paulgraham.com — There's something interesting happening right now. Startups are undergoing the same transformation that technology does when it becomes cheaper. It's so cheap to start web startups that orders of magnitudes more will be started. And if the pattern holds true, that should cause dramatic changes...
Oct 4, 2007 View in Crawl 4
tmax88Oct 5, 2007
Rife with unsubstantiated claims and sloppy writing. "Orders of magnitude more"? That means at least one hundred times more than present, and he doesn't put a number at the present number of startups. Of course, with no timeframe, any prediction is, in theory, feasible. A few paragraphs later, this: "[...]unfortunately most investors are terrible judges. I know because I see behind the scenes what an enormous amount of work it takes to raise money, and the amount of selling required." A great example of inductive reasoning. "Risk is always proportionate to reward" In economics textbooks, perhaps. Not in the real world, where there can be "shortcuts" in the form of political favors. Just ask,oh say, Erik Prince.
smellinatorOct 5, 2007
I have problem with my monitor - it's got up-side-down pixels. The guy at Geek Squad told me that it's probably $200 to get it fixed. Can anyone help?
smellinatorOct 5, 2007
We could have done without the slur at the end.[/sarcasm]
bubbadoo989Oct 5, 2007
Yes, the Y-Combinator is definitely youth-oriented. There aren't too many of us older guys and gals that can fly off for a couple of months to build a start-up. But it doesn't mean you don't try. I have kids, mortgage, even a big dog and yet, I'm in the game. I'm not in the game to get rich (although that would be nice), I'm in to get control of my life and my family's financial future. My tech job requires that I commute 4 hours/day and it's boring, without any future. I do fairly well, but believe h1b's will cause compensation in the tech arena to sink even further. So, in my view, it's really important to be working towards a startup every spare moment I get. Yes, it's going very slowly, and it's hard, but it is going.
tony23Oct 5, 2007
"But I'd like someone to think of those of us who have good ideas, and a willingness to work, but have real obligations to deal with as well..."You just have to get out there and do it. You work harder and sacrifice more, or you let the opportunity slip by.And before you say that I don't understand - I have a full-time job, a wife with lupus, a 5-year old son and a teenage daughter with aspergers. And I'm working on my own startup in my 'spare time'.You want someone to think about us? Give them a reason.