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YC’s 2016 Holiday Gift Guide

ycgiftideas.com

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Re: YC’s 2016 Holiday Gift Guide

#11

Post by gamache »

Aside from the Donations section (YC's nonprofits), having much of the YC portfolio collected like this really deflates a lot of the cachet about YC, its companies, and its place at the Silicon Valley cool-kids table.

I look at this list and I see problems that never needed solving, middlemen -- sorry, curators -- reselling cheap Chinese crap, and a cult of jamming Bluetooth and USB into just about anything that holds still long enough because IoT.

There is no magic, "man I wish I'd thought of that" moment here, just a few "that makes sense" products in a sea of Valley bullshit.

Perhaps YC was always like this, but they hadn't presented that information in such an easy-to-consume list before.

Re: YC’s 2016 Holiday Gift Guide

#12

Post by ryanlol »

koolba wrote: post #2

Unless there's a significant financial incentive to do so (ex: 2-to-1 match), don't give people gift cards. Gift cards are the biggest scam ever pulled by the retail industry, or more specifically, perpetuating the idea that giving cash is taboo. The one exception would be giving a preloaded credit card to someone who otherwise doesn't have access to one (ex: a niece/nephew that's far away) and only if there are no f…

>All that aside, Markhor looks interesting. I don't recall seeing them on HN (guess it's less "tech" than most YC companies) but the loafers look nice. Anybody here have any experience with them? Always on the look out for a better pair of shoes...

Googling 'site:styleforum.net "markhor"' only finds one hit, and sites like reddit are equally empty.

Does this company actually exist? They've supposedly been around for a few years now but haven't really been discussed anywhere.

Re: YC’s 2016 Holiday Gift Guide

#13

Post by themoat »

hyperopia wrote: post #8

Pick up one of these for the hacker/developer/AI enthusiast in your family: https://getasteria.com/

That looks mildly interesting to me. What do you see yourself using it for mostly? Do you have a personal application in mind, or are you a tinkerer just looking to have some fun?

I kind of like it but I don't know that it's calling my name quite yet.

Re: YC’s 2016 Holiday Gift Guide

#14

Post by CPLX »

I always wonder how people can say things like this: "They've created a wifi-enabled immersion circulator called the Nomiku so every home chef can prepare simple, Michelin-starred meals."

I mean, I bet that literally zero Michelin-starred meals have been prepared with this device. And the phrase "Michelin" or "Michelin-starred" is trademarked and has a clear meaning. If I was a marketer for this company I would feel uncomfortable using a phrase like that.

With that aside, it's odd to see so many YC companies on this list with the same faddish business models of "send some stuff to you every month you don't get to pick the stuff but trust us" and "do something that's already pretty simple in your kitchen or home but now using an overcomplicated device with machine learning and wifi"

The former model isn't really a technology empowered business model at all, it's really a buying or deals club driven by marketing. And the latter is ostensibly technology but it doesn't seem to have really any of the accelerative effect on efficiency that real genuine networked software based businesses have.

Seeing all of them in one place like this, backed by YC, is pretty disheartening.

Re: YC’s 2016 Holiday Gift Guide

#15

Post by rjvir »

koolba wrote: post #2

Unless there's a significant financial incentive to do so (ex: 2-to-1 match), don't give people gift cards. Gift cards are the biggest scam ever pulled by the retail industry, or more specifically, perpetuating the idea that giving cash is taboo. The one exception would be giving a preloaded credit card to someone who otherwise doesn't have access to one (ex: a niece/nephew that's far away) and only if there are no f…

I don't think gift cards are a big conspiracy from the retail industry that primarily perpetuated the idea that cash is a bad gift.

It seems more likely that cash became unpopular independently. And for good reason! Trading cash during holidays really ruins the fun!

Perhaps the retail industry was just responding to demand - the market may just want gift cards!

Re: YC’s 2016 Holiday Gift Guide

#16

Post by cndksjc »

dang wrote: post #5
mark242 wrote: post #4

on edit: There are so many of these companies that are basically stylized versions of Alibaba listing pages or are basically re-skinning of some business process that, turns out, doesn't actually need to be disrupted. Transporting gasoline to fuel up someone's car? Really? We're going to be energy wasteful just to shave 10 minutes off someone's week? The other disturbing thing is how many of these gadgets are IP enab…

Snarky dismissals of other people's work are not welcome on HN, so please don't post like this. I tend not to post as many moderation scoldings in YC-related threads, but that was such a bad HN comment that I'll break the pattern for it. Edit: you rewrote your comment to make it (somewhat) more substantive and less snarky. In principle that's fine, but it would have been more respectful to preserve the original conte…

Have you considered that these companies might not actually be that innovative and that the parent comment was a legitimate criticism?

Re: YC’s 2016 Holiday Gift Guide

#17

Post by joncrocks »

CPLX wrote: post #14

I always wonder how people can say things like this: "They've created a wifi-enabled immersion circulator called the Nomiku so every home chef can prepare simple, Michelin-starred meals." I mean, I bet that literally zero Michelin-starred meals have been prepared with this device. And the phrase "Michelin" or "Michelin-starred" is trademarked and has a clear meaning. If I was a marketer for this company I would feel…

Not this specific device perhaps, but Sous Vides (as I understand it) can form part of a commercial kitchen, at high-end restaurants.

A quick google shows: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/10/michelin-restaura... - A Michelin starred restaurant, which uses a Sous Vide. They are generally quite expensive to by for home use.

I won't comment on the rest, but I'd agree that the list doesn't exactly fill me with wow.

Re: YC’s 2016 Holiday Gift Guide

#18

Post by soylentcola »

dpark wrote: post #6
koolba wrote: post #2

Unless there's a significant financial incentive to do so (ex: 2-to-1 match), don't give people gift cards. Gift cards are the biggest scam ever pulled by the retail industry, or more specifically, perpetuating the idea that giving cash is taboo. The one exception would be giving a preloaded credit card to someone who otherwise doesn't have access to one (ex: a niece/nephew that's far away) and only if there are no f…

> Unless there's a significant financial incentive to do so (ex: 2-to-1 match), don't give people gift cards. Gift cards are the biggest scam ever pulled by the retail industry, or more specifically, perpetuating the idea that giving cash is taboo. The problem is that cash often feels like not giving a gift at all. If you exchange fifty-dollar bills with a sibling, it feels pointless. Gift cards can alleviate that fe…

My (to be fair, minor) issue with gift cards is that they're essentially saying "hey, have some money...but you can only spend it at this one place of my choosing, not yours".

I'm aware that this is pretty low on the list of problems you'd hate to have but it's there nonetheless. Let's say a relative has heard me talk about some Arduino project I'm messing with or something to do with building a computer. They don't know much about either of those things but they know I like "techie" stuff and gadgets so they get me a gift card from Best Buy, as that is the only electronics store they're really aware of.

Now I've got a $100 gift card to a store that either doesn't sell any of the things I'd want to buy or charges a hefty markup over what I'd normally be willing to pay. Sure, I could sell the gift card to some bargain hunter for $95. They'd get $5 off, I'd get most of the value to spend elsewhere...

...but that's a hassle and not at all what the gift-giver would want to necessitate anyway. The other major option is to just suck it up and either buy something I don't really want/need out of the available Best Buy catalog or maybe buy that $100 item that I would've just found for $70 at Microcenter or Newegg.

I think you nailed it when you pointed out issues of perception and tradition. Giving cash to someone other than an aging/retired parent or a young child comes off as odd. It's almost like you didn't care enough to think of a gift that they would actually enjoy or shows that you know them. I just think gift cards are about the same in that regard, only less desirable or useful.

Re: YC’s 2016 Holiday Gift Guide

#20

Post by throwthisawayt »

gamache wrote: post #11

Aside from the Donations section (YC's nonprofits), having much of the YC portfolio collected like this really deflates a lot of the cachet about YC, its companies, and its place at the Silicon Valley cool-kids table. I look at this list and I see problems that never needed solving, middlemen -- sorry, curators -- reselling cheap Chinese crap, and a cult of jamming Bluetooth and USB into just about anything that hold…

You are looking at a holiday shopping list which is the epitome of consumerism. You shouldn't find things that are elevating the human spirit you are looking for stuff that you would find in skymall or the home shopping network.

There are plenty of yc companies tackling interesting problems - you just wouldn't find them on a holiday list. For example:

Triplebyte - trying to take a data driven approach to make recruiting for more scientific

Gitlab - building cool open source software to host your code

Higherme - building customized education software to help kids learn math and science

Priceconomics - they have some of the most interesting content coming out of tech (opposite of huffpo/buzzfeed/etc)

Zapier - ifttt for the enterprise / lots of cool tools for companies

Mixpanel - power modern analytics for companies

I think it's unfair to judge all of yc based on a holiday shopping list which by its definition should cater to our consumerist desires. The most interesting companies shouldn't be on this list since most wouldn't have a product that is bought by consumers.

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