Do you stand by your statements calling for government supervision and control of machine learning research? Is it likely that machine learning will become a highly regulated industry roughly on par with nuclear power plant development?
I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA
251–260 of 458 posts
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA
#252I don't want to sound too arrogant but why should I apply if I think I can succeed on my own?
You should apply if you think the company will be worth ~7% more if you do YC that it would be worth if you do it on your own.
If you could make a $10B company on your own, but doing YC could make it be a $20B company, then it would obviously be well worth it.
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA
#253Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA
#254Given YC's increasing more social and larger-world problem solving focus, is being Silicon Valley-centric still a core goal of YC? Are you planning on coming back to the East Coast?
The East Coast is not the first place I'd go to find more people who want to focus on solving larger problems. If anything, I think I'd probably go further west...
interesting ellipsis. is there a yc china coming soon?
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA
#255Sam... Do you think bootstrapped companies, where founders want to build a "lifestyle" business and not raise capital can compete and be successful in SF and the valley?
Put in another way, would there ever be a case where you'd recommend a bootstrapped company not take investment (assuming the terms were good) in the bay area?
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA
#256What are your thoughts on Zcash[1] (either the product OR the company behind it)?
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA
#257With so many companies like General Assembly offering part time bootcamps without one leaving the job can't YC follow the same approach where one can work on a startup without having to leave the job. This will bring in more ideas and products by people who don't want to quit their day-to-day job.
I think it's good that different people try different approaches, but also good that we do what we're good at what we believe in.
If it turns out it's better to offer part-time startup accelerators, then the market will speak.
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA
#258Any 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.
That's really a tough one. I've spent a lot of time thinking about this without a good answer.
Sorry :(
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA
#259Have you seen any patterns in terms of idea generation, do successful startups come up with the idea for the business in the same way, or is it basically extremely diverse, I'm wondering if people are tending to use any analytic methods to find low hanging fruit to get started or whether its largely "scratching an itch."
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA
#260How does a college freshman get into startup culture without technical skills learned in upper division classes?
Is working at a start up a viable path for college graduates or is it recommended starting at a more established company?
Do you see Silicon Valley maintaining its dominance as a tech capital in future decades or will there be better entrepreneur ecosystems?
Which industries are ripe for entrepreneurship? Like the automobile industry at the moment has innovations of self-driving and electric energy source.
Thanks!