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

#41

Post by bendergarcia » Wed, Jul 22, 2020, 2:51 PM UTC

czbond wrote: post #32

kemayo wrote: post #6

He lost me with the whole "make founders take on massive personal debt to survive" tweet. Removing that particular stressor, particularly from people from poorer backgrounds who lack the access to that kind of credit is how we get a better sampling of ideas.

I’d suggest the opposite. One who is used to living off $1k a month for 1-2 years have an upper hand on founders used to a more cushy lifestyle. Or even having no income and almost broke for years like many successful founders I know of.

Just because someone is broke does not mean they don’t have Safety net. It’s easy to make no money when you can always move back home or get support from family. But if you have no safety net (financial family support), then not making money is a really difficult thing to try.

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

#42

Post by tfehring » Wed, Jul 22, 2020, 2:53 PM UTC

czbond wrote: post #33

lifeformed wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, he calls it a "filtering function"... yes, to filter out people without safety nets.

Not a filtering function - I know of a few founders who scrapped by on Medicaid and food stamps for years to build a successful business by they had no savings

The fact that it's an imperfect filtering function doesn't mean that it's not a filtering function.

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

#43

Post by whymauri » Wed, Jul 22, 2020, 2:54 PM UTC

czbond wrote: post #26

dbbk wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It is not YC’s job to support the company. That is the founders job. I’d suggest money supporting the company at seed diverts from a focus on monetary fit asap. $25k is enough to scrap by for enough months which should be the initial goal

YC is an incubator, not a game show.

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

#44

Post by qppo » Wed, Jul 22, 2020, 2:54 PM UTC

$25k is like 2 developer months + ops overhead. I don't think that's going to buy anything but high margin/quickly realizable ideas like B2B SaaS and developer tools.

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

#45

Post by jfengel » Wed, Jul 22, 2020, 2:55 PM UTC

site-packages1 wrote: post #19

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.

I take it FAMGAN is FAANG+Microsoft? Googling failed to turn up any other usages of this term.

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

#46

Post by dominotw » Wed, Jul 22, 2020, 2:56 PM UTC

atarian wrote: post #12

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/

you can hire a rockstar dev for that plus equity.

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

#47

Post by seertaak » Wed, Jul 22, 2020, 2:56 PM UTC

dbbk wrote: post #18

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.

> Yeah I noped out of this as soon as I saw it.

I must be misunderstanding you; I read that as you stopped reading the entire thread because there was a single point you disagree with. Is that what you mean?

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

#48

Post by eggsnbacon1 » Wed, Jul 22, 2020, 2:57 PM UTC

czbond wrote: post #33

lifeformed wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, he calls it a "filtering function"... yes, to filter out people without safety nets.

Not a filtering function - I know of a few founders who scrapped by on Medicaid and food stamps for years to build a successful business by they had no savings

yeah a lot people can't do that. Specifically anyone caring for someone, so like 50% of adult population. A huge proportion of adults are caring for a parent or child.

Its also impossible if you have any health problems, or need to save for retirement or have student loan debt.

Its really only possible if you're young and healthy, so this would filter out probably 80% of adult population

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

#49

Post by s_dev » Wed, Jul 22, 2020, 2:58 PM UTC

kemayo wrote: post #6

He lost me with the whole "make founders take on massive personal debt to survive" tweet. Removing that particular stressor, particularly from people from poorer backgrounds who lack the access to that kind of credit is how we get a better sampling of ideas.

Completely agree with the OP of the twitter thread.

pg once coined the phrase .. ramen profitable.

I deeply agree with that concept. Cover bills but all those frills and cushy "living wage" nonense needs to go while the startup is finding its feet.

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

#50

Post by MattGaiser » Wed, Jul 22, 2020, 2:59 PM UTC

I am somewhat sympathetic to the check size argument simply because I have seen a lot of people drift from accelerator to accelerator to accelerator and mostly focus on getting to their next one. They become really good at the pitch and grant collecting, but have websites that barely work or rarely go and meet customers. There is a perverse incentive in the accelerator spot in itself being a reward.

I suppose it depends on what YC wants to optimize for. You can risk giving money to not so serious founders or risk excluding ones who want to cap their risk.

I don't get why they would want to ban dev tools and SaaS. The latter especially is a huge segment. Many enormous companies like IBM and SAP are built around those types of offerings.