The article discusses known issues being a startup founder, such as the low odds of success, as if they’re unique to YC, followed by a pitch for his own product.
You missed the point. Using the analogy from the article, if you take YC money (or any VC money) you need to dig until you find a massive pile of treasure, if you dig and find a small pile of treasure you have to ignore it and start over because VCs are not looking for small piles of treasure, they only care about massive ones. Ignore the fact that the small pile of treasure could actually result in a very good life for a small group of people in a small company.
No, the VC will want a big exit, the founders will be forced to raise more money and grow the business to be unsustainable and then it will either be shuttered or acquired.
There is a bit of a point here re: maximizing expected values vs individuals only getting one lifetime to walk finite iterations of the path.
So one path you take the startup route where you dedicate 10 years of your life going deep into a single idea in hopes you are one of the 1% to come up with a $1B idea. That dice has a $10M EV.
(actually exaggerated high bc you are unlikely to be a sole founder, unlikely to monetize the full $1B of a unicorn yourself, and 1% success rate is for YC cohorts.. which you have an X% chance of getting into to start with!).
On the other hand you can focus on T-shaped skills in software engineering & domain expertise, possibly some entrepreneurship.. you course correct that career year to year in a 30 year career, possibly changing jobs every 2/3/5 years as appropriate. Let's exaggerate and say you have a 25% chance of making $500K. That dice has an EV of $125K.. peanuts!
The $10M EV dice you get maybe 2-3 rolls in a lifetime versus ~40 rolls annually at the $125K EV dice option.
This still sounds like the first EV is better - $25M vs $5M!
However 97% of EV=$10M dice rollers get $0 over there entire life.
Hypothetically every EV=$125K dice roller will win 7.5 times in their life because they get so many rolls.
It seems to me the fetishizing of youth and 20 something founders whereas the optimal path for an INDIVIDUAL might be to roll the boring $125k dice for a while, building up savings and experience.. and then try a few rolls of the $10M dice later in life when you may actually have realer ideas, a professional network, etc.
This is how bootstrappers market stuff. If we have something interesting to say, we write a blog post and plug our own product, and the blog post is usually not even related to a product. That Joel Spolsky or DHH were writing their posts out of boredom, you think?
People on HN, they first complain about paywalls and then about entrepreneurs mentioning their stuff.
This is not exactly a place full of selfless altruist types.
"BUT YOU JUST WANT TO SELL YOUR COURSE!!!
Ahahaha, you caught me! It’s true. I do have something to sell you. I run a community for small-time entrepreneurs who are satisfied with reliably attainable mediocre success. The YC folks feel sorry for our joy with mediocrity while they’re out there changing the world. And we reciprocate the emotion.
So yes, I am promoting something that goes against everything YC stands for. But if you think YC is not also selling you something, I have a bridge to sell you. But maybe I’m being a bit too harsh. Because what is it that YC is selling you exactly?
Me, I charge you a one-time payment of $245, and you get access to my community, which includes live workshops, recorded classes, a group chat, and a few other things. It’s very clear what I’m doing. I ask for some money in exchange for access, and those who give me the money get access. Even my 6 year old kid understands it."
