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

anyasq.com

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

#51

Post by ohashi »

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…

I think you underestimate the value of a giant community interested in reading about stuff in general. They are the consumers of knowledge and content and are there to consume pictures, videos, AMAs, etc. While I don't always want to read AMAs, the most popular do make it through to my front page or I can see what's going on when I feel the urge, without ever changing sites. That value proposition alone is why I don't think I'd regularly use a dedicated AMA site.

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

#52

Post by ohashi »

timsally wrote: post #25
vaksel wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> The ones where it's a person, /iama/ already verifies those. Trolls have successfully gotten fake IAMAs from celebrities like Emilia Clarke verified by the moderation team. The fake Emilia Clarke IAMA got close to 1,000 comments before the ruse was discovered. [1] > Unverified IAMAs tend to be the I am a doctor etc...which can't be verified. It's an incorrect assumption that verification is only useful for specific…

I am not sure I accept the proposition that moderation staff who are paid will always do a better job. Unpaid moderators do it for their various reasons, one of the most common I've seen is a deep passion for the topic. Being paid to do something changes that dynamic incredibly. The best moderated forum I ever was a member of was done completely on a non-profit basis. There were paid competitors, every other site in the niche had some sort of monetization, except this one. The mods loved the area and were deeply respected in the niche. The community was strong. They eventually did quit and sold it to a company, the site died nearly instantly with a paid staff taking over.

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

#53

Post by cloudpre »

Harj wrote: post #47
stevenj wrote: post #24

1. Does YC have any plans to hire associates/interns? 2. What 3 early-stage startups excite you most that haven't been funded by YC? 3. Do you personally invest in startups? 4. What do you like most about your job? 5. Do you have some cool YC-related stories you could share? 6. What's a typical day like for you? (If "typical" doesn't apply, what'd you do today?)

1. No. 2. Square and Quora. Can't think of a third. 3. I've done a bit but don't have enough money to do more. 4. The people I work with. 5. Nothing springs to mind. There's probably some but I find it hard to just pull things out of my brain without context. 6. No typical day. Today I cleared out my inbox in the morning, did office hours in the afternoon and the weekly YC dinner is about to start now.

How are you ensuring that you are not missing Square and Quora kinds again? Is there a reason why you passed on both?

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

#54

Post by joeycfan »

Your website has two immense flaws.

1 - your next page links 'more' expire and it drives me nuts 2 - I can spend time writing a well thought out response only to be told 'whoah not so fast!'

If I am posting too fast, why was I given the opportunity to post??? And why is it IMPOSSIBLE to find out how long I have to wait?????

I have written the site twice with no responce.

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

#55

Post by crocowhile »

GraffitiTim wrote: post #31
jdludlow wrote: post #27

There's no way in the world I'm going to sign up for this, regardless of who you have on there. This application will be able to: Read Tweets from your timeline. See who you follow, and follow new people. Update your profile. Post Tweets for you. Access your direct messages until June 30th, 2011.

There's a checkbox to tweet to your followers when you post an AMA or when you ask a question. I don't know if there's a way to request just the ability to tweet. But we don't use any of those other permissions.

If you don't use them don't ask for them

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

#56

Post by davidcann »

e1ven wrote: post #16
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.

The same thing happened to me and I'm still not sure if my question was entered or not. I can't find anywhere that lists the questions I've asked.

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

#57

Post by GraffitiTim »

crocowhile wrote: post #55
GraffitiTim wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a checkbox to tweet to your followers when you post an AMA or when you ask a question. I don't know if there's a way to request just the ability to tweet. But we don't use any of those other permissions.

If you don't use them don't ask for them

I didn't see a way to do that, but if there is one I'll implement it soon.

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

#58

Post by seto28 »

MatthewB wrote: post #23

First, thanks to Harjeet for doing this. The biggest question I had for a while about YC has already been answered. That is, how much does the educational background of an applicant impact the analysis of an application. I know a few former and current YC founders and they all seem to have the same thing in common: CS degrees from elite universities. Harjeet put my concerns to rest with his answer that it is only rel…

Nobody wants to be portrayed as elitist so I'm not so sure about this. Given 2 people who both have done impressive projects I would bet the one with the Stanford degree would be more likely to get in. It might even be a sub-conscious decision.

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

#59

Post by grinich »

cloudpre wrote: post #53
Harj wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. No. 2. Square and Quora. Can't think of a third. 3. I've done a bit but don't have enough money to do more. 4. The people I work with. 5. Nothing springs to mind. There's probably some but I find it hard to just pull things out of my brain without context. 6. No typical day. Today I cleared out my inbox in the morning, did office hours in the afternoon and the weekly YC dinner is about to start now.

How are you ensuring that you are not missing Square and Quora kinds again? Is there a reason why you passed on both?

I don't think those guys applied to YC, having been founders/early at Twitter and Facebook. Plus, they probably wanted to raise more than $20k or whatever.

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

#60

Post by cperciva »

pg wrote: post #11
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.

What percentage are married and/or have kids I couldn't even guess, because we don't ask...

Is this something you don't ask because you don't think it's a useful question, or because your lawyers told you to not ask it?

I would expect that "what does your significant other think of this" would be an illuminating question where relevant, both in terms of demonstrating an ability to recognize problems and demonstrating an ability to overcome them. Certainly if a startup founder was planning on moving across the country and answered "I haven't told her yet" it would be a big red flag to me.

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