Live data from Hacker News

I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA

news.ycombinator.com

421–430 of 458 posts

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

#421
post #24
post #8

You (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.

This is a good resource that is just waiting for a website refresh: http://autopsy.io/?ref=producthunt . Homejoy is #3

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

#422
post #24
post #8

You (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.

This is a good resource that is just waiting for a website refresh: http://autopsy.io/?ref=producthunt . Homejoy is #3

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

#423
post #359

Could you outline the exact reasoning why YC still believes SV is the place to be for a startup. I've never heard any explanation that went deeper than "well investors are there and network duh" It seems very broken that IT specifically should be bound to a physical place. Are there any plans to innovate in this regard or any research YC is doing?

This is discussed in the book "The Industries of the Future" by Alec Ross. He asks a question: Why can not other countries replicate SV? The short version is accumulation of know-how in that geographic region. For years, most of the brilliant minds in the tech domain from all over the world have gone to SV to collaborate together. So even if another country creates a replication of SV in terms of infrastructure (or e…

SV seems to have a much higher rate of startups, but a lower rate of long term success than several other locations. The attraction seems to become part of the VC investment scam where SV has lower investment standards. Making running a startup easier even if to makes running as successful startup harder.

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

#424

Two 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…

Some tips I've found for finding/actuating a good marketer; 1) Dig into exact contributions to campaigns for past roles. Ask for the logic around decisions. Often marketers talk about their campaigns results but really they were a body in a room with little input. Dig for detail and motivations to decisions and you will find out who is who. 2) Look for initiative. Many marketeers repeat what is always done optimising…

As the spouse of a marketer, I think this is great advice! I only have three things to add:

> 11) When you interview give a 10min exercise before to discuss and cover up real-time actual skills. E.g. show them some relevant to role campaign materials (e.g. landing pages/EDM's) and ask them how they would improve.

Be very careful to keep an open mind when judging this one! If you are a non-marketer trying to hire a Director of Marketing, you are not going to be able to answer this question better than a qualified candidate. If their answer seems wrong to you, be sure to dig into their reasoning, past experiences, etc. to see why they answered the way they did.

If they omitted something that you thought was important, it's probably worth saying, "What about that big, ugly, magenta call-to-action button? Shouldn't it be green and fit with the rest of the design, perhaps?" You might be wrong! At least give them a chance to say, "I noticed that (how could I not?), but I've been surprised in several A/B campaigns to find that call-to-action buttons that stand out trump aesthetics in terms of conversion rates. If the design team wants to change it, I would certainly work with them to come up with a solution that looks good and converts. Otherwise, I have much more certainty that initiatives X, Y, and Z will have a real, measurable impact on discoverability and conversion."

=====

Secondly:

> 5) Avoid anyone that shows narcissistic tendency or is generally 'me' focused.

I totally agree here (but I'm biased because my spouse is not at all a narcissist). Be sure that your hiring process doesn't select against these people! If you're hiring for qualities like (over-)confidence, where you favor candidates who seem certain of themselves, you're doing it wrong.

In general, before writing off a candidate, try to dig into what you perceive to be their weaknesses. They may be stronger than you think in those areas. Again, if you think they're wrong about something, investigate that, too, as you may be the one who is wrong.

=====

Thirdly and finally, do NOT make the mistake of selecting for familiarity with your market. This is akin to hiring a senior developer based on what technologies they know. It is the job of a marketer to dive into a market with little-to-no prior knowledge and understand it quickly. A good marketer will join all the relevant forums, follow influencers on social media, etc. and understand your market better than you do within a few weeks.

If you see a marketing candidate with experience in several sectors, none of which include your own, that's an excellent sign, not a negative one.

Good luck!

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

#425
post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.ycombinator.com/ethics/

So the answer is not that much - as long as it doesn't damage the image of YC it's okay.

I don't think that's a fair assessment (I'm not affiliated with YC in any way). I think that:

> Not using misleading, illegal or dishonest sales tactics.

> Keeping your word...

and:

> Generally behaving in a professional and upstanding way.

cover more ground than you imply. While it might not hurt for them to take a few more stands (e.g., "ensure the integrity of customer data", "don't be a net drain on public resources"), I think it would be a bit difficult to add a lot more ethical requirements without getting overly industry-specific and excessively lengthy.

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

#426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is discussed in the book "The Industries of the Future" by Alec Ross. He asks a question: Why can not other countries replicate SV? The short version is accumulation of know-how in that geographic region. For years, most of the brilliant minds in the tech domain from all over the world have gone to SV to collaborate together. So even if another country creates a replication of SV in terms of infrastructure (or e…

I didn't read the book but that is entirely too simplistic and comes across as american exceptionalism to me. Not to mention the author has a well defined political agenda to sell I don't necessarily agree with. I've lived all over the country and all over the world and between countries I'd say it is 100% cultural. In "europe" employee protection laws make it difficult to quickly hire and fire employees, making it d…

> Purely based on population numbers it is difficult to believe the bay area has a higher concentration of educated people.

At this point, I don't think it's arguing that. There's a critical mass of domain specific professionals in SV, pure and simple.

The argument is that if anyone wants to create a competitor to SV, they'd be playing catch up because there is already an established core in SV. You'd need to peel away a large number of folks already established there before that concentration is no longer as strong as it currently is.

There's a limited number of experts in the world. Wherever has the highest concentration is going to have an innate advantage in terms of appeal, regardless of cost, etc. Creating an affordable alternative elsewhere can't compete on that level.

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

#427
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slightly against--we're not sure why it is, but 5 or 6 founder companies have (with some notable exceptions) significantly underperformed our average.

> we're not sure why I expect it is early burn rate and simply getting too far ahead of your potential income. Half the founders means twice the runway.

Also much higher probability of founder drama

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

#428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is discussed in the book "The Industries of the Future" by Alec Ross. He asks a question: Why can not other countries replicate SV? The short version is accumulation of know-how in that geographic region. For years, most of the brilliant minds in the tech domain from all over the world have gone to SV to collaborate together. So even if another country creates a replication of SV in terms of infrastructure (or e…

I didn't read the book but that is entirely too simplistic and comes across as american exceptionalism to me. Not to mention the author has a well defined political agenda to sell I don't necessarily agree with. I've lived all over the country and all over the world and between countries I'd say it is 100% cultural. In "europe" employee protection laws make it difficult to quickly hire and fire employees, making it d…

>In "europe" employee protection laws make it difficult to quickly hire and fire employees, making it difficult to scale.

And IMO US anti-discrimination laws are also flawed. I think a good compromise is to only include certain kinds of jobs like manual labor under employment anti-discrimination laws.

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

#429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it can be tough to move to SV for someone who is married with kids. That is what has stopped me from applying, and I have definitely thought about creative ways I could make it work logistically. :)

I honestly believe that YC is looking for a particular sort of founder: someone who will put their company 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in their life in order to create explosive growth and maybe change the world. Just running a profitable business is not enough for them. They only want startups that have a chance to be grand-slam home runs. Paul Graham has written about this before. The requirement to live there for 3 months i…

People with families can certainly be successful entrepreneurs and create companies with "explosive growth that maybe change the world". (It kinda came across like you were implying that founders with families were mostly only interested in "lifestyle businesses".)

There are so many factors that contribute to success, and they are never all equal, so any sort of up-front filtering based on some factor you think is correlated with success is going to miss out on people. And besides, I would strongly dispute any arguments that having a family is like some sort of handicap that must be overcome. In a lot of ways, I think having a family is a BETTER situation for starting a company!

My impression from reading YC's stuff is more that folks feel the value of the program comes to a large degree from the in-person interactions people have, so it makes sense to require people to be there in person.

Related, there's this scene from Moneyball, [1] that I love. They're all sitting around, discussing all this stuff that is at best tangentially related to _the actual things that matter_ for success of the team. It's very tempting and natural bias to latch on to this or that factor which you've become convinced makes a difference "all else being equal". But all else is never equal, and the question that is actually important is more the one Billy Beane keeps asking: "Yeah, but can he hit?"

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWgyy_rlmag

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

#430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly believe that YC is looking for a particular sort of founder: someone who will put their company 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in their life in order to create explosive growth and maybe change the world. Just running a profitable business is not enough for them. They only want startups that have a chance to be grand-slam home runs. Paul Graham has written about this before. The requirement to live there for 3 months i…

People with families can certainly be successful entrepreneurs and create companies with "explosive growth that maybe change the world". (It kinda came across like you were implying that founders with families were mostly only interested in "lifestyle businesses".) There are so many factors that contribute to success, and they are never all equal, so any sort of up-front filtering based on some factor you think is co…

I don't think it's families specifically, it's just commitment in general.

It's certainly possible that a parent could find a way to be away from their kids for 3 months, if they are sufficiently committed. Happens in the military all the time.

My guess is that if a person is not willing or able to figure that out, YC is not interested in them. It's not like it is hard for them to find applicants, and they don't need to be fair or accommodating.

To be clear, this is just my speculation, and I don't think it's the sole reason.

Post reply on HN