[unalone]

Of course we're harsh. Start-ups are almost all extremely competitive, and the people who use start-ups are cutthroat capitalists. Everybody's looking for the absolute best things can get. I remember, two years before Tumblr launched, I would go between blogging platforms at the rate of one a week, pounce on every update, install and test every beta and every plugin, looking for a platform that would work well for me. I still do it with certain things. Any time a social network claims it's got something Facebook doesn't, I check it out. I'd like to think this isn't entirely unusual behavior here. People in this field are very often perfectionists.

With Scribd we're a mix of benevolent and indignant. Benevolent, because it's YCombinator. Indignant, because it renders text in Flash.In both cases, though, the response is the same. Benevolence isn't being kind and wishing good luck. Look at sites with that attitude, or real life institutions, and there you'll find the places where progress becomes stagnant. In order to encourage progress, it helps to have a bit of an edge. And it attracts the right people. I plan on launching a beta preview of my current project to members here, because I want to be ripped apart before anybody else sees this. I figure it'll do me and my partner a world of good.