Paul Graham, one of Silicon Valley's best-known investors and a cofounder of the startup accelerator program Y Combinator, doesn't seem to be a fan of ABC's hit show "Shark Tank."
Graham believes startups should focus on building great products, not on marketing, and for that reason he thinks shows like "Shark Tank" are a distracting waste of time for entrepreneurs.
He said as much on Twitter on Wednesday night, but billionaire investors Mark Cuban and Chris Sacca came back swinging.
Cuban, who owns the Dallas Mavericks, previously founded a company, Broadcast.com, that sold to Yahoo for over $5 billion in Yahoo stock. He is also one of the sharks, or judges, whom entrepreneurs pitch to on "Shark Tank."
He more or less called Graham and the startups his accelerator program had backed "entitled" and "arrogant."
@paulg you mean like the sense of entitlement and arrogance they get when they become part of a YC class ? It's hard to wash it out
— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) Y Combinator is designed to help startups grow rapidly by providing guidance and money to founders in exchange for equity in their companies. YC has helped multibillion-dollar companies like Dropbox and Airbnb get off the ground.
But the companies that go through YC — which has a very low acceptance rate — are known for demanding a premium on their valuations when seeking funding from venture capitalists, hence Cuban's "entitled" jab.
But a lot of people feel accelerator programs aren't worth the equity founders give up to participate in them, which Cuban also pointed out to Graham.
@paulg the real question is why does a startup become part of YC any more ? The good old days of YC are just that
— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) January 28, 2016@paulg Yeah, because a free 10-minute pitch to 7 million Americans is something every startup should turn down.
— Chris Sacca (@sacca) January 28, 2016Join the conversation about this story »
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