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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

#211

Post by sangnoir »

awillen wrote: post #140
Alex3917 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also doesn't make any sense from an investment perspective. Reddit would have been one of the most successful YC companies of all time, except for that they basically had to shut down because they couldn't raise money. This happened to lots of early YC companies that could have otherwise been successful. Had Reddit not sold for pennies on the dollar to Conde Nast, that alone would have probably paid for the extra…

Great point. People think a willingness to take extreme financial risks is somehow a useful personality trait when it comes to entrepreneurship because of selection bias. People who take that risk and make it tell that story. People who take that risk and don't make it aren't heard from. People who don't take that risk also aren't heard from. There are lots of people with great ideas and the ability to execute on the…

And often, getting credit card debt is not a material risk, but a minor embarrassment when they ask their family to bail them out and/or move in the guest house for a few months, rent-free. When poorer folk take the "same" risk, they can be ruined for decades.

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

#212

Post by danenania »

toddmorey wrote: post #63

Haven't followed YC closely in a while. Has anyone compiled objective data on how it's trending and the success of the program YoY?

It takes like ~10 years to have any reliable sense of whether a batch was successful or not, so it's not something you can easily measure YoY.

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

#213

Post by smnrchrds »

ac29 wrote: post #203
smnrchrds wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A. All upper class and some (most?) middle class people can afford to support their children indefinitely. Less wealthy individuals, the millions and millions of people who live paycheque to paycheque just to get by and whose retirement plan is to work until their last days, cannot. For so many families, the only way they can afford to support their children even in their childhood is government aid, which gets cut o…

Multigenerational living is pretty common in many parts of the world - many places children dont (or cant) move out of their parents house until they are married, and later in life their parents move in with them. There's a difference between supporting a child or parent with a roof and a meal and supporting a child with a NYC apartment and a trust fund.

It is of course a spectrum between no support and supporting a lavish lifestyle. Some parents may be able to let their child sleep on their couch, but cannot afford to rent a bigger home with an extra bedroom. Some parents may be able to afford the groceries, but (after the age of 21) not the health insurance for their child. Some parents may be able to support their child, but with significant financial difficulties that would put a strain on family finances, make their retirement plans nonviable, or pushes back their retirement date significantly; so the child would not dare take financial risks because while they would not go homeless, they will be putting an unreasonable burden on their parents, ...

So yes, if the family is reasonably well-off (owns their home, has savings and good income, have a margin of safety in their finances) you can depend on them as your safety net. If they are not, you cannot or cannot in good conscience.

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

#214

Post by smnrchrds »

chrisco255 wrote: post #209
smnrchrds wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A. All upper class and some (most?) middle class people can afford to support their children indefinitely. Less wealthy individuals, the millions and millions of people who live paycheque to paycheque just to get by and whose retirement plan is to work until their last days, cannot. For so many families, the only way they can afford to support their children even in their childhood is government aid, which gets cut o…

No parent wants to support their adult child indefinitely. The whole point of raising a child is to raise them to be self sufficient as adults. There's quite a difference between a parent offering their child a place to stay while they get back on their feet and supporting them "indefinitely". 33 percent of 25-29 year olds live with their parents today: https://qz.com/1248081/the-share-of-americans-age-25-29-livi...…

First generation immigrants were my point in B. Please note that this includes many of your university classmates and current colleagues. They may even come from well-off families who can support them, but they would have to move back to their country of origin and because of the way US immigration works, that would most probably be a one-way trip.

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

#215

Post by TACIXAT »

Is anyone else unimpressed with the ideas being funded? I look at Work at a Startup and it is just new web frontends on existing industries. I'm sure that makes money but holy hell is it boring.

Some are working on cool things, but the founder who has a PhD in that topic will be doing the interesting work and they are hiring for infra or interface.

One company was a great match for my skill set but the equity was so low for early hires. I get that 1% can be huge for a FB scale exit, but 180k and 1% is generally just a paycut. In this case the founders were undergrad dropouts and not SMEs. It just seems like a really inflexible ecosystem when you can't give 5%-10% to an early hire when they would be the SME and core engineer.

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

#216

Post by mumbisChungo »

TACIXAT wrote: post #215

Is anyone else unimpressed with the ideas being funded? I look at Work at a Startup and it is just new web frontends on existing industries. I'm sure that makes money but holy hell is it boring. Some are working on cool things, but the founder who has a PhD in that topic will be doing the interesting work and they are hiring for infra or interface. One company was a great match for my skill set but the equity was so…

>Is anyone else unimpressed with the ideas being funded? look at Work at a Startup and it is just new web frontends on existing industries.

If there's money basically just lying all over the ground, why wouldn't you pick it up?

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

#217

Post by ryanSrich »

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.

Don't let that sully the remainder of his points, which were spot on.

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

#218

Post by evan_ »

chrisco255 wrote: post #201
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…

Uh, most parents would take their kids back in the event of financial disaster. That's not even rare. Many folks live with their parents until late 20s / early 30s these days.

can't really do that if your parents share an 800 square foot public housing apartment with your sister and her kids. or if they're in prison, or dead, or abusive, or they threw you out for not conforming to their religious choices, or disowned you for not being cisgender and heterosexual, or or or

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

#219

Post by swyx »

dominotw wrote: post #46
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.

not in SF. thats "low income" in SF.
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