It’s funny how people like Michael Arrington (TechCrunch) and Paul Graham (Y Combinator) love the idea of logic. They use the impression of it to keep their fanboys happy. The moment someone tries to use logic against them they dodge the issue and just ignore it or use fake logic. Here are some great lines in the last day:
Michael Arrington can’t handle the idea that intelligent people realize he’s a shill:
It’s reassuring that every time someone addresses the payola or conflict of interest issue, Arrington either ignores it and says something like “Payola heh” (read: “I’m above ethical standards, I’m a blogger damnit) or something like the above. The message from TechCrunch is “shut up if you have a brain, please keep reading if you don’t.”
The message over at Y Bombinator isn’t too different. Good old Web 2.0 shill and hater of all real businesses that make money Paul Graham decided to call News Corp. and GE’s new video venture “doomed“.
By what standards is it doomed? He first said:
You say I’m wrong, but in your first sentence you agree with me.I’m not saying that this site will never get any visitors. Just that it will never be anything more than a site that happens to host the content of Fox and NBC– i.e. no more than they could have got by simply putting their stuff on their existing sites, without starting a separate company as a joint venture.
If you’re so sure I’m wrong, bet me. I’ll be happy to bet you money if we can think of a sufficiently precise test.
Okay, that’s a start. He’s happy to bet money. Wonderful. I can get some of the loot from Viaweb. However, upon my request to clarify, he ingeniously responds with something that can’t even be tested:
By doomed I mean they have no hope of achieving their goal. What could be simpler?Their goal is to create something that does more for them than simply putting their content on their own sites would have done. They will not. Failure + inevitable = doomed.
Wonderful! We’ll design a precise test to evaluate whether they achieved their goal. That’ so simple - we’ll just go poll all of the executives now to figure out their “goal” and then poll them at some undetermined date about whether they reached their “goal”! Yay! Let’s have a party. Then the special ed kids over at Y Combinator respond with:
Perhaps he means doomed to lose money on the venture? I would say that is a pretty good measure of failure. The bet could be whether the venture ever sees black.
Wow! So many Y Bombs make money. I can count them on ….. wait for it … still counting … oh, on 0 fingers. Paul also seems to think that Y Combinator companies have a chance to IPO. Unless someone changed the world in the last ten minutes, IPOing requires serious revenues - something no Y Combinator company is even on track to do. Loopt may have a chance so I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. As for the rest, it’s “launch and pray for an acquisition.”
Again my friends, logic wins.
August 10th, 2007 at 5:45 pm
ok closing comments now. if you guys are representative of my readership things are going seriously downhill.