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Interview About Web 2.0

paulgraham.com · 1,500 words · saved by 1 readers

July 2006 (Ian Delaney wanted to interview me for his new book. I agreed if I could post the answers online.) 1. What have we learned from the dotcom bubble? (Or, what should we have learned?) One thing people learned from the Bubble is to judge startups more critically. Some really bad ideas got funded then. And the investors weren't the only ones who got burned. The people who went to work for those companies did too. Now everyone is more cautious. This is not to say we should only consider companies with detailed plans for making money. That's being too cautious. If you create a web-based startup that becomes massively popular, you can probably figure out a way to make money from it. Just about every massively popular site has. The idea of building something popular then figuring out how to make money from it was born in the Bubble. It sounds irresponsible, but it works. Requiring founders to have a carefully worked out plan for making money is not hard-headed business s

Interview About Web 2.0 --> July 2006 (Ian Delaney wanted to interview me for his new book . I agreed if I could post the answers online.) 1. What have we learned from the dotcom bubble? (Or, what should we have learned?) One thing people learned from the Bubble is to judge startups more critically. Some really bad ideas got funded then. And the investors weren't the only ones who got burned. The people who went to work for those companies did too. Now everyone is more cautious. This is not to say we should only consider companies with detailed plans for making money. That's being too cautious

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