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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

#431

Post by Litost »

sama wrote: post #346
tmalsburg2 wrote: post #298

I 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…

Well, that's fucked up about academia. All the more reason to create alternatives. Do you really want to be part of a system that does not allow for failure? At a minimum, I expect YCR researchers to be turning down job offers from YC companies all the time.

This reminds of what Peter Higgs (of Higgs Boson fame) said "I wouldn't be productive enough for today's academic system" http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/dec/06/peter-higgs-b...

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

#432

Post by staunch »

cperciva wrote: post #359

Is 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'…

5. You find a co-founder CEO to run Tarsnap, Inc. from Silicon Valley. The CTO remains in Canada. Lawyers handle the messy details.

This is kind of what Oculus does. John Carmack is in Texas with a small team, while most others are in California.

You retain absolute control over the core technology, but help your co-founder turn it into something more marketable and user friendly. Some of the Tarsnap GUIs authors might be interested in helping.

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

#433

Post by adenadel »

A few weeks ago I submitted this article https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10213547 about one of Peter Thiel's biotech investments and the top comment asked "How does someone very intelligent like Peter Thiel make investment decisions in an area where he lacks a huge amount of background knowledge?". I'm curious how you personally and Y Combinator as a whole goes about making investments in areas where you don't have great expertise. For example, how do you evaluate biotech markets and the YC biotech companies? How did you evaluate your energy investments?

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

#434

Post by cperciva »

staunch wrote: post #432
cperciva wrote: post #359

Is 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'…

5. You find a co-founder CEO to run Tarsnap, Inc. from Silicon Valley. The CTO remains in Canada. Lawyers handle the messy details. This is kind of what Oculus does. John Carmack is in Texas with a small team, while most others are in California. You retain absolute control over the core technology, but help your co-founder turn it into something more marketable and user friendly. Some of the Tarsnap GUIs authors mig…

The guy I'm paying to write the Tarsnap GUI is in Romania.

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

#435

Post by Retric »

tmalsburg2 wrote: post #370
sama wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, that's fucked up about academia. All the more reason to create alternatives. Do you really want to be part of a system that does not allow for failure? At a minimum, I expect YCR researchers to be turning down job offers from YC companies all the time.

I fully agree with your analysis of the shortcomings of the academic system, but that's really a lame response and suggests that you didn't think this through. We're not talking about people in their early twenties who can invest some years in crazy experiments without fearing the consequences. Researchers at that stage have invested a substantial chunk of their lives in their careers and many of them have families t…

Many people decide to drop out of the academic system. Working for YC, Intel, or the DoD has similar long term limitations and is hardly a foolish risk.

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

#436

Post by mej10 »

OopsCriticality wrote: post #421
lectrick wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(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. Sound…

Publications and grants are the currency of academia: if one doesn't have a recent publication record, a hiring committee doesn't have a way to gauge one's performance and capabilities as an academic; if one doesn't have a history of getting grants, a hiring committee will be (rightfully) skeptical of one's ability to bring in money. Excepting teaching schools, one is hired for one's abilities as an academic research…

What separates YCR from a thing like Bell Labs?

Bell Labs has produced a lot of great research and many researchers have had fruitful careers there and after.

Why can't YCR be the same?

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

#438

Post by OopsCriticality »

lectrick wrote: post #425
OopsCriticality wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Publications and grants are the currency of academia: if one doesn't have a recent publication record, a hiring committee doesn't have a way to gauge one's performance and capabilities as an academic; if one doesn't have a history of getting grants, a hiring committee will be (rightfully) skeptical of one's ability to bring in money. Excepting teaching schools, one is hired for one's abilities as an academic research…

What does "publication" mean in an Internet Age when anyone can publish anything? If you mean "vetted by a tiny handful of fallibly-human organizations such as Nature and Cell who may or may not decide to accept your paper regardless of its actual merit and based mostly on how 'hip' the research is," well then we're back to the hazing/cliquey-clusterfuck thing again. "Grants" seem equivalent to "angel investments" in…

Publication means peer-reviewed and scholarly. Yes, a publication in Nature, Cell, Science, NEJM, etc. opens doors, but so do publications in discipline specific journals (like JACS). What matters is that one's papers be read and cited.

The system is far from perfect, but I don't think you'll find anyone in academia saying otherwise. I think of it being like Churchill's quote about democracy being the worst form of government, except for all the others that were tried.

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

#439

Post by cryoshon »

sama wrote: post #77
pavornyoh wrote: post #10

@Sama, So my question is about YC Research. You said in that earlier thread you will be hand picking the people. How exactly do you intend to do that if you don't me asking? Are you partnering with schools? Are they going to be recommended? Do you already have a database?

Mostly the algorithm was to ask very smart people "who are the top 3 smartest people you know in area X" and then go after the people whose names kept coming up.

This approach won't work if you are looking for academic diamonds in the rough. The names that will get mentioned are probably already scoring big grants and pumping out well-received publications.

If you are really actually looking for long-shots by talented people, you're going to have to access the people nobody is going to mention for fear of marking themselves as a radical or an urchin-lover. Science is packed with these humble types, but they are invisible because of how brightly the superstars (who frequently stand on the shoulders of the more humble) shine.

As an aside, smartness is certainly helpful for research endeavours, but pridelessness is actually what separates the people jousting against windmills and people traveling the hero's journey. The smartest are frequently targeting windmills thinking that they'll be the ones to finally succeed, whereas the prideless are more interested in understanding and exploiting molehills or anthills. Pridelessness allows for maximum flexibility in following reality, preventing ego-driven attachments to incorrect interpretations.

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

#440

Post by seeingfurther »

sama wrote: post #352
jrpt wrote: post #335

The cost of rent in the Bay Area is getting really high, both SF and down south. The archetypal startup in a garage in Palo Alto is not as affordable as it once was. For various policy reasons it's really hard for new people to move to the area without paying an arm and a leg in rent. Do you or YC have any thoughts on things you could do to help this, if any?

The bandaid is we increase the amount of money we give to teams. We do have some longer-term thoughts if the area can't get its act together and fix the problem.

I see a YC Campus with dorms in the future!
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