The Aha Moments That Made Paul Graham's Y Combinator Possible

Skimming this, I noticed a few mistakes.<p>I was 30, not 31.<p>My degree is in CS, not computer engineering, which is a hybrid of CS and EE.<p>We were already working on another company when we decided to work on ecommerce. We were making software to generate web sites for commercial art galleries (who didn't want web sites). So we didn't suddenly decide to write software to make stores. It was more a question of switching to a market that wanted what we could make.<p>Robert's apartment was not in NYC. I was the one who lived in NYC, and I was visiting him in Cambridge.<p>I didn't wake up with a specific sentence in my head. I just woke up with the idea that we might be able to control the software on the server by clicking on links.<p>It's an overstatement to say that the idea of Viaweb was too strong to fail. We came close to failing several times. It is true though that the best thing we had going for us was the quality of the software (rather than, say, marketing, or connections).<p>We weren't the only ones "insane enough" to make web-based software. At least one of our competitors did. It was a big help though that our most dangerous competitor took a long time to grasp the idea.<p>The story about the origins of YC omits Jessica. We decided to start it one night while we were walking back from dinner in Harvard Square (<a href="http://ycombinator.com/start.html" rel="nofollow">http://ycombinator.com/start.html</a>).<p>Robert never devoted his time exclusively to YC. Jessica and I did, but he and Trevor have always done it part time.<p>As far as I know, no one has ever tried to put a valuation on YC. You could value our current assets fairly precisely, but that would come to less than 500m.

I think the moral of the story is clear: If you want to build a successful startup, you must first hate Windows.

"Robert Greene is the author of the international bestsellers The 48 Laws of Power, ...[list of books]. His highly anticipated fifth book, Mastery, examines the lives of great historical figures such as Charles Darwin, Mozart, Paul Graham, and Henry Ford and distills the traits and universal ingredients that made them masters. ...more filler..."<p>Wow, Darwin, Mozart, Graham and Ford. PG's head must be spinning. ;-)

<i>The lesson is simple--what constitutes true creativity is the openness and adaptability of our spirit. When we see or experience something we must be able to look at it from several angles, to see other possibilities beyond the obvious ones. We imagine that the objects around us can be used and co-opted for different purposes. We do not hold on to our original idea out of sheer stubbornness, or because our ego is tied up with its rightness. Instead, we move with what presents itself to us in the moment, exploring and exploiting different branches and contingencies. We thus manage to turn feathers into flying material. The difference then is not in some initial creative power of the brain, but in how we look at the world and the fluidity with which we can reframe what we see. Creativity and adaptability are inseparable.</i><p>What a huge load of bull (in the last paragraph) on an otherwise good story (albeit some inaccuracies) of how pg started YC.

What he did - he made a pipeline, same like Ford did with a car assembly line. But it not just that.<p>Usually there are very mediocre people who works at assembly line. The trick is that YC filters out the best people possible, like Google does.<p>This is why the odds of successful exit (one way or another) are much greater than on average. They don't need each project to turn out into Airbnb. More than one is enough.)<p>Everything else is second. It is a pipeline of people who motivate, control themselves and push themselves to the limits. This is the cheapest (but hardest) way to get work done.

&#62; We do not hold on to our original idea out of sheer stubbornness, or because our ego is tied up with its rightness.<p>Sometimes sticking it out is what is needed. These days it is fashionable to "pivot" -- I believe that in most cases you've gotta to stick it out enough with the original idea to see where it takes you. The data only tells you what you want to measure. The best insights/pivot you'll get by following your @gut (or as PG did with his "aha" dream of converting into a web-based store)

Hustle, as a personality characteristic, sets top entrepreneurs apart from the pack. It's the one that really matters because those with hustle know how to pivot when a chance encounter arises. Although this particular word is avoided, Greene's description of PG reads much like his description of 50 Cent in The 50th Law.

Nice article but I think it over-emphasizes hating windows a little too much and fails to explicitly make the more important point, which Greene did in this Mixergy interview:<p>"Robert: Well, the other person that I’ve interviewed . . . I’ve interviewed five so far. I’ve got about three or four more to go. It was a gentlemen named Paul Graham. I don’t know if you’re familiar with him.<p>Andrew: Y Combinator.<p>Robert: Yes, and Hacker News, yes. He’s really brilliant. So, one of the things I’m talking about in the book is the power of being a non-conformist, and it comes to what we were talking about earlier about your life’s task that you’re unique. There’s something different about you. When you find it, there’s power in that uniqueness. It’s almost like Harry Potter or something. When you find what makes that what it is about you, you’ve got this little diamond that’s going to give you power.<p>So, Paul Graham, what I liked about him was he’s always been a complete non-conformist and has gotten away with it, not because his parents had money or he was privileged, but because he didn’t care and he took risks and he just followed what he wanted to do. And that’s sort of the end of this book. That’s like the ultimate thing.<p>So, when he first started out, he didn’t really want to get into business, but he needed to make money because he was living in a really crappy apartment in New York. He came up with this other friend who was a great hacker. His name eludes me right now. You might know his name, and they came up with Viaweb, basically, because he was so good at this one code which name also eludes me that he writes in.<p>So, he kind of backs into being a successful businessman, and he doesn’t really care. Then, when Yahoo buys out Viaweb, he doesn’t suddenly try and morph into a conventional businessman working for Yahoo. He quits after a year. He becomes a writer. He writes articles that create a great following, and then he kind of backs into Y Combinator, which is a brilliant business model, I think, for the future for entrepreneurs, for tech startups.<p>But he doesn’t give a damn about what other people think. He doesn’t follow what other people do. He does what he thinks is right for himself, and I just think it’s a brilliant formula. I’ll be more explicit in the book and make it more, something you can understand. But that’s sort of the gist of it."<p>(Both audio/video and full text transcript can be found here: <a href="http://mixergy.com/robert-greene-power-interview/" rel="nofollow">http://mixergy.com/robert-greene-power-interview/</a>)

Why the Y Combinator model don't work/exist in other countries? If this model spread to other countries it will be awesome, imagine the number of good ideas dying, when they just need a push.

It seems the author has already updated the article with edits based on PG's comments in this thread.