Yuri Milner, SV Angel Offer Every New Y Combinator Startup $150k

Post by nir » Sun, Jan 30, 2011, 3:08 AM UTC

waterlesscloud wrote: post #180

nir wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When YC takes developers and mentors them towards a first version in an aggressive timeframe with limited resources, it's encouraging innovation. When someone comes in and gives a bunch of company they know nothing about $150k each, it's called having more money than sense.

But they aren't investing in companies they know nothing about. They're investing in companies that have made it through the YC sieve. If nothing else, they know that about them. These are investors with a large number of connections in the silicon valley world. My assumption is that they have some extremely well-informed spreadsheets about past YC company performance.

Post by realitygrill » Sun, Jan 30, 2011, 6:15 AM UTC

justin wrote: post #169

bryanlarsen wrote: post #141

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On the surface, YCombinator IS giving a shitty deal. 6% for a few thousand dollars? That's highway robbery. Except, of course, you're getting a lot more than money for your 6%. The difference is that YCombinator's promise are much less empty than that of a record labels. (I know, I deflected. Milner's terms are not shitty. It's YCombinator's that are, but only on the surface).

When I first got into Y Combinator, our company with two founders straight out of college with no prior software engineering or startup experience and a prototype calendar demo was valued at 300k. We were ecstatic. That was the best deal I've ever been offered in my life.

Post by fromRussia » Sun, Jan 30, 2011, 8:32 AM UTC

fromRussia wrote: post #153

fromRussia wrote: post #149

DST is a money laundering operation. Yuri Milner is a criminal. I can't believe Paul Graham deals with these guys. He should understand that Russia is outside of his circle of competence. His smarts are not enough to make the judgement. Russia gets roughly $90B annually for oil and gas. Most of the money gets stolen one way or the other and ends up in the funds like DST. Dealing

Ternovskiy had told no one he was taking the Sunday-afternoon flight out of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport. But when he arrived in New York he found a car from Digital Sky Technologies, the Russian company, waiting for him at the airport. From the driver, he learned that an associate of Yuri Milner was already on his way to New York to talk to him. Back in Moscow, Milner repeatedly called Vladimir, a contemporary of h…

Post by kingsley_20 » Sun, Jan 30, 2011, 9:11 AM UTC

narag wrote: post #119

Joakal wrote: post #116

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Possibly a sign of different upbringings? Can be parental, culture, education, standard of living, etc.

It seems to me that the case is exactly the opposite: the talent appears randomly, so the only way to concentrate it is migration.

Post by narag » Sun, Jan 30, 2011, 1:47 PM UTC

beagle3 wrote: post #175

narag wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to me that the case is exactly the opposite: the talent appears randomly, so the only way to concentrate it is migration.

> the talent appears randomly That's a pretty strong statement, but even if we take it as an axiom, I think that it isn't migration that concentrates it -- people migrate from everywhere to everywhere all the time. I think it has more to do with having gone through some hardship, and (selection bias) having done so successfully, makes people better at taking risks. There's a statistic that says that a huge number (te…