[pg]

We care more about founders than ideas, and the founders of SocialCam are great in every respect: nice, effective, and good technically. And SocialCam itself is necessarily innovative because video sharing is being invented right now. The app looks simple because they worked hard to make it so.

So the lesson here is actually one that we learned long ago. Great founders succeed.

[jmathai]

Financially, this was probably a great venture. But it's a bit disingenuous to really consider SocialCam as being a positive innovation. It relied on spam and taking advantage of users not knowing that it was "opt-out"[1].

I'm not hating on SocialCam (though I do hate it :)). But let's call it what it is - a good investment.

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=socialcam%20sucks

[tptacek]

That's exactly what he just did call it.

[jmathai]

While not explicitly stated, it's implied that the team built a "good" and innovative product. Sure he never said good but he did say that the team is great in every respect going on to list a few.

The most explicit way to say it would be, "We got in this one for the money. It's a terrible terrible product in terms of adding value to society but that wasn't our goal on this one".

He's entirely entitled to do just that...but don't spin it into something different by skirting the original points he's responding to.

[tptacek]

He said he liked the team. I have my issues with Paul Graham but I'm inclined to believe him when he says a startup has an excellent team.

Apparently, he owes you some deeper explanation about how every company YC puts money into --- it's more than 100 every year now, isn't it? --- is managed.

Sorry, I didn't mean to get in the way. By all means: cross examine the witness.

[solnyshok]

the app is deceptive, in that it spams feed of the user. I blocked it.