Other users have provided the link, but my heart sinks a little every time I see this brought up, especially when the commenter is singled out by name. People forget that this is a real person. He also happens to be a great HN contributor, and has been for many years.
I realize it's internet fun to point neon arrows at people seeming outrageously wrong in the past, but the truth is that people aren't reading that comment accurately and there's a huge dose of hindsight fallacy here.
When BrandonM wrote "I have a few qualms with this app", he didn't mean the software. He meant their YC application. (Note the title of Drew's post: "My YC App"). He wasn't being a petty nitpicker—he was earnestly trying to help, and you can see in how sweetly he replied to Drew there that he genuinely wanted them to succeed. We should be so lucky for all responses to "crazy new ideas" to be that decent. This community would be healthier, and actually the current thread is a standout example of how far from true it is.
The criticisms he was raising turned out to be a non-issue in hindsight, but were on point in 2007, when the idea of file synchronization was widely derided as a solution-in-search-of-a-problem which only technical users would ever care about, users who (as the comment pointed out) could already roll their own solutions. The idea had recently been publicly mocked in a famous blog post*, so it was on people's minds as the prime example of an idea only technical users would ever care about—and even YC funded Dropbox because they believed in Drew, not the idea.
* described at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23229275
Relatedly, people tend to forget that people who are fully aware that a real person has written a foolish and/or shortsighted comment will direct criticism at said comment. I understand that there exist people who -to oversimplify- have as their creed "Thou shall not directly say anything negative about anyone ever."... but that's a minority of people. That "soft pedal" stuff doesn't work for a notable subset of people, and -for some- generates _way_ more anxiety and stress than a frank and earnest discussion about just how stupid the stupid thing you just did is. [0]
I get that some folks are Care Bears (affectionate, non-derogatory), but not only is that not the only way to be, folks who are like that freak out a not-insignificant subset of the population.
> When BrandonM wrote "I have a few qualms with this app", he didn't mean the software.
Perhaps. But it looks to me like an eighth or so of the top-level commenters on the OP are talking as if the thing under discussion is application software. Maybe folks consistently abbreviated "YCombinator Funding Application" as "App" and "application software" as "application" at the time, but -if so- that's not made clear to me by reading the commentary.
[0] I'd also object to any characterization that BrandonM's commentary is nitpicking in any regard. Unless you know someone pretty well, you have no idea what their background is, how careful they are, or how diligently they keep their appointments with the rubber duck. Anyone who has been in this business for five, ten+ years has seen people put a lot of work into something, but fail to understand or uncover one or more basic truths that invalidate all the work they've done. Basic sanity checks are useful.
