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Paul Graham is not some magic oracle. He's a statistician who has seen, experienced and analyzed (formally and informally) a lot of very rich data. To ignore

by uuilly 16y ago

Paul Graham is not some magic oracle. He's a statistician who has seen, experienced and analyzed (formally and informally) a lot of very rich data. To ignore him and get away with it you either have to be an outlier in his model or the kind of person who would never appear in his model to begin with. He mainly sees YC applicants and there may be a selection bias among them. Entirely possible that there is a really great trait among founders that makes them unlikely to apply to YC and likely to succeed without his advice. That said, dude has been around.

Alex3917 16y ago
"Paul Graham is not some magic oracle." Well normally at YC dinners he goes into his yurt and swallows a lot of peyote, and then he comes out talking in tongues and we all write down what he's saying and try to figure out how to proceed.
JoeAltmaier 16y ago
Or his model is wrong. So many folks assume, since they succeeded, they are responsible for that success. Market conditions, accidental sales, and Brownian motion may in fact be more important. Even considering YC companies, who's to say how many would have succeeded anyway? There's no control, so no experiment.
- stoney 16y ago
  Even considering YC companies, who's to say how many would have succeeded anyway? There's no control, so no experiment. I guess you could look at rejected applicants as a sort of control group (not perfect though)? How many of those have gone on to be a success (I have no idea)?
  - run4yourlives 16y ago
    Assuming that PG is not a complete idiot and can identify obvious skill and/or obvious product home runs, thus removing them from the "rejected" list, your control group isn't very accurate.
  - run4yourlives 16y ago
    Assuming that PG is not a complete idiot and can identify obvious skill and/or obvious product home runs, thus removing them from the "rejected" list, your control group isn't very accurate.

by uuilly 16y ago

Alex3917 16y ago

"Paul Graham is not some magic oracle." Well normally at YC dinners he goes into his yurt and swallows a lot of peyote, and then he comes out talking in tongues and we all write down what he's saying and try to figure out how to proceed.

JoeAltmaier 16y ago

Or his model is wrong. So many folks assume, since they succeeded, they are responsible for that success. Market conditions, accidental sales, and Brownian motion may in fact be more important. Even considering YC companies, who's to say how many would have succeeded anyway? There's no control, so no experiment.

stoney 16y ago
Even considering YC companies, who's to say how many would have succeeded anyway? There's no control, so no experiment. I guess you could look at rejected applicants as a sort of control group (not perfect though)? How many of those have gone on to be a success (I have no idea)?
- run4yourlives 16y ago
  Assuming that PG is not a complete idiot and can identify obvious skill and/or obvious product home runs, thus removing them from the "rejected" list, your control group isn't very accurate.
- run4yourlives 16y ago
  Assuming that PG is not a complete idiot and can identify obvious skill and/or obvious product home runs, thus removing them from the "rejected" list, your control group isn't very accurate.