4 ms·

I'm never sure how to reconcile PG's stance of "our founders are good people" / "X-ray vision for character" with some of the things that some of the portfolio

I'm never sure how to reconcile PG's stance of "our founders are good people" / "X-ray vision for character" with some of the things that some of the portfolio companies do. For instance, the vigorous, long-lasting and constantly denied spamming that AirBnB did off CraigsList with fake names, or some of the early Reddit fake accounts and general puffing-up (which was, to be fair, less bad.) Maybe business tactics are explicitly not part of what PG and Jessica consider "good character"? It seems increasingly clear that they mean something different by it than I do.

nvader 11y ago
This could be the distinction you're looking for in pg's own words: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/665962369890123776 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/665962369890123776
- gohrt 11y ago
  IOW: Step on toes and throw elbows, but don't smash kneecaps. Know the line.
  - angelbob 11y ago
    Yeah. Makes me very curious where they draw the line. Because it is not obvious from outside.
kelukelugames 11y ago
Easy. It's not considered bad if the founders are good people. All humans are exceptional at rationalizing.
S4M 11y ago
She did also miss Live Coding[0] - or maybe she didn't interview the founder. After reading that thread, it's hard to believe that YC has a magic filter of bad people, which is basically what PG claims when he mentions the "Social Radar". [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10486476 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10486476
- noobermin 11y ago
  Another possibility: she's not the pope, and while her hunches might be right a good majority of the time, she's not infallible.
- nickpsecurity 11y ago
  Or everyone just misunderstands the concept of intuition and how it works. Which is funny given neural nets that get lots of press here have overlap in what they do, strengths, and weaknesses. Here's a summary of a lot of research I did on it long ago. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10578474 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10578474
wpietri 11y ago
The ways I could imagine reconciling it: 1) "Good people" is relative, and even good people still sometimes do bad things. 2) No detector is perfect, and so a metric of "no YC company has done anything bad" seems strong. Something like, "YC companies are less bad on average than others". 3) Their definition of "good" is not 100% congruent with yours. 4) The high-pressure environment of startups is a double bind. If you don't do at least some bad things you fail, or at least lose out to non-good people.
davemel37 11y ago
I would define "Good People" as people who care more about giving to their users than taking their money. There are predatory founders who are short term thinkers and there are long-term-create-value types of people. The type of people that understand and appreciate that serving your users is your most important goal and the reward comes as a result of that. The examples you have of spamming, etc... is still in the spirit of serving their customers with a better experience and more value. You have to break a few eggs to make an omelet.

nvader 11y ago

This could be the distinction you're looking for in pg's own words: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/665962369890123776 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/665962369890123776

gohrt 11y ago
IOW: Step on toes and throw elbows, but don't smash kneecaps. Know the line.
- angelbob 11y ago
  Yeah. Makes me very curious where they draw the line. Because it is not obvious from outside.

kelukelugames 11y ago

Easy. It's not considered bad if the founders are good people. All humans are exceptional at rationalizing.

S4M 11y ago

She did also miss Live Coding[0] - or maybe she didn't interview the founder. After reading that thread, it's hard to believe that YC has a magic filter of bad people, which is basically what PG claims when he mentions the "Social Radar". [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10486476 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10486476

noobermin 11y ago
Another possibility: she's not the pope, and while her hunches might be right a good majority of the time, she's not infallible.
nickpsecurity 11y ago
Or everyone just misunderstands the concept of intuition and how it works. Which is funny given neural nets that get lots of press here have overlap in what they do, strengths, and weaknesses. Here's a summary of a lot of research I did on it long ago. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10578474 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10578474

wpietri 11y ago

The ways I could imagine reconciling it: 1) "Good people" is relative, and even good people still sometimes do bad things. 2) No detector is perfect, and so a metric of "no YC company has done anything bad" seems strong. Something like, "YC companies are less bad on average than others". 3) Their definition of "good" is not 100% congruent with yours. 4) The high-pressure environment of startups is a double bind. If you don't do at least some bad things you fail, or at least lose out to non-good people.

davemel37 11y ago

I would define "Good People" as people who care more about giving to their users than taking their money. There are predatory founders who are short term thinkers and there are long-term-create-value types of people. The type of people that understand and appreciate that serving your users is your most important goal and the reward comes as a result of that. The examples you have of spamming, etc... is still in the spirit of serving their customers with a better experience and more value. You have to break a few eggs to make an omelet.