tikhon
Joined 20 years ago
Karma
1,633
Submissions
113
Member since
Oct 10
Recent submissions
Comment · 9 years ago
And they didn't even ICO
Comment · 9 years ago
Thanks folks! Yea Feynman's spinning plate story about sophomore slump in particular is such a great read
Comment · 9 years ago
You are still incredibly early to the space. Most people in the world don't hold any crypto nor do they even know what it is.
Many famous investors and entrepreneurs who came to Silicon Valley in the early 1990s thought they had "missed it." Everything up until now is a sunk cost. Operate accordingly.
Comment · 10 years ago
I can personally attest that Sam helps out all the companies I've seen that ask, whether or not it helps him in any way. That sort of person is rare in the ecosystem and should be celebrated, not questioned like this. We're attacking him for being honest and giving full disclosure? Really?
The obvious parallel one could draw here is Ron Conway -- these folks help startups because they can, not because they're profiteering. The suggestion is almost offensive given what Sam has done here, which I don't think most people would have had the guts to do. I doubt any legal counsel would have suggested he post this, anyway.
Few folks put in more time, energy, and effort than Sam does to help startup founders, and I think that's partially how he's built up such a world-class reputation.
Sam is making a bold move here with this blog post, given the case. We should be celebrating him doing the right thing here. A lot of folks wouldn't want to publicly touch a topic like this given the legal case.
Any startup would be lucky to have his help, and he's probably the most gracious and helpful person in the startup ecosystem you'll be lucky enough to meet. The fact he's been an investor in the past is, I suspect, more a byproduct of the fact he meets with so many startups as he does. If you spent all day meeting with hedge fund managers, for instance, you'd likely end up being an LP or advisor for at least a couple of them. That doesn't affect the quality of your hedge fund decisions or advice.
Sam has helped me when he had no vested interest in doing so, and I'll always be grateful for that.
Startups:
1. Founder and former CEO of Parse (S'11) (acquired by Facebook in 2013).
2. Founder of Scribd (S'06).
Investor:
I'm an angel in over 50 startups including: Cruise Automation, Gusto, Tilt, LendUp, WayUp, TripleByte, Checkr, RazorPay, True Accord, Swiftype, Realm, Front, Reddit (Series B), Bright, Wave, Matterport, Namo Media (acquired by Twitter for $50M), and Optimizely. https://angel.co/tikhon
References: http://tikhon.com/references
Developer/DevOps/Sysadmin:
I'm a developer. I've worked on open-source projects, side projects, etc, but most of my time I spent working exclusively on Scribd and Parse. I ran DevOps at Scribd and at Parse (until I found amazing folks to take over those roles). I was on "pager duty" for many years at Scribd, and then again for the first year of Parse. I've done everything from fundraising to engineering to sales to sysadmin to biz dev to DevOps to waking up 7 times in one night when my database kept falling over. I promptly fell over myself the next day.
Background:
I studied theoretical physics in graduate school, although I was not a physics major in undergrad (Dartmouth, Econ and CS, summa cum laude). I've been programming since I was 12 years old. I made a 3000 LOC RPG that absolutely no other person was interested in. I recently found the game last Christmas and can safely verify it was absolutely terrible.