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Unless you were there, you can’t understand what a magical time this was. The prevailing wisdom was to get a job after attending the university gauntlet. This
by sillysaurusx 5y ago
Unless you were there, you can’t understand what a magical time this was. The prevailing wisdom was to get a job after attending the university gauntlet.
This was long before pg was known in general, let alone famous. For context, I ended up visiting SV about a year after this for Startup School. We were staying with a relative, who was also tied in to the VC scene somehow. I remember her asking some question that prompted a “Paul Graham” response. I think she was asking something like “so who might your investors be if things go well?” And being 19 and confident, I foolishly felt I might have what it took to run a YC co. Her reply was illuminating, though: “Who?”
The run-up to YC’s worldwide takeover was truly a cool thing to watch. And I think HN was the central reason it was able to grow at all. Most people seem to disagree, but this snapshot provides a glimpse into a time when YC was a sapling, just like every startup in the YC batches now.
- dilyevsky 5y ago> The prevailing wisdom was to get a job after attending the university gauntlet. I distinctly remember listening to podcast around ~’08 where much the same subjects were being discussed as today - low startup payout probability vs big stable income corp. I don’t think it’s really changed that much tbh
- sillysaurusx 5y agoYou’re correct. Today is now pretty much the same climate as it was pre-HN. At least, that’s how I feel each day. The period was electrifying. Even if one wishes to take a cynical view, that YC needed to fool a bunch of young engineers into gambling on the prospect of getting rich, the execution was marvelous. pg’s essays were the epicenter. (I don’t buy the cynical take. The engineers that try and fail to build an early startup are well-positioned to transition to a traditional career path with minimal long term loss of income or opportunity cost. The only area where that isn’t really true is probably ads or ML, the latter being a recent phenomenon.)
- kongin 5y agoIn 2006 SF was well on the way to world domination, google was the hottest place to work and a whole bunch of other things were cropping up. The long cold internet winter after 2000 was thawing and dotcom bubble 2.0 was just starting to throf. I rather enjoyed the internet 2000-2005. It was like squatting and having a rave in an recently abandoned factory.
- systemvoltage 5y agoBest time of my life.
- prayingforexits 5y ago2000-2005 Internet truly was a dirty Berlin aircraft hanger deep house rave
- kongin 5y agoYeah and it's been getting gentrified since. It sucks that a bunch of nimbys came here and threw everyone fun out. Hell even pg would get flagged off hn if he said the stuff he used to in the 00s.
- siva7 5y agoEven early HN ca. 2008 felt a bit like that. But honestly i don't have the feeling that much changed and i've been lurking on HN pretty much since since the beginning as a kid.
- hellbannedguy 5y ago[dead]
- p1esk 5y agoGoogle is still the hottest place to work, closely followed by Facebook (whether HN crowd likes it or not). Just look where the best and brightest CS graduates from top schools go to.
- 5y ago
- sneak 5y ago> I remember her asking some question that prompted a “Paul Graham” response. I think she was asking something like “so who might your investors be if things go well?” And being 19 and confident, I foolishly felt I might have what it took to run a YC co. Her reply was illuminating, though: “Who?” I still get that even when talking about pmarca or pg (or even rms) outside of tech circles. Sometimes I think I may be further down the rabbit hole than I think I am.
- metagame 5y agoPaul Graham has a million and a third followers on Twitter. He's what you'd call "off-mainstream." Andreesen is off-off-mainstream. RMS, on the other hand, is pretty niche, unfortunately. The world would be a lot better if their positions were reversed. 0.016̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅% of the world's population is following Graham on twitter.com, which is a lot of people! (Edited s/0.00016̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅%/0.016̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅%; forgot to move the decimal. Thanks, shric.)