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Why I turned down my Y Combinator interview

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Re: Why I turned down my Y Combinator interview

#11

Post by foldr »

stingraycharles wrote: post #9
sacheendra wrote: post #3

One of the requirement listed to apply via the author's company is native fluency in English. How do they evaluate that? If it's some test, I am not aware of any test which measures this. If it depends on where you are born? Is that kind of stratification legal?

Of course it’s legal and there are numerous language proficiency tests. I don’t see what the problem with that could possibly be, just like requiring a candidate to have a certain amount of proficiency in Python.

Requiring "native fluency" could be interpreted as requiring the candidate to be a native English speaker, which would obviously be discriminatory. That's probably not the intent, but it's a bad choice of wording.

If they mean "as fluent in English as a native speaker", then that's arguably much too high a standard.

Re: Why I turned down my Y Combinator interview

#12

Post by lettergram »

It really depends on your business. My company is building a system for businesses and working with VCs (or YC, if accepted) would be valuable for us. It’s a sales tool, essentially.

In addition, there are cases such as building rockets or a factory or other regulated industries where you need capital. If you can bootstrap, do it. However, many people don’t have the upfront investment, connections, or education (in the case of YC).

I agree with the author if we were discussing standard “dumb money” VCs. But in this case, we are discussing YC, it’s community, reputation, and educational resources. You don’t technically need to take more money, just take the 7% hit and gain access to more resources. It may be worth it (it also may not), it depends on the situation.

Re: Why I turned down my Y Combinator interview

#13

Post by isalmon »

docker_up wrote: post #7

I think the biggest difference between today and 20 years ago when I first go into Silicon Valley is that most founders are generally already planning their exit. There are a lot of startups whose mentality is "get big quick enough so that we can get bought out by Google/Facebook/Amazon/etc". And unfortunately this is a legitimate play because it leads to quick payouts so it motivates founders and VCs alike. It's a f…

>> I think the biggest difference between today and 20 years ago when I first go into Silicon Valley is that most founders are generally already planning their exit. There are a lot of startups whose mentality is "get big quick enough so that we can get bought out by Google/Facebook/Amazon/etc".

Exactly the same mentality 20 years ago, except back then it was mostly about the IPO.

Re: Why I turned down my Y Combinator interview

#14

Post by malvosenior »

docker_up wrote: post #7

I think the biggest difference between today and 20 years ago when I first go into Silicon Valley is that most founders are generally already planning their exit. There are a lot of startups whose mentality is "get big quick enough so that we can get bought out by Google/Facebook/Amazon/etc". And unfortunately this is a legitimate play because it leads to quick payouts so it motivates founders and VCs alike. It's a f…

You can thank Sarbanes-Oxley for this.

Edit:

For further context: It used to be that a technology company could go public and provide an exit to investors. After the dot com crash, Sarbanes-Oxley regulations made it much more difficult to IPO. It has many administrative requirements, greatly increases run rate to support and raises the finanical bar significantly to which companies can go IPO. The VC model however remains the same, they need 10X returns. Thus you see them pushing entrepreneurs to go IPO which post-SO means a longer runway to exit fraught with a lot of risk mostly placed on the entrepreneurs (compared to pre-SO). It became a rational choice for the founders to take smaller, faster exits since "the big one" (IPO) now looks less certain for all but the most successful startups.

Re: Why I turned down my Y Combinator interview

#15

Post by docker_up »

isalmon wrote: post #13
docker_up wrote: post #7

I think the biggest difference between today and 20 years ago when I first go into Silicon Valley is that most founders are generally already planning their exit. There are a lot of startups whose mentality is "get big quick enough so that we can get bought out by Google/Facebook/Amazon/etc". And unfortunately this is a legitimate play because it leads to quick payouts so it motivates founders and VCs alike. It's a f…

>> I think the biggest difference between today and 20 years ago when I first go into Silicon Valley is that most founders are generally already planning their exit. There are a lot of startups whose mentality is "get big quick enough so that we can get bought out by Google/Facebook/Amazon/etc". Exactly the same mentality 20 years ago, except back then it was mostly about the IPO.

Fair point. IPO was the goal during the dot-com boom/bust (I saw this all first hand as well) but at least the founders weren't looking to ditch the company right after. The VCs were of course, they're always the snakes in the grass no matter what the backstory is.

Re: Why I turned down my Y Combinator interview

#17

Post by josh_carterPDX »

EGreg wrote: post #10

Can someone elaborate on this? It makes no sense to me: The risk profile of your company increases dramatically when you take VC funding. You start spending more money than you are earning, your focus shifts to raising your next round, and your VC now has veto authority over the sale of your company. Your company is now a ticking time-bomb. You can literally NOT do those things. All the VC has is signaling. Theh can’…

It's more complicated than that.

Most companies that go through a program like YC are pretty early. Entering and accepting the funding means that often times companies have inflated valuations. Being accepted into a top tier program is not enough to pull in investors in many cases especially if it means that the valuation is inflated and the company is still working on product market fit or early revenue.

Re: Why I turned down my Y Combinator interview

#18

Post by cldellow »

sacheendra wrote: post #3

One of the requirement listed to apply via the author's company is native fluency in English. How do they evaluate that? If it's some test, I am not aware of any test which measures this. If it depends on where you are born? Is that kind of stratification legal?

There are plenty of tests that achieve this.

My university got a lot of international candidates whose first language wasn't English and who hadn't been educated in English up until that point. As a result, they established a process to assess your fluency so they could accommodate you with additional training on English to ensure you'd be successful.

https://uwaterloo.ca/future-students/admissions/english-lang... lists 6 standardized tests that prospective students could use to demonstrate proficiency.

Re: Why I turned down my Y Combinator interview

#19

Post by jessaustin »

foldr wrote: post #11
stingraycharles wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it’s legal and there are numerous language proficiency tests. I don’t see what the problem with that could possibly be, just like requiring a candidate to have a certain amount of proficiency in Python.

Requiring "native fluency" could be interpreted as requiring the candidate to be a native English speaker, which would obviously be discriminatory. That's probably not the intent, but it's a bad choice of wording. If they mean "as fluent in English as a native speaker", then that's arguably much too high a standard.

One wonders about the "fluency" of whoever wrote that requirement...

Re: Why I turned down my Y Combinator interview

#20

Post by rsweeney21 »

EGreg wrote: post #10

Can someone elaborate on this? It makes no sense to me: The risk profile of your company increases dramatically when you take VC funding. You start spending more money than you are earning, your focus shifts to raising your next round, and your VC now has veto authority over the sale of your company. Your company is now a ticking time-bomb. You can literally NOT do those things. All the VC has is signaling. Theh can’…

VCs purchase a different class of stock than you have as a founder, called preferred shares. It is standard to require a majority of the preferred shares to authorize a sale of the company.

See this article for a standard, clean series A term sheet. https://blog.ycombinator.com/a-standard-and-clean-series-a-t...

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