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+1 >because the VC-funded companies you named are so successful at dominating our thoughts, conversations, and news feeds (HN included) Right - HN's corporate

+1 >because the VC-funded companies you named are so successful at dominating our thoughts, conversations, and news feeds (HN included) Right - HN's corporate sponsor is YC Combinator, so it's kind of inevitable that the VC narrative dominates. The good thing about Indie Hackers being acquired by Stripe in April [0] (congratulations!) is that, even though you now have a corporate sponsor too, in the short term at least nothing really changes. You wrote that >Stripe wants to grow the GDP of the internet so having 1,000,000 Indie Hackers starting companies is completely aligned with Stripe's corporate interests and that at least provides a counterpoint to HN and YC Combinator. Further out, if Stripe Atlas grows big enough then we could end up with an Amazon Marketplace situation where small companies are forced to take whatever terms "Darth Vader" (#patio11) offers. But we're a long way from that point yet. A 3rd way is not to start a business at all. As Vincent Woo said in his recent podcast with you [1]: >Right, so readers at home, if you can start a business, do that, but also maybe don't. It's not easy, it's a lot of work and there are a lot of things that valuable in life that have nothing to do with money, that's how I'd put that. [0] https://www.indiehackers.com/blog/acquired-by-stripe https://www.indiehackers.com/blog/acquired-by-stripe [1] https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/041-vincent-woo-of-coderpad https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/041-vincent-woo-of-code...

dang 9y ago
The "VC narrative" doesn't dominate HN. Quite the opposite. Most everyone thinks it does, but that only makes it more untrue.
- delhanty 9y ago
  Seeing as you're associated with HN that can hardly be an objective claim.
  - dang 9y ago
    Oh indeed, but seeing as we work on HN every day, we're more steeped in the data than anyone else is, and to us this is a pretty obvious observation. I'm saying 'we' because I'm sure all the moderators agree. The HN community stopped being based in SV many years ago, if it ever was to begin with. It's heavily international, widely distributed even in the US, and significantly more sympathetic to boostrapper/indiehacker narratives than to VC ones. Which is pretty easy to understand if you think about who the users are and how many of them there are. In terms of comment quality, the cynical end of anti-VC sentiment is a problem because it's so knee-jerk and predictable. Solid critique is welcome, but alas, there isn't much. As a moderator I don't care what people like or hate but I do care about getting the best insights from all sides, and this is one area where we don't, really. Or rather, we do, but it's drowned out by Dunning-Kruger and reversion to the mean and all the other phenomena that make internet forums suck.
nunez 9y ago
> Right, so readers at home, if you can start a business, do that, but also maybe don't. It's not easy, it's a lot of work and there are a lot of things that valuable in life that have nothing to do with money, that's how I'd put that. I hate this narrative. Yes, there are things in life worth more than money, but it just so happens that having a shitload of money makes living the life you want WAY easier. What Vincent is saying is “Doing startups is hard, so just settle and be happy with what you have.” What if you’re not? It just so happens that making very large amounts of money as an engineer is hard too!

dang 9y ago

The "VC narrative" doesn't dominate HN. Quite the opposite. Most everyone thinks it does, but that only makes it more untrue.

delhanty 9y ago
Seeing as you're associated with HN that can hardly be an objective claim.
- dang 9y ago
  Oh indeed, but seeing as we work on HN every day, we're more steeped in the data than anyone else is, and to us this is a pretty obvious observation. I'm saying 'we' because I'm sure all the moderators agree. The HN community stopped being based in SV many years ago, if it ever was to begin with. It's heavily international, widely distributed even in the US, and significantly more sympathetic to boostrapper/indiehacker narratives than to VC ones. Which is pretty easy to understand if you think about who the users are and how many of them there are. In terms of comment quality, the cynical end of anti-VC sentiment is a problem because it's so knee-jerk and predictable. Solid critique is welcome, but alas, there isn't much. As a moderator I don't care what people like or hate but I do care about getting the best insights from all sides, and this is one area where we don't, really. Or rather, we do, but it's drowned out by Dunning-Kruger and reversion to the mean and all the other phenomena that make internet forums suck.

nunez 9y ago

> Right, so readers at home, if you can start a business, do that, but also maybe don't. It's not easy, it's a lot of work and there are a lot of things that valuable in life that have nothing to do with money, that's how I'd put that. I hate this narrative. Yes, there are things in life worth more than money, but it just so happens that having a shitload of money makes living the life you want WAY easier. What Vincent is saying is “Doing startups is hard, so just settle and be happy with what you have.” What if you’re not? It just so happens that making very large amounts of money as an engineer is hard too!