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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

#161

Post by usaar333 »

TuringNYC wrote: post #156
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…

>> you are competing with very high paying companies True. But for people looking to do something meaningful, which they may find spot-on in a startup, you are competing with cost of living on the downside, not just alternate employers on the upside.

Agreed that cost of living is a factor. However, one upside of being in SF for employees is that there are so many start-ups that it is relatively easy to find one that is both meaningful + pays decently

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

#162

Post by bluetwo »

eanzenberg wrote: post #82
bluetwo wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is your VC fund doing? :-)

That's weird.. can you only criticize Lebron James if you are better than him at basketball?

You need either established credibility or facts, yes.

If you present neither, your opinion doesn't amount to much.

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

#163

Post by olfactory »

usrusr wrote: post #154
olfactory wrote: post #92

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…

More than that: Even after ten years, that early success mutual fund won't be investing in entities that actively try to appeal to them, specifically. Contrast this with YC, there is probably a whole ebook lurking somewhere in the depths of the Amazon catalog that claims to coach would be founders in how to best pitch to each individual star VC. Founders are already winning if they only get funded, but investors need…

> Founders are already winning if they only get funded, but investors need an entirely different kind of success.

Aren't the board members supposed to make sure that the incentives are aligned so that all parties involved share the same goals and timeline?

Sure, a founder may manage to collect a salary, but I'd guess most founders could earn more being hired by someone else.

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

#164

Post by alexasmyths »

gspetr wrote: post #105
alexasmyths wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

"If you can convince an entire community to rearrange their finances"

If we all behaved conscientiously and responsibly, almost all of the world's problems would disappear.

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

#165

Post by wellboy »

jacquesm wrote: post #47
d--b wrote: post #32

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?

> It's more like they want to fund 1000 startups so that 100 are sustainable. 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.

Good for the founders but bad for YC, since they miss out on moonshots if they aren't optimizing for moonshots (which make up 90% of their valuation) no?

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

#166

Post by abritinthebay »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #128
abritinthebay wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on nearly 15 years of working at startups: wut? This is absolutely not true in any way. They sometimes pay less because they try to trade options for salaries but that’s becoming less popular given the lack of cashing out and people’s better understanding of the economics of it. You can get low to mid six figures at a startup easily ... which absolutely does not match your description

> You can get low to mid six figures at a startup easily ... Mid six figures? $500,000? If that's what's easy, what are they paying above-average people?

Depends on your role. I’m not saying a junior engineer gets that. I would have thought that was obvious.

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

#167

Post by thaumasiotes »

abritinthebay wrote: post #166
thaumasiotes wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can get low to mid six figures at a startup easily ... Mid six figures? $500,000? If that's what's easy, what are they paying above-average people?

Depends on your role. I’m not saying a junior engineer gets that. I would have thought that was obvious.

Hmm. What does "easy" mean to you?

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

#168

Post by user5994461 »

isuckatcoding wrote: post #90
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…

Thing is though it’s not that easy to get a big4 job. It takes several weeks or even months to land those competitive roles whereas startups are much easier. Not all of us have the talent to land that big4.

Most good startups have interviews as hard, if not harder, than the big 4.

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

#169

Post by rabbitonrails »

jpao79 wrote: post #10

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…

You've never dealt with a secondaries contract, have you.

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

#170

Post by abritinthebay »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #167
abritinthebay wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on your role. I’m not saying a junior engineer gets that. I would have thought that was obvious.

Hmm. What does "easy" mean to you?

“Being hired without much fuss when you are a qualified applicant for the role”.

If we’re saying experience and training are things that exclude “easy” then we’re in crazy town.

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