Y Combinator has lost its soul: A YC founder's perspective • Hacker News Board

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

#301

Post by TigeriusKirk » Wed, Jul 22, 2020, 7:03 PM UTC

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…

>The original spirit behind YC was let's-hack-the-economy with an experiment in the mass production of startups.

If the experiment is no longer working as well as it was, it's time to change the parameters. That's how experiments work.

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

#302

Post by fredsters_s » Wed, Jul 22, 2020, 7:05 PM UTC

nbardy wrote: post #233

The Bay Area has lost its' soul. I moved here to meet creative people tackling big problems and I've found it's no longer about innovation and risk. Just a big pile of uninspired B2B SaaS companies. SV has become a well oiled money making machine for these kind of companies. If you want to work hard and get rich you come here and follow the grind to get your checks, status, clout, etc... I've found some creative peop…

I don't disagree, but not sure how you can make that claim given that you didn't ever experience your idealized version (which never existed after the 70s)

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

#303

Post by jakelazaroff » Wed, Jul 22, 2020, 7:05 PM UTC

blub wrote: post #272

evan_ wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No one's trying to make anyone feel bad about their loving family. We just don't want it to be a selection criterion for entrepreneurship.

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

#304

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan » Wed, Jul 22, 2020, 7:06 PM UTC

blub wrote: post #267

haney wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This does make the assumption that the parents are doing well enough to be able to support their adult children. There are some situations where the parents need the support of adult children, instead of the other way around.

That assumption holds for most of the population in European countries, even the poorest ones. In fact it's common for young people to live with their parents a long time. One has to be either dirt poor or very unlucky not to he able to move back with relatives. This sound like an excuse.

The median wealth of African American households in the U.S. is $35k, vs. $150k for white households.

Yes - most people might be able to move back in with relatives, but among those people who can't, minorities are almost certainly going to be overrepresented, which was OP's point.

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

#305

Post by BrandonM » Wed, Jul 22, 2020, 7:07 PM UTC

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…

I could see a proven engineer #1 with a track record of startup success maybe landing in the 5–10% range (but getting an under market salary), but otherwise I don't see how a number like that is possible. YC takes 7%, and if the first few hires each get 5–10%, that only leaves ~70% for the founders and subsequent hires. If there are 2 founders, they would end up with 25–30% each, and if there are 3, only 15–20%? The numbers only get worse if they've already raised a funding round in return for 20% of the company.

These numbers look more typical to me: https://www.holloway.com/g/equity-compensation/sections/typi.... The article mentions that hire #1 typically gets 2–3%, and only more when it comes with a low salary.

If you want to do better than that, you'll likely have to be a cofounder, not an employee. I read PG's essays in the early 00s, prior to the creation of YC, and his whole shtick was that ambitious employees can't hope to capture the value of their work, that sharp and hard-working tech folks should fund startups to truly capitalize on their efforts.

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

#306

Post by josho » Wed, Jul 22, 2020, 7:08 PM UTC

seizethecheese wrote: post #244

Recent YC founder here. I disagree with the premise that boring ideas are inherently bad. Stripe is a B2B company that adds an API on top of existing infrastructure. Airbnb is a basic CRUD app. I also disagree that YC is not funding interesting ideas. Our batch had quite a few. Someone was making a rapid cargo ship. Someone else was making a fully distributed cell network. The only real copycat ideas were the ones du…

Thank you for sharing this. I've been slowing down turning my idea into a startup because it isn't much more than a CRUD app for a specific market. My interest has been diminishing because in my day job I work with growth companies that are built upon revolutionary technology, leading me to falsely conclude that a CRUD app isn't good enough anymore.

I needed the reminder that the technology isn't what's important, rather solving a problem that people will pay money for is what matters.

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

#307

Post by dang » Wed, Jul 22, 2020, 7:12 PM UTC

djsumdog wrote: post #95

> You're going to end up with a bunch of rich white dudes as founders Why not just say "rich dudes" ? That is the qualifier. The race might be true too, but it's not what defines the argument.

(We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23917075)

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

#308

Post by redisman » Wed, Jul 22, 2020, 7:12 PM UTC

sangnoir wrote: post #211

awillen wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you're actually poor you can't even get a credit card. Because of a lack of credit history the only card I could get at one point was a $300 credit card where I had to send in $300 as a deposit to the bank. Let me just pay a couple of employees a somewhat livable wage on that...

I really hate this condescending "if you really wanted it the money shouldn't matter" coming from millionaires.

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

#309

Post by jboy55 » Wed, Jul 22, 2020, 7:13 PM UTC

epicureanideal wrote: post #206

wtvanhest wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most underrated type of privilege is location privilege. If you grow up far away from a major city, you have to invest heavily to break-in. One false move and everything you worked to establish gets wiped away. People growing up in Omaha are at a severe disadvantage vs people who grow up in Mountainview.

Right. And if your parents are in Mountain View or nearby, you can stay with them a few extra years after you get your first job to save money for a downpayment on your own house. A person without that option may spend a decade paying rent and trying desperately to save up enough for a down payment.

I distinctly remember moving to Silicon Valley as a developer from out of country. Realizing that the standard of living bump due to my 2x Salary, was actually a standard of living drop. Then looking around at the company, seeing the IT support guy with the brand new Porsche. Wondering if he 'struck it rich' with a previous .com and finding out it's just because he lives at home still.

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

#310

Post by felipellrocha » Wed, Jul 22, 2020, 7:17 PM UTC

aty268 wrote: post #183

felipellrocha wrote: post #89

> 3. When i went through YC (recently), we had a "masterclass" of sorts on growth with @patrickc & @collision . Once of the first questions they asked the group was "how many of you are consumer companies?" > Like... 2 people raised their hands and everyone else laughed hysterically. Are B2C inherently better than B2Bs? What's his argument here? I, for one, was never one to enjoy B2C products (matter of fact, I think…

His argument is that B2C is underrepresented and laughed at in YC, despite it being a vital and huge market. He isn't saying one is better than the other. Ebay, AirBNB, Apple, Uber, Github, heard of any? It's too bad you were never able to enjoy B2C products, because these products are worth trying.

I'm not saying these companies provide any value. Looking how I wrote my previous comment, I might've mispoken. What I was trying to say is that early on, whenever someone pitches B2Cs to me, I tend to think they're all stupid. I don't get them.

That's not to say they don't provide value. Same thing on the B2B side. They provide a ton of value, so no reason to think one is better than the other.