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Y Combinator often backs startups that duplicate other YC companies, data shows

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Re: Y Combinator often backs startups that duplicate other YC companies, data shows

#81

Post by paulryanrogers »

whoknowsidont wrote: post #75

I think a different, perhaps weird, way of looking at this is that YC looks at the founders first and then market opportunity ("idea") secondly as justification. YC doesn't need a single version of an idea to "win", and it's often stated plainly it doesn't even necessarily value the "idea" behind a lot of these investments but the founders themselves. If you look at it that way, it's no surprise that multiple startup…

The cynic in me wonders if one of their goals is to keep the most talented people away from the competition, as cheaply as possible. With the goal of preventing independent competition, which could be seen as a greater threat to their golden boys.

Re: Y Combinator often backs startups that duplicate other YC companies, data shows

#82

Post by jjulius »

Pardon my ignorance, but is it wrong for my reaction to this piece to essentially be, "... okay, and?".

If we're being honest with ourselves, platitudes are just platitudes and the ultimate point of YC is to further enrich investors, and to enrich founders. Of course they're going to try everything they can to make that happen.

It's not like YC's #1 mission is, "Do original, world-changing things", no, it's, "We want more money".

Re: Y Combinator often backs startups that duplicate other YC companies, data shows

#83

Post by ActionHank »

light_triad wrote: post #49

> YC startups don’t have to be unique. Far from it. Slow news day. YC has made it clear over the years it's almost all about the founders not the idea. It's almost impossible to know if an idea is good at the early stages, and ideas change, startups pivot, often the timing is wrong, and the market unproven etc. More often than not most of what startups do is not unique, otherwise there's no market for it. A new take…

Steve Jobs or maybe just Apple used to pit teams against each other to develop a solution to a problem and then pick the strongest of the two.

It also offers a convenient way to pull investment out early if the doppelganger startup isn't meeting targets. Just get the original startup to buy them out.

It's not something that is a negative for YC, but it could be for the startups they back.

Re: Y Combinator often backs startups that duplicate other YC companies, data shows

#84

Post by mrcwinn »

light_triad wrote: post #49

> YC startups don’t have to be unique. Far from it. Slow news day. YC has made it clear over the years it's almost all about the founders not the idea. It's almost impossible to know if an idea is good at the early stages, and ideas change, startups pivot, often the timing is wrong, and the market unproven etc. More often than not most of what startups do is not unique, otherwise there's no market for it. A new take…

They say that, but what if the opposite was the actual truth?

Look every VC is "founder friendly" because without founders there's no deal flow. At the end of the day though every VC is optimizing for exit value.

So it makes sense to bet on the same idea twice. If Founder A screws the pooch, you've still got Founder B.

Re: Y Combinator often backs startups that duplicate other YC companies, data shows

#85

Post by drewda »

ActionHank wrote: post #83
light_triad wrote: post #49

> YC startups don’t have to be unique. Far from it. Slow news day. YC has made it clear over the years it's almost all about the founders not the idea. It's almost impossible to know if an idea is good at the early stages, and ideas change, startups pivot, often the timing is wrong, and the market unproven etc. More often than not most of what startups do is not unique, otherwise there's no market for it. A new take…

Steve Jobs or maybe just Apple used to pit teams against each other to develop a solution to a problem and then pick the strongest of the two. It also offers a convenient way to pull investment out early if the doppelganger startup isn't meeting targets. Just get the original startup to buy them out. It's not something that is a negative for YC, but it could be for the startups they back.

Even today there are decent odds that within Apple the macOS and iOS groups are locked in a multi-decade long fight in which one may prevail...

Re: Y Combinator often backs startups that duplicate other YC companies, data shows

#86

Post by oceanplexian »

There are a lot of people who seem to think that zero-sum economics is how businesses work when it couldn’t be farther from the truth.

For example, if I open a bar downtown it may attract 100 customers. But if two entrepreneurs open two bars next to each other, they might attract 300 customers between them. The same can apply to entire market segments.

Re: Y Combinator often backs startups that duplicate other YC companies, data shows

#87

Post by throwaway894345 »

ActionHank wrote: post #83
light_triad wrote: post #49

> YC startups don’t have to be unique. Far from it. Slow news day. YC has made it clear over the years it's almost all about the founders not the idea. It's almost impossible to know if an idea is good at the early stages, and ideas change, startups pivot, often the timing is wrong, and the market unproven etc. More often than not most of what startups do is not unique, otherwise there's no market for it. A new take…

Steve Jobs or maybe just Apple used to pit teams against each other to develop a solution to a problem and then pick the strongest of the two. It also offers a convenient way to pull investment out early if the doppelganger startup isn't meeting targets. Just get the original startup to buy them out. It's not something that is a negative for YC, but it could be for the startups they back.

Reminds me of how pelicans will raise two chicks and then kick the weakest of the two out of the nest and devote all future resources to foster the stronger of the two. YCombinator as convergent evolution, I guess.

Re: Y Combinator often backs startups that duplicate other YC companies, data shows

#88

Post by meiraleal »

fidotron wrote: post #57
cudgy wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is a real danger with current era Bay Area tech that it is just a game of musical chairs played with money, with remarkably little external value being generated. So, you don’t think that is already the case?

It was nothing like as bad as this 10 years ago, no. Just look at the state of successful exits - it is awful. This is not the same as an ecosystem producing Sun, HP, Apple or even Google, which all had enormous positive externalities.

Yes it was like this for Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook. The difference is that at that time the genius youngster (which is just the son of some already successful people) creating startups were cool. Now nobody wants to make or watch a movie about Sam Altman and OpenAI.

Re: Y Combinator often backs startups that duplicate other YC companies, data shows

#89

Post by keiferski »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #76
light_triad wrote: post #49

> YC startups don’t have to be unique. Far from it. Slow news day. YC has made it clear over the years it's almost all about the founders not the idea. It's almost impossible to know if an idea is good at the early stages, and ideas change, startups pivot, often the timing is wrong, and the market unproven etc. More often than not most of what startups do is not unique, otherwise there's no market for it. A new take…

The article lists a few, none of which were unique - coinbase? Cryptocurrency exchanges already existed. AirBnB? Booking.com and other hotel or bed-and-breakfast booking websites already existed. Stripe? Yet another payment provider. Reddit? A Digg clone. Dropbox? rsync. etc.

Airbnb was basically a monetized form of Couchsurfing, not a hotel alternative. It only later turned into a direct hotel competitor. To my knowledge there was no similar service at the time.
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