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PG on Y Combinator
aul is a great guy and has built a huge following in the startup community. I have a lot of respect for him and what he has done. Y Combinator is a great story. Paul agreed to share some details with me. Here it is live and uncut.
- joshwa 19y agoOther one you can't talk about == Parakey?
- nostrademons 19y agoNo, Parakey is public knowledge. And the reference to "one we can't talk about" first appeared in "Why to Not Not Start a Startup" (http://www.paulgraham.com/notnot.html http://www.paulgraham.com/notnot.html), which was written before Parakey was acquired.
- Elfan 19y agoThe impression I got when pg gave the talk at Startup School was that it was some kind of "big company buys little company because they were scared of what they were making" situation. But as far as I know that's all they can say.
- pg 19y agoI didn't count Parakey because they were not a regular YC investment. We didn't seed fund them. We were just one of many investors in their series A round. We usually wouldn't invest that late, but Blake and Joe were so good that it was hard to resist.
- far33d 19y agoWasn't there some article somewhere that mentioned a rumor about textpayme getting bought by amazon?
- dfranke 19y agoI haven't heard that, but it would make sense, considering Amazon's release of the Flexible Payment Service.
- deleted 19y ago[deleted]
- nostrademons 19y agoTextPayMe was from Winter 06, though, while the hush-hush acquisition is from the first batch. My bet is on ClickFacts, because it's the only one of the first batch other than Loopt and Reddit/Infogami left standing, it's in a business that an acquirer would keep silent, and the website looks like a post-acquisition company.
- dfranke 19y agoClickFacts' homepage was corporate-looking from the day that they were announced.
- greendestiny 19y agoReally? That makes me da man (from reddit): 3 points 1 year ago by greendestiny You know what'd be really cool is a inkling market on the first YC company to get bought out/go public. I'm buying a craptonne of clickfacts if it gets setup :)
- drm237 19y agoPG: Will there be a point when you can talk about the other one that got acquired or is it going to be permanently off limits, at least for the foreseeable future?
- pg 19y agoThey keep telling us we'll be able to talk about it soon, but they've been saying that for a while. It was actually the first acquisition, many months before reddit.
- brlewis 19y ago"We have no idea if it will work." Those are always the most exciting ventures.
- Neoryder 19y agohmmm? PG's a serial entrepreneur? really? no disrespect meant but really? EDIT:saw speling mistakes
- pg 19y agoDepends whether you count YC as a startup. It is in some ways, isn't in others.
- dfranke 19y agoWhy does it matter? I don't think entrepreneur implies startup. Someone who starts a restaurant and then a dry cleaner and then a hair salon is still a serial entrepreneur.
- rms 19y agoEntrepreneur implies starting a business. All startups are businesses. But not all businesses are startups. A start-up differs from a business because it is intended to scale really quickly. That's what the 5 million in VC cash is for.
- davidw 19y agoI actually find reading your stuff more interesting because you're not what I think of/have a stereotype of as an "entrepreneur" - or at least you don't come across that way in your writing. I get more of a "hacker done good" impression, which is something I can relate to a lot more than "business guy".