Poor Ted. He spent all that time trashing other people's startups, and now he has to cope with his own startup problems. It must be Paul Graham's fault.
Perhaps PG's advice isn't all perfect, and maybe it's not for everyone, but the fact is that he has helped a lot of people, including hundreds of YC founders, and they generally seem pretty grateful. Who has this guy helped? What has he done to make the world a better place?
That's not even remotely fair -- he makes several reasonable points, and other than a mention of the fact that his startup life is hard, the post isn't really a complaint, so much as a criticism of the blind optimism that seems to run rampant in the startup world.
Nearly everyone here is focusing on the attack on pg, and ignoring the substance of the argument. Perhaps that's just because Ted is a controversial character, but it still doesn't make the discussion here much more than a collective ad hominem attack.
What are his reasonable points? That startups are hard? Everyone says that. If you took out all the insults, hate, and swearing, there wouldn't be much there, and it certainly wouldn't have as many votes as it does (because it would just be yet another, "startups are hard" blog post).
It's possible that he _could_ have an interesting blog post here though. If he spent less time attacking people and more time thinking about his motivations, there might be some genuinely useful insights. His comment about "taking shit" from everyone is somewhat revealing. It may be that he simple has the wrong personality for this. I like our users (well, most of them), and it's part of what I like about my job.
But if someone wrote it this way, without all the additional nastiness, would it have gotten so many votes? Which I suppose probably explains a lot of the nastiness. It's a way to get attention.
Perhaps, but it still reads like a "kicking the dog" post to me. (also, I don't know if he'd agree with points 4 and 7)
BTW, I think the reason his writing annoys me is because startups ARE difficult. The people attempting them have enough challenges to deal with -- they don't need this guy shitting on their heads (and making it seem "cool").
I generally agree with you about his tone. The attack on pg was obviously inane link-baiting (which seems to have worked), and the guy has made his name from being negative and destructive. Still, he writes with such over-the-top viciousness that I find it hard to take it seriously.
I'd probably feel more strongly about it if it were my head being shat upon, but I tend to write off his bitterness as just another way of grabbing attention.
well he's certainly chosen a bad way to showcase any point he'd like to share while making himself unwanted for anyone to co-founders with...
I understand a lot to know this was not intented to be about startups as much about spreading discouragment and causing invalidation to any number left that werent crap of the points he made.
I am surprised to see startup folks have beaten the bite, therefore all this unnessary discussion about someone who missed to take failure the right way.
The article was funny, but he should not have insulted anyone. I think he is angry at the world.
EDIT: Mostly mad at bloggers because his application did not get the best reviews which is ironic because his blog uncov trashed most web application development teams.
Even though this article is brimming with hyperbole, it brings up a number of important points that are often glossed over by many readers of HN. These include:
1) For most entrepreneurs, the present value of expected personal profit from a startup is probably less than that from a salary at a big tech company -- or even less so than from on Wall Street.
2) Luck begets success in entrepreneurship. Sure, it requires hard work and some intelligence, but obviously there are far more smart and hard working people than people who started public companies. Perhaps the function should be "(success) = (hard work) * (intelligence) * (luck),” where hard work and intelligence = 0 or 1 and luck is any real number.
3) Many tech bloggers and journalists are writing about things in which they don't have expertise. It's commonly cited among the academics whom I’ve met that expertise requires 10+ years in a field. Many of these people are in their 20s. Something doesn't add up. Moreover, many experienced people extrapolate their previous lessons to situations that are too broad or not directly parallel.
If our start up works, it will primarily be due to luck and timing.
I certainly agree with points 1, 2, and 3, but I think you're forgetting a very important point: many of us are doing startups because we love the environment and type of work.
We wake up every day excited to work on TicketStumbler. Sure you have bad days or even rough weeks, but overall I'm much happier than I've ever been at a more formalized job. I think the last formalized job Tom had was "grocery bagger" so I can't really speak for him.
This certainly doesn't apply to everyone at a startup, but it applies to a lot of us.
"As an entrepreneur, probably 2 days out of 3 are better than they would be if I had a real job. That's probably the best reason I can come up with." [ for why he became one ]
Imagine Zed Shaw, only angrier and a less effective writer (I know, it's hard to imagine either...), and you won't have to actually read any Ted Dziuba posts. You can just imagine what he would say based on the title alone.
"Being an entrepreneur doesn't mean you're smart. A smart guy will figure out how to make a bunch of money while taking on much less risk. Corollary to this, there are a lot of dumb entrepreneurs out there."
I'd argue that doing a startup with someone else's money (thanks PG and Co), at a young age, and in a struggling economy is much less risky than my former spot.
I used to work in finance and many of my friends are out of jobs with nothing to fall back on. I could have easily been one of them. At least if this fails, I'll come out with a ton of experience in numerous areas and good friends.
I have nothing whatsoever against Paul Graham, I really don't know too much about him and aren't one of the many on here who paste all of his articles onto the cube walls surrounding their toilet, and have read them dozens of times, etc.... blah blah.
However... I do think that a lot of you are shutting Ted down simply because he said shit about PG.
Ted is funny as hell, and pretty much everything he said in his "rant" is spot on.
Personal note: I submitted this at +152 points here on news.yc, let's see how far it drops! Like Google after their earnings report? We'll see :)
If by "funny as hell" you mean "good at making up phrases like 'cocksteaks'", then yes.
People like Ted Dziuba and Zed Shaw seem to have found a winning formula for getting attention on the internet: yell loudly and profanely and don't be afraid to blatantly insult people, even if it's uncalled for.
"Cocksteak" is indeed hilarious and could have only been created by true genius. It starts out with a word that generates guffaws on its own and strengthens it with imagery of slabby meatiness. The composition of the two pierces the rational mind and draws out autonomic "laffs" from deep within the humor cavities of our reptilian brains.
I just hope his startup, a web page that lists links to other web pages, does not get in the way of his truer literary calling.
I kind of agree. He can be a very good (though uneven) writer. You couldn't possibly take the vulgarity out of his best stuff without rendering it, uh, flaccid.
Great satirists can be witty, vulgar, and highly personal all at the same time and yet come across as hilarious rather than offensive. But you'd better be saying something good or true. If you miss the mark, you're just an asshole. The trouble with this piece is not that it's vulgar but that it's mostly unfunny and drab. And the trouble with the swipe at Paul Graham is not that it's vulgar (or even that it's personal) but that it's gratuitous.
Edit: incidentally, your last sentence strikes me as a shrewd observation.
It's pretty amazing. A few years ago, entrepreneurs wouldn't have even tipped into this guy's radar.
We've hit the big time. People are dripping with hate, envy, and disparagement. It seems as if entrepreneur hackers -- people who try to make something new, are now officially a subculture. Hurrah?
I don't know...I think that people who are wildly successful have a right to have a bit of an ego. If you do something ridiculously difficult and succeed, you should feel proud and let people know that you're proud.
Can you imagine the New England Patriots without a Super Bowl swagger? A rock star who is genuinely humble? The president of the US acting like he's just an ordinary person?
I think if you sell your company to google (or better, start the next google) you almost have a responsibility to act accordingly. Walk around with your chest out and your head held high! Talk like you know something! Or else what's the freaking point? If you don't act like you're at least supremely confident, you're almost doing a disservice to everyone else who is trying to get to be where you are.
Well I'm saying if you click on a Ted article you should know what to expect. Just because he uses harsh language doesn't mean his ideas aren't worth considering.
He uses harsh language as a writing crutch. It's easier to elicit a response from readers by shocking them with curse words than with ideas.
It's not actually his cursing that I object to. His writing is not coherent or original. He spends more time attacking others than presenting original ideas.
Just another rant. Once i liked rants very much, because they are often funny and somehow cool, but after reading too much of them in blogs i have become a little bit bored and suspicious:
If i read a rant what makes me say "yes!" to the article?: Is it the content? Or is it more the writing style which makes even the most stupid points and argumentations sound logical and cool?
Take this rant as an example: it is somehow succesful on hacker news despite having absolutely no content other than that its author feels fine two days out of three. If he would have written that in a normal style not even his mum would have read his blog entry. But by insulting other people and writing somehow aggressive he creates attention that isnt supported by the content.
Aren't direct notes from a developer who was in the trenches at a startup exactly what you want? (As opposed to say, a Harvard Business Review article trying to give advice on how best to run a Silicon Valley tech-based startup?)
I have no idea where the lottery analogy is going. Winning the lottery is entirely luck, so it seems to imply that building a successful startup is luck too, but since he doesn't actually argue that point anywhere I'm inclined to think he's just spouting analogies at random hoping nobody will notice they're baseless
No, some lottery winners will say they spent a lot of time and effort to figure out the hidden pattern among winning numbers in a lottery. So they worked a lot just like all startup founders.
Very nice logo. Simple and elegant. Also works well in black and white.
Ideally, it is good to have a logo that works in monochrome (for laser prints, photocopies, embossing/engraving, etc.) and if possible includes the company name.
"Entrepreneurs start businesses because...they have no choice. Passion and energy drive them on good days and sustain them on bad days." Barry Moltz in "You Have to Be a Little Crazy"
Perhaps PG's advice isn't all perfect, and maybe it's not for everyone, but the fact is that he has helped a lot of people, including hundreds of YC founders, and they generally seem pretty grateful. Who has this guy helped? What has he done to make the world a better place?