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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

#601

Post by BinaryIdiot »

nikcub wrote: post #560
redtri wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jason is the only investor I've worked with that treated me simply as a founder, not a "female founder." This alone is a reason that new YC entrepreneurs should have access to working with him. He sets an example of how entrepreneurs should be treated. Jason has seen me at my worst, when I was ready to throw in the towel and battling with my board and generally having a tough, tough time, and I left the meeting with…

You are one of 7 brand new accounts created since this thread was posted who have left comments praising Jason: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=supergeek18 https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=vincentc https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=Clectasteve https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=ericzli https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=rushtix https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=redtri https://news.ycombinator.com/u…

> Rather obvious what is going on here - and it is pathetic

Because having people create fake accounts just to leave positive comments is far more likely than thousands of people being exposed to this thread via Sam and Jason's tweeter feeds?

I wouldn't be so quick to jump to conclusions with no data to back up your assertions.

For what it's worth, while I've never worked with Jason, I have met him once (briefly) and I have talked to many who have worked with him. I've only heard positive things. Everything being posted here are anecdotes from either one side or another; I wouldn't trust someone's anecdote to determine someone's character.

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

#602

Post by TheSixCents »

sama wrote: post #351
rsp1984 wrote: post #328

Obviously YC can't enter into NDAs with applicants but can you shed a little bit of light on what YC does to protect the applicants' business ideas? Some might be discouraged from applying because they fear if the idea is interesting (but not the team or there's another reason it's not accepted) that someone from within YC or a related ecosystem might just take the idea and look at the product so far and decide to ju…

Honestly, we are so busy, there are so many companies, and ideas are worth so little, that most of us don't think twice about a specific company once we move on to the next applications. The very best ideas usually don't seem worth stealing.

I totally get your meaning, but it could discourage potential applicants/newbies to startups. Could be misread as you not being open to their ideas (though of course I know you just mean execution is almost everything!)

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

#603

Post by vecter »

pedalpete wrote: post #569
vecter wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YC is so big and has so many (1) existing portfolio companies and (2) applicants to go through that they simply don't have the time to even care about this. We graduated YC in S12 and, outside of fundraising, talk with partners on average once a year. I don't think we've reached out to YC or YC partners have reached out to us in any meaningful way for the past year or two. Perhaps counterintuitively, this is even mor…

I find this interesting as I thought one of the benefits of YC was the community, and it seems there has been a lot of talk about the community tools available to alumni. Have you not had any benefit from these at all? Or do you mean specifically you don't interact with YC partners?

The community (other founders) is amazing. We interact with them all the time via YC forums, which is extremely useful.

We just don't have much interaction with the partners anymore since their focus is better spent on the recent batch rather than helping 4 year old companies.

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

#604

Post by vecter »

theoracle101 wrote: post #575
vecter wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YC is so big and has so many (1) existing portfolio companies and (2) applicants to go through that they simply don't have the time to even care about this. We graduated YC in S12 and, outside of fundraising, talk with partners on average once a year. I don't think we've reached out to YC or YC partners have reached out to us in any meaningful way for the past year or two. Perhaps counterintuitively, this is even mor…

I don't know. Sam was at a bunch of our parties/events, and has tweeted about us. My CEO and cofounder are great friends with a lot of the partners. Hopefully you're right, I just don't want to apply without telling them and they find out from that. But also telling them I'm thinking of leaving is hard too

Sam would be doing YC a huge disservice if he told YC founders that their employees were applying to YC. First of all, it doesn't even mean that the applicant is necessarily leaving. Getting in is pretty hard to begin with. Secondly, he would probably be missing out on a very talented pool of potential founders, which at the end of the day would return YC far more than a few employees at already successful YC companies.

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

#605

Post by errantspark »

errantspark wrote: post #515

Hey Sam, where do I apply for YC basic income? : ) Many people have no problems in life except those related to not having enough dough. I know a number of really creative/talented individuals who would be a lot better off if they didn't struggle to feed/house themselves. People who contribute to open source, build art projects and love to share knowledge. Definite contributors to society and the betterment of their…

The comments have made me reconsider my question. I also saw the article about a YC basic income experiment.

Have you considered structuring the experiment in terms of creating a intentional basic income community? An example fitting my bohemian ideals would be: Funding a group of people by providing a place to live (warehouse) and a monthly stipend for food and fun stuff and seeing where they end up after a few years?

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

#606

Post by TheSixCents »

aakashnigam wrote: post #188
dilippkumar wrote: post #79

I'd love to apply, but I'm on a H1-b visa and I'm basically in prison. How did the other international founders you worked with get around the immigration mess to start a company?

Hi DilipKumar, Some unsolicited advice. Starting company = solving lots of problems (product, market, tech, hiring etc etc.) See Immigration as just one of these. Canada, with much easier immigration policies (Toronto/Vancouver) can be your base to build and validate your prototype and later move to valley. In the age of Internet, geographical boundaries cannot prevent good ideas/products from happening.

Umm Why are you acting like Canada is just Toronto and Vancouver? Montreal is a better place for startups than Vancouver.

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

#607

Post by spoinkaroo »

w1ntermute wrote: post #398
nostrademons wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit was UVA, which is a pretty good school but not really what people think of as "elite". Instacart was Waterloo, also a very good school but not a huge name outside of tech. RethinkDB was Stony Brook University. Mixpanel was an Arizona State dropout.

Thanks for the additions. Don't know much about RethinkDB, but as for the others: Reddit is a great example of founders without pedigree. Although it hasn't been too successful as a company, it's created phenomenal value for its users. I definitely spend more time on Reddit than Facebook/Instagram/Snapchat/Twitter combined. I'd say Waterloo is elite in the tech sense, and Apoorva worked at Amazon in fulfillment, so i…

Reddit hasn't been too successful as a company? I'd imagine their estimated value is at least 100 million.

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

#608

Post by malz »

sama wrote: post #59
iMuzz wrote: post #16

YC has a giant application pool. This makes it very difficult for very early stage companies with no revenue / users to compete in the application pool. As a company with no revenue / users, How can we best stand out against those that do have growth / users? I understand that companies can apply for the fellowship. But what does a company lose by getting into the Fellowship over Core?

We fund companies with no traction/revenue all the time, though the bar is higher. A really compelling idea is more important to us than traction or revenue. We understand how quickly exponential growth happens.

It is interesting that on this AMA you say both "ideas are worth so little" and "a really compelling idea is more important to us than traction or revenue." Can you elaborate?

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

#609

Post by [deleted] »

sama wrote: post #351
rsp1984 wrote: post #328

Obviously YC can't enter into NDAs with applicants but can you shed a little bit of light on what YC does to protect the applicants' business ideas? Some might be discouraged from applying because they fear if the idea is interesting (but not the team or there's another reason it's not accepted) that someone from within YC or a related ecosystem might just take the idea and look at the product so far and decide to ju…

Honestly, we are so busy, there are so many companies, and ideas are worth so little, that most of us don't think twice about a specific company once we move on to the next applications. The very best ideas usually don't seem worth stealing.

[deleted]

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

#610

Post by ninjudd »

nikcub wrote: post #481
vogt wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just for what it's worth, as I know it isn't the same as working for someone - I interviewed for a position working directly for Jason and he was all class. I'm a designer and part of the interview process, as is often the case, was to complete a small design project. He flat out insisted on paying me for my time (nobody else in my career has ever even offered) and wouldn't take no for an answer, and was professional…

and i'll give a counterexample - Jason yelling down and belittling an entrepreneur and his team during prep for a conference presentation, for a totally unrelated reason and then cancelling their appearance because he was mad at something else. I have never seen anything like it. Assholes are manipulative, it's how they get away with it. The problem is silicon valley is self-reinforcing with positive feedback, nobody…

I've seen Jason critique a lot of pitches. I have to say, it's hard for me to believe your description of the situation is giving the full story.

Yes, Jason probably had some brutally honest feedback about the presentation and how to make it better. But in my experience, his feedback is always spot on.

I've personally been on the receiving end of such feedback, and it can feel harsh at times. But this is one of Jason's greatest strengths: he has the ability to listen to a pitch once and then make it way stronger by improving a few key things. This is why almost all of the pitches at Launch are exceptional.

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