|
|
|
|
|
|
by majormajor
5031 days ago
|
|
|
I don't think the sports analogy serves their argument (and I'm not sure I really see what they do all that differently than YC). I don't know Michelle Kwan's story, but of the other three they mention: Ichiro got a nice 17M/year contract. Nash has a couple of MVPs and was the 15th overall pick in the draft. Iverson was a number one draft pick and led the NBA in scoring several times. Ichiro came from Japan instead of the traditional draft/Latin America -> minor leagues route, but considering the Mariners paid $13M just for the rights to negotiate with him, he wasn't exactly an ugly duckling by the time he came over. Really, all those guys are more like a phenomenally successful startup than not. There are countless prospects in sports—this is most obvious in baseball with the huge minor league pro leagues, in basketball the NCAA serves a similar role—and only a very, very few of those players turn out to be stars. And frequently scouting for them in advance (like at the HS level) is a crapshoot. If you were an up-and-coming agent and happened to land a Nash, Ichiro, or Iverson, he'd likely be worth more to you than all your other clients combined. |
|
|
She has won a couple of Olympic medals for figure skating(98 and 02). He is probably referring to the fact that in 1996 she came in second in the US championships(which usually gets you on the Olympic team), but they gave Kwan's spot to Nancy Kerrigan. This happened because Tonya Harding(who came in first at that championship) had Kerrigan beaten so Kerrigan couldn't compete.