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Do YC after you graduate: Early decision for students

ycombinator.com

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

#11

Post by timr »

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.

Let me make this simple for you: you will not get rich by 30.

I know, I know...there are examples! And yes, there are, but statistically, they won't be you. You're playing the lottery, only it's a lottery that steals your youth and gives you psychological problems.

If your only goal is to get rich, then don't do a startup. You have to have some more fundamental reason, or the agony will beat you.

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

#12

Post by kelleyk »

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…

I made this mistake. I love where I've wound up, but I would have gotten there much more quickly and with a lot less heartache if I'd worked as part of an existing company before starting my own.

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

#13

Post by mikert89 »

timr wrote: post #11
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.

Let me make this simple for you: you will not get rich by 30. I know, I know...there are examples! And yes, there are, but statistically, they won't be you. You're playing the lottery, only it's a lottery that steals your youth and gives you psychological problems. If your only goal is to get rich, then don't do a startup. You have to have some more fundamental reason, or the agony will beat you.

I live in NYC, I have met alot of very rich startup founders. But not only that, lots of people making 50k a month from a startup they built post YC, raised no VC, and have no boss.

Its an outdated take to think people arent doing this

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

#14

Post by timr »

mikert89 wrote: post #13
timr wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me make this simple for you: you will not get rich by 30. I know, I know...there are examples! And yes, there are, but statistically, they won't be you. You're playing the lottery, only it's a lottery that steals your youth and gives you psychological problems. If your only goal is to get rich, then don't do a startup. You have to have some more fundamental reason, or the agony will beat you.

I live in NYC, I have met alot of very rich startup founders. But not only that, lots of people making 50k a month from a startup they built post YC, raised no VC, and have no boss. Its an outdated take to think people arent doing this

Sure. Google "selection bias". You aren't meeting the 10,000 who failed.

I also live in NYC. I lived in SF, during possibly the all-time greatest period of wealth creation in the last 50 years. I knew billionaires when they couldn't afford bar tabs. I ate leftover boxes of Obama-Os (again, Google it) that nobody wanted.

I'm still telling you the truth. Every one of those people who succeeded went through hell and back, and even then there was no guarantee that there was a reward at the end of the hell. Doing a startup is like getting punched in the face repeatedly for many, many years, with only your faith -- in something -- to carry you forward. You have to have more than just a desire to be rich.

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

#15

Post by mikert89 »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #8
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.

Alot of them do, not only that, they build skills that help them start their next company. Many of which are bootstrapped and profitable. This whole idea that startups are a complete lottery ticket is not only false, its increasingly less false, more money is being made now in startups than ever

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

#16

Post by toomuchtodo »

mikert89 wrote: post #15
toomuchtodo wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Alot of them do, not only that, they build skills that help them start their next company. Many of which are bootstrapped and profitable. This whole idea that startups are a complete lottery ticket is not only false, its increasingly less false, more money is being made now in startups than ever

Based on public exit and liquidity event information, startups still remain a lottery ticket for most. 90% of startups fail entirely, for example (CB Insights). YC startups have more longevity, and more get to a Series A then non YC startups, but the best batches based on performance have been between 2009 and 2013. 10% achieve an exit, 4.5% became unicorns. Only 17 companies backed by YC (out of almost 5k) have gone public, and all except Airbnb, Instacart, and Reddit have underperformed post IPO.

Have fun, learn, develop and grow your skills and network, take the investment, but it’s important to be honest with one’s self about odds of success and outcome. If you win, respect and appreciate the lottery ticket for what it was. Hard work and years of grinding is table stakes, but you can still fail (and most do).

https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/pulling-back-the-curtain-...

https://www.marketsentiment.co/p/the-yc-report

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

#17

Post by _--__--__ »

cassonmars wrote: post #3

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…

People in those situations can and should start companies without an accelerator (or at least without this one). The joke around the SF scene is that even a founder with a boy/girlfriend is a sign of a startup doomed to fail, and YC doesn't seem particularly invested in changing that culture.

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

#18

Post by throwawaymaths »

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.

also helpful to see a dysfunctional company (or four) to cover your bases on shitty management practices

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

#19

Post by snowmaker »

cassonmars wrote: post #3

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…

We might, and I'm sure you're right that there are many great founders not applying to do YC because they don't want to move here.

But I think it would be a better analogy to compare YC to a university, rather than to a company. It's true that many companies operate remotely very effectively. But essentially zero universities have stayed remote since the early days of the pandemic.

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

#20

Post by arjunven »

cassonmars wrote: post #3

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…

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