[frodetb]

I don't think that's accurate. One of the things that make incubation and choosing which startups to fund so difficult is precisely the lack of track record. According to Graham himself, when everyone involved with a startup are new to the scenes they're invading, you instead end up relying on such nebulous concepts as "imagination", "naughtyness"[1], or "earnestness"[2].

[1] http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html

[2] http://www.paulgraham.com/earnest.html