Does that mean you signed up for HN when you were 10?!? Awesome!
What I Learned Going Through YC as a 17 Year Old
41–50 of 155 posts
Re: What I Learned Going Through YC as a 17 Year Old
#42> Silicon Valley doesn't care about your background This is BS. You have a much higher chance of rasing money for the same idea if you worked in FAANG than if you worked in Accenture. Same goes to someone who went to Harvard vs someone who went to University of Colorado.
I agree. You can certainly do it without the "background", but we specifically had to get some well-connected "right-backgrounded" people involved before folks would answer our calls because all our principals had degrees from schools they never heard of (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev) and experience in little niche defense contractors that aren't "cool" by SV standards.
(However, we did what we needed to do--get some Stanford people with ties to Sand Hill Road--and got it done.)
Re: What I Learned Going Through YC as a 17 Year Old
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it just needs to be properly qualified. OP specifically referenced his age (which I am skeptical about as well). >You have a much higher chance of rasing money for the same idea if you worked in FAANG than if you worked in Accenture. You may be right, but do you have any evidence of this, anecdotal or otherwise?
> You may be right, but do you have any evidence of > this, anecdotal or otherwise? It's true everywhere else in the world. I think the burder of proof should be the other way around, and instead you should provide evidence this isn't the case within the YC/VC system?
>It's true everywhere else in the world.
Sure. It's true that your background matters in general. What's not clear, and does put the burden of proof on OP, that the specific background of FAANG experience matters.
>and instead you should provide evidence this isn't the case within the YC/VC system?
As a general rule, it's not easy to prove a negative. What kind of evidence would you expect for YC/VC system that would answer this for you??
Re: What I Learned Going Through YC as a 17 Year Old
#44>> No one knows the right answer Hmmmm. Be careful about this. Lots of people do know the right answer. Youth energy and enthusiasm count for a lot, especially backin the earliest days of computing like when bill gates got started. That was because adults knew very little. > Experience is only loosely correlated with age These days age and experience count for a lot. Lots of older people have incredibly valuable answ…
There is a pretty good book called “the Death or Expertise” that discusses the broad trend towards people with little specialized knowledge feeling they can learn a domain quickly and know more than experts.
So many problems we have in society seem to be caused by this mass weaponized Dunning-Kruger effect.
Re: What I Learned Going Through YC as a 17 Year Old
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
Reply to his email now?
I lost the domain of the email address a while back so I can’t even see it anymore... Will try to guess his email address to send a thank-you later today; better late than never even if very late? One of those funny situations of “ah, yes, now with my own domain Gmail can never take my email away from me!” but then my payment failing and my domain going to auction before I notice.
In support - do it! It means a lot to be told a genuine thank you.
Re: What I Learned Going Through YC as a 17 Year Old
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Firms that do not make a solid profit margin are a really bad sign - it means that there is little value add by the firm. If I buy $10 worth of paints (and equipment) then use that to create and sell you a painting for $10, that is society signalling that I really should find something better to do with my time. The raw materials are about as hard to produce as the care anyone has for my work. The value created by me…
By that logic, take all the paint away from Van Gogh and give it all to Jeff Koons.
Van Gogh tried to sell his art for more than the price of parts. He was unsuccessful in his life due to being ahead of the curve. Much like Betamax, he died before being appreciated.
Re: What I Learned Going Through YC as a 17 Year Old
#47> Silicon Valley doesn't care about your background This is BS. You have a much higher chance of rasing money for the same idea if you worked in FAANG than if you worked in Accenture. Same goes to someone who went to Harvard vs someone who went to University of Colorado.
It may be easier if you have credentials, but it’s certainly possible without them.
I’d argue how your business is running is 10x as important as credentials.
(I dropped out of a non-prestigious school and had work experience at one company, have raised $120m+ in <4 yrs).
Re: What I Learned Going Through YC as a 17 Year Old
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
Reply to his email now?
I lost the domain of the email address a while back so I can’t even see it anymore... Will try to guess his email address to send a thank-you later today; better late than never even if very late? One of those funny situations of “ah, yes, now with my own domain Gmail can never take my email away from me!” but then my payment failing and my domain going to auction before I notice.
He is on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Re: What I Learned Going Through YC as a 17 Year Old
#49Does that mean you signed up for HN when you were 10?!? Awesome!
I think 14 because he mentioned being in a 2016 batch of YC
Re: What I Learned Going Through YC as a 17 Year Old
#50From my experience east cost VCs are mostly former wall st folks, lawyers or family offices who are playing VC. Very few of them have any operating experience, and if they do, it's at BigCo, not in or around startups. I don't think they are well tuned to what non-traditional success looks like, and as a result they have problems pattern matching.