Earlier Wednesday, Wiz Khalifa and Kanye West provided Twitter users with some serious entertainment when the rappers — well, mostly Kanye — argued about girls, weed, and career status.
But the celebrity Twitter fights didn’t end there thanks to a poignant tweet from Paul Graham and an unexpected response from Mark Cuban later that evening.
Graham, the Y Combinator accelerator co-founder and Bay Area investor, said that those participating on Shark Tank — the hit ABC show which invites entrepreneurs to pitch their startup ideas to investors — might want to re-think how they spend their time.
Startups: Instead of appearing on Shark Tank, spend that energy fixing whatever makes your product so unappealing you think you need to.
— Paul Graham (@paulg) January 28, 2016
First, Silicon Valley investor Chris Sacca responded with his own thoughts, to which Graham responded.
@paulg Yeah, because a free 10-minute pitch to 7 million Americans is something every startup should turn down.
— Chris Sacca (@sacca) January 28, 2016
@sacca Nothing is less free for a startup than something that costs the attention of the founders.
— Paul Graham (@paulg) January 28, 2016
@sacca Building the best product is how most startups win, not by marketing. https://t.co/Q2B8CjfCDc
— Paul Graham (@paulg) January 28, 2016
@paulg Agreed. Nothing is more distracting than traffic, users, installs, job applicants, and revenue.
— Chris Sacca (@sacca) January 28, 2016
A few hours later, Cuban — one of the regular investors on Shark Tank — chimed in.
@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) January 28, 2016
@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
It’s unclear why fueled Graham’s criticism of Shark Tank, but he wasn’t the only well-known Bay Area techie complaining about the show.
When I see Sharks on Shark Tank offer $300K for 30% of the company, a little part of me goes blind with rage.
— Garry Tan (@garrytan) January 28, 2016
On the contrary, it’s not surprising that Cuban responded with his own diss given that he’s on the show. Although, as @ShanghaiTimmy points out, perhaps what added to Cuban’s fiery response was the fact that his Dallas Mavericks were whooped by the Golden State Warriors on Wednesday night in a 127-107 blowout.
Graham, meanwhile, made headlines earlier this month after he wrote a long essay on economic inequality that elicited a passionate response from Seattle Seahawks offensive lineman Russell Okung.
