An Article About Startups That Wasn't Written By A Pretentious Asshole

[paul]

Poor Ted. He spent all that time trashing other people's startups, and now he has to cope with his own startup problems. It must be Paul Graham's fault.

Perhaps PG's advice isn't all perfect, and maybe it's not for everyone, but the fact is that he has helped a lot of people, including hundreds of YC founders, and they generally seem pretty grateful. Who has this guy helped? What has he done to make the world a better place?

[timr]

That's not even remotely fair -- he makes several reasonable points, and other than a mention of the fact that his startup life is hard, the post isn't really a complaint, so much as a criticism of the blind optimism that seems to run rampant in the startup world.

Nearly everyone here is focusing on the attack on pg, and ignoring the substance of the argument. Perhaps that's just because Ted is a controversial character, but it still doesn't make the discussion here much more than a collective ad hominem attack.

[rokhayakebe]

"Anger is a cowardly way to express Sadness"

The article was funny, but he should not have insulted anyone. I think he is angry at the world.

EDIT: Mostly mad at bloggers because his application did not get the best reviews which is ironic because his blog uncov trashed most web application development teams.

[rantfoil]

Looks like the link is back. I enjoy Dziuba's writing, but it's not cool to personally call out PG.

My only reaction to this article: Don't feed the trolls.

[azharcs]

What Goes around comes around.

[noonespecial]

FTA Money can be made elsewhere, without nearly as much bullshit: Wall Street, the court room and the operating room, to name a few.

He just named the places where bullshit lives. I'm speechless. And I liked Starcraft dammit!

[mattmaroon]

I know for a fact one can play Starcraft and get with girls. One of my college roommates did both at the same time. I wish I were joking there.

[pmorici]

"As an entrepreneur, probably 2 days out of 3 are better than they would be if I had a real job. That's probably the best reason I can come up with." [ for why he became one ]

That about sums up the content of the article.

[scott_s]

The title lies.

[SwellJoe]

Imagine Zed Shaw, only angrier and a less effective writer (I know, it's hard to imagine either...), and you won't have to actually read any Ted Dziuba posts. You can just imagine what he would say based on the title alone.

[fallentimes]

"Being an entrepreneur doesn't mean you're smart. A smart guy will figure out how to make a bunch of money while taking on much less risk. Corollary to this, there are a lot of dumb entrepreneurs out there."

I'd argue that doing a startup with someone else's money (thanks PG and Co), at a young age, and in a struggling economy is much less risky than my former spot.

I used to work in finance and many of my friends are out of jobs with nothing to fall back on. I could have easily been one of them. At least if this fails, I'll come out with a ton of experience in numerous areas and good friends.

[whalesalad]

I have nothing whatsoever against Paul Graham, I really don't know too much about him and aren't one of the many on here who paste all of his articles onto the cube walls surrounding their toilet, and have read them dozens of times, etc.... blah blah.

However... I do think that a lot of you are shutting Ted down simply because he said shit about PG.

Ted is funny as hell, and pretty much everything he said in his "rant" is spot on.

Personal note: I submitted this at +152 points here on news.yc, let's see how far it drops! Like Google after their earnings report? We'll see :)

[tlrobinson]

If by "funny as hell" you mean "good at making up phrases like 'cocksteaks'", then yes.

People like Ted Dziuba and Zed Shaw seem to have found a winning formula for getting attention on the internet: yell loudly and profanely and don't be afraid to blatantly insult people, even if it's uncalled for.

[menloparkbum]

"Cocksteak" is indeed hilarious and could have only been created by true genius. It starts out with a word that generates guffaws on its own and strengthens it with imagery of slabby meatiness. The composition of the two pierces the rational mind and draws out autonomic "laffs" from deep within the humor cavities of our reptilian brains.

I just hope his startup, a web page that lists links to other web pages, does not get in the way of his truer literary calling.

edit: </sarcasm>

[edw519]

Will my startup make it? Who knows, but at least it was more fun than a colonoscopy.

Too bad we can't say the same about your writing.

[DaniFong]

It's pretty amazing. A few years ago, entrepreneurs wouldn't have even tipped into this guy's radar.

We've hit the big time. People are dripping with hate, envy, and disparagement. It seems as if entrepreneur hackers -- people who try to make something new, are now officially a subculture. Hurrah?

[hooande]

I don't know...I think that people who are wildly successful have a right to have a bit of an ego. If you do something ridiculously difficult and succeed, you should feel proud and let people know that you're proud.

Can you imagine the New England Patriots without a Super Bowl swagger? A rock star who is genuinely humble? The president of the US acting like he's just an ordinary person?

I think if you sell your company to google (or better, start the next google) you almost have a responsibility to act accordingly. Walk around with your chest out and your head held high! Talk like you know something! Or else what's the freaking point? If you don't act like you're at least supremely confident, you're almost doing a disservice to everyone else who is trying to get to be where you are.

[deathbyzen]

Stopped reading at "cocksteaks."

[swivelmaster]

But that was the best part! (Anyway, that's how Ted writes.)

[toki]

Just another rant. Once i liked rants very much, because they are often funny and somehow cool, but after reading too much of them in blogs i have become a little bit bored and suspicious:

If i read a rant what makes me say "yes!" to the article?: Is it the content? Or is it more the writing style which makes even the most stupid points and argumentations sound logical and cool?

Take this rant as an example: it is somehow succesful on hacker news despite having absolutely no content other than that its author feels fine two days out of three. If he would have written that in a normal style not even his mum would have read his blog entry. But by insulting other people and writing somehow aggressive he creates attention that isnt supported by the content.

[huhtenberg]

In short, and quoting from the article itself, - some dick writes about startups or entrepreneurship on his "Random Musings of an X Programmer" blog

:)

[aasarava]

Aren't direct notes from a developer who was in the trenches at a startup exactly what you want? (As opposed to say, a Harvard Business Review article trying to give advice on how best to run a Silicon Valley tech-based startup?)

[defen]

Remove the pg name-calling and this is exactly the "Random Musings of an X Programmer" post that he mocks, that no one would have read.

[sysop073]

I have no idea where the lottery analogy is going. Winning the lottery is entirely luck, so it seems to imply that building a successful startup is luck too, but since he doesn't actually argue that point anywhere I'm inclined to think he's just spouting analogies at random hoping nobody will notice they're baseless

[eugenejen]

No, some lottery winners will say they spent a lot of time and effort to figure out the hidden pattern among winning numbers in a lottery. So they worked a lot just like all startup founders.

[maxharris]

This article is empty and the title is misleading.

[maxklein]

He's right. The odds of actually making millions of this startup game are pretty low.

[emmett]

For Y-Combinator founders it appears to be pretty decent so far, but perhaps that's an anomaly.

[nickb]

Add http://teddziuba.com/atom.xml to google reader and you'll find it there if you're curious.

[iamelgringo]

Should this article be flagged? It's pretty trollish.