8 ms·
He later goes on to claim he's "never read a pitch deck". https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1492696791434731529?s=20&t=ODbVDT_HQOWLtSqBsiWk1w https://twitter.com
by Neverending 5y ago
He later goes on to claim he's "never read a pitch deck". https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1492696791434731529?s=20&t=ODbVDT_HQOWLtSqBsiWk1w https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1492696791434731529?s=20&t=...
What an eye roll.
- nicodjimenez 5y agoI love the man's essays and he is clearly a genius, but he's getting carried away a bit on Twitter.
- cam0 5y agoClearly very smart, but I haven't heard or read anything from him that would classify as genius.
- s1artibartfast 5y agoFor what it is worth, The most common technical definition genius is an iq of 140, or 1/400.
- throw100g 5y agoI think that is an important fact to know considering the confusion in this thread. There are people commenting that pg surely can't be a genius because this or that he engages in isn't ethical (to them). But that's the thing, the IQ says absolutely nothing about ones ethical responsibility or the amount of empathy one has. It is purely measuring "logical thinking ability". Things like "continue this sequence", "recognize a pattern", etc. I also often see this dangerous assumption that ones political opponents or everyone with a different opinion than the one which seems most rational to ones own must be "stupid". In reality, the problem is that we focus on something as (arguably) unimportant as the IQ, which measures only something very narrow. Another misconception about IQ is that those who are more poor or have less favourable job positions must have a lower IQ. To give just one counter example to that, very often, people who have some sort of handicap (ASD, ADHD, etc.) are also "gifted", have a high IQ, are good when it comes to logical thinking. But their handicaps still make their lives more difficult in general, so they face more adversity than someone who is "normal". Sorry that i wrote a wall of text, was just thinking out loud. In my personal opinion, the IQ is already a little dangerous, because it assigns a "value" to a human life, but that is an entirely different discussion.
- bordercases 5y ago
- majani 5y agoAnyone who manages to start more than one wildly successful business counts as a genius in my book. pg has done it with Viaweb and YC
- floodyberry- 5y agoPeople considering him a genius as opposed to a narcissist who accidentally got rich likely fuels his need to drop nuggets of "wisdom" to the peasants like this.
- nicodjimenez 5y agoThere is some percentage of people who become wealthy accidentally - but PG is not one of them. He's like the Michelangelo of early internet startups.
- floodyberry- 5y agoHe's not going to share it with you
- monksdream 5y agoHis essays are usually a big pile of “focus on the important things and add value or whatever”-type platitudes. It’s funny that each one has been proofread and revised based on comments from the Who-is-Who in SV, a typical Emperor and His New Clothes situation. To be fair though, 99% of wisdom books from successful people are like this.
- ignoramous 5y agoCalling it platitudes is harsh. The Airbnb founders have repeatedly said that their company was going no where but for Paul Graham's mentorship and the series of advice he gave them, amidst an economy in dire recession. And btw, before YC, the whos-who of SV were a closed-knit, exclusive group. You underestimate the very radical nature of YC when they started in 2004.
- unityByFreedom 5y agoHe's good at getting attention, that's for sure.
- lupire 5y agoWhat AirBnb was consulting, not a pile of generic essays. Otherwise why would they give him 7% of the company?
- paganel 5y agoI'm no particular fan of pg and for sure I'm not all that knowledgeable when it comes to VC, but it is my understanding that at the very early stages of investment pitch-decks are pretty much useless, it surprised me when I saw all those people attacking pg for this particular issue.
- tkiolp4 5y agoI didn’t know people consider him a “genius”. Wow, I always consider him a good businessman.
- moontear 5y agoThat one was more puzzling to me. Every one liner people would use to pitch their idea, every elevator talk essentially is a „pitch deck“.
- edanm 5y agoThat's not what most people mean when they say pitch deck, IMO. Most people are talking about a multiple-slide PowerPoint, covering a bunch of standard topics (team, market, etc).
- syzygyhack 5y agoA one-liner is a pitch. A presentation is a pitch deck.
- moontear 5y agoGood distinction, thanks!
- onion2k 5y agoI don't find that particularly hard to believe. Reading a pitch deck is like reading presentation slides - you can't really know what the author had in mind unless it's really good, and you tend to fill in the blanks with your own biases. That makes reading most decks a bit redundant. It's probably better just to talk to the founders and actually see their pitch.
- divbzero 5y agoMaybe he’s read one for Viaweb or to help someone pitch? But I believe it in the context of PG as an investor, similar to how Warren Buffett could say he’s “never read” an investment banker’s report.
- aww_dang 5y agoThere's an obsession with pitch decks and whitepapers in some communities that borders on form over function. Imagine showcasing a complete Dapp with a tutorial, basically ready for launch excluding some UX changes, and then getting questions about, "What's your roadmap?" or, "Where's your whitepaper?" I appreciate his perspective here. Words must mean action. Talk is cheap.