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That's exactly the point! This post is a generic, pretty universally-recognized point, written by a billionaire, and is only the length of a handful of tweets.

by kick 7y ago

That's exactly the point! This post is a generic, pretty universally-recognized point, written by a billionaire, and is only the length of a handful of tweets. The only possible criteria that a post this small and with this little substance would get upmodded for is the billionaire bit, and possibly that people are just upmodding 'pg without checking the actual content (I've seen a few people talk about how they use upmodding as a 'read later' function). I don't even mind that it was, but the comment makes a decent point.

dmurray 7y ago
I don't think it's the "billionaire bit", it's celebrity in general, and specifically celebrity in fields that HN readers find interesting.
bnjms 7y ago
It is the point. But it isn't the billionaire bit that matters. It's that PG is a celebrity on HN. He wrote this forum and most of the early posts were his blog posts. HN used to be all startups and tech all the time. Before Y-Combinator was successful PG was already a celebrity here who would get auto voted up. Before that it was /. Then Reddit I guess but I missed the golden year for Reddit. There are other HN celebrities PG just happens to be the founder. This isn't Billionare worship it is celebrity worship. And it's caused because PG has written enough things insightful enough that people can feel their minds changing as they read, that they will reflexively upvote. I hate seeing anti-wealth rhetoric on HN. If the point is wealth doesn't matter then the criticism ought to be more substantive then 'aye, he's just popular because he's a billionaire'. HN is one of the only places I know of where ambition has been celebrated. I get that startups and the startup culture didn't turn out to be a necessary good thing so there's some cynicism there. But we can do better than demonizing the money, a result, rather than causes. (Anyway, I think I'd like to join lobste.rs)
- yesenadam 7y ago
  >most of the early posts were his blog posts. HN used to be all startups and tech all the time. To respond just to this part: I don't think either of these things are true. With "past" you can look around the front page in 2007-8. I just did - not very different at all from today. Not many pg essays around - none on most days on the front page. The titles are a lot longer today, seems the main difference!
  - bnjms 7y ago
    I shouldn’t have been so hyperbolic. Basically PG was a huge part of HN back then. You’ll see a lot of people writing as if they know him and everything by him or the likes of Steve Blank was voted to the top.

by kick 7y ago

dmurray 7y ago

I don't think it's the "billionaire bit", it's celebrity in general, and specifically celebrity in fields that HN readers find interesting.

bnjms 7y ago

It is the point. But it isn't the billionaire bit that matters. It's that PG is a celebrity on HN. He wrote this forum and most of the early posts were his blog posts. HN used to be all startups and tech all the time. Before Y-Combinator was successful PG was already a celebrity here who would get auto voted up. Before that it was /. Then Reddit I guess but I missed the golden year for Reddit. There are other HN celebrities PG just happens to be the founder. This isn't Billionare worship it is celebrity worship. And it's caused because PG has written enough things insightful enough that people can feel their minds changing as they read, that they will reflexively upvote. I hate seeing anti-wealth rhetoric on HN. If the point is wealth doesn't matter then the criticism ought to be more substantive then 'aye, he's just popular because he's a billionaire'. HN is one of the only places I know of where ambition has been celebrated. I get that startups and the startup culture didn't turn out to be a necessary good thing so there's some cynicism there. But we can do better than demonizing the money, a result, rather than causes. (Anyway, I think I'd like to join lobste.rs)

yesenadam 7y ago
>most of the early posts were his blog posts. HN used to be all startups and tech all the time. To respond just to this part: I don't think either of these things are true. With "past" you can look around the front page in 2007-8. I just did - not very different at all from today. Not many pg essays around - none on most days on the front page. The titles are a lot longer today, seems the main difference!
- bnjms 7y ago
  I shouldn’t have been so hyperbolic. Basically PG was a huge part of HN back then. You’ll see a lot of people writing as if they know him and everything by him or the likes of Steve Blank was voted to the top.