This is true, and I think the article mentions that explicitly and implicitly. However, that's not the point it's trying to make. The point it's trying to make can be summarized in one sentence:
When starting companies with fellow egotists, do not be passive-aggressive, and do not choose passive-aggressive partners.
I would really like to know, if you would not mind explaining, how are we all egotists. I believe myself that HN tends to attract better-than-average, educated, ambitious people. Egotism goes a bit with that. But to all being like that.
I upvoted your initial statement and this one, but not the one in between. We're not downvoting you to "hide the truth", we're downvoting you because your statement wasn't making an interesting argument. Now you've started to argue what you mean, but you're still not being particularly informative about it.
There seems to be some confusion among the HN user about the actual starup definition. Many people call a startup even outside projects and websites made for fun.
PG says "The essential task in a startup is to create wealth", that pretty well rules tarsnap out as a startup, I guess.
Stating that the emperor has no clothes is not appreciated here.
I think plenty of the 'wannabe' startups here are a bit like kids 'playing house'. If you say hey, it's just a blanket and two couches they get mad at you for breaking the illusion.
Nothing matters less to me than mee-too-ness about startup programs. I'm desperate for 100 absolutely same programs to be available to me in absolutely same time in absolutely same places.
Be serious man, copying a application form cann't be seen as a brutal act of uncreative vandalism.
The problem is that it's not the funding or the batch concept that makes Y Combinator. It's something that can't be replicated once, let alone 100 times.
Well, there's uninventive, and then there's directly copying every move, sometimes literally by cutting and pasting. Though I suppose they say good artists copy, great artists steal. Maybe TechStars are great and just seem lame to me.
What I like about techstars - they don't pretend to be unique. Instead of going to some bizzare place like NY or whatever (they seem don't like SF) just to generate buzz they go to Boston, the most logical place for them to go to to attract more healthy attention. But people still generate buzz :)
Great work, but ... looks like an example of completely missing the basics of the customer needs. Do we really need good design to start taking shots? Think about us already missing a year of pictures. Sorry for making it sound sharp.
Keep in mind that you don't have that much time. More than one RoR bastard will know about your website soon and frankly it takes only couple of weeks of fulltime developement to produce a service like yours.
Well, you won't talk to hundreds of applicants after the initial text-only review. And to talk to rest - in my opinion - could be much more valuable in the sense of not putting people into uncomfortable position, if only its not the exact goal of that approach.
Now these rejected will start asking themselves how bad they had been presenting.
I've had experience of beign rejected by both, and have got better feelings with TechStar :) Well, the ideas were different too, so it triggered different reactions.
But overall, techstars do good job offering more opportunities for the startups.
