Comment by josh_carterPDX

I've been sitting here trying to digest everything that has happened since we applied for this endeavor. And while we're disappointed we didn't get many votes, it was a proud moment for us to be among the top 20 companies out of so many that applied. I really mean that. We never thought our platform, that hasn't even launched yet, would get this much attention and we thank EVERYONE who voted for us.

The feedback we got from this process was very valuable and we even got some great beta users signed up. However, we likely wouldn't go through something like this again.

This was a bit of a distraction for us to be quite honest. We spent a lot of time working to craft a great pitch and responding to the feedback we got (despite some obvious trolling) in the best way we could.

I get why some people are/were upset though. Anytime you include such a robust community into a decision making process, you're just asking for trouble. You're not going to please everyone and even if everything goes the way you thought, you'll still be met with skepticism. This is especially true for a site like HN in which there are clear "regulars" who understand the nuances within this community.

I'm not saying that's a bad thing. I've been an outside observer for a long time and get tremendous value from the posts here. It's a site I check regularly many times a day.

All-in-all, it's an indictment of the community when you witness how the process plays out. This is not dissimilar to our own US presidential race happening today. You get people that say dumb shit, people who make outlandish claims, and people end up feeling disenfranchised. Long live democracy! :)