Y Combinator has lost its soul: A YC founder's perspective • Hacker News Board

Re: Y Combinator has lost its soul: A YC founder's perspective

#11

Post by george_morgan » Wed, Jul 22, 2020, 2:05 PM UTC

His perspective seems built around ego. It's no longer the special club he wanted it to be, it's not "hard enough" for the people he sees as "wrong" to participate. He liked YC when it was a band no one else had heard of etc. etc.

Without knowing the metrics for how YC judges the performance of its intake and their future objectives, there's no way of making sensible recommendations for how (or if) it should change.

Re: Y Combinator has lost its soul: A YC founder's perspective

#12

Post by atarian » Wed, Jul 22, 2020, 2:07 PM UTC

Check sizes are 125k now; you won't be able to hire a rockstar dev but you have something to hang onto for a year if you budget wisely:

https://www.ycombinator.com/deal/

Re: Y Combinator has lost its soul: A YC founder's perspective

#13

Post by erik_landerholm » Wed, Jul 22, 2020, 2:09 PM UTC

As someone who did yc in s09 and w19, it was very different. But, you get out what you put in, like most things. These generalized critiques are useless. B2b is thriving at yc because it’s easier and more in the wheelhouse of developers. If there were tech climbers there I didn’t meet them. There are so many people the useless are easy to avoid. We got 6 months of work done in 3 months and the bigger check vs 09 was very helpful.

Re: Y Combinator has lost its soul: A YC founder's perspective

#14

Post by kiplkipl » Wed, Jul 22, 2020, 2:15 PM UTC

vayeate wrote: post #10

throwanem wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Get-rich-quick grifters, would be my guess.

Possibly that these smart young people view everything like highschool. Everything is a formula driven contest to outshine your peers for the limited spots at prestigious schools. Get the perfect grades, study nonstop for the SAT, find the perfect volunteer experience, get dad to shmooze with his senator friend for that shiny recommendation letter, get into Harvard. Same thing on loop. After the prestigious internshi…

This attitude continues into job interviews: the thought that, if you work hard enough and have enough talent, you should get the job you want. In reality, you might just not be a match.

Re: Y Combinator has lost its soul: A YC founder's perspective

#15

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 22, 2020, 2:16 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Y Combinator has lost its soul: A YC founder's perspective

#16

Post by site-packages1 » Wed, Jul 22, 2020, 2:20 PM UTC

smithmayowa wrote: post #7

Yc taking advantage of their b2b alumni network is common sense in my own opinion, they are playing to their strength in fact.

It's helpful, I have spoken to maybe 5 companies of the current batch who were introduced through the YC network and are working on problems that would help us succeed.

Re: Y Combinator has lost its soul: A YC founder's perspective

#17

Post by blueyes » Wed, Jul 22, 2020, 2:21 PM UTC

This is the Twitter version of bad journalism.

* pick something famous * say it's dead * cherry pick the worst things about it * get your 10 minutes of fame

All it costs you are some burnt bridges. I've met several really smart founders from recent batches who are building something interesting. Making blanket statements like this is not particularly helpful to YC.

Famous institutions always attract climbers. That's inevitable, but it doesn't invalidate the institution.

Re: Y Combinator has lost its soul: A YC founder's perspective

#18

Post by dbbk » Wed, Jul 22, 2020, 2:22 PM UTC

awillen wrote: post #9

The idea that check sizes should be small so people should be forced into dire financial situations is a terrible one, and one that would absolutely hurt diversity. You're going to end up with a bunch of rich white dudes as founders (because very, very obviously the other way that people can afford to take smaller checks is if they have a lot of money in the bank). The smaller class size issue is probably fair, but r…

Yeah I noped out of this as soon as I saw it. The guy is suggesting investing in startup founders but not giving them enough to live while they get that company off the ground. What is the point of that? Completely self-defeating.

Re: Y Combinator has lost its soul: A YC founder's perspective

#19

Post by site-packages1 » Wed, Jul 22, 2020, 2:23 PM UTC

awillen wrote: post #9

The idea that check sizes should be small so people should be forced into dire financial situations is a terrible one, and one that would absolutely hurt diversity. You're going to end up with a bunch of rich white dudes as founders (because very, very obviously the other way that people can afford to take smaller checks is if they have a lot of money in the bank). The smaller class size issue is probably fair, but r…

The solution may be wrong, but the idea is right. If people can just casually come into YC with no particular consequences for failure, that greatly reduced drive to succeed. "I'll just go back to FAMGAN after" or "I'll be able to transition from MBA grad + YC to something high paying" I don't think is great for success drive.

Re: Y Combinator has lost its soul: A YC founder's perspective

#20

Post by sobellian » Wed, Jul 22, 2020, 2:24 PM UTC

I went through YC in S14 as a co-founder of a hardware company. I agree that YC optimizes heavily for SaaS companies, but smaller checks would probably exacerbate this trend. Hardware companies need to not only subsist on the $120k but also develop prototypes. That's difficult enough, but it is completely impossible on $25k unless the co-founders are independently wealthy or have already raised money.