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Dalton Caldwell
@daltonc
Group Partner & Managing Director
@ycombinator
SF Bay Areadalton.substack.comJoined September 2007
642 Following
27.5K Followers

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Dalton Caldwell
@daltonc
It seems that optimism, rather than money, is the fuel that startups at the earliest stages run on. I have seen examples of startups successfully recovering from almost every kind of problem (i.e. no $$$/bad idea/team issues) *other* than founders losing hope/becoming cynical.
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Dalton Caldwell
@daltonc
The best sort of competitor to have is one that is completely checked out and going through the motions. The worst sort of competitor to have is one that seems to care about their customers more than you do.
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Dalton Caldwell
@daltonc
It's difficult to come up with a coherent plan when your thought process is disorganized and scattered. Often the best work you can do before making an important decision is to first organize your thoughts.
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Dalton Caldwell
@daltonc
Certain types of problems are best to ignore, but there are also problems that if ignored grow exponentially and eventually become so large they suck all of the air out of the room. I wish there were an easier way (other than experience) to identify which is which.
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Dalton Caldwell
@daltonc
If most folks have a high degree of disagreement with *themselves* (at a different stage of their life), it's worth remembering you likely have quite a bit in common with those you disagree with
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Dalton Caldwell
@daltonc
What percentage of your current opinions would your 18-year-old self agree with?
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Dalton Caldwell
@daltonc
What percentage of your current opinions would your 18-year-old self agree with?
  • 0-30%
    32.5%
  • 31-60%
    37.3%
  • 61-85%
    20.2%
  • 86-100%
    9.9%
1,107 votesFinal results
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Dalton Caldwell
@daltonc
I also remember a story from an R.E.M. interview about how before they went on tour they had to go to the record store to buy all of their own CDs, so that they could listen to them and try to remember how to play their own songs
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Dalton Caldwell
@daltonc
I remember seeing Graham Nash perform "teach your children" by himself on an acoustic guitar once and he said something along the lines of "If I would have known it was going to be a hit I would have tried a lot harder when I wrote it"
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Dalton Caldwell
@daltonc
Listening to classic music always makes me think about how strange it must feel to perform songs throughout your entire life that you wrote when you were young. I have to imagine your relationship with your own work evolves as you age.
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Dalton Caldwell
@daltonc
“Choose the most interesting option” as a decision-making rubric is idiosyncratic but can be very useful, especially if your interests happen to be (relatively) wholesome
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Dalton Caldwell
@daltonc
Is there an idiom that means the same thing as “seeing the sausage get made” but is not about meat? Perhaps in a different language?
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Dalton Caldwell
@daltonc
It may seem like a binary outcome in the moment, but all failure scenarios are not equally bad, just as all success scenarios are not equally good.
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Dalton Caldwell
@daltonc
I'm not sure what free market forces made it such that the majority of the computer keyboards available for purchase seem to be aimed at pro video game streamers, but it is certainly entertaining.
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Dalton Caldwell
@daltonc
A movement, whether tech-focused or not, tends to lose the plot when it’s participants consciously decide to embrace grifters because they are seen as net-useful to keep around.
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Dalton Caldwell
@daltonc
The difference between good and great is often less about mastery of mechanics than about mastery of the metagame.
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Dalton Caldwell
@daltonc
A lot of great businesses are obscure. I get the sense that their obscurity is part of why they are great businesses.
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Dalton Caldwell
@daltonc
"Welcome! The way to use this thing is to download our app!" [something doesn't work and I google for the answer] "It's impossible to do that with our app, please login to our website to change this setting!"
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Dalton Caldwell
@daltonc
Not to mention the 2021 phenomena of investors and crypto projects paying/investing in other companies to "build the ecosystem" around particular technologies. This sort of investment was certainly one sort of validation, but in retrospect not as helpful as it could have been.
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Dalton Caldwell
@daltonc
Chronically searching the internet for content that generates a strong emotional response is not something most people would do, but algorithmic feeds do the work for us.
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Dalton Caldwell
@daltonc
Being behind the curve in certain aspects is a totally reasonable place to be. But being behind the curve with no particular opinions or insights of your own starts to become indistinguishable from cargo culting.
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