"I tell many people that Paul Graham is a genius. He saw the opportunity to start YC."
This is a very sly insult and betrays a major misunderstanding of how the market works. Did Facebook succeed because Mark Zuckerberg saw the "opportunity" to start a social networking site? Did Dropbox take off because they saw the "opportunity" for file synchronization? The idea is nonsense. These things succeeded not because their creators were the only ones to see the need (they weren't), but because an incredible amount of time and talent was put into making them successful.
When YC started, everyone said the idea was crazy. It still is. It's worked, like any startup, because of incredible execution -- not because it stumbled into a waiting opportunity.
I think it's more of a soundbite than a misunderstanding. Yes, Facebook did succeed because Mark Zuckerburg saw the opportunity to start a social networking site. Dropbox did take off because Drew saw the opportunity for file synchronization. It's just that they succeeded for many reasons besides that initial opportunity.
In a one-sentence press soundbite, you can't exactly enumerate all the things that the founders did right. But that doesn't make the "opportunity" part wrong. It's just one of many necessary-but-not-sufficient conditions that the founding team managed to nail.
This is a very sly insult and betrays a major misunderstanding of how the market works. Did Facebook succeed because Mark Zuckerberg saw the "opportunity" to start a social networking site? Did Dropbox take off because they saw the "opportunity" for file synchronization? The idea is nonsense. These things succeeded not because their creators were the only ones to see the need (they weren't), but because an incredible amount of time and talent was put into making them successful.
When YC started, everyone said the idea was crazy. It still is. It's worked, like any startup, because of incredible execution -- not because it stumbled into a waiting opportunity.