the heat". Of course, once Ellen stepped down and Yishan already exposed Alexis, he admitted it.

For the sake of this discussion, I personally don't care why Victoria was fired - that's not the point. The point is that Alexis purposefully let someone else take the blame for a decision he made. Either it was a shifty business strategy, or he's a shitty person. In both cases, it doesn't reflect well on him.

I'm not here to defend the guy but it seems we know nothing (spot the pun) about why Victoria was fired. It may have been completely reasonable, it may not. It may have been a unilateral decision by Alexis but I honestly doubt it, these things still have to be okayed by the CEO.

Pao was in the Reddit community's firing line long before Victoria was fired, they were looking for a reason to pounce.

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