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Aka... 'too many' companies go on to raise outside money and dilute ycombinator shares. How unfortunate that ycombinator can invest a limited amount of money and have graduates turn around and get 10x as much from other investors. It must be stopped! Also, I'll have some serious respect for YC if I'm not banned for this comment =)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am interested in trying some version of this! Have been thinking about all the edge cases.
That'll be expensive. On the order of 100's of millions per year at that scale. 15,000 * 1000 = 15 M / month for an amount that would move the needle, but still not enough to live off.
You'd want to size it to provide enough equity to turn the 15,000 participants into active evangelists of the larger network of YC companies than just their own individual startup.
And yes it is expensive. There are definitely significant parallels in that sense to the larger UBI discussion :)
Maybe I'm misinterpreting but in a way it sounds like he's saying that YC sometimes (often?) bet on ideas / teams that turn out to be crap. Well, of course that's going to be true. Just they same, prestige or not, track record or not, it's also possible that not all ideas / teams were the right fit for the YC program. That is, yes within YC they were bad bets, but that's not to say things won't change once they're aw…
> Finally, perhaps he feels that by others putting money into what YC might consider a lost cause those others will eventually realize what YC realized? It's hard for 3rd parties to discern this, when YC has given the very companies being criticized seed money. Pair that with the competitiveness between angels and VCs, plus FOMO; and it gets even harder.
Hear that often enough and loud enough and the shine that is YC's will be less. Clearly YC / Sam benefits from being up the food chain not down it.
This seems like a signalling problem. If a YC company looks for funding at some point after demo day, the first question VCs ask is going to be "why didn't you raise money at demo day?" -- so there's going to be an incentive for companies to go after money at demo day even if they're not ready simply because it will be much harder if they wait. I wonder if it would be effective to tell YC companies that they can part…
Besides that after that year the start-up will likely be out of runway and so in a much harder position to negotiate from.
If I were to run a YC backed company (which I won't be doing) I'd definitely use demo day to it's full potential.
Aka... 'too many' companies go on to raise outside money and dilute ycombinator shares. How unfortunate that ycombinator can invest a limited amount of money and have graduates turn around and get 10x as much from other investors. It must be stopped! Also, I'll have some serious respect for YC if I'm not banned for this comment =)
YC does not control HN. So that won't get you banned but trolling for a ban just might.
edit: You gotta admit, my point isn't groundless. I would disagree that it's trolling since HN is owned by YC but if you're right about them not using their position to silence criticism I respect that
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That'll be expensive. On the order of 100's of millions per year at that scale. 15,000 * 1000 = 15 M / month for an amount that would move the needle, but still not enough to live off.
You're right and maybe its more about providing the YC participants with a vested interest in the overall success of all the YC companies than providing them with a guaranteed income for life. You'd want to size it to provide enough equity to turn the 15,000 participants into active evangelists of the larger network of YC companies than just their own individual startup. And yes it is expensive. There are definitely…
They already do this, for free. The YC alumni network is a vast resource and a substantial force behind the recruitment of new start-ups.
This seems to fit a continuous change in YC and perhaps tech in general. YC doesn't seem so eager to fund 1000 startups so that 2 of them become unicorns anymore. It's more like they want to fund 1000 startups so that 100 are sustainable. We don't hear moonshot or billion dollar market depth or hyper growth as much as we used Anyone feeling the same?
That's actually good, not bad. 100 companies that work out long term are much better for the founders involved than two that are unicorns.
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I don't think they have 1500 companies inflight at once though.
Roughly, yes YClist has 1280 of them, and every half year there are more. And at 10 FTE / company average the GGGP's 15,000 FTE total is believable. It could easily be more than that.
Aka... 'too many' companies go on to raise outside money and dilute ycombinator shares. How unfortunate that ycombinator can invest a limited amount of money and have graduates turn around and get 10x as much from other investors. It must be stopped! Also, I'll have some serious respect for YC if I'm not banned for this comment =)
Was just thinking the other day, it'd be super interesting if YC ran some YC Equity/YC UBI experiments within its own network. Basically in joining YC, each YC member would be granted a percentage of YC's 7% stake in all of the YC companies which would reduce their need to fundraise. In theory, YC members should all be highly motivated achievers and use that percentage stake to move their diverse set of businesses fo…