Paul Graham: Handling Investors (talk at Stanford 11 April 07)

#1

Post by mattjaynes » Thu, Apr 12, 2007, 5:31 PM UTC

Paul Graham: Handling Investors (talk at Stanford 11 April 07)
blog.nanobeepers.com

Re: Paul Graham: Handling Investors (talk at Stanford 11 April 07)

#2

Post by jkush » Thu, Apr 12, 2007, 5:38 PM UTC

Nice write up and great answer to that question. I can't tell you how bummed out I am that my application was rejected. I'm debating whether it means there was something fundamentally wrong with my app or if it's something fixable. I know it's impossible, but I would have really liked to know what was (or wasn't) in my application that caused it to be rejected.

Re: Paul Graham: Handling Investors (talk at Stanford 11 April 07)

#3

Post by mattculbreth » Thu, Apr 12, 2007, 5:46 PM UTC

Man that looked like an awesome talk. I love Atlanta but missing out on this kind of stuff really sucks. That couple of days for Startup School was refreshing.

Re: Paul Graham: Handling Investors (talk at Stanford 11 April 07)

#4

Post by mattculbreth » Thu, Apr 12, 2007, 6:40 PM UTC

Did Paul use Zenter again?

Re: Paul Graham: Handling Investors (talk at Stanford 11 April 07)

#5

Post by comatose_kid » Thu, Apr 12, 2007, 6:56 PM UTC

mattculbreth wrote: post #4

Did Paul use Zenter again?

No, not this time.

Re: Paul Graham: Handling Investors (talk at Stanford 11 April 07)

#6

Post by erik » Thu, Apr 12, 2007, 7:42 PM UTC

Paul talks about the YC admission process. "At YCombinator we go through and rank all of the applications, then we take the top 30 for interviews."

I bet there are a few people around here who would like to know where they placed in the last round.

Re: Paul Graham: Handling Investors (talk at Stanford 11 April 07)

#7

Post by nurall » Thu, Apr 12, 2007, 9:02 PM UTC

Although not part of his talk, Paul had something interesting to say, when posed with the question about how anal investors are, about 'domain expertise' of the team they would be willing to fund.

The point to take home from Paul's response to this question was that, as long as the investors are convinced that the 'hackers' have enough domain knowledge to realize an important need and they have a relevant and popular solution to the problem, then the product/prototype/system should silence the critics/cynics, if any.

Paul used Mark Zuckerberg as an example as a facilitator of 'inter-personal networking' through facebook. The domain here being 'inter-personal networking' ;-) and how much Mark sucks at it!

Go HACKERS!!

Re: Paul Graham: Handling Investors (talk at Stanford 11 April 07)

#8

Post by danielha » Thu, Apr 12, 2007, 10:31 PM UTC

erik wrote: post #6

Paul talks about the YC admission process. "At YCombinator we go through and rank all of the applications, then we take the top 30 for interviews." I bet there are a few people around here who would like to know where they placed in the last round.

30 was just the number they invited for the Winter batch. It's not their standard cutoff number.

Re: Paul Graham: Handling Investors (talk at Stanford 11 April 07)

#9

Post by danielha » Thu, Apr 12, 2007, 10:34 PM UTC

Thanks for the notes. I was caught up in traffic and missed the first couple.

The best part was Paul imitating a giant cockroach riding atop an imaginary muzzled VC like a horse, furiously cracking a whip. Definitely one of those "had to be there" moments.

Re: Paul Graham: Handling Investors (talk at Stanford 11 April 07)

#10

Post by Tichy » Thu, Apr 12, 2007, 10:47 PM UTC

So what is the ass-wipe algorithm mentioned in the article? It is not patented, or is it?