141–150 of 175 posts
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We're all talking past each other in a way. Startups are paying a lot because they're raising a lot of money. Round and round we go.
They're raising lots of money because their competition for exployees (companies like Facebook and Google) pay even more.
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…
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…
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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.
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…
Not even remotely what UBI is.
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I am interested in trying some version of this! Have been thinking about all the edge cases.
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…
I know a fair bit of YC companies, and a trend is clear from the last few years. As they say: it's not that YC picks the best startups, it's that the startups they pick "become" the best startups (i.e. crappy companies look good just for being in YC). This definitely isn't healthy, and I'm glad they at least recognize it.
This is unhealthy and could not last for too long.
Early YC: Small, gets disproportionate number of wins. Develops top tier reputation. Later YC: Expands significantly due to the added prestige, and now performs much closer to the mean. Today: Sam says that "too many YC companies are getting funded". Is this fundamentally different from a mutual fund that yields 25% above market for a few years in a row and then performs closer to the mean for the following decade? I…
I see it more like Stanford. Become prestigious, then you get all the best folks, many of whom would have been successful anyway, but you still add value as well as serious signaling and a rich network.