TC50 Backstage: Why PG Was Mean and Which YC Companies Will IPO

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/14/tc50-backstage-why-paul-graham-was-so-mean-and-which-of-his-companies-will-ipo/

by jasonlbaptiste • 17 years ago

67 26 17 years ago

techcrunch.com

jasonlbaptiste• 17 years ago

"If Sam Altman wants to go public, Sam Altman will go public"

...

"If Sam Altman wants to whoop Chuck Norris' ass, Sam Altman will whoop Chuck Norris' ass"

zackattack• 17 years ago

What makes Sam Altman so amazing? What attributes does Sam Altman have that make pg such a fan?

I was annoyed by the reporter's "holding back?" attempt.

unalone3• 17 years ago

We have asked that many times. Paul still doesn't answer, probably because he thinks that signing multiple deals with phone companies speaks for itself.

(I've asked repeatedly why PG focuses on sama rather than Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook fame, and many interesting arguments have sprung up from my making that comparison, but sadly Paul hasn't joined in.)

iamelgringo• 17 years ago

A friend of mine recently hired on to Loopt, and said that Sam was the reason that he signed on to the company.

"Sam's seemed like the kind of guy who could overcome pretty much any obstacle thrown in his path. I wanted to work on a company with a guy like that"

axod• 17 years ago

Is Loopt wildly profitable yet? After 4 years seems like it should be raking it in :/

Signing deals is cool, but do they equate to revenue and profit?

brianlash• 17 years ago

You know that really is a sweet face at 3:28.

johnnybgoode5• 17 years ago

Not what I was expecting. PG doing some mid-interview facial exercise?

lsb• 17 years ago

"Y Combinator's been huge and encouraging a lot of young entrepreneurs and guiding them and mentoring them, but that's a knock I hear about you guys a lot, is that there aren't really big ideas that come out of it, it's more just kind of web apps---"

"You know, the problem is that you read your own columns."

johnnybgoode5• 17 years ago

The interviewer was kind of annoying in general, and "the problem is that you read your own columns" was pretty good (how long have you been saving that one for, PG? ;)...but there is a little something to that knock.

Edit: Also, the transcript sort of implied a harsh, conclusive interruption from PG, which would've been awesome. The video is much friendlier in tone. :|

rjurney• 17 years ago

Doesn't it go like this?: You're starting a company on $15-20K, so you need to get a usable app out within a few months - to get some users loving you - to raise money to go after a bigger market with a 'grander app. You could simply not ship anything, go after that bigger market first... but then in addition to seeing fewer, more substantial first apps from YC companies after much longer incubations, you'd see YC's success rate plummet.

Nobody's ultimate game plan is the cute web app. Thats just how you get through round one to connect with a real market and real users and iterate from there, with additional funding.

In other words: complaining about a bunch of small web apps coming out of a summer incubator and then not exploding into massive companies is equivalent to complaining about a bunch of startups failing under any other model. Most do. Thats just how it is. In the case of YC, failure means you probably ship something, then fail to go much past there. Which is better than not shipping anything, or spending a year on something nobody wants before you ever ship.

A high failure rate is valid criticism, but judging from how many YC companies get follow-on funding, I'd say the model works just fine. It will take a long time to find out.

My question for PG is this: How long until you find out if the early YC classes are winning or losing investments? How many cells out in your excel is that day?

icey• 17 years ago

In which talk was pg being mean? Was it for that sports ticket predictor? He asked the question I was thinking - if I were trying to decide how much I wanted to pay for this thing, I need to know what its overall value proposition is to me.

jjs• 17 years ago

Apparently his faux pas was asking serious business questions at a dog and pony show.

veteran• 17 years ago

Ideally, the presenters should have ready answers for most of the questions that were posed after the presentations ..wasn't there a selection process per se? it was odd that many presenters were not prepared for answering market size/distribution etc questions

zaidf• 17 years ago

pg was mean? Makes me wonder if she was watching the same show as me.

I found pg to be WAY more thoughtful compared to other judges who seemed to be more in "quiz" mode("How will you solve chicken egg problem?") or "nice" mode. pg's tone was more like "I wonder if you can do blabla with this. hmm." That is also how he communicates with his own startups.

wensing• 17 years ago

Completely agree.

What I would give for 5 minutes of questions from PG about our startup! Maybe that's something he could auction off for charity? Bidding on office hours!

scorpion032• 17 years ago

This is SarahLacy writing. Isn't she the same who screwed up a public interview with Zuckerberg trying to hit on him?

No. This is not intended to be Ad-Hominem. I am just curious. Is she the one.

TC50 Backstage: Why PG Was Mean and Which YC Companies Will IPO

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