I think you may unintentionally be implying that there aren't lots of people in the "startup culture" that do in fact consider getting funding to be an intrinsically important achievement. That seems like a meme worth quashing.
I agree that the comment has become very boring. It is especially annoying to see it injected into conversations that don't really involve VC funding.
It's an achievement of a sort. It's kind of like winning a medal: the metal disc in itself is unimportant, but it matters because it's a sign someone was impressed with you for something.
As with medals, how much it matters depends on who was impressed with you and for what. Later rounds converge on measuring revenue, which is what people who think companies shouldn't be celebrating fundraising usually think they should be celebrating instead.
It's interesting to observe that the VC rounds that are most often casually mocked on HN --- the huge rounds like Benchmark and then DST's in Twitter --- are, as proxies for earnings expectations presumably based on some very compelling inside information, a more meaningful milestone than many of small first rounds, which are often blue-sky.
As usual, even when the conventional wisdom of HN is on to something, it's for the wrong reasons and rapidly reaches the wrong conclusions.
I disagree with that analogy. A medal is, in and of itself, the award you are seeking to win. Yes, there may be an intermediary goal involved, swimming 200 meters faster than anybody else, or having an invention that is viewed as the most innovative in a field. But the medal represents your accomplishment.
A funding round, as I understand it, is financing to enable a certain goal. I don't knock companies that seek funding, and I would congratulate any that received it IF that is something that they deemed necessary. I think this notion that it is an "achievement of sort" is the type of thinking that elicits these types of repetitive comments that remind people, an investment round is awarded to make possible a goal by increasing its access to resources.
A medal is, in and of itself, the award you are seeking to win
I think you're missing the distinction between the symbol and the act. A medal is not what you are seeking to win. Its a representation of what you have achieved (which seems to be pg's point). You can take away all of Michael Phelps medals and it won't in one way diminish the fact that 18 times he was the fastest guy in the pool at the Olympics.
And if I take away your 4 rounds of funding have I changed the viability of your product in the market place?
Conversely if I fund you, does that in any way validate your product? Nope. Paying customers do that I'm afraid.
To suggest that a round of funding is an achievement in and of itself is to put it in the same camp as winning a business plan competition. Sure it might show that One person likes your idea, but that's pretty much worthless compared to paying customers.
Heh, you guys are hilarious. Bring up disagreements about the BS funding train in this echo-chamber and get downvoted to hell as if that makes the statements any less valid. Hahahahaha, downvote away.
The difference being that it's just the amount of money involved that is driving the reprinting of the press release, not the worthiness of the recipient or the track record of the VC. It's just "Oh millions of dollars! Let's repost this!"
Like I said originally; I'm happy for anyone who gets funding to pursue their project. Great for them. But it doesn't affect me at all, especially since so many of them are so early in their development they don't have anything to talk about it. It's just a waste of anyone's time who's not involved.
I think you may unintentionally be implying that there aren't lots of people in the "startup culture" that do in fact consider getting funding to be an intrinsically important achievement.
It seems to me that raising a large VC round does have an intrinsic and lasting value, I'm not sure whether it should. Kevin Rose is a great example of this type of success. He's started 4 or 5 companies that I'm aware of, out of those AFAIK Revision3 is the only one that I believe had an exit based on the merits of the company (Milk, was a successful exit but seemed like an acqui-hire).
We also continually get messaged that having founded a company once even if it fails is going to be a leg up when raising money for your next venture.
Anyway its hard to say "raising money" doesn't have intrinsic value, when Silicon Valley (and I don't mean "startup culture" I mean the players actually doing deals in SV) continually signals that it does.
I agree that the comment has become very boring. It is especially annoying to see it injected into conversations that don't really involve VC funding.