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I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA

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Re: I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA

#181
post #177

Considering the fact that we are more than 1-billion people with booming economy (some redtapes are there but..), do you have plans for purely India (/subcontinent) specific programmes in near future?

I'm coming to visit soon! We fund more and more Indian companies (they come here for 3 months and then go back to India).

Re: I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA

#182
post #167

1. Would / will you ever consider opening an East Coast branch? I understand all the "stuff" about why SV is great for startups, but there will always be people who can't /won't get up and travel completely to the other side of the country for an extended period of time. And while the EC might not be the startup hotbed that SV area is, it's quite clear that there is a LOT of startup activity and some great startups b…

1. Never say never, but no current plans (and honestly, it might make more sense to do something outside the US next). The hardest part would be convincing some of our partners to move out there, or finding new ones we could train out here first. 2. Not ready to talk about specific areas, but I promise they are interesting ones :) It will be super super easy for our researchers to collaborate with outsider researcher…

1. Europe? :)

Re: I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA

#183

1. Would / will you ever consider opening an East Coast branch? I understand all the "stuff" about why SV is great for startups, but there will always be people who can't /won't get up and travel completely to the other side of the country for an extended period of time. And while the EC might not be the startup hotbed that SV area is, it's quite clear that there is a LOT of startup activity and some great startups b…

Or Portland. There are lots of tech companies and startups here, as well. Obviously, not at the same scale as SV. But something like YC would be great, up here.

Re: I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA

#184

Do you have anything against Spaniards? I have seen lot of Spaniards applying to YC and they got rejected/ignored with awesome projects. Do you even read all applications? Posted applications with all urls tracked and we saw 0 clicks... How can you judge our product without testing it? Did you even watched our pitch? But in the other hand, I saw a lot of stupid companies backed by YC (Uber for X, Airbnb for X, Tinder…

a) Definitely not.

b) It's possible if something was deeply wrong in an application we wouldn't even watch the video, but the counts never seem to work. Sometimes if an application is clearly a no after watching the video and reading the text, we don't look at the product, but it's rare.

c) Barcelona is my favorite city!

Re: I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA

#185
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We will connect you to lawyers that can help, but it can be a real challenge unfortunately :(

sigh. I wish YC could become an umbrella company who can accept immigrants working on their startups on h1b under the name of YC employee.

This can be a good hack around the broken immigration system, if it ever happens!

No matter how good the founder or team is, an idea requires at-least 3-4 months of nourishment to crystallize into something promising.

Unfortunately, on H1B if one quits his job, he needs to leave the country. Around me, I see many good ideas by good people not being pursued because of this.

Re: I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA

#186

Hi Sam, I'm a graduating college senior, and I've accepted a job at a very big company in the tech industry. Right now, it makes the most financial sense for me to join a big company and pay off my debt quickly, but at some point in the future I'd love to scratch that entrepreneurial itch and apply to YC. How do I maximize my time at a big company to gain relevant skills to keep the possibility of a startup open in t…

Im not Sam but I was similar to you (planwise) when I graduated. I would urge you to be very careful if that is your long-term plan, it is very easy to develop a lifestyle around a comfortable low-risk paycheck and say, "I'll do it down the line". 5-10 years can fly by very quickly in those situations, still at the same place doing the same thing. You will never have as much free time as you do right now, and if you have an idea you should pursue it with vigor. -Signed, an old man

Re: I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA

#189

Two questions: * Would you consider investing in a company that invents a toilet paper holder where the TP can only be inserted in the OVER position? This is a huge problem world-wide that should be solved immediately. The market is huge! B2B, B2C, you name it, there's toilet paper! * All seriousness aside, do you have any advice for building an app that has no clear money-making potential? I've had this idea brewing…

All good investors know it goes under, thats where the market is.

Categorically not true! All investors who put their toilet paper on the roll in the under position have such poor judgment that they're technically just gamblers!
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