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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

#271

Post by a13n »

anotherfounder wrote: post #264

The SAAS thing is real. In my own broader network, I've seen so many interesting new consumer companies not even get an interview but SAAS companies of all stripes not have a problem getting an interview. It also heavily correlates with FAANG/Stanford phenomena which then leads to a mostly white male batch. There are so many reasons why all this is, including the fact, these applications heavily bias towards 'solving…

I would guess that if you are a founder with a consumer startup, good luck getting an interview!

I think this makes sense too – YC is in the business of picking will-be billion dollar companies. The number of consumer startups that make it this far is probably significantly lower, percentage-wise, than B2B SaaS companies.

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

#272

Post by blub »

evan_ wrote: post #218
chrisco255 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

No, but then again in those situations of extreme poverty one probably has bigger problems than not being able to get a start-up off the ground.

And of their parents threw them out or don't otherwise like them that's just bad luck. Some people will not have an easy life, I don't see why we have to make those with loving families feel bad about it.

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

#273

Post by cameronbrown »

awillen wrote: post #242
kkolanm wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A wealthy black person can easily start their own business. They may have some advantages and disadvantages vs a wealthy white person but nothing can stop them doing it. They have money. A wealthy Black person is a “have” not a “have not.” A poor white person cannot use their whiteness to pay the bills. Ask millions of white people why they work shitty jobs if you think being white solves economic problems. They can’…

Please show me some organizations that are a bunch of rich white people who all attended Ivy League schools but are otherwise highly diverse (race, gender, etc.). That's the problem - you're talking in theory (obviously there are rich black people and they have resources) while ignoring practical reality, which is that race and socioeconomic status are highly correlated to the point where you can't just magically ign…

Correlation is not causation, HN should know this. The problem is down to injustices from long ago, and a lack of ability to build generational wealth stemming from that historical racism. It doesn't mean that race is the defining factor.

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

#274

Post by Alex3917 »

jedberg wrote: post #200
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…

> 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. I can't give details, but I can tell you that the $80K would not have made a difference. What would have made a difference was a small seed of a few million, which YC is pretty good at getting for companies these days.

Yeah I mean in that specific example, it only works if you assume that Reddit would have had an extra few months to get more traction before raising the one round that they raised.

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

#275

Post by dang »

AdenRyan2323 wrote: post #259

"this was the sam altman effect. pg kept the entire system small and personal on purpose. but sam wants trillion dollar funds. sam approaches everything from "how can sam altman own the entire galaxy?" now YC is an endless low effort 90s-era "groupware for groupware nerds" fund" --- https://twitter.com/mattsta/status/1285988679958138881 this retweet is also true

That's quite wrong. pg always said that YC should operate like a startup and his primary definition of startups is growth. The original spirit behind YC was let's-hack-the-economy with an experiment in the mass production of startups. That's encoded in the name itself.

In other words, much larger batch sizes were guaranteed as YC grew. How pg and the original founding team might have gone about it, compared to others, is a different question—but certainly not by "keeping the entire system small". Whoever wrote that is speaking from ignorance, which fits with the personal smear against Sam.

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

#276

Post by doorstar »

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.

There are parents with ample incomes and large comfortable homes that will welcome their child with open arms, proud of them for risking everything on a start up and encouraging them to try again.

There are parents with little extra cash and homes without space for permanent guests who are going to accept their children back with some disappointment and disapproval for taking large risks and failing.

Children of the first set of parents are just going to be more comfortable going out and taking chances.

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

#277

Post by cameronbrown »

bananaface wrote: post #251
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

It's not about "who's job it is", it's about supply and demand. The founder could probably get a 300k salary at Google or a six-figure stipend with another investor. If Y-Combinator wants to compete they have to provide something that outweighs that.

How is it YC's problem? The founder is choosing to start a company and asking YC for money. Clearly they're not short of startups on the supply side of their equation.

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

#278

Post by czbond »

JimDabell wrote: post #54
czbond wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't disagree with that as a side effect; in the end, the only thing that matters for a company is runway of the founders.

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

#279

Post by AdenRyan2323 »

dang wrote: post #275
AdenRyan2323 wrote: post #259

"this was the sam altman effect. pg kept the entire system small and personal on purpose. but sam wants trillion dollar funds. sam approaches everything from "how can sam altman own the entire galaxy?" now YC is an endless low effort 90s-era "groupware for groupware nerds" fund" --- https://twitter.com/mattsta/status/1285988679958138881 this retweet is also true

That's quite wrong. pg always said that YC should operate like a startup and his primary definition of startups is growth. The original spirit behind YC was let's-hack-the-economy with an experiment in the mass production of startups. That's encoded in the name itself. In other words, much larger batch sizes were guaranteed as YC grew. How pg and the original founding team might have gone about it, compared to others…

But do you disagree with the statement that "now YC is an endless low effort 90s-era "groupware for groupware nerds" fund"" though?

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

#280

Post by blub »

cardine wrote: post #162
SamReidHughes wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Perfectly ordinary for you and people in your peer group who share largely similar upbringings. I think this comment is (no offense intended towards you specifically) very indicative of how insulated and lacking in diversity tech is.

I think the comment they're responding to and others are grasping at straws and trying to find excuses.

Like I said in another comment even in the poorer European countries it's possible to move back with one's parents. And in fact people do live with their parents into their twenties.

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