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Comment by danielpal | Hacker News Reader

You think that the experience of selling 1 company (viaweb) trumps over the experience of funding over 300 companies across 7 years, 2 of which are worth at least 1 billion dollars?

Thats like saying, given that Apple experience comes from building the first computer they must not know anything about mobile.

YC experience comes from doing YC itself.

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Apple did not build the first computer.

pendatic. His point was that YC's expertise with advising startups comes from doing YC, not from selling Viaweb to Yahoo (it was, but only at first)--just as Apple's expertise doing the iPhone came from doing the iPhone, not from making computers (it was, but only at first). Whether Apple made the first computer or not is irrelevant to the point he was trying to make.

How is that a minor detail? The first electronic computer was built in 1946. Apple hasn't even existed for half of the time electronic computers have existed on Earth.

Seriously folks, this is some dumb, dumb stuff. Even the senator who gave the infamous "tubes" speech probably knew that the Apple didn't invent computers.

> You think that the experience of selling 1 company (viaweb) trumps over the experience of funding over 300 companies across 7 years, 2 of which are worth at least 1 billion dollars?

No, but I really got the impression as YC grew over the years, from what was reported of it, that PG modeled it, at least initially, after his own experience. Doubtless it has changed over time as they've learned.

My point was merely that there is not necessarily a "build a company to last years" in the group's "DNA".

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