I think there is a lot of frustration from some people with regards to PH and it’s understandable. But I don’t know if PH can be blamed for this. There has to be some kind of curation for something like this, and whether it’s a journalist (ex: TechCrunch), a community of people (PH), an editorial team (AppStore), as with all curation systems, there will always be people who feel it’s “unfair” (typically when their thing does not get selected).<p>I think what this fails to capture is that actually, it seems to me PH is a great proxy to the real world of startups. Yes it helps to be connected to influential people to be featured on PH. But the exact same thing is true for your startup in general. If you don’t know anybody, you’ll have a hard time getting noticed and finding investors. Your network and ability to connect to influential people can make or break your venture (I used to NOT think it was the case… I changed my mind based on my personal experience :-) ). I think that’s one of the very reasons Silicon Valley works much, much better than other places in the world: London, Paris, etc. They are a tightly connected community of makers, investors, journalists, influencers etc. It’s the whole echo-chamber thing and it’s absolutely fundamental.