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Why YC went to DC

ycombinator.com

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Re: Why YC went to DC

#91

Post by worik »

zer00eyz wrote: post #82

> And finally, we need more steps like the FTC’s recent move to ban all employee noncompetes (no carve outs, no limitations, no exceptions). YOU need to be out there beating the drum for a major exception to this. With out laws to ban raiding (and we dont have those on the federal level) this is a bad policy. It means that google doesn't have to aquire-hire your team, they can just poach all of them wholesale. > Seco…

No thanks. (I am not in the USA, I am in a country where on-competes must be paid for and short)

Exemptions and carve out will be used for (and politically paid for, with the mind bending official bribery system the USA runs in politics) by the powerful to consolidate their power. Small firms have a lot of power over their employees.

Small firms have to give their employees a reason to work for them, money is part of the picture, and small companies have to be well capitalised to pay competitive salaries. But small companies need to be places people want to work.

Giving employees the power to contract an employee into not quitting is a recipe for very bad behaviour.

In my experience the best and the worst employers are small firms. We need more of the best and fewer of the worst, laws that incentivise being bad do not help

Re: Why YC went to DC

#92

Post by whimsicalism »

ethbr1 wrote: post #87
whimsicalism wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is frankly challenging to reconcile 1st amendment protections and a CU repeal. I'm not sure what the solution is, but think recent events should show that govt can abuse campaign finance law to pick winners and losers in the town square.

> It is frankly challenging to reconcile 1st amendment protections and a CU repeal. I'm not sure what the solution is, [...] Reconciliation: Companies aren't human entities. Non-human entities aren't entitled to 1st amendment protections. Campaign finance is equally simple: run your campaign on public funding. Give all candidates who meet a threshold equal amounts of money. I have yet to hear a convincing argument ab…

I'm not so convinced about that reconciliation! Most media in general is not conducted through individual entities.

Even the small film maker or newspaper is usually going to be organized as an LLC, even if it is just a single person trying to submit their film to a festival or something. These should be subject to governmental regulation if they touch on political topics? I think this is significantly thornier than you're making it out to be.

> Campaign finance is equally simple: run your campaign on public funding. Give all candidates who meet a threshold equal amounts of money.

Right, where it gets tricky is with unaffiliated individuals and what counts as a campaign expense versus speech or normal business.

Re: Why YC went to DC

#93

Post by hanniabu »

zer00eyz wrote: post #82

> And finally, we need more steps like the FTC’s recent move to ban all employee noncompetes (no carve outs, no limitations, no exceptions). YOU need to be out there beating the drum for a major exception to this. With out laws to ban raiding (and we dont have those on the federal level) this is a bad policy. It means that google doesn't have to aquire-hire your team, they can just poach all of them wholesale. > Seco…

> this is a bad policy. It means that google doesn't have to aquire-hire your team, they can just poach all of them wholesale.

It's called a free market, pay up

Re: Why YC went to DC

#94

Post by dlkf »

zer00eyz wrote: post #82

> And finally, we need more steps like the FTC’s recent move to ban all employee noncompetes (no carve outs, no limitations, no exceptions). YOU need to be out there beating the drum for a major exception to this. With out laws to ban raiding (and we dont have those on the federal level) this is a bad policy. It means that google doesn't have to aquire-hire your team, they can just poach all of them wholesale. > Seco…

> It means that google doesn't have to aquire-hire your team, they can just poach all of them wholesale.

Imagine a skilled worker taking a new job that pays better. What a nightmare scenario.

Re: Why YC went to DC

#95

Post by stetrain »

downrightmike wrote: post #77
siliconc0w wrote: post #9

If you need more things to fix: * Software R&D Amortization - taxes on make-believe profits * Patent law - protect small businesses from patent trolls * Automate government-driven compliance standards - enable small businesses to sell into large companies/government entities, automatic certification when using pre-approved cloud solutions. * Healthcare insurance - employees of SMBs automatically get access to medicar…

Healthcare insurance - employees of SMBs automatically get access to medicare This puts you in the same company of abusing the system as Walmart, the nation's biggest welfare queen. Employers should just have to give health benefits. You want workers, you pay benefits. Period. Maybe then you all will get on board for a single payer system. Its what you want, but only in fits and starts. quit fucking around already.

I really don't want my at-will employment status to be the arbiter of whether an unforeseen health issue will bankrupt me. Tying either private insurance or public insurance eligibility to your employer seems like a bad pattern we should be trying to get away from.

Re: Why YC went to DC

#96

Post by sillysaurusx »

wongarsu wrote: post #43
sillysaurusx wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is our dataset still available? I thought it was taken offline. Where do you go under that link to get it? E.g. https://the-eye.eu/public/AI/pile/readme.txt says it’s gone (and "old news"? I disagree).

There are still plenty of reliably sources for magnet links to The Pile, e.g. [1]. The DMCA takedowns are just a minor inconvenience. 1: https://web.archive.org/web/20230820001113/https://academict...

Thank you. How’d you dig this one up?

Re: Why YC went to DC

#97

Post by thefaux »

hanniabu wrote: post #93
zer00eyz wrote: post #82

> And finally, we need more steps like the FTC’s recent move to ban all employee noncompetes (no carve outs, no limitations, no exceptions). YOU need to be out there beating the drum for a major exception to this. With out laws to ban raiding (and we dont have those on the federal level) this is a bad policy. It means that google doesn't have to aquire-hire your team, they can just poach all of them wholesale. > Seco…

> this is a bad policy. It means that google doesn't have to aquire-hire your team, they can just poach all of them wholesale. It's called a free market, pay up

Please explain how certain players having more or less unlimited capital advantage that allows them to snuff out any potential competition leads to more aggregate freedom.

Re: Why YC went to DC

#98

Post by epicureanideal »

thefaux wrote: post #97
hanniabu wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this is a bad policy. It means that google doesn't have to aquire-hire your team, they can just poach all of them wholesale. It's called a free market, pay up

Please explain how certain players having more or less unlimited capital advantage that allows them to snuff out any potential competition leads to more aggregate freedom.

Sounds like something to be handled by anti-trust, not suppressing employee freedom.

Re: Why YC went to DC

#99

Post by luma »

thefaux wrote: post #97
hanniabu wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this is a bad policy. It means that google doesn't have to aquire-hire your team, they can just poach all of them wholesale. It's called a free market, pay up

Please explain how certain players having more or less unlimited capital advantage that allows them to snuff out any potential competition leads to more aggregate freedom.

How does giving my employer exclusive rights to my future work lead to MY freedom?

Re: Why YC went to DC

#100

Post by benslavin »

stackskipton wrote: post #48
eganist wrote: post #16

I was hopeful YC coming to DC would've meant YC would've been tapping into DC's startup scene. Wishful thinking. Linked is the more common reason (lobbying), but I'm looking forward to more institutions recognizing the talent we have in the DC region.

As someone who was in DC area but isn't any more, talent in DC area is not anything to write home about. We have a ton of talent on paper because government requires gobs of tech workers and prefers they have advanced degrees but since it's just boring enterprise work, the spark of innovation is snuffed out quickly. Most of startups in the area are catering to the government. There are already VC/PE/Startup accelerat…

Having lived in the DC area for almost two decades, I don't agree. There are absolutely pockets that match your description but, if that's all you see I think you might be stuck in a bubble. I see so much more. There are cool companies that have been and are being built here (I was going to list them, but the Washingtonian "DC Tech Titans" list has lots of good examples), many not B2G... and people who still have 'the spark' (and many more who I think could rekindle it).

There's also a hugely educated workforce, many of whom don't love their daily grind (hiring opportunity). There's a creative community in DC and even more so if you include the greater DMV or mid-Atlantic. A ton of compute and infrastructure (including us-east-1) is based here, which has its own benefits for businesses.

In my opinion, one of the things that would benefit the region is a less conservative (read: more risk-tolerant) investment community. YC isn't the only way to get that done, but I think it would be a helpful catalyst.

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