4 ms·
You'd have to have quite an ego in order to expect people to use such a thing in order to get in touch with you. I don't think there are very many people in SV
by dfranke 19y ago
You'd have to have quite an ego in order to expect people to use such a thing in order to get in touch with you. I don't think there are very many people in SV who get so much personal (read: not a funding proposal) email that they can't keep up with it. Unknowns don't need news.yc in order to talk to PG, and anyone who sees that as the site's primary application is abusing it. My IMAP server contains a pile of email exchanges with him from long before the site existed.
- amichail 19y agoFamous people would have no say in the matter -- it doesn't matter if they register with the service. It's the unknowns who would use the service to get their attention. At that point, a famous person can decide whether to reply or not, and if so, whether to do so in private or public on the site/in some other forum. How would a famous person know someone is trying to contact him/her? If this service becomes well known, then either the person would see it directly or someone close to him/her in his/her social network would probably tell him/her. Also the idea can be applied beyond Silicon Valley to contact famous film directors, politicians, etc.
- dfranke 19y agoHow is this different from making a post on any other random forum, and how is it better than simply sending an email?
- amichail 19y agoBecause you need lots of people voting your submission up for it to make the front page. So they agree you have something worthwhile to say to a famous person. It's better than sending email because a famous person will likely not respond to some random email of unknown quality.
- dfranke 19y agoIt's not of unknown quality once you've read it. Even the biggest stars generally have time to sort through all their fan mail, even if they don't respond to most of it. If you have something insightful to say, getting it noticed by a famous person really isn't that hard. Maybe this doesn't quite extend to heads of state, but it isn't far off. You're solving a non-problem.
- amichail 19y agoEven if it only solves the problem with heads of state, that would make it valuable. Also, if something like this becomes well known, then I would predict many more unknowns would attempt to contact famous people -- way more than famous people would be able to handle in terms of email.
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- NSX2 19y agoI think he's saying it's like an organically-derived algorithm that meets halfway between "I don't know you so I'm skeptical of your value" and "I may be skeptical but if this many people think it's worthwile, perhaps I'll take a look." I don't know what famous people you're talking about ... I'm assuming we're leaving out "celebrities" and concentrating on "useful" famous people in business/academia? If so, you'd be surprised at how much correspondence they can have. Not to mention I'm not sure if you realize how many of the "emails" on things like VC pages are bogus on purpose. Like when they say, "mail your business plans attention "Business Plan Manager" ... that's usually code for "just toss this in the paper shredder. Here: test this out. Think of 5 famous people and email them something you think surely would catch their attention. See if you can find their real emails and if they bother reading it. Use one of those "verification of opened email" services. It just doesn't happen that often. If anything it gets sent to an assistant who sends it to another assistant who sends it to the intern who gives it to his little sister who gives it to the cat. I think this would be a good "idea" if not necessarily one that translates into a business.
- venturebatman 19y agoDid you check out Venture Hacks by Naval Ravikant and Nivi - http://www.venturehacks.com http://www.venturehacks.com