Y Combinator's Altman: What I Worry About in Business [video]

on_ wrote: post #3

> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2015-09-24/y-contributo... Ahh yes, Dan Altman, a recent hire at SV clone "Y Contributor", talks about attention to detail, and working with the Samwer bros. Edit: << pun intended.

I am not actually sure why people have so much against the Samwer brothers.

Have they done anything particularly despicable?

I know their model is to copy any potential idea coming out of the US which I don't understand the issue with.

One thing they really did well was to have a structure that makes it easy for them to localize any company.

I hear the work environment is hard but so is it many other places.

Or maybe I am missing your joke?

Re: Y Combinator's Altman: What I Worry About in Business [video]

#6

Post by wakeless » Tue, Oct 06, 2015, 12:48 AM UTC

No [video] ?

Re: Y Combinator's Altman: What I Worry About in Business [video]

#7

Post by ibsufupu » Tue, Oct 06, 2015, 12:57 AM UTC

Good job dodging those landmines. It's always nice to hear him talk about this stuff. What I would like even more is to just hear people knowledgeable about this kind of stuff just chat. Doesn't even have to be able what they're good at. I just want to witness their mindset.

Re: Y Combinator's Altman: What I Worry About in Business [video]

#8

Post by on_ » Tue, Oct 06, 2015, 1:00 AM UTC

ThomPete wrote: post #5

on_ wrote: post #3

> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2015-09-24/y-contributo... Ahh yes, Dan Altman, a recent hire at SV clone "Y Contributor", talks about attention to detail, and working with the Samwer bros. Edit: << pun intended.

I am not actually sure why people have so much against the Samwer brothers. Have they done anything particularly despicable? I know their model is to copy any potential idea coming out of the US which I don't understand the issue with. One thing they really did well was to have a structure that makes it easy for them to localize any company. I hear the work environment is hard but so is it many other places. Or maybe…

I have nothing against them, they are an organization founded by smart MBAs with a strong focus on software and finance. Some of their media companies are a bit derivative, but what would you expect from a finance company. The organization is run by detail oriented, anal-retentive founders who know how to edit a team. Sometimes though, I think they get a bit lost in repackaging other peoples content, and in their haste, miss a few titular details.

Re: Y Combinator's Altman: What I Worry About in Business [video]

#9

Post by rokhayakebe » Tue, Oct 06, 2015, 1:09 AM UTC

I would like to see a YC clone for Dude's businesses, companies that interested in building a profitable business that pays dividend yearly. No exit, No billion dollar valuation, actually no valuation necessary.

Re: Y Combinator's Altman: What I Worry About in Business [video]

#10

Post by firasd » Tue, Oct 06, 2015, 1:13 AM UTC

Great quote about ‘Unicorns’ (lightly edited from verbal form):

“I looked through the list of companies that have an over a billion dollar valuation recently, and more than half, I think, were valued between like a billion and 1.5 billion, and something like a quarter were valued exactly at a billion. So people are clearly obsessed with getting to this mark, and they are willing to put all sorts of weird structure on their terms to get there. If you were looking at the financial data, you would say something is amiss. You’d say there is some fraud going on or something, if you were just looking at the numbers. Because they don’t fit the distribution you’d expect. There is this huge desire to get right to a billion or just over. I don’t care about it. I think it’s dumb, but that’s not going to make a company great or not.”

As a sidenote, Sam should probably stop antagonizing his interviewers by dismissing the business pontification featured on their shows :) I agree with him but it’s also a bit unnecessary.