> There is no advantage to criminality. Of course there is. That's why YCombinator prefers "naughty" companies that break rules but get away with it. http://

> There is no advantage to criminality. Of course there is. That's why YCombinator prefers "naughty" companies that break rules but get away with it. http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html > "Though the most successful founders are usually good people, they tend to have a piratical gleam in their eye. They're not Goody Two-Shoes type good. Morally, they care about getting the big questions right, but not about observing proprieties. That's why I'd use the word naughty rather than evil. They delight in breaking rules, but not rules that matter." Is there any doubt that YCombinator would be investing in TicketMaster if it were a startup? Is there any moral distance between the scofflaw insouciance of AirBNB and TicketMaster? TicketMaster just eliminated a threat to its quasi-monopoly through criminality and were rewarded because the criminal penalty was utterly inconsequential compared with the commercial advantage obtained. They have "won" in the "marketplace", as that criminality-advantaging "marketplace" was constructed. The unjust demolition of TicketMaster's competitors, and the resulting systemic economic inefficiency, is underpinned by rhetoric like yours.