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I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA
241–250 of 458 posts
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA
#242Hi, Sam, how do you think about the opportunity of technology in China, do you think China a good place for investing and developing? What the difference between the China market and USA market?
I think China is probably the second most interesting startup market to me in the world right now (after Silicon Valley).
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA
#243If you went back in time and did Loopt again, what would you differently?
Pick a different market.
Sorry if I was not clear enough in the question: Do you mean you would completely not do anything social / consumer related and build a b2b/enterprise product, or just pick a tangental/related market in consumer apps?
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA
#244What is your view on income inequality? Do you think the start-up structure of running a business could increase or decrease income inequality (and what do you consider beneficial?)
I think it's a consequence of technology but a real challenge for society. I think the right goal is probably to eliminate poverty--conceptually, I like the idea of a guaranteed floor but no ceiling.
I'm very interested in basic income and we're running a large experiment on it. If that doesn't work we have some other ideas.
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA
#245Two related questions. It's known YC prefers teams. Do you have a preferred shape or size for the team (2 tech, 1 marketing, or 1 tech, 1 web, 1 marketing and business etc); is any combination shown to be more likely to succeed within YC? How do you view teams too heavy on tech? It's common for a group of tech people to have the idea, but as a team have some gaps on say the marketing side, and probably other areas. A…
No particular shape, but in general we'd rather see it be overweight tech. If no one on the team is good or is willing to get good at sales and 'business', that's a problem.
Have you seen a startup team that is "overweight" non-tech actually be successful?
eg. 3 sales and business, one tech/developer
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA
#246Would you consider negotiating the equity percentage for startups that stand out in terms of team/traction? If not, why not?
We do this in exceptional circumstances, but maybe only once per batch (as far as I know, we didn't do it at all last batch).
I think YC adds far more than 7% of value to companies we fund. And I hate negotiating/conflict.
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA
#247I don't want to sound too arrogant but why should I apply if I think I can succeed on my own?
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA
#248Hey. We received an email saying to reapply because we were in the top 10% for the last cycle. In this case, what order do you look at the application? How useful are alumni recommendations?
The first thing I look at for people reapplying is still the video, but the second is what has changed since the last application. Alumni recommendations are useful if they're strong, but neutral or slightly negative if they're weak. If someone isn't excited enough to give you an independent recommendation with you asking, it's probably not worth requesting.
Thanks Sama.
PS: if it's helpful to know. The diversity office hours convinced us to apply last time. I hope you continue to do more!
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA
#249What universities stand out to you in particular, if any, when gauging talent from institutions across the world?
I'm (very obviously) not Sam, but I recall him having praise for Waterloo a couple years back.
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA
#250Do 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 h…
I tend to agree. The UK has had big drops in turnout recently, due to inscreasing distrust of politics, and the most recent government was elected by less than a quarter of the electorate.
It's led to some claims that our democracy is becoming dysfunctional and growing calls for PR or electoral reform.
At least with compulsion you have to be positive in your apathy!