Wise advice. Some of the things you have to do to succeed -- firing dud employees, saying no to early acquisition offers, telling girlfriends that work is more important than them -- are at least as hard as drowning a puppy.
Maybe the next round of YC interviews should have a qualifying event requiring a big tub of water and a trip to the humane society.
A better example might be shooting a terminally wounded horse or something. Killing a puppy for no reason is just messed up and drowning it is really messed up.
If you are going to kill a puppy for no good reason, drowning is a relatively humane way to do it. Once you're at the killing a puppy for fun stage in your decisionmaking, most of the fucked up has already happened. Drowning doesn't make it more fucked up.
It's not like someone is gonna say "you killed that puppy for no reason. But you really crossed the line with drowning."
I can think of many cases where drowning would be a preferable alternative to other modalities of needless puppy murder.
Maybe the next round of YC interviews should have a qualifying event requiring a big tub of water and a trip to the humane society.