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Comment by pg | Hacker News Reader

I make starting a startup look easy?

"Imagine the stress of working for the Post Office for fifty years. In a startup you compress all this stress into three or four years. You do tend to get a certain bulk discount if you buy the economy-size pain, but you can't evade the fundamental conservation law. If starting a startup were easy, everyone would do it."

http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html

"So I'll tell you now: bad shit is coming. It always is in a startup."

http://paulgraham.com/die.html

"As you go into a startup, you'll be thinking "everyone says it's really extreme." Your next thought will probably be "but I can't believe it will be that bad." If you want to avoid being surprised, the next thought after that should be: "and the reason I can't believe it will be that bad is that my model of work is a job.""

http://paulgraham.com/really.html

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You're very direct and straightforward about the process you went through, which makes the process look approachable. You've made it easier for companies to get started via YC, and people don't realize that "easier" is relative, and it's still really hard. You talk about how to solve nearly every problem an entrepreneur might find, which makes people think that their problems are all fundamentally solvable. And it's a natural outgrowth of what you do that you spend more time talking about the successes than the failures, even though in reality the latter probably outnumber the former.

You're doing your job well, and a natural byproduct is that it looks easy. Watching Michael Jordan makes it look like it's not that hard to dunk. Doesn't matter how many times you disclaim otherwise.

Not sure why you got downvoted, though.

I wouldn't say easy, but there seems to be an underlying message that it is a deterministic, repeatable process - if you're willing to endure the stress, are smart and hard working you'll succeed - when in reality luck plays a pretty big part, especially in built to flip startups.

"Actually the best model would be to say that the outcome is the product of skill, determination, and luck. No matter how much skill and determination you have, if you roll a zero for luck, the outcome is zero."

http://paulgraham.com/really.html

"There is a large random factor in the success of any company. So the guys you end up reading about in the papers are the ones who are very smart, totally dedicated, and win the lottery."

http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html

Granted, but sometimes the impression that comes off to a young kid may be akin to that of Lebron/Kobe telling innercity kids that they should study and go to college because not everyone can make it to the NBA. Stuff like that falls on deaf ears, because the only thing that the kids take away is "this guy with a high school degree gets millions for dribbling a ball and that means I can too".

Perhaps YC should focus more on attracting guys in their 30's or 40's? You'll end up with candidates who are more grounded and who will have a better idea of the risks they are entering into. They might also come up with better business and consumer solutions than the youths that typically apply. It might be worth trying out, even just as an experiment,to have one of your funding rounds be set aside exclusively for those who are 30+

The NBA example is exactly what I meant.

I'm not really referring to PG or YC specifically, more to the general attitude in the startup community: it's becoming increasingly becoming Hollywood-like, with founder profiles in Vanity Fair and NY Magazine (and startups like Quora that follow the Hollywood club model of celebrity hype + watered down drinks), but while most people know that success in Hollywood is largely random, few realize how much this applies to exit-strategy startups.

But older people have more commitments, more balanced lives, a higher price tag, and often less energy. Early/mid 20s male fanatics are the workhorses of the engineering world and surely the best bet from an investment POV. They will break their backs for you(r capital). Just pair them with 1 or 2 older guys for guidance/experience.

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