$500k is not just enough to hire builders, it’s way too much for a builder. They’d be forced to do everything but build. In the beginning, it was just enough fo

$500k is not just enough to hire builders, it’s way too much for a builder. They’d be forced to do everything but build. In the beginning, it was just enough for a team to survive the summer, and that seemed generous. The tech startup formula has merged with the startup hedge fund or VC fund formula. It has mostly to do with connections to capital. I’d also suggest that most ‘tech’ startups have nothing to do with technology. The biggest have been weird schemes to give something away for free or run unlicensed marketplaces. At some point we have to admit that technology skills are a tiny part of the formula, but still worshipped because it’s the only part of it that is accessible to all, sort of like how we respect athletes more than sports broadcasters. MMA had a parallel rise, so it’s kind of like YC started out developing fighters and now they start dojos. Can a fighter start a dojo? Yes; that is the natural order of things, and many do, but many more dojos are started by people with more money than skill. Startups were not new in 2005; the fervor was just as strong as today, but the role of money was a lot less. The standard advice was ‘going Bedouin’, which worked because the cost of living was a lot lower, and it was much faster and easier to get a job if you needed one. Most people funded from job savings, part-time work, or living with parents[1]. The Facebook deal was unprecedented and weird. Even he took some very strange deals to fund his ideas before that came along. I know because I had a ‘job interview’ with a guy that MZ had some weird deal with to co-fund their projects, of which his was a parking app, and he was mad at ‘the Harvard kid’ for taking $6000 and not doing the work, which he wanted me to finish. I was working on a ride sharing app, so he offered me the same deal. He went to jail soon after, and then sued for 25% of Facebook when he got out. There’s also the infamous deal with ConnectU. All I’m trying to say is that everybody was hustling in weird ways. Now it seems that the money is freely available if you are in the flow of it, and no amount of sheer brilliance can compete with that if you’re not. I think that may change in the near future, but I’ve been saying that for over a decade. Also, if I may editorialize even further, the standard advice has always been inconsistent or inapplicable broadly. I liked the YC idea, but didn’t even apply because I was literally taking his advice not to focus on things like that, but obviously club membership has had benefits. When you succeed doing it your way, hacker, hustler, MBA, YC, vagabond, or whatever, you can tell everybody that’s the only way to do it. [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/startupfunding.html http://www.paulgraham.com/startupfunding.html