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Made you smile because you think he actually had already done the math? Or because he did it fast right there and corrected her? I smiled too, because of the l

Made you smile because you think he actually had already done the math? Or because he did it fast right there and corrected her? I smiled too, because of the latter.

patio11 12y ago
There's volumes there. Some combination of the sentiment that $900 million isn't nearly the most interesting thing going on about YC [+] and the notion that while $900 million isn't important enough to think about you'd have to correct a math error on it because math. [+] A totally reasonable sentiment, which makes me smile in about three different ways. Once for not caring about money, once for having the luxury to not care about money because $900 million, and once for that happening to very deserving people.
- nwenzel 12y ago
  Well, to know that it wasn't enough money to care about you would first have to have done the math to know that it was only $900M. I like your first point about it not being about the money. I suspect it's more about proving that their new (at the time) approach to startup investing, their new appreciation for founders, their completely differnt model was right and that the conventional wisdom that came before them was wrong. At least that would be my biggest satisfaction.
gus_massa 12y ago
I think it was the nitpicking instinct. It's easy to get the first digit if you ignore the decimal exponents. If you have the 3 * 10^? part of 3 * 10^? dollars, then you have 3 * 3 * 10^? * 10^? = 9 * 10^? dollars. Perhaps $90, perhaps $9000, perhaps $9000000, ... something that starts with a 9. Now, if someone tells you that the amount is close to 10^9 then it's easy to complete the information and realize that you have $9 * 10^8.
- SamReidHughes 12y ago
  You can just divide by a hundred and multiply by 3. Edit: You'd be surprised how good at calculating percentages you can be if you do them a lot. It just becomes automatic. Source: binged-watched Shark Tank, got real good at multiplying by percentages and their reciprocals in the process.

Made you smile because you think he actually had already done the math? Or because he did it fast right there and corrected her? I smiled too, because of the latter.

patio11 12y ago

There's volumes there. Some combination of the sentiment that $900 million isn't nearly the most interesting thing going on about YC [+] and the notion that while $900 million isn't important enough to think about you'd have to correct a math error on it because math. [+] A totally reasonable sentiment, which makes me smile in about three different ways. Once for not caring about money, once for having the luxury to not care about money because $900 million, and once for that happening to very deserving people.

nwenzel 12y ago
Well, to know that it wasn't enough money to care about you would first have to have done the math to know that it was only $900M. I like your first point about it not being about the money. I suspect it's more about proving that their new (at the time) approach to startup investing, their new appreciation for founders, their completely differnt model was right and that the conventional wisdom that came before them was wrong. At least that would be my biggest satisfaction.

gus_massa 12y ago

I think it was the nitpicking instinct. It's easy to get the first digit if you ignore the decimal exponents. If you have the 3 * 10^? part of 3 * 10^? dollars, then you have 3 * 3 * 10^? * 10^? = 9 * 10^? dollars. Perhaps $90, perhaps $9000, perhaps $9000000, ... something that starts with a 9. Now, if someone tells you that the amount is close to 10^9 then it's easy to complete the information and realize that you have $9 * 10^8.

SamReidHughes 12y ago
You can just divide by a hundred and multiply by 3. Edit: You'd be surprised how good at calculating percentages you can be if you do them a lot. It just becomes automatic. Source: binged-watched Shark Tank, got real good at multiplying by percentages and their reciprocals in the process.