Harjeet: I'm a partner at Y Combinator. Ask me anything. • Hacker News Board

Re: Harjeet: I'm a partner at Y Combinator. Ask me anything.

#11

Post by pg » Tue, Jun 28, 2011, 8:18 PM UTC

Sukotto wrote: post #9

I am not willing to grant anyask the ability to modify my twitter profile and post as me so I'll just ask here. 1) Age-wise, what ratio of accepted YC applicants are over 35? 40? 2) What ratio of them fall into the "married with kids" category? My impression of YC is that you strongly (exclusively?) prefer under 30 people who are unattached or, at least, are married with no other obligations. Can you dispel that impr…

I'd have to guess, but maybe 4% and 1% respectively.

What percentage are married and/or have kids I couldn't even guess, because we don't ask and it's not the sort of thing that comes up unless it's related to what they're working on.

All we care about is whether the startup seems likely to succeed. Think how stupid we'd have to be to miss out on a great startup because they failed to meet some arbitrary constraint.

Re: Harjeet: I'm a partner at Y Combinator. Ask me anything.

#12

Post by tomhoward » Tue, Jun 28, 2011, 8:26 PM UTC

Sukotto wrote: post #9

I am not willing to grant anyask the ability to modify my twitter profile and post as me so I'll just ask here. 1) Age-wise, what ratio of accepted YC applicants are over 35? 40? 2) What ratio of them fall into the "married with kids" category? My impression of YC is that you strongly (exclusively?) prefer under 30 people who are unattached or, at least, are married with no other obligations. Can you dispel that impr…

Like with female founders, the apparent predominance of <30 single males is probably better explained by number who apply than the proportion selected.

Re: Harjeet: I'm a partner at Y Combinator. Ask me anything.

#13

Post by ZackOfAllTrades » Tue, Jun 28, 2011, 8:30 PM UTC

timsally wrote: post #10

ZackOfAllTrades wrote: post #7

I am guessing anyasq is a YC company that just launched? Rationale: Harjeet doing an interview at a relatively unknown company/project. Also, how does anyasq beat reddit ama?

> Also, how does anyasq beat reddit ama? * Better moderation. Seems like there are no unverified AMAs on anyasq. Trolling is a major problem on /r/iama. * By leveraging the YC network to get AMAs with people who would never do a Reddit AMA. These two things are relatively straightforward and simple, but I think it's a winning combination. The popularity of the AMA concept certainly has been validated by /r/iama. Back…

Devil's advocate: Reddit is getting better at the trolling with confirmations from moderators. Reddit AMA gets a surprising amount of important people to pass their way. And technically reddit is in the YC network (though the founders have left). But agreed that there are some people who would never do a AMA on reddit that might come from YC.

Also, let's say that anyasq isn't a YC company (not sure if they are or not). Then all they have going for them is better moderation. To me that just sounds like retweeting on twitter without the character limit and a cleaner interface. I am not so sure that is a winning combination. One would think that YC would pick a company that didn't need to be in YC to succeed.

Re: Harjeet: I'm a partner at Y Combinator. Ask me anything.

#14

Post by randall » Tue, Jun 28, 2011, 8:40 PM UTC

Super excited to see this concept. I had a prototype of this style of idea last year, but decided it was tertiary to my actual passion (video).

Wish you huge luck! Would love to sit down and debrief a part of this you might attack later, namely live events and conferences. I've got some good ideas of how to integrate this to those in a visually appealing manner, and would love to chat.

Re: Harjeet: I'm a partner at Y Combinator. Ask me anything.

#15

Post by vaksel » Tue, Jun 28, 2011, 8:41 PM UTC

timsally wrote: post #10

ZackOfAllTrades wrote: post #7

I am guessing anyasq is a YC company that just launched? Rationale: Harjeet doing an interview at a relatively unknown company/project. Also, how does anyasq beat reddit ama?

> Also, how does anyasq beat reddit ama? * Better moderation. Seems like there are no unverified AMAs on anyasq. Trolling is a major problem on /r/iama. * By leveraging the YC network to get AMAs with people who would never do a Reddit AMA. These two things are relatively straightforward and simple, but I think it's a winning combination. The popularity of the AMA concept certainly has been validated by /r/iama. Back…

what moderation?

Unverified IAMAs tend to be the I am a doctor etc...which can't be verified.

The ones where it's a person, /iama/ already verifies those.

Seems like this is a money grab...and at least reddit doesn't require that you allow it to spam your twitter account.

Re: Harjeet: I'm a partner at Y Combinator. Ask me anything.

#16

Post by e1ven » Tue, Jun 28, 2011, 8:45 PM UTC

Shenglong wrote: post #2

I just #interfacefailed there. I think I asked the same question like 7 times before I realized what was going on. #fml

I did the same thing. Posting a question doesn't make it at ALL clear if it's done so. Do you NEED to tweet it? Otherwise, posting a question just leads to a form where you can submit (another?) question.

The UI could be a bit clearer there.

Re: Harjeet: I'm a partner at Y Combinator. Ask me anything.

#17

Post by GraffitiTim » Tue, Jun 28, 2011, 8:52 PM UTC

ZackOfAllTrades wrote: post #7

I am guessing anyasq is a YC company that just launched? Rationale: Harjeet doing an interview at a relatively unknown company/project. Also, how does anyasq beat reddit ama?

Yes, AnyAsq is a YC company. We hadn't asked Harj to do an AMA though. :) And we hadn't really intended to launch quite yet but we're not complaining.

Ways we hope AnyAsq beats reddit ama:

-The concept should make more sense to people as a standalone site than as a sub-section on another site. (Easier to explain, easier to link to, etc)

-As a standalone site we can optimize the interface for this concept, which is really a very different idea than reddit.com.

-Twitter integration is really helpful. Acts as both moderation and as a way for people to spread AnyAsq to their followers when they do an AMA or ask a question.

-We're a YC company which will hopefully help us get people like Harj (or pg? Don't do it quite yet though please) on there and maybe help with press.

Re: Harjeet: I'm a partner at Y Combinator. Ask me anything.

#18

Post by rokhayakebe » Tue, Jun 28, 2011, 8:53 PM UTC

1- Who have you passed on you wish you hadn't?

2- What is one of the assumption you had about the entire process that ended up not being true?

3- Who is one entrepreneur (or team) whom you really thought had it wrong, but invested in anyways because they had that je-ne-sais-quoi?

Re: Harjeet: I'm a partner at Y Combinator. Ask me anything.

#19

Post by tikhon » Tue, Jun 28, 2011, 9:11 PM UTC

ZackOfAllTrades wrote: post #7

I am guessing anyasq is a YC company that just launched? Rationale: Harjeet doing an interview at a relatively unknown company/project. Also, how does anyasq beat reddit ama?

As an early user on anyasq (http://bit.ly/iQYjXb), I'll say anyasq already has a much better user experience than reddit AMA. The twitter integration for both questioners and submitters (and the emails when you get new questions) are key. Once they get a few prominent people on there I could really see this taking off.

Re: Harjeet: I'm a partner at Y Combinator. Ask me anything.

#20

Post by ZackOfAllTrades » Tue, Jun 28, 2011, 9:11 PM UTC

GraffitiTim wrote: post #17

ZackOfAllTrades wrote: post #7

I am guessing anyasq is a YC company that just launched? Rationale: Harjeet doing an interview at a relatively unknown company/project. Also, how does anyasq beat reddit ama?

Yes, AnyAsq is a YC company. We hadn't asked Harj to do an AMA though. :) And we hadn't really intended to launch quite yet but we're not complaining. Ways we hope AnyAsq beats reddit ama: -The concept should make more sense to people as a standalone site than as a sub-section on another site. (Easier to explain, easier to link to, etc) -As a standalone site we can optimize the interface for this concept, which is re…

Neat! Good answers.

How do you make money though? Who is paying for what?