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How Product Hunt really works

(medium.com)
695 points brw12 | 3 comments | 15 Dec 15 19:32 UTC | HN request time: 0.428s | source
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phantom_oracle ◴[15 Dec 15 21:43 UTC] No.10740690[source]▶
Nothing can hurt a well-meaning first-time founder of some useful side-project business then to learn that a non-entity like Product Hunt is a rigged game where the inner circle are simply gaming the system for their friends and people whom they benefit from and will benefit.

From "top 3% of coders" to "your product will get 1st spot if you scratch our back with a small slice of the pie or counter-promote our product with yours" to "we will only invest in you if you get referred through an acquittance of ours", the game surely does feel more rigged each day.

The upper echelons of tech sure does share more similarities with high-finance then they would like to admit...

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Bjartr ◴[15 Dec 15 21:53 UTC] No.10740756[source]▶
Does it feel more rigged because it is becoming more rigged or because the level of rigging that already exists in the ecosystem is becoming more visible?
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1. __jal ◴[15 Dec 15 22:39 UTC] No.10741024[source]▶
(Not the original commenter, and I can only speak from my perspective, having started working in Bay Area tech in the pre-Netscape 90s.)

I don't know that it has become more corrupt than it was ca. 1998-99, but I would say that the sleaze is shocking to people I tell stories to in other industries. Sleazy people are everywhere, but fast money and the apparent lack of a functioning institutional memory makes for easy marks.

I don't know if it is as bad as finance, as I've never worked in finance. I would guess not quite, for two reasons: (1) not as much money, even though the amounts have certainly grown, and (2) the environment changes more in startupland, which upsets some classes of comfy arrangements. But that's intuition-driven guesswork, with some residual loathing for ibankers for seasoning.

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2. marcusgarvey ◴[15 Dec 15 23:47 UTC] No.10741368[source]▶
These are excellent points. Having worked in both worlds, I agree wholeheartedly with (2). One is also true, but I would add the proviso that SV's influence is far greater than its pure monetary firepower.

Consider: -Recruiting-wise, tech is clearly in the ascendancy, from the kids who genuinely want to code to the MBA types who eschew Wall Street for SOMA.

-Media-wise, tech captures a huge share of mind. Consider the hagiography of Steve Jobs.

-Policy-wise, privacy and the Overton Window. Allegations like PRISM. Censorship. Social media's role in political upheavals from the Arab Spring to ISIS recruitment.

For all these reasons it's not only shocking when people find out about tech's corruption. That corruption also matters immensely to the direction in which the world moves.

3. ◴[16 Dec 15 06:48 UTC] No.10742789[source]▶