The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 7 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Hsu claims 95% of Y Combinator advice is in Paul Graham essays
“Almost everything YC tells you is available online. If you just go read every PG essay, you know, you could probably become a YC partner, basically, if you read every essay, and just maybe that's being a little bit uncharitable, but, you know, I think you coul…”
Hsu argues Y Combinator adds no value after product-market fit
“Once you have product pocket fit, you don't really need to be talking to anybody who's just kind of heads down, just executing, just writing code, talking to customers, you know, for as many hours a day as you can, really. And so once that does happen, You kno…”
Hsu argues VC help for struggling startups rarely yields real results
“I think, you know, it is true that when companies are not doing well, they'll sort of ask for more help, ask for more advice or whatever else. But I think in the end, it doesn't actually make that much of a difference. You may sort of spend more time with the …”
Hsu claims venture capital advice is unhelpful prior to product-market fit
“I think pre-proto market fit, I would hope you know your market better than your VC does. If you don't, you probably have some problems. It's got other issues. And so in that case, I really don't think the advice that a VC offers you is going to be that helpfu…”
Hsu argues executing sales properly may be harder than engineering
“If anything, it may be harder than engineering to really do sales properly.”
Hsu argues SaaS companies are inherently stable and rarely face acute crises
“I think part of it also is a SaaS company is just fairly stable in the sense that nothing really goes that wrong, really, for us.”
Hsu finds Silicon Valley insular compared to the UK tech scene
“Silicon Valley texting is quite insular. It's funny you ask this, because to some extent, I suppose the texting in the UK is definitely smaller, but it's actually, I think, much more positive and uplifting to some extent. I think, you know, the rest of British…”