twmahna

Jessica (the author of this article) is too nice to give this article the clickbaity title it deserves: "The 3 things it takes to be a successful startup founder".

You seem to be refuting claims I never made. I'm simply perplexed that so many people don't know this market exists (as is indicated/suggested by the number of upvotes).

Some examples that come to mind: click fraud, phishing, malware.

Is this actually news to people? This has been happening for decades. The purpose is largely for SEO / sometimes for actual traffic.

Just go google "private blog networks" (pbn) or "link farm".

The person who was accused of "stealing customer data" was the other co-founder - not Adora (CEO & now YC partner).

If you actually look into the details of the matter, what happened was that the co-founder acquired the failed company as it was put through a bankruptcy process.

People who weren't privy to the process thought it was stealing when it really wasn't different from any other acquisition.

Worth noting that the proximate cause of death is often times largely uninformative as to why the startup actually failed.

Most failed startups fit into the following timeline: was burning more money than it was making => failed at raising more money => did a round of layoffs / cost cuts to get economics under control => couldn't right the ship and shut down / did a fire sale or acquihire

But, the above timeline doesn't teach you much about why the company really failed. The real answer almost always involves a multitude of contributing factors, and requires intimate knowledge of the startup's business.

For the most part, the only reliable source for this type of information is one of the founders, board members, or (sometimes but not always) c-level execs. And, even then, they have to be willing to be vulnerable (which is very rare).

If I could give some advice to Failory, it would be to think about how you can incentivize founders to share their stories. As it stands, they have little to gain and potentially a lot to lose (e.g. being labeled one of YC's "biggest failures")

Interesting take! Why does this perspective make you bullish on Uber/Lyft?

Isn't a large portion of their FCF tied to reducing labor costs by substituting drivers with self-driving tech?

AB5 and Democrats potentially gaining unified control of Washington don't bode well for their cost structure either.

> I don't think it can be understated how much saying 'no politics' is a political statement.

I disagree, and I think you're grossly overstating it.

I can see how you could characterize their stance as "supporting the status quo". But, there are varying degrees of "support", and this is pretty much the lowest degree of "support" imaginable.

Put another way, you're painting this as "with us or against us" when in reality there's a spectrum of support. Coinbase is standing just SLIGHTLY off center in one direction.

> And supporting the status quo in this political climate is a strange hill to plant your flag on.

Why do you think it's strange? The vast majority of employees prefer a work environment that is stripped of political conversation. And, such an environment is more conducive to focus and productivity.

Let's place skepticism aside for a second and assume that full driverless tech will be fully operating in major metros soon.

What does that mean for the rideshare business? Are Uber/Lyft basically dead if they are years behind Waymo?

Just a few months ago, I recall many skeptics on HN claiming that full driverless technology was 10-20 years away.

Do those people still think that it's going to take 10-20 years for this tech to reach say, New York, now that it's live in Phoenix?

>> I'm skeptical that driverless vehicles can factor in all the ways in which someone might maliciously cause accidents or damage to these vehicles

You're probably right, but as long as it doesn't happen frequently and there's no way to mislead sensors en masse, it's not a big deal.

There are malicious ways to cause accidents with current-day technologies also. e.g. Park a car in front of a train, fly a drone into a plane, etc.