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> I consider people angrily wishing for your company to go bust, which can often lead to personal impoverishment and career/reputational damage to the founder t

> I consider people angrily wishing for your company to go bust, which can often lead to personal impoverishment and career/reputational damage to the founder to be equivalent to a wish for harm to them I believe this view (maybe pithily summarized as "people are corporations") is also the root of Graham's dumb article. If someone expends a lot of effort towards a bad idea and suffers "reputational damage" that's called consequences, not personal harm. Meanwhile, I will continue hoping ~all of Peter Thiel's company's fail, which is not even a very controversial opinion on HN.

tomhoward 6y ago
Good founders can accept failing if they were unable to build a product people want/need. That's hammered into you from the moment you join YC (and well before - PG has been writing essays about this since at least 2005). This essay is not about that. It's about people who attack a product/company/founder for reasons that are not about a product's functionality but are about their own issues. This can be presumed to be be true of a critic who actively desires to see a founder's company "crash and burn" (leading to financial damage to them and their family if they have one), rather than just thinking it would be better for the founder to change their product or company direction.
- morelisp 6y ago
  Your writing in this thread sounds consistently like a cult member. A completely closed world where YC is beyond reproach because YC does the things YC says make one beyond reproach.
  - tomhoward 6y ago
    YC doesn't need me to defend it, and nothing I've written is specific to YC. I have plenty of points of disagreement with YC, and people/companies connected to it. This essay/thread isn't about any of those things. It's just about "haters" vs valid criticism, and I keep replying to people who try and refute the essay by saying founders should be accepting of valid criticism, which the essay doesn't dispute. If you think I'm wrong about that, explain how I'm wrong. Refuting a person's contribution to a discussion by casting them as a "cult member" doesn't help your case in this of all topics. For what it's worth, the personal bias I do have in this topic is in support of people like Suhail who are building products/ideas that seem crazy to most. The one I want to be working on, and that I earnestly believe could solve a lot of big problems over the long term, is one that even YC likely wouldn't fund/support, and that would certainly attract more resistance than Mighty. But that's for me to work through. I'm cool with where I'm at, but I’m going to keep having a soft spot for people like Suhail who spend years working on something that others think are crazy, as that’s the way the important problems (indeed, far bigger problems than slow websites) are going to be solved.

tomhoward 6y ago

Good founders can accept failing if they were unable to build a product people want/need. That's hammered into you from the moment you join YC (and well before - PG has been writing essays about this since at least 2005). This essay is not about that. It's about people who attack a product/company/founder for reasons that are not about a product's functionality but are about their own issues. This can be presumed to be be true of a critic who actively desires to see a founder's company "crash and burn" (leading to financial damage to them and their family if they have one), rather than just thinking it would be better for the founder to change their product or company direction.

morelisp 6y ago
Your writing in this thread sounds consistently like a cult member. A completely closed world where YC is beyond reproach because YC does the things YC says make one beyond reproach.
- tomhoward 6y ago
  YC doesn't need me to defend it, and nothing I've written is specific to YC. I have plenty of points of disagreement with YC, and people/companies connected to it. This essay/thread isn't about any of those things. It's just about "haters" vs valid criticism, and I keep replying to people who try and refute the essay by saying founders should be accepting of valid criticism, which the essay doesn't dispute. If you think I'm wrong about that, explain how I'm wrong. Refuting a person's contribution to a discussion by casting them as a "cult member" doesn't help your case in this of all topics. For what it's worth, the personal bias I do have in this topic is in support of people like Suhail who are building products/ideas that seem crazy to most. The one I want to be working on, and that I earnestly believe could solve a lot of big problems over the long term, is one that even YC likely wouldn't fund/support, and that would certainly attract more resistance than Mighty. But that's for me to work through. I'm cool with where I'm at, but I’m going to keep having a soft spot for people like Suhail who spend years working on something that others think are crazy, as that’s the way the important problems (indeed, far bigger problems than slow websites) are going to be solved.