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The next question is, how did pg become pg? His essays are how I learned of both HN and YC and from founders I've spoken with the very same essays played a crit
by AlchemistCamp 7y ago
The next question is, how did pg become pg? His essays are how I learned of both HN and YC and from founders I've spoken with the very same essays played a critical role in getting YC off the ground in the early days.
Of course he was already a (relatively minor) entrepreneurial success through Viaweb, which gave the essays a boost. But when starting Viaweb, he was just a smart 30-ish guy who had published a couple of books on a niche programming language.
It's easy to see how this would feel like a lucky chain of events and that a random person could have jumped in at any given point and done as well, but I'm very skeptical of that hypothesis.
- braythwayt 7y agoI’m not saying that he got lucky, or that he is one of those rare polymaths who has tremendous insights into nearly everything. I was just trying to suggest that it's quite clear that HN takes his identity and experience into account when choosing to upvote his work, and therefore it seems reasonable to discuss his identity and experience when evaluating his work. Without taking a side, when we admire someone and give their words extra credence, it seems very reasonable to be on our guard against “false positives,” situations where someone we otherwise admire releases a clunker.