Hey Paul and Fred: Hackers, NOT Startups, Are the Commodity
Fred “who needs a Twitter business plan” Wilson gives the thumbs up to Paul “who needs to be the next Google” Graham. No surprise.
As I underscored yesterday in response to the latest Y Combinator ode to turnkey entrepreneurship though, a few months of hacker coding does not a successful long-term startup business make.
Today, Wilson confuses software development projects with viable business opportunities.
Contrary to the musings of Graham, dittoed by Wilson, startups are NOT commodifying; It is the not so extradordinary work of “kick ass Ruby/Java/PHP developers” that is actually the commodity product.
Don’t stop the presses though, the Kevin Rose claim to Digg fame from a few weekends of coding and $700 is old news; So is the inability of Digg to sell out big though.
Wilson remarks “the barriers are so low to starting a Web company these days that it seems like everyone is doing it.”
Web companies are NOT what “kick ass” hackers are churning out over a weekend, though, cool TechCrunch worthy Web 2.0 apps are what “who needs college” developers are offering for quick Google flips Y Combinator style.
Just as TechCrunch40 was short on business plans, so are Y Combinator AND Union Square Ventures public pronouncements.
As I asked yesterday in Y Combinator to Hackers: Dream SMALL and Code for Google on the Cheap, is Paul Graham, now backed up by Fred Wilson, really sending the right message to our young men?
And now, is Fred Wilson really sending the right message to the Web’s future businesses in suggesting that an Internet fueled by AdSense is a “very sustainable model”?
NO, as I reiterate in Nick Carr Comes To His Senses: Goodbye Google AdSense!
And, while Graham disses the “stigma of inadequacy” in quick startup flips, if he was really looking out for hackers’ long-term best interests, he would push his stable of ramen noodle funded coders into trying to BE the next Google, rather than hoping to be the next hackers to sell themselves to Google, on the cheap.
ALSO READ UP ON TECHCRUNCH40 WINNER MINT.COM VS. WESABE, EXCLUSIVE INSIDER CHATTER CEO INTERVIEW: Mint CEO on Web 2.0 Nonsense AND Who Needs Wesabe
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AND: The Future of Technology VC is Now in Research Triangle