Wow. I'm wondering if you could take a few more opportunities to mention that you went to Oxford. At 13. And that you're smarter than everyone else.
If I were you, I'd seriously never link to that thread again. No matter how blindingly smart you are, you're going to need partners, employees, etc. No reason to permanently and publicly document your arrogance-- that kind of stuff (justifiably) scares people off.
You should honestly be humble-- most of the talent and knowledge you've accumulated probably doesn't have much application in the world of entrepreneurship. There's a reason you don't see Mensa members rocking the world of startups.
Wow. I'm wondering if you could take a few more opportunities to mention that you went to Oxford. At 13.
I didn't go to Oxford when I was 13, I went to Oxford when I was 19 -- my first degree (which I started when I was 13) was at Simon Fraser University in Canada.
But to respond to your main point: I don't go out of my way to mention this, but if it's relevant -- well, I'm not going to sweep it under the rug either. If someone asks what I was doing in 2000, I'll tell them; and in the context of the (first) dot-com bubble and in a forum where VCs are discussed frequently, I don't think there's anything inappropriate about snickering at an idiotic VC who cold-called an undergraduate with no business experience solely on the basis of media reports saying that said undergraduate had done something in the "hot" area du jour.
I'd seriously never link to that thread again.
I only added the link to that thread because without that context anyone who arrived at news.yc in the past year would have no way to understand the joke.
Even if it's relevant, give it some serious thought. There are very few audiences that are going to respond well to the "I am more competent than 90% of you", as evidenced by responses that it generated (one of them being one of the highest ranked single comments in the history of HN).
Sorry for being pissy-- there is a constant barrage of people on HN who say the equivalent of "Yes, startups are hard for normal people. But I'm really smart-- it may still be hard, but my chances are waaaaaay better".
That's such a destructive attitude (more for you than for the people who read it and walk away shaking their head).
This guy's never said he's smarter than everybody else, even though it's obviously true. The fact that he went to college early on comes up once in a while because a lot of posts on HN have to do with education and brains, but I have yet to see a post where he rubs it in anyone's face.
But there's a fundamental problem with anyone who admits to having gone to college at 13. It's a lot like being 6'9" at age 13. In that particular field, you're better than everyone else, and it's plain as day. However, unlike being really tall, people generally hate you for it. Smart guys don't get groupies. Smart guys aren't generally popular. There's stigma regarding intelligence, and I'm not sure why.
With regard to Mensa, keep in mind there are only 50,000 members in US, out of a maximum of 6 million that fall into the 98th percentile for IQ. If you tested Silicon Valley denizen, you'd find a lot of people on the right end of the curve. Woz, Sergey, Bill G, they're probably all in the top 99th percentile. In fact, Bill Gates won a national math competition when he was young.
If you mean Mensa people don't rock the valley, you're right, but if you mean 98th percentile folks don't rock the valley, I'm pretty skeptical.
In any case, Colin's obviously a genius. I for one don't hold it against him. I don't really into buy social standards of arrogance and humility; I don't want to overestimate or underestimate myself. I want to be accurate. If I'm the best, I won't try to convince myself otherwise. Likewise if I'm the worst. Colin, if you ever find you need someone to work with but your smarts have scared people off, contact me.
"This guy's never said he's smarter than everybody else, even though it's obviously true. The fact that he went to college early on comes up once in a while because a lot of posts on HN have to do with education and brains, but I have yet to see a post where he rubs it in anyone's face."
Ah, I'd hit "parent" a few times on his link. Up the tree he says:
"I'm a heck of a lot more competent than 90% of startup founders. Or even 90% of YC-funded-startup founders for that matter -- and YC-funded startups have distinctly less than a 90% failure rate."
I spoke too soon; I hadn't seen that. However, I'd like to point out I have no idea whether that's true. I only now it doesn't seem very amicable (at least to me), so in that regard, you're right.
Reading old threads like that (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35015) is actually very interesting as there is so much great insight in them, especially for newcomers. It is even better given we now have hindsight to aid us.
Even the YC flame-wars and trainwrecks are on another level compared to the rest of the internet in general.
If not, please don't brag about turning down VCs so you could attend Oxford.