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Why Y Combinator Made All the Difference

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Re: Why Y Combinator Made All the Difference

#11

Post by [deleted] »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #7
koolba wrote: post #5

> We convinced our friends in the current Y Combinator batch to let us stay in a closet at their East Palo Alto home office for $600 per month. If we spent $1,000 a month we would have 25 months of runway, which seems infinite. I'm all for frugality and cost controls, but this is ridiculous. It's things like this that brainwash a generation of fools into throwing their lives away at nonsensical ideas. I'm not saying…

> We convinced our friends in the current Y Combinator batch to let us stay in a closet at their East Palo Alto home office for $600 per month. If we spent $1,000 a month we would have 25 months of runway, which seems infinite. I'm all for frugality and cost controls, but this is ridiculous. It's things like this that brainwash a generation of fools into throwing their lives away at nonsensical ideas. I'm not saying…

[deleted]

Re: Why Y Combinator Made All the Difference

#12

Post by idiot_stick »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #7
koolba wrote: post #5

> We convinced our friends in the current Y Combinator batch to let us stay in a closet at their East Palo Alto home office for $600 per month. If we spent $1,000 a month we would have 25 months of runway, which seems infinite. I'm all for frugality and cost controls, but this is ridiculous. It's things like this that brainwash a generation of fools into throwing their lives away at nonsensical ideas. I'm not saying…

> We convinced our friends in the current Y Combinator batch to let us stay in a closet at their East Palo Alto home office for $600 per month. If we spent $1,000 a month we would have 25 months of runway, which seems infinite. I'm all for frugality and cost controls, but this is ridiculous. It's things like this that brainwash a generation of fools into throwing their lives away at nonsensical ideas. I'm not saying…

>What an incredible, amazing experience.

You realize you can do everything you said, without living in someone's closet, in 99% of the world, right?

YC is making billions and their workers are living in closets. That's insane.

Re: Why Y Combinator Made All the Difference

#13

Post by luos »

koolba wrote: post #5

> We convinced our friends in the current Y Combinator batch to let us stay in a closet at their East Palo Alto home office for $600 per month. If we spent $1,000 a month we would have 25 months of runway, which seems infinite. I'm all for frugality and cost controls, but this is ridiculous. It's things like this that brainwash a generation of fools into throwing their lives away at nonsensical ideas. I'm not saying…

It's literally 5 minutes of googling, it was the 5th result for her name. Not sure why is this so big of a problem?

Re: Why Y Combinator Made All the Difference

#14

Post by sillysaurus3 »

koolba wrote: post #9
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We convinced our friends in the current Y Combinator batch to let us stay in a closet at their East Palo Alto home office for $600 per month. If we spent $1,000 a month we would have 25 months of runway, which seems infinite. I'm all for frugality and cost controls, but this is ridiculous. It's things like this that brainwash a generation of fools into throwing their lives away at nonsensical ideas. I'm not saying…

> Are you kidding? I would do it in a heartbeat. I'm not joking. Who wouldn't want to work on something awesome with all their heart with their friends in East Palo Alto for a couple years? Working on something awesome with friends should not, and in most cases does not, require living in a closet. In most cases it doesn't require being in the same room, city, state, or even country. > Why not? What an incredible, am…

Haha. Looks like the punch bowl is empty. Somebody make another round of kool-aid!

You know, I've heard this type of irritating comment so many times over the years. I've been on HN since day two of its public launch, back when it was called Startup News. It was a magical time, mostly because everyone was universally supportive. This isn't a rose-tinted view of the past, or selective memory. It was the reason I was blown away by this internet community.

The cynical comments would pop up on Reddit, mostly from pg's essay posts. I couldn't understand their point of view. Were they jealous? Did they care so much about what other people were doing with their lives that they would choose to mock them publicly? I didn't know, but I felt lucky that HN wasn't one of those places.

Then as HN grew, it started here. Mostly people remained supportive, but there was this undercurrent of negativity that kept creeping in, proportional to HN's size.

Now I wake up nearly a decade later to see many people who share your ideas, that only fools would dare gamble their youth, that taking anything but the safe and rational route is "drinking kool-aid," that pg's essays are manipulative, and so on.

And so I realize that YC founders now have their own community, separate from HN, and the electrifying experience of the early days of Startup News is no longer present.

But I was there. I saw it, I flew to SF and met a bunch of YC co's, I saw their optimism and courage, and you could not be more mistaken about the type of people they are.

I'm not saying that it's all wonderful, or that they're giants, or that there are "normal" people and "special" people interested in startups. I'm saying that startups are started by regular people, like you and me, and that without a supportive community, it's incredibly difficult to start anything.

I didn't even care about getting rich. I just wanted to help somehow. But I'm just happy that their community grows and grows and becomes stronger in spite of your negative voice, and all the negative voices across the internet. It seems like proof that you have to not care what people think to get things done.

Re: Why Y Combinator Made All the Difference

#15

Post by ovi256 »

koolba wrote: post #5

> We convinced our friends in the current Y Combinator batch to let us stay in a closet at their East Palo Alto home office for $600 per month. If we spent $1,000 a month we would have 25 months of runway, which seems infinite. I'm all for frugality and cost controls, but this is ridiculous. It's things like this that brainwash a generation of fools into throwing their lives away at nonsensical ideas. I'm not saying…

I see what you mean by overbetting on one idea, but please stop selling this point that they're throwing their lives away. That's unnecessary hyperbole. Even if nothing works at all, which is rarely the case, because the BATNA is networking with YC alumni and getting a safety job at GooAmaBook, they've wasted 6 months to a year for the YC program.

Re: Why Y Combinator Made All the Difference

#16

Post by raspasov »

koolba wrote: post #5

> We convinced our friends in the current Y Combinator batch to let us stay in a closet at their East Palo Alto home office for $600 per month. If we spent $1,000 a month we would have 25 months of runway, which seems infinite. I'm all for frugality and cost controls, but this is ridiculous. It's things like this that brainwash a generation of fools into throwing their lives away at nonsensical ideas. I'm not saying…

Have you ever gone as frugal as this to speak about it? And what would you suggest the "generation of fools" do otherwise? Get a 50k job at a big company and live happily ever after? Too much hate in that comment. (edit for grammar/typo)

Re: Why Y Combinator Made All the Difference

#17

Post by raspasov »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #14
koolba wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are you kidding? I would do it in a heartbeat. I'm not joking. Who wouldn't want to work on something awesome with all their heart with their friends in East Palo Alto for a couple years? Working on something awesome with friends should not, and in most cases does not, require living in a closet. In most cases it doesn't require being in the same room, city, state, or even country. > Why not? What an incredible, am…

Haha. Looks like the punch bowl is empty. Somebody make another round of kool-aid! You know, I've heard this type of irritating comment so many times over the years. I've been on HN since day two of its public launch, back when it was called Startup News. It was a magical time, mostly because everyone was universally supportive. This isn't a rose-tinted view of the past, or selective memory. It was the reason I was b…

Thumbs up. If this is getting down voted, all bets are off.

Re: Why Y Combinator Made All the Difference

#18

Post by koolba »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #14
koolba wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are you kidding? I would do it in a heartbeat. I'm not joking. Who wouldn't want to work on something awesome with all their heart with their friends in East Palo Alto for a couple years? Working on something awesome with friends should not, and in most cases does not, require living in a closet. In most cases it doesn't require being in the same room, city, state, or even country. > Why not? What an incredible, am…

Haha. Looks like the punch bowl is empty. Somebody make another round of kool-aid! You know, I've heard this type of irritating comment so many times over the years. I've been on HN since day two of its public launch, back when it was called Startup News. It was a magical time, mostly because everyone was universally supportive. This isn't a rose-tinted view of the past, or selective memory. It was the reason I was b…

I'm not saying that pursuing a startup is always a bad idea. I'm saying that romanticizing living in somebody else's closet as part of the startup journey is wrong.

Building something that people what is what counts. Getting customers to pay you for it is what counts. Having profits is what counts.

Software (and startups in general) doesn't get created because you're eating beans and rice, heated off a hot-plate, in the closet of your friends apartment. It gets created when you sit down to do real work.

> But I was there. I saw it, I flew to SF and met a bunch of YC co's, I saw their optimism and courage, and you could not be more mistaken about the type of people they are.

There's nothing courageous about taking unnecessary risks. That's called being foolish.

Again, I'm not saying don't take risks. To win big you have to bet big. But it's not the risks or bets that matter, it's the pay off. That's what has to make sense.

> But I'm just happy that their community grows and grows and becomes stronger in spite of your negative voice, and all the negative voices across the internet.

Reality always has a negative tone to it. If it didn't, we wouldn't need idealists.

> It seems like proof that you have to not care what people think to get things done.

Well this I can agree on.

Re: Why Y Combinator Made All the Difference

#19

Post by koolba »

raspasov wrote: post #16
koolba wrote: post #5

> We convinced our friends in the current Y Combinator batch to let us stay in a closet at their East Palo Alto home office for $600 per month. If we spent $1,000 a month we would have 25 months of runway, which seems infinite. I'm all for frugality and cost controls, but this is ridiculous. It's things like this that brainwash a generation of fools into throwing their lives away at nonsensical ideas. I'm not saying…

Have you ever gone as frugal as this to speak about it? And what would you suggest the "generation of fools" do otherwise? Get a 50k job at a big company and live happily ever after? Too much hate in that comment. (edit for grammar/typo)

> Have you ever gone as frugal as this to speak about it?

I've been living a relatively frugal lifestyle for my entire life. Getting smart about expenses and staying that way are the surest path to financial independence.

The best advice is to disconnect your expenses from your revenues. If you make $10K more per year, don't let your expenses creep up as well. Just sock it away for a rainy day. One day you'll look back and see that you've saved up enough to pursue whatever dreams you'd like.

> And what would you suggest the "generation of fools" do otherwise? Get a 50k job at a big company and live happily ever after? Too much hate in that comment. (edit for grammar/typo)

Most startups fail so my default advice is for people to get "normal" jobs and just save up money. It's not as sexy as starting your own company but it's a known plan that works. Along the way if you come up with something as a side project and it works out, great.

By all means pursue a start up full time if you think you've got a decent idea for one and the means to do so. But there's no reason you have to live in a closet.

Re: Why Y Combinator Made All the Difference

#20

Post by sillysaurus3 »

koolba wrote: post #18
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haha. Looks like the punch bowl is empty. Somebody make another round of kool-aid! You know, I've heard this type of irritating comment so many times over the years. I've been on HN since day two of its public launch, back when it was called Startup News. It was a magical time, mostly because everyone was universally supportive. This isn't a rose-tinted view of the past, or selective memory. It was the reason I was b…

I'm not saying that pursuing a startup is always a bad idea. I'm saying that romanticizing living in somebody else's closet as part of the startup journey is wrong. Building something that people what is what counts. Getting customers to pay you for it is what counts. Having profits is what counts. Software (and startups in general) doesn't get created because you're eating beans and rice, heated off a hot-plate, in…

I'm not saying that pursuing a startup is always a bad idea. I'm saying that romanticizing living in somebody else's closet as part of the startup journey is wrong.

They are rational, intelligent adults, and they don't need or want anyone to be outraged on their behalf.

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