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Michael Seibel, CEO of YC, is doing an AMA

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Michael Seibel, CEO of YC, is doing an AMA

#243

Post by toufka »

btcboss wrote: post #27

Hi Michael, Thanks for doing this! My question is: How can we make a better environment for discovering cures/vaccines? Can we create a almost like a "YC" for research of biological sciences. Although, I don't know much about this area, I feel there needs to be a better way to allow the most intelligent people have the resources they need to discover cures/vaccines etc, with no external barriers. Thank you.

The modern biotech sector as a whole (excluding pure pharmaceutical therapeutics) is a pretty small compared with the tech sector. It's really challenging to build a company in a new ecosystem like that. Getting resources into the system in order to get the flywheel running is tough. Good ideas on jumpstarting what will inevitably a valuable technology would be great to hear. But like all research, it's an investment - obvious returns might not come in the short-term.

Re: Michael Seibel, CEO of YC, is doing an AMA

#244

Post by Jach »

cookiecaper wrote: post #212
koolba wrote: post #137

Is there any appetite at YC for a non-profit that is pro- Trump and plans on working with the new POTUS to further his agenda?

This is a great question. It seems like it'd be difficult for YC to be neutral on such topics, considering they are actively pursuing pilot projects on things that very left-wing, like a basic income. From the perspective of a non-profit, it's probably less likely because the argument is probably less "invest and see what thrives [so we can make money off anything that makes money]" and more "help craft the world in…

Wasn't this basically answered by the Pinboard fiasco a while back? (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11633517) It wasn't really over left-wing/right-wing political differences but there was a clash.

Re: Michael Seibel, CEO of YC, is doing an AMA

#245

Post by jasim »

guelo wrote: post #180
mwseibel wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest - it was impossible early on to see how Justin.tv (a guy wearing a camera on his head 24/7) or Airbnb (airbed rental) could turn into billion dollar companies. Often times we invest in great teams and just see what they can do. Remember hindsight is 20-20.

Don't you think the web is maturing and consolidating quickly and there will be fewer and fewer opportunities for a guy with a camera to build a billion dollar business?

"There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in."

The status quo is _always_ broken. Change is unceasing. Assumptions that are true today need not remain so in the future. This can happen to any product, business and their culture. Opportunities are everywhere, but we get normalized to reality pretty soon, the status quo fervently resists change, new things by virtue of being new are hard to do and fail often, and so we conveniently avoid spotting them.

Re: Michael Seibel, CEO of YC, is doing an AMA

#248

Post by dfabulich »

tschellenbach wrote: post #247

Hi Michael, what are the biggest companies you've missed out on? Do you keep an anti-portfolio like BVP? https://www.bvp.com/portfolio/anti-portfolio

YC has announced in the past that they can't answer this question, because they keep rejections confidential.

Re: Michael Seibel, CEO of YC, is doing an AMA

#250

Post by healthenclave »

tschellenbach wrote: post #247

Hi Michael, what are the biggest companies you've missed out on? Do you keep an anti-portfolio like BVP? https://www.bvp.com/portfolio/anti-portfolio

I think SendGrind, Buffer, Couchbase and Ionic Framework are a few notable ones that were previously discussed. BTW: great to see you here. I used Feedly(get stream) a while back in a project of mine and it worked liked a charm.
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