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Y Combinator's Hardware Guy Leaves After 14 Months

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Re: Y Combinator's Hardware Guy Leaves After 14 Months

#41

Post by pavel_lishin »

birken wrote: post #11
sushid wrote: post #6

"Sam Altman, president and co-founder of Y Combinator." Uhh, they clearly didn't do their homework if they thought Altman co-founded YC.

Having read basically every news article ever about the startup I was involved in, they get the most basic, easily checkable facts like: What year was it founded? What does the company do? Who is the CEO? wrong at least half of the time. And they get the more complicated facts wrong much more often, but that is because they generally directly printing either what the founder tells them or something they think that is…

Can't find this, but just recently I asked what it's called when you see reporters getting basic facts wrong about your area of expertise, but continue to trust their reporting in all other areas.

Re: Y Combinator's Hardware Guy Leaves After 14 Months

#42

Post by georgemcbay »

birken wrote: post #11
sushid wrote: post #6

"Sam Altman, president and co-founder of Y Combinator." Uhh, they clearly didn't do their homework if they thought Altman co-founded YC.

Having read basically every news article ever about the startup I was involved in, they get the most basic, easily checkable facts like: What year was it founded? What does the company do? Who is the CEO? wrong at least half of the time. And they get the more complicated facts wrong much more often, but that is because they generally directly printing either what the founder tells them or something they think that is…

Relevant Michael Crichton quote on "the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect":

“Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.”

Re: Y Combinator's Hardware Guy Leaves After 14 Months

#43

Post by cellularmitosis »

sethbannon wrote: post #2

TL;DR -- Luke Iseman, YC's hardware focused Partner founded a hardware startup, which he's now taking through YC as a founder, after having set up a bunch of deals and processes to help hardware startups as a YC Partner. Seems like pretty good evidence YC is now great at helping hardware startups that he's choosing to go through the program himself.

Oh cool, Luke was a Maker personality in Austin for a while. I remember when he was making his own pedicabs. http://austinpedicab.org/2008/10/06/austin-cronicle-intervie...

Re: Y Combinator's Hardware Guy Leaves After 14 Months

#44

Post by nickff »

birken wrote: post #11
sushid wrote: post #6

"Sam Altman, president and co-founder of Y Combinator." Uhh, they clearly didn't do their homework if they thought Altman co-founded YC.

Having read basically every news article ever about the startup I was involved in, they get the most basic, easily checkable facts like: What year was it founded? What does the company do? Who is the CEO? wrong at least half of the time. And they get the more complicated facts wrong much more often, but that is because they generally directly printing either what the founder tells them or something they think that is…

I think this is an appropriate situation to bring up the Murray Gell-Mann effect, which is a succinct explanation of why the average reader should be more skeptical.[1]

[1] https://seekerblog.com/2006/01/31/the-murray-gell-mann-amnes...

Re: Y Combinator's Hardware Guy Leaves After 14 Months

#45

Post by jklinger410 »

the_watcher wrote: post #25
Cyph0n wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that the definition of a conflict of interest? Or am I reading this wrong?

Why? YC partners go on to start companies. And it's not uncommon for a founder to raise money from a VC firm they worked at in the past.

Ycombinator insists that being part of their in-crowd does not warrant special treatment. It would have been more appropriate to find funding elsewhere.

Re: Y Combinator's Hardware Guy Leaves After 14 Months

#46

Post by rezashirazian »

CydeWeys wrote: post #32
rezashirazian wrote: post #8

Still, hardware is, well, hard. Silicon Valley has produced a raft of world-changing software startups, from Airbnb (a YC veteran) to Facebook. But it's a whole lot easier to beta-test an app than to prototype and then manufacture a gadget with a bunch of moving parts. Then you have to market the thing to the masses, who are already enamored of their Apple and Samsung products. Exhibits A and B: Fitbit, the fitness t…

I don't know abut GoPro, but Fitbit deserves to fail. Their hardware is terrible . The warranty only lasts one year, yet I've had to replace both Fitbit devices I've had twice within that one year. I'm now Fitbit-less because the latest, a Charge HR, failed for the third time, and it's now out of that one year warranty. To give you an idea of how bad the Charge HR is, its charging plug attaches with metal prongs, but…

My wife was an avid Fitbit fan a few years ago. Unfortunately her device failed after a few months, and the replacement a few weeks later.

Her tone regarding the company is very much in line with what you've posted.

Re: Y Combinator's Hardware Guy Leaves After 14 Months

#47

Post by gus_massa »

Cyph0n wrote: post #19
Mango_Diesel wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the conflict of interest? Being a partner at YC is certainly a unique qualifier that would basically guarantee acceptance. There is nothing wrong with that. It is awesome, in fact.

Well, it could also mean that someone else who isn't a YC partner was rejected to let him in. Of course, I don't know whether or not that is the case, but this is where a conflict of interest could potentially arise from.

IIRC the exact number of startup that are founded is not fixed, they have some approximate idea but they found whatever they think is promising enough. So they didn't fill an slot in a fixed amount of startups.

Re: Y Combinator's Hardware Guy Leaves After 14 Months

#48

Post by saghm »

pavlov wrote: post #27
Cyph0n wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that the definition of a conflict of interest? Or am I reading this wrong?

YC is a private corporation, they can fund anyone they want. It's not like a public office. The mistake you're making is similar to the one where right-wing conspiracy theorists argue that getting censored by Twitter is a First Amendment violation. It isn't because Twitter is not part of the government.

Not saying you're wrong about this specific case, but I don't think the term "conflict of interest" is exclusive to the government. For (a somewhat vague) example, if I recommended my friend to a position at the company I worked for, "conflict of interest" would be an accurate descriptor for me being the one who interviews him for the position.

Re: Y Combinator's Hardware Guy Leaves After 14 Months

#49

Post by dmritard96 »

rezashirazian wrote: post #8

Still, hardware is, well, hard. Silicon Valley has produced a raft of world-changing software startups, from Airbnb (a YC veteran) to Facebook. But it's a whole lot easier to beta-test an app than to prototype and then manufacture a gadget with a bunch of moving parts. Then you have to market the thing to the masses, who are already enamored of their Apple and Samsung products. Exhibits A and B: Fitbit, the fitness t…

we build hardware (flair.co) and have just started shipping (woot!) and I think the trick with hardware is figuring out how to do the 'software wrapped in plastic'. If goPro was quicker to move into video storage and editing to go with their cameras or fitbit managed to push on fda approval and share data with your doctor (or their own doctors as a service) they could do some really cool stuff (and have really cool revenue...). Its not that as a stand alone product its not compelling - reminder, they IPOd... Looking at them and calling them failures is such a myopic perspective if you talk to any preseed, seed or A stage company. The trick is building a killer product and not worrying about the service if you can. Then transition over to a service model, selling leads, data, tools etc. If you can layer on services early on, thats fine, but not needed. If you never do it, it will come back to bite as challengers show up and erode margins and you saturate your 'ideal customer' market.

Re: Y Combinator's Hardware Guy Leaves After 14 Months

#50

Post by CydeWeys »

CydeWeys wrote: post #32
rezashirazian wrote: post #8

Still, hardware is, well, hard. Silicon Valley has produced a raft of world-changing software startups, from Airbnb (a YC veteran) to Facebook. But it's a whole lot easier to beta-test an app than to prototype and then manufacture a gadget with a bunch of moving parts. Then you have to market the thing to the masses, who are already enamored of their Apple and Samsung products. Exhibits A and B: Fitbit, the fitness t…

I don't know abut GoPro, but Fitbit deserves to fail. Their hardware is terrible . The warranty only lasts one year, yet I've had to replace both Fitbit devices I've had twice within that one year. I'm now Fitbit-less because the latest, a Charge HR, failed for the third time, and it's now out of that one year warranty. To give you an idea of how bad the Charge HR is, its charging plug attaches with metal prongs, but…

I forgot to write my conclusion because I got so livid and carried away about how much Fitbits suck, so here it is:

I don't think Fitbit's troubles are necessarily an indictment of the hardware industry as a whole. I think they're particular to that company having a horrible product and horrible hardware engineering, to the point where poor build quality actively repulses users rather than creating repeat customers. GoPro similarly has lots of issues that I've heard from others, but I don't have first-hand experience like I do with Fitbit so I won't spend any further time on it.

Contrast with, say, Apple, which is still a hardware company more so than it is anything else, and has become the largest publicly traded company in the world by doing so. I'm not a huge Apple fan by any means, but at least the devices don't suffer from such horrible flaws. My next laptop might not be another Macbook Pro, but it's at least in the running as an option because I've liked the one I currently have. Fitbit does not have that same charity from me.

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