I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA • Hacker News Board

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

#471

Post by sama » Sat, Mar 19, 2016, 12:03 AM UTC

11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #450

Allegations are circling the web that a side effect of the (also alleged) startup bubble is that there are more good founders than good ideas. The purported effect is to water down the societal value of the products and services that are produced by companies exiting accelerators and incubators. A few obvious counter arguments come to mind right away, such as YC's startups in fusion energy and non-profits like Watsi.…

Some of the most important startups start out looking incredibly ambitious. Others start out looking incredibly trivial, but with users that are in love with their product.

We like funding both.

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

#472

Post by sama » Sat, Mar 19, 2016, 12:06 AM UTC

brashrat wrote: post #461

Is Hacker News comment history "private/free speech", or does YC use Hacker News comment history in judging founders, employees, business partners etc.? I'm not talking about the judgements anybody could make by googling, I'm talking about using your positions as insiders, is Hacker News a source of intel? I am not a partner or potential partner, I ask because sometimes I see people write well meaning things that mak…

Personally, I never read an applicant's HN comments, nor do I note the names associated with comments with I read HN.

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

#473

Post by sama » Sat, Mar 19, 2016, 12:07 AM UTC

tdaltonc wrote: post #465

How is the funding environment for start-ups right now compared to 12 or 6 months ago? How will it be in 6 to 12 months? Why?

Honestly, it doesn't seem to be super different yet, except for the late stage which has gotten much harder.

It still could change a lot--I'm not sure.

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

#474

Post by KurtKumar » Sat, Mar 19, 2016, 12:07 AM UTC

sama wrote: post #265

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #221

Hey Sam, Any comment regarding Jason Calacanis being banned from YC's upcoming demo day? Jason tweeted[1] his side but didn't know what the YC side of it was and was curious. [1] https://twitter.com/Jason/status/710176806184349696

To be clear, it has nothing to do with all the shit he talks about YC. Though that's annoying, it's fine. We collect feedback from YC founders on investors (we have a giant database of this). If you mistreat founders, we don't invite you to Demo Day. This isn't permanent--if you stop mistreating founders we start inviting you again. Also, it's possible that our founders are wrong in their assessment of how a particul…

Sam and Jason, this is something that should be done and resolved 1-on-1. The entire ecosystem collectively gets distracted when these happen. Imagine the cost of this (gazillion followers spending gazillion man-decades of brain cycles). Also this gets you and him to be distracted as well and compound it by NOT tweeting/snap chatting stuff that is net +ive.

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

#475

Post by currentoor » Sat, Mar 19, 2016, 12:07 AM UTC

Hi Sam,

PG in some of his older articles was really big on Lisp being the most powerful programming language and instrumental to his success. His writing actually inspired me to learn Clojure.

In your experience, does the power of a programming language, in a software business, matter as much?

Thanks for doing this!

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

#476

Post by sama » Sat, Mar 19, 2016, 12:08 AM UTC

viviennelee wrote: post #432

Under what circumstances would you consider a company with: - Solo founder - No revenue yet - 13-15k monthly active users and 1200-1500 daily active users - Launched 6 months ago Or is it not even worth trying yet?

If the idea seems good, and the DAU number is growing fast, we'd be excited to consider it.

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

#477

Post by sama » Sat, Mar 19, 2016, 12:08 AM UTC

barcadad wrote: post #420

How important to you is it that the founders of your companies have gone to college? Has your view about teenage entrepreneurs changed over time?

Not that important. I didn't finish college.

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

#478

Post by sama » Sat, Mar 19, 2016, 12:09 AM UTC

kartikkumar wrote: post #132

Is it a strong criterion that applicants you admit into the program have a (clear) path to building billion-dollar companies? Or do you give more weight to solving important problems? In other words, does ROI trump problem-solving, and if so, are teams tackling niche problems at a disadvantage?

No. One thing we like to do is help founders figure out that path.

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

#479

Post by sama » Sat, Mar 19, 2016, 12:13 AM UTC

SdApartmenyGuy wrote: post #446

Hi Sam, I am planning on applying this batch, however; I have a friend who just finished his Ph.d in Computer Vision. I want to work with him on a different idea than the one I applying for at YC(robotics). It's in the "other interests" category, he is not a co-founder for my current application. If chosen, can a founder be added iff you don't like the initial idea?

Yes but we need to meet them first.

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

#480

Post by tdaltonc » Sat, Mar 19, 2016, 12:13 AM UTC

8piGTc2 wrote: post #164

Hi, Sam! Don't you think that AR/VR is overvalued by large companies? Microsoft has not created Google, Wal-Mart has not created Amazon, Ford has not created Tesla.

An enterprise software company (Microsoft) made the most popular video game console. A search company made the worlds most popular navigation and email tools. A consumer e-commerce company is the the biggest supplier of enterprise cloud services.

There are more people working on 'x' outside of big companies then there are people working on 'x' inside of big companies. So really, it's surprising that big companies break in to new verticals as often as they do. Anything could happen.