The Startup Zeitgeist
While there certainly is a lot of data, and it is presented very well, the analysis falls into the same traps as analyses of Google Trends data, particularly in the keyword analysis. Causation of changes in trends is ambiguous.<p>For example, YC applications are optimized for the highest probability of getting into YC by definition, and so it would be expected that terms on the application would be optimized <i>for getting venture capital</i>, not necessarily what is happening in the marketplace today. (The "Slack: King of the Enterprise Tools" slide is a good example; I'm sure the mention of "Slack for X" is a golden flag for some VCs)<p>A question about the chart presentation: why are some lines straight, and some lines smooth? (e.g in the Startup Competitors slide, Instagram, Airbnb, and Uber have curbed lines but Tinder, Whatsapp, and Snapchat have straight lines)