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YC Annual Letter 2017

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: YC Annual Letter 2017

#121

Post by alaskamiller »

austenallred wrote: post #92
optimusclimb wrote: post #62

> 4) Does this company have a clear and important mission? > Without this, I usually get bored. More importantly, companies that don’t have this usually have a hard time recruiting enough great people to work with them, and thus struggle to become very large. I find this one interesting. When Google started, there were many incumbent search engines. Their mission was to provide better results than what existed, i.e.…

Perhaps the issue is you not understanding the companies' missions. What you're describing is products, which represent a manifestation of one piece of the mission, and are a building block that helps construct a world in which the mission is possible. Google, for example, is (and was) on a mission to do much more than build a really sweet search engine. Their goal from the beginning has been (though now refined): "t…

Perhaps you're mis-remembering and rather rely on PR narratives and more erroneously you're conflating intentions and mission.

When Larry and Sergey worked on their PhD thesis of an algorithm to rank pages relative to each other, went to a party, and received a $100k check in the garage, was the pitch really "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful" or did they arrive to that later?

Likewise, when Travis rolled off from Scour to connecting for hire cars that sit idle, again was the intention already "make transportation as reliable as running water, everywhere, for everyone" or did they arrive at that later?

And Mark in his dorm room figuring out how to scrape and upload his classmates photos to a PHP website, he was delightful with glee that he has achieved his mission of "making the world more open and connected" or did he and others figure that out when he moved out here to Palo Alto?

These things took off, they got more money, the money brought more help, more help created an organization.

Mission statements, like code, is refactored over and over then massaged by marketers and publicists and recruiters until it hits you.

Re: YC Annual Letter 2017

#122

Post by tyre »

nostrademons wrote: post #110
twelvechairs wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If these were their real missions most of these companies they would be doing things very differently. Facebook transparent? Not a chance. Uber reliable? Not with surge pricing etc

So, there's this weird effect where basically every major company has a gigantic fundamental hypocrisy in their mission statement: Google's is "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful", and yet - if you leak anything about them as an employee, you are insta-fired. If you try to figure out any sense of organization about their product portfolio, good luck. If you try to scrape an…

> Uber's is "make transportation as reliable as running > water", but their goal is for people to give up their own > cars - which they can use any time, any where, for zero > marginal cost - to be at the mercy of Uber's service.

I'm not sure what car you're driving, but in my experience there is a significant marginal cost. I no longer own a car, exclusively using public transit + Lyft, because I don't want to deal with maintenance, paying for parking, gas, insurance, etc.

Re: YC Annual Letter 2017

#123

Post by nostrademons »

tyre wrote: post #122
nostrademons wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, there's this weird effect where basically every major company has a gigantic fundamental hypocrisy in their mission statement: Google's is "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful", and yet - if you leak anything about them as an employee, you are insta-fired. If you try to figure out any sense of organization about their product portfolio, good luck. If you try to scrape an…

> Uber's is "make transportation as reliable as running > water", but their goal is for people to give up their own > cars - which they can use any time, any where, for zero > marginal cost - to be at the mercy of Uber's service. I'm not sure what car you're driving, but in my experience there is a significant marginal cost. I no longer own a car, exclusively using public transit + Lyft, because I don't want to deal…

Maintenance, insurance, etc. are largely fixed costs: you have to pay the same for them regardless of how much you use the car. (Pity for me, I've got an 8 year old car with Parking in the suburbs is subsidized by business owners & the city itself - you can usually park for free, and the price of it is reflected in land values.

Gas is the only marginal cost for suburban driving, and I can basically guarantee that Uber costs more than gas does. The marginal cost of driving across Silicon Valley, in gas, is under a dollar.

Re: YC Annual Letter 2017

#124

Post by edpichler »

optimusclimb wrote: post #62

> 4) Does this company have a clear and important mission? > Without this, I usually get bored. More importantly, companies that don’t have this usually have a hard time recruiting enough great people to work with them, and thus struggle to become very large. I find this one interesting. When Google started, there were many incumbent search engines. Their mission was to provide better results than what existed, i.e.…

May you didn't get the point (or maybe I didn't) of what Sam was meaning. I think at the very beginning companies don't know what is really the mission, they are experimenting. But these companies just start to grow when they realize what is their mission.

Re: YC Annual Letter 2017

#125

Post by kenferry »

mbesto wrote: post #100
austenallred wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps the issue is you not understanding the companies' missions. What you're describing is products, which represent a manifestation of one piece of the mission, and are a building block that helps construct a world in which the mission is possible. Google, for example, is (and was) on a mission to do much more than build a really sweet search engine. Their goal from the beginning has been (though now refined): "t…

> (though now refined) That's exactly the point. Google didn't start with that mission, it had to be refined. And Google, meaning Larry and Sergey working on algo's prior to actually starting a commercial entity. The parent's point is that many of the most successful tech investments have come from businesses that are generally dismissed as toys in their initial phases. YC invests in companies at their earliest stage…

Focus is on the word "other," here. Paul's been consistent about the need for both something that immediately solves a real problem, even if it looks like a toy to _other_ people, and a big picture key idea.

Re: YC Annual Letter 2017

#126

Post by mjmsmith »

purple-again wrote: post #63
ForrestN wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny you say this—the first thing I did, even before reading the article, was search for "Thiel." It's going to be hard for me to take this sort of thing seriously, this telegraphing of benevolence which is so central to YC's branding, until they address the fact that one of their "partners" is such an obviously destructive force within society. They don't even have to do anything but say goodbye, and they won'…

While I disagree with many of Trumps beliefs and by proxy probably many of Thiels as well the fact that they refused to further the division of our country by excommunicating him for his beliefs is a huge pro in my book. The founder of Rails saying he would fire any of his employees that supported Trump was sickening and that kind of attitude will never allow us to move from bloodshed and war to one people.

As opposed to supporting and voting for a man who conducted a years-long racist campaign to smear the previous president, which demonstrates great judgment and a deep-seated desire to heal the divide.

Re: YC Annual Letter 2017

#127

Post by dlo »

sama wrote: post #21
gregoire wrote: post #8

Is there a reason why this is published on Sam's blog and not on YC's blog? Oh and a remark on the letter's typography: the double spaces after periods should be single spaces.

I had emailed this out to the YC community over the weekend. I got word from a journalist it was about to leak, and I couldn't get in touch with the person that runs the YC blog (I don't yet know how to post on the new one, but I'm sure going to figure it out now). I didn't want to wait, so I just posted it where I could. Also I happen to think documents are easier to read with double spaces after sentences. Surely t…

Hm. Wonder how it could've leaked. I have to imagine that this incident impacts the likelihood of you sharing something like this with the YC network in the future. I would support rooting this person out and giving a stern warning.

Other possibilities, besides someone being untrustworthy, is that the journalist was bluffing. Or perhaps someone's account was hacked.

Re: YC Annual Letter 2017

#128

Post by mememachine »

kristianc wrote: post #109
twelvechairs wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If these were their real missions most of these companies they would be doing things very differently. Facebook transparent? Not a chance. Uber reliable? Not with surge pricing etc

The companies as they are today may not be achieving their mission - that doesn't mean that they won't in the future. Facebook has succeeded in making the world a more open and transparent place - people have the ability to share information that matters to them and have people around the world find out about it. There are fewer places around the world for those in power to hide information away now. That's different…

Theres no discernable progress towards their mission.

Call it what it is, PR puff.

Re: YC Annual Letter 2017

#129

Post by Schwolop »

yawgmoth wrote: post #51
asperous wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not given the ability to downvote without reaching a certain karma threshold, so there are already some thoughts in place there.

It actually seems worse to me that people who have been around to achieve that threshold (it's 500, right?) don't have exhibit the etiquette I'm asking for. They should know better, right?

I'm going to respectfully disagree. Part of why I like HN is that meta-discussion of the "why did you downvote me?" and "downvoting because ..." are actively discouraged. Better to silently downvote and move on, which I do frequently for all many of reasons. This has next to no impact unless multiple readers do the same thing, at which point greying out comments serves the intended purpose of conveying that the community as a whole doesn't think the comment is valuable.

Re: YC Annual Letter 2017

#130

Post by yellowbeard »

nostrademons wrote: post #110
twelvechairs wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If these were their real missions most of these companies they would be doing things very differently. Facebook transparent? Not a chance. Uber reliable? Not with surge pricing etc

So, there's this weird effect where basically every major company has a gigantic fundamental hypocrisy in their mission statement: Google's is "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful", and yet - if you leak anything about them as an employee, you are insta-fired. If you try to figure out any sense of organization about their product portfolio, good luck. If you try to scrape an…

I saw Zuckerberg walking in Palo Alto with wife, child and dog and no security visible just over a year ago. If he has 24/7 security, either they're very discreet or it started recently.
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