Hi @sama. Are there any technologies that you would not consider funding?
We will not invest in something that we think will be bad for the world even if we think it will make lots of money.
Amen to that.
I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA
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Re: I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA
#412Will YC invest in companies that never plan to go public or get acquired, but could pay dividends?
Re: I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA
#413Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cook all of your own meals. Don't buy drinks at the bars if you go out. Don't buy expensive shit, you don't need the newest iphone every year or name brand designer stuff. Get a roommate. Not rocket sciene
If you can get very efficient at it or you find the activity a source of leisure, then cooking your own food is a great cost savings. However, for someone in the tech industry the opportunity cost of not investing in themselves (i.e. coding, reading about code, meeting people, etc) for the same amount of time they are cooking (grocery shopping, food prep, cooking, cleaning, etc) usually isn't worth it. To me cooking…
Is this Soylent advocacy just a running joke? I can't imagine eating all my meals via a plain, liquid, meal-replacement.
Re: I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA
#414Earlier quoted context omitted.
did you hear about YC Research announced 2 days ago? - the link: https://ycr.org - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10347821
I mentioned YCR at the end of my comment. :-) Based on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10361472 it sounds like that's limited to the US for now too.
Can I ask why you're determined to be a part of YC?
Everyone on this board knows who you are, and you could probably get an audience with whoever you want if you asked for it.
Your personal brand and network is probably way stronger than you give it credit for.
Re: I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA
#415I think you mentioned somewhere that you are aiming for early-career researchers, not so much for established group leaders. Being an early-career researcher myself (postdoc), my first thought was that your program could easily turn out to be a trap. At first, it looks like a fantastic opportunity because freedom and independence, etc. However, I'm sure that you are looking for high risk / high reward projects. So th…
(disclaimer: I am a programmer who works for startups, but I've always admired scientists and researchers and have often contemplated a career switch to biotech.)
How can an entire discipline that is supposedly based on rational evidence-finding be such a cliquey clusterfuck? You're basically saying that if you don't follow the community rules, which more or less boil down to "hazing," you'll be excommunicated. Sounds like a cult, to me... as is any culture where "fear" is the primary motivator not to try something different.
Don't the laws of nature exist everywhere? Why can't anyone "do science," then?
I am glad I work in a meritocracy-based industry where anyone with any background can "ship" and succeed, and that has a low tolerance for bullshit.
Re: I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA
#416In 3 years I will move to US and apply to YC, but that's forever away. I want to start doing now. Is there a checklist, or a blueprint, or a list of topics, or a list of books that you can recommend that will cover the most important/basic/low-level aspects of building a company? What should I be thinking about? I'm looking for the backbone; I can work on figuring out the proper shape of what I'm building along the w…
I took a stab at this here: http://startupclass.samaltman.com I'm working on a sort of startup playbook. It's long but will hopefully be helpful.
Awesome, thank you.
And a startup playbook sounds amazing.
Re: I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA
#417Isn't raising money a form of validation of your product/idea
Re: I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA
#418Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mentioned YCR at the end of my comment. :-) Based on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10361472 it sounds like that's limited to the US for now too.
Can I ask why you're determined to be a part of YC? Everyone on this board knows who you are, and you could probably get an audience with whoever you want if you asked for it. Your personal brand and network is probably way stronger than you give it credit for.
you could probably get an audience with whoever you want if you asked for it.
Maybe, but I'd need to know who to ask. Being not part of the YC community, I don't know who is doing interesting things; nor do I know who to ask if I have a question about something.
Re: I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA
#419If YC research is a success, would you consider establishing a website onto which researchers can publish the data and the analysis they did to reach their conclusions?
Often I see people say what they used to take the data and then the end result of the analysis, but never do I see any details whatsoever about the specific techniques or steps they took to transform the raw data into what ends up being published.
It's a very frustrating thing for me and I don't see a mainstream or more easily accessible way for me to post my raw data + analysis other than making a blog for myself, which I have no easy way of promoting in a paper.
I think it would be great to be the ones that set the tone for transparency and it would be a fantastic way of teaching others how to analyze data, or how to catch errors in someone's analysis.
Right now there's a huge wall of obscurity in that we have to take the author's word for it. I know many things cannot be reproduced in experimental science, but the analysis of the data should be. I can't see a reason why people would not want to share their data in academia since most people are funded by DOE, NSF, NIH and DOD and hence by the taxpayer. I think it would be great for pedagogical purposes, it would encourage best practices and it would help us be honest.
Re: I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA
#420Is there a place for Tarsnap at YC? Applying for YC funding doesn't make sense for several reasons: 1. I want to be king, not rich; everything I hear tells me that YC pushes companies to grow fast and increase their valuations, and that's something I fundamentally don't care about. I know that I'm stubborn enough that this would just result in a lot of frustration on both sides. 2. Tarsnap doesn't need the money. It'…
I just can't imagine a situation where you brought on VC funding and were still able to maintain tarsnap's ethos.
The inescapable push would be to find fast/big growth areas, and to change tarsnap in whatever way necessary to fit in those niches.