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Your intuitions != what older more experience people say pg and YC has more qualified investing experience than probably any other "experienced person" you cou

Your intuitions != what older more experience people say pg and YC has more qualified investing experience than probably any other "experienced person" you could talk to. When you are doing a startup, it's generally a good idea to focus on innovating in your core area of expertise - which would be some combination of product/market/technology - and take the best practices of all the other areas, like financing.

larrys 13y ago
Re-read what I said. I'm not talking about what PG or YC recommends with regards to investing. I'm talking about the general idea that if anyone else said something like this and asked for blanket trust: "you can't trust your intuition....rule number zero is: these rules exist for a reason" Well those other people of course can't be trusted like PG and what they say doesn't matter as much. So if a person with 30 years in the taxi industry said to you "trust me these things are for a reason" and you saw he was as accomplished in what he did as PG would you just "trust him" or would you dig a little deeper? Interesting but expected that I would get downvoted for stating an opinion on something I said "what this seems to be saying". In a classroom would a teacher takes points off for stating a thought like that? Quite frankly I don't know why it's so necessary to walk on eggshells when stating a thought that seems to question what PG may say. Much of "disrupt" goes against a pattern of previously accepted behavior that others have questioned.
- wooster 13y ago
  I had to reread your original comment a couple of times to get what you were saying. I think you might be getting down-voted because of writing style and confusion more than anything else.
  - larrys 13y ago
    I agree that if my my writing style is not good, and adds to confusion, then that is something that I need to work on. But I sometimes feel that there is a definite emotionality involved when people hit the vote button and people jump to a quick conclusion depending on either the particular subject or the person who the commenter is making their thoughts known on. It seems that when discussing these "protected" individuals or subjects you have to take extra care to say things in a way to protect against downvotes. And sometimes that is just not worth the effort so you don't say anything.
    - jfarmer 13y ago
      > But I sometimes feel that there is a definite emotionality involved when people hit the vote button and people jump to a quick conclusion depending on either the particular subject or the person who the commenter is making their thoughts known on. I agree with everything you said, although, per my other comment, I think it was you who "jump[ed] to a quick conclusion" in this case. :)
- jfarmer 13y ago
  Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. These aren't universal, unqualified rules and I don't understand why you're trying to generalize them beyond fundraising. To use a different and perhaps silly example, I'd be more inclined to trust my intuition with respect to dog kennels than, say, medical or legal advice. I think pg is saying that fundraising is more like medical or legal advice and less like dog kennels. He's not making a blanket statement about trusting people with prior experience. If you want to make this more mathy, imagine there some function I(s) = amount I should trust my intuition in situation s pg is writing about what happens when "s_1 = I'm fundraising for the first time," but you're trying to rebut his point as if he were writing about what happens when "s_2 = I'm talking to someone more experienced than myself." There are three possibilities: pg believes I(s_1) = I(s_2), you're misunderstanding pg, or pg is contradicting himself. You're arguing that since pg believes I(s_1) != I(s_2) (as evidenced by his previous writings) then pg must be contradicting himself. The correct line of reasoning is actually "If pg believes I(s_1) != I(s_2) then either pg is contradicting himself or I'm misunderstanding pg." Given pg's generally fastidious nature with respect to these things, I'd say the prior odds of pg contradicting himself are much lower than you simply misunderstanding him. At the very least this is what most folks believe, so when you jump to the conclusion that pg is contradicting himself you come off as an uncharitable little troll. First stop on the troll tour: Downvote City. :D Putting on my teacher hat for a second, when you smell a contradiction like that it's often a sign you're misunderstanding something. Rather than point out the apparent contradiction and go all j'accuse on the author, it's more useful to stop and ask yourself, "Assuming the author is intelligent enough to spot a contradiction like this, is there a way to understand what they wrote in a way that isn't contradictory?" There's really no downside to doing this, even if there is a contradiction. At the very least you'll have developed a more robust argument. Often you'll end up with a way to express the author's argument more clearly than the author did in the first place, since you're probably not the only one confused in the same way. What's more, if there actually is a contradiction, folks will be more inclined to believe you when you demonstrate you've gone out of your way to try to understand the author.

larrys 13y ago

Re-read what I said. I'm not talking about what PG or YC recommends with regards to investing. I'm talking about the general idea that if anyone else said something like this and asked for blanket trust: "you can't trust your intuition....rule number zero is: these rules exist for a reason" Well those other people of course can't be trusted like PG and what they say doesn't matter as much. So if a person with 30 years in the taxi industry said to you "trust me these things are for a reason" and you saw he was as accomplished in what he did as PG would you just "trust him" or would you dig a little deeper? Interesting but expected that I would get downvoted for stating an opinion on something I said "what this seems to be saying". In a classroom would a teacher takes points off for stating a thought like that? Quite frankly I don't know why it's so necessary to walk on eggshells when stating a thought that seems to question what PG may say. Much of "disrupt" goes against a pattern of previously accepted behavior that others have questioned.

wooster 13y ago
I had to reread your original comment a couple of times to get what you were saying. I think you might be getting down-voted because of writing style and confusion more than anything else.
- larrys 13y ago
  I agree that if my my writing style is not good, and adds to confusion, then that is something that I need to work on. But I sometimes feel that there is a definite emotionality involved when people hit the vote button and people jump to a quick conclusion depending on either the particular subject or the person who the commenter is making their thoughts known on. It seems that when discussing these "protected" individuals or subjects you have to take extra care to say things in a way to protect against downvotes. And sometimes that is just not worth the effort so you don't say anything.
  - jfarmer 13y ago
    > But I sometimes feel that there is a definite emotionality involved when people hit the vote button and people jump to a quick conclusion depending on either the particular subject or the person who the commenter is making their thoughts known on. I agree with everything you said, although, per my other comment, I think it was you who "jump[ed] to a quick conclusion" in this case. :)
jfarmer 13y ago
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. These aren't universal, unqualified rules and I don't understand why you're trying to generalize them beyond fundraising. To use a different and perhaps silly example, I'd be more inclined to trust my intuition with respect to dog kennels than, say, medical or legal advice. I think pg is saying that fundraising is more like medical or legal advice and less like dog kennels. He's not making a blanket statement about trusting people with prior experience. If you want to make this more mathy, imagine there some function I(s) = amount I should trust my intuition in situation s pg is writing about what happens when "s_1 = I'm fundraising for the first time," but you're trying to rebut his point as if he were writing about what happens when "s_2 = I'm talking to someone more experienced than myself." There are three possibilities: pg believes I(s_1) = I(s_2), you're misunderstanding pg, or pg is contradicting himself. You're arguing that since pg believes I(s_1) != I(s_2) (as evidenced by his previous writings) then pg must be contradicting himself. The correct line of reasoning is actually "If pg believes I(s_1) != I(s_2) then either pg is contradicting himself or I'm misunderstanding pg." Given pg's generally fastidious nature with respect to these things, I'd say the prior odds of pg contradicting himself are much lower than you simply misunderstanding him. At the very least this is what most folks believe, so when you jump to the conclusion that pg is contradicting himself you come off as an uncharitable little troll. First stop on the troll tour: Downvote City. :D Putting on my teacher hat for a second, when you smell a contradiction like that it's often a sign you're misunderstanding something. Rather than point out the apparent contradiction and go all j'accuse on the author, it's more useful to stop and ask yourself, "Assuming the author is intelligent enough to spot a contradiction like this, is there a way to understand what they wrote in a way that isn't contradictory?" There's really no downside to doing this, even if there is a contradiction. At the very least you'll have developed a more robust argument. Often you'll end up with a way to express the author's argument more clearly than the author did in the first place, since you're probably not the only one confused in the same way. What's more, if there actually is a contradiction, folks will be more inclined to believe you when you demonstrate you've gone out of your way to try to understand the author.