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> I'm pretty sure the saga of Gab played out on this website in plaintext. The Gab website is still active and the company is alive...that does not count as fa

> I'm pretty sure the saga of Gab played out on this website in plaintext. The Gab website is still active and the company is alive...that does not count as failed in my book. I did a search for over 170 failed startups from YC (this is still a small sampling) and without exception, any post that talks about their failure (there's maybe 3...) invariably gets buried immediately and ends up dying with no comments. [0][1][2] Ever heard the saying twice is a coincidence and thrice is a pattern? Would love to see a counterexample with an actual shuttered startup. > Anyway, I do think a lot of HN and ycombinator discussions happen but you end up having to be at the right place at the right time. By browsing other users comments I've discovered there's a lot of interesting threads I miss, which I was previously unaware of. Sometimes they don't spend that much time on the front page, or live on for days in /active. That's a fair point. I can see how HN-specific threads would be more susceptible to getting caught in the anti-flamewar filter and dropping down in the rankings. However, I'm not optimistic any change will be made here. > I'm honestly not sure how this is related. It's related in the sense that there appears to be a trend against the idea of sincere self-assessment, and more disturbingly, a trend towards actively suppressing dissenting voices by any means necessary. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15959095 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15959095 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15316698 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15316698 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21030823 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21030823

kodah 5y ago
> It's related in the sense that there appears to be a trend against the idea of sincere self-assessment, and more disturbingly, a trend towards actively suppressing dissenting voices by any means necessary Being able to email dang is a feature. If you want humility on display, search his comments or email him. The man, from my perspective, has no problem with metaphorically standing naked in a room. That doesn't mean he won't debate you, but he's fair and admits when there's an issue. Rephrased as, "HN doesn't take action on an issue as soon as I'd like" I would agree with, and that is by design. Their philosophy is contrary to move fast and break things. When dang does extend something, it is usually very thoughtful and intended. > The Gab website is still active and the company is alive...that does not count as failed in my book I would suspect that based on the crowd, failed startups aren't very interesting or curious. Most of us come from startups or FOSS. It's fairly well known why startups and projects typically fail, but I've seen some post mortems take off that subvert our usual expectations. Gab I would consider failed since they were kicked out of YC, it was very public, and much of the reasoning came from interactions on this board. Your implicit argument is that YC and by proxy HN are covering up their failures through automation, but that thread could've easily disappeared. I think there's a lot more reasonable explanations that precipitate your extraordinary claim.
- sombremesa 5y ago
  I highly doubt the Gab fiasco would receive even a fraction of the attention it did if it was framed as a failure of YC to choose good startups rather than personal failings of the founder. I note the conspicuous lack of actual counterexamples in your post (notably Gab itself was never YC funded)...but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that this is some kind of emergent phenomena and not deliberate manipulation. I agree that it doesn't make too much sense for it to be deliberate manipulation, and YC still appears to be more transparent than most VC groups.
  - kodah 5y ago
    My conspicuous lack of examples is mere laziness. If you want to prove it, just go look. This board is open. What I will say from reviewing your comments is that you're obviously discontented with software. In many ways I don't blame you, this industry is a young person's game, and even in my thirties I am dying. I can feel it when I'm annoyed that someone reprioritized parts of my project to fit their demands and concerns, even when they'd be solved by how the team had decided to tackle them. I sense it when I get frustrated with people in my life and my only reaction, in order to avoid lashing out at them, is to act like I am devoid of feeling. I have this mode where my eyes glaze over, my voice softens, and I relax - it's totally unnatural, I'm a former Marine, passion and energy are part and parcel to who I am, yet I show those to people in software and they get butthurt with the quickness of reverse time dilation. If these comments and skepticism are the result of that, then you're falling into the sink hole I was in where I had a beef and reflected that on the wider industry. I still have beefs but they're pretty specific and I don't translate them to the wider world anymore. Maybe all that's unrelated though, but in the case it's not I hope these words help.
    - sombremesa 5y ago
      Thanks - I am indeed discontented with software, though not exactly for those reasons. It's interesting that you think it's a young person's game, that's probably true when you're an employee (at certain companies) but I think founders above 30 are generally known to build better businesses. IIRC one of YC's founding theses was that younger (than 30) people deserve a chance to get funded and prove their worth. I think software, like science, isn't anything like what it was supposed to be. Not in the sense that the world has changed, but more in the personal sense. Playing around with pipettes in your kitchen is a vastly different (and oh so apolitical...) world than the ivory towers of academia. Even so, what I'm actually unhappy with is the idea of being a cog in a machine, however large and impressive the machine may be. It's not about the insignificance of the cog - it's about the unimaginative and inextensible role the cog plays. As someone who has many talents beyond software, I think I'd be able to employ myself more efficiently than any third party could.

kodah 5y ago

> It's related in the sense that there appears to be a trend against the idea of sincere self-assessment, and more disturbingly, a trend towards actively suppressing dissenting voices by any means necessary Being able to email dang is a feature. If you want humility on display, search his comments or email him. The man, from my perspective, has no problem with metaphorically standing naked in a room. That doesn't mean he won't debate you, but he's fair and admits when there's an issue. Rephrased as, "HN doesn't take action on an issue as soon as I'd like" I would agree with, and that is by design. Their philosophy is contrary to move fast and break things. When dang does extend something, it is usually very thoughtful and intended. > The Gab website is still active and the company is alive...that does not count as failed in my book I would suspect that based on the crowd, failed startups aren't very interesting or curious. Most of us come from startups or FOSS. It's fairly well known why startups and projects typically fail, but I've seen some post mortems take off that subvert our usual expectations. Gab I would consider failed since they were kicked out of YC, it was very public, and much of the reasoning came from interactions on this board. Your implicit argument is that YC and by proxy HN are covering up their failures through automation, but that thread could've easily disappeared. I think there's a lot more reasonable explanations that precipitate your extraordinary claim.

sombremesa 5y ago
I highly doubt the Gab fiasco would receive even a fraction of the attention it did if it was framed as a failure of YC to choose good startups rather than personal failings of the founder. I note the conspicuous lack of actual counterexamples in your post (notably Gab itself was never YC funded)...but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that this is some kind of emergent phenomena and not deliberate manipulation. I agree that it doesn't make too much sense for it to be deliberate manipulation, and YC still appears to be more transparent than most VC groups.
- kodah 5y ago
  My conspicuous lack of examples is mere laziness. If you want to prove it, just go look. This board is open. What I will say from reviewing your comments is that you're obviously discontented with software. In many ways I don't blame you, this industry is a young person's game, and even in my thirties I am dying. I can feel it when I'm annoyed that someone reprioritized parts of my project to fit their demands and concerns, even when they'd be solved by how the team had decided to tackle them. I sense it when I get frustrated with people in my life and my only reaction, in order to avoid lashing out at them, is to act like I am devoid of feeling. I have this mode where my eyes glaze over, my voice softens, and I relax - it's totally unnatural, I'm a former Marine, passion and energy are part and parcel to who I am, yet I show those to people in software and they get butthurt with the quickness of reverse time dilation. If these comments and skepticism are the result of that, then you're falling into the sink hole I was in where I had a beef and reflected that on the wider industry. I still have beefs but they're pretty specific and I don't translate them to the wider world anymore. Maybe all that's unrelated though, but in the case it's not I hope these words help.
  - sombremesa 5y ago
    Thanks - I am indeed discontented with software, though not exactly for those reasons. It's interesting that you think it's a young person's game, that's probably true when you're an employee (at certain companies) but I think founders above 30 are generally known to build better businesses. IIRC one of YC's founding theses was that younger (than 30) people deserve a chance to get funded and prove their worth. I think software, like science, isn't anything like what it was supposed to be. Not in the sense that the world has changed, but more in the personal sense. Playing around with pipettes in your kitchen is a vastly different (and oh so apolitical...) world than the ivory towers of academia. Even so, what I'm actually unhappy with is the idea of being a cog in a machine, however large and impressive the machine may be. It's not about the insignificance of the cog - it's about the unimaginative and inextensible role the cog plays. As someone who has many talents beyond software, I think I'd be able to employ myself more efficiently than any third party could.