If the key to becoming a billionaire is to exploit people, as some politicians claim, we at YC are idiots. We've spent the last 20 years choosing the wrong founders and teaching them the wrong things. Or maybe we do actually understand startups, and the politicians are wrong.
Positive users praise Paul Graham's defense of the YC model for its proven value creation over 20 years, while negative users accuse it of exploiting labor by favoring capital and call the arguments immature or self-promoting.
90% of the time I hate Twitter, 9% of the time it's interesting, and 1% I get gems like this.
If the key to becoming a billionaire is to exploit people, as some politicians claim, we at YC are idiots. We've spent the last 20 years choosing the wrong founders and teaching them the wrong things. Or maybe we do actually understand startups, and the politicians are wrong.
@paulg Thanks for speaking out with courage on this topic.
You are clearly correct.
If the key to becoming a billionaire is to exploit people, as some politicians claim, we at YC are idiots. We've spent the last 20 years choosing the wrong founders and teaching them the wrong things. Or maybe we do actually understand startups, and the politicians are wrong.
You earn a billion dollars by creating tens of billions or hundreds of billions in value for other people.
That's how it works, if you didn't inherit your money.
If you don't understand this then you aren't fit to govern the most value creating civilization in history.
If the key to becoming a billionaire is to exploit people, as some politicians claim, we at YC are idiots. We've spent the last 20 years choosing the wrong founders and teaching them the wrong things. Or maybe we do actually understand startups, and the politicians are wrong.
@paulg Hey Paul, speaking of teaching people
Think you could help spread the word around this? Curriculum sample can be seen on http://thelocalaibook.com
@paulg How do you think we better educate the politicians?
@JacobRobinsonJD Curiously enough the reason I happed to be thinking about this is that I'm writing a talk to give to future politicians at the Oxford Union.
@paulg One of the best yardsticks for measuring an individual's success is to look at the number of people whose success he enabled.
@paulg Just own it, proudly
"Behind every fortune, there is a crime" -- Honoré de Balzac
@paulg You're probably both wrong, because it all depends on the definition that each party has of that word.
But maybe I am missing a Paul Graham blog about the topic..
@paulg Teaching people to create large amounts of value for other people as indicated by voluntary exchange... the horror!
@JacobRobinsonJD Curiously enough the reason I happened to be thinking about this is that I'm writing a talk to give to future politicians at the Oxford Union.
@paulg exploiting people is bad business long term anyway. high churn, low trust, no network effects.
@paulg @grok if a startup creates a lot of economic surplus, what decides how much stays with consumers and workers, and how much becomes founder wealth?
@paulg Or maybe the methods you teach are exploitative
I don’t like to focus on the billionaire term. Taking someone from startup to a $10+m exit is fine with me and changes the trajectory of their life. However, I do agree. The key to massive growth is the 4 P’s:
People- your team (complimentary, resilient, dynamic, coachable, humble)
Problem- are you solving a universal pain (TAM/SAM/SOM)
Progress- do you have paying customers, proving the problem exists
Price- how much capital do you need to solve this pain point for the masses
@paulg People rarely become billionaires by taking value from millions.
They usually do it by creating value for millions.
@paulg @JacobRobinsonJD You probably need to explain the concept of how investing is definitionally positive sum not zero sum.
@paulg Politicians are always wrong that s why they are politicians
@paulg Wait until the politicians realize the next generation of billion-dollar companies will be built by 3 founders and an army of AI agents. Who is being exploited then? The GPUs?
@paulg Teaching founders to solve real bottlenecks is what scales humanity, not exploitation. Wealth is just a natural byproduct of that massive impact.