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> Never explain yourself to people who misunderstand you on the internet. They'll just use it as an excuse to misunderstand you again, which is worse because no

> Never explain yourself to people who misunderstand you on the internet. They'll just use it as an excuse to misunderstand you again, which is worse because not only are you a terrible monster who said those terrible things, but now you've had the unmitigated gall to defend those terrible things. This has been the exact opposite of my experience. Usually when I approach people directly and in a forthright manner and try and correct and clarify (and of course, apologize if my position offends and offer to listen to a counter-argument) then people seem to positively adjust their opinion of me. I can't help but feel like your advice smacks of elitism. When I read your post I get a subtext of, "Everyone else is dumb if they don't get what I'm saying. At best, that is! Usually they're trying to shoot me down! I don't negotiate with terrorists." I'm not sure how I could wake up every morning if I felt that way.

theorique 13y ago
Well, recent events suggest that unfortunately there is a grain of truth to that assessment. A lot of the noise in blogs and twitter has been along the lines of "PG is an evil monster who hates women and foreigners and people of color and doesn't ever want to invest in their companies". None of which he said or implied, but that doesn't seem to have stopped the attacks. Hence, this recent article.
- KirinDave 13y ago
  > "PG is an evil monster who hates women and foreigners and people of color and doesn't ever want to invest in their companies". There are long-standing complaints with the structure and the predatory nature of YCombinator. It is very unusual and complaints center around how HN is essentially a very high-pressure situation designed to try and sell kids on the value of PG & YComb as investors on very small funding events. Personally, I don't think this article really justifies the behavior that has been consistently (if not as high-profile) that PG has had. His reported castigation and refusal to see people who have Indian accents is troublesome. It's very difficult to take his claims seriously when he affects fake russian accents while proclaiming his innocence.
  - theorique 13y ago
    There's no question that YC has benefited greatly from PG's "propaganda" - and vice-versa. (That is, the success and growth of YC has given PG a lot more tangible stuff to write about, as opposed to 'thought experiments'.) I'm far from an insider so I can't speak to whether a person or team should go for YC funding or not. Or whether the system is biased against people with Indian accents (your comment is the first I've heard of that, actually). Clearly, a team with potential success ahead of them ought to consider their options carefully and see whether applying to YC is right for them. And, if they get in, whether doing the program is the most valuable use of their next few months. A founding team needs to look beyond the hype and headlines and determine what the best deal is - but that's hardly YC's fault if they present themselves in the best possible light.
    - KirinDave 13y ago
      > Clearly, a team with potential success ahead of them ought to consider their options carefully and see whether applying to YC is right for them. It seems like this step is precisely what the YCombinator process is meant to complicate. The entire structure is designed to make it feel like a competition for PG's attention. By structuring it this way, it makes it much more likely that the people who "win the competition" will say yes to YComb. And YComb moves fast! People tell me there isn't a lot of time to think. Implicit in YComb's structure is the statement, "There are a dozen people in line behind you that will take your place." It's all very American Idol.
      - theorique 13y ago
        It seems like this step is precisely what the YCombinator process is meant to complicate. The entire structure is designed to make it feel like a competition for PG's attention. By structuring it this way, it makes it much more likely that the people who "win the competition" will say yes to YComb. I suspect that vibe emerges from the scaling aspect of things - if a regular VC firm invests in N deals a year and YC does 10N [], then there is no need to 'create' a competition for the attention of PG and the other principals. It will just emerge out of the large number of portfolio companies. (And this is not unique to YC, but may be exaggerated - VC firms are notoriously busy for the same reason.) And YComb moves fast! People tell me there isn't a lot of time to think. Implicit in YComb's structure is the statement, "There are a dozen people in line behind you that will take your place." It's all very American Idol.* Again, this sounds like a scaling issue. If you're investing in fewer companies, you can spend more time hand holding with the teams of each one. HUman attention is the thing that doesn't scale, so it makes sense that it is the thing in short supply. It sounds to me like teams need to precompute their responses to lots of possible situations. And get as much information about the downside of participating as possible, beyond the headlines and the hype. But this is the kind of suggestion that I'd give anybody considering YC (or a job, or the military, or a college, or a grad school, or a training program). [*] I don't know if these numbers are accurate, but the point is that YC is well known to do many more, smaller deals than VC firms.
tdfx 13y ago
> I can't help but feel like your advice smacks of elitism. When I read your post I get a subtext of, "Everyone else is dumb if they don't get what I'm saying. At best, that is! Usually they're trying to shoot me down! I don't negotiate with terrorists." I don't think it was meant to be elitist. I believe it was directed towards those who are going to find a problem with anything you say, regardless of what you say.
- KirinDave 13y ago
  These people will do this either way. Why even include them in your assessments?
pessimizer 13y ago
s/elitism/defensiveness/g Elitism is an overloaded word, but your sentiment here seems good.
- KirinDave 13y ago
  I chose it intentionally. "Defensiveness" is not what I meant.
Torgo 13y ago
The Internet is filled with every type of person with many different motivations. Many of those people have a different motivation than "understanding" you. They are people that get social currency from signaling that they are anti-racist, they are people that monetize outrage, they are people for who arguing is a bloodsport, they are self-avowed trolls. Why bother? The people who make the attempt to understand you will treat what you say charitably, they are self-selecting. The rest you can ignore.
jacoblyles 13y ago
I am elitist against people who judge ideas on the scale of which one is most politically correct. I don't understand how they get anything done in life without giving their brain room to think. For example, a founder having trouble raising funds could consider Paul Graham's advice on accents and see if it applies to him, but not if he censors his own mind to avoid it.
- KirinDave 13y ago
  > I am elitist against people who judge ideas on the scale of which one is most politically correct. Do you really think this discussion is about political correctness? > I don't understand how they get anything done in life without giving their brain room to think. Then think on this. There are many models to building a startup. Most of them don't involve the YCombinator style.
  - jacoblyles 13y ago
    if it's not about political correctness, then we need a new word for signaling one's own righteousness by being quick to take offense
    - KirinDave 13y ago
      That is not what's at play here. There is a systemic problem in Silicon Valley and San Francisco in startup culture. Berating founders for their accent publicly (as has been reported) is an excellent example of the problem. That is not polite, cordial conversation between equals. That is not the behavior of two equals talking business. It's not acceptable behavior in a civilized venue. This is not because it's "politically correct," but rather because of the profound implications of antagonizing someone for what they are and where they were born.
      - barry-cotter 13y ago
        Pg is the equal of very few of the people with whom he does business. He has more money, power, knowledge and experience than almost anyone he deals with on a regular basis. YC applicants are not equals, they are supplicants. His equals are VCs, super angels and C-suite executives from big software companies. People who are not equals can have mutually beneficial relationships, but treating rhetoric about people being equal in dignity or legal rights with an accurate description of the world is a mistake.

theorique 13y ago

Well, recent events suggest that unfortunately there is a grain of truth to that assessment. A lot of the noise in blogs and twitter has been along the lines of "PG is an evil monster who hates women and foreigners and people of color and doesn't ever want to invest in their companies". None of which he said or implied, but that doesn't seem to have stopped the attacks. Hence, this recent article.

KirinDave 13y ago
> "PG is an evil monster who hates women and foreigners and people of color and doesn't ever want to invest in their companies". There are long-standing complaints with the structure and the predatory nature of YCombinator. It is very unusual and complaints center around how HN is essentially a very high-pressure situation designed to try and sell kids on the value of PG & YComb as investors on very small funding events. Personally, I don't think this article really justifies the behavior that has been consistently (if not as high-profile) that PG has had. His reported castigation and refusal to see people who have Indian accents is troublesome. It's very difficult to take his claims seriously when he affects fake russian accents while proclaiming his innocence.
- theorique 13y ago
  There's no question that YC has benefited greatly from PG's "propaganda" - and vice-versa. (That is, the success and growth of YC has given PG a lot more tangible stuff to write about, as opposed to 'thought experiments'.) I'm far from an insider so I can't speak to whether a person or team should go for YC funding or not. Or whether the system is biased against people with Indian accents (your comment is the first I've heard of that, actually). Clearly, a team with potential success ahead of them ought to consider their options carefully and see whether applying to YC is right for them. And, if they get in, whether doing the program is the most valuable use of their next few months. A founding team needs to look beyond the hype and headlines and determine what the best deal is - but that's hardly YC's fault if they present themselves in the best possible light.
  - KirinDave 13y ago
    > Clearly, a team with potential success ahead of them ought to consider their options carefully and see whether applying to YC is right for them. It seems like this step is precisely what the YCombinator process is meant to complicate. The entire structure is designed to make it feel like a competition for PG's attention. By structuring it this way, it makes it much more likely that the people who "win the competition" will say yes to YComb. And YComb moves fast! People tell me there isn't a lot of time to think. Implicit in YComb's structure is the statement, "There are a dozen people in line behind you that will take your place." It's all very American Idol.
    - theorique 13y ago
      It seems like this step is precisely what the YCombinator process is meant to complicate. The entire structure is designed to make it feel like a competition for PG's attention. By structuring it this way, it makes it much more likely that the people who "win the competition" will say yes to YComb. I suspect that vibe emerges from the scaling aspect of things - if a regular VC firm invests in N deals a year and YC does 10N [], then there is no need to 'create' a competition for the attention of PG and the other principals. It will just emerge out of the large number of portfolio companies. (And this is not unique to YC, but may be exaggerated - VC firms are notoriously busy for the same reason.) And YComb moves fast! People tell me there isn't a lot of time to think. Implicit in YComb's structure is the statement, "There are a dozen people in line behind you that will take your place." It's all very American Idol.* Again, this sounds like a scaling issue. If you're investing in fewer companies, you can spend more time hand holding with the teams of each one. HUman attention is the thing that doesn't scale, so it makes sense that it is the thing in short supply. It sounds to me like teams need to precompute their responses to lots of possible situations. And get as much information about the downside of participating as possible, beyond the headlines and the hype. But this is the kind of suggestion that I'd give anybody considering YC (or a job, or the military, or a college, or a grad school, or a training program). [*] I don't know if these numbers are accurate, but the point is that YC is well known to do many more, smaller deals than VC firms.

tdfx 13y ago

> I can't help but feel like your advice smacks of elitism. When I read your post I get a subtext of, "Everyone else is dumb if they don't get what I'm saying. At best, that is! Usually they're trying to shoot me down! I don't negotiate with terrorists." I don't think it was meant to be elitist. I believe it was directed towards those who are going to find a problem with anything you say, regardless of what you say.

KirinDave 13y ago
These people will do this either way. Why even include them in your assessments?

pessimizer 13y ago

s/elitism/defensiveness/g Elitism is an overloaded word, but your sentiment here seems good.

KirinDave 13y ago
I chose it intentionally. "Defensiveness" is not what I meant.

Torgo 13y ago

The Internet is filled with every type of person with many different motivations. Many of those people have a different motivation than "understanding" you. They are people that get social currency from signaling that they are anti-racist, they are people that monetize outrage, they are people for who arguing is a bloodsport, they are self-avowed trolls. Why bother? The people who make the attempt to understand you will treat what you say charitably, they are self-selecting. The rest you can ignore.

jacoblyles 13y ago

I am elitist against people who judge ideas on the scale of which one is most politically correct. I don't understand how they get anything done in life without giving their brain room to think. For example, a founder having trouble raising funds could consider Paul Graham's advice on accents and see if it applies to him, but not if he censors his own mind to avoid it.

KirinDave 13y ago
> I am elitist against people who judge ideas on the scale of which one is most politically correct. Do you really think this discussion is about political correctness? > I don't understand how they get anything done in life without giving their brain room to think. Then think on this. There are many models to building a startup. Most of them don't involve the YCombinator style.
- jacoblyles 13y ago
  if it's not about political correctness, then we need a new word for signaling one's own righteousness by being quick to take offense
  - KirinDave 13y ago
    That is not what's at play here. There is a systemic problem in Silicon Valley and San Francisco in startup culture. Berating founders for their accent publicly (as has been reported) is an excellent example of the problem. That is not polite, cordial conversation between equals. That is not the behavior of two equals talking business. It's not acceptable behavior in a civilized venue. This is not because it's "politically correct," but rather because of the profound implications of antagonizing someone for what they are and where they were born.
    - barry-cotter 13y ago
      Pg is the equal of very few of the people with whom he does business. He has more money, power, knowledge and experience than almost anyone he deals with on a regular basis. YC applicants are not equals, they are supplicants. His equals are VCs, super angels and C-suite executives from big software companies. People who are not equals can have mutually beneficial relationships, but treating rhetoric about people being equal in dignity or legal rights with an accurate description of the world is a mistake.