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Y Combinator narrows current cohort size by 40%, citing downturn and funding

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Re: Y Combinator narrows current cohort size by 40%, citing downturn and funding

#171

Post by kwere »

huijzer wrote: post #169
shmatt wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct. Even the worlds richest man can't buy an internet company without going into debt (or crashing the stock which their "richness" is derived from) In the U.S at least, holding cash is considered the worst thing to do if you have wealth. Which then leads people to use debt

Although Warren Buffet isn’t the richest, he surely can buy things with cash. In his last annual report, Berkshire reported 33 trillion in cash if I remember correctly. They didn’t find anything interesting to buy for a fair price so then they’ll just sit on their hands.

BRK had a liquidity of $144 billion at the end of 2021

Re: Y Combinator narrows current cohort size by 40%, citing downturn and funding

#172

Post by dang »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #153
mizzao wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We actually thought about doing YC and demurred because (1) it wasn't a great deal and (2) because the batch size was so big, it wasn't a particularly good signal anymore. I've heard from other founders that they have so many startups no one gets much individual attention. That didn't stop us from launching on HN though :-P https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32266086

I do not understand why the mods flagged the sibling comment. It was on topic, directly related, and is a central issue for the given discussion. Ah, yes, it’s because I tangentially pointed out exactly how much power YC has, and that’s bad for business. Got it. I’ll keep my head down before one of the powerful people reading this decides I need to get my account permanently penalized again until I learn my lesson an…

If you mean https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32331850, mods didn't touch that comment, or even see it. Users flagged it.

Re: Y Combinator narrows current cohort size by 40%, citing downturn and funding

#173

Post by mojuba »

s1mon wrote: post #170
mojuba wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many decisions are made in seconds based on an impression from an ad You are talking about click decisions, not purchase ones. There's no evidence ads can affect consumers' purchasing behavior, in fact quite the opposite.

Plenty of people see an ad for something and will then discount it in an instant as a possible option based on bad messaging, or design. Do you have something to back up the idea that the ad industry doesn't affect purchasing behavior? Seems like a $837 billion industry must manage to accomplish something. https://www.statista.com/statistics/236943/global-advertisin...

There's evidence the entire online ad industry is a scam and that Facebook and Google are aware [1]

[1] https://sparktoro.com/blog/what-if-performance-advertising-i...

Re: Y Combinator narrows current cohort size by 40%, citing downturn and funding

#174

Post by SahAssar »

huijzer wrote: post #169
shmatt wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct. Even the worlds richest man can't buy an internet company without going into debt (or crashing the stock which their "richness" is derived from) In the U.S at least, holding cash is considered the worst thing to do if you have wealth. Which then leads people to use debt

Although Warren Buffet isn’t the richest, he surely can buy things with cash. In his last annual report, Berkshire reported 33 trillion in cash if I remember correctly. They didn’t find anything interesting to buy for a fair price so then they’ll just sit on their hands.

33 trillion would be more than the current US debt. It'd be more than 10 times the market cap of the most valued company. It'd be more than the combined market cap of the 100 most valued companies globally (seems to be at around 32 trillion for all of them).

Re: Y Combinator narrows current cohort size by 40%, citing downturn and funding

#175

Post by blagie »

yunohn wrote: post #163
blagie wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a good set of thoughts. My own opinion is that COVID19 ground the economy to a halt. We had two choices for dealing with the lost productivity: a) About 2x inflation of currency (long-term -- e.g. 15% for five years). At the end, currency is worth less. b) Structural damage (e.g. businesses going bankrupt, people losing mortgage, people fired, etc.) And a bit of a spectrum in between. We chose much closer to (a)…

> Personally, I feel like we should all just accept that money is worth less today Maybe for your situation that’s fine, but it affects me and almost everyone else quite a bit. It’s hard earned money.

It effects everyone quite a bit. The problem is we lost many months of productivity. At the end of the day, there's less stuff to go around. You get less stuff. I get less stuff.

Money is a point-keeping abstraction.

Us simply being able to buy that much less stuff (by the lost production) is the best-case outcome. The worst-case outcome is that we continue to produce less stuff because of structural damage. For example, if you lose your job, can't get another one, and can't make your mortgage, that results in much more direct damage than a loss of savings. That, in turn, means you buy less stuff, and businesses who depend on you to consume go under, and more people lose their jobs. And so on.

Re: Y Combinator narrows current cohort size by 40%, citing downturn and funding

#176

Post by mensetmanusman »

andy_ppp wrote: post #147
grepfru_it wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and they expect a decade or more of depression. Kinda what the 30Y treasure yields are saying (if you believe in recession indicators)

It’s also a self fulfilling prophecy too.

The world will be poorer when there is war at Europe’s door.

Re: Y Combinator narrows current cohort size by 40%, citing downturn and funding

#177

Post by mensetmanusman »

mojuba wrote: post #173
s1mon wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of people see an ad for something and will then discount it in an instant as a possible option based on bad messaging, or design. Do you have something to back up the idea that the ad industry doesn't affect purchasing behavior? Seems like a $837 billion industry must manage to accomplish something. https://www.statista.com/statistics/236943/global-advertisin...

There's evidence the entire online ad industry is a scam and that Facebook and Google are aware [1] [1] https://sparktoro.com/blog/what-if-performance-advertising-i...

Meh, my dad ran a small window cleaning business in a small midwestern state. He clearly saw a difference when his existence was known on the internet versus with paper fliers only. Advertising is letting people know you exist.

Re: Y Combinator narrows current cohort size by 40%, citing downturn and funding

#178

Post by collegeburner »

balaselvam wrote: post #20

The emphasis on "downturn" concerns me. Aren't reputed firms like YC supposed to look at a 10+ year horizon? If this is true, it indicates that earlier investments were based on the market than the fundamentals of the founding team, market, and product.

doesn't matter if LPs get scared

Re: Y Combinator narrows current cohort size by 40%, citing downturn and funding

#179

Post by yunohn »

blagie wrote: post #175
yunohn wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Personally, I feel like we should all just accept that money is worth less today Maybe for your situation that’s fine, but it affects me and almost everyone else quite a bit. It’s hard earned money.

It effects everyone quite a bit. The problem is we lost many months of productivity. At the end of the day, there's less stuff to go around. You get less stuff. I get less stuff. Money is a point-keeping abstraction. Us simply being able to buy that much less stuff (by the lost production) is the best-case outcome. The worst-case outcome is that we continue to produce less stuff because of structural damage. For exam…

Yes, so society as a whole is right to be concerned about it, what caused it, what its effects are, and what could be changed.

Why do you think everyone should “just move on” just because you’re comfy, despite it clearly being a Bad Thing?

Re: Y Combinator narrows current cohort size by 40%, citing downturn and funding

#180

Post by jacquesm »

htrp wrote: post #125
dustingetz wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Earlier folks / seed funds have more than enough money and even if they take hits on marks the reality is that they invest at such low prices they are still 'good', but (a) they don't know exactly what to buy because they don't know what the later-stage folks are in the market for and (b) they really don't know what prices the later-stage folks will pay for things (which directly impacts what they are willing to pa…

> See: "Series A Exit Clause" – it's baked into your capitalization structure Thanks! Learn something new everyday [1] https://startupjuncture.com/2017/05/16/vc-deal-terms-explain...

That's an excellent article and worth posting on its own.
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