Hacker News Books

I met Zach when he first started uBiome and moved to Chile. He was pationate about what he was building, and about the opportunity and impact it could have on the world. This was 2011, so he was in the very early stages. If I recall correctly, he was calling uBiome the 23&Me of your gut biome instead of DNA.

He was absolutely the last person I would expect to be caught up in something like this, and when the news first broke a few years ago, I reached out as an act of support, not looking to find out what happened, or anything, just thinking to myself....how did this happen, this isn't the Zach I know, maybe he needs someone to talk to.

The lesson in this I think isn't to just pile on about how SV is full of frauds, and pile on with a bunch of hate, but rather to understand that there is a slippery slope, and people get caught on the wrong side of it. Make sure that doesn't happen to you.

It further strikes close to home because I'm the founder of a sleep-tech company (https://soundmind.co), an industry full of snake-oil and BS. We're extremely conscious of this view of the industry, and call it out where we can.

I've also seen many start-up pitches where the numbers thrown around are absolute BS, companies that I know aren't doing well, and the founders yell about the million dollar deals they have.

It's the one thing I hate about this industry, but the gong continues to bang on about growth, growth, growth and the numbers you need to hit.

Many, many founders take the easy way out, but, to quote Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is The Way.

Any suggestions on how we fight this general rah-rah-BS attitude in the industry?