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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

#471

Post by avz »

tmalsburg2 wrote: post #452
tlb wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world would be a better place if more people took career risks. The evidence is that the majority of interesting stuff was created by people taking big career risks, even though they're a minority of all researchers. So people who take career risks are more likely to create something great. It sucks to lose at a career gamble but, at least in Silicon Valley, most people who fail but keep trying, end up doing pret…

Increasing risk alone does not increase the expected outcome of an enterprise, it reduces it. Risk is one important factor in the equations determining whether or not a business proposition like YCR's funding scheme is attractive, and for this reason the topic needs to be addressed. You are right that people who take more risks are more likely to create something great but the likelihood of a failure increases even m…

At the level of an individual increased risk does indeed reduce the expected outcome of an endeavor. However, societies where individuals are willing to take higher risks end up reaping the benefits that are only accessible by taking higher risks. One example of such benefits are scientific discoveries.

The current combination of risk-aversion and the focus on publications, tenure and positive results that permeates academia is antithetical to the uncertainty inherent in scientific research.

It seems to me that building new research institutions like YCR with a culture that resembles the one in tech which accepts and encourages risk-taking should be a priority if we are to continue to make progress in science.

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

#472

Post by shamino »

lacker wrote: post #459
shamino wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With all due respect to Sam Altman and everything he's accomplished, this is a pretty snarky comment that does not spend the time to thoughtfully answer the very real concern that OP presented. It's a huge risk to leave academia to participate in the possibly career-destroying alternative that currently exists. Academia isn't perfect with respect to career opportunities, but it does produce results. There are many in…

Leaving academia forever isn't career-destroying. It's closer to career making . There are so many more opportunities in industry. Nearly any CS academic, if they simply quit academia immediately and vowed never to return, that act alone would make their career more promising.

I definitely agree that leaving academia opens new doors that can make you just as happy, but I can also say that there is not a place outside academia that is like academia.

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

#473

Post by jsprogrammer »

OmarIsmail wrote: post #373
brotoss wrote: post #340

Earlier 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…

It would be wrong to write off cooking as an opportunity cost of not investing in yourself. First, you have the opportunity to put high quality food into yourself. Second, the tasks of recipe creation and cooking are very, very similar to software creation tasks. You start with a language (raw ingredients, characters) and combine them into your final product.

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

#474

Post by sama »

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'…

None of our current programs sound like a good fit.

We're considering doing something for later-stage companies that might be a good fit, though we haven't sorted out details about the bay area for example. If it does end up as a 'go', we'd probably do it next year.

It's also possible in future iterations of the fellowship we'll be open to companies that are further along.

Hope we figure something out at some point!

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

#475

Post by hugh4 »

mej10 wrote: post #436
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 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?

Well, the fact that Bell Labs is/was an actual real thing, whereas YCR currently consists of good intentions and an amount of money which, while very generous on Sam's part, would fund a Bell Labs size organisation for a couple of days.

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

#476

Post by sama »

beambot wrote: post #270
sama wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

You can still have pro rata rights on common shares.

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

#477

Post by creolabs »

@sama We were interviewed last year but we were not selected. We then followed all your advices and we invested all our time developing and finalizing the product.

We'll launch our first beta version within a month and we are receiving a tremendous amount of interest. However we can't really yet prove a traction. What should we prove (or what should we have done) in order to try to apply again?

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

#478

Post by jrpt »

stbullard wrote: post #449
sama wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I think we will have to do something here. I keep hoping the local governments will fix this and keep being disappointed. I was really excited by Campus, and hope we see a lot more startups with similar ideas.

As a non-YC founder living in SF, I'm really disappointed by this answer. Above, you mentioned a "bandaid" solution of increasing funding for YC founders to account for skyrocketing rent - but this only exacerbates the problem for everyone else, including YC companies' employees and the entire ecosystem that supports them. Tech workers' willingness and ability to pay ever-increasing rent, underwritten by salaries dra…

I think everyone agrees that a fix at the root cause (local governance) is better but YC can only do so much, so what Sam said about increasing the funding for their startups is really what's directly under their control. I suppose they could join up with other VCs and do some lobbying to propose better solutions though.

Startups aren't going to move, like you suggest, although the bigger companies are willing to open offices elsewhere.

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

#479

Post by apsec112 »

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.

Isn't academia even more risky than YCR? ~90% of grad students, at some point in their career path, will be unable to find a tenured job and be forced to leave. What could possibly be more risky than that? YCR has some chance of failure, sure, but it has to be less than 90%.

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

#480

Post by talles »

berpasan wrote: post #383
talles wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey there. Do you mind if ask what's your startup? Just out of curiosity; I'm Brazilian too :)

Our product is here: http://querobolsa.com.br What's yours?

Nice.

I have some colleagues adventuring in entrepreneurship, but right now I'm a typical 9 to 5 enterprise employee (at http://aec.com.br).

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