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.