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Sam Altman: ‘Too many’ Y Combinator companies raise money

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Re: Sam Altman: ‘Too many’ Y Combinator companies raise money

#101

Post by garmaine »

aswanson wrote: post #80
garmaine wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prefer a VC that doesn’t inject a political agenda.

You prefer a VC that isnt human. All humans inject their politics into every action they take. Accept it.

Not quite. Fund managers generally have a fiduciary responsibility to their limited partners, meaning they are required to act in ways guided first and foremost by what increases ROI.

There's a lot of room for interpretation there about short term vs long term gains, the investor value of creating sustainable businesses, and of course the biases the manager's own political views inject into their decision making. But he or she must still act with investor ROI in mind by investing in the companies they honestly think likely to succeed and then help them do so. To fail to do so would be to face investor revolt and possible lawsuits, and undermines those hard working entrepreneurs who take their companies in different (and maybe more profitable) directions than their investor had in mind. I don't like that.

To rephrase what I originally said, I prefer my investors to be economically rational in their motivation, not political. Hence I have never sought YC investment under Mr. Altman, nor do I intend to. Thankfully I've done just fine without.

Re: Sam Altman: ‘Too many’ Y Combinator companies raise money

#102

Post by garmaine »

hi-im-mi-ih wrote: post #81
garmaine wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prefer a VC that doesn’t inject a political agenda.

And what political agenda is that, precisely?

Progressivism in the big-D sense, and UBI-based approaches to economic equality.

Re: Sam Altman: ‘Too many’ Y Combinator companies raise money

#103

Post by killjoywashere »

TuringNYC wrote: post #77

If the artificially-created real estate "shortage" problem in the Bay Area was solved, lots of other problems would be solved. - Companies raising money just to pay inflated (yet still insufficient) labour costs - People who would love to work for startups but realize that most startup salaries barely gets you a studio apt, pretty cool until you have a family - Companies who "cant find" talent Is it any surprise comp…

San Diego's real estate is quite reasonable. So, kindly, stay in the Bay area. Please.

Re: Sam Altman: ‘Too many’ Y Combinator companies raise money

#104

Post by cjf4 »

TuringNYC wrote: post #77

If the artificially-created real estate "shortage" problem in the Bay Area was solved, lots of other problems would be solved. - Companies raising money just to pay inflated (yet still insufficient) labour costs - People who would love to work for startups but realize that most startup salaries barely gets you a studio apt, pretty cool until you have a family - Companies who "cant find" talent Is it any surprise comp…

To me this leads to a question about the Bay Area centric techno-spehere: at what point do the prices become so high that companies/ecosystems in other parts of the country become relatively attractive?

I understand that the SV network is a real and powerful thing, but holding all else equal (indulge me), wouldn't it make the cost of startups more attractive for all stakeholders if an alternative, viable network were in Buffalo or Nashville or Boise or wherever? Is it just a matter of lack of coalescence?

Re: Sam Altman: ‘Too many’ Y Combinator companies raise money

#105

Post by gspetr »

alexasmyths wrote: post #62
simonebrunozzi wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sam, let me offer one humble suggestion. 1) UBI (or anything similar) in Oakland is expensive. Back of the napkin calculation: $1,000/month/person = $12,000 = you need about $0.5M in capital to maintain that level of basic income without reducing the capital over time (I am applying the usual 4% interest on capital, for passive income - the number might be wrong or might change in the future (see Piketty) but let's u…

This micro-UBI thing is a bad experiment with good intentions. UBI only works if it's fairly 'U'. If you give UBI to 'one village' - that village will have tremendous leverage over the surrounding villages. Any rational application of commercial knowledge will - knowingly or unwittingly - drive competitors out of business, and that 'UBI village' could theoretically come to control a lot. It only took a very small mar…

If you can convince an entire community to rearrange their finances, in certain jurisdictions you might get some interesting results even without UBI.

For example if you were to pay taxes in gold: https://www.forbes.com/sites/briandomitrovic/2014/09/08/tran...

Re: Sam Altman: ‘Too many’ Y Combinator companies raise money

#106

Post by usaar333 »

perfmode wrote: post #91
usaar333 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how much bay area real estate shortages drive this; I suspect little. 1. It's unclear how much additional housing will drop prices. There's enormous demand and denser housing costs more to build per square foot. Realistically, we're talking 10 to 20% drops as upper bounds of cuts (think Seattle costs) 2. [Edited to clarify price driving] These companies have decided to be in the bay area for some reason…

Consider how much of the pay of well-paid big Corp talent goes to real estate rentiers in the Bay Area. 30% of base? That’s almost greater than the US gov’t’s cut.

> 30% of base?

From various data points I have, average is around ~33% post-tax, 22% pre-tax of base.

> Consider how much of the pay of well-paid big Corp talent goes to real estate rentiers in the Bay Area.

For sure, it's a lot - but when all these high payed folks have such high value of time, housing in areas near work/fun places are going to be bid up.

Re: Sam Altman: ‘Too many’ Y Combinator companies raise money

#107

Post by dpc59 »

garmaine wrote: post #71
aswanson wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the ambition of this dude to call out the valley to reach for more than what it is. The field needs 10000 more Sam Altmans.

I prefer a VC that doesn’t inject a political agenda.

Not having a political agenda is having a political agenda in favor of the status quo.

Re: Sam Altman: ‘Too many’ Y Combinator companies raise money

#108

Post by Mtinie »

cjf4 wrote: post #104
TuringNYC wrote: post #77

If the artificially-created real estate "shortage" problem in the Bay Area was solved, lots of other problems would be solved. - Companies raising money just to pay inflated (yet still insufficient) labour costs - People who would love to work for startups but realize that most startup salaries barely gets you a studio apt, pretty cool until you have a family - Companies who "cant find" talent Is it any surprise comp…

To me this leads to a question about the Bay Area centric techno-spehere: at what point do the prices become so high that companies/ecosystems in other parts of the country become relatively attractive? I understand that the SV network is a real and powerful thing, but holding all else equal (indulge me), wouldn't it make the cost of startups more attractive for all stakeholders if an alternative, viable network were…

Yesterday.

Re: Sam Altman: ‘Too many’ Y Combinator companies raise money

#109

Post by jtmarmon »

cjf4 wrote: post #104
TuringNYC wrote: post #77

If the artificially-created real estate "shortage" problem in the Bay Area was solved, lots of other problems would be solved. - Companies raising money just to pay inflated (yet still insufficient) labour costs - People who would love to work for startups but realize that most startup salaries barely gets you a studio apt, pretty cool until you have a family - Companies who "cant find" talent Is it any surprise comp…

To me this leads to a question about the Bay Area centric techno-spehere: at what point do the prices become so high that companies/ecosystems in other parts of the country become relatively attractive? I understand that the SV network is a real and powerful thing, but holding all else equal (indulge me), wouldn't it make the cost of startups more attractive for all stakeholders if an alternative, viable network were…

When you're shooting for one company to return 100x your investment per fund, a 2x difference in cost to get the best possible environment for the company you're funding is worth it.

Re: Sam Altman: ‘Too many’ Y Combinator companies raise money

#110

Post by usaar333 »

cjf4 wrote: post #104
TuringNYC wrote: post #77

If the artificially-created real estate "shortage" problem in the Bay Area was solved, lots of other problems would be solved. - Companies raising money just to pay inflated (yet still insufficient) labour costs - People who would love to work for startups but realize that most startup salaries barely gets you a studio apt, pretty cool until you have a family - Companies who "cant find" talent Is it any surprise comp…

To me this leads to a question about the Bay Area centric techno-spehere: at what point do the prices become so high that companies/ecosystems in other parts of the country become relatively attractive? I understand that the SV network is a real and powerful thing, but holding all else equal (indulge me), wouldn't it make the cost of startups more attractive for all stakeholders if an alternative, viable network were…

To some degree it matters how interchangeable a founder is with an employee at a high paying tech co AND how much those high paying tech companies continue being the highest paying firms (in turn setting prices).

I suspect the answer to both of those questions over the medium-term is yes; if the entrepreneur's life (esp. their own network!) is already in the Bay Area (with the fallback being working at a high paying tech company here), there's a lot of cost to move to these lower cost areas. Even more so if the entrepreneur has family.

However, less tech intensive start-ups (say operations focused) may very well start popping up in higher numbers outside the Bay Area.

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