Another startup funded by YCombinator is acquired

[lorb]

This is how I see him set up as, the Mickie Dee's of VC agents.  Where he is the franchisor, the kids that know about him and are accepted by him are the franchisees, and there are no Wendy's, Carl's, etc, big agent names that the VCs will trust as much that are also known to all the techies.  "The only game in town" so to speak, unless you want to deal with VCs directly, and realistically they probably want their hand held by someone like a Paul, a middleman, as do the techies.

Hey, we've all watched his viral videos now, haven't we?  We all know how to find his essays quite easily.  In a nutshell, I see it how Goddard does.

[The Gorn]

This is how I see him set up as, the Mickie Dee's of VC agents.  Where he is the franchisor, the kids that know about him and are accepted by him are the franchisees, and there are no Wendy's, Carl's, etc, big agent names that the VCs will trust as much that are also known to all the techies.  "The only game in town" so to speak, unless you want to deal with VCs directly, and realistically they probably want their hand held by someone like a Paul, a middleman, as do the techies.

This is an exceptionally well formed description. I like how you put it.

Basically, Paul Graham has credibility with both ends - hardcore geeks who are essentially into their own young-nerd egos - and with financial people and money brokers.

Paul Graham provides a service of "impedance matching" between both ends of the spectrum.

As Peter stated, the scale of this stuff is microscopic compared to the dot com times. I just think the flavor of it and the adulation around PG resembles it quite a bit.

[TechTalk]

Paul Graham provides a service of "impedance matching" between both ends of the spectrum.

And that is probably why this company sought him out.  I believe that the guys who founded 280 North were Apple employees who quit their jobs and probably could afford to stay unemployed for several years as long as they didn't have to pour money into their business.  My guess is that they sought out someone like Paul Graham to help grease the funding wheels so to speak.

I wonder what Motorola is going to do with this company?

[lorb]

This is the advantage of being in PG's position versus not.  Every so often, an easy one falls into his lap.