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I mean, AirBnB got off to a similar start. Before they brought on the infamous spammer as a cofounder it was basically failing to gain any traction, and then h

I mean, AirBnB got off to a similar start. Before they brought on the infamous spammer as a cofounder it was basically failing to gain any traction, and then he broke the craiglist TOS to scrape their listings. Yes, there is more to the story, but I don't see how AirBnB could've ever become what it is today (even if it's doing poorly now because of covid and other factors) without some unethical "growth hacking." In my experience, very few successful tech founders are what I would consider admirable people (obviously anecdotal and subjective). In addition to people like Zuckerberg, Silicon Valley attracts straight up con (wo)men like Adam Neumann and Elizabeth Holmes. https://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/26/airbnb-co-founder-nathan-blecharczyk-spam-pioneer-says-book.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/26/airbnb-co-founder-nathan-ble... https://www.businessinsider.com/airbnb-co-founders-freshman-roommate-says-hes-a-spammy-scumbag-2011-10 https://www.businessinsider.com/airbnb-co-founders-freshman-...

m3kw9 6y ago
Scraping a site breaking a TOS isn’t too difficult, you don’t need to be a super spammer to do these things
- mmm_grayons 6y ago
  Yeah, I've even done that for personal project before. Courts have been pretty clear that this isn't illegal; the worst a site could do is try to ban you. http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2019/09/09/17-16783.pdf http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2019/09/09/17...
ojnabieoot 6y ago
Again: bad people with modest tech skills (Hawke, the AirBnB founders) are not the same thing as bad people who are actual technologists (McAfee, Gates, Musk), or even bad people with modest tech skills who lead actual technology companies (Zuckerberg). In particular AirBnB is really not a tech company, it’s a rental company that uses fairly standard commercial/open source tech. I think the comparison you are making, and asserting that this is a “phenotype” common in tech leaders, is baseless and silly.
- TaylorGood 6y ago
  What makes the AirBNB guys bad people?
- bluedevil2k 6y ago
  In what way is Bill Gates or Musk a bad person?? Grouping them with McAfee is really kind of dumb...blasphemous really.
  - h0l0cube 6y ago
    More to that, good and bad isn't necessarily immutable. Bill Gates was seemingly as callous at his anti-trust depositions as Zuckerberg, but I believe he's redeemed himself in his philanthropic contributions that have had real outcomes in some of the poorest part of the world. Blanket 'good' and 'bad' designations are often a little reductive for what are complicated human beings who do both 'good' and 'bad' things across their lifetimes.
    - ojnabieoot 6y ago
      Bill Gates is substantially more wealthy now than he was when he left Microsoft. He is the only motherfucker on Earth who has continued to accumulate billions of dollars while pretending he is giving it all away. He could have done so much more but decided not to because he’s a selfish jerk. The fact that people on his payroll did a great deal of good work does not make Bill Gates a good person. Bill Gates is and always was and likely always will be a terrible person. I suppose it is refreshing that he has some conscience and isn’t an outright monster in every facet of his life. While it’s true that Bill Gates’s philanthropic efforts have salvaged his moral reputation, it is not true that he deserves it. A culture that didn’t worship billionaires would scorn him for the criminal and gluttonous dirtbag that he his. Anyone with his amount of wealth can’t pretend to be generous.
      - h0l0cube 6y ago
        I'm not sure I've received such a vitriolic reply, ever, on HN. You certainly are strongly persuaded that Bill Gates is evil. It's funny to think that in the 90s I really used to share your opinion with a similar zeal. > While it’s true that Bill Gates’s philanthropic efforts have salvaged his moral reputation, it is not true that he deserves it. When everyone has their own concept of what is moral, it can be hard do agree on 'moral desert'. But as I see it, he's poured money into eradicating polio, tuberculosis, malaria, and other diseases affecting poor nations. For polio in particular, this has culminated in total eradication for the entire South East Asian and African regions within the last decade. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-53887947 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-53887947 https://web.archive.org/web/20140327032034/http://www.searo.who.int/entity/immunization/topics/polio/eradication/sea-polio-free/en/ https://web.archive.org/web/20140327032034/http://www.searo.... The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation isn't perfect, and maybe has made a few missteps, and partnered with corporations of dubious nature, but overall it's money invested in improving the world that came from a place of generosity. Actions with real positive outcomes for the world, and motivated by good intentions, ought to shift our prejudices, as much as bad intentions.
xwdv 6y ago
The truth is a lot of startups get started using unethical tactics. A reason so many startups fail is because unethical methods fly over their head, they don’t even consider them. Meanwhile, competitors are juicing up their startups by using shady gray hat or black hat growth hacks. It’s like body building competitions where the serious competitors are all using steroids. If you’re just coming in all natural you will likely do poorly. The reason black hat growth hacks work so well is because the marketing channels are not yet closed or saturated. A marketing channel is most effective when competitors are not yet using it, and since many startups are unwilling to do something unethical, there is a big window of opportunity available before it gets shut down or patched by some authority. Frankly if you really want to build a successful tech startup you should get comfortable with the idea of doing the wrong thing first and then seeking redemption later when you’ve accumulated some wealth than to try and do the right thing from the beginning and die a pauper because someone else ate your lunch doing shady things or misrepresenting themselves. If you’re not willing to cast ethics aside to be successful then you obviously care more about being ethical than being successful, so don’t be surprised if you end up a failure. The only time I would support going 100% legit is if you could guarantee every competitor would do the same, and I’m not aware of any scenario where that would be true.
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
  Without ethics any "success" is forever tainted by fraud. Going legit is a lie the ethically bankrupt tell themselves to further justify their insatiable addiction. By limiting yourself to just below your competitors depths you resign yourself to race to the darkest depths of depravity in a vain quest to aquire resources one lacks the ethics to use equitably dooming your victims, peers, and community to further victimizations.
  - ByteJockey 6y ago
    So? That's not a rhetorical question. xwdv seems to have rejected moral purity as a driving principal or at the very least (being more charitable), has stated that people who wish to be successful should reject moral purity as a driving principal. I don't quite understand the argument, since it seems to rest on something the OP has already cast aside.
clueless123 6y ago
Over here in S.A. there is a common saying: Behind every fortune there is a crime. I guess it is pretty international after all.
- skizziepop 6y ago
  What or where is "S.A." ?
  - Tarq0n 6y ago
    South Africa, the southernmost country on the African continent.
  - sammalloy 6y ago
    Likely South America, as it's the abbreviation corporate directories use for offices in that region. South Africa would probably be ZA, which comes from the Dutch, Zuid-Afrika.
  - wombatmobile 6y ago
    South Australia, where behind every fortune, is a crime. http://users.adam.com.au/bstett/SupernatWitchcraftArriola18.htm http://users.adam.com.au/bstett/SupernatWitchcraftArriola18....
  - jacobwilliamroy 6y ago
    San Antonio, Texas, U.S.A.
  - nullsense 6y ago
    My money would be on South Africa.
  - hanniabu 6y ago
    I love how there's currently 5 comments and they each have a different answer for what it stands for. Let that be a lesson on explicit vs implicit
    - 6y ago
ackbar03 6y ago
Part of yc's interview question is "when have you 'hacked' or taken exploited the system to your advantage." I don't think it's about doing illegal stuff for the sake of it but more about taking advantage of opportunities creatively and doing what you can to survive since the probability of a startup succeeding is so low

m3kw9 6y ago

Scraping a site breaking a TOS isn’t too difficult, you don’t need to be a super spammer to do these things

mmm_grayons 6y ago
Yeah, I've even done that for personal project before. Courts have been pretty clear that this isn't illegal; the worst a site could do is try to ban you. http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2019/09/09/17-16783.pdf http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2019/09/09/17...

ojnabieoot 6y ago

Again: bad people with modest tech skills (Hawke, the AirBnB founders) are not the same thing as bad people who are actual technologists (McAfee, Gates, Musk), or even bad people with modest tech skills who lead actual technology companies (Zuckerberg). In particular AirBnB is really not a tech company, it’s a rental company that uses fairly standard commercial/open source tech. I think the comparison you are making, and asserting that this is a “phenotype” common in tech leaders, is baseless and silly.

TaylorGood 6y ago
What makes the AirBNB guys bad people?
bluedevil2k 6y ago
In what way is Bill Gates or Musk a bad person?? Grouping them with McAfee is really kind of dumb...blasphemous really.
- h0l0cube 6y ago
  More to that, good and bad isn't necessarily immutable. Bill Gates was seemingly as callous at his anti-trust depositions as Zuckerberg, but I believe he's redeemed himself in his philanthropic contributions that have had real outcomes in some of the poorest part of the world. Blanket 'good' and 'bad' designations are often a little reductive for what are complicated human beings who do both 'good' and 'bad' things across their lifetimes.
  - ojnabieoot 6y ago
    Bill Gates is substantially more wealthy now than he was when he left Microsoft. He is the only motherfucker on Earth who has continued to accumulate billions of dollars while pretending he is giving it all away. He could have done so much more but decided not to because he’s a selfish jerk. The fact that people on his payroll did a great deal of good work does not make Bill Gates a good person. Bill Gates is and always was and likely always will be a terrible person. I suppose it is refreshing that he has some conscience and isn’t an outright monster in every facet of his life. While it’s true that Bill Gates’s philanthropic efforts have salvaged his moral reputation, it is not true that he deserves it. A culture that didn’t worship billionaires would scorn him for the criminal and gluttonous dirtbag that he his. Anyone with his amount of wealth can’t pretend to be generous.
    - h0l0cube 6y ago
      I'm not sure I've received such a vitriolic reply, ever, on HN. You certainly are strongly persuaded that Bill Gates is evil. It's funny to think that in the 90s I really used to share your opinion with a similar zeal. > While it’s true that Bill Gates’s philanthropic efforts have salvaged his moral reputation, it is not true that he deserves it. When everyone has their own concept of what is moral, it can be hard do agree on 'moral desert'. But as I see it, he's poured money into eradicating polio, tuberculosis, malaria, and other diseases affecting poor nations. For polio in particular, this has culminated in total eradication for the entire South East Asian and African regions within the last decade. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-53887947 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-53887947 https://web.archive.org/web/20140327032034/http://www.searo.who.int/entity/immunization/topics/polio/eradication/sea-polio-free/en/ https://web.archive.org/web/20140327032034/http://www.searo.... The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation isn't perfect, and maybe has made a few missteps, and partnered with corporations of dubious nature, but overall it's money invested in improving the world that came from a place of generosity. Actions with real positive outcomes for the world, and motivated by good intentions, ought to shift our prejudices, as much as bad intentions.

xwdv 6y ago

The truth is a lot of startups get started using unethical tactics. A reason so many startups fail is because unethical methods fly over their head, they don’t even consider them. Meanwhile, competitors are juicing up their startups by using shady gray hat or black hat growth hacks. It’s like body building competitions where the serious competitors are all using steroids. If you’re just coming in all natural you will likely do poorly. The reason black hat growth hacks work so well is because the marketing channels are not yet closed or saturated. A marketing channel is most effective when competitors are not yet using it, and since many startups are unwilling to do something unethical, there is a big window of opportunity available before it gets shut down or patched by some authority. Frankly if you really want to build a successful tech startup you should get comfortable with the idea of doing the wrong thing first and then seeking redemption later when you’ve accumulated some wealth than to try and do the right thing from the beginning and die a pauper because someone else ate your lunch doing shady things or misrepresenting themselves. If you’re not willing to cast ethics aside to be successful then you obviously care more about being ethical than being successful, so don’t be surprised if you end up a failure. The only time I would support going 100% legit is if you could guarantee every competitor would do the same, and I’m not aware of any scenario where that would be true.

Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
Without ethics any "success" is forever tainted by fraud. Going legit is a lie the ethically bankrupt tell themselves to further justify their insatiable addiction. By limiting yourself to just below your competitors depths you resign yourself to race to the darkest depths of depravity in a vain quest to aquire resources one lacks the ethics to use equitably dooming your victims, peers, and community to further victimizations.
- ByteJockey 6y ago
  So? That's not a rhetorical question. xwdv seems to have rejected moral purity as a driving principal or at the very least (being more charitable), has stated that people who wish to be successful should reject moral purity as a driving principal. I don't quite understand the argument, since it seems to rest on something the OP has already cast aside.

clueless123 6y ago

Over here in S.A. there is a common saying: Behind every fortune there is a crime. I guess it is pretty international after all.

skizziepop 6y ago
What or where is "S.A." ?
- Tarq0n 6y ago
  South Africa, the southernmost country on the African continent.
- sammalloy 6y ago
  Likely South America, as it's the abbreviation corporate directories use for offices in that region. South Africa would probably be ZA, which comes from the Dutch, Zuid-Afrika.
- wombatmobile 6y ago
  South Australia, where behind every fortune, is a crime. http://users.adam.com.au/bstett/SupernatWitchcraftArriola18.htm http://users.adam.com.au/bstett/SupernatWitchcraftArriola18....
- jacobwilliamroy 6y ago
  San Antonio, Texas, U.S.A.
- nullsense 6y ago
  My money would be on South Africa.
- hanniabu 6y ago
  I love how there's currently 5 comments and they each have a different answer for what it stands for. Let that be a lesson on explicit vs implicit
  - 6y ago

ackbar03 6y ago

Part of yc's interview question is "when have you 'hacked' or taken exploited the system to your advantage." I don't think it's about doing illegal stuff for the sake of it but more about taking advantage of opportunities creatively and doing what you can to survive since the probability of a startup succeeding is so low