Do you really think that financially incentivizing voting will create good downstream effects? Almost all ideas of civic duty are historically drawn from non-financial incentives and the idea of attaching some financial incentive to them potentially seems to further exacerbate a "pay to play" atmosphere that is one of the reasons people (like myself) don't find it particularly stimulating to participate in the present political climate.
I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA
171–180 of 458 posts
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
What doesn't work about our process for this?
I have applied again and again and have been rejected each time. I honestly don't mean to be vague but have found that it is very difficult to convey in words. It's a graphical technology that takes just a very brief chat for people to understand. It's a large horizontal departure with wide possibilities. That makes it difficult to explain as a single targeted product
The patent has been granted? What's the patent number? It would be public record. Eyeballs on the idea can only increase support if you already have the patent!
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA
#173Do 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
You can come to Demo Day and invest in YC startups there! Or did you mean invest in YC itself?
Is it possible to invest in YC itself?
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA
#174How do you evaluate more technical startups like the one you mentioned: Rigetti Quantum Computing. I assume one needs some theoretical quantum physics knowledge to evaluate it.
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA
#175I've been running an east-coast-but-middle-of-nowhere startup, primarily implemented by myself, and self-funded, with the occasional with help of random one-off contractors in the hospitality/IoT space for two years now. Basically during off-hours from a (pretty successful) day job in a non-tech company I started years ago.
My choke point has always been finding another technical-minded parter that gets the industry. Every time I've seen the YC application season roll around, I've thought it'd be a perfect fit for applying to YC, with the connections and clout that come with it. What's stopped me, even at my half-assed pace, was the chance of the huge ego/momentum hit of getting rejected, considering it's still a labor of love (although profitable).
I have a handful of customers that are already paying monthly for "The Vision Lite" at discounted prices: just enough for me to continue development. But larger competitors are sure to move more aggressively into the area over the next year or so, before my current trajectory can deliver on the "this is Star Trek-level shit" experience I've got planned. I'm sure I can grow my customer base at a moderate rate, but I'm not sure I can keep up once the field gets serious against better-funded competitors.
Where do you think the tipping point is between the Basecamp-style "Just get profitable, stay profitable, and move forward" model vs. "Take VC money and turn a two-year schedule into a six months, and get entrenched while you can?" (Fred Brooks notwithstanding)
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA
#176I have applied many times . I now have a patent for a technology that I believe is a disruptor of enormous proportion. I have asked repeatedly to get a few minutes with someone to discuss this technology, because your application process doesn't seem to work for this.
If I were in their shoes, I would avoid conversations with someone who boasted a patented technology. It's just begging for legal trouble.
If the patent is actually issued then it is only benefit in the form of legal protection.
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA
#177You (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 like to know about this too.
With all the startups you see, what are the common patterns to failing? A missing skill, lack of belief, timing, weak message etc?
If appropriate, how to recognise the warning signs to correct and avoid being the next failure.
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA
#178Any tips/examples on trying to sell a product that provides ethical/moral benefits but very little/nothing financially? Some friends and I were throwing around ideas on how to eliminate scalping, a practice we get bitten by. We came up with some solutions that might work, but they don't provide any financial gain for event organisers so I couldn't see them going for it.
You eliminate scalping by charging market prices, so there's no opportunity. Charging less is just a gift to the middlemen. (If you want to give that gift to the people who actually come, charge more and give a rebate inside the event, so scalpers can't collect it.) Not sure how you're conceptualizing this that makes scalpers harmful, could you elaborate?
I understand that this is an economics problem; the ($5b?) market exists because there is significantly more demand than supply and ticket prices are not adjusted to accommodate this imbalance. Why that's the case I'm not sure. Perhaps that's another avenue to investigate for solving the problem but not what I had in mind (partly because I like affordable tickets).
Seeing scalpers as harmful is definitely an emotional response. Popular events go on sale at a set time and set price, with "equal" opportunity for any fan to get a ticket. Scalpers claim significant amounts of the tickets and resell them at 200-1000% of the face value. My friends and I often miss out on tickets only to see hundreds available on third party resale sites. It also enables ticket scammers which are a huge problem as well. Many music artists and sports teams are very outspoken about their disappointment with the industry, die hard fans waiting at the gate miss out while the person with the most cash gets in. While I can appreciate the scalpers are taking advantage of an economic opportunity, I can't help but view them as the scum of the earth and would have no issue with eliminating their practice.
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA
#179Have you ever invested in a band or music production company or considered doing that?
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA
#180Do you really think that financially incentivizing voting will create good downstream effects? Almost all ideas of civic duty are historically drawn from non-financial incentives and the idea of attaching some financial incentive to them potentially seems to further exacerbate a "pay to play" atmosphere that is one of the reasons people (like myself) don't find it particularly stimulating to participate in the presen…
Here in Australia we get a fine if we don’t turn up at the polling place and have our name crossed off the list on election day. Of course this creates a pool of voters (5-10%) who really don’t want to participate (these people typically spoil their ballot by doing things like drawing a penis on the ballot), but what this does do is keep a much larger section of the population engaged in the political process.
What happens is that many people who don’t really care about politics most of the time take notice in the last few weeks of an election campaign because they know they will be voting. While not perfect, I think the good of “compulsory voting” outweighs the negative.