If we edit our application after we submit it, then are you notified? Or is there a chance you read our application before we edit it and you miss our edits?
Once you submit it we may read it away, so you shouldn't submit it until you'r ready.
I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA
321–330 of 458 posts
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA
#322Hi Sam — seems like 'Science' was removed as a category in RFS. Can you comment on this?
People never really understood what we meant by it. Will try to break out into several more descriptive RFSs in the future.
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA
#323Without mentioning what was actually discussed, do you think the Bilderberg conference results in significant actions/effects in the real world?
I enjoyed attending and I thought many of the conversations were interesting.
The format is just discussions. Some of them changed my mind about things, many didn't. No direct actions come out of it, but hopefully there are some benefits to smart people sharing ideas.
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA
#324What is the minimum stage the product should be in to be selected in yc ?
As Finbarr says, non minimums at all. Sometimes we fund just an idea if the EV seems high enough.
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA
#325How important is for YC founders to be ethical in a world that cares mostly about financial success, profit margins, exponential growth, etc? Think Theranos, Zenefits et al.
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA
#326You (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.
The beauty of Silicon Valley is (as put by an interviewer) "You can't succeed without a little road rash."
I think it will help to talk about folks whose initial companies went under, and then succeeded later. Or failed later and kept on going.
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA
#327It seems half these questions are from Single Founders. Considering YC's interest in experimenting with who and what they fund... Has YC ever considered a class of only single founders and trying to solve the problems YC anticipates with single founder startups (i.e. emotional support, etc...) It seems to me that the demand is there, and the potential for single founders to succeed is certainly possible... why not ex…
What we've thought about the most is creating a better way for potential cofounders to meet each other.
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA
#328How important is for YC founders to be ethical in a world that cares mostly about financial success, profit margins, exponential growth, etc? Think Theranos, Zenefits et al.
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA
#329Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
A common failure young start-ups is arrogance, & waste. Andy Grove (Intel) used to say "Only the paranoid survive", so true, I used to be amazed that the first thing startup's did was try to imitate the god's with furniture and building's, and the trappings's of wealth. I think your first $10M gross you need to stay lean&mean, complacency is the opposite of paranoia. In a interview with B-Gate he said his recurrent f…
Is this an anonymous account for someone at YC?
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA
#330On average, how much time will you spend on handling 1 application ?