Questions you’ll (probably) get asked at your YC interview • Hacker News Board

Re: Questions you’ll (probably) get asked at your YC interview

#41

Post by gvb » Sat, Apr 23, 2011, 6:17 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #33

rocamboleh wrote: post #28

Is anyone aware of the number of submissions to YC per year and the chance of getting an interview?

I realize this will sound like a flippant answer, but I mean it seriously: the chance is either very high or very low, depending on how good your application is. It took me a long time to realize that when the odds of getting into something were described as e.g. 1 in 10, that didn't mean the odds for any given applicant were 10%, but rather (to the extent the people deciding were good judges) that for 10% of applica…

The generalization of this could be called the statistical singleton fallacy: people (almost universally) inappropriately apply statistics to individuals. Statistics are only valid over populations (in the general sense). As the number of "things" in a population diminishes to 1, the confidence interval goes to 100%, i.e. you can not apply statistical conclusions to a singleton.

A simple graphic illustration of this is smoking. A smoker's probability of dying of a smoking-related disease before age 65 is 15.6%[1]. However, my probability of dying of a smoking-related disease (assuming I smoked) is either 0% (I don't die of a smoking-related disease) or 100% (I die).

People don't understand why some people smoke when there is such clear evidence of the increased probability of death due to smoking-related disease. Well, for each smoker, the probability is either 0% or 100%. If the smoker believes his probability is 0%, he will continue to smoke. If he believes his probability is 100%, he is a hypochondriac.

Thus, smokers either believe they are untouchable or they are crazy.

This is why it is so hard to sell "it's good for you" things... they are almost invariably statistically good for a large population, but can make no guarantees of "goodness" when applied to a singleton.

This applies in spades to health-anything:

* Individual's health: Lose weight and exercise - it's good for you.

* Program's health: testing is not guaranteed to find any bugs - if it were, running testing a second and third time would always find more bugs.

[1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1646951/?page=3

Re: Questions you’ll (probably) get asked at your YC interview

#42

Post by pedalpete » Sat, Apr 23, 2011, 6:44 PM UTC

dtran wrote: post #25

pg wrote: post #24

These are all things we care about, but they are probably not the most common questions we ask. E.g. we already know about the equity split because we ask about it on the application form, so we only bring it up during the interview if we noticed something odd about it. The thing we care most about in interviews (at least of things one can change) is how engaged the founders are with users. How do they know people ac…

A good corollary question to "How do you know that people actually want this?" is "How are people solving this problem now?" If founders respond that there aren't really any current solutions, then it usually means that either a) They aren't making something that people really want, or b) They haven't talked to enough users. If it's a problem people actually have, then they must be coming up with crazy hacks or solut…

Aren't some of the most world-changing businesses actually businesses where a simple solution already existed, yet entire industries have been created or destroyed in spite of these simple solutions??

For example, before the automobile, horse and carriage was a 'solution' to the problem of getting around. In the early days, was a car a much better solution than a horse? Horses were readily available, didn't need a gasoline infrastructure, they even self-replicated so you could get a new one every few years.

I understand I'm playing a bit of devils advocate here, but I often gut stuck in the mode of thinking existing solutions are good enough, then somebody comes along and evolutionizes an industry with what at the early stages might seem to be minor improvements.

Another example would be the early days of sunglasses. If the question was asked 'how are people solving this problem now', the overly simple answer would have been 'they squint a bit'. With that as the answer, would you go and develop sunglasses?

Re: Questions you’ll (probably) get asked at your YC interview

#43

Post by zbowling » Sat, Apr 23, 2011, 10:09 PM UTC

nhashem wrote: post #6

My partner and I got a YC interview last round (no luck this time, unfortunately) and one thing I'd like to caution is that if you have a "chicken and egg" situation ("Why would X users use your site until you have Y users and vice versa?) or an "established competitor" situation ("What's to stop Google from just adding a link to X product?"), you should have as close to bullet-proof responses to those questions as p…

We were first to interview today. Only PG seen our app for a second. Reget that too.

Re: Questions you’ll (probably) get asked at your YC interview

#44

Post by zbowling » Sat, Apr 23, 2011, 10:09 PM UTC

nhashem wrote: post #6

My partner and I got a YC interview last round (no luck this time, unfortunately) and one thing I'd like to caution is that if you have a "chicken and egg" situation ("Why would X users use your site until you have Y users and vice versa?) or an "established competitor" situation ("What's to stop Google from just adding a link to X product?"), you should have as close to bullet-proof responses to those questions as p…

We were first to interview today. Only PG seen our app for a second. Regret that too.

Re: Questions you’ll (probably) get asked at your YC interview

#45

Post by fan » Sun, Apr 24, 2011, 5:59 PM UTC

pedalpete wrote: post #42

dtran wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good corollary question to "How do you know that people actually want this?" is "How are people solving this problem now?" If founders respond that there aren't really any current solutions, then it usually means that either a) They aren't making something that people really want, or b) They haven't talked to enough users. If it's a problem people actually have, then they must be coming up with crazy hacks or solut…

Aren't some of the most world-changing businesses actually businesses where a simple solution already existed, yet entire industries have been created or destroyed in spite of these simple solutions?? For example, before the automobile, horse and carriage was a 'solution' to the problem of getting around. In the early days, was a car a much better solution than a horse? Horses were readily available, didn't need a ga…

The transition is never that stark.

Take your example of sunglasses. A quick search on wikipedia shows that the precursor were glasses with a thin slit in them. It was never squinting, and then BOOM, Oakleys.

There was always a gradual change that is only missed in retrospect because of how standardized and popular the winner is.

Name a few popular products and services, and I bet there have been similar solutions beforehand.