I can't think of a single person who embodies the spirit of this site more than Woz. dang could replace the guidelines with a picture of Woz and we'd all know what it meant.

▲ omnimus 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Let's not forget url of this site is Ycombinator. As far as i know that is very far from “friendly selfless genius inventor engineer”. It's more like “ambitious finance move fast and break things programmer”.

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SkyMarshal 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

To be fair, Woz wasn't just a “friendly selfless genius inventor engineer”, he was also the co-founder of one of the most valuable tech companies in the world. And YC is, in their own words: "The Y combinator is one of the coolest ideas in computer science. It's also a metaphor for what we do. It's a program that runs programs; we're a company that helps start companies.". They're not entirely unrelated.

	▲	al_borland 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		He was a cofounder because of his skill and Jobs talking him into it. Woz would have been perfectly happy as an engineer at HP, that was his plan.

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chairmansteve 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You are right. But the real world is a messy place. Good people do bad things and vice versa. Not many people are entirely good or entirely bad.

HN is a very strong net positive IMO. YC could easily monetize it into oblivion. They don't.

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postalcoder 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Woz is a primary figure in one of YC’s essential texts. He has always been revered here as a founder and as a human.

https://www.amazon.com/Founders-Work-Stories-Startups-Early/...

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flomo 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

"Tech Cofounder" who gets edged out before the next funding round.

▲ direwolf20 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Woz may embody the spirit of hacking but does he really embody the spirit of venture capital?

▲ postalcoder 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Since when was HN about venture capital?

  Hacker news is designed for and targeted at hackers. In the sense of the word that means people who write code, not people who break into things. Other people with similar tastes also like it.

  Since it's run by YC and the initial users were mostly YC founders, there is inevitably a startup spin to the stories that are popular here. In fact the site was originally called Startup News. But it turned out to be boring to have so much of a startup focus, so we changed the name and the focus to be more general.

- pg (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1648199)

Also: https://web.archive.org/web/20070624055731/http://www.founde...

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paulcole 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Do you believe all marketing and advertising copy that you read?

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postalcoder 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Look at the questions I'm replying to. They, in one way or another, asked me to draw a line between Woz and Ycombinator. That's what I did.

Woz has always carried a near perfect approval rate in our community. I've never seen anyone come close.

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paulcole 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Sorry, I was replying to the person who said, “Since when was HN about venture capital?” The answer to that is obviously since its inception. It’s like watching those weird flying contraption contests and asking, “Since when is Red Bull about energy drinks?”

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3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

[deleted]

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postalcoder 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Oh wait that was me. I mean, yes you're right that vc and startups are inextricable. But I’d argue their underlying spirit isn’t the same.

I realize that’s a normative claim. Like the blind men and the elephant, we’re each touching a different part.

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paulcole 3 hours ago | parent [-]

> But I’d argue their underlying spirit isn’t the same.

And your argument is based on the fact that you’d like this to be true as well as the fact that the vc company behind this site said, “Trust us bro!”

How is that different from the cow saying, “The farmer told us we’re walking through a fun maze!”

	▲	postalcoder 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I may have overthought this and wandered into territory I don’t actually have strong convictions about. My original impulse was simply to show some love for Woz.

▲ aembleton 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Maybe Fabrice Bellard could be a candidate.

	▲	jdefr89 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Obviously familiar with Fabrice Bellard and his technical contributions but it seems like he is a pretty private person and he keeps to himself. I don't really know much about him as a person.