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Comment by tlrobinson | Hacker News Reader

This seems aimed squarely at Paul Buchheit, considering it's less than a week after Paul did exactly that at Startup School.

Interestingly I enjoyed Paul's talk more than Jason's.

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In person he claimed to have liked my talk :)

I'm not sure if anyone understood, but the "winging it" was supposed to be a metaphor for startups themselves. You can never be truly prepared.

The other thing is that you clearly didn't completely wing it. You had prepared slides, as a start.

No he didn't. I saw him writing the slides as other presenters were speaking.

(Not that I'm criticizing him. Some of my best projects in school were written the day they were due.)

I did love your talk - I thought it was definitely one of the best. I certainly learned a few things.

Your talks were my favorite parts of both SS08 and SS09. I think many other "unprepared" talks are given by other speakers simply trying to imitate your style (with both less humor and less content).

The point wasn't aimed at any one person. I've probably seen 50-75 speakers present this year, and lately I've heard the "I haven't prepared anything" declaration more than usual. Startup School was my last conference of the year so I felt now would be a good time to sum up the observation.

I thought all the talks at Startup School were excellent. I stayed for the whole conference - from pg's opener to Mark's closer. I learned a lot.

Funny, I assumed it was a thinly veiled jab at Mark Pincus.

I didn't attend SUS09, but by the video clips, it seems he committed this very "presentation sin."

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