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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

#741

Post by thomasilk »

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…

Banning someone for calling YC out is bad enough, but bad mouthing him afterwards and claiming that he mistreated founders (or YC founders saying that he did) is such a cheap shot.

There is absolutely no history of Jason being known for mistreating founders. The opposite is true. AngelForum, free Launch tickets for founders and so on. He wouldn't get in the deals he's getting in if it were any different.

As it currently stands I'd never enter YC as a founder. Your comment cries of hypocrisy and falseness.

Either you honestly think he's mistreating founders then ban him and tell it like it is (and back it up with proof) or you don't think he's mistreating founders and think the feedback is unsubstantiated (if it exists) then man up and do what's best for YC founders.

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

#742

Post by arctictony »

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

Jason was one of the first people to put money into Chartbeat. I've now worked with him as an investor for seven years and he's been consistently supportive and founder friendly even when it hasn't been in his short term interest to do so. He's also got incredible product intuition. I'd recommend him to any founder looking to work with someone who gives a shit.

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

#743

Post by angelohuang »

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

Jason is our first investor in LeadIQ. We are very glad to have his help on our product and fund raising. I don't know enough about other incubators but my partner, Mei and me are very excited to be one of Jason's portfolio companies. Jason is a strong product person. He understands products and markets really well, and his feedback is always on point and help us to improve. I strongly suggest every founder to apply to his incubator if you have a very solid product.

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

#744

Post by sonnymayugba »

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

I'm a 45 year old entrepreneur. Not famous, but have done 11 startups, built some cool things, made money, lost money. I say that to put context to the vast number of collaborators I've worked with in my career. (I'm sure many of you have the same experience.) My latest venture was lucky enough to get into Jason's Launch Incubator class 1. And I have to share that the experience of being able to work with Jason on a product development level, a business level, as an investor, and as a person who subscribes to radical candor, has been nothing short of amazing. He nurtured us, encouraged, was critical, shared everything, wrote checks, asked friends to write checks, so we could follow our mission of building software for the world. That's all great, but the best part is he cares. Truly cares about us, what we're doing and where we're going.

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

#745

Post by nailer »

geofft wrote: post #686
nailer wrote: post #659

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This seems reasonable if (and only if!) people who match you on sex and skin color are unfairly overrepresented Asian people are more overrepresented in tech than Europeans. If Shanley said to "fire some fuckin asian guys to get it done", would you support this comment? Why / why not?

Well, I think the context was management, where IIRC Asians are if anything underrepresented. And I anecdotally don't think I've seen as many underqualified Asian people (relative to the number of Asians) as white people -- but that anecdata feels very iffy to me, so if there's reason to believe that that's wrong, sure, I'd think that comment was reasonable. (It also gets more complicated if they're on H1-Bs or somet…

> I would absolutely stand behind "fire some men to get it done"

Sure, but that wasn't the question.

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

#746

Post by nailer »

pw wrote: post #715
nailer wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shanley also signs off a lot of her content with 'kill all men' and has doxxed critics before.

I can see the doxxing being an issue (although, if you're referring to Milo Yiannopoulos, I think the case might be more complicated), but I think anyone who reads 'kill all men' as a anything more than a rhetorical flourish is being a bit over literal.

Do you think it's acceptable to use 'kill all (gender)' as a rhetorical flourish?

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

#747

Post by namenotrequired »

tim333 wrote: post #721
namenotrequired wrote: post #677

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should "per capita" matter to YC?

Shows there's something good about the culture?

I'd think the absolute numbers of successful startups and startups in general would be far more important to YC.

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

#748

Post by joseluisnuno »

djiejxnncks wrote: post #192

How does applying with a spouse impact an application?

We are 4 cofounders, 3 of us are brothers and the fourth one is my wife. We were accepted to W16 without any problem, they did not even questioned us about this. I believe that there has been several other husband - wife teams.

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

#749

Post by joseluisnuno »

mixedbit wrote: post #238

Are all YC companies incorporated in US? If not, what other countries are acceptable for YC and investors that cooperate with YC?

Once you get accepted to YC you need to incorporate in the US to get funded. Its not that difficult and they have a very clear process for all of the companies from other countries (we were a Mexican company).

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

#750

Post by tim333 »

strathmeyer wrote: post #615
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…

I have PTSD from looking for a programming job for a decade (first thing you are supposed to do to overcome it is.... remove the stressor from your life??) Maybe they could just hook us up with some basic jobs.

Looking for a decade? Curious what goes wrong.
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