Hacker News Reader

A lot of YC's advice was not considered obvious when they started out (nearly ten years ago!).

If some of it seems generic and obvious now, that's because they've succeeded - more than anyone else - in discovering and sharing some actually repeatable strategies for building startups.

View on HN

Maybe it's just about who it's obvious to. YC is run by technical people, and most VC firms aren't. When PG got into the game and started making good picks because he actually knew what he was talking about and had direct experience, unlike the finance guys dicking around with macro-scale projections pulled out of thin air, he wrote down the obvious from his perspective and was immediately copied (poorly, in general) by the people that saw the success knowing what you're talking about can bring.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com