[jcampbell1]

This strikes me as very true, but irrelevant. As an American I say something positive to every startup founder I encounter, but secretly think they are nuts. Had I met the founders of these companies, below is what I would have thought:

Heroku: Sounds nice but impossible to deliver. Even if you do, no one is going to trust their business to your startup's platform.

Dropbox: Yet another backup solution that is going nowhere.

AirBnb: Have fun building a marketplace. Chicken and egg problems are impossible to solve.

I have learned to not trust my instincts. Now I tell startups, "Sounds cool, but why are you at a tech event? You should be at an event for fashion/teachers/bar owners/tour guides/whoever your customer is. Why are you clowning around seeking reassurance from from other programmers?"

[Okvivi]

I think there are benefits and drawbacks to both being supportive even if you don't think that the idea is good, and to being brutally honest.

After living here long enough I'm no longer trying to judge, it's just the way things are, and I just learned to translate. That's why I made the graphs.

I think it's only irrelevant if you understand this difference of translation and adapt to it.

Not everybody understands it though, specially when you first move here or when you first have contact with the US. I know it took me a non trivial amount of time to realize it.

[jcampbell1]

I think your piece is interesting, informative, useful, and well written. I just don't think others' opinion on ideas are particularly relevant. My opinion on Dropbox/Heroku/AirBnb's ideas would have all fallen on the left side of the bell curve, which only shows my opinion on ideas is irrelevant. I am just saying that the position one is placed on the bell curve is not important. Understanding different cultures is very important.

I won't address the relative merits of different cultural norms on being supportive vs being brutally honest.

[ido]

    I just don't think others' opinion on ideas 
    are particularly relevant. My opinion on
    Dropbox/Heroku/AirBnb's ideas would have all 
    fallen on the left side of the bell curve, 
    which only shows my opinion on ideas is 
    irrelevant.

I think what you are trying to say is "take advice/opinions with a grain of salt".

I've recieved plenty of bad (and good) feedback on products that ended up being successful, but if someone who is considered a world-renown expert in my field tells me I have problems A, B & C I'm going to listen carefully.

[hooande]

Even though you might have been wrong about those successful startups, there are dozens or hundreds of others for which your negative first impression would have been dead on. You shouldn't stop trusting your instincts because you might have been wrong about a small number of high profile companies.

As you pointed out, the main issue here is that founders are counting on other people so much for validation of their ideas (and staking their egos on it). I don't see why you wouldn't just give your honest initial impression. If the founders become discouraged or upset with you for doing so, then that's their problem and not yours.

[iqster]

I don't understand your argument for "you shouldn't stop trusting your instincts ...". You say that you would have been right dozens or hundreds of times. But we all know that startups are a numbers game. It doesn't matter if you say no to a hundred startups. It matters that you said yes to the one that became AirBNB or DropBox.

I'm not arguing for the sake of arguing. I am genuinely perplexed at how monumentally bad outcomes can be produced by a series of rational choices.

The best I figure is the following. I gain my "wisdom" by making mistakes and trying to learn from them. The problem is that the environment from a year ago is quite different from that today. Heck, every passing second yields an environment different from the past. And sometimes (always?), it is the external factors that make the big difference.

Let me illustrate a case in point. When I first saw MIDP/CLDC on a Motorola IDEN phone, I knew this was the future. I spent a lot of time making something of it. Yet, the market wasn't ready (and frankly, neither was the technology). In 2003-2004, I saw .net compact framework on a Compaq iPaq. I was so amazed by the technology that I again spent a lot of resources making something of it. In those days, you'd have to put a bulky sleeve on your iPaq in order to get wifi. Cellular data? Forget about it ... it cost a fortune and the carriers were determined to milk their monopoly to the max. When the iPhone was announced in 2007, I saw it and dismissed it. And it wasn't just me. I was in grad school and had worked in the cell phone industry. Pretty much every smart person I knew told me this was yet another non-event. We all know what happened next to the people who wrote software for the iPhone in the early days.

When I reflect upon this and other similar experiences, I can't help but think that my hard-earned wisdom may have become obsolete without my knowing it. These days I subscribe to a different sage advice that might work better ... "Stay hungry, stay foolish"[1].

[1]: From the last issue of the Whole Earth catalogue as relayed via Steve Jobs in his Stanford commencement speech.

[CeiII]

"This strikes me as very true, but irrelevant"

Not in the context of other people (specifically non-Americans) trying to understand feedback. I find I can say something to an American that is "fantastic!" only to be told by a German "that it would never work". It just emphasises the need to get feedback from multiple avenues, ideally from people who have different world-views. Your example reactions to the three startups backs this point up.

[palish]

Mm.. I don't think you could have seen Drew's original Dropbox screencast and thought "This is going nowhere".

But I suppose that's why I have Dropbox account #314...

[younata]

> I have Dropbox account #314

Did you wait until they had 313 accounts before you signed up, or was it by random chance?

[palish]

Heh. Random chance.

Though, my area code is 314, strangely enough.

And I've been age 3 and age 14.

[philbarr]

Dude, that's like fate or karma or something.