Monkey-read, monkey-do entrepreneurship

Her point about thinking for yourself is condescending. She's hardly alone in believing that she's a critical thinker that evaluates advice objectively. Everyone thinks that about themselves. No one thinks they're a monkey.<p>Regarding the post she's replying to, she didn't provide any evidence that she's succeeded while ignoring the advice of experts.<p>Her one example (which was 75% of her post) would be more convincing if it didn't seem like she was rationalizing her preexisting view point. She also describes that she has someone who is co-founder in all but name, which weakens the argument further.<p>I have to admit that I'm uncomfortable with how much of PG's advice I agree with. There are probably a lot of little things I disagree with, but I can't think of any big ones. Between the previous thread and this submission I was hoping to have at least a few nuggets of disagreement to hold on to. Unfortunately that's not the case.

<i>&#62; "A company with $200K per year revenue with a single person and no plans to “exit” would be a failure in YC"</i><p>It might not be what YC is after but I don't think it they'd consider it a failure either. Am I wrong?

It is sort of a catch 22 for her to say how silly it is to have a co-founder when you are young and unproven. If you are capable of doing it yourself, then yes, of course you should. However, many people who are capable of doing themselves may not be ready to handle all of the aspects, especially if it is their first time out.<p>There are a few lessons that I have taken from browsing HackerNews over the last year. Two of them come to mind.<p>The first is that it is not simple to do everything involved in creating a startup. Even if you know what you are doing. There are factors to hinder great products and great people, from reaching the consumer.<p>The second is that there is no shortage of great ideas for startups. The real bottle neck seems to be the execution of great ideas.<p>If you are capable of doing it by yourself, but you take on a partner, you do lose out financially or you could create complications. But no one ever said it had to be your last startup. You can always take on of the great new ideas and branch out again.<p>Even if it is a disaster, you will discover that you can do it alone.<p>Or the other scenario, you discover that you work well together. Now, you have have too much brain power, time, energy and money. These resources are incredibly useful at expanding your startup, starting a second, or just making life easier.<p>I like her cynicism about everything she reads. That is just a normal part of rationality. Even if it is aimed against the mighty Paul Graham. However, I have to disagree with her assertions. I believe teams are greater than the sum of their parts, even if team member can do all work alone.

ok... I think she has a point but didn't cut to meat of things(These days people apply link-bait heavily).<p>I have notice that people repeat exactly what pg says and nothing else. I don't have a problem with repeating, but I think they also need to add to what he says.<p>I kind of carry around a formula: 95% copy and 5% innovation. Innovation should be low because it reflects taking a risk that by simply copying would mitigate. But, Innovation should never be zero as you effectively don't add anything to the community and become less competitive.<p>Currently, pg might have a set of belief that he has found empirically to be true. But if you consider the search for the optimal set of rules for forming a start-up, I think pg might have reach a local maximum and it is necessary for start-ups both in YC and out to search this space that defer from pg current views, so a new higher local maximum can be achieve for the entire community.(Think Particle Swarm Optimization)