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Why Y Combinator Made All the Difference

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Re: Why Y Combinator Made All the Difference

#71

Post by good_vibes »

kayhi wrote: post #62
good_vibes wrote: post #56

This is a life-changing read for me. I was debating if I should move to Seattle or Bay area to pursue my 'science project' or not. My current job is going to give me 7 weeks of severance starting in late April and I think it will be enough to at least make the leap and cross my fingers. What I am working on will change the course of history if I even get close to succeeding. I was wondering if YC or TechStars would b…

Awesome, drop us a line when you are looking to set up your lab ( https://labspend.com ). If you haven't come across it already, lab supplies and chemicals is a quote/sales rep model that could use some disruption.

will do! I love your work and will gladly support it.

Re: Why Y Combinator Made All the Difference

#72

Post by [deleted] »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #25
idiot_stick wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Founders are not "workers" for YC. They're trying to do something exceptional with extremely scarce resources.

[deleted]

Re: Why Y Combinator Made All the Difference

#73

Post by user5994461 »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #25
idiot_stick wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Founders are not "workers" for YC. They're trying to do something exceptional with extremely scarce resources.

Founders are workers. They are the ones doing all the work and throwing years of their life away.

Re: Why Y Combinator Made All the Difference

#75

Post by good_vibes »

aaron-lebo wrote: post #67
good_vibes wrote: post #56

This is a life-changing read for me. I was debating if I should move to Seattle or Bay area to pursue my 'science project' or not. My current job is going to give me 7 weeks of severance starting in late April and I think it will be enough to at least make the leap and cross my fingers. What I am working on will change the course of history if I even get close to succeeding. I was wondering if YC or TechStars would b…

I don't doubt that you might change the world, but you should temper your expectations. My question to you is do you really need YC or another incubator to do it? If what you've got is so world-changing, what they can offer you does not matter. Do you have no other alternatives than moving to one of the most expensive work locales in the world and joining in the rat race? Can you bootstrap? Do you have close friends…

I can't do something this ambitious alone. That's the main thing, I need more engineers, scientists, and designers involved in order for this project to scale and make a significant impact.

I understand your train of thought though. I left Tattooine aka Atlanta because there were not very many people who were fit to co-found this project with me. Moved to Utah instead of Denver to improve as a developer and deepen my discipline in other areas of my life. I feel ready to take the leap now.

Google offered me the foobar challenge a year ago while flying to Seattle (didn't complete in time). I'm confident that should I 'fail', I can end up working at a very nice company that aligns with my moral compass.

I can't live with cognitive dissonance, I have to be around people and ideas that are trying to solve our collect existential crisis.

Re: Why Y Combinator Made All the Difference

#76

Post by good_vibes »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #50

There aren't many positive toplevel comments, and I don't think that's a reasonable situation for such a fine piece of writing. So: Your story is wonderfully illustrative, in-depth, and inspirational. Thank you for taking the time to share it. For what it's worth, I really like your writing style. I hope to see much more of it!

I second this.

This article just steered me more towards SF instead of Seattle because it answered a lot of my questions.

Re: Why Y Combinator Made All the Difference

#77

Post by [deleted] »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #50

There aren't many positive toplevel comments, and I don't think that's a reasonable situation for such a fine piece of writing. So: Your story is wonderfully illustrative, in-depth, and inspirational. Thank you for taking the time to share it. For what it's worth, I really like your writing style. I hope to see much more of it!

[deleted]

Re: Why Y Combinator Made All the Difference

#78

Post by [deleted] »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #50

There aren't many positive toplevel comments, and I don't think that's a reasonable situation for such a fine piece of writing. So: Your story is wonderfully illustrative, in-depth, and inspirational. Thank you for taking the time to share it. For what it's worth, I really like your writing style. I hope to see much more of it!

[deleted]

Re: Why Y Combinator Made All the Difference

#79

Post by user5994461 »

notahacker wrote: post #31
ovi256 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, people survive for longer on less at universities in the hope it will lead to something bigger, and aiming for 25 months' runway to see whether a product's getting anywhere is probably less of a gamble than betting on getting investment in six months time. Though the fact they found it necessary to move to one of the most expensive places on the planet to subsist on that $25k even though they didn't expect to b…

Degrees are much more valuable. You can only do it when you are 20 and it's for life!

First of all, the most value of a degree is to give you your first internships and first job. It's the hardest to find, try to do that on your own to understand your pain.

There are endless jobs that will require you to have a degree or will give you the priority because you have one: defense company, Wall Street, any classic entreprisey.

Outside of SF/SV you don't get jobs by saying you've dropped out of high school cuz degrees are stupid cuz reddit said so.

Re: Why Y Combinator Made All the Difference

#80

Post by CPLX »

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…

There are reasons for this. The community is no longer is a small upstart community, it represents the ruling class in our society, and people are literally terrified of how the tech sector is going to change their lives.

The most fundamental political and social issue of our entire generation is the rapidly accelerating rise in economic inequality. Huge swaths of our society feel, correctly, like they are being systematically excluded from even being able to participate in the culture they were born in.

They can't treat sick family members, they can't retire, they can't get jobs with paid time off and benefits. They, correctly, consider this community to be one of the forces causing these changes. Their lives are, literally, being disrupted.

Class resentment is arguably the most powerful force in politics and history, ever. It's the underpinning of ever major revolution and social upheaval. The YC founders are billionaires now. That matters.

Why can't we just keep eating cake, you say? Perhaps we should look out the window and past the gatehouse, as there are torches and pitchforks gathering.

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