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Comment by pork98

3 days ago

Why do you find it offensive? It’s not personal. Someone who thought webvan was a great lesson in hubris could not have built an Instacart, right? Even evolution shuns experience, all but throwing most of it out each generation, with a scant few species as exceptions.

> Someone who thought webvan was a great lesson in hubris could not have built an Instacart, right?

Not at all. The mistake to learn from in Webvan's case was expanding too quickly and investing in expensive infrastructure all before achieving product-market fit. Not that they delivered groceries.

By the time you realise the error of your comment, you'll have reached the age where your opinion can be safely discarded.

  • [flagged]

    • > the error I made

      Aw…don’t be so hard on yourself.

      It was a deliberate troll. It’s kind of flattering, actually, because you’ve taken the time to get to know me, and you figured it would goad me (it didn’t, but nice try). The throwaway was a nice touch. Shows class (and intent).

      > one of the most prolific cult members here.

      Now that’s flattering. Thanks so much!

      1 reply →

I think you're mistaking the funding and starting of companies with the execution of their vision through software engineering -- the entire point of the article, and the OP.

This is a classic straw man argument, which depends on the assumption that all people of a certain age would think a certain way.

Also, your understanding of evolution is incorrect. All species on Earth are the results of an enormous amount of accumulated "experience", over periods of up to billions of years. Even the bacteria we have today took hundreds of millions of years to reach anything similar to their current form.