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Matt Maroon
mattmaroon.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2007
Matt Maroon writes about startups, Y Combinator, tech companies, and the habits of online communities like Hacker News.
What HN saysHN commenters link his posts on startup interviews and ideas, called well-written and worth reading, and his essay on Hacker News disease.
71HN people shared it
34linked it in comments
140stories submitted
3.8Kstory points
11 years agolast shared
2007people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Hacker News Disease8 people · 215 points · first shared 2009 · 104 comments on HN
- 2I Quit Hacker News5 people · 383 points · first shared 2010 · 230 comments on HN
- 3Matt Maroon: Advice for Would-Be Y Combinator Founders4 people · 54 points · first shared 2007 · 21 comments on HN
- 4Google Will Become an AI Company3 people · 187 points · first shared 2011 · 157 comments on HN
- 5Don’t Mistake Ambition for Entitlement3 people · 174 points · first shared 2008 · 169 comments on HN
- 6Matt Maroon: Advice for Y Combinator Interviewees3 people · 27 points · first shared 2007 · 13 comments on HN
- 7Why Hotels Don’t Use Roomba: Because That Would Be Retarded3 people · 1 points · first shared 2008 · discussion on HN
- 8Facebook Is Not Really That Special2 people · 95 points · first shared 2008 · 119 comments on HN
- 9VC Funding Spelled Backwards2 people · 42 points · first shared 2008 · 11 comments on HN
- 10Vista Is Good2 people · 38 points · first shared 2008 · 99 comments on HN
- 11Ultra High Level Programming Language2 people · 36 points · first shared 2008 · 25 comments on HN
- 12Aesthetics Send A Message2 people · 26 points · first shared 2008 · 32 comments on HN
- 13Matt Maroon: Demo Day2 people · 25 points · first shared 2007 · 14 comments on HN
- 14How to Write Funny2 people · 16 points · first shared 2008 · 10 comments on HN
- 15Why The Amazon App Store Is Revolutionary2 people · 2 points · first shared 2011 · discussion on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
BrandonM · 2008-09-17
Well-written and well-thought-out response. It's definitely worth a read: http://mattmaroon.com/?p=472
rantfoil · 2008-04-09
Me and some friends of mine applied for Summer YC too, a few new ideas around online publishing.
Good luck all!
Regarding the number accepted vs interviewed, excerpted from Matt Maroon's awesome post: "[From the interview they] just kept all of the ones they liked last time. I think it was 19 out of 54, but I could wrong there. so you might think you only have roughly a 1 in 3 shot. But if they keep everyone they like, and they like you, then you have a 100% shot. So just go make them like you. Like most investors, they want to."
Full link to the article (great read, recommended)
http://mattmaroon.com/?p=247
Daniel14 · 2011-03-19
"To put that another way, if Google managed to scoop up just 2% of that industry they’d have more than doubled their revenue. With their driverless car project, I think they’ve got a shot of taking a much bigger slice of the pie than that."
I'd say it takes more to "do it properly", but I'd recommend reading this nonetheless: http://mattmaroon.com/2011/01/03/google-will-become-an-ai-company/
mattmaroon · 2010-02-09
Please read the following for your answer:
http://mattmaroon.com/2008/08/27/one-inviolable-rule/
Then go consult an actual attorney.
JoelSutherland · 2009-05-16
The labels are distribution companies in the era of the internet. Staying in business without suing customers and stifling content producers would be amazing.
http://mattmaroon.com/2009/05/01/hacker-news-disease/
Edit: Perhaps I am being misunderstood. I am saying they are screwed and dragging things out to hold on to profit. How is this a controversial position?
anuraggoel · 2009-02-23
Good stuff. Some more advice from the same folks:
http://tipjoys2cents.blogspot.com/2008/03/how-to-hack-together-y-combi…
http://tipjoys2cents.blogspot.com/2008/03/yc-applications-are-due-3-qu…
From others:
http://leavingcorporate.com/2008/03/24/how-to-get-accepted-for-a-y-com…
http://mattmaroon.com/?p=247
daveambrose · 2008-12-21
"Don't Mistake Ambition for Entitlement" - http://mattmaroon.com/?p=573
mhb · 2008-11-10
Need to season this with a little http://mattmaroon.com/?p=583
skmurphy · 2008-10-27
This is a more effective exploration of the issues behind the WSJ entitlement article for hackers and founders. Related threads
The Trophy Kids Go To Work (WSJ) http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122455219391652725.html
Don't Mistake Ambition for Entitlement by Matt Maroon http://mattmaroon.com/?p=573
Hacker News Discussion of both http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=342358
boredguy8 · 2008-08-20
Someone drank the Kool-Aid. And I'm not talking about the LDS stuff:
"the specter of pairing it with one of the most detailed, accurate, and widespread social maps in existence (Facebook) is truly terrifying"
http://mattmaroon.com/?p=345 does a good job explaining why Facebook is not a "detailed" or "aaccurate" or "widespread" "social map".
axod · 2008-06-24
The only person I've heard of is http://mattmaroon.com/?p=377 so I guess this rare breed do exist, albeit in small numbers.
byrneseyeview · 2008-06-02
"After a weekend of soul searching, Morey dropped out. Graham presented him with a T-shirt: "Strap on some plums."
Plums strapped, Morey persuaded Agarwal to drop out of Berkeley too."
Does anybody ever actually explain that shirt? One version I read said it referred to the courage to talk to investors, not cofounders (http://mattmaroon.com/?p=263). And YC seems to think it's an important bit of intellectual property (http://ycombinator.com/legal.html).
kogir · 2008-05-08
The choice not to sell may very well have not been theirs. No VC I know would want to sell a company that's doing well for a 2.5 to 5 times return.
This has been mentioned before:
http://mattmaroon.com/?p=361
smalter · 2008-04-09
thanks for the useful post
however, the article with the actual quote in it is
http://mattmaroon.com/?p=283
ALee · 2008-03-26
Here's other resources for advice:
http://mattmaroon.com/?p=247
http://leavingcorporate.com/2008/03/24/how-to-get-accepted-for-a-y-com…
ghiotion · 2008-02-20
Lebowski seems like a pretty safe bet:
http://mattmaroon.com/?p=52
I guess if you only own one movie, that's a pretty good one.
bootload · 2007-10-20
for a better understanding of the mindset read Matt Maroons, *"Advice for Y Combinator Interviewees" ~ http://mattmaroon.com/?p=283
pchristensen · 2008-08-02
Let's play Ask Matt Maroon: http://mattmaroon.com/?p=416
bcater · 2008-01-16
I'm a big fan of http://www.mattmaroon.com.
jaredsohn · 2012-07-20
You could try creating a conservative-bent social news site (as suggested here in 2008: http://mattmaroon.com/2008/10/11/conservative-social-news/). As the article mentions, it can be harder to do so since the Internet as a whole leans left, but as it continues to become more mainstream someone could maybe make it work.
luigi · 2011-12-08
I brought this up in Matt Maroon's post about the topic back in January, and he brought up a good point: People like to own their car because it's a moving storage locker.
http://mattmaroon.com/2011/01/03/google-will-become-an-ai-company/#com…
recoiledsnake · 2011-03-31
Well, see point #3 here. http://mattmaroon.com/2010/11/23/i-quit-hacker-news/
And here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1800253
The comments and the moderation are extremely predictable in most cases regardless of technical merits of the discussion. A casual or statistical observation would easily reveal the prevalent biases, even amongst the crowd that prides itself on being objective.
revorad · 2010-11-24
the thread currently has 70 points
Also known as the 10% effect. See point 1: http://mattmaroon.com/2010/11/23/i-quit-hacker-news/
That's exactly the reason I flagged it. I don't want such stuff on the front page. It's extremely boring.
Confusion · 2010-05-30
Beware of mistaking intelligence for knowledge. If you don't really know anything about the subject matter, you are likely to overlook all kinds of relevant details, making your intelligent solution pretty much useless. If, in addition to being intelligent, you aren't aware of your lack of knowledge, you may get the tendency to think everyone that couldn't come up with your 'obvious' solution is a fool, which leads others to turn away and rant like
http://mattmaroon.com/2009/05/01/hacker-news-disease/
rythie · 2010-01-28
He wasn't exactly bowled over by the iPhone either when it came out:
http://mattmaroon.com/2007/07/13/iphone/
Also, it did sell more than 10 millions units by the end of 2008 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IPhone_sales_per_quarter_simple.svg
authentic · 2010-01-13
There are many rights that can in fact not be signed away.
You have no idea what you are talking about, do you?
http://mattmaroon.com/2009/05/01/hacker-news-disease/
bh23ha · 2009-12-27
More the point, economics is just short of comprehensible to the vast majority of non-economists. Which is why the ability to know that you DON'T know shit, is so important. But few people have that kind of self awareness.
A long time ago the HN audience consisted mostly of people who knew at least that much. That's no longer the case.
http://mattmaroon.com/2009/05/01/hacker-news-disease/
allenbrunson · 2009-12-02
how about when prognosticators refer to iPhone users as "people who have wet dreams about Steve Jobs?" by your logic, that could have contributed to why certain predictions about said users were so disastrously wrong, yes?
http://mattmaroon.com/2007/05/03/why-the-iphone-will-be-a-flop/
davi · 2009-10-09
http://nonhackernews.com/ looks like it expired & got scooped up by a squatter.
See also this post on Matt Maroon's blog about what it was like to run it: http://mattmaroon.com/2008/10/10/nhn/
I wonder if it ended because it was too much trouble to moderate well, and he killed it, or if it withered on the vine and died on its own?
Either way, it suggests that starting a good social news/discussion site is hard work and not just a matter of setting karma threshold high enough.
That said, if you start something, I would definitely enjoy coming to check it out.
I also have felt like I wanted a HN-like forum, in my case, for neuroscience. My network of neuroscience friends & colleagues is probably large enough that I could try such a thing, but I haven't summoned the activation energy, in part out of worries that it would take more work than I want to put in to maintain.
gojomo · 2009-10-09
Once upon a time: http://mattmaroon.com/2008/09/25/introducing-nonhackernewscom/