I find that this article is representative of much of the content of HN these days: provocative assertions made by relative nobodies with little supporting evidence save anecdote, but made with the full voice of authority. Found a middling startup or two, and you're suddenly an expert. Call me old fashioned, but I like to get my blanket generalizations only from those significantly richer, more powerful, happier, or more successful than I am.
The irony is that HN upvotes light commentary with blanket generalizations to the front page and also upvotes cruel dismissive comments criticizing that sort of light commentary to the top comment.
At the risk of sounding perverse and making a blanket generalization, I have this to say:
The people who upvote posts are not the same people who upvote or participate in the comments section.
The cognitive dissonance is actually two different sets of folks voting the way they perceive the world. It just happens that the people who like to comment are a tad more snarky.
"Things have now gotten to the stage where I flinch slightly as I click on the "comments" link, bracing myself for the dismissive comment I know will be waiting for me at the top of the page." - PG
The quality of the comments is probably related to the quality of the content. Startup truisms and anecdotes-as-advertisements rarely stimulate interesting conversation.
If it is a "blanket generalization" as you say, wouldn't it be more productive to quickly name a few counter examples? It should be very easy to do this no? On the other side, a rich and successful person can also be very bad at communicating his/her way of thinking.
I see this on HN more and more and it annoys me very much.
Interesting how you discredit advice from "relative nobodies." The world is mostly full of relative nobodies. You must have a hard time opening your mind to learn from anybody.
That wasn't the guys only criteria, so you're strawmanning them to an extent.
Even putting that aside though:
People who know what they're talking about write books. Oh not all of them, granted, but there are so many humans publishing so much stuff - so many of whom will be experts - that it makes at best limited sense to listen to anyone but the best. The world may be predominantly full of nobodies but that makes it a sorting problem.
Indeed, you could argue that for some literature the search data is rapidly becoming more important than producing anything new for a similar set of reasons.
Please spare us from this pointless meta-commentary - it's both boring and unnecessary.
It is possible that someone who hasn't founded a billion dollar company actually might have something interesting, insightful and useful to say. At least I hope so, otherwise you just condemned innovation to the gallows.
