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You're the only one litigating the meaning of words. Anytime you find yourself providing a link to a dictionary, you should consider that you're being pedantic

You're the only one litigating the meaning of words. Anytime you find yourself providing a link to a dictionary, you should consider that you're being pedantic and have no point. That's certainly what it looks like to me. I'm not providing a link to a PG essay because it coincidentally agrees with my position -- there's a big orange "Y" at the top of this page, and it's not there arbitrarily. If you're having a conversation on HN about startups, there's an underlying culture which you need to be aware of. Demanding people justify a shared understanding of a term's meaning by challenging whether or not it doesn't mean something else is arrogant -- have you considered that you are ignorant of the basic terms of the discussion, as it occurs on HN? There are other conversations where your definition might be right. That has nothing to do with this conversation.

mbesto 10y ago
Relax. The GP's point is that definitions are important and litigating the definition of the word startup has been tried before and doesn't end up benefiting anyone. The logic flows as such: 1. People making judgements about startups 2. Not everyone can agree what the definition of a startup is (even if the benevolent dictator has stated their opinion on the matter) 3. Therefore it's incredibly difficult to agree or disagree about judgements of startups because the underlying definition is not clear You may claim that #3 should be pg's definition "because its HN/YC", but not all HN members agree.
- jessedhillon 10y ago
  Okay, here's the other thing though -- unless you use the definition I'm providing, the article linked to here about "playing startup" doesn't make any sense. Unless someone genuinely doesn't understand that startup is being used in a narrower sense, there's no reason to raise this objection. It's like objecting to a discussion about angels (the investors) because the word typically refers to angelic beings, or the baseball team.
idlewords 10y ago
I realize that I'm defending vinegar-based sauces on a BBQ discussion board that is committed to tomato-based sauces, and run by a powerful tomato conglomerate. But I've been here a long time (just like you), and my account predates Paul Graham's fatwa about startups. If he chooses to redefine other words in future essays, I reserve the right to link to the dictionary again. My goal is not to be obnoxious, but to keep the terms of debate open for people who have a more expansive view of what online businesses can look like, and what values might be important to their founders.
- morgante 10y ago
  What is your definition of a startup? I have a hard time thinking of my local pizzeria as a "startup" even though they are undoubtably a small business. Ultimately, I think PG's definition defines a useful category of businesses to think about and litigating the label we use for that category doesn't help anyone.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    Ask someone who's lived for any serious amount of time in Ann Arbor whether a local pizzeria could be a "startup". Domino's started as a single crappy pizza place in Ypsi. It's an 8 billion dollar company today that will almost definitely outlast Twitter and Yahoo. For reasons I don't quite fathom, discussions about business on HN seem all to be born without the part of their brains that understands business fundamentals. Almost every business can be made to scale (ironically, the more high-status the business, the trickier it is to scale, which is why you'd be better off investing in a crappy pizzeria than in Grant Achatz). You can build a billion dollar plumbing company. You can build a billion dollar accounting firm. Someone out there --- god, I hope it's actually a housecleaner --- is going to build a billion dollar housecleaning company. Do you really need the mechanics of how this works? Do the work. Get good. Hire people to do the work for you. Get good at managing them. Hire people to manage the people you hire to do the work. Repeat. Nobody disputes whether the category of businesses Paul Graham describes is useful. It clearly is. If you plan on building a business on other people's money, it's vitally important that you understand almost everything he has to say. What is in dispute is whether that category of business is so important that it should annex the term "startup". Plenty of businesses you would describe as startups don't obey Graham's rules at all, because they scaled up on a different schedule than A16Z wants businesses to, and did it without a single wire transfer from A16Z.
Veen 10y ago
The very fact that you're having this conversation indicates that not everyone here agrees with your definition of startup. If you want Hacker News to be a Silicon Valley only / Paul Graham acolyte space, I think it's a battle you've lost already.

mbesto 10y ago

Relax. The GP's point is that definitions are important and litigating the definition of the word startup has been tried before and doesn't end up benefiting anyone. The logic flows as such: 1. People making judgements about startups 2. Not everyone can agree what the definition of a startup is (even if the benevolent dictator has stated their opinion on the matter) 3. Therefore it's incredibly difficult to agree or disagree about judgements of startups because the underlying definition is not clear You may claim that #3 should be pg's definition "because its HN/YC", but not all HN members agree.

jessedhillon 10y ago
Okay, here's the other thing though -- unless you use the definition I'm providing, the article linked to here about "playing startup" doesn't make any sense. Unless someone genuinely doesn't understand that startup is being used in a narrower sense, there's no reason to raise this objection. It's like objecting to a discussion about angels (the investors) because the word typically refers to angelic beings, or the baseball team.

idlewords 10y ago

I realize that I'm defending vinegar-based sauces on a BBQ discussion board that is committed to tomato-based sauces, and run by a powerful tomato conglomerate. But I've been here a long time (just like you), and my account predates Paul Graham's fatwa about startups. If he chooses to redefine other words in future essays, I reserve the right to link to the dictionary again. My goal is not to be obnoxious, but to keep the terms of debate open for people who have a more expansive view of what online businesses can look like, and what values might be important to their founders.

morgante 10y ago
What is your definition of a startup? I have a hard time thinking of my local pizzeria as a "startup" even though they are undoubtably a small business. Ultimately, I think PG's definition defines a useful category of businesses to think about and litigating the label we use for that category doesn't help anyone.
- tptacek 10y ago
  Ask someone who's lived for any serious amount of time in Ann Arbor whether a local pizzeria could be a "startup". Domino's started as a single crappy pizza place in Ypsi. It's an 8 billion dollar company today that will almost definitely outlast Twitter and Yahoo. For reasons I don't quite fathom, discussions about business on HN seem all to be born without the part of their brains that understands business fundamentals. Almost every business can be made to scale (ironically, the more high-status the business, the trickier it is to scale, which is why you'd be better off investing in a crappy pizzeria than in Grant Achatz). You can build a billion dollar plumbing company. You can build a billion dollar accounting firm. Someone out there --- god, I hope it's actually a housecleaner --- is going to build a billion dollar housecleaning company. Do you really need the mechanics of how this works? Do the work. Get good. Hire people to do the work for you. Get good at managing them. Hire people to manage the people you hire to do the work. Repeat. Nobody disputes whether the category of businesses Paul Graham describes is useful. It clearly is. If you plan on building a business on other people's money, it's vitally important that you understand almost everything he has to say. What is in dispute is whether that category of business is so important that it should annex the term "startup". Plenty of businesses you would describe as startups don't obey Graham's rules at all, because they scaled up on a different schedule than A16Z wants businesses to, and did it without a single wire transfer from A16Z.

Veen 10y ago

The very fact that you're having this conversation indicates that not everyone here agrees with your definition of startup. If you want Hacker News to be a Silicon Valley only / Paul Graham acolyte space, I think it's a battle you've lost already.