Y Combinator’s Paul Graham: We’re Looking For People Like Us
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Re: Y Combinator’s Paul Graham: We’re Looking For People Like Us
#2> "YC has invested a total of around $5 million"
It's incredible to think of the value that has been added to so many companies for the price of a single large series A.
Re: Y Combinator’s Paul Graham: We’re Looking For People Like Us
#3> "YC has invested a total of around $5 million" It's incredible to think of the value that has been added to so many companies for the price of a single large series A.
It's amazing how much you can do when you start unbreaking things.
Edit: That was excessively brief. So many parts about the whole investment cycle were broken. Some are marginally less broken now. Having a negotiation between a fresh engineering graduate who does not know what "pre-money valuation" means and the principal of a firm with 9 figures under management, and expecting that negotiation to produce an equitable or efficient outcome, is broken. Contacting angels serially is broken. Using who has attended a dinner party with your buddies as the most efficient screening method available for predicting skill with conversion rate optimization is broken. Investment outcomes where the company succeeds and founders do not end up rich is broken. The work culture in Silicon Valley is insanely broken. etc, etc
YC has unbroken some of these. It turns out that an application process and a few weeks with a team scalably works as a decently efficient proxy for success. It turns out founders can be taught what pre-money valuation means and when they know this they get screwed less often. It turns out that spending half of one's time raising money is, as expected, just a deadweight loss.
Re: Y Combinator’s Paul Graham: We’re Looking For People Like Us
#4is there a video of this interview?
Re: Y Combinator’s Paul Graham: We’re Looking For People Like Us
#5Re: Y Combinator’s Paul Graham: We’re Looking For People Like Us
#6> "YC has invested a total of around $5 million" It's incredible to think of the value that has been added to so many companies for the price of a single large series A.
That's definitely true, but what that doesn't accurately capture is the time / mentorships and introductions that the YC team invests in all of their startups.
Re: Y Combinator’s Paul Graham: We’re Looking For People Like Us
#7Hey, there's a nice photo of the interviewer and interviewee shoes in there !
Re: Y Combinator’s Paul Graham: We’re Looking For People Like Us
#8It's interesting to see pg's opinion about what is important in founders evolve over the years. When I applied to YC in late 2008, I was told by alumni that YC was "looking for smart people." Although he's talked about discipline and determination as early as May 2004 in his essays those words were most commonly found next to the words "talent," "skill," or "smart," as if the two qualities were equally important.
Now it seems that YC has learned empirically that determination is the more important predictor of success (see intro to The Anatomy of Determination).
A concern for YC might be: with this new emphasis on determination, it might become the next thing applicants try to "fake" to get accepted?
Re: Y Combinator’s Paul Graham: We’re Looking For People Like Us
#9> "YC has invested a total of around $5 million" It's incredible to think of the value that has been added to so many companies for the price of a single large series A.
That's definitely true, but what that doesn't accurately capture is the time / mentorships and introductions that the YC team invests in all of their startups.
Ok, double that 5 million then to 10 million (a very generous assessment of their time). It's still an incredible return.
Re: Y Combinator’s Paul Graham: We’re Looking For People Like Us
#10> "YC has invested a total of around $5 million" It's incredible to think of the value that has been added to so many companies for the price of a single large series A.
It's amazing how much you can do when you start unbreaking things. Edit: That was excessively brief. So many parts about the whole investment cycle were broken. Some are marginally less broken now. Having a negotiation between a fresh engineering graduate who does not know what "pre-money valuation" means and the principal of a firm with 9 figures under management, and expecting that negotiation to produce an equitab…
Your comment made me look at YC as an extended extremely thorough onsite interview, and it really clicked. But then I remembered that YC companies pitch demo day to a bunch of relative strangers-to-the-teams, not the YC investors themselves. Or do Demo Day investors get quality time with the teams during the season?
Of course YC is overall a mix of interview and internship and summer camp and summer classes and more. The above is an attempt to think through one of the threads.