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Please stop and consider taking some time away from HN. The stories posted here clearly anger and upset you. This comment you just posted is a strawman argume

Please stop and consider taking some time away from HN. The stories posted here clearly anger and upset you. This comment you just posted is a strawman argument and you posted a variant of it the other day in another thread, and another variant of it in another thread before that and....you've been posting variants of it on HN almost daily for months now. As a founder, my ears always perk up with I find pointed criticism of founders on HN. I read carefully to see if there's any ideas or advice I can come away with. But for months now, every time there's been really aggressive criticism of founders on HN, the comment always turns out to be written by you. And it's always the same complaint or variant on it every time. It's gotten to the point where I have to screen comment threads ahead of time in case you've posted already. Is it really healthy to keep returning to a well you find so poisonous? Jason wrote a well-intended article here and you're using it to post your same ideas for the 10th time this month. Is that fair to him? Is that fair to Hacker News readers? Take some time off. Find things that excite you, captivate you, and make you feel joyful to be live. VC-istan is clearly not a place you want to spend time in, so go explore and find a better place.

michaelochurch 14y ago
I feel like my work isn't done. The truth needs to be told, and unfortunately, very few people have the courage to tell it, especially under their real names. No, I don't dislike all founders or VCs obviously. I just hate most of the ones I've interacted with, and I'm shocked by the number of people who've had similarly horrible experiences. When I left my last startup after being asked to do something horribly unethical, in March 2012, I thought I'd been extremely unlucky. I thought my experience was a 1-in-10,000 case of bad luck. As I poked around, though, I realized that horrible experiences are the norm in VC-istan. People just don't talk about it. Why the fuck aren't they speaking up? Why aren't they exposing unethical people and companies? Why are people so terrified of ex-bosses that they refuse to tell the truth so the horrible founders can fail and some good ones can step in? I've managed to put cracks in the image of VC-istan. My job is to make those cracks bigger so some light can get through. At least some of the climate of anger that's been on Hacker News for the past few months is something I've started. Good for me. I'm starting to contribute. Courage is in rare supply in our industry; we tend to bend over and take it when our masters screw us. Well, at least I will fucking speak up. So, I've also worked in finance. As an industry, it has an image problem. To get smart people, it has to pay. So it does. Most of the work isn't terribly interesting, but the pay is good and the people are actually a lot more decent than in VC-istan. If you're good, they'll treat you well. In general, financial firms are a lot better, ethically speaking, than VC-istan. If we can bring VC-istan's image in line with what it actually is, then they'll have to (like finance) start treating engineers better if they want to get talent, and the bad startups will die out, making room for good ones.
- textminer 14y ago
  I find your comments to be spectacularly useful. I'm a twenty something machine learning developer with a functional bent and high expectations for rewarding stimulation in VC-land, and you've recapitulated many of my own thoughts and conclusions spectacularly well. Would you mind if I bent your ear about a dilemma over private channels?
  - jamesaguilar 14y ago
    You might be better off asking someone who has accomplished more than blog posts and hn comments. Sounding like you know what you're talking about and actually knowing it are not always the same. Results are often a better signal of the latter. Just my 2c.
    - nitrogen 14y ago
      On the other hand, only talking to those who have been wildly successful, or giving their advice more weight, sounds like a great way to get trapped by confirmation and survivorship bias.
      - jamesaguilar 14y ago
        Good point. But if I were looking for an unsuccessful person to get advice from, I'd pick someone who looked within for mistakes/opportunities for improvement, rather than exclusively blaming external factors.
        nitrogen 14y ago
        Even if they are largely external, we can't say that michaelochurch hasn't been providing suggestions for improvement. His overall message doesn't strike me as complaining just to complain, even if some of his individual posts are a bit over the top.
        jamesaguilar 14y ago
justkelly_ 14y ago
That's michaelochurch's game, though. Step 1. Experience a personal setback. Step 2. Make sure you never ever ever ever take any accountability for said experience. It's never michaelochurch's fault, he's been dealt such a bad hand, it's all because of those ASSHOLES. Everything bad that happens to him is someone else's fault. He's just a visionary, man, downtrodden because corporate blah blah blah blah... Step 3. Make absurd, mostly-untrue generalizations and nonsensically rant them all over HN. I mean, who cares if a few lies (FACT) are thrown in there, as long as they're about a big powerful company like Google? STICK IT TO THE MAN, MAN

michaelochurch 14y ago

I feel like my work isn't done. The truth needs to be told, and unfortunately, very few people have the courage to tell it, especially under their real names. No, I don't dislike all founders or VCs obviously. I just hate most of the ones I've interacted with, and I'm shocked by the number of people who've had similarly horrible experiences. When I left my last startup after being asked to do something horribly unethical, in March 2012, I thought I'd been extremely unlucky. I thought my experience was a 1-in-10,000 case of bad luck. As I poked around, though, I realized that horrible experiences are the norm in VC-istan. People just don't talk about it. Why the fuck aren't they speaking up? Why aren't they exposing unethical people and companies? Why are people so terrified of ex-bosses that they refuse to tell the truth so the horrible founders can fail and some good ones can step in? I've managed to put cracks in the image of VC-istan. My job is to make those cracks bigger so some light can get through. At least some of the climate of anger that's been on Hacker News for the past few months is something I've started. Good for me. I'm starting to contribute. Courage is in rare supply in our industry; we tend to bend over and take it when our masters screw us. Well, at least I will fucking speak up. So, I've also worked in finance. As an industry, it has an image problem. To get smart people, it has to pay. So it does. Most of the work isn't terribly interesting, but the pay is good and the people are actually a lot more decent than in VC-istan. If you're good, they'll treat you well. In general, financial firms are a lot better, ethically speaking, than VC-istan. If we can bring VC-istan's image in line with what it actually is, then they'll have to (like finance) start treating engineers better if they want to get talent, and the bad startups will die out, making room for good ones.

textminer 14y ago
I find your comments to be spectacularly useful. I'm a twenty something machine learning developer with a functional bent and high expectations for rewarding stimulation in VC-land, and you've recapitulated many of my own thoughts and conclusions spectacularly well. Would you mind if I bent your ear about a dilemma over private channels?
- jamesaguilar 14y ago
  You might be better off asking someone who has accomplished more than blog posts and hn comments. Sounding like you know what you're talking about and actually knowing it are not always the same. Results are often a better signal of the latter. Just my 2c.
  - nitrogen 14y ago
    On the other hand, only talking to those who have been wildly successful, or giving their advice more weight, sounds like a great way to get trapped by confirmation and survivorship bias.
    - jamesaguilar 14y ago
      Good point. But if I were looking for an unsuccessful person to get advice from, I'd pick someone who looked within for mistakes/opportunities for improvement, rather than exclusively blaming external factors.
      - nitrogen 14y ago
        Even if they are largely external, we can't say that michaelochurch hasn't been providing suggestions for improvement. His overall message doesn't strike me as complaining just to complain, even if some of his individual posts are a bit over the top.
        jamesaguilar 14y ago

justkelly_ 14y ago

That's michaelochurch's game, though. Step 1. Experience a personal setback. Step 2. Make sure you never ever ever ever take any accountability for said experience. It's never michaelochurch's fault, he's been dealt such a bad hand, it's all because of those ASSHOLES. Everything bad that happens to him is someone else's fault. He's just a visionary, man, downtrodden because corporate blah blah blah blah... Step 3. Make absurd, mostly-untrue generalizations and nonsensically rant them all over HN. I mean, who cares if a few lies (FACT) are thrown in there, as long as they're about a big powerful company like Google? STICK IT TO THE MAN, MAN