Second, there have always, always, always been weak startups. Lots of them.
Third, anyone can cite one or three facts to construct an argument. But when you do that carelessly, all you end up with is a fallacious syllogism. In Lyon's case, A, B, and C seem to add up to "go back to engineering school".
The same thing happened with your comment here. You look at the evidence and suggest that the problem is a phenomenon that prevents weak startups from becoming good startups. But that's not the problem either; weak startups have never tended to become good startups organically, so it's hard to make a case for the availability of seed funding retarding progress.
Finally, it's not a genuinely heart-felt written article. It's a deeply cynical attempt to capture pageviews by someone with only a peripheral connection to startup entrepreneurship.
>Dan Lyons has no evidence of it himself.
Dan Lyons needs no special evidence. The evidence are the shitty start-ups that don't solve any real problems you come across everyday, promoting their launches on TechCrunch (and on others). He is just talking about this painful trend, I hate to say this, but, which is noticeable within YCombinator itself(no offence), off-late.
Great Start-ups look like bad ideas initially, but when they remain as bad ideas forever, its an entirely different story, which is what Dan is talking about, too, I believe.
with great respect, may I ask you, why did you have to kill this article? (I feel you are abusing your power) Why not let others know of this painful trend?? I'm not asking for my personal benefit, I'm just curious, it's a genuinely heart-felt written article.
Sincerely,
Neya