Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 458 posts

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

#291

Post by csdreamer7 »

sama wrote: post #112
spynxic wrote: post #102

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

You can come to Demo Day and invest in YC startups there! Or did you mean invest in YC itself?

Hi Sam,

Do you need to be an accredited investor to invest?

Do you take funding from the public through A+ for any YC startups?

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

#292

Post by sama »

watermoose wrote: post #285

Sam, thanks for taking the time to talk with us. I hope it's ok, but I've got a few questions about something not directly related to YC applications. As a middle-aged developer, I've seen a lot in my lifetime, but I believe that right now, even though in some ways I'm much more hopeful for the future than I've ever been, I feel like there are many huge time-bombs out there in the world that make focusing on a startu…

You raise very good points.

The future will either be great or terrible--I think an intermediate outcome is unlikely. I think it's a super exciting time to be alive, but I feel the shared sense of responsibility most others do to do everything I can to get safely through the other side.

I understand the desire to save enough for a scary world ahead, and I think it's prudent to do that. Beyond, that, if you're nervous about these things, probably the most satisfying and reassuring thing you could do is figure out how to use your talents to maximize the chance of the a good outcome.

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

#293

Post by sama »

leroy_masochist wrote: post #266

Do you plan to allow future YC teams to attend the program remotely, or with a greatly reduced expectation of spending time in Mountain View? I get that SV is a great place to start a startup, all things being equal. But there are a lot of great opportunities that are 8-12 time zones away. And leaving your customers alone for 3 months -- especially if you are trying to grow rapidly during those 3 months -- sounds ver…

We have discussed trying a remote group through the YC batch. Although we're all varying degrees of skeptical, I think it's worth a try.

As you point out, there are (some) good reasons that MV doesn't make sense, like your customers being very far away. That said, it's only three months.

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

#294

Post by sama »

bfrog wrote: post #272

My hardest decision in the past has often been when to decide a startup has failed and its time to move on. Having seen many startups both succeed and fail you're in a unique position to perhaps give some strong opinions on this. Do you have any sort of timelines/guidelines you like to look at as a gauge of success and when it's time to double down or dump it off the side and try again?

You should give up when no one loves what you're building and you're out of ideas about how to make it better.

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

#295

Post by draghu_1 »

1. Where do you think the jobs in the software field will be after 10 years? Currently, we can say that the jobs are in the web developer and mobile app developers categories. Like that what would be the major category in software? And what would be the future of web and mobile app developers if they know nothing about machine learning now.

2. In the competition of web vs mobile? What would be their state after 10 years? Will there be more native mobile apps or websites?

Thanks!

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

#296

Post by sama »

stevens32 wrote: post #267

You've mentioned that you look for solo founders to show above all that they're effective - what would be a good metric for that? Is being able to push out an MVP and getting the first handful of users seen as being effective? Is the bar a lot higher?

That's a very good initial step.

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

#299

Post by rtpg »

leroy_masochist wrote: post #266

Do you plan to allow future YC teams to attend the program remotely, or with a greatly reduced expectation of spending time in Mountain View? I get that SV is a great place to start a startup, all things being equal. But there are a lot of great opportunities that are 8-12 time zones away. And leaving your customers alone for 3 months -- especially if you are trying to grow rapidly during those 3 months -- sounds ver…

A related question: have you considered re-trying the "branch office" concept?

I know Boston was tried, but that was 6 years ago? Considering your increased scope + larger overall size of YC now, it seems doable to have a retry on that front.

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

#300

Post by sama »

CN7R wrote: post #260

How 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?…

Working at a startup is the right answer to your first question, and it's definitely a viable path!

I expect the rest of the world will trend towards Silicon Valley. But I'm biased.

To find industries ripe for new companies, look for places where technology is causing a high rate of change.

Post reply on HN