5 ms·

> From what I've read, PG wasn't about the money he was all about helping people realize their ambitions. BS. If that was the case, then YC would be a non-prof

by mbesto 6y ago

> From what I've read, PG wasn't about the money he was all about helping people realize their ambitions. BS. If that was the case, then YC would be a non-profit and they would accept everyone. There's nothing wrong with wanting to make money AND help people, but pretending like PG/Jessica are some benevolent leaders is disingenuous. You're falling victim to some of the cargo cult nature of YC. As PG has said himself (paraphrased) "I think most tech entrepreneurs want to become incredibly wealthy, not to simply be wealthy, but to work on things they truly want to do". My interpretation is that he is no different and he gets personal enjoyment out of helping others (the financials give him the freedom to do this without ever having to worry about financials ever again).

lijason 6y ago
>BS. If that was the case, then YC would be a non-profit and they would accept everyone. I could see the argument for the first (non-profit) but not the second (accept everyone). Filtering down to a set of folks that they think they'd be able to most effectively help would make a lot of sense regardless of reason for doing.
mlinsey 6y ago
If YC were a non-profit, they definitely wouldn't have been able to raise money from LP's to scale the program, and would therefore been able to accept far fewer teams than they do now, certainly not everyone! I agree that there's nothing wrong with wanting to make money AND help people, but I also want to add that strictly maximizing the positive impact does not mean strictly minimizing making money either, sometimes making money enables you to help a lot more people too...
brain5ide 6y ago
I call BS on your claim about everyone being in. For anything to work only a particular type of people must be in especially at the start. To be honest most of PGs writings are dedicated to defining that, including your quote. At least that's what I take from it. Cultism is just something that follows success.
deleted 6y ago
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dang 6y ago
You're interpreting ChuckMcM's phrase to mean "wasn't about money [at all]" but that's the wrong place to insert the quantifier. The stronger plausible interpretation (see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) is "wasn't [all] about money". Chuck is contrasting PG and Jessica to people who only want to get rich "because for them, it is all about the money". That's also what Sam is saying and also what you are saying ("wanting to make money and help people"). Problem solved. Of course nearly everybody will say "I want to make money and to help people". The question is what they do when those two wishes come into conflict. Which is the high-order bit? There were many cases when PG and Jessica chose the interests of founders over optimizing their own money outcome—in fact this happened so often that it became proverbial, and many experienced people in the investment business were puzzled by it, as if there had to be some other explanation. There's another characteristic that PG and Jessica had/have, which doesn't get mentioned as often: they simply wouldn't spend time on things that they didn't enjoy and didn't feel were essential. That's also true of Trevor, and probably of Robert too (I don't know him as well), so it was something all four of them shared. That quality was for sure more important than optimizing for money, and may even be the high-order bit. Things that were supposed to be the 'proper' way but which weren't satisfying and didn't have an obvious justification, they simply wouldn't bother with. Complex negotiations, for example, or paperwork that wasn't absolutely necessary—even if nontrivial amounts of money got forfeited as a result. This approach turned out to be incredibly efficient and in retrospect looks like a superpower but I think a lot of it was just refusing to do dumb or boring things. Which actually is a superpower, but not one that most people would see that way.
- mbesto 6y ago
  > The question is what they do when those two wishes come into conflict. Which is the high-order bit? There were many cases when PG and Jessica chose the interests of founders over optimizing their own money outcome—in fact this happened so often that it became proverbial, and many experienced people in the investment business were puzzled by it, as if there had to be some other explanation. And I think this interpretation is incorrect or perhaps doesn't uncover the reality of the strategy. Sometimes in business you sacrifice short term gains for long term ones. That is basically what they did. PG/Jessica have infinite deal flow for life, how many VCs can say that? > they simply wouldn't spend time on things that they didn't enjoy and didn't feel were essential. Agreed, I think we're all saying that and was the essence of my point. I took ChuckMcM's point as if they were acting in some benevolent favor - which is a trope that needs to die. > "because for them, it is all about the money" This'll just eventually slide into a philosophical debate about what money really is. Either way, my point is that this is certainly a very nice position to be in when you already have money. To pretend that people who run a financial services firm (which is what an investor is) aren't geared towards making money is laughable. To be very clear - let's not pretend as if that this notion is evil or doesn't allow you to do things that you are truly passionate about. There's a subtext here that assumes that "being all about the money" is somehow inherently bad.
mcguire 6y ago
"As PG has said himself (paraphrased) "I think most tech entrepreneurs want to become incredibly wealthy, not to simply be wealthy, but to work on things they truly want to do"." This demands another question: What do tech entrepreneurs truly want to do? Certainly, there's Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Peter Thiel, and PG himself. But how do most of the YC successes do to help others?
deleted 6y ago
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by mbesto 6y ago

lijason 6y ago

>BS. If that was the case, then YC would be a non-profit and they would accept everyone. I could see the argument for the first (non-profit) but not the second (accept everyone). Filtering down to a set of folks that they think they'd be able to most effectively help would make a lot of sense regardless of reason for doing.

mlinsey 6y ago

If YC were a non-profit, they definitely wouldn't have been able to raise money from LP's to scale the program, and would therefore been able to accept far fewer teams than they do now, certainly not everyone! I agree that there's nothing wrong with wanting to make money AND help people, but I also want to add that strictly maximizing the positive impact does not mean strictly minimizing making money either, sometimes making money enables you to help a lot more people too...

brain5ide 6y ago

I call BS on your claim about everyone being in. For anything to work only a particular type of people must be in especially at the start. To be honest most of PGs writings are dedicated to defining that, including your quote. At least that's what I take from it. Cultism is just something that follows success.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

dang 6y ago

You're interpreting ChuckMcM's phrase to mean "wasn't about money [at all]" but that's the wrong place to insert the quantifier. The stronger plausible interpretation (see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) is "wasn't [all] about money". Chuck is contrasting PG and Jessica to people who only want to get rich "because for them, it is all about the money". That's also what Sam is saying and also what you are saying ("wanting to make money and help people"). Problem solved. Of course nearly everybody will say "I want to make money and to help people". The question is what they do when those two wishes come into conflict. Which is the high-order bit? There were many cases when PG and Jessica chose the interests of founders over optimizing their own money outcome—in fact this happened so often that it became proverbial, and many experienced people in the investment business were puzzled by it, as if there had to be some other explanation. There's another characteristic that PG and Jessica had/have, which doesn't get mentioned as often: they simply wouldn't spend time on things that they didn't enjoy and didn't feel were essential. That's also true of Trevor, and probably of Robert too (I don't know him as well), so it was something all four of them shared. That quality was for sure more important than optimizing for money, and may even be the high-order bit. Things that were supposed to be the 'proper' way but which weren't satisfying and didn't have an obvious justification, they simply wouldn't bother with. Complex negotiations, for example, or paperwork that wasn't absolutely necessary—even if nontrivial amounts of money got forfeited as a result. This approach turned out to be incredibly efficient and in retrospect looks like a superpower but I think a lot of it was just refusing to do dumb or boring things. Which actually is a superpower, but not one that most people would see that way.

mbesto 6y ago
> The question is what they do when those two wishes come into conflict. Which is the high-order bit? There were many cases when PG and Jessica chose the interests of founders over optimizing their own money outcome—in fact this happened so often that it became proverbial, and many experienced people in the investment business were puzzled by it, as if there had to be some other explanation. And I think this interpretation is incorrect or perhaps doesn't uncover the reality of the strategy. Sometimes in business you sacrifice short term gains for long term ones. That is basically what they did. PG/Jessica have infinite deal flow for life, how many VCs can say that? > they simply wouldn't spend time on things that they didn't enjoy and didn't feel were essential. Agreed, I think we're all saying that and was the essence of my point. I took ChuckMcM's point as if they were acting in some benevolent favor - which is a trope that needs to die. > "because for them, it is all about the money" This'll just eventually slide into a philosophical debate about what money really is. Either way, my point is that this is certainly a very nice position to be in when you already have money. To pretend that people who run a financial services firm (which is what an investor is) aren't geared towards making money is laughable. To be very clear - let's not pretend as if that this notion is evil or doesn't allow you to do things that you are truly passionate about. There's a subtext here that assumes that "being all about the money" is somehow inherently bad.

mcguire 6y ago

"As PG has said himself (paraphrased) "I think most tech entrepreneurs want to become incredibly wealthy, not to simply be wealthy, but to work on things they truly want to do"." This demands another question: What do tech entrepreneurs truly want to do? Certainly, there's Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Peter Thiel, and PG himself. But how do most of the YC successes do to help others?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]