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

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

#51

Post by forbiddenvoid »

czbond wrote: post #29
baq wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you can be motivated without going hungry. not being able to afford basic things is extremely stressful and takes time away from doing whatever YC wants them to do - that time is spent making sure that food is on the table. exactly the opposite of what you intend.

Yes - but this is what every company does at founding. Get really lean, survive on whatever it can. Founders should expect company building to be a nervous and anxiety inducing endeavor for 7 years. It is incredibly painful - and not for those who see it closer to a paid sabbatical

If that logic were true, then there would be far fewer companies built by founders who already have a successful exit. The success of a company is far more likely to be correlated by the founders not having to put their own wellbeing on the line than the other way around.

I think, as a point of failure, that most would agree that a system that allows a few people a 'free sabbatical' but also provides security for those founders who would not succeed without it, but who will with it is a good thing.

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

#52

Post by carterklein13 »

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

What is it if not a filtering function?

It is a filtering function and it's the wrong filtering function. Like others have said, it filters out anyone with a great idea who is unwilling to put their lives in danger, or more importantly the lives of people dependent on them.

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

#53

Post by vikramkr »

A smaller check size hurts startups in capital intensive industries. Others already made excellent points about the diversity if founders that can be attracted with a smaller check size, since less money favors people with money already in the bank or with easy "friends and family" rounds. I'd also like to add that smaller sizes work against company and market level diversity as well. If YC is purely for software, sure, but they've been trying to fund hardware/biotech/etc, and you need that cash to build an actual prototype. Smaller class sizes makes sense as a proposal, but if you reduce funding to original levels as well, you'll be stuck with an overwhelming number of overrepresented demographic founders starting b2b SAAS companies. From a financial perspective that locks out a talent pool and limits your investment horizons in a pretty big way.

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

#54

Post by JimDabell »

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.

There’s a significant trade-off here – it can result in overvaluing money in comparison to time / effort. If you’ve been scraping by for a while, you train yourself to always pick the cheapest option, which often isn’t the best option. I’ve seen several founders waste time and effort trying to work around shortcomings in cheap / free tools or implementing something themselves when spending an insignificant amount of money would make the problem go away immediately.

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

#55

Post by vikramkr »

nlh wrote: post #24
vayeate wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That’s a good insight. The problem, though, is that this pattern kinda works (until it doesn’t). Get your FAANG job at 21, follow the pattern to get promoted, get promoted, make more money, compete to buy a nice house, get married, have kids, compete to get your kid into the “best” preschool, then the “best” private school. Compete to get into the “best country club”, then retire and...play golf all day?

At that point you've got enough wealth built up that if you've played things right you have a part time job managing your own portfolio. And a lot of people on that route that I've met have vague ideas of doing charity work or something at that point.

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

#57

Post by save_ferris »

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

No, it just diverts focus from building a successful company to figuring out how to eat.

Forcing entrepreneurs to risk devastating personal bankruptcy just isn’t kosher, and there’s zero evidence that it creates healthy companies. It just encourages founders to take even more risks, which aren’t always ethical (i.e. Instacart’s predatory pricing and tipping model).

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

#58

Post by klyrs »

seertaak wrote: post #47
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.

> 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?

Suppose the first slide of my 10 minute sales deck described building a house out of literal waffles, and letting customers eat those waffles. Would you actually pay attention to the other 9 minutes?

Overlooking the fact that if I attempted such a thing it would be amusing as hell. Imagine somebody taking that idea very seriously.

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

#59

Post by forbiddenvoid »

TomMarius wrote: post #38
czbond wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The problem is there are many brilliant people that can't just scrap by - with a mortgage and family. But I respect the VC's right to choose the kind of people they sponsor.

Yeah, the idea of creating an environment that only favors young, privileged, unattached folks has always been pretty off-putting for me.

Larger checks certainly attract the 'free sabbatical' folks that the author seems to dislike so much, but it also enables entire classes of potential founders to have access to capital that enables them to focus on their business rather than their kids' stomachs.

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

#60

Post by vikramkr »

qppo wrote: post #44

$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.

According to the thread it's not supposed to be enough. You're supposed to go deep into credit card debt because that's how you know you're a Real Founder(tm). You know, if you're privileged enough to have limits high enough on your credit cards to go into that sort of debt, dont have people dependent on you, have a safety net to make this not so big a deal, etc. Clearly the best founders are the ones starving themselves so they can lower their risk of having to file for bankruptcy. And the best thing to do to fund a high risk tech startup with uncertain cash flows is apparently debt. Equity financing exists for a reason, you know. And the point of incorporating as a separate entity is liability protection/equity financing etc. For an investor, pushing your founders to increase the risk levels of their high risk companies by levering up with a personal guarantee is ridiculous. They increase the risk level so debtors can get the reward if things work, which is now less likely because of the compounding interest and personal stress.
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