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I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA

#101

Post by wpietri »

sama wrote: post #24
kinkora wrote: post #8

You (and by extension YC) always seem to mostly focus on the success stories of the alumni/group. Have you or will you consider talking about the failures? If you can't do it, is there a reason why?

We do try to talk about this but should talk about it more. It turns out that most people (and certainly most journalists) want to talk about/write about the success cases. I'll think about how to best do this.

I'd especially like to see this in the form of lessons learned. Some of my favorite startup pieces are where a founder sat down, told their story, and said, "Next time, here's what I'm doing different."

In the startup world we have to be comfortable making mistakes, but I really want those to be new, interesting mistakes.

Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA

#102

Post by spynxic »

Do individuals have the opportunity to participate in funding start-ups via YC? If so, what type of minimum requirements exist for getting started?

If not then how quickly can the [unrelated] problem below be solved, algorithmically

Unrelated Problem: Given a set of numbers of length n, find a single rule that can map each item x to the corresponding item x+1

Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA

#103

Post by ikeboy »

I'm a solo founder, technical but my prototype website was built by someone else. The main part of my idea isn't technical (in the sense that Amazon wasn't technical when it first started).

What should I know about applying based on that?

Also, for the competitors question, should I put a list of 15-20 names I made, or choose the top 3 or so?

Finally: I may be able to launch within the next few days. Should I try to launch and wait to apply until I have launch data, or should I apply now? (The nature of the startup is consumer facing and I think I can gain some traction within the first week.)

Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA

#104

Post by fitzwatermellow »

sama wrote: post #58
hashnsalt wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you give examples of such companies that have stood out?

A recent one that is top of mind because Chad just spoke at Startup School is Rigetti Quantum Computing. He had nothing but an idea when YC funded him in Summer 2014, and now is one of the leading QC companies in the world.

Awesome talk, BTW!

Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA

#105

Post by rojobuffalo »

wcchandler wrote: post #78

I want to be a farmer. Is there a place for me in YCombinator? (p.s. I have several other follow up questions I'd love to ask if you entertain me with a response)

Hey, I applied to YC with a web platform for farmers. Are you strictly wanting to be a farmer or are you primarily interested in helping farmers?

Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA

#108

Post by schoen »

sama wrote: post #65
kfish15 wrote: post #43

If you were in early 20's, what 5 things would you deem most important to work on to help the world?

What matters here is what _you_ deem most important--don't live someone else's life. But for fun, here is my list: •AI •Biotechnology, especially anti-ID and anti-aging. •Energy •Better governance •Education

> anti-ID

I didn't know what this was, and I was idly hoping that this was somehow about making biometrics not work. :-)

It turns out to be an idea in immunology:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiotopes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-idiotypic_vaccine

(in case other people weren't familiar with the concept)

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