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I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA

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301–310 of 768 posts

Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA

#301
Hi Sam. What are your views on a venture that would take some reworking or coaxing of the state laws in order to be successful? Example- the law has gotten more relaxed over time and would probably be where we'd need it to be in 5 years or so. Not marijuana related.

Thank you!

Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA

#302
post #270
post #112

> I'm on a H1-b visa and I'm basically in prison I know this is an exaggeration, and I'm fully aware the current visa situation in the US could be better, but I really take issue with the sentiment of your statement. You're being afforded an enormous opportunity here, and should not compare it with being in a prison. Think about it -- you clearly decided your home country was not as conducive for building your future…

It's not prison but an H1-B is basically indentured servitude.

If you are going to boil things down very basically, all jobs are basically indentured servitude. That's why they call it "making a living".

Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA

#303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jason is a bully. I've heard plenty of horror stories of people who have worked for him. I'm not surprised in the least and I'm extremely glad to see people standing up to him.

Care to share any specific ones?

In fact such statements deserve specific details or shutting up. Either way it's potentially slanderous.

Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA

#304
Has YC ever considered having a control group by randomly pre-accepting certain applicants into the program automatically? I'd be curious to see the stats on how successful that group would be versus the group that's actually picked by the committee.

Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA

#305
post #266
post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Canada just accepted 25,000 Syrian refugees fleeing war and something much worse than communism. This is to my point, there is less scrutiny for immigrants in 'dire straits'. > The social and economic climate has changed dramatically, you're right. We no longer have a climate condusive to a free-for-all exploitation of Aboriginals, Africans, and the environment. Unclear how this goes to show that anybody should be…

How long did it take for us (the West as a whole) to recognise the situation in Syria, and how many Syrians died in the meantime?

> How long did it take for us (the West as a whole) to recognise the situation in Syria, and how many Syrians died in the meantime?

Should probably recognize that civil wars, genocide, and humanitarian disasters are occurring all around the world, right now, and no nation is doing anything about it (nor does the average person even know about these).

Nations of the world have no real obligation to do anything... which is why nothing is done majority of the time. When the interests of "the west" coincide with stopping an atrocity, then "the west" intervenes.

Further, it's fairly naive to believe freighting a few hundred thousand people thousands of miles away from anything even remotely familiar is doing anyone a service. It seems the help Syrian's are getting from "the west" has boiled down into a singular mindset of "just ship them someplace else", never-mind all of the long term issues that arise from this half-hearted solution (housing, income, food, work, cultural assimilation, transportation, etc...).

Bringing these people to the US or Canada doesn't solve any of their problems really - it only trades some problems for others. The real solution is obviously to stop the civil war... and work is being done to accomplish this.

Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA

#307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that founder is a director of engineering/product in an enterprise software company in Atlanta, has a spouse, two kids and a mortgage, and the health insurance is dependent on her/his employer, then they will probably have a higher sacrifice than if they are a single Stanford grad living in SF with a year of saving after working at Google. They both need to make a sacrifice but it's not the same scale. If you make…

Why doesn't a director have enough money saved up to support their family for at least three months? And I knew Navy folks who were away from their families for months at a time, so it is definitely possible (if not fun) to do this. But if you're becoming an entrepreneur for the fun, it's time to question your motives.

I'm guessing you don't have a wife and children. It isn't about the money, it's about not seeing them.

You are also forgetting that it isn't just your sacrifice in terms of the time you are giving up with your wife and children for three months, but also that you are forcibly restricting them from being able to see you too. They didn't choose that.

Once you have a family you have a bunch of responsibilities and you've signed up for life. You can't just pick and choose when it suits you.

I realise that there are a lot of young folks on HN and probably not so many parents, so I'm expecting a barrage of down votes, but maybe in ten years time when you've reached my perspective you'll come back and upvote me!

Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA

#308
Does this statement risk a tortious interference with business relationship suit?

You have published a statement that could reasonably interpreted as Jason Calacanis mistreats founders by bullying them, changing offers, sharing their confidential info and other things.

That intentionally obstructs Mr. Calcanis from entering into valuable business relationships with startup company founders.

It seems very risky unless you have at hand specific evidence that Mr. Calacanis had done each of "bullying them", "changing offers," and "sharing their confidential info."

Of course I totally believe you and wouldn't be keen to do business with him. But, that's exactly the point.

Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA

#309
post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, mention it--that's fine with us.

Thank you Sam. By the way here is the link to YC's page on Comment https://comment.ws/us/y-combinator

Dude, that site is very difficult to understand. Just saying.

Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA

#310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are some counterexamples? I wasn't suggesting that you should only fund founders from top schools, but that you should select for it (which it sounds like you already do). The pedigrees of some of YC's most successful founders, for anyone who's curious: * Twitch: Yale, MIT * Cruise: MIT, Claremont McKenna * OMGPOP: Princeton * Heroku: UCSD * Airbnb: RISD, Harvard * Dropbox: MIT * Zenefits: Harvard It's interesti…

Zenefits?

When was the last time you built a billion dollar company? Conrad's resignation doesn't change the fact that he has accomplished a hell of a lot more in his professional life than 99.9% of people ever have or will.
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