Well, I've been doing it full-time for 5 years now. And at the scale we operate on, 5 years is a lot of data. 172 startups is several times the number a VC partner would deal with in his career.
That's interesting. I just finished a biography a friend of mine wrote about his life as an accidental cheese-seller, and he mentions that he became an expert in just a few years, simply because he tried everything every vendor had to offer. Pretty soon he was at least as expert as any vendor, and often more knowledgeable.
It's funny how much of life is just about putting in the hours. Maybe we'd like to think it's about talent or brainpower, but data wins pretty much every time.
My point is more about being good at something naturally. For example, I think Michael Arrington was always a natural to write Techcrunch, even if he never started it. Tiger Woods seems to be natural at golf (not that he didn't work hard, but many people work hard). I believe Paul Graham is a natural at Y Combinator in the same way.
Often one finds that the top performers in a field have some practice regime that stuns even other professionals.
I don't know how to evaluate the question of whether Paul Graham is somehow naturally better at this than others. There's clearly something about him that's different, or he wouldn't be doing what he's doing. But to guess at what those qualities are -- that endeavour is so vulnerable to confirmation bias it's practically void of meaning.
Or you could just shrug and say that by now he's seen hundreds of proto-startups. For whatever reason.
I mean VCs should invest in a higher number of startups, even if it's done by allowing less money per startup. At the very least they should have a simpler application process, with a clear decision time frame. These improvements would be hugely beneficial to startups, and would take just a bit of effort on the part of VCs/investors.
