Early YC Founders' Non-Linear Success on HN

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30 pointsstephsmithio2 comments

I thought that the infamous Dropbox comment on HN was the outlier, but when I saw Daniel Gross' tweet about Brian Armstrong's early projects (https://twitter.com/danielgross/status/1382348690606616581), I did some more digging and found that the non-linear story was pretty consistent. Most "successful" founders today, felt just as lost as the rest of us.

BTW, my process for finding them was pretty simple:

1. Started with top YC startups

2. Hunted down their HN launches (first instance of the URL)

3. Browsed the founder's posting history

I'm sure there are many other examples of this.

Thank you for this. Far too often we assume we aren't worthy of success because it isn't immediate or overwhelming, but the truth is things take time and multiple attempts to get right.

Life is weird and nobody is experienced at it. Understanding that fact levels the playing field quite a bit.

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