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This is how I see it: The startup scene is like a big mall where one quarter have shops selling stuff that people are looking for, and the other 3/4 are borrowi
by maxklein 18y ago
This is how I see it: The startup scene is like a big mall where one quarter have shops selling stuff that people are looking for, and the other 3/4 are borrowing money to buy lottery tickets. Every now and then, one of them will win the lottery, driving the others into an even greater frenzy.
And people like Arrington and Graham are on the sidelines with megaphones cheering on the lottery ticket buyers because, it turns out, they are earning a 6% cut on ticket sales.
- herdrick 18y agoI don't know much about Michael Arrington, but what you're saying about PG is a crock. Money is just not the main motivator for the YC partners. Also: "a 6% cut on ticket sales"? So... PG and MA get a slice of the money startups spend? Or of the money invested in startups? I think you mean they get a cut of the lottery winnings. Try petitioning the Firefox team to add AnalogyCheck.
- pg 18y agoYC only benefits from a small percentage of startups. The rest on average decrease our returns, because some compete with the ones we fund.
- brlewis 18y agoIt seems like a lot of YC startups have more partners than competitors, but maybe those are just the ones most visible to me, e.g. disqus, clickpass, tipjoy. Snipshot, one with a lot of competition, still has more than twice as many partners as competitors. The only YC company I know of that was stopped by competition was Kiko, and its competition was not a small startup.
- pg 18y agoNearly all have competitors. Plus any startup trying to raise money has to compete with pretty much every other startup currently trying to.