[sendos]

Given all this over-the-top fawning from Graham, Thiel, etc, one thing comes to mind: "Where's the beef?"

AFAIK, he only has one failed startup to his name, and yet he is hailed as a shrewd thinker and top startup strategist.

For those who know and respect Sam, how would you reconcile his amazing status/respect-from-top-people with his lack of concrete achievements?

[7cupsoftea]

I respect Sam a lot. I had the good fortune of meeting with him a few times and he invested in my company. I found him to be very smart, honest, and real. If I had to capture one of his strengths, I'd say he understands how systems operate (technology, people, and cultural systems).

I'd have to disagree with you on lack of concrete achievements. He has a lot of concrete achievements that you can point to. Starting and selling a company that was before its time. Also, helping many startups succeed. Either one of these alone would count, in my book, as being significant. I think the fact that other people perceive him so positively is a good indication that perhaps he is considerably more talented than even his current concrete achievements suggest. Think about it. Thiel, Graham, etc. These guys evaluate the best of the best on a regular basis. Having been through YC and seeing the deliberate and enormous amount of analysis that they put into each founder, I can't even begin to think through all the thought that they have put into asking Sam to be President of YC.

[sendos]

I'm sure he's a remarkable person, but not so sure about the examples you give as concrete achievements. First, I would not consider Loopt a success. Second, can you give examples of startups he helped succeed?

There is a saying to the effect of "If your financial advisor is so great, where is his yacht?"

Similarly, how can a person be a great startup advisor without significant successes under his belt? If he is that good at strategy and finding product/market fit, why doesn't he apply these skills to his own ideas?

The basic lesson out of this may be that, even if you are a remarkable person, and have great insights and great strategic skills, finding success in the startup world has such a big element of luck and "being in the right place at the right time" that a lot of remarkable people never find success with any startups they start.

[nostrademons]

I think your conclusion is probably right on. You can do everything right and still fail in the startup world, because there's a large element of luck. In Sam/Loopt's case, I'm almost certain they were early - FourSquare/Latitude/Facebook-Check-Ins did okay just 4 years later. But then, didn't someone once say "Early is wrong as far as startups go." Perhaps that means you shouldn't listen to sama's advice on market-timing, but it doesn't mean you shouldn't listen to his advice on the other aspects of startups.

The more heartening way of looking at your conclusion is that if you do everything right - don't screw anyone over, take calculated prudent risks, seek out information, make sane decisions, and work hard - and if you make that visible to people, you can usually soft-land even if your startup fails. That was my experience with my own failed startup - once I folded it up and wrote a postmortem, I had a large number of job offers, and took one at Google. People judge you based on what you do, not for things out of your control.

[ajju]

>First, I would not consider Loopt a success. >how can a person be a great startup advisor without significant successes under his belt?

What is your definition of significant success? Let's say it's an exit over 100M or an IPO?

By your own realization that kind of success in startups requires luck. So does that preclude anyone who didn't get an exit over 100M from being a great startup advisor?

If so, we should rule Paul Graham out, right? Was Bill Campbell a bad startup advisor in '94 because Go went bankrupt? Heck even Ben Horowitz barely escaped having his company go bankrupt because of the dot com bust. Yet, for all of these guys, their success at being great startup advisors is self evident from the success of the companies they have advised.

Loopt may not have had a mega-exit, but how many companies do you know who were able to get exclusive deals from every major wireless carrier in a country? I know of 0. I think even Apple took longer to get there than Loopt.

But that's just one example out of various things they did right, and I am sure many mistakes they made and learned from on their way to the exit.

>Second, can you give examples of startups he helped succeed?

Based on my personal experience, I would imagine every YC startup since Sam has been a partner at YC would say he has helped them in their successes. The CEO of Stripe was quoted in the article. My company is far from being successful in the same sense as Stripe yet, but I have called Sam on sundays, when he was on vacation, and I think once when he was in another country and he has helped us be successful in each of those instances.

> "If your financial advisor is so great, where is his yacht?"

Here: http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/13/yc-pg-2014-update/

Obviously this is the combined result of help from all the YC partners and hard work from the startup teams, but do you think Sam would be president of YC if his contribution was not significant?

[And yes, I know most of these returns are unrealized but YC has probably made a majority of their investments in the last 5 years, and the lifespan of most VC funds is 10 years]

[argumentum]

> can you give examples of startups he helped succeed?

Stripe, for one. Most YC companies since he's become a partner. Almost any founder he's interacted with.

[salvadors]

> There is a saying to the effect of "If your financial advisor is so great, where is his yacht?"

If your financial advisor is so great, where is your yacht?

[zem]

a good financial advisor might be very good set knowing how to manage money and at the same time not particularly motivated to put in the work specific to actually making it. the efforts and rewards are different. if he can make a comfortable living simply by advising the people who do the actual slogging involved, that might be more than enough for him.

[untog]

> Think about it. Thiel, Graham, etc. These guys evaluate the best of the best on a regular basis.

Do they? What's the YC business failure rate? As far as I see it they're in the business of making educated bets on what people will turn out to be, and they're often wrong. They are not choosing the "best of the best".

[corin_]

I don't know or respect Sam (well, don't respect him more or less than anyone else reading about him), but 'success' depends on many things, it's possible for idiots to find it and for geniuses to miss it, whether because they aimed too high, or were with the wrong people, or luck, or...

But when it comes to personal opinions/endorsements it comes down to more than what can be written on a CV. I'm sure you judge your friends and colleagues based on your personal take on them rather than by looking at a checklist of their achievements, so why would it be different for people who know Sam?

[cgio]

My guess is that he is an excellent adviser; his success is the success of people he helps. And I do not say that in a derogatory note. Being a consultant myself, I recognize that my advice may be valuable but only given the context of people who make use of it properly. Now, you can allocate merit between adviser and advised in whatever manner suits better your perception of the world.