Pioneer – A home for the ambitious outsiders of the world

by golangnews • 8 years ago

14 5 8 years ago

Darmani• 8 years ago

So, if I understand the system correctly:

In the top 10, I see projects in Hardware, AI, Psychology, and Economics.

So, the psychology guy goes up the leaderboard by producing results that will impress the people in the other fields. The surest way to do this is to jump to conclusions and ignore everything about sound experiment design.

Similarly, the AI guy is incentivized to train the same neural net on a different game every week, and not to do anything new and risky.

Pardon me, but this does not sound like a good system.

gt_• 8 years ago

It’s good for hype-based, promomotion/popularity driven types, but definitely not for what they claim.

The bottom line is this rhetoric will never be confronted. Some people will be chosen and those people will retrospectively be deemed “outsiders”, thereby proving Pioneer’s mission is pure.

If you read the founder’s autobiographical blog post, you’ll see they openly admit they were not passionate about anything until they found Y Combinator. For them, passion and the pursuit of popularity are one and the same.

They seem to miss the fact that many people are passionate before getting funded for their pursuits. They definitely miss the fact that the “outsiders” they are looking for are driven by their own passion, and not the approval of others.

This is more insulting SV marketing gimmickry.

unforswearing• 8 years ago

related discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17725751

Jaruzel• 8 years ago

We’re building a community of creative young people working on interesting projects around the globe.

YOUNG people?! As a young-minded 40-something, I find this statement offensive. On the basis that I fully intend to live for at least another lifetime I've still got plenty of mileage left in me yet.

Why are companies obsessed with 'young people'? They know nothing, and have hardly any experience. Us 'slightly older people' are a way better bet.

webmaven• 8 years ago

Why are companies obsessed with 'young people'? They know nothing, and have hardly any experience. Us 'slightly older people' are a way better bet.

The charitable explanation is that investing in an unknown has almost unlimited potential upside that investing in the experienced doesn't provide (because an experienced Bezos|Page+Brin|Zuckerberg, etc. doesn't need VC money), so investors are only left with 3-5x opportunities[0], when the once-in-a-blue-moon 100x blockbuster is what actually covers the cost of all the failed investments and still turn a profit.

The uncharitable explanation is that the young and inexperienced are easier for investors to take advantage of via liquidation preferences etc.

[0] This assumes that an experienced founder with a 3-5x track record doesn't have a 100x company in them. Which is patently false, but so goes the narrative.

Pioneer – A home for the ambitious outsiders of the world

Related Stories