[benreesman]

It’s weird too because this doesn’t seem like the usual “fish rots from the head” scenario. Admittedly I’ve never done YC, but I’ve been in that orbit via HN and friends since the beginning, and pg seemed like a really ethical guy from day one.

I’m looking in from the outside, so who knows, but it seems like level of ambition early YC was filtering on brought this dark triad shit into the bloodstream and that in turn shifted pg’s worldview.

pg is obviously ambitious, but inherently “get to the top at any cost” people don’t spend a bunch of time writing books about Common Lisp and learning some painting and hanging out in art galleries a bunch. Part of what drew me to HN and the essays and the whole thing was a wholesome attitude that kind of said “work hard don’t try to game the system”, at least in the beginning.