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This post is very gladwellesque; presents an anecdote then draws a very general conclusion based on it (being honest is good).

Reading it, it doesn't seem that what made an impression on you was PG's objective criticism of your idea that made your change your mind. It was that he was upset and said something mean. I think that because what you quote of what PG said and therefore must have made the most impact on your decision is his expressions that basically can be translated to "you are fucking stupid": "Moments like these make me glad we invested in sixty-four startups!", "If you want to drive off a cliff, go right ahead.", "like moths for bad ideas."

I suppose you want to be seen as rational actors and would never admit it, but when I read your post it seems like you reacted to PG's anger, frustration, meanness and other emotions, but not to his honesty. The conclusion I would draw from your anecdote is that it is much easier to get your point across if you are emotional, even when dealing with intelligent, technical people.

I wasn't angry. I was resigned. That's why I phrased what I said the way I did. After so many cycles of doing YC, I know a certain percentage of the startups in each batch are doomed. Some people just aren't meant to start startups, but there's no way for them to know that for sure without trying it.

So when a startup seems determined to stay on the wrong path, I won't keep fighting them forever. Eventually I give up. And occasionally when I do I tell them so, because sometimes that wakes them up.

Wait, hold up.

I don't think his comments translate into "you are stupid." They translate very clearly into "that is a terrible idea." With perhaps a shade of "don't 'pivot' because your feet are cold."

Which is super-valuable guidance!

That's not to say it's pleasant. Clearly communicating that you think someone is making a mistake often sounds like a personal attack. (Maybe that is a personal attack, at least if your decision-making process is deeply intertwined with your identity).

But in person, without preparation, in a few-minutes-long meeting? You're going to hurt someone's feelings. Guaranteed. Just think about how long it would take you to "correct" someone in an email, communicating that they are totally wrong, but not hurting their feelings at all? Heck, we probably each spent about as much time writing these comments as the interview took in its entirety.

There is one personal rule that I feel strongly about, though: never say anything negative in public (or to colleagues) about someone that you haven't already leveled with them about, and ideally given them a chance to change. I don't know if pg did that with the thermostat startup he trashed on Twitter recently, although it's not really any of my business.

Yeah, I have the same impression.

I prefer Linus style - he at least gives the reasons why something is bad idea, why he won't accept some patches etc.

I don't know about PG, but the blog post portrays him as someone who likes to use argumentum ad verecundiam.

He could at least provide list of some startups which had same/similar idea that failed, for further studies. And maybe he did, if so, it wasn't PG fault that the author of blog post picked irrelevant part, that says nothing more than "you're wrong, because I say so".

For me no-filter style is Linus style, and I really like it.

It seems hard to use emotional arguments against logical decisions, and vice versa. Given that their initial decision was emotional ("I want to build something my mom will use!") it seems likely that an emotional counter-argument ("you respect me, and you're losing my respect by acting illogical") was more likely to work.
Agree.

Also would say that if you question somebody in the wrong tone of voice or are vehement enough you can make anyone question a decision they have made.

Here's an example.

You do research and find what you think is the cheapest airfare for a particular destination at a price of $340 USD by checking all the usual suspects. And more.

Someone else who you respect says "now are sure that that is the cheapest price and that a fare of $300 isn't out there?"

You say "yes" but they persist and say "you are absolutely sure right?"

You say yes.

They say "ok will you bet me $500 are you that sure?

All the sudden you are going to 2nd guess and feel that you might have perhaps made a mistake or missed something.

Certainly more than if someone just says "are you sure that's the best price"?. In the case of PG he was daring them and doing what I call "putting a hex" on something by being so vehement that he was right and they were wrong. And that they were going to suffer the consequences.

I would suppose not only PG's emotions but also his personality, track record and the OP's general admiration for him, which all add up to his influenciality.

If someone puts all of this in the balance, you listen, and it won't leave you unmoved. Choose wisely whom you grant such power.

> The conclusion I would draw from your anecdote is that it is much easier to get your point across if you are emotional, even when dealing with intelligent, technical people.

You have to command respect, too. If he was just some random suit angrily telling them they were stupid, they might have complied unwillingly.

This post is very gladwellesque; presents an anecdote then draws a very general conclusion based on it (being honest is good).

This is off-topic, but: if "gladwellesque" ever becomes a popular word, I hope this post gets recorded as its first use.

OH: "People interested in being brutally honest often seem more interested in the brutality part"

There's nothing wrong with creating a culture (especially a non-hierarchical culture) built around trust, good intentions, and honest criticism. But honestly, I see a lot more damage in almost every community I am apart of (not just tech communities, art communities and political communities suffer from the same things) from people hitting people over the head in the name of "honesty" than from bad ideas or bad practices being allowed to continue because no one bothered to point them out.

"Brutally" not only refers to the force applied during the conversation but also the lack of escalation in communicating the sentiment. There is a difference between being passive/aggressive or subtle and giving constructive criticism in an unemotional way. The former is easier and ineffective whereas the latter is an exercise in empathy and self-control.
It's a little simplistic.

Try having 'no filter' in a marriage and most of you would be headed for divorce.

Instead, you need to say things in a manner that your target audience will understand. Sometimes, it takes yelling. Sometimes, you can just be silent and have an even greater impact.

If my kid is throwing a tantrum, I sit down and listen to what he is saying and give him a message in terms that he is likely to understand.

The key is that, if you are dealing with a bunch of headstrong engineers, you might have to push them a lot of get through. If you are dealing with someone who has a bit more sensitivity, this approach can be totally counter-productive.

This is nothing compared to the meanest thing a CUSTOMER has said to a startup. Be thankful he doesn't have the power to complain to everyone over twitter, facebook, and the web about your business and the power to sue you if stuff goes wrong. I'll take a harsh-sounding, well-intentioned comment from PG over a truly-mean, ill-intended customer complaint any day. But often even the customer complaints are gems in disguise as well.
> And that has a corrosive effect on culture. Those negative thoughts don't go away, and when team members repress doubts, resentment builds. Passive-aggressive behavior starts to predominate, politics brew, and problems linger on without being solved. So although people may hold their tongue intending to be nice, the result is that a more subtle kind of meanness takes root

This is so absolutely true that its painful, because I have seen this first hand.

The thing you must do is try to figure this out before you join a company, because this tiptoeing around people's feelings seems to work really well at shit and spectacularly average companies. So if you go into a place where this is the accepted way of doing things and try to be the straight shooter, you'll find yourself on everybody's shit list because that's just the way things are done, and in short order (depending on the level of sociopathy that prevails at your particular firm) very strange things will start to happen to your career.

It seems to be that at companies that are doing really amazing things, with really smart and accomplished people, this is not the case.

I also think that this might be a function of culture in the city you work, So while a more unfiltered approach might not raise eyebrows in New York, doing that in Texas could cause problems

For reference: the B2B company Brandon stuck with is Sift Science, which detects fraud via machine learning.

https://siftscience.com/

> Actively fostering a culture of "no filter" is painful at first. But like exercising, the more you do it, the easier it gets. And it's better than the alternative—death.

No.

You say that people tried to tell you what was wrong, and that you didn't listen.

Better communication doesn't mean "start with being blunt", just as better communication doesn't mean "dance around the issues but never talk directly about them for fear of offending people."

Or, let's see how this works:

You're an idiot if the lesson you get from this is that 'no filters' are a good idea. Only a dumb-ass would reach that conclusion. The same kind of fuckwit who would ignore all the smart people trying to give them information and who only gets the point when someone is exasperated enough to fall into rudeness.

"Crocker's Rules" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Daniel_Crocker) seems relevant.
It's possible to be honest and tactful at the same time, but doing so requires developing quality real-time filters, which is hard and takes lots of practice. One hypothesis is that powerful people have the luxury of not developing such filters because they can better get away with alienating the targets of their (often, to be fair, dead-on) criticism. Mistaking correlation for causation, people then conclude that operating without such filters is the cause of such power, rather than an effect.

As a thought experiment, consider the Jobs quote from the OP:

We are brutally honest with each other, and anyone can tell me they think I am full of shit and I can tell them the same.

Now, what would you guess was the rough ratio of brutal honesty directed to Jobs to the brutal honesty coming from Jobs? In physics parlance, I'm guessing it was << 1. Jobs was human, and even an advocate of brutal honesty would probably rather hear "Steve, I need to talk to you about a delicate subject..." than "Steve, you smell like shit and need to take a shower." [1] Considering that Steve could fire you at will, which tack would you take?

[1] I once had the pleasure of hearing Mike Scott tell me and a group of other Caltech grad students about his first duty as Apple's first president: tell Steve that, contrary to his belief, a "fruitarian" diet does not result in zero body odor. If memory serves, Mike was wisely oblique and tactful when bringing up the subject.

Personally, I would much rather someone be brutally honest with me, rather than beating around the bush or talking in innuendos hoping that I will figure it out. PG is an expert in his field, and there is no point for him to waste either parties time participating in this charade. Being blunt likely accelerates the learning curve by gutting the conversation of red tape. Getting to the meat and potatoes of the conversation.

p.s. This is also why I respect Linus.

Paul can be terse, and sometimes you don't want to hear what he has to say, and he can be wrong; but he's never a bully.
There are several factors here and I haven't seen anybody post them:

-PG has surely seen lots of mistakes like the op was going to do.

-He has seen how they end.

-he has tried persuading those founders in several ways, and probably failed too many times to be satisfied.

-probably (I don't know PG beyond his essays and concerences) he knew that giving polite advice was the best way to keep the OP on his track to failure.

-so be did the equivalent of a Doctor starting a CPR: a heavy punch to the chest. That may seem a rude behavior to a external observer, but in fact he is saving a live.

I suppose that his mean comment was studied and acted, not REALLY emotional. But it worked none the less, it doesn't matter what other people think about that, his role is to keep startups growing, not external people happy about his kindness. PD. CPR (CRP in spanish) and the enter button doesn´t seem to work on the Iphone.

I had a professor at Stanford who had a policy to always give positive advice, unless you said "give it to me hot", in which case he gave you the truth. I always asked for advice this way and it saved my butt a few times. More people should have this "brutal honesty mode".
Our second week in Y Combinator, we almost pivoted away from building a B2B startup

I thought a "pivot" was a change in target market in an attempt to find product-market fit, OR a change to a whole new idea in response to a failure to find product-market fit for the current idea. The lean startup book defines a pivot as a "structured course correction designed to test a new fundamental hypothesis about the product, strategy, and engine of growth.".

From that little blurb this sounds more like a "I'm bored with this B2B thing, let's do something totally different and B2C" moment rather than an actual pivot. Or am I missing something?

Personally I believe that no filter communication works best in conveying ideas clearly and directly. However, it only work if there's established trust and respect in the relationship. In addition, no filter doesn't mean be abrasive (like Linus). I've found that with some pretty competent people they can shutdown in those situations. Clear, honest, no fluff communication is essential, but it's also essential to keep the conversation about the work and not about the person.

A combination of appropriate encouragement, honest criticism, and healthy respect is needed to bring out the best in people.

Great post, Brandon. Getting object & honest thoughts, opinions & feedback is vitally important to both teams and each one of us. To help our team be more open, I've tried to use regular retrospectives where we highlight aspects of projects/sprints/teams that went well, poorly, and some that were both. I've also tried having time away from work, but found that without the focus on feedback, people are reluctant to offer criticism.

What practices have others used to foster critical feedback? What types of personalities are best at bringing this out of others?

If you want to be an effective communicator, it may be a good idea to speak to different people differently. Brutal honesty works for some people. Other people will just get so upset or defensive that they'll stop thinking or choose not to associate with you.

I'd suggest that when it comes to manners and you don't know the other party that well, you might benefit from playing your cards as conservatively as you can given the time you have available. You can get ... blunter ... a lot more easily than you can take back hurting someone's feelings.

> Actively fostering a culture of "no filter" is painful at first. But like exercising, the more you do it, the easier it gets. And it's better than the alternative — death.

Supposedly, old Chinese courts used to communicate with the Emperor via the interpretation of heavenly portents. I seem to remember that the fool in some European courts was meant to criticise the ruler too.

Whether true or not, however, in either of those cases you'd be abstracting the filter out into a procedure and avoiding retaliation from the ruler.

If you think that the problem is that people have their egos invested in particular solutions, then I suppose that you could take approaches liable to lessen attachment in the generation stage too.

Anyway, I'm not really sure that the only alternative to no filter is death, is what I'm saying ^^; (Though it seems plausible that the alternative to no honesty is.)

This is great. I once was a part of a startup. I had my doubts about the idea but the other co-founder assured me that the market would work well. I was the tech guy and had nothing else to do at that point(and also coz I love to code) played along.

We talked to a lot of people about the idea and they all had "kinda" nice response, too much filtered. The startup didn't work out. Those were the times when I wished the comments were as unfiltered as the one made by PG here.

It's a good question to ask yourself all the time, not only when you are working on a startup. "Am I failing? How?" The more you ask it, the more evaluate your own progress according to whatever goals you have, the better you get at managing your own progress towards goals -- and the less you need other people to manage you.

That said, kudos to pg and team for being honest and to the point.

Good post until the Linus reference without any context.
Minor distracting nitpick: the post title is misleading. I thought PG was the one who said "No filter." I realize the title has no quotes, but missing quotes seems like a smaller mistake than requiring the reader to decipher what it's supposed to mean ("PG has no filter against speaking his mind, which led him to saying the meanest thing he ever said to a startup").

Better title: "Paul Graham dares to criticize, and why you should to." Or just drop the "No filter:".

Also, for the first half of the article, I thought "no filter" referred to the founders who switched focus on a whim, ie "no filter against other alluring ideas."

This was a great post. Honesty/Transparency/Bluntness is just critical. Related to this, it requires a culture where people don't have an emotional attachment to their ideas or work (at least during the development stage).
We shouldn't aim for "brutally honest", we should aim for "honest" (meaning telling the truth, but trying our best not to hurt the other party's feelings).

Also, the author seems to assume that the person being brutally honest is always right in his/her criticism. But what if he/she isn't? This is the situation many employees find themselves in: Their boss lacks the qualifications to bring valuable input to the table, but still thinks he/she should be allowed to be "brutally honest" (which in those cases basically means being dumb and a loudmouth at the same time).

I enjoy reading HN very much, Most start ups that HN invests in are started by a group of very young people and from what I understand, the amount of money invested is relatively small, which is probably wise. But as someone who has, let's say been around awhile, let me just say that it probably would have been really helpful to have a resource like YC when I was making all my mistakes (ahem, several fails, leave it at that). I agree, PG sounds like he knows when to shake you up a little, I wish I had had a little guidance like that back when. YC'ers, pay attention.
Off topic, but Linus is my hero after reading that e-mail.

After that story which uncovered sheer idiocy of glibc developers who break user code between two minor releases. Was it Drepper who broke memmove?

Was this recent? If not, how did the advice turn out?
What's with the double standard? There seems to be a disconnect between what people agree can be said to someone's face and what people can say on a public internet forum.

I see defense of language in the article and that doesn't add up with what people refer to as 'fatuous vitriol' and are up in arms about on HN comments.

I guess there are no hellbannings in 'real life.'

But whose honesty are we talking about? I agree with the heart of this, but very often leaders being "brutally honest" to the point of being rude and inconsiderate have the effect of causing others to become too afraid to speak their minds, lest they trigger an angry response.
TIL: Paul Graham is one of the nicest people on earth if that's the meanest thing he could say.
Never compromise on clarity.

Nothing wrong with the proper application of a filter. Filter out words that don't improve the message, or criticism that isn't constructive. The problem with your filter is that you had it tuned to filter out anything that disagreed with you.

It is so hard to get some people to understand that criticism is not always meant to be an insult.
Just curious: what was the idea of the mobile app for local events?
"I want to design something my mom can use".

Ahhh, remind me again where I have heard this before. Thank god, pg shot the idea down.

There is saying that people will always say nice things. You need good friends or pay small fortune to hear bad things.
So what was the terrible B2C idea?
Not a good sign if you pivot twice before you even get to the top of the hill.