Ask PG: Why did you stop making products?

10 points by sunjain 12 years ago | 6 comments

YCombinator is the best thing to happen to startups..However if you look at folks like Jobs and Musk etc, their main reason for having a company is so that they can build the products they envision(everything else is secondary). You started making product(sold to Yahoo) but switched to being an incubator and mentor. Any reasons? Isn't making products more satisfying than being incubator/mentor?

brudgers 12 years ago |

If higher-order functions can produce functions, could there be a higher order companies which produce companies?

The name YCombinator is not accidental. The holy-grail is the fixed-point for startups.

blackdogie 12 years ago |

Technically he's still doing products. I'm sure that he's had different levels of input in all of the YC companies.

seiji 12 years ago |

The viaweb project was created to exit so they would become dot com millionaires. That's still their continuing mission.

Lionga 12 years ago |

Hackernews is a product. There is no buyer, it is still a product.

yossilac 12 years ago |

Maybe the YC startups are the products? :)

X4 12 years ago | |

Quasi Meta Product Product

I am curious if it's satisfying to become an investor like Paul Graham, because that's a dream job I'm hoping to work in myself some day too.