Would you consider funding a Public Benefit Corporation?
I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA
261–270 of 559 posts
Re: I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA
#262I saw the other reply but - specifically in regards to the Application :
What tips do you have for a solo founder to make his application most useful to you?
What information would you like to see to give you some confidence in the solo founder to move past this disadvantage?
Re: I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA
#263Hi Sam, the YC Research announcement got me very excited, particularly as someone who experiences the pain points you described first hand on a daily basis. First question, would YC Research be limited to the US or would you consider other countries (e.g. Canada in my case)? Also, would you ever consider partnering with existing Public/Government institutions? There are lots of very good people already working on som…
Limited to the US for now but maybe not forever. Someone in Canada should start something similar! Yes, very happy to collaborate with outside orgs.
Thank you Sam! Follow-up question: would you be interested in helping me start something similar in Canada, or know people who would? :)
Re: I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA
#264Looking at who you accept now and some of YCs biggest hits, its seeming like your earlier investments (Dropbox, airbnb) probably wouldn't make it through today's YC filter. Do you guys think this is an issue, if so how are you working to correct it?
Disagree. No one at YC could interview the Airbnb guys and not fund them. I didn't know Drew back then but I expect it would have been the same thing for him.
I think he is not referring to the interview process, but rather to the "skimming through the application" process.
Re: I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA
#265Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I agree with 1. Especially in countries that don't have anything like this available. I can speak from Cuba, since I am originally from there. Cuba has been closed for 50 years to America, but that is changing now. There are really smart people, that just don't have the necessary access to capital or good advice. Creating a branch of YC there would have a tremendous impact for local economy and people in addition of…
Carlos, how good is the internet in Cuba? if you were going to develop a web app, do cuban developers have better access to it now?
Re: I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA
#266You've mentioned that co-founder fallouts are one of the most biggest problems facing companies at YC stage.
Do you see any useful correlates to this problem? What types of teams tend to have infighting vs. those that don't?
Re: I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA
#267How involved is YC going to be in 3D Printing?
We've funded a number of startups working on this and I expect we'll fund more.
Re: I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA
#268Given that there are regions in my country which have no good local events calendar yet but it would be easy to implement such an aggregator: would you recommend me to found a company for such a product? (Let's call it "WhatHappensInHannover.net" so we both know what is intended.)
Re: I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA
#269Hello @sama, do you see -as mr president- YC (with YCR, YCF, alumni and partners) acting more and more as a self-sustaining network in the coming years? How do you think big corps and govs will react? It's extremely interesting to see this emerge but also scary, if you think of unpredictable consequences. How do you feel? Thanks and good luck.
What about it do you find scary?
Re: I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA
#270Hi @sama, I'm From Brazil and CEO of an EdTech startup. We're profitable, with 60 employees and a lot consumer traction/revenue, but didn't raise a Series A yet. Questions: 1) What advice would you give to applicants from Brazil and other large countries (India, China, Russia), whose products initially target their local markets? 2) What advice would you give to post-Seed and pre-Series A applicants? When (if at all)…
1) No specific advice--we fund lots of companies whose products target far-away markets and are particularly interested in doing so. The only different question we might ask you is "How will you handle being away from your users for 3 months?" 2) We have funded companies that have raised more than $10 million, and they've said they still got a lot of value out of YC. If anything, it's usually the existing investors t…
Minor nit on #3: Doesn't the new YC stock agreement come with pro rata rights...? Doesn't that mean it's not really common stock? (In the sense that those rights aren't explicitly given to employees and founders.)