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I wanted to oppose PG's view on what constitutes a startup to "normal" business practices, which involve fighting competition, networking with important people,
by aartur 12y ago
I wanted to oppose PG's view on what constitutes a startup to "normal" business practices, which involve fighting competition, networking with important people, hiring the cheapest workforce etc. In this kind of game being nice doesn't help. And you have to play this kind of a game when you are either not a startup (ie. not innovative) or big (because then you have competition and you also become a corporation in structure). And I think the companies from the parent comment succeeded because of these "normal" business practices.
In PG's view startups succeed because they actually create some real value, something that other people want. And to build something like this it helps to be nice.
Maybe I'm naive, but it's hard to say that PG doesn't know what he is talking about when he talks about startups :).
- sytelus 12y agoYou are perhaps correct. Startups are new kind of business model where you might not have to be constrained by stiff competition. You can just create something awesome and be acquired by people who then turns it in to business and fends off the competition. But then again, this doesn't support pg's thesis in its totality that no one has to be mean. People who run actual businesses in very competitive space probably have fewer options as opposed to startup founder who just want to create something interesting and sell off as one-time event.