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How Y Combinator Changed the World

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Re: How Y Combinator Changed the World

#71

It's news to me that Livingston retired. Wikipedia doesn't seem to have gotten the memo which makes me feel better about not knowing. I no longer try to follow what she's up to but I used to be intensely curious about her career.

It’s worth noting that YC grew out of discussions between her and PG when she was applying for a job in VC. YC would not exist without her.

Yeah, they are the two original founders and then he snagged his two cofounders from Viaweb who, I think, only worked part-time on YC.

He retired some years before her, which suggests to me this business is probably more "her baby" than his in some sense.

Re: How Y Combinator Changed the World

#72

The cynicism in this thread is simply astounding. The people of HN has had a negative impact on my view of the world and my own internal optimism. It’s hard to find even the smallest light of hope here. “Can do” attitude is outdated and is replaced by “Pull everyone else down”.

You're as much HN as anyone else here. Don't fall prey to the notice-dislike bias! It leads to an exceedingly negative false feeling of generality, in which the world seems dominated by whatever counts as the worst to you. In reality, it's a statistical distribution and you choose what to focus on.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

Re: How Y Combinator Changed the World

#74

The cynicism in this thread is simply astounding. The people of HN has had a negative impact on my view of the world and my own internal optimism. It’s hard to find even the smallest light of hope here. “Can do” attitude is outdated and is replaced by “Pull everyone else down”.

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Re: How Y Combinator Changed the World

#75
post #68

This thread is somewhat depressing. Depressing because the very nature of YC and HN at its best is optimism. A belief in the ability to build and not just a respect for those who do but a genuine desire to support those trying. Maybe not succeeding, but trying to create something in a world so set on making that difficult. It that always morally perfect: no. Does that always work: no. But, at its best, YC operates mo…

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Re: How Y Combinator Changed the World

#76
post #68

This thread is somewhat depressing. Depressing because the very nature of YC and HN at its best is optimism. A belief in the ability to build and not just a respect for those who do but a genuine desire to support those trying. Maybe not succeeding, but trying to create something in a world so set on making that difficult. It that always morally perfect: no. Does that always work: no. But, at its best, YC operates mo…

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Re: How Y Combinator Changed the World

#77
post #68

This thread is somewhat depressing. Depressing because the very nature of YC and HN at its best is optimism. A belief in the ability to build and not just a respect for those who do but a genuine desire to support those trying. Maybe not succeeding, but trying to create something in a world so set on making that difficult. It that always morally perfect: no. Does that always work: no. But, at its best, YC operates mo…

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While I don't completely disagree with the sentiment here, I agree more with the GP suggesting that YC started with great intentions (let's give makers a little money and support and minimal bullshit and see what they make) and that HN as a community has improved many peoples lives (mine included). But yes, it evolved into something different.

My question is what solution are you advocating? Abolish YC? Outlaw starting businesses? I don't see your solution.

Re: How Y Combinator Changed the World

#78
post #10

Also potentially interesting is how YC changed the VC market. [0] is an essay from PG that talks about how VC funding used to work. [1] is a short essay that starts to get at why YC is different. (These should be read with a grain of salt, since PG is the founder of YC) TLDR is that YC was the first firm to fund a lot of small companies, as opposed to a medium amount of medium sized companies. Similar to what Square…

I was under the impression that the small amount offered was the realization that it didn't take a lot of money to get a startup off the ground. So I thought Paul was one of the first to capitalize on it. This would seem to let him go for both quality and volume.

Re: How Y Combinator Changed the World

#79

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If those founders hadn't changed the world, they wouldn't be rich. Sure, Dropbox and Stripe aren't dismantling apartheid or eradicating polio, but these products do solve real problems and make life a little bit more bearable for millions of people. We should give credit where credit's due and acknowledge this impact.

> If those founders hadn't changed the world, they wouldn't be rich

Good to know I'm changing the world with my CRUD apps - more than all the volunteers in the world since I'm (slowly) getting rich, and they aren't.

Re: How Y Combinator Changed the World

#80
post #68

This thread is somewhat depressing. Depressing because the very nature of YC and HN at its best is optimism. A belief in the ability to build and not just a respect for those who do but a genuine desire to support those trying. Maybe not succeeding, but trying to create something in a world so set on making that difficult. It that always morally perfect: no. Does that always work: no. But, at its best, YC operates mo…

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Look, im general I’m quite sympathetic to the argument that wealth inequity is both morally/ethically bad (which I think you’re saying) and bad economically for growth and prosperity (which I don’t read you as saying). I also think that many societies have problems with wealth inequity overall, and few have successfully cultivated innovation in the last decade or two as successfully has the US (partially driven, yes, by YC).

To me the solution to the problem isn’t the front-end, that is attacking YC and startups and entrepreneurship. Rather, I would generally support deep and effective estate taxes, wealth taxes if they could be found to be effective, attacks on tax avoidance behavior, etc. (e.g. I don’t have solutions, but I’m disgusted by the behaviors and advantages reported on by ProPublica recently here https://www.propublica.org/article/the-great-inheritors-how-... but I also think there are great fortunes in the UK, France, Germany, the Nordics, so not sure anyone has quite figured it out).

At the same time, I think that economic growth is the central and defining anti-poverty tool in history. Other countries envy our ability to grow the pie even as we have challenges in fairly distributing that pie. I’d rather find solutions to the problems of distribution without attacking growth.

On OpenSea, I’m not following the argument exactly. I assume you think all art, particularly mass market art is a sort of mass delusional petite bourgeoisie / opioid of the masses pursuit foisted on them by a conspiratorial monied class? Or, more likely, it’s just all a big, experimental community of purists and artists and hucksters and beyond alike that are trying something new and interesting and potentially quite generative and innovative. I have no idea if in five years OpenSea will be huge or dead or somewhere in-between but I’d admire that they have built, created, strove.

On Airbnb, I have quite a bit more ambivalence but overall my vision of the world has a lot more density and urbanism. It’s good for people, it’s good for the environment, etc. If I had a magic wand in, say, San Francisco, the city would have housing for 3-4 times as many people, a much much more robust public transit system, etc, and the problems of gentrification would be addressed primarily through a massive uptick in housing stock and density not by the relatively limited effects of (the practically banned in SF) Airbnb.

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