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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

#71

Post by aaisola »

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.

Agree that the lower funding amount doesn't make sense and will probably further disadvantage minority and other founders. However, the problem identified seems real where the culture seems to be shifting from attracting relentless company builders to those seeking another checkbox on their Linkedin profile.

This is also why other accelerators are emerging that aim to capture the YC essence of old (OnDeck & Jeff Morriss Jr.'s new initiative)

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

#72

Post by s_dev »

eloff wrote: post #61
s_dev wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Depends on what stage of life you're in. Ramen profitable works for a 20-something just out of college. It does not work for a married middle-aged person potentially with kids. It's a lot harder to start a startup once you get to that stage of life because of this and other reasons.

Those 20 somethings as potential founders was what other investment companies overlooked and partly made YC new and different. That was one of their innovations. Before YC investment companies were always looking at uni professors and execs dropping out of corporations.

Changing this focus -- to focus on older more experienced invidividuals is changing YC imo. Less social justice more hackery/building stuff people might like would be a positive move for YC and the audience. I don't think we're in such a climate to discuss this though.

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

#73

Post by sushshshsh »

save_ferris wrote: post #57
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

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).

While this strikes me as possibly true, maybe even probably true, I would prefer to see actual simple data about this. Sure it would be hard to get but here's the schema I imagine would be needed.

Founder ID,

Founder bank account balance average during company's first year,

Founder health metrics array [acute visits to hospital or clinic for diet/mental health issues],

Outcome of company

---

If we notice that founders with low bank balances, lots of health events in their life, and unsuccessful business outcomes are popping up in the data, and then conversely founders with 100k in their personal bank on day 1 are never visiting the hospital and their companies are doing fine, then I think we could call check size a definitive contributing factor. This would fly in the face of "ramen profitability" as a virtue.

EDIT: and i think there are enougg startups out there (40,000 probably??? ask crunchbase) to have a meaningful sample size

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

#74

Post by FalconSensei »

eloff wrote: post #61
s_dev wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Depends on what stage of life you're in. Ramen profitable works for a 20-something just out of college. It does not work for a married middle-aged person potentially with kids. It's a lot harder to start a startup once you get to that stage of life because of this and other reasons.

Or anyone that has to buy insulin...

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

#75

Post by karl11 »

I don't think the author is advocating that founders take on a ton of of personal debt, just that historically it was a filtering function that is now absent. I would imagine that this filter function can be replaced by something else that does not also weed out people without any safety net.

The point is valid - startups are a risk, and so if all the risk is removed, it will increase the number of people who are coming to YC for status vs. coming because they believe in their idea.

As good at interviewing as the YC partners may be, interviewing is no substitute for the harsh reality and incentives imposed by taking a great risk.

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

#76

Post by yters »

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…

Maybe the point of economic filtering is to only accept single young men, who can devote every waking moment to their startup without any concern for dependents and such. You can get great velocity from such a pool.

Myself, with family, mortgage, etc. I would never be able to achieve that kind of velocity if I were accepted to YC.

So, even if I had incredible ideas, as people around here keep saying, and PG makes clear in his Viaweb essay, it is not about the ideas but about execution.

Thus, the economic filtering for those who are unencumbered and thus can really execute on their idea or something that YC comes up with makes a lot of sense.

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

#77

Post by solumos »

s_dev wrote: post #49
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.

I'd be willing to bet that a clear majority of the most successful startups from the past 20 years were founded by people who were otherwise independently financially stable.

It's very hard to focus on building a successful business when the cost of failure is potentially life-ruining.

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

#78

Post by throwaway5752 »

whymauri wrote: post #43
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

YC is an incubator, not a game show.

Yes. They invest seed money. They help you turn an idea into a series A. Maybe it has lost it's soul because the round structures are so much looser, or the greater availability of angel money.

Seed money used to be a godsend because you had a good idea that wasn't at a scale enough to interest traditional VC and you didn't know an angel. YC was particularly great because it had the emphasis on the network and the larger number of investments allowed it to distribute risk across the class.

They purpose was not to build a company or make a good living, it allowed you to create a company you wouldn't have been able to, otherwise. I agree with the gp post, the goal is not to fund a sustainable company, it's to get one off the ground.

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

#79

Post by [deleted] »

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?

[deleted]

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

#80

Post by diego »

As an investor, all I can say is that having gone through YC is not the signal of quality it was 7 or 8 years ago. This doesn't mean YC is doing anything wrong regarding their investment strategy. It simply means they are expecting a very skewed power law of returns.
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