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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

#151

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

_curious_ wrote: post #106
jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is absolutely terrible advice. There are a few professional services that can have a dramatic impact on the early success of a startup. You need the best PR firm you can get to return your calls. That ain't cheap, but it has a rather huge impact if used properly.

"You need the best PR firm you can get to return your calls." Saying someone "needs" something (ie paid PR) in order to succeed could also be deemed terrible advice.

This has been one of the critical differences between the startups I've worked at that have found successful exits and those that floundered.

A good PR firm can you get a national audience for pennies compared to paying for ads.

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

#152

Post by cactus2093 »

cryptonector wrote: post #138
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…

If you have no capital to bring, then you will have no equity either unless you provide labor for free. Labor compensated with equity is capital, since you have to pay your living expenses out of savings or loans that you are liable for. And you'll just be an employee of sorts, except with less pay and more risk. Why bother? If you're unsure where your next meal is coming from, then you probably aren't currently a go…

The way YC currently works is something like $125k for 7% equity. So founders can pay themselves enough to live on and still own 93% of their company. This wasn't a hypothetical that the parent comment you're replying to made up.

So whatever bizarre first-principles argument you're trying to make, which I am not really following, already doesn't match the current reality.

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

#153

Post by panorama_love »

(throwaway as YC founder for obvious reasons)

I've spoken to a half dozen YC founders this morning -- no one disagrees except the check size debt thing. Mostly "that is dumb" for that one.

For those who worked at startups when they were small (5–20 people), the difference between then and when they grew to be 100 or 200 people is night and day. Very real difference.

For those who haven't, think of class sizes. Do you think a uni class with 18 people in it will be the same as a survey with 200? Course not.

Three founders in my batch (early 2010s) have started companies in the past year and opted out of YC b/c of 1. batch size 2. YC doesn't mean to investors what it once did. The brand is heavily diluted.

YC is a broad based investment fund. The partners cannot handle the size of the batches or give the attention they once could. The partnership simply hasn't scaled.

Somewhat informed guess: partners don't want to give up their own returns by splitting it with more partners. Understandable -- human nature. But not good for YC as a whole.

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

#154

Post by Nasrudith »

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.

I think the idea is to not be an "attractive nuisance" to get strung along by ideas which look good but don't work out. There is some theoretical strategic merit but it doesn't seem to synergize. It seems at odds with the Venture Capital model in the first place of rushing growth over profits and letting the wins make up for losses.

Especially if he has a larger pool of capital than when he started (which he should unless he is doing it wrong), smaller checks /and/ wanting more personal attention and less canidates. That just cannot scale up to larger ammounts of money by definition, even if it would yield a better rate of return on investment in dollars. Diversification is another option for fund self-perpetuation but it will likely not have the same yields and cause total portfolio growth to decline with size.

As for motivations I guess either trying to eat his cake and have it too.

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

#155

Post by newacct583 »

SamReidHughes wrote: post #142
doorstar wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a silicon valley success story in our family. His parents were telling me how he built everything up out of nothing, clearly unaware of their own contribution. He could pour all his money into his start-up because if he'd lost every dime he could have moved back in with them. He'd have his own bedroom, bathroom, and a fresh-cooked meal every night. He could have stayed with them as long has he wanted. Very fe…

What sort of joke is this? Having parents with an extra bedroom, once used by kids, is perfectly ordinary.

Within your (and my) peer group it is, sure. But even you surely know a bunch of folks who don't have an easy fallback like that. For anyone from a poorer background, and especially those who have to move (or, yikes, immigrate) somewhere else to found a startup, it's very much not.

It's the privilege argument that I'm sure you're sick of arguing about. The world is set up well for perfectly ordinary middle class educated kids with working (or wealthy) parents. That's not everyone.

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

#156

Post by aty268 »

eggsnbacon1 wrote: post #48
czbond wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Why not? Lot's of people live off and raise families off of food stamps + medicaid. That's how I was raised. No reason you couldn't also throw building a company in the mix.

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

#157

Post by KerryJones »

_curious_ wrote: post #124
xwdv wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can absolutely hire a rockstar dev, you need to think in terms of cashflow. You may not be able to pay a full year of salary, but you can still pay their full weekly salary as you go until you either run out of money or produce enough revenue to get to that point.

Agreed, it's not even about the money. My last company had a technical cofounder who by all means was highly sought after and managed a team of 15-20 other developers in their primary dev consulting company meaning not only did they rock technically but also had biz acumen. That individual worked FOR FREE for 3 years 25 hrs/week before collecting any money. Don't ever think you have to pay a developer some market sal…

This is rich with availability bias. Just because you have had this experience doesn't mean that's possible for other people to do routinely. It sounds like a long tail event and using it as an example seems to be baseless. Congrats on being able to get him going, but I certainly wouldn't rely on that happening.

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

#158

Post by doorstar »

SamReidHughes wrote: post #142
doorstar wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a silicon valley success story in our family. His parents were telling me how he built everything up out of nothing, clearly unaware of their own contribution. He could pour all his money into his start-up because if he'd lost every dime he could have moved back in with them. He'd have his own bedroom, bathroom, and a fresh-cooked meal every night. He could have stayed with them as long has he wanted. Very fe…

What sort of joke is this? Having parents with an extra bedroom, once used by kids, is perfectly ordinary.

I have a supportive, middle class family and if I went broke I'd be sleeping on an air mattress in front of the TV and trying to figure out how soon I could start contributing to the monthly expenses. It enough to keep me from wanting to take any large risks.

I also didn't mention location, but my relative's parents are withing spitting distance of the valley. Someone who has to move from Mountain View to Omaha is going to find it really hard to get back into the thick of things.

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

#159

Post by twic »

someperson wrote: post #4

What exactly does he mean by "tech climber"?

A commenter offers a definition in the responses [1]:

> People that have no soul or connection to the product they build because they see everything they do as a checklist to get to the C suite level in some Series A/B/C company

[1] https://twitter.com/vcknowledgekit/status/128578661447247052...

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

#160

Post by peruvian »

SamReidHughes wrote: post #142
doorstar wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a silicon valley success story in our family. His parents were telling me how he built everything up out of nothing, clearly unaware of their own contribution. He could pour all his money into his start-up because if he'd lost every dime he could have moved back in with them. He'd have his own bedroom, bathroom, and a fresh-cooked meal every night. He could have stayed with them as long has he wanted. Very fe…

What sort of joke is this? Having parents with an extra bedroom, once used by kids, is perfectly ordinary.

No it's not.
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