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by lordgeek
2175 days ago
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As far as I recall, this was written in the specific historical context almost a decade ago. Back then "Lean Startup" and "4 Steps to Epiphany" were all the rage in Silicon Valley. Shitty copy cats of YC were springing up left and right in the Valley and other locations. A number of people (with a lot of financial self-interest at stake) were pushing hard the narrative that creating new unicorn can be industrialized like a factory and they already figured out the magic formula - no risk, all reward - just sign here under the dotted line and give me your funds. The essay publication was quite impactful in middle of that insanity. It uses Gödel analogy to demonstrate that no amount of formalization (that helps reduce human/team/org risks) will in any meaningful way reduce the systemic risk of a new startup. It placed Gödel formalism straight on the path of hustler/carpetbaggers who were trying to launch new funds and incubators at that time "well, go ahead and prove to your LPs you have Gödel-like formalism that detects great startups at an early stage and you do it better than YC". Right now most of the essay conclusions are self-evident, "lean startup" is an insult, so it does seem like the author spending a lot of pages and energy on proving something plain obvious. That wasn't that clear and that obvious many years ago when it was written. |
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Wait, what?