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Do YC after you graduate: Early decision for students

ycombinator.com

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Do YC after you graduate: Early decision for students

#1

Post by snowmaker »

We announced something today at YC called Early Decision, specifically for students. It's a relatively small change, but we thought people might be interested to hear the thinking behind it, even if you don't happen to be a student graduating this year.

A year ago, YC went from running 2 batches / year to 4 batches / year. We did this because we wanted to give founders more flexibility to do YC at the right time for them. It seems to have worked - a lot of founders have told us that they were only able to do YC because the new schedule fit their timeline.

Early Decision was driven by the same motivation. We talked to a lot of college students, and we learned that most graduating seniors interview for their after-graduation job in the fall of their senior year. For the ones who are interested in doing their own startup, this creates a bit of a dilemma. If they don't interview for jobs in the fall in order to apply to YC later, they're risking that they might be left without any options.

We created Early Decision so that they can apply to YC at the same time they're doing recruiting for regular jobs, the fall of their senior year. If they get into YC, they can confidently turn down their other job offers without worrying they'll be left without anything.

Note: this isn't really a new idea. We've quietly done this from time to time since 2018, but we didn't create a dedicated flow in the application software for it, so most people didn't realize it was an option. Hopefully by productizing and popularizing it, we'll make it easier for college seniors to start companies.

Do YC after you graduate: Early decision for students
ycombinator.com

Re: Do YC after you graduate: Early decision for students

#3

Post by cassonmars »

Does YC ever intend to revisit doing remote batches again?

There's many founders in the country who are just as driven and motivated, but have real-world situations that cannot allow uprooting themselves for several months, two very common ones:

- new parents

- disabled family members, or are themselves physically disabled

The discourse on Hacker News has frequently chastised companies demanding RTO, and some of the companies in your portfolio are remote-first (or remote-only), why does YC make the same kind of RTO demand with batches?

Re: Do YC after you graduate: Early decision for students

#4

Post by gkoberger »

I loved YC and can't recommend it enough. But if you're going to start a company, please consider working at another company first, even if briefly. (And make it a company you respect and want to emulate.)

The amount of wheels you won't have to reinvent if you work at another company are astronomical. From engineering practices to sales to management, there's a lot you don't want to innovate on. Starting a company is really hard, and it's even harder if you've never seen first-hand how a functional company works. Your future employees will thank you.

Re: Do YC after you graduate: Early decision for students

#5

Post by 0x696C6961 »

gkoberger wrote: post #4

I loved YC and can't recommend it enough. But if you're going to start a company, please consider working at another company first, even if briefly. (And make it a company you respect and want to emulate.) The amount of wheels you won't have to reinvent if you work at another company are astronomical. From engineering practices to sales to management, there's a lot you don't want to innovate on. Starting a company is…

> if you've never seen first-hand how a functional company works.

You can go an entire career without seeing how a functional company works.

Re: Do YC after you graduate: Early decision for students

#6

Post by mikert89 »

This is basically ensuring YC starts to get more absolute top graduates. Entrepreneurship is more and more seen as the default path for top people in the USA. All other career paths are for people that want to take the risk of ending up in a 50 year assembly line. This is probably good for society

If you want to get rich by 30, you basically have to start a startup or get into a top small hedge fund out of undergrad.

Re: Do YC after you graduate: Early decision for students

#7

Post by gkoberger »

0x696C6961 wrote: post #5
gkoberger wrote: post #4

I loved YC and can't recommend it enough. But if you're going to start a company, please consider working at another company first, even if briefly. (And make it a company you respect and want to emulate.) The amount of wheels you won't have to reinvent if you work at another company are astronomical. From engineering practices to sales to management, there's a lot you don't want to innovate on. Starting a company is…

> if you've never seen first-hand how a functional company works. You can go an entire career without seeing how a functional company works.

Great, then at least you can see what you don't like! (But really, I intentionally said a company you want to emulate, because I do agree – no point in taking this advice if you go to a bad company)

Re: Do YC after you graduate: Early decision for students

#8

Post by toomuchtodo »

mikert89 wrote: post #6

This is basically ensuring YC starts to get more absolute top graduates. Entrepreneurship is more and more seen as the default path for top people in the USA. All other career paths are for people that want to take the risk of ending up in a 50 year assembly line. This is probably good for society If you want to get rich by 30, you basically have to start a startup or get into a top small hedge fund out of undergrad.

How many YC founders end up rich before 30? Or even at all? I think it’s likely a highly valuable experience running a business experiment someone else will fund (not to mention connections you wouldn’t otherwise make), but the odds of actual, liquid wealth from the experience and time spent are very low.

Re: Do YC after you graduate: Early decision for students

#9

Post by fijiaarone »

mikert89 wrote: post #6

This is basically ensuring YC starts to get more absolute top graduates. Entrepreneurship is more and more seen as the default path for top people in the USA. All other career paths are for people that want to take the risk of ending up in a 50 year assembly line. This is probably good for society If you want to get rich by 30, you basically have to start a startup or get into a top small hedge fund out of undergrad.

Entrepreneurship isn’t getting showered with millions for doing nothing other than being accepted as a part of the blessed elite and access to an infinite spigot of free money when all other sources have been dammed off and diverted to the ever shrinking minority of ever increasing ultra-wealth.

Re: Do YC after you graduate: Early decision for students

#10

Post by mikert89 »

fijiaarone wrote: post #9
mikert89 wrote: post #6

This is basically ensuring YC starts to get more absolute top graduates. Entrepreneurship is more and more seen as the default path for top people in the USA. All other career paths are for people that want to take the risk of ending up in a 50 year assembly line. This is probably good for society If you want to get rich by 30, you basically have to start a startup or get into a top small hedge fund out of undergrad.

Entrepreneurship isn’t getting showered with millions for doing nothing other than being accepted as a part of the blessed elite and access to an infinite spigot of free money when all other sources have been dammed off and diverted to the ever shrinking minority of ever increasing ultra-wealth.

its still better than these people fighting over promotions in finance
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