[contingencies]

Yes that is great advice for many startups most of the time, but my whole point in the grandparent was that when as a founder you find the hand-me-down wisdom doesn't fit, don't be afraid to leave it alone and think for yourself.

PS. If your criticism were right my coding cave is a 1000m2 factory, which has to be some kind of record. /s

[capocannoniere]

In your parent comment you mention:

> not much of the strategy content applies to hardware companies

While it's probably a good idea to not blindly follow every single piece of advice (by YC or anyone), saying that not much of the content applies is probably a bit of a stretch. Considering how many successful companies YC has funded in the hard-tech space, I'd be receptive to at least some of their advice / insights.

You also mention:

> you have this de-facto "ship and iterate" model from the SaaS world which just doesn't apply to nontrivial hardware projects.

Again, it may be a good idea to question the advice of "ship and iterate", but saying _it just doesn't apply to nontrivial hardware project_ is again a bit of a stretch. As the above commenter mentions, the success of Cruise is a good counterexample.

[contingencies]

I think you are ignoring the reasonable point and splitting hairs. One might equally say few/none of the US examples would have been possible outside of the US market (where "ask for forgiveness" is not an option), or that Cruise never shipped.